Kellie's Wedding

I didn't necessarily want to blog both Olyvia's birthday and Kellie's wedding on the same blog so I figured I would just do two seperate blogs. Savannah took some really cute pictures at the reception that I really wanted to share.

Okay so I took this one outside of the temple. Here is the family after the wedding.
The rest of these pictures are the one's Savannah took. She did a great job with the pictures.


I thought this was a great picture of Britney. I have several others that are similar. Let me know if you want them Michele.

Here is the beautiful bride
and the handsome? groom!

This is how Scott looked after Kellie fed him the cake. He then proceeded to chase after Kellie and give her a great big kiss so Kellie could share the cake and frosting.

I'm not exactly sure what it is Randall is doing here. Again one of the many Savannah took of her cousins.

It was a great wedding and we had lots of fun, although it was a crazy weekend! Welcome to the family Scott!

Olyvia's Birthday

Olyvia had a "Princess Tea Party" for her 5th birthday. Her birthday was on the 20th which was a Sunday so we had her party on the 19th. We had a lot of fun- there were 8 girls there counting Olyvia and Juliana. My parents even came and brought Olyvia's cousin Natalya from Pocatello. We decorated these princess crowns, made necklaces and tried to turn a frog into a prince. I realized after the party was over that I did not take a single picture of the party-OOPS! Jake was at work and I was trying to run the show, so that is my excuse. This picture is from after the party. Natalya's birthday is the day after Olyvia's so she is opening her presents from my girls.

On Sunday we had the family over for cake and ice cream- that's my excuse for not blogging last week! This is Olyvia's princess cake. It looked a lot better in my head than it actually turned out. Olyvia was just excited to get the crown.

Olyvia loved her presents. Here are a few pictures of her opening her gifts.

A High School Musical shirt from Christena. My girls can hardly wait for the third movie to come out!
Olyvia asked me for a singing Sharpey doll. When I asked her what else she wanted if I couldn't get her that She told me a night light and a radio for her room. She was very excited to get her new lamp.
Olyvia also got some new clothes from Grandma and Grandpa Smith and Tonja and her kids. Savannah gave her a bubble set and Juliana gave her a new piggy bank because she broke Olyvia's. It was overall a good birthday.

No Time for Anything!

I have been meaning to blog for the past couple of weeks now, but never seem to have more than a couple minutes at a time to sit down. I should be working on my sewing right now, but can't seem to motivate myself to actually sit down and get it done.
Our house has been crazy lately. My time seems to be spent in the car more than at home lately. After I get my girls to school in the morning I have about an hour and a half until its time for me to go to my job at the elementary school. After I get home from the school I usually only have an hour until I have to pick kids up again. The girls started swimming lessons last week and so every Tuesday and Thursday afternoons we go to the pool. Luckily all their lessons are at the same time, but we don't get home until dinner time. By the time we finish with dinner and get the kitchen cleaned up it seems like it is already time for bed. Added into the normal everyday stuff we have achievement days every other week for Christena and parent teacher conferences this week. I'm hoping things will get less hectic when school gets out. One of the kids at the school was celebrating the fact we only have 2 more months-time sure flies when you are having- Fun?

Anyway we are finally almost healthy here now-We hope! The end of March Savannah ended up with an ear infection on top of her cough and cold. We passed the cough and cold around to all of us, but a few days after Easter- after her fever had finally broke, Juliana started complaining that her ear hurt. A quick trip to the doctor revealed a double ear infection and pnuemonia! She is finally feeling better! Jake gave her a blessing that she would be able to return to her energetic self. Kellie and Jake's mom just said, "Are you sure?" But I really am- even with all the energy she has and all the trouble she gets into I hated seeing her sick.

The Basketball theme of our blog is in honor to the NCAA tournament-which is now over, and the upcoming NBA finals. Jake complains if I make the blog to "girly".

A word on the NCAA- My bracket finally passed up Jake's on the final four-That's all I really hope for when I pick my bracket- unfortunately the two teams I picked for the finals lost- but then again, so did Jake's!

Hopefully next time I'll have a little more time so I can post some pictures! I'll try to make it a little sooner,

Happy be-lated Easter

Sunday was a little busy, so I'm a day later than I originally planned to blog, so I hope everyone had a great Easter!

We did the normal Easter things-

Friday we dyed eggs-
Here is Savannah's favorite, she worked really hard to get it this color- back and forth between several different colors.

Juliana also had lots of fun coloring her eggs. After she finished the 8 eggs she was supposed to color she did the extra 3 eggs and then when she finished those she just re-dyed them again, and again, and again. They were all very interesting colors.

Saturday we went to an Easter egg hunt at Wheeler Farm- it really was more of a run and grab of the Easter candy that was on the ground.

They had the kids separated into three groups and Juliana and Olyvia were in one group and Christena and Savannah in the other. Jake had to work so I got to take the girls by myself.

Olyvia was a little upset when we were done because there was a gold egg she really wanted to get, but she got beat out for it. After it was gone she just stood around and cried until everything else was gone- the only candy she got was what I put in her basket. Juliana wasn't sure what to make of the whole thing and kind of just stood there until I helped her get some candy- she eventually figured it out, by the time the candy was pretty much gone. Christena and Savannah made up for the little bit of candy Olyvia and Juliana got- Their buckets were about half full. That on top of what the easter bunny brought was plenty of candy!


Here are my beautiful girls in their Easter dresses-they also get to double as their dresses for Kellie and Scott's wedding. This was after dinner so Juliana's hair is a mess, she also was sick all day with a fever, so she wasn't quite her normal self.

