Happy Birthday!!!

Happy birthday Mike!!! I love you so much. I hope you have a great day. You do so much for our family. Thank you for all of your sacrifices and hard work. We love you!

Look who turned 6!!!

My little bug is growing up! I can't believe that she is 6, where has the time gone. She is such a great helper and a wonderful big sister. She definitely keeps me on my toes. Some of my favorite says of hers are: " I am kinda crestfallen" or "Mom, you could have said precisely instead of yes." "My lips are sad, they need a kiss". At school the kids in her class were able to ask her some questions. One little boy askedif she got a lot of toys for her birthday. Her responce was "more than I expected!"
I did a very simple cake this year. Bugs told me exactly what the cake should say. She was slightly disappionted that the writing was on a tag and not on the cake. She got over that pretty quick.

A few days before Bugs birthday, we went to Disney on Ice. The girls were so excited. They had a lot of fun. I tried to get some pictures, but the camera was not cooperating very well. I did the best I could. Little Man did pretty well. He got scared at the begining when the genie came out of the lamp (they let off fireworks). After that he settled right down.

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween!!! This year we had two days of Halloween. On Friday, Bugs got to wear her costume to school. She was so excited. They even had a parade of all the kids in the school. She was so cute prancing up and down the hallway in her Belle costume. That night the PTA hosted a carnival and the school. The kids were able to play lots of cute little games, and eat pizza. It was a fun night.
Then this morning I loaded the kids in the car and took them to Mike's work. We reversed trick-or-treated. My kids gave the kids at his work candy. They were so cute sharing the candy, and making sure everyone got a piece.
Peanut wanted to be a princess, just like Bugs. She is Sleeping Beauty. We even had a cute crown for her, unfortunately that has been misplaced. She was very distraught when we discovered it was missing. She even called Grandpa in tears asking if he knew where it was.
So Little Man was going to be a football player (his dad is trying to influence him already). However, I saw this great binki at the store and couldn't pass it up. Maybe next year he will fulfil his father's dream :) This year he is a vampire. Hope you enjoy the pictures.
Little man did not want to sit for pictures. He wanted to be off playing. I mad him sit down, so he started to cry. Recently, if he doesn't get his way, he hits whatever is closest with his head. Sometimes it is the floor, sometimes his sister, this time it was the pumpkin.

The girls wanted to show off their loot. We didn't have a lot of luck when we first started out, but then it got better. I think they have enough candy to last until Christmas, that is if I don't eat it first.

Peanut climbed on her pony while waiting to go to Bugs school. I thought that it was so sweet, I had to get a picture.

Little Bear River Bottoms

On Thurs. night our ward went to a corn maze called the Little Bear River Bottoms. Mike was sick so he stayed home with Little Man. I went with Bugs and Peanut. We met my friends Heather and her little girl, Shannon and her family, and Crystal and her family, along with many other friends in the ward. They have a ton of fun things for kids to do. We started off by doing a string maze. The reward when we finished was a donut. Yum.
They also have two different corn mazes, one large and one small. We opted for the smaller maze. This is a picture of my friend Crystal and her family. The boy on the left is one of Bugs friends. She has told me several times that they are going to get married when they are older (she has been saying this for aver a year).

My cute girls with their little friend (Heather's daughter).

There was also this giant mountain of hay bales. They were stacked to make a pyramid with tunnels and everything. The older kids loved climbing on it. That is Bugs in the blue coat on top. Peanut was mad that she couldn't play on it. The bales went almost up to her armpits.

Happy Birthday (a little late)

Happy birthday sis! I know it is a little late, sorry.

About a week ago we suprised my sister for her birthday. The whole family went to Gardner Village for dinner. It was so fun to see everyone. I hope you had a great birthday!!!
After we finished dinner, we walked around all of the little shops. The kids had so much fun looking at all of the different witches.

Bugs got cold, and her sweet aunt was kind enough to sacrafice her coat for Bugs.

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Sporting a new look!

Bug came home from school Thurs. sporting a new look. Her teacher sent home a note with a short explanation. The note said that she bumped heads with a boy at recess. She was pretty upset, I think that she had a very good reason to be upset. The first three pictures were taken the day of the incident.

The next two pictures were taken the following day. The poor kid. I can only imagine how much it must have hurt. I promise that there is no eye shadow involved, it is all natural. Don't worry the boy she ran into is shorter than her, so he only got a little bonk on the head. Bugs said he didn't even cry, just said ouch. She made an "I am sorry" note for him. I am sure it was an accident, but it was good for her to learn to always apologize.

Don't you love the face? She was trying to keep her eyes closed for the picture. Apparently you have to pucker up your lips in order to close your eyes.

Happy birthday Peanut!!!

My little Peanut just turned 3. She is such a sweetheart. I asked her what she wanted for her birthday, the only thing she wanted was a flower cake. Se didn't even care if she got any presents as long as there was a flower cake.Peanut finally decided that it would be okay if we gave her a toy. We had a little family party for her. The girls played at the fun park (a big McDonald's playland) and played arcade games. We then went home and had cake and ice cream. Peanut didn't even open any of her presents until about 8 pm.
Her cake was my first attempt at using fondant. Don't worry, the pink blob is only for this picture. I attempted to edit out her name, and that was as good as I could get it. I think the cake turned out pretty cute. She loved it! She kept on telling me thank you for making me a flower cake. Everywhere we went she had to tell everyone about it.

