Emery turned 5!

I can't believe that our little Emery is 5!  She was just over 1 year old when we moved into our house in West Jordan.  Crazy how time flies.  I am getting bad at taking pictures on birthdays, but here are a few from our day.

 Here she is in her new outfit and some balloons.  She got five of them.  :)

 Then we went over to the bookstore to get her free cupcake for her birthday.  My kids all love these little beanie babies.  Riley picked out all the "foxies" and Emery found all of her favorite penguins and owls.  It took some coaxing to get them to put them all back. 

 Here is a blurry picture of her about to blow out her candles.  My kids always run around the whole house and turn off all the lights when we light birthday candles.  Ha ha. I remember doing that as a kid too.

 Here Emery is in her new outfit that Crys and Alan got for her.  She loves her "skirt that is sparkly and very long".  This picture I took right after she had burned her hand on a hot pan, so her eyes are a little red.

 Riley and Emery got to help decorate her cake.  It baked funny and totally sunk in the middle, but it tasted pretty good.

They are expert bowl lickers.  :)  

We love you Emery!

Kids

 Rob and I were able to go on an early tenth anniversary getaway while we left the kids with Luke and Taylor.  (thank you!!)  While we were gone, we had a great time, but we also realized how different and boring our lives would be without our 4 wonderful kids.  We are so grateful to have them and to do our best raising them in this crazy world we live in.  A lot of days I go to bed feeling like I've not done a good job as a mom that day, but these kids brighten my day.  I hope we can do as good of a job that our parents did raising us. 

 Riley- age 2.  She keeps us all laughing with her cute two year old ways.  She knows how to throw a good tantrum, but she also knows how to melt your heart by being sweet.  She loves playing with her brother and sisters and her cousin William.  

 Sadie- age 8.  This girl is so amazing.  She loves to help (when it is her idea) and she loves it when Riley and Emery will let her help them.  She loves to stay up late reading in her bed, she is getting really good at gymnastics, and she is gaining a strong testimony of Christ.  She is constantly telling me about how at school she said a quick prayer for things she has needed help with.  

 Zac- age 6.  He is such a energetic little boy.  He loves to play board games and card games and he loves to make treasure hunts for people.  He is learning how to treat his sisters like princesses (with the occasional picking on them) He tries hard to make the right choices even when his friends are not.

Emery- age 5.  She is still our little sweet and spicy girl.  She has so many creative ideas and has a great belly laugh.  She loves to play with her friends and can't wait to start school like her big brother and sister. 

Butterflies

 I ordered a little kit off of amazon where they send you a cup of caterpillars and you get to watch them grow and make a cocoon and then emerge as butterflies.  It was really cool to watch it happen in our own home!  The kids and I were really intrigued.  Then after a few days we released the butterflies.  The kids each got to hold one on their finger before they flew off.  I highly recommend trying this if you never have.  It was so cool

Missionaries

We had the missionaries over for family home evening a couple weeks ago.  I remember when I was little, I loved when the missionaries came over for dinner.  We don't have a ton of opportunities to feed the missionaries in our ward since there are lots of people who want to feed them, but whenever we get the chance we invite them into our home.  I want my kids to be excited about serving missions so hopefully seeing the missionaries a lot will help them get excited about it.  :)  They taught a lesson on missionary work (surprise!) and then after family home evening we had to rush Sadie to gymnastics.  It was a great night and I think the missionaries were entertained by our kids singing and program.  he he. 

Crazy Hair day

This was for crazy hair day at the kids school.  I always forget until the morning of so it's s bit of a scramble.  I did a quick internet search for Sadie's hair.  It turned out ok.  There are ping pong balls hidden in it.  :)  I love that my kids aren't afraid to wear their hair crazy for an entire day at school. 

Primary Program

Here are my kids before this year's primary program.  I am in the presidency and we were barely called in August.  So it has been a whirlwind trying to write the program, put it together and being in charge of the Halloween party just a few days before the program.  It made for a busy week.  But we got to the church 30 minutes early (I was by myself because Rob was picking up the young men to prepare the sacrament) and I decided to snap this picture because I love my kids.  They are amazing.  Sadie is so helpful and realized that I needed a little bit of extra help that morning because I was a bit stressed out.  Thanks you Sadie.  She filled up Riley's water when we went inside because I had to run into the chapel to make sure all the chairs were set up the way we wanted them. 

I guess they were all set up already from the day before so I just went up and made sure things were in order.  Of course, my kids followed me up there.  I didn't really notice though because they were being very quiet.  So I was talking to the primary president when someone said that we needed to "get her off of there."  It was only then that I noticed Riley had made her way over to the piano and was very quietly playing on the keys.  Oh boy.  So I went over and took her back to our seat and she proceeded to scream at the top of her lungs for the next 10 minutes.  I preferred the quiet piano playing.  So I took her out into the hallway and finally Rob showed up and was able to help.  Things from then on went awesome.  The kids said and sang their testimonies so beautifully.  I was moved to tears during some of the songs.  I'm so glad I'm able to work with the kids in our primary.  They are amazing examples to me.  But I'm sure glad we only do that once a year!  :)

Cookie decorating

I'm glad that I have friends who like decorating cookies because otherwise we don't really do it.  My friend Robyn wanted to decorate cookies so she said she could make them and I told her we could do it at my house and I would provide frosting.  :)  Yum.  I'm glad that some friends could come enjoy the morning decorating cookies with us.

 This was my masterpiece.  Sugar cookie with chocolate fudge frosting.  Yum.

And Riley couldn't stay out of the sprinkles.