My Baby is One!!

I can hardly believe that our little Emma has already been in our family for a full year! On the one hand, I feel like it was just yesterday that I was pregnant with her, and on the other, I can hardly remember life without her. She is such a joy to have in our family, and it is so nice to add a little femininity to the house. I don't feel quite so outnumbered anymore!! We had a really fun birthday for her. We woke her up for church by singing happy birthday to her, and then let her open a couple of presents. Later that night we had a party for her. Taylor and Austing successfull took over and opened all her presents for her. She didn't seem to mind. She just played with the balloons and wrapping paper. The highlight of Emma's night was the birthday cake. Most babies are a little tentative about their first cake, but not Emman she dug right in. She was shoveling fistfuls into her mouth. At one point she went face first into the cake! She loved it. It was so funny to watch. You'd think with her gigantc appetite that she'd be a little bigger, but she continues to sit at the 1 percentile!! We love our little Emma so much and are so glad to have her in our family. Happy Birthday Baby!!

Vampires, and spidermans, and bunnies, oh my!

Halloween was a lot of fun. Taylor loved being able to dress up and parade around school in his costume. All the kids at the bus stop thought he was pretty scary. Austin, being the candy loving child that he is, thought Halloween was the greatest day of the year. And little miss Emma really didn't seem too phased by seeing all the kids dressed up in weird costumes, she just kind of went along for the ride!

Football Fun!

Taylor just finished his first season of flag football, and Ira just completed his first season of "head coaching". Yes, that's right...Ira coached Taylor's team wrapping up the season with a 3-5-1 record. 3 wins, 5 losses, and one tie. But really it's hard to keep track when kids are running the wrong way and scoring touchdowns for the opposing team. It was so fun though. Taylor loved it and you could tell that by the end of the seaon he was really starting to understand the game. You can see by the pictures that Taylor was a little at a disadvantage being that he was a good head shorter than the next smallest kid, but he loved it anyway. And interestingly enough, he was tougher than most of the big kids. They big ones seemed to be the ones crying every time they got hit. Taylor was the youngest one on the team so I guess it makes sense that he was the smallest! Anyway, it was a lot of fun and definitely kept us laughing at the things that would happen. One time Ira called for one of his players to come in and rotate another kid out, and he looked around for him and found the kid climbing a tree on the other side of the fence...I love the competitive spirit!

A Flash of the Past...

On Saturday I got the chance to see all five of my sophomore year roomies from Ricks College. What a blast we had! Some of us hadn't seen eachother in 6 years!! Makes me feel a little old just thinking it's been that long. It's amazing how it can be so long, but you get together and it's like we hardly skipped a beat...it seems like just yesterday. We had such a good time humiliating ourselves by watching embarassing home videos that can never be seen by anyone else, and looking back at pictures from our time together! The first couple of pictures are from back in the day and the next few are from Saturday. You can see that we haven't changed too much! Thanks Averi and Michelle for letting me snag your pictures! I love you girls and you all look fabuulous!!! Can't wait for the next get together...let's not wait 6 years this time!

And by the way,...

I thought I'd mentioned that little miss Emma is crawling now. She started crawling about a month and a half ago and is now pulling herself up on everything! She thinks she's all grown up. She'll be walking before we know it!

WOW!! What a Day!!

I can hardly believe it...yesterday my little boy, my first-born child started school! It was such a crazy emotionally charged day. I was so excited and thrilled for him, but I found myself having to fight back tears at the thought of my baby leaving me. Not only did he go to his first day of kindergarten, but he rode the bus to school. This was no easy thing for me. To watch him get on the bus and hope that he made it to school safely and then pray that he got on the RIGHT bus on the way home from school left me feeling a little uneasy! After I put him on the bus I followed behind in my car so that I could see him go into the school. Then after school I got in my car and drove to the school, watched him to make sure he got on the right bus, and then raced home so that I would be there waiting at the bus stop when he got off the bus. NO LAUGHING...it was my first time! Taylor absolutely loved it. As usual he had no fear or anxiety. He's an old pro at everything he does. He's such a good boy and so smart. I am a pround mommy and I love him to pieces!

First Day of School!

Family Pictures

On Saturday we underwent the task of family pictures. I've been wanting to have them done forever, but with three little kids it seemed a little daunting. The boys typically refuse to even look at me when I pull out the camera, so let's just say that I was more than pleasantly surprised when the boys cooperated for two hours of picture taking!!! They went so well, and we are so happy with the turn-out. I know I'm probably biased, but I'm pretty sure each of my kids could be child models!! Maybe, I'll see if I can make some money off of them:) We had my college roommate do our pictures and she was fantastic. She is so creative and patient...very good combination for little kids. If anyone needs a great photographer let me know and I'll refer you over!!

Almost 7 months old!

Our little Emma is already almost 7 months old! I can't believe how fast time is going. She is so sweet and we just love her so much. She is such a momma's girl, and she just melts my heart when she reaches her arms out to me because she wants me to hold her. She is starting to do this little dancing thing where she bounces her little body all over when I'm holding her. It's really cute. Her brothers adore her, and think she is the cutest baby in the whole world. In fact they have affectionately given her the nickname "cute face". I thought I'd put a couple of pictures of her in her bumbo baby seat,that her grandma gave her, so everyone could see how stinkin cute she is!! Personally, I don't think they get much cuter than this!!

Our trip to the zoo!

A couple of weeks ago Ira took a Friday off and we decided to take a trip to the zoo. The weather was gorgeous and we had so much fun. We went to this really cool bird show where giant eagles and all sorts of other birds would literally swoop right past our heads. The boys also thought riding on the carousel and eating ice cream cones was pretty fun. There was also this white alligator (there are only 10 in the world and they are all brothers), and the boys and I were standing looking at it and it slowly lifted it's eyes out of the water and stared straight at us. Then it got out of the water and started making it's way toward us. Taylor was sure it was after us. He kept backing further and further away even though there was a glass wall in between us and the alligator. It was pretty funny. Here are some pictures!