Kid Updates

Benson has recovered from his ear infections and is back to his old rambunctious self. Benson had an exciting first today - he got to give the theme and the Article of Faith in Primary. As of January, Benson has been going to Primary with all the big kids at church rather than to nursery with the little kids. Let's just say that the transition has been less than smooth. But today he was very excited because he got to use the MICROPHONE! So we practiced a lot at home and mommy uttered many silent prayers that he wouldn't use this opportunity to demonstrate what CAN be done with a microphone. And he did great! He said only what he was supposed to in a very loud and clear voice and then went and sat done. As I walked out of the primary room I had a few tears in my eyes, from a combination of pride and relief. How grateful I am to be the mom of this incredibly smart, independent little boy and to be able to watch him progress. Here he is saying the Article of Faith (the ice cream cone is his "microphone").


Grace got her first black eye yesterday. Mike was reading the kids stories on Benson's bed and Sabrina (accidentally, we think) pushed Grace off and she hit her eye on the bed frame. We put her to bed with just a little scratch and by this morning her eye was swollen half shut. Grace got to go spend Thursday night at Grandma Stacey's house this week and had a wonderful time. She even got to sleep in Grandma's bed since Grandpa was out of town. Grace also got to go to Aunt Jenny's soccer game before they brought her home on Friday. All of the soccer girls know Grace and make a fuss over her which she LOVES! Jenny plays keeper and she said that when she came off the field after a rough 20 minutes she was mad but then she saw Grace yelling "Aunt Jenny, Aunt Jenny, Aunt Jenny" and she couldn't stay mad. Grace is enthusiastic about everything and it rubs off on all of us! I will say it was much quieter when she wasn't home, but we all missed her, especially Daddy, who gets the best reaction out of Grace when he comes home every night. Here are a few pictures of her shiner - they don't quite do it justice.




Sabrina is in language explosion mode. She is saying new words all the time. She says mommy, daddy, "cheese" everytime she sees the camera, baby, popcorn and probably more that I can't think of right now. Her animal sounds repotoire is also growing, she can now do a duck, a cat, a lion, and a dog. This video is the best I've gotten so far, she had a little extra help from her siblings.

I don't know what Ganache is...but I Galike it!

I just have to do a quick post about the awesometacular cake Jess made me for Valentine's Day. I've always loved her cooking. She's an amazing cook. But, lately, she seems to have gotten into this gourmet cooking kick. Needless to say, I'm quite satisfied with the whole arrangement. And my coworkers can't believe the fancy leftovers I've been bringing to work for my lunches. Anyway, for Valentine's Day she surprised me with a cake with about four or five different kinds of chocolate in it and chocolate dipped strawberries all around it. It pretty much rocked my world!

oooooooo...baby.....(in the voice of Barry White)

mmmmmmmmmmmmmm.......that's the stuff...

Bullous Myringitis

Benson has been quite the little sicky for the last week. He has been running a fever off and on, threw up once, a little diarrhea, very tired and lethargic, etc. We figured it was just the flu that EVERYONE seems to have right now, but when he woke up with a fever again this morning I decided to take him in to the doctor just to be sure. He has an ear infection in both ears. In the right ear it's just a normal ear infection but in the left he has bullous myringitis, which means he has blisters on his eardrum. Poor kid. So we got him some antibiotics and hopefully he will be back to normal in a few days. We are all sick of being quarantined. If our lucky streak continues within a few weeks Grace will have her turn with an ear infection. These kids of ours are going to have incredible immune systems some day with all the practice they are getting.

Happy Valentine's Day

We wanted to send a message to all our family and friends for Valentine's Day! WE LOVE YOU!

Cute Girls

I am a sucker for cute dresses. I justify buying so many because I have at least 2 girls who will use them. I love getting them all dressed up on Sunday and doing their hair. And they love it too, for the most part. Here are a few pictures of Grace and Sabrina in a few of their most recent cute dresses.

Grace and Sabrina after church yesterday

I had to look all over to find little brown dress shoes to go with this dress and I finally found some on Zappos.com. I ordered them on a Saturday night after 7pm and they were delivered by FedEx before noon the following Monday, I was impressed (we won't mention that they cost more than the dress).

Sabrina saying "cheese"

Grace in her "little black dress"

Grace and Daddy

Yesterday while we were taking pictures, Sabrina started saying "cheese." We thought it was so cute I had to get a video of it today demonstrating her new word.

