Happy 8th Birthday Reagan!

I'm not exactly sure how 8 years have passed.  How the quiet of the first night of her life, they brought in this insanely tiny, sweet lipped, dark eyebrowed girl to hand over to us, seems like last year but is actually 2,920 days later.  How those first feelings of "Wow!! She amazing and all ours" have turned into "Are we totally screwing her up?!".  I read somewhere that when you are feeling weary of motherhood, the challenges, the feelings of failure, etc, that you should look over pictures of your kids when they were babies.  I do it and for brief moments or long days...it totally puts things into perspective! It makes you realize just how tender Father Time is.  How fast this life goes.  How sweet, loving innocence is gone so quickly and they become individuals with personanilities, opinions, and character. She and I struggle sometimes. We are either two peas in a pod or we are just enough opposite that we have a hard time seeing eye to eye. Or maybe it's that she and I are the "females" and we both want to dominate:) But I not change a thing.  She has brought so much laughter, joy, and warmth into our lives.  We love that she tries so hard to succeed.  That she has so many talents that she embraces.  That she is thoughful of others feelings and she loves her family, especially cousins and grandparents.  She loves to read, her favorite subject is Social Studies, her favorite color is still pink.  She loves music, and of course still loves to sing.  She is a talented piano player, loves to socialize, have play dates, and talk about boys.
We had a fun celebration prior to going on vacation.  She chose a Spa Party this year and it was just as fun as all the others.  We did chocolate facials, manis, pedis, decorated flip flops, made yummy smelling sugar scrubs, and at some yummy cake!  Here's to another year of growth and adventure sweet girl.

Let summer begin

I can sort of imagine how it is to live in Alaska :)  How you hibernate and go along with the cold weather until you think, possibly, you might go crazy.  Winters here are loooong.  They may not always be "really" cold, but after 7-8 months of colder weather, it's amazing how warm even 60 degrees feels. It's like all of a sudden things come to life.  We cannot get enough warmth or enough sunshine. School was out June 5th.  We celebrated the end of routine for a few months.  That feeling is amazing :)  Kids started t-ball/softball that weekend and went full force every day for 2 weeks.  Then it was off for a summer vacation so they missed the last week of games, but they had fun for the few weeks they played.  Kade had his first year of t-ball.  He's going to be a great player:)  He loved it.  He talked non-stop of course and had everyone laughing all the time.  He would get a ball and hoot and holler about how awesome it was.  Best game ever he would say.  He danced and chatted his time away.  I hope this kid never ever loses his zest for EVERYTHING!  Reagan had her 2nd year of coach pitch and did awesome as well.  It was hard to not want to coach her or her teammates this year because they had a young coach.  Nevertheless, she had fun, and that's all that matters :)

 While the brothers played....the girls looked like movie stars

He was trying to fill his shirt like Santa's belly :)

 Brotherly Love

Celebrating a birthday :)

How we kill nearly 4 months of time

Wow, Feb was the last entry...really? Seems like it was last week.  The longer time goes on, the faster it seems to fly.  We spent a long weekend in Bozeman late February.  Dad got to tend to the store and mom got to tend to a sick kid.  I think this was probably prior to his bout with a stomach bug.  Not a fun time. We kept the staff busy replenishing sheets, quilts, you name it :) But any hotel is like an awesome vaca right!

 We celebrated Mike's birthday while we were in UT for Spring Break :)

It was fun to go back as a family to UT.  We miss it.  We love where we are now but it's fun to go back and see family, friends, and visit places we used to love to frequent.  Kids loved feeding the horses at Wheeler Farm. And playing in all the areas at Discovery Gateway.

Kade enjoyed sharing his lollipop with Dozer

Mid March....It's FINALLLLLY warm enough to enjoy the outdoors! YAH!!!

Lovin' some Jenga for game night - my kids are surprisingly awesome at this game! I love that my kids love to play board games.  

 Mike started a little remodeling on our basement :)

Got in an early session of swim lessons!

We welcomed a new baby cousin - Jax

We had some Easter fun

Reagan had her 2nd recital.  

Our home was invaded by superheroes....

And we search for TMNT in every sewer hole


Kade had his first shaving lesson

And our lawn had it's first cut

Memorial weekend was lots of fun!!  We had a little hike with cousins, some great food and a had a fun 4-wheeler ride.  Kade ate his very first ear of corn. Very first!!  He's starting to try things he has previously refused.  His new saying is "I'll like this when I get older"......

Mike is such a great dad.  100% into raising his kids and making them feel loved and make sure that they do fun things.  I love that about him :)  It was something I always, always knew.