Happy Birthday Lexi!

 We celebrated Lexi's 9th birthday on Friday.  She was so excited! She had "movie night/pajama party" birthday party.  It was the easiest birthday party ever.  I fed the kids hot dogs, opened presents, had cake and ice cream, and then movie time! Party over. The end.  ;) No coming up with cute decorations.  No exciting games to play.  No parents to entertain.  It was perfect.

Backyard dinner

Blowing out candles

Opening presents

Favorite Present



Because Lexi had a pajama/movie party, one of Lexi's friends gave her new set of pj's that matched.  Lexi thought it was cool.  As a nine-year old, Lexi is very girly.  She loves playing with make-up, fake nails and doing hair.  She loves being the little mama in the house.  She's very kind to her baby sister and loves to cuddle with her.  She is also very helpful and tries really hard to make good choices.  She has a lot of friends and is very social.  She is doing awesome in basketball this year (major attitude improvment from last year!) and loves to ski.  She's still a skinny-minnie and we sometimes have a hard time finding clothes that are long enough for her that don't swamp her! Lexi is very by-the-rules and definitely lets someone know when they've bent them!  Overall, Lexi adds so much to our family and we love her!

Love and Life

 

The kind of life that is crying, whining, follow me around screaming kind.

All. The. Time. 

And the kind of love that is needy, want-y, and only mommy will do kind.

 

For the past few months anyway. I mentioned to Ryan that if I was crier, I'd be bawling all day long with the rest of them.  It's just a phase, I know.  But when will it end???? I tried to get pictures of the kids a couple of weeks ago and either Shayli or Kyson was crying inconsolably. Predictably.  They will be precious memories.  One day.

 

 

Here's the best shot of the day.  Shayli is not really smiling.  More like a grimace.  But we can pretend, right???

 

And since it was just here, these are my Valentine's day treats.  What a good boyfriend!  (wink, wink).  I don't normally wear animal print, but I decided if I wanted to start then these shoes were the way to go!  And for $13, why not? 
Happy Love Day.  My family has shown me in so many ways how much they love me (see above pictures for hidden meaning). 

Kyson turns 4!

I can hardly blieve my little Kyson is 4 and will be starting preschool next year!  Where does the time go?? (I say that now, but I was just discussing the woes of 2 car payments with Ryan and 2 more years of that seems like an eternity!)

 

Obviously, we had a Spiderman theme.  I can't say this is the most ingenius cake ever - I was definitely on a time constraint with this one.  I was at church in meetings from 8:30 til 3:00 and dinner was at 4:45.  But Kyson was thrilled so that's all that matters!

We invited some family friends over for birthday cake as well as Gammi and Pa. (We missed you Gammi....darn that flu bug!) 

And I'm pretty sure Kyson was not the only one blowing out candles here!

As a 4 year old Kyson is still a little ornery.  He loves stirring up the pot and bugging his sisters.  However, he loves those girls to death.  He always wants to sleep in their beds and I often find him curled up next to them in the middle of the night.  He loves playing Pokemon cards and Lexi and Kendri are very sweet to him and let him win (and then they give him some of their cards to add to his collection!). He sleeps with his "chicky" and his Pokemon cards and he is currently sleeping with about 25 silly bands on his wrist.  He still climbs fences and he has just picked up the skill of doing tricks while riding the neighbors electric scooter.  Which is much too big for him.  In fact he's crashed twice but it hasn't really fazed him - even when he almost knocked out his front tooth!  He likes his hair to "be like Malfoy's".(Draco Malfoy from Harry Potter)  Meaning plastered to his head and pushed over just a bit.  I hate it and try to make him "cool" but he won't have any of it.  (I must say, I'm getting a little weary of all these opinions!)  Kyson still gives the best hugs and kisses and loves to get "spankings" from Gammi.  He is a joy to be around and has the best personality.  I love his little voice and the way he talks - it's just so cute.  We love Kyson!

Hit and Miss

I have not been blogging for awhile.  It is time consuming but I am always happy when I've done it.  I have been experiencing problems with blogger (big surprise!) for the last few weeks, but it seems to have remedied itself so it is time to do a little catch up!  This post is called hit and miss because I plan on hitting a few things we've been up to but missing alot!  (I know.  It's heart-breaking for me too.)

We have been sewing.  The girls got American Girl Dolls for Christmas and obviously a doll is no fun if you can't change her clothes.  So here are some pj's.  The goal is to start teaching Lexi and Kendri a few of the basics in sewing.  Kendri helped me make these and even sewed the buttons on!

Shayli loves her sisters.  She cuddles right up with them (when she's in the mood, that is!)

Kyson had his first ski lesson last week.  He did awesome and the ski instructor informed Ryan that he was fearless.  As if we didn't already know that!

I have started numerous projects.  This is one of them.  We are refinishing this dresser so Kyson and Shayli can have some more space!  It's sanded and waiting to be primed.  I got distracted refinishing a different piece of furniture....a sewing table!  I inherited it from a nice man in our ward. It's rather large and 1970's looking.  Therefore it is receiving a make-over.  Because if it's not cute, it can't come in my house.  Too bad so sad.  I have high expectations for my make-over.  Keep your fingers crossed!

