The birthday girl!!

Cheyenne turned 3! She has been so excited for her birthday and it finally came! She woke up to presents and was so animated as she opened them. 

She got some learning puzzles (words and sequences), she got a hello kitty watch (the one things she asked for), and card from Trevin that he stayed up late to make so she didn't see it, and finally a card goo for one new birthday outfit. She decided she would rather have two new pairs of shoes instead.

 

 We went shoe shopping that day and got a gold pair of shoes and sandals. That night she got  to stay up late with the boys for an x box party. 

The next day was St. Patrick's day and her friend Libby's party. Where she got to meet PRINCESS BELLE!!! Chey was so excited!  She told her story and helped them make crowns and even painted their faces. 

Sunday was the party at Sugar and Chief's since Trav is in Arizona Chey is the only march birthday. I do the cakes for the party each month and let the kids decided what kind of cake they want. Chey informed me a few weeks ago that she wanted a princess cake and picked Belle. Chey was so excited as she watched her cake come together. I need to learn to be more patient and let the cakes cool completely before frosting them.

The finished product... Chey told me it was "Ohh, beaudiful!"

At her party! 

Blowing out the candles!

 YAY more presents. She couldn't believe that there were more presents for her. We got her a Rapunzel dress and a carriage for all the polly pocket princesses that she got for Christmas. Sugar and chief got her a scooter for her barbies and 10 barbies to go with it, plus extra barbie clothes!  Her cousins got her cute gold sandals and a KEN!!! Yay now she shas more "Boyfriends" for her barbies. She is in barbie heaven!

The next week we celebrated with the Crabtree's.

 Chey got a special necklace cake and you guessed it more PRESENTS!! She was so cute we ate cake then all the kids went to play. After about 30 minutes she walked over to grandma goo and asked, "Can I please open my presents now?" YES! She got a pool from grandma goo, a dry erase case for practicing writing from X&A. finger puppets from bubba and alex. And a cute red skirt and grey heart jacket from the Heslops. (And a SNOWMAN, 5 feet tall, that sings!)

My littlest man.

Two months old and so much fun!

 Levi loves to smile any attention directed at him will result in a smile. I love it. He follows things with his eyes. He ooh's and gaa's and even laughs on occasion. His eye are definitely  going to be blue, so he fits right in. Trevin is the best helper still and Chey has become quite the little mom. They both still get annoyed if Levi is crying during their TV time. They yell " Mom, come get your baby! We can't hear anything!" But luckily they never wake up when he does at night. Then again Levi does a fantastic job of sleeping at night. He eats at 10pm falls asleep at 11pm. Wakes up for a quick bottle at 4:30am, another bottle at 6:45/7:00 am. Then finally wakes up for the day at around 9:00am.

 I've been trying to be better about getting myself in pictures. Most of the time I'm taking the pictures and thus, behind the camera. Trevin has started asking if he can take pictures so I let him and most of the time he gets us in the frame. So here I am with Levi on his 2 month birthday.  

 Levi is very different than T and Chey were as babies. He goes right to sleep in his bassinet as long as he has a binkie, any of them as long as it is the brown rubbery material. He doesn't seem to mind hats. HE loves to look only to the LEFT. Resulting in a flat spot on the back left side of his head. I noticed it about two weeks ago and have been working with him to turn his head to the right. So it's getting better, slowly.

 Levi loves to be in his bouncer or swing! He will lay in them for hours. As long as he can hear the kids or anybody actually. He just likes to know that he hasn't been forgotten. 

 I love Levi. I love dressing him up every day. I have to admit I'm a lot more confident about my sense of style with little boy clothes than little girl clothes. I love long sleeve button up shirts on Levi. So, not all of these pictures were taken on the same day, but Yes that is the same shirt in all of them! It goes back on him every time it gets washed. He just grew into the 3-6 month size! I love all the new options we have.  

 Our 2 month check up went great. I love our new pediatrician. We've struggled with finding someone we like. I loved our first doctor (Family practice), but didn't like the other docs in the clinic (1 insta care visit), the doc wasn't great with the kids. So we switched to a pediatrician and loved him... then he moved out of state. So I tried a new family practice doc, and wasn't impressed. So I picked a new pediatrician from the same clinic, we could only get into her because I was going to have a baby at the hospital she worked in. Well Levi was born, she didn't come to the hospital to eval him, the on call doc did. The day after discharge I had to take Levi in to the office (the docs requirement if I wanted to him to be discharged at 24 hrs old). We went and saw an awesome Dr that day. I loved her. I asked where she practiced and was bummed to find out it was in a clinic further north. Oh well. So I stuck with the one I picked Saw her for a couple of Levi's checks and I didn't like how formal she was. So I gave in and make the drive to the doc that I loved! It is totally worth it too!!!!  

