"30 is the sweetest thing"

Its shameful how far behind in my blogging I have gotten! Tis the season though, especially in our house with three birthdays back to back to back and holidays in between! Before yet another one approaches I need to play catch up!

Levi’s birthday was on October 17^th, a Monday, we spent the previous Saturday at a BYU v. Oregon State game in Corvallis Oregon. My in-laws were gracious enough to take the girls for the afternoon so that we could really enjoy the game. Man, we had so much fun! Levi’s brother Isaac and his girlfriend Reiko came with but we were unable to sit together. We first had a fabulous lunch at Levi’s fave Restaurant, Ruby Tuesdays. It was the fullest the Oregon State fans had ever seen the Visitors’ section, that’s right, us Mormons, we’re everywhere ;) We came home a little hoarse; at one point I couldn’t hear the rest of the packed stadium over the cheers of the Cougar fans, BOO YA! And we won, 38-28 to boot! We stayed the night at Nana’s house and went to church and then came home.

 Levi received a few presents; among them were things for starting a geocache, which is a new favorite activity.  The biggest surprise for our recent  30-year-old was the surprise party my friend Shelly and I threw on the following Monday, October 24^th. He had no idea, how awesome is that? I don’t know how that one didn’t slip out by accident. I did save myself but not telling Emma until the last minute, she gets too excited, and all the more chatty ;) He was a good sport and went on my bogus errands after work and was handsomely rewarded with Chocolate galore. 30 has been a pretty sweet thing.

We sure do Love you Levi, you’re a wonderful friend, husband and father. Thanks for letting us celebrate with you! We’re looking forward to the next 30 years!  

Gotta love Cosmo, I mean Levi! 

The good ol' boys in blue! 

With Nana's help the girls made "hand-print" flowers for Levi 

The chocolate party set up, we had cupcakes, fruit to dip, pretzels, Oreo pops... 

are ya hungry yet!?!

I thought I would reward those of you who made it to the blog instead of just the reminder email, with a pretty cute video. Levi and the girls are OBSESSED with this song, its "Everything at Once" by Lenka, its very catchy, and yes, both girls know most of it.  

Charlotte is 3

I'm not sure whether it was a good idea to have my kids 6 months apart during the calendar year. Emma of course is in April and Charlotte is in September. Here lies the problem, from October til April we hear about Emma's upcoming birthday, ( forgetting completely that Dad is in October and Mom is in November, obviously we don't count) and from May until September we hear about Charlotte's upcoming birthday. Although, I think if I would have had them closer together I wouldn't get rest, I just would be hearing about both birthdays year-round. Anywho, its now past Charlotte's birthday, she's officially 3, old enough to get the whole present thing. We were grateful that Grandma and Papa Word were able to come visit during this time, we had a mini-Rapunzel party, no need for friends, it means more cake for us! She was soo funny to watch open her gifts. Enjoy the videos.

Beautiful Birthday Girl, Charlotte! I can't believe you're 3

Happy birthday to you! Thanks for saving the cake Papa! 

being a big girl and opening her cards first.

Cards! You gotta love her interpretations.

Singing Cards! These are the best for little kiddos! 

Thanks Grandma for the presents!

 our favorite! She is a chocoholic after all.

Gifts from Sissy

Emma was such a great friend and went and wrapped Charlotte several presents. It is so rewarding to see them as best friends.

Chowing down on her cake, courtesy of mom.

We love our daddy, oh yes we do!

I figured before the holidays descend, I should get this post out.Sorry its so late, this is not a reflection of my feelings, just the spare time that I've had lately....

I'm very grateful for my sweet husband, I must say, I married very well. He's such a good sport about being SURROUNDED by girls. He told me if we ever had a boy, that he wouldn't know what to do considering all the practice he's had with girls. I still hope he gets a chance to "figure out" what to do, someday.

He's my best friend, he makes me laugh so hard! We get along so well, even when its stressful. He's such a great dad, I readily admit that my girls prefer him by far (every morning that I get Charlotte up, which is 5/7 she begs for him) I'm grateful they adore him, it shows that he's doing an amazing job.

He's a wonderful example of someone devoted to the gospel, he's a worthy priesthood holder and he tries so hard to do what's right, I know he's not perfect, but he's quick to apologize which is a trait I wish I was better at.

I hope you had a happy birthday Levi, your girls sure do love you and we're so happy we have you to hang out with!

The pics below are some random assortment of our favorite ( mostly ) daddy/ daughter moments

Runner-up engagement photo

Halloween 2009

Christmas 2008 ( new york)

Congress Park carousel ( new york 2009)

Spring 2009 ( new york)

Lake Placid Spring 2009 ( on a chair lift at the olympic park)

more Lake Placid, just content to hang out

Halloween 2010 Handy Manny and his tools!

Summer 2010, Charlotte got hurt and had to be comforted by her favorite person :)

Charlotte: a year in review!

1st Birthday

2nd Birthday

This is long overdue, be warned this is a long post, ( but hey it could be longer...)

