Quick Re-cap

I just realized how long it has been since I posted and really don't want to take the time to update this blog properly so, here is the quick version;

*Sometime in August: We find out that I'm pregnant with kid number 3, wahoo! We had been seeing a fertility specialist trying to figure out what was up so we could have at least one more baby. After taking some fertility drugs we saw success (and miraculously, only one baby)! Due date is April 29th but I'm hoping she (yes, another girl) comes at least a week early so we can be sure and have an April birthday instead of 3 May birthdays! Need to spread them out as much as possible.

Leah's Kindergarten Picture

*September: Leah had her Kindergarten picture taken. You can't see it, but she has on a big poofy purple tutu and purple leggings. She didn't realize you wouldn't see those in the picture.

The family + slight baby bump.

Leah drawing the pumpkin's face before painting.

Ryan painting away.

Ryan's finished masterpiece.

Leah's finished masterpiece

*October: Halloween of course. We went to the annual ward Trunk Or Treat and painted pumpkins. I wanted to carve the pumpkins this year but we ran out of time. I also really wanted to find a witch's costume to go with my awesome pink wig but was out of luck by the time I got to a store out of town that might have costumes.

Leah and Ryan on the hayride

*November: Leah had a Thanksgiving Day program at school. She got to make crafts, grind corn, make butter, eat and go on a hay ride. We had Thanksgiving dinner at our house. My sister, Kimm came down to celebrate with us.

*December: We went to Arizona to stay with my parents for Christmas. We went down a little early so Lance and I could do a Christmas show in Glendale. Big Bust! Oh well, the weather was warm and sunny and we found a wonderful used rocking cradle for the new baby too. Christmas was wonderful! The Grandparents spoiled the kids (as they are supposed to) and we got some good loot too. We forgot our camera but took pictures with my Mom's camera, I just haven't requested them yet so don't have any. I'll post some when I get them.

First Day of Kindergarten

 Leah still loves to pose.  I don't know where she gets it from.  She asked if her hands looked good like that with her dress. I said she didn't need to do her hands like that but of course she ignored me.  Leah picked out her first day outfit with her Auntie Kimm a month ago.  The dress, green flower and shoes have been sitting on her dresser since then.  Poor lighting but I was in a hurry because we were already leaving a little late.

 Ryan was turning like a ballerina with his hands up over his head so I had him twirl into place and took a picture quick like so he was actually facing forward.  Hard to get that boy to stay still sometimes.

Dropping off in front of the school.  Again, another pose.  She was so excited, hardly nervous at all.  When she got in line with her classmates ready to go in the classroom she got really quiet so I think the nervousness was kicking in.  Hopefully she has a great day!

Turtle Kids

 Leah and Ryan ran out from the storage room where they were playing and said they were turtles. They then put the their turtle "backs" on and asked me to take some pictures.  Quite the imagination!  Leah's back was the poor flat bean bag chair.

 Ryan's turtle back was a little less comfy and kept falling off unless he stayed really still.  It fell off more than stayed on.

Two turtles together.

Random Sillyness

Leah made a tall tower for her Rapunzel doll.  She was so proud she asked me to take a picture.

 Lately Leah and Ryan have been playing a game where one of them is in "trouble" and the other one is either the mean guy or the good guy.  This time Leah was in trouble and Ryan was supposed to be tying her up.  What you can't see is that Leah actually put the string around herself and got it all ready, then gave the ends to Ryan (who doesn't know how to tie) who promptly changed sides and said he was the nice guy now and was saving Leah.  Leah was a little put out because she really wanted to be tied up.

 

Ryan chose his own spoon for dinner, I don't know why he decided he needed two though, or baby ones for that matter.  He then proceeded to put them all over his face.  He said he wanted colorful eyes since the spoons were colorful.

Leah got more spoons and made fangs out of them.

More Dressing Up

The kids play dress up quite often, nearly every day for at least 2 minutes.  Ryan will be immensely sad when he grows out of his amazing Buzz Lightyear costume.  I think on this particular day Leah was a princess in need of saving and Buzz Lightyear came to the rescue, deserving a hug of course!

Dress Up Time Again

Ryan wanted to be Robin but instead of playing the part he decided to take a break and play on my iPad.

Leah got a fairy for her birthday and a fairy outfit that matched.  She was thrilled!

Ryan's 3rd Birthday

Uh oh.  I feel bad, I'm a bad mom!  I totally forgot to post about Ryan's 3rd birthday which occurred a full 27 days before Leah's birthday. Oh well, I'll get over myself someday.

The cake.  I do some kind of special cake for the kids each year.  Last year Leah's was a car here, and Ryan's was a train here. This year Ryan really wanted a Tow Mater cake from the Cars movie.  I searched all over for how to make one, made a list of ingredients I would need and scrapped the idea after talking with my sister-in-law.  Too much work!!! He was only turning 3 after all, he may not remember the Mater cake later on, not to mention all the hard work, sweat and tears I would have put into making it.  Not worth the fuss.  So, we went looking for a Mater toy to put on top of a simple cake.  Ended up finding this set on sale at Target.  Found the chocolate rocks at Winco before I really knew what I was going to do with them.  The frosting in just black buttercream smoothed down with a paper towel.  Easy sneezy!  I think I even made a from the box cake!! How could I, you ask?  Well, no you probably don't ask...

 I'm sure he just really wanted to take those cars off and play with them.  He was excited about the cake but more excited about the cars.  He is SUCH a car boy!

 The faces this boy makes!!  I can't stand it, he is so cute!

 Lit candles, cute smile...

 

This is actually Ryan trying to blow out those candles.  It is difficult to see so I'll just tell you.  All the air is going right into his lap.  Real effective for blowing out candles! Good thing Lance was there to help.