Levi's stats: 

13.5 pounds (82%)

25 inches (96%)

head circ: 41 cm (68%)

 I think they measured his head wrong... my kids are notorious for their over sized heads. I guess we'll find out in a couple months at his next check.

Trevin's first talk

Trevin was assigned to give a talk in primary this week. It is his very first talk and he is very excited. He's done the prayer and scripture before and did a great job. So last Sunday while Gage was at Bishopric meetings. Trevin and I wrote out his talk. The topic was "I can be blessed for following the prophet."

We practiced with him on Sunday and he was already doing really well by the time Gage got home. Sunday night he did his talk for Sugar and chief. Then again on Monday for family home evening he gave it as part of the lesson. He also did it for Grandma Goo and Papa on Monday. Thursday we practiced again and took video to email to all our out of state family. By Sunday he was a pro, maybe we practiced too much. He could read it really fast by Sunday morning when we reviewed before church. I just reminded him right before primary to say it slow.

He was so excited to sit on the "TALK" chair. (Gage and I went and sat in the back of the primary room.) When it was his turn he got up and walked to the pulpit. He adjusted the mic. Then the Primary president asked if he needed help. He looked at her, shook his head and waved his hand and said, "No, I got this." And he did a fantastic job!!!
(You'll have to scroll to the bottom of the blog and pause the music to hear.)

This is what he is reading...

Translated...

"Our prophet teaches me what Jesus wants me to do.

If I listen to the prophet Jesus is happy.

I can listen to the prophet at General Conference.

The prophet teaches me the commandments.

Jesus loves to bless me for following 

the prophet. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen."

 I was so proud of him for working so hard and being so excited. I love this little man!

Life.

This is the catch all post so sorry if it seems random. St. Patrick's day was a hoot!  Dad forgot to wear green to bed and got pinched by Trevin and Cheyenne. He couldn't find a green shirt fast enough.

 The Leprachauns came to our house and caused all kinds of mischief. Then left ribbons all over our house. It took us a while to figure out that they were the color of the rainbow, but once we found out we decided to follow it to the end of teh rainbow. RED...ORANGE...

 YELLOW... GREEN...

 BLUE... PURPLE...

 and then we found their gold!!! in this case Twix bars which are just as good as gold in my book. 

 The Leprechauns also turned our milk green!  

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We blessed Levi on March 4th. The blessing was beautiful and it was fun to have lots of our family here and we missed the ones that couldn't come. These picture are actually from two weeks after the blessing because Levi had the worst baby zits and I couldn't bring myself to take pictures.

The lunch was fantastic. Gage got to come for just a few minutes at the beginning then he headed back to the church for bishopric stuff, he just got called to be the 1st councilor. I'm thankful for his dedication to his calling even though I know it killed him to not be at home. 

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Our cousin Rai Rai broke her arm AGAIN! She is 5 and this is the third time she has broken her arm, not always the same arm. I think the first tow breaks were on her left arm. 1st her forearm (falling off a bar stool). 2nd by her elbow I think her humerus ( falling while riding her scooter). This time she was playing on Sugar's trampoline. It was upside down. Her and Brinlee were doing tricks on the legs of the trampline like they do on the bars at the elementary school. This time she broke her right arm and she broke it good. A trip to the local ER, got her some morphine an a long drive to primary children's so she could have surgery done by a pediatric orthopedist. 3 pins later here she is! What a trooper. 

  Tomorrow after preschool she is gunna stay at my house so week can make her a "cute" sling before her family leaves on vacation at the end of this week. I'll add in a picture of the sling when we finish it. 

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On a happier note this week my kids took a bath in the dark! I have a friend that did this with her kids a few weeks ago and I couldn't wait to try it out! Only problem is that it's hard to get a good picture. 

They loved it and played in the tub for a long time. They were excited to wear their swimming suits too. 

