Best of 2010

Okay, I am such a slacker when it comes to blogging. I wanted to recap the year since I haven't posted much, so I decided to do a series of posts which are the best parts of 2010 for me. There are so many blessings as I look back on the year and I am so grateful for each one.

I am grateful for the new baby boy that we are expecting this spring. We don't have a name yet, but I am getting very excited and nervous to welcome number four especially now that I no longer have the holidays to distract me. I hope I won't get too overwhelmed, but I love each one of my children so much that the thought of being blessed with another one makes me so happy.

A few of the other things that I am blessed with, but didn't have the opportunity to make into an entire blog entry include: great friends and neighbors who share in the difficult job of being a mother of small children, two of the cutest nephews that were born in 2010, being able to do temple work for my grandparents, and so much more. some of the things I did actually manage to blog about I didn't want to repeat even though they were highlights for 2010 as well.

If you want to know more about what we have been up to in 2010 please keep reading the next several posts. Besides this post their are seven posts for the Best of 2010 series: Kiera, Beck, Kate, holidays, Couple time, MBA, and a post about my favorite everyday stuff for 2010.

Best of 2010 Kiera

This year has been so much fun to watch Kiera learn to walk, run, and talk. She is already beginning to speak small sentences like "help me" and "open this". She often replaces t for other letters at the beginning of words and calls her sister "tate" and also says she is "tute" or cute. She is very active even for a toddler and I have a hard time getting her to sit still long enough to get her hair done, read a book or even say family prayer. She is pretty good at keeping herself entertained and at holding her own with her older brother who can't seem to leave her alone. she loves animals real or stuffed and was so happy to get a fur real kitty and pillow pet for Christmas. she also loves music like her older siblings and loves to play the piano. She doesn't even pound on the keys like you might expect, but plays the keys with individual fingers and sometimes I am amazed and the sounds she makes. she also loves to sing and dance when others are playing music. I can't get enough of her and I am so glad she is part of our family.

Best of 2010 Beck

Beck is in his first year of BuziBee Pre-school and absolutely loves it. He is so excited when I pick him up to tell me all the things they did in pre-school and he i

s having a hard time right now with such a long break. He is very excited to get back to pre-school and his New Year's pajama party. He can be quite obstinate at times but he says the funniest things and has a great imagination that make it impossible to stay upset with him for long. He loves watching his kids shows and reading books. He is sometimes overly affectionate with his baby sister and is so excited to have a baby brother.

He is learning to ride a bike with training wheels and is doing very well. He is very independent and already refuses to let me dress him and if I don't get his snack fast enough he will just help himself.

I still love watching him sleep and it makes me sad how fast my babies are growing up. I love being able to have a son and I hope I can be the mom he needs to help him become a great man someday.

The best of 2010 Kate

I have been so proud of all Kate has learned this year already in Kindergarten. She is very outgoing which is kind of a surprise to me. Anytime I walk into the school with her a lot of other kids are saying Hi to her. Her teacher did mention at her last SEP that she needs focus on her work and not talk while they are working. I am glad she has friends and is learning so much at school. she is making great progress with reading too. In addition to kindergarten she is also taking ballet and piano and wants to try soccer. Here is some music she wrote when she first started piano.

The first line is Einsy Weinsy Spider, the second is Row Row Row your Boat and then Twinkle Twinkle little star. She just finished her first semester and had her first recital. She did a great job and even played two of the harder songs which required two hands.

she is quite artistic and loves coloring and creating all kinds of art projects and even won 1st place for 3 dimensional art for her school for kindergarten through second grade. I was so proud of her hard work.

She is a great help and a very sweet girl. She is one of the best things to ever happen to me and I am lucky to be her mom.

Best of 2010 Holidays

The holidays are so much more fun when you have little kids that get so excited about everything. Christmas was great. The kids were very pleased with what Santa brought and Beck commented, that "We made the nice list and got none coal". He was so excited to get a bike and transformers and Kate loved her skates. It was warm enough they even got to go out and practice for a bit on Christmas morning. I tried very hard to make sure they understood the true meaning of the holiday and they had lots of fun re-enacting the nativity on an almost daily basis. I don't have any Christmas pictures available to me at the moment, but here is one from Halloween. The rain didn't even dampen their spirits.

