Introducing Wilson

Could you just eat him up or what?!!

The month of April this year has been all about this little guy! His name is Wilson! He is our new German Short hair Pointer, and the new love in my husbands life! He is quite adorable, and it's a dang good thing, because puppies are a ridiculous amount of work!

Dallin with the tired pup!

Ava was obsessed with his kennel! When he was in, she wanted him out, and when he was out, she wanted him in! I think it was the door!

Callie and Grant wanted to spend every minute they could with him, even if he was crashed out for a nap!

Puppy kisses!


The proud new papa!

All in all, Wilson has been a fun new addition to our family. It was one of the happiest days of my life when he figured out that he didn't need to pee all over my floor 8 times a day, but could actually pee in this nice soft stuff called grass! Yes, he has chewed and eaten tons, and even broken our flat screen TV (that's another post!), but in spite of all that, he is a good dog, and the kids and my husband love him! And yes, I too love our 5th four legged child! Here we go starting another crazy chapter in our families life!

Love,

Lanna

If There is Winter in Heaven....

It will look just like this!

We woke up to this last Saturday, and it just felt magical! The kids couldn't believe how beautiful all the trees were, and I could hardly keep my eyes off it all. I took several pictures as Callie and I headed off to dance class, and thankfully brought my camera with to capture this most amazing of winter days. I loved that this was the day before Valentine's Day. It felt like an early "I love you" present from Heavenly Father.

Callie and I stopped at the historical farm near our house on our way home. The farm was breathtaking! It really felt like something on a postcard! I showed Callie the tiny snowflakes as they landed on the sleeve my black wool coat. I wish I could have captured her little face as she realized that real snowflakes were more beautiful than ones cut out of paper.

Days like this help me see all of the positives to why I live in Minnesota. The winters here do get a bit long to say the least, but waking up to this peaceful winter surprise, makes all the below zero days tolerable! This by far, was one of my most favorite winter days.

And I got to share it all with this beauty.

My Kids Say

...And do the sweetest and darnedest things! For a while I had a journal sitting in my kitchen specifically devoted to writing down all of the funny, and cute things they said and did. I'm not quite sure how I fell out of habit with that one. The past few weeks there have been a few note worthy things.

About three weeks ago, we were going to be having a particularly busy day. The night before, Chuck was telling Dallin that we needed to get up early in the morning to get things going, and that we were all going to get up early, even mom. To which Dallin replied, "yea, I'd like to see that!" What the heck, I know I'm not a morning person, but I do get up in the mornings ya know! I'm usually up late folding laundry, cleaning up, reading a book, or heaven forbid enjoying my quiet, sleeping house! Chuck reminds me quite often, that seminary is truly right around the corner, and that I'll have to get up and drive Dallin. I'll cross that bridge when it gets here!

Callie is my little shadow. Where ever I go, there she is. She often talks about all the things she wants to be when she grows up. Top on her list lately has been a doctor, a teenager, and a mom! In most of our daily conversations, she always makes sure to include "someday when I'm a mama just like you, I'm gonna....", or "when do I get to be a mom?" It really does totally melt my heart. It makes me feel like I must be doing something right if my little girl wants to grow up just like me. It also makes me so very aware of what I am teaching her, not only with what I say, but by what I do. Her sweet little comments make me want to be a better mom, and hopefully someday, she will be a better mother than I am.

Grant is the sweetest, kindest little kid. Sure he has him moments, I'm not gonna lie, but for the most part, he goes out of his way to please. We had parent teacher conferences last week, and he was getting glowing reviews in everything. As he sat there, he was just looking at his teacher with this puppy dog look on his face, saying how he wanted her to teach him harder math problems, because he really wanted to "educate" himself, and learn more (he must have used that line three times during our conference!). It was all Mrs. Levy could do to talk to him without smiling too big with the use of his big grown up terms! I think Grant is gonna cry on the last day of 2nd grade.

Ava, aka wiggle, has been talking up a storm lately, and is an endless source of entertainment. Today when the kids got home from school with all of their Valentines candy, she dropped the "f" bomb while trying her best to say sucker. The boys laughed, and I quickly explained that she didn't know what she was saying! And Chuck, my dear sweet Chuck, thought it ever so funny to teach her the word "boobs" a few months back. She hasn't forgotten that word (and it doesn't help that he keeps reminding her of it either!). She now says "boops" or "bupes" or my favorite is when I hold her, I get a little squeeze as she says "mom's boops"! Oh her latest is lifting up her own shirt and saying "Ava's boop's?" Yesterday while Callie was filling out her Barbie Valentines, writing "FORM CALLIE" on all of them, Ava so proudly pointed out all of the Barbies and their "boops" to which Callie shockingly told me that she was saying a grown up private word, and proceeded to scold Ava! Thanks Chuck! Don't you think we're going to have enough "boob" talk in this house in a few years with 2 teenage girls?

