Sensory Safari

Our library hosted a "Sensory Safari" a few weeks ago and we had to take the kids.  We went last year and loved it so much we had to go again.

Paige was trying to be a good helper and keep Bryn by the lions for the picture, but Bryn had other things to see.  She would not stay still for a minute because there were just too many animals to see.

The 2nd picture without Bryn. She was long gone.

I think this was Paige's favorite!

Austin touching the crocodile's teeth.  It has a gazelle in it's mouth.

Sorry this is such a bad picture.  Paige is touching the boa constrictor and it's posed to attack the world's smallest antelope.  I can't remember the name of it.

She held still long enough for a picture!!

Austin's favorite display!

Bryn was fascinated with this crocodile.  She finally got brave enough to touch it and then we could get her to leave it alone!

I think this was a water buffalo.  I just missed her touching it's leg.  It was pretty funny how quickly she pulled her hand away! :0)

Paige's real birthday party

How sad is it that I am just now posting Paige's birthday pictures!  I've had good intentions, I promise!  

She did have a good birthday.  She loved having her Aunt Kandra, Uncle Brandon, Sydnee and Dawson over to help her celebrate on her "actual birthday" (her words, not mine).  As you can see, she asked for a My Little Pony cake.  This is what we came up with.  The marshmallows are supposed to be clouds.  I had the kids help me with that part and this is end result. :0)

Austin being silly as usual.  He really is a funny boy.  We never know what he's going to come up with next!

Paige is opening up her present from Aunt Kandra and Uncle Brandon.  They gave her the BrainQuest quiz game and it is so fun.  Paige loves to play it and figure out the answers.

 Opening up her gift from Mom and Dad.  She was so excited to have a scooter.  She would always try to ride our neighbors' scooters all the time, so we figured she needed one of her own.  She goes so fast on it now!  It's quite impressive.  As you can see from the last picture, Bryn and Dawson were quite interested in the scooter as well! ;0)

We are so blessed to have Paige in our family.  She is so willing to help, most of the time, and she tries really hard to set a good example for her little brother and sister.  She begs me almost everyday to change Bryn's diapers and help her get her breakfast in the morning, put her shoes on, etc.  She loves to help Austin learn his ABC's and count.  She's a great little teacher.  We don't know what we would do without her!!  

St. Patrick's Day

We actually celebrated St. Patty's Day this year.  I haven't been very good the last couple years, so I decided I'd make an effort this year.  I'm so glad we did.  Paige and Austin could not stop talking about the tricky leprechaun who turned our milk green and left us some leprechaun cereal (Lucky Charms).  The kids really thought they would trap the leprechaun, and I think they were close, but they just said they would try again next year.  Paige already has an idea for another trap.  Trust me, it's a good one!!  Austin wanted me to write that the thing to the left of the hat is a swimming pool for the leprechaun.  Funny boy!

I have it!!

I got my new sewing machine yesterday!!  I finally had some time today to play with it and try all the new stitches.  And........I LOVE IT!!  I got a Janome DS1050.  It's very quiet for a sewing machine, it's very simple to figure out and it has 49 stitches and over half of those are decorative, my favorite being the flowers.  Did I tell you I love it?!?  Projects, here I come!

Princess Paige

Paige is such a sweet girl.  She is a great big sister.  She loves to dance, ride her bike and new scooter and she still loves to make new friends and play with all of her friends. :0)  She loves school and can't wait to be in 1st grade.  She is reading now and her teacher says that she couldn't ask for a better student.  It's fun watching her grow and listen to her explain things.  She's very dramatic and creative so she comes up with some pretty funny things! :0)  Along with that, we are now trying to work on saying things that won't hurt other people's feelings.  She doesn't mean to hurt their feelings, but she just says what she's thinking and tells the truth.  For instance, she went over to one of my friends' house and blurted out, "My house is a lot cleaner than your house.  I guess my mom just likes to clean more than you do."  Yeah, it was great.  Luckily she said it to a friend who is very laid back and things like that don't bother her, but I felt so bad.  So, we've had several conversations about when to say certain things and when not to.  We'll see when it truly sinks in!

