Happy Birthday Colin!

Feb. 12th was Colin's big day (his b-day is the 13th but we celebrated on the 12th). He was so excited to turn 4. The day started out with a birthday breakfast of his choice. His choice was chocolate chip eggo waffles and French toast sticks. I offered to make him homemade waffles but he wanted none of that.

Yum Yum!

At preschool he got to wear his brithday crown that Miss Cindy made for him and he brought donuts with chocolate frosting and sprinkles to share with his class.

My big 4 year old. I can't believe that he is growing up so fast. I still feel like he should be 2.

Playing with Lincoln Logs that he got for his birthday.

For Colin's party this year he chose to go to the Super Jump party zone. What a perfect place to go. The kids had a blast and they could run and run and run and scream and be wild little kids and no one cared. The kids were so sweaty at the end of the two hours.

Happy Birthday Colin. You are our special boy and we love you!

My Better Half

This blog is dedicated to Jackie.

Many of you know that I'm going to school to get an MBA and it's been a huge time bandit. In addition to that I'm serving on the High Council. As you can guess I'm not home very much lately and I really, really miss being here. The chance to see the family doesn't happen very often and when it does happen we're often on the move. With Austin playing two sports, Rylie in cheerleading and Colin - just being Colin - Jackie's swamped. I think one of her friends told me that Jackie sometimes feels like a widow. :-(

I totally understand why she feels that way. As I've watched her over the past year I've been amazed at all she's been able to do. But it's the little things that count. She's taking care of four kids on her own at least four days a week. And the other three days I'm home I'm doing school work or we're at church or shuttling kids around to games. Through all this she manages to clean, cook, laundry, shop, teach, volunteer, play, mops, scapbook, stamp, take care of all the skinned knees, disagreements of the kdis, reads, etc. By her SELF!!! I know I spend one day at home and I'm in tears by noon!

I don't feel I've been there enough for her over the past month especially and it's hard. Words cannot express the gratitude I feel for her and the depth of my love and devotion to her. I can never equal her accomplishments no will I try. What she gives to me is a priceless gift - herself. For which, I will forever cherish.

Beauty Queens

Rylie went to a birthday party at Justice and came home with a cute hairdo and makeup. She got some makeup at the party and was excited to try it out on Sienna. Sienna did a good job of letting Rylie experiment on her.

The age difference between Sienna and Rylie is about the same as it is between me and my younger sister. I remember doing Joci's hair and makeup and it is fun to watch Rylie do the same things with Sienna. It is great having a little sis! What fun memories!

Basketball and more basketball

We signed Austin up in the fall for Upward basketball not knowing that the 5th graders also have a basketball team at school. He really wanted to play both so luckily it worked out that practices and games do not interfere with each other. The school basketball team, The Wildcats, have such a huge team that the boys only get to play one quarter each and sometimes two. So it worked out great that he also plays on the Upward team so he can get some good playing time in.

This is his school team, "The Wildcats." Rylie kept teasing him that he was Troy Bolton from High School Musical. He wasn't to thrilled with that.

This is only half the team.

Austin getting pancaked.

Here's Austin on his Upward team, "The Blazers." It's hard to get a good picture of him playing basketball with all the motion. I need to remember to bring the camcorder.

I think they look so cute in their matching uniforms.