A little of this, A little of that

Even though I haven't been blogging, a lot has been going on in our home. Susanna and Nathan had their last orchestra concert. They both did great.

Clara's class invited their moms to a special mother's day program in their classroom. It was so sweet and fun to be with her. She even made me promise not to bring Eliza or Amelia. It was just us.

This is one of her best friends Hannah.

Singing her little heart out.

Clara lost 3 teeth in a just a couple of days and now she doesn't have much help with her eating. She was pretty excited.

This big brother has become the resident puller. He has pulled out two of Clara's teeth.

Justin got recognized at Academic Night again. I kept threatening to run up and take a good picture but he made me promise that I would not do it. So, this is the best I could do. Way to go Justin.

Nathan has been begging to play soccer for 2 years and we (and I mean his dad) finally got our act together and signed him up. He loved it and had a great season. He played goalie a lot and did a great job.

Eliza took swimming lessons with Miss Kim. She started out a little shaky and now loves to swim and is getting pretty good.

She has so much fun swimming around in circles and making me a little nervous.

She got to be in class with little Tess. They had so much fun together.

Getting ready for her dive.

The last day of school is tomorrow and we are all so excited and ready for summer.

Amelia and her brothers

So, I can tell that it has been too long when Grandma Garner starts asking if we are going to blog again. I have a few posts to do but this one was pretty sweet. Justin and Amelia are buddies and he loves to play with her. I think he is already trying to teach her things. He plays peek a boo with her. She has both her brothers wrapped around her little finger.

Today Nathan was babysitting and Amelia crawled right over and climbed up on him and went to sleep. What is a boy to do but not move for a really long time. Notice he is awake and doesn't know what to do about her. Makes me laugh.

He is not the softest pillow. Look at that chub.

Amelia will be 1 in 2 weeks and we are all completely in love with her. She is getting to be happy all the time. Justin is trying every day to get her to walk and she will have none of it. If you hold her finger she will walk but the minute you let go she slowly buckles. It's kind of funny. I think she will be running in no time. She is really into peek a boo and clapping her hands and is learning to blow kisses and loves to wave goodbye. She is also a total flirt and really likes boys and dads. Because she has so many people that love her at dance, she will pretty much go to anyone which is a first for my kids and totally wonderful. We all have so much fun with her.

I do her hair, I promise. This is the end of a long day. It is getting to the in between stage of what do I do now?

I love the twinkle she has in her eyes.

Easter 2011

We have had such a busy month in April that I haven't had the energy to sit and blog. Maybe I just haven't sat down enough. Plus, I have done really poorly on taking pictures. I keep telling myself I will do better and with all the other stuff I haul places I just don't take my camera. So, although we had a fabulous picnic and egg hunt and Grandma and Grandpa Fillmore's house (minus the grandma and grandpa part) I didn't get a single picture. Here are a few of the some of the kids finding their basket. With 8:30 church it was a little rushed.

Clara really wanted a frilly skirt so she is the only one that got some easter clothes. The ones in her size were super short and not on sale so I bought her a 5T in the toddler section. They were longer and on sale and I figured I have Eliza right around the corner. She was very excited.





My goal was to take some great family pictures after church. The kids all looked so nice. But with six kids you don't always get six happy ones at once. As you can see we had some pouting issues and some haven't learned that pictures last forever. Needless to say we only got a couple and I promised this little lady I was posting them anyway. Maybe we will learn to fake it next time. Although...mom did I ever learn? I don't think so. Like mother like daughter. I guess I can't complain too much.

I wanted to get us all happy and take a few pictures but dad didn't realize that we had not gone inside and went and turned on the sprinklers full blast. We were all soaked along with a neighbor who was talking to us. He even had to run back on to save poor Amelia who was soaked. We all looked like drowned rats and of course no pictures.

I will post more pictures or Amelia soon. She has new tricks. Justin has been working with her and she can now stand for quite a while at a time. She won't take steps but we love to watch her wobble on her little legs.

