The mimicker

I have never seen a toddler that is such an observant and quick learner as Anni is!  She doesn't miss a thing; she copies whatever we do and says whatever we say, and has learned SO many songs - her nursery leaders are always commenting that they can't believe she knows and can sing so many primary songs. She can already talk in sentences that are 4-5 words long and she's still not even two! We can't believe how far she has come as a result of all the interaction she gets here, and she is obviously very smart. We get a kick out of what a mimick she is, and one week I captured lots of pictures of it:

End of February big and little things

February 23rd we took Nolan to the temple for his very first time; our first child to attend when they were still eleven!

Maddie stayed home and watched the little ones.  We left pretty early so we took the kids to breakfast at Denny's afterwards.  It was a great morning!

On the ride home it was apparent that it was also an exhausting one!:

I spend a little bit of time every morning at the gym.  Here I was documenting for a friend that I could finally get my hair into a ponytail!:

We said goodbye to sister Larsen - we will miss her!  We are glad that Sister Geigle gets to stay!:

Maddie was one of the two youth in the stake chosen to moderate a face to face event with the stake presidency, their wives and the stake patriarch.  She did a fantastic job:

Pace showed some interest, because Abe gave him some of his old shoes that actually had shoe strings, so I took some time one Sunday afternoon when church was cancelled because of the weather, to teach him how to tie his shoes:

We were both pretty delighted when he figured it out!:

The best snowfall of the year happened at the end of February.  The kids were delighted and we ended up with at least a week of snow days.  There were snow caves all over the yard:

Nolan and Abram built them, but I only got a picture of Pace enjoying one of them.  The kids also spent a lot of time at the park by our house sledding.

February 26th we left to take Maddie over to Idaho to finish out the school year there.  She will be living with her grandparents for the next three months and I think Pace and Anni, reflected how we all felt about that pretty well just before we left:

Actually I don't know what they were crying about, but everything was ready to go and we were just waiting for Shawn to get back from running some last-minute errands so that we could go.  I sent him this picture with a text "PLEASE hurry!!!"  He did, haha

We stayed the whole week, getting last minute supplies for Maddie and staying through her first few days of school.  She is DELIGHTED with the change in schools and fit seamlessly right back into her old friend group, choir, classes, etc.  It was good to have the confirmation, once again, that this was the right move for her, because with missing her so much I needed it!:

While there, Isabelle and Ainsley created another cake:

There was a snow storm and the boys created more forts all over the backyard:

The girls continued to vie for Anni's attention:

We spent time with family:

l-r: Hazel, Eli, Pace and younger Eli:

Shawn and I took Maddie to lunch after buying her a lot of stuff to get set up on her own:

I took a fair share of pictures and videos of Maddie to look at and watch all the moments that I was missing her:

Jim treated all of the kids, and adults that could go, to the latest spider man movie:

Anni isn't a good movie-goer (as we have learned from experience) so she and I made a visit to the farm, instead:

I am always trying to give her more experiences because I notice that she relates to books and has more of an interest in them, the more experiences she has!

Serious faces, but she loved seeing the livestock!:

The last night all of the cousins had a sleepover.  Most of the kids ended up over at Andersons, but we got Eli, Pace and Abram.  They watched a movie in bed on Shawn's tablet:

The kids are always exhausted on the way home after a visit:

TWO MORE MONTHS!!!

Two months from today and KAMI WILL BE HOME!!!!!!! 

Also, after months of never seeing a picture of her, she sent these this week! 

We are so excited about the new missionary announcement that missionaries can call home on -
p-days, too.  I don't know that this will affect Kami since she is generally sleeping when we are awake and vice versa.

She has been a sister training leader for awhile now and is LOVING her mission, but she told me that she is "excited to feel human again".  She can't wait to be able to fix up -and stay looking nice once she does- and to get her hair cut! I'm sure she won't complain about having running water for showers, not having to do her laundry by hand, and a rat-free house, either! She can go back to BYU when she gets home, or transfer to BYU-I.  Shawn and I applied for school there for her just in case she wants the option.

February little things

Pace draws and colors most of his days away:

We have THE BEST sister missionaries right now; Sister Geigle from Arizona and Sister Larsen from Idaho:

I don't know what Pace was upset about in this picture, but I came home to find all of the kids piled into this chair and everyone was pretty jolly except for him:

I have never seen my girls wrestle before and had to document it.  It was all in good fun - Isabelle took Maddie's phone because she had lost her tablet and said that Maddie knew where it was.  She is a HUGE tease.  

Isabelle said she needed a nap one day and I found her in Anni's bed:

Someone sent me this picture of Caden this week and I almost fell of my chair because he looks so big!  He has completely filled out and looks like a man! He looks so grown up that it also makes me kind-of sad.  I feel a little bit like I didn't get to see him grow up all the way.  

And this handsome fellow is growing up way to fast as well.  We drove over to the Tri-Cities yesterday with the specific objective of finding a suit for Nolan.  He had completely outgrown his Sunday shoes and his other clothes were suddenly too small.  He looked so sharp today while passing the sacrament!:

I have a fantastic cleaning crew:

So thorough and everything:

Anni was pretty happy with this bucket and kazoo that the Wares sent up:

Today when Emma Ware brought up MORE toys for her:

Shawn has done all of the cooking the last two Sundays while I catch up on this blog... Why does the food always taste way better when he makes it?!??