Mobile!

Nothing in my house is safe anymore!!....this little cutie is CRAWLING!!!  She started crawling on Sunday, July 22, 2012.  Ben took her to class with him at Church.  He set her on the ground and she took off!  I'm a little sad I missed it.  I knew she was on the verge of doing it, but didn't realize how quick.  But Ben caught some of it on his phone.  And each day she's been getting better and better.

Drive-in

I love our neighborhood.  Someone is always doing something fun to celebrate.  This night was just for fun.  Someone thought up the idea of a drive-in movie night.  And that weekend, it happened!  Our neighbor set up a screen and projector and every one brought blankets and chairs to watch Pixar shorts. We even set up a concession stand! 

Tennis Camp

Last week we signed Charley up for PeeWee Tennis camp.  She loved it!  It was only a week long, so we'll have to find a place to actually have her take lessons.  So many places don't have lessons for kids this young.

3 years

 Today this little girl turned 3!!! I still can't believe it. I can still remember her when she was born, she had a cute squished face, especially at the top of her nose.  She was perfect! ....Then she found her voice a few months later, and we haven't figured out how to turn her off since!

 Ever since Charley's birthday, she has been "patiently" waiting for her birthday.  ....haahaa.....I guess anxiously waiting is more appropriate.  She gets so frustrated when others are having their birthday and not her....First I had a birthday, then Ben, and she was supposed to be next, but at the beach house Schrammpa had his birthday.  She kept telling everyone her birthday was "tomorrow".  But the day finally arrived! It was Gabby's Birthday.  And she has been wanting a Tinkerbell Birthday for soooooo long.  Sometimes, it was all she could talk about. ....literally!  So being the nice mom that I am, couldn't reject that face....could you?!  So a Tinkerbell birthday it was.  Lucky me, Charley has also had a few Tinkerbell parties, so I had a lot of stuff already!  We only invited a few friends that lived in our culd-e-sac. When the got to our house I had little Tinkerbell pictures for them to color. They each came with a little pack of markers, thank you dollar store!

 Then we made fairy wands....aka oreos on a stick dipped in chocolate covered in sprinkles!  After making wands, we played "fairy, fairy, Tinkerbell"....instead of "duck, duck, goose."

 After the crafts and games we had presents and cake!....I saw this cute idea on pinterest to bake the cake in a ice cream cone.  Gabby loved it....way cute idea. I didn't feel the need to buy ice cream when my cake was shaped like it!  After cleaning off all the little hands, it was outside for bubbles until mom's arrived.  It was only an hour long, but it was good enough for the Birthday Girl!

When Ben got home, we took the Birthday Girl out to dinner, and because I was too tired to make dinner....setting up for the party, having the party, cleaning up the party then making another cake...plus taking care of kids was enough for this mom!

 When we got home, it was time for her to open the presents we got her, and eat another cake.  ....The Tinkerbell cake she always talked about!

 (I went to H&M the other day, and they had a bunch of stuff for a $1!!! ...like this hat, the bag, I got Charley some socks, and Dani some tennis shoes....all for a $1each....I also got Gabby a few shirts for $3...score!)

I know the cake looks a little creepy, but this was the best I could do in the time I had to make the cake.  I sure have gotten quite a few cakes out of that cake pan, and I'm sure this wont be the last Tinkerbell cake I make!

Happy Birthday to my crazy, beautiful, energetic, funny, adorable, Loud, never a dull moment Gabby. We love you.  We hope your Tinkerbell Birthday was everything you wanted!

7 months

This cute little princess is 7 months old today! She is practically perfect in every way.  And she is a big time mama's girl!

*She is Almost crawling. She does get on all 4's and rocks back and forth....she'll be there any day now.  But she does scoot all over going backwards or by rolling.  She can move her legs, but hasn't quite gotten what her hands are supposed to do yet, so she will scoot her legs then face plants forward then gets up and does it all again...it isn't her fastest method of movement, but she'll do it every once in a while when she really wants something!

*She is eating solids, and has loved everything we have given her.

*She sleeps from 8p - 8a every night!!! With 2 naps during the day. 

*She doesn't cry much, and is pretty content to just be watching her sisters play.....they are pretty interesting!

*When she does talk, she is soooo LOUD!!!  I am worried we are going to have 2 Gabby's in the house! Not that Gabby is bad, but just LOUD!   Dani discovered she had a voice a few months ago, and has been screaming ever since...literally.  You would think she is hurt, but those are her happy squeals!

We love our Baby Dani!!

RAGNAR!!

It has been a while since my last post, and a lot has happened....I survived a cross country, month long trip with the girls!  But before that trip, Ben and I ran in the 2012 Wasatch Back Ragnar!  Our Awesome sister-in-law, Courtney, came in town to watch the girls with the help of our wonderful Aunt Kay!  And they did it so we could run this crazy race.  We love them!

We signed up a year ago, while I was pregnant.  But I like signing up for big races to help motivate me to run and get in shape. Because Dani was a c-section, I couldn't work out for the first 2 months after she was born.  Which really gave me 4 months to train for this race.  And I know I was slow, but I ran all 18 miles!  ....even my leg that was 8.4 miles up a mountain where I climbed like 900 ft....I ran the whole way!

I loved running it with Ben.  Ben isn't a runner, but he likes running this race...that tells you how fun it is!  (it sounds stupid, but ragnars are fun!)

What's next?.... marathon!!!  I made a promise to myself I would do a marathon after each kid.  The real question is which marathon!?!?!

Flying by

Seriously, where does the time go?!  Summer is going to be over before we know it. And school is just around the corner.

This weekend Ben and I are running in the Wasatch Back, Ragnar Relay Series.  Our amazing sister-in-law and aunt are coming to watch the girls for us.  They are going to have so much fun with them! But the Ragnar is a race that takes a lot of prep, not just training but organizing and planning.  And when the race is done I have 2 days to get ready for our cross country trip.