Our wonderful dentist gave Ryan some birthday balloons, the kids had a dentist appointment before the party.  I'm so glad nice Mr. Dentist (he is also in our ward) was so generous because I had totally forgotten about balloons!  It was a stressful day that I was trying to make wonderful for Ryan.
 At least he got to go out to Birthday Breakfast with Daddy!

 Such a cute smile!

  Car bath toys.  Right away he is driving the cars.

This one just makes me laugh.  He totally loved his new big green truck that came with a guy that sits, kind of, in the front seat.  He played with it every day for about a week.  Now his friends play with it more than he does and they don't come over very often.  Oh well.

Leah's 5th Birthday Party

 Leah turned 5 yesterday.  I can't believe my little girl is already 5 and going into Kindergarten in the Fall.  She is really excited about being 5.  I think she thinks she is all grown up.

 Leah's party invitation.  I painted the painting and then scanned it for the invitation.  I actually did 4 paintings trying to get a very loose, whimsical style.  I never did achieve quite what I was after but settled on this one because after all, it is a little crazy to do 4 of the same painting just for a party invitation!!!

Leah really wanted a pinata this year.  She has been to a couple of friends parties with pinatas and wanted one of her own.  I really didn't want to shell out the money for a good one so I decided I could make one myself.

 The pinata took a little longer than I had anticipated but luckily I started it 5 days before the party.  I think I had some divine inspiration for that decision!  Otherwise I probably would have started it a day before the party thinking I could get it done and dry by whacking time.

 I wanted to do a fondant covered cake very much like what is on the party invitation.  I found a marshmallow fondant recipe that didn't seem too difficult, just time consuming to make.  Luckily before I actually started the fondant I realized that again, I'm a little crazy and was taking on too much.  I told Leah I was just going to do cupcakes because they were going to be a lot easier than a whole cake.  She didn't like that idea and neither did Lance so the cake had to be made.  I decided on a 7 minute frosting, it is kind of like marshmallows, yum!  I did make the cake from scratch though. It was pretty tasty, just a little dry. I found these great gummy butterflies from Winco in Orem (love that store!) and just had to find a way to put them on the cake.  The crown on top is leftover fondant from a bee cake I did for YW a few months ago. The little white things are tiny candy pearls. Leah wanted to push all of them in so they wouldn't fall off, after 5 minutes of her pushing each individually (it seamed like it anyway) I convinced her they would be fine, please stop!!

 I made the crown when Leah was gone having birthday breakfast with Lance so I didn't realize how tall it would be on her.  Oh well, it turned out ok. She loved it too.  I spread out glitter glue all over it, she loved that the best.  I bet if I had just put the glitter on it with nothing else she would have loved it just because of the glitter.  She is so GIRLY! She was waving her hands around and "posing" in odd ways.  I don't know what she was thinking with all that posing.  I told her to put her hands down to her sides but this picture turned out much better and reflects her personality more.

 She couldn't stop laughing and making funny cheesy/freaky faces while I was trying to get a picture of her and the cake.  I think she was just a LITTLE bit excited!

 Whacking time!  Don't you love the stick the pinata is tied to?  Resourceful aren't we?

 Ryan having a go at the pinata.  His first swing was pretty good, the second was not.

 All the kids only got one turn because the boy to Leah's left is so strong and burly!  He whacked it once and the strings broke so we let him whack it again on the ground and then dumped out all the candy.  We expected more kids since we invited all of Leah's preschool class so there was a ton of candy that went home with each kid.  There were 9 kids that showed up and some parents as well.

 She just looked so cute, I couldn't resist putting this picture in too.

 Contemplating the making of the wish.

 The making of the wish.  I don't know what she wished for but she sure spent a lot of time making that wish, probably a full minute at least.

Of course the blowing out of the candles.  Everyone wanted a butterfly, even though not many actually finished their coveted butterfly.  Tears were shed about not getting the right color and everything. We tried to accommodate everyone though.  It was so nice and calm and quiet for about 2 minutes while all the kids happened to be stuffing their faces at the same time.  Then the crazies happened some more until present unwrapping time.  Leah was given lots of great treasures, including lots of wonderful dress-up and girly things.  She was in total heaven.  I just realized it would have been good to have a picture of her with her hoard but alas, I didn't think of it then and I really don't want to re-stage the moment.  Just imagine it in your mind.

Leah' Preschool Graduation

The program started a little later than anticipated.  I forgot to bring my ipad and Lance left his at school.  So, Ryan was a little bored. He made funny faces though!

 Daddy joined in the funny face game. 

 Finally the procession came in.  Leah was so excited!  I'm just glad she actually looked at me so I could at least get this shot.  They all walked in pretty quickly and there were people in the way so this was as good as it got.

 Leah is in the middle row, right in back of the little girl in pink.  They did several songs with actions and even though Leah's actions weren't as big and exuberant as some of her classmates, she still participated.  I'm glad she is getting over some of her shyness and at least starting to participate in front of groups.

Leah's teacher, Ms. Deb handing her a bag the class decorated with goodies inside.  There were a couple of books about getting ready for kindergarten and some of Leah's preschool things from the year.

 Ms. Deb was an awesome teacher that really got Leah out of her whining funk, at least at school...

Leah, Daddy and Ryan. Never could get that little boy to cooperate even though he HAD to be in the picture!

Leah and Mommy.  After graduation the class went over to the rec center across the street to swim in the brand new pool.  Lance had to go back to work and I forgot to take pictures.  Leah went down the awesome slides all by herself and didn't even need me at the bottom.  Ryan and I went down the slides together.  He enjoyed getting a face full of water at the bottom of the slide.  I was glad he was on my lap so he deflected some of the splash from me.