When the Nicholsons come to town

When Clint's sister Kim and her family come to visit, there is a lot going on. There was lazer tag, howies game shack and movies for the boys, and shopping and shopping and shopping for the girls. Everyone had fun at Golfland and in the hot tub and there were several trips to in and out. My kids love to see their cousins and love that their Aunt Kim spoils them way too much. Uncle Kevin disappears most the time to the golf course. I think it is always a great time full of fun memories. Here is everyone sitting on the couch squished as they play guitar hero and just dance. Lot of laughs. I am not a fan of dogs but we did have a few extra visitors this time. 2 of Kim's dogs came along and so we had a very full house. Little miss Eliza was in heaven and every morning she would sneak in the cage before people could come and rescue the dogs from her. She played and played and loved on those little dogs.

Isn't this lovely picture? Yuck

Amelia loves Nixon so she didn't have any problems with the new little creatures. We also had Nixons sister for a few days so we had a dog count of 4 and a people count of 13, quite a full house.

Aunt Kim spoiled Eliza and bought her and Amelia a new sandbox. (what a huge mess, thanks Kim) But she loves to dig and wanted everyone to sit around and watch her play. I'm waiting for Amelia to stick a big bite in her mouth.

Eliza loved her cousin Hunter and all the attention he gave her (he did get mighty sick of her by the end). He taught such great skills like nerf gun shooting.

There was a lot of trampoline jumping too, Not many tears and lots of good times.

I think my kids would all agree it was a fabulous spring break. Thanks Nicholson Family.

My little girl turns 10

Well, she did it. Double digits. I'm kind of sad that she is getting so big but love the girl she is growing up to become. This year was a no party year. We managed to make it fun. Our cousins from Missouri left that morning. Susanna woke up to a litte basket of dollar store goodies.

Then she and her dad went to pick out donuts (her absolute favorite food in the world I think) She also got out of Saturday chores since it was her day. That was a pretty great present all by itself.

On my kids non party year, they get to invite a friend or two to go get some lunch and do a little activity. She chose to go to Claim Jumper. My kids love their giant desserts. She took her friends Brynlee and Kennedie and they had a great time. After lunch they went to As You Wish and painted little ceramic boxes. Susanna painted a flower, Kennedie a heart, and Brynlee a donut. We will post them when we pick them up later in the week. Susanna shares a birthday with another friend of hers so she went to her party that night.

Picky little Susanna looked everywhere and every bike she likes was way way way too much money. No pink or blue bike was going to work. I finally found a website and she just picked out exactly the color she wanted. She picked the vanilla with red rims. We ordered it and got it in the mail 3 days later. I think it was about a third the cost of the other bikes we saw, which made me happy. She can't decide if she wants to put the flowers on or not.

On Sunday we made her a cake. Her favorite is vanilla made with real butter and homemade chocolate butter cream frosting. Of course I couldn't find any candles. Susanna is growing up to be such a great girl. She works so hard in school and loves to have friends over and hang out. She is the best mini mom to Amelia and is pretty great with Eliza too. When I am gone her dad gives her the baby because she is so great with her. She loves to get all dressed up and I have so much fun hanging out with her. I love seeing her happy and love being her mom.

Thanks Aunt April

Eliza has Aunt April wrapped around her little finger (probably like me and her darling little Joshua). She went rummaging through her cupboards a few weeks ago and found these. A valentine cookie mix. She gave them to her and now I had to make them. She carried them all around and slept with them until I finally found the time.



She was such a fabulous helper and made these. Her brother Justin ate them all.

Thanks for the fun activity Aunt April.

Dress up and fun with friends

Eliza has discovered friends and play dates this year. I never used to have friends over with kids so young. She wants to play with a friend every single day. She loves play time. Here is her favorite cousin in the world Betsy (who is so nice to play with Eliza) and her buddy Bliss.





Eliza is wearing one of my very first dance costumes. It always cracks me up when my kids put it on.

This is Bliss, Avery and Eliza posing for pictures during their playtime. Pool anyone?

Making funny faces.