Smith - Party of Five

Valentine’s Fun

2012-02-08T16:10:00.000-06:00

This Valentine’s Day is brought to you by Pinterest! :) There are so many fun ideas floating around the web on blogs, etc. and using Pinterest you can quickly sort through the masses and find great ideas. I do spend a lot of time on there – mostly on my iPod while I’m nursing - but I really do a lot of the ideas I find on there. Here are some random Valentine’s things I’ve done lately.

First up, I saw an idea for a baby photo shoot that I loved. I took Lily’s pictures with some large white letters I cut out to spell LOVE. Isn’t it adorable?

And then I decided to get pretty crafty and paint a wall hanging like this one.

It turned out pretty cute, I think. I used this technique (also from Pinterest!) to help me paint the letters – you print off the words, then put them on top of the wood and trace over the words, which indents the wood. Then you use that as your guide when you paint. It worked pretty good but not perfectly because my letters were pretty small.

I also made these strawberry cookies to give to our neighbor for a FHE activity on Monday.

They looked better than they tasted. The cream cheese frosting in the middle was delish but the strawberry flavoring was from a strawberry cake mix so they tasted a little artificial.

We also made a fun heart garland for the kitchen like this one:

Super easy. Oh and I printed off an 8x10 of this subway art at Costco to put in a frame for another decoration (below is their picture – not mine). Don’t you just love subway art?

Oh, Avery and I decided to make these Valentine’s Butterflies for Avery’s valentines to bring to her class. Super cute right?

On Friday Avery had the day off from school so we made some heart shaped cinnamon rolls (which was our reward for reading 30 days straight of family scripture study – woohoo!). I made mine from scratch like I would normally but then unrolled them a little and reshaped them into hearts like this:

I’m sure they would be super quick to make with a tube of premade cinnamon rolls.

It’s been a fun February so far! And I’m not even done Valentine-ing yet! Happy Valentine’s Day!

Lily Jumpin’

2012-02-07T15:34:00.003-06:00

Lily has really enjoyed her Johnny Jump Up lately. I know they’re probably long since recalled, and my particular model is an old hand-me-down so it was probably made 10 years ago, but she loves it. She’s really gotten the hang of the jumping too.

So I took a video. I took it vertically on my camera, which wasn’t the best idea, but you get the gist. I hope this brings a smile to your face. (I don’t know how it couldn’t!)

Lily jumping her heart out! :)

(If you doubleclick on the box it will open up in a new window where you can view it full screen, which is nice because it's pretty small.)

“A Very” Good Writer!

2012-01-25T15:23:00.001-06:00

Kindergarten has been so great for Avery. She LOVES to learn and absorbs a lot. Her reading has improved a lot, as well as her handwriting. My favorite thing that she has learned this year, though, has been her writing skills.

Rather than correcting the kids on spelling errors, her teacher encourages Avery to sound words out and do the best she can. This inspires confidence and just gets the kids writing. Some of her spellings are very creative but she’s learning a lot. When she first started out she left out all the vowels but now she can figure out a lot of them.

So at the beginning of December, she made up this list of Fun Things to Do all by herself. When she showed it to me I took a picture because it was so great!

Translation:

Fun Things to Do:

- Paint Pictures

- Draw Pictures

- Watch a movie in the basement

- Play outside

- Play Go Fish

- Cuddle with Dad

- Eat a snack

- Eat an orange

- Play Dollhouse

Not bad huh? I loved it. Such a great stage. Pretty soon her spelling errors will dwindle so I wanted to capture the cuteness before she got too smart for her own good! :)

A Sunbeam!

2012-01-25T15:14:00.001-06:00

Camryn graduated from Nursery at church and is now proud to be a Sunbeam in the Primary! She likes her class and teachers and it is so fun to see her growing up! She is the only girl in the class now that her friend Peyton moved, but she likes the boys well enough. :) (There are 6-7 of them!)

It’s a little funny to walk past the nursery room on Sundays with no one to pick up! We’ve had kids in nursery for the past 4 years straight! Now we get a year off until Lily starts up next January.

So I took Cam to register today for 4K at Willow Springs. I can’t believe she’ll be going to school half day in the fall. I think since she was my youngest for over 3 years she was babied a lot but in the past few months she’s really starting to grow up a lot. She recently learned how to write her name and is really improving in her fine motor skills and drawing. Avery has been a great teacher for her!

Her speech has improved a lot in the past month or so too. She couldn’t say her R or L sounds for a long time but I’ve just noticed that she has been saying them pretty well most of the time now! It probably helped to have a sister named Lily. For a while it was “Yiwee” but now she’s really saying it the right way.

Camryn has also been a great helper lately. She loves to help me fold towels, set the table, and unload the dishwasher. We like to make a list of things for her to do every day and she loves checking it off. It’s fun for both of us.

Anyways, that’s what Cam has been up to lately! Only 2 more months and she’ll be 4 years old!

New Years Goals

2012-01-20T11:26:00.001-06:00

I have a lot more time on my hands now that the holidays are over and Lily stays happy for longer periods. So I found some ideas on Pinterest that I wanted to use for my new years resolutions. I thought I’d share some of them because they’re going pretty well for me so far, plus it will be good to document so I can look back later in the year and see if I’m still doing them!

1. 52 Weeks to an Organized Home

This is a cool program where they send you an email every week all year and they give you some home organizing tasks to work on during the week. So far I’ve decluttered my kitchen countertops, gone through all my kitchen cupboards and drawers, and organized my pantry/food storage. It’s been great! The weekly tasks aren’t too overwhelming and it’s very refreshing to have things starting to get organized. I kept moaning to Merrick about how my kitchen is way too small, but after decluttering I realized I didn’t necessarily need a bigger kitchen, I just had too much stuff in it that I wasn’t necessarily using. Not that I would turn down a bigger kitchen! ;) PS-It’s not too late to start this, if you want to sign up too!

2. 15 Minutes of Cleaning a Day

I found this 15 minutes a day cleaning schedule that I started this week. I really like it! I am pretty good about getting the dishes and laundry done regularly, plus keeping the house picked up but I detest doing the deep cleaning and my bathrooms are usually neglected far too often. So I’ve been using this schedule and I realized, yes, it really does only take 15 minutes to clean a bathroom so I can do this! It’s really helped me keep the house much cleaner and I hope I can stay pretty consistent about doing this.

3. Productive Parenting

I started this Productive Parenting email. I signed up on their website and typed in info about my kids and how often I’d like to receive emails and now they send me an activity I can do with Camryn every day. It’s usually something that requires little to no materials and is just something I can spend a few minutes a day doing with her to teach her a concept. One day they suggested going outside to watch the sunset, which is something I don’t usually think about doing but it’s a good conversation to have. I will add Lily in when she gets a little older. And maybe in the summers I can get ideas for things to do with Avery too. I like it- just a daily email reminder to be a better mom.

4. Running Program

I’ve been wanting to get on the treadmill to lose the baby weight but I’m not very good at being consistent. So I saw this plan for running and I liked it:

Week 1: Run one minute. Walk 90 seconds. Repeat eight times. Do three times a week. Week 2: Run two minutes. Walk one minute. Repeat seven times. Do three times a week. Week 3: Run three minutes. Walk one minute. Repeat six times. Do three times a week. Week 4: Run five minutes. Walk two minutes. Repeat four times. Do three times a week. Week 5: Run eight minutes. Walk two minutes. Repeat three times. Do three times a week. Week 6: Run twelve minutes. Walk one minute. Repeat three times. Do three times a week. Week 7: Run fifteen minutes. Walk one minute. Run fifteen minutes. Do three times a week…. etc.

I’ve done it every other day since I started and I like it. It’s a good gradual increase for me. I just started week 3.

5. Family Scripture Study

I kind of made this one up myself, but basically I made a chart that was 6 inches wide and 4 feet tall. I made 60 steps going from the bottom to the top and put a picture of the temple at the top. Every day we read scriptures we color in a step on the chart. Every 10 steps we get a mini-prize for having read 10 times. Our first prize was going out for ice cream. We went to The Chocolate Factory right next to Pewaukee Lake to make it more special than just a quick run to Culvers. It was nice. The other incentives are a family movie night at home with popcorn, make cinnamon rolls, go to the McDonalds playplace, go swimming as a family, and the last one is a restaurant dinner together. Merrick thought I should have made it more than 60 days worth but I told him if we get it done in 2 months, that’s great! I can make another chart. It has been just what we needed to get consistent. We have been reading a chapter in the Book of Mormon Scripture Reader and it’s been going well. I think once we finish that we will be ready to read the real thing.

Well that’s what I’ve been working on so far. Oh, I also heard on a blog of a goal someone had to take a family picture every month for a year. I think this is a good idea so I will try to see if we can do that.

Do you have any fun new years goals you’ve been working on? I’d love to hear yours!

5 1/2 Months

2012-01-16T12:55:00.001-06:00

I have been so busy and had so much to blog about that I haven’t updated on my sweetie Lily in a while! She’s 5 1/2 months now!! Time sure flies! She’s getting so big and mobile and such a sweetie. For the most part she’s a pretty mellow girl. Whenever we’re out and about, she loves to quietly observe things, especially if she can watch from the comfort of mom’s lap or hip! She did learn how to squeal and scream a while back though so if it’s quiet, she makes herself heard! :)

Although I haven’t been blogging about Lily I have been taking pictures so here are quite a few I’ve stored up.

She has gotten very strong at holding herself up on her tummy. She can now roll over back to front and front to back, scoot a little bit backwards, and pull her tummy up off the ground. No real army crawling or anything yet, but I’m sure it will be soon. Her sisters were both early crawlers too.

She’s tried a bunch of solid baby foods but is still not really loving them yet. A couple times she has eaten pretty well but mostly she just gets fussy after a few bites. She’s still trying to figure out how to swallow.

She’s getting stronger at sitting but still is pretty wobbly on her own!

I recently pulled out the old Johnny Jump Up for her to bounce around. She likes it and her sisters love to twirl her around.

She sure has a fun smile. Makes my day! I’m so happy to be her mommy! She has been sleeping really well lately (6-7 hours straight most nights), but last night she woke up 3 times and even though I was tired, every time I picked her up I was just so happy to hold her again. She’s so sweet and I can’t imagine our family without our Lily girl.

Iowa!

2012-01-12T15:39:00.001-06:00

In November Avery was spotlighted in her Kindergarten class and they asked her where her favorite place to go is. She said it was her cousins house in Iowa! My sister lives in the Des Moines area and it’s right on the way to/from Utah so we stopped there for a few days on our way home.

We arrived late Thursday night and in no time we were talking about Mitt Romney and the Iowa caucus that was less than a week away! My sister Britney was very involved in his campaign in Iowa and has definitely been our go-to girl for information on Republican Primaries! On Friday morning they invited us to go to their local grocery store where Mitt Romney was speaking. It was unfortunately pretty early in the morning after having been in the car all day the previous day so we stayed home to sleep in while they took their kids and Avery for a quick trip. Here’s the photo she snapped!

It was fun to get all the updates from them (and fun that he actually won Iowa the following Tuesday!).

Friday afternoon the kids played like crazy while we took turns going to see the new Mission Impossible movie. It was excellent! We really enjoyed it. And it sure was nice to have a little time away from the kids.

Saturday they took us to an outdoor art exhibit in Des Moines. We caught some cute pictures of the kids.

We also went over to walk across a cool bridge.

And then we had to spend some time at the park with all these crazy kids! The park we went to had an awesome big slide. Even the Dads had fun going down it.

Fun times, as always! I always am so glad, every time we get our kids together, that our kids get along so well! They are 7, 5, 4, 3, 1, and 5 months but they are great together! We had a nice lunch/dinner at Smashburger and went home to celebrate New Years Eve. We started with a Dollar Store White Elephant exchange which was pretty funny! Then we counted down to 8pm (haha!) and banged pots and pans and shouted Happy New Year with the kids. Then we put them upstairs to watch some Disney movies and they all fell asleep eventually. The grown ups watched the Rise of the Planet of the Apes and watched the ball drop.

Sunday morning we went to their church for Sacrament Meeting and the big girls wore their matching dresses my parents got them for Christmas.

We had such a great time and are so glad these guys are only 6 hours away! Thanks for the great visit guys!

It sure was nice to get back home that night though. (After 14 days, sleeping in 7 different beds, and driving who knows how many hours!)

Fun in Utah

2012-01-06T13:00:00.000-06:00

We got to spend Christmas with my family this year. Christmas Eve Merrick and the girls checked out Provo Beach Resort and did the Flow-rider with my brother. Then we did our tradition of shopping at Kohl’s for a family in need (this time the box went to the new baby Rose!). Then we had a nice ham dinner and watched the movie The Nativity before going to bed. Everyone seemed to enjoy having our kids around. It sure makes it so much fun to see their excitement on Christmas morning!

We had my parents, my sister Katie, and my brother Jordan and his wife Kara there.

Lily of course loved the excitement and the wrapping paper. That night we went back to Bountiful to spend Christmas night with Merrick’s family and open presents from them.
Monday through Wednesday we spent at a cabin in Sundance with Merrick’s family. There was a hot tub and we played lots of games (Bananagrams, Telestrations, Nerts, etc), did puzzles, and the “boys” stayed up late playing PS3 and computer games. It was nice to relax. Wednesday we went to Orem for a few hours and we got to see Baby Rosie again. She is so sweet!

We thought it would be fun to get some pictures of the “flower girls” – Cousins Lily and Rose together! I’m sure Rose will catch up in size to Lily soon since they’re only 5 months apart! It was fun to see them side by side.

We had some time in Utah County and so we couldn’t pass up a quick drive through BYU campus, our old stomping grounds. We even got out and walked around the BYU Bookstore with the kiddos for a little while. So many memories!
While we were in Utah we took advantage of a few of our favorite eating establishments including: Café Rio, Nielsen’s Frozen Custard, Ernie’s Sports Deli, JDawgs, and Jamba Juice. Yummy!!
Thursday we packed the car again and drove 15 hours (!!) to my sister’s home in Des Moines, Iowa. It went pretty well considering the fact that we were in the car from 6am-10pm with three kids.

We had a nice visit in Iowa for a couple of days and I’ll have to blog about that another day. :)

Last minute trip!

2012-01-04T11:07:00.003-06:00

So as I mentioned in my last post, I kept feeling like I needed to get all of my Christmas preparations done early. It was a good thing I did! I flew out to Utah on December 18th with Lily and we decided in a quick decision to have Merrick drive out later with Avery and Camryn so we could all be in Utah for the holidays! Whew! So I had basically two days to pack myself and Lily up for our flight, wrap all our Christmas presents and box them up, do all the laundry in the house, grocery shop for Merrick while I was gone plus snacks and things to do for his trip, get library books for the trip, and make a bunch of lists for him to be able to pack the car up himself, etc. etc. I was so stressed and exhausted!! But everything got done and I was able to get on the plane and relax.

I actually met up with my sister Britney in Minneapolis and we flew from there to SLC together. It was a quick flight being able to fly with my sister!! We had a great time chatting away and being just us plus Lily, who did quite well on the flights. After the funeral we spent one night at my Haws grandparents house in Salt Lake. It was a nice visit and it was fun watching my Grandpa Haws interact with Lily.

She got one of his famous horsey rides, that pretty much every grandchild and great grandchild of my Grandpa has gotten multiple times! They loved her and everyone kept telling me I had such a good baby and that made me feel so warm and fuzzy inside. Plus I think her chubby cheeks got kissed by so many different people on this trip it’s a wonder she didn’t catch something!
The next day, Britney flew back to Iowa and I went up to Bountiful to spend a few days with my in-laws. Merrick drove out on Tuesday and got there Wednesday afternoon. Everything went smoothly on his drive – 21 hours with just him and my two sweet girls! The only hiccup was Avery getting carsick at one point but she amazingly threw up in a plastic bag and kept it all contained! That was lucky – it could have been a big mess!
While at the Smith’s house I decided to make some sugar cookies and the girls decorated them for me with frosting and fruit snacks. :)

On Friday we went down to my parents house they were renting in Orem and waited anxiously to hear some news from my sister Ashley! She was in labor at Timpanogos Hospital having her first baby. After a long labor she finally gave birth at 4am on Christmas Eve to Rose Margaret Wells. She was a teeny tiny 7 lb 0 oz! It was so fun to be there to see her and when I held her it felt like holding a cloud, she was so light! She was so beautiful and perfect!

