Lizzy with all her girlfriends!

This was the first party that I've done when we actually had time to break out the toys and play with them. Notice Christian is even in there playing with the beads!

The older girls went to work and did all of Lizzy's party guests make-up and nails.

It's so cute whenever little ones open presents the only decent pictures you can get are of the top of their heads because they all want to be right there.

Some of the girls posing in the bounce house! They were all in heaven! ;)

She's thinking, "this is what it's all about... fun fun fun!"

Page's dress looked so pretty with the bounce house colors I just had to take a picture! Such a cutie!

All the big helpers! They did such a great job.

All of Lizzy's buddies (except for Jordyn, who was hanging out with Christian for a little bit... we just couldn't get her to come for the picture)

Lizzy and Maddie jumping (Lizzy still coughing a little bit)

The Little Mermaid Cake that Aunt Kerri made for Lizzy!

My Lizzy is 5!

I just wanted to share a few things that I love about Elizabeth. She loves fruits and vegetables. She gets excited about avocados, pickles, asparagus, tomatoes and apples. She will pretty much eat anything except for purple onions. When I laugh, she laughs, even when I'm sure she doesn't understand why I'm laughing. She loves to do puzzles and her attention span is so amazing!

She loves to play hide and seek. The last time I played with her (just us two), I said, "Lizzy, you are such a great finder, I just can't seem to find a good enough hiding place." Lizzy responded, "Mom, it's okay, you are just so big, you're easy to find." I felt like that story of Danny and the Dinosaur when Danny is playing hide -n- seek with the Dinosaur and Danny has no problem finding the Dinosaur. I am the Dinosaur! I guess she is getting older now and I can stop hiding behind telephone poles and make it a little harder. ;) She always hides from Aaron when he comes home from work and when he forgets to come find her she says, "I'm hiding in here!" She is a giant for her age. She weighs 52 lbs, wears a size 13 shoe and seems to be catching up with Meliah. They are already sharing some clothes. Most of all, I love that I have been blessed with a daughter that loves unconditionally. She really is a sweet, wonderful little girl!
This is a picture she took of herself. I just love it!

Happy Birthday Lizzy Lou! She had a very girlie birthday party on Saturday and I will be posting those pictures this week.

Chiropractic!

So, I have been having a ton of thoughts going through my head lately about how different Chiropractors are from Medical Doctors. I just had to document and share.
Lizzy has been having a few issues lately with different things (nothing really major). At the end of February, we took her into urgent care because she was in so much pain. Aaron took her in and told the doctor what he thought it was and what the symptoms were. They prescribed some antibiotics and said that should probably take care of it unless we wanted to do a bunch more tests and maybe some x-rays. Aaron was not happy with that and said he didn't want to do any tests on her. They left the clinic and went to Walgreens to get the prescription and found an extremely long wait before they could even get that filled. Lizzy, all the while, was screaming and unhappy that the doctors hadn't done anything to help her pain.
Yesterday, we took her to the Chiropractor, her Uncle Alex. Literally, within 5 minutes of being there in the office, Lizzy was already feeling better. He adjusted her, gave her some suppliments according to some of the strength tests he gave her and we were on our way. We even stopped by Costco on our way home to get a few things. She was a completely different little girl. She said, "Mom, I like going to Uncle Alex and Grandpa more than going to other doctors?" She is so great about taking the suppliments. It was funny this morning when I went into the kitchen I came across a little girl eating her suppliments with a very sour look on her face. I'm so happy that she is willing to eat things she doesn't like. I would much rather go the Chiropractic approach to things unless I absolutely have to go to a medical doctor. We are so grateful to have Chiropractors in the family so that we are able to avoid the antibotics sometimes.
She is definately on her road back to recovery... she better be, afterall, she has a birthday on Saturday. My baby is turning 5! Oh how time flies!

