Happy Early Birthdays To Us!

As some of you know Alan will be leaving for a deployment real soon. Unfortunately he is going to miss all 3 of the kids birthdays and my birthday/our anniversary. We decided to have a little birthday party for all of us on Friday so that daddy could celebrate with us. We started out with a yummy dinner at Olive Garden where we surprised the kids with a secret we have been keeping (no, we are not having a baby!)...as a last hurrah before Alan leaves us for awhile, we are taking the kids to Disney World! They were very surprised and are very excited to go...3 more days and we're off! After dinner we headed to Build-a-Bear and let the kids pick out a stuffed animal and an outfit. Once the animals were complete it was back to home for cupcakes! We sang Happy Birthday to the kids individually and they even sang to me too!

Braden picked a monkey
Bailee picked a pink bear with flowers on it which happens to be the seasonal bear for spring

Brikelle picked a pink monkey all by herself!

Here they are stuffing their animals

Here they are bathing their animals

Here they are filling out the birth certificates and naming their animals

And here they are all complete! Braden has a firefighter monkey named Braden, Brikelle has an all pink monkey named Monkey, and Bailee has a pink bear named Flower

Brikelle knew exactly what to do after we sang to her...she tried and tried to blow out that candle!

Happy Birthdays to us!

She would not let us take the candle out of her cupcake...she just ate all around it!

I just stuck this picture in for fun. On Saturday we had a get together with people from Alan's work. The home we went to was on a large piece of property and beautiful. The kids had so much fun outside running around and especially playing with the dog. Braden liked the dog but Bailee and Brikelle LOVED the dog. Bailee played with her for a long time and Brikelle followed that poor thing all over the place. Does it make us want a dog? NOPE! Three kids are enough for us right now!

First Born

My friend Jinna has this on her blog and I thought it was really cute and thought it would be fun to do too...Thanks Jinna!

Bailee Marie-Born 4 April 2002 (7 months old in picture)

1. Where were you when you first found out you were pregnant? Back in SLC visiting my family for a month while Alan was in NY doing training. (Just a little note...I took pregnancy tests for all 3 of our kids at my parents house while there visiting!)
2. Who was with you? My oldest sister Karen (she bought the test for me!) and my Mom.
3. What was your first reaction? Excited and then of course I just wanted to be back with Alan so we could be excited together.
4. What was your husband's reaction? I think he was pretty happy!
5. Who was the first person you told? Alan of course. Told him before taking the actual test because I pretty much knew I was pregnant.
6. Was the pregnancy planned? Yes
7. Was everyone happy for you? They all sure seemed to be!
8. What was the sex? Girl, but we didn't know that until the day she was born.
9. What was the nursery theme/colors? Noah's Ark
10. Did anyone throw a shower for you? No, we lived too far away. We did get a lot of wonderful gifts though from family and close friends.
11. Did you get any outfits you wouldn't use? 1 pair of overalls that I never did use.
12. How much weight did you gain? Right at 40 pounds I think.
13. Did you get stretch marks? No they didn't come until my third baby.
14. Did you crave anything crazy? Not really
15. Did anyone annoy you? No
16. Where were you when you went into labor? Active labor...in the hospital...I was given pitossin.
17. Did you have any complications? Thankfully no
18. Did your water break? Not on it's own.
19. Who drove you to the hospital? Alan
20. Did you go early or late? She was born right around her due date.
21. Who was in the room during delivery? Alan and the hospital staff.
22. Did you video tape it? Not the actual birth but Alan taped everything right after.
23. Did you have any pain medication? Epidural
24. Did you have a c-section or natural? Natural
25. What was your reaction to the birth? I cried...happy tears that is!
26. How big was the baby? 8 lbs 2 oz
27. What was the baby's full name? Bailee Marie Paxton
28. Did your husband cry? I think his eyes got watery for a minute...he was so excited!
29. When is the next one coming? He already came! 23 months later.
30. If you could would you do it all over again? Of course!

Future Hockey Star(s)?