I somehow thought it was a great idea for me to drive to Nebraska by myself with 3 little girls.  And then from Nebraska, fly by myself with 3 little girls to North Carolina...fly back to Omaha, then drive back. What was I thinking!  The girls and I will be gone for about 3 weeks visiting family.  Ben couldn't take that much time off, so he decided to just come to North Carolina with us to see his family for the week.  He is meeting us out there and flying from SLC.  But my family is having a mini reunion the week before, and I wanted to go.  So in order to do so, I am braving the road and heading East!

So the next few weeks are going to be crazy, and I may be MIA for a while.  But since family is the ones who mostly look at this blog anyway...you can see the girls in real life rather than in pics! 

Yesterday I took the girls by myself to 7Peaks. We came home in one piece, and everyone was happy.  I was pretty proud of myself.  It gave me a little reassurance that I could travel with the kiddos and be fine. I have good kids. Gabby may be loud, but she is still a good little girl.  Charley is an angel, and is such a big helper, and Dani is perfect. Traveling will be fine....I just have to keep telling myself that!

We will be back mid July, in time for Gabby's birthday.  If you have talked to her recently, she has been excited for her birthday for MONTHS!  She has her friend invite list already picked out, and she wants a Tinkerbell party with a Tinkerbell cake.

Charley starts school in August sometime....I should really look that up.  But the week or so before is all the fun back to school activities and open houses to meet her teacher. It was fun last year, and we are looking forward to it this year. 

And miss Dani will be 6 months next week.  She is still sleeping like a pro, and eating solid foods. She is already really attached to me.  She is fine with others holding her, but if she sees me, and I'm not holding her, she panics.  I feel like it is really young for her to be doing that...is it?

If you've read to the end, congratulations! It was a random post.  I should be getting stuff done, but I looked at my computer and decided that this was a better use of my time....haahaa....sometimes I just don't think!

Preschool Graduation

 Today was Charley's last day of school and Preschool Graduation Program.  They all had a little part, they sang songs, had a slide show, and cake at the end.  It was so cute! Charley really loved school this year, and  was really sad for it to be over.  But we have a lot of fun things going on this summer she is looking forward to too.  We only have a few more months off before KINDERGARTEN!!!

Pictured above is Charley with her class.  And her teachers Mrs. Christie and Mrs. Kristen.

My other two little cuties!  We were waiting for the program to begin!

IT'S OFFICIALLY SUMMER VACATION AT OUR HOUSE!!!!!!  WHOOT WHOOT!!!!

Look how I've grown...

 First Day of Preschool, September 6, 2011

Last day of Preschool, May 25, 2012

Dance Festival ~ Frog Dance

Today was the dance festival at school.  Each grade learned a dance and performed it in front of all the parents and the rest of the students.  The pre-school did a Frog dance!  It was so cute! And I am so proud of Charley! I was a little nervous that she would get scared, but she didn't.  She was front and center and was Great! I am so glad we picked the pre-school at the elementary to send Charley, it really has been a great experience!

Baby Cereal

Lately I feel like Dani isn't really satisfied with just milk. She is almost 5 months, and is really good at sitting in her Bumbo.  So I thought I would try feeding her some baby cereal.  She kept giving me her worried face.    She didn't seem to like it very much.  But we'll keep trying.

Blessing

We were able to  bless Dani on April 22, 2012. Ben gave a great blessing.  And we were really lucky to have both grandparents there, and a few of her aunts and uncles.

Schramma & Schrammpa  were planning on coming to UT for Calvin and Courtney's graduation.  And Nana & Grandpa and crew were planning on coming up that weekend to bring Lexi back to Omaha for the summer.  So it all worked out!

We weren't the only ones in our ward who used BYU's graduation and family in town to schedule their baby blessing that same Sunday.  There were two that day, and we were the second blessing.  In the middle of the first blessing, Dani decides to poo!  As soon as we heard it, Ben and I looked at each other trying to figure out what to do.  I checked to see how bad it was....and it was bad!  We decided it was too late to change her, so we took a small blanket and wrapped it around her, under her dress.  The dress was HUGE anyway, so you really couldn't tell she had a blanket on under it.  

After the blessing I took her straight to the bathroom to change her.  She managed to get her poo through her diaper, through the onsie, through the blanket, and onto her slip!  We were lucky it didn't make it to the actual dress. Now that was an impressive blowout!...and one we will always remember!

The pictures were taken before church.  We had a small brunch/lunch beforehand for family and friends. 

Danielle Denise

Blessed April 22, 2012, by her Dad 

Temple Square

The weekend after Easter we went to SLC for Uncle Ira's annual Music and the Spoken Word and Luncheon.

Easter 2012

I am finally blogging again.  I was going to try really hard this year to keep up with it.  I thought after Christmas, and after Dani was born our life would slow down a little bit, but I was very wrong.  Easter was over a month ago! We went to the Easter Egg hunt at the park by our house.  Our HOA put it on....and since we helped pay for the event with our HOA fees, we'd thought we would go! We got there just in time for them to say "go".  All the kids started at the bottom of the hill, but we had to run to the park and when they said go, we were just barely at the top of the hill.....so we worked out way down.  We had a little advantage because all the other kids were fighting for the ones at the bottom.

Easter morning the girls found their basket.  The bunny left them a few eggs to find, brought them a movie, "Hop", and even got their jelly beans to grow into lolly pops again!

After we looked for eggs, we got ready for church.  I am so glad Easter lands on a Sunday every year.  It helps bring us back to the real reason why we celebrate Easter....to remember the sacrifice of our Savior and how because if it, we can live with him again!