Bon Jovi Concert

On Tuesday, Aaron and I went to the Bon Jovi concert in Sacramento. It was such a fun thing to do and totally unlike any of the concerts I've been too. This was Aaron's 1st concert and very much our era of music. It was so fun to be able to sing to all the songs that we knew from the 80's. I was so impressed with some of his newer songs too that I'm not as familiar with. Bon Jovi was a great performer and the set was insane. Drastic Confessionals out of Florida lead him off, they are kind of a young boy band. Normally we would have never done something like this because we are way too cheap to spend money on concert tickets and on a school night? Aaron won the tickets on a radio station! He was supposed to be the 16th caller to win and told me that there was only one other caller calling in that early in the morning. So he was the 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th... all the way to 16 and then he won! It seems like Aaron and his siblings always win stuff on radio stations.

We were grateful to go out and have a fun time for the price of parking and a babysitter. I have also formed a small crush on Bon Jovi and an even bigger crush on my adorable husband! I feel like a teenager again! ;)

February (when I didn't forget the camera)

For the Scouts Blue and Gold Dinner Aaron and Christian made a cake together. It was the first time that Aaron or Christian had used fonant before and I had never done it before. I didn't help them at all. I went into the kitchen and observed. It was cute watching them work together, it looked like they were playing with playdough. They did a great job! It was the birthday celebration for 100 years of scouting. We ate pizza, played games, learned a lot of history about the scouting program and even came home with gift for each of our kids. Oh - and Christian's cake won for the fanciest. He and Aaron didn't appreciate that award very much. On the way home they said, "We wish we had done something cool instead, not fancy, that just sounds girly".


This is Meliah and her friend Sammie. They spent scout pack meetings hanging out and doing little clapping games!

I am so awful at this blogging thing. I pretty much just post when I have pictures of things. If I don't take pictures, I just don't blog about it. I figure at least I am blogging, right?

This was our visit to the Train Museum in Sacramento. It was very interesting but the kids wished we had gone to the snow instead. Oh well! At least they learned something!





This is Elizabeth dressed up for her Valentines Day party at preschool. She just loves this handband and was waiting patiently for Valentines day so she could wear it to show all her friends.

Pine Wood Derby Champs!

The Hotwheels car that Christian tried to imitate.

Christian's Car is the black one in the #1 spot. Aaron's car is the red and tan one is the #2 spot.





Our Ward did a Pine Wood Derby competition yesterday for the Scouts and also did a chili cook-off competition along with it. We had a really hard time deciding what to do because Christian had a basketball game at the same time as the Pinewood Derby. He had spent a lot of time on his car this year with Aaron helping him. He knew that it was going to be his last competition with the cub scouts. But he also wanted to not let down his basketball team by not being there. So he went and did the weigh-in of his car and then went to the basketball game. He let Meliah race his car for him. Well, we got back to the Stake Center and Aaron said he had gotten 1st place. I asked him how he came up with the shape and style of car he designed and he said that he had raced all of his hotwheels and the fastest one was the one he copied. I thought that was very cute and scientific. He was sad to have missed the races but the fact that he won made up for it all. Aaron also won with his car in the stock car races (separately judged from the scouts). Thank you Tyler and Amanda for taking some pictures for me at the derby!

My new adventure!

This week I have started watching 3 additional children every weekday from 8:30 am to 3 pm. The kids are ages 3, 2 and 1! My home has not been child proof for quite awhile. Elizabeth was never a climber. She has really been a pretty calm child and so I have been completely out of touch with babies and toddlers and how busy they can be. It has been an adventure because I am learning new things about myself and how important it is for me to rely on prayer. I am learning that the things that seem impossible are quite possible with the help of Heavenly Father. Things have come to my mind that are not my thoughts. Light and knowledge on how to deal with certain behavior problems have been an inspiration and have seemed to work so well. I am humbled to know that I couldn't do this without my Heavenly Father. I am simply amazed by the blessings of strength, knowledge and patience that I have been given this week.

Today, I went to do an Art lesson for my son's 5th grade class, I felt like it was so easy to do, when in the past it was a challenge. I loved it and was so grateful for the opposition and difficulties that I have experienced this week that made me realize how pleasant it really is to teach 5th graders! Opposition sure does help me. The harder things are, the stronger I will be in the end. Happiness comes with the simplest little blessings!!!