2 YEARS OLD!

Where Oh Where has the time gone. 

Can't believe our darling baby girl is really 2 years old. 

It's no secret that Birthdays are a big deal to me. 

I LOVE going all out and celebrating our loved ones on their special day. 

Unfortunately this year I ended up in the hospital and we did not get to celebrate on her actual birthday.  I was really feeling like a cruddy mom and struggling with all that when sweet Ryan reminded me that she is only two and won't even know that we didn't celebrate til a few days later.  He sure is good for me.  Anyway, it took a week but we finally got down to celebrating. 

 

It was adorable.  Big sis was right there helping with any and all unwrapping needs.  Bree would tear a little piece of the wrapping off, hand it to Bec and then say "dank ooou" to her as she handed her the paper.  We all got a kick out of it. 

 Bree is obsessed to anything and every thing Frozen so her cake was a no-brainer.  I printed some little pictures from the movie off of the computer and used my circle punch to cut them out.  I punch cardstock for the back.  Put a toothpick in between the two papers and had simple little cake toppers.  Bree was smitten and just stared at her cake with the biggest grin on her face.  It was truly magical to watch. 

I grabbed a picture of her from last year on her birthday and one from this year.  (remember I was sick, hence her hair was not done nor were her hearing aides in yet for the second picture).  It cracks me up that our teeny tiny peanut can wear the same 12 mo size outfit two years in a row.  She really is just an itty bitty little sweetheart. 

 I had her two year old pictures done.  I even put together two little cards to send out to share her cuteness with all of our loved ones.  Of course they are still sitting here on my desk waiting to be mailed but oh well, I had the best of intentions. 

I sure do adore this little girl. 

She has truly melted the hearts of all of us. 

She has taught me so much with her sweet happy countenance. 

She has endured much but always insists on cheering up those around her. 

She has her own cute little chatter and wants so badly to speak, you can just tell as she rattles off nonsense.  She can say Mom, Dad, Debbie, all of the kids names, hi, bye-bye, eh i go (Let it go, from the song) ink (drink) eat, mere (come here) tank ooou, yep, no, peeeze, baby, yum, oh wow, hello (as she talks into the phone).  She loves to sing and is always found cuddling and taking care of her babies.  She is a very sweet little girl and adds so much happiness into our home. 

Love you sweet baby girl! 

Fathers Day!

We had so much fun getting ready for Fathers Day this year.  

I just love getting the kids involved and having them make it their own.  

I found these cute mini tool box kits at the thrift store a couple weeks ago and thought they would be the perfect gift for my girls and the day care kids to make.  

   I went online and printed some tools and cut them out.

Then I had the littlest of the kids color them.  I asked the kids questions about their dad and wrote the answers on each tool.

 The older kids painted the tool boxes

 and put them together.  (love her concentration and tongue sticking out)

 After the tool boxes were put together we taped each tool to a mini candy bar or bag of candy.

 The kids added some crinkly paper to the bottom and filled them up.  I love how cute and tiny the boxes were.

Next we made a hand print card that said "Hands Down" on the cover

and inside it said...best dad ever.  

My kids also did one for Grandpa.  :) 

 My Dad is without a doubt the most fun person to play board games with.  We especially like to play dominoes with him.  I found a nice set of domino trays and thought he could totally use them.  We decided they would be much more exciting if they had a more personal touch to them.  Our little artist got to work and designed a cute little pattern.

I love watching her use her creativity.  She had me write down a list of all the boy cousins and all the girl cousins.  Then she drew their faces on each tray.  They boys were black and the girls are pink.  

On the front of each tray she wrote a cute and very true sentence about my dad.  I especially like the "you are nober 1#" (with the # sign after it) and the "you are funny! Donald duck quack quack".  My dad always talks to the kids in a funny donald duck voice.  My kids have always LOVED it!!!! 

Nobody knows for sure when this happened but a few days after we had the markers out Ky found Bree in the curtains.  He went to get her out and found this.  bwahahahha....There were no makers to be found though, so who knows how long ago she did it.  :)  

On fathers day we wrapped all of the gifts and instead of having them in a pile like we typically do we decided to send dad on a scavenger hunt for his gifts.

After he found them all he brought them back to the living room and opened them.  

I wrapped this one like his work uniform.  It was filled with his favorite cookies to take to work with him.

Bree Loved being right in the middle of it all.

My favorite clue was the one that said "you're so handsome even without all your hairs, go and look beneath the stairs" hahaha

 I'm so grateful for all of the amazing fathers in our lives.

I'm especially grateful for the amazing husband and father that Ry is to us.

He is such a kind, caring, patient, funny man.  We simply love and adore him!

Summer Break

 Summer is out and I'm so excited.  I started planning our routine and activities weeks before school was out.  I love structure and think it is so important for the kids to stay physically active, have fun and use their brain power every single day.  Before school was out I did my "homework" and went in to the school to find out exactly what my little soon two be 2nd grader should focus on this summer, as well as the big kids.  The teacher I talked to was awesome and gave me some great ideas.  The Jr. High was not quite as cooperative, but I did get some ideas.  After some major brainstorming I got to work.  

