My first "Mommy and Me Date" with Everett

On Friday Everett and I had a special mommy and me date to the Federal way swimming pool.  The girls where at ballet and a friend was willing to watch them after their class so Everett and I could spend some time together.  WOW  it was amazing.  I'm truly blessed with some amazing children.  And I'm so so thankful I could spend some time with just Everett.

Everett loves the water, if Grace's element is snow, Everett's element is water.  He kept putting his face into the water.  at first I thought I wasn't holding him up high enough and it was accidental but then I realized he was doing it on purpose and love it.  So we made it a game and he would dunk my head under water and then dunk his head under water.  I never had a baby who like having their face in the water before.  This totally took me off guard.

We also played in the lazy river and on the toddler water slide.  We played with a ball and had fun splashing around for over an hour.  Esther brought her boy Trever and Hayley brought her son Lincoln and everyone had a wonderful time.

After swimming, Everett ate snacks while I got ready for the day.  Everett just babbled and kept smiling at me as if he had the best time with me.  I love how happy this boy is, and how much love he shows to me and our family.  He's truly an emblem of James' and my love for one another.  I'm so grateful to have him in our family.

 I love you Everett.

I love your kisses

I love your hugs

I love your sucker punches in my leg when I'm not paying attention to you

And I love your two teeth smile.

Speaking of teeth Everett now how 3 teeth up top and 2 teeth on bottom.  To molars, and one canine up top and two little teeth right in the middle on the bottom.

Swimming, bikes, bunnies, hair cuts and wedding prep stuff. All the random stuff that goes into our weeks.

Saturday February 20th Benjamin Day's birthday party/pool party.  Thanks benjamin for inviting us.  We had a splashing good time.

Our little shark.  who loves to swim

The birthday boy and his mom

Look at that little face.  I love the concentration 

Everett loved the ball and the hoop

After a fun night of swimming and seeing all three of my kids loving the pool.  I'm rethinking the idea of swim lessons this spring.  they would all love it.

Our neighbor gave us a bike Everett's size.  He can't quite balance on it yet but he sure loves to play with it.

Sunday Morning cuddles

 We went through the girls clothes and put away things that where getting to small.  Gwenevere had a hard time letting go of some of her favorite shirts so we took pictures to remember them.

Growing up so fast

The bunnies are big enough to cuddle and the sun was shining to so we played in the yard with our babies for hours.

I think she has another bunny in her sweater

our new neighbor

The girls got to pick out Grandpa Don's Wedding day tie.  It was a tough choice between these two finalist but finally Mama decided the cheaper one would win.  

I go work out at the Church two times a week and the girls watch Everett in the nursery while I exercise.  They earn a dollar every time they do this for me.  Gwenevere decided to use her dollar to give Everett a ride at the mall.  He's one lucky little brother.  

Gwenevere was actually really excited about this idea

 A trip to Jo-ann's to pick up matching ribbon for the bouquet, some pretty beads to string and some lovely hair bow for the girls to match Grandma's flowers.  I don't know who's more excited about the wedding, the girls or Grandma.

Since we have a wedding to look nice for I decided hair cuts where needed.  I did them myself.  I'm so proud of myself.  Gwenevere wanted to cut her hair really short but I required it stay long enough for ballet buns until after the recital.  I cut their hair right before bath and bedtime so I forgot to get before pictures.  however, we cut 3 inches off Gwenevere's hair and the bottom layer of Grace's hair.  Everett wanted a turn too.  So I trimmed his patch of hair on the back of his head and the long strands of hear by her ears.

Everett has a new obsession with trains.  He loves to build the track (with help) and then crash the trains.   

Friday we took a trip to "Pump it up" with some of our friends and we had a blast.  I only wish I brought my camera.  Everett was eager to be one of the big kids.  That meant I did a lot of bouncy house climbing too.  

Train Time

Everett loves to play with his Papa especially while his sisters are in the bath and he can have the train track to himself.  Thanks James for playing trains with our son.  

chew chew

Oh sweet boy

Oh Everett, how you melt my heart.

I love that anytime I tell you something new  you reply with "oh."  Like you just learned something new.

Oh sweet Everett.  I love your two teeth smile.

I love the way your grab my hand and lead me to what you need.

I love the way you wake up in the morning and immediately look for Papa.

