Reunion and Benjy's Wedding

What a fun, busy summer it has been! First of all I have to post a few older pictures that I recently came across. These kids sure love their cousins!

Every time we go to Utah, the kids ask about the Provo Tabernacle/Temple ("Naber-tacle" according to Brooklyn). They have loved watching the construction and progress.

In July we were able to go to the O'Brien Reunion in Ephraim, UT. It was such a great weekend and we loved catching up with cousins and aunts and uncles. Here is the whole group that came:

My family (minus missionary Mom and Craig)

I think the kids' highlight was our time at the Manti Aquatic Center . They are so lucky to have such a fun Daddy!

We were able to do a 3-mile walk to the Manti Temple. There were stops along the way where we could read something about Mutti, my sweet grandma, which was really neat. Although it was hot and we forgot to grab our bag with water (we borrowed plenty along the way), it was an awesome experience and I was impressed with how well Christopher and Brooklyn did walking most of the way.

After the Reunion, the kids and I stayed in Utah for the week since Benjy got married the next weekend. Here are some pictures from his wedding

These kids all adore Uncle Benjy and Aunt Kaitlin!

 And I had to throw this cute picture in since my awesome sister is now a missionary! We sure miss her but are so proud of her and love her!!

3 Weddings in 4 Months

It has been fun attending 2 family weddings in the last couple of months. In April, my sister Becky married Ryan Defigueiredo in the Salt Lake Temple. There were mixed emotions that weekend because it was also the weekend of my mom and Craig's mission farewell. We are so excited for them but are already missing them! Here are some pictures from that weekend:

The lovely couple

He is wonderful and we are so excited for them! We loved seeing so many family members that weekend, including Uncle Tom:

Last weekend we were able to go to WA and Vancouver, British Columbia to celebrate Chris' brother, Bryce, marrying Alyssa. The kids were so excited about everything- the airplanes, the shuttles, the rental car, the hotels. And Chris and I were so excited about the scenery! It was gorgeous up there! I'm bugged I didn't get a picture of us getting to and from the airport. Matthew rode on a rolling suitcase that Chris pulled while carrying a duffle bag over his shoulder and carrying a carseat. Christopher pulled the other suitcase and wore a little backpack, and I carried the other 2 carseats and the diaper bag and my purse with Brooklyn walking next to me. Good thing we never had to go super far! I'm sure we were quite the scene.

Brooklyn loved it, but the boys went crazy over watching the airplanes, trucks and buses!

We had a few hours in Seattle and loved exploring a bit. The kids weren't nearly as impressed or entertained by Pike Place Market as Chris and I were.  (We got to have cute Hailey join us for a few hours)

They did love the fountain in Seattle Center though!

The kids were so excited to be on the balcony as they ate breakfast the morning of the wedding

The ever-growing Waldron family

The reception was at a beautiful location outside and the kids LOVED exploring! I'm bugged I didn't get any pictures of them watching the fuzzy caterpillars or making piles of rocks or throwing rocks/sticks down the hill.

Look how cute they are  :)  We are so excited for Alyssa to be a part of the family. They make a great couple!

And in a few weeks this cute couple is getting married!

Crazy- I swear this was taken yesterday!

Looking forward to celebrating with Benjy and Kaitlin!

Kids Keeping Busy

Like I mentioned in the last post, we have been pretty busy. But I really needed to do an update on the kids at home and some of our day-to-day life!

The kids are at fun stages right now. They love working on little projects and playing together, and they definitely keep each other busy. Here is an example of one of Christopher's projects that began with a small ball of yarn:

It hit me today that my life is pretty easy right now as far as the kids not being too needy or dependent most of the time (they all eat at the same time, Matthew just has one consistent nap). But my whole schedule and demands are going to change quite a bit when the baby is born. I had kind of forgotten how time consuming newborns are. It will be a wonderful change though.

Christopher is constantly making me smile or chuckle and I realized the other day I have not been great about writing down the funny things he says, so I started that day to write little quotes. Here are a few:

"This is as white as mayonnaise."

"Please open my window a tiny bit- as small as a mouse bite."

Looking at a cup of chocolate milk- "At first it looked like bug slop!"

"I like eating cilantro, just not plain jane."

"It's as hard as a musk ox horn."