It was a great first week of our trip! I’ll blog about the second week we were out of town very soon!

My Sweet Poppa…

2012-01-03T21:46:00.001-06:00

Right after Thanksgiving I kept getting the feeling that I needed to get all my Christmas shopping/preparations done early. I knew my grandfather’s condition was deteriorating due to his lymphoma he had been diagnosed with early in the year. On December 15th I woke up to a text from my dad saying he had passed away during the night.

Lily and I flew out to Salt Lake City on Sunday, December 18th and then we drove up to Bancroft, Idaho with my sister, brother, and sister-in-law. The funeral was on Monday, December 19th.

My Poppa was just the sweetest man. Always so genuine and loving and he treated my Granny so well. It was so nice to be there with my family for the funeral to hear more about the wonderful life he lived. I was lucky to live nearby him as a child so we got to spend a lot of time with them, while we all lived in Oregon. They retired to Idaho and built the most amazing round house. I got to spend a few minutes there again this trip and take a few pictures. The round house:

And my Poppa’s beloved windmill. He spent years collecting parts for this and in October he was able to be there to watch family and friends put it up for him.

The valley in Bancroft is so peaceful and has a much slower pace of life.

I was so glad to be there for my grandfather’s funeral, to see a lot of family I haven’t seen in a very long time, and to be there for my mom and my Granny.

We love you so much Poppa! I know we will see you again!

Elf on the Shelf!

2011-12-05T10:23:00.001-06:00

So I’ve been taking pictures of the funny places that our Elf on the Shelf, Doodle, has been showing up every morning. Here is a rundown of the past week and a half.

We opened him up and gave him his magic by naming him Doodle on November 23rd.

The next day he left a message for us on the Magna Doodle (get it? Doodle?!).

Ever since he has been showing up in funny places doing funny things. Dressed up in Aurora’s dress one day:

Then he was found hugging our Santa ornament the day after we put up our tree.

Another day we discovered he had dyed the toilet water green! Or maybe he had just used the toilet…

One of my faves was when he “doodled” on the girls pictures. He’s there on top of Camryn’s picture guiltily holding a dry erase marker.

Once we found he had started a puzzle for the girls to help him finish.

And he was an especially naughty elf last night because we woke up to this:

He had TP’d the tree! So funny. I didn’t take pictures of a few other days. One day we found him in the freezer, chilling out to remind him of the cold North Pole. Another day he had brought some Christmas vinyl placemats for the girls. And another day he had gotten out the girls blocks and set up a little block house for himself. It’s been something fun to look forward to every morning for the girls!

School Cheers

2011-11-30T10:26:00.001-06:00

(I meant to publish this post on Monday but was having technical difficulties with the video upload so you got my Monday ramblings instead – sorry.)

So Avery has been learning these cute, quick cheers that they use in her class at school. Each day there is a “special helper” who documents the date, weather, etc for the class. When they’re done they get to pick which cheer the class does for them. They learned a new one every week for the first few weeks of school. When Avery started sharing these with us, we thought that they were so cute, so Merrick decided they needed to be captured on video on his phone. Here they all are. Not the best quality video but you get the gist.

Avery’s cheers she learned in Kindergarten

4 months!

2011-11-29T15:27:00.000-06:00

My little Lilykins is 4 months old today! I can't believe it. She's so sweet and wonderful and I've loved every minute of the last 4 months with her! Sometimes when I look at her I get that deja vu feeling. I wonder if it's because she looks like my other babies or if I remember her from heaven. :) My friend Jen always calls her "cherubic." She really is an angel!

So this is what's new with Lily:
- She rolled over one time!! A couple Sundays ago I put her on her side on the floor and she rolled herself over onto her tummy. Then I put her on her back and she rolled all the way over all by herself. However, ever since then she won't even roll over when I help her onto her side. So it was kind of a fluke.
- She spits up quite a bit. I don't think she has reflux though because she's not bothered by the spitting up, but man we sure do clean up spit up a lot.
- I'm not sure exactly how much she weighs yet (doctor appointment is on Thursday) but I think it's around 16-16.5lbs. We've moved into size 3 diapers already because she was having a blowout pretty much every morning in size 2's. I've been tempted to pull out her 6-9 month clothes but I decided to wait another week or two. Her 3-6 month clothes are fitting nice and snug now!
- She's eating about every 2.5-3 hours and takes 2-3 naps a day. Sometimes she'll wake up in the middle of a nap but I can get her back to sleep usually, so she's doing longer naps for me that way. At night she sleeps from about 8-1 and 1-5:30 and sometimes she'll be up for the day at 5:30, which is not my favorite idea. Most days she'll go back to sleep until 7:30, though.
- I wouldn't say that she's full on teething yet but I can see her drooling increasing and I can see her teeth coming down. I think with my other girls I could tell when the teeth were coming soon because the front of their shirts was constantly wet with drool. We're not there quite yet.
- She loves attention and will be all smiles and giggles with you if you talk to her. Lately I've seen her laughing at Camryn, which is new because Camryn is usually too crazy to calmly giggle and coo with her.
- She really loves toys right now. Anything she can get in her mouth. Rattles and the like. I gave her one of my silicone spatulas the other day and she was in heaven chewing on that.

We love our sweetie and can't wait to see what the next four months bring!

Mondays

2011-11-28T23:25:00.001-06:00

Do you dread Mondays? I love them. Especially after a long weekend like this one has been. Having all five of us at home all day makes the house very disorganized and even when we all do a quick pick up here and there, the house just needs a break sometimes! So on Mondays I literally spend the entire day putting the house in order. I do all the dishes, all the laundry (and try to fold and put most of it away), I clean out the fridge of leftovers, make my grocery list, go grocery shopping, and just generally put things in their right places – this last job can take hours alone. And of course whatever else I see needs to be done. The result – a tired me at the end of the day, but it’s worth it because then I have minimal work the rest of the week. I finish putting the laundry away on Tuesday and then don’t think about it again until Friday or Saturday. The rooms are easy to pick up when they start out somewhat in order.

Today I also squeezed in an hour to make a receiving blanket for a baby shower gift for a shower I’m going to tomorrow night. Luckily Lily took two long naps today so I was able to get a lot done.

For some reason I have a different kind of momentum on Mondays. A couple weeks ago I decided to go to playgroup at a museum instead of doing my usual Monday routines. It was extremely detrimental to the rest of my week! Although I did wash all the laundry, I didn’t get it all folded and put away even a week later. I was behind on the dishes constantly, and my house just felt like a depressing mess all week. So I definitely avoid doing anything fun on Monday mornings. Do you have a similar routine on Mondays or is it a different day of the week for you – Saturdays, perhaps? I think Mondays work best for me because I’m kind of a control freak and so when it’s just me and Cam and Lil at home I can reconquer the house again on my own.

I think I will sleep well tonight. Happy Monday to you.

Family of Five

2011-11-27T18:27:00.001-06:00

On Thanksgiving we had my uncle Travis take some pictures of our little family of five. Nothing professional – just a few quick snapshots to document that we are indeed a family of five! (Plus something to put on the Christmas card this year!)

Second favorite picture:

Avery looks great. Merrick and I look decent. Camryn and Lily are a little stoic but overall not bad. We actually got Lily smiling in one picture, but the rest of us didn’t look as great:

I suppose I could try some photoshopping skills to get her smiley face in the first picture, but I ended up liking this pose/shot best:

Kind of cute in sepia too:

Anyways, it’s official. We’ve got a family picture of all of us! If you’d like a Christmas card from our family, let me know in the comments and I’ll email you for your address.

It’s beginning…

2011-11-26T15:33:00.002-06:00

… to look a lot like Christmas!

Yes, we put up the tree today. I think this may be a record for the earliest Merrick has let me put up the Christmas tree. But it seems like this Christmas season is just going to fly by for some reason and I just can’t wait for it to begin!
We thought about forgoing our traditional star atop the tree and instead placing an angel on top….

… but we figured the star was a safer bet. :)
We also started a new tradition – Elf on the Shelf. Have you heard of it? It’s kind of big right now and super fun for kids.

You buy the book and elf doll, and when you name your elf he gets his magic and he turns into a scout elf for Santa, always watching the kids to see if they’re naughty or nice. He goes to the North Pole to report every night and then returns to a new place in your house. Sometimes the elves do silly/mischievous things! We’ve done it three days now and the kids love it! Avery came up with the name Doodle for him and we liked it. I’ll do a post soon showing some of the places he’s shown up each day. It’s a fun idea and not too late to start this tradition in your family for the holiday season. :)

I hope the beginnings of your Christmas season are great too!

Wiped Out!

2011-11-25T21:45:00.000-06:00

Wow, I'm exhausted! The past few days really wore us out. On Wednesday I did a bunch of prep work for Thanksgiving dinner. Thursday morning was cooking and getting everyone ready to go, then we went over to my aunt and uncle's home from about 12-7pm. Yummy food, football and movies, lots of coloring for the kids. It was great. When we got home and put the kids to bed we then had to figure out if there was anything we wanted to buy on Black Friday. Most of the stores opened at midnight this year and since part of Merrick's job is checking out Kohl's competitors on Black Friday, he went out to observe and join in the madness! He was gone from 12-4:30. He called and texted a few times to give me updates, which I was barely coherent enough to understand. There were a few doorbusters at Target I wanted him to grab for me and that involved him standing in the world's longest line from 2:30-3:30am! Poor guy.

I got about 6 hours of sleep and then Lily woke me up at 6:30. She went back to sleep luckily but Avery woke up a few minutes later so I was up. I got dressed and told Avery to wake up Daddy when Lily woke up and I left to go do a little shopping of my own. I went to JoAnn Fabric, of all places, actually. They were having a killer deal that was perfect for a project I'm working on. I got 3 1/3 yds of snuggle flannel fabric for $5. Plus a few other things. Sweet deal. And it wasn't even too busy. So I was back home in an hour and everyone was up but Merrick was ready to go back to bed. So he went back to sleep for a couple more hours.

Around 1pm I decided to run down to the mall to get some $15 jeans from Old Navy. I knew it would be crazy there and it was! The store was a mess, I barely found the size I needed, and I had to wait in a 20 minute line to check out. But it worked out. I probably should have shopped some more at the mall but I was tired and Lily was going to be hungry soon so I just went home. And I was sooo exhausted then! When I put Lily down for a nap at 3:30 I slept for an hour too.

I felt better after that but guess who fell asleep watching TV at 7:30pm? Yep, Merrick.

All that baking and eating and shopping wears me out. Does it wear you out too? I'm sure glad Thanksgiving is on a Thursday so we have a long weekend to recover! Hopefully I'll get some good rest tonight so I can gather the energy to decorate for Christmas tomorrow!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2011-11-25T00:06:00.002-06:00

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! Ours was full of food, family, and Black Friday planning! Merrick just left to go shop. Kinda crazy but he kinda has to for work - so I took advantage and sent him off with a wish list! :)

Have a good night and happy digesting all that yummy turkey and pie!

Latest Projects

2011-11-23T16:09:00.001-06:00

I love a good project. I’ve had several that I’ve been working on lately. First of all, I’ve been making felt flower hair clips.

Last year I participated in a bow exchange where we each made 20 of the same bow and then swapped so everyone got 20 different bows. We’re doing it again this year and this is what I’m making. I got the idea from this tutorial. I’ve got about 23 of the 27 made so far! Here it is in Camryn’s hair:

Another thing I made this week is a tin advent calendar. One of my friends was making one and she offered to order materials for anyone else who wanted to make one too and I definitely wanted in. She got the idea from here.

Mine isn’t as cute as the one on the blog but I just don’t have as many crafty buttons and glitters. I like how it turned out though. They’re little tins that have super strength magnets on the back. Camryn has LOVED playing with these on the fridge. I haven’t filled them yet but I’m thinking I’ll put Christmas activities in some (like “Go look at Christmas lights” or “Sing a Christmas carol”) and candies in others. Let me know if you have any other ideas of what I could put inside.

We also had a family homework project we did for Avery’s kindergarten class. We were given a brown turkey and we had to give him/her a disguise so that they wouldn’t get eaten on Thanksgiving. We decided to give him a Jessie (from Toy Story) disguise. I already had the fabric scraps from Camryn’s Jessie costume last year so it was a cinch.

And then of course I’ve been getting things ready for Thanksgiving. We’re going over to my aunt and uncle’s house. It’s so nice to have family nearby for holidays! Since it’s just me and my aunt cooking this year I get to make more than I normally do. So I made my favorite caramel apple pie (below), and I’m also making stuffing, sweet potatoes, and rolls.

I’m also going to try to recreate this veggie tray. I’ll take a pic when I’m done to show you how it went.

You may be wondering how I’m doing all these fun things with an almost-4-month-old…? Lily has been doing a lot of this:

We got this exersaucer from a friend at church who was getting rid of it. Lily loves it! Well, at least for 20-30 minutes and then she can’t wait to get out of it, haha! We’ve found that it’s also very useful for keeping her “regular”- not so useful in keeping the back of her clothes clean, though, if you know what I mean. :)

So that’s my craftiness lately. What have you been up to?

New to Me

2011-11-22T15:24:00.001-06:00

So I’ve discovered two products this week that are new to me – maybe they’ll be new to you. I thought they were worth sharing because they have been game changers for me.

The first one is Lemi-shine. Anyone who’s had dinner at my house may have noticed that I have hard water at my house and all my glasses are stained with that frosty nastiness. I’ve tried cleaning out my dishwasher with dishwasher cleaners and scrubbing the glasses with steel wool. Jet dry didn’t work. We got new glasses last year and I only pull them out for company because I want them to stay nice. Now my worries are over! I’ve been using Lemishine in addition to my detergent and it’s really starting to clear everything up. Hooray! Try it out.

The other one is the Tangle Tamer. My girls hate getting their hair brushed. I use conditioner and a detangling spray on them but sometimes their hair is just tangled. Enter this beauty. I saw a similar brush at Kid ‘do’s called the Knot Genie but it was $10.99. Couldn’t justify it despite rave reviews from my good friend Nicki. Then yesterday I was at Sally Beauty Supply (buying alligator clips for the bows I’m making for a bow exchange – pictures to come) and I saw the Tangle Tamer. For $2.99. Sold! I tried it out in the parking lot on Cam and she didn’t wince a bit. Worked great! I even used it on my wet hair this morning and I, too, was spared the tugging. Lovin’ it!

That’s all I got. So if you have crystal clear glasses and tangle free hair, I apologize for boring you! By the way, I was not paid in any way to recommend these products. :)

Turkeys!

2011-11-21T21:03:00.001-06:00

So back in September I was looking out my front window when I spotted these bad boys:

Turkeys! There were a ton of them! And they went through my front yard into my backyard.

I tried counting and I think there were 26 of them. It was so fun to watch. My neighbor and I were both out there taking pictures. How often do you get a bunch of turkeys walking around through your yard?

They came through two other times that I saw later that month. Haven’t seen them in a while, though. Hopefully they’re staying hidden this week!

… Enjoy your turkey dinner on Thursday! :)

10 things you may not know about me

2011-11-20T20:24:00.001-06:00

I thought I’d share a little bit about myself today. I talk a lot about my girls. Not much about me – Vanessa. So here are ten things you may not already know about me. I tried to include some things about me from different aspects of my life since I know I have friends reading from high school, college, here in Wisconsin, family and my in-laws. :)

1. I love to be punctual. I detest being late to things. Merrick likes to be fashionably late sometimes but I’d like to be there a few minutes before anything starts. It stresses me out if I’m 10 minutes late to something, even though I know a lot of people will still be arriving. It’s been a little hard lately because it takes a long time to get Lily all packed up in her seat and Camryn has the terrible 3’s so she is not very cooperative sometimes when it comes to getting out the door fast. “Not yet, Mom!” But I’m managing ok. I like to be “there” on time. Wherever there is.

