TN trip 3

Gram and Papa had scoped out the area some before everyone arrived and discovered this cool park and stream so we decided to head out there one day to play and have dinner. The kids LOVED it. The water was really cold but they just threw in rocks and climbed around on fallen logs. Jackson and some of the other bigger cousins, and Matt, went off exploring so there are fewer pics of them. It was a really neat place. Kami and John did hot dogs and smore's on the grill.

TN trip 2

Gram and Papa planned a luau one night. It was very fun. Maggie loved getting her name tag with her hawaiian name on it. The girls also loved it when they got to hula to some hawaiian music. Caleb was into everything as usual..... and Jackson is nowhere to be seen - as usual - he was either watching TV or playing video games every chance he got :)

TN trip 1

We went to TN for a week with Matt's family to celebrate his parents wedding anniversary. It was fun to have the four siblings and all their kids together. We stayed at a timeshare apartment - the Presidential Suite. It was great. There was plenty of room for everyone. It was excellent having a kitchen and a laundry room too. I didn't take nearly as many pics as I would have liked. It took both hands to keep the kiddos corralled most off the time :) There was a lot to do there at the resort. There was an indoor waterpark, two outdoor waterparks and an indoor activity center. The surf rider was a big hit with the kids and adults. Jackson and Maggie loved the indoor ropes course. Maggie was brave and went way higher than I expected her too. There was also a climbing wall, mini golf,  laser maze and a small devils drop ride. They did everything over and over again.
 They all loved the wave pool at the indoor park.... and the big waterslides were a lot of fun. It wore the adults out going up many, many stairs with kids who wanted to go again and again. Hailey was sad that she wasn't big enough for the big slides but there was a pretty good smaller kid area that she liked.

Hailey

Hailey has been an avid thumbsucker since she was about 3 months old. Recently we have tried to wean her from it. It isn't going well..... :) We tried bandaids at first. It worked for about two days. Then we tried the yucky tasting nail biting stuff. She stopped sucking her thumb.... and starting sucking her finger. So we put it on the thumb and finger..... she starting sucking her pinky. Then we put it on all her fingers and thumb...... now she just sucks it off quickly and keeps on sucking her finger. So apparently we successfully stopped the THUMBsucking and now have to figure out what to do about the finger. It is turning out to be quite a challenge. SO MUCH easier to wean from a pacifier!!

Body surfing

This is one of my favorite pictures from our vacation at the beginning of May. I will post A LOT more soon :) The indoor surfing and body surfing was so fun.

Skates

We have quite a collection of skates that the kids like to use around the house........ they can't use them out in the driveway because it's WAY too steep. Hailey especially loves to get all decked out and ready to roll. Caleb is getting into it now too but he's harder to take pics of since he keeps falling down :) Eventually we are going to try out the skating rink. It was really fun taking them ice skating but difficult to stay up on my own feet with at least 2 hanging onto me.....

Maggie turns 6

 

Whew. Another birthday come and gone!!Maggie turned 6 on April 29th. She chose a purse cake this year. I was kind of relieved - that girl can come up with some pretty fancy ideas!! This one was really easy and she loved it. She loved helping me get the table ready with pink, white and some flower petals for decoration. The flowers in the middle of the table are from Matt. We are trying to start that as a tradition for our cute, fancy, flower loving girl. Hailey is pretty excited to get flowers for her birthday too :) We also had the $ in the balloons for Maggie.
We love this girl. She loves all things sparkly, pink, princess, fancy-in-any-way. She can be so much fun to be around. She likes to play with her siblings and the neighbor girls but sometimes needs time to herself. She loves school and really likes it when she has homework. That might change when it becomes an everyday thing!! She like to come up with creative dances and songs to perform. She loves to help out and is disappointed when we won't let her for whatever reason. She is funny, caring, creative and so very entertaining :) She loves to play with barbies and any game that involves a Mom, Dad and baby. Whenever she and Hailey help out in the kitchen they wear their aprons I made for them. They have decided that one side of the apron is for cooking and the other is for serving. It has to be changed around before they will switch roles :) She has grown a lot this past year also. She used to be the most cautious and least-likely-to-give-us-heart-attacks but over the past year she has really started to get into things too. She climbs the trees, jumps off the diving board, LOVED body boarding and the huge water slides on vacation..... She is growing into an amazing little lady and we are so excited to see her continue to grow.

Front door photoshoot

I was trying to take a picture of our front door for some reason..... I think because we bought those two plants to frame it..... anyway, Caleb saw that I had the camera and decided it was time for an impromptu photoshoot. He jumped right in there and started cheesing it up for me :) We love this cute, busy little guy!!

Board games

If Matt and I have enough energy we try to play board games with the older 3 after church on Sundays. They LOVE it and are so disappointed when we don't do it. However, it only lasts while Caleb is asleep...... See him in the picture above? Game time is almost over. Jackson and Maggie both love Monopoly. We have a couple of different versions of it. Hailey usually comes in and out of the game.

