2011 Athena Award Winner

So my in-laws are super involved in the community!! Not only is my father-in-law a city council member but my mother-in-law is the Chairwomen of the Davis County Republican party, among so many other things. They love the community in which they live. They Love Davis County!! And it shows!! They are so involved with not only their work, but in being a Huge contributor to so many different organizations, groups and people!! And they show no signs of slowing this crazy busy life down!! But that's okay!! They enjoy it and that's all that really matters!! Well this year, my dear mother-in-law was honored for all of this (what most people would call) crazy business!! She was given the prestigious Athena Award!! And we were able to be there for a special luncheon honoring this remarkable lady!! Thank you Melissa for watching the girls!!

The young lady saying a little blurb about Shirley and some of her many accomplishments and then we watched a picture video of her.

Mike and Shirley at our table just before they announced her name

This lady defiantly deserved a Standing Ovation!! And that's just what she got!! She is in the red jacket walking towards the front.

Shirley(red jacket) with members from the Athena committee and members of the Davis County Chamber of Commerce.

Shirley giving her little speech

Shirley with her sisters Chris and Judy

And a sign of the table for our family
Congrats Shirley!! Your family is so proud of you!!!

Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day was pretty quiet around here this year. We didn't do much for each other or for the girls since we were headed to Disneyland the next week. That was our big gift to everyone!!! We had a little mailbox that we would leave Valentine's in for each other since before February, but it was just when we wanted to send one to someone. We didn't do it everyday and sometimes 1 or 2 would get one but not all. It was fun!! Jaylee just loved putting the little flag up!! But the girls did get Valentine Nammers!!!
MaKynna in her 1st Valentine's Day Nammers with her heart bottle!!

Jaylee in her LOVE nammers!! She was so ready for bed in this picture and right after I took it she asked her Daddy for a horsey ride so she could go to bed!!

Brady's parents watched the girls a couple nights before Valentine's day so we could go out to dinner!! This picture was taken while we were waiting to get our table!! It was only an hour wait!!! But it was nice to just sit and talk and enjoy being alone!! Our date nights are so few and far between now, so we REALLY enjoy them when they do happen!!!

Preschool Happenings...

I've been really bad about blogging and especially about what we've been up to with our Preschool group!! I'll update that blog today as well, hopefully!!! Anyways, we've had some fun little field trips and activities lately!! Preschool is going well, except my little bug has been sick so much this winter and as a result has missed way to much school!! I hope she won't be like this forever!!! She has NEVER been sick more then once a year and this winter alone it's been every other week, no joke!!!
Anyways, these first pictures are from the Valentine's Party. Kynna gets loved a lot by all the little kids!!! Don't be fooled though, she LOVES the attention!!!

Brecklyn, Jaylee, MaKynna, Adley and Sawyer

Jaylee working on her heart envelope

Melissa helping all the preschool kids make their envelopes for their Valentine's
Before Valentine's Day, we went on a field trip to the local grocery store. They took us on a tour all around the store and through the back. It was fun to see the backside of the store and let the kids see the other side of just grocery shopping. After our tour, most of us mom's had a couple things we needed to get anyway, so the kids got to ride in all the "fun" shopping carts. They kept switching carts so none of us actually had our child in our cart. I call those the "fun" carts because I think they are such a pain in the rear to push around the store and 99% of the time, Jaylee wants out of them by the 2nd aisle. I would much rather have her push her own little shopping cart. She stays more entertained and loves to put things in her cart!! I'm so glad our normal place of shopping finally got some of these little carts!!! Anyways, back to our field trip!!

J standing on the green line like she was asked to!!!

All the kids showing off their goody-bags!!
And then this last week, we went to Great Harvest Bread for our field trip!! J was in a mood and I should have known she would be when I had to wake her up to get ready. She was just kind of mean to her friends, then she just wanted to be held and wouldn't walk to go to the back of the store for the tour, so she and I just stayed in the front and watched from a distance. She did want to go back finally but then she was just mean and started coughing so we had to go back to the front. She wasn't sick or anything, I just think she was super tired. She did come home and take a nap, which she NEVER does anymore!!!

J waiting for all the other kids to get to the Bread store!!

Poor Sawyer was sick so he wasn't there, but we did have Adley and Brecklyn's cousins with us, Sam and Eli, so that was fun!!! This was the short moment that J actually wanted to go back and see what her friends were doing.
So Preschool is going well. J continues to learn a lot, when she is actually there!!! I do think that whatever we decide to do for next year's preschool, she is going to have to have more days during the week that she goes. She LOVES school but she LOVES her friends even more!!!

