Happy 11th Birthday Austin!

After an adventurous scavenger hunt, and some Rock Band jamming... the kids celebrated Austin's 11th birthday with a donut cake and lots of backyard craziness. We love you Austin! Thanks for being such a GREAT son!

Hailey 9 Months

We sure do love this sweet baby girl!

Cameron's 4!

Sweet Hailey

In heaven, when mommies were assigned, I must have been really nice, because the most precious babies were sent to me!

Brooke was and is such a sweet girl. She is precious in every way and after having such a sweet little princess as her, I wasn't sure it could happen again. But alas, it has.

Hailey is such a Joy!

She is happy and playful.

She is patient and sweet.

She's so huggable and cute.

I just LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this sweet baby girl!

We've had 8 months together and I'm looking forward to many, many more.

My lovely kids...

A picture is worth a thousand words, I know.

I just have to say, I love these precious kids...

My first born and my baby girl standing together.

Cute dirty toesies from running on the paths.

Austin is growing into such a handsome young man!

This is a very common sight around our house, Cameron making Hailey laugh... actually Cameron makes all of us laugh!

I don't think two sisters have ever loved each other so much.

These girls are crazy about each other!

I'm so blessed to be the mommy of these beautiful kids!

Thanks to my friend Wendy for helping me preserve

some memories with the great pictures!

Let's go fly a kite...

I'm a little behind on blogging some favorite memories, but this was such a fun day, I wanted to make sure I kept a record of it. Hailey was less than a month old here and it was one of our first family outings with her. We enjoyed a beautiful day at the park flying kites. The kids each had one of their own and there was enough wind to keep them all fliyng high until we'd had our fill. Cameron enjoyed lots of scooter riding in between the kite flying, Daddy had fun helping the kids get the kites going, and Hailey slept peacefully out in the fresh air.

After our kite flying fun we enjoyed a walk around the park trail. We made some fun stops along the way at the stream to look at minnows and in the tunnel to hear our echos. It was a great day together. I sure love these guys.

Easter

Here are our beautiful babes on Easter Sunday. We couldn't be happier with our "matching set."

Austin and Brooke did a great job singing a duet in sacrament meeting. They both have beautiful voices and it was a pleasure to see them share it with the ward. :-) I enjoyed being a part of the choir. I love Easter music and it's been filling my mind ever since.

Easter is my favorite holiday, not because of bunnies and eggs, but because our Savior Lives! He lives and because He lives, we can live again too. This is such a joyous occasion and wonderful reason to celebrate. This Easter the resurrection was especially meaningful after such tragic loss recently. How grateful I am that death is not the end and that we can live again with our families and our Savior.

SO creative...

I just have to say, the fascination starts young...

Cameron was playing with these funnels yesterday. He spoke into them as a microphone, he looked in them like a telescope. Then, he lifted up his shirt and stuck them on his chest. He said, "Look Mom, they look like milkers!" (milkers is the name he uses, since his baby sister gets her milk from them. )

I laughed out loud, snapped a picture with my phone and thought to myself..."He's definitely John's son!"

Deep thoughts by Cameron

Our little Cameron is quite a character. Not a day passes that he doesn't crack us up with the witty, funny, silly things he says. Far too often I hear myself say, "I need to write that down, so I don't forget." Yet, I haven't been doing it. So I decided to start today. Here are some of our favorite funny quotes and stories from Cam.

First and most favorite is the way he says his baby sister's name. Her name is Hailey of course, but he pronounces it "Hairry." He realizes that this isn't exactly accurate, so for a while when anyone would ask him her name, he would sheepishly say, "I say it weird . . .like on the top of her head." (meaning hair, since he pronounces it Hairry) He has now gotten comfortable with his pronunciation. feel free to ask him her name and he will confidently tell you, Hairry! He lovingly plays and talks to little "Hairry" all the time. He is always looking out for her and will come running to me any time she needs something. "Mom, Hairry is hungry, Mom, Hairry needs a diaper, etc." (He like his other siblings is a star binky finder as well.)

I can think of plenty of cute nicknames for a baby girl and "Hairry" probably wouldn't be one of them, but considering the origin, it's starting to stick. Austin, Brooke and Daddy have all jumped on the Hairry bandwagon and we generally refer to her as such. :-) I guess that's how these things go. Come to think of it, I still have a nickname that my younger brother gave me when we were little. He couldn't quite pronounce my name and called me "Ana dud." 30+ years later I sometimes still get it... and it means more and more as the years go by. Thanks to Cameron, Hailey will probably be our little Hairry for years to come.

Just this morning, Cameron said something else that made me smile. Thanks to a recent cold front, we enjoyed a little bit of snow at our house this past week. The kids were very excited and played in it as much as they could before the little white dusting melted away. Cameron has been talking about it ever since. Unfortunately, the weather warmed up and he realized this morning that it probably wasn't going to snow again. He let me know that by saying, "Mom, all the snow is gone. I think the "snower" is broken." Of course! That's why we don't have any more snow! The "snower" is broken.

One more cute story of Cameron cracking me up happened a couple weeks ago when he and I were talking about a Teddy Bear Picnic he would be having at his preschool. I was asking which of his teddy bears he wanted to take to school. Then I explained that they were going to take their teddy bears on a picnic at lunchtime. He looked at me incredulously with big eyes and asked, "What?? We're going to eat them??" Ha! It never even crossed my mind that he thought I'd ask him to bring his teddy bear on a picnic, so he could eat it! I quickly corrected the mistake. He was happy to know that his teddy bear would only be a guest for lunch, not lunch itself. :-)

Here's some of the other favorite Cameron terminology around our house:

trampoline = Jump a leen

the jack rabbit we often see in our back yard = Jack Bunny

a little bit = wibb a witt

disgusting = a skusting

q-tips = ear poker inners

fighting a bad guy with a sword = watching off the bad guy

Cameron looking at the thermometer and letting us know the temperature will result in any range of numbers in random sequences. For example, he might say, "Wow! It's hot out side. It's 20, 60, 8, 14 degrees." This same rule applies with telling time. He will walk over to the clock, look at it and say, "Whoa, it's getting late isn't it? It's 18, 40 o'clock."

Those are just a few of the funny examples of things Cameron says. He has no problem giving things names of his own if he isn't exactly sure what they're called or how to pronounce them. I know this will correct itself all too soon. So in the mean time, we listen and respond with a smile. I love the language of kids!

Brookies Baptism

Despite my best efforts to keep her little forever, my little princess has been growing up. This past weekend Brooke celebrated her 8th birthday! She has been excited for months about the opportunity to be baptized and was counting down the days.

Here she is all dressed in white, excited for her special day.

Brooke shared her special day with Hailey, who had her baby blessing as well. We are so proud of our beautiful girls in white!

A Halloween treat for our family!

 

Our little pumpkin...

With a Halloween birthday, the pumpkin nick name is almost inevitable! This little beauties actual name is Hailey Joy and a true joy she has been for our family.

Hailey decided she couldn't wait any longer to come out and meet her eager siblings and parents. So, on October 31st our 8 pound little pumpkin came into our world. She is adored by everyone and has been lighting our lives since her arrival.

We feel so blessed to have another little piece of Heaven in our home.

Welcome Baby Hailey... we love you!