China Day

Yesterday was China Day for the 4th grade - a fun finale to this month's study of Ancient China.

Madi's so lucky to have the best Grandma- she volunteered to spend the afternoon walking Madi & her classmates along the Silk Road. Grandma wore the beautiful jacket she bought in China last May and loaned Madi one that my Dad bought her from Chinatown on their honeymoon.

Madi & BFF Eleanor

Bayli & I showed up after naptime and she was able to spend some quality time with her Baba...

I Have Other Kids Too...

Sometimes I feel bad that I have more posts about Bayli than anything else... But she is doing so many new things - growing and changing every single day.

Not to mention the fact that she spends so much more time with me and that she is significantly more cooperative!! :)

Still, I completely adore her big sisters too - they make me smile every single day and I am so grateful for the opportunity to be their mom...

I loved this recent picture of Madi.
She has the most beautiful eyes.
This is her new shirt. It is sleeveless, like everything she wears, despite the fact that it is winter. Like Ryann, She pretty much lives in her dance clothes - camis and dance pants. The season really has zero influence over her wardrobe choices. Although this must have been a particularly cold day, since she did throw on a hoodie...

Skye is the best big sister and has gained so much confidence in the last year. I love, love, love the way she makes her bed every day! She loves the white board easel in her room and updates it daily with the correct day & date. So cute. She lives in her jeans and is so talkative that sometimes she will spend the entire dinner telling us about her day and no one else even gets a turn...

Ryann literally runs screaming whenever she sees the camera. So I have to blog about her with no pictures. :) But she has really been responsible this year managing Jr. High and 15 hours a week of dance. She just got her 1st Jr. High report card: 8 A's and 1 B+. She is passionate about dance and so, so talented. I was stunned last month when I saw her lyrical for the first time - my daughter disappeared and this beautiful, flowing, grown-up dancer took her place. I had tears in my eyes. But no pictures.

I really, really love you guys!

Thanks for sharing your adventures with me.

Success (sort of...)

This morning I finally, finally got Bayli's picture taken!

She didn't think it was as great of an idea as I did - and wasn't the least bit interested in smiling at the strange woman. This one was the very last picture. I said "I'm gonna get you!" and was rewarded by this sort-of smile...

She was also pretty happy with herself for stealing the props.

Here she is trying to get away from the scary woman

(but looking less upset than the other 8 shots...)

Luckily, I still think she's pretty stinkin' cute,

whether she's smiling or not.

All Dressed Up & No Place To Go

So I finally, finally got around to taking Bayli in for her much-belated 12-month-old picture. (Having a birthday right before the holidays totally threw me - I'll have to plan better next year...)

It was pretty much a full-day's job. I let her nap, gave her a bath, tamed down her crazy, crazy hair, got her all dressed in the world's cutest outfit, drove to the mall, all happy that she was finally getting her picture taken.

Then the rude woman at the Kiddie Kandids told me that even though the place looked deserted, they couldn't squeeze her in for 2 hours. Right during her afternoon nap... So we came back home. And I took some pictures of my own (with her stuck on the kitchen stool so she couldn't run away).

the world's cutest outift:

(it says "sweeter than chocolate" on the collar)

my sweet 12-month-old (plus two months...)

What a Difference a Year Makes...

This is my sweet, sweet baby at 2 months old -

fully clothed, right where I left her, just starting to smile -

exactly one year ago today ...

Today she is 14 months old!

And here is a picture of her today, just 12 short months later...

Yeah, that's my dining room table...

(In case you are wondering why my child is never dressed, she takes off running whenever I try to change her, then usually does something cute...)

So here she is today on top of the piano bench...

and on top of the art table...

Thank goodness she's so stinkin' cute!

I love you my 14-month-old monkey!!

Benjamin Button

Academy Award nominations were announced today.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was nominated 13 times.

I'm definitely rooting for this wonderfully touching, heartwarming movie that my sweet hubby took me to last weekend.

I loved, loved, loved it.

Weekend

Here's what we did last weekend...

My sweet, sweet hubby spent the day at my parents' house

- installing new kitchen cabinets & working his mojo on their computer.

Bayli explored outside and bonded with Grandpa.


The big girls ice skated in the court.

Bayli & her sisters were babysat - 5 hours with their awesome aunt & uncle (thank you guys so much!!) - so Daddy & I could have a long overdue Hot Date.

