Our Christmas Holiday!

My mom was supposed to come to our house for Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day,but all the flights were full and Grandma couldn't come. We were all dissapointed but still had a great Christmas. We made sugar cookies for Santa and had fun decorating and eating them.

Then we listen while Daddy read the nativity from the scriptures and Bailee read us the The Night Before Christmas. She is such a good reader and loved reading the story to us. We open up pajamas on Christmas Eve and of course mom had to take a family picture.

We were spoiled by Santa and family this year. Santa made the kids go on a scavenger hunt for their present. The kids thought that was so fun and found a Wii at the end. They were so excited and couldn't wait to try it out. What a fun game system and the games are pretty fun too. Braden got the Indiana Jones Lego game, Star wars lego game and Bailee got a princess game. Mom and dad got Guitar Hero World Tour and love rocking out!

I got a really great camera, the ones that professionals have and love taking pictures with it. I now need to learn all the tricks to it. We also got a keyboard so we can play the piano. I used to play but never had a piano to practice on. Now Im excited to learn some songs all over again. Thanks to Grandma Linda I now have a beautiful illustrated songbook of the hymns to play too.

Braden also got some lego sets, clothes, Robin hood DVD, Sword in the stone DVD, remote control car. Bailee got a MP3 player, Sleeping Beauty DVD, clothes, Barbies of Hannah Montana friends. Malia got mostly clothes which she was excited about. A toy vaccum, Barral of Monkeys, a baby doll, a ride on toy and a toy radio. Malia also like to unwrap the presents which was fun to watch.

We had a fun dinner with Grandma and Grandpa Clark Christmas day and enjoyed visiting with family and having yummy food. Grandpa always makes such yummy dinners and the coconut cake was to die for.

We headed down to Utah the day after and spent some time with my brothers and sister. We has a great time playing games and opening presents again.

We had a great holiday! We hope all had a Merry Christmas!

Christmas Pictures

My friend did an amazing job taking our pictures. We couldn't be happier with them. Here are some of our favorites.

My Favorite Things

This post is inspired by the Christmas song "My Favorite Things" even though that particular song is not a favorite. Hopefully some of my favorite things may be yours as well.
1. Long hot hot showers.
2. Being with family
3. Hanging out with friends
4. Baking goodies to eat.
5. Date night with hubby
6. When our kids play nicely with eachother
7. Christmas Season
8. Christmas songs, Breath of Heaven by Amy Grant
9. Scrapbooking (even though I dont do it as often as I like)
10. Shopping
11. Going out to eat, Wingers and Chili's
12. Watching sappy girlie movies, The Notebook
13. Decorating our house
14. Taking pictures
15. Kissing my kids and hubby
16. Gardening, a new favorite
17. Playing boardgames, Sorry
18. Reading good books, Twilight, Harry Potter
19. Sleeping in on Saturdays, which doesn't happen often
20. Working out at Golds
21. Blogging
22. I love to vacuum, sounds crazy I know
23. Playing with my kids
24. Meeting new people
25. love to cuddle to get warm at night

Well I hope you enjoyed some of my favorite things

Lets Dance!

So one of Bailee's favorite thing to do at home is dancing in front of the TV. I guess she likes to see her refelction while jamming out to the latest of Miley Cyrus. Well, when Bailee starts dancing little Malia will join her and they dance thier little hearts out. Usually Malia dances much better than the video will show, but of course when you want to tape them they stop performing. I hope you enjoy the future backup dancers to Hannah Montana! You might want to turn down the music in the background before playing.

Malia's First Ponytail

Today is a day to celebrate! We kindly refer to Malia's hair as the "mullet." It is growing so long in the back but there is hardly any hair on the top. So I got my comb, squirt bottle and elastic and was ready to create magic. I just had enough hair to make one little pony tail and I think its adorable, and of course I thought Malia looked so cute. From now on I think I will do this to her hair everday, since she wont wear her cute little headbands anymore. Such a little stinker. I had to take pictures to capture this wonderful day.

