This is a video that my brother in law shot at the party at my parent's house last weekend.

Something about it makes me want to watch it over and over again.

People tell me all the time that these are the best years of my life, that while my children are small is the very best time I'll ever experience. And something about this video captures that for me.
It's only 16 seconds long but in that 16 seconds you can see a lot:
 

There I am, young and healthy, holding a birthday cake for my beautiful tiny daughter on her 6th birthday. We are at my parent's house and she's being sung to by both my immediate and extended family- all the people that I love. At the far left side you can catch glimpses of my wonderful Mother, fixing food. My brother, Jason, is in the shot and I never get to see him enough. You can hear my Uncle Don's voice singing clearly and at the end my sweet Grandma Phyllis sings "and many more!".

 

I love it.

 

I know that in 10 or 20 years my children will be grown and gone and things will be different.

So I'm glad that I have this little video to remind me of a moment in time when things were just right, and I'll kiss my babies a few extra times and try to savor these moments just like everyone tells me to.

celebrations

 

It's been a busy few weeks at our house with a lot to celebrate. The last week of Justin's school, Audrey's birthday, a new baby and Mother's Day all fell close together. Let's start with Audrey's birthday:

 

Since we're right in the middle of moving and we knew we were going to have a big party at Grandma's house later in the week, we decided to keep Audrey's birthday small this year. She wanted a ballerina party so we wrapped up some ballet birthday presents and she got to have two friends over for dinner. (pancakes per her request)

 

Then there was a small gathering at the ISU History Department to celebrate the students graduating from their program.

 

Afterward we packed up Justin's office and took a corny picture to remember it by, then turned in his keys.

 



 

On Saturday morning Justin surprised me with flowers and some new ramekins (I've been wanting some new ones, in white of course) for Mother's Day since we'd be with my family on Sunday.

 

He also gave me his "Stole of Gratitude" and a sweet card for helping him through school.

Loved it.

 

After that we packed up and headed down to Twin Falls to have a nice goodbye lunch with Justin's family, then we drove to Wendell to have a baby blessing/graduation/mother's day/goodbye/birthday party at my parents house. They invited my whole family including grandparents, Aunts and Uncles and cousins. It was so great to see everyone.

 

We ate too much of my family's famous baked beans and my Mom's delicious texas sheet cake

 

My sweet Mother went to a lot of trouble to make sure that Justin was fawned over properly for all of his hard work in school.

 

And Audrey got a proper not-store-bought ballerina birthday cake.

 

Then about 30 people sang to her and we opened presents.

We snuggled Beth's darling baby lots

 



 

but the best part, for me: seeing everyone all together.

(and sitting around until 9:30 at night listening to my Dad and my Uncles telling old horse stories and laughing and laughing. )



 

It was a great party that required lots of time and effort from both my parents.

Thank you so much!

She

loves ballerinas.

(but most especially the dancing snowflakes from the Nutcracker Suite)

loves princesses.

and pink.

and begs to wear my jewelry and can't wait until she can wear make-up.

 

 

 

loves bones and regularly pretends to be a doctor.

told me the other day that she thinks she'd like to be an astronaut.

scrolls past the tinkerbell movie on Netflix to start a documentary about the sinking of the Titanic.

but most especially she loves volcanoes. Oh, this girl loves volcanoes.

 

 

She's the perfect mix of girly and pretty and sweet

and

smart and curious and inquisitive.

 

I'm kinda crazy about her.

And today, she is 6 years old.

 

Happy Birthday to my princess/doctor/ballerina/scientist/astronaut.

 

I love you so much.

 

Love, Mom

The Nutcracker

 

Awhile ago I found a video of the Nutcracker Ballet and picked it up thinking Audrey would enjoy it. Enjoy it is an understatement. She loved it. So we picked up a Nutcracker book at the library. She loved it. So...when we saw that there would be a live performance of the Nutcracker at ISU, we had to get this girl there to see it in person.

 

Justin stayed home with David and let me go with Audrey since I've always wanted to see it as well. And, well we knew Audrey would love it but the surprising thing was how much I loved it too. Turns out I love ballet. Like, really love it. Who knew?

 

Audrey whispered in my ear through the whole thing. "There's Uncle Drosselmeyer!" "The Mouse King!" and then when the lights came on and the curtain came down for intermission she turned to me horrified and said, "Mom, it can't be over yet!"

 

 

It was a great experience and we're big time fans.

Definately seeing it again next year.

 



first day of school

 

It's happened. I blinked and now she's in kindergarten.

Her dad gave her a blessing the night before and while I sat on the couch listening to him pray over her this thought kept coming to my mind: "She is special. Take good care of her, she is so special."

Justin was in tears when he was done and I know he felt it too.

 

She loves school. There was no fear, just excitement. She loves her teacher and is eager to learn.

I know she's going to do great.

 

When Davy and I picked her up we snapped these pictures and then I heard about every detail of her day.

 

She's pretty proud of herself. And she's not the only one.

Audrey the photog

I've always sort of rolled my eyes when I checked other people's blogs and they posted pictures that their children had taken. I guess every parent thinks that their child is the most clever or funny. (That bias certainly exists in my case). And if you're like me and think it's silly then go ahead and skip this post.

But Audrey's been snapping some pictures on my phone lately and I have to admit that it definitely is fun to see her point of view and what's important to her. So far it seems to be: me when I'm not aware she's taking a picture, her brother, some toys, her new pet fish, and her shoes. (That last picture is how we know that she's related to Aunt Lyric)

we have...

It has been cold and rainy outside for the past few days. We have been drinking mexican hot cocoa.

 

Also, I have been sick. Head cold. Sneezing, runny nose, can't sleep at night.

The apartments have been busy and full of the drama that I hate. I have to keep reminding myself that we have bigger goals and that this situation is only temporary.

 

We have been swimming. Audrey's learned to swim by herself with her floaties and it's a pretty big deal.

 

Audrey has been saying "are you thinking what I'm thinking?" all the time and it's making us laugh because she doesn't quite get the concept.

"Mom, are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"I don't know, what are you thinking?"

"There's a fly on the window."

watching sister play outside

David has finally started saying "momma" and it is the sweetest thing ever.

 

He also yells "Da!" Whenever Justin calls his name.

 

gorgeous peonies!

We have been experimenting with new recipes. Eating lots of fruit and avacadoes and zucchini and tomatoes. On Sunday we fed the missionaries a BBQ quinoa salad that I was afraid they would hate.

They both went back for seconds.

 

We have been getting a lot of questions about our weight loss and how we eat now. I'm contemplating a blog post about it.

the results of David entertaining himself while I was on a conference call

racing

We have been spending as much time as possible away from our tiny apartment. All four of us crammed in for too long equals everyone being grumpy. We've been visiting parks, taking walks along the river, (and throwing lots of rocks in the water) and getting out of town whenever possible.

We have been in Utah.

 

And I have made a fool of myself yet again during another late night discussion with family.

I don't do well when it gets past midnight.