Little Man

October 2013

Our little Danny-man keeps on growing up, despite my pleas to stop. He has discovered both his thumb and toes. But he's usually more content with just a binky.

For the most part I think little girls clothes are way cuter than boys clothes. But dress clothes are the exception. Little boys dressed up for church are a MUST!

We love our little guy! Jessica is so happy to finally have a brown-eyed buddy!

September

September 2013

We hung out at water parks to enjoy the last of the REALLY hot weather.

But at the same time we enjoyed finally being able to go out and play on the trampoline without coming inside bright red and dripping sweat. Fall is coming!!

Jessica helped to right a wrong when she discovered that Danny was in the wrong color on game day.

I was not in the wrong color. :)

Chandler dressed up as a knight. Yep, that's a knight's helmet.

He also hung out with his good buddy Danny. Such cute little guys!

Danny also enjoys dress-up. Dying! I am DYING of the cuteness!!

Visitors

September 2013

While I'm afraid I have a sad supply of pictures from the event, my parents we able to come out an visit. They were about to start their mission in Salt Lake City and wanted to make the rounds to visit family. It was great to see them!

They brought this AWESOME blanket for us! Michael keeps it at his office for Chan to sleep with when he comes to watch football games (why do all the games have to start so dang late around here!?). They also brought some of my old ice skating outfits that Mom made me forever ago. Jessica has been living in them. :) Thank you!!

Jessica drew a picture of Grandma and Grandpa. I love how she even captured their facial expressions. :)

O Danny Boy!

September 2013

This little man has just captured our hearts. Even Chandler and Ben are putty in Danny's slobbery little hands. He's such a happy kid and all it takes is him chewing on my face to brighten my day. He has discovered his hands and also gets very curious when he sees someone eating or drinking near him.

He is SO much bigger than my others. At four months he is already bigger than Chandler was at 6 months. Such a perfect little chunk!

4 months old
Length - 26.25 inches (90%)
Weight - 15 lb 9 oz (50-75%)
Head - 17 in (75%)

Seven

August 21, 2013

My baby girl is somehow seven. When did this happen!?

This girl adds so much fun and spunk to our life. Some things about my girl:

- Favorite color is aqua blue

- Loves to sing and luckily inherited the Hales voice rather than the Evans one

- Reads. A lot. Like, really a lot. She is on book #4 of Harry Potter. She read in it for 2 hours today.

- She's becoming more confident and doesn't let the small stuff phase her so much.

- She's our Lego girl and wants to be a Lego designer when she grows up.

- She does some crazy good impersonations.

- Refuses to get her hair cut short again, despite her Daddy's pleas

- She writes and illustrates stories with Chandler about their toy monkeys. They have close to 20 already.

- She can make us laugh so much at her silliness.

- While she's usually a sweetie, she has a quick temper when she's tired or hungry!

- She likes picking her own outfits (I'm grateful for school uniforms) and doing her own hair. Sometimes I just take a deep breath and let it be. Other times... not so much.

- Jessica loves to help out in the kitchen, especially making her own "recipes". Her most recent creation was a Ritz cracker with cheese and dill. Very exciting stuff.

- She is the best big sister to her brothers. I couldn't ask for a more caring, loving and fun person for them to look up to.

Happy birthday to my #1!

Day 1

August 2013

We have two kids in school. TWO! How is that possible!? Jessica started second grade this year and Chandler is in VPK (pre-Kindergarten).  School is such a good thing for Jessica. She loves the routine, her friends, and staying busy learning new things. She has the same teacher as last year, which has been great. Mrs. Jacobson is wonderful at letting the kids act their age, while giving them lots of great opportunities for growth and independence. We'll be sad to have to move on next year.

Chandler also loves school. While I wouldn't call him "shy", Chandler is definitely reserved and isn't one to initiate social situations. This has been a great opportunity for him to get a little bit out of his comfort zone. I have been so happy to see him go up to new friends after school, with a smile on his face, asking if they want to play. He still has some progress to make (like how he should have said something when the kid kept blowing a party horn in his face at a birthday party and he just sat there looking nervous. Ugh. It's so hard to let your kids handle things themselves sometimes), but he is blossoming into a more confident version of himself.

Thoughts on Blogging

I've been doing some thinking lately about what a terrible blogger I am. Don't get me wrong, I have no aspirations to be a blogger to anyone but friends and family about our little simple life. But even that I'm pretty bad at. At best I pop in once a month, upload a bunch of pictures, and call it good. My sister and sisters-in-law are all thoughtful and articulate and relatively consistent with their postings. Me...not so much. I use lots of excuses with myself. And yes, the whole "Mom of four kids at two different schools, Primary President, landlord, (etc, etc)" thing is a lot, it's not like it's really THAT much more than anyone else. I'm sure I deal with much less than a lot of people. It's all about priorities. And since we live forever and a day from most of the family, I feel like maybe I should bump this whole blogging/keeping up with the grandparents thing further up the list. I'll just put off the ironing for another day. Ha! Ok, let's be honest, poor Michael is lucky if I get his stuff ironed twice a month. If we lived closer and saw family more, I'd probably be planning on ditching blogging altogether, but we don't, so I'm not.

So I guess this just means that just maybe you'll see a little more of us on here. But for now you'll have to be happy with pics from 3 1/2 years ago because our main computer is at the Apple doctor and I don't have much on this ancient laptop. This post has been quite exciting to carry out without a well-functioning G, H, V or B on the keyboard. :)

 

I'll be back once we have a well-working computer again. And although I can't promise that I'll be thoughtful, articulate or consistent, hopefully I'll do a little better. :)

 

Danny!

We are so blessed to have this little sweety in our family! He is a good sleeper, a good eater, and he puts up with being ignored. What more could you ask for? Being a mom is hard, but this little guy and his brothers and sister always remind me that it is so worth it and so wonderful.

And of course these little ones are pretty perfect also.