Thursday, October 31, 2013

My Baby Turns Three September 26th!

This little girl is so PLEASANT most of the time. We are enjoying her so much and sad that she is growing up way too fast. Mckenna loves life and gets excited about everything we are doing. She takes a Music Together class with me every Friday. She tells people, "I'm going to music class with my mom. Not Savannah, not Hunter, not Brinley, JUST me and my mom!" I'm so happy we have that one day that we do something special. She has a great voice and isn't afraid to sing out in front of everyone in her class. She is really good at pitch matching as well. 

Mckenna takes such good care of all of her baby dolls. She talks to them, dresses them, and feeds them. The other day she even asked one of her dolls if she wanted some "diet coke". Made me laugh. I love that she is so nurturing. She still lets Powell and I give her lots of hugs and kisses and she will cuddle with us. She loves her Grandma and her Cee Cee (Denise). She also gives them lots of loves. 

I love how good natured Mckenna is. She has had very few tantrums and when she does they are so short. We have always taken her grocery shopping, on dates with us, to various stores, to ball games etc. and she is just EASY. As child number four it makes it really easy on us. She did have a hard time going to nursery at first but now she LOVES it. She gets sad if we ever have to miss church. I can't believe she will be a sunbeam in January. 

Mckenna and Brinley are pretty good friends. Mckenna tries to do whatever Brinley is doing. They have a great time in the playroom together. They are both very "girly" and love dressing up as princesses. We also attend a little playgroup with a few kids in our ward. She looks forward to that and especially loves Will, Emmy and Lizzie. We were in charge of playgroup the week of her birthday so we had some "birthday fun". Mckenna was so excited to have all the attention.

When I think about what Mckenna's days are like sometimes I feel bad that she gets dragged in so many directions. It's the joy of being the last child I guess. We do try to read books together every day and we are working on her letters. She loves to watch Dora the Explorer and she still likes Elmo. She is an ok eater. For breakfast she prefers cold cereal and water to drink. She loves a peanut butter sandwich for lunch and doesn't like mac and cheese. She is an average eater at dinner. We have to usually bribe her with dessert to get her to try everything. She is our smallest. She weighs about 27 lbs. and was on the 25th percentile for weight. She is just over 36 inches tall (50 percentile for height). I never thought I'd get this little girl here with my difficult pregnancy but I would do it all over again. She has been such a sweet reward. We love you little M!
We hosted Playgroup the week of her birthday. We talked about numbers and birthdays and then had a little "party" for our snack time. Our friends are Will, Emmy, and Lizzie. 
Our friend Emmy

Our friend Will
Mckenna got two umbrellas for her birthday. One was a frog and the other was hello kitty.
Little bed head girl opening her presents.
Mckenna got a princess dress, a crown and some wings for her birthday.
Taking care of her new baby doll.
We went bowling and had her favorite food at the bowling alley for lunch. She loves their foot long and fries. 
Nothing like a princess who is bowling. She never gets bored with bowling. It's so funny how much she loves it!
We even let Brinley stay home from school on Mckenna's Birthday. 
Cee Cee came to eat with us and watch us bowl. Grandpa came too.
Mckenna wanted a strawberry shortcake cake and a princess birthday. Whatever works right? So we had princess plates and napkins and this was the cake.
She blew out the candle before we even sang!
Oh man,  I love this girl

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Brin Turns Six!

Oh my Brinny....that's what I call her! She is soooooo beautiful with her long blond hair. This little one is very strong willed but I love her so much. She knows what she wants and isn't afraid to let us all know. I learned a lot about her strength this summer when she had her firework accident. I told her the other day at four in the morning when she was crying with a terrible earache, "Brinley you are only six years old but I KNOW that you can do hard things, you can get through this earache." I'm sorry that she had her accident but happy that she learned that about herself at such a young age.

Brinley has a way with animals. All of my kids love animals but Brinley is especially caring, nurturing and unafraid of animals. She packs the chickens around and has Smokey in her bed most nights. She LOVES horses and wants one so bad. We plan to start riding lessons at the arena in Charleston. I have never seen a kids that takes such good care of about a hundred stuffed animals and she spends hours in the playroom feeding them, covering them with blankets, etc. I was thinking about getting rid of them because there are so many but every one I looked at I could imagine Brinley playing with it so I just kept them all!