"This has been the best day! I double loved it! I didn't even hate one crumb of it!"

The other day, I was getting after Christopher for bossing Brooklyn around. I said "You're not her dad." He answered, "Well I'm just practicing!"  :)

Our lives would be so boring without him!

Brooklyn is into anything princess and girly.  Here are a few of her common quotes:

"You're the best mom/dad/brother EVER!"

"I love you so much I could die!"

"That's my favorite!"  and yes, these are all said SO expressively each time.

"I just love to do that sometimes."

She is so sociable and loves to say hi to any and everybody and talk to whoever is willing to listen (she certainly does not get that from me). I was so amused watching her at a ward activity a couple of months ago. She went up to numerous Young Women, older Sisters in the ward and friends and just started up a conversation with them. It usually had to do with Matthew and how he was doing something funny or how he is a cute little brother.

Matthew is a bundle of energy and has been talking a ton. He has a fun little personality and loves the constant love and attention his siblings show him (most of the time). He loves music. He loves to listen and dance, and he is constantly asking "Song? Song?"

Besides supporting me in my little endeavors and being a wonderful dad, Chris has been very busy with work, traveling frequently and overall still really enjoying his job. Here are a few random pictures:

These kids still love being read to and Grandpa was nice enough to oblige!

They loved helping eat, I mean, cut strawberries for jam

Next to come: Weddings!

A Few Firsts

It's been too long since I've posted and I could do about 10 different posts, but I'll try to narrow it down to maybe 3. We have been pretty busy the past couple of months with a variety of projects, activities and travels. I finished off my first year of teaching preschool in my home. It was a fun learning experience for me! I don't know that I would be as anxious to do it if my own kids weren't involved, and because of my kids' ages this next year, I will not be teaching this coming year. I definitely plan to do it again though, probably next year. We finished off the year with a Preschool Celebration- an evening with a little program of the kids singing songs and reciting poems and fingerplays we've learned over the year. We also had their artwork and projects done over the school year on display. (I didn't call it a Graduation because 4 of the 6 get to have at least one more year of Preschool.)  :)

Here are the adorable kids I was able to teach this year and a little snippet of the program:

We had our first piano recital the week after. Besides Christopher, I teach just 3 other cute boys. I prepared a piece to play as well, and with their four solos and 2 duets AND refreshments, the whole thing was 30 minutes. Short and sweet. :) I look forward to many more recitals in the future.

And we also had our first family swim of the summer. We went to Chris' parents' where they always invite friends and family to swim and BBQ on Memorial Day and the kids had an awesome time.

 

More to come soon!

Growing Kids!

Our cute Christopher turned 5 years old a couple of weeks ago. It was fun to celebrate with him, but I can't believe how time has flown! He is acting so old these days. He loves preschool and is often the comedian and the ringleader among his little friends. I have to remind him sometimes to let someone else take a turn telling a story!  Here he is with a couple of his buddies:

Although he has little defiant moments, for the most part he is a content, funny, smart, happy kid. He loves to sit down and work on projects, whether it's drawing, building, writing, composing music...but his favorite thing is probably still following his dad around and helping with the lawn or working with tools in the garage. He is a sweet boy who fortunately still loves cuddles and reading. Poor kid broke out in this awful rash a couple of weeks ago. I'm pretty sure it was an allergic reaction to something but I don't know what yet.

He and Brooklyn are good little friends and they play together and help each other really well. I'm grateful he is such a good little helper, because I will sure need it in a few months!

Miss Brooklyn is the little princess of the house. Every day she changes her mind numerous times about which Princess she is- Rapunzel, Anna or Elsa. Her favorite thing right now is singing songs from Frozen at the top of her lungs. I don't have the soundtrack yet but I think it will be our entertainment on our drive to Utah next week! She can be quite the tease to her brothers, but she is also really sweet with them, Matthew especially. She'll often give him a hug and say "Aww, sorry bud!" when he is sad. She is tiny but she loves to eat! She would eat all day long if I let her! I love my reading time with these 2 cute kiddos:

Matthew is quite the character. He is so much busier and bolder than the others and he loves to explore. He LOVES being outside and playing with balls. He's starting to say more words which has been fun. He can be so silly and loves making his siblings laugh! He can also be extremely stubborn which can be quite exasperating!

