A Day in the Life of the Gifford Family

Penelope Grace

2014-01-10T18:38:00.001-08:00

Oh how I love my Penny.

Everyone in our house loves the new movie Frozen. We have seen it twice in the theater and of course bought the sound track. The girls all know the words by heart, but Penny is by far the sweetest thing when she is singing the songs or quoting the movie.

For example, the other morning she came into my room at 5:30 am. I told her it was too early to be awake and she said, "but Mom the sky's awake, so I'm awake." Penny, the sky isn't awake it's still dark. "Mom, can I look out the window." Sure penny, see it's still dark. "Oh mom, the sky isn't awake I'll go back to sleep."

How cute is that?

Funny Eliza

2013-04-21T19:41:00.001-07:00

Today Whitney asked Eliza what she was doing. Her response was pretty funny. She said, "eating chocolate." Whit asked her where se got it and she responded with, "the dog dropped it."

I was dying I thought that was the most clever thing ever, but Jaynie quickly informed me that it was a really old joke.
Gosh mom get with it!

Spring Art Show

2013-03-22T12:49:00.001-07:00

Eliza and Jaynie both had their art displayed this March. The event was held in an actual art museum so it was pretty cool. Eliza even got a gold sticker (not sure what that means, but not everyone got one so it must be good). My kids are just pretty much amazing.

Waiting

2013-03-22T12:35:00.001-07:00

My toes are done. The baby stuff is washed and put neatly away. The nursery is finished. The fridge and pantry are fully stocked. Little man can come any time. Why is it so hard to wait??

Happy Leprechaun Day

2013-03-22T12:28:00.001-07:00

Addie's Preschool St. Patrick's Day Parade.

Oh Boy

2013-03-22T10:34:00.001-07:00

I have the best friends in the world. They threw me and little man this awesome mustache themed shower. It was so cute. Everyone put on mustaches when they arrived and they had a photo booth so I will have a keepsake of all the guests. So many of my friends came. Whit and I were so overwhelmed with everyone's generosity. We are truly blessed.

My Baby is Getting Glasses

2013-03-17T17:59:00.001-07:00

Jaynie has been complaining for awhile that she can't see certain things so it was finally time to take her to the eye doctor. The doctor said she needs glasses. Whit asked how bad it was and I said we'll he said she wouldn't pass the driving test. Whits response was, "we don't need her to drive, if she can read a book she's fine" I reminded him that she needs to be able to read the board at school too. We are both having a hard time with her growing up so fast. The glasses don't help at all.

Here Fishy, Fishy

2013-03-17T17:51:00.001-07:00

Lillie took this cool picture of her fish. I have no idea how she captured it so perfectly, but I love it.

All County Chorus

2013-03-17T17:49:00.001-07:00

In January Jaynie auditioned for the 5th grade All County Chorus. Her music teacher choose her and three other 5th graders to represent Lewisville Elementary at the event. She was so excited and we were so proud of her. She practiced with the music teacher a few times a week and sang the songs constantly at home. Then on February 25th she spent the afternoon with kids from all over the county practicing. On the 26th she got to miss the whole day of school so she could practice and then that night they had a concert for parents. It was a great experience for her. She learned a lot about music and chorus and has great ambitions for singing.

Happy Valentines Day

2013-03-12T19:18:00.001-07:00

As a mom I am constantly looking for ways to make things more special or fun for my kids and thanks to Pinterest that has become so much easier.

Valentines Day was a Pinterest success. I even came up with a great new tradition without the help of Pinterest. I was quite proud of myself. At dinner we each decorated a card for ourselves and then passed them around the table and we wrote something that we loved about that person inside the card they decorated. I kept them with our love buckets so next year they can pull them out and be reminded of how much they are loved.

I also learned that homemade valentines for 4 kids need to be started much sooner than the week of. We made 88 valentines this year. Yikes!! Whits suggestion, "Just buy the dang things!" Maybe Pinterest is a blessing and a curse.

