it's autumn time and much more!

the first month of school, mason was named student of the month for his class. he got to bring home this sign to put in the front yard for the month.  we are so proud of this kid!! he is doing great in school! we found out that his teacher specialized in gifted and talented education and helped put together a grant to establish a gifted and talented program in all the schools in the district and i know she does her best to keep mason busy at his level! mason has worked with the gifted and talented teacher several times and i believe they just started testing for that area last week....fingers crossed we can benefit from it! i volunteer in his class once a week and usually work on reading or alphabet skills with the kids. i LOVE going!! it makes me realize just how much i miss working in an elementary school! i hope to get back there someday when our kids are older :)   

 

 

 this is mason's school picture. that's my cute boy!

 

the past 3 years we have lived in texas, curtis' family has been able to join us for thanksgiving. unfortunately that wasn't a possibility this year but curtis' younger brother and his mom were able to come down the first week of november and we celebrated an early thanksgiving.  curtis' mom was here for about a week and a half and we had lots of fun with grandma here for halloween...she got to be involved with all the activities of pumpkin decorating, trick or treating and trunk or treating at our ward's fall festival.  she also got to go with us to mason's kindergarten costume parade which was so much fun! they played halloween music over the loud speakers through the school and the kindergarteners paraded through the halls as the older grades lined the hallways to watch them. grandma also ate lunch with mason at his school one day and spent lots of time spoiling the kids...that's what grandmas do best!! curtis and i were also able to get away for a night while grandma stayed with the kiddos which was a lot of fun and much needed!

this picture is all 4 of the kindergarten classes together...the teachers were dressed up as minions

 

this is mason's class....he is the skeleton on the bottom right next to superman

 

 

 

while curtis' family was here, we found out that my mom and cousin would also be headed our way.   it is rare to have visitors from one side of the family let alone visitors from both sides of the family and at the same time!! my cousin served in the dallas mission (although he never got to go this far south for us to see him) and was planning on moving down here after he got home. things changed at the last minute and he decided to stay in utah but he needed to come pick up some things so my mom came along for the ride...who can resist a trip to visit grandkids?

 we decided to celebrate brooklyn's birthday a few days early while we had everyone here. its hard to believe that my mom was able to be here exactly one year after she was here for little b's arrival. 

what a year it has been. shortly after b was born we found out that her thyroid levels came back abnormal in her newborn screening tests done at the hospital resulting in what could be congenital hypothyroidism. this is about when my heart dropped into my stomach and the anxiety hit. our doctor explained to us that the newborn tests were created to show any sign, how minimal it may be, and that brooklyn's abnormality was barely above what is considered normal range. we had to take her in for several more blood tests and keep an eye on her. after two or three tests and several weeks of worry, b's tests started coming back normal and the doctor told us we were in the clear. with that out of the way we just had to deal with the norms of baby...no sleep, lots a crying and working on feeding and coordinating schedules.  i feel like 3 kids was such a huge adjustment and much, much harder than i expected.  we definitely had a lot of difficult days but somehow we survived!!  let me just say: girls are hard.  both of ours have given us a run for our money.  i am absolutely dreading the teenage years....two strong willed, independent girls who are 2 1/2 years apart? yikes. somebody save me.  b is already perfecting the tantrum throwing.  she lays on the floor and flops about, kicks and screams.  she will also let you know if you are making her mad, either yelling at you or swatting you away. she started walking at 10 months. the earliest of my kids. she never stops moving. seriously. never. she climbs everything and when she gets to the top, throws her hands in the air and starts jumping up and down as some kind of victory dance.  we have a child sized table with chairs--she has conquered that. sophie's toddler bed--that's her favorite. she has already tried scaling a dresser and when she failed at that she learned how to open the drawers and pull the clothes out. i am constantly walking into bedrooms and finding clean clothes strewn about. she is a major girly girl which i love because sophie is much more tom boy. b LOVES shoes...loves them. she finds stashes of them in their closet then brings them to me so i can put them on her. she loves baby dolls and pushing them in the doll stroller. she can put necklaces on by herself and will strut around the house with them. she is so loving and sweet. i am really going to miss the cuddles and hugs she gives me. she is crazy about her siblings. they love playing together although sophie can get a little rough sometimes. maybe the reason she can't sit still is because she is determined to keep up with the older two. her hair is a pretty honey color....lighter than mason's but not as blonde as sophie's. seriously this girl has captured the hearts of everyone in our family. 

 

present time! of course she had plenty of help!

the whole time grandma steph was here, b had her wallet. this present was an effort to get grandma's back to her. i think it has worked well so far. she loves packing this thing around with a little fake money inside of it. 

the light doesn't really make this a great picture but i LOVE the look on brooklyn's face!

 

this is b's smash cake. i made it the night before we celebrated...took a picture then put a plastic bowl over the top of it. sophie climbed up on the counter a few hours later and says "whats this?" as she flips the bowl upside down. i cried.

 

that smash cake i had cried about? turned out to not be a hit anyway. b wouldn't touch it. she just cried. she never even took one bite. 

 

we loved seeing everyone! thanks for coming to visit!

 

we played dress up and took some photos :)

 

happy birthday beautiful!

