It's a Wonderful Life

Can't believe my baby girl turned three years old on March 17th!  I can't even imagine what our lives would be like without the little ball of sunshine that she is. I guess it would be a good idea to do an update on Anna so here goes: Favorite show: she likes most of the Disney junior shows, but I would say her favorite is definitely Doc McStuffins! Favorite movie: Frozen Favorite food: probably pizza.  She's a pretty good eater and really likes green veggies, mac and cheese, fruit snacks, and she loves to steal my homemade cinnamon, apple oatmeal I eat every morning :) Anna loves to play with her babies.  Her favorite activity to do with them is put them to sleep and feed them.  She loves reading books, especially books with flaps and look and find books.  She's been really into puzzles and board games lately.  She loves to listen to music, especially Doc or Sofia songs. She is still sleeping in her crib.  And since she sleeps...

The day we had been counting down had finally arrived: it was time to celebrate Anna Girl's third birthday.  We had a frozen themed party, but I say the word party very lightly because we really didn't do much.  Each girl got a "Elsa princess fairy wand" (which yes I realize is not cinematically accurate, but oh well) and each boy got a "magic glow stick ice power sword."  Oh they each got a flashing sticker to wear as well. Our first game was "pin the nose on the Olaf." I think this was when the doorbell rang and Anna was just a tad bit excited to get her party started. :) All of the kids minus Matthew and Hudson. The second game was a "let it go" sing-a-long.  I gave each kid a musical instrument and had visions of them dancing and singing along to the song while playing their little instrument.  However, it didn't quite turn out that way-- everyone got really shy.  So we tried it for half the song and then...

So believe it or not, we have a had a couple of nice days sprinkled into the mix of this never ending winter.  I even planted our spring veggies a couple of weeks ago, but I have yet to see any sprouts.  I'm wondering if the seeds are waiting for the snow to finally stop.  And surprise, surprise we had snow today (not too much, but enough to say "seriously???!!" The day after daylight savings was a nice day and we enjoyed it at the school playground. This right here happens so rarely that I had to take a picture.  I can't remember what I did with the little snippet of free time that Wyatt's and Anna's nap provided, but I have a feeling it involved a mug of hot chocolate and Divergent :) My sister in law, Kaitlin, inspired me with her 50 floor fit badge she got, so I decided to do it the next day.  :) I'm still loving my fit bit! I realized we didn't have one CD player in the house.  Everything we listen to is digital now, but ...

As we have been consiously trying to save more this year, I have taken considerable less shopping trips than I had in the past.  Because lets face it, if I'm shopping and browsing for fun, I'm going to buy some stuff that I really don't need  but that is "a super great deal." So anyway, when we have gone to the mall the couple of times we've gone this winter, it's been quite the treat for the kids to get some indoor play time. This trip I even splurged and dug into the bottom of my purse for some coins for the Anna and Wyatt to ride the dinky carrousel.  Woo-hoo! :) I had been thinking that we needed to do some one-on-one dates with the kids and one Saturday when Jackson was invited to a friend's house we decided to do just that with Anna and Wyatt.  Erik took Anna out for ice cream at sweet frog.  Wyatt and I went over to play some games at Chuck-E-Cheese.  It was great to focus on Wyatt and have some fun conversations with him of his...

Our New Beginnings was held a few weeks ago and it was such a nice evening!  Our wonderful personal progress leader, Tanya Groll, planned it all and we just helped with the grunt work :)  I love the young women so much, and looking at these pictures are especially bittersweet today because I was sustained as a seminary teacher (so I'm assuming I will be released from my YW calling soon).  I've never been sad to leave a calling before (usually I'm ready for a change), but this calling has been different.  I have learned so much from our amazing young women and have benefited from their energy, kindness, faith, and love. The 2014 mutual theme this year is Come Unto Christ, so for New Beginnings we did "a walk with Christ."  Different rooms in our church building were set up to represent different aspects of life of Jesus Christ.  Each room was beautifully decorated with music to match its theme.  The best part of the night however, was the absolu...