The Beach House

Since we have lived in Maryland, we have had the opportunity to occasionally go and stay at a beach house that belongs to some of Luke's family. We love going there! The kids beg and beg to go to the beach house. Sometimes I think that they think we have different places where we live. They will ask me on random occasions,"Where are we going Mommy? To the hotel? To Grandma's house? To the beach house?" Or..."Mommy, I wanna go to the (insert hotel, Grandma's house, or beach house)." And I must confess, we share their excitement! :)

So sweet, she wanted to bring with her the banner she had made as a decoration for the Hoedown focus party just the day before. 

And right after I took this picture, as we were heading in the front door, my arms were so full of bags, and Owen in the car seat over my arm. As I'm struggling through, Casey, who is already inside the front door and is watching me, sticks out his hand in a gesture of, "here, let me help you." My heart absolutely melted. It's a beautiful thing to me when a small child recognizes someone in need of help, and offers to help them. There wasn't much Casey could do, but he wanted to try! 

I think they look so much alike in this picture!

Hailey had such fun picking up sea shells

Casey didn't like the noise of the waves.

He preferred to look at the water from a distance.

They found this sand castle and and fun poking at it, and inspecting it.

Hailey got such a thrill out of running from room to room and finally claimed this one. Unfortunately, I couldn't let her sleep in there by herself. I think she liked it because it was the room with the starfish decor.

I love catching them in moments of sibling sweetness :)

Enjoying a much deserved rest and drink. 

The perfect place for the team to decompress.

When you don't have a lot of toys, you line up multiple cups of water. And it occupied them for a long time! We desperately need to simplify at home!

Our quiet, gentle, pensive daughter.

Family beach walk.

Helping Casey brave the water. 

Pure bliss.

Country Hoedown

I know this is a much belated post, but I don't care :) I so badly want to remember how sweet the kids are at events like these. And this one was especially bittersweet. Since we were leaving staff officially, this was going to be Luke and my last focus event that we would host as missionaries.  It was the end of the year focus part, the theme was a country hoedown, and we had the perfect set up. 

All year the team had referred to our house as 'the ranch'

All Hailey wanted was those dorritos. As soon as she saw them, she put herself in charge of them. She made sure they made it safely on the food table.

Casey was feeling a little timid and shy, I think it was the darkness because he loves people and typically is so social. But Hailey was right there putting her arm around him and telling him, "don't worry Casey, I'm right here, I got you."

Already being such a gentleman

Stomping around in the hay that was scattered all over the back portion of our driveway. It makes me smile how it looks like they are line dancing.

Never far from his pals, Ellen and Jenna

Loving those chips!

The party was a huge success. There were over 100 students that came and many were saying it was the best party they had ever been to. Not pictured is the bonfire, mechanical bull, and stage where instructions for the line dances were given!

Last song of the night, the focus girls singing "Cowboy Take me Away" by the Dixie Chicks. I joined them right after this photo. 

The day Hailey made breakfast

March 8th was a morning I won't forget. Hailey already had been given a bowl of cereal but she decided she was still hungry. While I was in the shower, she made herself a bowl of oatmeal. Yep. Start to finish, she successfully made herself second breakfast. And there was hardly any evidence. She had gotten the big container of oatmeal out of the cupboard which was up high, measured out her oats with a measuring cup, put the oatmeal away, then added some water, microwaved it, and took it out before it bubbled over, and then she took the milk gallon and poured it into a measuring glass making it easier to carefully pour milk into her bowl. What a smarty pants. She was SO proud of herself. I couldn't believe it. There was such minimal mess too.

She is so capable, it amazes me. And only 3 and half years old. Way to go, Hailey! 

When you're the best of friends

.....you do everything together.

I love how they wait for each other to do things, ask for the other one, and dislike being apart. It reminds me of my siblings when we were little. You truly are best playmates! Even the quarrelling, and not wanting to share, you learn how to get along and work things out. These two are not capable of working it out themselves most of the time, lots of parental intervention needed still, but they'll get there :)

Broncos Disappoint

Well, they lost, and it was such an embarrassing final score, and with Peyton having just gotten MVP for the 5th time in his career...it was just such a disappointment. Like it wasn't even a good game. But so those things go. The half time show was fun and I have to say we did a pretty good job showing our Bronco love and support!

Every year the seminary has a super bowl party that we go to, and it's always a lot of fun. Great food and company. Luke decided to wear our Bronco blanket as a cape for fun (from his high school days in CO), and since it's our only Bronco item! hahaha. The kids had a fun time eating hot dogs and cookies, and crawling under tables (or tunnels). My favorite moment was when I asked Casey if it was time to go home and put on his Thomas pajamas and he said, "No, watch football."

Reading

How we spend these cold winter afternoons...

Even the boys get in on reading the disney princess books, haha. I so hope our children grow up with a love for reading! I used to spend summers lost in good books. I've been trying to read to them more and as their attention spans grow, it's becoming more and more fun. For a while I couldn't even get books from the library because they would be tearing dvds off the shelf making a HUGE mess. But now, they search (with minimal mess) for one dvd of their choice (a  Disney princess one for Hailey, Thomas the Train for Casey) while I use that 3 minutes to pick out 4 or 5 books. It's something I hope to keep up!

2 and a half months

And......going on 2yrs old. Seriously, who is this kid? He is so big, so happy, so smiley, so ticklish, so talkative....and just so BIG! I had to raise the straps of his infant car seat up to the highest level but it didn't really help all that much, because his heels are already sticking out on the bottom edge! I am in awe of this guy and so excited (partially terrified) to see what life holds for him! Will he play in the NBA? Will he need an extra long twin bed as a teen? Will I need to buy a new car seat within the next month?!?! Probably! What is your mama feeding you?! Oh wait...... :)

Daddy/Daughter date

This was totally impromptu one day, Luke stopped home briefly late in the morning and asked the kids, "who wants to go to Mass with me?!" Miss Hailey immediately jumped at the chance to go somewhere with Daddy and told Casey, Owen and I, "You stay here. I go with Daddy, see Jesus, back soon!" She was already prancing around that day in a fancy dress and after putting her coat and shoes on, they both looked so sweet on their way out the door I had to snag a quick photo.

What a beautiful girl she is, and so blessed to have a daddy who strives so hard in loving her (as well as our other children) to show her the love of God the father.

December 17th

I can't believe how long it has been since I last blogged. No, I take that back. I can believe it. But! Time to catch up! I'll try to keep this as non-boring as I can, but you can't fault me for documenting for the sake of remembering these very precious times with our little family. 

Back when we got that first lovely snowfall in December, Luke took the kids out to build a snowman. It was cold and kind of lightly raining (yuck) but they loved it and were out there for over an hour. 

Letting Daddy do all the work, or course.

Packing down the base.

There he is! All done!

They were so sad when he melted just a few days later, and are eagerly waiting the next snow fall! Not sure if we will get it here.....we will see!