 Who knew that two dollars worth of glow sticks could provided so much entertainment. After they got ready for bed I hid the glow sticks under their pillows and pulled them out after I sang them each a good night song. You would have thought it was Christmas! I went in after they were both asleep to move the rings. I found them both tucked all the way under their covers and super sweaty, so maybe the bath wasn't as productive as I thought.

PRESCHOOL

We've almost made it through a full year of preschool at our house. It has been so much fun!! There are 5 kids that attend. Trevin, Cheyenne, Raigen, Hallie and Liz. We meet twice a week and each week focus on a letter of the alphabet or a number. We have our routine down. First they each get to move a little person on our board that represents them. Then we sing a song. (tune of hello thumbkin)

"Hello friends, Hello friends

How are you? How are you?

We're glad you came to school today

We'll have fun and learn and play

Yes we will! Yes we will!"

We do a round for each child that is there and hold up their little magnetic person so they know whose turn it is. Next up check the weather. They love looking out the window to find out what the weather is like. Then the date. Everyone gets to put something on the board each day. 

Next we use a doodle pad to talk about the letter of the week. We draw the letter and talk about it's sound. Then we draw pictures of things that start with the letter of the week. Then we write random letters on the board to see if we can trick them into saying the wrong letters, but it never works, these kids are so smart.

After that the kids sit at the table to trace the capital and lowercase letter of the week. As soon as the finish their letters they get to color a picture of the letter. This picture was during T week. So they are coloring a tiger T, on a Table, on a Table cloth, while lying on their Tummies!

Levi loves to help me teach preschool. He make sure the kids don't get into any of the supplies before they are supposed to. I actually thought it would be hard to take care of him and teach preschool but he is an excellent little boy and loves to be around the kids.

After coloring is recess!!! after 15 minutes of running around outside it is snack time! Then we do a couple of activities that relate to the letter of the week. O week we learned about opposites. G week we learned about Germs. L week we went on a hunt for litter. This week was T week so we did Tanagrams. 

The last 10-15 minutes is for story time. Liz's mom is awesome and always reads for us!

On special occasions we have parties, really any reason we can find for having a party... but mostly holidays! This was our Dr. Seuss Party. 

 HAPPY PRESCHOOL DAYS!

WHAT A GIRL!!!

Cheyenne loves SHOES, she loves CLOTHES and most of all she loves to DRESS HERSELF! Recently she has found that she can incorporate all of these loves into her life multiple times a day. In fact she does a wardrobe change at least 4 times a day. 

This is how the day usually goes. We wake up in the pajamas she was dressed in for bed. Then after a trip to the bathroom she dresses herself in a different set of PJs(Change #1). Then we eat breakfast and get ready for the day(Change #2).  

 If I dress her in pants then she changes within an hour, skirts last a little longer. But regardless after a while of playing I find her in something new. Today a swimming suit!(Change #3)

Then a dress usually comes out. This time at least she kept the swimming suit on underneath which saved me an extra pair of underwear to wash, YES the WHOLE OUTFIT changes (Change #4).

  Between full outfit changes she changes shoes a lot. But she loves it, so I let her, I'm sure she'll grow out of it soon enough.  And no I don't was the outfits that she only wore for an hour, unless they are visibly dirty because in reality they will probably get worn again tomorrow. Her next change of the day is her chance to get ready for dad to come home, she always ends up in a skirt (Change #5).

After dinner it is back into PJs(Change #6). Wow I love this little girl!

SPA DAY!

Janae spoiled Chey! For her birthday they went to the SPA! Janae took Brinlee, Raigen and Cheyenne. They loved it.  in the relaxation room before their treatment. 

Janae served them all lemon water. I never knew three little girls could be so quiet. 

 They even closed their eyes to relax, just like Janae showed them...well almost like Janae showed them.

 The massage therapist took them back to the treatment room when they each got a robe. Then she washed their feet and massaged them. Next was a hand massage.

 Cheyenne did great and was loving it. When they wanted to lay her down. She broke into tears. I felt so bad. She calmed down really easily. 

 She even decided it was okay to lay down as long as mom joined her. 

 They all loved the cucumbers. In fact I think this is what they were most looking forward to. 

At the end of their session they each got a bag of goodies and nail polish, Cheyenne got a special crown. 

Modeling in their robes in every room as we left. Aren't they so cute!

 Janae and the Girls! Thanks Janae they had an awesome time.