Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Haircuts

 
The girls have needed a haircut for a while, especially so Gwen and Grace could get their bangs trimmed.  With their spring pictures, class pictures, and apparently some special kindergarten graduation pictures happening this week, I took them first thing Saturday morning to get haircuts.  I didn't take any before pictures, because I wasn't expecting anything too dramatic, so you'll have to compare to past blog posts, but here's a couple after photos.
 
Gracie didn't do much with her hair other than get her bangs cut again, and get her hair trimmed.  She seems to like the length that her hair is at now.
 
Right after her haircut...her hair is still wet!!
 
All curled and ready for picture day-what a sweet girl!!
 
Georgia told me for a few days before taking them to get haircuts that she had to have bangs this time just like Aunt Mimi (my sister Melissa).  She even told the hair stylist that she had to have bangs like Aunt Mimi's before I could say a word about her hair. 
 
It looks super cute on her, but she looks so much more grown up-sadness!
 
What a cutie!!
 
Gwen really changed it up this time.  She has been reading a lot of Magic School Bus books lately (along with Magic Tree House, Captain Underpants...well, every book she can get her hands on that is).  She told me that she wanted her hair cut like Wanda's from The  Magic School Bus.  Rob and I were really hesitant to let her get it cut that short, so we told her she could get it to her chin.  Well......her hairstylist didn't take into account Gwen's very curly hair and it ended up just like Wanda's (I wish she would have listened to me about Gwen's bangs though...I think she cut them too short).
 
It's so short now!!

 I really wasn't sure for a day or two afterwards whether I liked her new haircut or not.  It is super cute though, especially when it's tightly curled, like we did for pictures.  She loves it, and I guess that's all that matters.  She just looks so grown up-my peanut is growing up so fast!!
 
I am excited to see how the girls spring photos turn out, and I am excited to take some of Georgia and Genesis too.  I can't wait to see what the next major hairstyle for the girls will be!!

Saturday, April 13, 2013

Laughing With Genesis

 
I love how these two play together!!
 


Wednesday, April 10, 2013

A Happy Easter

 
Now that I've got my blog working again...
 
We had a really nice Easter this year.  My sister in law Amanda sent us some really cool ideas to do for Easter, but in the end we just ran out of time to do them between all their homework and trying to get our house cleaned up for Easter.  We did spend the week talking to the girls about why we truly celebrate Easter, but we also prepared them for E. Aster Bunnymund's visit (Gwen is reading the Rise of the Guardians series...this is the Easter Bunny's name in the books).  Gwen and Grace really seemed to understand why we really celebrate Easter, especially Gwen, who has a very sweet testimony of the Savior and His sacrifices for us, and was pleased to share that in her talk that she gave in Primary on Easter Sunday.
 
The girls spent a good deal of Saturday though riding bikes up and down our street with three boys who live in our neighborhood.  Two of them are in Gracie's kindergarten class, and the other is one of the boys older brother.  We walk home from school 3 or 4 times a week with the older brother and Gracie's classmate, and they have become good friends.  They had a lot of fun together, and I was really pleased to see that everyone, including the boys, were making sure that they included Georgia as well.
 
After playing outside for a while we came in, had dinner and baths, then decorated eggs.  Rob and I were so excited to see how Genesis would react to dying eggs, and just to celebrate her first Easter with her.
 
Genni loved looking at and touching the eggs.  She loved them so much that she started shrieking in displeasure when I helped her put them into the mugs to dye them.

Gwen had fun dying eggs...

...as did Gracie and Georgia.  The girls all had tons of fun putting an egg in and leaving it while we watched Scooby Doo cartoons and I put curlers in their hair.
 
The girls were so excited the next morning and had so much fun looking for their Easter baskets, which Bunnymund hid, as well as all the eggs he had hid that we had dyed the night before.  Their baskets had the normal goodies of chocolate bunnies, plastic eggs filled with MandM's and jellybeans, and peeps, but also had some beef jerky, pistachios, stickers, a notebook and pen, and a bouncy ball.  The girls were thrilled (and snuck as much candy as possible before mom and dad noticed).
 
 
 
Since Genesis can't have chocolate yet, or any type of candy for that matter, Bunnymund brought her some things that she'll be starting to eat in the next few months like Gerber's puffs, yogurt melts, fruit bars, and even a new outfit and toy.  She immediately gravitated to the new toy and began chewing and sucking on it.

Gracie's curls didn't come out like I had planned.  Her hair had just gotten too long for the curlers we had.  We still tried the ones we had though and figured we'd see how it turned out the next morning.  It didn't.  I had seen a post on one of the craft blogs I follow a week or two before Easter with instructions on how to do a 5 strand puffy braid, so I decided to try it on Gracie.  Once I got the hang of doing it, it was pretty simple and easy.  I think it would have turned out a bit better if her hair wasn't so crazy due to being semi-curly when I did it.  Next time I hope to do it while her hair is wet so it turns out smoother and I can get a better picture of it.
 
 We waited until after church to take pictures, because we just didn't have time before with Rob and I trying to get things ready for dinner, get ourselves ready for church, and get the kids ready.  Genni was a bit grumpy after church, and didn't want to sit up on her own, so we had to prop her up and get her sisters involved to get her to smile and once she started smiling she turned back into our happy baby and let us get a bunch of cute pictures of her.  The girls all did really well and let us take some nice photos of them.




 We decided to try and take some photos of the girls out on the swing set, but once we realized that none of them could hold on to their seat and hold Genni at the same time we scrapped that idea and took a couple of the three older girls, then went inside to take pictures of all 4 of them together.
 
We had fun getting the sillies out, and then took some nice photos.

 My 4 beautiful girls!!

I am so blessed that I have a wonderful husband who loves me and helps me so much, 4 healthy and happy girls, and a very loving Heavenly Father and Savior.  I am so grateful for all I have!!

Monday, April 8, 2013

7 Months Old!!

 
Here's some photos of Genesis from when she turned 7 months old a few weeks ago.
 
Having some play time on the floor.
 
Not a very good picture, but I love this girls curly hair!!

It was raining, so I put on our sling and stuck her in it and zipped up an extra large jacket around the two of us, and that way she was nice and warm and I could hold my umbrella over the two of us.

Big smiles!!
 
I love seeing her learn new things (she's so close to crawling!!) and problem solve.  She is growing and changing so much!!  What a sweet blessing she is!!

Sunday, April 7, 2013

St. Patricks Day

 
We didn't do a whole lot for St. Patrick's Day.  The girls really wanted to make a leprechaun trap, but we just didn't have enough time over the weekend to make one, and they were pretty disappointed about that, but Robbie made them green eggs for breakfast that morning, they had green milk to drink later that day, and we talked a bit about it, but no big celebration-and it was great!  We just had fun wearing green, and eating green things.
 




The girls did do a bunch of stuff at school the next day to celebrate (they didn't do anything the week before because it was their spring break that week), and Gwen and Grace wore shirts that I made for them with iron on transfer paper and some T-shirts we had left over from birthday parties, which they were quite pleased with.  It was a nice, fun, relaxing holiday in between two fairly big holidays, and I think we'll keep it that way.