A Sports Themed Father's Day

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!!!

I just had to share these pictures of Sean with his girls right after their birth.

I'm so excited to get a picture of him holding Eli for the first time!

Friday, Lexi and I decorated.

I blew up balloons and hung streamers. Lexi decorated a big banner and helped wrapped gifts.

Lexi was so excited for Sean to get home and see it all.

When Sean got home from work she told him he could open one present.

Next thing I know he'd opened all his presents!

...

We decided to go for sports themed presents.

We got Sean two footballs (one from him and one for Eli).

 Some new BYU basketball shorts.

Lexi picked these out. When she saw them she had to get them for her dad!

Sean also got a new baseball mitt.

Here he is throwing the ball around with Justin.

These all are things that Sean has wanted for a long time but before now 

he didn't really have someone to play with. Now he has Justin.

And here is Sean today with his kids...

Our ward here has an interesting Father's Day tradition.

The Relief Society sisters and Young Women bring desserts and other treats.

We all drop them off in the kitchen before church.

After church all the men get to go to the kitchen and pick out what they want.

Sean got an entire banana cream pie!

Other options were cookies, brownies, a container of ice cream, a pineapple, 

chips and salsa, homemade bread and rolls, etc.

WE LOVE YOU SEAN!!!

Lexi is Growing Up

This month Lexi started going to Primary and the Sunbeams class at church.
She was so excited.
I took her to Dessert Book to pick out her own scripture bag.
She also pick out her very own "primary necklace" as she calls it.
And she also got several wallet sized pictures of the Savior and some temples to put in her bag.

This month we also got a fish tank. I'm not sure if Sean or Lexi was more excited.
Lexi gave all of our fish princess names.
The three gold fish are Cinderella, Belle and Jasmine.
The silly black fish with really big eyes is Rapunzel.
And the two snails are Pocahontas and Ariel.
One of our snails laid hundreds of eggs, so we might be giving away some snails soon.

We went to the park last weekend (the weather here has been great).
Lexi wanted to take her scooter and ride it around.
It just seemed like a big kid thing to do.

This month we decided to give Lexi an allowance.
She has chores she has to do in order to earn it, which are: making her bed, getting dressed and putting her clothes away, cleaning up her toys, being nice to Avery, setting and clearing the table, putting away the clean utensils and making sure the fish get fed.
She gets to put a sticker on the calendar each day that she does her chores.
If she gets stickers four out of the seven days of the week that's good enough.
She gets paid on Sean's pay days.
She knows that she has to give 10% to tithing (which she was so excited to pay today)
and put 10% into savings.

With her allowance she decided to buy a little princess Rapunzel, Flynn Rider and a little boat.

She didn't have enough money but her dad told her that he loved her and would cover the difference. She was so excited to go to Wal-Mart and buy her new toy.

About a week ago Sean and I started discussing the idea of taking Avery out of the crib.
We thought about just taking the side rails off. We thought about buying her a toddler bed.
Then we decided that the best option was to buy Lexi and twin bed and give Avery Lexi's bed.
A few days later, my friend Tiffany told me about a Groupon coupon for Mattress Firm.
I essentially paid $50 for a $200 gift certificate. So it was like getting $150 off Lexi's mattress!!!

I just had to share this picture of Avery in her new bed.
She is just so happy going to bed at night now.
And she has even done well staying in bed even at nap time.

We really want to get Lexi a frame and headboard/footboard. So I started looking at Craig's List.
And just two days after we bought the mattress we found this...

This bed was only $50! And it looks brand new. It's perfect and Lexi loves her new bed.
We promised her that when she got a twin bed she could get princess sheets.
We wanted her to be excited about her new bed and not sad about Avery having her old one.
So I let Lexi look online at all the princess sheets and she decided that she wanted Rapunzel.
I found the pillowcase she wanted on Amazon for $13! Just the pillowcase!
So I started looking everywhere.
I found the entire sheet set at Target but it was out of stock.
I just kept checking several times a day and finally the sheets were in stock and on sale for $15.
Lexi can't wait to get her new sheets in the mail.

I really feel like Lexi has grown up a lot lately.
We loved her so much.
And she is also amazing us and making us laugh with the things she says.

Halloween Happened Along Time Ago!!!

YES. I'M STILL ALIVE!!!

AND THIS BLOG IS NOT DEAD!!!