2. I come from a family of three girls, one boy, and a girl (5 kids total). Kind of makes sense when I look at my three girls. It’s just like what I remember from my childhood. Maybe our next one will be a boy?

3. I “waited” for Merrick. We met in our Freshman Ward 2 months before he left to go on his mission to Everett, Washington. It was the perfect amount of time to get to know one another but not so long that we were practically engaged or anything. We got to know each other by letters. We wrote every week of his mission until the last 6 months he said he wanted to stop writing to take the pressure off when he got home. I was still dating other people but always kept him in the back of my mind. We got engaged three months after he got home and married three months after that. Kinda crazy when we look back at it now, but hey we’re still happy so it worked out!

4. I make my own laundry detergent. I have been doing this for about a year and a half. It cost me about $10 the first time I made it and I have probably spent $4-5 total on laundry detergent in the past year and a half. Pretty great! And it works just fine. I make it about once every 2 months and it takes me about 15 minutes. I got the recipe here. Try it out!

5. I minored in French at BYU. Majored in History. The funny thing is that I don’t speak any French ever anymore. In fact, I barely scraped by in my advanced French classes. I was much better at writing/reading than I ever was at speaking. But at least I finished the minor. So if you ever need a French translator, don’t ask me!

6. I find myself testing out Facebook statuses in my mind throughout my day. Something happens to me and I think about how I would phrase it as a Facebook status. Lame, I know. 90% of the time I don’t post it but I think it’s kind of strange that I do that. Or maybe you do it too?

7. I loooove to read but strangely I have a really, really hard time starting new books. It’s not that I read a chapter or two and am uninterested. It’s that I often can’t make myself even crack open a book. When I do, I read the whole thing and usually enjoy the book. I think I don’t like starting new books because I know how sucked in I can get and how messy my house gets when I read a good book. :)

8. I am phone-ophobic. Is there such a thing? Probably not, but I don’t like calling people. I have no hesitation to call my mom or my sisters to chat, I don’t mind scheduling doctors appointments, etc. over the phone, and I don’t mind answering the phone, but when I have to ask someone to do something or a question, I put it off as long as I can. 9 times out of 10 I will email or text people instead. Drives Merrick crazy.

9. I am loving the blogging/pinterest culture of our day because I love trying new things. I love crafting, trying new recipes, sewing, and I feel like I’ve been able to learn so much just from mimicking other people's great ideas. A couple of my favorite sites are makeit-loveit.com, ourbestbites.com, melskitchencafe.com, etc.

10. I am a Mormon. My church is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and I have been a member all of my life. We are Christian and we study the Bible and the Book of Mormon. For more info, go to mormon.org.

Well hopefully you learned something interesting about me today! See you tomorrow!

Lily’s Birth Story–part 2

2011-11-19T10:26:00.001-06:00

July 29, 2011! A big day for me, for our family, for Lily! Merrick and I arrive at the hospital at 6am. I get checked in and wheeled up in a wheelchair to the birthing center. I keep thinking that I should have just walked up there- it might have sped up my labor a little! Haha, anyways I get into my room, get in the bed, and I start to get heartburn really bad. I realize I didn’t bring any Tums and they didn’t have any. I totally live off Tums when I’m pregnant and I hadn’t packed any because I figured my pregnancy was almost over right?! Merrick goes on a hunt downstairs to buy some but the pharmacy doesn’t open until 9am so he calls my dad to bring some in. Meanwhile, the nurse pokes me for my IV and hits a vein. Great. She tries again and has to do it in my hand, which hurts more. (Another reason I did not want to be induced – the dang IV is terrible!) So I start to feel reeeeally queasy then. Then walks in the lab tech and she wants to take blood. No, they can’t do it later. Great.

I almost throw up but don’t, thank goodness. I get the Tums (thanks Dad!) and Merrick is back and I’m feeling better. I’m on Pitocin by 7am and I’m grateful to get a new nurse. Her name is Vanessa too. She’s cute and young and very nice. This is a relief. My doctor swings by at 8am and checks me – I’m 3cm dilated, 75% effaced and the baby is at -2 station. I had been 2 cm, 50% effaced on Tuesday and on the previous Thursday appointments so I am glad I have progressed some before the contractions started. She leaves and says she’ll be back at noon.

At 9:30am I’m still not in pain but when I go to the bathroom I lose some more mucus so that is encouraging. At 11:10am my pain is up to a 4-5 out of 10 because of some back pain. I get out of the bed and sit on the birthing ball and Merrick helps me relax during contractions. The ball helps make the back pain so I am back down to a 2-3 on the pain scale for a while. I sit in the big recliner and listen to music on my iPod.

At 12:30 I have been on Pitocin for 5 ½ hours and am still pretty calm. The doctor checks me and I am 4cm and 90% effaced and the baby has come down to a -1 station. A little progress but not a ton. I don’t want her to break my water because I know the pain would increase a ton and everyone told me that if I was going natural, don’t let them break your water. But my nurse makes a good point – it would speed up the labor a lot. Then my doctor says she has an emergency surgery at 4:30pm so she says “I can either break your water now and we can have this baby soon or you can keep laboring and I can come back after my surgery and break your water then.” I’m not too much pain and I don’t really want to wait all day (it has been kind of boring up to that point, actually), so I say let’s break the water.

She does and finds there was meconium in the water. (It makes me glad I didn’t use castor oil because I would have blamed the meconium on the castor oil.) Immediately it starts hurting much worse. I get out of the bed, which helps a lot. Over the next hour I go between standing and swaying with Merrick supporting me, to the birthing ball to the rocking chair. I definitely need Merrick’s help breathing through the contractions. He counts breathe in 2-3-4, out 2-3-4. That helps. I need him full time. He gets a few phone calls and I only allow him to text because I only have 30 second breaks between contractions at that point so it’s very stressful.

At 1:50pm the nurse checks me and I was 6-7cm, 100% effaced, and the baby was at 0 station. Hooray! She calls the doctor to let her know we are making good progress and she starts quietly setting things up. She tells me to tell her when it feels like I needed to go #2. Around that time I start to feel what I call “the worst pain of my life.” :) It’s bad. I can’t get comfortable anywhere, but the best place is definitely the rocking chair. I rock back and forth, try to stay calm, but can’t really breathe through the contractions much anymore. Thankfully the epidural option isn’t brought up by my nurse, my doctor, or Merrick. I don’t really think about it either. I am doing it and making quick progress and I know that the pushing wouldn’t hurt much more than transition so I just really have to deal with the pain and that’s all I can think about. Forget putting a needle in my back at this point! Ha!

Around 2:20pm I feel like #2 is coming so I tell the nurse and the doctor comes in and checks me and I am 9cm, 100% effaced, and 0 station. I’m really wishing I was 10cm. And I REALLY REALLY hate laying down to get checked because it hurts way worse, which I didn’t really think possible. At one point they have me get on my knees and lean against the top of the bed to try to turn the baby so she isn’t pushing against my back so much. I can hardly stand it for one contraction and then I have to get off the bed. It does help with my back a little bit though. I have to go back to that rocking chair but I am really dying so the doctor comes back at probably 2:40ish and checks me again. She says I just have a lip of cervix left. She has me lay there (torture!) for one contraction and she says to push a little and she pushes the lip of cervix up around the baby’s head. It works and she says to the nurse, “Okay – let’s prepare for delivery.” They have already been buzzing around setting things up but she still has to get all the stuff set up around the base of the bed. At that point my body just kicks in and takes over. I don’t really know what is happening. They says, “You remember how to push right?” I don’t really, actually. So I try and the baby’s head comes down a bunch. They still have a few things to get ready so they want to me to stop pushing for like a few seconds but I am dying in pain. I call out, “Somebody help me!” The nurse says to me “Vanessa! Vanessa! Open your eyes! Look at me!” I open my eyes (they had been tightly shut in pain) and she tries to get me to breathe quick short breaths. I guess to get me to stop pushing. But my body somehow pushes that head right out.

Her shoulder gets stuck, like Avery’s had. It’s called shoulder dystocia. The doctor turns her a little and Merrick said she pulls the baby and she is out!

The doctor only had one glove on. And her scrubs are drenched because she hadn’t had time to put an extra layer of scrubs on! They tell me she is big. I was used to that by this point (Avery was 9 lb 7 oz and Camryn was 8 lb 12 oz), but I am shocked when they weigh her in at 10lb 4 oz!! Wow!

While they are suctioning and checking on the baby the doctor helps me push out the placenta and boy, was that a relief or what?! I feel sooooo much better once that was out. They still have to press really, really hard on my stomach for a while to get my uterus to contract down in size. But I feel great. The doctor stitches me up while Merrick is watching over Lily. The numbing shot hurts a little but, hey, at that point- a little shot in the bum feels just fine compared to “the worst pain of my life”!

There is this doctor who comes over and says he is going to put some medicine in my IV to help ease the pain. He says it would help. I don’t really feel a major pain relief, but it probably helps keep me calmer.

I get to hold my Lily. She is beautiful! She has a nice shaped head since she didn’t have to spend much time in the birth canal. Her shoulder is fine, the meconium didn’t affect her, and the only thing we notice is that she is urping up some yucky stuff for a while- since she had come out so quickly. But that goes away after a day or two. She is big. In fact, the newborn diapers at the hospital are so tight that they special order some size 1 diapers for us! Ha!

I was grateful to have gone naturally even while on Pitocin. Family and friends called me “Wonder woman” and such for having done such, but it really was only bad for the last hour. Don’t get me wrong – it was REALLY bad pain. But the Pitocin actually helped it go fast, so maybe if I hadn’t been on Pitocin I would have caved and gotten the epidural. Who knows. But I was content with how it worked out. The biggest things that helped me were getting out of that bed and sitting in the rocking chair, having a positive attitude going into it knowing I could do it, and breathing through my contractions. (I actually didn’t even have Merrick massage me at all during the labor. I did not want to be touched, haha!) I will probably try to have my baby naturally again next time. I may even have a midwife instead of an OB/GYN because I know they are more helpful with the labor part of it. It was very empowering and I felt fabulous afterwards, whereas with my other two I felt like a train wreck, so that made it a positive experience overall.

Oh and everyone was also amazed that I had a 10 POUND baby naturally. But really, I don’t think it mattered how big she was because she came out so fast. It probably actually helped that she was so big. My mom said I came out super fast too and I was her biggest baby too (10 lb 0 oz!). I guess Lily was my payback for having been so big (sorry Mom!). My grandma has since told me that Lily is the biggest baby of all her descendants! I actually love big babies, so having a 10 lb-er was totally fine by me.

So that is the story of how my little lovely Lily came into this world. She has changed our lives ever since. We love her so much.

Note: I hope I haven’t come off as condescending in any way – I had two babies with epidurals so I can definitely relate to those of you who go that route. I just wanted to try something different this time, on my third baby. :)

Lily’s Birth Story–Part 1

2011-11-18T15:12:00.001-06:00

I’ve been meaning to share my birth story on the blog. For those of you who are not interested in this subject, I apologize in advance! But it was a big deal in my life so I definitely want it recorded.

Today I’m going to discuss my pregnancy leading up to delivery day. Tomorrow I’ll tell you more about my labor and delivery of Lily. The subtitle for this post is “Why I Decided to Have a Baby Naturally”.

I have had three labors so far – my first two I would call “convenience inductions” and I got an epidural both times. Over the past few years since I had Camryn I have read an article here and there about natural childbirth. I’ve heard from friends how empowering it feels to know that “I did it!” – you were able to have a baby without medication! My idea was that – if the medication is available, why not use it? I’ve even heard a few people say (including my sister’s bishop who is an OB/GYN in Utah) that you wouldn’t get your wisdom teeth removed without anesthesia so why would you have a baby without it too?

Well early in my pregnancy I started considering looking for a different doctor that was a little more pro-natural childbirth. I even briefly looked into a birthing center nearby where they have big bathtubs you give birth in, surrounded by a calming atmosphere with dim lights and candles. Sounded cool, but what it came down to was this – did I really have a reason to want to switch it up so dramatically? At that point (around 4-5 months pregnant), the answer was no. So I kept going to my regular OB/GYN and didn’t plan much. I got tired a lot and also busy with my girls.

About 2 months before I was due, I was browsing the hospital material I had received back in December and I came across some info about classes the hospital offered. I saw that they had a class called “Advanced Comfort Measures” and it said they would cover massage and comforting techniques to help ease pain during labor. It was 2 hours on a weeknight and it was $20. I signed us up. One of the main reasons was that when I had Camryn I didn’t get my epidural until quite late in my labor and by the time it kicked in I was ready to push. It was really hard for me to cope with the magnitude of the pain without any preparation, so I always said I needed to be better prepared next time.

Merrick went with me to the class- there were 5 other couples. All of them looked significantly older than us and we were the only ones having our third child! The class was nice – we got out birthing balls, massage oil, back rubbers, and tried out different things. I figured I at the very least it was worth the $20 just to get that great back massage from my husband that day! He kept turning to me and saying, “You’re going to do it! You’re totally going to have this baby naturally!!” It was kind of a joke but kind of serious. Honestly it was the first time I had really seriously considered it and could see myself doing it. I was surprised, though, at the end of the class when they asked who was going to try to have their baby naturally and we were the only couple timidly raising our hands.

After the class (about a month before my due date) I was much more motivated. I had heard of a book called “Ina May’s Guide to Natural Childbirth” and was intrigued so I checked it out from the library and absolutely devoured it. It is written by a midwife who has done thousands of natural births. It gives a lot of positive birth stories, which seem to be more scarce nowadays. When you think about birth stories, you usually hear someone’s list of horrible things that happened to them (epidural only took on one side, the nurse had to poke me 3 times before she got my IV in, the baby had to be yanked out with forceps, emergency C-section, etc.). The book contained stories that were happy, albeit they still obviously experienced the pain of childbirth. The women were just more determined so they did it. The second half of the book talked about reasons why you shouldn’t get an epidural- complications they don’t talk to you about and they talked about things you can do to make labor easier without an epidural. They talked about questions to ask your healthcare provider. And much more.

Some of the main things I took away from the book were this: I can do this – women have been having babies naturally forever. And it’s the safest thing for me and my baby. I also gained some ideas to make my labor go more smoothly – laughing, getting out of the bed and sitting on the birthing ball or a rocking chair, taking a shower, drinking lots of water, relaxing different parts of my body, counting out my breathing, etc.

I started talking about going natural with my mom and realized that she hadn’t had an epidural for any of her babies, which for some reason I never realized before. This made me even more motivated. I got some advice from a couple friends who had had babies naturally, and I made up some notes into a plan. I wasn’t going to be induced, I wasn’t going to have an epidural, I was going to labor at home as much as possible, I didn’t want internal baby monitors, I was going to stay out of the hospital bed, I was going to use massage, etc. to ease the pain. I also got to talk with my aunt who just moved here and she shared with me all of her natural birthing stories. I felt good about my plan.

My due date came and went. My parents were gracious enough to delay coming until a week after my due date. They arrived and still no baby. I talked to my grandma and she said she had gone 2 weeks late with all 8 of her babies. Ahh! Not very encouraging! I kept getting phone calls from relatives wondering when that baby was coming. Still no baby! I actually felt pretty good at that point. I felt the same as I had a month earlier, which was frustrating. Merrick thought my body did not know how to go into labor on its own because I had been induced 2/2 so far. Not very encouraging either!! So I did some walking on the treadmill and at the mall, and I did some bouncing on the birthing ball. My aunt and uncle recommended castor oil – but this made me very nervous and my doctor didn’t like the idea either.

Finally my OB/GYN said she wouldn’t let me go past Friday, July 29^th – 10 days past my due date. And my parents had been here for 3 days already, patiently waiting. I told her that would be fine and so we scheduled the induction, but I still wanted to try to have the baby without an epidural. The day before my induction I finally started to feel a little more crampy and I lost some of my mucus plug. I felt like my body was finally going into prelabor but I knew if I didn’t get induced the next day it could still be another 2-3 days (at least) before I went into labor on my own. And I didn’t really want to have an August baby with a due date of July 19^th! So induce we did!