A Christmas Performance

As you know, Bailee is taking dance lessons through the city and she just loves it. They had their first performance on November, 21. They have been working very hard in class. She did a fantastic job on both her tap dance and ballet dance. She was so excited to perform and loved it when daddy gave her, her own special flowers. Thanks Grandma Linda, Grandma Judy and Aunt Megan for coming. Bailee was happy you made it out to watch her in her first dancing performance.

Legos, Legos, and More Legos

Since Braden is in love with building with legos, we thought it would be great to buy him more legos for his birthday. Braden is so talented on building his own creations and takes pride on what he can do. For a couple of days we were comitted to building his new sets (okay so only a few hours I was having fun). I think I was having more fun than Braden. Only if they had girl sets in the stores. When I was little me and my sister both had a set of girl legos. Mine was a baby's nursery and Megan's was a playground. Here are a few pictures of our newest creations

Braden Is Five Today

Our little boy is 5 years old today. He is so excited to turn a year older and tells us throughout the day "I'm five." Officially he wont be five until 5:46pm. He had to go to preschool today and they gave him a cool birthday crown to wear. He was in charge of providing snacks for the whole preschool so I made sugar cookies in the shapes of pumpkins, ghosts, and bats. Earlier this month we had a little party for him in Utah the weekend of Conference. Where all his aunts and cousins on my side could help him celebrate.

We are going to have birthday dinner at our favorite pizza place, Gerties. This place is awesome it has quite the assortment of pizzas and dessert pizzas. My favorite is the Chicken Ranch Cashew pizza, while the kids love the dessert pizzas the best. Braden will have an out of this world star wars party with friends on Saturday where Jedi's from all over will help him fight the dark side. It is hard to believe that our little man is growing up so fast.

Happy Fall!!

We have been slightly busy but boring people. I'm still adjusting to getting up before 7:00 to get Bailee ready for school, and then helping Braden get ready for preschool on Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Luckily I have a carpool going so I only drive across town for preschool once a day instead of twice. Braden is really loving school and is learning shapes and letters. I'm glad Braden is having this chance to get out of the house and make new friends and learning. It's crazy to think he will be 5 on October 15. Time goes by so fast.
Bailee is still loving first grade and today they are taking a field trip to the dairy. Sounds like alot of fun. Bailee is our little reader, and reads US stories at bedtime. We are putting her in ballet and tap. She loves to dance around the house so I'm sure she'll love it.
Malia is our little ray of sunshine. She is always running around the house jabbering and making messes. Her new favorite thing to do is go through our drawers in the bathroom and take everything out and find new places to put them. Also, she loves sitting in the shower especially after we are done. Its funny what the tiny things will make them so happy. Who needs TOYS!
Every friday the family goes to the Jerome High School football games. I guess I knew what I was getting into when I married Cameron. He just loves FOOTBALL. It not that bad to sit and watch and its much better than watching football on TV.
Football means that fall is here and I love Fall. It is my favorite season. I love the cooler weather where I can wear my favorite thing: Sweaters! I also like to decorate for the holidays and my house is already decorated for fall and Halloween. I know its early but it makes our home look so festive. Our trees are starting to turn colors and I love seeing the bright red, orange and yellow leaves everywhere. Maybe thats why my house is decorated with the color red. I only wish we could have fall weather a little longer and not have such a long,cold, diery winter. Oh well we can look forward to Christmas and that makes it better!

Braden's First Day of Preschool

Friday, September 5th was Braden's first day of preschool. He was so excited to finally go to school. What a big boy he is getting to be. He carefully picked out what he was going to wear and was excited to wear his new school shoes. He loves his teacher and knows some friends that are in his class. I asked him what his favorite part of preschool and he told me the recess. Typical boy! I hope he enjoys the learning as well.

Bailee and Braden always ask eachother "does your school do this?" Always a competition with those two. I will miss my little man in the mornings, and maybe I will be able to get in a few workouts while he is at school.