It has also been fun to help with the holiday parties at school. Eli and I were both able to go the Kate's school for a thanksgiving feast and eat lunch with her in the cafeteria. I was able to go to Beck's pre-school for the Thanksgiving party and Kate's kindergarten for the Christmas party. It is fun to see how excited your kids are to see you at their school. Kate was so excited to announce to everyone that I was her mom and she came up and gave me a big hug. Beck wouldn't leave my side the whole time I was helping with the pre-school party. I love the adoration they have for their moms and dads at this age and I am trying to enjoy it before it is gone.

The best of 2010 couple time

With three small children and Eli starting an MBA program we knew there were going to be a lot of sacrifices and time together was going to be even more important than ever. This is a goal we will need to continue to work on throughout the next year. We did have some great times together that really strengthened our relationship and especially the Mexican Rivera Cruise we took in April. I loved trying new things like Snorkeling in Cabo San Lucas and horse back riding on the beach in Mazatlan and also the zip lining through the jungle in Puerto Vallarta. I can still feel the benefits of this couples vacation even now that is has been several months.

I also really enjoyed going to see the Paul McCartney concert this summer. Eli loves music and it was nice to share in the music that has been such a big part of his life. I am not as big a fan as Eli, but he put on an excellent show and I really enjoyed the concert.

Best of 2010 Eli begins an MBA

This has like many other of the best things from this year also been a challenge as well. It is not easy for me to be a single mom for several days of the week. I don't see how they do it all the time. It is tiring to not have a spouse available to help because he goes straight to school from work and doesn't get home until after 11pm. It is also hard for Eli to have more responsibilities and work than he can possibly accomplish in a day and to miss out on family time. However, I am very proud of him for following his dream and setting and accomplishing high goals for himself instead of settling for the easier route. I am grateful for the example he is setting for our kids that education and self-improvement are important and worthy goals. I am grateful for the wonderful job he does providing for us.

Best of 2010 Regular everyday stuff

Some of my favorite moments of 2010 have been the simple everyday things

like the kids coming in to our room in the morning to snuggle and play

funny things they say and do while we are out running errands

I can't believe Kiera actually fell asleep like this.

or even playing outside on warm summer days. I thought it was pretty funny that Kiera thinks she needs her helmet on like her brother and sister who are riding bikes eventhough she is just walking around.

Let Summer Begin

Okay, Summer is almost over and I am just now posting about the start of our summer. I am a slacker I know. But from these posts you can see we have been quite busy. It is not all my fault, Eli just barely downloaded the pictures for me. He doesn't trust me to do it since one time I almost deleted some of them.

Kate graduated from pre-school at the end of May. She had a princess party and a graduation party at the dinosaur Park.

Kate and Ms. Debee

Daddy thought it was funny to feed the kids to the dinosaur.

Kate will be going to kindergarten in just a few weeks. I have very mixed feelings about this. I know she is so excited to learn new things and make new friends. I am looking forward to less fights between Kate and Beck, but it is hard to know I won't be there with her all the time anymore and that she is officially no longer a baby or a pre-schooler but a school aged child. Time goes by too fast. I just hope we can make lots of good memories to hold on to as the years fly by.

Summer Fun

This summer we have had swim lessons, dance class, an amusement park day, a vacation and many other fun things, but I thought it might be nice to post a few of the everyday summer things the kids enjoyed.

I bought a slip-n-slide on sale and I thought it would be fun for the kids, however they didn't seem to understand how they work.

Kiera loves digging in the dirt and she learned to climb the bolders in the back yard if necessary to gain access to her favorite past time.

She was so proud of herself and happy to be in the dirt.

Kate's favorite pastime is anything artistic. This girl will color all day long if you let her. I liked the crab she drew.

If she can't color then she will want to be artistic in other ways. Under the sea creatures by Kate.
Hopefully we can make the most of the few summer days we have left. We went to the park yesterday and we are going swimming tomorrow. I can't believe it is almost over.

Amusement Park Day

Every year my husband's work sponsors a day at the local amusement park. The kids love it more and more each year as they get older and are able to do more.

I think my favorite was going on the Odyssey with Kate. I let her have the controls and she did a pretty good job of getting us wet. I think the Bat and the Odyssey were her favorite rides.

