SHE DID IT!!!!

Emma officially crawled today! Here's an "action" video!

Cakes Galore

For the Relief Society birthday party this year, our ward decided to have a cake decorating contest (based off a reality TV show). The teams were determined by birthday month - we had 2 9x13 cakes, frosting, and tips/bags provided. And we could be any embellishments we wanted. My team was November/December, so we decided to go with a Christmas-themed cake. Since I was the team leader, I have creative friends who I was able to bounce some ideas off of until I had the "vision". All the ideas were amazing and so creative...3-tier "God Bless America" cake w/firework-like candles, beach scenes w/sharks, etc., deserted islands, a kleenex box w/"God will wipe away every tear" written on it...there was every idea imaginable!!! It was a fun night (mental note for all you Enrichment leaders).

Sunday Afternoon

The kids and I are in a "funk" this afternoon...Daddy had to go to work to get ready for a last-minute hotel inspection. Sunday just doesn't feel like Sunday when Daddy isn't here - and since we have 9:00 church, we have a lot of time to fill today! Plus it's our first really warm day so the kids think they're DYING in the heat (granted I do think it's in the 80's and we don't have A/C). Does anyone have any good ideas for how to spend this LOVELY Sunday afternoon? We've made egg salad sandwiches, played games and watched a movie so far...We even discovered that we had a little bird who built a nest on the wreath that hangs on our front door. I've noticed a bird fly onto it before and just saw the nest today. It's behind the tall wooden birdhouse in the middle...not sure if you can tell or not)! Well, I think we're going to go work on some Earth Day coloring pages!

Zach: "I got a dollar and pirate Legos for Easter."
Camilla: "For Easter I got a dollar and a jump rope and Peeps."
Alex: "Milla kicked me right now in the hair. Stop it, MILLA!" (can you tell he's a bit grouchy?)

Almost crawling...

Emma is working on her crawling and her pre-walking skills simultaneously, so I'm never sure which one she will master first. I was actually thinking she would skip the crawling stage, but she's looking like she might prove me wrong...(that wouldn't be a first!)

Easter Sunday

Do you ever have perfect days? I have them every once in a while...so many things go so right that it doesn't matter when things go wrong. My Easter was that kind of perfect...we had Noall's family in town and some friends over for dinner. I spoke in church and we had a couple of friends show up to church as well...everything was wonderful (especially Noall's grilled pork chops)!!! It was low-key, with friends and family...and we had a nice little devotional w/the kids before bed. I love days like that!

Can you get enough...

pictures of Emma??? Can you ever get sick of looking at your own kids? I'm in love with mine, so bear with one more picture of Emma at the park for our Easter egg hunt.

My cute Alex

I'm always worried that my kids in the middle aren't going to get enough of my attention. So, today I share pictures of my cute Alex that keeps a smile on my face (96% of the time!)!

Perspective

I was trying to take a cute picture of Alex this morning, but he was not in the mood for a photo shoot. I had to bribe him to smile by promising that he could take pictures of me after I was done. When I looked at the pictures he took it reminded why people say to "get down on a child's level when you talk to him/her". I try to remember to do that, but didn't realize what a big difference it made until I saw these two pictures. In one I quickly bent over for my "photographer" and in the other one I knelt down to talk to him before he took my picture. These kids really are living in the land of the giants (did you see how far I'm leaning over in the one picture?)...it can make such a big difference to get on their level (literally and figuratively)!

Our Star Reader

Camilla is an avid reader and writer. Her favorite pastime lately is being an author and illustrator at night after dinner and homework are done. She's working on a story about a snowflake right now - I'll have to post it when she's done. Anyways, her love for language was evident today when she received the "Star Reader Award" at school - she was pretty excited! And the fact that she received it for her reading and writing in Spanish is pretty incredible (but, I am biased!). She really does have a gift for language, though, and will (at times) refuse to speak to me in English, opting for Spanish instead. So, yes, we're proud of her, but especially glad that she enjoys being bilingual so much! :)

Our girl

Is it just my babies or are they all able to out-eat their siblings? Yesterday for breakfast Emma downed a bowl and a half of oatmeal, 2 kiwis, 1/2 orange, and a whole banana. And tonight she had more spaghetti than Zach...that's my girl! And, yes, she's holding a rifle in the picture with all the kids watching a movie - she's got two brothers, what can I say? In the video we're trying to get her to say "mamamama" (she's switched to make her new favorite sound "dadadada")!