Tomorrow I will give you the full details about how I spent my day on July 29, 2011 – The day of Lily Amelia’s birth. :)

Cutie

2011-11-17T22:06:00.001-06:00

It’s 10pm. I didn’t write a blog post today. So you get pictures of a cutie instead. :)

She’s getting so photogenic these days. But sometimes I get a funny picture like this one:

So surprised! Haha. I love her!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No Boys Allowed!

2011-11-16T09:00:00.000-06:00

About 6 or 9 months ago we got some bunkbeds on craigslist for Avery and Camryn’s room. It was interesting to move Camryn from a toddler bed to the full size bed that is the bottom bunk, but it’s worked out great. The girls love their bunk beds and overall have done pretty well sharing a room together. I thought I’d finally post some pictures of their room.

That’s about the cleanest it’s ever been so I had to take a picture! “Aver” loves her top bunk (not sure where the Y went in her name on the wall). The wooden valence on top of the window is a perfect little nightstand for her.

There’s the other side of the room, complete with the painting I did a year and a half or so ago. Do you like those book shelves? Here’s a closer look:

I bought those four shelves at IKEA. They’re technically spice racks but I saw this idea to use them for forward facing bookshelves on a blog a while back. They were only $3.99 each. Score! I love them and I think they really add some color to the room plus make the girls more excited about reading their books. I could paint them but I kind of like them basic for now. Of course now I want to go back and buy like 5 more of these shelves – some for Lily’s room and one for my kitchen, etc.

By the way, it was so easy to hang them all straight with this tip I saw on pinterest: You put a dot of toothpaste on the back where the nail goes in and then hold the shelf (or picture) up to the wall where you want it to go, get it straight, and then tap it on the wall. There will be a little toothpaste mark exactly where the nail goes. Make a hole with the nail, wipe off the toothpaste from the wall and the back of the shelf and voila! Perfectly straight shelves.

I hope you enjoyed a little peek into my girls room. Definitely no boys allowed. :)

Wisconsin State Fair

2011-11-15T09:00:00.000-06:00

As mentioned yesterday, Merrick had some time off this summer for paternity leave and so he enjoyed some fun outings with Avery and Camryn while I stayed home with newborn Lily. One of the big excursions was to the Wisconsin State Fair.
This was Merrick’s first experience with the State Fair. I took the girls last year and this year was his turn. He stayed there for 5-6 hours and was thoroughly wiped out when they left! Here are some of the pictures he took while they were there.

He actually took them on some rides, which I thought was brave. He said they loved the ferris wheel.

And they played some games and he won them some stuffed Angry Birds dolls. Camryn calls hers “Mad Bird”, which I think is funny.

If you recall from Camryn’s birthday in this post, Avery is very afraid of these kinds of rides but this time she turned her inner brAvery on and rode along with her younger sister. Their faces say it all. :)

Of course it wouldn’t be the state fair without a picture with a pink piggy.

The line for the Giant Slide was too long but Avery did a cute pose for us.

They got lots of yummy junk food and walked more miles than Merrick’s feet could handle, but they had fun. Hopefully next year we can all go together as a family.

Fire Station Field Trip

2011-11-14T09:30:00.000-06:00

Last week we took a little field trip with Camryn’s preschool group to the Fire Station. They were very accommodating and we had a fun little excursion learning about fire fighters.

The kids got to walk through the fire truck a little bit. They thought it was a fun game and wanted to keep going through 2-3 times.

The firefighter put all of his gear on. It was very reflective so my flash made it look like it lights up. A couple of the children tried on the jacket to see how heavy it was.

They even gave the kids their very own fire hats and a couple pages of stickers to decorate it with. Very cute.

It’s always nice to meet firefighters at the fire station and not when they have to come to your house! :)

Photos by Merrick

2011-11-13T14:25:00.001-06:00

Sometimes we don’t have our camera with us. Luckily, most phones have cameras on them and Merrick’s iPhone is no exception. I thought I’d go through his pictures to see if I could find anything good. Here are a few of the gems I found…

Hahaha… this one is great. Merrick had fun with the girls hair in the bath one day, probably about a year ago. Love that ‘do and your sweet smile too, Cam!

A couple of pictures from Merrick’s several business trips to NYC this past year:

Silly girls hiding from the camera (last winter)…

A rare picture of me… (Shocking, I know. I don’t like pictures of myself!) On my last birthday in May I was about 7 months pregnant here. Merrick made me strawberry cheesecake bars for my birthday dessert. Yum!

And while we’re at it, here’s another picture of me, right after I gave birth to Lily. She’s so cute and pink and tiny! Did I really have her with no epidural?

This is a cute little photo of Avery with her summer soccer team. She’s the one on the left in the pink shorts.

Merrick got to take two weeks of paternity leave and so he took his first week right after I had the baby and the second week he took mid August, before Avery went back to school. He had some fun with the girls and I had fun staying home alone with the baby. So this is when Merrick took the girls to the Zoo A La Carte day during his second week of paternity leave. Cuties.

So those are some of the keepers I found on his phone. I hope you enjoyed!

The beginning of the end…

2011-11-12T16:46:00.001-06:00

Merrick turned 29 today! He’s beginning the final year in his twenties! Crazy how time flies. We realized the other day that we’re only a few weeks away from the 10 year anniversary of our meeting. What young crazy kids we were back then. We’ve come a long way!

Well, as is tradition in the Smith household, we set up a nice party display. We went with a sports theme for our MVP Dad this year.

The girls LOOOOOVED helping me. Camryn got out, played with, and re-hid Merrick’s wrapped presents every day all week. I let them help me with the decorating and the cake, which was a lovely soccer ball in a grassy field.

I found the idea online and I just made a chocolate cherry cake with chocolate icing. Then I used food coloring to dye some coconut green. For the soccer ball I baked up half of a cake mix in a pyrex glass bowl and flipped it over, frosted it white, added 100 Calorie Oreo Crisps and piped on some chocolate frosting. Easy peasy. I told Merrick I’m using his birthdays to practice making boy cakes. Maybe someday I’ll have a boy and then I’ll have a whole repertoire of cake ideas to draw from! :)

We spent the morning having a yummy breakfast, hanging out for a little while, then finally going over to the new Costco in Pewaukee. It opened up a couple weeks ago and we’ve been so busy we haven’t made it over there yet. I think Avery was most excited about the SAMPLES! They had a ton out and she was starving so she couldn’t get them in her mouth fast enough. Quite a nice way for the kiddos to try new things, I must say. We didn’t get much but it was fun to check it out for future shopping trips.

Thanks to everyone who sent a card and well wishes. I’ll finish off the post with a funny story:

We bought him some new dress shoes online for his present from me today and he asked me if he should get the cool hip slip ons or the more classic lace ups. I told him maybe since he’s turning 30 next year he should get the lace ups since they’re more grown up shoes. He said he thought maybe he should get the slip ons so because he might not be able to bend over and tie his shoes in his old age! Bahaha!

Happy Birthday, Merr. We sure love you!

Hehehe…

2011-11-11T12:38:00.001-06:00

Don’t tell Avery and Camryn (because I know they’d want to do it all the time too), but last night after they went to bed I put Lily in the baby doll stroller. Hehe… She’s so cute!

She barely fit but I couldn’t resist snapping a few pics!

Avery’s 4K Graduation

2011-11-10T15:40:00.001-06:00

I went through some of my old photos from earlier this year and found some pictures of Avery’s graduation from 4K at Willow Springs Elementary. Our school district is unique because they send all the 4 year old Kindergarten students to Willow Springs and then for 5K and up they go to four different elementary schools. So her graduation was a parting of sorts. A lot of her friends went to other elementary schools. Nevertheless she’s done well making new friends again this year.

So here are some pictures of their graduation. Most of the AM kids:

There you can see her in the back under the Maple sign with the brown shirt on:

Receiving her leaf to put on the Maple Elementary tree from her principal, Dr. T. They started out the program sitting with their Willow Springs classes and then they ended the program sitting with the kids who were going to go to their elementary school the next year.

Her teacher, Mrs. Forrester announcing her class’ names.

The end of the program here she is with her friends who go to her elementary school now. She was biting her nails a lot in these pictures for some reason. (Note to self: Next time there’s a school program, cut her nails first!)

It was a cute little program and we had fun watching the kids. Camryn and I got to ride a bus together for the first time this day. We were shuttled to the high school auditorium from her school parking lot. She loved it!!

First snow…

2011-11-09T14:48:00.001-06:00

Of course, the day after I post about our beautiful fall in Wisconsin we finally get our first snow of the season. It’s not sticking yet (thank goodness!) but this picture is in front of my house. You can kind of see the snow coming down.

It’s not that I don’t like snow- don’t get me wrong. I like the stuff. I just don’t like seeing the same snow for three months straight. These first few snows aren’t so bad because they melt. But it’s what they mean – that another long, hard, COLD Wisconsin winter is encroaching upon us! We manage alright but really, it’s just not very fun after a while.

That being said, here are a couple of goals I have for this winter:

1. Build a snowman with my kids. Or a snow fort. Or something like that. I usually let the kids play in the snow the first snow or two but after that it gets so crunchy that we just stay out of it. I need to make some memories with them.

2. Get a sled and try sledding down the little hill in the back of our yard. It’s great for the slip ‘n slide in the summers but in the winter we kind of forget that we have such a big yard. The snow truck plows a nice big shelf of snow and we never venture down the hill after that. Must try it this year.

3. Organize my winter gear. Maybe buy one of those plastic over the door shoe holders to put all the hats, gloves, scarves in. It would also be nice to create a place to put wet snow boots while they dry. Some kind of tray to put them on or something.

4. Find a place to go see Christmas lights. Anyone know of any good ones around here?

5. Do more playdates. Good idea for all of those days we’ll be cooped up. Anyone interested? :)

6. Come up with some good lists of things for the kids to do (crafts, activities, service) so we don’t end up watching too many movies all winter.

7. Shovel and salt my driveway more. We have a truck that comes when it snows over 3” which is great, but when it only snows 2” we don’t shovel and then the cars drive on it and it turns into a skating rink quick.

8. Read some more books. I’ve been in a reading slump lately and the winter is a perfect time to snuggle up in a blanket while the baby naps and read a good book.

Well that’s all that I can come up with for now. If you have any goals or advice on how you improve the winter at your house, please share! :)

Fall in Wisconsin

2011-11-08T15:34:00.001-06:00

Can I just say that we had THE most beautiful fall in Wisconsin this year? The vast amount of trees turned their colors at the beginning of October during a warm 70 degree and sunny week (the end of Sept was a little colder and rainier). I really wish I had gotten some pictures because we couldn’t drive around without dropping our jaws a little at how beautiful it was. Here are a few shots I found online that show kind of what it looked like but you really just had to be here to experience it.

Did anyone else enjoy the fall as much as I did this year? I’m hoping these images will bring me a smile in the upcoming winter. (And we all know that Wisconsin winters aren’t quite as fun.)

Milwaukee Public Museum

2011-11-07T15:55:00.001-06:00

I took Camryn and Lily to the Milwaukee Public Museum today with our church playgroup. They have a lot of cool exhibits, although the wax people kind of freak me out a little. We always love the butterfly room. It’s a little humid and warm in there but you get to walk around with hundreds of butterflies and they’ll land on you and you can get them to stay on your finger. Pretty sweet! Can you see all those butterflies behind the girls?

Here’s one I caught on my finger:

Camryn was a little hesitant. She didn’t want to hold any on her finger. See that butterfly on the leaf there?

I had to take a picture of Camryn by the Cameroon stuff. I knew Avery would like it.

Although I don’t like wax people, I do love stuffed animals. These rhinos were pretty sweet.

We had a fun little trip. Of course the kids just liked running around with some little buddies. Too bad we’re not Milwaukee County Residents, otherwise we’d go more often.

On a side note, can I just say how refreshing it is to go somewhere that is willing to be flexible? I won two free passes about a year ago at a Raffle at Avery’s school. Of course I pull them out this morning and they expired 10-31-11 (a week ago). Bummer. But I thought I’d call and see if they’d accept them just in case. It seems like every time I have a situation like this lately I’ve been turned down, so I was pessimistic. But to my delight, they were flexible and said they would still take the passes. Thank you, nice people out there who helped me out. I really appreciate it!

Pinterest anyone?

2011-11-06T22:26:00.001-06:00

I was about to go to bed and I remembered I hadn’t blogged today so I thought I’d post a quick tip about the latest craze – Pinterest!

I love googling ideas and reading blogs and bookmarking ideas for the future so Pinterest was right up my alley. Basically you “pin” things to your boards and you can see them all in pictures rather than on a list of bookmarks. Here’s an example of some craft ideas I liked:

All put on one page so you can scan them real quick. You can pin all kinds of things – whatever your interests are. Some people pin ideas for their dream kitchen, some people pin hairstyling tips, some people pin DIY crafts, some people pin yummy treat recipes, and some people pin all of these things and more! I’m most excited about the birthday party ideas I’m getting, the cute and cheap gift ideas, and all of the activities and crafts I can do with my kids.

The nice thing is that it’s a social network so you can see what your friends are pinning and you can re-pin their ideas if you like them too. We’re all sharing ideas together and it’s great!

So try out pinterest if you haven’t already and let me know what you think! If you have already tried it, what are some of the things you like about it?

Would a Lily by any other name smell just as sweet…?

2011-11-05T17:04:00.001-05:00

What’s in a name? Well I’ve been meaning to write about Lily’s name and why we chose it so here I go.

I love my girls. I love that I have three girls. But having to pick a third girl name was tough! I really wanted to have a feminine name this time since Avery and Camryn are quite gender neutral. And it had to be more than one syllable, couldn’t start with A or C (or K for that matter), and of course both Merrick and I had to like it. It’s pretty hard to please both of us. I would email Merrick lists of names I liked and he was quick to slash through my suggestions!

So one day in April I emailed him another list of 24 names and the first name on the list was Lily. He emailed me back that he liked 5 of the names, one of which was Lily. We emailed back and forth about the names and narrowed it down to Lily as our top contender, but we’d keep looking. Later that day Merrick told me that he thought it was funny that Lily was at the top of the list because the day before he had actually had a dream that we had named our baby Lily. Crazy!

Between April and July we kept looking and even discounted Lily for a while when we watched TV one week because three shows we watched had Lily’s on them (Gossip Girl, Modern Family, and How I Met Your Mother), and plus it’s such a popular name right now. But we kept coming back to it.

So then it was July and the baby was coming any day and we needed to decide. We had Lily and another name or two that we liked and couldn’t decide. I was talking with Avery about it on the way to her swimming lessons one day and she said, “I like Lily. Do you like Lily, Mom?” I said I did. “Do you like Lily, Camryn?” She said she did. “Does Dad like Lily?” I said he did. “So let’s name her Lily!” I thought it was cute and so I called Merrick to tell him that Avery had decided for us. He was good with that and probably just as relieved as I was to have it settled. So Lily she became!

As for her middle name, we wanted something that was similar to Avery and Camryn’s middle names (Avery Elizabeth and Camryn Olivia) – very feminine, classic, 3-4 syllables, etc. and Amelia fit the bill quite well. It even started with a vowel like theirs! I told this to my sister Britney (the baby naming enthusiast of the family) who quickly emailed me back all of the Amelia’s in our family history. :) One of which was Elizabeth Amelia Sharp Bowles, who is actually the Elizabeth that Avery’s middle name comes from. Merrick and I discovered early in our marriage that we are actually related (eek!) through Robert Bowles and Elizabeth Amelia Sharp and so we thought it would be cool to use this name for Avery and it conveniently worked out for Lily’s middle name too!

So that’s how our little precious became Lily Amelia Smith.

Sometimes I wonder if we had waited until she was born to name her if we really would have named a 10 lb 4 oz chunky sweetie such a delicate name? ;) Hehe, oh well she won’t be such a chunk forever (unfortunately! – I love those cheeks and rolls!!).

