Spring...sort of

To go along with the theme of weird weather winter, this spring has also been a bit crazy. Some days feel like summer, some are perfect spring weather and right now it feels like it could snow. We try to get outside when we can but we do spend a lot of time inside trying to entertain ourselves. So here's Hazel entertaining us at 6 mos.

She loves sticking her tongue out these days, especially when she should be nursing. Turns out it is a lot harder to get a picture of this adorable face then you'd think. This was as close as I could get.

Yay for UCF Golden Knights!

Yay, for sisters. If I coould get Pepper to smile AND look at the camera, I would be very happy.

Kisses for Hazel. Hazel cracks me up in this picture.

I kept asking Hazel to show me her tongue and was sticking mine out trying to get her to copy me. Well, Pepper insisted she get a picture with her tongue out. I guess she wanted me to see that she can follow directions better than Hazel.

My big girl.

More tongue shots just wrong kid. Oh, Cody was gone last week so that is also why we were working hard to entertain ourselves.

Cody got home Friday and I had a jam packed Saturday all planned for us. Boy, does he love it when I do that:) The day started with soccer practice. We had to get there early for pictures. I took Morgan and Pepper and Cody stayed home with Hazel so she could have breakfast and nap. It was about 47 degrees, raining and windy. Ugh.

Here's Morgan's group. Morgan has the yellow hood.

Doing the penguin step to move the ball across the field.

I tried to be a good mom and stick it out for him. But I finally had to give up because Pepper and I were frozen. So I backed the van up and we sat in the back of it so Pepper could get out of her wet things. Again, we tried to stick it out but eventually we shut the door and turned on the heat. This was about the time Cody showed up with Hazel so the girls and I stayed in the car and watched a movie while he watched his son play sports. Cody is very happy!

As soon as Morgan's game was over, Cody rushed off to a birthday party with Morgan and Hazel, while I took Pepper to her first movie at the movie theatre. Morgan got to go to his first movie when he turned three so we decided to keep the tradition going. Pepper and I went to see DisneyNature Chimpanzee. It was AWESOME! I loved it and I think Pepper did too. She payed attention just not from her seat. Luckily, we had a lot of seats to ourselves and the theatre wasn't overly full because she pretty much danced around and jumped in and out of seats for a lot of it, yelling about the cute monkeys and the mean monkeys. Good thing the audience consisted mostly of people with small kids! Anyway, it was so fun to go on a date with my big girl and I can't wait to do more fun "big kid" things with her.

Saturday night we were suppossed to go over to a friends for dinner but that fell through so Cody continued to work on our livingroom furniture and took Pepper grocery shopping. This last week I was asked to do a last minute musical number in sacrament meeting and I had recruited a few people but was still scrambling to get it together. Luckily, I have a lot of great and talented friends and a husband that was willing to help no matter what! So, Cody, Jerry, our RS president and I sang, "For the Beauty of the Earth," and it went really well. I love music and singing but have always felt a little scared to sing in small groups or alone. I have decided in my old age that the joy of singing and music is more important than being scared, so here's hoping I get more opportunities to share that joy with others.

After church, I asked Cody to take some pictures of the girls and I since Hazel was in my favorite outfit. Here are a lot of photos of Cody's attempt to get one good picture. They were all too funny not to include them all.

Pepper was seriously scratching my arm for some crazy reason. Hazel looks drunk.

Yep, this was the best one. Oh well, Hazel's cute and we're all dressed up. You get the idea.

When Pepper was 6 mos old we have a picture of her in this same outfit with Cody against a stone wall. For comparisons sake we decided to take a similar picture. I will post both of them soon when I find the old one.

A good picture but not centered.

Close enough.

Adorable Hazel with the pretty tree.

Yay, for Hazel!

Hazel is so over this photo shoot.

I posted on Facebook about Cody cooking up this little yummy Sunday lunch from Raaman noodles. I swear it was way yummier than it looks.

This man is a keeper!

Who is Who?

My sister, Jill did this on her blog and I thought it was a lot of fun. So, I picked pictures that were similar. All three of the kids taking their first bath, wearing the lion outfit, snuggling with Gramma Goodier. Leave a comment with your best guesses!

There are some more of the girls that are just uncanny but that will have to be another day. Enjoy.

Pepper's Never-ending Third Birthday!

Saturday, April 14th was Pepper's 3rd birthday. We have all been anxiously awaiting this day, especially Pepper. I didn't think she would sleep she was so excited. It took her awhile to fall asleep but she slept through the night once she finally stopped obsessing about her party the next day. First thing on the agenda, was her first soccer practice. She was very excited to go play and wear her new pink shin guards. It was a cold morning and kept sprinkling, so I was worried soccer would be canceled but it was ok.
Here she is getting ready to "squish a bug on top of the ball," or in other words put her foot on top of the ball to stop it.

The orange and yellow teams with coaches, Cheryl and Courtney.

Here's a video of Pepper playing soccer aka just running around the field in her own cute little world:

Morgan testing out his rainbow umbrella. Morgan had a great time cheering Pepper on and running around with a new friend that was on his purple team. I missed Morgan's first practice because mom, the girls and I had to run home to get ready for the party but Cody said Morgan really liked it.

So Pepper's party theme was Rainbow Fairy Tea Party. I don't know how I managed to give myself multiple themes again but it was so fun to plan and decorate. Much thanks to my mom for helping me put it all together. I could not have pulled it off without her!

I know they are butterflies not fairies but I thought they looked so cute with the rainbow sprinkles.

Fairy wands with rainbow ribbons. Pepper had the special pink princess wand.

