Fun Family Dinner

I feel bad I didn't just ask everyone to look at the camera. :)

I LOVE this picture. Jaylee would just look up at Nate then lay back down onto his chest. Oooh So cute!!

This was hillarious! Brian and Carlee took turns rubbing eachother's heads. I wish I'd have taken a picture of Carlee doing Brian's head. Brian was also teasing Carlee and throwing spaghetti noodles in her hair. I think she had more than 10 noodles stuck in her hair. Should have taken a picture of that too I guess :) What a fun uncle!

This is all of us watching Nate's show Beethoven. What a crack up.

Last night was SO SO SO much fun! My siblings came over for family dinner since the parents are in HAWAII!!! Yes, we can all take a moment to be jealous :) It was beyond awesome to have my brothers and sisters over - sorry Julie - we TOTALLY missed you! We had spaghetti and fancy bread, Heather did an AMAZING job on some brownies too. The company was great! Nate picked out a show for us to watch and he picked Beethoven... It was hillarious that he and I remember the SAME lines from when we were kids. It was funny having a flashback moment. Of coarse Brian wanted to have a "HORSE" tournament in the backyard while they were here. The boys have a blast seeing if Dave can keep up the "home court" advantage. Dave actually did pretty well. Justin was excited because it's the first time he's thrown a basketball since his shoulder surgery several months ago - he didn't even loose - sorry Nate :) Becca and Heather were adorable with the girls too. Becca is always so great to notice each girl individually and she and Carlee had a way cute talk at the table. Heather played a seek and find and was super patient. The kids absolutly adored that their aunts and uncles were over and even drew pictures for each of them.

As a side note, Carlee was SO cute on Saturday. She was in her room making her bed and decided to make Chloé's for her too. It was SO sweet! It always makes me smile to see the girls do things for each other. Chlo has been super motivated and has actually been on time to the bus the last few school days. I can count on ONE hand how many times she's made it all year! Go CHLO! Jaylee is still working on her crawling and is ALMOST there. She's funny to watch now because she pops her knees underneath her to get into position. She still rocks but can now officially go from her belly to sitting up! Quite impressive...

Saturday night Dave and I actually got a DATE NIGHT! Thanks Madison, the girls are already asking when you can come again :) We went to dinner then to the movie Mall Cop. We heard it was pretty lame but Dave and I are both partial to Kevin James. It was HILLARIOUS! We both laughed through most of the moive. It was a great choice.

Over all it was a great weekend. Thanks so much to everyone who contributed to the fun! :)

Oh the fun we can have

Let the race begin. They LOVED this. What a great FHE idea huh? :) Thanks tons G&G Nelson!

These are a few of the butterflies we've been able to make with G&G Jackman's Valentine gift. Pretty awesome!

Chlo LOVES LOVES LOVES all her little critters, they're all in a special box right by her bed. Thanks for this one to G&G Jackman!

The girls thought it was hillarous that they could hold hands while riding their horses. It was super fun watching them have such a great time.

As you can tell, Jaylee wasn't quite sure about the riding thing. I think it almost freaked her out.

Jaylee got to ride in the car for the first time in a forward facing car seat. It took her a bit to get used to the idea. I think she really likes it though. :)

Today was SO nice! Dave was a gem and let me sleep in until 9!!! That's almost unheard of for me - it would have been really nice if I hadn't been up 4 times during the night - but I'll take a 9 am wakeup ANYTIME! :)

I did a bunch of much needed clean up today then we headed out to the Southtown mall. We had a blast! Dave was able to get some new work shirts and we were able to take the girls on a carousel ride. They LOVED it. Jaylee didn't really know what to think though :) Afterwards we treated ourselves to a gourmet dinner of McDonalds. (I say gourmet because all the girls upgraded meal drinks to shakes). When we got home Dave and the girls decided to race their bunnies from G&G Marsh. It was hillarous!

What a day!

Happy Valentine's Day!

This is what the girl's room looked like when I was done "attacking" it.

Yep! This is "Little" Jaylee in her new car seat.

