Three Girls and A Guy

Baby Shower

2012-01-27T20:12:00.000-08:00

My adorable friends threw me a shower for little Finn and I had to share some pictures of the shin-dig. I will not, however be showing any pics of myself at the event because I looked incredibly swollen and scary. I have never been so swollen with either of my other two pregnancies but this one is BAD. My feet, legs and face are huge and puffy and boy oh boy I cannot wait for this to be OVER!

Cake pops and dipped oreos...seriously delicious and adorable treats!

Yummy fruit kabobs.

This darling sign was on the door at the shower and their were balloons and beautiful flowers everywhere, the decorating was darling and I am so thankful for all the work my girlfriends put into it.

Yum!

Above is Emily Waltz and Nicole Wood.

Above we have Stephanie Waltz and Amber Walker and below we have Amy Smith and Ashley Richardson.

We had a great time chatting and eating and Finn got soooo much cute stuff he is all set for arrival. The best part? We didn't play one annoying shower game, Yahoo! I sure love my friends for that. I got some fun boy advice and everyone predicted his weight, date of birth and hair color.

Thank you soooo much to Natali, Nicole and Sarah for throwing such a fun party! I am so lucky and have made such incredible friends here in Greeley. Sure makes living away from family less difficult.

Home Sweet Home

2012-01-12T07:51:00.000-08:00

We have officially moved into our new house. It took us two days and only a few of our friends to get the job done. We have lived here for 4 days and our house is totally unpacked. I attribute this to the fact that I am in full nesting mode. I literally cannot stop doing things and by the end of the day I am so tired, my back hurts my feet are swollen and killing. It already feels like home and the more we live here the more we discover about the house that we love. I am so excited to decorate and have already ordered some fun stuff that I am anxiously waiting to arrive in the mail.

Like this pink and green shower curtain for the girls bathroom...

And this bedding for Sophie's room...

As far as the rest of our lives go we are back into our schedule and seem to be as busy as ever. Kennedy is now doing 9 hours of gymnastics a week and has begun placement and testing for competitive gymnastics. Soph is back in dance and loving every minute with Miss Nicole. Sophie is also the most difficult child to potty train EVER! I have tried it ALL, I am about to offer the girl a car. She just won't do it. She absolutely will not go #2 in the toilet, she does pee in it but not %100 even when I take her every 30 minutes. It is so frustrating!
Our little Sophie will be having surgery tomorrow. She is having tubes put in her ears and having her umbilical hernia fixed. I really don't love having my kids put under anesthesia so I am a bit nervous but they are very simple procedures so it should be just fine.
Mike has begun the rock hard challenge again with his friends, a weight lifting program that they do together at the gym each morning. We were impressed with the results last year and I think it is fun for the guys to get together and relieve their stress. I do have to say though that listening to someone gripe about how sore they are when you are about to pop is fairly annoying. Really? Are ya sore? Boo hoo.
I am as big as a house and ready to pop this little guy out any minute. My feet and legs are starting to swell and I am about as anti social and cranky as one can be. Really trying my best to just get through this next 5 weeks but it may just kill me. I have always thought 4 kids sounded good but 3 is sounding so much better these days.
We are super excited for our little Finn to come, we've got the bassinet all set up and his clothes are all hung up. Can't wait to have a little more testosterone up in this joint.

New Year

2012-01-02T23:38:00.000-08:00

Our New Years Resolution: Focus on the Family

The last two years (post school) we have been crazy busy. We set some financial goals that would cause us to budget, rent for even longer and put off some of our wants. Mike worked a million jobs and was gone A LOT! I was a single mom. We have reached those goals. Phew!

We are now refocusing on what is much more important and needed, our Family.

What exactly are we going to do? Nothing crazy, just shift our mindset a bit, relax and enjoy.

Everyone has a job.

Mom: family meals at dinner table each night and FHE lesson or activity each week.

Dad: work a lot less, in charge of scriptures and prayer each night.

Kennedy: be moms helper with baby, try her best to be more patient with Sophie.

Sophie: sit quietly and listen during lessons, scripture and prayer and not terrorize new baby.

We are hoping to spend more time as a family during movie nights, camping, bike rides, playing games and traveling.

We have been discussing what we'd like to see happen this year for each of us, here are some of the ideas that were mentioned.

Kennedy wants to do a kip in gymnastics and have a good year as she starts competing.

Sophie better be potty trained and be able to dress herself this year.

Mom wants to lose the baby weight from all three of her babies...he he.

Mike wants to work less and play more.

Mom and Dad want to go on a fun trip for their ten year anniversary.

Mom wants to take the girls to Disneyland for her birthday, just the girls because Dad hates Disneyland

Mom wants to know why the little boy in Dad has died (just kiddin)

Soph wants to go to Disney on Ice

Mom wants to furnish and decorate the new house

We all want to camp more

Christmas 2011

2012-01-02T21:59:00.000-08:00

First of all these pictures are totally out of order but...I am just too darn lazy and pregnant to take the time to fix it. So here goes. It is a Voorhies family tradition to make homemade wassail and doughnuts the Monday night before Christmas and invite the entire free world. Since we live out of state we do our own party and Mike's brother in Texas does his own. It's fun to know that on the same night all of Voorhies are carrying on the tradition. Kennedy helped Mike make doughnuts, we estimated that we made about 200 this year.

We had a doozy of a Christmas this year. The girls and I flew out to Utah on the 22nd while Mike stayed and worked until he drove out the night of the 23rd, like the middle of the night. We weren't expecting him until the afternoon of the 24th but the boy loves a surprise. In this pic of Sophie in her ice skating outfit I have to give serious props to my mom...that woman sewed her little heart out this Christmas. Oh the things she made!

Mike making doughnuts at our party.

The girls and I were pretty craftacular this Christmas. I didn't feel like going much of anywhere prior to Christmas so we kept busy at home. They crafted I packed up our house, they played I packed, they wined that they wanted to go somewhere and I um, packed some more. Here is Soph playing with the gingerbread playdough we made. Ken and I made Santas, a lovely snowman couple and anything else we could think of.

Above are some of our fabulous friends at the party, Natalie and Sarah and some kiddos.

Our button Christmas trees.

Kennedy, Hannah and Sophie in their ice skating outfits. My mom had to alter Kennedy's because she apparently had quite the growth spurt. She and Hannah use to be the same height, not the case anymore and gymnastics has caused Kennedy to have stronger arms than her Dad. Oh wait maybe that doesn't exactly emphasize the largess of her muscles...seriously her shoulders are ridiculous.

And well of course Kennedy and Hannah's American Girl dolls needed to have matching ice skating outfits, right?

And matching pajamas.

And that sassy Zebra striped dress, yup the dolls have a matching one too. I seriously don't know how my mom was able to do it all...if it wasn't for her extreme fear of mice I would think she had some helpers in that sewing corner of hers.

Sophie got the collection of Disney princess barbies. While opening it, once she saw what it was she started to shake like crazy. Kennedy was screaming and jumping like I have never seen before. My brothers kids, who are much quieter and milder are always taken back by my girls... and frankly probably a bit frightened by them as well. Shy they are not. Quiet they are not. Entertaining? Yes!

This is the girls coming out Christmas morning. They both got microphones. It's one of those gifts I knew from the get go that they would absolutely love and that we would be completely annoyed with. I was pretty excited about it though, I would have freaked if I got one as a kid. They both sing ALL THE TIME and I did too as a kid. Blake commented Christmas morning that he would have been so annoyed if I had gotten a microphone when we were younger...apparently the fact that I watched and sang Annie constantly wasn't really appreciated by my brothers.

Just a quick rundown of some of the gifts so the girls can remember.

Sophie: princess dress up, princess polly pockets, barbies, princess play castle, microphone, books, various Disney movies she didn't have, dress up from grandma, pajamas, crown and clothes.

Kennedy: karaoke machine, rock star dress up, shoes and clothes, doll jeep, doll bed, doll clothes and dress up from grandma, pajamas, books, gymnastics leotards, movies.

Mom: 16 place settings of new large and small plates, bowls and cups. Spa day. Books. Decor for new house and money.

Mike: mountain bike rack for truck, books and money.

Finn: clothes, blankets, books, stuffed animal.

Family: Wii (given to us by friends...LOVE THAT) Just dance 3 and Toy Story Mania.

Gotta have a rock star outfit, gloves and fake colored hair if your gonna have a microphone right?

Sophie's preschool Christmas party.

We came home to our trampoline looking like this after being picked up by 50 mph winds and rolling around in the field for a bit. When we got home and Sophie saw it she said "um Mom, the trampoline is broken." Thanks Sophie.
After Christmas day things really went downhill. I got really sick and was pretty much in bed from Monday to Thursday. My mom also got sick. Mike had to drive from Utah to Pagosa Springs in Colorado to work until Friday so my saint of a sister in law took my kids for a couple of days so I could puke and sleep and lay around miserably. We missed out on a lot of fun things going on with family and I was bummed to not be able to see and do all I wanted with everyone while we were in town.
Mike got home Friday and we drove back home on Sunday morning.
Next year my focus for Christmas is to simplify. Possibly no cards, less running around town trying to go and do every little thing or activity prior to Christmas, less gifts. After listening to the first presidencies talks during the Christmas devotional this year I was really touched by this talk in particular. I want more sitting and reading meaningful books with my kids ,more service and sub for Santa and more fun at home watching Christmas movies and spending time together. When I look back at my favorite Christmases it had nothing to do with gifts it was making chocolates as a family, playing games Christmas Eve, going to a movie together, going to Temple Square or listening to the tabernacle Christmas program.
We really did have a great Christmas this year and feel incredibly blessed as we move into the next year. We are excited to be moving into a new home and to soon be welcoming our third kid into our family.
Thank you to everyone for the fun cards, gifts and time spent with us over the holiday.

Dance performance

2011-12-17T12:19:00.000-08:00

Sophie's little dance class performed at a rest home today. The best part was when one of the older ladies leans over to her friend and says, "Now I know why Edith didn't come...BORING." Then she got up and walk out mid-performance. Ha ha. The girls did great, Soph was absolutely adorable...though I may be a bit biased

Kennedy and Sophie after the performance.

The girls came back and made snowflake and christmas light candy necklaces with their friends Ashlynn and Brooklyn.

Kennedy and her gingerbread house...it was made a week ago and has been picked to death since then.

Misc.

2011-12-15T16:44:00.000-08:00

The above picture is really random but I didn't want to forget about it. Sunday morning Mike got up with the kids and he let me sleep in. When I got up the house was somewhat disastrous and I go into the kitchen and the girls are painting their socks...brand new socks. Slightly confused I asked what in the world they were doing and they said that Dad said they could paint socks and make sock puppets, nice. So after they painted them and added hair they put on a lovely puppet show.

Here are the girls at Texas Roadhouse for the Gymanstics Christmas Party. We had a nice dinner and then went to the coaches home and had a gift exchange and some treats.

We love to have lunch with Kennedy at school, Sophie thinks it's the coolest. Kennedy wanted to make sure everyone knew her pregnant mom was there. She kept patting my belly and saying "pregnant lady coming through." What in the world? It's fun to see how she interacts with the other kids...and sometimes horrifying. When a slightly odd child eating across from us randomly said to me "I'm a kid", Kennedy looks at me strangely and says "okey dokey." The best part was when we went to the elementary's Christmas store so she could pick out a gift for her Dad and she picked a necklace (because you know how Mike loves jewelry) with a large dog tag hanging from it that is pink and purple and says AWESOME. I was trying to hide my giggling when she said, "Dad is gonna love this, you know...because he's awesome."

We are getting so excited for Christmas. We have made a bunch of fun crafts including a gingerbread house, watched an endless amount of Christmas movies and read a ton of Christmas books. Mike and I had a fun time at his work party. It was fancy..which was somewhat stressful considering that I am huge pregnant but we somehow pulled something together. There was delicious food and LOTS of drinking which is always a good time for the two sober individuals there. Don't really love trying to make small talk with a bunch of tipsy docs luckily Mike stuck by my side most of the night...until karaoke started. Mike performed a lovely rendition of Livin' on a Prayer ending in the worm. I was laughing so hard I just about gave birth.

I had my 31 week appointment today and I am measuring just right. Baby Finn is doing great! I am keeping busy by packing up this house and preparing for Christmas.

You better watch out!

2011-12-15T16:12:00.001-08:00

Sophie's dance class had a little Christmas party and performance. They danced to "Santa Clause is Coming to Town." It was really cute!

