Lily

Her reading has sky rocketed to a new level! It seems almost overnight that she can just read. She isn't afraid to try out "big" words, and almost always gets them right. I am so proud of her. She gave a talk in primary this past Sunday and I thought she was going to need help reading from the scriptures, especially the words like "righteously", "inherit", and "believeth" but she didn't at all, and read everything completely by herself! She loves to read to her sisters, and with me everyday. I am glad she loves to read.

Ring Around The Rosie

This was taken with the iphone and so you can't really see it very well, but Olivia keeps on trying to stand still and say "cheese" the whole time they are playing.

Isabelle The Missionary....part 2

Last week, out of the blue, Izzy told Ben and I that she wanted to give one of her friends a Book of Mormon, and asked if she could ask the missionaries for one to give. We said sure, and so she got one on Sunday to give to her friend. She was so excited to give it, she wrapped it up in pink computer paper, and wrote a nice note on the front. Before she left for the bus this morning, she said our family prayer. She prayed that her friend would like the Book of Mormom. When I picked her up from the bus after school, she was so excited to tell me about giving the B of M to her friend, and that her friend said it was the best gift ever. She said 2 of her other friends want one too, and asked if she could get more for them.

This month's Friend has a little certificate you can sign your name on, saying that you will prepare now to serve a mission. Isabelle was so excited to sign it and do the things it asks. She says she wants to go on a mission one day.

Paper-Thin

Today Olivia was sitting at the table colouring with the older three girls, only instead of colouring on paper, she was colouring right onto her hand, as she often does. I stopped her and said to the other girls, "She thinks her hand is paper!" Chloe replied, "That's because she's skinny. And I am skinny too."

On a slightly different topic, I have been noticing more and more that Olivia holds writing utensils in her left hand. When she puts them down and picks them up to draw/colour/scribble, she always puts them in her left hand, and she holds them perfectly for writing. Izzy is left handed too. What are the chances of having two left handed children?

First Day Of Nursery

Today was her first real day of nursery. I have been taking her in for the last several weeks just to prep her. She loves it! She is our first child to go to nursery without a sibling in there too for a couple of months, so we weren't sure how she would like it. When sacrament was over she was so excited to go in. Church is now right at her usual naptime and so she gets very tired and a little grumpy, but she still loves nursery. We'll see how long that lasts!

4 Things We Love About Our 4 Year Old

Chloe is 4! We can hardly believe it! Here are 4 things we love about our 4 year old:

1. Her HUGE smile! Not only does it show that she is happy, it makes everyone around her happy too.

2. The cute things she says on a daily basis. For example, this morning after I wished her a happy birthday and told her I couldn't believe she was now 4, she said to me, "I need bigger underwear now!" Also, we love how she always calls Ben's crutches, "crunchers." She just comes up with the most adorable things.

3. Her desire to always help. She begged and begged to help me clean the bathrooms and help me do the laundry last week, and so I let her. She boasted about it for days afterwards and is always asking when we can do it again.

4. How excited she is to learn. She loves learning her letters, learning to print, learning a little reading, going to primary, looking for and highlighting scriptures. She is a little sponge who soaks it all up!

We started a little tradition in our home that the birthday girl gets to wake up to a balloon on their birthday. We got Chloe a purple heart balloon and tied it to a pink googly eyed monkey stuffie that she really wanted. She was so happy when she woke up to her surprise!






Olivia loved her surprise too...

Me with the birthday girl...

Here she is with 4 candles from the leftover of her birthday cake from over the weekend:

Blowing them out...

Happy Birthday Chloe! We all love you!

Here is Olivia having fun with the baker hat from Chloe's party. Olivia napped through the whole party practically, so she got to have her fun with it after:

The Cupcake Party

We had Chloe's birthday party over the weekend. She wanted a "cupcake" theme party this year. So we made paper baker hats, decorated cupcakes, made candy necklaces, and played pin-the-candle-on-the-cupcake. She loved it and was so happy all day!

I found this applique of a sparkly cupcake to iron on to one of her old shirts. She loved it and was so excited to wear it the day of the party!




Here she is infront of her cake--a cupcake cake! I saw this on the side of the Betty Crocker cake mix box and thought it would be perfect for her cupcake party. It was so easy to make too.

Here everyone is making and decorating their baker hats:

The whole crew:

Now the fun part, decorating the cupcakes!

Playing Pin-the-candle-on-the-cupcake:

Cake time! I love the look of Chloe's face here. She is so excited to blow out her candles:

Present time! Chloe loved all of her gifts from her friends. Here they all are with the gift we gave her, an easel with a chalkboard, white board, and a paper roll all in one. She loved it!

Here are the invitations we sent out to her friends. I saw the idea on a Williams-Sonoma website, but I didn't want to pay and wait to order them online, so I thought I'll just make them! The little cupcake invite slips inside a little envelope that looks like a cupcake baking cup. They were super easy to make and everyone loved them!

Chloe even had fun making thank you cards for all of her friends. I took a picture of each of the guests with Chloe, and printed it onto the card.

It was a fun party and day all in all. I can't believe Chloe is already 4! Happy Birthday Chloe!!!!