Abby end of school

The end of school is always an insanely busy time with school programs, field trips, parties, soccer, fathers-n-sons, Zach's birthday, etc.  Whew.  I'm exhausted.  But Abby has had a great year in 1st Grade in Mrs. C. Webb's class.  This was Kason's first grade teacher too.  She has become a great reader this year and earned her Radiant Roadrunner Award.  Here are a few pictures from her program.

Abby's and her teacher, Mrs. Webb 

Abby and her friend Kaizlee.  Check out how tall Abby is!

Abby plays soccer

This was Abby's first season of playing soccer, and boy was it fun watching her!  She's a natural, and with her long legs she looked like a gazelle bounding up and down the field.  When the other team stole the ball and started for a breakaway down the field, Abby was the only player who could tear off down the field and catch them.  She stopped several near breakaway goals this season with her fast, long legs. 

 

Coach Payton, (standing)  Kambria, Abby, Shay,

(kneeling) Carlie, Baylee, Maddy, &

Klara

 

 

There were two girls on Abby's team (Carlie & Maddy) that I saw pushing and shoving their own teammates multiple times during the season.  I was grateful I didn't see any of that kind of behavior from Abby.  I guess there are "mean girls" even at this early age. 

 

Baylee Beckstrand & Abby

Beauty and the Beast

My friend Janet, who serves as one of my counselors in the Primary, called me Saturday and said she and her husband were taking their 2 grand-daughters to see the play "Beauty and the Beast."  They had an extra ticket and invited Abby to come along.  Abby's eyes got wide when I told her and she was SOOO excited.  They picked her up early and took her for a happy meal.  Then took her to the play in Hurricane, and bought her treats at the play too.  It was a fun afternoon for her and I was so glad Janet included her.  That night Abby pulled out her "Belle" barbie doll and was telling me all the differences between Belle the Barbie and Belle in real life.  Color of shoes, bow in hair, etc.  The other girls in the pictures are Brooklyn and Marley, and Abby's been asking me when she can play with "Narley" again.  

 

Preschool Party

The district held a big preschool party for all the preschools in the district (Title 1 preschools). Tige took Abby & Taylor to it and they had a great time, it was held downtown and was full of fun activities such as musical chairs, penguin/ball walk, egg carry, parachutes, sack hop, etc. Abby has loved her preschool this year and is a little smarty.  She is reading simple books, and knows all 26 uppercase letters, lowercase letters, and all letter sounds.  She is definitely ready for kindergarten. Taylor gets to start preschool in the fall and is pretty excited about that!

 

Park with Teina

Tige's sister Teina was babysitting the kids and walked them down to the park.  I think this might have been Zach's first outing to the park where he got in the swings.  I'm so glad Teina thought to grab my camera and snap some pictures. 

First Day of School

It's that time of year, and my kids are sooooo excited for school!  Abby started preschool and finally gets to use her awesome backpack (given to us from the Little family when Taylor was born).  I don't believe I've ever seen a cuter preschool girl!  Loving her new shorter haircut.

 

 

And Kason couldn't wait to get to 4th grade.  Can't believe I have a 4th grader!

 

He loves his stylin new shoes!  He received a $25 gift certificate at the end of 3rd grade for running 5 marathons, so he used that to help buy these shoes!



Mom's Day

I only vaguely remember Mother's Day this year.  It came just a week after having Zach, and I was in a full sleep-deprived stupor.  Kason & Abby made these in primary--the things they know about me.  Kason was pretty close on most of it.  He knows me well.  I wish I only weighed 5 lbs like Abby said.  Each of these cards came with a Ghiradelli chocolate.  I enjoyed Kason's chocolate immensely, but not Abby's because she stole it and ate it herself! 

I love my kids and my husband more than I can say, and I'm very grateful to be a mother.

Cute stuff at home

Kason

Kason sometimes reads the kids bedtime stories, which they love.  I decided to record some of it one night because it's so cute.

 

 

Taylor has been under the weather a lot lately.  As in, he's pretty much been sick constantly from Thanksgiving until the end of February.  He's had 4 ear infections, including a ruptured ear drum, and needs to have ear tube surgery right away.  Anyway, it's unusual for him to fall asleep during the daytime, but he fell asleep snuggling on the chair with Abby the other day, so we snapped this picture.

Miss Abby is 4

Abby is 4! She asked for a "dog" cake.  I didn't think I could pull that off.  I looked through the cake websites, and found this purse instead.  It turned out really cute.

 

 She opened a few presents.  A Cinderealla dress-up from G&G Hazleton, and a new church dress, 2 pairs of shorts, and a princess sticker/activity book from G&G Taylor. 

 



 From us she got a "Tangled" barbie, an "Awesome Abby" doll, some clothes for fall, and a personalized princess storybook.

