I'm a copycat

I saw that my friend Lauren's family got their pictures done in grey, white and yellow and I absolutely loved the color combo, so I decided to copy them and try some out on my girls. Now getting all four of them to smile at the same time, was a different story, lol!

Baby shower

Yesterday we held a baby shower for my neighbor and good friend Beth. She is expecting her first girl and we are so excited for her! My other neighbor, Amber hosted it at her house. Can I just say that I LOVE my neighborhood. It is so fun having all these women around who are such great friends. We have me, Beth, Amber, Jeribeth, and Tiffany. We are about to get two new sets of neighbors moving in, we are just waiting to find out who it's going to be! Right now all of them are our age and I can trust any of them with anything. I always know I have an extra set of eyes looking out for my kids too. Love these girls!

Amber and I

Miss Beth

All of the hostesses

Engagement

Congratulations to my sister Karren on her engagement to her boyfriend Scotty! I know she is ready for this next chapter in her life and we are all so excited for her.

Staying at home

There have been days where I have felt restless and been ready to go back to work because I have stayed home on and off for so many years.  But lately I have just felt really content. I am so greatfull for the opportunity to stay home with my babies.  They make me so happy.  They are so funny and sweet, they just  brighten my day every day.  Now that the older two are at school there is no one to tease the younger ones :) I'm not going to specifically name which child was teasing them, but her name may or may not start with a "C".
Hailey and Brynlee play together REALLY well, and for that I am grateful.   Although I miss my older girls too, they both love their teachers and classes, so I am happy that they are liking school.

And if I didn't stay at home I would miss at on great moments like these. Hailey said "Look mom, Brynlee is playing a spit bubble game!" In case your wondering what that is, just watch:

First Day of School 2012

The girls were so excited for their first day of school! Last night we were getting ready for bed and Kayla said "That was the shortest summer ever!" Brad and I looked at each other and started laughing, he knew what I was thinking ("shortest summer for you maybe") ha ha.... Just kidding.

 I really am going to miss my girls. But I am ready to spend a little more time with my two youngest. Callie walked us all the way into her school this morning and showed us where her classroom was. She didn't seem scared at all. It was really hard getting Hailey out of the school though. She kept telling me "I'm big, I want to go to Callie's School! PLEASE!" It's hard being little and having to wait, but hopefully she will get to go to school soon enough. Kayla got to wear a "splash of makeup" for her first day of 7th grade. She looked beautiful. I'm so proud of all my girls!

Wanted to share

Quite often I don't have much studying/ alone time since I have four little ones. So one thing that I like to do is listen to the mormon channel on the internet while I'm getting ready for the day. They usually have talks or spiritual messages or stories on there that have an uplifting message. The other day one of the talks was about debt management. I kind of thought "Oh great, it's probably going to be the same message I always hear"....(don't spend more than you earn, don't use credit cards, etc. etc....) Well it really surprised me when the first thing that President Eyring recommended was that you should specifically pray each day "that the Lord will increase your ability to give." I thought for a minute, "Did I hear that right? If you are in debt, then the first thing you should think about is how you can give more?" But then it really just hit me. How often do I pray or spend my time thinking about what I want or how I can acquire something. Maybe my focus is all wrong. Maybe I need to spend more time praying not for my needs first, but instead learn to think of others first. So I made it my goal that every night I was going to pray that my ability to give would be increased. I never really had prayed for that because I always felt like I gave what I could if I had it. But could the Lord really increase whatever I had to offer if it was for the benefit of someone else? Wouldn't you know, that EVERY single day this week an opportunity was presented to me to be able to serve someone that needed my help. And every situation was one in which I was able to. It may not have been something I was planning on, or it may have thrown me off schedule, but it was all things that I could do. So anyway, I just wanted to share, because it has made me have the best week, to look at things from another perspective. And I thought that was great counsel that President Eyring gave.

Back to school haircuts

This week we have slowly been doing all our back to school shopping. We got all or our school supplies done last week, and I am just amazed how much stuff is needed for each girl! We couldn't even fit everything in their back backs. This week we focused on just the clothes, that was Kayla's favorite. My girls LOVE to go to the mall, all of them! It is not the easiest lugging them all around, but they definately are shoppers at heart. Today I took just Kayla and Callie to the mall to get their hair cut for school. It was Callie's first haircut, I think she was a little nervous when I first suggested it, but she loves her hair cut and flips her little head around. I think they turned out pretty cute!

A little finger painting fun

The girls started out just lightly dipping their finger in each of the paints, but by the end of it they had paint from head to toe!

Another birthday party

We ended up having two birthday parties in one week last week. Our friends from church (who live out of town) were looking for a place to have their birthday party for their granddaughter Gracie. Gracie and Hailey were actually born on the same day! So we told them they were welcome to have it at our house so everyone didn't have to drive so far. It was a Rapunzel party. The girls all had so much fun! They even rented a giant waterside just for the girls!

Gracie with her mom, Erin.

Misti with her girls

Callie and Kennadi  loved the slide the most and showed no fear!

Hailey's 3rd birthday

We opened all of Hailey's birthday presents the night before her birthday, because Grandpa and Grandma wouldn't be able to be there the next night and we didn't want to have it without them!

This year for Hailey's birthday we decided to just keep it low key and celebrate with just family. I didn't plan a big party/favors, etc. like I do sometimes. I just threw up some decorations that I already had and Grandma brought a Dora cake. We sang her happy birthday and opened up some presents. Turns out that's all a two year old wants or cares about because she and Callie said "It was the best birthday ever!!"

This is Hailey attempting to make the number 3.  I know, it really looks like a two, but hey she tried.

Can these two get any more good looking?  I'm glad he made all my babies so beautiful!

Grandma always hooks the girls up with the best cakes.

Hailey's main present from us was a sand/water table. It was a hit with all the girls!

Thank you everyone for making Hailey's birthday special.  And thank you nanna and papa (my mom and dad) for the Dora chair and dora stampset, all the girls love taking turns sitting in it!

Our Brynlee Boo

I don't care what anyone says, there is NOTHING as great as having a baby in the home. I just love watching Brynlee's personality develop more each day. She may not talk a lot, but she is super smart. She can repeat tons of words if you ask her to, but she is content on using other ways to communicate. She has a low little voice and casually says "Yeah" to almost anything you say. Whenever I tell her not to do something she lets out this huge sigh, like I am ruining all her fun. She rolls her eyes a lot trying to make her sisters giggle. And she loves to chase them around the house and pretend she is a monster. She makes us laugh so much every day, we just love our little Brynlee.