Samuel is over 5'1" these days.  He loves reading, scouts, camping, working in the shop with Aaron and other "boy" things.  Aaron got a four wheeler a couple of weeks ago and told Samuel that if he fixed it up, he could have it.  He's already got it running but it still has some problems.  It's fun to see his mind work and try to solve problems.  For Calista's birthday, we had an actual birthday party with friends and a pinata.  Samuel opted to work in the shop with Aaron instead of playing the games, after being told that he would get to participate in the pinata.  When it came to hang the pinata outside, I opened the garage door and asked if Aaron or Samuel would be willing to hang it for me.  Samuel jumped at the chance, and by the time I had Heidi ready to go outside, the pinata was ready and the girls were waiting in line!  Sometimes its handy to have grown up kids!

Jacque is a very sweet older sister.  She knows just what to say or do to make her little sisters happy!  She took Heidi in the backroom yesterday so Aaron and I could get a Sunday nap.  She brought blocks, books, snacks, water and blankets to keep her happy.  It worked because next thing I knew it was 3:30pm!  I must have been tired.  She also enjoys reading, but I think she's going to be my child that wants to play sports.  It seems like we have to ask Samuel if he wants to do a sport, but Jacque's already asked if she can play volleyball and basketball next year!  In the evenings, Aaron will take Samuel and Jacque over to the church and work with them on basketball fundamentals.  He has them dribbling with left and right hands, shooting, layups and  passing.  They really like it.  I took them one night and they let me know that I wasn't doing what dad does!  I think they were trying to get out of having to make 50 right handed layups (between all three of us, and not in a row).  We were short on time so we only had to do 25 left handed ones.

Heidi, my little ninja!  Actually those are a pair of bloomers that she found in Sarah's drawer.

Calista's baptism presents from the Primary Presidency.  The towel has her name written in her favorite color, and the date she was baptized.  Although since we had to cancel her baptism, the date is wrong.  I'd like to get the 14th written on it too.

We also bought her her very own set of scriptures.  We wanted to make hers different than Samuel and Jacque's, so we bought her a quad.  It also came with a pink scripture case and scripture markers.  She was so excited!!

Little Miss Heidi Sue

This was several months ago, but I thought they were cute!  Again, you get to see into her personality a little.  

I think the pictures speak for themselves!

A little bit of everything

 The girls planned a surprise birthday party for Aaron this year.  We happened to have a snow day the day before his birthday, and they spent almost the whole day making decorations and setting it up.  Aaron was definitely surprised!!

Ellen is officially a kindergartener!!  She lost three teeth in two days, and she was already missing a fourth tooth!  We called her toothless!  It sure is fun to hear her talk right now!

 She came home from school and one of her top teeth had fallen out.  The other front tooth was barely holding on so it tended to center itself in the gap. 

 She finally pulled the last one that night.

 I've made a few dresses for Jacque lately because she had outgrown all her other ones.  We found out after we made this one, that Jacque doesn't care for square necklines, so this one ended up going to a cousin!!

 She loved this dress because she can twirl really good in it.

Dress #2.  She loves the higher neckline.  (Excuse the mess in the background!)

 Calista was baptized!!  This is the same dress I made for Jacque's baptism!  She loved it and I didn't have to stress about making another dress!

Samuel got new glasses!!  Yes, we really did buy these!  He loved them.

  Ellen loves to draw!  I like all the detail she puts into her drawings.  This is a picture of our van, she even made sure to make the windows dark, handles black, and we have our lights on!

I got my hair cut on Thanksgiving day!!  It feels so good, and I was able to donate my hair!

With the help of Danny and Aaron Polkowske, we were able to butcher three steers!  It was a fun learning experience and we aren't afraid to do it again!

 Fun times with curlers!!

More curlers!  Jacque and Calista had their hair done too, but it didn't turn out as well, and I forgot to take pictures.

And just so you know, we did buy other glasses for Samuel too.  These were his "fun" glasses that he wore to school for a day, before his REAL ones came in!  He was embarrassed to ask to buy them when he read on a sign that they were women's glasses.  But they were on sale for only $9!!

Fun Photo Shoot with Sarah

This post has a lot of pictures, but you get a good look at Sarah's cute personality!!

Her siblings are all jealous of her "googlie eye" that she can do on demand!

