Egg dying

We have to do our annual egg dying every year.  The kids love it!  I always thing I have made a ton, but after you divide that by 6 it really isn't that many per kid. So usually it is over after about 15 minutes. We have spring break over Easter every year so it was a good time to do it, especially this year because we had so many rainy days!  This year was fun because Clara was even big enough to do it herself.  I am loving this whole no baby thing!

All About Annie- 4 years

 What can I say about this crazy girl!  She has been really hard this past year!  It no joke when you hear about the threenager stage. She is just about the feistiest little gal that you could every meet!  She has an opinion and thinks she knows everything!  We potty trained her when she was just under three but she spent almost the whole next year peeing her pants every day!  We tried everything too!  She just didn't care to try!  It was the most frustrating thing too! after feeling like I was at my complete wits end with her and needing a break desperately I decided that even though it would be really tight financially I needed her to go to preschool. So at the beginning of the year we enrolled her in Miss Patty's. It was like overnight I had a completely different kid! She was so much easier to have around!  She was sweet and loving and basically overnight she stopped wetting her pants completely!  She is definitely a little social girl and needs her friends. She also needs entertainment. It's funny how much she and Nellie are alike.  Annie does really well when she is being entertained or has someone to play with. Annie has a best friend Piper that she loves to play with. They have been friends since they were just tiny and they get along so well and have such a fun time together!  I lobe seeing them play together.
Annie is not a great eater. She is probably the worst out of all my kids. She does love snacks though and loves to have fruit snacks all the time!
Annie loves dolls, more than any of my other girls by far. She has always loved baby dolls and has taught her little sister to love them too. She loves shopkins too obviously! haha.
For her birthday lunch she wanted to go to Chick-fil-a which is really kind of funny because she says she loves it but she never eats it really. Who knows, I think it might just be because they are the only restaurant we go to with a play place.
One funny thing that Annie says is instead of Gospel she says Gospital. It is pretty cute!  Annie also has the longest most beautiful blond hair!  She cut the side of it about a month ago and I should even it all out, but I would have to cut 8 or more inches off and that would be so sad! So instead I just put it up in pony tails and braids to hide it.
  We love this little feisty monkey! She keeps us on our toes and always gives us a good laugh. We love our crazy Annie girl! 

Annie's Party

 Grandma was in Utah for Clara's birthday so she brought back a present for her when we celebrated

She loved the cute unicorn pillow pet Grandma and Grandpa got her and it even smelled like cotton candy.  She has to sleep with it now too.

Annie got a bike from me and Kevin, but I wanted her to be able to open a present for her birthday so we got her a shopkins beach towel since her birthday was shopkins after all and she loves shopkins so much.

Grandma and Grandpa got Annie this cute doggie purse and Annie quickly named it Kevy. It was funny that she named it that because it is a girl dog, but that's okay.

Annie also got this cute mermaid shirt since she still loves mermaids.

Annie wanted a shopkins cake for her birthday and I thought it needed to be bright because Shopkins are always so bright but that may have been a bad idea because the brightness made it also taste kind of bitter. Oh well, I wont do that again!

Annie loved it and thought it was awesome so I guess that is all that matters.

Egg Dying

  This is one of those activities that you just have to do!  Its messy and sometimes hard to make the time, but like pumpkin carving its just  a necessity of childhood I think!  Every year I think I am making so many eggs to dye, and I am, but when you have six kids it doesn't end up being that many.
But it still is alwasy a blast for the kids to do!

 It was fun to see little Clara get in on the action this year. She loved it!  Everyone is finally old enough to participate in things and I love it!  Have I mentioned how much I love my kids getting older? haha!

 Russ had to make his blue of course.

 Green for Nellie.

These kids!  I just love and adore them and I feel so lucky I get to be their mom and take care of them and do things with them! 

Opening Day!

This boy has decided that he likes baseball, and especially Dodger baseball.  I think maybe the fact that his very favorite person, that he worships and adores loves baseball and the Dodgers might have something to do with it, haha!   He was so excited for Opening Day, and had to wear his Dodger shirt and as soon as he came home from school he had to turn on the game.  His attention span still isn't great so he didn't last really long, but I'm sure as he gets older it will be something he will look forward to.

Clara's Party

When we got home from our trip we had our family party with the big kids for Clara. They were excited to help Clara celebrate. She got spoiled this year with all of the celebrating she got to do. 

 I made her a Minnie cake because she likes Minnie and Mickey the most right now.

                           She had to help me put the Minnie on top of the cake.

 We got her a cute book, because one of her favorite things is to read books.  Especially ones where she can lift the flap or touch or something like that. This one had tabs you pull out to see pictures and she liked it a lot.

She also got a helmet because she loves to be out riding with the big kids and needed a little helmet to stay safe.  It is an owl one that is a lot like the one that Annie has, so we thought it would be fun for them to be matching.

Trip to Utah

Kevin and I were going on a little business trip to Las Vegas and my mom was watching the four older kids at home and the two youngest were going to stay with Kevin's parents in St George. So Kevin and I drove them there and dropped them off. It just so happened that we drove on Clara's birthday. So i had to get a picture of her cheesy little grin in the back seat. She and Annie were really good on the drive out. 

 That little sleepy face is just too much!!

I have a picture of Lizzy and Nellie around the same age and they were at Grammie and Papi's and were in these towels so I felt like I had to recreate the same thing.  So cute!

Clara decided to warm up to Grammie and Papi really quickly and loved to go sit with them and read with them.

Since we were there on Clara's birthday  we decided that it would be fun to have a little party for her since we never get to celebrate  with much family.  It was so fun to have Kevin's family get to participate a little.