Chlo came to help with Carlee's class party and LOVED it. She was actually able to be-friend one of the tougher kids and help her calm down and participate. It was SO cute. The little girl asked if Chlo could sit by her at the table and at circle time. Way to be an amazing friend Chlo!

This is Carlee and her most fabulous teacher Mrs. Harmon. She had just given Carlee her "Love bugs" and was hugging her telling her how much she loved her.

This is the project the girls and I did for Dave. This is taken before things were all glued down so that's why things are a little crooked. I think it turned out nice :)

This week has been beyond crazy for me. Just when I think things are going to slow down they pick up pace... It hasn't been crazy with bad things, just lots of things. I was able to have the girls help this week with putting Dave's valentine gift together. We did a page of 50 things we love about him. We all laughed as we came up with silly things about dad. I was also able to help in Carlee's class for her Valentine party right after I finshed helping in Chloé's class. I got to do some custom bows for a friend and watch another friends adorable little boy so she could go to a funeral. I got to go on a Coscto run and even had to head over to the Social Security office to FINALLY get my name changed from my maiden name to married name. I never realised what a PAIN that was! I'm glad I never have to do that again. On Friday night I decided to "heart attack" the girls room. I cut out lots of paper hearts and wrote love notes on them and hung them on their wall. Then I scattered chocolate hugs and kisses all over their floor. Yes, I was thinking this would be such a fun idea for the girls... It turned out fun except when they got up at 4AM to eat all the chocolate!!!

Dave got me the best gift I could ever ask for! A LARGE bag of peanut M&M's and a paper that said "things I love about Sherri from A to Z". He had written something he loved about me that started with each letter of the alphabet. It was AMAZING and I'm SO grateful he took the time to do that! It honestly meant the world to me! Thanks Dave!!

My parent's got the girls each a little Valentine gift which was of coarse, to the girl's delight, a craft project. We worked on their little critters and sparkley butterflies for hours on Saturday morning. Chlo has all of her critters named and categorized into who has which role (mom, dad, friend...) Carlee just likes to give all her butterflies smiles with the glitter glue. Yes the glue has been added to several articles of clothing as well as the wall in the hallway. :)

We decided to make sugar cookies as well, which you have to do to make Valentine's day complete. They turned out pretty good too - nothing that Cream Cheese frosting can't make taste good though. For dinner we had roast, mashed potatoes and homeade rolls. Yes, I was baking ALL day. It was great though and we had a blast! I put little love notes all over their place settings and they thought that was way cool (thanks for the great idea Mindy!!!) Chlo said she was going to save the notes forever. Oooh, so cute.

We went over to Nelson's for dinner tonight and had a great time. Mom Nelson is finally on Facebook, which has been comical in and of itself. She was bragging tonight about how proud she was that she figured out how to copy and paste things into an email. You GO Marsh! :) It was great to see them as well this weekend. G&G Nelson got the girls these adorable little bunnies who are riding bikes that race across the floor. The girls LOVE them. Thanks tons guys! :) When we got home I decided to brave bringing up the bigger car seat. Jaylee is growing way WAY too fast for her own good and is not really fitting in her rear facing car seat anymore. The doctor said that once she's 20 pounds she's big enough for the front facing seat... Well, after weighing her on my scale in the bathroom she's 23.5 pounds!!!! Yikes, you should be 20 pounds at 1 year! Yes, my child is only 8 months old... She's so stinkin' cute though. Anyway, after scrubbing out the nasty car seat, we tried her out. She LOVED it. It was hillarous to see how small she actually looked in it. I don't know if I dare actually let her ride in it yet although I know she'll be much more comfortable... I guess we'll see...

It has been a great weekend and I am SO grateful tomorrow is a holiday. Dave said he'll take care of the girls in the morning so I can SLEEP IN!!! What better gift can there be??? :)

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

My 3 girls

Carlee gets so excited when she gets to help shovel the snow. I actually remembered to bring out the camera in the beginning so I could show off her cuteness :) Thanks for all the help Carlee!