Along with my sewing table, I got lots of sewing accessories.  See?  But the most exciting thing is, I now have a Pfaff sewing machine and a serger!  Talk about score!  Actually, I had no idea what Pfaff was.  I was told by a seamstress that Pfaff is one of the few top of the line sewing brands.  Well la-di-da.  If nothing else, it will guilt me into learning more about sewing.  Sometimes you just need someone to nudge you along.  Or in my case, give you a bunch of expensive equipment and say "Sew!"  And sew I will. 

Colorado Cousins

We were able to go to Colorado right after Christmas this year.  It's been 2 years so it was well over- due. All of my siblings were there except for my brother Travis.  Gotta love the holidays!

 We got to see lots of people.  This is my Grandma Lu with a few of her great-grandchildren.  (I'm sure you'll recognize a few!)

Here's Gramps. I dare say he is my biggest fan.  Still.  What can I say, he has good taste!

And the twins.  (You know you want to see a picture of us together!)  Our niece Pippa joined the fun since her momma was snapping the picture.  And plus, she loves her aunties!

And here are all the cousins on the Hall side.  It's starting to look like a crew!

Shayli and Pippa love each other.  They really do.  They had lots of fun playing together and giving each other hugs.  (Shayli looks a little scary in this one, but the red-eye reduction wouldn't work.  I'm guessing because the glare is white and not red? Oh well.)  Shayli even went so far as to learn Pippa's name and would wander around the house calling "Pippa!" until she found her.  It was a sad day for Shayli when Pippa boarded the train and didn't come back. :(  All that calling for nothing.

And here's Pa, rocking the babies.  Colby (Amber's baby), couldn't really be bothered with these girls.  He liked to stay on his own!  Overall, we had a great time and got to see lots of family!

Merry Christmas!

We had a great Christmas family.  We did what we usually do....partied for days! We went up Angels Camp for Christmas Eve to have soup and act out the Christmas story.  Lexi and Kendri also put on a singing performance for everyone and sang a few Christmas songs.  They loved it!  Kyson also helped out the neighbors by placing baby Jesus in the manger of their nativity (they don't have any grandchildren and apparently it is their tradition to let a small child do the service).  And then it was homebound to wait for Santa!

Christmas morning came and we were up and at it by 7:00.  Not terribly early.  We opened our presents and then headed back to Angel's Camp for and afternoon of cousins and fun!  We loved every minute of it and was sad to say good-bye to Christmas!

This was our visit to Santa at our Ward Christmas Party.  Kyson

                                                                            Shayli

  
                                                                            Lexi

                                                                          Kendri

 Santa actually rode through our neighborhood in a fire truck this year.  The fire truck was covered in Christmas lights.  We stood in the cold for what felt like FOREVER, but we finally got to sit in the truck and talk to him.  It was pretty fun. Although, I think we saw Santa plenty this year.

                       Pa reading the nativity scene.

 

Pam's Christmas tree. It is my favorite every year.  I love the flocking. Merry Christmas!

Nutcracker

We are certainly finding ways to celebrate the holidays this year.....our latest party happened to take place in San Francisco.  The Reese women and girls went to see the Nutcracker at the War Memorial.

I decided to suprise my girls with the news so I didn't tell them anything about it until the day of the show.  Ryan picked them up from school at lunch time and I had their fancy clothes out waiting for them.  I made them get dressed and ready to go before I told them what we were doing.  This is their reaction.  They were so excited!

When we made it to San Francisco, the first stop was the mall to see Christmas decorations and get a bite to eat.  We chose Nordstrom's Bistro and shopped around while we waited for our tables to be ready.  (The girls all fell in love with sequined dresses there.  One of them was a mere $170 for little girl's dresses.  Oh, to be rich!)

Sydney (friend), Rachel, Lexi, Anna, Kendri, Katie

 Here we are just about to go into the dance hall.  There was snow (fake) falling right outside building.  It felt like it was snowing!  So cool and such a surprise.  I felt like we got our money's worth before we even got inside!

 We planned our night for Family Night (which is why we went in the middle of the week) and reaped the benefits!  The kids were able to meet some of the ballerinas before the show and at intermission they served cookies and juice to everyone.  Kendri told me a couple of days later that she could feel the Rat's hand on her back and it totally "freaked her out!" 
She managed to smile through the terror.....:)

We had balcony seats.  I thought they were good and the girls were able to see the show.  I loved all of the scenery and backdrop changes.  My favorite part was the snow falling on stage.  It was practically a blizzard! (not to be confused with the fake snow outside.  Which was at best a small flurry:)  I kept wondering how the ballerinas could breathe without inhaling the snow.  But even as I was wondering about the breathing issues, I was still completely enthralled with the beauty of the stage and the dancing.  Everyone loved it and they are already asking about going again next year!

Kyson was in tears about being left out.  I know he never would've been able to sit through anything remotely like a ballet.  But I promised him a treat when I got back and I couldn't help but fall in love with all the different Nutcrackers they had in the gift shop.  There were tons of different colors and sizes.  I got this Lil' Drummer Boy Nutcracker for Kyson and he loves it (almost as much as I do!)