December happenings

Gracie finally got her first hair cut. I say finally because it was starting to look mullet-ish in the back, but it took a long time to get the guts to cut off some of those cute curls.
It's so nice that Nate's mom cuts hair... and lives so close. She is so nice & willing to cut all of the kids' hair.

Nate's sisters transformed Sadie into a "who" for Christmas. :)

And I am amazed that even with the 4th baby, I still am in awe at this little one. For sure a girl! And maybe another thumb sucker?

Will she be blonde with green eyes like Sadie?

Or a brunette with brown eyes like Gracie?

Or a blonde with brown eyes like Carson?

We will just have to wait & see...

And the baby (most likely) is....

It looks like baby #4 is a girl! I am honestly excited for another girl. I think it will be so fun for Gracie to have a sister so close to her in age.
Carson, on the other hand, is a little bummed. He was hoping for a baby boy so he could "pick the name for the baby" (I don't know where he got that idea), but I think I have convinced him life as the only boy will be okay after all. And I told him we could go to Build a Bear & he could make a stuffed animal & name it whatever he wants to. He said he would name it what he wanted to name the baby, ...... "David Spiderman Milne."

A Turkey Baby

After a week of stomach-flu symptoms for Gracie, and many prayers that she could get better in time so we would make it to Washington for Thanksgiving, prayers were answered. We flew into Seattle Thanksgiving morning & found out Randie was at the hospital & had a C-section at 3:00. My poor Mom made this amazing meal for everyone & then had to rush to the hospital before we ate.

So, we got to see baby Marlie & she is a doll. I just kept feeling so grateful our prayers had been answered & we could be there, what a perfect Thanksgiving!

And then, shopping the next morning starting at 3 a.m. LOVE IT! Okay, so it was crazy. And after 6 hours of shopping we were exhausted, but it was so much fun being with my mom for this.

BYU lost. Bummed husband, enough said.

Flying home tomorrow night. Do you know what the Seattle Airport has the the Salt Lake Airport is missing (not x-ray machines, that's for sure) No- Wendy's! It's the best.

Happy Halloween!

This Halloween seemed a little crazy for some reason. This picture sums it up. We went to Gardner Village to do the witch hunt for family night. It was fun, but I forgot to take any pictures until the kids were all in the car & I made them get out to take one family picture in the parking lot. Bummer.
Carson's preschool party. There's something to be said about a costume that's warm & completely covers the child from head (don't have to do his hair) to toe (no morning fights about wearing jeans vs. sweat pants). And, he looks so cute as a shark. Sadie's school Halloween parade. So fun! She looked so cute as a mermaid. Going out to trick-or-treat. We were going to make Gracie a hula monkey to go along with the oceanic theme, but the theme of the week was "whatever" and so she was just a monkey.

And then, the pumpkins.

(This is Nate's creation, I can't take any credit. ...The pumpkin, not the baby. I can take half the credit for that one.)
After weeks of keeping it a secret, we finally announced we are expecting #4!!! We are excited to bring another child into our family. I am 13 weeks along & due in early May.

Do not place pizza on top of car

A couple of weeks ago I did something so dumb... even for me it was really dumb. I was having a friend over for lunch and was planning on buying Papa Murphy's chicken bacon artichoke delite pizza (yummy!) for us moms. I was in a hurry and had Gracie with me. I bought the pizza and when I came out a woman was smoking right by my car. So I hurried and stuck the pizza on top of the car so I could quickly get Gracie in and away from the smoke. I then got in and drove to Carson's preschool and then realized.... NO PIZZA! I had left it on the roof of my car.

So sad! I had to go back and look for the pizza, which was totally no where to be found (smoker chick probably grabbed it), and buy another pizza.

The other day Carson said our family prayer. He had been pretending to be a cat earlier & apparently still was. For the most part, he said a normal prayer, but then he added a couple of hints of his feline species: "thank you for helping me talk like a cat," and then at the end "please bless that someday I can become human again."
I love that kid.
We decorated a 2 liter bottle of pop as Superman for Sadie's school fundraiser.

We started going to the children's museum again, which the kids LOVE! Gracie especially loved this truck. She would go in and out, and in and out, and in and out. And then grab a baby doll & bring it with her to go in and out and in and out.

We sent Carson to work at the local grocery store. Thought it was time for him to pay his part in the family. :)

And picture day... oh picture day. All I have to say is it takes a long time to curl this hair, especially with a crying baby and a little brother who wants attention. But, she looked very pretty & I told her she better have smiled great because I will NOT be curling her hair for retakes.

... but how can you say no that that face?

The end of summer

Bittersweet, that's what it is. I love the change of seasons, Fall is beautiful in Utah. I love Halloween, and soup, and caramel apples.... but, summer flew by way too fast.

Lately, we've had lots of late nights swimming & enjoying the last few days of summer. Lots of tired kids:
Sadie started 1st Grade!!! She loves it, I mean LOVES it. When I asked her if she missed me on the first day she said, "not as much as you missed me." Apparently not!
We spent a day with friends boating, SO FUN!!! Best part of this picture, I told the kids to make silly faces & Gracie actually did it!

Fun with cousins at the splash park in Highland. Yeah, it's awesome! Worth the drive? For sure, if you have a great sis-in-law to chat with :)

Tiffany (Nate's sister) had her first baby, Quentin Blake. He is so stinkin cute, seriously. It's been fun seeing Tiff with her first baby, she & Blake are great parents!