Daddy Daughter Dance

This is Mike. Yes, I'm actually going to post something. I know I never do, but I thought I'd make an exception. So tonight the girls and I went to our Stake's Daddy Daughter Dance and they loooved it. They were dancing fools. They had a lot of other activities there besides dancing which I thought they would like better, but it turned out that dancing was their favorite part. They had a disco ball and flashing lights which the girls liked to run around in, spinning in circles. Grace would sit on the floor and spin. She looked like she was trying to breakdance. She came and stood on my toes to dance, without me ever teaching her to do that. I'm sure she saw some other girl doing it. Breeny loved to dance with me, but she loved trying to keep up with all the other little girls there too.
When we first got there they got to pick out flowers that I pinned on their dresses. Then they admired themselves in 3 big mirrors they had set up in the hall. That was pretty cute. There was also a room where they had board games. We played Chutes and Ladders for a while and I had the girls laughing pretty hard in there. There was an area set up for coloring with papers and stickers and heart shaped hole punchers, so we did that for a while. I love my little girls. They're so sweet and lots of fun. I loved the activity. It was very well organized and well attended. I saw some dad's who looked bored out of their minds, which I think is a shame, and too bad for them. But I saw plenty of dad's who looked like they were genuinely enjoying spending time with their girls.
Unfortunately, most of the pictures I took are really bad, because of the low lights at the dance, but here's a few that made it:

Here we are, all ready to go

Soooo Pretty!

"You've sunk my...battleship?"

I know slides are fun, but you're supposed to want the ladders

Sabrina being initiated into the Sisters With Matching Dresses (SWMD) Club

Breeny dropping into the splits after an uproarious dance routine

After the dance we met up with Jess and Ben at Braum's for ice cream. They had gone to see "Alvin and the Chipmunks" at the theatre while we were gone. I think Ben had a good time too. That is to say he's been acting like a singing, dancing chipmunk a lot ever since.

Benson eating chocolate ice cream at Braum's after "Alvin and the Chipmunks"

Real men wear pink ties in ice cream parlors

Sabrina has learned to run

So? Big deal, don't all kids learn to run at this age? Well it's not really the fact that she has learned to run that's significant, it's WHY she has learned to run. For survival. She runs from Grace.
Sabrina and Grace have developed a real love/hate relationship lately. Sabrina is quite the toy stealer and Grace doesn't seem to feel that our family rule #3 (share!) applies to her. So Sabrina has learned that when she takes something from Grace she has to run as FAST as she can to Mommy and Daddy. Yesterday she was squealing so loud while running away that I thought for a moment that a little piggy was about to be slaughtered in our living room. Both of them always want what the other one has and neither of them want to be left out of anything. Which leads to quite a bit of fighting.
But sometimes they have so much fun together. They love playing dress-up together, they don't really fight over the dress-up clothes. Grace can get Sabrina giggling better than anyone else. Sometimes they chase each other around for fun, no toys involved, and it is pretty cute. It sure will be interesting to watch their relationship develop as they grow up.
I've been trying to get a good video of a fun chase scene, but it has been hard. So here's one of them being silly at the end of dinner tonight. They were at a safe distance from each other so it was all fun. After about 30 seconds it's mostly just Grace yelling really loud so you may want to spare your ears and just turn it off. I obviously need to get some good video editing software.

Dashing through the snow

I know, more snow pictures, I'm sure that all of you out there can hardly contain yourselves. But keep in mind that we have lived in California for the last 5 winters, and as such our children have really never seen snow until now. So snow is really exciting to us. Last Friday we went to Bartlesville because they got a lot more snow than we did and didn't have school. Plus Grandma and Grandpa have an awesome hill in their backyard and sleds and we don't. Aunt Sarah and I bundled up the kids again and had a great time sledding. Aunt Jenny and Grandma were noticeably absent from all the fun because Grandma had surgery last week and Aunt Jenny had her wisdom teeth taken out. We appreciate them putting up with us when they were feeling under the weather.

Ben, Sabrina, and Grace sledding down the hill (Aunt Sarah ran along beside them)

Benson sledding all by himself

Aunt Sarah was trying to pack the snow down to make the sleds go a little faster and Grace jumped on her back halfway down the hill

Benson ate so much snow that I thought I was going to be sick
Mommy and the girls sledding

Aunt Thawa - in Grace speak

Grace was by far the funniest through the whole adventure. She would STRUGGLE to walk part way up the hill and then she would just stand there yelling "Sarah! Sarah!" with her cute little lisp. Then Sarah would say "No Grace, I'm not carrying you" and Grace would continue to yell until I would go pick her up and take her up the hill just to keep her quiet. I love Grace very much, but she makes me HATE my own name and pretty much everyone elses names on a regular basis, she can be quite relentless.
So we had lots of fun in the snow last week. Today it got into the 80's.