Somebody turned 1 today!

Happy Birthday Sophie! We can't believe you are already 1!
Here she is all ready for her birthday dinner.
Spaghetti and mini meatballs, corn, and french bread. This girl loves her some spaghetti!




I was so excited to sew this monkey for her (many thanks to the amazing Meghan for helping me with this project!) and what did she do with it might you ask???...




She chucked it around the side of the couch, and thought that even the shirts were cooler...hopefully she'll appreciate my labors when she's older:)




Thanks to all of the grandparents for the nice presents! We missed you today:)




This toy earned the cheesy grin, she thinks she is pretty hot stuff with these wheels:)




She was hesitant at first with her cake, putting her hand on the frosting and then looking at us, but it didn't take long for her to dig right in! She loved it, smooshed it all over her face, and licked her hands clean:)


Happy birthday Soph, we love you sweet girl. I hope to always remember that little grin!

first day of school

I just wanted to give a quick shout out to the best dad ever today, Happy Birthday Dad! We all love you and still think that you pretty much know everything even though we are all grown up. We are ever thankful that you are a part of our lives! We hope you have a great day today!
The first 2 pictures are just random ones I took today of the kids outside. They didn't have school because of a Jewish holiday which I won't attempt to spell.
And in other news, the kids started school within the past few weeks. Tyler started 2nd grade with Ms. Egre. He kept pronouncing it "Ms. Angry" and then would laugh and say that he hopes she really isn't angry. She is great so far, and looks like Mary Poppins only with long blonde hair and a little older. Anyone who looks so sweet can't be mean:) Halle started preschool this past week. She is so excited that 2 kids from our ward are in her class, Macie, and Caleb. She told me in the car on the way there the other day that she was "definatly going to play with the babies!" These kids are getting so big so fast. Sophie is getting big too, it's hard to believe she's almost 1!

30

Today I turned 30
I feel happy
I feel healthy
I feel grateful
I feel young:)
Thank you Chase for making my day special. You're the best, dinner was great, the cake was yummy, I loved the big white candle and the kids sitting with me, and I love my new iron:)

The Creature

Halle, in a pretty sad pathetic whimper came into our room this morning at 6am and told us "There's a creature in my room, and I don't know what it is!" Chase and I weren't quite ready to wake up at the moment and Halle is known for having dreams and talking nonsense at night and early hours of the morning ( I have no idea where she gets that ha ha- hey Kenna, have you blessed your scriptures yet? I was just checkin' ha ha) Anyway, we gave her a pillow and let her sleep by our bed for a minute but she insisted one more time that there really was a CREATURE in her room and she didn't know what it was! I, at this point knew there would probably be no falling back to sleep and I started thinking about this creature. Tyler told me yesterday that he saw a bat in our garage. I went to check it out and saw a bird in our garage and told him it was just a bird. Then I thought about the sound I heard in the middle of the night downstairs but was too tired to do anything about it, and then I thought about the time that we were living in Fairfield and a bat got in the house and flew in my face and freaked me out, so I made Chase go and check out the creature in her room. It ended up being a brown and black nasty bat (with a "pink bottom" Halle's own words) that was hanging upside down from her lamp 3 feet away from poor Halle's head-GROSS! Chase got a box from the attic and I heard a few bumps and thumps and thought for a minute that this was serious and I might need to get in there, but then thought what am I going to do about it except for probably yell, "GET IT! GET IT!" 2 seconds later he had the bat in the box, took it outside and let it go. Sophie had no clue what had just happened and Halle was right, there was a creature in her room that she had never seen before!
We spent the next 15 minutes laughing in our bed, all five of us, taking turns telling what the bat looked like. According to Chase it was 3 feet long with vampire teeth and green eyes!


I thought I would throw this picture in with this post since we didn't get a pic of the bat. We made Chase a giant cookie for fathers day. I love the ages of our kids, they are so excited about everything. Tyler made sure to try to trick Chase by telling him we were having popscicles for dessert.

Cafeteria, Underpants hats, schools out

Halle: Mom, do you know what cafeteria is?
Mom: Ya, it's the room where you go to eat your food, like at school or a hospital.
Halle: No, I mean cafeteria, the kind that comes out of here (pointing to her bum).
Mom: (Just couldn't hold back the laughter on this one) Ya I know that kind:)
Halle: Well I just had some.
THanks for sharing Hal


Every Wednesday night Tyler has baseball practice from 7-8pm. Halle thinks she's really missing out by not getting to go with dad and ty, so we have our own girls night while they are gone. It isn't too exciting, ya know, getting to watch a movie in the family room with a bowl of ice cream is probably as cool as it's been. Halle came downstairs last week with underwear on her head and said "lets all wear underpants hats for girls night!" About 3 minutes later I came downstairs and she had Sophie all outfitted with her own underpants hat:)






Tylers last day of school was June 10th this year which seemed kind of late, but they didn't start school this year until after labor day. I wanted to do something fun for the last day of school and found these window markers at Walmart. Tyler thought it was pretty cool and I think we'll make it a tradition! I have to do these things while I can, when Tyler gets to middle school he may not think it's too cool to have his mom decorate our sweet van to pick him up in!!!

