Kindergarten Graduation

This school year has flown by! I know Natalie is hoping the summer passes quickly too, she's very excited to be starting 1st grade soon. We are so proud of all that she has done this year. She's learned many new things and has been a good example to her friends at school. One thing that she is especially excelling with is her writing. She has a great imagination and makes up some of the most creative stories. It was fun to read her writing journal at the end of the school year and see how she has progressed over the course of the year. Good job Nat!

The toothless graduate

Natalie and her teacher


And a couple pictures of Leah from that night, she's getting so big!

Easter Pictures

Our Cowgirl

Another fun photo shoot by Rachel!
www.RachelHorne.com

Heard at our house.....

While doing Natalie's hair one morning:


Natalie: Mom, I think I have a urine problem.

Me:............What?

Natalie: I think I have a urine problem.

Me: A urine problem???

Natalie: No, a hearing problem.

Me: Oh, I guess that makes two of us.

Yesterday I kept Natalie home from school because she was having breathing problems. Since my Natalie LOVES school, she gets very sad when she has to miss it. So I told her we'd make it a fun day. It was very nice to spend the day with my girls. Natalie's favorite part was decorating a "doll cake". I remember doing this when I was little and I thought it was the coolest. She had a blast decorating the dress of her doll and specifically asked me to put it on our blog so grandma could see it. I think it turned out very pretty. Watch out Vera Wang.

Hello 2010

This blog post is way overdue. Rather than write lots of separate posts about what our little family has been up to I'll just do a quick overview:

-Celebrated Thanksgiving with my family(poor Kyle had to work)
-Found out Kim and Ryan are having a girl and that Xan and Jason are expecting as well!
-We got to meet Elder Cook when he came to set apart Kyle's dad as our Stake President. Very cool for Natalie to meet an apostle.
-Leah started laughing and rolling over.
-Kyle turned 31 and we did NOT have a party ;)
-Grandma Bailey's annual Christmas party.
-Decorating gingerbread houses that my dad made(poor Kyle missed this one too)
-Celebrated Christmas with family(poor Kyle had to work)

-We got a new addition to our family: Rainbow, Natalie's fish, our first pet ever and possibly the only animal she's not allergic to.

-Hartley's developmental evaluations came back showing she qualifies for assistance, we're excited to get that started and hopefully get her talking.

-Natalie lost another tooth(I pulled it out so she'd stop whining and eat her dinner haha)
-Kept busy with our church callings.
-Rang in the new year(poor Kyle had to work and we missed the big party in Safford, sad)
-Church time changed to 3PM(not sure how we'll do with this!)
-Celebrated our 3rd anniversary(poor Kyle had to work-are you seeing a kinda rotten trend here?)
-Threw a baby shower for Kim while she and Ryan were in town.
-Took a nap.
And now we are so happy to slow down now that the holidays are over. Hopefully this year brings lots of fun and new things to our family(except new babies, no babies this year). We have plans for home improvements and maybe a trip or two but mostly just enjoying time with our little family while we're still little.

Firsts for Natalie

Natalie has had a couple big things happening lately. Kyle and I went to our first ever parent-teacher conference for Natalie not long ago. Natalie's teacher told us she is doing awesome(duh)! Natalie is such a good reader that she goes to one of the first grade classes every day for reading and her first grade teacher has said that she is one of the best readers in his class as well. Her teacher also told us that she's putting Nat into a gifted program for math. She catches onto things very quickly and has a very very good memory, it's crazy. Her teacher also told us she appreciates that Natalie helps other kids in the class who are struggling and teaches them without doing the work for them. Way to go Natalie!

Nat has also been taking piano lessons and loves it. She has an awesome teacher and looks forward to her lessons and even practices without being asked! Last Friday she had her first piano recital. She played "Ode to Joy" and "Jolly Old St. Nicholas"(if you've been to our house in the past month she's probably played them for you too haha).

This is Natalie on the night of her recital. If you look really close you can see another first for her.

Natalie lost her first tooth!

She had been wiggling that tooth forever! Friday morning she had a dentist appointment and I told her that if she wanted the dentist to pull it out he probably would. Well before we left for the appointment she was brushing her teeth and it popped right out! She has been so very very excited about this and is showing off her new smile to everyone.

Halloween in 10 seconds or less

Is it seriously November?? Yikes where did October go? Anyway October is always a busy month for us, this year was no exception. Anyway....before it's December I'd better post about Halloween.

Every year my parents throw a big Halloween party. I was bummed because Kyle was going to have to work and I'd have to go by myself and be all sad and lonely the whole time. Well, Kyle called and surprised me Friday night saying he was able to get Saturday off(although he owed his sergeant a burrito for giving him the day off...whatever it was totally worth it)

So Saturday morning Kyle took us all out to breakfast which was a blast, maybe in the future we'll make it a tradition because it was really fun.

After we got back we carved our pumpkin.

Do you see Leah in the back watching? Hartley wasn't interested in all that slimy stuff.

Then,Kyle and I got to work on the trampoline, we wanted to finish that day. About halfway through Kyle's parents came over so I gave Dave my shovel and he and Kyle finished the whole thing!

After that was done we got ready to go to my parents house for the party. We were exhausted at the end of the day but we had lots of fun!

Natalie was a "Nice Witch"

Hartley was a fairy, she actually loved he costume!

This was the best picture I could get of Hartley, she was throwing a fit.

Now what?

Almost.....

Getting there.....

DONE!!!

Kyle has been working on this BIG project for months and months and it's finally done! He has really put a lot of effort into making sure that this would look nice, function well, and last forever. He's totally a perfectionist. We think it turned out great and we've been having lots of fun jumping on our new trampoline.(We still have another new trampoline still in it's box if anyone wants it. We'd rather sell it than ship it back!)

So now that Kyle is done with this project what is he going to do with all his free time?!? Probably landscape the rest of the yard. haha. Poor guy, he'll never get a break!

Natalie!!!

I had a special request for more pictures of Natalie. So for all of Natalie's adoring fans here is a Natalie-Only post!

Happy Happy Birthday Girls!

Last week these crazy girls had birthdays! Natalie turned 6 and Hartley turned 2.

We didn't do much during the week to celebrate their birthdays. On Hartley's birthday she had a special breakfast of chocolate chip smiley face pancakes and on Natalie's birthday Kyle and I took her out to lunch and let her pick the restaurant. We had a combined birthday party for them on Saturday(I don't know how long I'll be able to get away with combining their parties but I'm going to milk it while I can!) Since my camera was full and I didn't have time to empty it before the party all the party pictures are on Rachel's camera. Poor Rachel, maybe some day I'll actually pay you for your photography services.(but probably not any time soon:-)) All I have pictures of are the girls' cakes.

I was super nervous about making their birthday cakes because I'd never decorated a cake before and I wanted them to turn out nice. So when the first one turned out like this..........

I got a little EXTRA nervous. It just kinda melted......I didn't cry though(Kyle said he was just waiting for it) and in the end everything worked out fine. We had a blast spending time with family and celebrating the birthdays of two very wonderfully sweet and fantabulous chicklings.

Here is how the cakes turned out in the end......

Curious George for Hartley

A flower cake for Natalie