This is the part of the dance where they whisper something...so adorable.

Our little reindeer stuffing her face. Seriously love her, she is so entertaining!

Just a few more house pics...

2011-12-15T15:03:00.004-08:00

Above is a picture of the back of the house. The door to the right is from the dining area outside and then the door closer is from the master bedroom.

View of the house and garage. From the garage you enter a large mudroom...can't wait to get lockers put up in there.

The garage.

Front door.

The back patio.

New House

2011-12-02T21:31:00.000-08:00

Mike and I have bought ourselves a house. We move in the end of December/first of January. So excited!

The following is far too much detail about the house..mostly for family.

The picture to the left is of the bathroom upstairs for the girls to share. There are two bedrooms upstairs with little tiny doors in the rooms leading to small little secret play areas...that pretty much locked in the sale for Kennedy.

This bathroom is our master, next to the bath is the shower. We love the tall sinks and that

that there are two of them.

This is the guest bathroom downstairs, we need to put a mirror up but otherwise it is ready to go. Love the sink!

This is the kitchen. I really like it but I am trying to convince Mike to have the cabinets painted white. I have always loved white kitchens. We plan on replacing the counter tops but

otherwise we really like it.

This is a pic of the great room. The door you see is the coat closet, to the left is the front door, so the window is looking out at our driveway/front yard. The ceilings go up two stories and it is very open. I plan on having the walls painted a darker tan and the molding white.

More of the great room. Off of the great room/dining room there is a door to the backyard. It isn't very big but we are hoping to be able to fit the trampoline and a play structure.

This is the fireplace, not really my style. I think we will change the mantle and surround to white with some stone. The fireplace also goes up two stories which makes it tricky but if we can figure out a good design for it I think it could be really cool. So the master bedroom is on the main floor down the hall behind the fireplace. There is also a door there that leads to the basement. Down the hall with the master is also the laundry room and then a mudroom that attaches to the garage.

This is the front of the house. In the back there are two entrances to the house that go into the dining area and the master bedroom. There is a large patio that spans the width of the house in back. Mike and my Dad will be finishing the basement after I have little Finn. The plan is to get two bedrooms, a bathroom, a playroom/workout area and a large family room with a mini kitchen and banquet eating area, also a little storage. Eventually we hope to finish the area above the garage to create a theater/game room. The garage is a three car which is by far the best feature according to Mike.

Christmas Card Outtakes

2011-12-02T21:30:00.001-08:00

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Not much to report

2011-11-14T20:13:00.000-08:00

Not much going on with us these days, same old same old. Kennedy did however get an award at school the other day and I got a couple really awful pictures of the event. She was an ultimate trailblazer. Her teacher nominated her and she was pretty excited about it. Mike got her some flowers and we were all able to go to the assembly. She is such a good little student, we are really proud of her.

I haven't taken many pics this pregnancy but here is shot of me one week shy of 7 months. I am huge and still have 3 months to go. Yikes! Still feel good. Finn is moving around like crazy and I am definitely hitting the uncomfortable stage of pregnancy. Sleep is a joke these days but otherwise we are doing great.

Halloween 2011

2011-11-03T19:48:00.000-07:00

Halloween this year seemed to last two weeks and with all the parties and candy I was sure ready for it to be over when it was all said and done. Sophie changed her costume depending on the day and Kennedy was a Leopard. Sophie was Ariel, Belle and Cinderella.

Kennedy had a fun party at her school, go to go to a birthday party in her costume and went to our ward party. It was fun and busy!

Such sassy little girls, I sure love them!

Kennedy came up with all of her own poses. She is such a little character.

Mike and I dressed up for a party with his co-workers. He was Ceasar and I was Cleopatra. I will not be posting pictures because at 6 months prego I was a very large Cleopatra and hated every picture I was in. Speaking of large, the pregnancy is going well. I am starting to waddle and feeling the little guy kick and move all the time. It seems to me that my pregnancy is going by really fast and I have felt great the whole time. We have decided on the name Finn, we are still negotiating a middle name. We have gotten some really fun little clothes for the little man and my mom has made him some darling things as well. I really can't believe we will have a little baby boy here soon. In other news Kennedy has started competitive gymnastics and is doing really well. It is a lot of practice (6 hours a week) but she seems to be handling it well. Sophie still LOVES her tap/ballet class and is the most enthusiastic little thing in there. It is so fun to watch her. She is the WORST child to potty train ever. She goes in the toilet about half the time and it is really killing me. I am hoping we are done with it by Thanksgiving. I am helping out at Kennedy's school once a week for a few hours and at Sophie's school once a week too. It has been fun to see them in their element with their little friends. We are still hunting for a house. The new laws for lending has made it interesting to get a home. We want to build but the up front costs are pretty crazy unless the builder buys the land and we haven't fallen in love with anything that is already built. We aren't in any hurry and want to make sure that we really love whatever we choose. We have been working hard to pay off student loans and have made significant strides in that regard, which is really exciting. Mike has worked a lot in the past few years and we are grateful that 1/3 of our loans are paid off because of it.

Family

2011-10-12T22:41:00.000-07:00

My parents came out this past weekend for a visit and it was wonderful. It's so fun to have family around. My Dad, who is apparently obsessed with kites, brought kites for the girls. Sophie had never flown a kite before and she was enthralled. She let go a few times which was really the highlight of the whole experience. Watching my Dad, then my Mom chase a kite through the field...good times. Note that my Dad's kite is attached to a sponge bob fishing pole... this provided me with no end of giggles. I love my parents.

Seriously in awe.

We had a lot of fun with them for the short time they were here. The kids swam at their hotel, we flew kites, played games, looked through a few houses and ate some delicious food. My Dad also made some lovely jewelry with the girls and continued to play with the jewelry pop beads after the girls were done, wish I had taken pictures of his creations. I know what Grandpa will be getting for Christmas :)!

Nesting

2011-10-05T09:28:00.000-07:00

Is it normal to be nesting when you are only five months along? I seriously feel like I am on crack and I have a million things racing through my brain that I have to buy, do, find etc. etc etc. The collage above is only a small sampling of the little boy clothes I want for our little Finn/Cameron/Trey/Gavin/Tait/Spencer. I have become one of those people that can look at baby pictures all day and I giggle at them like an idiot and then almost cry because they are so darn sweet. Below I have examples of pictures I want my brother to take of our baby boy because it makes sense that I would decide these things at 5 months right? (coo koo) And for heavens sake I better decide on a baby announcement and we don't have any boy books...what if he comes out of the womb and instantly wants me to read him a book with trains and superheroes and all we have is Fancy Nancy? Oh and what if he want to watch a movie? Well he's screwed because he's not going to want to watch Barbie Princess Charm School but guess what buddy...that is all we have. These are the types of insane things running through my crazy pregnant head. I can think of all these things and yet I can't keep my kids names straight or give proper instructions like "go brush your teeth" like this morning I told Ken to "brush your bed and make your teeth" and this is happening regularly. Good times! But seriously I am so excited to meet this little fella, or as Sophie says flella or baby brodder. My girls are going to drive him nuts and when I change that poor kids diapers they will stare at his little penis like it is a some foreign object until it catches a breeze and he pees on them and them hopefully they will be over it. (and stay far far away from those things until they are 30) Okay I now have to actually attempt to get some things done today that actually matter. But seriously look through these baby pics and giggle and cry..could you die?

Conference Weekend

2011-10-05T08:24:00.000-07:00

What a nice weekend we had. Saturday morning we had friends over for a big breakfast and Sunday morning we were invited to a friends house for a breakfast and to watch the first session. The talks were wonderful it was nice to relax and lay around as a family eating, coloring, sleeping and watching conference.

While having breakfast at our house our good friend, who is Mike's boss came and joined us. He is not a member of the church but we invite him to everything we do with our friends because he doesn't have any family here in town. He also happens to be gay, which is only relevant because he is aware of how we and our church feel about the gay lifestyle/marriage etc. He also knows that we love him and don't care either way. He is our token gay friend and we are his token mormon friends and anytime we have a question about the other we feel perfectly comfortable asking each other without being offended, it is great. We have had a lot of questions answered and had a lot of laughs together because of it.

I mention him because at breakfast he and all of our friends were discussing different religions and he mentioned that he grew up baptist. He talked about going to a class about cults and that the first cult he was warned of were the mormons. So growing up he had always thought we were wacky, had a bunch of wives etc. Then he said "and then I became an adult and I started working with a bunch of mormons and these people were the most accepting, forgiving and kind people I had ever met. They were like the Jesus I had learned about growing up...not the cult I was warned to avoid." To me that was the greatest part of my weekend. I am grateful for a husband who has taught me to be more loving, accepting and less judgmental of others (even when I wasn't meaning to be). I have friends now that I would have never had, had I not married Michael and I am grateful for that.

Picture Day: First Grade and Preschool

2011-09-29T15:40:00.000-07:00

Quick little post, mostly for my mom, about the kids school pictures. Kennedy desperately wanted a scarf for pictures. I think she looked so adorable and soooo old! She practiced her smile in the mirror the whole time I was doing her hair.

Soph couldn't take a normal picture to save her life so this is is the best we could do.

2011-09-20T10:06:00.000-07:00

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Pagosa Springs

2011-09-18T22:48:00.000-07:00

We had a really fun trip last week as a family. Mike had to work in Pagosa Springs so we decided to tag along with him. He talked and talked about how beautiful it was down there so we figured we had to check it out. The drive was incredibly beautiful and the girls did great. We stayed on a gorgeous ranch with a couple that has opened their garage apartment up to the hospital temps.

The girls were in absolute heaven on the ranch and in this town. There was a hot springs downtown where they could play on the rocks, in the river and find where the hot water was coming down through the rocks. They could have done that all day.

Rob and Judy let the girls roam the ranch and play on everything. They had an adorable little horse swing that the girls really enjoyed and the hammock that they played on all the time but the best part was the horses.

Kennedy and Sophie would look out the window from our apartment and as soon as they saw Rob in the barn they would throw their shoes on and run up there to "help" him. It was so darn cute. He was so sweet to let the girls help him and ask a million questions while he was trying to work.

They loved brushing the horses and could have done it all day.

Rob took a few hours training one of his horses. The horse was jumping barrels and doing various tricks and no matter how many times I asked the girls if they wanted to get lunch they didn't want to leave.

Rob shoes his own horses so we got to watch him do that, which was actually really fascinating. It's really touching how much he loves his horses and good he is with them. The girls kept asking Rob what they could do so as a joke he said they could help him clean up poop and they were jumping for joy. I'm so glad they had that experience they are still talking about it non stop and asking to read as many books about horses as they can.

When we got back I had to go to PTC for Kennedy. She is doing great. Her teacher said she is very bright and that she is in the highest reading group. She has tested really well and I am proud of how well she is doing and how hard she works.

It's a Boy!

2011-09-18T22:38:00.000-07:00

Well after four ultrasounds we finally found out what we are having. It's a boy, and we couldn't be more thrilled. We are now in a whirlwind of thinking of boy names, looking at boy bedding and clothes. It is so much fun and so different. I was shocked that we are having a boy, I really thought we would have four girls when all was said and done. I have been thinking about what I want his little nursery to look like and I thought I would do some bike stuff with orange and blue. I have looked at everything boy in the last week and all the while I have had the biggest grin on my face. As far as names we have always loved Finn. I think it will probably be Finn Michael Voorhies.

Labor Day Extravaganza

2011-09-06T15:12:00.000-07:00

Labor Day was a lot of fun this year. In the morning we went to a parade at a town near us, a few of our friends were going to be in it so we thought we would go. The girls had a great time!

They even got some pirate patches from our friends' float. Note that Sophie's is a little askew, I couldn't stop giggling when I looked at her. Our friends actually bought a pirate ship to promote their orthopedic surgery office. Now it will hang out in their backyard, how fun is that?

After the parade we went up Poudre Canyon to picnic rock, a beautiful place by the river where the kids can play and the adults can relax. The kids had fun playing in the water and sand and we had fun eating and laughing with our friends.

This is Ken at the parade, pics are a bit of our order.

Kennedy had her first soccer game over the weekend. Her team did great, they won by a goal. She played a team full of Kennedy's friends, it was hard for her but she was still aggressive and worked really hard.

