Five Years Today

Five years ago today, Caydin "graduated" this life and went back to his heavenly home to peace and glory.  I miss you today, buddy, even more than normal!  Thank you for your example, and help me get through all the unknown years ahead so we can all be together again as a WHOLE family!  I LOVE YOU!

August Birthdays

August is Birthday month for both of my girls!  I haven't downloaded my pictures for this years celebrations yet, but wanted to post something before it got too late! 

Eden's birthday was on August 4th and she turned 6 years old!  I can't believe she is already that old!  She is my helper, and my little mother, at least in the trying to boss her other siblings around!  She is very stubborn, but likes to talk things through. Whenever a problem comes up, if I try to "tell" her how to deal with things, she won't hear it at all!  But, if I discuss the issue with her, and give examples from my own experiences, she would talk about it for hours!  I love that thinking side of her!  She is my sweetheart, and I'm so grateful that I am so blessed as to be her mother!! 

This is Eden on her blessing day.  She was born with one club foot, and by this time had I believe her second or third cast on, so everyone signed it who came to her blessing!  I love that Caydin is talking to her!!

Here is Eden just a week or two before her first birthday.

By her second birthday, she was already wanting to be a little princess, and loved dressing up!

I took this picture of her the morning of her third birthday.  It is weird to me to see this picture and compare it to EmmaLee today, since it is EmmaLee's third birthday today!

Eden right after her 4th birthday.  I think going from 3 to 4 was a big "growing up" time for Eden when she went from toddler to girl!

Eden right after her 5th birthday. 

Eden just a couple of weeks ago at 6!  She is getting so much bigger and older now!  Sure love this girl!

Like I said earlier, EmmaLee's birthday is today (okay, it is actually the 15th, which it was when I started this post!) and she is now three!  I said Eden is stubborn, but EmmaLee is even MORE stubborn!  She loves to sing and dance, and if she is comfortable, if you ask her she will sing a song about just about anybody!  She loves playing with her older siblings, and is pretty easy going when it comes to playing!  She loves to smile and be happy, but she has her little "monster" voice that comes out when you don't respond to her fast enough!  She is also so special to me, and I love having my two girls!

This is in the OR right after EmmaLee was born!

Here is EmmaLee at one!  Such a cutie!

Emma when she turned two!  It is amazing how much faster your later children grow!  I think because they have older siblings to learn from, they just seem to catch onto things faster and sooner and get "older" faster!

Emma at three!  Happy birthday my little sunshine!

What Kids Say!

Yesterday was a family reunion for my mom's side of the family.  We spent the day up at my aunt's clubhouse having a blast!  There was a splash park right around the corner that the kids LOVED, and we also went swimming and had fun talking and playing with lots of family!  I will have to post pictures of it later this week, but I wanted to write down a couple of things the kids said before I forget!

Just a warning, but this first one is a potty one!  Isaac had to go to the bathroom at one point, so Rob took him.  After he had finished his business, he looked into the potty before flushing and saw his poop, and told Rob, "It's like a family!" 

My sister Melanie was holding and talking to EmmaLee, who loves jewerly.  Melanie had on a strand she had gotten after my Grandma Dickey passed away.  She told EmmaLee where she had gotten the necklace, and EmmaLee told Melanie, "Someday when I'm a great, great, great Grandpa Dickey, I will die." 

Another New Chapter!

So, I'm excited to say that I am officially now an Aggie, and I am officially going to be working towards a degree in Family Life Studies from USU online!  With Rob going to school, we decided that there was no reason I couldn't be going to school too!  I love that it is online because that means I can work on it wherever we are, and that there will be lots of flexibility in the time I  can do the work!  I'm not always going ot be able to go full time, and since I only have about a year of previous college, it could take me more than the three years to complete, but at least I'm working on it!

Finally!

This is a few weeks late, but I am very happy to say that Isaac is finally potty trained!  He was much harder to get trained than Eden was, and has made up for her lack of accidents, but at least it is finally done!  And, I must say, it is much quicker to take a boy to the bathroom at a store than a girl (at least in one of the aspects)!  Now to work on EmmaLee . . .

Ammon's Blessing and Summer

On July 4th we blessed Ammon.  Blessings are always special, and this one was really fun as well!  As I've mentioned in early blogs, my brother and his wife had their baby, Connor, 3 days after Ammon was born.  So, when we were trying to plan when we were going to bless each of our babies, the first day that came to both of us was July 4.  But, they live in Idaho, which makes it slightly difficult to make it to both blessings!  So, after some discussion, we decided to do a double blessing at my parent's ward, which is the ward that both Nick and I spent most of our growing up years!

This is Ammon in his blessing outfit before the blessing.

