Starting to Save

The tradition in our family is that when the girls turn five years old we take them down to the bank and help them open up their own savings account. They take all the money they have earned in their first five years through allowances or birthday gifts and deposit it at the bank. It was Samantha's turn on Friday and even though she was nervous that the bank was taking away all of her money, once she understood that it wasn't the case, she was very proud of have her own account. Hopefully this will help her learn the value of saving her money!!

Happy Birthday Samantha!!!

Last weekend was a Birthday Weekend for Samantha! My baby girl turned five years old. It seems like just yesterday I was bringing her home from the hospital. When she was a baby it seemed to me that time was going too slow and I would wonder when she would start to grow up. Now the time goes by so much more quickly - if you blink for one second, the moment is gone. I informed her that there weren't going to be any more birthdays and that she was always going to stay five years old. Her response was, "Mom - I have to grow up. But I'll always be your little girl."

We started the weekend off by having a friend birthday party. We had lots of fun playing with balloons, going on a treasure hunt, and making necklaces. This is Samantha with her very best friend Nora.

The little girls were so cute and the weather was perfect to spend time outside. Mom was pretty tired afterwards, but the party was a big success and there were lots of smiles!
The other special occasion for the weekend was being at my niece's baptism. Tracie flew into town and Todd and Suzann and their kids made the trek from Utah as well. Because Kennidy's baptism fell on Samantha's birthday we had a big family dinner to celebrate both of the girls. The baptism was very special and it was so nice to spend time with family. The girls always have a fabulous time playing with their cousins and feeling very spoiled by aunts and uncles and gramma and grampa. Of course I couldn't resist taking a picture of my precious little niece Lillie.

Here is Aunt Tracie with Camryn.

Unfortunately I was having too much fun visiting with my siblings and my parents that I really neglected to take very many pictures. My sister's house was filled to the brim with lots of little children - it was kind of an organized chaos and I wasn't thinking about the camera too much. But I did manage to get the birthday cake moments. Here are the girls of honor - Sam and Kennidy. (Samantha has black makeup under her eyes because all of the "older" girls were playing dress up with the makeup).

Here they are blowing out their birthday candles.

It was such a great weekend! We love you very much Samantha! Happy 5th birthday!

Shoutout to Girlsfriends!

I have a very special group of girlfriends that are so much fun to be with. The four of us do all kinds of things together and share our innermost secrets and wildest ideas. It isn't uncommon for a "Girls Night Out" to last until 2am because we just can't stop laughing! What a blessing it is to have friends who understand your concerns and insecurities, who can relate to you when life gets frustrating or confusing, and who aren't afraid to offer advice or to be brutally honest. We can have a great time together going to Walmart, folding laundry, taking the kids to the park, or going to a nice restaurant for some much needed dessert. At this particular outing we were celebrating Alisa's birthday with some delicous key lime pie....and a few onion rings to go!
I often wonder what I would do without you three gals. You are definitely kindred spirits and I love you!

Exercise Groupies

One of the ways that I enjoy working out is by doing a pilates and yoga video. It's a good workout and I can sneak it in at various times during my day, depending on my schedule. On this particular day I did my workout right before Emma came home from school. The yoga mat was still out and when the girls saw it on the floor they decided that they wanted to have a little workout for themselves. Here they are doing the single let stretch.

The teaser is pretty hard to do.

Not to mention this move...

Now she is the Exalted Warrior!

It's nice to be able to exercise with my girls and hopefully they learn some good habits!

School Field Trip

It has been a few weeks since I have made any posts to our blog - not that things haven't been happening with us, but because our computer has been so dreadfully slow and I didn't want to take the time and sit for five minutes to wait for each individual picture to download. However, we purchased some extra ram this week and then installed it on Friday night and now the computer works WONDERFULLY! I'm so grateful!!! Now I can be more on the ball with filling you all in on how things are going for our family.

Being a stay at home mom, I am fortunate enough to be able to volunteer in Emma's classroom which I love doing. At the beginning of April I was a chaperone on a class field trip to the local newspaper office where the kids learned how to put a newspaper together. They then came back to school and the rest of the week worked on publishing their own newspaper. Emma and I had a fun time together and I loved being there with her.The machines were very loud for the kiddos, but of course it was the most exciting element of their tour.

Here she is at the end of the tour where she saw how the ads are inserted and the newspapers are loaded up.
Emma enjoys really enjoys learning so this was a very fun experience for her.