Princess Kamree

On Wednesday Feb. 22 (Aubrees birthday)  our young women's held their "New Beginnings" program.  The theme was "once upon a time".   The girls were supposed to come dressed in their best princess dresses.  Kamree was not one bit excited about the prospect of wearing a "Princess Dress"  but thankfully her future beehive advisor Allison was kind enough to encourage her and even brought over one of her daughter's old prom dresses from a few years back.  (lucky for Kamree this girl was the same size as her even though she is now in college.)  With a little prompting and encouragement from Allison, she consented to get dressed up for the night.  She even allowed me to do her hair, and threw a fit when I suggested makeup, but I was able to get a little on her after a bit of struggle.  As you can see from the first picture, she looked beautiful but still didn't have a good attitude about the whole thing.

We attended the evening, and had to practically drag Kamree into the church because she was so embarrassed.    Once she got there, they had a wonderful program. Every girl was dressed up in some type of formal, and she had a great time. 
Kamree was the only girl in the ward going into Young Women's this year so she got a special invitation and a special spotlight done just for her.   She got a sash that says "princess in training" and a real tiara to wear.    As you can tell from the picture, by the end of the night her whole attitude improved, and she was O.K. with the thought of looking beautiful.  I must say as a mom she really did dress up to be a beautiful young woman.    I can't wait for her to turn 12 and actually go into Young Women's.   It is going to be so good for her.   All the older girls welcomed her so well, and were so kind to her.  It was amazing how her whole countenance changed that night.  
However, after seeing her little transformation, I decided that if she wants to wear track pants and t-shirts to school with her hair in a ponytail everyday,  I am going to go ahead and stop arguing with her on that because their is a part of me that doesn't want to see her grow up and evolve into a beautiful young woman.  We love you Kamree!!

Happy Birthday Aubree!

From a precious little bundle of Joy

To a cute and precious little girl in just 7 years....

We celebrated Aubree's birthday on Monday (Presidents Day) because Dad was home and we had other obligations on her real birthday.   

We are so lucky to have this beautiful little girl in our family.
Some of the things we love about Aubree are....
-she is an early riser and she is always the first one ready for the day... sometimes she just sits and waits for the bus to come.
-She has such a gentle manner about her.
-She makes friends easily and everyone gets along well with Aubree.
-She has great confidence and she believes she can do anything.
-She is willing to try anything and everything.  (she was the first one in the family to try eating chicken hearts.  She loved them and asked for more)
-She is a great artist and loves to do anything crafty.
-She is a great student and always tries her best at everything she does.  (she is in the top 3 A.R. for first grade) and her most recent writing assignment was picked by the prinicipal and hung up on the wall for "The Best Writing Award".
There is so much to love about Aubree and we are so happy to have her in our family.... Everyone who knows Aubree loves her also.

Christmas and Beyond

Showing off our new Christmas Eve Pj's

We decided to do something a little different this year.  Since we knew we would be spending Christmas Eve with just our own little family, we decided to invite an older couple from our ward over that would have otherwise spent Christmas alone.  This cute couple is Brother and Sister Smart.   They moved here quite a few years ago from England.  Their kids are scattered everywhere from Australia to England.   They are the most delightful couple to spend time with.  They still have their British accent and Brother Smart has such a funny British sense of humor.  We loved spending the evening with them.  They just loved watching the kids open their pj's and loved watching the kids play.   Klade even got Sister Smarts new cell phone up and running for her and gave her a crash course in how to use it.  It will be a Christmas Eve that we will always remember and treasure for a long time.  Kolby still calls them "Gramma and Grampa" and thinks that Gramma and Grampa gave him his Snowman pj's because they were there when he opened them up.



We had early church this year for Christmas so Santa left all of the "fun" presents for us in this cardboard box not to be opened until we got home from church.   It was a brilliant idea that worked quite well.  Way to go Santa!:)

Kolby had so much fun opening up presents.  It did not matter if they were his or not, he was tearing right into them.

We left the day after Christmas to go to Island Park and then on to Cody Wyoming where we spent a few days with the Mills Family.   Here we have Grandma and Grandpa with all the grandkids at the church history museum in Cody.

This museum was very cool with all of these murals painted inside this rotunda.  A great place to just sit and appreciate our mormon heritage. They also spent quite a bit of time at the Buffalo Bill museum but of course we don't have any pictures of that because I didn't go.