Updates on the girls: Kennedy has dropped one day of gymnastics because with full days of school and soccer it was too much. She was so tired and cranky that we pulled back a bit until after soccer. She now does gymnastics for 2 1/2 hours on Monday and has soccer Tuesday and Thursday with games on Saturday. She is having a hard time adjusting to the full day of school and always needs some "time to herself" when she gets home. She tells me "mom I have been around kids all day I need to be alone." We are happy to oblige because she is usually a bit of a grump until she eats and relaxes a bit. She's doing great with her homework and reading each day. After soccer she will start piano lessons on Saturday mornings and go back to two days a week of gymnastics. She is really into writing and drawing when she gets free time. She has some great friends that she plays with, we feel really lucky that we have ended up in an area where we are surrounded with such great people.

Sophie is talking so much and picking up more and more each day. I am amazed that at this time last year she was barely saying a thing. We owe a lot to her speech therapist for all her work and support she gave Sophie. Soph started preschool last week and went right in as if she owned the place. The teachers said that whenever they had play time Sophie was singing loud and clear. It makes me laugh because I can remember always singing as a little girl, drove my brothers nuts! She also started up her tap and ballet class again and seems to really love it! Her teacher even told me she was a really good listener, I about fell off my chair. We recently had her tested for allergies because she throws up so frequently. She doesn't have any food allergies but could still be sensitive to dairy. So we are now onto the next step of figuring out why she barfs so much. We are going to have her hernia operated on and have an upper GI scan to see if she has reflux etc. She is a sassy and sweet little kid. She randomly tells us she loves us all the time. And she kisses Kennedy A LOT. She has picked up on a lot of funny things lately and one of my favorites is that when Kennedy does something weird or throws a fit she points her thumb at her while moving her fist back and forth and says "that girl." She is still obsessed with chocolate soy milk, spaghettios and chicken nuggets and she loves to play princesses. She is really good at entertaining herself which has been really great.

This last picture is of Kennedy and her friends Macey and Elle at picnic rock. Not sure how I got the pictures so out of order.

I am currently 16 weeks pregnant and feeling amazing! At first I took a ton of pregnancy tests because I didn't feel pregnant at all. I have been tired but other than that I feel incredible. We weren't able to see what the baby was at my appointment so we are hoping at my next appointment that we will be able to see what we are having. I would really love a boy but I fear it may be another girl. As long as I have a boy within the 4 kids we would like to have I will be happy. As far as names go we have thrown around a lot of ideas. We love the name Finn for a boy, we also like Cameron and Carter. As far as girls go we love Molly, Cameron and Claire.
I am due February 16th.
As far as our house hunt goes we are still looking at homes that are already built and we are looking at property to build a home on. We would love to have at least an acre of land but that is hard to come by unless we want to live in the boonies. We have found a bit of land near us in a beautiful neighborhood but it's not in our ward and we REALLY love our ward. I know it sounds silly but when you don't live near your family it's important to have a ward you love because they become your family. I am really hoping we end up building because it is hard to find a house that is my style.
Mike is working a lot. He picked up a job 6 hours south of us in Pagosa Springs, he might as well have found a job in Utah. It is just temporary and he is helping out our friends' anesthesia practice. It's hard to turn down the money on these side jobs and we feel very fortunate in this economy to be keeping so busy. We have made a huge dent in our school loans, which is really exciting. We are so thankful for Mike and how hard he works. Currently he does side stuff for Dentists in Windsor and Denver, the job in Pagosa Springs and is sometimes asked to go to towns about an hour from us; Sterling and Brush. He also has his full time gig here in Greeley at the hospital. We are going with him the next time he goes to Pagosa. He stays on a farm so the girls will be able to "help" with the animals and ride the horses.
Mike and I are primary teachers in our ward, we team teach the 11 year olds. I really like the calling. I also help out a lot in Kennedy and Sophie's classrooms at school and keep busy here at home trying to keep things clean and our schedules running smoothly. I am really looking forward to having a home and decorating. We recently got Kennedy new bedroom furniture and bedding. It was fun to shop with her for everything. It turned out really cute, I will have to post pictures later.

Kennedy's new gymnastics tricks

2011-08-24T14:47:00.000-07:00

1st grade

2011-08-24T14:30:00.000-07:00

We really can't believe that the summer is over around here. It went by really fast, and as excited as I thought I was going to be to have kids back in school I am a little sad and bored with Kennedy in school all day long! Sophie doesn't start school for another week and a half so it has been nice to have some alone time with her. Kennedy was so excited to start school. She was thrilled to have a couple of girls from our ward in her class and some kids from her class last year.

She came up with these poses all on her own people. She seems so much older than a first grader. After school the first day she came in the house and asked if she could go to her room and have some alone time because she "had been surrounded by kids all day." News flash: YOU ARE A KID! She makes me laugh every single day..she always has the most hysterical things to say and the funniest observations about life.

She also asked me a few days later if she had to go to school the next day and I said that of course she did and she responded "and the clouds parted and God said, I hate you Kennedy." I about lost it after that one. After we had laughed forever she says to me "good times Mom, good times." I don't know where she gets all this from but I am sure glad we have her around.
Kennedy has started Fall soccer with several of her friends from the ward. She was also asked to be part of a pre competition team in gymnastics. So she now has gymnastics on Monday and Wednesday from 5-7:30. So with Soccer and gymnastics she keeps really busy. We are so proud of her for how hard she has worked.
Sophie started her tap and ballet class again and has really loved it. She starts preschool in a week and a half and then I will have three hours in the morning all to myself. Weird.
Mike is working like a crazy man. Not only does he work at the hospital but he works for 2 dentists and does three out of town jobs quite frequently. We feel blessed that he has the opportunity to make extra money and we have been able to make a big dent in our student loans because of it.
In other news we are preparing to build a house, we are currently looking for land to build on.

Summer's winding down

2011-08-02T19:30:00.000-07:00

I can't believe that Kennedy starts school in a few weeks. Summer has flown by but it has been a lot of fun and we have kept really busy. I am almost done with all of the things on our summer bucket list. We visited a nearby splash park and had a lot of fun, I met some fun new moms and Kennedy got to see a lot of her friends from school.

We took a quick trip to Utah and visited family. My parents took us all to Lagoon. It has been a long time since I have gone, going with kids is definitely a lot more fun. The kids loved it! We stayed in the kid area most of the time. they had so much fun riding with their cousins.

Above is Kennedy and her cousin Hannah.

Sophie and Kennedy riding the cars.

We have been growing some things in our garden and it has been so fun to watch things pop up, the kids have really enjoyed it. We planted strawberries, basil, watermelon, zuchini and LOTS of tomatoes.

We already made some bruchetta with some of our basil, it was so yummy!

Ken and Soph at Lagoon. (pictures are a little out of order)

Sophie and Parker. It's so funny to see pictures of the kids on rides that I rode when I was little.

We were invited to a party at Windsor Lake, it was beautiful and the kids had to be dragged out of the water. It was a lot of fun!

I have really enjoyed reading with Ken this summer. We have gone through the books above and a few others, it's so fun to be able to read chapter books together.

These freaky birds returned this year and made a nest above our front door. The babies finally hatched and if you look at them they stare right back...super freaky!

And lastly at Windsor lake here is Jenna and Sophie.

More summer fun

2011-07-02T21:27:00.001-07:00

I feel like this summer is going by so fast that we don't have time to fit in all that we want to do. I am getting a bit sad that my little girl will be first grader and will be in school all day long and so once she gets home and we do homework, dinner and family stuff she will have to go to bed. Needless to say I am trying to make the most of our time. So our first picture here is Mike after the race he ran with his co-workers and a good friend. They all did the tough mudder together and prior to the race Mike stopped off at the haircut station and got a mohawk...I am glad he choose this because the other option was a mullet. I am happy to report he has shaved his entire head now. Every time he got home Sophie would say "Daddy funny mohawk." He did a great job in the race and we are really proud of him.

Other things we have been doing are tie dying. The girls and I bought tank tops and nightshirts do dye. They turned out really cute and it was a fun project.

Kennedy and her friend Tyli have had some really fun play dates. This past week we had Tyli over and we filled up tons of water balloons and played with them and jumped with them on the tramp. The girls pretended they were bombs and they couldn't step on them as they jumped. I've never heard Ken laugh so hard.

This little doll got her haircut and I am in love with it. She is so hilarious. She has two princess dresses, one is a snow white one and the other is Cinderella. She has to wear one or the other each day. The Cinderella one is in pieces but she insists on wearing it...when I threw it away she pulled it out of the garbage in disgust. Although she looks homeless I also think it's adorable and I love the little funny things about each of my kids and how unique they are so I am trying not to squash that. So we ordered a new dress but until it arrives this child will literally wait in her pull up in front of the dryer until one of the dresses is clean. She asked about the dresses the entire time we were on vacation and the minute we got home she was happier than you could have imagined when she got to put that dress back on.
Other things we've been doing are:
-going to the rodeo and carnival in town
-making strawberry freezer jam
-making bruschetta with basil from our garden
-finishing another level of swim lessons (Ken is moving up, we are just glad Sophie is still alive. They had to have an extra life guard watch her lesson because she was insane)
-spending 4 hours a week at gymnastics with Kennedy
-ordered a kit to watch caterpillars turn into butterflies and one for ladybugs
-reading lots of books
-working on summer bridge workbooks each day with the girls
-planning the ward summer party (Mike and I are in charge)
-playing hide and seek and red light green light

Bear Lake 2011

2011-07-02T21:01:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago we went to Bear Lake with our good friends Shane and Jenna and their family. We also brought along my niece and nephew Mckay and Sydney because, well we love to bring the on any trip that we can. The girls have so much fun with their cousins and I love that they will have such great memories of traveling with them as they grow up.

The kids had an amazing time on the four wheelers and motorcycles. We all had fun hanging out in the mountains while we waited our turns playing games with the kids.

Mike and Kennedy.

Beautiful Bear Lake. Mike is now convinced that at some point in the future he wants to have a cabin on the lake. I have to agree, it would be so much fun.

Mike was in heaven on that motorcycle.

It was so nice to have a pool where we stayed. The lake was freezing so the kids lived in the pool when they weren't on the wave runners.

Kennedy and her favorite person ever, Sydney.

I never have to ask that girl to pose twice.

Sydney, Mckay, Bennet and Kennedy.

Here's Soph heading back to me after realizing how cold the water was. In the back Mike was getting on the wave runner with Sydney and Ken. He let Syd drive and she was apparently really wild. She ended up throwing them all off and Mike said Ken freaked out like there were sharks in the water. Pretty funny.

Sophie always slipped over to the hot tub.

Miniature golf.

Mike and Shane were great entertainers for the kids. They played baseball, bocce, badmitten and at night they all huddled around the tv playing the Wii. We had great food and of course some fabulous raspberry shakes. We can't wait to go again.

Summa Summa Summa-time

2011-06-14T18:44:00.000-07:00

Kennedy and I have decided that the funniest and cutest thing ever is Sophie in dance class. She looks so cute and she is not the most talented dancer but boy is she enthusiastic! She absolutely cracks us up. Her outfit for her recital is the sassiest little thing and Kennedy is so jealous of it she can hardly stand it.

I love the picture above, she looks like she's trying so hard!

She had a dress rehearsal today and she couldn't get over being on the stage with the lights and everything. She did about half the dance and the other half she just looked all around in awe. As Kennedy and I were walking off the stage in the middle of the performance it was so dark that missed a few steps and fell flat on my face. We could not stop laughing. A lady asked me if I was okay and I may have snorted I was laughing so hard.

Don't let this picture fool you, she rarely pays attention to her teacher.

Summertime is in full swing around here which means a lot of play dates and apparently a lot of makeovers. The girls just love their prom hair.

Mike has been talking about Kennedy riding a motorcycle since before she was born, seriously. So he finally go this wish and she got to ride a few weekends ago.

She looked so hilarious in all of her gear. She did a great job and was really brave.

Swim lessons are interesting this year. Sophie started lessons and she is insane, they have had to add a lifeguard to her class just to keep an eye on my insane child. She thinks she can swim and so while her teacher is showing them a back float or whatever Sophie goes right on ahead and tries it. I have had to sit right on the edge of the pool and hopped in up to my knees one day to grab her. After a week of lessons she is actually listening and is staying on the step until it is her turn. She does, however, insist that they call her Ariel and every dang time she reminds them that I am apparently Ursula.

Motorcycle Mama.

Bucket List

2011-06-02T13:18:00.001-07:00

If you need ideas for things to do this summer here you go. We probably won't get to all of these but I like to have some ideas when we are feeling bored and need some help.