Avery at 5 years old!

2011-11-04T10:00:00.001-05:00

Avery is my big 5 year old girl! She is so grown up it’s shocking to me sometimes! She’s in full day kindergarten and LOVES it. Like she hasn’t said one bad thing about it all year. She’s got friends, she gets to color all day long, and she’s really learning a lot. Just in the past couple weeks she’s started trying to write out sentences entirely by herself. She used to make me tell her how to spell things and now she’s trying to figure it out by sounding things out. She’s definitely got a lot of room for improvement but it’s just so fun to see her trying new things!
Her reading is also getting really good. Her sight reading vocabulary is very extensive and she’s getting a little better every day on sounding words out. She’s starting to read short chapter books like Magic Tree House and Junie B. Jones books with help.
One thing we’ve started trying to work on with Avery is the concept of saving up her money. I bought some piggy banks for her and Camryn at the dollar store and have been paying them 10 cents for little jobs around the house. Once Avery had saved up 50 cents she said she wanted to spend it on a temporary tattoo that they were selling at school for a fundraiser. Merrick tried to talk her out of it but she insisted this is what she wanted to spend her money on! So she brings her money to school and when she comes home I ask to see where she put the tattoo. She said she didn’t like it so she had already scratched it off. Ha! Her hard earned 50 cents went down the drain quick. So hopefully she learned her lesson and will try to save her money for more lasting items!!
Avery loves her sisters Camryn and Lily and she is such a helpful big sister. Whenever she’s grumpy I just bring Lily to her and she lights up with a smile. She sure loves having a baby around.
Well I still can’t believe I have a 5 year old but Avery is so beautiful and wonderful and we love having her in our family.

Camryn at 3 1/2 years!

2011-11-03T15:29:00.001-05:00

Since I’m blogging every day this month I may as well give an update on all of my girls. Today will be Camryn! Isn’t she a doll? I just love her beautiful blonde hair, her big brown eyes, and that picture perfect smile! She’s three and a half years old now and I can’t believe how much she’s growing up! Is she really going to go to 4K next year?! Crazy!

Here are a few things about Camryn:

1. She loves her sister Lily. She can’t say her “L” sound so it comes out as “Yiwee”. She’s a little intense in her love for Lily sometimes but for the most part she’s learning how to tone it down so she doesn’t squeeze the stuffing out of her baby sister. :)

2. She’s really starting to learn how to draw. Her fine motor skills developed a little slower than Avery’s but she can now draw a face and the letter C and a flower. She loves to scribble and then try to find shapes in what she’s drawn. “Mom! I drew my first carrot!” So fun.

3. She loves playing with Avery. It’s a long day when Avery is at school all day and when she gets home it’s all play-play-play! This has led to more difficult bedtimes lately. They used to be so good at sleeping in their bunk beds but now they keep turning on the light and playing on the top bunk! We’ll figure it out somehow.

4. Camryn has the best laugh. Or giggle, I should say! Whenever she gets really excited she’ll keep laughing this funny little laugh and it’s great.

5. Have your kids been enjoying all the Christmas toy catalogs like mine have? Camryn’s new obsession is circling every. single. toy in the catalog that is for a girl. She’s going to have a hard time narrowing down her Christmas wish list for Santa!

6. I taught our preschool group last month about manners. So one thing Camryn loves to do right now is tell everyone if they have good manners or bad manners. And then sometimes she’ll just randomly spout out things like, “If you take a toy from someone, that’s BAD manners.” :) It’s nice to see her enjoy learning new concepts.

Well that’s about all I can think of for now. She’s my sweetie, my cuddle girl, and she sure brings us so much happiness.

Lily at 3 Months Old!

2011-11-02T19:18:00.001-05:00

It’s really strange to think that I have a three month old already!! Time flies when you’re taking care of a baby (and two kiddos)!! Things are going really well though. Lily is a joy to have in our family and we love her so much. She’s at such a fun stage right now because she’s all smiles all the time and she’s learning how to do her first giggles. Her neck is getting really strong and she’s holding her head up great. Her hand movement is getting more steady and she’s able to use two hands to get toys into her mouth.

She did get her first little cold bug this week which was so sad to hear her little coughs and see her teeny tiny runny nose. But she never got a fever so that was a relief and she’s already doing much better.

As far as sleeping goes, she stopped taking long naps about a month ago. She started waking up at the 30-40 minute mark and I can usually get her back to sleep, but it sure makes it hard to get anything productive done. But then again sometimes she surprises me like today when she took a 2 hour nap. At night she’s inconsistent – sometimes she’ll sleep 7-8 hours and other nights she’s up every 3-4 hours but last night she slept from 9pm-4:30am which was so nice and so I’m hoping we’ll keep seeing more of those kind of nights!

And of course Lily is a nice big baby. I was at the doctor’s office last week for Avery who had an ear infection and I sneaked Lily onto the scale while I was waiting for the doctor. She was over 15 lbs. Such a chunk. :) She’s snugly fitting into 3-6 month clothes now!

We love our little Lily Pad, Lily Boo, Lil’, Chunky Girl!

30 posts in 30 days!

2011-11-01T16:15:00.001-05:00

So my sister is doing the National Blog Post Challenge – one post a day for all of November. I thought I’d join in too.

For my first post I thought I’d better put some Halloween pictures up. We had a ward party last Friday. I decorated a door and passed out candy while the kids did trick or treating around the building.

Lily took a nap. She’s that little green flower thing on my shoulder.

Avery and Camryn were Belle and Cinderella. Princesses again. But at least we already had the costumes!

Merrick’s sister Lindsey flew in yesterday so we went trick-or-treating with her last night. Here are a few pictures.

You can kind of see Lily in her costume there. Such a funny cutie. Of course she had to be a flower.

Camryn chased after Avery most of the time. She looked like a princess who was late for the ball. So funny.

We got a ton of candy and had a great time!! Happy Halloween!

Anyone else want to blog every day this month with me??! :)

Preschool Trip to the Pumpkin Patch

2011-10-20T13:52:00.001-05:00

We took a little field trip with Camryn’s preschool group (plus siblings and a few extra friends) to Jim’s Pumpkin Farm. It was one of the last gorgeous fall days we had. Beautiful fall leaves everywhere, sunny, and warm!

We watched a short video, took a tractor ride, picked out a pumpkin, and enjoyed all the many Halloween themed activities.

Here’s all the kids that came:

Lily was even a trooper to tag along. :)

Baby Lily

2011-10-06T15:15:00.001-05:00

Here she is! My cutie 2 month old! I just love her so much. She is growing SO well! At her 2 month appointment she weighed 13 lb 15 oz (97th percentile) and was 24.5” long (97th percentile). I think my other two babies were around 11lbs at 2 months so she is much bigger. I’ve had to put away about half my 0-3 month clothes because she’s so long. She’s in 3-6 month clothes a lot of the time too.

Lily is very happy and loves to smile and coo. She loves attention. She looks so chunky when she smiles- it accentuates her sweet double chin, hehe.

I love this picture below – so precious!! I love when babies can sit up in the bumbo. She looks so cute!

Last night she slept from 8pm-3am! 7 hours!! She’s done 6 hours a couple times and mostly sleeps 5 hours and then two more 3 hour stretches. I’m doing great with that. I sure love this little one!

8 Weeks!

2011-09-26T11:50:00.001-05:00

Lily girl is now 8 weeks old! Thursday she’ll be 2 months! Time sure flies! She is getting so big. I’m anxious to see how much she weighs at her appointment on Friday. Here is a picture of her I took today- she is starting to wear some of her smaller 3-6 month clothes already.

She is a good baby. Of course she still fusses at times but she goes with the flow most of the time pretty well. Her new favorite (and mine too) is this baby gym. She will play under it for a half an hour sometimes. She can hit one of the toys that hang down and jingle and she likes that. It’s nice to have her entertain herself.

Here is is a week ago dressed up for Sunday.

And here are my girls with their daddy after he got back from his trip to NYC. I was on my own with all three girls from Sunday – Wednesday. There were a few times when I was pretty stressed but for the most part everything went smoothly.

It’s nice that Lily nurses much quicker and only every three hours now so I’m not spending 4 hours a day nursing like I was at the beginning. She never liked a pacifier, which is different for us since the other two loved their binkies. But I think in the long run it will be good for her to learn to self soothe without a pacifier. Overall, life with three kids is a little different but we’re managing things pretty well so far, I think. We love having Lily in our family!

Family in Town!

2011-09-12T16:11:00.001-05:00

Last weekend we had a bunch of family come into town for Lily’s baby blessing day. My sister from Iowa and her family were the first to arrive. We had a nice evening Friday with some serious crazy cousin time. After we ate dinner, someone suggested my sister and I go see The Help at the movie theatre. 5 minutes later we were in the car, driving away! The dads got to watch all 6 kids ages 7, 5, 4, 3, 17 months, and 1 month, while we enjoyed a great 2 1/2 hour break! The movie was awesome, by the way.

The next day we drove through downtown to show them the city a little and then set up at McKinley Park to play on the beach. The kids had a blast.

We left just in time for it to pour down rain. Next stop was butterburgers and custard at Kopp’s (yum!). Then we headed back home to get ready for the next round of company to arrive – my parents and my youngest sister Katie.

The kids loved piling on Grandpa Haws! Lily was sleeping otherwise she might have been squeezed in for the picture. We had a nice time eating homemade pizza and watching the BYU football game. Then everyone (except me and the baby) went over to their hotel and did some swimming. My mom and my sister said even though there were 5 adults to 5 kids it was pretty intense to try to keep track of them all!

Saturday night late Merrick’s parents arrived and Sunday morning was the baby blessing. This is not a good picture.

We took about 5 pictures and I think each of us looks good in one of them. I’d have to photoshop to get a decent picture.

Anyways, the baby blessing was nice. Someone wrote it down for us, which was sweet – I didn’t have that for Avery or Camryn. My aunt and uncle that live in Delafield, WI also came. It was so nice to have everyone there!

Sunday afternoon I made a yummy lunch of Café Rio style pork salads, thanks to the Our Best Bites cookbook! So delish and a hit with everyone. Then we had a relaxing afternoon with everyone and that night we said goodbye to Katie and my parents who had to head back home the next morning.

Monday morning men did a little of this:

And then we went out to lunch at the Friday’s Front Row Grill at Miller Park. There weren’t any Brewers game that weekend so we thought it would be fun to eat right next to the field. It was pretty cool.

Then we said goodbye to Britney and her family. Merrick’s parents were able to stay a couple extra days. So Monday afternoon we drove down to the lakefront again. It was a chilly day that felt a lot like fall.

We wanted to go check out the Wisconsin Cheese Factory and the Public Market but both were closed due to Labor Day. Luckily Leon’s was still open. They have arguably Milwaukee’s best custard. And butter pecan every single day. My kind of place! (Good thing it’s a good 35 minute drive away!)

Somehow we ended up bringing a half gallon of strawberry custard home. Best.idea.ever. It was sooo good.

The rest of Grandma and Grandpa Smith’s stay was filled with Kohl’s shopping, walks to the park, and lots of cooing with Lily. I haven’t mentioned her much in this post, but she was a trooper getting driven all around town everywhere!

Thanks so much for coming everyone! We had so much fun entertaining and sightseeing! We love visitors!

Kindergarten!

2011-09-08T13:57:00.001-05:00

Avery started five year old kindergarten last week!! It’s full day so she has to bring a lunch and a snack and she has 2 recesses every day. She’s growing up so fast!! Here are some pics we snapped before she got on the bus the first day.

She misses Lily while she’s at school!

And here are all three girls together. (Cam was not in the mood for a pic that early in the morning.)

4 weeks old!

2011-08-27T11:05:00.002-05:00

Here are some updated pics for Lily’s grandmas and aunties!

3 weeks old – you can see her trying to smile (she has been smiling for a couple weeks but I haven’t been able to get it on camera very well yet)-

Her first Sunday at church 8-21-11-

Falling asleep on Daddy (so sweet!)-

Bathtime this morning – first time she didn’t cry the whole time -

4 weeks old!

Last night we took Lily with us on our date night to a sushi restaurant. The waitress guessed she was 3 months old! She’s a big girl! :)

3 Little Girls

2011-08-17T16:21:00.001-05:00

Who knew that we’d be celebrating our 7 year anniversary with three little girls?! We love them so much. I have to share this picture below. It cracks me up! Avery and Cam went to their friend’s birthday party a couple weeks ago and came home with these fabulous butterfly faces!

It made me smile and/or laugh every time I saw them. Especially when they talked really animatedly and opened their big eyes wide. Hilarious. (Thanks Heidi- you rock!)

The girls looooove their baby sister. And love holding her.

Isn’t Lily a beautiful sleeper?

She sure is a cutie! Here she is 18 days old (yesterday).

I think we’ll keep her. :)

Lily, 8 days old

2011-08-06T10:27:00.001-05:00

Well we survived the first week of life unscathed! Lily is doing really well. She had a doctor appointment on Tuesday and she wasn’t jaundiced enough to worry about and she had only lost a half a pound, so that wasn’t bad at all.

Merrick has been off work all week so he’s been playing Super Dad. Wednesday he took the girls to the Splash Pad for a few hours, then soccer, then the local library’s ice cream social. Thursday he did a marathon day at the Wisconsin State Fair. I think he was there with the girls for 6 hours. Boy, was he tired after all that walking around! What a good guy. Yesterday they took it easy and the girls got to spend some more time with Lily.

The girls looooove holding her. Avery loves to call her “Lily Amelia” and she can’t stop talking about how much she loves her baby sister. Camryn is doing pretty well although she tends to want to sit really close next to me when I’m nursing sometimes, so we need to work on that a little. She just misses being the one her mommy cuddled the most. It’s an adjustment time for everyone.

I’m feeling really well. A little achy here and there but overall I feel very much healed from the whole process. I’ve got my ankles back!! Hooray for no more swelling! And I put my wedding ring back on for the first time in about a month.

Lily has been a good little girl. She’s starting to learn to sleep a little better. Merrick got her to sleep last night for the first time and she fell asleep in this bouncy chair by herself for the first time just now so that was super nice. There were a couple nights this week when she was awake from 1-3am but last night she slept perfectly and only woke up to nurse at 11:30, 3, and 6:30. Very nice for mama!

Anyways, on with a few pictures of Lily from the week!

Lily Pictures!

2011-07-31T18:23:00.001-05:00

Sisters, an hour or so after birth:

First bath for Lily:

Time to go home from the hospital!

Hair!!

I finally got her cuteness on camera, 2 days old:

My sweetie…

Smith - Party of Five!!

2011-07-29T19:48:00.000-05:00

Lily Amelia Smith was born today at 2:49pm. She was 10 days late so we got induced this morning. A couple of quick facts:

- weight: 10 lb 4 oz
- length: 21 1/2"
- good amount of brown hair
- lots of chunky rolls!

Oh and I'm quite proud because I was able to have her without pain meds! It was wild there at the end but she came out sooo fast- the doctor only had one glove on! Despite some meconium and shoulder distocia she was perfectly fine and healthy!

Avery and Camryn love their little sister and we're excited to be a family of five now! :) pictures and more to come later.

Soccer!

2011-07-17T13:51:00.001-05:00

We signed Avery up for an 8 week outdoor soccer rec program. She’s been enjoying it, although she has a lot to learn. She’s on the gold team… but that doesn’t mean she can’t wear pink shorts!

Camryn has fun at Avery’s practices. She kicks/throws a soccer ball back and forth with a 6 year old boy. Loves it.

Avery had her first mini game this past week. I told her she would get an ice cream cone if she scored a goal. Well, she scored one for the other team, does that count? That was a fun discussion, haha.

The first game was what my father-in-law calls “huddle ball” where there’s all the kids huddling around the ball, or swarming around it like a beehive. Pretty fun to watch!

As for me, yes I’m due to have a baby sometime soon. Like very soon. (Yesterday would have been nice!) But I’m still hanging in there! Hopefully my next post will be some good news about baby #3! Can’t wait to meet her!