Last weekend we had a fun night at a park up the canyon. We all loved the fresh air and had a lot of fun. We picked up KFC on the way, but they didn't put in any napkins or utensils, so it was quite the adventure trying to eat fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy and corn using only our hands and little butter packets!

I loved seeing this when I looked out the window the other day!

We also found out our next little babe is a boy! I'm a little sad for Brooklyn just because I loved having sisters pretty close in age while I was growing up. But I think he and Matthew will be great little buds and Christopher and Brooklyn are both excited. Here is a video of them finding out:

(For some reason I couldn't load it like the other one, but here is the link:)

 http://youtu.be/DQvFxhkt_JA

This morning we had a little Easter egg hunt and the kids had a great time!

A Few New Things

I'm sitting on my couch thinking of all the things I should be doing right now (folding laundry, unloading the dishwasher, cleaning my bathroom, preparing for preschool tomorrow), but I have zero desire to do any of them right now!  So I decided to do a quick post. Ok, I don't think I've ever actually done a "quick" post. We'll see how far I get before the kids are done with naps and quiet time and climbing all over the laptop!

First of all, this isn't really news, but I haven't posted yet about baby #4! 

  We are so excited to have another sweet baby join our family. The pregnancy has felt similar to my others- no sickness, relatively easy. But I have gestational diabetes which is an unpleasant first.  It has meant way more appointments, pretty limited diet, even insulin shots. Not fun. But if doing all this means keeping the baby from having any immediate or long-term effects, it's totally worth it.  I'm 18 weeks along, and we find out next Friday whether it's a boy or girl. I'm kind of hoping for a girl so Brooklyn can have a sister somewhat close in age, but I'm thinking it's a boy, which would be a ton of fun too!

 With our growing family, it was time to get a new vehicle. For a few different reasons, we decided to get it sooner rather than wait a few months. So here is our new car! (New to us anyway)

 It has some neat features and I think it will be a good car for us, but it will definitely take some adjusting. I'm used to being able to reach back and hand the kids books, food, and toys during drives. I think the color is funny- a little brighter and out there than I'm used to, but it is kind of fun.  A few months ago, we sold the Toyota and Chris got a new car that is good for his daily way-too-long-but-average-for-CA commute. I totally cried saying goodbye to the sweet car I started driving when I was 16. I was a little sad to see the Jeep go, but not as much. The only thing that almost made me cry as we were driving away was seeing the 3 little colored star stickers on the bumper that Brooklyn put on months ago and I haven't wanted to take off. They always made me smile and were a sweet reminder of my busy, happy kids. I took a picture on my phone but don't have it anymore.

Here is my phone deal: A week and a half ago my phone died and wouldn't turn back on. Come to find out it had water damage (I think Matthew spilled a bit of water on it- I didn't think it was that big of a deal at the time). So Chris got me a new phone, and what did I do today? I ran it through the laundry. I have decided I am THE WORST ever at taking care of my electronics. My Ipad has huge cracks in it and the right side of the touch screen doesn't work (numerous drops by the kids), my iPod touch is lost at the moment (Brooklyn and I saw it on the floor by the couch on Saturday and it wasn't there next time I looked) and I don't have a phone that works. Hopefully tonight I'll be able to get a new phone activated and get all my contacts again. I have contacts from 3 phones ago that can be transferred, but anything I've added in the past year or so are lost. 

Other than this fun stuff... Chris is super busy with work and occasional business trips and being an amazing, completely adored daddy. I'm keeping busy with a few piano students and preschool (and 3 kids at home all day long!)  And the kids are busy creating, talking, building, arguing, laughing, teasing and playing together. Next post will be more about these crazy kids!

Brooklyn and Bowling

A couple of weeks ago we celebrated Brooklyn's 3rd birthday. We had a little party the night before with cute Hall cousins and had a sleepover with fun Aunt Becky. 

A couple days later Chris came back from a business trip and took the day off to spend time with us. We went bowling and went out to lunch, then came home to let her open presents. Here are a couple of videos taken that day.

This girl is going to be a heart breaker. I caught this picture during preschool the other day. She is very frequently holding hands with one of the 5 boys in our little class every time I turn around.

 Last Sunday Chris and I fell asleep while the kids were "doing their quiet time." Chris later found these pictures (and many others) on his Iphone. Funny kids!