old school

I found this picture of Richard and myself from almost 5 years ago. We are getting ready to celebrate our 10th anniversary and this picture is from right after our 5th! It's so fun to look at picture from earlier on in our marriage. I love it!

With a snip snip here!

Before

After

Sadie has wanted to get her haircut since the girls got theirs cut. It has taken months to convince Richard to let me do it. Then right after I cut it Sadie started crying saying that she wanted her long hair back. But she loves it now and so do we!

Totally Oblivious

Our sweet little McKenzie is totally oblivious thank goodness. She is such a good kid and she has it all. She is so super smart. (Just on a side note, she was chosen to be in a little study on reading at her school. She is in thrid grade and was reading 7th and 8th grade literature) She is beautiful sweet, funny, compassionate and developed for her age. All the boys like her. I went to pick her up from school a couple of weeks ago and she was out on the playground. She was in between two boys who were each pulling on an arm and shouting at each other,

"She's MY McKenzie"

"No she's MY McKenzie"

and so on. She of course was just laughing away! She's always coming home with little trinkets, or erasers, or paper airplanes that different boys in her class have given her. When I ask her why they have given her these things she just shrugs and says "I don't know." So thank goodness she is still sweet and innocent and clueless. This is going to be scary when she gets a little older. Oh by the wAy...she now wears the same size shoe as me (size 7 women) and is less than a head shorter than me! She's so funny and such a joy to us. I have enjoyed sharing stories with her from my childhood. We are very different and she thinks I was a funny kid!

Robinson Crusoe

Yeah the girls tried out for their first play last monday. We had a big talk about maybe not making it and all that good stuff. There were 70 kids that tried out and about half made it. McKenzie and Halie both got small parts. It was for k-12 grades. Little did I know what I was getting myself into. The girls had rehearsals last week from 3:30-8:00 with a dinner break from 5:30-6:00. To finish off the week they had 2 shows on saturday. It made for an EXTREMELY long week for all of us. Natalie was the token crying kid which is always fun (no naps, out of routine etc...). But the girls, especially McKenzie, had so much fun. Richard went to the first show, had dinner with the girls in between shows and then went to work. I attended the second show with Sadie and Natalie. Kenzie was so dramatic and exciting to watch. Halie was also great but she was very tired from the long week and was not very happy to have to do a second show. It was very fun experience for the girls and next time I will be more prepared for hell week! FYI...McKenzie was part of the frownie face tribe (the one in the back row with the bright blue wig) and Halie was a dancing chameleon.

Oh the joys of a 3 year old

Terrible twos....yeah right! Three is so much harder and when you have a child who is extremely strong~willed, it's that much harder. If you know our little Sadie than you know what I'm talking about. She is such an amazing girl. But for all the highs come the lows. Sadie is going to make my hair turn grey prematurely. So the other day she stole something from the store. AHHHHHHHH! Luckily Richard was with me so I didn't have to drag everyone back into the store. So as I'm dragging her back, she yells at me through the screams,

"Oh yeah, do you know what I'm gonna do? Tomorrow I'm gonna spank you!"

This is interesting since neither Richard nor I believe in spanking and have never spanked her!

Anyways Sadie and I went and found the manager and I made her tell him what she had done. Now keep in mind the store is full (of course it would be), and she is screaming, not crying, at the top of her lungs. It sucked. But she is so stinkin' cute most of the time and so much fun to be with. You gotta love her!

Porky Puppy

Well we (I) named Belle's puppy. I told Richard he could name her but he took too long so I went ahead and named her Esme (sounds like Ezmay). Those of you who have read the twilight books know it's not such a weird name. Anyways she is SO cute and super fat! We just love having her around. (Sadie especially) She still sleeps all the time and if you pick her up she molds her body into your hands to get comfy and she's out again. It's so fun.

Pictures...what else?

We went and got our pictures done in sacramento a couple of weeks ago. We haven't gotten back to pick them up yet but here is a small preview of the photos. The girls loved it so much and even Sadie was quite the little poser (McKenzie was a HUGE poser and loves getting pictures done!) We had fun.

Find Joy in the Journey

While I was listening to President Monson today during conference, one quote just struck me to my core. He said "Find joy in the journey." He was referring to the journey of life. I feel overwhelmed with the daily grind of motherhood sometimes. While I absolutely love being a mother, it often comes with hardships. At times I feel bogged down with simple things like laundry, dishes, bills, chores, etc. President Monson seemed to speak directly to me and I am so thankful that Heavenly Father inspires our Prophets and Apostles. I do love being a mother, and I don't want to get too caught up in cleaning and stressing out to wake up one day and have my kids grown. How thankful I am for this simple, yet vital, reminder of my priorities.

Girls just want to have fun!

The girls have always loved dressing up in fancy dresses and putting make-up on. I used to do it all the time with Kenzie and Halie and poor Sadie has gotten the shaft. This is the first time Sadie has gotten to do this. They put on a very fun show for Daddy! He was uncomfortable with how old they looked. I think he was seeing the scary future with 4 heartbreakers!