Swim Lessons

2011-07-10T17:05:00.001-05:00

Avery just finished a 2 week swim lessons class at Wirth Aquatic Center in Brookfield. She really liked it this year. Made a few improvements over last year, but she still has a ways to go before she can “swim” by herself.

There she is in her pink goggles.

One day they practiced safety procedures and they got to jump in with lifejackets on.

And on the last day they did “fun” stuff like jumping off the diving board into the deep end (they catch the kids). Sometimes I tell Avery that I’m going to call her Bravery. Because she has a hard time being brave sometimes. She would not jump in.

So finally they lowered her off the diving board into the teacher’s arms. Sigh.

Didn’t even get her hair wet. After that ordeal, I thought there was no way she was going to slide down the big waterslide.

But she did it! Good girl.

Camryn and I had fun watching her every day for 2 weeks. Luckily Cam is great at independent play. She would pull a couple pennies out of my purse and play with them for the whole half hour. Cute girl.

Fourth of July!

2011-07-07T14:00:00.000-05:00

We had a nice 4th of July this year! It was a beautiful, hot day. Merrick took the girls to the Wauwatosa Parade in the morning. The girls had fun with their friends Paige and Peyton.

Apparently Camryn was a champion flag waver. And they got a good amount of candy for their candy bags, which was the whole point, right?

Then that afternoon we went over to our friends house for a barbecue. They set up a slip n slide and a kiddie pool and the girls had a lot of fun with their friends.

Then we went to Sussex Village Park to watch the fireworks. Camryn had so much fun running around in the grass barefoot.

My aunt, uncle, and cousins also showed up (they recently moved here) and joined us for the fireworks. The girls love my cousins. They have 2 teenage girls and 4 boys that are a few years older than my girls and they love to play with them. So cute. Here they are cuddling with Jacob during the fireworks:

I think my favorite part of the night was actually right before the fireworks started – someone nearby started setting off chinese lanterns. Like a lot of them. Totally just like the floating lights in the Tangled movie. Very magical. (Kind of dangerous too – floating fire?). I wasn’t able to get a good picture, unfortunately.
But the fireworks were good too and we had a really good time.

Hope you had a nice Fourth too!

At the Lake with Dad

2011-07-06T14:00:00.001-05:00

Merrick got off work at noon on Friday because of the holiday and so we took the girls to Menomonee Park to go swimming in the lake. It was a really hot day but there was plenty of shade and a nice breeze so it was pretty perfect. I wasn’t going to get in at 37 1/2 weeks pregnant but I came along and sat in a nice chair in the shade with my feet propped up.
Oh and I took pictures of my cuties.

Here’s the big sandcastle they built:

And here’s Avery the Mermaid:

Fun times!

5th Birthday

2011-07-05T18:42:00.001-05:00

So Avery said her birthday last Thursday was “the best birthday ever!” Pretty easy to please, I’d say. Especially since she didn’t have a friends party this year.

At school we brought mini cupcakes and her teacher made her a pink crown to wear, which she loved. Then she had swimming lessons and afterwards we went to Chuck E. Cheese to play games for an hour.

By then I was exhausted because it was a really hot and humid day. So we came home and Avery opened up a few more presents and the girls played while I took a break!

When Merrick got home we took her out to dinner at Red Robin. We were both quite surprised when she ordered spaghetti and a side salad for her dinner. I mean, she could have gotten mac and cheese and carrots like Camy did. Or a corn dog and fries. What a cutie.

Then we played at Barnes and Noble for a little while, went home, had some cake and ice cream, and went to bed! I’m glad she had a good day. Camryn was pretty good most of the day but she did have her “moments” – using up Avery’s new Rapunzel stickers, whining about wanting Avery to open more presents right now, fighting over new toys, etc. But for the most part she was a happy helper to her big sister.

5 Years Old? Really?!

2011-06-30T10:11:00.001-05:00

Yep, it’s true! My little Avery girl is 5 years old today! I can’t believe how grown up and beautiful she is! She’s been so excited to be five for so long. This morning she was saying the breakfast prayer and I quietly suggested she say something and she said to me, “I don’t need help with my prayer, Mom- I’m five!”

This is the Rapunzel cake I made last night. Definitely one of my less ambitious attempts, and it was pretty sloppy but I’m 37 weeks pregnant so that’s as good as it’s going to get this year! (If you can’t tell, the yellow frosting is supposed to be Rapunzel’s hair.)

She was so excited to see all her presents on the table this morning! She requested scrambled eggs and waffles with strawberries for breakfast so we had that. She opened a couple presents, including this little outfit below.

She loves skirts so this was a winner for her. She’s got a busy summer schedule so she’s at summer school this morning until 11am and then we have swim lessons. After that we’ll try to run around and do some fun things for her today. And open the rest of the presents of course! (I decided not to do a friend’s party this year to simplify.) I’ll post some more pictures of what we do today later. Happy Birthday Avery girl!

Nesting

2011-05-29T18:03:00.001-05:00

This past week or so I’ve been working on some sewing and crafting projects to decorate the nursery. I made some things when Avery was born but I was definitely sick of them 5 years later! So it has been fun to see my little vision come together. I’m not quite done yet but I wanted to post some pictures of what I’ve done so far. (And by the way, I know I’m totally not a pro when it comes to these things!) Here’s the room view:

And here is the new bedding I made – a crib skirt and a crib sheet.

I used this online tutorial for the crib skirt and this one for the crib sheet. Both were actually quite easy, but I was super nervous to make the crib sheet especially since I’ve never made one before. I just couldn’t find a pre-made sheet that I liked/matched my crib skirt. I used a knit fabric which I don’t work with very often so I was really worried it wasn’t going to turn out, but it worked great! And I’m glad I used knit because it’ll be way softer for the baby than cold cotton material would. Oh and I decided not to make a bumper because they’re not really safe once the babies start rolling. Here’s another picture.

Then I made a matching valence for the window. I know curtains would have been much more hip but oh well. The wood valence thing on the top of the window belongs to the house. I can take it down but haven’t decided if it’s worth the trouble yet.

My biggest project was this butterfly mobile, based off one made by Pottery Barn.

It was quite a project – cutting out 62 butterflies, tying and gluing 16 pieces of clear string onto three embroidery hoops I painted and tied together, and then gluing the 62 butterflies on the strings… I admit, about halfway through I was very worried I was going to have to throw the whole thing away. But it turned out and kind of ties the whole thing together. I used this tutorial to figure it out.

The only other thing I did was set up this little shelf I already had. I used some leftover scraps of fabric to put in the frames on the sides of the mirror and I painted this little word Dream that I found at a craft store.

So I still have a few things to work on. I need to swap out the black chair that’s in there for the glider and ottoman. I’m toying with the idea of making a little decorative throw pillow to put on the glider to tie it in a little. I also would love to make these letters for the wall with the baby’s name on it. But… that would require us to choose a name in time for me to get my modge podge on! We’ll see! And who knows what other ideas I’ll find in all my online browsing!

For now, I’m just glad I’ve been able to do this much because it’s really mentally preparing me for the fact that a baby is actually coming! 7 more weeks until she’s here!!

A Few of my Faves

2011-05-18T16:29:00.001-05:00

I know a lot of people do their favorite things on blogs so I wanted to share with you a few of mine.

First up – Crunchy Nut Cereal. This is a new Kellogg’s cereal that came out a few months ago. I got some coupons for it so we tried it out. Yum! There are two types – one with flakes and one with O’s and I love them both, but the O’s are my favorite. Kind of remind me of the Honey Graham Oh’s cereal (which I also love) but these at least don’t scrape up the roof of your mouth like those do.

Another plus about this cereal is on every box (that I’ve bought so far at least) there is a coupon on the side for $1 off 2 boxes, which is a good coupon (when you match it with a sale and double it).

Another new favorite of mine is the store World Market. Such a fun place to explore! They have all kinds of products from around the world from food to linens to furniture, whatever. And the prices are good too! My first experience going there last year I was so excited to find a 4 pk of ceramic ramekins for $2.99. I just love their kitchen stuff.

The reason it’s on the brain lately is that if you join their rewards program online they will give you a coupon for your birthday that I just got a couple weeks ago. It’s $10 off a purchase of $10 or more. So I went for a little shopping trip on my birthday and for a dollar I got three cute kitchen gadgets I’ve been wanting. Sign up now so you can get the coupon on your birthday too!

Another favorite of mine my sister Britney told me about last year. It’s Yoplait Apple Turnover Yogurt. Merrick actually thinks it sounds disgusting but I think it’s totally delish! Tastes like apple pie in a yogurt. I get it all the time.

Next up is my new Kitchenaid Pro I got for my birthday/Mother’s Day this year. I asked around and most people recommended getting the largest size and I’m glad I did. I’ve used it about 4-5 times and it’s so fun! I can have it kneading my dough while I run outside to make sure my children are still alive! So nice! And I love the red. It’s my favorite color and it’s going to be on my countertop forever so why not go for it!

When we were in Utah last month we had a little time to kill and so we walked around IKEA in Draper. We didn’t have room in our suitcases to bring much back but we did pick up these Popsicle Molds:

We’ve had such a fun time trying out different homemade popsicles. So far we’ve tried two recipes from Our Best Bites’ post on Pudding Pops: Strawberries and Cream and Mint Chocolate Cookies. Both were super easy and so good. Today I made Strawberry Watermelon Ice Pops and I can’t wait to see how yummy they turn out. Let me know if you have any other fun popsicle recipes we can try!

Lastly, I’ll share a pasta recipe I’ve tried a couple times now and really like. It was on an episode of Barefoot Contessa and it’s called Nick and Toni’s Penne Alla Vecchia Bettola. Merrick is totally not a marinara sauce fan so I’m always looking for good sauce recipes. This one is a tomato vodka cream sauce but I just substitute chicken broth instead of vodka. Turns out great.

I love that the sauce is baked in the oven. Makes it so much more flavorful. So I always half the recipe and then bread up some thin chicken breasts by dipping them in egg and bread crumbs then frying them in a little oil. Goes great with the sauce. Enjoy!

Vacation!

2011-05-08T22:31:00.001-05:00

The last week of April we spent in Utah enjoying ourselves with family. The occasion was my brother Jordan’s wedding to Kara Jenkins but we were also able to get there a week early to make it a nice long vacation.

We arrived the day before Easter and spent it with Merrick’s family in Bountiful. It was a beautiful day and the girls had an absolute blast hunting for eggs. They wore their dresses for Jordan’s wedding (but had to promptly take them off so we didn’t ruin them before the big day!).

After they opened all their eggs they hid them again and found them again over and over. Perfect tradition for little kids! We enjoyed a delicious dinner and had a nice holiday.

The next day we took the kids to Discovery Gateway downtown. They LOVED it. (Well, after Camryn got over her grumpiness from having fallen asleep in the car on the way.) What a fun place for kids.

Tuesday we were lucky to be in town for my cousin Jace’s wedding too! So Merrick and I went to the sealing at the new Draper Temple and luncheon in the morning. They were such an adorable couple. I loved their wedding colors too – so fun and whimsical.

Too bad it was freeeezing!! Snowing and bitterly cold wind. Definitely not what you’d expect for a late April day! But that’s Utah for you. That night we went to their reception and enjoying socializing with a lot of my family. They had the cutest treat buffet – cake pops (yum!!), cupcakes, cookies, etc. all in their bright wedding colors. Then they had a soft serve ice cream machine with all the toppings. So fun!

Wednesday Merrick’s mom came with us to the Hogle Zoo. It was a beautiful day (I think every other day was snowy or sunny on this trip – so crazy!). We had fun with the kids checking out all the animals. Here are a few pictures:

After the zoo, we headed up to the house my family rented in Midway. We stayed there at Christmastime too so now all the kids think it’s Grandma and Grandpa’s house, haha. All of my family was able to be there and so we had fun hanging out together, getting to know Ashley’s new husband, and getting ready for all the wedding festivities!

Thursday we went to Kara’s (Jordan’s fiancée's) bridal shower. It was fun to see her again. We met Kara in December when we went out for Ashley’s wedding but they weren’t engaged at the time so this was fun to get to know her a little better. On Friday we were all able to be there for Kara’s endowment in the Bountiful Temple. The kids had been having so much fun with their cousins they fell asleep within minutes of getting in the car.

Aunt Katie was the lucky one they rested their heads on!

Saturday was the big wedding day! It was, of course, cold and there was probably an inch of snow on the ground at the Bountiful Temple. Once again, definitely not what you’d hope for in planning an April 30th wedding! But the sealing was great and they both said yes! Kara is our first sister-in-law to marry into the family so we’re excited to have her! The happy couple:

Here are a few pictures her photographer (Nickell Jensen Blair) posted on Facebook already:

The luncheon was at The Wight House in Bountiful. Such a pretty place. Their colors were navy blue and lime green. We had so much fun visiting with family. They decided to do a big luncheon instead of a reception so it was a nice gathering.

The newlyweds, who were just glowing with happiness:

My older sister Britney and her husband Jeremy:

The ever-photogenic Avery:

The bouquet toss (we told our youngest sister Katie that she should not catch the bouquet! Not ready for another wedding, haha!):

That’s about all I got from the luncheon. I’ll post more when we get back the professional photos from the photographer. (Notice there isn’t any pictures of me in here! Let’s just say I wasn’t too keen on being photographed at 6 months pregnant!)

The afternoon turned out to be a beautiful sunny day. We drove back up to Midway for the night (but not without stopping for custard at Nielsen’s- sooo good!). We had a joint birthday party for my parents that night and I made this cake from ourbestbites.com. Yum!

The next morning we got to watch Jordan and Kara open all their wedding gifts, and then we said goodbye to my parents. I went back to Merrick’s parents house in Bountiful for a couple days with the girls, while Merrick flew back to Wisconsin without us so he could be back for work on Monday.

We had a nice time just relaxing and recovering from the busy week! It was good trip flying home by myself with the girls. They got a little stir crazy but no major mishaps, so that was good.

And now we’re back to real life. Picking all the hundreds of dandelions there are in our yard, waiting for all the trees to bloom, and watching the gas station across the street in unbelief at these crazy gas prices! ($4.09 today but $4.15 yesterday… um… seriously?!)

Pictures on a Sunday Afternoon

2011-04-17T16:14:00.001-05:00

It's been a while since I've taken the girls outside to take some new pictures. I guess my yard has been pretty brown for a while and now it's finally starting to turn green. Hooray for spring! Well here are the best shots I got of each of them.

Third Birthday!

2011-03-31T10:38:00.001-05:00

I wanted to add a quick recap of Camryn’s birthday. She had so much fun opening presents. She got some cute stuff from her grandparents (thank you!) and every time she saw what was under the wrapping paper she did this funny surprised sound. It was so cute!

I decided not to do a party this year so instead we did a family outing to the StoneFire Pizza Company in New Berlin. It has a pizza buffet and the Discovery Room has all these fun things for kids to do. Train tables, water tables, face painting, a pretend pizza shop you can play in, etc. Camryn’s favorite was the water table. And she looked adorable in those little aprons they had.They also had a big area kind of like Chuck E Cheese – games where you can earn tickets. It was a little crazy loud in there but we had fun playing some games. They also had mini bumper bowling, bumper cars, a big climbing structure, and this one ride called the Frog Hopper.

The Frog Hopper was the highlight of the day for me. It shoots up in the air about 20 feet and then bounces up and down for a minute or so. Avery was much too scared to try it out. But my big girl Camryn REALLY wanted to try it out. You had to be 36 inches tall and we thought she was going to be too short and too scared so we told her that she probably couldn’t do it. She started to cry! So we said, okay let’s see if you’re tall enough. Surprisingly she was just tall enough (she measured 37” tall at her doctor appt last week) so they said she could go. I lifted her up into the seat and Merrick, Avery, and I watched nervously to see how she would do.

She was by far the smallest one. The other kids were probably 5-7 years old. She wasn’t nervous! And when they went up she was laughing and smiling! I about died. So cute! And I think that was the moment when I really realized that my little girl is three years old! She’s growing up! She’s brave and smart and adorable and I was a proud mom. :)

Look, you can’t even see her head she’s so little!!

