What we've been up to...

My blog has been a bomb lately... I'm so sorry! We have been treading water over here just getting through each day. I'm sure you're all just as busy as we are, but the past month has just been crazy. Here's what we've been doing:

Building a pool/resort in our backyard. It will be fun when it's done and you're all invited!

Selling our old house (it's been on the market 21 days and while it has had lots of interest, there haven't been any offers.) Anybody out there interested in buying???

Growing a baby... This is the only picture I could find of me - sorry about the white whale in the background :). The only things I've wanted to eat in this pregnancy are carbs and chocolate. And my saving grace has been telling myself that I've lost the prego weight four times, how hard can it be this time??? Only 10 more weeks...

We only have 9 days of school left (YAY!) but we're still busy with Gracie's swimteam 5 days a week and meets on Saturdays, Girl Scouts and piano lessons for Lexi and Grace, and all of our friends/playdates/service/callings. Where will we find the time to take care of a newborn??? :)

Holidays...

Soooooo.... the best part of our Christmas was going to Grama G. and Grampa G.'s house in Plymouth, Minnesota for the very last time. This was kind of bitter sweet for all of us and the girls are still asking when we can go on the airplane again to visit Grama. They moved a couple of weeks ago to St. George, Utah. And while we love that we'll be able to drive to their house from now on, we have had so many great memories in Minnesota (especially Jim), that it will be sad to never go back.

Jim and his girls. The trip was awesome because we all got to be together for over a week - just relaxing and playing and hanging out. It was the best!!!
One of the favorite things we did was go to a HUGE indoor water park for a day. It was so fun to have 20 degree weather and snow outside when we were playing in warm water in our swim suits. The girls' and mommy's favorite was the lazy river.
Gracie is always our bravest and wants to try EVERYTHING
Look at that sweet face! She did a tiny little slide by herself over and over about a hundred times.
Our next favorite thing to do in MN is go to the Mall of America. The girls all did the rollercoasters and rides. Annie wasn't sure about this one but her sisters made it fun for her and she ended up doing it a couple of times.
Gracie's American Girl doll, Rebecca, got to visit the salon and have her hair done. We learned all of the tricks of the trade. And got to see all of the American Girl store, which is amazing.
More rides...
Another fun thing at Grama's house is a bubble bath in her huge tub. Getting rid of all of the bubbles takes hours! But the girls love it!
Reading with grama is so much fun!!!


The most comfy couch ever - I could stay there with our little family forever and never leave. (Since I was so sick while we were there, I actually didn't move from that spot very many times.) Thanks Grama and Grampa for an amazing trip, tons of present, feeding the girls for the first time in weeks and for taking care of all of us!
More holiday fun stuff included doing our Nativity. Every Christmas Eve, we act out the story of our Savior's birth. This year, our story was a comedy... mostly because our Mary wanted to dress up in her bright pink, glittery princess dress until the baby was born, then she only wanted to be naked. Annie will always be the comic relief in this family.
We did a cute gingerbread house...
Had a great ward party "A night in Bethlehem" that had unbelievable decorations, props, costumes and authentic food and historical presentations. Amazing...
Sarah's Christmas program was so cute! After 5 years of the same preschool, we were on the front row and so we finally got some good pics of her in the program. These are the bloopers... Daydreaming.
Sleeping - don't know which song this is but notice that the other kids weren't "acting" along with Sarah.
We had our best tree ever - from the good old Home Depot tree lot. No more roughing it to the mountains for us!!! If Jim has to have his "real" tree, this is the only way we can find to compromise.
My first day of feeling like trash - serious 24 hour morning sickness. I ran a 10K in the morning and barely made it over the finish line before I started feeling de ja vous - "Oh, no, not again!!!" I figured that my 5th pregnancy would be the charm. The good news is, as of today, I'm morning sickness free and on to BIGGER and better things.

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas season. This year I was mostly grateful that I was forced to simplify. I've always wanted to do that. No baking, hardly any decorations, lots of long winter's naps and Christmas book reading by the fire with the kids. It was actually kind of nice. Do I wish for a holiday like this one again? Never!

Favorite pictures from the Fall

Sarah gets her first soccer trophy from Coach Joe - check out that body language - she LOVED finally getting a trophy like her sisters...

Gracie got her trophy at a fun night of ice cream with her team, the Lady Dynamites.

Sarah's team was so cute! Oh, Lexi played too, but I must not have taken any pics of her in November - we were too busy filming so that we could get footage of her goals...
Sarah and her best friend, Travis. They are so cute together and only get to see each other at church. They have been kindred spirits since day one...

Hey, just wanted to post a few pictures that I've been missing on here... More soccer

Surprise!!!

So for Christmas, the biggest gift of all was telling the girls that we're expecting another baby! The most prevalent comment? I hope it's a girl!!! Jim has pressured me into not finding out what it is this time, so hopefully we don't let the girls down (we do the girl thing so well!) Our "official" due date is July 24th. I'm totally sick, thus the lack of posts, Christmas cheer, decorations over the holidays and food at our house. Hope to be better soon! (Maybe by Valentines Day).

