Isabelle's 6th Birthday

Isabelle enjoyed a family birthday this year - turning 6 on July 6th.  She was so excited for the day and was reminding me of all the things that I needed to do for her birthday - balloons in her room and decorations in the kitchen!  She wanted to go to Chuck E Cheese and out to dinner with brownies for dessert.  She got a new radio for her room so she could listen to music at bedtime, art supplies, clothes and Ty drew her some "sports" posters for her room which she still has hanging up. :)   She loved her special day and we love this super special girl!

-Isabelle is one amazing girl!  She is kind, loving and a SUPER HELPER to everyone!  At school she is like the little mom who just helps all her friends and teacher.  She stays in from recess to help clean the classroom and is constantly telling us ways she is serving others at school.  She loves going to school and never complains.  She is always smiling and excited each morning before school!  She is proud of all she does making sure to wait and show us all her school papers at dinner so the whole family can see them.  She is my little shadow and she would follow me wherever whenever if she could.  She wants to be a Mom when she grows up and we couldn't be happier with that choice - we know she will be an amazing mom!  She enjoys helping clean around the house and is always cleaning her room without being asked.  She is always the first to clean up her plate/bowl and a lot of times cleans up for the other 2 kids.  She is such a good eater and she loves her vegetables - her favs are snap peas.  She also loves chocolate and donuts! ;)  She likes everything secure in our house and is reminding us all the time to lock doors and close the garage.  She loves doing what is right and is always trying to get others (especially Ty) to choose the right.  She finds joy in being righteous!

Isabelle loves to read, do art projects, dance and sing, play house and school, play with friends, go to school, watch movies/TV (favs are "Good Luck Charlie", "Jessie", "Arthur" and "Phineas and Ferb"), playing with Barbies, playing on the iPad and computer and playing with her American dolls Rosie and Emily Sparkles.  

We are so lucky and blessed to have her in our family!  We look forward to enjoying many more years with this super special, sweet, beautiful girl!

Summer 2013

Just a few snippets of summer 2013:

Isabelle and Vivienne attended a Princess Day which was a success and the girls continue to ask when they will have another one.  It was well worth the money!  They enjoyed getting their hair done, having "tea" and cookies, dancing with a princess, playing princess games and listening to stories.

We bought a new playset for our backyard and it has been worth the money and hours of putting it together.  It took us probably close to 10+ hours over several days for Chad and I to figure it out.  Once finished the kids loved playing on it all summer.

We also bought my sisters old trampoline since they were moving to Taiwan.  This has been an added bonus to our yard that occupies a lot of the kids' time.

Ty and Isabelle had swimming lessons again.  Isabelle LOVED it and couldn't wait for the next day to come so she could go.  She is our little fish!  Her poor eyes suffered redness and burning from swimming under the water constantly with them open.

Ty on the other hand dreaded it because he was very nervous to be in deep water.  He survived and continues to improve on his swimming... just don't ask him to go off the diving board!



Ty spent many hours this summer outside playing basketball with a neighbor friend.  They recorded themselves and Chad put together a Youtube video of some of their trick shots.

May Dance Recital

Isabelle had her final Dance Recital in May before she had the summer off.  She did great this year again!  Her confidence in front of people continues to grow and we are always proud of each little accomplishment made.   She continues to love dance!

Oh she is just so cute!

Brothers - need I say more! 

April Conference Time

We always enjoy General Conference in our home!  Hopefully it will be a tradition our kids will always remember.  They may not remember the speakers and what they said but I feel they will remember our family gathered together, the spirit present and eating yummy cinnamon twists and goodies.  One of the great things I love about Conference time is it never disappoints me or leaves me regretting the time I prepared for it!  The spiritual reward always outweighs the work I put into the prep and organizing, baking and keeping kids occupied while watching.

The life of a mother... Chad gets to sit uninterrupted and relaxed while watching meanwhile I am busy helping kids with activities, taking them to the bathroom, getting drinks, etc.  all while "listening" to the speakers.  So grateful the conference Ensign when it comes out!

Girls Spring Break 2013

We split up this year, in May, for Spring Break - I took the girls to St. George while the boys had their California  sports trip.

The girls were of course excited to go play with cousins, see Grandma and Grandpa and their dog Cruz.  We had a fun late Easter egg hunt and family get together with dinner.  We played at Aunt Ashley's house and roasted hot dogs, the girls danced and performed with Adyn and Piper with their new wands from Grandma, they painted, had a sleepover, watched movies and got spoiled!  It was a nice break!

