The lizard snatcher

I was tidying up my room when Addilyn ran to me from outside, very excited about something. "Mommy, LOOK!" She exclaimed as she held up a big stiff lizard. I was kind of horrified and yelled for Ryan to come help me. He was so proud of her! "Oh you caught a cold lizard! Let's warm him up." So they made him a little home in a big bin (that was supposed to be for my fall decor..) with grass and watched him start to move as he warmed up. Addi said "Tia catched him and I pick him up from the garage!" She was so ecstatic about it. Such a brave little girl I have! 

A little this and that

I've posted so much about Claire lately and not much about anyone else. But I promise, I still love my husband and other children! :)

Ryan is doing great. Loving work and adores his girls who treat him like a king. He is so sweet with them. Something about a manly man being surrounded by a bunch of little girls makes my heart flutter. I love this guy.

Some fun things about Addi lately:
She has become such a daddys girl. Every night she quietly sneaks to our bed, crawls in the covers next to Ryan just to snuggle for a few minutes. Then she will ask Ryan to help her get back in her bed. She is seriously the sweetest 2 year old ever. She doesn't have a trace of terrible twos. She is a messy, terrific, goofy, loving little lady!

She came with me to vote. I tried to get a cute picture of her showing off her sticker. This is the best I got from the goofy girl :)

EmmaLee is growing into her own little person. She is soooo strong willed and stubborn. And she's developed quite an attitude lately. Sometimes I wonder if she's actually a teenager stuck in a 4 year old body ;) She's also so smart and protective of her sisters. And she is still a momma's girl, deep down. When she's feeling vulnerable or hurt she just wants momma sunggles and I adore it! She is loving preschool and making lots of friends. She also loves to sing and is a lot of fun as long as she's fed and is all caught up on her sleep!

These girls fight like the dickens lately but you can still see their adoration for each other once in awhile :)

                                                         

Not flattering, I know, okay? But this was so special to me. It was during a big thunderstorm. Ryan was still sleeping but the girls came to our room really early and cuddled in our bed and told me they were scared so we took pictures. Emma told me she said so many prayers to ask Heavenly Father to help her not be scared and it helped the thunder go away. Moments like that make me feel like Ryan and I are doing something right.

And one more of Claire because she's adorable and I can't help myself! :)

Blessing day

Claire was blessed last Sunday, November 13th 2016. My sisters and Bryce were able to drive down to meet her. 

Ryan gave her a beautiful blessing. Unfortunately the microphone was malfunctioning so nobody but the first few rows heard it. Luckily, me and all of our attending family were on those first few rows :)

We had everyone over for a luncheon afterward. It ended up being a wonderful day with family! 

A 2 month old obsession

It's amazing to me how a mothers heart can hold so much love for each of her children. 

With this pregnancy I was a little worried that I wouldn't love this new baby as much as Emma and Addi.. It seems so sad now thinking about it. But I wasn't even excited to meet her. I was scared. I was overwhelmed. I was bogged down by life and people and things that don't matter. And I just couldn't see myself having the emotional means to love another baby at the time.

 But then she was born. And my heart quickly expanded and made room for this new intense love rapidly developing for my tiny human, this addition to our little tribe.  And the weight of the world fell off my shoulders and all of that stress over the little nothings of life dissipated.

And here I am now: Totally 100% obsessed.

This girl usually ends up cuddling next to me in the early hours of the morning. She gets so cold. No matter how hard I try to make it impossible for her to kick her blankets off she alway manages to do it. So I bring her to bed to snuggle and thaw her out. She's such a good snuggle buddy!

She's now 2 months old! She has the sweetest gummy smile and is starting to make the cutest babbling noises. Stats:

• Weight: 11 lbs (60 percentile)
• Height: 22 inches (50 percentile)

She doesn't like tummy time. She loves to eat and is SO rolly. I love it. She is so smiley and happy. She sleeps 4-5 hour intervals, which is great compared to the 1.5 hour intervals she was pulling just a few weeks ago. She loves watching her sisters play and will smile at them on demand, Emma and Adds find her quite entertaining. 

She adores her daddy. 

We love our Claire!

Friends are blessings

This summer I got a text from my sweet friend from high school saying she and another one of my sweet friends needed a getaway to St. George. So we planned it out and before I knew it they were here! We talked, we ate good food, we watched chick flicks, we cooked... it was bliss.
As I look back on my life I realize how important good friends are, and I was blessed with a few of the best! We've been able to remain close as the years continue to pass us by. It was so fun getting together and catching up.

 I'm not particularly proud of any of these pictures... In fact they scare me a little bit. Just look at my friends beautiful faces and ignore the blob that was once be my face before I got old and well, fluffy. ;)

'

I just love these ladies and I'm so glad they were able to come visit!

Halloween 2016

This Halloween came and went so fast. Fun things we did this Halloween season:

• picked our own pumpkins at Staheli farm
• made spooky decorations 
• made a scarecrow and named him "No Noggin" 
• watched a lot of "Pumpkin Curious George"
• carved and painted pumpkins. Emmas was carved as a ghost, Addilyns was a cat.
• Went to the downtown Halloween carnival and did they activities and got faces painted.
• went trick or treating 

Cute things the girls did:

• On Halloween night, Emma's favorite part of the whole night was handing out candy. "Come to our house trick or treaters! Come on kids!!" She stood by the door watching and waiting.
• Addilyn wanted me to open each piece of candy she got while trick or treating so she could eat it on the way to the next house.
• They were both obsessed with spider webs and ghosts this year. So funny.

It was a good month! We were bummed that Ryan had a work trip he had to go to, so he wasn't here on halloween. But we made sure we had a lot of fun as a family before he left.

The extent of our Halloween decor this year. All home made, my favorite :)

We carved pumpkins in our pajamas (Emma in her undies, of course...) the morning Ryan left. It was kind of rushed, but we got it done!

Beautiful

So proud of their creations!

Costumes before school. Emma had a little accident in her cat costume so had to trick or treat as a princess.

Such a fun time of year with kiddos!