Beck did better than I expected. He went on the Dinosaur Drop and even the Tidal Wave.

Kiera loved the carousel and the train and had a good nap.

One thing that was better this year was that we went earlier and left earlier, so it was not such a long overwhelming day.

Yellowstone

I have a lot of fond memories of Yellowstone and Island Park from my Childhood, so I wanted to try to re-create some of that for my kids.

I wanted to visit Big Springs and show the kids how big the fish can get there and let them feed them from the bridge. Unfortunately the seagulls got most of the bread, next time I'll just bring change for the fish food machines.

Another one of my favorite things was floating the Henry's Fork River to Mack's Inn, so I really wanted my kids to experience it too.

Kiera hated her life jacket, but eventually she got comfortable enough to fall asleep.

It was a lot of walking and our stroller got a flat tire at Mammoth. Eli and I took turns carrying the kids and we had to skip some of it because it was too many stairs with the small kids and strollers. We saw just about everything we wanted to though, but the kids were not as excited to see hot pools and geisers as I thought they would be. It was much hotter than I remember yellowstone being since it was 89 degrees and the afternoon thundershowers were a welcome relief. Kate had like 15 mosquito bites at one time. It was also windy and bright which made their eyes water and then they would get sunscreen in their eyes. Beck had quite a few melt downs and we teased that the Beck geiser was about to go off again. Eli has a pretty funny video maybe I can figure out a way to post. it.

On the way home we drove through Teton National Park and Jackson Hole. We planned to do some activities there as well but we were too worn out and didn't have enough time. We will have to plan a trip sometime just to visit Jackson. We did get to visit my brother-in-law Hyrum who was working at Camp New Fork. Eli was really excited because he worked there too as a teenager.

I hadn't been to Yellowstone in 17 years and so I was glad we could fit in a family vacation this summer.

Happy Easter

Well this year was the coldest easter I think I have had since I have had kids. We had to have an indoor easter egg hunt since we had too much snow still left from the last storm. It was weird since Easter was in April this year and it was colder than it had been in March. It seems like mother nature got the months mixed up. We woke up yesterday to another 4 or more inches.

Here is a picture of the kids anticipating Easter back in March before all the snow, This chalk drawing showed up on our driveway and the kids were convinced that the Easter bunny had stopped by to draw a picture of himself. They came up with that one all on their own.












Here is Kate's version of the Easter bunny.






Here is Beck's Easter Bunny.





We decided to make some Easter treats cookies and rice crispys. Kate said decorating the cookies was funner than Disneyland. Kids are easy to please.












we even tried some chocolate covered ones.

Here are Kate and Beck with their favorite eggs. They had a lot of fun with the monster eggs and now they want to use the left overs to decorate pumpkins in the fall.












It was a nice Easter and the kids didn't seem to mind the indoor egg hunt. We had a nice family home evening about the true meaning of Easter and it is amazing how much they pick up and remember at such a young age. We also have been reading 3 Nephi in the book of mormon. Kate asked me if people will still celebrate birthdays after they die and are resurrected? It is funny how kids interpret everything according to how it impacts them.

Birthday Bonanza

Since I posted last I have celebrated all three of my kids birthdays. Kate tuned five, Beck is now three and Kiera is one. It was stressful planning and baking for three birthdays plus Valentines and Easter, but it is kind of nice to be done for awhile.

Here are some pictures from Kate's Princess and frog birthday party.






This game was a hit. The girls played it like three times. They also played a princess/frog version of duck duck goose which has been Kate's favorite game lately.


I saw the idea for these cute blow out on the family fun website.


Beck had a race track cake for one of the family parties. It was also from the family fun website.



Here is one of Beck's birthday presents. He loves to dress up.



For another family party I did a volcano with toy dinosaurs surrounding it. It didn't look as nice, but it still tasted good.

I just have to include this picture. I just think it is cute. He is getting to be a big boy and already thinks he knows better than mom. I have to pick my battles and naps is not one I have picked to fight since his body will take it when he needs it.





Kiera wouldn't eat her cake, but she loved to squish it between her fingers.



She did however, enjoy the cake she was given at her siblings family birthday party. I think the fact that it was chocolate made all the difference. She may look like dad, but when it comes to chocolate she takes after mom.