This week Chlo lost another tooth and learned how to make curly bows. I'm actually quite impressed at how good she is. In this picture you can see her missing tooth and one of her curly bows. Chlo - you're super talented!

Yep - another video of Jaylee. I actually feel a little bad becuase the only video we have of Jaylee are like this... I guess I should take out the real video camera to get some better shots. This was still hillarious to watch.

She's almost got it

I know I'm doing the whole "against blog rules" to do more than one post in a day... I HAD to post this cute video of Jaylee trying to crawl. I can't belive how fast she seems to be growing up...

*So long, farewell ado ado ado...

This week Dave and I made an executive decision to completely cancel our TV service. It seems that all we see on TV is garbage anyway and there are so many more productive things to be doing. Today is our first day "without". The girls and I have had a BLAST! We've been reading, coloring and playing in our little upstairs swing. I've laughed so hard this afternoon. What a great blessing to get rid of the trashy TV! The bad thing is we were having so much fun the laundry didn't get done, dishes didn't get done and dinner isn't ready yet... Oh well, memories are more important right???

*As a side note - the title of this post is a song that Dave has been singing for years. If you haven't heard it have him sing it to you. I LOVE how he is always singing! Makes me smile!

A few random things

Our family has had a round of the "sickies". Poor Jaylee has had such bad "sickies" that her poor bum broke out in a bloody rash. Poor thing. We had to let her hang out on towels diaperless. Thank goodness for butt paste and balmex :)

Grandma Jackman has gifted Chloé the love of plants and flowers. Chlo has decided she wants apple trees in the yard so a few weeks ago she cut open an apple from the fridge and planted the seeds from inside them. Check it out - they're actually growing. Too bad I don't remember what kid of apple she chose. Go Chlo - I hope we truly get apples from your little trees.

Carlee is so helpeful with so many things. Monday, Carlee helped me shovel the snow. I wish I'd have thought to get hte camera a little earlier so I could have actually caught her shoveling. She was actually doing a pretty good job. Thanks for your help Carlee!

Dave likes to wrestle with the girls and the girls love it! Dave calls it "being powered up". What a riot!

Happy Birthday Dave - and a few other things :)

Jaylee truly wasn't happy having frosting all over her hands. I loved the reactions of Chloé, Carlee and Dave's faces. Classic!

Everyone wanted to have a turn blowing out the candles.

Dave has an amazing collection of action figures. It's actually really cool. The girls decided to help him add to it. They had tons of fun playing with them last night.

What can I say... Dave LOVES GI Joe. He's got a countdown going to the new movie coming out. I tried SO hard to find a GI Joe cake and this is what I got... The tank is actually a transformer. Oooh... Double fun! :)

This is a super random picture but I had to post it. This is Carlee and her best buddy Bonden. They both ADORE our dog, Mitzy. It was so funny the other day to catch all three hanging out together.

Jaylee got her first "owey" the other day. She was playing with her toys and I noticed she had blood all over her hands and pants... We have yet to figure out what cut her finger... Poor Jaylee. She sure didn't like the bandaid. I finally had to put a glove on her hand so she'd leave it alone.

Yesterday was Dave's birthday. Needless to say the girls get super excited to be able to celebrate them. They had everything all planned out with what they wanted to do for "dad". We got a cake, balloons, banners and of coarse cards and action figure gifts! When Dave came in the door last night the girls had all the lights off and yelled "Happy Birthday"! It was super cute. We ate our most fabulous pizza then Dave and the girls played with his new toys. When we went to sing and blow out the birthday candles Jaylee decided she wanted a piece of Dave's cake and totally stuck her hand right in the frosting. It was pretty classic - well, that is until she got mad that she had stuff on her hands. It was quite comical.

Happy Birthday Dave - I hope you had a fantastic day!

My good looking family

For all of you who didn't believe I felt short... I am wearing my HIGHEST heels!