Niagara Falls

On our trip to Niagara Falls we stayed in Buffalo to check out where my mom lived growing up for 5 years. Mom I hope we took pictures of the right houses, Williamsville was a nice area and it probably looks exactly the same as it did when you lived there. The first pictures are 64 Highland Drive.







Mom we think this is your old stomping grounds on 95 Ellicot St. Williamsville, NY.


I love this picture of Sophie, she has her tongue out like this all the time feelig her 2 bottom teeth. Chase stuck her in the stroller while we packed the car. She is now 7 months old.


Here are the kids in the hotel room. 2 seconds before I took this picture Sophie was smiling while Tyler and Halle were wrestling in front of her, but they stopped to pose for me.


Niagara Falls is beautiful. We thought it was pretty amazing from above, but when you take the boat ride to the base and look up and see all of this powerful water crashing down, it is pretty amazing.



This picture of the Maid of the Mist boat was taken from the upper deck where you can see the falls from above.

Tyler and Halle on the Maid of the Mist boat. This boat takes you to the base of Niagara Falls. They give you a blue poncho to wear and I would say the kids were excited/nervous to wear a poncho. They don't love water so although the poncho was cool and we told them they could keep it, they also knew they were going to get wet. As the boat takes off it is so pretty and exciting. We started to barely feel a mist as we passed some of the falls, but when you really get down to the base where all the water is really crashing down you can get pretty wet. The kids liked it, but they weren't begging to do it again. They really liked their post card with a picture of the falls on it and their poncho the best.


Mom and Sophie. Sophie whimpered/cried for most of the boat ride. If I would have known how wet it got I might have stayed down on the lower part of the boat. She didn't really like her blue poncho, she was really tired and she got sprayed with water so I don't blame her:) I however thought it was awesome and would definately describe it as being very majestic.

Chase is about to get soaked. He was the only one of us to not wear the hood on his poncho. I would say you get sprayed with more than just a mist:)

Our family after the Maid of the Mist boat ride to the base of the falls. Sophie was glad it was over.

We're really gonna rock tonight!

Halle before her recital. She was so excited to wear her pink leotard and tights. I'm not even sure we need to put her in a dance class as long as we just let her run around in dance attire:)She came home from dance class one day and announced, "Mom this is how you do first projition!" and had her feet in a perfect V shape:) Strike a pose Halle:) (she's the one in the middle) Halle and her friend Macie. We carpooled with Macie for dance class and these girls were so cute and always entertaining! Halle with her flower costume on. They did a little flower ballet number and I must say for having such a lanky awkward mom, Halle looked quite graceful:) My seriously awesome husband grilling up a storm for us on Mothers day, yum!

Birthday boy and Easter

Tyler turned 7 years old on March 30th! You are looking so old to us these days Tyler, especially with all of your permanent teeth coming in. We love you so much and feel so blessed to have such a special boy as a part of our family! Happy Birthday:)!!! Thanks to Gma and Gpa Bennion and Gma and Gpa Pearson for the fun gifts for Tyler, he loved it all! When he opened a wallet full of 10 one dollar bills he was so excited and said, "Wow, there is hundreds of dollars in here!"

Halle and her eggs. She cracked all but one:)

Tyler wrote "We Pizza!" on one of his eggs. I asked him if he meant to write "We love Pizza" He said "nope, I just wanted it to say "We Pizza!" Alrighty then:)

The "Sophinator"

You might wonder by what the kids are wearing if it is hot or cold here. It has been so nice, we had a beautiful easter weekend! Today it was 75, if only Cleveland weather could be consistent! On Friday it is supposed to be back in the 40s.

3 happy kids:)

Tyler and his Easter basket. These kids look like they hit the jackpot with their baskets:) I had gotten/made some things for their baskets and then Chase got them some stuff and when we put it all together, they made a haul.

Halle and her Easter basket

Sophie with her Easter basket. I had fun making some things for Halle's hair and Sophie's baldness:)

This peep looks so much yummier than baby food!

Easter brunch at the Loveless' household. Burke, Korbyn, Ashlyn, Tyler, Scottie, Halle, Savannah, and McKinlay, and Trevor. We had some pre-conference yummy food, let the kids play, and then we all went home to watch conference! Conference starts at noon in the East:)

Birthday Boy and Easter

Easter Brunch at the Loveless' household. Burke, Korbynn, Tyler, Ashlyn, Scottie, McKinlay, Savannah, Halle, and Trevor. We had some yummy pre-conference food, let the kids play, and then everyone headed home to watch conference!! In the East conference starts at noon:)