I'm a little slow at posting these but last Saturday we went to an ice skating birthday party. Alan has been working with Bailee and Braden teaching them to ice skate for a couple of months. We haven't been since before Christmas so it was fun to get back out on the ice. Both the kids are able to balance and skate around a little bit now without holding onto anything. Braden is a little more confident about skating on his own than Bailee is, but they both are doing really good with it. Alan wants to get Braden into hockey after he turns 5...Bailee too if she's interested. Here are a few pictures and videos of the kids...

Braden is not allowed on the ice without his helmet!

Bailee didn't know Alan was taking a video of her, she thought he was taking pictures so she is very smiley in the beginning of her video!

Monday Makings

"Once there was a snowman..." Well, after our fun snow day and school being canceled for three days because of the snow, it has all melted away. For our craft we made melting snowmen! As with a lot of our crafts, I found the idea online. And of course as I say with all of our crafts, the kids had fun and they turned out cute!

SNOW DAY!!!

It really happened...we woke up to it snowing today! The kids were sooo excited! All of Braden's hoping and dreaming and dreaming and hoping, and it finally happened! It snowed pretty much all morning and early afternoon...we ended up with 5 or 6 inches I think. We all went out first thing this morning and played in the snow. We had a snowball fight and the kids made snow angels. The snow wasn't really good snowman making snow but Bailee made her own little one! This was Brikelle's first time seeing snow and she thought it was absolutely great. She had a ball out there and even laid down in the snow! She also had an absolute tantrum when it was time to go inside. She didn't care that her poor little hands were freezing and red and kind of purple (that pretty much freaked me out!). After warming up and eating lunch, Bailee and Braden headed back out for some more fun in the snow. It's been so fun to see snow again! (Anyone count how many times I said the word snow?!)

Our Winter Wonderland
The backyard

Bailee's little snowman that she made all by herself and worked so hard making!

Nothing like some yummy hot chocolate after playing in the snow!

The snow and sunset tonight looked so pretty

School is canceled again tomorrow. Hooray for another day to relax and be cozy!

Monday Makings

Today we made igloos out of sugar cubes! The boys made one together and the girls made one together. We used white frosting to make the sugar cubes stick and then sprinkled our igloos with coconut to make it look like snow. We also made marshmallow snowmen to go along with the igloos. It was a fun craft!

Apparently our snow crafts have worked...after a weekend of low, cold temperatures around here, we are expecting 2-4 inches of snow tomorrow!!! We haven't seen snow in almost 2 years so we are very excited! Braden said he hopes it sticks to the ground so he can play in it! Alan and I had no idea we were even going to get snow until we got a call from Bailee's school tonight saying that school would be canceled tomorrow. I know all you Utah and Colorado people are laughing because 2-4 inches of snow is nothing to you guys. But in a place where snow is very rare, there is no reason for all the equipment. Therefore when it does snow, the entire town shuts down! Yipee! Stay tuned for snow pics (if there's enough to play in).

New 'Do

Amongst all of my blogging about our holidays, I forgot to add to it that Bailee got a haircut! Thanks for the comment Jinna! Bailee has never had an actual haircut before, just hair "trims". For a long time now I've really wanted to get her hair cut just above her shoulders, for no reason other than I just think it would be cute. But there's somebody we'll call "Daddy" that has been very opposed to the idea of his daughter having short hair...he likes it looong. So being the nice wife that I am ;) I've never gone and gotten her hair cut, although I've threatened many times that I would do it one day when "Daddy" was out of town! Well, over the New Year's weekend I finally was able to compromise with this "Daddy" and he agreed to let me get Bailee's hair cut to just below her shoulders. By the way, Bailee has been trying to talk her Dad into letting her get her hair cut too...it wasn't just me! So Bailee was excited to go back to school with a little bit shorter hair, and her "Daddy" actually really likes it! (Which I kept telling him he would!) And thanks to my sister Karen and my niece McKenna, we were introduced to a 3-barrel curling iron/waver. It's been fun to give some wave and body to Bailee's very straight, very thin hair!