Bucket List

1. Convert and edit family videos from vhs to dvd.

2. Update digital scrapbooks for girls and family.

3. Bear Lake trip.

4. Family hikes.

5. Tie dye shirts with girls.

6. Help Kennedy sew something.

7. Family bike rides x20.

8. Library Storytime.

9. Swimming x20.

10. Cooking lessons for Kennedy.

Have a library/park/ice cream day each week.
Visit an art museum.
Make homemade ice cream.
Slip-n-slide, sidewalk chalk, jump rope and bubbles.
Grill at least once a week.
Eat tons of watermelon, berries, corn on the cob and popsicles.
Have a game and movie day in our PJs.
Go to the zoo & aquarium.
Visit a pick your own fruit farm.
Frequent the Farmer’s Market.
Attend outdoor concerts.
Find a drive in movie theater.
Go to a county fair.
Eat outside.
Make homemade pickles
Make jam
Camping
Service project
Nature Walk
Go Mini Golfing
Visit a new park
Do a science experiment
Go to the zoo
Build a campfire
Go for a Sunday Drive
Create art
Go fishing
Build a fort
Hide and seek
Make a movie or music video
Lots of walks
Feed ducks
Fly kites

44. Make-over: hair, makeup and nails.

45. Paper and sticker pictures

46. Magazine collage of a certain color, food, words starting with certain letters

47. Tear up a picture from a magazine or coloring page and have them glue back together as a puzzle

48. Hide and find a toy or spoon in the room, take turns

49. Play red light green light inside or out

50. Choose a book that your child loves and make a day themed around it. Read the book, make a treat to go along, do a craft ect.

51. Make a family tree with your kids and talk about aunts, uncle cousins etc.

52. Cut up a picture of the child and make a cool collage as you glue it back together in an interesting design

53. Catergories: name a category and see how many things you can name like cars, states, colors etc.

54. Put wet towels in a bag and a few popcorn kernels and place in the sun. Watch it grow over the next few weeks.

55. Make a book with things found in nature, tree branch, leaf rub, flower,

56. Red rocks park

57. Coors brewery

58. Tour the denver mint

59. Hammonds candy factory tour

60. Molly brown museum

61. Interview kids for their favorites that year.

62. Thread pasta on a string

63. throw a ball on the roof and let the kids chase to get it as it comes back down

64. wash pennies (put pennies in a solution of water 1tsp salt in to ½ cup white vinegar another bowl add baking soda to water to make a paste) soak penny in vineger and then rinse in bowl of water

Make jello
Badmitten
Bocce
Homemade pizza for dinner

Goings on

2011-06-02T12:30:00.000-07:00

Now that we finally have some warm weather the girls have had so much fun jumping on the trampoline with the sprinklers under it. I love pictures of them caught in mid air. I love to hear their little giggles and screams when they are jumping together.

Mike and I ran the Bolder Boulder this year and we had so much fun. It is by far the best 10k I have ever run. My time wasn't great because I had to stop to go to the bathroom in a 10 minute long line but the along the route there were all kinds of hilarious pit stops. I saw everything from belly dancers to a slip and slide. The above picture is awful and for some reason my shirt is puffed out and I look like I am 7 months pregnant...awesome! I am proud of Mike for doing it, he really hates to run!

The poor little baby bunnies in our yard keep falling into our window wells. The girls beg us to keep them as pets, they really are so adorable. We have also found a ton of little frogs in our yard so we collected a few and put them in a bowl. Sophie kept calling them Tiana and Navene...so cute!

Inspiring ideas

2011-06-02T12:10:00.000-07:00

I have found a handful of blogs that I find inspiring and that have given me great ideas and encouragement as a mom. I have been trying to use some of the ideas I've gotten and they have been working well so far. The first blog is 71 toes. I think this mom is so inspiring and so positive. She has some great ideas and seem to go all day long with the various things she does for her kids. Her parents are writers and have some really great parenting books, but I'll get to that later. One of her ideas was to come up with a family motto. We used a lot of her same words for our family motto but we added the word 'laugh' since that is very important to both me and Mike. It is now hanging in our house and as our kids get older we will use it to help focus our family on the things we think are most important. I talked to Kennedy about it a little bit already. The biggest thing I like about this blog is her focus on her children and family and that she is a very devoted mom and that her parenting is planned and intentional. I am trying to do the same. Shawni, the blog author, is also featured on mormon.org

Her parents also have a blog called Values Parenting. They have a lot of good ideas for everything from FHE to traditions and a family economy. I like the idea they have of focusing on a value each month as a family. We have put a chalk board next to our kitchen table so that I can write the value and ideas on there and we can discuss them at dinner. Last month was focused on kindness and friendliness and we talked to Kennedy about using manners and playing what her friends want to play ect. And even for kids like Sophie that are too young to understand the value it helps me to focus on it with my kids from day to day. We have also used them when organizing my FHE lessons.
The last site is The Power of Moms. The founder of this blog is Shawni's sister and a friend of hers. A lot of moms contribute to the blog. It's fun to read their ideas and stories.
Check them out if you have time.

In other news...

2011-05-20T18:50:00.001-07:00

Our little gymnast is loving her three hours a week of gymnastics. This is a picture of Ken and her level 2 teacher Ms. Alyssa. She told us that Ken needs to move up to level 3, which she is very excited about. She works so hard at her gymnastics at home and gives everything she has at practice. It's fun to watch her thrive in something that she is so good at.

She also lost her third tooth a few months ago. I can't remember if I blogged about it or not. Below is one of the things she is working on for the bars. The bars are her favorites but they also do floor, beam and vault. She can do a cartwheel on the beam, it scares the crap out of me every time she does it.

One of the absolute greatest purchases we have made is our new trampoline. The kids have loved it!

While our friends were on a cruise we got to watch their adorable kids for a few days and they had some great weather to play outside and in the water.

We also got some fish. We are not pet people so this is about as good as it gets. We originally had three fish. Sophie fed them salt and pepper the first night so one of our fish died. We now have two.

We are looking forward to a fun and busy summer. Kennedy will continue gymnastics and when she moves up a level it will be four hours a week. We are also doing swim lessons for Sophie and Kennedy. Soph will do a few summer camps through a local preschool and some open gym time at the gymnastics gym. We have a trip planned to Bear Lake with our good friends and one trip to Utah but other than that nothing major. Mike will be working a ton and doing some locum work in Pagossa Springs. He is on a mountain biking trip in Moab as we speak and I am sure he is missing us terribly. Ha ha.

Kindergarten Kennedy

2011-05-20T17:22:00.000-07:00

Here is our little gal the very first day of Kindergarten. Notice that she is wearing the same pants in her after picture...just to give you an idea of how much she has grown. She has worked hard this year and been a really good student. She's one of the top readers in her class and always did well on her report cards. We are really proud of her!

We really enjoyed being a part of her year and her class. I was a room mom this year and helped in her classroom and with various parties. It's been fun to see her with the other kids. We've also come and had lunch with her quite a bit. I remember loving that when my mom would come and eat with me. We came so much the kids in Kindergarten all knew who Sophie was. Above is our little bud Harrison from our ward with Kennedy and Sophie. The last time we ate lunch with her we stuck around and played with her at recess. Very entertaining!

Last day of Kindergarten. She was so funny that morning, telling me how she thought she'd be so happy to be done with Kindergarten but it turns out she really liked it and was going to miss seeing her friends all the time. She went on to tell me that she liked her teacher Mrs. Kingman a lot because she was nice but not too nice, she really challenged them. Seriously this all came out of her mouth. I was much more sentimental about the whole thing then I thought I would be. I was a little weepy all day about my little girl growing up.

This is the little caterpillar she made for art, she is shoving a cookie in her mouth.

The kids sang songs for us in their classroom and then we sat down and they showed us what they had worked on all year. It was fun to compare her writing and reading from the beginning of the year to the end. It's so amazing how much they learn and grow that year.

Kennedy, Sophie and I made these little posters for their teachers. Soph's speech therapist cried when I gave it to her. Man we are gonna miss that lady.

The kids did a program for the parents and then demonstrated some of their P.E. skills. They jumped rope forwards and backward. Ken schooled them all. The principal came up to me afterwards and commented on her jumping skills. Ken looked at me and said "well that's what happens when you practice."

Sophie's Preschool

2011-05-20T15:15:00.000-07:00

Sophie started preschool about three weeks ago. Once she turned three they tested her and she qualified for free preschool through the school district. I know three weeks isn't long but I thought it would be nice for her to get a feel for it and any interaction with other little kids is good for her speech and so we went for it.

The pictures are a little out of order here but the kids had a little graduation the last day of school complete with balloons and cupcakes. Soph thought it was someones birthday so she kept saying "Happy Birthday." No matter how many times I told her it wasn't a birthday party she just kept saying it.

Each day I would drop her off would be a little dramatic. She is use to spending every second with me and can you blame her for being a little sad about having to change all that? She would growl and cry a bit sometimes but the other kids in the class were darling and really tried to help her feel comfortable. When I would pick her up she would give me the look of death as if to say "how dare you leave me here again lady." She would stand up hunch her shoulders over and growl on her way to me. I would ask her each day, "Did you have a good day at school?" "No" or "Nope" was usually her reply. Before you think I am the meanest mom ever, the teachers said she was always good at school and seemed to be having a great time.

I could eat that kid up she is so darn cute. She is talking and singing like crazy lately and it is so fun for her to finally be able to express herself. I caught her one night at 2am singing "I know you I walked with you once upon a dream" in her bed. Very cute.

Sophie's 3rd Bday

2011-05-01T17:46:00.000-07:00

I can't believe my baby is three. Guess she's not really a baby anymore, Mike says that means it's time to have another. She was so cute about opening her presents and so excited about her cake. We decided to take her to Chucky Cheese and you would have thought it was Disneyland, she loved it.

We invited a family over from our ward for dinner and cake that night. It was a little intimidating since the wife of the family is an incredible chef, you can read more about her on her own blog here. She has been in magazines, on t.v. and works with Paula Dean regularly...so the pressure was on. Dinner was great and the company was a lot of fun too!

Sophie was so cute trying to blow out her candles, it took a while but man was she enthusiastic!

She got a big wheel, play food, a princess suitcase, movies and her Cinderella dress. She didn't take the dress off all day long. I caught her looking in the mirror and any other reflective surface bowing to herself and spinning in her dress, very sweet.

Our friends are out of town and their Mom is watching the kids, she seemed a little overwhelmed so we took the kids with us to Chucky Cheese. Mike spent the previous night at the hospital with their little boy until 4 a.m. They thought he might have his apendix but it turned out to just be bug.

The kids had a great time playing games and getting tickets.

Sophie loved the horse there and had a great time playing games with Dad.

Sophie is a crazy little girl. Just this morning after being in my room briefly I came out to the living room and found six eggs cracked and all over one of our side tables. She is into everything and she is fast. I wanted to list a few things she is doing right now so we can remember.
1. She finished speech therapy and has qualified for free preschool which she will start this week.
2. She is taking a ballet/tap class that is adorable. She is all over the place but is very enthusiastic and really loves it.
3. She is obsessed with the Disney Princesses and the color pink. She can name them all and is probably most in love with Cinderella.
Sophie's language or what she says all the time
I two chop it milk- I want more chocolate milk
Ken D- Kennedy
Where Daddy
Where Ken D
I show
I did
I am
I told you
No yet
Printheth- princess
Yeth-yes
What she loves to do
Play games on the phone or ipad, watch movies, read books, wrestle and rough house, dance with Kennedy, dress up, jump on the trampoline, play outside at the park.
Favorite foods
chicken nuggets with ketchup, spaghettios, chocolate soy milk, chocolate anything, pizza.

Updates and Easter

2011-04-28T21:27:00.000-07:00

Things around our house are as busy as ever and they don't seem to be slowing down anytime soon. It is so fun to see the girls enjoying the activities they are in. Kennedy is thriving in gymnastics and just can't seem to get enough. I am amazed at the muscles on that little girl. I have never seen someone so determined and Michael and I aren't quite sure where she gets it from. She can't stand not knowing how to do something, and not only that but she has to be the best at that thing as well. She works so hard all day after school to perfect her gymnastics it is really cute. I am so proud of her and what a hard little worker she is.

Miss Kennedy also lost her third tooth this week and had a picture in the district art show. She told me she gets her art talent from her Uncle Blake.

We had a great Easter. We spent it with our good friends the Jolleys and the Woods. We had a wonderful dinner and then the kids had an Easter egg hunt. As a family we dyed eggs and somehow it ended in tears...Kennedy's tears not Mike's.