This is a picture of both Ammon and Conner after the blessing.  I felt like it was pretty special and unique for my brother and I to be able to bless both of our babies on the same day, and it was fun to bless them in a ward where I knew so many people who helped shape my life!  Aren't they such cute babies!  I think they were both wondering why everyone was standing around them looking at them so much!

Ammon is getting better and better at smiling!  I never seem to be able to catch him when he is super smiley, but he's cute anyway!

Just another cute picture!

And another!

I liked this one too!

A little bit bigger smile, but not such a great angle!  I was trying to take the picture while I was holding him in my arms, and I almost missed him!  I also love how blue his eyes look in this picture!

Last Sunday we took a ride up Ogden canyon by the town of Morgan.  We found a little cemetery that has a lot of old pioneer graves just west of Morgan; I can't remember now what it was called for sure, but I think it was like Peterson, or something close to that!  It was on a bit of a hill, and it had an amazing view on pretty much every side!  So, we took a few pictures of the kids from it!  Morgan is basically right behind Eden.

Isaac at the cemetery.

And Emma's turn!

So, besides little road trips, the kids have been swimming a lot to try to keep cool this summer!  This is a cute pool Shirley bought that the kids have had fun playing in, at least until the plugs got lost! 

Cooling off!

On Friday we took a trip down to the Springville Museum for one of Rob's school class assignments.  The museum is in an awesome building (which I didn't think to take any pictures of!) and has a lot of really amazing artwork.  They also have a sculpture garden that they just completed last summer that was absolutely gorgeous!  I have decided if I ever get to have a nice backyard and I have the money to do so, it will look very similar to this garden!  This picture doesn't really show the whole look of the yard, but it was really very, very nice!  I love Isaac's "tough" pose, and the girls sweet pose!  I had thought about taking Ammon out and holding him above my head like the statue, but he was sleeping and it was hot, so we decided to pass on that, sigh, maybe next time!

So, that has been our summer for the most part.  Eden is getting ready to start 1st grade THIS TUESDAY!  I can't believe how big she is getting, and I can't believe school is already starting!  She is in year round, which is why she is already starting.  I'm glad she's on A track, because she's been off since the end of May.  If she hadn't been on A, she would have only ended school on July 2!  There are some good things about year round, but I do hate how short the summer's feel, even when on a track that either gets out early, or starts later!  The summer still feels so short!

June

So, June has come and gone, and I thought I would post some pictures from the month!

In June, I finally took Eden in to get a professional haircut.  For those who have been following this blog, you will remember that Eden had a tendency of cutting her hair when she was 3-4 years old, but hasn't cut it for a good year now.  All the butchered spots had finally started growing out longer, but her hair was kind of a wild mess of multilength hair.  So I decided it was time for a real style.  We went in, and the lady gave Eden some bangs to help with the general flow of hair.  She cut the sides so they framed her face, and left it long in the back.  It was pretty cute. Well, the problem with bangs is that they grow fast, and get into eyes.  So, this was the before shot of Eden, not long after her haircut.

Eden decided one night her bangs were in her eyes too much, so after using the restroom, she decided instead of coming out, she would give herself a quick bangs "trim", and proceded to basically cut her bangs off to the scalp!  She came out, and asked me if I noticed anything, to which I simply gasped!  Rob and I then tried to tell her that she shouldn't cut her hair, that's why we go to professionals, etc. We brought to her acknowledgement that the only people that have bangs that short are the ones with really short hair, like Isaac.  She then got upset because she didn't want to look like a boy. So, I told her we could try curling her hair and then people would not mistake her for a boy.  I also pulled some of her hair up, and it actually turned out a lot better than I had though it would!  The only down side for me is that now she thinks she has to have her hair curled everyday, so I went out and bought some sponge curlers and most every night now, after her shower, we put her curlers in so she can make sure she looks like a girl! 

This last month my kids discovered how fun stairs can be. They had the bottom of a box, and used it as a sled to slide down the stairs!  It was fun to watch them and brought back memories of when I was a kid and used all sorts of things to slide down the stairs!

I don't really know what to say about this one besides that it's hilarious!

We also made it to the Dinosaur Museum in Ogden this last month.  The kids loved it!  They are all roaring in this picture, like a dinosaur!

Layton City has several free concerts during the summer, so we went to this one which had Peter Brienholt singing.  It was a beautiful evening, and the kids loved getting out. We didn't quite make it the whole concert before Ammon got a little upset and we had to go, but it was fun while we were there!  Also, just as a side note, Isaac pretty much thinks he has to pose for most pictures, so yes, he looks like that on purpose.

This is a shot of the concert.  With our kids, we felt we would last longer sitting in the very back where they would have a little bit of room to wiggle!

And that was our month!