Birthday Girl

We are having a party for her tomorrow because we were out of town most of the day but I had to do a birthday post for her today.

Happy Birthday Elsie!

Exciting, scary, sad and more exciting news!!

First of all Nick and I decided to take advantage of the day after Christmas sales on Friday and we bought ourselves a new camera!! We bought a Nikon D-40. I've been wanting this one for a while based on pictures I've seen on others blogs as well as price. This camera seemed to have everything the comparable Cannon had, but for less. Everyone at Best Buy kept telling me that this was a good camera to start out with. I'm not sure what else I would need though, this one already has more than I can figure out!

Later that night my dad invited us to go to my aunt and uncles cabin for the weekend in Shaver!! I promptly accepted his invitation and thought of how much fun it would be to take pictures of my kids in the snow.

Here are some shots of the vies on our drive up.

We all had a really relaxing weekend of doing NOTHING!!! It was so nice to just lay around and enjoy each others company rather than go to work or clean the house or run errands!

Yes, that is Elsie running around naked. We are potty training and I was nervous but she did very well!

I love icicles! All of the cabins were covered in them!! Our kids had tons of fun playing in the snow, having snowball fights, sledding and exploring.

The next two are the last pictures I was able to take of our weekend.

Nick and Elsie were about to race Charlotte, but they started to get too close so Nick slowed down to avoid a collision. Some how Charlotte veered off course.While I was trying to get pictures of Charlotte, Nick said that she was going to crash. I thought he meant into me so I snapped a shot and got out of her way. Then he yelled "Stop her!" I turned to see that she was headed trait for our car. I knew it was too late but I ran anyway only to watch her hit the front bumper face first. I don't know how fast she was going, but her little limbs went limp and flew back just like when you watch car crashes in slow motion. It was the most terrifying moment I think I have ever experienced. (Probably even more so than the time she got locked in the bathroom by Aaron, then fell and hit her head on the tile and was screaming while I was helplessly locked out!!) Just writing about it is making my eyes water. I felt a slight sense of relief when she started screaming, and then even more when I was able to pull her out from under the car and see that other than some swelling and a small cut on her lip she was alright. She does have a nice bruise on her cheek, but no broken nose, teeth, skin, or bones. As I started to take her inside I saw Nick pick up our new camera and I realized I had dropped it in the snow. I didn't think anything of it other than to wonder when I had let it go. Later that night I was still shaken up, but I was able to understand that my brand new camera was broken and that we had turned down the warranty.

When we got back into town Nick went back to Best Buy to try to purchase the warranty so we could get a new one but they said we couldn't because it was already broken. The lens was the part that broke and a new one would cost a few hundred dollars. Nick called me to ask if we should let them send the lens out to be fixed. I said to wait and I would try to find someone to fix it that wouldn't charge us just to ship it to another company who was also going to charge us.

Nick went to the car and hit the steering wheel. I went to change a diaper and prayed.

A few minutes later he called me again and told me that the camera had started working! He than drove to the other Best Buy in town and purchased the warranty! The camera is still working but if in the next two years it stops, we will get a replacement!

Lessons learned:

1. Pray always

2.Wear your camera strap

Merry Christmas

Did Santa visit you?

He sure did visit us!

I was awakened by Aaron at 4:30am! but not to open presents, just to inform me that Elsie had thrown up in her crib. He promptly went back to bed!!

After putting her in a bath, starting the laundry, switching her to our bathroom for a clean bath after she threw up again, cleaning the kids bathtub, feeding Lila and changing the crib sheets,

it was 6am and Charlotte was awake and ready to see what Santa left her.

Aaron was harder to wake up than I expected, but after about a minute he was ready to go get his loot!

Santa left the girls a shiny new kitchen!!

and Aaron, some Star Wars transformers!!!

Elsie was very into the candy, she spent most of the morning crying because I was taking it away from her....surprisingly she never threw up again!





It took them at least a half hour to remember that there were other presents under the tree, but when they did our house quickly became toy central!

Elsie was in desperate need of a nap and so was I!!

I threw her in her crib and went to take a nice long nap!
_____

After I recovered we went to Grandma's house for a delicious Christmas dinner. Poor Ali had to go to the hospital for swollen tonsils and had to miss out.

These two took their naps on grandmas carpet right in the middle of the floor.

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas

We sure did!

Christmas Eve

We spent Christmas Eve at home this year. It was nice and relaxed. My dad came over and made tacos for us, then later more family came by for desserts and a small gift exchange.

Aaron and Charlotte couldn't wait to open presents and must have asked me 50 times if they could.

They finally did get to open some and then they got their pajamas from me and I forced them to pose for pictures one more time before heading to bed so Santa could come.

bye bye baby teeth

Here is the big 6 year old with his first lost tooth!!

You can see that the other one is loose too (it fell out the next night)

You can also see the new ones growing in. It looked kind of freakish in there for a while!

I had never mentioned the tooth fairy before but he told me all about her. He must have learned at school. Apparently he didn't get the whole story though because he thought she might leave a video game for him. He was a little disappointed by the dollar she left under the pillow.

I explained that she left everyone money and he felt a little better.

Princess Party!!!

I let Charlotte have her first friend party this year. She got to invite 4 little girls from preschool and four other friends (who also happen to be daughters of my friends!).

The energy level was just as high as the star wars party, but the noise level was much lower (thank goodness)

All of her little preschool friends were so excited about the party. The teachers even knew about it by the end of the week.

(You will have to excuse my fuzzy pictures.)

here we are anxiously awaiting our guests

First on the agenda:

princess necklaces

I thought the girls would string a few beads and then want to play, but almost all of them completely filled their necklace with beads.

I had Ali and Desi dress up as a princess ans fairy to add to the fun.


Charlotte wanted to play pin the wand on the princess, but was easily swayed when she saw this cute donkey with shoes on. (Good thing too, it was only 88 cents!)



We found a really cute Tinkerbell pinata with strings to pull instead of hitting it with a bat. Rain was in the forecast and I didn't think princesses should be swinging bats anyway! Every girl got a chance to pull a string off and Charlotte was the lucky one to pull the winning string....Couldn't have planned it more perfectly.

For lunch Charlotte wanted sandwiches and chips so we made star shaped peanut butter and jelly and served them with ruffles (Charlotte's favorite) and pink lemonade

Then for dessert....pink cupcakes with pink frosting and sprinkles! What else?

Charlotte was loaded up with Barbie's and princesses this year. Just what she wanted!

The girls all had tons of fun being royalty for the day and I only spent $50!

What could be better than that?