Look at the concentration on Mikes face. Below are the kids getting ready for the hunt. From left to right it's Jenna, Alie, Kennedy, Ray and Sophie.

Soph was scrambling around and laughing hysterically, she thought the hunt was awesome!

What a doll, seriously love that girl!

Sophie is trying to smile..the girl can't take a normal picture.

Washington DC 2011

2011-04-20T15:04:00.000-07:00

Kennedy's 6th Birthday!

2011-03-28T12:36:00.000-07:00

Wow what a month we've had. Our little Kennedy turned 6 this past week and it seems we have been celebrating for a month, I am exhausted. Earlier in March I told her she could get her ears pierced so she decided to do it. She has loved having them pierced and can't stop asking when she gets to change her studs. I was surprised how brave she was, I was expecting some serious drama but she did great, after it was done Sophie was running around the store holding onto her ears yelling "no ears, no ears." Guess we'll have to wait a few years for Sophie to pierce hers.

To start off her special day Kennedy chose to go to Noodles and Company for her lunch. She and Sophie love this place!

Then we headed off to the gym where she takes gymnastics for her party. Below is Milo and Isabel holding the trophies that all the kids got as party favors.

Here is Kennedy with her adorable friend from school, Tyli. She gave her friendship bracelets. Below is the invitation that my brothers Blake and Peter helped me out with.

She was so spoiled! She got a ton of barbies, books, outside toys and much much more!

Birthday Shirt! What a cutie!

All of the kids at the party! Kennedy is so lucky to have such sweet and adorable friends.

Left to right top to bottom: Morgan, Hannah, Macey, Kennedy, Isabel, Elle, Tyli, Alie, Jenna, Sophie, Harrison, Emmett, Milo, Ray and Reid.

Jump!

The cake.

Isabel and Harrison.

The foam pit was the greatest. The kids had races across the pit and were bright red and sweaty afterwards. It was so fun to watch.

My little Sophie.

Alie on the rope.

Kennedy on the bars, her absolute favorite. She can now circle onto the bar and do her own hip circles. She is moving on to level 2 in gymnastics in a few weeks. So proud of her!

Kennedy and Tyli. This is the girl that Kennedy tells me everyday what Tyli wears to school and how cute her clothes are...after talking to her mom I found out that Tyli says the same thing to her mom about Kennedy. Little fashionistas in the making..we are in trouble.

St. Patty's Day

2011-03-28T12:32:00.000-07:00

This is a little behind but I wanted to quickly jot down what we did for St. Patricks Day this year. I always do a little treasure hunt from a leprechaun through the house so after school Ken and Sophie did that and found their treasure at the end which was bubbles and a couple of books. Then I made some rainbow cupcakes for the kids to eat. I would do the green food but the kids never seem to eat the food when it's green. Throughout the month we read a lot of fun St. Patricks books.

Ramblings

2011-03-15T10:48:00.000-07:00

We have been keeping busy with normal life. Just thought I would update what we have been up to. Mike has been working out with his friend Ryan everyday, which in and of itself is pretty hilarious because he's never been much of a gym guy and he and his bud have quite the bromance going on but he seems to enjoy it. So we have a year membership to our rec center and the girls and I have been taking advantage of it by swimming as much as possible.

They have the greatest slides and Sophie is now big enough to do them all by herself. She is non stop when we swim, it is exhausting. Whenever we have to leave she screams like it is the end of the world.

We have also been at the park a lot, taking advantage of the beautiful days we have had here. We are so glad we have such fun friends that have had picnics with us and enjoyed the sunny days.

Kennedy is a crazy little gymnast. We are so proud of her. She literally practices hours a day and loves every minute of it. She was told yesterday that she will be moved up to Level 2 now. She has only been in gymnastics for two months and went from beginners for two weeks to level 1 and is now being moved to level 2. I am so proud. She is also doing great in school. She and another boy in her class are being pulled out twice a week to read and take tests for advanced readers. Whenever we can't find her she is downstairs playing tennis and hitting the ball against the wall.

Love dressing my girls like twinners and I will do it until they won't let me anymore.

I just finished little shirts for the girls birthdays. Ken's is the black one and Sophie's is the pink. Next week the girls and I are going to Disney on Ice for both of their birthdays. Kennedy is having a gymnastics party at her gymnastics gym and Sophie will just have a family party. I can't believe they are growing so fast. Sophie started dance a few weeks ago. She is taking a tap/ballet combo class. It is hysterical. Needless to say Sophie is the comic relief of the class, she is all over the place but she gets an A+ for enthusiasm. There is really nothing cuter than a chubby little girl in a tutu and leotard and little tap shoes. So dang adorable! Kennedy and I watch her class and laugh the whole time.

Valentines Day 2011

2011-02-15T20:19:00.000-08:00

We had a great Valentines Day this year. Kennedy had an adorable party at school. Here she is doing a Valentines dance with a boy in her class, Harrison. It was pretty adorable.

The kids were thrilled to open the Valentines from their classmates, one mom even bought every kid in the class a balloon. Ken thought that was the coolest. It's so fun to see her at school with the other kids and to see how she interacts with the other kids. Speaking of school she recently had a PTC and got rave reviews. She is scoring well above where she needs to be and is pulled out a few times a week to read with the higher level readers. We are pretty darn proud.

The girls and I made these pom poms to decorate the kitchen for Valentines.

Here are my two little Valentines that I love very much. They sure make life entertaining and I don't know what I would do without them.

Love to dress them matchy matchy...at least while they will let me.

Mikey spoiled me this year for V-day. He got me a new laptop. It is suppose to show up on Thursday. I am so excited. I have been working on a few projects and having our new computer will make it so much easier. I am putting together all of our videos from the last 9 years of marriage and making dvds. It is taking forever but it has been REALLY fun to see all the old videos of the girls as babies etc.
We are lucky to have a house full of love and many family and friends that we love so much. We hope everyone had a great Valentines Day.

WOW!

2011-02-15T19:55:00.000-08:00

This little gal Sophie is seriously killing me! I thought there really couldn't be a worse two year old than Kennedy and then along comes this sassy little fireball and she is such a handful. It's a darn good thing that mixed in with all of that sass is the funniest and cutest little thing you ever did meet or she would have to find another place of residence.

This is Sophie while I was trying to get pictures of the girls in their little Valentines outfits. She was doing everything she possibly could to make it impossible to get a picture of her face.

Above I told her to open her eyes so I could get a picture of her beautiful blues and so she opened her mouth as wide as she could. Smart ass. I don't know where she gets it from I really don't.

Pouting. So damn cute I just want to squish that little nut.
Just to give an example of her insanity I took her to Kennedy's tennis lessons today and I was literally breaking a sweat by the end after chasing her around the whole time. If I took my eyes off of her to talk to my friend next thing I know she's outside on the bench swing, then she's in the parking lot. Then she's gone downstairs and gotten into all of the tennis balls.
She has also started a SUPER fun habit of ripping little pieces of her diaper during the day and leaving them all over the house. She also causes her big sister Kennedy to cry at least once a day by hitting or kicking her and then moments later makes Kennedy laugh by saying in the sweetest voice ever "sorry honey."
We love her and can't wait for her to be in first grade and in school most of the day :)

Birthday Boy!

2011-02-02T08:00:00.000-08:00

Mike turned 31 this week, on the 31st. He got a new grill so we thought it was only appropriate that we have a bbq on one of the coldest days of the year. We invited some of our friends and had a little party. Above is a picture of all the husbands from left to right; Logan, Collin, Bryce, Bryce, Dan, Mike and Ryan.

Sarah and Bryce. Weird thing is that I knew Sarah in college. She went to SUU at the same time I did, then we ended up in the same ward.

The birthday boy! He doesn't look a day over 30 right?

The delicious cake that Mandy made. You can read more about Mandy at her blog here, she is pretty amazing!! We also had some incredible steaks and chicken, yummy salads, and delish guacamole. Good food and hilarious friends, it doesn't really get much better than that in our book.

Here we are playing the game 'things' with our friends. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. Man we have funny friends.

Natalie and Bryce.

Mandy, Dan, Collin and Sarah.
Mike said it was one of the best birthdays he has ever had. If you can't be close to family it's soooo nice to have friends that are as fabulous as ours. We are so lucky!
Love you Mikey!

2011-01-30T20:21:00.000-08:00

Mike's uncle Wayne passed away this week. We are heartbroken. He had a heart attack a while ago and then lost a lot of weight and was taking great care of himself. He and his sweet wife Nita then moved to New York to work at the temple and live near their oldest daughter. They think he had another heart attack and wasn't able to make it to the hospital before he passed. We have traveled with him, visited and stayed with him when they lived in Vegas and enjoyed many holidays and family get togethers with him. He was such a funny and ornery guy he reminded me a lot of my Dad, which is why I think this has hit me especially hard. He was always really silly with our little girls and was so much fun to be around. We love his sweet family and are so sad for their loss. Until we meet again Wayne, we love you.

Updates on the girls

2011-01-30T19:27:00.000-08:00

Man do I ever love this crazy little girl above. Sophie has the BEST bedhead EVER! I use to worry that she wouldn't grow any hair because she was bald for so long. Turns out that she is getting just as much as her big sister. She freaks out every morning when I try to give her pigtails. She runs away from me yelling "NO piggies!" I am going to make a note of a few things about her that I don't want to forget.
-She calls Mike mommy daddy and every now and then Mikey.
-We figured out she has a milk allergy so she now drinks soy milk but seems to do fine with cheese
-Whenever she is naked she loves to do a naked dance by shaking her bum and saying "nakey nakey" (I might have taught her that)
-Anytime people sneak up on her or surprise her she says "scare me"
-If you go in to check on her at night you will often see her hand shoot up holding her cup, she doesn't say a word but you know that she wants more milk
-she LOVES princesses and knows all their names
-every time she wakes up from a nap or in the morning she walks around saying "good morning"
-She asks me about 15-20 times a day "where's Kendy?"
-she loves to give kisses, hugs and squeezers
-if she burps she says "scooz me" if she farts she says "tu toot" and if she or someone else sneezes she says "bless me" or "bless you" and if you cough she asks "you okay?"
-she is the most enthusiastic and energetic little character and I love her

These sisters are finally getting to the point where they can play together and it is the cutest thing ever. Kennedy arranges tea parties for Sophie and is teaching her how to play house and dolls. They LOVE to wrestle each other and chase around the house. They are probably the loudest girls you will ever meet. They are an absolute joke in sacrament, seriously can't find anything to entertain them longer than a few minutes. It is such a circus. I recently found out that the chorister likes to watch me during sacrament dealing with Sophie, she said "Summer sure has her hands full." Yes, yes I do.

This sassy little lady is in gymnastics FINALLY! She was in the beginner class for two days and they moved her up to level one. She is doing great and absolutely loves it. It's so fun to watch her during class, she just bounces around the whole time. She is also still doing tennis. So we have tennis twice a week and gymnastics twice a week with Fridays off. Kennedy is really enjoying reading and all the fun things she does in Kindergarten. She is so ready for a full day of school, and so is her mom. We recently went to a birthday party at Chuck E Cheese and there was a stage at the front where the kids could perform and be on a big tv screen. Well I was chasing Sophie around and when I look up Kennedy and four boys are wrestling on the stage. I have never seen her laugh so hard. It was hysterical. Come to find out, one of the boys (Jace) is the boy she has a crush on. So funny! The girls and I have had so much fun with the X Box Kinect, we have done the adventures game and I just bought the Zumba which is hilarious. Watching Kennedy and Sophie try to do the Latin dancing makes me laugh so hard. Kennedy is incredibly funny and bright. We love her so much!

Valentines

2011-01-30T19:19:00.001-08:00

We are pretty excited for Valentines around here. The girls and I have already made a bunch of Valentines, decorated our house and read and bought a bunch of Valentines books. We went outside the other day to play around with my new camera and took some pictures to make personalized Valentines, one of the more frustrating experiences of my life. I was trying to get the girls to stand there holding a paper with a word on it and they kept looking at the word, holding it upside down, holding it over their faces etc. We finally got some decent ones.

Hashimotos?

