Hotter than......Strawberry Days 2015

Every year we try and participate in the Children's Parade for Strawberry Days week. This year, oooh my goodness it was HOT! Thomas got grumpy pretty quick on his bike and kept tilting over and falling off. Luckily I had Derek there to help.

The heat didn't stop these two! Joseph loved pedaling right along.

WE MADE IT! Now, waiting for the otter pops and then everyone was happy again.

Good lesson that we CAN DO HARD THINGS!

And this little lady is my little squishy that I adore so much. She was an incredible good sport.

We did the Strawberry Days parade and we were SUCCESSFUL! 

Some ward friends and us decided to lay out blankets the day before parade at the tail end of parade and we loved it. I think we may have started a new tradition. We have such great friends!

Amelia's gettin' suga from Annie Clayson. :)

And she's out!

Thomas and his little friend, Seth Holmes. Look how sweet Seth was for putting his right hand over his heart and Thomas doing who knows what.

There he goes, he got the hang of it.

Joseph observing all the kids running for candy while he stood watching with Amelia's hat on his head with out knowing it. :)

We went to the Strawberry Days Carnival with Aunt Pam and Lucy. 

Thomas loved going down the big slide.

Joseph riding on the Choo Choo Train.

HAPPY STRAWBERRY DAYS AND AWESOME MEMORIES!!

Joseph

This little man. We love him so much. He is the sweetest little guy and has grown SO much the last few months. Since our little Amelia came into our family, Joseph has been so patient with all of us. Emma and Thomas are great to him, but he is left out at times during their play. It doesn't really bother him. I do remind Emma and Thomas to make sure and include him, but sometimes they get so involved in playing and chatting with each other, Joseph kind of gets looked over.  He's learned to entertain himself and it does make me sad. I feel bad that I can't always be there to play with him. I need to be better at putting some time away for him. Whenever we do, he is in heaven. Just like any of our children are, when we have one on one. 

Emma's been sweet to him since he moved into their bedroom. All three of them share a room. If he has a hard time going to sleep, she'll sit with him and read to him. It warms my heart. She's going to be a great mother some day.

We are all still adjusting to a family of six and it's been quite the change.

We all love this little man and he brings SO much sunshine into our family.

Here are some of his cute moments of things he LOVES.

 He is so picky with sweets. (I KNOW!) But he does like his nutella spread on toast.

 Joseph loves, loves, loves, and doesn't stop talking about diggers. ALL THE TIME! 

His vocabulary has really come a long way the last couple months. But before that, he could tell you all about "Honk" and lift his hand in a claw grip to show you what he saw when one of Daddy's cars from the lot was crushed at the junk yard. He didn't stop talking about for months. 

Every morning when Derek walks Emma to bus stop, Joseph begs to go. When he does get to go, they always stop and look at the diggers up the road from us where there has been construction for months and months. 

A couple weeks before Amelia came and Thomas was at school, I took Joseph to see the diggers. Unfortunately the machines were turned off and no action was going on. But he was in heaven when he got to sit on the digger.

He has now expanded his vocabulary to "Ma-huh f....("truck" with an "F" :) for garbage trucks and fire trucks. "Look, F....!"....everyday, all day. :)

 "LOOK!!  DIG!!"

 Always needs his diggers with him. He loves playing with them.

This is his face while concentrating on the construction action going on outside. 

  He has also been a good little helper with cleaning out the chicken coop.

 Normally he hates having his clothes off for too long but not this time. Having his rain boots on is all he needed to feel secure. :) Here he is helping Daddy with the play house walls.

 A month ago, I got a new stepping stool for our kitchen. He has LOVED it! He picks it up and moves it to wherever he needs in the kitchen. His favorite spot is the kitchen sink. He'll stand there forever, just running the water and washing any dishes that are in the sink.

 When Amelia first came, Thomas and Joseph were staying at Oma's a lot during the day. One of the times, Joseph, Thomas, and Dylan played basketball. He never stopped talking about it. Every time we asked if he wants to go to Oma's, he'd reply "Oma, hoop" and do the shooting basketball hand expression. hehehehe.