She had such a contented face when she got off. That’s my girl!

Anyways, the nice thing about a buffet place is that we ate when we got there, we played for a couple hours, and then we came back and the girls ate more mac n cheese, pizza, breadsticks, and stuff before we left! Perfect!

It was a nice birthday. She had a lot of fun. Thanks to our families for all the cards, gifts, and phone calls!

Happy Birthday Camryn Olivia!

2011-03-19T11:32:00.001-05:00

My litle baby girl:

…is three years old! (Yes, it’s only 11am and we’ve already had cake.) Cam is such a beautiful birthday girl and is enjoying her birthday so far. We’ve been trying to open the presents slowly so we’re only a few presents in but she’s had such a fun day already.

My girls are really into the brand new Nick Jr. TV show Bubble Guppies and Camryn’s favorite character is Nonny so I told her I would make her a Nonny cake for her birthday. This is what he looks like on the show:

And this is how her cake turned out:

Not perfect but close enough for me! I printed off a picture (that was flipped backwards), taped wax paper on top, and decorated right on the wax paper nice and thick. Then I froze it and flipped it over onto the cake, then touched it up. Worked pretty good, although next year I’ll probably be ready to brave fondant, which would have made it much more professional looking.

It’s going to be a day full of fun with lots of new toys to play with! Here she is showing off a new necklace, new Rapunzel shoes, and some new clothes!

Potty Training

2011-03-14T12:41:00.001-05:00

Camryn is going to be three this week so we’ve been trying to finalize this potty training business. The potty train got derailed in February when she was sick for 2+ weeks straight. She got pretty clingy and became extremely disagreeable when I brought up the idea of going potty. This past week we had a breakthrough though – Toy Story stickers.

This is one of the charts we have been working on. I got those Toy Story stickers on Friday so you can see she’s been doing great since we got those. I just get her excited about which character she’s going to put on her chart next and it takes all the apprehension about the potty away. She gets a new tub of pink playdoh when she finishes.

Still working on the #2’s (she has to do 4 and then she’ll get a Toy Story coloring book). But we’ll get there. I’m just thrilled that she’s gone 3 days now without wetting her pants.

And she’s pretty happy about it too, I think. Hooray for some success!

(Oh and don’t you think her haircut is cute? I took her to Kid ‘dos a week or two ago and got a couple inches off. Her bangs are finally grown out evenly too, which is a relief.)

Baby #3 is a....

2011-02-28T15:05:00.000-06:00

GIRL! Three for three! We had our ultrasound this afternoon and brought the girls with us. Avery said she would be happy if it was a boy or a girl, which is good because she's been begging for a little brother for a long time! But she's happy it's a girl. She keeps saying, "Now we're going to have 4 girls in the family!" Dad will be outnumbered again!

We're excited. It's nice that we already have everything we need and we already know what girls are like!

As far as the pregnancy goes, I'm 20 weeks now and doing well. Starting to get a nice baby bump and generally feeling a lot more achy than I remember happening with the previous two pregnancies. I haven't been sick though and not too tired at this point. Just dealing with a stuffy nose and reflux like normal. I've been able to feel the baby kicking for a few weeks and Merrick has felt her once but the girls haven't been patient enough to feel the kicking yet but I'm sure in the next few days they'll be able to feel her.

Well we can't wait to meet her! I guess I will be changing my blog title to "Smith - Party of Five" soon!

My Camryn

2011-01-26T12:36:00.001-06:00

I can’t believe my little baby is going to be 3 years old in March! She is such a joy to have around. She has always been much more cuddly than Avery and she always has the sweetest looks on her face so I’m always kissing her cute cheeks!!

Camryn has begun potty training!! And it’s going a little slower than with Avery I think. She can go #1 no problem anytime I tell her to but if I don’t remind her she’ll happily walk around with wet underwear. #2 she is resisting entirely. So we’ll see where we get with that in the next few weeks to come.

I think we are finally starting the “Princess stage” with Camryn:

She’s been surrounded with princess toys since her birth but she’s just starting to prefer princess movies over her traditional favorite (Toy Story). Her favorites right now are Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid.

Camryn is a big talker. She started talking early and can have good conversations with Avery. Some of her favorite things to play are tea parties and taking care of her babies. I guess the Christmas stories really sunk in for the girls because one day I even found them with baby dolls in their shirts. Camryn was “Elizabeth” and her baby was “John the Baptist” and Avery was “Mary” and her baby was “Jesus”. To be honest, I wasn’t entirely sure if I should stop them or encourage them! Silly girls.

Whenever I have anyone watch Camryn they always tell me how amazed they are at how well she plays on her own. She loves to get a bunch of little people or her family from her dollhouse and just sit with them and play out scenes with them by herself. She does all the voices and scenarios, it’s really cute. And it’s been so nice to have her entertain herself especially in the mornings when Avery is at school I can get things done.

Back in November I think Avery cut some bangs for Camryn. (I don’t think I blogged about that, but it was no fun let me tell you!) Anyways I had a friend fix them, then I tried to touch them up a little, and then in December I finally took her to a kids haircutting place and they botched them even more. So her bangs haven’t looked too great for a while but I’m hoping in another few weeks we’ll be able to get them straightened out a little!

Well I love my girls! I just had to do some quick posts about them so I could look back and remember how sweet and fun they were at these ages. Especially since Baby #3 is on the way and due in July!! They’re so excited for Mommy to have a baby and Camryn to finally be a big sister!

My Avery

2011-01-26T11:29:00.001-06:00

Avery is 4 1/2 now! She’s growing up so much. We love having her around and she is such a good big sister (most of the time!). She loves to role play with Camryn. They play “Dora and Boots” or “Rapunzel and Flynn” or “Aurora and Philip” or even “Emily and Stephen” (their cousins). Guess who is always the boy character? Yep, Cam. (Same thing happened to me all the time with my big sister. I remember playing “Minnie and Mickey” and I always had to be Mickey haha). They will really get into their characters and if I call them their real names they correct me. My bad! :)

Avery also loves to tell Camryn what to say and she’ll say it. Which is cute sometimes. At other times she encourages Camy’s whining so I don’t appreciate that!!

Avery’s been going to 4 year old Kindergarten. Every day she has to bundle up like this:

Hat, gloves, snow pants, boots, scarf, coat. It’s quite the ordeal getting her bundled up every morning in time to get to school. She knows how to put it all on by herself she just doesn’t do it very quickly. :) It’s nice though because her teacher takes their class outside right when they get to school almost every day and they play in the snow. Some days they even go sledding down the hill in back of the school. It’s really cute.

We’ve been trying to keep busy even though we’re stuck indoors all the time now. One fun thing we did recently was a trip to “Pump It Up.” Avery loves these big blow up structures and their big slides. We have quite a few of these type places around (Flabbergast, Monkey Joes, etc.) and they make for good diversions in the winter.

Avery has always been a smart girl and lately she’s been enjoying learning to read some Easy Reader books. She can figure out a lot more words than I thought she would be able to at this age. We still haven’t worked out sounding out words much, just mostly visual recognition but she’s doing well that way so far.

Writing has also been fun for us to teach Avery. She is always asking us how to spell things. Or she’ll get a book and a piece of paper and pen and copy down all the words that are written on the cover. This past weekend we worked on her Valentine’s for her school class (already! I know!). Her teacher had a page with everyone’s name and picture on it from the class. She cut them all out herself, glued them to envelopes, and then wrote “To” and “From: Avery” on all the Valentines. Then we went and bought some candies and she stuffed all the envelopes herself and licked them closed. It was a great project for her and she LOVED it. I told her she could take her time but she kept going. At one point she said she got tired so she was going to go take a nap in her bed. I said that was fine. She went upstairs for 30 seconds and came back down and said she was rested and ready to get back to work! Funny girl.

Avery loves playing “Go Fish” and “War” card games with her Dad. And he has also recently gotten her hooked on some fun games on his iPhone. Mainly this one where she has little kitty cats she adopts and dresses and takes care of. So funny.

Well we just love having Avery in our family. She is such a sweet girl and is always willing to help out (if there is a bribe involved, haha.).

A Few Pictures

2011-01-13T13:34:00.001-06:00

Our fabulous friend and Ashley’s wedding photographer Dani Christensen posted some pics on her blog. I highly recommend her if you’re doing a wedding in Utah. Here is our family:

This is all of the Haws family (my side):

And here are a few of the happy couple:

Love the pics! Can’t wait to see more!

Christmas in Utah

2011-01-06T11:03:00.002-06:00

We left on Friday, December 17th at 3:45pm. Our minivan was packed full and we started the long drive to Utah! Yes, we were a little crazy to drive in the wintertime, but luckily everything turned out well for us. Equipped with 21 hrs of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on CD the time went by quicker than expected. Merrick was a trooper and kept driving until midnight and we made it to Lincoln, Nebraska that night. The hotel stay was not so pleasant because Avery was sick and she woke up crying at 4:30am and was able to go back to sleep but Camryn was wide awake at that point. We checked out of there by 6:30 and were back on the road. 13 hours later we rolled into Merrick’s parents house in Bountiful, Utah. The weather cooperated beautifully and there were only a few spots along the way that had some snow flurries but even then we still were able to cruise along quite well.
Sunday we went to church with the Smith’s and got to enjoy a beautiful Christmas talk by President Henry B. Eyring. Then we drove over to my Grandma Haws’ house to say hi to my whole family who had arrived as well. There we met my sister Ashley’s fiance Andrew Wells! Seemed like a good guy! Then we went back to Merrick’s house for dinner.
The next day was the Bridal Shower for Ashley at my Grandma Haws house. This is a picture of my younger sister Katie and me at the shower! My sisters Britney and Katie and I got there early to make food and set up with my Grandma. There was a great spread of food! And we had a good turnout with fun times. We played a few games and enjoyed great company but whew! I was sure glad to have that done so I could enjoy myself the rest of the trip! :) That night we enjoyed a wonderful dinner out with my whole immediate family at Macaroni Grill. Yum!
Tuesday was a nice day spent with Merrick’s family. We went with his parents and his sister and brother-in-law to go do family name sealings at the Bountiful Temple. Then we did a family picture and went out for Chinese food at Joy Luck. The kids had a great time playing with Taryn’s dog Calle. Camryn led her around the house on a leash and they were pretty cute.
Wednesday was the big day! Ashley’s wedding! Merrick and I went to the Salt Lake Temple and enjoyed seeing all of my extended family. The sealing went beautifully and Ashley looked amazing.
You’d think a December wedding would be snowy but it was actually a 40 degree rainy day! Luckily the rain held off for most of the outdoor pictures they took. Thanks to Andrew’s sister’s Facebook for these pictures!! :) This is all my family that was at the temple (below) and pretty much the only picture I have of me so far.

We had a wonderful luncheon at the Grand America Hotel and here’s the happy couple enjoying a little rest and meal before the festivities continued:

That night the reception was in Provo at the White Willow. It was a beautiful place! Here are a few more pics I found:

You can kind of see how beautiful the room was in this picture above. This is when she was throwing the bouquet. All 8 bridesmaids wore the red dresses. It was a beautiful night!
Thursday we drove to Midway where my parents had rented a condo for us all to stay in for a few days. My mom and older sister Britney and I all had sore feet from the previous day so we went to Heber for some pedicures! Such a great idea! It felt great! We had a nice rest of the day playing with video games and cousins and relaxing.
Friday was Christmas Eve and we spent the morning in Midway and then drove back up to Bountiful for the night. We had a nice dinner made by Merrick’s siblings and we all dressed up as characters from the nativity. Avery was Mary, as usual, and Camryn was a shepherd girl. She loved her costume up until the program started and then she ripped it off real quick. Oh well. :) Merrick was a wise man and I was an angel. It was fun and the kids enjoyed it.
Christmas Day was a whirlwind of presents with Merrick’s family in the morning and presents with my family in the afternoon and lots of yummy food and great company. Thanks so much to our families for all the fun and your generosity! We had such a great trip.
We left the next morning and drove all the way to Council Bluffs, Iowa and enjoyed a relaxing evening in a hotel there. The kids slept great and at 8:30am I finally woke everyone up so we could get out of there! It took us 7 hours to get home and the house was freezing and the car was a disaster! But it was nice to be able to stretch out and relax!! And the girls were most excited to finally unpack all their toys and play play play! They’ve been playing ever since!!
I hope your Christmas was nice too. We had such a great time and wish we could have stayed longer! I’ll try to upload more pictures as I get them in. Happy New Year everyone!

Busy Times!

2010-12-14T16:39:00.001-06:00

I have been a slacker blogger lately! But I have been so busy that I haven’t had the time to blog. Plus the screen on my camera cracked at Halloween so I haven’t been up for much picture taking. But anyways, what have I been busy with?

My kids, first of all. I did a bunch of projects for Avery’s school fundraiser at the beginning of November and then last week I volunteered in her class a couple of times. It was pretty fun actually because there was snow outside and the kids got to go sledding both days. So cool.

The girls also recently moved their beds in the same room. It’s kind of funny looking because there’s a full sized bed for Avery and a short toddler bed for Camryn. But it works for now. There were a few misfires at first but I think we’ve finally gotten into a groove where they both enjoy the situation. The reason we combined them is because they were both getting pretty needy at bedtime and we figured rather than them calling for us they could keep each other company. And it works!

The big thing keeping me busy is our upcoming trip to Utah. My sister Ashley is getting married so I’ve been working on her reception DVD and putting together a bridal shower. Plus all the regular wedding preparations - making sure everyone has the right shoes and haircuts and all that. Aren’t they a cute couple?

Of course we’ll also be gone over Christmas too so I’ve got to get all my shopping/wrapping done before we leave. Busy busy!

Halloween 2010

2010-11-02T14:59:00.001-05:00

We had a great Halloween this year. We carved pumpkins as a family:

Then we drove to my sister’s house in Iowa for the weekend. Avery and Camryn had a BLAST with their cousins Stephen, Emily, and baby Samuel. My parents even drove up from Houston to join in the fun! We went to Howell’s to look at pumpkins,

go on pony rides (well, Camryn was brave enough – Avery… not so much),

and feed the goats/get really distracted by all the rocks on the gravel road.

Then Aunt Britney put on a Halloween party for the kids.

Of course what is Halloween without the much anticipated trick-or-treating. Camryn was Jessie. Isn’t she so cute? The yarn braid turned out pretty good, but not perfect. Oh well, she didn’t even want to wear her hat once we got outside anyway. (“What’s a cow[girl] without [her] hat?!”)

Avery was a beautiful Snow White. Thanks to Grandma Smith for getting her this cute costume! She had so much fun trick-or-treating. Everyone else was done but Avery and Merrick both wanted more-more-more! So they kept going a little longer than the rest. :)

It was a fun, quick trip! It was nice to spend some time with my parents and my sister and her family. Oh so much better than Halloween night last year when we all were sick at home with the swine flu. :) Hope you had a good Halloween too!

Yum.

2010-10-23T14:56:00.001-05:00

I haven’t blogged about food in a while, so I thought I’d let you in on some good recipes I’ve tried and loved lately. What are we eating at the Smith house?

Well, I’m still making pizza pretty much every Friday. This pizza sauce recipe from Our Best Bites is oh so good, super quick, and I use it every time I do a red sauce pizza.

This Sweet and Sour Chicken recipe from My Kitchen Cafe is making frequent appearances at our house too. It.is.awesome. Try it, you can’t not like it.

Merrick got me a panini maker for my birthday. I’ve been making those a lot. Our favorite kind (not pictured below) is turkey, provolone, pesto, and tomato. So, so good. Anyone else have a good panini recipe to share? We’re always looking for more ideas.

These Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins are totally easy and so yummy. (Can you tell I like ourbestbites.com?)

Merrick occasionally watches Tommy Tang’s Easy Thai Cooking and he decided to try to make a curry recipe one time. I couldn’t find the recipe online but this is pretty much what we use for a Chicken or Pork Curry with Rice. We don’t use the chicken stock and Merrick chops up fresh ginger and a jalepeno pepper. It’s really yummy so we’ve made it 4-5 times. The best part? Merrick doing the cooking!