 

 We facetimed with the grandparents so they could see her open their presents.

 

 Then we invited our neighbors, the DeHaans over for cake and ice cream.  The cake started sliding apart about 3 minutes before we were sitting down to eat it, so Tige had to hold it up while she blew the candles.  The kids scarfed down their cake and ice cream and went outside to play til it was dark.

 

 We adore our princess Abby and are so glad she's ours!

Abby's Room

Abby's has a new room!  It's been a long time coming.  She's been sleeping in her crib with the railing off like a "day bed."  I bought her this cute floral/stripe bedding about 6 months ago, and have been trying to find a bedroom set that I really liked that wasn't $1,000.  I was after white furniture to go with her white dresser and our white closet doors and trim, but I've been looking for months.  I've been to every store in town, plus looked online and just couldn't find the right stuff.   I've also been checking online yard sales and craig's list.   Then a few days ago I ran across this "hot pink" furniture.  I dismissed it at first, but after thinking about it for a day or 2 and showing it to Tige, we decided to go see it.  I took the bedspread to see how it would match, and it looked pretty good.  So we snatched up the furniture and I was releived my search was finally over.

It included bed with headboard and footboard, a night stand, and a desk with an attached mirror and chair.  I didn't really need the desk set, but thought it was cute anyway.  After getting the furniture, we went to Costco to buy a mattress while they were on sale.  It didn't come with a box spring though.  Abby was in smallest room of the house, so we decided to do a grand shift of the bedrooms moving all of Taylor's stuff into her small room and moving her into Taylor's room. 

My friend Cathy was over for lunch and I showed her the new stuff out in the garage.  She said "well let's get busy! I love this kind of stuff."  I thought she was completely nuts.  I mean, who would want to disassemble 2 rooms and switch them around.  I was so overwhelmed even thinking about it, and of course, Tige gets growly about this type of thing too.  I said "I don't even know where to start!"  Cathy said "we'll empty Abby's room, vacuum and clean it, move Taylor's stuff over, then vacuum and clean his, and move all Abby's new stuff in."  She was like a champion--using Tige's tools to take apart cribs and rehanging pictures, etc.  We finished everything in less than 4 hours.  I swear it would have taken me 2 weeks without her!  Tige came home in the middle of the project and couldn't believe his eyes.  We sent him to DI for a boxspring.  He came back with one that was only $15.  So $119 for a brand new mattress at Costco, and $15 for the boxspring.  Awesome!

Anyway, here's the room.  I LOVE it!  I smile everytime I walk by.  It's cuter than I ever imagined in my head.  I was nervous about that hot pink, but it matches perfectly and is darling.

Here's the bedding, and nightstand and the striped curtain.  The lamp is front her nursery set, and the white basket in the nighstand was a baby gift from my Aunt Tricia and used to hold her hair stuff in the bathroom.  It was perfect to put in the nightstand. 

Here's the desk with mirror and chair.  It has white hardware.  Those 3 ballerina wall hangings were for Abby's nursery that my mom made when she was born.  I loved them and didn't want to part with them.  I decided to hang them up anyway even though they are a little pastel.  They look great.  Kason says "now Abby has a lego table too!"  He gave her a few legos to assemble on her new desk, but I took them back to Kason's room.  I only want 1 million lego pieces in ONE room in our house, thank you very much.

This is the dresser she already had.  The rod was already on the wall from a previous wall hanging, and Cathy just slipped my "A B B Y" letters onto the rod.  So cute!  I would have just pinned with up with T-pins and never would have even thought of hanging them from the rod.  Again, I was so glad she was there to help me.

The temple picture I made for Abby for Christmas.  With it's white frame and hot pink lettering, it looks even better in here than her previous room.  The little flowers on the wall are vellum stickers from WALMART!  What a find. I was planning to buy multiple colors of vinyl and cut flowers and designs on my cricut (hello, TON of work), when I ran across these stickers at Walmart shortly after buying the bedding.  They were perfect!  Tige & Abby helped us stick them up.  They are all over the room.  "Way better than painting!" Tige said.  Yeah, babe.  I knew you'd say that.  Which is why I got the stickers.  ;)

Here's the little Miss in her new big girl bed.  No peeing allowed please!

Here's a closer picture of the desk. 

We are all excited about  the room.  It looks so cute and definitely fits Abby's personality.  Now if we can only keep it clean! 

Hair, Cookies, books

Yippee!!! Abby's hair is finally long enough to french braid and do piggy tails.  It only took 4 years to grow!  We are excited to be able to kind of do stuff with it now. 

 Waiting for cookies to cook in the oven.  Mmmm! I couldn't agree more. 

Loving when dad reads us some books!