Amaya at 16 months

Amaya is at such a fun age right now. She's starting to talk and says, "gog" for dog, momma, dadda and also has her own language. I tell her to say Madeline and she makes a three syllable sound. Amaya has so much fun playing with the girls. We tried to keep her away from the trampoline at the start of the summer, but she figured out how to climb the ladder to get up. She gets very angry if she is not included. Amaya is a tease, maybe even the biggest of all the kids. I often think she will start screaming soon as I watch the kids tease her, but she just teases back, or is the one that started it in the first place. Amaya will sit on almost anyones lap for a long time, just relaxing. She LOVES animals. Jared is very happy he finally got an animal lover.
Amaya is so sweet and fun. We love her so much!

Little Miss Rachelina Ballerina

Rachel just turned three and she is full of spunk and mischeif. I love her so much. She is curious about everything so I can't leave her alone for too long or she'll get into trouble :) She loves playing with her sisters and gets along really well with Amaya. Rachel can already do flips on our hanging trapeze thing on our swingset. Madeline told me that Rachel taught her how to do it. She is pretty cuddly and loves it when I read stories to her. Rachel's favorite color is purple, her favorite food is probably peanut butter and jelly and treats (she sneaks them the most) and her favorite princess changes from Cinderella to Snow White. She ALWAYS wants to sleep on the floor. If I put her in her bed she ends up on the floor by the morning.

Rachel adds so much joy to our lives. We are so glad she's part of our family.

Aliza Q, We love you

Aliza is so fun and full of personality. Sometimes she is very calm and cuddly and others she is full of energy. I think she is the most athletic of the girls. She is a little bit of a tease, but is alot of fun. Aliza loves jumping on the trampoline and just learned how to pump on the swing. Her favorite color is yellow and her favorite princess is Belle. Aliza's favorite food right now is quesadillas with ketchup. She is very good at remembering peoples names. For her birthday Jared took Aliza to McDonalds and later told me that she wasn't playing on the toys at all, but just watching all the kids. That is very typical of her.

We love our little Aliza. She is a great part of our family.

Memories for Madeline

I've been meaning to post about each of the girls on their birthday, but it's been a busy summer, so I'm trying to catch up now...

Madeline is such a sweet girl. She is usually very helpful with her sisters and helps me clean when the other girls won't. Madeline is a definite perfectionist. She gets very frustrated and angry when things aren't exactly perfect. She loves to wear dresses and told me that she wanted her birthday dress to not be a Sunday dress because she wanted to be able to wear it every day.
Madeline LOVES to color and draw. She will spend hours coloring if she has a coloring book she likes. She also loves being read to. I just started reading the Secret Garden with her. Her favorite color is pink and then all the colors, her favorite food is "Ramo" (Ramen) Noodles, her favorite princess is Sleeping Beauty.

I am so thankful for our sweet Madeline. She is a great little girl!

Rocking Chair Remake

At the start of garage sale season I found a rocking chair for $5 It was definitely needing some TLC, but I saw potential in it and fell in love... I went ahead and took before/ after pictures and I'm so glad I did. Now I have a nice rocking chair and it only cost about $10

** When I took off the old fabric and padding there was SO much dust/dirt. It was disgusting! At least 1/2 cup!

Madeline's First Friend Party!

Madeline got to have a friend party this year since she turned five. How exciting! Parties are a lot of work! My house was not nearly as clean as I wanted it, but the kids didn't know better and all seemed to have a lot of fun. Madeline wanted girls only, which worked out fine since she mostly just has girl friends. Madeline loves Sleeping Beauty and wanted a Sleeping Beauty cake. She told us that this was not Sleeping Beauty, but a barbie cake. She was happy though, so that's good.
We played pin the crown on the princess. I was not prepared when the kids got there though so I still needed to draw the princess. I was amazed that all the girls wanted to watch me draw. It made me happy that I was entertaining them :)
Then I read them the story of the Princess and the Pea and then had each of them sit on three pillows and then tell me which one had the "pea" (really a key lime) under it. After they were "real princesses" they got a princess headband.
Jared came home from work for the party, which I was SO thankful for. He ended up going outside with all the kids (12 or 13) and playing with them while the moms stayed inside and talked. How nice!
I felt like it was a great success. Thanks to my friend Tristan and Jared especially!