This girl

Ever since boo was little,  good byes have never been a big deal. I barely could get a wave or a verbal good bye from her when I dropped her off at preschool.  I always half-wished I got more as I watched other kids hug and kiss their moms  goodbye. But I also knew it just wasn't who Boo was. She has always been so excited for school and being around friends that the temporary separation wasn't a big deal.
But lately when i've dropping her off at school, I get a hug, a kiss and/or blown kiss with an "I love you mom". Ahhhhh. It tickles my heart.
I've also started to say a little prayer for her most days as I watch her walk into school. I like that special little prayer just for her. I hope I can keep that up.

Spooktacular

Since Halloween fell on a Saturday, and apparently not tired of party planning yet, I thought we had to make Halloween a little more exciting. Halloween is not my favorite holiday but there are so many fun things to do. I decided to through together a little party, not really little but not big enough to invite all that I wanted to. I think those who came had fun but i think I learned a few things:
1. Make it longer, it was too short for me to sit and talk to anyone.
2. Either make it all at activities and not a meal, or start off with the meal so that i can enjoy the party.
3. do it on the years that we aren't doing a birthday party for Boo
4. just keep having fun. We are creating memories for our kids. I stopped for a minute one day why I care about that and why that is important. We want them to remember childhood as a happy time. we want them to remember our love for them and that we have fun together. And it is our memories that will bring a smile and warmth in our hearts when life gets hard our sad.
Anyway here's the party

Fairy god mother and Doc McStuffins

 My neighbor brought this craft and it was perfect, the kids LOVED it.

 The food table beginning to get full of all the yummy treats people brought

  Wrap your daddy up like a mummy:

 Donuts on a string

 so fun, so messy

 We also had other games they could play at their leisure: Spider tag (basically line tag),  black cat alley but it was really a spiderweb obstacle course that ran between our fence and behind the shed and trampoline, we had the jumping spider nest (trampoline), Witches hat ring toss, and bat flying races. 

 Ready to trick or treat:

 well Documented to help out those memory keeping skills. :)

Tea Party

I had fun putting together this party. I went a little crazy but had fun. Part of the fun in the party planning is doing it as simply and cheaply as I can but keeping it pretty awesome. The hard part of doing it cheaply means that I have to take more time creating and baking instead of buying it all put together for me. Say the pinata. I could easily bought a pinata. but it is incredibly cheap to make just takes time.

Or the paper banner and pinwheel decorations. Takes time but so cheap. The other part of keeping it cheap is that even 25 cents adds up pretty fast.

The tissue paper flowers were used for decorations and we used them for their fancy headbands they wore for the tea party.

I have no idea I spent or how many hours I put into putting this party together for my dear Boo. But I loved doing it for her and she loved it. Now, I am anxiously awaiting to have another tea party. And I really really want another petit four....plenty of work but so so yummy.

 We played musical chairs and sugar cube drop relay game (no pic of that one though)

 The lovely ladies:

This picture makes me happy, Boo's face makes it all worth the work!

Love this girl!

Squishy

So obviously I have a post baby body and I am totally okay with it. I'm okay with little miss calling my tummy squishy all the time ( don't love her pushing on it however. ) I know my body has paid a price for my sweet babes and that's okay.  I will exercise and feel good about my body.

But when you go in for the post-baby check and your doctor checks your tummy and states " you have a lot of loose skin. You're going to need a tummy tuck.".

Say what?!! Who says that, especially so soon. I wasn't concerned.  And in fact i'm pretty sure it's normal.

I'm glad i'm happy enough with my body and confident that I can exercise and know my body will be fine in a few months (or many months). Otherwise that could have really hit my self esteem.  Goodness. Her statement comes to mind often but I just roll my eyes and laugh it off.

All worth it. If my squishy tummy doesn't go away. I hope I can wear it like a badge of honor, being a mother of my 3 wonderful girls.

Wanna be farmers

GG had the day off yesterday,  ya you heard me right. :) happens once in a blue moon that he has no church or work stuff going on... ( I really don't know how rare blue moons are, but it may be more rare than a blue moon).

Anyway we decided to go and pick a pumpkin ...and raspberries and apples, just a few for the fun of it. I wish  that we picked more and either froze them or made yummy food with them. Oh well. Harvesting the fruit makes me want to have a big garden but them there is the planting and making them grow thing....

 They also had a few other fall activities.

Will we go back there for picking pumpkins instead of the big Halloween pumpkin patches in the future? don't know. I liked it but boo remembers the other patches and she wasn't as thrilled, I don't think. But I liked the simplicity, the price and the produce. 

Upload...maybe overload.

So this is going to be a picture blog so far behind compared to number of pictures on my phone :

 Love this binkie sometimes super helpful other times cumbersome but more helpful than not:

 One week old:

 Blessing day.
We were able to have the baby blessing at our home,you know, we are pretty tight with the bishop, so it wasn't hard to get approval. ;)

 Nonna came that weekend too. She was such a help with the kids.

We were also blessed with other family there to join the special moment who were conveniently here for a football game...well some of them anyway. 

 Grandma time:

 Ain't this the truth?:

 Totally zonked out :

Little miss insisted babe have glasses.

 I know we have a picture of Boo doing this to little miss too but it's not readily available on my phone to add to this post.

When did little miss grow up so much? She looks so old in this picture:

 Lots of snuggles, she loves sleeping like this:

I loved general conference this weekend, more than usual. Usually, I don't love it. it's 8 hours of fighting to stay awake and being distracted by other things and missing most of it. But there were definitely talks that I loved and so many I need to listen to again (or for the first time...I still was distracted or dealing with yelling and screaming children). My favorite talk was Elder Holland's about mothers. So beautiful. 

I loved the last part:

"To all mothers in every circumstance, including those who struggle—and all will—I say, “Be peaceful. Believe in God and yourself. You are doing better than you think you are. In fact, you are saviors on Mount Zion, and like the Master you follow, your love ‘never faileth [Moroni 7:46; see also 1 Corinthians 13:8].’” I can pay no higher tribute to anyone."

It's hard being a mom. In fact there have been way too many moments were I feel like i'm barely staying afloat, and moments I haven't liked how I was parenting but I do love being mom. I love my children so very much. 

Ok all done! :)

Swimming picture

Boo drew this picture at school. ..apparently she did this at the beginning of the yeart given my belly. I looked at this at just laughed.

This girl's attention to detail is amazing.  Each person needs a closer look.  First, daddy:

Love the ears, the chest...so funny.

Next :

That is her green striped swimsuit with no outline.  And her hair!! Looks like some dunce cap or something.  Hehe

The next one is me...oh my belly! !!!

And the artist herself:

Well, I think she did a lovely portrait of herself. No craziness there. :) 

It just makes me happy.