2011-01-03T10:46:00.000-08:00

I recently found out that I have Hashimotos Disease. Not a huge deal but it does effect me in obnoxious ways such as being SUPER tired and having difficulty losing weight (super fun). So I am beginning treatment today which means a strict diet (no gluten, dairy, eggs, caffeine, peanut butter, beef or grains) for a bit and a nasty cleanse shake I take which took me an hour to gag down this morning. Along with various supplements and a lot of doctor visits. I have done A LOT of tests including stool, saliva and blood tests and those will continue throughout the treatment. The entire treatment will take 6 months but the doc said I should feel a lot better in a few weeks. I really hope it works so I can feel like myself again. If you want to learn more about Hoshimotos you can look it up here. I will keep you posted on my progress through treatment.

Christmas 2010

2011-01-03T10:04:00.000-08:00

I can't believe Christmas is over, to be honest I am a bit relieved. This year I felt very busy and overwhelmed (took on wayyy to much). So next year I may do away with neighbor/friend gifts and Christmas Cards and may not volunteer to be the mom in charge of the Kindergarten Christmas party. The party went well and Ken had a great time. It's so fun to see her in class with her friends. Our doughnut party went well, we had a lot of people show up and made almost 200 doughnuts. It was such a hit that Mike had to make a bunch at work that week too. We were able to buy Christmas for two kids from the Salvation Army tree, it was fun to see the girls pick out toys for the kids and for Ken to make sure they had "cute outfits". The girls loved reading and opening a Christmas book each night and we had fun watching lots of Christmas movies. We sent Santa an email to see if he could come a day early for us so we could head to Utah early and he was very kind to do so. He even left us a bell from his sleigh and the reindeer pooped in our yard.

Our pictures are a bit out of order but here are a couple of the costumes from the Nativity play we did with the Loosli cousins. Kennedy was an angel and Sophie ended up being Mary. Leave it to our family to turn the most sacred of events into a circus. Sophie yelled "yee-haw" when getting on the donkey (Sydney) and had a very spirited dismount...not bad for a pregnant woman. She did get very serious when she was kneeling by the baby Jesus, which was very sweet. Parker represented the wise men and presented the baby Jesus with a box full of silly bands (not sure how they got in the box...BOBBI!). We got it all on video and had a good laugh, although I don't think the nativity play is meant to be a comedy but nevertheless....

I was able to get together with my cousins and their kids one of the days we were in Utah. It was so much fun to see everyone. My cousin Chad brought pvc pipe and darts and set up the whole gym with table barricades and everything. The kids, moms, grandmas and cousins had a great time playing war against each other.

Mike and I had a great Christmas. Mike got a new suit, a few pairs of shoes, a sleeping bag, new watch etc. I got a large food processor (cant wait to make huge batches of salsa), a Victoria Secret gift card (let's be honest who was that gift for?), a sleeping bag, two pairs of boots, new running shoes and my favorite gift was a day at the Aveda spa where I get to pick three treatments to have done! Our family gift was the X box Kinect. We tried it out last night and it is hysterical! If anyone has one we would love suggestions for games to get, we just have the game it came with.

The girls were spoiled rotten this year. They both got American girl dolls and some clothes for each of them. Sophie got a Jesse and Woody doll that she has been attached to ever since. Kennedy got games, a tea set, clothes, shoes etc. Their big gift was for both of them and it is a FurReal horse. It is pretty freaky. It moves it's head, eats a carrot, blinks it's eyes and moves it's ears and tail. When the girls sit on it, it clip clops and moves it's head up and down like it's walking. They LOVE it! We didn't take it to Utah and Sophie missed it so much we had to watch video of it periodically just so she could see it.

Here is our little horse Butterscotch. Leave it to Sophie to make the goofiest face ever. The baby in the background is Simone, the little girl we watch (daughter of our friend). Both grandparents spoiled the girls. They got a new book, game and pj's from the Voorhies and Grandma Loosli made them both adorable little nightgowns and a TON of darling clothes for their dolls. They each got books from cousins on both sides- we exchange books instead of toys with cousins.

My brother Blake drew this picture of James and Janice for me to give them for Christmas, they loved it! We kept busy in Utah with sledding, playing with cousins, various traditions with both sides of the family, family pictures, New Years party's and eating WAY more than we should have!!! Thank you to everyone for the sweet gifts and for putting up with us and our crazy kids while we were in town, we miss you already!

Family Pictures 2010

2011-01-03T09:44:00.001-08:00

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Traditions

2010-12-01T08:23:00.001-08:00

I am thrilled that today is December 1st because we have so much to look forward to this month. Especially since we are trying out a few new traditions to add to what we already do.
1. Decorate the house and tree while listening to Christmas music- check.
2. Wrap 25 Christmas books to read each day while counting down to Christmas-check.

3. Bring out our creepy Elf on the Shelf, oddly named Ricardo by Kennedy, to keep an eye on the kids during the month and report back to Santa- check.
4. Put up advent calendar with activities to do each day along with a scripture story about Jesus to learn about his life and the 12 days of Christmas symbols with scriptures and meanings. (too much? yup probably)- check
5. Make gingerbread houses
6. Decorate Christmas cookies
7. Make a snowman
8. Voorhies Doughnut party
9. Watch the story of Jesus birth, act it out and do felt board story
10. deliver neighbor gifts
11. Nice dinner and game night Christmas Eve
12. Christmas jammies- check
13. Christmas dresses
14. Watch all the Christmas movies and listen to as many Christmas songs as we can handle!
15. Find a Christmas lights drive through and drive to decorated homes
16. Voorhies cousin Christmas book exchange with hot chocolate and reading stories
17. Grandpa Voorhies reads the Christmas story with clam chowder
18. Temple square lights
19. Loosli sibling and cousin gift exchange, grandma sews something fabulous for the grandkids, we do the azimov quizzes and tease each other relentlessly.
20. Visit Santa at the mall or ward Christmas Party.
21. Donate food or gifts to school or ward Sub 4 Santa.

Random thoughts and updates

2010-11-28T21:02:00.000-08:00

My brothers have always made fun of me for using the word "random". Apparently I use it A LOT, but sometimes there is just no other way to describe something and that is exactly what this post is...RANDOM! Just what we've been up to, thoughts etc. First of all above you will see a picture of me and Michael that my little brother Blake drew, I love it and think it is super cute. So glad I have such talent in my family! Check out his stuff at www.blakeloosli.com and P.S. he's single ladies!

We are thoroughly enjoying the new maroon five album around here! Also loving: Tangled (so darn cute), the Little House on the Prairie books (I know I am a bit behind here but I have started reading them and seriously LOVE them all), some of our favorite TV shows including: Glee, Parenthood, Modern Family, Castle and Phineas and Ferb. We are also blasting all the Christmas music we can handle!

We may have had our Christmas decor up two weeks before Thanksgiving...Mike was working out of town for three weeks and we needed some serious entertainment SO we decorated early. We finally found a tree we liked on craigstlist. I worried on my drive to pick it up that I hadn't asked if they were smokers, what I should have asked is if they had a million wiener dogs that they dressed up in sweaters because THEY DID and their Christmas tree smelled just like those darn little hot dogs. But after a million glade candles, some fabreeze and a few plug ins I am happy to say our house no longer smells like a kennel.

These little gals are as fiery and crazy as ever. Sophie loves to follow her sister around and ask "where's Kennedy" all day long. We have started watching our friends little girl, Simone which has really helped Sophie with her "bullying" issues. Our friend told us that at first Sophie was like a "bull in a china shop" in nursery and was pounding on everyone to get her way and now she is getting along with the kids and using her words with the other kids...phew seriously such a relief to me!

Finally got myself a treadmill. I LOVE the darn thing, it has been so nice to have and to be able to run while Sophie watches a show or sleeps. It even has it's own TV. The kids have also really loved playing on it, they think it's a boat.
Below is a house model that we are pretty seriously considering building in Greeley. It has the major things on our list that we want; walk out basement, rambler, three car garage, open great room/kitchen and in a neighborhood we really like. We'll keep ya posted.

Below is the house we have been drooling over for the last year as it has slowly been built...just to find out that is was sold recently! DANG! Isn't it adorable though?

Mike worked out of town for three weeks and it was rough. I missed him terribly and we had a rough go of throwing up and all kinds of craziness while he was gone. Luckily I have amazing friends that entertained and fed us while he was gone. I would have lost my mind otherwise. Below is a pic of Sophie on our makeover night, one of the super RANDOM things the girls and I did to keep us busy. I could seriously eat that kid up she is so damn cute!

Otherwise we are doing great, life is busy and fun. Kennedy is doing winter tennis and was moved up an age group because of her "coordination and maturity", thought that was kinda funny. Sophie is becoming super girly and insists on having her nails done regularly, and has to show everyone that comes to our house the new color she has painted on. She is obsessed with Toy Story and loves to be Jesse yelling "yee-haw" throughout the movie...super cute! She wants to live on spaghettios and milk and fights me every morning to have spaghettios for breakfast. As far as potty training goes she is happy to sit on her frog potty anytime you ask her to but she has yet to actually go to the bathroom in it. She is in speech therapy but can say "chocolate" perfectly...she is so my daughter! Kennedy and I are working on putting together the nativity play for my family when we visit Utah, when Ken was asked which part she wanted to be she asked me "which one has the most speaking parts mom?" Shocker! After choosing to be the angel (big stretch) she then went through several different voices asking me "exactly how would an angel say this do you think?" I have always made fun of Mike for reading nerdy Dungeon and Dragon books, he has now added a new realm of nerdiness to his life; he plays video games with his friends here in Greeley with a headset on so they can talk to each other...I can barely watch him it is so goofy. I am keeping busy planning the Christmas party for Ken's little kindergarten class and doing Christmas shopping and planning. I am so excited for the fun things we have planned to get the girls it makes me super gitty! Such a fun time of year!

Double barf weekends

2010-11-16T14:34:00.000-08:00

The Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs.

We have had an interesting couple of weeks. Mike has been working a few hours out of town so last weekend I took the girls to visit him and Sophie threw up most of the weekend. Also, every time we tried to go do something as a family Mike would get called into the hospital. So, we did get to see Megamind and really liked it and although it was a rough weekend we were glad we went to see Daddy. This past weekend Mike had a conference in Colorado Springs so we all went along with him. I LOVE the springs. I think it is so beautiful there. Before we left I threw up but afterward I was feeling okay so we went anyway. The next day I threw up again but our friend Lacey saved me and took care of the kids while I barfed in our hotel. We had a nice brunch at the Broadmoor Hotel, above is a picture of the spread of food I couldn't believe all the choices they had. It was a bummer not to feel well because everything look sooooo good. I had fruit.

Sophie had mash potatoes, mash potatoes and then some more mash potatoes. Seriously can't believe we paid for the kids to eat at this brunch considering that they had mash potatoes and m & m's from the chocolate fountain.

The hotel grounds are absolutely beautiful, the girls and I walked around the lake and visited the geese and ducks.

Kennedy had a great time posing for pictures. I don't know if she is throwing out gang signs below or what but this picture of her cracked me up.

Halloween

2010-10-31T21:00:00.001-07:00

I am soooo glad Halloween is over. Don't get me wrong, I love Halloween but it seems to be a Holiday that drags on and on with little kids and frankly I am exhausted. On Saturday our family went to a ward party at one of the members farm. The farm was enormous and they had set up all kinds of fun activities. Once we arrived the girls immediately played on the hay bale tunnel, maze and climbing tower.

Mike met up with his friends and got some terrible hair and mustaches. They looked so funny and sexy, right?

Kennedy bounced from game to game. She won the potato sack race, I put Sophie in a potato sack and when all the other kids took off she just stood there and watched.

Here is Kennedy and her little buddy at the doughnut on a string game.

Sorry ladies, he's taken. What a looker!

I asked the girls to pose and Sophie just copied everything Kennedy did.

Seriously the cutest fairies I ever did see.

Melt my heart. I could watch them dance around and be silly in their costumes all day.

Sophie was in this picture but we cut her out because she had her eyes closed and looked a little scary. What a fun Halloween! Now if I can just get rid of the candy in our house so that the girls aren't asking if they can have some every 5 seconds!
Sunday we did a little trick or treating, we didn't last long because Sophie refused to let me hold her and she was SO SLOW. After she got a few candies in her pail she kept opening them up and eating them. Kennedy was about 5 houses ahead of us. When we got back from trick or treating Ken was so excited to pass out candy. After a couple of kids came to the door she gave them candy and then shut the door and turned to Mike to give her critique of their costumes, "cute kids, great costumes...he made a great football player"
I'm not sure if she realizes that she is also a "kid".

