Kayla's volleyball tournament

Kayla had her first volleyball tournament in Conway for the J.O. team she is playing on. Brad and I were able to spend the day watching her by ourselves... kid free! Thanks to my mother and father in law for watching our kids. Her team ended up placing 3rd in the tournament. I was so proud of her and had a lot of fun. It sure made me miss playing volleyball. If they would have let me I would have gone out on the court with her :)

Brynlee's 3rd birthday and mermaid party!

One of my favorite memories growing up was an awesome Little Mermaid party that my mom threw for me. I will never forget how she went all out. Since then I have been wanting to have a mermaid party for my one of my girls, and lucky for me Brynlee fell in love with Ariel this year. I just loved seeing there little faces light up when they saw all the decorations when they came home from school.

I was going to make mermaid tales for all the little girls, but after making Brynlees I decided to make the rest skirts, since my sewing machine didn't like the fabric.  The cutest was seeing her walk in it.  She had this little "penguin" walk.

Our sassy mermaids.

We had colorful coral (cheetos), starfish sandwiches (pb and j), sand dollars (cucumber slices), Deep sea pearls (grapes), and little fishies (golfish crackers).

We played little mermaid Bingo.

Played the limbo! About broke my back trying to show them how to do it.

Played "Pass the mermaid" to music.

And had their very first treasure hunt!

Brynlee got lots of great presents and was happy to get a big girl bike like her sisters!

Happy Birthday Brynlee, we love you!

Times are changing

Well I didn't think that I would ever get up the nerve to pierce Brynlee's ears. But somehow Kayla talked me into when we were at the mall. Brynlee has been asking for them for a few months now. She wanted earrings like her sisters, but I knew she didn't understand it would hurt. So I had been brushing it off for a while.

 So when I asked her yesterday if she wanted them she excitedly said "YES!" When we went in there I said "Now Brynlee, it's going to hurt, they are going to poke your ear with a needle, but it will only hurt for a little while. Do you still want to do it?" She said "Yes, I won't cry mom, I won't!" She climbed up into the big chair and just sat perfectly still waiting for the ladies to do it. As soon as they pierced them her eyes got really wide, she blinked a couple times slowly and then got a sweet smile. She said "See I didn't cry!" We were all just amazed! She's such a big girl.

Callie has been busy learning her articles of faith for her class at church.  She has been very excited about it and has been reading them in her spare time and even learning some of the songs.  She tries to teach Hailey them every chance she gets, but Hailey isn't quite as enthusiastic about reading them all the time :)

We also have two other big things that have happened lately.  First, Kayla has joined the J.O. competitive volleyball team (outside of school), and was placed on the older girls team. I hadn't signed her up for it at first because a lot of the tournaments are on Saturday and Sunday and I knew we wouldn't be able to do the Sunday ones.  But the coach wanted Kayla so bad, she talked to Kayla's grandma and personally called me and told me that they would work with us about Sunday.  So Kayla is so happy she gets to play!  Her coach measured her yesterday and said she was 5 ft. 10 1/2!  We are excited for her.  

The second thing that has happened, is Brad has been busy starting his own business.  I didn't mention anything about it earlier because I get super nervous and anxious about major life changes, but we are officially in the start up of it now, so no more denying, lol.  I told Brad I would support him in whatever he wanted to do, and I wasn't going to let my anxiety get in the way of him doing new things.  I am so excited for him and proud of all his hard work.  He will be very busy, still working full time at his job and serving as Branch president in addition to this new business.  But we should be able to taylor it to take in as much or as little as he wants, so it should be good for our family.  If your curious about it his website is at :

www.flame-tek.com

Breakfast

We had our traditional valentine breakfast this morning. I made heart shaped pancakes for all the girls and when I went to give Hailey hers it cracked a little down the middle. She dramatically said "What! You can't give me a broken heart!" Lol, it really gave her a broken heart to have a broken heart. So we made sure we fixed that.

And we braided the girls hair in hearts too, to add to the fun.

Valentines Day preparations

Today we spent the day getting Valentine Day goodies ready for the girls classes. In the past I usually had to just do one kids valentines at a time. But this year we had to do Kayla's, Callie's and Hailey's so we were busy putting them all together.

And in other exciting news Callie went to her first dance with her Dad tonight.  It was a fancy nancy daddy daughter date.  She loved picking out her outfit and getting all dolled up.  She even wore my "special" earrings that I wore to aunt karrens wedding.

She sure loves her daddy!  Hailey was having a hard time in the background watching her older sister get all dolled up and getting all the attention.  But we encouraged her to tell Callie how pretty she was and to be excited for her sister.  With 3 girls all in a row, they are going to have to learn not to be jealous of  each other. She gave Callie a big hug and told her she was beautiful!

My snow angels

Believe it or not, it has been cold here for quite a while now. Although it still doesn't compare to the negative twenty somethings my Wyoming family has been enduring lately. So I will not complain :) We finally got snow the other day, and the girls were super happy to play in it.  What fun is the cold without snow?
I loved the pictures we got.  It didn't take long and we had the whole neighborhood over playing with us!