“A Very” Good Writer!

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!

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

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

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!

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

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!

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…

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!

More on my beliefs here.