Fall

2010-10-27T12:59:00.000-07:00

I have been feeling very uninspired as far as our blog goes but I thought I would post some pics of a few things we've been up to. This past weekend we were invited by Mike's attending to come to his house and ride horses and ride motorcycles. The girls loved seeing the horses and feeding them but the weather wasn't the best to ride them.

Mike was in absolute HEAVEN, he got all geared up and rode motorcycles with his friend and their son forever. They have 80 acres and have made their own dirt track to ride on. Ken even got to take a spin with her dad over a few hills. Sophie was really unsure of Mike in that get up.

The girls and I went to a local farm and found some pumpkins in their pumpkin patch. The girls had so much fun.

We had to take some time to pose on every little thing we saw.

When we got home we carved a few of our pumpkins and played Halloween charades as a family. I LOVE this time of year!

We are really enjoying the fall weather, if the wind would die down a bit here it would be perfect. We have watched a ton of Halloween movies, read literally hundreds of Halloween/Fall books and done some fun crafts. I have been trying some new soup recipes and a few pumpkin cupcake and muffin recipes that we really like. We hope everyone else is having a fun fall and keeping warm.

Birthday Week

2010-10-05T07:46:00.000-07:00

Can you believe that this little gal is 32 years old? Frankly I can't believe it myself. This is a picture of me when I was 4, I didn't take any pictures of myself during my birthday so this will have to do. This years birthday was a lot of fun! Mike and Ken made me breakfast in bed and it was delish. Mike got me a couple pairs of shoes, some clothes and tickets to So You Think You Can Dance for me and my two girlfriends. I am also told (by Mike) that a treadmill is coming in a month or so. Not too shabby! Kennedy made me all sorts of crafts for my birthday and Mike and I got to go out with friends that night to PF Changs. I also got some lovely things from other family and friends. Thanks everyone for the calls, emails, texts, cards and gifts it was a great day!

We were lucky enough to have my parents and little brother come visit us this past weekend, we LOVED having them here. We took them fishing at a nearby pond and caught three fish. Well actually Mike caught the fish and then with the fish still attached to the hook cast it back into the water so Ken could pull it in (animal cruelty?). Ken loved it and went right along with the whole thing saying "oh man, he's a fighter guys a real fighter"

Above we have Kennedy doin a little fishing and below is my brother Blake, my Mom and Dad.

My mom was most looking forward to going to Kennedy's soccer game and it did not disappoint. One kid flew over a soccer ball and landed on his butt (thought my mom was going to lose it), Kennedy had a few crying fits after getting kicked in the shins and ankle. Ken made two or three goals (can't remember my mom and I were having too much fun laughing). In her other two games she made 4 goals and 2 goals.

Kennedy post goal!

Here is a picture of Miss Peg, Sophie's speech therapist that we absolutely LOVE! She is so wonderful and has really helped out our crazy little gal. I will be so sad when we don't get to have her come to our house anymore =(

Friends

2010-09-20T09:30:00.000-07:00

I have always been blessed with wonderful friends. In elementary, middle school and high school I had amazing friends that kept me out of trouble and kept me laughing. I still keep in touch with most of them. In college I was so lucky to have great roommates that were so much fun and so easy to live with, I am still close with them too. As I have gotten married and moved around to various places Mike and I have been incredibly blessed to find people in our neighborhoods and wards that have made the transition easy. It always felt like we met people quickly and that we had known them all our lives. So now we find ourselves settled in a town, done with school and we have found, yet again, a wonderful group of friends. I miss my family terribly but it's nice to have friends around that have become family to us. I even have a friend living near me that I have known since middle school...and she really is family to me. This Sunday was Regional Conference for us and so Mike and I invited 4 families over for breakfast before (for some) and during (for others) conference. There were so many people we had to eat in shifts but we had yummy food and laughed all morning long. I love these people and their kids, it really feels like home here and I am so grateful for that. That night we had my old friend Erin over for dinner with her fam and it just ended such a good day for us.

After talking to my family using the iphone face time and seeing their faces and laughing with them I was unusually weepy and really missed them. I worry about them and think about them and wish we could be a part of everything going on back home but for now while we are away I am thankful that we are surrounded by the family we have created here.

Cover Girl (almost)

2010-09-13T12:49:00.001-07:00

Kennedy was a runner up in the Colorado Parent cover kid contest, she will be in the October issue of the magazine with this picture! Check it out next month if you live in Colorado.

A little of this and that

2010-09-13T08:45:00.000-07:00

This weekend was a busy one filled with baby showers, soccer games and pool parties. A co-worker of Mike's had a pool party in his amazing backyard. It was a lot of fun. As you can see he had a huge blow up thing in the pool and the girls thought that was the coolest thing ever as a matter of fact Sophie thought the hole in the middle was so cool (where the beach balls are) that she plunged head first down it several times. She keeps forgetting that she can't swim. She is such a stressful kid to take swimming, she is CRAZY! Ken and her friend Ali had a great time!

Ken had her first soccer game and they got killed, but she had a great time! She kept reminding me before the game that it was okay if they lost. I never said it wasn't but I guess she wanted to make sure I wasn't disappointed. She just giggled through the whole game.
We also hung out with some friends this weekend and helped them shovel rocks in their yard. Ken was raking the dirt and our friend Bryce passed by and said "Kennedy thanks for all your hard work" and she replied "Now Bryce you know you're paying me for this, right?" I busted up laughing and she turned to me "What Mom? He could at least spare a quarter or something."
Kindergarten has been the best thing that has ever happened to our Kennedy. She has become so sweet and helpful around the house and is sooooo much nicer to Sophie. Her fits have almost become non-existent and she is doing really well in her class. We are so proud of her. Sophie is picking up more and more words each day and is about as funny and cute as she can be. We are working on her bullying ways, mostly in nursery. I wish I could just freeze her in time right now, she is so much fun! I have even managed to get little pig tails in her hair which makes her look much less homeless than she has been looking. All in all things are looking up around the Voorhies household.

Mixed messages

2010-09-02T11:04:00.000-07:00

The other day Kennedy and I were shopping. As we were looking through the racks she said, "mom don't you think it's weird that you are married and have a boyfriend?" The lady near us looked at me in shock and I was so embarrassed so I asked Ken quickly "what do you mean, I don't have a boyfriend." and she replied, "um, yes you do mom, Zac Efron!" I guess that explained it to the lady and she kinda giggled. But can you blame me really?

Ken has also been telling Mike and I whats what and trying to help us in the looks department. She told me the other day that my feet probably hurt after working out because I was "big boned" I am not sure who taught her this term but I would like to find that person and smack them. She also told Mike he needs a haircut "big time" and that he is pretty weak and lazy. Ouch!

Fun stuff

2010-08-29T18:50:00.000-07:00

This past week has been fun as we are getting into our routine with school and soccer. Ken seems to love school and has some adorable little friends from her class, they even hug each other when leave after school. We had a fun temple activity this weekend with the primary, we met up at the Denver temple and had a picnic. It was a beautiful day. Kennedy and I went to the American girl store afterward and had fun looking around. She wants to bring her doll next time to get her hair done and her ears pierced.

Soccer has been a lot of fun, she loves it! Last practice she made three goals and did about 15 cartwheels throughout the practice...too funny. She has taught herself how to do a one handed cartwheel so I guess it's time to sign up her for the real deal.

Sophie tried so hard to play with the kids during practice, chasing the kids around yelling "ball please" I love that she copies everything Ken does, it is so funny. She sat in time out with her the other day and pretended to cry while Ken threw a fit. She is so entertaining.

Mrs. Sassy pants herself.

Sophie

2010-08-23T17:01:00.000-07:00

My wonderful brother Blake drew this picture of Sophie, I think it is so great. You should check out more of his stuff here.

While we are on the subject of Sophie I wanted to jot down a few things about her so that I don't forget.
1. Sophie LOVES music and dancing. The minute we get into the car she says "on" repeatedly until the music is turned on (and it has to be REALLY loud). And it can't be just any music. I was trying to be a clever mom and put together a cute little cd of all these adorable nursery rhymes and toddler songs, well she wasn't havin' it. She just kept saying "on" louder and louder until I put on either Justin Bieber or some hip hop. Then she dances like a crazy person or she closes her eyes and moves her head from side to side sort of Stevie Wonder like when the music is really speaking to her. It is so funny, she has the goofiest look on her face and is so serious.
2. If I am ever on the computer she runs over and says "dance" until I turn on music really loud so she can dance to it.
3. If she sees my phone she follows me saying "princess" until I get the princess game going for her.
4. When it's time for bed or naps all you have to say is "night night" and that girl runs to her bed. She loves to sleep, just like her mama. I put her in bed and she says a series of phrases such as "wuv you", "night, night' or "bye, bye". It is AWESOME! She still sleeps at least 12 hours a night and takes a 3 hour nap each day. LOVE THAT!
5. If I ask her if she has a poop or tell her to do something she doesn't want to she just looks at me and wiggles her finger from side to side saying "no, no, no" in the sweetest little voice.
6. If I am laying on my stomach she pulls up my shirt and gives me a zerbert on my tummy. Too much? Well I was laying on my stomach when the speech therapist was here and Sophie pulled down my pants hoping to find my back, let's just say the speech therapist and I have a "special" relationship now.
7. If she wakes up in the middle of the night you just see her hand fly up and of her bed with her cup and she says "milk". The other night I just told her, "sophie just suck on the sippy cup" and she looked at me, shrugged her shoulders and said "alright", and back to sleep she went...so amiable this one.

Kindergarten

2010-08-19T19:51:00.000-07:00

I still can't believe this day has actually come. Although for years I have joked that I couldn't wait for this day and Mike has questioned whether or not they have boarding kindergarten in Switzerland, I really had to choke back the tears today. The night before Mike gave Kennedy a father's blessing to have a good year (thank you Amberlee for the idea) and Kennedy later commented "Mom I think that blessing went quite well don't you?" I was really sweet and touching. I was so nervous and excited for Ken that I may have gotten only a few hours of sleep, when I went to check on her at night she had her outfit for the next day laid out at the foot of her bed...I was so darn proud. When she lined up with her class she was a head taller than all the other girls in her class, except one.

Sophie hopped in line with another class, ready to head in with them. I am definitely not ready to let her go yet. She is so stinkin' hilarious and fun right now I could wrestle and kiss that girl all day long. It will be weird to have the whole morning to ourselves though.

She looked so adorable and after many lectures the night before about not having time for fits or freak outs the morning of school she tried to "keep her cool" and only "freak out on the inside"...her words. After shopping for school clothes with this gal I was praying they just had flippin uniforms at her school. Everything we tried on was too scratchy, too grey, too tight, too big, too boyish or she wasn't really "feelin the outfit" or it wasn't giving her the "right vibe", I kid you not those were her words. Shoe shopping left us both near tears after 5 stores and no luck. We finally found some shoes that she could handle, unfortunately we still have to get shoes for soccer, sounds like a great job for dad! It's pretty laughable that I once thought my daughters would let me dress them however I wanted, do their hair anyway that I like and that they would always look cute and put together....BIG FAT JOKE ON ME!

Needless to say she looked adorable and loved her first day. Heaven help her teacher. She told me that she already discussed with Mrs. Kingman that her cubby was a little lower than she would like, luckily Mrs. Kingman told her it wasn't possible to change it since they were all assigned. She took the news quite well considering, well considering that she is Kennedy. When we picked her up she ran and hugged us as if we'd been apart for weeks and then ran back to her teacher and gave her a big hug goodbye...so adorable! Sophie was thrilled to see her sister and ran up to the teacher and out to us to mimic her sister running to us and giving us a hello hug. What a crack up! Kennedy said the kids seemed nice except for a few "wackadoodle" boys. I hope she continues to think boys are "wackadoodle" for a long long time!

Yummy salad

2010-08-06T10:45:00.000-07:00

I found this salad on a blog and we had it for dinner the other night. It is SO GOOD, Mike even raved about it and he's not really a salad guy.

1/3 cup pecan pieces
2 tablespoons sugar
(sugar the pecans with butter on the stove top)

mixed greens and spinach
2-4 kiwis peeled and sliced
1-2 cups of strawberries sliced
1-2 avocados, chopped
(we added a sprinkle of gorgonzola cheese on top)

dressing
1/3 c. vegetable oil
2 tbs sugar
zest and juice of 1 orange
zest and juice of 2 limes
(you could easily cut the dressing in half and it would be plenty)

Enjoy!

Sophie likey

2010-08-06T10:41:00.001-07:00

I think this picture of Sophie is one of the funniest things I've seen. Ken and I can't look at it without laughing. It reminded me so much of Tommy Boy.