I'M BACK!!!

...

So now it's time for a MASSIVE amount of blogging.

I have reasons for not blogging for the last two months.

Sean was studying for the CPA back in November and needed the computer all the time.

Then it was Thanksgiving and then Sean took said CPA test (and passed).

And then my biggest reason for not blogger is that our desktop got a virus back in November and we just got it finally fixed this week.

...

So, Halloween.

It was great. Lexi had a party at preschool.

And then we went to the Trunk-or-Treat at the church.

Here are a few pictures from that...

And here some pictures of the girls on Halloween.

Of course, it was a Princessed themed Halloween at our house.

All ready to go.

I was a witch.

Sean was a dad.

We went Trick-or-Treating with our friends the Hornbargers.

Avery had such a great time.

At first she just rode in the wagon with Kaylee.

Eventually she got out and walked with the big girls.

Avery insisted on carrying her pumpkin pail even though it probably weighed as much as her.

The girls got way more candy than I'd even let them eat.

And now I'm hoping I can blog about Thanksgiving before I put the girls to bed.

24... Hours

Last Friday and Saturday, the young men and young women at church had a...

24 Hour Book of Mormon Marathon!

They got together Friday afternoon at our Bishop's house and

read the Book of Mormon in 24 hours!

Since Sean and I both teach the youth we decided to participate.

Sean worked last Friday, so I walked over to the Bishop's with the girls.

Kind of random, but on the way there I saw my initials painted on the sidewalk.

The girls love going on walks.

The youth all got shirt that they signed for each other.

Getting ready to start reading.

During the 24 hours they had to keep moving around to help them stay focused.

Some youth did end up falling asleep a little bit but

some of them did stay awake for the entire time!

Not the best picture but this is our bishop, Bishop Harrison.

(This picture is for you Brandon.)

We didn't stay the entire time.

But I was there to help at all four meals.

Sean and I took turns going and reading with the youth.

They girls enjoying going and eating and playing in the bishop's yard.

The picture above is of Lexi with a flower her friend Jaylen picked for her.

(Jaylen's mom Cera also teaches the Young Women.)

Jaylen didn't want to be in the picture, he's 3, that's how it goes.

This picture is of Lexi and Morgan who is 7 and our Young Women's President's daughter.

Lexi loves Morgan!

Avery really enjoy the flower pots, dirt and apple tree at the Harrison's house.

We may never be invited back again!

As the sun set the youth stayed up and read.

I was so proud of them.

We were exhausted and went home and slept Friday night while the youth read on.

After a good 6 hours of sleep I headed back to the Bishop's house Saturday morning at 6 am.

I was so tired, the young men and women were exhausted!

Sean and I both love working with the youth.
They are so fun and teach us so much.

Easter Weekend

Easter was the weekend before Avery's birthday.

It was also the weekend my parents flew in from Seattle.

That Saturday we were invited to a Easter party/ egg hunt.

It didn't take Lexi long to remember what egg hunting was all about.

That Saturday we also went to a birthday party of one of Avery's friends,

Zac, who was turning one.

This next picture is of Lexi and her friend Jaylen, who is only 5 months older than her

but easily has 10 lbs and half a foot on her.

Lexi is really petite.

After the party we took my parents to go see the temple.

It got really windy and overcast all of a sudden but

we still had a good time walking around the temple grounds.

Easter Sunday, we woke up and gave the girls their baskets...

This is typical Avery hair in the morning.

Lexi got the Rapunzel Barbie from us and dress from my parents.

She was so excited!!!

Pictures before church...

We had a special conference on Easter Sunday.

Elder Cook of the Quorum of the 12 Apostle came and spoke to us.
After church Lexi got to paint eggs.

Then we headed to the temple.

We did our family Easter egg hunt there.

The girls had a lot of fun.

Avery really got excited about crawling around in the grass and picking up eggs.

After Lexi found all her eggs we just walked around the temple grounds.

When she wasn't looking, Sean would grab an egg out of her basket and

hide it right where we were walking.

Lexi got really excited that she was finding more eggs.

It was hilarious.

Eventually she started suspecting that Sean was taking some of her eggs.

Once he grabbed one and she asked him what he had in his hands,

he said nothing and then threw the egg in front of us on the grass.

Lexi saw the egg flying and said that the wind was hiding her eggs.

We all just laughed.

It was a really great Easter weekend.