BIRTHDAY WEEK

We just finished what I like to call BIRTHDAY WEEK at our house!! Mckinley had her birthday Thursday and Derek had his on Friday.

Thursday Mckinley turned 3! I cannot believe she is already 3. Where did the time go? Derek and I were talking about when she was born the other night and it seemed like it was a week ago.

(Just a fond little memory)
Because Mckinley's head measured about 2 weeks small when I was pregnant, Dr. Young decided to induce me at 38 weeks and kind of freaked me out. The whole induction process ended up taking about a day and a half and on January 21 at 9:30 at night we had our sweet little Mckinley, 6 lbs 3oz., 19 inches long. As for the size of her head, it is just small and there is nothing wrong with it.

We had a fun "Princess Dress-up Party" with some very beautiful princesses. There was a Princess dance party followed by decorating crowns and wands. We played "Put Cinderella in her window", opened presents and finished the party off with a Princess cake and ice cream. Mckinley had so much fun and keeps telling me she wants it to be her birthday again.

Princess Party festivities

After the "Princess Party" we had a small family gathering with Derek's family.

Every year we take a picture of Mckinley and Derek for their birthdays. This year Mckinley decided Derek needed to wear a necklace and earrings. So cute.

Mckinley and Aidie continued princess dress-up the next day. It was fun to see them playing together. Mckinley kept telling me that I was the prince and kept saying, "I have the other slipper", as she pulled her "glass" slipper from behind her back.

I threw Derek a Surprise party for his birthday. He was pretty upset before he realized what was going on. I reserved the church because I figured we could use the space. I told him someone in the bishopric wanted to speak with us and he did not want to go. When we got there and found out it was a party for him then he was happy again. He was surprised (YAY). Family and friends came and hung out and had a good time. We had a pinata and all the kids had a good time with it.

This has nothing to birthdays but still fun. We took the girls sledding for the first time on Saturday. They had a blast. Mckinley put on my snowboarding goggles and was ready to hit the hills. Aidie is wearing Derek's snowsuit from when he was a kid.

Crazy fun kids. They always keep us on our toes. What would we do without our awesome kids and what would I do without my awesome husband. What a great life I have!

Snow Canyon

After our fun New Year's weekend in St. George we stopped off at Snow Canyon National Park. Derek had the great idea to take the girls on a fun side trip before we drove home. It ended up being one of the funnest things we did the whole weekend. I had never been there before and was a little nervous about letting the girls play in the sand before driving home. It was beautiful and the sand was too inviting for all of us to not play in it. Sand ended up everywhere, as I feared it would, but it was so worth it that none of us cared.

Derek and the girls had so much fun playing in the sand. Mckinley decided it would be so much fun to build a sand castle. It was kind of hard to convince her the sand was not wet enough and there was no water to help us out. She had fun anyway.



Aidie also loved the sand. We did not have to convince her not to make a sand castle. We had to try to keep Aidie from eating the sand. More than once I had to clean out her mouth only to hear the sand grinding when she closed her mouth. Pretty gross but that did not stop my little determined monkey. The pictures are a progression of what happened on one of the sand eating experiences.


I just thought this made a pretty cool picture. This is Aidie's shoe print.



We took a little hike up Jenny's Canyon after playing in the sand and ended up at a cute little slot canyon. Mckinley and Aidie had so much fun playing in the little canyon. Mckinley thought is was so cool to climb up on the rocks and looking through the holes.

Mckinley learned on this trip that she loved to take pictures. She helped Derek set up the tripod and thought it was so much fun to push the button and run to get into the picture. She tried to get Derek to stop about every 5 steps to set up the tripod.


Such a fun trip. We will definitely be returning next time we go to St. George.

Happy New Year!!

Again it has been a few weeks or months since I have updated this. I am going to blame it on a busy holiday season. It is probably not true, but hey it works for the time being.
We have had a lot has gone on and I have a ton of pictures.

**Thanksgiving was at my parents house this year. We (I) started off the day with running the Eagle Mountain *FREE* 4 mile run. After we all gathered at my parents and ate and laughed and had such a good time. It was so relaxing. The weather was so nice we were even able to take the girls to the park.

**Derek and I celebrated our 4th anniversary. We celebrated by going to Thai Village (love love love it) and the movies. The girls did stay at Derek's parents so yay for getting to sleep in.

**Mckinley had her very first dance recital. I cannot believe she is getting so big. She was so cute and, because I am the Mom, she was the best one on stage. I am going to try to download her dance but I have not gotten around to it yet. (Hopefully soon and hopefully it will work.)

**Christmas on its own is a big event and lasts the entire month of December. So much went on. I had the best time having a night out with the girls at my moms house making the ugliest gingerbread house ever (sorry guys). We missed Cathy and Kristi tons. Mckinley and I made a gingerbread house (the side of the roof fell off before I could get a picture).

**We went to a fun Christmas party at Aunt Doreen's house. Mckinley had fun playing with Kyla and Tyler read a cute story for all the kids. Mckinley showed off her talents by singing "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" for everyone and Staci handed out giant suckers to all the kids (hurray). Aidie loved hers and almost fell asleep eating it.

**Christmas Eve we went to my parents house and had an amazing time hanging out with everyone and again we missed Cathy tons. The girls had so much fun exchanging gifts and just spending time with everyone. (I did not get any pictures of Christmas Eve, sad)

We also opened pajamas (that I made so don't judge) before going to bed Christmas Eve. The girls were so excited to get to open a present.

**Of course Christmas Day brought tons of excitement. The girls got a Barbie house so guess what we have been doing since Christmas (if you can't guess we have been playing barbies).

**For New Years we went to St. George to party at Alden's house. We spent lots of time in the pool and just hanging out. We checked out the First Night in downtown St. George and had a great time. Unfortunately we did not dress the girls warm enough so we did not stay very long. We know better for next year. Derek and I barely stayed up till midnight and went to bed about 12:05.No matter how late we stayed up we knew the girls would be up bright and early. I would almost call us pathetic but I am going to go with smart instead.

Crazy holiday season but we loved every minute of it.
My goal is to stay up to date better so there are no more marathon posts. Sorry about this one. Also Derek and I broke our camera right before Thanksgiving so that explains the lack of pictures for that very important holiday.

**One last final picture...
Aidie was so ornery right before bed one night so I decided to give her and Mckinley a bath. Aidie was not having it and I could not pass up these pictures. I am probably a mean mom for not getting her out and taking pictures instead but come on, look at that face, how could I not take a picture.