Abbie's Baptism

It was a beautiful day! So exciting and yet hard to believe that my very first baby is now 8 years old and making an important choice in her life.

Abbie was able to plan the entire program for her baptism day, because we couldn't do the stake baptism on the day it was planned and she DID NOT want to wait another month! 
 It was an awesome program. She chose the BEST speakers and her and I sang "If the Savior Stood Beside Me"

 I think Kallie was a little jealous, but still happy for her big sister. And Kelton was just as cute as ever!

 We are so proud of our girl for the choice that she made and for the way that she wants to live the gospel and be happy!

Abbie ROCKS!

CATCH UP!!!

Ok! So I have not blogged since Kallie's 5th birthday and she will be 6 in 2 months so here are some highlights of our life over the past year with more to come soon! Enjoy....

I made these cute dresses and a matching tie for the kids for Easter!

Abbie had her end-of-year 1st grade program and it was super fun and cute!

Abbie finished out a fantastic soccer season with the Green Dragons!

We took a family hike to Jump Creek on Memorial Day and had a bbq at a park afterward.

Kelton turned 1!!!

We had a super fun dinosaur themed party in our backyard and Kelton LOVED it!

This AWESOME lady and I(and another friend) went to the Michael Buble concert in style. Her husband got us a limo to go in and Abbie and Kallie were soooooooo jealous. Fun night!!!

Abbie decided to donate her beautiful hair to Locks of Love in honor of her Aunt Laurie who passed away from cancer.

And she ended up with this super cute new hairdo that she LOVES!!!

Abbie started 2nd grade and continues to excel in school. We are so proud of her!

Kallie started Kindergarten and is doing AWESOME! We are so thankful to have her in our lives and are very proud of her many accomplishments thus far. We know she has a great future ahead of her!

Abbie had a very fun and WILD birthday party with 21 of her 'closest' friends in our backyard!

This was the cake she requested I make!(to her exact specifications)

Princess Kallie on Halloween!

Abbie was a ghost!

Kelton was the cutest monkey around and he just 'Loved' every minute of it ;)

 We had a FANTASTIC summer that kept us very busy! It included many fairs, the local water park, and time spent doing all sorts of fun things with our family members near and far. Another HIGHLIGHT of the year was Abbie's baptism. I WILL post more on that later when I can find the pics! I hope this helps everyone to catch up with us and how we're doing. I am making a vow right now to do better at blogging this year!




Kallie Grace turns 5!!!

Oh My goodness!! How did this happen so quickly? My little girl went from this tiny, very sick, little "heart baby"....

Just after open heart surgery...11 days old!

Look at all those curls!

She makes the BEST sad faces!

To this happy, healthy, BEAUTIFUL, 5 year old girl who's ready to go to Kindergarten in the fall!!

We couldn't be more happy or proud of our Kallie 'Amazing' Grace for all of her accomplishments and the things that she has endured and overcome in just 5 short years!

This year, Kallie wanted just 3 little things for her birthday....An 'Ariel' cake, to go to BOUNCE, and to play Pin-the-tail-on-the-Donkey! Silly girl! So... I made 'Ariel' cupcakes....

We played Pin the tail on the Donkey...

And we went to BOUNCE, but there are no pictures because we were all having so much fun that we just didn't take any!(But, if you click on bounce you can see where we went and why we had so much fun!)

Then we came home and had a little, family, party before it was off to bed(this is why Kallie is in her jammies in these pics)!



Opening Presents!!



All my Birthday loot!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KALLIE GRACE!!!

WE LOVE YOU TONS!

Spring Break Part 2!

So, I know I'm slow getting this done, but here's a rundown on the rest of our FUN vacation! We spent a lovely week in sunny AZ and had a great time! Here's cutie Kelton sitting with Papa! It took him a little while to warm up to Papa, but once Papa rescued Kelton from his "evil carseat", they were best buds!

We first went to the park one evening for a picnic with a new friend. She is a middle aged lady with Turner Syndrome who has NEVER met anyone else with TS! So, we took Kallie to meet her and we all had a wonderful time getting to know one another! Here's a great pic with Tamara and Kallie!

We also spent some time @ Peter Piper Pizza having lunch with friends and playing games. Abbie hit the jackpot on one of the games and won 622 tickets! She was so excited and was able to get many great prizes with all her tickets! Another day, we went to the funnest pool in Chandler, AZ! It was like a mini water park and only cost $8 total for all of us to get in! It had a water playground, big slides, little slides, splash pads, a whirlpool, and a lazy river with tubes to float on! We had a BLAST there!

