Sunday, February 23, 2014

Olivia turns 9

Olivia turns 9!  I have had the best 9 years with the pretty girl!  She is the most down-to-earth girl you will ever meet and so much fun.  You want this girl on your team because she is a WINNER!


All Olivia's Aunts bought her an American Girl Doll Horse, and needless to say she was super excited about it. I also bought her an iPod so she was quite spoiled today!



She was definitely in Heaven singing away to her favorite tunes on her birthday!





Dear Olivia,

Your are tuning into the most beautiful young lady, inside and out.  Your favorite color is teal and you love food just like your dad.  We are blessed every day with your kind nature.  I love watching you show love to your brothers by spending time with them and teaching them things.  Being the only girl, you bring a softness to our home.  I have loved watching your testimony grow.  For the first time ever you are getting an opinion about what you want to wear.  In our family photo above, this outfit was going to be the one and I tried to match everyone around it!  You have spent so much time in the wilderness this year and with Grandma's pony, Chiquita.  It is amazing how much that has shaped you! You have had a bunny and a hermit crab die this year.  Your tears fell fast and it shows how much you love those creatures.  Heavenly Father knew I needed you in my life and you make my whole heart happy!!  I love you soo much Miss 9-year-old-girl!!  Every year with you only gets better.  Maybe we could skip the teen years though?  Every now and then I get a glimpse of this inner-attitude you have and I am afraid.  HAHAHA!!  NAH!

Love,
Mom

Saturday, February 22, 2014

Primary Children's Visit for Cohen

Anytime I get to spend time with Cohen is a sooo very happy time.  He does really well with one on one time and he loves it.  Let's just say he knows how to milk it for all it's worth too!  We went up to Primary Children's to get another opinion with all of Cohen's allergies.  He learned how to use his inhaler better.  They tested his airways and when he is having a "good day" his lungs work great!  It's the bad days that we are constantly worried about.  Coco is a trooper.  He deals with a lot!  Every day he is tempted with foods he cannot eat and he wants them real bad.  Trying to keep him full with non-junk is so hard.  The few foods he can eat - he often gets tired of eating them.  For the most part though, he knows this is his trial and he accepts it and has little complaint during school parties or other activities.  For that I am so thankful.  We are continuing to do the immunotherapy drops daily.  This Dr at Primary Children's was pretty discouraging. He thinks Cohen will struggle throughout his life! I don't really think so.  I have to be more optimistic than that!!!!  
We stayed the weekend with Noelle and that is for sure our happy place!  They all fell asleep playing, pretty much on top of each other.  I love how much they love each other!

Thursday, February 20, 2014

Girls Weekend

Man, I love having girls weekends!  I love these girls so much.  They are like family to me.  They do so much for me.  They are great examples in my life of charity, service and love.  I am so so lucky.
We just got a hotel room for overnight in Salt Lake City.  We did so much shopping!  I literally had a list of shops I wanted to go to a mile long and we did it all.  Mary, Brandalyn, Becca, me and Alyson.  LOVE my BFFs!

Monday, February 17, 2014

Prayer Works

This year in Primary the kids all drew pictures for the sacrament meeting programs.  It was so awesome to see each kid's drawing.

This year, in our home we have been focusing a lot on prayers.  Prayer works,  I know it with all my heart.  In fact, I couldn't live without that communication with our Heavenly Father.  Mason is learning to pray. He watches the older kids and does his best to copy them.  He loves to say his own little prayer and copy what the older ones are saying.  It is very, very cute but more importantly it is teaching him at a young age to always talk to Heavenly Father.  I love it.



A Quick Fun Visit

Brandalyn is such a good friend. She always tries to get a visit into Blanding in the fall.  It was just a weekend trip, but it was super fun, filled with lots of play and LOTS of projects to do!


Taeya loved Mason.  He was more than happy to help her with anything she suggested to do!

JUST DANCE was playing non-stop!  I love watching all the kids dance.  So. Much. Fun.



The newest addition to our huge crew is Quincee!  She was such an awesome girl and made it easy to accomplish so much in so little time!  LOVE the Kennards.

Saturday, February 15, 2014

Natural Bridges

Another Saturday means another hike!  We headed South and it was much warmer.  Jeremy took us to Natural Bridges.  It was a lot of fun.  Some parts were a little scary and had me sweating a little, but it was soo much fun!



The kids learned about all the Indian writings on the rock and they saw lots of natural bridge formations.

One Elderly gentleman was walking up the trail as we were walking down.  He passed Jeremy and the kids and then stopped me.  He asked why I let my little girl pack a gun on her belt.  It was true. She was wearing a little BB gun. Olivia has been shooting with her dad numerous times using a BB Gun and she likes to wear it (unloaded).  She is very careful with it whether it is loaded or not and doesn't take it out to play with it or point it at anything except with her Dad.  I tried to explain that to this guy, that is was an unloaded BB Gun and she was safe.  This did not satisfy the man.  He told me in some unkind words that she was not safe and she should not be allowed anything and that no one should carry a gun on trails.  This made me sad more than anything.  I couldn't get away fast enough from this yelling man.  I was grateful for the gun in case he attacked me!  So grateful that we have the right to carry arms in America.



It was pretty steep at times and Coy did awesome!  So did Jeremy with the baby!  I was stinking nervous!

Selfies with my handsome boys!!

Friday, February 14, 2014

Valentine's Day! LoVe

Valentine's Day is pretty busy for me and I LOVE it!  I usually wait till the last minute to think of what kind of scavenger hunt I am going to do for the kids.  Plus Jeremy is super busy at the hospital's dinner cooking food for the town of Blanding!  Do I sound bitter?  I'm not.  He's only done it for the past 3 years.  But it makes him happy and that makes me happy.
This was my best attempt to make Olivia's hair "Valentiny."
This year I printed out all the Valentine's clues and glued them to the back of Princess playing cards.  The first stop was Stacy's house where we picked up Palmer.  All the clues had a task to fill before they were handed the next stop.  Mason can't help but point out every bug and Stacy was more then happy to show love by seeing it!



Cohen LOVES spy stuff and clues make him sooo excited.  He was definitely fast!  I really need to make them harder next year.  We ended up at a friend's house that had a bounce house and many other fun places including Grandma's house where they ate dinner as part of a task.



Tradition has it I always make breakfast for dinner for the kids on V-Day.  Heart shaped things as much as possible.  I even tried hearts with Bacon.  YUM!  A pink drink and strawberries are a must!

I am so lucky to have these kids!!!  After the kids ate, Grandma and Grandpa babysat so I could join Stacy and some friends down at the hospital to eat a delish dinner made with love by my hubby.  He even made an appearance to give me a kiss!!