I love the way you sit at the window and look outside for minutes uncounted.

I love the way you love to help me feed the bunnies

(almost 17 months)  I love this age

First time finger painting.  You even let me paint your hand so we could make your hand print.  

recommitting to eating healthy

Lately I've been so busy that meal planning has taken a back burner in my life.  This has lead to us eating out more than I want to admit.  Little Ceaser's 5.00 pizza, fried chicken from the groceier store and home made nachos has been the main menu items at our house for far to long.  You'd think that the cost alone would be the driving factor for change but I'm afraid not.  My sanity outweighs cost.  But my health is more important and hopefully by eating healthy will only help my sanity.  Both James and I have gained cute little baby bellies that need to go.  So I'm going to try hard to make healthy meals part of my top ten important things to do.

I'm hoping that if I write down my goal, I will be more determined to fallow through.  So if you see several food posts for a while it's me trying to give myself encouragement.

Last night I made my favorite

SAUSAGE AND QUINOA ONE-POT SUPPER

And I'm so proud to say I have dinner in the crockpot for tonight.  I'm trying a new Chili recipe from queenbee,

Please share your favorite healthy meal recipes with me.  And loving words of encouragement.  I'm really having a hard time with the fact that time is numeral. 

Goals and dreams to remember

I was tagged by MacKenzie Nelson Burk to post 7 random things about myself. at the time I wasn't sure if I had 7 random things to share. But today I thought of some random things and figured I'd share
1. I want to write and publish a children's book at some point in my life
2. I want to travel Europe with James and our kids for Gwenevere's senior year of High school.
3. I want to teach seminary at some point in my life.
4. I want to successfully keep a clean house someday.
5. I want to live in the middle of no ware and live off the grid but deep down I wonder if I'm capable of being so isolated and homestead(y)
6. I think about having more kids everyday but wonder how in the world I would handle any more.
7. I don't enjoy taking showers, and I don't feel bad saying it since I saw a post on facebook about how showers are overrated and are only needed every few days. but good wipe downs and hygiene are important.

Hopefully you got bored around number 4 and didn't ready the rest.

I wanted to add a few more good ideas to the list

8. I want to adopt some grandchildren in my neighborhood when I get old.  Help out a young mom who's family isn't close by.  

9. I want to hire teenagers who are saving up for a mission or college.  My dream would be to teach them how to clean professionally and then have them come clean my house once a week as well as friends or others who would love to hire help for cleaning bathrooms and toys and ect.  

10.  

Murhut Falls

We'd been wanting to go hiking for a while now and Monday was the day we did it.  

James got a "Best hikes with Kids" book from a patient at work and we decided to check out Murhut Falls.  We all had so much fun.

at the trail head

hiking in a creek is funner

Papa will you hold my hand?

picnic at the top  

dropping rocks into the creek

We played more off the tail than on it

eating dinner at Steamers,  Yum yum  clam chowder, and fish n chips

Would Zoo be my Valeintine?

We had a wonderful Valentines Day.  I took the girls to ballet and then had a girls brunch date with donuts and hot chocolate.  Yummy

Then we met up with Papa and Everett at the zoo and ended up spending the entire day playing at the zoo.  Grace even picked me flowers.

The plan was to put the kids to bed early and have a couples stay at home date, but Grace fell asleep on the way home from the zoo and wanted to party late into the night with us.  James had to work the next morning so we said good night and eventually Grace fell asleep too.  

James and I celebrate our love everyday so it was extra fun to celebrate Valentines day as a family. 

Doughnut daughter Date

Admiring the baby tiger cubs 

Gwenevere took this picture

Getting Squished pennies with Papa

 This picture reminded me of another picture

April 2010 Gwenevere age 1

Eating Strawberries and watch the walruses 

the flowers Grace gave me

 We spent a good hour at the playground.  Spinning and sliding

 Grace had a little ritual she did before going down the slide it went like this
Grace: "Papa, say 'Anna are you going to go down the slide first'."
Papa; "Anna are you going to go down the slide head first?"
Grace "Yes Papa"
Then she would jump on the slide and go down head first.  She had quite the following with her trend sliding slide moves.

Everett had so much fun we wore him out

Gwenevere met a new friend who she liked to call "Cat kid"  but who's real name was Bella

Grace was all about spinning in every form she could get

Warning:  These videos may make you dissy