A little catch up time- Valentines day

 My Sister-in-law has the cutest tradition where her kids play cupid on Valentines Day. I decided to give it a try, and my kids LOVED it! We made giant cookies, the big cupid hearts for the kids to wear, then came up with a little poem to tell the people we visited. We visited about 6 people from our neighborhood, and the kids were sad when we were done.

 On pinterest there were some cute treat ideas, but my neighbor put a twist on these floats that my kids loved. It turned the drinks red to match the holiday.

The kids were excited that Evan was home this Valentines Day!! We love our dad. We ended our day by having a candle light dinner with the kids. You can't go wrong with a heart shaped pizza from Papa Murphys.

Baby or No Baby?

So we had a pretty hectic Saturday and ended up dragging all the kiddos to the grocery store for some fun "family time!"  Things were actually going well considering we had all five of the crazies with us. As we were walking down the isles, Hannah was running up to people, saying hi, being her usual energetic self! I must admit I was laughing at the things she was saying to the people we would pass. All of the sudden there was a nice "grandmotherly" looking woman that Hannah saw and took off towards. I was interested to see what she would say. My amusement quickly turned to horror as Hannah ran up and patted her tummy and with a huge smile said "Oh you have a baby in your tummy!" Coward that I am, I quickly started walking away, pointing out to Evan that he was on Hannah duty! He was pretty quick to catch on to what was happening and intervened, trying to smooth things over. Not knowing how the sweet lady was really feeling, I was sure to avoid her for the rest of our grocery trip. But as luck would have it, she was leaving the store the same time as we were. Evan was behind me so I couldn't disappear again! She came up and said, "oh there is that cute little girl that I would love to take home with me!"   Phewsh... I gave a quick sigh of relief that she at least laughed about the whole thing, but I was quick to tell her that while we love Hannah, she sure keeps us on our toes. She smiled and laughed and said she could see how we could feel that way. Hannah gave her a big smile and then we made a hasty exit to our car and locked the kids away where we could all be a little safer!! As Evan and I were talking about that adventure on the way home, I asked him what he said to the lady. He laughed and said he told her "don't worry, she says the same thing to me all the time!" Nice one Ev....

Hannah Turns Three

 Hannah began her wonderful birthday, on mom and dad's bedroom floor, to Mom and Sander singing happy birthday! Gracie and Addie had already woken up and ran into the kitchen to make Hannah's happy birthday sign to put in her spot at the counter for breakfast. Hannah snuggled with mom and told her all about what its like to be 3! Mom took a picture of cute Hannah Banana and texted it to Dad. When Hannah asked to see the picture, she just laughed and laughed, and then told mom, with a big smile on her face, "I'm such a stinker!"

 Hannah finally decided it was time to get some breakfast and was REALLY happy to find a box of sugar cereal waiting for her on the counter. She was patient enough to have some birthday pictures taken before she started to chow down on the yummy cereal.

 Not much after breakfast, Hannah decided she needed a snack. When we started looking for our missing birthday girl, we found her behind the couch eating frosting, which had been swiped from the kitchen counter. Hannah, ever the nice big sister, was sure to bring Eden along for the fun and even provided her with her own spoon so they could both DIG in!

 A little while after that, Hannah went missing again. This time she was found under her blanket "drinking" the sprinkles that were supposed to go on the birthday cake. Instead of getting frustrated with "sweet" little hannah, mom decided she should just take a moment to hold Hannah and let her know how glad we are to have her in our family. So mom and Hannah had some good snuggle time on the kitchen floor, under the blanket.

 Once the cake was finally cooled, and the sprinkles were returned, the kids all gathered around to help decorate the cake. A pink rainbow cake was in the works. Hannah did a great job sorting out all the colors to make the rainbow... some of which looked so good they found their way into Hannah's cute little mouth.

 Dad came home and we headed to IHOP so the birthday girl could have some pancakes. Hannah found the best part of dinner was running into the bathroom and flushing all the toilets! (ugh) The entire restaurant could hear her giggling as she flushed one toilet after another. Who knew that IHOP was dinner and entertainment too?!

 Hannah did fall asleep on the way home.... and mom was a little tempted to let her have an early night even though it was her birthday, but Dad stepped in and woke the sleeping monster... I mean princess, up. It took a few minutes but Hannah was able to find the sweet little girl deep inside long enough to open some presents and have some cake and ice cream.

Hannah, I hope your wish comes true! We love having you in our family!

Love you Dad

Evan- even though you aren't with us today, you are in our hearts. Thanks for all the thoughtful things you have done for us to make this valentine's day special for us. We are thinking of you. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo:)

Eden Lyn Grover

Well, after a 10 hour labor, we finally got to meet Eden Lyn. She gave us a little excitement after being posterior, having the umbilical cord around her neck, and retracting when she was breathing once she was born. We were glad once things slowed down a little and we could just enjoy holding and loving her!

Okay, maybe things are just starting to feel like they are slowing down. We have been to the doctors office or the hospital almost every day until today. Eden has been on a bili bed until today. She has been such a great baby, hardly crying at all. We could only take her off the bed to feed or change her.


We just laughed bringing her home. She is so tiny! I think the girls dolls take up more space in the carseat than Eden does.

And then there were five! The kids have been great with the new baby. They were very patient with waiting to hold Eden, and they have been so gentle with her. Hannah has even done pretty well (although she can ocationally get REALLY loving) I hope Eden is a strong one!

Eden Lyn Grover

6 lbs. 9 oz

20 1/2 in.
September 7, 2011

Random, but yay my pictures work!!

Loved, loved, loved Goblin Valley. The kids had soo much fun! It was a perfect family camping trip. The ride home was pretty quiet since the kids were so tired from all their running, climbing and jumping around.

My sweet little girls eating their rainbow cupcakes on St. Patrick's Day. Sander had one too, but he was asleep under the kitchen table when we took this picture.

We took our kids to a 3D movie forever ago, and these were the favorite part of the movie! Hannah especially cracks me up when she puts these on.

You wouldn't think it to look at him, but Evan can make a killer cake. Sander wanted this cake so bad, and I told him it was a little too much for me to handle. Have no fear, Evan was here! He came home early from work so he and Sander could work on this master piece!

(Thanks Sue for solving my picture problem!)

Happy Fourth?

I woke up early on Monday and it was cloudy! I jumped out of bed and hurried outside to work in the yard before it got too hot. Sander came out with me and picked up rocks while I filled in trenches. Evan finally came out,saying he had no idea we were already outside working. (Sweet Ev, sleeping past 5:00 is sleeping in for him, so we didn't mind when he came out around 8:30 to help)We worked and worked, and finally Sander realized the neighbor kids were headed for the parade and we should have been in the car on our way too! He finally said, "working isn't fun, when are we going to have any fun?!" I thought it was fun when we finally finished our retaining wall and smoothed out our front yard, so grass at least looks like a possibility! We got all cleaned up and the kids put on their red, white and blue and we headed to pick out fireworks. (Evan decided that we need to teach the kids to be more patriotic so he bought the girls red, white and blue bows and then bought a flag to hang on our house. - still having the picture uploading problem...sorry). We headed over to some friends for a BBQ which was tons of fun... even when the rain started. We quickly covered the food, put up a shelter, and got ready to shoot off the fireworks. I am not sure who had more fun, the dads or the kids, but there was a lot of laughter and smiles while sparklers and fireworks went off. They have legalized the fireworks that shoot into the sky, so Evan had to buy one really good one. It was worth every penny watching the kids react to that! What a fun night!