Last post of the night

OUR HOUSE

Only 4 more days.

Plenty of patio space for y'all to come for a bar b que. Hurry and visit.

Maya - Birthday #5

Happy Birthday, Maya. This poor girl not only has her birthday during the hustle and bustle of Christmas and just a few weeks after both of her sisters birthdays when her mom is pooped of birthdays, but this year it was on a Sunday. We tried to make the best of it. The Saturday before we told her we would take her out to lunch (Tim and I had his work Christmas party that night.) Then we decided to go to breakfast instead. She chose Golden Corral because my kids LOVE the fact that they can walk around and get whatever they want. i.e. Maya has a doughnut and a blueberry pancake on her plate. Just a slite sugar high.

Livie enjoying a sugar overload also.
We have to document that McKenna was there too. Plus she's so cute we can't miss a photo op.
Happy full tummies at this table.

After breakfast we went over to Old Salem. One of Maya's favorite places. They happened to be having a puppet show that day of "Christmas in the Trenches". It is a great kids book. The man who wrote the song came and read the story while they did the puppet show. Then he sang some songs and played some instruments. Here is a sampling of his performance. Sorry it's sideways. I forget that when you video you have to hold the camera straight. It's short so you won't get a kink in your neck.



On Sunday after church Maya opened her presents. Hello Kitty from Livie was the big gift of the day. After opening gifts we went over to our new friends, The Jenkin's house for dinner and to have cake and ice cream. (The Jenkin's daughter babysits for us and they are just nice and like kids.) Sorry, no pics at their house, I forgot the camera. Maya picked the menu. We had waffles and hard boiled eggs. We tried to get her to come up with something else but this is a girl that knows what she wants. She wouldn't budge and how can you say no to the birthday girl. She also chose to have a snowman cake (just like we saw at Walmart but Mommy wouldn't pay $13 for it.) She wanted it complete with earrings. Which were made with hershey kisses.

A few days after Maya's birthday I was going to take down her decorations from her door but she reminded me that I never took her picture. So here it is. The streamers are a little sad since McKenna kept grabbing them everytime we walked through the door.

We love this girl. I can't believe she's 5.

Van Buskirk Christmas Pastry Chefs

So the BEST thing I have figured out about all this blogging stuff is that it forces us to document lifes little experiences with our children. Which means that when our kids get older and they say that we never did anything FUN, we have a bazzillion pictures to prove that we did. Here is one of those times. For FHE one night we decorated a Gingerbread House. It was the first time for all of us and I think we did pretty good. Not to mention that we had FUN.

Tim reading the directions. (It was just a kit.)

Tim being festive!
Look at those Artists.
Watch out Martha Stewart.

(FYI: The kit's don't taste as good as fresh gingerbread but the candy is still yum.)

Staying Positive

Today has been one of those days. The pressures of organizing our move, living in boxes, planning Christmas and trying to have the Spirit of Christmas around for my children has just gotten to me. I was trying to "clean" around here but I think it just might be a lost cause with all these boxes. I was feeling like I am the only one who cares and then I found this darling sign. I found it a while back taped to the back of the door thinking I should scan it and put it on the blog and never did. Coming across it today, made my day. Now I have scanned it and I can put it in a box with everything else. I think I'll keep it to remember that maybe their little hearts have more desire than their hands can handle.

Kid Conversations

We didn't have anything spectacular to blog about this week and I wondered on our way home from the church today what I could post. Then it happened. One of those great kid conversations. I couldn't wait to get home to post it. Here goes:

Maya: I can't wait until we can ride our bikes again at the house.
Olivia: We are going to have to practice.
Alexa: I won't.
Maya: I know one thing about riding a bike, you have to keep your head up all the time. Or until you get gooder and then you can look down.
Mommy: You should NEVER look down when you are riding no matter how good you are. You should always be looking out in front of you.
Alexa: Yeah, I am like a professional and I don't even look down.

Conversation was then interupted by the radio playing, "Feliz Navidad" and a 3 girls choir in the back of the van joining in with, "I want to wish you a Merry Christmas."

Thanksgiving

It's great to have family nearby. The Bosley's put up with us once again. We had Thanksgiving with them. Tim wanted to do all the cooking. He has an illness that he is allergic to having other people help in the kitchen. I love that illness. Here he is working away. (He was actually watching football.)

Here is sweet Ivy. She is such a good baby. She loves to smile for the camera.
Alexa decided to be the entertainment coordinator. She put everyone to work preparing a "Thankful game".
Here are the kids at the famous "Kid's Table".

Maya isn't looking as thrilled as her sisters.
Here's a close up of that face. Not really sure what the problem was but I didn't let it ruin MY turkey dinner. We got home on Saturday from the Bosley's. Poor Maya was so tired she fell asleep right on her dad. Does that look comfy or what?

Finding Fun at the apartment

I am so glad that I have kids who can find fun anywhere (most of the time.) They seem to love the stairs at the apartment. Tim found them playing this little game that they couldn't stop laughing about. In fact, when I was watching it today they couldn't stop laughing at it while they watched it. I apologize for Maya in this video. I guess she is just a little bored. She's a nut.

Happy Birthday, Olivia!

#7

Our Sweet little lady had a birthday in November. We had a party for her at Aunt Maren's the night before Thanksgiving. She decided she wanted to wait the day after her birthday to open her presents at the Bosley's instead of on her actual birthday. The Bosley house is where it's at. My girls can't get enough. They are only 2 hours away but the drive is like an eternity to them. Thanks Aunt Maren for the yummy cupcakes.

