Give me 5 for Calista!

Calista turns 5-years-old today!!! She has been looking forward to this day for a long long time, probably about a year :), and I'm afraid that it will all start over again tomorrow!! We love our little Calista! Calista has been our most independent child. I don't think the words, "I'm too small" or "I can't do that" have ever been in her vocabulary. She was always the one to help all of her friends get their coats on, or get buckled. She learned to open her snacks before her older siblings, she's learned to read almost all on her own, and she's still eager to help Ellen do anything. We are so happy to have Calista in our family, and I hope this year will be a good one for her!!

Somehow we started a family tradition of waking everyone up early in the morning to sing happy birthday to the birthday kid. Luckily for us, they remind us the night before. It will be a sad day if we every forget. So this morning we woke everyone, except Sarah, up at 6:15am to sing to her. I really wanted to wait until after Seminary, but Calista would've been disappointed if she had woke up before we came in. Since we are all over our colds, Calista had a much better rendition of the song than Aaron had. The kids all looked tired, so we offered to let them go back to bed, but Calista figured that she could sacrifice her sleep to open presents!! So far she's gotten bunch of books and a couple new pairs of pants. My walking partner is going to be bringing a doll house later on. Her daughter had outgrown it and she was wanting to get rid of it, so she asked me about a month ago if we'd be interested. I think Calista will be excited!! Here are the books she got:

This book is an open the flap kind of book. It comes from the tv show word world where all the characters are formed by the spelling of their words: the frog's body spells out FROG and so on.

I've never seen a book like this. It's a veggie tale book about finding the best friend. Each page tells you about a different kind of friend: one that can make you laugh, one that's really smart, or one that's really brave. But which is the best kind of friend? On the opposite page is a puzzle to put together. At the end of the book you learn that friends are like puzzles. Each one is different and that's what makes them fit together so well! I love the lessons that veggie tales use, and I like all the different puzzles in this book. I think it has five different puzzles.

This is a magnetic book which came with 25 magnets. This is a Disney Look and Find book. It has a few items that you're supposed to find in the pictures, and then you're supposed to compare both pages to see what is different from one page to another. And then she also got a new coloring/activity book. The other day I cleaned out the bookcase. I saw several coloring books and started to get annoyed that they never used them. But then I decided to look in the books. They were all used up. There weren't any more pages to be colored. So we got another book!

I found these books at Albertsons in their bargain books box. It was my lucky day because they were all 50% off!!!

Aaron's pie

Aaron prefers pie to cakes, so we made him a bday pie. We put candles in the heart holes. We only used 4 candles though because 3+1=4 right!! For an apple pie, it was pretty good! And he did end up having a good birthday!

Happy Birthday Aaron!

Aaron is 31 today!! We love you!! You are a great husband and father!

Hopefully this day keeps getting better. When I woke up, I remembered it was Aaron's birthday, so I made German Pancakes for breakfast, with the idea that I would put a candle in it and we'd sing Happy Birthday at breakfast. I wanted it to be a surprise, so I didn't say anything about it being his birthday. Well, I shouldn't have waited because that meant that mom and dad beat me to wishing Aaron a happy birthday.

The German Pancakes came out and I set the table, cut the pancakes, dished them out, put a candle in Aaron's and then went and woke up all the kids and told them to get up to the table so we could sing to Daddy. By the time I got back to the kitchen, his candle had fallen over. I tried to put it back in and I noticed that the candle had melted in his German Pancake! I never thought of that because I always put it in a cold cake. So Aaron didn't just get German Pancakes for breakfast, he was lucky enough to have blue candle wax in his German Pancake.

After prayer, we sang Happy Birthday to Aaron. Actually Jacque sang Happy Birthday to Aaron. The rest of us sang Happy (cough cough, sniff, hack) Birthday to Aaron. By the end Jacque was singing a solo. Aaron just laughed. It's the thought that counts...right?! The day can only go up from here.

Let the sunshine in

We woke up to a beautiful sunny day today. As Aaron reached to open the curtain, he sang the first line of the chorus. He's sung it before, but didn't know the rest of the song, so he looked it up on YouTube! I love it. I think it is a perfect song to live your life by!!

Pinewood Derby!!!!

Samuel got to join Cub Scouts just in time!! His first cub scout meeting was actually a pack meeting and they handed everyone their pinewood derby cars. So he and Aaron worked hard and built Samuel's first pinewood derby car. You can see duck tape on the car because we were a little under weight. Our den leader had brought a bunch of little weights that we could tape on the car before the races. Samuel's car did really well. He won the first race and then came in second in the next two races! You will enjoy all the wonderful pictures I took.

Okay, so my timing is a little off. I actually tried to take a picture just after they let the cars go, but I didn't push the button hard enough. So then I followed the car farther down the track and pushed the button harder. Yeah, I forgot about whole time delay thing, and so you get a nice picture of the finish line that Samuel's car had already passed! You do get to see the third place car though. Maybe I should've paid attention to whose car it was and I could've emailed his mother this picture :)

Since the still shot didn't turn out so well, I decided that I would take a video of it. The video wasn't actually too bad, I just forgot to push the button hard again to stop the video, so you get to see a bit of the gym floor at the end. Samuel's car got second in this video.

This is Samuel's last race. He placed second again. I think for his first Pinewood Derby, he did really well. He ended up getting a certificate for the best sports car design!

She finally did it!!

Sarah rolled over!! I set her on her blanket, and then I heard her crying. I turned around and she was on her tummy! So being the mother, I picked her up for a little bit and then I layed her on her back again. Within a couple of seconds she rolled right over. Of course by the time I got my camera, Sarah didn't want to do it. I don't know if you can hear Samuel coaching her, but he was saying something like this: "Come on Sarah. You can do it! Come on Sarah. Almost there." Enjoy!

What is that black stuff?

The kids have been sick lately, so on Sunday I made homemade chicken noodle soup with homemade noodles. It was so delicious. Samuel told me it was the best dinner he'd ever had. He had 3 bowls full. There was a little left and he asked if he could have it again on Monday night. So Monday night, I put the soup on the stove to warm it up. There wasn't enough for everyone, so I warmed up other leftovers for Aaron and me. I figured I would let the sick ones eat the yummy soup. Well I got distracted, and the next thing I know I burned it. I tasted it and it tasted fine, so I dished up all the kids. When Jacque and Samuel got to the table, Jacque said, "What's this black stuff?" "Pepper!" Aaron and I answered, because yes, some of it was pepper. I knew that if I told them it was burnt then they wouldn't eat it. Samuel commented that it tasted a little salty. Then he paused and said, "Mom why did the fire alarm go off earlier?" I was silent. Then he asked, "Mom did you burn this?" I told him just a little, but I tasted it and it was fine. And of course, they didn't eat any more! If I hadn't already eaten my dinner, I would've traded them.

Ellen vs. Sarah

I have really enjoyed watching Sarah's hair grow and grow. I know some of you will probably laugh when you see these pictures of all of Sarah's hair, because it really isn't a lot. But compared to Ellen and Calista, it is a lot. Here are some pictures of all the girls and around the same age:

Sarah 5 1/2 months. She can't roll over yet, but she's getting really good at sitting!

Ellen. She's sitting, so I think they would be around the same age, although looking at her clothes, she might be 6-9 months old.

Calista is somewhere between 9-12 months old here

Jacque. I'm not sure how old she is here, probably between 6-9 months.