The Actual Birthday!

Sunday morning Charity woke up and put her leotard on first thing. Then she came up and saw the decorations Daddy had put up (very exciting), and then Kelly jumped up and went and got Charity's present. We let her open her other ones at her party the day before, so Kelly was really excited to give Charity the present she had picked out. Which, I must say, was a VERY interesting shopping trip. We're walking through the toy aisles at Target, and Kelly is being AWFULLY picky for someone who is buying a present for someone else :) She new EXACTLY what Charity would like. She hardly even looked at some things because she knew Charity "wouldn't like that". She knows her big sister SO WELL. Almost better than I do I'm afraid. It was neat though. To see Kelly getting so excited and having so much fun finding a toy for someone else. What a cool little sister she is.

Kelly picked out the Barbie with all the dogs. And how could you go wrong with a Barbie and dogs for Charity. Charity loved it of course, but tried not to get too excited- she IS the cool big sister afterall :).

Here's Kelly showing her all the cool features she had noticed while carrying it through the store.



Here's Charity playing with it- it's actually kinda cute. There is a little bottle that you fill up with water and "feed" to the little puppy, and then set the puppy on a "newspaper" (it actually comes with these taht you cut out), and the puppy pees on the paper-- CRAZY!!! The kids all got a kick out of that for a few minutes :) I'm sure the bottle is lost by now, but how creative! Charity loves dogs. She already had one that came with a Barbie that poops, so now she is complete :) Just kidding. It nuzzles too...and plays ball....and why am I talking about the dumb toy- I don't know :)



Sunday evening was the Maynes Family meeting, so Charity got to see all of her cousins, everyone sang Happy Birthday to her, and we had cupcakes and icecream. It was really fun! She loves her cousins.


I just think my little girl is so stinkin' cute!


This is Charity with her uncle. They were bonding since they both have March birthdays :) Way cute.

And she did blow out candles on her birthday (my favorite tradition). This is a cute picture with her lips all out and her cute cousin watching her. How fun- what a good birthday!
Happy Birthday Charity- you're "finally" SIX!!!!

Our Mountains

I just took these out the car window. They're nothing special, just to show those of you who CAN'T come out here what we get to look at.


As you can see, there isn't much of anything else out here :) But the mountains are definitely beautiful.

In case you haven't seen enough of Noah :)

This is him at Applebee's, wishing he could eat the yummy barbecue chicken sandwich first hand.

I just think he looks hilarious in this one- not too flattering though, probably a good one to get out on Prom night :) jk

Oh there's my handsome little Prince- he looks so cute when smiles!! These don't quite capture his big wide smile, but they're way cute.


I'm always so enthralled in his really big one to get a picture. But last night when we were all sitting together in the living room, Charity got down and was smiling at him and he just beamed with excitement! It was SO ADORABLE!! We all had to stop what we were doing and look at him. Fun family moment.
Love this kid!

Really Really COOL!

I knew that title would spark your interest :) HA! jk. So I was looking at my friend's, sister's blog, and I found this link to a website that lets you create and publish a book of your blog!!!! It's THE COOLEST thing. I decided I would try it out before I tell anyone else about it, I just finished my book for the year 2007 from my blog, and now I am going to make a special blog just for the years past (the pre-blog years). It's SO FUN and so easy and best of all it's FREE (well, the program is, you have to buy the actual book, but at least there's no committment until you actually publish it). I'm totally sounding like a comercial, sorry. You can choose different layouts for each page, and pick and choose which posts you want to use, you can basically just take the info and pictures and arrange them how you want, or you can have the program do it all automatically. I have been having way too much fun with it for the last month or so. I am totally excited about having them to look at like scrapbooks. So anyway- just thought I would share that with ya'll. Here's the address: http://www.blurb.com/create/book/blogbook?tag=3_sf Let me know if you end up doing it- I wanna hear all about it!

Luke Cracks Me Up!

I took this one, and then he just got all excited about the camera

so then I stuck the camera out away from us and he just started making goofy faces at the camera- he is SUCH a cheese ball!

HELLLLLP!!!!

I lost some of your blog addresses when I changed my template, and now I can't find them!!! If yours is not on my list- please email me or leave a comment with it so that I can put it back on here!! I miss you all already- I'm not complete without your blogs to look at :)
Thank you!

Noah in his blessing outfit (last time I promise)

So here they are, rightfully stolen off the Kiddie Kandids website. I think they turned out pretty good, although he did manage to poop out his clothes (yes, again) before we were done, so we didn't get as many poses. I think Noah is going to be REALLY smart! And not just because he's my kid, but man, he's already figured out how to get me to change his clothes! He learned that FAST!! He's a quick learner. Cute boy though :) I love him :)

Happy Birthday Cards For Charity

Charity got some really special mail last night!! Her old class was at it again- they all sent her Birthday Cards!!!! They were SO NICE too, all of them were in these nice envelopes and really thought out sweet words from her friends. I seriously wanted to cry when I heard her reading them. Her old teacher is officially the best teacher ever. I don't know of any teacher that has given this much thought and love to one kid- one that has MOVED even! She's amazing. And I hope she knows how much it means to Charity. Charity is so sentimental (unfortunately I think she gets that from Nate and Me, we're all pathetic around here :)). She has really just been so blessed to have had that teacher and those friends. They're sweet.


Kelly and brad had to get in on the action.

Real men can wear pink :)

This has a funny story-I got this little yellow outfit for Noah (it was $2.00, I couldn't pass it up), eventhough Charity thought it looked "girlish". Well, after I got it on him, I kind of agreed with Charity, but it's still cute, so I left it on him. One of the times that he fell asleep I laid him down on Charity's blanket on the couch because it was the nearest one. He was totally okay with being wrapped up in a pink blanket until I got out the camera :) It was just going to be a funny picture where he looked like a girl, and I wouldn't show it to anyone, but THEN I got a way cute smile out of him!!! So NOW it has to be seen! So just so you know- he is STILL a BOY and a very manly one at that- just in a pink blanket with a girlish outfit on. But check out the remnants of his adorable smile!!! He's so cute. Even in pink, he still looks like a boy.


