My Little Crafter

Nicole started this all on her own and has been busy for hours now. I haven't helped her at all. She says she is making crowns for her friends to wear at her birthday party. It's hard to explain to her that her birthday is over a month away. She has been a busy, happy girl today!

How many stuffed animals/dolls can you get around a table?

At least 19! I came home one day and found the girls doing a tea party for their dolls and stuffed animals. The picture doesn't really do it justice. There are even some on the bottom bunk of the doll bunk bed that you can't see. They play so creatively together. Sometimes for the whole day, it is quite amazing.

Nicole Turned 4!

Nicole turned 4 in January. She had been begging for a Tangled party ever since we went to see the movie, so we decorated the ceiling with lanterns. The kids had fun making them.

 We celebrated with her grandparents on her birthday

She loves her new bike!

Her friends came for a party a few days later. They played Pin the hair on the tower.

 And musical chairs

And cupcakes with Rapunzel rings on them.

She has really grown up over the last few months. She has become more helpful and more independent. She is really interested in writing her letters and often asks me how to spell things. She loves legos, puzzles, and princesses. She is a very passionate kid with a lot of energy and as some would say, "a good set of lungs," but we love her for that. I love that she likes to make us laugh and enjoys being the center of attention and putting on a show, especially if it involves singing. She came home from Primary on Sunday and said she wanted a picture of the temple on her wall because her primary teacher said she should. She was very specific about where it should go in her room. She is such a joy to have in our home.

Preschool Co-op

Nicole has been doing a co-op preschool with 5 other friends. It was my turn to host for the first 2 weeks in December. It was so fun to see them interact with each other and Nicole absolutely loved having it at our house. They are all great kids and played so well together.

The theme this month was winter, so we did lots of fun winter themed crafts and activities.

Here they are trying on hats, scarves, and gloves.

We made santa pizzas for snack one day. The ham was supposed to be the hat and they used mini pepperoni and olives to make the face.

We had a special Christmas snack: graham crackers with icing and m and ms to put on top.

We're looking forward to our turn next time, but in the meantime I'm looking forward to my quiet afternoons again!

Children's Museum

We got a children's museum membership last January and I haven't used it very much, so we're trying to go more before it expires. Ashley hadn't been in a few months when she was more of a baby and as we entered the play area, she let out a squeal of delight. It was the cutest thing ever. I was surprised how much Ashley was into the shopping. Even though she wasn't walking yet, she would walk along everything and do what all the other kids were doing. Hopefully we'll get there a few more times before the membership expires. For my Portland friends, let me know if you want someone to go with!

First Day of School

Whew! I'm done with the summer posts. The girls all had their first day of school on different days. Angela had a high fever the day and night before school started, so she had to stay home, so disappointing for her! And Nicole's preschool started the next week.

Emily-4th grade
Her good friend Ally is in her class again-3rd year in a row!

Getting settled at her desk. It turned out to be nice to only take Emily that morning because it wasn't so rushed getting both kids to their classrooms and I could stay and see her classroom for a few minutes. Her teacher went to the same high school as me, the same year as my sister and remembers her. Emily thinks that is so cool.



Angela-2nd grade

Nicole is in a co-op preschool with 5 other friends her age from church. We have it in our homes, rotating every 2 weeks. She was so excited about it and she loves it! She packed her backpack with a water bottle and snacks when Emily and Angela were getting their's ready and then it was so hard for her to wait another week. It was so cute!

Ashley Photo Shoot

A good friend of mine wanted to take some pictures of Ashley a couple of months ago and I said SURE! These were taken in her living room, she did a great job! Here's some of my favorites.

That Rude!

Matthew was on call this weekend which means he has to go in each day and round on patients and hopefully come home in the afternoon. So that meant he wasn't able to come to church on Sunday. When we got home from church, he had just gotten home and Nicole said,"Why you not at church today? That rude!" If you know Nicole, you can picture the drama she said that with, it was pretty funny.

Tulips

I have always wanted to go down to the Woodburn Tulip Festival and every year it just doesn't work out with my schedule, so when the weather was nice and I had an open morning this week, I decided I had to go and found a friend to go with me. I'm so glad I went even though it's quite a drive down there and Nicole wasn't too excited about walking around in the mud. I just couldn't convince her that it can be fun! Pictures just don't do it justice, it is really stunning.

My Nicole took the next 3 pictures. I had 2 cameras with me, so I let her carry one and she took about 50 pictures. Some of them turned out great!

Nicole wanted me to hold a flower for this picture.

Ashley was so content, she loves to be carried in the Ergo.

She was all excited about a spider inside the tulip and when I looked inside I realized it was just the black filaments inside.

Thanks to my friend Nicole for going with me and taking some beautiful pictures of us.

They had lots of activities for the kids too. The ducky races were fun!

Bye Bye Pacifiers

Two weeks ago, Nicole willingly gave up her pacifiers and hardly even complained about it. It was quite an exciting event in our household. She had wanted a Cinderella princess polly pocket set for her birthday, but she didn't get it because she already has least two cinderella's and quite the collection of other princesses. The picture below is only a part of it. But she just loves them, she will play with them for hours at a time. So I told her that if she really wanted another cinderella, we could go to the store and buy it if she gave all her pacifiers to the store clerk. It worked like a charm. She was so excited about it! And it is so great to not be fighting about the pacifiers during the day if she finds one (she was only supposed to have them at night while sleeping). Soon after that she started showing interest in potty training and she is doing so well! She absolutely refuses to wear diapers anymore and is staying dry most of the time. I love how quickly it goes when they really want to do it.

Nicole is 3 years old!

My Grandparents always send $1 for each year, so she got $3.

Nicole doesn't like cake, so we had a brownie cake.

Trying to hold up 3 fingers. We timed Nicole on this new puzzle and she was done with it in 5 minutes. I guess we need to get harder ones.