Easter 2013

 

Easter Morning - the girls got a water table to share

Our cute kids! 

She is a cutie!

Beijing China to Lehi Utah

The beginning of February we had the opportunity to host 2 girls from Bejiing, China who were 8 and 11 years old.  They arrived on Saturday, February 9th and left Friday, February 15th.  This was out of my control comfort zone but I really wanted to push our family out of this "certain" comfort zone and experience new and different things and this was one of those great opportunities.  I assumed the girls would know good English but was shocked when they seemed to know very little.  We arrived at the kids' school and held up our sign of their names, Fan Yu and Zhang, waiting to have them find us as the flood of Chinese students filled the gym.  We enjoyed a night of performances, delicious Chinese food and some "light" interaction!  Surprisingly our kids communicated better with them.  Sometimes I would say stuff and they would look at me with a blank stare but when the kids said something they understood.

Fan Yu and Zhang's Sunday schedule was filled with Utah sites - Temple Square, Olympic Park and the Park City outlets but we did enjoy trying to communicate with them later on in the evening with the help of a translating app on the iPad!  The kids were loving all the gifts they gave to us which was very generous and kind of them.

We were also able to take them to the Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving point and ice cream which they thought was really cool.  One night they wanted us to take them to buy American made stuff to take back home for their family.  Little did I know this is very difficult to find and I am shocked how much stuff is not made here.  They were disappointed not finding anything!  I will be better prepared next time.  The kids one night had a nerf gun war which could have gone on and on if it wasn't way past everyone's school bedtime.  Both girls loved helping Ty make his valentine's for his class - each of them taking turns stapling and stuffing candy.  Both girls had lots of fun playing in our backyard in the snow - sledding down our stairs, digging in the snow with spoons and having snowball fights.

When the time came to take them back our kids were devastated and crying and I was even a little emotional.  We got attached to them in the short amount of time they were here.  We got contact information but still have yet to hear from them.  Chad and I knew that we would never see them again but Ty and Isabelle had a hard time realizing this.  They considered them their friends and looked forward to each morning so they could see them.  Vivi even had their names down and wanted to find them or know when they would be coming back home.

Learning about these girls lives back in China helped us gain a greater appreciation for what we have.  Zhang who is 8 is an only child who lives in a high rise apartment building with her parents and grandparents.  She was very smart and spoke the best English of the two.  Fan Yu who was 11 has one sibling but does not live with her family she lives at her school full time.  One of the teachers is like her mother.  She couldn't really tell us a whole lot about what her parents did for work other than they prefer her to live at the school.  Even though these girls have never heard about the gospel or don't even know who Jesus Christ is I felt a little hope for them as we all kneeled in family prayer together each night.  We are so grateful for the little time we spent with them and only wish the very best to each of these sweet, fun girls!

This experience has me hoping for another exchange student opportunity, foster kids or adoption.  We will see what the future holds!

Christmas 2012

I am determined to get our blog caught up before I get too busy with Summer activities.

We enjoyed a full month during December.

Our kids enjoy doing our advent activities... sadly I can't remember everything we did since I didn't take a picture of everything (the reason I need to stay on top of documenting these family times).

-Decorating our tree

-Opening different Christmas books

-Making a Gingerbread House

-Waking up to a new crazy Elf hiding place and trick

-Seeing the Reindeer

-Riding Frontrunner to Temple Square 

(along with all the other thousands of people who had the same idea)  Crazy!

-Making cone Christmas Trees

-Grinch night - watching Grinch and having Grinch floats

-Watching Isabelle in her Kindergarten Grinch performance - so cute!

-Enjoying Christmas Eve at the Taylor's - listening to musical performances (Ty played the piano), playing Minute to Win It games, playing with cousins and eating good food.

-Christmas morning we enjoyed time just the 5 of us in our new home!  Vivi got a Little Tikes car, Isabelle got another doll plus accessories and Ty got a Wii game plus lots of little fun stocking stuffers.  We had a great relaxed, quiet, fun Christmas day!

-We headed down to St. George a few days after Christmas to spend with my family.  The kids always enjoy lots and lots of cousin time with sleepovers and playing.  We opened more presents and played Minute to Win it games again.  Ty was devastated the first round at the Taylor's because he didn't win (his strong competitive side) so he was determined to win at least once which of course he did since my family isn't very competitive at all!

Having fun riding in Grandpa's El Camino