Fairy wings, thank you Dollar Store! We had blue, purple and orange. And of course, Pepper had her special pink wings.

Rainbow goodie bags with fairy silhouette tags that said, "Thank you! Love, Pepper."

A big pile of tutus. All the girls had rainbow tutus, except for Pepper and Hazel, who had pink tutus.

Rainbow fairy dust. My mom found the pain containers that worked great. I added the ribbons, bows and Cody printed the labels for me. I found rainbow colored sugar crystals and layered them in the jars. I figured that way the kids could "fairy dust" some cupcakes at home. Or if they wanted to throw them around outside they wouldn't hurt anything because they are just sugar and not glitter.

Hazel in her party get up.

Isla and Pepper. Very happy fairies!

After everyone arrived and got dolled up, we had a dance party. This was Pepper's request. So I got some Disney Princess music on itunes and played DJ for awhile. We played some "freeze dance," and "follow the leader."

The rainbow tea party table. We got rainbow colored plates, bowls, cutlery and cups at Ikea. We had toy teapots filled with lemonade for the kids to pour themselves. The tablecloth, napkins and party hats were decorated with fairies.

Rainbow fruit plate idea I got off pinterest. Theirs was for St. Patrick's Day and a little neater but I thought they came out nicely and the kids liked them.

I also filled little rainbow colored plastic shot glasses with ranch and carrot sticks. They also had cut up cheese, crackers, and rainbow goldfish crackers to eat.

The big boys had their own little table.

Here's a video of everyone singing to Pepper. She was so happy and is a little unsure how to act with all the attention. Before lunch we all gathered and Pepper said a blessing on the food. Without any direction or prompting, she folded her arms, bowed her head and said thank you for all her friends coming to her birthday party, hoped everyone would have fun and blessed the food. Such a little lady and always a perfect hostess!

Hands down the funniest picture ever! I keep cracking up everytime I look at this. It has to be the worst picture of Pepper but it was too funny not to include. I think this is a perfect senior yearbook picture:)

Gwendolyn testing out the baby toys she gave Pepper.

Pepper eating her extra big pink lemonade cupcake.

Cupcakes and rainbow sherbert for everyone.

Mom had to leave a bit early to get to the airport, so that was a bummer but overall the party was a great success and we all had a great time. Pepper kept saying it was the best day and party EVER! After everyone left, she immediately got in bed and took a nap. This girl partied hard and was very tired. I did a quick clean up while both girls napped and waited for Cody and Morgan to come home from the airport. We were scheduled to go to the mall to see Steve Songs from PBS at 4. We were all exhausted and Pepper was still fast asleep so Cody and I were debating whether it was worth it. We had almost decided not to go and then at the last second I said we should go. The kids had been excited to see Steve Songs and they watch him every morning on TV. Who knows when we would get the chance to see him again and for free, so we real quick woke a grumpy Pepper up from her nap and took off for the mall.

The kids were a little grumpy but once they saw him and the music started they quickly got over being grumpy and were excited to see the "guy from TV." Steve looks a little grumpy in this picture but I think he was just making a funny face.

Glassy eyed, Pepper still trying to wake up.

Here's a video of a sleepy Pepper trying to participate with a dance about twirling. Even sleepy and a little grumpy she can't stop dancing!

For the last song, Steve invited all the kids to come up on stage and help him sing and dance. The kids rushed right up there but poor Pepper kept getting squished behind people. She danced and sang along the whole time while Morgan just stood protectively behind her. I only got him to go on stage by asking him to help Pepper get up there. Morgan takes his role of big brother very seriously. Here's the video of the Shapes Song:

We stayed for the Meet and Great with Steve Songs. They gave the kids fans for Steve to sign and he asked the kids to tell him a joke. Pepper chose our go to joke, "Knock, knock. Who's there? Boo. Boo who? Don't cry." She did a pretty good job with a little side coaching from Morgan. She was also very happy to tell him it was her birthday and show him her new skill of holding up three fingers. Steve was very nice and didn't rush anyone. It was a little hard to motivate our tired family but I am so glad we went and didn't miss the opportunity. Afterwards, we let the kids play in the play area for awhile before heading off for Pepper's birthday dinner.

Pepper said she wanted pizza and breadsticks (mostly breadsticks) for her birthday dinner so we went to Donatos. We missed Gramma but we were very happy to be together as a family and enjoy celebrating Pepper. Pepper proud of herself for stealing Daddy's hat.

Daddy is excited to play with his daughters can't you tell?! Just kidding, he was having a great time, I just caught him in between smiles!

We came home to have more cupcakes and rainbow ice cream. Pepper got to open her presents from Gramma Goodier and Mommy and Daddy. There were two bags of gifts, before she would open them she insisted we sing to her again. So we sang again, twice, once for each bag. Here's a video of the first song and gift bag:

She also got another Tinkerbell costume (this one was used and she got a new one from her friend, Natalie.)

We also found this Snow White dress at Once Upon a Child store in Stow.

I was very happy with how great this picture came out. It is not easy to get a picture of Pepper smiling and looking at the camera. This girl loves her dress up!

During the festivities Hazel was trying to eat. This little girl gets to distracted now. I have finally had to start nursing her in another room from everyone because she just can't handle the distractions. I can't believe my baby is almost 6 mos old! I got out Pepper's baby book to show her on her birthday and to update the 3rd birthday party page. I have to show you some pictures of the girls as babies and let you guess which one is which, because I almost couldn't tell the difference myself!

Well, that was Pepper's 3rd birthday extravaganza! I am so grateful for my big girl and the joy she brings to our family. She always has a big smile for everyone and loves to be a girl. We are so grateful to have her with us.

We love you, Pepper!