Lastly, the first BYU game of the season! What a fun game, we got a sitter & made it a date night. Best part of BYU games: watching Nate get so excited when BYU does well, he's like a little kid again.

I forgot to take a picture, but I do want to say that we missed the Knowltons! It wasn't the same without you guys!

Lake Powell

Our week at Lake Powell was so much fun! Highlights include:

• No kids = much needed relaxation
• Reading both the Hunger Games & Catching Fire within the first 4 days, LOVED them!
• Dance parties on the back of the house party, the Milne girls have got moves.
• Playing cards again and again and again.
• THE FOOD! One thing is for sure, we eat well at Lake Powell!
• Late night movie time. Word of caution: don't put on the subtitles during the pow-wow scene in "The Proposal." Bad.
• Jarem getting bit on the nipple by a fish, no joke.
• Spending a week with my favorite person in the world (Nate) & his amazing family, some of my best friends! What a blast!!!!

Sexiest thing in this picture? Nate's feet. :)

Washington

There are things worth driving 16 hours in a car with 3 children. Washington, my family. The Wilsons know how to have fun and lots of it.

First we went to my 10 year high school reunion. It was..... interesting. Well, I loved seeing Kirsten, it's been way too long.

We spent a day at Lake Tapp's boating. What a beautiful lake!

This scene brings back some fond memories of my dad carrying all 5 of us kids to bed just like this. I tried to hop on too, but my dad said I'm too big, can you believe the nerve?

A day at Ocean Shores. It was a little chilly, but we had tons of fun flying kites on the beach.

My mom's friend Julie was so kind to invite us all over to let the kids ride her horse. They had so much fun!

A couple of days at the beach close by my parent's house.

A day at the Seattle Children's Museum with my mom.

I always get emotional leaving my family, and this time was no exception. I love my parents so much, they are amazing parents & grandparents!

The new baby

And we shall call him... PHIL.

It took a lot of work convincing Nate I need ANOTHER stroller. Well, I didn't think so either until Marcella & I hung out for a day & I compared pushing 2 kids in my double to pushing 2 kids in this bad boy. I was baby hungry in a stroller way.

And I am IN LOVE! We went jogging together as a family last night, me with 2 kids & Nate with 1 in the single jogging stroller (which I was planning on selling, but it sure came in handy last night), and oh the joy!

Thanks Marcella for showing me my life wasn't complete without this. And thank you Nate for only rolling your eyes behind my back. I love you.... even more than "Phil."

A story

Here's a story of a beautiful wedding reception for Nate's cousin & his bride. It was beautiful. The food was amazing, the company was terrific, the view from the balcony was gorgeous.

Apparently, my son had other ideas when standing on the balcony. Bad ideas. He thought it would be a great idea to PEE off of the balcony. In front of many people.

This last picture sums up his mood after getting in trouble for the "incident.

Seriously.

Brilliantly mischievious

This morning Sadie & Carson were having an argument. Carson snuck one of Sadie's grow-bugs (the little capsule with foam bugs inside that grow when you put them in water... don't feel dumb if you don't know what I'm talking about.)

So, I took the bug away from Carson & put it in time out. Both kids were mad. Just how we like to leave things in our house, no one should be happy if I'm not. (a joke.)

Fastforward to this afternoon. The kids are up in the bathroom happily playing in the water. I come upstairs and Sadie says, "I gave Carson 2 of my grow-bugs." I feel an abundance of happiness seeing her being nice to her brother, I even give her a hug & tell her thank you.

So, we sit & wait anxiously for the foam bug to appear from the capsules. And wait.... and wait. Hmmmm... I think, why is it taking so long. I stick my finger in to feel if the capsules are dissolving & when I do I realize that there are beads inside, not foam. My daughter, my brilliantly mischievious daughter has replaced the foam with those melty beads (the ones you put on a peg-board & then melt together with an iron). They fit perfectly together inside of the capsules, I honestly couldn't tell myself until I broke it apart.

So, how do I react to this situation? I have to give Sadie a talk about not tricking people when it might hurt their feelings (because we all know Carson was devistated!). But inside of me I was, honestly, SO PROUD of my daughter!!! I mean, that's brilliant, I'm still laughing inside thinking about it. Someday I will give her props for this trick, but today I'll just blog about it.

Catching up...

In the last month we have:

Celebrated Sadie's 6th birthday P.J. style! All of the kids got to paint pillow cases & then watched a movie w/ popcorn. My kind of a party!

Celebrated Nate's big 3.0.!! I tried to be a good wife, I really did. First I planned this huge "Amazing Race" surprise party, but decided more people could make it to a BBQ instead. He wasn't really surprised, but he was a good sport & acted like he was. In the chaos of the night, I only got one picture, and Nate's not even in it.... hmmm.

Tried babysitting the CUTEST baby ever! I watched her for a week, and it was so fun for me. Not so much fun for Gracie, however. She got super jealous & attention-hungry all of a sudden. My kids were so sad to say good-bye, she is so cute!

A couple of trips to the zoo. I'm still madly in love with baby Zuri, the elephant.

LOVED every single moment of Sadie's dance recital! She is quite the little dancer, I love it! (Considering I can't dance, she obviously didn't get it from me!)

And now I am looking forward to summer! And a little less of a schedule. Is it okay to admit that I am looking forward to staying in pajamas until 11:00 every day without going anywhere? And even then, at 11:00 I'll just slip on a swimsuit & head to the pool with the kids. Sounds blissfull.