If I could have one word to describe Charlotte it would be, PERSONALITY! This kid CRACKS us up! She knows she is funny. She is also soooo smart and is so sweet. I can't believe the difference from just a year ago, time really does fly when you're having fun, and fun for me, has been being a mom to this adorable girl and her sister. We love you Charlotte, thanks for choosing us!

Charlotte, when we FIRST moved to Virginia (last November) just beginning to enjoy her independence.

Charlotte loves her daddy, she runs from anywhere in the apartment when she hears his keys in the door.

Charlotte knows what we say, she did this one night as I asked her to get ready for prayers, you can't tell but the room was dark and she was the first one in there.

Charlotte is a LITTLE flexible, look at her in the background, and she's a daredevil I'm very surprised and grateful that there have not been any E.R. trips, yet, but I count on it!

Charlotte loves music and singing! she loves to dance too, but I'll first hear her singing...which MELTS my heart.

Prima Ballerina!






face # 103- "nope, nope, nope!" I'm never bored, she's got a million of 'em!

Face # 221- C'mon Charlotte, smile! Charlotte....."

Face # 305 Grumpy Charlotte, I advise walking away until this face disappears...;)

she's fearless... she absolutely loved the water this summer

she's a LITTLE obsessed with Chocolate! ( that's my girl!)

This is one of my favorites, what can I say, she KNOWS what she wants!

"Peat, Repeat" is the name of the game, of every game, every day....

You can't fully appreciate her because you aren't here everyday. But, let me tell you, everyday is a new adventure, a whole lot of fun, and I never know what to expect. These kids are wonderful, and I'm glad they're mine!

Happy Birthday Charlotte! I"m excited for this next year!

Party Time!

So, I have a super good reason for NOT posting about the party yet.... do ya wanna hear it? nope ?! well I'm gonna show ya anyways, just so I don't look like a huge flop. These next few pics PERFECTLY describe the way my weekend went after the party.



maybe this would demonstrate how upset they were that the party was over?



This is a good illustration on how they felt with the lack of sleep and the near heat stroke we all got....



wait, this is the combo of all the above "ingredients", a perfect and complete meltdown, all I was trying to do was get pics of them in some new dresses. My kids don't handle parties too well. the party was Friday, and we were obviously still feeling the effects come Sunday, EVERYTHING set them off. It started out as a really fun weekend but I soon realized the end couldn't come fast enough. Alright I'll quit complaining we really did have a lot of fun, I just thought these pics were funny and made my point.

Friday was the hottest day we'd had up to that point in WEEKS, that didn't jive with our plans. We started out in back of the complex office, because it cost an arm and a leg to rent the Common Area. We soon discovered that we needed to stop coloring our dragon-egg baskets and making our mini-dragons because the crayons and the play-doh were melting. So we left for our neighborhood-wide scavenger hunt for "dragon eggs." We had to cut that short because the birthday girl got blisters and couldn't continue. When we arrived home Levi (who was busy behind the scenes rearranging stuff due to the weather) said that we all looked like tomatoes, I'm kinda glad I DON'T have a picture of that.
after a while in the AC and watching "UP" we did presents and cake and ice-cream.



Here is Emma, her presents and a gaggle of friends looking eagerly on.



Here are the party guests and their very brave and gracious moms, thanks again girls, for your help and patience!



The boy almost on top of Emma is my buddy Ethan, he cracks me up, he was the perfect party guest, always interested in what present was being opened and thought it was really cool when Emma got more than just princess stuff.



Here is the cake, a dragon on a stone wall. the dragon is made out of Rice Krispy treat and then covered in butter cream. the cake went over well, there was only a piece left!



My wonderful friends helping with the "devouring" of the cake while I was inside slicing more up.

It was a fun party and I would have appreciated if the weather had cooperated a bit more, but we still had a good time. Thanks again to my friends, my girls and their friends for all being such good sports. As well a huge thank you to my sweet, hard-working hubby for all he did, I couldn't have done it without ya!

We love you Emma, hope you had a good day, Happy Birthday sweet girl!

Our Dragon Quest

Our Princess is turning 4! We always thought we would be starting the never-ending cycle of Princess related parties by now, but instead, our fair maiden is obsessed with DRAGONS! So we have been scheming for weeks now and are pretty proud of ourselves. We thought we would give you a taste of what our guests can expect in a few weeks.

These our the invitations. Since we had some trouble with the dragons torching them, we thought we would get some training. If you think you need some training too watch the movie below.

To find out more of how our Dragon Quest went you will have to tune in after April 30th. If you don't hear from us soon its because keeping a dragon as a pet is not as easy as it looks on the big screen!

videos, sweet memories

Here are some videos, moments caught on tape to remind me that my children CAN play nice together... we're working on it.
Emma gets the biggest kick out of getting Charlotte to laugh. Charlotte has the classic baby cackle that is so precious to hear, plus she gets wound up so easily, its really funny.



This other video is when I got Levi's "banana heaven" cake finished. Charlotte was being my taster making sure the chocolate frosting for the borders was good.The tradition in our family is to pack the candles tightly together so that they relight each other, before you can get them all.
Well... my tough guy also wanted trick candles, this is the result :)