Its so fun to watch Clara get big and start to get excited about things.  She really loved opening the presents. Of course Annie really loved "helping" her. Haha!

Trip to Vegas

Kevin had a work conference in Las Vegas and so we got to go together and have a little trip away. It was such a nice time.  He had to go to workshops during the day but we had the evenings to be together and we also had one day at the end together as well. 

 The first night we were there we walked almost the whole way down the strip looking for a place to eat. We ended up eating at a pizza place and then going to Ghiradelli for a treat. It was actually a good thing that we had so far to walk back so that we could walk off all that food. We aren't that good at taking selfies but we also don't like asking people to take pictures and we just wanted to have some pictures of us together.

 It was fun to walk past the Bellagio on the way back and see the fountains. They really are very amazing in person.

The first couple of days it was pretty nice there even though it was March.  It was in the 80's so that was nice. We were able to go and relax by the pool and hang out together. I didn't have a good book so I bought one at the store but  I was being cheap and didn't want to spend too much so it ended up being only so-so . It was nice to relax though. 

The second night we went to a nice dinner compliments of one of the companies Kevin works with. It was a fancy steak place so that was cool. It was down in the really old part of the strip which I had never been to. There is a street down there called  Street and it is completely indoors. The concept is really cool but its honestly terrible. There are a bunch of wack jobs there and people dressed in crazy stuff or no stuff. The smoke is out of control and everyone seems to be high or drunk. It just had the worst feeling there.  I honestly don't understand why people think it is fun to take kids to Vegas. I wouldn't take my kids to Vegas. There is way too much garbage all around that I don't want them seeing.  After that we went back and it was pretty late but people in the group wanted to stay up so we went to Top Golf.  It was my first time and even tough it was like one in it morning it ended up being really fun!  We had such a good time. Even though I was SO bad at it.

 One the last day together we went to Cafe Rio and then went on another long walk around the Strip. We went to the Bellagio and saw the gardens which were really amazing. Then we walked over to Caesars Palace to the mall but quickly realized there just aren't any shops that we would actually shop at there. Haha!

We really wanted to go to a show that night but we just couldn't pull the trigger on the cost.  We are really cheap and at first some friends told us they would give us free tickets but then that didn't pan out and the thought of paying that much was too hard to do. We did go and see the aquarium at Mandalay Bay but it was a little disappointing after going to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. But it still was fun to be together, because seriously I can do nothing but if it is with Kevin then that's all I need. I really love being with this guy! He is the BEST!!

Clara- 2 Years

It seems crazy to me that my baby is two!  How can this be?  But man we are loving it!  She is just the sweetest easiest little girl and I am so grateful for that!  I feel so lucky too because she is an amazing sleeper as well.  I really love her easy going nature.  She is really the perfect ending to our family and I am so glad that we had her.  It really feels complete with her in it.

Clara is really quiet and is just barely starting to really say much at all.  She is a little behind what the other kids were verbally and at first I was a little concerned but I think she will pick it up and be just fine. She is super snuggly too which is like hitting the jackpot on your last kid. She will sit with me and I can kiss and snuggle her. She loves to give kisses and hugs and she will just hug and hug. It's the best!  Clara really loves Annie and loves to be with her and play with her. Most of the time Annie is really sweet with her but occasionally she is really mean to Clara. Its really sad.

Clara is the best eater and never really went through the bad eating phase that a lot of kids go through at this age. She reminds me of Lizzy in this way and she loves fruits and vegetables best just like Lizzy.  In fact one of her favorite things is raw onion. I have never seen a little kid like that!  She will sneak up on the counter when I am cutting up onions and will snack on them. She does this with any fruit and veggies I am cutting up.

Clara loves Mickey mouse and Minnie mouse a lot. It is really cute. Mickey Mouse Clubhouse is her favorite show to watch. She also really likes shopkins and baby dolls too. Really anything that Annie is into she is too.  She also loves the rest of her siblings so much too! She especially has a really great relationship with Lizzy and seeing them together is seriously the sweetest thing

I really just can't get over how sweet she is an I am so grateful that I get to be her mom! 

March

These two girls sometimes don't want to share, haha!

Clara saw me in my apron and decided that she needed to wear one too. She was super excited we had one her size.

 Annie is such a monkey!  This is one of her favorite spots to perch. I honestly don't know how she even stays up there! It's like she has sticky feet or something.

 Annie sure loves going to Miss Patty's place!  She loves all the stuff she makes there and gets to bring home. She is very proud of everything she makes no matter how small and insists on keeping every scrap of paper that she creates something on.

 One day I decided to run an errand after the kids got home from school. Bad idea. I was driving down a very busy road in a very populated area when literally out  of nowhere, (well the median) a turkey appeared! He was 10 feet in front of me and I didn't even really have time to break. I couldn't swerve because there was someone in the lane next to me. so i hit him. Hard!  Its so sad to see Bouncy Bob get so destroyed. I hate driving around a car that is really beat up too. It makes me feel like people think I don't know how to drive and I am going to hit them. Oh well I guess.

Clara decided that my mascara would make a good lipstick.

These little kids are the biggest destroyers!  I swear that they are like mini tornadoes circling around the house looking for something else to destroy.  I know I will miss things about the kids being little, but the mess is definitely NOT one of those things.

Roseville in spring is pretty much paradise in my opinion. Right around the beginning of February we start getting blossoms on the tress and then it warms up. We have just the right amount of a bit of cold weather to make me happy and feel like we have four seasons. But right when I am wishing for it to warm up it does! I love it here! I love that we can play outside year round!