New Years Interviews

Valentines Day

I love Valentines Day. It is fun, sweet, and cute! (Way better than Halloween! :) ) I went to Miri's Valentine's class party. In fact, I helped with it a little, bringing Valentines popcorn. Turns out adding M&Ms to popcorn is yummy...shocker. :) She is BFFs right now with this little girl Grace. 

Holly baby was watched by her favorites. She loves Oliver so much. "Hold him, Oliver." He is getting almost as big as her. 

Eliza had a class party too, and we made this fun Valentines box. I have been loving calligraphy lately and enjoyed putting together these punny cards for my older girls and John. He even got in on the pun action with the pear card. :)
We ended up making more punny cards when the girls received Valentines from the Jacobsons in the mail. They were so excited to send some back. We reused the "OWL always love you." We also added: "I think you are DINO-mite." "You are TURTLEY awesome." "I WHALEY love you." They had so much fun making them.

After school we did our traditional Valentines floats, this time with homemade ice cream and sparkling juice. We used the fancy glasses, and they loved it.

Then, we exchanged valentine gifts. The girls each got a little something from Daddy. John bought me a book that I have wanted for a long time. I originally got him a bag of pistachios, but the night before Holland discovered them in their hiding place and brought them out to show John. "So yummy, pistachios." It is so cute how much she loves pistachios and also how she says it. So, John actually got coconut milk and some homemade chocolate granola.

That weekend we went on a real date to see The Greatest Showman in the theater. We took this little video. It was a really fun movie with awesome music.


A couple of little videos of the girls opening their valentines. I love the squeals.




Daddy took the girls to the school's Sweetheart dance the Friday before Valentines Day. They had a great time.

Holland wanted a picture with Daddy too. So CUTE! I can't even...

Honestly...

Grandma's Visit Feb 2018 and Family History

It is always more fun when Grandma comes to visit. For example, Grandma helped us decide that we need to spend more money on our house. No, we decided to buy this all on our own, but it was helpful that Grandma was here to help watch the kids so we could go get it. I love having a place to put the china that we never use because it has always been boxed up. It's pwetty.


I love how Holland says "good idea" so I had to preserve it in a little video.


We also took the kids over to the little park with rides. It is always so cute to see them.

Ellie was too tall for the little Ferris wheel, what??! Holland still talks about this train ride. It was a "big train ride." "Goes choo, choo." Good times. Especially when we went to Cafe Rio for dinner after it was good times. My mom was so energetic this trip. Getting up with the kids and napping a lot less. I sure hope it goes well when we're in Hawaii (!).

One of the things that we did while she was here was work on family history. The ward goal this year is to do more family history and temple work. John and I have been getting started with that. It sure is addicting. And there is so, so much work to do. Even if you think your line is done, it's not! I found this gem of my Grandma and Grandpa's wedding announcement in the paper. I love that it described her dress. :)

I love that my dad is in town too. He is so great! He loves telling stories to the girls, and they love to hear them. This particular night we were packing lunches and doing dishes in the kitchen, and I overheard him sharing with the girls how he received his testimony. It was so sweet.

My sweet Holland--First Haircut

 I have gotten out my nice camera to play around with a bit the last month or two. It has been fun to capture Holland waking up.

 Those toes!

 She really is at such a fun stage. She is starting to use more complete sentences.  She loves to talk about her birthday. She says, "My birthday is coming in, 24." I think she is trying to say "My birthday is coming up. I am going to turn 24."

 Holland is a lot more patient with books than she used to be, especially new books. She loves the book "The Balloon Tree."

 She also is getting better at using the potty. She has started telling us when she needs to go. Thank goodness. I also had to throw in this cute picture of Miri girl. I love her.

Holland is predictable in that you never know what you are going to get from her. She spends her time either really cranky or unbelievably adorable. She yells and screams and needs time outs to get over her cranky moods. 

 But then she'll do an about-face on you and be sweeter and cuter than I can accurately describe. I love when she says, "Member..." and then say something that happened.

 She knows her letter sounds super well. She can easily identify capital letters, but those lowercase ones are still a mystery. She loves letters and counting. Holland is such a cutie.

 The time finally came to give her her first haircut! Bye-bye cute curls. :(

 Before and after! John was pretty concerned I cut too much, but I actually think it turned out adorable.

 A little concerned at first, but Daddy makes everything better.

 Honestly! How cute is the next series of John and Holland?!

It was time. There was just one long lock and the rest was shorter. Her haircut makes her look older though. :(

Holland still loves her bears. Here is a little video of her chatting about them. "No touchies!"

We dressed big bear up as Holland. So funny. :) 

 It isn't all rainbows and unicorns though. There are also poo accidents and too much toilet paper in the toilet times too. Gross.

Holland still screams at Ellie every morning, but I would say overall their relationship is improving. Ellie styled Holland's hair yesterday. It was pretty great. 

Last week Holland and I took a little tour of Shamrock Farms with a bunch of little friends. Her favorites (Sophie and Oliver) were there, but weren't in the picture. She seemed to enjoy it, but was obviously a little young for it. Her favorite (most lingering) memory was how they had the kids say "Let's get MOOOOOving." to start the tram.

 Baby calves!

 Such a doll. "Mommy, I am ready to go places."

Oh Holland...