The photographer asked if we kids were adopted... what a crack up. Nope - we're all from the exact same gene pool - that's why we're all so good lookin' :)

I love how we have all neices and no nephews! Nate and Becca - work on that will ya :)

My mom wanted the pictures taken in her new home. It's a beautiful place to be!

A few weeks ago we had my ENTIRE family together. This hasn't happened for I don't know how many years. Of coarse mom had to take advantage of this and get some famliy photos. Attached are a few. The photographer took a few shots of the girls that I'll attach when I get them. My awesome brother, Bean, posted these few on facebook - so I took them :)

Thanks mom! The pictures are great - it was amazing to have all my family together! What a treat!

Dress ups at Grandma's house

The girls have a blast in grandma and grandpa's playroom.

Jaylee was hillarious! She'd take the forks and knives as well as the cups and plates - eat them - then throw them... It was awesome! We're just glad nothing broke.

Isn't Bean so cute?!?!?! He was helping Carlee with her "tea".

The other day we were lucky enough to go to my parent's house for the afternoon. The girls were having a great time playing dress ups and having a tea party. Of coarse I broke out my camera as did my dad. I think I need to be a bit more organized next time and do their hair... :) Of coarse my awesome little brother joined in on the fun. Thanks Bean!! :)

Little Red Hen

You know, being a mom I often fell like the "Little Red Hen"... I do lots of things and no one wants to help until it's time to eat :) For FHE this week I told the story of the Little Red Hen and we created a job chart. It was awesome! The girls were so excited - yes, even Dave got a few jobs. Chlo started asking about other jobs that she might like, like making my bed every day and cleaning bathrooms. What an angel! So far it's worked out really well. I loved the picture of Carlee - she's been SO into this whole job thing. She even learned how to use my scrapers to scrape dried crud off the counter. YAHOO! Yesterday she decided she wanted to be me, she said, "Mom, I wish I could be you, you can make a whole dinner all by yourself!". She's on a fast track of taking over my job. :) Jaylee just likes to sit and watch the whole thing happen. What a nut!

I'm so lucky to have the amazing girls I do! Thanks girls for being such a strength and inspiration! I love you! XOXO

The attached video is of Jaylee laughing and Chlo looking on - what a cute sister. The best part about the video is Dave coming home from work yesterday. What a nut!

7 months old

I tried to get a silly picture of Jaylee, she just wasn't giving it today :) I love this picture though - her eyes are spectacular!

Yes, this is true to form for Carlee. What a nut!

Chloé has always been quite a happy kid - I love this picture too - I just can't believe how much she and Jaylee look alike.

Jaylee is now officially 7 months old. How fast time flies! She has 6 teeth coming in and is officially 21 pounds (according to her doctor she's the size of a 1 year old and is actually big enough to sit in a forward facing car seat - just not mature enough). She has been a true joy to all of us. It's been fun looking back at the other two girls at this age too - time truly does go by so quickly. My girls are all truly angels!

Oh the wonderful things Jaylee's hair can do

I had to do one more little post today. Today was another first for Jaylee... I was able to do her hair in ponies!!! The back was a little strange since she's rubbed all the hair off with laying on the floor. The top looks awesome though. I can't believe how old she looks - I think she could pass as 2 in her picture! On Saturday before family pictures I was able to put her hair in curlers! I can't belive how amazing her hair is. What a cute kid!

I'm an AUNT again!

Just a quick congrats to Matt and Becky! They had their second baby yesterday, another boy! Mason was 7 pounds 3 ounces 18.5 inches long and has TONS of dark hair! Becky looks amazing too! He came pretty fast - only 3 pushes. That's a lot better than the 3 hours she pushed with Cole. :) Congratulations you two - he's a doll!

On a side note - on our way home from the hospital last night Carlee made the comment, "I wish I was Chloé and that Chloé was me". We asked her why and she said "becaus"... Chlo immediatly responded, "Carlee, you'd hate my life, I have homework!" Kids say the darndest things :)

Happy New Year!!!

