Mothers Day....

While I have a two whole seconds I thought I'd quickly write about my mothers day gifts from my kids before I totally forgot about it....currently the boys are at lowes building me another Mothers Day Gift, a vase!

Yesterday Landon came home from school with a flower they had planted from a seed.  It had two plants coming up and he was so excited.  Shortly after he got home he pulled one of the plants and I said, honey, that'll ruin it.  He was so proud to announce that he fixed it when he put it back in the dirt.  He was so devestated this morning when he saw it shrivelled up but I told him there was still one plant left and that we needed to water it and put it in the window for sunlight.  He perked up again.  He also brought me 5 hershey kisses wrapped up.  Landon loves his treats and I was curious if I was really going to get my hershey kisses so I slowly opened them and told him how excited I was to eat them.  He quickly handed me one and said "here you go mom.  This ones for you and this ones for me".  That's about as good as he gets when it comes to sharing treats:)

Jaden got in the car yesterday and insisted I open his mothers day present.  He made an adorable frame at school and then they filled out a questoinnaire.  Here were the questions and here are his answers:
-By: Jaden
-Age: 6
-My mothers name is: Kimri
-She is: 32
-She weighs about: 205 pounds (So I asked him how he came up with this number since it would have been much more flattering if he had said 100 and he proudly said he'd guessed.)
-Mom spends most of her time doing things like: working (I'm so glad he recognizes how hard I work)
-Her favorite thing to do with me is: play blokus (that's probably true, we both do enjoy that game)
-Her favorite food is: a salad (I eat a lot of salads and LOVE them but he would have been more accurate in saying chocolate; he shares my love for salads too)
-It really bugs me when: my mom plays the computer (first of all, I don't play on the computer, I do a lot of work on the computer.  Second of all, it bugs him because he wants to play on the computer...my little selfish boy:))
-Her favorite TV Show is: How I met your mother (He was so excited he knew this and I didn't know what to say since that show bugs me.  I never watch TV and we have netflix so every morning he sees that left up on the screen from Chris and assumed that was my favorite show.  When I told him it was actually daddy's favorite show he was devasted (I'll never do that again) and erased it and made me write my favorite.)
-The thing my mom likes best about it is: I play with the babies (I do love it when he does that and the girls do too)
-Mom likes to wear: t-shirts (hmmmm...I maybe need to bring it up a notch)
-Mom is always: Happy (good answer)
-I show my mom how much I love her by: she is nice (he may have misunderstook this one or maybe he just showed me by saying I was nice)
-I wish my mom could: do my homework (yep, we fight that battle everyday).
-I like to: play blokus__ with my mom because: it is fun.
-I love my mom. She is: very fun.

Seriously, when Jaden is in the right mood (he's up and down) he is the BEST child I could ask for.  I often remind him that I LOVE good Jaden because he's so sweet, helpful, and does what I ask.  Jaden is so smart and is testing at a 3rd grade reading level.  His handwriting...if they tested would probably be a preschool level:). 

So I look forward to more mothers day treasures.

Yesterday was my moms birthday so we decided to take her and my grandma (mothers day) to meet two of my aunts from Utah in Malad for Dinner.  The food was yummy and the portions were HUGE!  Here is all of us....we had a good time and it was full of laughing!

My Little One Year Olds!!!

This post kills me to write.  My little girls are still supposed to be little babies that I have to rock to sleep.

I remember right after the girls were born rocking their little bodies and thinking "this moment is going to go so fast" and it truely has.

I loved my little babies...especially the first 4 months.  They were such good little girls that loved to sleep next to each other.  It broke my heart when I seperated them and they didn't sleep as well anymore. 

The beginning was full of such sweetness and now it's full of lots of laughs and entertainment.  Both are great but I really miss the sweetness.

Neither is walking yet but I  didn't expect them too since my boys didn't walk until 13 &14 months.  They are becoming easier (we went through a really hard phase) and are such characters. 

These little stinks would not do a good birthday pic.  They wanted to play with their tutus, balloons, hats, anything.  They were all over the place.  I may have yelled a little for them to hold still....it didn't work!

We celebrated with shakes made with ice cream and different cakes & frostings!

and then the girls ate cake...or Eli did.  Alisha was so fitting of her personality to take little licks of frosting.  Eli dug in until her little tummy hurt!

I know there is great things to come!!!!

Fun run and more....

Oh how life gets so busy.  Thankfully I feel like we are overall busy with good things and I'm always happy when I feel like we are surviving and not drowning. 

My little business is doing awesome.  If you haven't been to my blog go here but I definately do a lot more updates on facebook here

Today in church was Ward Conference and one thing that I really liked that our stake president said was the he schedules everything...his scripture study, temple visits, time with his wife, ect and then he always does them and it's habit.  I liked that thought because I do think if we schedule the BIG things and the LITTLE things that we can make it work.

I feel like we as a family have settled into some schedules that have made life a little simpler.  We have unknowns that sometimes throw it off but I'm so happy when I feel like I am top of most things.  I even have laundry days and date night scheduled. I do think I need to schedule the VERY BEST things too!

Here's some family fun we'd had these past two weeks. 

