4 Years Old

Lyla, you are now 4 and what a big 4-year-old you are. You are my little buddy and lately you have loved having me sit down and read book after book to you. You often still fall asleep during quiet time and you sleep 13 hours at night. We had a super eventful trip to the doctor a few weeks ago where you got to have all your final 4 year immunization shots. You were very good about telling me exactly what you thought of all of it. You were looking at me while I held you down on the table for the nurse and said "I told you not to put me up here." "Shots really hurt" and when I said I was sorry about it hurting you you let me know that "it is NOT okay". You were 98% for your height and when we took you to Disneyland they kept making you try to stand under the height sign and hitting your head. Your two friends you play the most with, Ashlee and Katie, are way shorter than you and you end up bossing them around.

You love to have stuff in bags and we have recently been making sure you are not putting every one's stuff in your bags. Miya and Cannon now close their door so you can't get in their room while they are at school. You just really love to have "stuff" in your bags and it never really matters what it is.

You love getting in my closet and playing in my clothes. You love to wear my boots and summer clothes even though it is pretty chilly in this house. You are not a big fan of going to the "cold store" (grocery store) and you often make a scene on the way out of the store which I enjoy.

Since your birthday you continue to remind me that you are big and can do things your own way. Except when you don't want to and 4 quickly becomes little again.

You love to sing and sing everywhere we go. Cannon and Miya often ask if you will please stop singing while driving in the car, but it is just so cute and happy I never make you stop. We sang I Am A Child Of God as the hymn in church and you were super excited to know the song so you stood up and faced everyone in the back and sang as loud as you could. Everyone loved it.

You are a beautiful little girl with a great big personality. You love to talk on the phone and no matter who is on the other line you ask if you can talk to them too. Most of the time it is one of your aunts, but you would talk to a telemarketer if I would let you.

We love you so much Lyla even if we lock you out of our rooms just so we can keep track of all of our "stuff".

Happy Birthday!

Cannon

So I really need to be posting something about Lyla for her birthday this past month, but I took this picture of Cannon and wanted to get it out there. So he came down dressed for school in his turtleneck and "short" pants, then he got the brush out and brushed his hair as far over to the side as he possibly could. I think he looks a little french and he always make me laugh at the things he likes to wear and do. He LOVES pants that are just a couple of inches above his shoes. He LOVE to have his part just a little above his ear and then comb over the hair. He LOVES this turtleneck. He really wants to grow his hair out and because I really don't care he is going to. I imagine he will still want his part in the same place so it is going to get interesting. I am so glad I love this little guy and we can all get a smile out of his style.
He is also funny about everything being a challenge. We got bop-it for Christmas and he beat it a few weeks ago. It goes through the levels and then once you beat expert it just says, "you beat bop-it" and then turns off. He is that way with everything. He will work on something for a LONG time just to beat it and get to the end. It makes it pretty easy to have him learn new things because he doesn't care if he is the best at the beginning he will work until he has mastered it.

Ashlee's kids

I watched Ashlee's kids last weekend so she could have a few days with Michael for her birthday. My kids LOVED having cousins over and getting to have a sleep-over. Miya loved being around Olivia and making her laugh. Lyla and Emery have a love/hate relationship, but enjoyed dressing up to dance and finding swim suits so they could play swimming pool. Cannon and Arleigh are good friends because she just enjoys doing whatever Cannon likes. He enjoyed showing her his amazing bop-it skills. It is so great to have them all this close and I just love getting to know them better. I love them all so much.

Bringing in the New Year

They each had their jobs helping Phil. Someone was on tape duty, another spacers and another to hand over the tiles.

Phil had the day off on New Year's Eve so we were working on the cabin. We started tiling the shower around 11:30 that morning. The kids helped for about 30 minutes and then found their way back up to the house to clear out the candy cupboard before we came up a few hours later for lunch. We laughed at 12:00 am when we were still in the cabin working on the tile and we heard the fireworks around the lake. I said "happy new year" we took a 3 minute break to watch out the window at the great firework show and back to work. We finished everything around 1:00 so it wasn't too bad. I think it turned out really great and most of the time consuming work was around the window and the shelf cut out we made.

Hope we don't party like this next year.

Really

I had just walked in the door from hanging out at Ikea with Ashlee. What did we need to get at Ikea? Nothing, but the kids can play in the play area for an hour and we can walk around talking and looking at stuff without any kids. Plus, kids eat lunch for free for the first few weeks of the year. Ikea is one of those half-way points for us and we find it a pretty cheap and easy place to meet...well until we try to take the kids home. It took me 20 minutes and six rounds of Red Light Green Light to get her to the car. I checked the messages when I got home and there was one from the Principle informing me that my kids were just wondering if I was going to come get them. Yes, it was a half day and I had NO idea. So while I was waisting time at Ikea my kids were waiting in the office at the elementary school for 1 and 1/2 hours. That's right, my kids have the world's BEST mom.
Oh, and did I mention that I left Miya at church a couple of weeks ago and Phil had to go back and get her. Luckily our friend who is in the Bishopric saw her and brought her into the Bishop's office and gave her candy.