Basketball

2013-03-04T13:20:00.001-08:00

Lillie and Jaynie both played basketball again this year. They were in different age groups so they had to be on two different teams. That made the season pretty challenging as a family, but they both had fun and for the most part both whit and I were able to make it to their games. Addie and Eliza both said they want to play next year so that could be interesting.

Lillie was a defensive queen and by the end of the season was getting enough confidence to start shooting the ball.

Jaynie improved a lot over the season and was a pretty great hustler when she wanted to be.

100 days of school

2013-02-07T18:06:00.001-08:00

Eliza had a project to make something she could wear with 100 things on it. We got this fun idea from my cousin Amber Harmon. It's a 100 eyed monster. Eliza especially liked that the eyes made noise when she moved. I am sure her teacher did too.

Toothless Addie

2013-02-07T16:17:00.001-08:00

Addie lost her first tooth on February 4. The tooth fairy visited and she spent it the very next day on Oreos. Like father like daughter.

Whit turns 35-WHAT???

2013-02-07T10:05:00.001-08:00

How in the heck is Whit old enough to be turning 35? I'm just glad it's him and not me. These past few months Whit has had a few experiences reminding him of his age. The first was when the Madison football team won state. It was a big deal because it hasn't happened for 17 years. It just happens that Whit was on that team 17 years ago. Then at church Whit was talking to a guy about an experience we had with his family when we first moved here and the guy said, "oh ya they told me about that. It happened while I was on my mission." Whit was in shock and said, "I can't be that much older than you." The guy just looked at him and laughed, as if to say you're kidding right? You are ancient. Then last week we went out to dinner and we had this really young waitress that was quite interested in my pregnancy so she asked the one question I dread the most, but get the most. Is this your first baby? No, it's actually my 6th. This respose was followed by the same look of horror and disbelief that I get every time those words come out of my mouth. She then says that I don't look old enough to have six kids. She should have stopped there, but no she then turns to Whit and says I would believe you have 6 kids with all that gray hair. Poor guy. I think his gray hair looks really good on him.

Despite his trepidations about being one year older, we celebrated Super Bowl style. Whit has the great pleasure of having his birthday land on Super Bowl Sunday every once in a while. I got back that afternoon from my Time Out trip but the girls took really good care of him. Jaynie set her alarm at 6:30 and got all the girls up to make him breakfast in bed. They covered it in this Super Bowl bowl that I thought was so cute and creative. The best part is that I didn't even think of telling them to do this. They did it all on their own. I have such good kids. When I got home we went over to our friends, The Proano-Stevens, for a Super Bowl birthday bash. Marcia happens to share Whitney's birthdays so we had double the reason to celebrate. And speaking of old Marcia turned 40 this year!! All in all I think Whit had a great day.

Mommy Time Out

2013-02-07T09:02:00.001-08:00

Last year my mom and sisters and I started a new tradition of going to Time Out for Women. Time out is a conference full of inspirational music and speakers. This year the first date was in Layton, Utah the first week of February. I was 32 weeks pregnant, but we decided this would be the best time to go. I wanted to go without a baby, however, now that it is all said and done I think I would have felt better with a baby rather than being 32 weeks pregnant. Oh well. I was a little bit of a drag to have around but I still had a great time. I just hope I didn't ruin the trip for everyone else. Despite being extremely tired and suffering from super swollen feet every night it was a great trip. The conference was awesome. I left knowing I have lots to work on but knowing that I am a strong woman that can do anything I set my mind too. Including getting through this next 7 weeks of pregnancy. We did lots of shopping and ate way too much delicious food. Thanks Mom, Kim, Kylie, and Starla. I was so glad that my last hurrah was spent with you four.

Bowl-a-Rama

2013-01-23T05:00:00.001-08:00

I have been to the bowling alley twice in the last week. I am quite proud of myself. I normally avoid that place like the plague, but for the sake of the kids I put my judgements aside and took Addie bowling with her preschool friends. I was so pleasantly surprised at the cleanliness of the place and the lack of smoke filled air that I took the rest of the kids back a few days later for our MLK holiday.

