Siena and Aria turn 5!

Siena and Aria turned 5!  The girls have been so excited about turning 5.  And I'm pretty sure they think they are so grown up now.  The weeks since their birthday this line of conversation has been very common.  'Mom, a long time ago when I was 4 1/2....'



Their birthday celebration started this year on my actual birthday.  That was their first day of preschool and they were asked to bring in a treat to celebrate their birthday.  Last year we took in some M&M cookies and this year they were not having this, we will bring in 1 treat for both our birthdays.  They had a good argument when they told me that it was both of their birthdays so they should each be able to pick out a treat to bring.  I couldn't argue.  Luckily they both picked smaller treats so hopefully it wasn't that big of a deal to the teachers.

We decided to have their friend birthday party the day before their birthday, on a Friday afternoon.  While they were at preschool that day we got a princess bounce house set up in our backyard and surprised them with it when they got home.  It was fun because we got it all day and the kids had so much fun all afternoon before the party even started.  They even go to eat lunch out there.



The party was fun and pretty low key.  With the bounce house I didn't feel like we had to plan much.  They mostly just played on the swing set and bounce house.  We did a water balloon game and an obstacle/relay race.  Then ate dinner, cupcakes and presents.  It was great weather and it seemed like everyone had lots of fun.  I had to include this picture of the girls with Abbey because when I asked them who they wanted to invite to their party their answer was always 'Abbey'  They asked multiple times if she had gotten the invitation and if she had texted to say if she could come or not.  We're glad she was able to make it.  Her other friends that came were Holland (and Tagg), Bostyn, Mason, Lillie, Max, Marin and all their primary friends, Lilly, Mira, Sarah, Olivia, and Natalie.




We did have a couple tears when the wind kept blowing out the candles on their cupcakes.  I tried to just tell Siena it was ok and we would blow them out tomorrow on her real birthday but she wasn't having it.  Finally dad came to the rescue and got it lit and blown out quickly.  Happiness returned.



The morning of their birthday started with cinnamon rolls and presents. We got them scooters this year so after breakfast we thought we would head over to Classic skating to ride their scooters only to find out it was closed for a private party.  So we went to the park and rode around there.  The girls one request for their birthday was to go to 'Old McDonalds' for lunch so we headed there after the park. (I never want them to know that it's not really called Old McDonald's..it's too cute this way.)




After lunch my mom came and picked us up and as their present to the girls took them to Build A Bear.  The girls loved not only picking out what stuffed animal they wanted but watching it get made (I told them now they don't have to go to China where the stuffed animals are made, they've seen them made right here...they still want to go to China.)  They each picked out exactly the stuffed animal I thought they would when I saw all the choices they had.  Aria picked out a huge horse she calls Caramel and Siena picked out a big Skye stuffed animal from Paw Patrol.  Most their stuffed animals are on the smaller side so they were so excited they got these big animals.  After they were stuffed they got to give them a pretend bath and I'm pretty sure they would've stayed there all day if they could have giving them a bath.  It was a fun afternoon with Grandma.





That evening we had pizza and cupcakes at home and the girls were happy to play with all their toys while I watched the BYU football game! :)



I need to post an update on each kid and what their up to, their personalities, etc.  but until then, I can't believe my girls are 5.  It seems like yesterday and yet it's hard to imagine them as babies anymore.  They are little girls and although they keep me on my toes all day long, their cute sweet moments with me and with each other are priceless.

August 2016

My Mom turned 70 this year.  So we decided to have a nice adult only birthday dinner for her.  We had it at Jennifer's house and it was such a nice evening.  We had lasagna and then got bread sticks and salad from Olive Garden.  Jennifer had it decorated so nice and it was fun to just be able to talk without kids interrupting us.  Afterwards we all went around and each told a couple of stories about our Mom.  There was laughter and tears of course and we are all so grateful that we were able to celebrate this birthday with her.  It's been 5 years since her stage 4 lung cancer diagnosis and 5 years ago we weren't given any hope that she would still be with us.  So we have seen a huge miracle and are so grateful.  My mom just had her check up with her oncologist and he told her he doesn't want to see her for 6 months and then added 'I never say that to a stage 4 lung cancer patient, it's unheard of.'  Miracle!



Our Primary presidency challenged our primary this year to read the scriptures every day.  Our theme has been all about the color Red (Read Every Day)  If they would read at least 5 times per week, then we had them put a link on a paper chain we made.  When the chain went all the way around the primary room, we told them we would throw a party.  So we had a water themed party.  It was fun and all the kids had a great time.  Siena and Aria talked about it for days afterwards.