A funny attempt at an impromptu family picture.  The grandkids were the photographers.

Grandpa Mills rented a very cool cabin for all of us to stay in.   We were fortunate to have this big room all to ourselves.

we then went back to Island Park again where we spent some more time with the Williams Fam.  The kids left their shoes by the door on New Years Eve where Father Time visited them with a few more surprises to bring in the New Year.

December

Kelton's Birthday. 

In Kelton's preschool group there is another little boy Joey that had a birthday the same week so we just did a joint birthday party for preschool at the church. 

Do you love that we got them the "0" pinata at the dollar store?  We just told them it was an oval and that we were talking about ovals that week.  

I love that my kids can entertain themselves so easily.  Some of the greatest moments in life come from just sitting back on the couch and watching what your kids come up with.  This particular night started as a game of playing santa claus

..I believe it ended as a night of sumo wrestling.

December also means the beginning of popcorn and movie nights.  This is one of our favorite family traditions.  This particular night Kolby fell asleep with his hand in the popcorn bowl.  Aubree was being so patient with him. 

In the middle of December, we had a fun weekend in Boise.   We stayed overnight at the Oxford Suites, ate at our favorite restaurant Tucanos, and went to the Discovery Center

Aubree and Kolby loved the grocery store. Kelton LOVED everything! He is so scientifically minded. He stood at one exhibit that showed some gears for at least a half an hour just studying it and trying to figure out how it worked.


We also attended the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl. Well, at least Kamree and I did while Klade took the littles to a fun center so we girls could enjoy the game. ( I know that sounds a little funny. Our family works a little backward from most. The girls enjoy the sports while the boys so far not so much.



Not sure who to cheer for. Since Utah State is our alma mater, we thought we should be true to our school and cheer for the Aggies. The problem was, we didn't even have any Aggie attire. We had to borrow some from some friends but since Kamree and I are both big Bronco fans, we had more fun just knowing we were at Bronco Stadium and enjoyed looking at all the Orange and Blue.



The game was so fun! We sat right behind the goal posts and did our best to try and catch the field goals. No such luck but Kamree did get a chance to go down to the pit and give all the players High Fives.



I suppose we should have been like most of the rest of the crowd and worn our orange and blue. We left the stadium when there was just 3 minutes left on the clock thinking that USU had won. It wasn't until we got home that we learned they actually lost by one point in the very last minute of the game. SHEESH!

Hansel and Gretel



Aubree was in the production of Hansel and Gretel.  It was very busy with rehearsals and three performances but it was a lot of fun.  The girl loves to perform!

What a cute little bird!! 



A little gingerbread with attitude:)



helping out backstage.  what a cute bunch of kids.

The set and props were amazing! I didn't bother to take any pictures during the show but we got some cute ones on stage after it was all done.

more fall stuff

Grandma Mills came and helpes us make applesauce.



Kelton just LOVED helping!  We worked all day and then went to the Halloween Carnival at the Jr. High that night.  It was a fun weekend to spend with Grandma.

Getting ready for trick or treating.  We love trick or treating to all the older folks in the neighborhood.  That is about the only part I love about Halloween. 

random fall moments

Kolby's Birthday.   Kamree made his cake.  She did a great job!

He is now 2.  He had a great Birthday.  Need I say more?

Getting off the bus after the first day of first grade.

 

Trying to keep the boys entertained while the girls are at school.

Just a small sample of what can happen if I don't keep them "entertained"

Helping out the neighbors with the remodeling of the tree house project.  Kamree spent all day helping these guys.  We just love these neighbors and all the fun things they do.

Kamree's first cross country meet.  Yep that is my daughter in the crazy attire.

Run Kamree Run!

The cute little team and the cute coach.

just because I love this little guy:)

Ya gotta love that look!

Giddy up Daddy!   Poor Klade.  It has been a long Sunday afternoon of playing horsey in the yard.

Spending time at the park while the girls are at school.

Aubree tearing it up on the Soccer Field.

She played with boys that were two years older and she still managed to score just as many goals as they did.  

You have to love the "invented spelling" of a first grader

And....  the invented outfit 

The Boys just loved it when we tilled up the garden and they had an enormous play field to build roads and dig in the dirt.  They spent many hours just playing in the dirt.