This was way cute too (and now he's in the right color blanket :)). Kelly is at it again :) She made a picture for Noah this time, and when I looked over at him in his seat while he was sleeping I saw this picture sitting there, propped up next to him- Kelly's so thoughtful. I just can't get over how sweet she is and her cute little pictures.

Playing around

The kids did so good while we were getting Noah's pictures taken so they got to go "ride the rides" at the mall :) They seriously think this is the coolest thing, I'm not sure why, but they actually remembered this part of the mall, and were anxious to be good and be able to go ride the toys.

Kelly and Brad were so proud that they could stand while it was moving :) Kinda cute "look Mom! we're standing while it's going!"

Charity got in on some other girl's quarters :) She's such a goof. (Can you believe these things cost 75 cents now!! Holy MOLY! Didn't they used to be just a quarter??


Here's Luke at "Mick O'Donnels" (that's how brad says it :)). He was so scared on the "rides" I didn't get a picture of him, so this seemed more like him anyway :)

Even when she's sick, she still looks pretty. (and if she's so sick, why isn't she in BED!)

About 2 weeks ago Nate received a letter inviting him to a lunch for the people who made the Chancellor's List (I think that's how you spell it) on March 5th. Since we couldn't afford to fly him back for the day (yeah right), I decided that I would just surprise him on that day and take him out to lunch myself. Well, after a few little hang ups, we ALL ended up going down and surprising Daddy, and taking him out for lunch. It was a little different than I had planned :) but it was fun. We stopped at Kiddie Kandids on the way to go get Nate and had his pictures taken. They turned out okay, but I was mostly just amazed that I had done it with all the kids there. Then we went and got Nate. We had a good time at Noodles with Daddy, then took him back to work and went to McDonald's for some fries, ice cream, and running around. It was a good day. We're so proud of Nate and all of his accomplishments with school. He's amazing.

"To Kelly, From Kelly, Love Kelly"

Kelly is so funny. She has this thing lately where she "makes coloring books" for people. She basically cuts pages out of other coloring books and notebooks, and then slowly, page by page, she glues them altogether in the form of a book :) It's very cute. We have them all over our house with everyone's names on them. She usually makes them for other people, but this one was different- this one is for Kelly:) And look how she labeled it :) I'm still laughing, maybe you had to hear her say it herself with her big smile, but it was funny.

Noah's Blessing Day

This was before church- he looked SO HANDSOME in his white shirt and pants. What a cutie. What a special day it is when babies are blessed. I totally love it. It was so nice to have everyone support and company that day too. Thanks everyone.
(I'm really glad I got this picture even though it's not very fancy, because as soon as we got home he had a huge diaper blowout-shoulda kept the big 2's on him afterall. I told him not to poop until I got a few pictures of him in his blessing clothes and with the family, but he had other plans I guess)


(I had to put him in a white onesie just so that he still looked like the blessee)


my camera wasn't working the best so this was the only picture I got of the whole group- we had a pretty good turnout though- thanks everyone that came.


This is a way cute picture of Noah with his grandparents.
(I just wish he was in his blessing clothes!!- I was a little bugged about the whole poop thing, in case you can't tell :))


This is cute- Kelly is such the cute big sister. This is the afghan my mom made him- it was beautiful! Thanks again mom!


This turned out to be okay :) Although, it was one of those things where, for the last month or so I've been planning out how we will get everyone dressed in really nice Sunday clothes for the blessing so that we can have my dad take "a really nice family picture". Well, the first thing that went wrong was that Kelly and Charity wouldn't wear the dresses I had wanted (the ones that would look good with what everyone else was going to wear). Then the whole rushing around before church made it impossible to take, and then before I knew it- Noah had pooped out his clothes; Brad's tie was gone; Brad's, Luke's and Nate's suit coats were all off; Kelly's dress that didn't match to begin with had been replaced by a dirty shirt and a skirt that was too short, and Charity....well, Charity actually stayed dressed (wrong dress though :)), and Me, I just look tired all the time, so that doesn't help. And then to top it off- my dad forgot his camera :)
It was silly of me to think I would get something to work out so perfectly at a time like that. Maybe next week :)
I do like this picture though, aside from it's imperfections- My husband looks cute, the kids are all smiling, and we're all happy to be alive :) (unfortunately, yes, that is a huge bruise on Luke's face he kissed the patio a few days before---that was when I got the first inklings that this picture thing was not a good idea :) shoulda listened)



This is when Brad had the camera- but I thought he took some cute pictures :)


Brad took this one too- sorry your head's chopped off Sarah- looks like he needs a little more practice :)


So this morning- the day AFTER his blessing, when the poop had bleached out of his clothes quite nicely- I put Noah back in them, and tried for some more pictures...

he wasn't really in the mood....

we're done :) Maybe later...maybe Kiddie Kandids (I've missed that place!!)

I Forgot I took these

It finally got warm enough to enjoy playing outside. We went on a little walk, and it was too windy for Noah, so we had to just come home and play in our back yard. It's so nice to be able to go outside though!! I can't wait till Summer!



Shoes off and everything!


The kids are funny about our backyard. It took me quite a while to explain to them that the WHOLE grassy area is NOT our backyard, but that our back yard ends---there's no line or fence or anything to divide it, but it ends. Tough concept for them- especially Lukey- although, I don't know that a line or fence would really mean that much more to him anyway :)