Here is the gift of the year. Olivia got a HSM2 book from the Bosley's. I don't know if it's her favorite because she loves High School Musical or because it came from the Bosley's.The Birthday door.
The night of her birthday we went to Olive Garden for dinner (her choice.) Olivia is not one to just enjoy McDonald's or Burger King. It has to be a sit down restaraunt.

Alexa & Livie waiting for our food.
Maya and Livie

CONGRATULATIONS!

After a DULL week and not much to post, we just got an EXCITING phone call. Stew & Kristine Van Buskirk just had their 4th child. After 3 girls they had a BOY. Congratulations. We can't wait to see some pictures.

And. . . We have a smile!

If you've been keeping up with our blog you will remember that we have NO pictures of McKenna smiling. She is the happiest most pleasant baby ever but she just won't smile for the camera. The other night she was going to eat rice cereal for the first time and Tim was going to capture it all on tape for me. He was lucky enough to capture these few pictures of her. (I won't mention that we took about 10 to get these.)

Aaaahhh! Apartment Life!

This week has gone by so fast, I don't know what we did. Since we have just recently moved I thought I would share our living conditions these days. (If you don't care, just wait until next week, I might have something a little more exciting.)

This is the dining room.

(Storage Room)

Here is our kitchen. Notice the only lower cupboard is under the sink.

This picture is for you mom. Notice all the "stuff" on my counters - and I'm still surviving.

Alexa found all of our fridge magnets and was kind enough to "decorate" for us.

Here is our office in between our dining room and family room. We are actually very grateful to be here with our own beds and furniture. It is just making the wait for our house that much easier to handle.

Moving AGAIN!

This week has been a busy week. I figured I wouldn't have time to post let alone have any pictures but we did it. Our corporate housing ended on Friday and so we had to be out of that apartment. Since our house isn't complete we had to move to another apartment. The movers came on Monday and brought about 1/2 our stuff to the apartment and then I took them over to put the rest of the stuff in a mini storage. We then had to pack up what we had in the coporate apt. and bring it over to the new apt. It wouldn't have been that big of a deal except we were living on the third floor and our movers were only 10, 6, & 4 years old. We got it done though and they were great helpers - no complaining either. It's the unpacking that's been tricky. We have to unpack to find the few things we need and then repack the stuff we don't. So this week's been pretty busy. We are loving that this apartment is bigger and the bedrooms are upstairs so we have a little more breathing room.

On Saturday a place called Sciworks was open for free for the day so we decided to reward the kids with a trip there. They had a great time and it was good for me to stop organizing and take a break and spend some time with the kids.

Here's Olivia in the "Air chair"

Here's McKenna (not smiling for the camera) waiting patiently for us to have our fun. She is so great. She is always so content with whatever we are doing.
Here are 3 little dentists cleaning and grinding teeth.
Would you want these ametuers working on your teeth?

Our House - Week ?

This is the dining room. We just went back today after church and they have it all painted. (This was taken yesterday.)
This is the kitchen/eating area/family room. Not much now but hopefully soon.
Master bedroom

HALLOWEEN 2007

Ok, so I know that Halloween is old news for all of you that blog but I have committed myself to only blogging once a week. So here's the old news of halloween. Here are the fab 4 as 50's girls.

I didn't think this was so note worthy but when a girl in my ward found out about their costumes she was so surprised so I thought I'd share. Their belts that they are wearing are actually a piece of pleather and the buckle is made of a picture frame . I took out the plastic cover and pulled apart the sides (since they were just glued together.) for the fabric to pull through. It was all because of me being so cheap. The belt buckles at Joann's Fabric were about $5 each and the picture frames were $1. The last I checked, I saved about $12. The girls thought it was great and I figure it's a good lesson for them to learn how to be as cheap as their mother. We also just used regular cotton balls on the poodle skirts instead of buying the pom poms at the fabric store. I know that you are so proud, aren't you, dad.

Here is McKenna again refusing to smile for the camera. I guarantee she was smiling right before this was taken. She enjoyed riding in her stroller although her mother wasn't as smart as she should have been. I thought I was being a genious with the whole cotton ball thing but come to find out McKenna thought they tasted really good. (A little scary moment on Halloween night.)

We went trick or treating in the neighborhood where our house is being built and Tim got some good "action" shots.

Here they are waiting for someone to open the door. Olivia was more interested in the camera than the candy.
I figure I would allow one picture of me on the blog. We have so few of McKenna that I wanted to document that she is actually at these events with us.

Here is McKenna without a smile, again. I think her cheecks must be just too heavy for her. After Trick or Treating we stopped and visited with a family in the ward that lives in the neighborhood. It was fun although we all mentioned how much we missed going to the Johnson's and seeing all their halloween decorations and watching "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown." We love you, Johnson's and miss you tons.

Alexa's Birthday #10

I can't believe it. I have a 10 year old now. Boy, does that make me feel old. She is great. When we went to Aunt Maren and Uncle Andrew's for Conference they made a cake for our birthdays. Good thing we had a cake there because on Alexa's real birthday we had Trunk or Treat with our ward so we figured, no need for cake with all that candy.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ALEXA!

Here she is in front of her bedroom door. We still had to keep up the tradition even in our little apartment. I think I'd be in big trouble if they didn't get to wake up to a decorated door.

Before the Trunk or Treat party Alexa got to open her gifts. Here she is dancing

around enjoying one of them.

House - Week 4

We are anxiously waiting for our house to complete and the girls are very excited.

Here is Livie standing in the neighbors driveway posing as Vanna White.

This is the brick we chose. We love it.