St Patrick's Day Fun

Avery loves holidays and it is so fun to celebrate with her!  We did a few fun things the week leading up to St Patrick's day this year and I thought I'd share my favorites.

This was a super fun craft I did with the girls.  I drew lines on the paper and Avery helped me cut them out and did really well following the line.  I'll have to do some zig zag lines for her to see how well she does with those.

On St Patrick's day morning a sneaky leprechaun turned out waffles green!   I had to convince our serious Avery of this.  She asked if I had seen him, but you know leprechauns!  They're so sneaky and if you blink they're gone!  

After breakfast we found a note from the leprechaun saying he had left us some of his gold and we needed to follow the colors of the rainbow to find it.  So we headed outside and were lead to the gold!

We made some rainbow cupcakes later in the day.  They were lots of fun and Avery has decided she wants a rainbow cake for her birthday now.

It was a really fun day and I'm excited for next year to continue these fun traditions!

Love

Today I am feeling very grateful for my Avery.  She is such a wonderful little girl.  She is such a wonderful example to me!  She loves to help people and it is one of my favorite things about her.  Avery has been such a help to me with Ethan.  She'll go get me diapers, a change of clothes for him, if he's crying she'll go over and give him a hug or give him his binky.

She has such a Christ-like love for everyone!  She treats everyone as a child of God and it is beautiful to see.  Today after her nightly personal prayer we were talking before bed and she told me that she wishes that  Satan could be a righteous nice guy and that he could come to earth and have a body.  She wishes he wasn't a wicked guy, because if he was righteous he could come to our house.  I am very grateful for her example to me and her love of everyone.  Even Satan!

I am so grateful that I get to watch her grow and develop into such a wonderful person. 

Be Our Guest

We invited Louis little sister Kamila over to our house last night for a surprise dinner and activity.  She is a big lover of Beauty and the Beast and had mentioned to me the week before that she hasn't seen it in a long time!  That's what gave me the idea to invite her over and make a little party out of it.  All we told her was to come over at 5:30 on Friday for a surprise.  Being the wise women she is though, she figured it out!
When Kami got here we had the song "Be Our Guest" playing and Avery and Mary were both dressed up like Belle.  I had her go put on a yellow dress I have so she could be Belle as well.

Then we started with dinner and the movie!  

After the movie was over we had dessert.  Louis made "the gray stuff" and it was in fact, delicious!  It was probably my favorite part of the night being able to say, "try the gray stuff, it's delicious!"

It was a fun surprise.  It was a relaxing and fun night!  

Ethan's Blessing

Last week Louis was able to give Ethan a name and a blessing.  It was quite the ordeal getting things set up for the blessing.  We were really hoping to do it on a Saturday, but needed to get the okay from our stake president.  In the end it all worked out and we were able to bless him on a Saturday.  We are very grateful for all of the family that was able to come and help out with the short notice they were given!  Louis and I have both been blessed with wonderful family.
A few things that stood out to me in his blessing:

• He will be very smart.  We may have another Avery on our hands.
• He will find the women who he is supposed to be with and he will know it when he sees her.  Love at first sight!  
• He will help many people learn of the Gospel.

It was a great morning/afternoon.  I am grateful for the Priesthood and for Louis who is worthy of the Priesthood and blesses our lives daily with it.

4 generations

One Month

The first month of having Ethan in our home has gone well!  The girls adore their little brother, especially Avery.

Ethan is already a mama's boy.  He loves to be held and will only lay on the ground or in his bouncy chair for a few minutes.  You all would be amazed at all I can do while holding a baby.  Ethan does not nap well, he'll sleep for 30 minutes or so, then wake up, but will go back to sleep if you hold him.  He is slowly getting better, but really it just depends on the day and the nap.  He does have naps where he actually sleeps the entire 1 1/2-2 hours.  Thankfully, he does sleep at night really well!  He will go to bed around 11 usually and sleep about 4 hours then wakes up around 3:00 to eat and sleeps for another 4 hours.

Ethan now weighs 8 pounds 4 ounces and is starting to out grow some of his newborn clothes, which is exciting and sad at the same time.  He is rolling over from his stomach to his back.  He's been doing this since just before he turned 4 weeks!  I kept thinking it was a fluke, but he's been doing it for so long and so often, that I can't deny it any more.

Started out like this

Shortly after, he was here!

The best part of this last month has been the increased love in our home.  The hardest part has been him not napping well and needing to be held a lot.  It was a hard transition of being needed so much, but you adjust and do what you need to do.  Things are going well now, we are all so happy to have Hammer here with us!