We shopped at the mall with a friend and played at Grandma and Papa's house! We even got to fly kites with Papa! And the day before we headed home, we went to the Phoenix Zoo!! My girls LOVE zoos! The first stop was Stingray Bay! We get to pet the stingrays as they swim by. I think Abbie could have stayed there all day, but Kallie wanted to move on! Some of you may remember Kallie's very traumatic fishing experience found HERE, and it seems that she's never quite gotten past it! If you haven't checked it out it's VERY entertaining! Anyway, here's a great pic of the troops at Stingray Bay!

After that, we moved on to the rest of the zoo, but made the unfortunate mistake of giving Kallie a zoo map! She was so obsessed with finding the camels that it took us twice as long to go anywhere because she had to stop to consult her map! She's just a little OCD(like her Mama) so we have to be very patient sometimes! HAHA!

After we stopped for lunch and to play at the Zoo Farm playground Kelton got a little tired of the stroller so I put him in the baby wrap and he was much happier!

This zoo also has lots of fun things, perfect for photo opportunities so we stopped for a few! Here are my little pearls in their oyster shell!

Next up was the zoo splash park where the girls cooled off and had tons of fun! Didn't get any pics though, they were too fast!
FINALLY, we made it to the camels and Grandma was true to form in spoiling the girls with a ride on Dale the Camel. I think they were nervous at first but it was the highlight of their day!!

Lastly, we rode the zoo train out to see all the African Safari animals. It's a long hike and it was a HOT day! Here's my 2 tired girls on the zoo train!

By the time the train pulled back into the station Kallie had fallen asleep and we were all ready to go home!

But, we had to have one more quick ride on the carousel!

The next day, we began the LOOOOOOONG journey home. We stayed overnight at Circus Circus Hotel in Las Vegas and spent about half a day playing there before heading to Salt Lake for another quick sleepover with cousins. And Sunday, April 3rd, we finally made it home to Dadddy! We missed him tons and though we had a fabulous vacation we were all glad to be home! Next update will be Kallie's Birthday, which was the very next day, so until next time.....

Spring Break!!! Part 1.....

Well, I'm behind on my blogging again, but I am determined to catch up one of these days! So, I'll start here with our AWESOME spring break trip! We decided to take a road trip to Arizona to visit Grama and Papa! The loooooooooooong drive was tiring, monotonous, and at times, adventurous with me, Amber, Abbie(7 year old), Kallie(5 year old), and Kelton(10 month old). So we took it kinda slow and stopped when we needed to and eventually made it to a hotel just south of the south rim of the Grand Canyon where we met up with Grama and Papa! These kids were just so glad to be out of the car it took us 2 or 3 hours to calm them down and put them to bed! Grama and Papa were pretty excited to see them too!

The next morning we got up, ate breakfast, and headed to a BEAUTIFUL place for some sightseeing.
THE GRAND CANYON!!

Abbie and Kallie were having a great time taking in all the beautiful scenery and participating in the 'Junior Ranger Program' offered by the national park services, but this is how Kelton toured! Asleep in the stroller!

Since Karlo didn't get to come with us, we took every opportunity for photos that we could and we all had a great time. Here's one of me and the kids! It was quite windy and a little rainy so we had to bundle up, but it was fun anyway.

Here's one of everyone except me! This is the closest to the edge that we could get Grama to stand. She has a very unhealthy fear of high edges!

The girls had a lot of fun running around and climbing on different rocks. I put them up on this one for a pic and this was the pose they gave me.

After looking all around and going through some of the lodges and souvenir shops we decided to hike down the 'Bright Angel Trail' just a little ways...

Amidst all of my recent sewing projects, I decided to make my own "Baby Wrap". It is patterned after the "Moby Wrap" which sells for about $60 and I found some clearance fabric and made my own for about $5! It came in very handy when Kelton woke up and wanted to explore the Grand Canyon with us! He just loves being tied onto Mommy and going where I go! And the "Baby Wrap" really saves my arms and back!

Because of the rain, we all got a little muddy and wet on our hike, but it was warmer down the trail and out of the wind so we really had a great time! We stopped at this little cave in the side of the cliff for a pic for Daddy!

When we came back up, it was starting to snow so we decided it was time to head south and get to Phoenix! Along the way, we stopped and another tourist attraction. Bedrock City!!!

It's a little village out in the middle of nowhere, that's been set up just like the town of Bedrock from the Flintstones cartoons. My girls have never really watched that so we had to explain it to them and we watched a few episodes online when we got home, but they had a great time running around and exploring the village. Also, because of the cooler weather, we were the only ones there at the time so we had the whole village to ourselves! Here are a few of the fun pictures we took!

Then we hopped back in the car and headed for Grama and Papa's house! We only had to make a few quick stops along the way and made it there just in time for bed! We spent a week there before the road trip back so I'll be posting more of our fun times in AZ soon! Until next time....