Bayli played in the tub and reached maximum cuteness:

15 Years

So Mike & I just celebrated our 15th anniversary.

Wow. 15 years.

My hubby is a passionate guy - one of the things I love most about him. The kind of passion that sometimes makes for big highs and big lows.

Last week was a big low.

This week was a big high.

Ending in the surprise date that he planned for me (the first time ever)

It was awesome.

He arranged the perfect babysitters for our 4 girls.

He planned to take me to my favorite Thai restaurant.

He took me to the movie he thought I would like best

(even though it wasn't an action movie).

He didn't let the crazy drivers bother him.

He talked and listened.

He let me take pictures.

I came first all day.

He was the Perfect Date.

After the movie, we walked outside to discover this beautiful sight...

reminding me that life is beautiful.

Highs & lows are just part of the ride.

We met in 1987 - here we are, 21 years later, still going strong...

Happy Anniversary Baby! I love you.

Here's to another 21 years

of love & laughter, family & chaos, highs & lows, together.

And let's celebrate here:

A Day in the Life...

I know that my blog seems all about Bayli, but you have to appreciate that my other girls are in school all day, and when they are home, they won't let me take their picture anyway...

Bayli's so cooperative

and always into something that seems blog-worthy.

So today, after making a giant mess of herself at lunch, Bayli wanted to play the piano. She looked awfully cute sitting there in her pajama pants and just one of her Uggs (which she brought me to put on - she was content with just the one).

I grabbed my camera and ended up with an accurate depiction of my busy, busy little girl -

sitting on the piano bench was great fun, for about 30 seconds - before she realized that if sitting was fun, standing was even better. But then why just stand on the bench when you can climb up on the piano? (sorry Mom!) And why stop at just sitting on the piano? Stand up and have some fun!

This little one is so, so busy.

Some days she just scares me...

Chalk Cousins

I really, really love the fact that Skye has a cousin her age.

I have such great memories of growing up with my cousins in Utah.

Logan is just 7 weeks older than Skylar and they are great friends. We never miss an opportunity to get them together.

On Saturday, they traced themselves with sidewalk chalk and made the cutest self-portraits!

Sidewalk Skye:

WahDee!

Look how happy Bayli is when you give her some water!!

How could you possibly say no to that?

She is talking so much!

One of her first & favorite words is water, which sounds like wah-dee.

She's so smart - she loves to get a cup, take it to the fridge and hold it up to the dispenser saying wahdee, wahdee, in the hopes that someone will take pity on her pathetic little self give her some (even though we know that she's just going to spill it)...

She's awfully cute.

Just this week, she's decided that the way to get what she wants is to just start saying the same thing over and over and over... (guess what, it works!)

So here's how she spends a good portion of the day...

She's so cute!! :)

A Curly-Haired Girl?...

Bayli's hair right out of the tub.

It's so cute!

Madi had curls as a baby too, so I know Bayli might just outgrow them, and one day I'll have to walk away and leave them all alone on the floor of the hair salon, never to be seen again...

but until then,

I'm hoping for a curly-haired girl...

Tuesday Breakthroughs

My sweet baby girl started the New Year off with a bang -

fever, antibiotics, lethargy and vomity pjs...

Ear Infection #3

Poor Baby. This one really kicked her baby caboose.

We've had 5 miserable days of almost constant 103.5 fever, lots of sleep deprivation and daily power struggles over medicine which resulted in her repeatedly throwing it up on both of us. Aagh!! Fun, fun. Only 15 more doses to go...

So my first breakthrough is that Bayli's fever is finally gone! Hooray! And for once, I don't even smell like vomit (although the day's still young...) This is the sickest my littlest one's ever been. :(

It's been rough.

Now that she's feeling better, she did two big girl things today:

This morning, she picked up the Tivo remote and said "Barney".

So cute. (Of course, she got to watch Barney after that.)

Then, when we were getting ready to leave this afternoon - I totally didn't expect her to do this, but I pointed to her shoes by the door and said "Bring Mommy your shoes and I'll put them on so we can go". So she walked over to the door, picked up her shoe and brought it to me!!

She's so big!

I'm so in love with her cutest baby Uggs...

Bringing me her shoe - that's my big girl!!