Here are my two princesses. Peanut fell in the driveway, a few days before, and scraped up her nose. Poor kid.

She is almost potty trained, but we are still in Pull-ups. The other day we were almost out, so she decided they would be a good present and then she would have more pull-ups. What a cutie!

1 year pictures---finally

So it has taken quite some time, and yes he is now 13 months old, but I finally got Little Man's pictures taken! Grandma Kris gave him the cute suit. It is still a little big, especially the pants. Members of our family are cursed with a long torso and short legs. Little Man is one of those members. All three of the kids were so well behaved, they did an excellent job. As a reward they got smarties (at least they thought it was a great reward)! Bugs is having school pictures this week, so we didn't have any individual pictures of her taken. Enjoy!

He is so much fun. Little Man is starting to take a few steps now. He loves to "talk", sing, and mimic whatever you say. He can say mom, dad, papa (grandpa), football, hi, hello, bye-bye, more, both of his sisters names (in his own little way), touchdown, Heather (our neighbor), ball, binki, cracker, thank you, love you, uh-oh, ba-ba (bottle), milk. I think there are more but I can't think of them right now. He also signs milk, more, eat, thank you. He will also tell you what a car says, what a dog says, and will also howl at the moon.

I love this picture!

Peanut will be 3 in a week. We took her pictures as well. She is so much fun, and such a stinker. She is full of personality. I love the things she comes up with. My dad was watching her last week. He called her a turkey. She looked at him and then turned around, pointed at her bum and said, "no I'm not, see look at my butt."

Suzanne Consford Mendoza

On July 31, 2009, Mike's sister Suzanne was admitted to the hospital. At first they were running some test to find out why she was so jaundice. The doctors discovered that her liver was failing. She was put on some medication, hoping that it would slow the damage to her liver, unfortunately it didn't help. In order to get a liver transplant she would have to wait 6 months before she would even be put on the transplant list, then there is about a 4 year wait. Her body couldn't take the trauma, and her liver completely failed. On Aug 26, Suzanne passed away, she was only 39. Mike and I were able to travel to Washington, with little man. The girls stayed with my parents while we went to help with all of the arrangements. Suzanne left behind 4 children ranging in age from 20 to 9. I am so grateful that we were able to go to Washington this summer and see Suzanne. What a blessing it was to be able to see her and create those great memories before all of this happened.
Mike was able to dedicate the grave, and say a few words at the funeral. How grateful I am to be married to such a wonderful and strong man. I am amazed at how well the family is coping with such a tragedy. Here are a few pictures from the funeral.

We wanted to let some balloons go after the funeral, unfortunately the cemetery is located in a flight zone. They told us that we could let one go if we cut the strings off, but we wouldn't be able to let them all go. So we opted to take the balloons to a park and let them go there. We also had a nice family barbecue afterwards.

Suzanne, we love you and will help watch over those you left behind.

The following is a link to her obituary. You can also click on memories on the left side of the link to view a slide show of Suzanne.
http://heritagememorialchapel.frontrunnerpro.com/runtime/33783/runtime.php?SiteId=33783&NavigatorId=164288&op=tributeObituary&viewOpt=dpaneOnly&ItemId=332761

Kindergarten!

I can't believe that my little bug is old enough to go to school. She has been so excited. This morning Bugs woke up before her alarm and was so worried that it had already turned off by itself. I assured her that it wasn't time for her to get up yet. She decided that it was time to start getting ready because "I can't be late on my first day. I don't want to be the last one in my class". So Bugs fixed herself a fruit cup and a yogurt for breakfast. After she ate, she brushed her teeth and her hair, and then picked out her outfit. She was very excited about her choice of clothes. All of this was accomplished before 10 am. School doesn't start until after 12. Needless to say the next few hours went by very slow. Here are a few pictures of her before we left.
Peanut wanted to go with Bugs to school. She compromised by being able to walk Bugs to her class. While Bugs was at school, Peanut and I (along with a couple of friends) made cookies. When I was growing up, my mom would always have homemade cookies on the table waiting for us when we got home from school. I am hoping to continue this tradition with my family. So far so good.


Bugs gets to sit at the front of her classroom. There are 18 students in her class. She is way too cute. I love this kid!

Giving Daddy kisses before "off to school, off to school, I can't be late!"

Mom and Bugs

Red dirt

This last weekend we went to the Morrill family reunion. The kids had so much fun. I love being able to just let the kids play and get dirty. They loved to freedom of being outside and running all over. This picture is of just how dirty their feet got. You don't even want to know what the bath water looked like when we washed them all off.
I decided that I wanted to try to take a family picture. I thought it was a good idea, however my children didn't exactly agree with me. I posted a few anyway.

I love these kids. If only Peanut would smile on cue.

Look how cute my little guy looks. I still can't believe that he is a year.

Playing in the dirt. He is all boy.