Paige showing her toothless smile.  Her two bottom teeth are now almost all in.  It's so fun seeing her smile change!  It's still pretty cute, huh?

Here's Paige holding her own against Austin and his friend.  I was just laughing watching them sword fight.

Paige had the same birthday situation as Austin.  Several opportunities to feel like it was her birthday!  She got a big book of stories from G and G N.  She loves the stories in it!  On her actual birthday, she got a My Little Pony cake, a scooter and another Pony, this time, Pinkie Pie.  (We'll post pics of that when I upload pics from my camera.)

The pictures are in the wrong order, oh well.  Cousin Syd stayed the night one night and needed Paige to help her settle down and not miss mommy and daddy so much.  Paige was a little too good at helping and I eventually had to send Paige into her own bed.  But by then Syd was good to go! :0)  This pic is right after bath and they were "pretending" to sleep in the bed.  It was pretty fun!

Paige got some binocs, too.  Very excited, can you tell?

We got a Kinect for Brian's birthday and Paige is our Kinect queen, especially in bowling.  Almost every time she bowls, she gets a turkey.  Seriously, almost every time!  BTW, we LOVE our Kinect.  It's so fun!!  3 of the 4 Monday nights a month, you can bet we're playing it for Family Home Evening! :0)

Our little (Big) man!

Here are some pics of our little man who's not so little anymore.  Austin has had a major growth spurt the last month.  His clothes are shrinking, along with his shoes, and he reminds me daily that he is 4 which means he's a big boy!  He is still pretty shy, but putting him in preschool this year has been the best thing for him in that sense.  One of his teachers told me that they actually had to tell him one day to be quiet!  Yeah, we were pretty much in shock.  We have to tell him that at home because he talks nonstop and in a very loud voice, but never at school or in Primary at church.  So, I guess you can say he's progressing.  We'll keep you posted on if that's a good thing, or not! ;0)  He loves to sing, play pirates and golf.  He loves to find new things to play with when he's outside.  For instance, the other day I watched him grab a drain pipe extension and take it to one of the trees by our house. He then grabbed our big cooler and took it to the tree.  He went back into the garage and came back with a golf ball.  Then he stood the pipe against the tree, stood on the cooler and dropped the ball down the pipe.  He got the biggest kick out of watching the ball bounce out of the pipe and he did it over and over!  It was so fun watching him do it all on his own.  He's a funny boy!

Here's Austin at his preschool Valentine's Day party.

Bryn taught Austin where the good hiding spots are!

Austin had a great birthday.  Between the 4 different days that he was able to open presents or have "Happy Birthday" sung to him, he thought his birthday was for a whole month!!

He got a set of books from Grandma and Grandpa N.

We went to Red Robin on our way to Big Sky and since it was right before Austin's birthday and we had a free birthday meal coupon, we got pictures of this!  Austin was so happy as you can see from the pics!  We had the best server.  He brought an extra sundae when he gave Austin his, just so Paige wouldn't feel left out.  That's what I call smart!

After we came back from Big Sky (more on that later) we celebrated with Grandma and Grandpa A.  They gave him some binoculars and he couldn't be happier because now he can use them when we go to Yellowstone to see the baby buffalo.  We left our camera at G and G A's house so we didn't have a camera for Austin's real birthday party.  Oops.  I have pics on my phone, but I can't upload them to our new laptop so who knows if I'll be able to get them on here.  I made him a great Superman cake and he got a Superman car and a Spiderman bike with training wheels.  He was pretty much in heaven! :0)

Dynamite comes in small packages!

