Happy Holidays!

Many of our Christmas traditions have already come to fruition.  One of which being our picture with Santa and the Sorensen cousins.

 I was able to do my tradition of making Roxey a pillowcase (Penny doesn't need one yet) and filling it with an advent calendar, Christmas jammies, and a few books.  I couldn't get a decent picture of the two of them on the pillow, but I was pretty proud of Roxey, I let her pick out the fabric and ribbon this year and it went together really well.

  I especially love this tradition because in all the years that we have been married, I don't think that I can say I have been to the same company party two years in a row!  There were even a few years where we didn't even have a company to celebrate with!  So it was refreshing to go and see familiar faces at the Ken Garff Hyundai company party.

(Side note, we had to move our tree because we were getting a new couch that day and didn't notice our star was crooked until after the next day, oh well, not a great shot anyway!)

This was a new thing I found out about this year and loved!  At our local nursery, they had all these animals, a hayride, cookies, hot chocolate, and Santa.  My children are not fond of Santa, but we sure enjoyed the rest.  Now there's lots more traditions that I wish we could do, but my girls are still small and hopefully I will be able to do more as they get older.  I hear so many cute things that people do with their families, but much of what I do has to be without Jordan since he is working so hard, so I do what I can.  Maybe I'll make it to Temple Square this week, that would be awesome!  Wish me luck, better yet, text me if you want to meet me there! :)

You're one in a MINION!!!

I love my cute family!  Roxey had the idea for us to be characters from Despicable Me 2.  Turned out pretty awesome thanks to the talents of my mom, the randomness of DI, and the hilarity of my husband in character, Gru at his finest!

Happy Halloween!

Six Months!!!

Hard to believe, but Penny is already six months old.  She is a steam roller masher, but only to her left side, so we have to pick her up and turn her around occasionally and off she goes again.  She loves solids already and is constantly eying what we eat, gone are the days of clean unstained clothes!
Roxey and Penny are a dynamic duo.  Words can't describe how perfect their sisterhood is, but here's a few examples to try and demonstrate my point.  So the other day we went for a walk and then we were going to eat popsicles out on the porch.  Well, I came out with them and Roxey was headed inside and when I asked where she was going, she said very matter of fact, "I'm going to get a toy for Penny."  So thoughtful!  Then tonight, we got home late, but before I put Penny to bed, I let Roxey kiss her.  Next thing I know, I hear Roxey running up behind me and says, "I need one more kiss!" and Penny totally smiled as she did so.  Oh how it makes my heart melt.
We decided to take Penny's picture in the same place that we took Roxey's 6 month photo.  Oh, and we don't have photoshop anymore :(, so you get to look at Roxey's mosquito bite over and over again.  Enjoy!

Penny at 6 months

Roxey at 6 months

Giving her a hug a.k.a nearly choking her :)

This was our cue to call it quits!

PRESCHOOL!!!

I love creating fun traditions with my little family, so you can imagine how excited I was to establish some traditions with the start of school having been a teacher myself.  Roxey has been looking forward to this moment for so long, in fact I have felt guilty on a number of occasions for not doing a joy school kind of thing for her, but that's then this is now.

It all started with me allowing Roxey to pick out her own backpack.  She picked a ladybug, pretty cute.  Then one night for our bedtime story, I let Roxey listen to the story The Kissing Hand on the computer.  She thought it was the cutest thing.  We then traced her hand and put a heart in the center that said Preschool and I plan on doing that each year up until 6th grade.  May not be cool to do it as she gets older, so we'll see!  Then I told her to go and look inside her backpack.  Thanks to my mom's vast collection of beanie babies, there was a little raccoon waiting inside.  We named him Chester and I told Roxey that because Chester had gone to school now, he knew what to expect and each day he would sneak out and put a book inside her backpack.  There were fun ones like 'Twas the Night Before Preschool, What to Expect about Preschool, Maisy Goes to Preschool, and Don't Talk to Strangers ( a topic I thought should be addressed before I sent her off on her own!).  She looked forward to this every day and it would come at different times, basically once I could get Chester out of her grips and sit him on top of her backpack as a sign that the book had arrived.

Next, her teacher had appointments for each of them to come individually to meet her and get acclimated with their classroom.  This happened on Jordan's day off so we were able to go as a family, it was so fun.  Not much happened there, but it was still neat to do that as a whole family since Jordan usually misses out on these things due to work.  Not sure why apples are associated with education, but we gave her teacher a caramel apple, because I've decided to try and always show appreciation to those who impact my children's lives.  It's kind of hard to believe that she will be out of my little nest for a while, oh how I hope she doesn't get hurt or bullied or doesn't believe in herself... oh it's hard to start new chapters in life at times.

Then the night before her first day, I made her a meal of her favorites; noodles, corn on the cob, french bread, and Sprite! (Pretty easy to please!)  I had put black butcher paper on the table and she got to draw while I got dinner ready.  After dinner we went for a walk, had Popsicles on the front lawn, and then it was time for the good old bedtime routine.