Backsplash

For some reason I decided that I should stencil a backsplash in our kitchen. I didn't want to pay for tile but it needed some detail. However, the stencil I got was too big for the area so I had to downsize it and then draw it on with pencil and use a paintbrush to do the lines. WOW. It has taken forever. I think it looks pretty cool though. Who knows what the next owners will think of all my hard work! It's not quite done but I'm getting there. Just thought I would post a picture before I forget :)

Hair towels

Maggie got one of these hair towels for christmas. She loves it. Hailey really wanted one too so for Easter I gave her one I had found at the $ store. Such funny girls. They love to use their hair towels after their baths!! I like that such simple, cheap things are such fun for them. However, I did have to add more hooks in the bathroom to hang them on.......

Kool aid stand

Our kids LOVE to set up a stand of some sort to sell something - anything. This time it happened to be kool aid :) They do it as a team effort with the neighbor girls. Maggie was helping with advertising this time around. Pricing is always a challenge with them. They want to make lots of money so they think they should be selling it for $5 or so a cup. It's usually pretty hard to convince them to keep the price down....... we do not live in a good neighborhood for any kind of stand. The road is fairly fast and they aren't many kids/families out and about so they tend to get discouraged. So we usually 'buy' drinks to have with lunch or dinner when they set up a stand. This venture was much more successful than selling straw like last year :) Very cute entrepeneurs!!

Easter 2012

The kids got buckets filled with some Easter toys that morning so they would have something to collect their eggs in that afternoon :) We dyed some eggs with Kool aid this year. They turned out pretty cute. The kids always love coloring eggs. They also loved hunting for eggs. Especially finding the golden eggs with $1 inside. The bigger kids also had easter egg hunts at school.

Pirate night

Pirate night at Chik Fil A. We love to go to the Chik Fil A activities. We happened to have enough pirate costumes for all of them. That was pretty entertaining and very cute. Matt was a little concerned I might have the date wrong and we would come walking in with all these little pirates...... luckily I was right :) The kids loved it. Caleb especially, had a great time sword fighting with the cow. I was happy they were so cooperative letting me take a picture before we left. Face painting, balloon animals, ice cream, eye patches .... good cheap fun.

Jackson's baptism

Jackson really wanted to be baptized on his birthday so with the Bishop's permission that's what we did. It was simple and powerful. The best kind :) Both Matt and Gram gave talks. We sang Choose the Right and Praise to the Man both at Jackson's request. We had a dessert bar afterwards. I had forgotten to take pics at the church that night so Matt and Jackson were cooperative enough to put their whites back on for a pic at home. Love those two!!
We made picture announcements for Jackson to hand out. They also had little magnets on the back to help people keep track of them.

Jackson

These were the years I had the easiest access to :) It's so fun to look back and see him grow from year to year. I haven't taken him in for pics this year yet. Guess I should get that scheduled...... :)

Jackson turns 8

 

So very exciting to have the computer up and running again! Time to catch up. On March 18th Jackson turned 8 years old! Whew. We had his party on Saturday the 17th. We just kept it to family this year. Gram and Papa were in town for his baptism the next day so we got to have them here for the party too. Jackson loved helping me decorate and was pretty happy with me for getting some angry birds decorations. He had requested another donut man instead of a cake - just like last year. So I tried to step it up a bit and make it a little cooler. He wasn't very impressed :) He thought the one from last year was just fine. He was amused that the candles were his hair..... Gram helped us start a new tradition. She blew up 8 balloons and put $1 in each one. Jackson got to pop them and collect his money. All the kids were pretty excited about that.
It's so hard to believe that he is 8 already. Sometimes I don't think I treat him accordingly. Poor oldest child that gets to do everything first - including teaching his parents how to parent :) He still loves Legos and robots. Could easily be happy with those two things alone. I love his creativity and curiousity. His fire for learning, his steadfastness when he feels something is right, his empathy for others, his energy, his willingness to help. He is an amazing kid and has grown up in so many ways over the past year. I am excited to see what the next one holds. Second grade has been awesome for him. His teacher was a perfect fit and while he is not the angel child in the class :) he has a love of math and a lack of love for english/spelling. He comes home happy from school almost without fail, wants to do his jobs immediately (make his bed, take dirty clothes down, put clean ones away) so he can have his computer time. In the interest of full disclosure and for future reference - he occasionally still loses his computer time for wetting his pants while playing. Tries to wait while he finishes 'just one more level'. He loves to play with the neighbor girl who is 1 year older than he is, climb trees (although that has almost stopped since we found a tick on his head after climbing). That really had nothing to do with the tree - ticks are just insanely horrible out here. We have seen 10 this spring already..... Jump on the trampoline, have lemonade stands.
 Jackson is amazing with Caleb. He will play with him, distract him, hug him - I hope they continue to be buddies as time goes by. Sometimes it's sad to think that Caleb will only be 12 when Jackson graduates from high school. All in all Jackson is a perfect fit in our family and we absolutely love who he is.