The title describes Bryn the best.  She is such a funny, active girl.  She loves to be outside and gets very upset when she can't do what Paige and Austin do.  She can be quite independent and is really talking a lot now.  Some of  her words are:  daddy, momma, doggie, kitty, bottle, milk, cheese, Paige, Austin (the last two are said in her own version of them, but we know what she means),  don't know, waterfall, peek-a-boo, night-night.  She is learning new words every day.  I love it!!  She is also a very loving girl.  She loves to give hugs and kisses and her kisses have to be on the lips.  She usually refuses to kiss anyone on their cheek!  She is also our "Tiny Tot".  I took her to the dr.'s office last month for a weight check and she was in the 3rd percentile for weight (20.9 lbs) and 4th percentile for height (I can't remember how tall she was).  Her head was in the 25th percentile.  She definitely has Grandma Flossie in her!  Her doctor is wanting her to go in again in May so he can see if she's growing at an acceptable rate.  He knows that there are small genes in my family, but he's still a little concerned about her size.  She acts fine, eats well and is overall pretty healthy so we're not too worried!  

Those in my family say she looks just like I did at her age.  I wasn't so sure about that, but over Thanksgiving, we looked at pictures of me between 18 months and 3 years old and yes, we look very, very similar.  It's kind of scary!! :0)

Here are some pictures of our little stick of dynamite!

 There are several pictures of her eating breakfast just to show you her bed head.  She has so much hair (for our kids) and it makes us laugh every morning.

Yeah, she's still very much a thumb-sucker!

I told you she wants to do everything that Paige and Austin do.  Here she is dancing with Paige in their matching skirts.

Paige came home from school one day and proceeded to dress Bryn in her gear.  Bryn thought it was the coolest thing!!

Here she is right before church one Sunday.  She looked so cute, don't you think?!?

Her favorite hiding place.  That and behind her rocking chair in her room.  She's such a silly girl.

Yep, it's awesome!! :0)

A few projects

Here are a few projects I was able to do while I was borrowing my friend's sewing machine.  (Thanks, Jesalee!)  I CANNOT wait for my sewing machine to get here!  This week!!  I have LOTS of projects in mind once I get it, so it's going to be fun!!

This is a bag I made for my SIL, Emily.  She got the fabric and I made it!  I love how it turned out.

 This is my new church bag.  I like it because it fits file folder games and notebooks for the kids along with my scriptures and manuals.  I was a little worried it would be too wild for church, but I soon got over that when I saw the cute finished product! :0)

Brian got a new laptop and he asked me if I could make him a cover for it.  I remembered seeing a tutorial on Make It and Love it and had to try it out.  Ashley did a great job explaining how to make it and made it easy to finish this project.  Brian was pretty impressed, I think! ;0)

Paige lost her 2 bottom teeth about 2 months ago and I made this tooth holder for the Tooth Fairy.  I was going to make it a pillow, but decided against it so the kids could still put it under the pillow.  It makes it a little easier for the Tooth Fairy to locate the tooth at night! :0)

I had 2 extra pillow forms laying around so I finally found something to do with them.  For Bryn's pillow I had receiving blankets that went with her bedding and just cut them up, sewed them together using the rag quilt technique and attached the cuddly fabric as the border and backing.  It turned out so cute!!

For Paige's pillow, I still had leftover fabric from her quilt and just used that.  I had her pick the quilt block design and I tried to put it together.  The points are not perfect, but it was fun putting it together, mainly because Paige was so excited about it.  She loved that it went with all of the stars in her room.  I don't think I've posted pictures of the kids' rooms when we finished painting them.  Oops.  I'll have to do that!  Here's a glimpse of Paige's room.  I had her pick out different star designs so Jesalee could cut them out of vinyl and then I put them on frames that I painted white.  There are 5 total.  Brian put up the wainscoting that looks awesome in there.  The doll in the corner was one that my mom made me when I was younger.  I was so happy that it went so well in Paige's room!

Are you inspired to do some projects of your own?!? :0)