These Chicken Fajitas are the best I’ve ever had. Mmm… I’m getting hungry!

Ooh and another one from Mel’s Kitchen Cafe I recently tried with success: Pork Chops with Caramelized Apples and Onions. Very tasty and even though we don’t eat a ton of pork chops, these will be repeated.

And if you need a nice fall soup recipe, this is your ticket: Tortellini Sausage Soup. Made this for my MIL and it was a big hit. Makes your house smell divine and tastes just as good.

To finish with a dessert, try this Scrumptious Apple Pie by The Pioneer Woman. Oh wow this was delish! I made this for a party and it was very well received! Merrick, who doesn’t appreciate apple pie like I do, was hooked on this stuff. It’s like part apple crisp, part pie, plus the caramel and pecans on top… sigh.

Did I make you hungry? I hope so. As you can tell, I get most of my recipes these days from food blogs. It’s fun to try new things and I love how you get so much more info and pictures that you do from cookbooks.

So, what recipes are you loving at your house?

I Can’t Resist…

2010-10-20T18:25:00.001-05:00

… I have to show you what I’ve been working on, even though it’s not quite finished yet. I’m just a teensy bit proud of it. :) Here it is, Camryn’s Halloween costume – Jessie the Yodeling Cowgirl (from Toy Story 2 and 3).

I used some old jeans, sewed on some cow print chaps, and added a strip of brown felt for the belt. (I’m still working on the belt buckle). Then I got a white long sleeve shirt and sewed on some yellow fabric and buttons then hot glued on some of this red rope.

I also have a red hat I found at the dollar store and I sewed some white yarn around the edges. I’m hot gluing red yarn in it for the hair, with a long red yarn braid coming off the back. It’s going to be fabulous.

And Jessie’s biggest fan is lovin’ it.

PS – Any cheap ideas for the white circle for the pull string on the back?

Picking Pumpkins

2010-10-19T17:01:00.001-05:00

Today we decided to go pick out a few pumpkins. The girls had fun riding in the wagon and seeing all the different shapes and sizes.

They had all these cute places to take pictures, so we took advantage (especially since I’ve been slacking on my blog updates lately!).

Camryn wasn’t to happy with this one. Maybe it was those gnarly fingers poking out of the log to her right.

But one she saw the Pooh she was a happy camper again. :)

Beautiful fall days are nice, aren’t they?

Discovery World and The Beach

2010-09-22T17:30:00.001-05:00

Merrick’s mom was here last week and we did some fun stuff with her. One afternoon we went downtown and checked out Discovery World. It was our first time there and we had fun exploring.

We especially liked the Aquarium area, where you could walk on fish tanks or have the fish swimming above your head, etc. It was really cool.

Then we stopped over at Sil’s Drive-Thru for some hot fresh mini donuts. Totally yummy. After which we headed down to the cold lakefront to dip our toes in the water, get totally sandy building a sandcastle, and chase some seagulls.

Boy was it chilly. Well we had some fun with Grandma Smith and then I didn’t take any pictures of the rest of her stay. (On Friday we drove up to the Dells, stayed at Wilderness and enjoyed all the indoor waterparks there.)

Avery's First Day of School

2010-09-07T14:19:00.005-05:00

Avery had her first day of 4K today. 4K is our 4-year old Kindergarten. She gets to ride the bus which will be super convenient and especially nice in the winter. Here are some pics we took of her with the rest of us before the bus came.

I love these two cuties. They were especially photogenic this morning, which I appreciated. :)

And here she is, getting on the big yellow bus and me, probably fixing my hair nervously. She just walked right on, sat in the front and waved out the window as they took my baby away!

I actually tried stalking the bus. But I lost track of where it went so I ended up sitting in the parking lots waitin for a long time and then was too chicken to get out of the car to watch her walk inside (I didn't want her to see me!) so it was kind of pointless. But at least it gave me some peace of mind. I didn't cry - didn't think I was going to but I was very nervous/anxious for her to come home.

She had a great day. She was excited to see me when she got off the bus 3 1/2 hours later but once we got inside she told me she had a good time and told me all about everything they did. Camryn was especially excited to see her sister, which was nice. It was a good day. Tomorrow we get to do it all over again!

Avery's Room

2010-09-06T14:36:00.003-05:00

We recently acquired a full size bed for Avery's room so we got her some new bedding.

I repainted the "Avery" letters to match (they were lavender before) and the big masterpiece is this:

I painted it! I was pretty proud of my hard work, although it's far from perfect. I traced a picture I liked off the computer onto parchment paper, then rubbed it onto the canvas, then painted it. It turned out pretty good and Avery appreciated it. Mostly, it was just a fun thing for me to do and didn't require too much artistic imagination or anything. :)

Day Trip to Madison

2010-09-02T08:00:00.000-05:00

On Saturday we took a day trip to our state's capitol, Madison, Wisconsin. It was only about an hour and 20 minute drive so not bad. We can't believe we haven't been there yet! It was so fun and very beautiful, situated right between two lakes, with so much great architecture and little specialty shops and restaurants to see. So first we went to "The square" around the Capitol for the Dane County Farmers Market. It's the largest producer-only farmers market in the nation and it wraps all the way around the Capitol building grounds. We got some yummy stuff and enjoyed running around on the lawn.
This is what I get for having Avery be my photographer:

Then we headed over to the Henry Vilas Zoo, Madison's free zoo about ten minutes away. It was pretty small but had some fun animals to look at and it being free, we didn't feel like we had to stay all day.

Of course the girls talked us into a Carousel ride.

By then we were wiped out from being in the sun all day so we headed back home. It was a fun little trip that we'll definitely be doing again someday.

The Park!

2010-08-31T09:44:00.002-05:00

As you may recall, Avery got a 12" Princess bike for her birthday a couple months ago. Lately she has been riding it a lot. But mostly around in the driveway behind our house. So last week I decided to take her to Oakwood Park where there's a nice bike path around a large pond.

She did great, although going down any kind of slope was hard for her since she was still learning how to brake. Since then she's become a pro at braking, which gives her more courage to go much faster. I pushed Camryn (and her baby doll Charly) in the stroller.
We finished up at the dock and fed the ducks some leftover hot dog buns. The girls love doing this and this pond has tons of ducks so it's really fun.

Then we went over to the playground to have a picnic lunch. There was a really annoying bee, however, that wouldn't leave us alone once we pulled out the strawberry applesauce so we were out of there before I could snap a pic or two.

Summertime Fun

2010-08-18T11:46:00.003-05:00

I haven't blogged in a while, I know! So I thought I'd give an update on what we've been up to in the last little while...

The Wisconsin State Fair is a huge deal around here so we finally decided to check it out. I went by myself with the girls so we didn't get as much deep-fried yumminess on a stick as I would have if Merrick had come (although we did get a corn dog, seen below) but we did have a great time seeing all the sights. The kids loved all the animals, even though our favorite baby doll (Baby Samuel, named after their newest cousin) disappeared in the horse stables. "It's okay, Mom," Avery said. "We can get another one at Walmart." Oh dear.

In other news, we finally got a minivan. I know, we're that kind of family now. Just need 3 more kids and a trampoline now right? It's a Toyota Sienna and we l.o.v.e. it. The kids love the DVD player. Merrick loves the power sliding door. And I love finally having my own car again.

Two thumbs up from Avery!

Last week was SO humid and hot that we absolutely could not stand being outside for more than 10 minutes. So we decided to take a trip downtown to the Betty Brinn Children's Museum for the day. The girls had so much fun. My camera died about 3 pictures in so here's all I got, a shot of Avery doing her favorite thing - crafting and coloring:

And besides that, we did a 2 week session of swimming lessons for Avery at Wirth Park in Brookfield, which was fun but she definitely needs a lot more practice. We also celebrated our 6th Anniversary last Saturday. We went out without the kids to dinner on Friday night and on Saturday we drove down to Chicago with the kids where Merrick went to a sealing of some of our friends and then we went out to lunch at Red Robin and had our first ever experience at IKEA. Man, was that place awesome and overwhelming at the same time. We'll definitely be more prepared next time, though. Merrick also finished up his summer softball league, their team finishing first. And we got a new full-size bed for Avery. The bedding is coming in the mail tomorrow so I'll try to post some pictures of her room when we're done decorating.

It's been a fun summer. Things to look forward to: Avery starting 4K the first week of September (mornings, every day), Merrick's first ever business trip to market in NYC mid-September, and both of our moms are coming for visits in Sept/Oct. Lots of fun still in store before winter hits. :)

Flash Flood

2010-07-23T09:53:00.002-05:00

I thought we had a lot of water last week!
Whew, it was raining most of the morning yesterday but then at about 4 or 5 it started pouring. So much rain so fast. By the time Merrick got home at 6:15 the backyard was a lake. This is how it looked this morning, about a foot deeper than last week and a much larger area.

In the back corner of this picture below you can kind of see that the creek that runs by our house is so full that it's overflowing into our backyard, where it's normally at least a few feet lower than that.

What a crazy storm. Freeways were closed down, Merrick said the roads were covered and on each side of the road were rivers flowing. Our unfinished basement had some water down there but nothing got damaged. It was mostly just leaking down and soaking some of the rugs that were on the floor. I can imagine some people got it much worse.

So... anyone want to go canoeing or rafting in our backyard today? :)

Strawberry Festival

2010-07-16T19:19:00.000-05:00

In June we went to the Cedarburg Strawberry Festival. It was a hot and humid day but we had a great time with the kids. Our favorite area of course was the kid zone. We got their faces painted and colored on the mural...

Merrick made wands for the girls...

They got to try on some beautiful dancing costumes... (believe it or not, this is the best picture we got - silly Avery).

The kids got to play on this bouncy house slide for 5 minutes... (Can you believe it cost $6 for two kids to play for 5 minutes? What a waste. Oh and the guy who was timing our turn shortchanged us and said our turn was up after 3 1/2 minutes. Oh well.)

We bought some food to feed the goats at the petting zoo. Camryn was giggling as the goats licked her fingers!

And we also built a periscope with a free Home Depot kids workshop kit. After that we were hot and tired so we took a 10 minute hay ride to rest our feet.

And that's all the pics I have but we also ate strawberry shortcake, bought fresh strawberries, kettle corn, and a lot of other junk food. Avery got to see Hello Kitty and got a balloon. It was very family friendly and we love going to this festival every year (despite the crowds and the heat).

No Swings Today...

2010-07-15T12:55:00.004-05:00

Last night there was a big storm that came through. There was a Tornado watch, flash flood warnings, etc. It looks like we got about 4-5 inches of rain in that one night! Check out what it did to our (and our neighbor's) backyard:
I guess we won't be playing on the neighbor's swingset today. The girls, of course, were excited to see the new lake in the backyard.This is why we have such a huge backyard - it's a floodplain. I guess one time a few years ago (before we moved here), the flooding was so bad that the water got halfway up that yellow slide! Crazy.

All this standing water can not be good for our mosquito problem. Great.

Swimmin'

2010-07-14T18:59:00.004-05:00

Last week I took the girls to Menomonee Park to go swimming in the Quarry Lake. It was a perfect day, the water was warm, and we had fun splashing around.

Camryn was a little shy getting her feet wet at first so she played in the sand on the beach while Avery showed off her skills.

But eventually Camryn got in and had an absolute blast. I didn't take any pictures after that because she was dangerous! She was walking around in water up to her shoulders and if she tripped at all she went under! So I had to stay within arms reach once she got in.

It was a beautiful place, kind of crowded but not terribly so. There was plenty of shade, a playground right on the sand, and it was free (I had a coupon for the entrance fee). I think we'll go back there several more times this summer, especially since it's less than 10 minutes from home!

Sussex Lions Daze Parade

2010-07-14T18:38:00.002-05:00

Last Saturday we went to the Sussex Lions Daze Parade. It was about 2 blocks from our house, so we walked up.
It was mostly advertising and election campaigning but the girls got a TON of candy. I brought a little 4" bucket and Merrick thought they'd only get like 2 pieces each. They filled that bucket probably 4 times over! I think it was mostly because we were at the beginning of the parade route. Too bad it was mostly Tootsie Rolls and bubble gum.

I had to take a pic of these "Dancing Grannies", I think they were called. Pretty silly.

We had fun, we got free otter pops to keep us cool. It was a nice family activity.

Arrrrrrr!!!

2010-07-09T10:25:00.002-05:00

Fourth of July

2010-07-06T09:54:00.003-05:00

We had a great 4th of July weekend with great weather! Merrick had half of Friday and all Monday off so we had lots of fun on the long weekend. Avery got a big girl Princess bike and helmet for her birthday and she is quickly becoming a pro bike-rider!
On Friday we went to see Toy Story 3 as a family and we loved it. We're big Toy Story fans in our house and so the kids were both pretty great during the movie. There were a couple times when I thought Camryn had fallen asleep because she was so still and riveted on my lap during some parts! On Saturday we test drove some minivans in the morning and then while Camryn napped in the afternoon, Merrick and Avery got out the slip n slide and had a blast!

It so was funny to watch them together! On Saturday night we went to the fireworks in Menomonee Falls. We didn't really know where the fireworks were going to be coming from exactly, so we just picked an empty spot and waited for them to start. When it got dark, the first firework went off and we were right in front of them, which was great! We got some cool pics.

The kids loved them, especially the Grand Finale of course. Here's a cool picture of Camy watching them.

On Sunday we went to a friends house for a BBQ and on Monday we just stayed home and played. It was a nice long weekend!

Happy Birthday Avery!

2010-06-30T16:27:00.004-05:00

My little girl turned 4 years old today! She's been talking about her birthday party since, well, last year. And the plan for a while has been to have an "Ariel swimming party." We had a great time. We had 11 kids and 5 moms come over for a backyard pool/splash party.

This is the pull-apart cupcake cake I made. I used Wilton's blue and green color mist to make the airbrushed look on the cupcakes. I also made some of the sea shapes out of starbursts.

We had four pools set up in the backyard. Thanks to Heidi and Jen for letting me borrow theirs! We also had a double slip n slide, squirt guns, tons of bubbles, etc.

I also made an Ariel pinata with a balloon and some homemade paper mache. It turned out great. All the kids got to hit it twice before it finally broke.

Then we had some cupcakes, opened presents, and played with the stuff in the goody bags.

Oh and this below is my masterpiece:

I painted this Ariel face cutout and took pictures of most of the kids so they could be Ariel. I thought it turned out great. (I didn't freehand it by the way, just traced it and then painted.) The party was a success and Avery is having a great birthday so far!

Preschool Graduation

2010-06-24T15:50:00.000-05:00

I forgot to bring my camera to Avery's preschool graduation a few weeks ago, but here's a picture of her in the graduation caps we made:

Of course Camy wanted to try the cap on too!
We had a great time doing preschool this year with Evie, Aden, and Tyler. We took turns teaching once a week so we each taught every 5 weeks, and on the 5th week we would do a field trip. We taught a theme, shape, color, number, and letter each week and did a lot of crafts and fun things. It was great for Avery to get used to a learning environment and social interaction.

First Day!

2010-06-21T15:32:00.004-05:00

Avery and Merrick both had some "first days" today. They look a little nervous don't they?

Today was Avery's first day of her Summer Program "Get set for 4K" at her school she's going to start in the fall. She goes every day from 8:30-11:30am for the next four weeks. She was a little nervous at first but once she got her nametag on she gave me a kiss and said "See ya Mom!" and her teachers said she did really well. She looks so grown up!
Camryn and I had a nice three hour break at home together. I did my cleaning, she enjoyed playing with her toys without having to share them, and the time went by quickly.

And also today was Merrick's first day as an Assistant Buyer at Kohl's. Yay for a promotion! He's working in the Table Linens office, over the Decorative Pillows department. He'll also be doing the Window Treatments since Kohl's is going to start carrying those in stores soon. Quite a difference from Men's Dress and Casual shoes, but he's excited and I'm sure he'll be great. Here he is confidently walking into work this morning!