We Love First Grade

This little girl is in First Grade and is loving every minute of it. She especially likes having three recesses, and eating lunch with all the big Bailee was sure cute on the first day, I woke up at 6:30 to get myself ready for the day and went to wake Bailee up at 7:00. At 6:45 here comes Bailee all dressed and ready to go. She was sure excited to start school, now that it is the fourth day she is sound asleep until I wake her up at 7:00. Bailee has some great friends in her class and loves her teacher. Bailee also thinks it is neat to have her own little desk instead of sharing a tablewith other kids like in Kindergarten. I hope Bailee will continue to love school and have many happy memories. We sure do miss our Bailee girl and cant wait for her to come home.

Our Summer Vacation

Me and the kids had a mini summer vacation without Daddy (he had to work). We went down to Ogden and had fun with my parents, Megan and Bella (my sister and her child). We spent most of our days at our favorite place to go swimming, Cherry Hill. I would strongly suggest everyone should visit this place it is a blast. Bailee and Braden were like fish and showed us their impressive swimming skills, and Malia would just lounge in her little floaty.

I went to the gym with my mom and had fun working out with her and her personal trainer. I thought I was pretty strong since I had to carry Miss Heffalump all the time, but I was wrong. My mom has been going for about three months and her trainer has made her strong and she was showing me up, that was a real blow to my self esteem. We did arms one day, and then shoulders, and the last day was legs. I was beyond being sore, but it was worth it.

Then we headed up to Island Park with my aunts, cousins and their families and we stayed for three days in my cousin's cabin. One of the days we headed up to Yellowstone. I have never been there so I was way excited to go see some bears and buffalo and of course Old Faithful. However, the only thing we saw was Old Faithful, the bears were hiding, but we saw some elk by the side of the road. The kids had a blast and loved being with thier cousins Tessla and Kaden. We will have to go again so we can see some bears. Here are some pictures of our fun trip.

Hip Hip Hooray

Malia is walking!! After about a week of little steps here and there, she finally walked across the room. It's funny to watch her, she gets so excited. But of course she thinks crawling is faster and believe me she is super fast crawler. I will be glad when she is walking all the time. No more dirty knees and worn out capris from crawling. We are very proud of our little girl

Visit From the Tooth Fairy

Over the weekend Bailee noticed she had a loose tooth. So each minute of the day you could find her wiggling and playing with the tooth with her tongue. By Monday that poor little tooth was hanging on by threads, but still Bailee would not pull it out. Even the incentive of receiving money didn't help. I think Bailee was too worried it would hurt if she pulled it out. Cameron finally talked well forced her to let him pull the tooth out. After one little pull it was OUT! Bailee was surprised that it didn't hurt at all. After all the drama all weekend she finally had a visit from the tooth fairy and received 1.00 for her precious little tooth.

Shots!

Malia had her one year shots yesterday. I left Bailee and Braden at a neighbor's house and took Malia to see daddy at work. Poor girl, didn't know what was coming, all she knew was we were visiting daddy. We visited while the nurses were getting her shots ready and then we went into the room. She was supposed to have three shots, but there was a student nurse helping out along with Cameron's nurse and apparently the student made the shot too tight so instead of the vaccination going into Malia's arm it went all over the table. But yet she still had the poke of the needle. So Malia had to be poked twice in the arm and once in each leg. Malia was just hysterical. Of course the nurses felt bad. I took Malia home and she fell asleep in the car and I promised to take the kids to the park to eat lunch so I couldn't lay Malia down. Thank goodness we parked in the shade at the park and I let Malia sleep in the car with the door open and we ate lunch on the grass beside the car. Once she had her little nap she was happy again.
Cameron came home and had a little surprise for Malia. His nurse felt so bad that she went to the store and bought Malia a doll. I thought that was very nice of her and I'm glad Cameron has such good nurses to help him out. It's sad to think we put our kids through pain so they can be healthy later on but I will take a little pain over having a serious illness any day. Luckily we have a few more months until our next visit to the doctor.

