All tied up!

Sarah thought this was the funnest game last Sunday night.  Aaron tied her up in the jump rope and she would get herself out.  I think she had him do this 3 times.  In between two turns, Ellen grabbed the jump rope to have a try at it, but Sarah demanded it back, in other words she screamed at her and pulled it away.  Yes, my sweet little Sarah, has started having an opinion and shares it quite loudly these days.  We are trying to work on having her use words, but she's not talking as much as I'd like.  Not that she can't talk, but mainly because her sisters and brother translate her grunts so she doesn't have to talk.  The other day she screamed at Ellen because Ellen was in her way.  I bent down and told her, "No!  Sarah we don't scream.  Say 'move' if you want her to move."  Sarah looks at Ellen and says very plainly, "Move!"  So now we need to work on saying more things!

Girls Night

This last weekend was Fathers and Sons for our stake and also for the LaGrande stake, so I called mom up and invited to her to come and have a girls night with us!  For our activity, we painted the girls' room.  We haven't painted it since we moved in and the walls were just gross, so mom came, picked out the paint and we went to work.  We started in the early afternoon and finishd at 9pm.  The girls were so excited to help paint their very own room, and I think the end result is 100% better than the beginning.  Mom and I painted around the edges, Jacque painted around the outlets, and then we let Calista and Ellen loose with the rollers.  Ellen painted the bottom of the wall, Calista did a little higher, and then Jacque got to come back and get on a chair and get the top part of the wall.  We had a lot of fun!  I forgot to take before pictures, but you can enjoy the after pictures! 

 Ellen

 Calista

I liked this picture of Calista.  Ellen is into making funny faces when her picture is being taken.  Silly girl!

 I never got a picture of Jacque helping paint because mom and I were painting at the same time, but she was a big helper!!

They love their new room!

Ellen's Wand

Ellen came crying out of the bathroom this last weekend because she had dropped her wand in the toilet and it had gotten flushed down.  I decided I better check it out, because if it did get flushed down the toilet, then we might have problems in the future.  Calista and Ellen followed me in the bathroom to supervise.  The good thing about it already getting flushed was that the water was "clean."  So I stuck my hand down and felt around.  No luck.  It must've gone farther.  As I was standing up, Calista says, "Ellen, your wand didn't get flushed down the toilet!  It is right there on the floor, leaning against the toilet!"  Ellen was so excited, she ran over, picked it up, and ran outside to play.  Why couldn't Calista have seen that wand just 2 minutes earlier?  Why didn't I see it as I was walking up to the toilet?  Ahhhh!  I scrubbed my hands really well before I left the bathroom and tried to forget what just happened.  I think next time I will search around the toilet before I start feeling around inside the toilet!

Jacque's Baptism

Jacque was baptized Sunday, May 6, 2012!  It was a beautiful sunny day, and she was so excited to be baptized!  She was able to be baptized along with 2 other boys from our ward, Jonas Waite and Sam Jennings.  Jacque asked Grandpa Baxter to give the talk on the Holy Ghost and I was able to be the chorister since I am also the Primary Chorister.  We had a wonderful turn out of family and friends.  From sitting up on the stand, I counted over 100 people sitting in the chapel!  I've never seen so many people.  I guess that is one of the perks to getting baptized on Sunday, people aren't as likely to forget and there aren't as many other activities to compete with.  Jacque felt so beautiful that day, inside and out.  Thank you to all who were able to make it for her special day.

I love the excitement shown in her face.

   Ellen asked Grandma Baxter to take her picture, and then just as Grandma took the picture, she hikes up her dress!  This gives you a good glimpse into Ellen's personality.

Grandma and Grandpa Baxter

Grandma and Grandpa Kerns

Jacque with her Great-Grandma, Nadine Baxter, a.k.a. Gram, and Calista

 Jacque and our Bishop and his wife, Steve and Debbie Merrill.

 Jacque with some of her Bradford cousins, Micah, Ammon, Hyrum, and Ann.

 Jacque and the Farber family, Aunt Katie, Isaac, Levi, Abby, Ila, Gracie, Emmy, David, and Gideon. 

There were 6 in the bed and the little one said...

I can't remember why I had to get up earlier, but when I got out of the shower, this is what I found in my bed!  It was so cute that I had to take a picture, and actually Aaron ASKED me to take the picture!!  I didn't know they could all fit in a double bed!  I bet they can't all SLEEP in a double bed though!

Jacque's birthday!!

Jacque turned 8 yrs old!!  She is very excited about getting baptized this next Sunday.  Jacque is such a special girl.  She is the best big sister that anyone could ever want.  She loves to play with her sisters and loves to read to anyone that wants to hear a story.  She loves school and loves learning.  Jacque is a hard worker and loves to run, jump rope, and swing on the monkey bars.  Jacque is in love with horses right now, so we had a horse them for her birthday party!  We invited some friends over and played a bunch of "horse" games.  Sorry, but these pictures will not be in the order I would like.  I tried moving pictures and was having difficulties, so you get it in this order!

This first game is barrel racing.  We had two teams and two different obstacles.  They had to go around all three chairs, keeping their hat on and the broom between their legs, then hand them off to the next person.  The first team done won!  Actually they all won, because they all got a candy after the game.  I think they had fun with it.  We also played horse shoes and pin the tail on the horse, but I didn't get pictures of the kids doing those.

Jacque 

 Samuel

 Ellen

 A friend helping show Ellen where to go next.

 Calista

 Calista finishing the race

 I let the kids decorate the house with streamers and they had fun.  Samuel decided to spell "party" and everyone else tore little strips of the streamers and tape them all over the walls and chairs.

 Our horse cake. I know there aren't any ears, but it just wasn't worth the fight to keep the ears.  The ears kept falling apart and the icing wasn't sticking very well.

Jacque's gifts.  We didn't do this at the party. We keep the party for games and do presents as a family.

  Jacque got a journal with a horse on the cover.  I'm hoping I can get the kids interested in keeping a journal this year.

 This is our horse for the pin the tail on the horse game.  I'm actually really embarrassed about this picture, but the kids loved it.  It has the body of one horse and the neck/head and legs of another one, but I was in a hurry, and knew the kid wouldn't care.  It helped having Samuel by my side praising my artistic abilities, but I know the truth.

 This isn't a very good picture, but on the table we had nine paper bags with a topic listed on each one.  They were supposed to write something in that categorie and place it in the bag and move on to the next one.  For example, they said something like "your name," "a place," "an emotion," and so on.  Then during lunch I read a mad lib story inserting their words into it.  They were pretty funny and the kids liked it.

 Hanging out, waiting for the party to start.

 Sarah found the balloons!

 Cake time!

Jacque also got a stamping set.  She loves making cards and notes for everyone, so I thought she'd really like this.  We made our invitations for the party using the stamps and paper too.

My Birthday

My birthday was a little different this year because I got sick the Tuesday before and stayed sick until the following Tuesday.  A couple of my friends brought over a happy birthday banner and balloon on my birthday to decorate and left a chocolate cheesecake and some mini candybars.  It was so nice of them, but I couldn't even eat them for a couple of days.  They just didn't look good.  You know you're sick when chocolate doesn't look good.  I think I ended up celebrating my birthday the week after my birthday.  I made a cherry cheesecake and Samuel put candles in it for me!  I think he had to use ALL of the candles that we had!  Am I really that old?