No so little anymore

I thought it would fun to put up a little post about each of the girls individually. This first photo is of MacKayla in August of 2003. We went down to James' parents house and I put her into the sink while I was doing my hair. I thought she looked so cute and it would be fun to take photos over the years in the same spot, well that didn't happen, but it is still fun to watch how much she has changed over the years.

MacKayla is a wonderful kid. She is so inquisitive and just wants to know everything, but thankfully not in an annoying way. She loves to spend time with her Dad and they share a lot of the same hobbies now. She loves dinosaurs, Lego's, Star Wars and Daddy cartoons. I love that the two of them have fun things to do together.

MacKayla is also a great helper with the desire to serve. She is the one that I can always count on to be there and help whenever I need her. She is a wonderful girl and I am so lucky to have her!

This is MacKayla in September of 2008.

Cooking man

Over the last few years James and I have been experimenting more and more with cooking. We love to eat and have had a lot of fun trying new things. Along with that, James has found that he enjoys cooking. So tonight I had James make dinner and he made a wonderful homemade cream of broccoli soup, and it was delicious. So today I am thankful for good food and for a wonderful husband who will make it for me.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! We hope that you had a great day and a wonderful meal. We enjoyed our day together and had a lot of fun making and eating our food.

We began our day with a Arabella feast, umm gotta love that fresh and tender baby meat. Bella was playing in the pantry and got into the roaster, gotta love this look.


The big girls love to help me cook and today was no different they helped to make the rolls and had a blast making them. Here they are proudly showing off the rolls that they made.


And here are the pictures of our feast.

She loves her ba

When Arabella was first learning to make sounds she occasionally made a da sound, but never consistently. We used da da to refer to James, but it just didn't stick. Instead he is ba, and boy does she love her ba. When James got home today MacKayla went to the door and announced that daddy was home, when Bella and I went to the door she started doing her excited squeels and reaching out for James while yelling very loudly ba.

Arabella does refer to me as ma mom, usually getting out both sounds when she wants me. She also last week waved and said bye as some friends were leaving.

Isn't it funny how excited we get over kids and their first words, when in about a year all I will want is for her to be quiet for one minute.

Cute girls

Here are some cute pictures of the girls. As for the last post, the head that was changed was mine. The head that you see in the header is the original one that I had in the picture, but James was able to put a better one on.

Family Photos

I love having a nice family photo taken every year. I love to watch the changes in our family and to see how much the kids have grown from year to year. With that said, I hate taking family photos. We had a wonderful friend take our photos for us this year, but it seemed that in the end every photo had at least one of us looking weird (hence the new header). Luckily I have a wonderful husband who is great with Photoshop. I found a great picture of everyone but one of us, he was able to take that persons head from another picture and trade it, can you tell whose head has been changed?

Reverse sexism

James and I are not "normal", I know, I know, most of you are saying, well, duh. When we go out to restaurants it is very common for our food to be given to the other person. I tend to order the steak or ribs, while James will order a sandwich or chicken. We have had several waiters give our food to us and when we corrected them they look at us like we are screwing with them.

Another example of our not "normal"-ness, is that I enjoy watching a good football game. Today I was watching the BYU-Utah game, a very sad game, while James was in the office reading a book. I had Annika join me and I was explaining the game to her. When Utah happened to make a great play, I groaned and was telling Annika that we only want the guys in blue and white to do well. MacKayla on the other hand was with her daddy and when she heard me yell at the Utes, she yelled out to me that "it's only a game mom". I tried to explain pride and wanting our team to do well, but she, like her father, would not accept it. BYU football is more than "just a game".