  My cute little princess was over the moon excited to help me make our chart.  

The left side is our Calendar of upcoming events, vacations and appointments.  Below that is our laundry schedule.  We don't pay our kids an allowance, but wanted to come up with extra jobs for them to be able to earn, budget and tithe their own money.  Plus the boys had to pay their own way to scout camp.  We also want them to have some spending cash for our vacations.  So they get 1 dollar to put their own clothes in the wash, 1 for the dryer and 1 for putting them away and returning their clothes basket.  They also do one other load along with their own clothes, like towels, jeans or baby clothes.  So they have a potential of earning $6.00/week with laundry.

Below the laundry is our kitchen helper schedule.  Every day each child helps with either lunch, (healthy) snack or dinner.  This has been a great way to teach them a new skill, and have some silly one on one time.  The kids have all really enjoyed this and love to check and see what they are helping with.  I think this is one of my favorite new things we have started.  Here are a few of our snacks.  I also watch some daycare kids so its fun for the older kids to make a cutesy snack for the little kids.

Grape and pretzel tree

 Sailboat grilled cheese sandwhich on water with sunshine

 Grapes and apples cars.

It was really important to me to be able to keep this flexible.  I am such a list maker and organizer and I knew for my sanity I had to keep it simple or I would feel like a failure for not getting everything in that I wanted, as well as overloading the kids.  This is their summer break after all. This picture of our daily schedule was taken back on our first day of summer and I've tweeked it a little.  The hot zone envelope has different "heavy duty" type jobs that we will pay the kids for. Clean out the garage, purge out old clothes and organize closets, etc...All money jobs get tallied on a card that goes in the envelope with their name on it.  They get paid once every two weeks which I love.  It helps them realize if they are hasty with their money or don't plan ahead they will come up short before the next payday.  What a great thing to learn so young huh?!

The daily stuff changes, but every day they have to do chores, family and personal scriptures, and some educational type thing.  We also have an "Adventure" each day.  Now these are simple and being on the tight budget that we are on often require little to no money.  The schedule envelope has strips of paper with different things for us to do so I can switch it up and keep it specific to what ever we have going on that day.  Here are some of the Adventures we've done so far.

Jump on tramp with sprinklers underneath

An early morning at the park (before it gets too hot) 

A trip to QT for slushies  

 We gathered some friends and went to the firestation

built a fort to eat, read and play in.  

Carousel ride at the mall

 A really fun skate park.  The big kids were off doing trick while I stayed behind with little bug.

We bought the summer movie fun passes.

They are such an amazing deal and so much fun!!!

So those are some of the adventures we have done so far.  

I bought these cute little workout cards for a gift, but didn't end up needing them.  They have worked out great for our "Be active" part of the day.  I have the older kids be the "coach" and show and help the younger kids with the activities.  Its been fun to watch, and a great way for me to sneak in some exercise too.


The kids all have a goal card in their envelopes.  They have 4 goals they are working on for the summer.  My boys have scout requirements and ranks + 2 personal goals they wrote down, Becca will be Baptized in Feb and it's important to me that she truly understands it.  I've found activities stories and projects for her to work on to help her prepare for her special day.  She also has some gymnastic goals she wants to work on as well as memorizing the Articles of Faith.

The wheel is three layers.  Their names, the dish duty and the "zone" (room) they are in charge of.  We change the wheel once a week.  Saturday they deep clean the zone so if its the family room, they vacuum out the couch, move the couch and clean under it, dust, empty garbage's and clean any glass.  The the rest of the week they are in charge of keeping that room clean.  If someone leaves their belongings in a room, it goes in a belongings bucket with that persons name on it for them to put their stuff away.  That is the best way I have found for the kids to be able to do their zone but not have to constantly pick up after someone else.  They simply but it in the basket for that person to put away.  They can't do any technology or have free time unless their zone and bedroom is clean and their belongings bucket is empty and returned.
The thing I ended up changing was instead of having them read, write, do math, science and some type of art all in one day, I have focused one day each week to a "specialty" subject.  Reading is something they have to do everyday though as well as math flashcards.

This is our "fun box"  at the beginning of the week I pack in what ever activities and projects we are going to do and then I have them ready to go.  I have some math work books, flash cards as well as craft projects inside.  We have some science experiments and pen pal/letter writing supplies inside too.  

I sure love my babysitting job/kids.  I LOVE being a mom and I hope my kids grow up with the best childhood possible.  I sure do love them! 

***DISCLAIMER: I have had a lot of people ask about my summer chart so that is why I went into such depth with what I am doing.  Thought this would be the easiest way to answer questions and a good place to refer people.  I am in no way saying I am an expert and this is how it should be done, but it's what we are doing and so far so good.  Though I'm not a big fancy pants blogger, I love that people have asked where I've been and want to read what I have to offer here on my simple little blog.  Thanks for your support!