We had our annual family dinner up American Fork Canyon when Christy and family came to town.  Look at how cute our JLOs are.  Aria is obsessed with smores and I'm pretty sure she ate 4 of them that night.




We continued to go to Classic all summer long.  I was finally able to convince Siena to go on the big waterslides with me.  She LOVED it and after that it was non-stop asking when we can go again.  We took Shane with us one evening and he convinced Aria and Jaron to go.  Jaron didn't really like it that much but Aria thought it was fun.  Next summer they will be excited to go back again.  Hopefully I can convince them to go by themselves.  These 2 girls LOVE their cousin Abbey...they can't get enough of her and Abbey is always so good to play with them and include them whenever she is around.

Just some random fun family time at home.  The kids are always asking me to take their pictures doing crazy things.  And there's never a shortage of fun when dad comes to play.



I took the kids to Tracy Aviary for the first time.  We had so much fun.  It wasn't crowded at all and it was fun to just walk around looking at all the different birds.  For sure the bird show was the highlight of the day and the kids were in awe of all the birds that would fly right over their heads.  After the bird show we went and found a table to eat lunch and we ended up getting a little encore bird show right in front of us as they flew the vulture back and forth right by our table.





Scripture reading really has it's ups and downs but the other night Jaron announced he wanted to read a scripture.  So we said ok.  He opened up his Book of Mormon, turned a few pages and then while looking down and pretending he was reading said 'the nephites fought the lamanites and then they threw them in jail.'  It was so funny and so cute.  At least he knows a little bit of what is in the Book of Mormon.



For Christmas Shane gave me concert tickets to see Josh Groban.  And well yes, the concert was in August.  Seriously, I forget how much I love his voice.  It was such a good concert and I loved hearing him sing again.  The first time I saw him in concert he had just come out with his 2nd CD and I went by myself and scalped a ticket at the door.  He just came out with a Broadway CD and it was soo good!



Jaron's has been asking for a while when he gets a big boy bed.  I thought he had given up asking and hadn't asked for a while and then we went to his 3 year old check up and the doctor asked if he was in a crib or a bed...that was it, Jaron kept asking and asking again (thank you doctor!) So I finally relented.  We had a bed already for him so I just had to get him sheets and a bedspread.  He kept saying he wanted a baseball bed.  So I found a cute sports themed bedspread.  He was more than thrilled when we got it all set up.  Unlike my girls, who didn't do this for over a year, when he wakes up in the morning he just walks downstairs.  It still kind of shocks me when I hear his little footsteps coming down the stairs.  The first morning he woke up early but after that he has been fine.  He is such a good sleeper and this has not affected his naps or sleep time.

One day he randomly said to me...
Jaron: Mom, when I was sleeping, I fell out of my bed.
Me:  You did?!?  Did you cry? What did you do?  (I had no idea, no crying, no big thuds, nothing)
Jaron:  I just got up and got back into bed.
He said it so casually like it was no big deal.  I still crack up thinking about the conversation.




Everyone started back at school the last week in August and we still had 2 weeks before preschool started.  So we took advantage of places that had no crowds and went to the Herriman reservoir, which I had been wanting to check out but had never dared brave the crowds I heard about.  We met Brigitte, Lori, Michelle and Whitney there.  It was fun to hang out for the morning playing in the sand and water and really they had more fun playing on the play ground there.




When we were in Seattle we got everyone a new shirt and when Shane saw this shirt he knew we had to get it for Aria.  Her very own horse shirt.  Aria is a serious horse lover.  I can't even count the number of horse toys, stuffed animals and other horse related things we have in this house.  She asks to wear this shirt multiple times a week and is disappointed when it's sitting in the dirty clothes to be washed.  The first day she wore it she insisted we go show it to the horses down the street.  She just knew they would be so excited to see her horse shirt.  Sure enough they came walking right over to us and afterwards she turned to me and said 'the horses were trying to eat my shirt because they saw the horse on my shirt.' haha...she sure is cute.



We had a play date over at the Pace's and rode bikes over at the church.  They had a lot of fun.  Jaron got his first bee sting and although was very sad, he is not allergic!  Tagg gave Jaron his birthday present with a bunch of hot wheel cars and Jaron loves them.  This is how he sat to watch an afternoon show later that day.  He still, a month later, puts them in their little plastic holders that the cars came in before going to bed each night.




A while ago Konstantina came and let the girls choose a new pair of frames for their glasses.  She is friends with someone who sells them and was nice enough to get them a pair.  We finally got a new prescription for Aria so we had hers done up with the correct lenses and here they both are with their new glasses.  Siena's is still just plastic, fake lenses.  She doesn't wear them as much anymore like she did last year but still puts them on here and there.