Birthday girls

The first week of November is pretty hectic for our family. Annie's bday is Nov. 3rd and Sarah's is Nov. 7th. When we said we wanted them 3 years apart, we didn't know they'd be born almost 3 years to the day! Annie's low-key birthday party included duck duck goose and listening to her favorite song, "I am a pizza". I made an easy pink cake and she got lots of cute clothes and presents. Her favorite was this Baby Alive doll, which she loves to sleep with at night.

Here's beautiful Gracie with the beautiful cake. I felt like a horrible mother for just doing one in a pan - no tiers or stacking or professional tools at all. She loved it and kept eating more and more.

I love having a 2 year old again! Annie is so funny. She loves to make all of us laugh, loves being the center of attention. Her happiest time of day is first thing in the morning. She plays with toys!!! (which we're amazed about since none of our other girls have ever done). She's obedient and loves to help. Her favorite job is emptying the utensils from the dishwasher. Her favorite thing is still her blanket, but she just gave up her bottle (finally!) so now she's a big girl!
Sarah had quite the birthday week. Her date with mommy and daddy was on Thursday night. She planned the whole thing - buy glitter eye shadow from Claires, go rollerskating and get ice cream at Baskins on the way home. She is so much fun to be with and we never get alone time with her - we all loved it!

Her birthday bash was with most of the kids in her preschool class as well as a couple from church. When she realized that boys were coming, she decided to base the party on her favorite TV show, Wow Wow Wubbzy. This is the cute pinata that I made...
We had great weather. Played in the backyard - soccer, trampoline, Wubbzy games, coloring. Then the kids ate pizza and cupcakes, did the pinata and went home. So much fun! The 25+ kids and their siblings loved it! Sarah's best buddy, Jackson, even drove all the way from Vacaville to come to the party!
On Sunday morning, Sarah woke up to even more presents.
Her faves were this "real" puppy and a big girl camera.

By the time Sarah's cake choice came around, we were all sick of cake, if you can imagine! So we made brownie sundaes and they were excellent!

I love this sweet sweet Sarah girl. She's so cute! And loves to laugh. She loves puzzles, reading books, watching TV and playing with her sisters. She's also good at everything she does (playing piano by ear), gymnastics, soccer. We love having a 5 year old at our house!

Halloween 2010

We rang in the Halloween traditions with tons of decorations and making yummy cut-out cookies. "Frosting cookies", as we call them, are our faves! The dough was their dinner that night :).

Sarah and Annie got to join Lexi on her school's field trip to Fog Willow Farm. They picked out pumpkins, saw animals, went on a hayride... the works.

Gracie was a pop-star, one of the only modest-ish tween costumes we could find this year. She was beautiful!

Lexi was a flamenco dancer, but since most 6 year olds don't know what that is, we turned her into a queen, with a little tiara and tons of sparkly makeup.

Sarah went as the cheerleader that Alexis wore last year. She is OBSESSED with makeup and since it's our only day of the year where that's allowed, she lived it up!
They went to a school Harvest Festival, dressed up for the church trunk-or-treat, and even wore their costumes to chat with grandparents online and to answer the door for trick or treaters. I think it's the first year that nobody had to change costumes half way through our holiday.
This picture shows their true personalities. Proper Alexis, obedient and beautiful, silly Sarah, Gracie making Annie laugh. They are so much fun!
This shot was at gymnastics. I loved the red wall, but this is the only one that turned out.
Little Minnie Mouse with her piece of cheese. Getting her to smile was so tricky. But she loved wearing her ears - this girl always surprises us!

Carving pumpkins - unfortunately all of the pictures of the final products are blurry. Each of the girls did their own - Annie even got to draw her face with permanent marker. Mine had a cutout of a bat and said CREEPY.
Loved Halloween - glad those 20 pounds of candy are all gone! (right to my stomach and hips!)

soccer...

This Fall, we've been doing tons and tons and tons of soccer. Practice every night of the week (Grace and Sarah on Tuesday and Thursdays and Lexi on Mondays and Wednesdays) and 3 games every Saturday. Gracie's in her 4th year on the Lady Dynamites - great girls and wonderful families. She scored her first HUGE goal of the season last week and helped her team win the game.

Lexi's team, the Kickin' Princesses, are all so cute! Most of them go to her school, so they've all become really good friends. She's such a runner that she was all over the field at every game. She's had a million "almost goals" and finally got one in last week.

Annie sometimes felt really left out, so had to get dressed up in a way too huge soccer uniform a couple times during the season. She was a great fan. Her favorite line is, "kick the ball, Lexi!"
Sarah was on the Sabercats with tons of girls from our neighborhood. She was a natural and loved kicking the ball, scoring goals, doing cartwheels on the field, and getting awards at the end of a lot of the games.