Neglected Children

While I was outside shoveling the snow off the sidewalk and driveway (so glad we finally got some), Joseph(4) and Sarah(2) were left alone inside. I knew Sarah needed to be dressed, but PBS was doing such a good job keeping them busy, that I decided to let it wait until I came back inside.

I have such helpful children. It doesn't hurt that Sarah is so fun to take care of, either. So when I got back in the house, Joseph mentioned he was having trouble getting Sarah to let him put her shirt on. BUT, he did told me, he was able to change her diaper! And before I was able to put my boots away and hang up my coat, Sarah had pulled her own shirt over her head.

Here are the triumphant children. The shirt is on right (she got lucky, think), the diaper is on backwards. However, I think it would have still served its purpose. Good job, you two!

I'm just glad you didn't decide to start cooking while I was outside!

Leah's first birthday party...at 8 years old!

I like planning, I like challenging my creative brain cells, I like parties. I do not like work (I admit it, do you?). Because I am lazy, I have not hosted too many birthday parties for my kids.

Daniel has had the most parties...because I didn't know yet how lazy I was. Daniel's last party was at 8 years old. Nathan's only birthday party was when he turned 8. Leah was really looking forward to her birthday party (for about 2 years).

I heard someone mention that they have promised their kids birthday parties at 8, 12, and 16 (the "big" years). I thought that was reasonable. I have adopted it as my own plan. That means our next party will be in June, when Daniel turns 12 and then we won't have another one until August next year when Rebekah turns 8. (Of course, we celebrate as a family. I am referring to inviting friends.)

Another guideline for parties I use is one guest per year of age. So Leah was forming a guest list of 8 girls. Leah is very social and this was a hard list for her to form! In the end, I allowed her to add one more.

Not surprisingly, we were having a horse-themed event. It started with the invitations.

Of 9 invited guests, 8 girls arrived (but we were prepared for all 9). I think I can remember when people knew what "R.S.V.P." on the invitation meant. With Leah and Rebekah, we had 10 little girls and LOTS of giggles!

We played a couple of games. This one was a version of horseshoes. I thought bean bags would be a lot better to throw inside that horseshoes.

We also played "Pin the Tail on the Horse." I think we got the hardest laugh when Rebekah's "tail" ended up in front of the horse!

We had asked each girl to bring a toy horse for a horse show. We had quite a variety of horses!

When it was time for presents, Sarah was center-stage. We made her in charge of picking out which present Leah would open next. This way, we didn't have to worry about her opening the presents while we weren't looking (and she would...because she's naughty!). :) She handed the presents to Leah faster than Leah could get them open!

Leah has got a cute bunch of friends.

While we opened presents, Chad, Daniel, and Nathan (and Joseph) were judging the horses. They were deciding the award for each horse on the spot. I knew they were going to get silly with that. We had awards for fanciest, nicest, happiest, fluffiest, fastest, sparkliest, etc.

After presents were opened and horse show awards were presented, it was time for cupcakes and ice cream! After the horse cake I'd made the week before, I was all for cupcakes! We stuck a horse head silhouette in each one and called it good.

Who wants strawberry ice cream?

Even though the invitation said to wear your hair in a pony tail, Leah insisted on pig tails. Which I guess is fine since I'd totally forgotten about her hair anyway and it was hanging down while all her friends arrived with their hair up!

I guess 10 little girls at one table was too much for the "men" to handle. They took their refreshment in the living room.

It was a two-hour party, but we were done after 90 minutes. The girls all went outside to play afterward until their families came to get them. That was fine since winter still hadn't arrived and there wasn't any snow to keep them from having fun.

I think Leah really enjoyed her first birthday party. And after her actual birthday and then her baptism, I was glad it was all over! :)

Rebekah lost her first tooth!

The darned tooth had been loose forever. The new tooth was already halfway in and the baby tooth refused to go. Rebekah finally got the courage to have it removed and asked her daddy to do it. Have you ever tried to tie a piece of dental floss around a teeny tiny tooth? It's near impossible.

So they moved onto the bathroom and tried something else. After a few tugs and twists, and a lot of screams and squeals, the tooth was out! Doesn't Rebekah look happy about it?


She cleaned herself up and learned that blood doesn't just wash away.


So she got a tissue and nursed herself a bit. Congratulations, Rebekah! You can expect a visit from the Tooth Fairy tonight!


Sarah would like to let you know that she still has all of her teeth (that have grown in). Doesn't she have a nice smile? I always think of a bull dog when she smiles like that!

We had a baptism

When you turn eight years old, you have the opportunity to be baptized. This was a day that Leah was looking forward to and fearful of all at the same time. She was nervous of her interview with the bishop, but came out smiling. Leah surprised both Chad and me by reading (and finishing) the Book of Mormon all on her own. She beat her older brothers!

We made Leah a pretty white dress for her baptism. And then we bought some footless tights to keep things private...just in case! ;)
The nervous girl and her Daddy. There was a small bit of humor when Chad and Leah did a bit of a dance in the font while trying to figure out which way to stand. But the ordinance itself went smoothly and nothing popped up when it wasn't supposed to.