So there you have it, a few things that have stuck out in my mind the last little while. I LOVE being a mom, and I love when it is entertaining too! It makes those difficult days a bit easier.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve we kept it simple and low stress. I made a big pot of chicken wild rice soup, homemade split pea and ham soup, and baked up a pan of rodes dinner rolls. It was warm and comforting, especially since it was snowing like crazy out. I felt like we were inside a snow globe that had just gotten shaken! This by far was the whitest Christmas we have ever had in our married life. It was actually very peaceful and magical. Emily brought over sugar cookies for the kids to decorate, and then we just relaxed and visited gearing up for the festivities the next day.

This girl adores her Uncle Dave!
Bethany, Dallin (picking caramel out of his teeth), and Callie

Bethany Joy!

G.T.

Sarah V.!

Dallin

Later that night we tucked our kids into bed with visions of Xboxes and Barbies dancing in their heads. We put the gifts around the tree, and made sure to leave room for Santa's delivery later in the night. Unfortunately it snowed so much during the night, that it covered up all of the reindeer hoof prints....there is always next year!

What we woke up to on Christmas morning, and that was after we shoveled two times on Christmas eve!

Behind, Behind, Behind!!!

I feel like this has been the story of my life since November! I went to write in my journal a few nights ago, realizing that it had been awhile, and just about fell off of my bed when I realized, to my horror, that my last entry was October 30th! OCTOBER 30th people! What kind of a mother am I? I'm not going to remember all of the fun, crazy, sweet, and memorable thing that have happened in our family if I don't do a better job of recording them! Then the "mom guilt" set in, but I'm pretty accustomed to that feeling, it seems to set in about every other day for something or another! I felt bad that I haven't kept up better on the blog, so I am going to try and recap a bit of what has happened in our family in the past two months, like Christmas, what kind of a mother neglects to document Christmas for her kids! I think I need an intervention, and possibly a pedicure!

Our Tree

As soon as the turkey was put away on Thanksgiving, we quickly made plans to cut down our family's Christmas tree. There is nothing like the smell of a fresh cut tree to get you in the spirit of the season, and our kids love this tradition almost as much as they love Christmas it's self! Last year we did a coin toss, and the kids won and chose a big round tree that took up half of my living room. I wanted a tall narrow tree, and this year I got my wish! We found the most symmetrical, tall beautiful tree, it almost looked fake! This was possibly our most favorite tree yet!

The day was bright and sunny, and not too cold yet (at least by Minnesota standards). After we cut down the tree, it was off for some cider, a hay ride, and a visit with the animals. Ava was squealing with delight and excitement at all of the animals! She was even getting smiles and laughs, and "oh she is so cute" comments from all of the other visitors! I love seeing her discover and experience things for the first time. Who knew farm animals could be so funny?!

After a long weekend of decorating, the tree and the house were ready for Christmas! (I neglected to take pictures of the rest of the house, and since I'm two month behind on this post, you'll just have to take my word for it that it looked good:) The girls redecorated the bottom half of the tree daily, which I suppose added to it's charm. I often heard Ava say, "ook Mom, pitty!", and it was!

She Did It!

I told Callie that once she was five, she could get her ears pierced if she wanted to. I figured that by that age, she would be able to fully understand that it would hurt a little bit, and that the piercings needed to be carefully taken care of everyday for six weeks. Her birthday came and went, and she talked about it some, but went back and forth with her decision, so we waited. In mid December she talked about it again, and really felt like she was ready, so off we went to Claire's! With teddy bear in hand for added comfort, she did it!

Before...
During...(I'm so glad that they did both ears at once!)
After... Admiring her new earrings!

You can tell by the face she is making, that she was hurting, but she was so brave, and didn't shed a single tear! Beauty hurts sister, get used to it!

Grant came with us, and was quite impressed with how great she did! I think having a bit of an audience helped her gather the courage she needed! We're proud of you sis! You're such a girlie girl, now you have the pink flower earrings to prove it!