Look how much she's grown...

Baby Amelia is growing so much.
We are trying to adjust to having new baby in our family. It seems like since she's come home, we've had never ending sicknesses going on. After the first week of her being home, Joseph got hand, foot, mouth virus from Nursery. :( We basically quarantined little Amelia in our bedroom the entire week. Then at the end of that week, Emma threw up all Saturday night. She had gone to two birthday parties and ate a whole lot of junk food and her little body doesn't do so well with too much junk food. She puked all night and Derek was up with her, cleaning her, cleaning her bedding, and comforting her. I felt so helpless in my room while I stayed with Amelia. Then a couple days later, Thomas had a fever. He was pretty lethargic and hot all day. Then the next day he snapped right back. 

Then last night I got hit pretty hard with the stomach bug. It seriously came out of no where in the middle of the day and I threw up all night long. It was pretty violent and miserable. I sure hope nothing gets  passed on to anyone else. I'm fine now and Amelia has been nursing so I'm hoping she's building some antibodies. :) 

Derek has been super dad/hubby during all of this. We look forward to getting a good nights sleep :)

We love our sweet little Amelia and are so grateful she has come into our family. 

 One week old

 She finally got her first bath at home at one week. And she loooooved it.

Two weeks old.

 Three weeks old!

 And sweet little four weeker. Look at that face. I could eat her up. And that night, she slept a whole four hours. It was beautiful and Mommy and Daddy were quite thrilled. :)

FHE- David and Goliath

The Story of David and Goliath...

 

Last Monday, we had a family home evening lesson on the story of David and Goliath. 

Derek sketched out this amazing Goliath the morning of and the kids were amazed how tall Goliath actually was. 

After talking about the story of Goliath, we talked about what may be some "Goliath's" that we may face in our lives and how do we face them like David. Emma did most of the input of experiences  standing for what is right and to have faith and courage in any "Goliath" situation. 

After the lesson, we let the kids use slings that I whipped up and they threw "stones"=marshmallows :) at Goliath. 

It's a great story. Can you believe Goliath was 9 feet tall? Good gravy.

 And then there are these cuties....

 

Valentines 2015

 The kids had class parties on Friday, the day before Valentines. They were excited to see their friends and have their parties. 

Emma made this Valentine box for her class party. She did all the decorating and choosing all by herself. I just helped cut out the paper to box size and she helped me adhere. The rest was all her.

This was a little note she wrote to her teacher Miss Connell. So cute!

 The kids had in mind what they wanted for their Valentine cards and then Daddy helped design them. I think we found the dinosaur one online and he made some adjustments.

 Friday morning Valentine breakfast. We decided to do our big breakfast the day before Valentines because we knew Emma had a birthday party the following morning. We had bacon, pink pancakes, and eggs. I think Derek and I were looking very tired because let's be honest...we are! :) Lots of wakings in the night from little Amelia lady. :)

 Here is a note and treat to Thomas' teacher, Mrs. Ridge. Love it!

 And they're off to school! They are my cute little munchkins!

 The morning of Valentines!

Thomas is showing us his hot chocolate mug he got. It was toast, nutella, strawberries and hot chocolate for breakfast. 

 We had a visit from Grandma Phair. She brought the little munchkins some V-day treats and snuggled with Amelia.

 On Valentines day, the kids were able to hold Amelia for the first time. We hadn't let them before because of coughs and colds but we were safe now. I love them. This really is what life is all about, isn't it?

 Derek planned to make a special Valentine dinner for the family. He had some good help from Emma and Thomas. They made steaks, potatoes, salad and asparagus. It was delicious!!

 Emma set the table.

 Thomas preparing salad.

 Derek also bought all of these amazing foreign cheese and we had ourselves a picnic on the family room floor with all these cheeses, crackers and fruit. He is really awesome.

Happy Valentine's Day from our family to yours.