sophie is 3!

sophie:

 beautiful, blue eyes, blond hair

stubborn to the core

so funny

dare devil

smart

awesome big sister

loving

friendly

independent

3 years old!

 

we always say how hard sophie has been and dread what the future has in store for the teenage years, but that doesn't mean we aren't crazy for this girl.  she is always making us laugh! i love the things she says and does....for example: when brooklyn cries sophie automatically starts singing jingle bells. i have no idea why but that's what she does to calm b down.  the girls share a room and when brooklyn wakes up crying at night, sophie starts singing this song in her sleep. its awesome :) sophie loves that baby and that baby loves her! she is super friendly and loving and is always surprising me with a random "mommy, i love you". sophie and mason are best buds. i hate when they argue but the majority of the time i love watching them laugh and create new games together. i'm worried that she will get pretty lonely when mason starts all day kindergarten next year (texas doesn't do half day) but luckily her other best friend, camille, lives right across the street! i am so glad she is in our family and i cant believe it has been three years since she first stole a place in our hearts!

 

for her party we invited a few of her friends from church and playgroup. she insisted on a princess party but there were going to be a few boys there so i made it a princess and pirate party :) since they are still pretty young, they mostly just played with toys, we did one little game, decorated hats, cake and presents. sophie had so much fun and we are so glad for everyone who could make it!

 

on sophie's actual birthday she got to open family presents. she immediately wanted to put on the dress up jewelry that grandma and grandpa sent her.

 

 for her party a few days later, i made princess hats for the girls who also got wands and the boys got pirate swords and eye patches. the two boys that came were the younger ones in the bunch and didn't really care about the party stuff but emet did have fun playing swords with mason.

i wanted sophies cake to be elegant but simple...i think it turned out pretty cute!

i couldn't wrangle up the boys but here are the girls with their princess hats that they got to decorate and their wands.

 

and here is emet and mason sword fighting. pretty sure emet enjoyed himself :) 

b trying out sophies princess hat. 

 

 

happy birthday sophie!!

 

 

our wannabe easter festivities

we had a great easter weekend this year! curtis' dad was in town for work so he brought my mother in law along with him which is always a pleasure. the kids love seeing grandma and grandpa, my growing list of projects gets cut down in size and we always have a great time chatting with them. we also had the chance to have curtis' aunt and uncle over for dinner one night! they too were in town for work so they stopped by to visit and when you live 24 hours away from most of your family, you take any visits you can get! we loved seeing tony & stephanie and mark & laurie and cant wait to see the rest of you in utah the first week in june!

 

since my kids still had quite a few sweets left from a birthday party we attended the same day as mason's party, i made sure the easter bunny took it easy on the candy ;) they were still able to add a little to their candy collection as well as their piggy banks and they all got new books and umbrellas (with the exception of b...she got headbands instead of an umbrella :).

 

 once they found all the eggs that the easter bunny had hidden around the house, it was time for breakfast, then gettin' all dolled up for church! thanks to grandma and grandpa for the cute easter outfits!

 

 that afternoon we worked on easter eggs. we found these "non spill" cups to try...they worked pretty well, definitely not "non spill" because they leaked and we will probably stick to the traditional way next year :)

finished products!

 

so thats it :) we hope everyone had a great weekend!

happy birthday mason!

i really do not understand how time passes so quickly.  5 years ago i became a mom to this sweet, loving, handsome boy and we named him mason. 8 days past his due date made him a little big for his tiny momma but luckily we got through it without needing a c-section. we were so happy to finally hold him!! when he was just one day old the nurses came in to do their rounds and noticed he was breathing pretty rapidly. after they took him away for tests and we waited for hours and hours, we found out he had pneumonia.  they assumed that he inhaled fluid during delivery which lead to infection in his lungs. it wasn't bad enough to need oxygen supply but he would still have to stay hooked to an IV in the nursery until he got better. wow. not what you wanted to hear as a new mom with your first child. curtis was going to school and had to be to classes throughout the day but i was completely free and spent most of my time at the hospital with my little guy. now he is happy, healthy and still my sweet little boy! he is so smart! i'm a little worried he is going to get bored at kindergarten next year.  he is such a great big brother and loves his two little sisters. they all LOVE to play together and i can't wait for B to get a little bigger be able to run with them instead  of just grinning on the sidelines.  i am so, so happy that mason was my first born and i couldn't have asked for a better son.  I LOVE MASON!!

since mason's birthday was on a sunday, we had his party the day before.  he has been insisting on a rocket ship theme for a while so that's what we went with. i think it turned out pretty well!

 

my lovely cake. i was really hoping to make fondant and had a great idea in my head for what i wanted the cake to look like.  unfortunately my week got a little jam packed. along with getting everything ready for mason's party it was my turn to teach preschool, i was working on my singing time lesson on a new song for primary, and then thursday morning i was asked to give a talk in sacrament meeting on sunday.  i ended up not having enough time to work on the cake and had to resort to plain old frosting. blah. oh well. here it is. 

 

 i drew a countdown on the sidewalk with chalk for when the guests arrived. it started at 10 at the start of our walkway and ended at the door. mason drew the moon and sophie added to the art as well.

 

 one perk to my husband working for pepsi is i can get free soda bottles for crafts :) he brought home a bunch of 2 liters, we spray painted them gray, duct taped them together, added streamers for flames and ta-da! we have jet packs for all his friends!

 

 for the first half hour or so, the kids decorated and played with this cardboard spaceship.  curtis' mom actually bought it for the kids for christmas and we were waiting for the weather to warm up so they could play with it outside. when mason said he wanted a rocket ship party we thought it was the perfect time to pull it out. it ended up being super windy that day so we moved the living room around a little to make some room for it.  it was super flimsy and was pretty much demolished by the end of the party but they had a blast!

 

brooklyn just hung out watching the kids.

 

a few kids were unable to make it but we still had a fun little crowd!

 

for one of the games i gave each of the kids a squirt gun and they had to run around and shoot all the aliens that i had taped up around the back yard.  

 

another game we played was pin the astronaut in the space ship.  i couldn't really find a ton of pre-made outer space party stuff so i made this myself.  awesome art skills right? haha! it worked and that's all that matters! mason got smack dab on target because his blindfold started slipping off...little cheater :)

 

last up was a pinata. all the kids got to hit at least 2 times but paul, who is a few years older than all the other kids, did most of the damage. we let mason get the final hit since he was the birthday boy.

 

we served pizza for dinner. kids love pizza!

 

cake time!!

 

last but not least, presents! mason got some great gifts including two remote control cars! so grateful to all that came and we hope they had a fun time because mason sure did!



 

 

we have 9:00 church so sunday mornings are pretty crazy and we HAD to be on time because of my talk and i needed to set up some stuff in the primary room.  after we got home and ate some lunch mason got to open our presents and the ones that both sets of grandparents sent.  he loved everything he got!

this picture is the three kids opening presents. grandma knows little ones can feel left out when its one kids birthday so she sent the two girls something to open too. b was loving the wrapping paper.

 

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MASON BOY!!



family pictures

we got family pictures done last month and i love them!! here is a glimpse at our cute little fam!

 

we had to raise our hand if we love brooklyn :)