Annie Bug

Annie oh Annie. I don't know if I can fully describe Annie in words. She most definitely has the biggest personality of any child I know and we love it! She is hilarious. She says the funniest things and she has no idea she is being funny. Also the faces she makes when she says stuff is what really cracks us up. I wish I had been writing down somewhere all the funny things she says. She is so fun to have in our family. She is in Kindegarten and learning SO much. We have been so proud of the progress she has made so far and know she will keep learning a ton. She is also pretty good at sharing and usually doesn't mind sharing things with her brother and sisters. She loves being a big sister and is so protective of Deacon and Maddie. She still likes to use a high pitch baby voice when she talks to them and still gets so excited to see Maddie in the morning when she wakes up, even a year and a half later. She loves animals and wants a dog so bad. She is getting very good at drawing and has a good imagination. She also likes to use her hair as a napkin. One day I picked her up from school and she was so excited to tell me she had a cupcake and I asked her if it was orange and she was shocked that I knew. It was because she has orange frosting in her hair. She LOVES frosting. She usually never eats the cake and only the frosting. She is strong willed. She thinks it's hilarious to be naked. She considers herself a fashionista and is pretty particular about what she will and won't wear, which can be a lot of fun sometimes. She loves chapstick and lip gloss and we always have to take them away from her because she likes to eat them. She also doesn't like to be active very much and by that I mean she's pretty lazy. It takes almost no time before her feet hurt and she can't walk anymore. Somehow her feet can also hurt when she is sitting down. We always plan on her lagging behind anytime we are going somewhere that involves walking. She is beautiful and I can't believe how grown up she is becoming. She and Emily are such good buddies, I think she doesn't actually realize she is younger than her and that there are things she isn't able to do yet. I hope she and Emily are always as close as they are now.

Here she is on laughing gas at the dentist. It was hilarious. It was like having an Annie 2.0. She would crack up at nothing.

She was Draculora for Halloween.

I made her stand in front of this sign and she had no idea why. Annie was a pig

Faces I find on my phone

First day of school

Covered in lip gloss

She likes a "high-waisted look" and will tuck in almost everything she wears and pulls her pants up really high.

Rock climbing at the Xactware work party

I love this picture of her jumping on my Uncles dock

She has killer dance moves

 

She also played T-ball which was a pretty hilarious experience. I wasn't her most favorite thing in the world. She always had a "tummy ache" before games or practice.

Emily Lou

Right now Emily is in 1st Grade. It is crazy having her gone all day but she is loving it. She is so smart. Her teacher has already told us that she is the very top in everything in their class and is her helper. She is a big helper at home as well. I realized when school started that I was going to be losing a big helper all day. We really are lucky to have her in our family. She is beautiful! She plays soccer and is so good at it. She is one of the youngest in her league but is still able to score. She is a really good big sister and loves to play with them. She is really strong. She loves playing on the monkey bars. She can tie her shoes.  She losing lots of teeth. She is starting to watch not so many little kid shows. She is definitely growing up. Her favorite color is pink. She LOVES music and likes to write songs and sing and dance. She also loves any kind of art. She has a huge imagination and is always thinking of different games to play. She can sassy but is a lot of fun and so goofy, she loves to show us silly dance moves she has made up to make us laugh. She loves to play outside and with friends. Whistles a lot and snaps her fingers ALL THE TIME, especially anytime we are playing a board game. Great friend. Sometimes she will give us a glimpse of what it will be like to have a teenage girl. She is also fun to tease about boy at school. She is such a fun kid! We are lucky she is ours!

Oklahoma- Picture overload

We just got back from a trip to Oklahoma and we had a BLAST! It was so much fun. The kids played pretty much nonstop anytime that they were awake, which was nice so the adults could hang around and talk and eat and play games too.  We drove this time and the kids did great. Deacon got a little carried away with the marker, in this picture you can't see it all over his face.

Here are the girls on our way out of town.

This isn't the best picture of Maddie but it's the best I could get in her carseat.It rained on us probably about half of the drive on the first day, we stopped in Nebraska for the night. Then the second day it rained on us practically the entire time, hard down pour but we were able to still make really good time.

On the day we got there we celebrated Annie and David's birthday and my mom got a cookie cake from the Great American Cookie Company. They make the most delicious cookie cakes and other yummy things and there isn't one in Utah so I was glad we had one and it was the first one Ben had ever had and he loved it.

The kids helped their Nannie shuck corn from the produce stand in town. It was fun to see them do it because I remember doing this when I was a kid.

Maddie just hanging out

 

 On Sunday we were able to go to church together and then afterwards Ben baptized David. It was a really nice baptism, except for the part when I had to speak, but I think it made the girls more excited for when they get baptized.

 
The next day we went and had a picnic at a park and the kids chased around a bunch of ducks and then went to the water park. I didn't take any pictures that day I guess. It was a lot of fun and it was fun to see all their older cousins want to play with them in the kiddie part of the park. Deacon also gashed his head open thankfully he didn't need stitches and it was at the end of the day. 

The next day we went to the dam and had donuts and let the kids skip rocks and play down by the water.

 
On our way to the dam Ben almost ran over a turtle which never really happens in Utah so we stopped and let the kids get out and look at it. I think they were all too scared to touch it. 

They also had just gotten out of bed, that's why their hair looks so crazy. Later that day we went bowling.

This is how Annie liked to watch her ball go down the lane.

Emily and Annie bowling. Emily won between all the kids and even beat my score!

Deacon celebrating after knocking down some pins.

Ben and Deacon

The next day we spent the day at my Uncle Ottos and it was so much fun, it's one of my favorite places to go.

The kids rode 4-wheelers

golfed

Maddie's first time on the 4-wheeler

Play with horses

Maddie riding with mom and dad on the golf cart

The kids all fished. I love this picture of Annie jumping on the dock.

Deacon's first time to catch a fish.

The kids all trying to steal a ride back up to the house.

My Uncle BBQs amazing food and he cooked for us that night and it was so good. We also ended the night by doing fireworks. It was a great day.

I told Deacon to say cheese and this is what he did.

The next day my sister got married. She got married at my dad's baseball field in our town and it was so nice.

Here we are on the baseball field. It was so hard to keep Deacon off the field. He kept going to home plate and pretend to hit the ball and then run the bases.

The morning of the 4th, we went up to the gym in my moms school and let the kids play with all the fun stuff they have in an elementary school gym. It was a lot of fun. The kids bowled, set up their own wipe out course, hula hooped, rode scooters, attacked each other with all sorts of fun stuff. Then we played gotcha and dodgeball. It was a lot of fun.

Deacon wanted to stay on this.

Then the night of the 4th we walked up to the school and watched the fireworks show that the town does. It was a good show. Emily started crying because she was so sad that it was her last night there.

I love this picture of Maddie and Deacon holding hands on the drive home.

We were able to drive the whole way back without stopping and the kids did great. We had so much fun, it took us a couple days to recover. We are so glad that we went