Utah wins the SUGAR BOWL!!! 31 to 17. Sorry 'Bama! :)

Of coarse Justin is helping with the gingerbread house. What a great uncle. I love Carlee's face in this picture. She's so into this! :)

I think this was about noon. Don't you love how most of us are still in PJ's?

This is the first picture of all the grand kids on my side. Fun huh?

Aunt Becca was so great with Jaylee, she even got her to fall asleep. Thanks Becca!

Grandma is so great to the girls. She reads them story after story! The girls LOVE it too! I love this picture of my mom, she's such a beautiful lady! Both pictures I took Carlee's eyes were weird. Oh well! :)

I had to post this picture of my BIL Dave. I love where the ball is. What a cool action shot! :)

Oh... Aren't they so cute?!?!?! Nate and Becca are a great couple to hang out with!

This is me and my sister Julie showing off our babies. They're just over 3 months apart.

They had a big rotation going with Guitar Hero. Can you see Dave, he's playing mob wars on his phone... I have no idea what the draw is to that game...

Girls playing games when they should have been in bed :) No wonder they like sleep overs at grandma's house!

This is the whole family group right after our big BINGO game. It was tons of fun this year! Thanks mom and dad!

Sorry this post is late - I don't like to be like that at all! It's just been so busy and so much fun! This week I was FINALLY able to meet my sister's baby for the first time. My girls were also super excited. Baby Bailey has lived up to and even exceded all of my expectations. She is so cute and what a good baby! It has been so much fun to spend time with my sister and her cute little family. We were able to go to my parent's house for New Year's eve and even spend the night. We ate good food, played the annual bingo game and of coarse did some pool, ping pong, guitar hero and I even got to make some bows! A few of us also attempted the hot tub outside. It was beautiful! We were out there at midnight and were able to watch the fireworks all across the valley. What a fun experience! The next day mom made us waffles and the kids made the gingerbread house Grandma Marsh had given them. They LOVED it. I got to go to the mall with a few of the girls to do a little shopping - not too productive but it was fun to get out. Then we had a nice turkey dinner and came home. G&G Glauser even came for dinner! What a treat. Yesterday we were excited to stay at home and get some things done. We ended up going out again to see if I could get me some jeans. HUGE SUCCESS! I love the jeans at Down East outlets! You can get nice, name brand jeans for a fraction of the cost. Thanks for telling me about them Becca! I owe you big time! :)

Of coarse last night was a big night for our family too! Utah football played in the biggest bowl game in their history. I have to be honest, I thought they'd be lucky to stay in the game at all. Boy was I wrong! Utah not only hung in there, they scored on their first 3 drives making the score 21 to 0! Something that dosn't happen to 'Bama. It was fun to see our Utes dominate them! Go Utah! The score ended up at 31 to 17! I don't think the BCS were too excited about Utah winning this one - less money in their conference. It sure proved that others need to be included in the "big bowls". As a matter of fact Utah has the longest winning streak in NCAA football as well as the longest winning bowl streak with 8 straight wins. Man, it's fun cheering for a winning team. Now if my Carolina Panthers can make it to the super bowl I'll have one heck of a season! :)

Today we're heading back up to Jackman's for family pictures. It should be fun. The same lady who took our family pictures for Nelsons will be doing these as well. I'm excited to see my family again. It's been such a treat for me this year. As a matter of fact, Chlo had a total melt down when we left the other day because she wanted to stay with my sister Julie. She told me that Julie needs to move here so she can be with her family. It was cute to see her tear up because she loves my sister so much. Thanks Julie for being such an amazing aunt! Tonight I am fortunate enough to have a great husband who's watching the girls so I can go out with all my sister's and mom for a "girls night out"! Man, this has been a dream vacation for me! :)

As a side note, we took Jaylee into the Dr's on the 31st just to be sure she didn't have an ear infection. When we got there I noticed she had a top tooth coming in. Not the top center but the right SIDE tooth... So strange. She is also officially 21 pounds... Hope she starts crawling soon :) This morning I noticed she was breaking another front tooth. The top center left one. She's going to look silly with only those 4 teeth in :)