In the morning we had her favorite breakfast, which happens to be mine too; Belgian waffles and Jamba Juices.  Both of which were purchased at the store beforehand because I don't make breakfast in the morning, I ain't no Suzie Homemaker! 

Finally, we got ready and took some fun pictures.  Penny went down for a nap, so I was able to leave our monitor with a neighbor and walk Roxey to school.  We were early of course, a little excited, but it allowed us to talk with other kids as they arrived.  She even found a buddy with a ladybug backpack as well!  Then when it came time, we were able to go downstairs, we had talked about the process a few times, so Roxey got right down to business.  She gave our little "I love you" you sign (I do it in sign language and she holds up two fingers in order to say I love you too- and because she can't do the sign for I love you- too hard).  Waved good bye and off I went, only to hear her at the bottom of the stairs yell, wait you forgot a hug.  Totally my fault because that was in the verbal plan that we went through, so she was doing that more to be dutiful than because she needed it.  I love this girl!

So now here I sit waiting for her class to be over... I'm going to surprise her when I go to pick her up and take her to our swimming pool right after since our pool is just up the street from her preschool, then we'll come home and have lunch and make cookies.  What fun!

Only negatives during this experience were that the teacher's daughter was home sick with pink eye (YIKES!) and I walked away with the inevitable feeling that now begins the chapter where others are going to have a huge impact on my daughter's life, not just our small family.  I do believe that she can learn a lot from others and the world around her (no I'm not contemplating homeschooling her) so here's hoping she gets off to a great start and LOVES school!

Chester from The Kissing Hand

Making a book delivery

Meeting her teacher, Miss Vanessa (had to take her backpack!)

Doodling- look at that perfect circle around the letter o!  I'm so proud :).

Back to School Dinner

Breakfast- so excited!

Off we go!

Quickly made a friend by pointing out that they both had ladybug backpacks!

See you mom!!!

Stages in Life

So as many of you know, Jordan works a lot. He is gone for at least 10 hours a day if not more. Like right now, he left for work at 8:30 and still isn't home though it is 10! He is amazing though because when he is around he tries to give the girls as much of his attention even though he is dead tired. Sometimes that might mean just cuddling on the couch, other times it can be teaching Roxey to swim. I paid money for swim lessons, yet she learned more in one session with Jordan. She is so brave and will hold on to his back while he goes under water! She jumps in and can swim to him. Anyhow, the point that I wanted to make is that although we miss him immensely, we see this as our sacrifice stage. Our time to try and get back on our feet, so no complaints, we are so happy and grateful for his job. More than that though I am so thankful that I have these two beautiful daughters to help pass the time with. They are so fun together and are both at such great stages in life.

Roxanne is growing up so fast. She will start preschool this fall and I don't know who is more excited, myself or her. It's not that I want her out of the house, I just think it will be her niche and she will develop an amazing part of herself through education, so we're excited! Here are some Roxey highlights as of late...

Roxey is amazing at doing chores, in fact she loves to help out; however, sometimes if I hand her something to put away, she will instead say that she wants to wear it so as to avoid putting it away :).  She really is a big help though and takes pride in making the house look good for when dad gets home.

As I mentioned earlier, Jordan has helped Roxey learn how to swim so well this summer, that she was a little bored during swim lessons.  Here the instructor was asking them to kick their legs, but instead my daughter decided to jump in.  Not the best listener, but an awesome swimmer!  Nobody's perfect!

So although Penny can't "do" much, the fact that she is holding up her head so well and sleeping through the night is huge!  We are so proud of her, she is such a sweet baby!

Roxey demonstrating her great love for our country!

4th of July with the Sorensen's

Doing pop-its- her favorite!

Our neighborhood had a small little Pioneer Day parade for the kids.  Since Jordan was at work, it meant that I needed to be an escort to Roxey so here was my sad attempt at decorating our stroller as well in order to be in the parade.  Roxey was beaming the whole time, it was so cute.

Fireworks with dad (and a slurpee that he brought home), Roxey couldn't have been happier!

Other highlights for this summer...

Getting to see the play Peter Pan with cousin Jane and her family.   Roxey loves Jane so much because they are so close in age.  The last time we went to the zoo together, they held hands like the entire time!

We celebrated Roxey's half birthday by getting her a water table (we used an Amazon gift card from Christmas finally!)  I think in the future since our girls birthdays are both in the winter that rather than celebrating their half birthdays, instead we will have a summer celebration and get them something for the summer, because it was a bummer this Christmas to get Roxey a bike that she couldn't even use for a while.

We had 3 precious baby Robins in our backyard.  I loved watching the mama bird come and feed them; however, when she would come back with not enough food for all of them, I wondered if she had a method for knowing who got the last worm!  At one point one of the baby birds fell out and I wanted so much to get a Snort to put it back in, but luckily the mom knew where it was and fed her out of the nest and now they're all gone.

4 Month Comparisons

I took this picture just to document how well Penny was holding her head up and had a flashback realizing that I did the same thing with Roxey in the same pajamas.  They are a lot a like these two cutie pies!