I hope you all had a great Easter weekend too,
Ours was pretty normal but we had fun!

Too Smart for Their Own Good

I've been meaning to update my blog all week but never seemed to be able to find the time- I figure it is a good Sunday activity, since that is the only day of the week I don't feel like I have 20 million other things to do and no time to sit down at the computer.

I wanted to share a couple of funny stories about my kids- they are growing up way to fast!

Last Sunday we went to Tonja's house to play games with her family and Scott and Kellie. Tonja made popcorn to eat while we were playing, and of course my ever inquisitive Juliana had to be right there with her to see exactly what was going on.

After the bowl of popcorn was finished Juliana decided she wanted more and since no one else was going to make it for her she decided to make it herself.

She dragged a chair into the kitchen and looked expectantly at the popcorn popper with the bowl under it waiting for something to happen, when nothing did she realized she had to do something so she opened the container of popcorn, moved the bag that was in it and tried to scoop up the
popcorn kernals to put them in the popper. That is the point where I intervened.
I don't know how she got so smart!


Then on Thursday, Jake was home for his day off from work, so I figured I would take advantage of the opportunity to go grocery shopping by myself!- It doesn't happen very often.
Jake was sitting back in his recliner listening to the BYU basketball game on the radio (We don't have cable so the poor guy has to listen to the games, and doesn't get to see them). After a strenuous week at work (He hasn't had to do physical labor in a long time!) he feel asleep in his chair while Juliana and Olyvia were playing. I came home with the house not quite as clean as it was when I left. He didn't tell us the whole story until dinner that night. When he woke up he found his shoe laces tied together, with his feet crossed. Every time he tried to uncross his feet it just pulled the laces tighter. He said he had to get a fork to get the knots out.
Olyvia is alway's tying knots in things. It seems almost daily we find the barbie's hanging from her bed with whatever she has found to tie them up with, (around their waists, not by the neck-she's not trying to hang them!) She likes to pretend that they get trapped and have to be saved.

Some good has come from her fascination with knots, however, The other day she did manage to tie her shoe. Only one of them and she hasn't been able to repeat the feat, but hopefully if we can practice with her before kindergarten this fall she will have it down!

The rest of us are all doing okay- we are passing around a cold and cough and poor Savannah is on medicine for an ear infection- only the second in her life! but for the most part we are good. Ready for the warm weather and spring break!

a crazy weekend

This weekend has been a crazy one. Friday, Tonja and Joshlyn (Jake's sister and her daughter) came over to my house so we could make the invitations for Kellie's (Jake's other sister) bridal shower. It took us a while (and a trip to Michaels) to finally decide what we wanted to do for the invites.

This is what Jake found when he got home from work at 10:15 that night!

It was a mess but we had a lot of fun!

After 3 hours of hard work, our creative juices were gone but this is what we accomplished!



















Saturday was Savannah's 7th birthday. I was excited when she said she wanted a green M&M cake. I figured it would be an easy one to make- until she informed me she wanted arms and legs, complete with gloves and boots.

This is the finished product. I think it turned out pretty good!

Christena said it looked like a buff M&M, but we decided it was just a little chunky- it is made out of chocolate after all!










Most of Jake's family came over for cake and ice cream, which was nice since I ended up making 2 cake mixes, so I could have the cupcakes too. It was a houseful, but never a dull moment.

Here is Savannah opening her presents!

This is the purse she got from Christena.
Christena originally bought Savannah a new shirt, but Olyvia told Savannah what Christena was going to give her so we had to get something else for Christena to give and Juliana got to give Savannah the shirt instead.










Juliana got a little impatient with Savannah and deciced she would rather open the presents herself.
She climbed up on the chair with Savannah's present and tried to open it herself. Jake had to rescue the present!

It's not real easy to explain to a 2 year old that it isn't her birthday!

Its Valentine's Day !

Well, almost anyway! I took over the blogging responsibilities from Jake so we would post more often, but I don't think I've done a very good job. Olyvia was sick today so I took the day off from work to stay home with her and thought it might be a good day to give an update on our family! I kinda feel like a slacker because I have a lot I wanted to get done and catch up on, but instead I caught up on reading everyone's blog- It's great to see and read how everyone is doing!

Our big news for the week is that Monday Jake started a new job! Yeah! we were so excited when we found out last week he got this job. He is working for the West Jordan DI as a job trainer/coach. He gets to train associates with some usuable job skills. It is a big pay raise, and so far he is really enjoying it. The best part is we get a 15% discount at the DI- so if anyone needs anything let us know! j/k

Anyway, it's been a pretty good week-busy, but that's how you stay out of trouble, right?
I thought I would post a few pictures as well, hope you enjoy them!



This picture is from my brother Derek's wedding in December- it would have made a great picture for our Christmas card-which we never sent, but Doreen just barely e-mailed it to me.


Christena had to make a valentines box for school, and didn't want to just decorate a shoe box so Sunday we got creative and made this heart shaped box. After we made the box we put paper mache on it- Olyvia and Savannah also helped- believe me we were a mess! I wanted to take pictures but didn't dare touch my camera.

Since she was doing paper mache, Christena also decided she wanted to make it look like a pinata- so we used tissue paper to decorate it.

Saturday I decided it might be fun to decorate cookies for valentines day so we made the dough on Saturday, baked the cookies on Sunday and then decorated them on Monday night for family home evening- the kids had a lot of fun- unfortunately we ran out of frosting before we ran out of cookies, although we ran out of room in the container so maybe it was a good thing we ran out of frosting.

The kids went a little over board with the decorations!

This is the "double decker" Savannah decorated! She gave it to her teacher Tuesday at school.