Bloggy Blog Day...

Yes finally I am back!! Hopefully I won't get so far behind again!! I've heard from a bunch of people how I needed to update my blog and trust me, I would have much rather been blogging then dealing with sick girls yet again.
The last 2 1/2 weeks have been horrible around here. MaKynna had the dreaded RSV. Lucky for us it was such a mild case and didn't really need any more attention then the continual sucking of the nose. That little test they do to see if that's what it is, is pretty pricey too. I just got the bill yesterday and goodness it was almost $500 to suck stuff out of her nose. And Jaylee had an inner earache. She's finally finished her antibiotic for that and I think we are out of the woodwork. Although Kynna woke up with a nasty sounding cough and is now fine, so let's just hope it was because of a frog in her throat or something. I try my best to keep our kids well, however can I just say I REALLY hate when people bring their sick kids to church, and stores and such!!! If your kids are sick, KEEP them HOME!! I know it's a pain in the rear to be stuck at home with sick kids, but I would feel so bad knowing that someone else got sick because of one of mine. I think I'll be okay if I miss a week or two of the fun activities that surround our life!! I don't know what's up with my J-Bug this year. She has never been one to get sick very much and this winter she's been down like 4 times now. She takes a multi-vitamin daily, but it doesn't seem to help her little immune system. No joke if she is around anyone with anything lately, she catches it!! And since she hasn't learned to stay away from her baby sister, when she does get sick, so Kynna seems to be catching some little thing here and there as well. All I can say is let's hope this is the end for any illness around here!!
We have a very fun family vacation coming up in 11 days!! We are going to the Happiest Place on Earth!! Yes Disneyland!! We were going to go in September, but decided to go in February instead. We are so excited and every day Jaylee asks me if it's a Disneyland day!! I can't wait to see her there!! She is going to have a BLAST I'm sure!!! So for the next week and a half I have some major planning to do!! And I am great with that!!
Hope you enjoy the LONG overdue updates!!!

Our little Sunbeam

On January 2nd, Jaylee advanced to Primary in the Sunbeam class. I'm sure it's not called that anymore but they'll always be sunbeams to me!! She had been excited for weeks to go all the time. Every Sunday she would tell us all about Primary and how she got to help and sing and all kinds of fun stuff. She's getting so big!! I can't believe that she will soon be 4!!

Don't be fooled!! She was so excited to go to Primary, but now she pleads with us every week to go back to Nursery. It's a constant fight now!! And of course Sunbeams and Nursery are right near each other so the walk past it doesn't help!! She does well once she's there though so that's a good thing!!

New Years 2011

For New Year's we went to Bouwhuis' and had a great night of games, food and company!! Brady's sister Marlee came up with all of these fun things for the kids to do every hour, to keep them awake and entertained and not just running around everywhere all night. We had a good night and went home shortly after midnight. It was a fun night!!

2010 Babies Celebrating their first New Years Party!!!
MaKynna, Elle, and Gideon

Jaylee getting her glow sticks

Jaylee with her beautiful crown party hat she made

J with her noise maker

Kynna sound asleep not even aware as to the party just outside of Nanny and Poppa's room

Sparkler Time with Jaylee and Tenley

Kynna woke up from all of the noise at midnight!! But was quickly asleep again!!

It was super cold New Years but that didn't keep the kids from doing their fireworks!!

Happy New Year 2011!!!

Kynna loves baby food

For Christmas-In her stocking MaKynna got some Baby food!! We started with Rice cereal of course, but she would gag on it. Who could blame her it's nasty. So I started adding a little of something else to it to give it a better taste, and she LOVES it!! She is such a loud eater though. With every bite she has to let you know how much she likes it, constantly saying MMMMMM. It's super cute and way funny!!! And even though my J isn't the greatest eater herself, she is such a great encouragement to her baby sister. A friend from church gave me a bunch of baby food. I mean 3 boxes of Rice Cereal and such and about 50 jars of baby food. Most of it was bananas however, there were 2 cans of this beef & beef gravy. So I decide to finally try this one the other day, and oh my!! I about puked when I got a smell of it. Yuck!! Can you just say Baby Dog Food!! Of course Kynna gaged on it like no other and Brady told me to ditch it!! I wasn't even brave enough to try this one!! Why do they feel like they need to have this nasty stuff for such little babies? Seriously I think they'll be okay without the beef for a little longer!!

Anyways, baby food with Kynna is going great!!! She'll eat most things and just loves it so much!!!