These little cuties love Sams Clubs cart...perfect for two little ones!

Tonight we also introduced a bubble bath.  It was so fun to watch them explore.  They eventually decided dipping their faces in the bubbles was the most fun!

Easter

I felt like our Easter was low key and simple and it felt just right. 

We love doing the annual Easter Egg Hunt as Tautphaus Park. 

Starting least year we decided that we'd do Easter Baskets on Saturday.  We felt like they were too distracting for our kids and wanted them to focus on the real meaning of Easter on Sunday.  On Saturday afternoon while they were setting up the tramp the easter bunny visited their bedroom.  I use their baskets as a good time of year to add things I want them to have since they can't ask the Easter Bunny for what they want:).  The boys got scooters, fishing poles, sunday vest, spring outfits, sunglasses, and misc. goodies!    Landon is sooooo excited to go fishing with Grandpa!

The girls got dresses, easter bunny ears, and sunglasses.  I forgot to have them wear their ears so those will be re-gifted for their baskets next year:)

On Easter Morning they dressed up in their Easter Best and we flew through some pictures and hurried to church.  Early morning church getting 4 kids ready by myself is a little exhausting but it kept me from worrying about the talk I had to give and we made it and survived!

Then after church we went to my parents...my camera battery died.  We enjoyed a yummy dinner and a scavenger/easter egg hunt!  It was a fun and beautiful evening!

Eleven Months

I'm in shock that I'm only a month away to having two- one year olds.  It's crazy how fast time flies!

As each month goes the gap in abilities and weight keeps widening.  Eliza is so determined to do everything and isn't afraid of anything.  She's pulling up onto everything (including the side of the tub...totally frightening) and has started crawling stairs.  She can stand up by herself for a couple of seconds and has cut two new teeth.  She pulls open drawers and her favorite thing is to get into the dishwasher and pull all the dirty dishes out (maybe this mama needs to be better about closing it).

Alisha is such a sweet little girl and she loves me to hold her while she's standing up (I'm sitting).  She seriously coos and it melts my heart.  She has developed the biggest grin this last month and her personality is getting louder.  She can pull up on things too but is always hestitant and very careful. She loves to stand but with help.  She still only has two teeth while Eli has 4.  Alisha is really good at opening doors if it's only opened a crack so we have cracked down on closing all doors. 

My boys were later walkers and I kind of think that neither girl will walk before 1 but if I was to decide who might, my money is on Eli.  I was informed today that there is a forum of mothers with children that had two vessel umbilical cords swear that they are delayed by a couple of months because of it....this was brought up since both girls still army crawl; they can crawl normal and I catch them doing it sometimes but they can shimmy so fast on their tummies and will probably never change.

This month they weren't as cranky and a lot more smiley!  They are both becoming mommies girls though (Landon still is a mamas boy) and they are getting jealous when mommy gives attention to the other.  They both will start saying "mama" at the top of their lungs! 

and if you think they have adorable headband, go here to find out how to get one yourself.

and the secret is.....

My girls have inspired me to start a business.  This all started formulating a couple of months ago and is just now coming together but has a long ways to go too!

As I looked for cute products for the girls I found most prices over the top and then when I would double that it was really a budget breaker.

I found suppliers that would offer me discounts by buying in large bulk that has allowed me to price all products for anyones budget and I'm so excited about what I already have there and the MANY items I still have coming (what's in the store is only a drop in the bucket and I wanted to wait until I had almost everything but obviously I'm not a secret keeper).

So I want to introduce AE Boutique.

For features on products and to find out how to enter a $40 drawing go to my blog.  www.aeboutique.blogspot.com.  As my new products arrive I'll add them to the blog so be sure to follow it!

For make purchases go to http://www.muncom.com/aeboutique. 

BUT I'm not just offering products for girls.  I have a few items coming for boys (because I love mine so much) and for woman too!  So you must keep checking!

phew.....

Months ago I wanted to make sure we did something fun for spring break but that can be really difficult with four small children and sometimes....it isn't worth it.

We would have loved to have went and visited friends and family in Washington but Chris couldn't take a full week off work and knew we'd have to break up the drive so we decided we'd make an offer to Chris's mom.  If you want, we'll do spring break half way so you can meet us.  We let her choose between Couer d'alane or Boise.  She said Couer d' alane so we began our plans for that location.

We literally squished an entire week of fun into half a week and we had no regrets.  We played for two solid days at "Triple Play".

We loved the indoor waterpark and went 4 different times. 

The girls had such a good time in the water.

Landon loved the wave pool!

We played minature golf 2 times.

We played lazer tag 2 times

Bowled 2 times...one time was mini bowling....I won!!!! 

The boys did some rock climing.  Landon may have only made it one step before getting absolutely scared.  Jaden did awesome!

The boys also played arcade games and won prizes.

We ate lots of food!

On Saturday we went into Spokane.  We first went to the childrens museum.

Afterwards we went to River Front Park.  It was amazing and we hope to make that more of our trip next year because there was so much to do there.

Then we ended the day at Cabelas and swimming!

We were so exhausted but we had a wonderful week!