A Big Girl Bed

2013-01-20T20:34:00.001-08:00

It's official Penny is no longer my baby. We moved her into a toddler bed in Addie's room. She has done awesome. We had one nap time where she kept getting out of bed so I put her in back in her crib and since then she has stayed in bed. It took her about an hour to fall asleep for todays nap but she stayed in her bed the whole time. Yeah!! Tonight she said to Eliza, "shoo, shoo, Liza out of my room." I guess she is there to stay.

Snow Day

2013-01-20T20:26:00.001-08:00

Here in NC we really get excited about the chance of snow. The weather was forecasting the chance of snow all week and we were getting pretty excited. By Thursday it said there was a 100% chance of 4-6 inches so of course the girls were excited. Around 7:00 pm it started, school was already cancelled, and the girls were expecting to wake up to a winter wonderland. However, as soon as they went to bed it stopped and our snowfall became a mere skiff. The girls didn't let that get them down though. They managed to have plenty of fun and get really dirty. They even got to warm up with hot chocolate and cinnamon roll cake. You can't ask for a better snow day than that.

Lillie's trip to the Fair

2012-10-22T19:59:00.001-07:00

Oh the Fair. I really don't enjoy the fair. It's stinky and dirty and you always come home feeling gross from all that greasy, but extremely tasty, food you inhaled. This year add being 14 weeks pregnant and sick and a really rainy day and you have a really bad combination.

However, I love my Lillie and her class was going on a field trip to the fair so of course I sucked it up and went and of course it was so much fun. We opted not to take the rest of the family this year because we had such a fun fair experience this summer at the Celebration with our cousins in Colorado. So that made this even more of a special treat for Lillie. It was fun to spoil her in grand fair fashion.

Addie turns 5

2012-10-22T19:38:00.001-07:00

Addie turned 5 on the 15th of October. Unfortunately for Whit and I, we were out of town. Fortunately for Addie, she was in very good hands and was spoiled rotten while we were gone. She definitely had a more fun day than she would have had with me here. She had a special lunch with her best friend Ellie Kate and then they went to Build a Bear and she came home with not one but two bears. Ellie already has three so she wanted Addie to have two. Such a sweet friend.

On Friday the 19th we were able to have a super fun Halloween Boo-day party for Addie. She invited all her school friends and some church friends. We had a great time.

I think Addie had such a fun birthday week that she will tell me to go out of town again next year.

Muffins for Mittens

2012-10-09T13:55:00.001-07:00

Addie quote of the day: Mom, look at my muffins!!

Treck On 2012

2012-07-19T08:27:00.001-07:00

There is so much to write about our Treck with the youth and when I get the pictures off of my camera I will write the whole experience.

Treck was amazing. I learned two great lessons from the experience. First, it renewed my faith in the world. My kids are going to be ok. They really can grow up in this crazy world and still be great kids. Second, it strengthened my testimony that the faith of people can bring forth miracles great or small.

4th of July

2012-07-18T07:29:00.001-07:00

This year I was in charge of our neighborhood 4th of July party. We had it on the night of the 3rd. I think it went really well, but of course I didn't really get to enjoy it because I was running around making sure everyone else was having a good time. This year the girls decorated their bikes for the bike parade at home so they really got into it. Everyone but Eliza went with an animal theme. Addie was a monkey, Lillie was an alligator, Jaynie was a zebra, and Eliza just wanted to be patriotic. I think she was nervous about doing it different than she has done in the past, like maybe she was breaking a rule or something. I tried to tell her that I made the rules but she didn't care. The best part of the whole night was the fireworks. Whit went to South Carolina to get them and it was like watching a real show but super close up. Penny, however, did not appreciate how close we were, she did not enjoy the show.

On the fourth we just kind of had a lazy day. We went to the gym and then spent the rest of the day at the pool with the Browns. We finished off the evening watching the Lewisville fireworks from our neighborhood.

The Dash

2012-07-18T07:07:00.001-07:00

Whit scored four tickets to our local minor league baseball team- The Dash. The tickets included an all you can eat buffet complete with all you can eat Krispy Kreme doughnuts and a purple chocolate fountain. We took the oldest two girls and despite the 99 degree weather, we had a blast.

Mustache Anyone??

2012-07-07T18:50:00.001-07:00