Caribbean Cruise

2010-08-04T21:07:00.000-07:00

Mike and I just got back from a cruise in the Caribbean with our traveling buddies Shane and Jenna. We had such a great time, it was paradise! Above is the route we took on our cruise and the islands that we went to. We didn't make it to Princess Cays because we had a 5 hour power outage on our boat our first night at sea so sitting dead in the water made it impossible for us to make it there. Although we were disappointed, it was nice the the amount they credited us paid for all of our tips and our excursion. Get ready for lots of pictures, they are a bit out of order so try to follow. Before that I have to share how much I missed my girls and yet when Kennedy was asked by her Uncle David if she missed us she replied, "not really, they're pretty lame." Ouch.

Here we are in St. Thomas. We took a ride/tour of the Island and then were dropped off at Sapphire Beach which was beautiful. This is a pic at the top of the mountain. Shane and Jenna grew up with Mike and were backyard neighbors who eventually feel in love. He's a nurse and she's a teacher, we have a ton in common and always have so much fun traveling together.

Mike and I at Sapphire beach.

Shane and Jenna and our cruise ship in the background.

Mike and Shane chasing iguanas. Mike lassoed one with a tie on his mission, he was trying to recreate the moment but it didn't work out. Instead it headed straight for Jenna and scared the crap out of her.

Mike and I in St. Thomas in front of our boat, The Emerald Princess.

Sapphire Beach, the picture doesn't even do it justice the water was ridiculously blue.

Mike and I gazing into each others eyes. Such clear water you can see straight to the bottom.

Mike and Shane after some snorkeling.

Beautiful St. Thomas.

Taking a drink break in St. Marten..it was crazy hot! From that point on we lived in our swimsuits which for anyone that knows me knows that was a desperate measure but it was desperate times people!

Shane and Jenna on the water taxi.

Me and Mike on the water taxi.

This is Grand Turk. It was our favorite Island, the water was unreal! I could not get over how clear and blue the water was, it was literally paradise! We did a shore excursion here, snorkeling and a short "hike".

After getting off our boat we took a smaller boat to this small island in the middle of the ocean to snorkel.

We saw some beautiful fish while snorkeling and then came back to the main beach and swam.

On our snorkel boat.

We hiked to a ruin built by slaves during the time of Columbus.

After our cruise we stayed in Ft. Lauderdale for a night so we headed out to the Everglades. We saw some crocodiles and turtles and some nasty spiders. We also walked through these incredible mangrove forests. While there we spoke with a guy who had a finger removed after a water moccasin (snake) bit him, he then showed us where a car had driven into the crocodile infested waters just the night before.

The time on the ship was so fun and relaxing. We ate yummy food, watched movies on the big screen under the stars on the boat and went to some fun singing and dancing shows.

Thank you so much to my parents and David and Niki for watching the kids and for everyone else that helped out...we are so lucky to have you so that we are able to get a break and know our kids are well taken care of.

Almost August????

2010-07-20T21:08:00.000-07:00

Is it seriously almost August? My how time flies. Here is Kennedy with Ray and Ali (brother and sis) after tennis lessons. Summer tennis has been interesting. It started out fine but after her first session she got a horrible teenage girl as the coach and she has been awful...so we are basically dragging ourselves out of bed to get there at 8:00 and watch the kids goof around. She never corrects them or helps them...even Kennedy said "Mom, doesn't she know that it's okay to criticize us? That is how we learn." She has enjoyed working on her sassy walk though, I have a great video of her hitting the ball and then sassy walking back to her spot in line but for the life of me I can't get it to load (too big of a file) so I'll leave that one to your imagination. After tomorrow we are done with tennis and she starts soccer at the end of August.

This weekend we went to Salida to visit our friends Justin and Lacey. On our way home we stopped off in Tiny Town, an adorable little place in the mountains with tiny houses and stores and a train that takes you through the town. Kennedy loved it all. Sophie was not a fan. The train had a loud horn and it scared her to death.

The building above is suppose to be a replica of the Adams Family house.

The train.

Sophie hiding from the train.

Sophie and Dad before the train started.

We had so much fun seeing our friends and their darling kids. We met up with them the night we arrived and went to a night movie in the park. The next day Mike and Justin went on a mountain bike ride that was almost 40 miles...Mike about threw up when they got home. Justin however was nearing his 100th mile for the week and was doing just fine (he is on a road bike team). After the guys got home we all went swimming at a hot springs in the mountains. It was beautiful and warm and had a fun slide which the kids were crazy about. Sophie laughed hysterically each time we went down and Kennedy never wanted to stop sliding. Our last day the guys were roped into moving some hay for a co-worker of Justin's so Lacey and I took the kids to the fish hatchery (which they loved), the park (where Sophie flew off the merry go round) and then to get slushies at Sonic because we all thought we were going to melt. I had so much fun catching up with Lacey and seeing their family and the girls couldn't get enough of the little boys and their awesome slide bed with a fort underneath.

Fish hatchery.

Yesterday Kennedy pulled out her second tooth. She put it under her bed and woops the tooth fairy forgot to take the tooth and leave money. It may have had something to do with the fact that Mike and I were at the movie Inception (incredible movie) until late but Kennedy said "oh it must have been because I kept checking under my pillow all night and the tooth fairy was afraid I would catch her." So wouldn't you know it that darn tooth fairy left some money and snatched that tooth while we were at tennis lessons.
Crisis averted.

Summertime

2010-07-12T11:15:00.001-07:00

The girls are having a great summer and trying to keep cool by eating their weight in popsicles each day. I saw on another blog these cute HUGE chalkboards so the girls and I made a few for them to draw on with their chalk outside. They have really loved them and Ken likes to play school and pretend to teach me and Sophie.

Ken is thrilled to have lost her first tooth and the other front bottom one is getting pretty wiggly, she is working hard to get that one out too!

We use to have sand in our little pool but we dumped it out to use as a swimming pool, the girls still love to play in the sand and make all kinds of messes! As we've played outside we have found all kinds of wild animals...so far this summer we've seen foxes, bunnies, frogs, HUGE snakes, mice and the baby birds that have hatched in the nest above our door.

As if Sophie wasn't already mistaken for a boy enough I had the bright idea after grocery shopping the other day to just drop in the Walmart salon and get a trim for both of them. Sophie's haircut is killing me...every time I look at her I can't help but think of the little boy from Pollyanna. She also created a nice scab on her forehead from banging her head on the bottom of her crib when she wakes up. Needless to say she is looking a bit homeless these days, add a few popsicle stains to her clothes and face and you can pretty well imagine what she's looked like most of the summer.

We are excited to go out to Salida this weekend and visit our good friends Justin and Lacey and their darling little boys. Kennedy was talking about their little boy Holden and how much she missed him and she told me "mom I am so sad that Holden lives in the wild wild west." Salida is a beautiful small town right in the middle of the mountains. Then a week after that Mike and I are heading to Utah to drop of the kids and to go on a cruise with our good friends Shane and Jenna. We are going to the Eastern Caribbean...and we couldn't be more excited! We are so grateful for our wonderful families that are willing to watch our crazy little redheads, we know they are a handful and we are so appreciative.

Busy Weekend

2010-07-01T15:23:00.000-07:00

The beautiful couple Nate and Amber

What a weekend! We headed out to Utah on Saturday morning bright and early (5 a.m.) for Mike's little brother's wedding. We got there just in time for Kennedy and I to head to the glitter toe party which was a lot of fun!!! Kennedy and I both got some shade of peacock blue which seemed like a good idea until I was sitting in the temple with bright blue toenails looking like a lady of the night but ah well. Then we headed to dinner with some of Mike's family and then I headed to my moms and Mike went to his brothers to play video games til all hours of the night (SO GLAD WE DON'T OWN A GAMING SYSTEM)! The next morning we headed to church where my kids were loud and irreverent as usual and then we had dinner at Mike's moms and then back to my moms for fun with my family. Monday I went to the mall in the morn to get last minute things we needed for the wedding and on my way home I had to empty one of my shopping bags so I could barf in it while driving, good times. After throwing up I felt much better so I headed to my friend Melissa's house to see her brand new baby Connor, who is absolutely beautiful just like the rest of her kids. In the meantime Mike and Ken were at the wedding rehearsal for the ring ceremony then the kids all went swimming with their amazing aunts and uncles and we all met back at Mike's moms for dinner and the men headed off for paintball (the new tradition for bachelor parties) while the women watched the bachelor and chatted. Kennedy pulled out her wiggly tooth that night and she got a little cash from the tooth fairy, her first missing tooth! The next morning we went to the temple for a beautiful ceremony and baked in the sun during pictures. I took the girls home for naps and Mike went to the luncheon at his mom's. We then got ready for the reception/ring ceremony. Ken and Soph were adorable little flower girls in the most beautiful dresses! Amber looked gorgeous and Red Butte was the perfect setting- so pretty! After the ring ceremony we danced and danced and danced until it was dark. My girls were in heaven, twirling around in their dresses. Sophie was glued to the DJ and clapped after every song...she even tried her hand at break dancing and laid down in her beautiful dress trying to spin around on her back thanks to the example of her Dad. Mike was a total spazz and did the worm, the splits and various other embarrassing dance moves. The bride and groom looked so good even after poor Amber was attacked in Walmart the night before her wedding by a woman trying to shoplift. It was such a fun night! The next morning we packed up our car and our friend Shane's truck (with my elliptical FINALLY!) and headed back to Colorado. Mike drove the truck and the girls and I were in our car, they did amazing I was so glad everything went well. We'll have to drive alone one more time at the end of July when we return the truck to Utah and head off for our cruise, I CAN'T WAIT! And so now I need to take a nap for several days because after that trip I am exhausted!

Fathers Day

2010-06-21T11:36:00.000-07:00

We are so lucky to be surrounded by wonderful dads in our lives. Mikey is a great husband and Dad. Mike LOVES babies, which is so great for me because I don't love the baby stage. He is always stealing babies at church so he can hold them, it is really sweet. He is a hard worker and he always keeps us laughing. Mike is a good example to me, he is always serving others and likes everyone. He is the perfect husband for me, he always knows just what to say or do to help me or make me feel better. I am so grateful to have him in my life.

I posted this serious picture of my Dad because I thought it was hilarious. This is what a lot of people think of my Dad... ornery. But in reality my Dad is the funniest man I know. He still makes my mom roll over with laughter after all these years. My brothers are all really funny and I think they would agree that my Dad is the most hilarious guy. He is incredibly handy, built my parents home and continues to update it and help people with everything from their roofs to finishing their basements. He is an adorable Grandpa, my girls love him, especially Kennedy. She loves to sing with my Dad and watch movies with him. He is an incredibley good man and I love him very much. I also wanted to say Happy Fathers Day to my brother's Kelly and Peter who are REALLY cute Dads, their kids are lucky to have them.

Michaels' Dad is truly one of kind. How many people can say that their Dad had a pet skunk as a kid and that he de-scented it all by himself? How many people can say their Dad actually owns metal armor and swords that he made himself? How many fathers had a medieval birthday party complete with jousting and authentic medieval food? James always keeps us entertained and he has such a kind heart. We love him so much! Happy Fathers Day to my brothers in law Rob, Mark and David.

Happy Fathers Day to all the great Dads in our lives we love you so much!

Swimmin, tennis and music class

2010-06-16T19:41:00.000-07:00

I'm having fun running the girls from here to there this summer. We start out early in the morning with tennis, then come home and workout before going to swim lessons. Some days we have speech therapy some days we have music class most days we have drama, fits and freak outs. My little redheads are keeping me busy, busy, busy. Kennedy talks non-stop about being a flower girl, in a week, at her Uncle Nate's wedding and frankly we can't wait for the wedding so that she can stop telling us, and everyone she meets, about her dress. She has been given the nickname "sporty spice" at tennis by my friend Nicole because she has killer buff legs and is little miss sassy pants. After hitting a ball today she did this little runway walk back to the end of the line, tossing her head from side to side and then gave me a little nod. The girl is hilarious!

Love, love, love these sassy little girls!

8 years...where has the time gone?

2010-06-10T17:14:00.000-07:00

7 years of putting Mike through school

Moving from Utah to Texas to Colorado

Having two wacky little redheads

Traveling from Australia to Hawaii to Yellowstone and Disneyland

We've laughed, we've cried and we're ready for more!

Here's to 8 great years and many more to come!!!