We don't get a whole family picture very often, but a special day like this calls for one. The kids have grown a bit since Nathan baptism two years ago!

Grandma Black was able to come for the event. Leah was glad to have her there! Grandma and Grandpa Collett would have liked to come, but Grandma took a spill the week before and was home with a broken ankle. We missed them!

After the baptism, we returned to the house for taco soup. We had some friends stop by and enjoyed visiting with them. At one time, we had 13 kids around our table!!

Leah got her own scriptures and a scripture tote to read from. No more fighting over scriptures for her!

Congratulations, Leah! We are proud of your good choices!

Leah turned 8!

It was a much anticipated day, but it finally arrived and Leah celebrated her 8th birthday!

As required, there was a birthday cake. I worked much of the night before on a cake top, only to ruin it and throw it out. So the next day I scrambled for plan B. Plan B ended up with me buying a new cake pan. It resulted in this horse cake. Leah is a little horse crazy, as you may know.

I used my favorite crafting tool and made a birthday shirt for Leah (and Rebekah and Sarah). Leah is really into "piggie tails" lately.

The highlight of a birthday is the presents. Don't we all know it? Leah got her share. One present came indirectly from Leah's great-grandpa Russell. She received a small metal horse that he had played with as a boy. We're convinced it's a bank, but we've yet to get it open. It has a broken leg, but still stands. We figure the toy is around 90 years old. :)

And while there were other presents...

the other horse was another favorite.

After presents is CAKE! Eight candles? That's going to take a lot of breath to blow them out.

Happy Birthday, Leah! We love you!

All By Myself!

Sarah picked her own clothes and put them on...all by herself.  But what is that peeking out under her shirt and pants?  That would be her pajamas.  :)

She got dressed twice today, by the time we were all done.

This little girl is growing up too fast!

Happy New Year! (Good-bye 2011)

Did you notice that we're in a new year? No kidding, right? I almost feel silly posting about it over 2 weeks late. However, these are memories for our family more than a way to share pictures with friends and family, so here are the pictures and story.

Our New Year's Even party was typical...snacks, games, movies. We watched TWO movies from Netflix through the Wii. We played some games, we argued a bit. And everyone was up at midnight to bring in 2012. We did have to wake Rebekah up after the 2nd movie, and I tried really hard to fall asleep myself. :)

We had noise makers. We wore them out.


We also had some confetti poppers. They were pretty fun and mostly worked. Chad had to help a very cranky Rebekah with hers.

We think confetti is really fun to wear.


I didn't even mean to wear any!

Daniel is too cool to have fun. Did I mention he's a preteen?

I think Rebekah is making a tradition of crying during our New Year's Eve celebration. How fun it would be to get another picture like this next year!

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope your year brings you good fortune and happy memories.

Christmas 2011

Well, we planned and anticipated all year long and then Christmas was suddenly here. At least, that's what it seemed like happened!

On Christmas Eve we had a nice, beautiful dinner, very similar to a Thanksgiving feast. Afterwards, we acted out the Nativity story (somewhat irreverently) and then forced the kids to bed.

Here is what the living room looked like when Santa's elves finally got to go to bed. I think it looks beautiful and peaceful and Christmasy. :)
We told the kids that they couldn't come down until 4 AM. They were then allowed to come take a peek at what Santa left, but they couldn't touch anything! They weren't allowed to wake us up until 6 AM. Daniel was at our bedside at 06:00:00 MST. Rebekah is usually not a morning person, but she found a way to perk right up this time. Sarah, also not a morning person, was not so easily affected.

This year, Santa wrapped his presents; a deviation from his usual behavior. We didn't want the kids to see what they were getting before we were ready. Santa left us a Wii system and we have been having so much fun with it! Definitely, one of Santa's best gifts.

We had a lot of fun opening presents and helping each other open presents.

Daniel got his first official pocket knife. He's been asking for one for quite a while, but his mother was just not ready for that. (You can see the strap of a Wii remote hanging from his wrist. hehe)

That pocket knife came in handy when we needed a box opened!

Leah's face only gets this happy when horses are involved. (It's a horse barn.)

It may not look like it, but we had less presents this year. That felt really good to me!

We had church at 9 AM, so we saved our stockings until after we got home. The kids were a little fidgety, with thoughts of Christmas running through their heads, but the meeting was very nice and made the day for me.

Daniel is a preteen. That should explain why he's off by himself.

Yes, the Christmas hurricane has been here.

My job was to set up the Wii. We got it up and running and then piled into the van for a last minute trip to Utah to have Christmas dinner with cousins.

We got to play a bit on Monday and then had another trip to spend time with family on Tuesday. The girls had fun playing with their cousin's dress-up clothes. :) Three princesses! (Rebekah is on the left.)

The rest of Christmas vacation went typically...everyone lounged and I tried in vain to keep up with everything.

I hope your Christmas celebrations were meaningful and memorable!