 

i am so thankful for my life. i have an amazing husband...amazing. i love my kids. they really know how to push my buttons but they also make me so happy my heart could burst! i am so grateful for our wonderful family and for everything they do. we hope you all have a wonderful holiday season. even though we are unable to be with you, you are in our hearts!

soccer, school and baby steps

mason started taking piano lessons in august and it has been awesome!! i think he really surprised his teacher! she is impressed with how well he is doing and how fast he learns.  he is already just about to finish up his first level of books and start on the next and he has only been doing lessons once a week for about a month. call me crazy for paying someone to do something that i could do myself but mason and i are too much alike.  we butt heads when i try to help him practice let along me trying to teach him.  i'm super glad i found something to occupy his time that he loves and is excellent at and he has a really great teacher too :)

mason also started kindergarten the last week of august!!! any of you who know him know that he was beyond ready for this day! he has been doing great and made a lot of new friends.  he enjoys riding the bus home with is friends and sophie and brooklyn love meeting him down the street at the bus stop.  in the spring the school district rearranged their boundaries so our neighborhood got put into a school just a few blocks away instead of driving several miles like in previous years.  i was so happy about that especially after hearing all the good things i do about our new school.  so far we really like everything and i cant wait to see how the rest of the year unfolds!

 

 

 

mason's teacher sent us this picture in an email after the first day of school.  cutest thing ever!

 

after school had been in for several weeks they had an open house.  this is mason standing next to "himself" at his table. he showed us his journals and we loved them! he is so funny and creative and of course super smart! i have no idea what his pose is about though....

 

yet another thing we started was soccer.  i was really hesitant about this one for several reasons: 1. curtis works every saturday which means i get to drag all 3 kids to 2 soccer games by myself every single week (but he is home in time to help with practices during the week thank goodness!) 2. mason played soccer several years ago....he was the one out there chasing butterflies and cloud watching (not really but you get the idea).  we took a year off and he really wanted to try again. he is doing better but still doesn't focus on the ball.  he just has fun running around with everyone.  he played goalie his first game and did really good, making several good stops.  the second game he tried goalie didnt turn out so well.   good try buddy. sophie also wanted to play.  i have seen her with a ball and she is a lot more coordinated than mason and much more aggressive so i thought she would do awesome!  i was wrong. she  runs every direction except toward the ball and would much rather play with a dirt pile.  she has done some really good plays though and i think she will have it down in a few years.

 

sophie's team is the tigers

 

mason's team is the elemenators

as for little b, she is getting big too! she is 10 months old, just started taking steps and just had her 4th tooth break through today.  she never sits still. never. ever. its exhausting. she is always getting into trouble. she loves unplugging things (like night-lights), dumping the dvd tower over, pulling the books off the shelf, emptying out dresser drawers and pulling lids off dry erase markers that the kids leave out on our art easel.  she is super sweet, absolutely loves her siblings and get so frustrated when she cant keep up with them.  her favorite games are peek a boo and hide and seek.

 

 

mason just lost his 3rd tooth and he has a 4th one loose on the bottom!! i asked him what he would eat without any teeth and he said "ice cream!". :) i swear he looses a tooth and brooklyn gains it!

 

 

here are a few pictures from our latest zoo outing. we saw so many animals that we usually dont even see because they hide out. the sky was overcast. the temperature was in the upper 70's. there weren't very many people there. it was the perfect day for the zoo!

 



 

i think i covered it all for now! hopefully our lives will slow down a little after soccer season :)

tooth fairy time

mason was barely 4 months old when he got his first tooth.  we had taken him in for his well check and the doctor told us that was unusual but possible and was quite surprised when she opened his mouth and saw this....

 

5 years later, that very first tooth is now gone.  i'm a little sad that my boy is getting so big. 

 

so on to the story....

one afternoon last week we were having a fresh peach for a snack.  i had gone to help sophie in the bathroom and when i came back out mason ran up to me and showed me that his tooth was barely hanging on.  i couldn't believe it! i didn't even know any of his teeth were loose.  i told him to keep moving it so it would fall out soon. about 4 hours later after dinner, mason was eating a little chocolate treat.  i had gone into the bathroom with loaf again and as i was going back to the living room mason runs up to me with his tooth in his hand!! say what?! in 4 hours time he had gone from a perfectly normal smile to missing one of his pearly whites.  it was crazy but he was SO excited!! i tried to post the video of him right after he ate the peach but for some reason it had troubles uploading.  so that night he put his tooth into an envelope and stuck it under his pillow.  the next day he was just as excited to find a letter from the tooth fairy, some stickers and a couple of dollars in exchange for that his tooth. the tooth fairy was nice enough to let me keep his tooth to put in a journal i keep for each of my kids just as a little memory :)

love his bed-head in this picture!

 

 in other news, this little cutie is just about 8 months old.  man, has it been a tough 8 months.  b has always been pretty fussy and not a great sleeper...at all...but she is getting better. she army crawls to get where she wants and is starting to get into trouble.  the other day a few dvd's were scattered by the tv.  i thought the kids had been going through them and forgot to put them back. the next day i caught this little culprit red handed.  she hasn't pulled herself upright yet but she can get about half her body off the floor when she tries.  she still doesn't have any teeth which is a huge shocker!! she loves to squeal and play with mason and sophie and she loves bath time.  i think she looks a lot like mason did as a baby but her eyes are blue like sophies :)

 

 remember that beautiful dark hair she was born with? yeah its gone. i'm so sad about that.  i love, love, loved that hair. now its just about the same color as mine. 

here is a comparison....

 

 so sweet :)

 

 i just threw this picture in to prove to my kids that at one point in thier lives they loved each other enough to hold hands at breakfast :)