Brinley is my only leftie. She is such a good artist. I'm amazed at the detail she can draw. She colors, paints, makes bracelets, glues things together etc. I also love that she is excited about sounding out words and she is enjoying her first year of school. Her teacher told me that she had a disagreement with a girl named Zella which ended with Brinley elbowing her the first day and hitting her the second day. I know my girl can hold her own. 

We are working on being happy, speaking kindly, and not being shy around family and friends. Brinley has begged for me to do piano with her. I was lazy about starting her because she is still young but she wants to do it so we are working through the first book. She is picking up on it really fast. It is natural for her to keep a steady rhythm. I'm glad to have that one on one time with her each day. Her favorite artist is Taylor Swift and I think she knows every song on the two cds she has in her room. She is a good eater and likes a variety of foods. She has always loved salad, especially pork salad from Cafe Rio. Sometimes we even order her one because she hogs all of ours! Her and Mckenna do get a long pretty well and am I'm so glad they have each other. Oh my Brinny.....I love you!
This girl LOVES any kind of art so she loved her Crayon Tower!
Brinley got some horses and two stables for her horses.
We started the day with opening presents from us and then she had three friends over for a little party. It was a "horse" party.
Regan Riddle coloring our horse craft.
I made them a treasure hunt and Hunter helped me. 
Looking for clues
The treasure for each girl was a hat, bandana and a colored hair braid on a hair clip. I love how cute Maylie Kohler is. She looks like her dad Brad.
I love how happy Brinley is with her friends.
The next part of the party was to go to Midway and ride horses. We were so thankful that Sue and Roger Pyper let us ride their horse.



Hailey Henke even rode with her broken arm.
She is in heaven.
We came back to our house for cake and ice cream and opening presents. Then the girls watched a movie called "Barbie and the Princess Horse".
The horse cake from Days Market was adorable.

After Brinley's friends left we had family come over for cake and ice cream.


Even Rachel and her kids came. Hansen is one of Brinley's BEST FRIENDS.
Gotta love Peggles.
Brinley loved her shake coupons and money from Grandma and Grandpa Remund. Sorry your head got chopped out of the picture mama.

Friday, October 4, 2013

Michael and Jill Visit

Each year when Tess/Matthew come to BYU, Michael and Jill stay with us. It's fun to see them since they live so far away in Virginia. Grand Tom was too sick with his cancer to join us for a family party but we were able to have Jan and some of her kids come. Brinley and Mckenna especially love to have Josh and Sarah's girls come. I wish I had taken more pictures because I'm missing some of the people.
Powell and Mike went fishing in Provo Canyon
 Here are the pictures from the family party.
Brinley has to show off her chickens. 
The guys played corn hole until it was dark.

Brinley, Bella, Violet and Mckenna loved sitting together on the pink picnic table. Powell made delicious BBQ hamburgers and everyone brought something to share.
I love that little Poppy is picking her hot dog pieces up with her fingers and putting it on the fork.
Jill and Mckenna playing together. 
Powell, Me, John, Jan, Michael, and Jill
Michael and Powell went shooting out by Strawberry one morning.

Thursday, October 3, 2013

First Day of School!

This year is a little crazy because I have three kids in three different schools. Savannah leaves first and catches the bus at 7:05 to go to Rocky Mountain Middle School (8th Grade). Brinley catches the bus at 8:20 to go to Old Mill Elementary (Kindergarten). Hunter catches the bus at 8:32 to go to Timpanogus Intermediate School (5th Grade). Then starting at 11:38 am Brinley needs picked up. Savannah comes home at 3:00 and Hunter comes home at 4:00. It's a little crazy!
It's nice to have an older brother on your first day of school to tell you all the ropes!


Such a cute girl!
Owen Mair, Koler Berkley, and Brinley

Looks like she made it through the first day!

Hunter had to buy Mens Size 7 shoes for 5th grade....cost me a fortune for his shoes this year!
Here is my big tall 5th Grader!
Savannah and Savannah
Gorgeous girl on her first day! She has to get up SOOOOO early!