Birthdays, Birthdays!

June is a busy month for us. Since Bailee and Malia both have birthdays in June. Actually they are 5 days apart. It's been busy around here planning parties, shopping, baking cakes and decorating. Both girls had a blast and I'm glad it is all over until October! Bailee's birthday was on the 23rd and had a friend pool party on the 21st. Bailee and her friends loved swimming in the pool and loved the slip n slide. And you can't have a water party without water balloons. We had some fun games that involved the balloons but eventually it broke out into a big water balloon fight. Bailee loves Hannah Montana and received many things to decorate her room. My little girl is growing up so fast, and I can't believe she is six years old already.

Malia had a great time eating her cake and opening her presents. I made little balloon cupcakes for us to eat since the next day we were celebraing Bailee's. I also made a special cake just for Malia to eat. Much to our surprise she ate it all. It was fun watching her explore and enjoy her cake.

Happy Birthday Malia!!

My little baby is turning ONE! Today is bittersweet, I want Malia to grow up but then I want her to stay my little baby. Malia was such a sweet down to earth baby. Never cried too much and was always happy with a big smile on her face. It's hard to believe how fast time flies by and thank goodness for pictures so we can always remember how cute they were. Here are some favorite things of Malia that I love.

Whenever she hears music, whether it be from church or a toy or someone singing, Malia shakes her little bottom and shoulders side to side. It is the cutest thing ever. I think she will have a love for music in her life.

Whenever she gets excited she will do her arm flap dance. It looks like she is a bird and is about to take flight. Maybe her nickname should be birdie.

She loves being with her sister and brother. Whenever Bailee has friends over, Malia will be right there playing along. We can usually find her in Bailee and Braden's room playing with their toys. Malia's favorite toys are Bailee's pretend food. Malia does like her food, real or pretend.

She loves to eat PEAS! I could not get her to eat the baby food peas, but she loves the frozen kind. I cant blame her for not wanting to eat the vegetable baby food. It smells horrible.

She always has a cheesy smile on her face. Its the kind where the eyes are closed nose scrunched up and all the teeth are showing. You can help but smile yourself.

Malia will clap all day. When we tell her good job, she will give herself a little clap. If she sees us clap at bailee's t-ball game she will join in. She is our little cheerleader.

Happy Birthday Malia!! Born June !8th at 1:26 pm

Chocolate Chip Cookies

So today I had a craving for chocolate chip cookies. Every time I would walk into my pantry the chocolate chips would be right there. Instead of putting the chocolate chips somewhere else I decided to bake cookies. So I measured the ingredients all out and mixed and shaped the dough into balls and put them in the oven. Sure enough those cookies went flat and hard. I have yet to master the skill in making perfect chocolate chip cookies. I know if you use all butter they will go flat, but the recipe I used called for butter and shortning. So I don't know what happened. Maybe chocolate chip cookies are not for me to bake. However, my family could care less whether they look good as long as they taste YUMMY! Maybe some day...

Busy, Busy, Busy

Today, Cameron and I celebrate our 7th Anniversary! I can't believe it has been seven years already. I can say it has been awesome being with Cameron and having my three wonderful children. I have loved every minute of our marriage, good and the bad times. Cameron is a great husband and a great provider for our family. Sometimes I take him for granted, but I love him with all my heart.

We have been married for so long we have witnessed graduation of one of our kids. Kingergarten graduation that is. Bailee has successfully completed Kindergarten and is moving on up to First Grade. They had a graduation ceremony and they wore caps and gowns. The girls wore white and the boys wore black. It was cute to see them on the stage singing songs. Then everyone told what they wanted to be when they grew up. Most of the boys wanted to be cops and the girls wanted to be cowgirls. I guess when you are five years old you want to be like everyone else.

Even though our fence and yard work has been done for awhile, we would like to show you all the hard work that Cameron and I put into our yard. My parents helped out a lot.