Heidi turned 1!

I can't believe she's one already!  This year went by really fast. 

Heidi weighs just over 20lbs.  At least that is what Calista told me the other day.  They were having fun standing on the scale.  Calista would get on, then Heidi would get on, and then they both got on together.  After that, Ellen got on and then Calista and Ellen got on.  Scales are fun things at that age! 

I'm not sure how tall Heidi is.  She seems more average or small for her size.  I think the 9-12T are getting small now.

Heidi has two teeth on the bottom, and it looked like one was starting to come in on the top.  She loves to squeal, and we're trying to find a way to put an end to it.  It just makes our ears ring.  Sarah thinks its pretty fun, so she'll try to do it too, but I can't handle one squealer as it is.

Heidi is a full time walker.  While I was vacuuming the living room today, she was having fun walking away from the vacuum.  I think if she could run, she would've done it!

Heidi knows the meaning of "hot!"  Since it is wood heat season, we had to teach her that the stove was now hot, and not something fun to play with.  We built a fire and held her hand close enough to the stove that she could feel the heat.  Now I can say something is hot and she hurries and looks at me and then gets away!

Heidi found out how to climb onto chairs and couches all by herself too!  She was pretty pleased with herself this morning when she got up to the table.  She thinks she's a big kid already.  If I could just keep her off of the table, I might let her sit at the big table with us, just with a booster seat.

Heidi doesn't talk much.  She can say dada, mama, and uh-oh.  She experiments with the bahbahbah sound every now and then.

Heidi loves music.  If she's sitting down when the music plays, she starts wiggling around and bouncing up and down to the music.  I have to watch her if she's on the couch.  She'll bounce herself off the couch if she's not careful.  I caught her two times in a row one day.

Heidi loves the outdoors.  We spend a lot of the day inside, but I had to go outside one afternoon and I left the door open.  When I came back, Heidi was out on the deck.  I picked her up to go inside and she was not impressed.  It was a warm day so I just let her play outside while I went inside to get ready to go on a walk.  When I came back out she had gotten herself into the stroller and was waiting for me!  I hadn't even told her we were going.

Sarah is 3!!

I was having the hardest time with my blog, but finally got it all figured out (knock on wood).  So here's a little catch up.

Sarah turned three at the end of July!  She's kind of missed the size 3T clothes and went right to 4T just before her birthday that I had to remind myself that she was turning 3 and NOT 4!  I talked her into having donuts for her birthday "cake."

I love this little girl.  She has a lot of spunk.  She loves to do her "learning" on the computer every day.  She knows how to sound out all of her letters and we've tried to do a little bit of reading, but she doesn't know how to put the sounds together in her head.  But we have a couple years to finalize that process!  We finally got her potty trained.  I think it took us a whole year to get it done.  There were times that I thought it was never going to happen, but it did...on her time table, not mine. 

Sarah loves to do ballerina moves like she sees on barbie movies.  It is so cute to see because Sarah is not the most petite person.  She weighs 40lbs and is just a solid tank.  When you pick her up, you notice! 

Sarah is my big helper at home now that school has started.  It's fun to see her take a little more responsibility.  I'm not sure that she always likes to be my big helper.  She's use to being invisible when work is being done with the bigger kids, but she seems pretty happy to help.

Sarah is starting to sing in Nursery now.  She use to just watch everyone else sing, but now I'll catch her singing "Jesus Wants Me for a 'Sunbean'" and "I Am a Child of God" around the house.

Just the other day she held up a shape and said, "Mom, this is an oct-a-gon!"  I looked at her hand and it was!  I asked how she knew that and Calista says, "I taught her that a few days ago. We were looking at a shape book and I asked her what it was.  She didn't know, so I told her."  It's so fun when they love to teach each other!

Sarah either has a lazy eye, or really good control of her eyes.  She can make one eye look straight and the other look cross-eyed.  She only does it on demand, so it's not a wandering eye.  It looks kind of freaky.  She loves to do it and get a response from her siblings.  She can also wink.  I can remember learning to wink in church.  We were sitting in front of Richie Stephens and he winked at me.  I remember trying, but having to hold my eye shut with my finger.  I suppose since I can remember it, I must've been older than Sarah.  Ellen has to do the finger wink still.