Burning Something...

The kids and I made it to Washington just in time for the 4th of July with the Hubby! We missed him too much!

We had a great weekend visiting with Dana and her family in Yelm and then down to Battleground where we did fireworks with Lurlyn & Leif and the kiddos! I love when all the kids get to play together! They get along and don't get along perfectly. I love it!

We went to a block party of one of Lurlyn's friends. It was really cool. All the adults were hanging out in their lawn chairs, meanwhile all the kids were running around sharing sparklers. When it got dark enough, the adults let off the grown up fireworks. I don't mind sitting around watching other people burn their money. ;)

I got some great pics of the kids enjoying themselves!

Tiger loved the sparklers... so much so, he grabbed his cousin Sophies. :'( Poor little man... it hurt for a second but then he wanted to grab them again. All boy.

This is Aubri's cousin Leify. aka her best buddy. aka my boyfriend. Funny story... I was standing in the street watching all the kiddos with their sparklers and Leify comes up to me, wraps his arm around my leg and says, "mommy, I want to burn something!" I got a huge laugh out of that and proceeded to let Lurlyn know she might have a pyromaniac on her hands. ;) Lol!

This is Aubs letting off a Roman Candle with her dad. She loved it and normally she isn't very brave to do things like that. She begged to do more.

This is sweet Sophie! She is a pure doll and spit fire wrapped up all in one. I love her. She calls me mama Cole. :)

Picture overload after the sun went down. I couldn't just choose a couple. I like them all, so I'm sharing them with you.

Already 1!!!

My adorable little man turned *1* last Wednesday (the 8th of June)! I can hardly believe it! The year went by in a blink of an eye! I still remember the day he was born vividly... here's a pic to take you back in time really quick...

He was so tiny and perfect and really really quiet! I remember that! Now he is full of personality. But I must say, there is still something quiet and reserved about him. Its so fun to see how much he's changed in a year. The following are a few things about our little guy:

1. He's been walking since 11 months and almost runs. (Aubri loves to try to get him to play tag and he happily obliges) 

2. He can say ball (bah), ba ba (bottle), tinti (stinky), and baby. Mostly he loves to jibber jabber.

3. He loves to play with balls, and anything else that has wheels attached to it. Yep... he's your typical boy. 

4. He loves to play with his big sister. However, he's starting to get to the stage where he will get upset if he gets a toy taken away. Sharing is starting to get harder.

5. His favorite food is PANCAKES! The boy can put them away like its nobodies business. He also really likes grapes, strawberries, peanut butter & jelly sandwiches, bananas, blueberry nutrigrain bars and cinnamon cheerios.

6. He loves to sing and dance.

7. He loves to read books. He'll sit and babble while looking at one of his books. It's so cute!

8. He hates his face touched. He'd much prefer a messy, sticky face with boogers. Typical boy.

9. He likes to sleep half way through the night in his bed and the other half with mom & dad. Yeah?!

10. He loves to be held/snuggled. 

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Timmy was spoiled two days in a row. Lucky boy! We have some friends (The Mickelson's) whose little boy Aaron, turned 1 the day after Timmy. Melissa (Aaron's mommy) and I decided to have a combined birthday party for them. It was lots of fun. We originally wanted the party outside but we've had lots and lots of yucky weather here in Montana, so we had the party at the church. 

I stayed at the Mickelsons house the night before until midnight, decorating the fondant for the cupcakes and smash cakes. It was lots of work, but they turned out so cute. I also made the boys little party hats. We went with a jungle animal theme. It was lots of fun and the boys loved it!

Excited birthday boy before the cake smashin! (he's so nice and clean)

Both boys!

Making short work of his cake!


 He ate half of his cake!!! Aaron only ate the little bit of frosting off the edge of his cake. Here's a side profile of the cake so you can see how much he devoured it! Yikes!

Looking a bit sugar high in this picture!

And... we're done!

30!

Yesterday, I turned 30! CRAZY!!! So I thought it was going to feel like a big deal... but it wasn't. Now that I'm out of my 20's, I'm going to embrace the fact that I'm getting older. Because getting older, you get wiser... right? Right.

I really have so many things to be thankful for. I feel so blessed to have the life that I have. It hasn't always been easy, and its had quite a few ups and downs, but its made me the person I am today and I love who I am. I'm just only going to improve as a person from here. At least I'm determined to. So... that's what I have to say about turning 30. It's not bad at all! :)

First of all, my hubby wasn't here for my birthday. He's accepted a position working for the King County Transportation in Seattle, WA. He will be working on the electrical side of the Light Rail. So he has gone on ahead of us, trying to find a house for us to live in while I hang with our stuff in Montana until further ado. I'm sure I'll keep you updated on the move. But we are very excited to be going back to Washington. We miss the green!

My big day started out interesting. My Aubri is so sweet to me. She sang me happy birthday first thing in the morning and insisted that I make myself a birthday cake so I can make a wish and blow out my candles. Well, Aubs really likes electrical tape and she wrapped the pole by the stair case with it. So I took a knife and was trying to get it off and sliced right through my finger! Ouch! The cut was so deep I was trying to determine whether or not I needed stitches. But, I opted to stick a bandaid on it and go about my day.

So, I made myself a birthday cake and Aubri had fun decorating it for me. Isn't it pretty??? hee hee!

Here's the view from the top. It happens to be the prettiest part of the whole cake. She was VERY serious when adding the sprinkles. If you look really hard, you might be able to make out some kind of animal. Ha ha! I love my Aubs!

While I was watching Aubri decorate my cake, my little man pulled a whole container of cornmeal out of my baking cupboard (whoops!). He had a blast grabbing handfuls and throwing it all over! Thank goodness for my Dyson!

And because I really like to train my kids young... they were kind enough to wash the dishes for me on my special day. 

My night concluded having dinner and games with a group of women I'm friends with here in Glasgow. One of my favorite games we played was Apples to Apples and I NEVER win. I always play the silly cards. But somehow I ended up winning! Go me! It was so much fun and we all had a great time laughing and sharing funny stories! I'm really going to miss them! Most of them don't know about my blog, but thank you Connie, Melissa, Meghan, Leta and Kathy! Melissa made me the cake below. It was so pretty and delicious!

Overall, I had a great day! I get to celebrate with my Hubby later, but my kiddos made me feel really special! I'm one blessed Mommy! How could I not have a great day with all the love I get?! I love my kids so much!  ( The below pic I took with them to remember my day. I'm starting to embrace my crooked smile. It's taken me 30 years... but now I realize its part of what makes me, ME.) 
 

Laughed Lately???

Lucky!

I am so lucky to be a mom to two beautiful, smart, healthy, happy, sweet, loving kids! I feel so blessed this mothers day!
A quick shout out to my mom... You are one awesome Madre! I love you! Happy Mothers Day!
I hope all the hard working mamas out there are being spoiled!
"By and large, mothers and housewives are the only workers who do not have regular time off. They are the great vacationless class."
-- Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Easter

I need to put the pictures of my kiddos from Easter up, before it never happens. We had just come home from Idaho the night before. We got in super late and everyone was tired on Easter morning. The kids and Tim slept in a little but I managed to get up, clean up the mess we made from coming home from our trip, and hide plastic eggs and candy around the living room.

I know the tradition is to get your kids an Easter outfit, but this year they were in need of swimming suites. So that is what the Easter bunny brought them in their baskets. Tiger also got a couple of cars. We have so many girly toys around, I figured it was time for him to get his boy toys. He already knows, at 10 1/2 months old, to make the car sound while pushing it around. He was occupied all morning with the car. Aubriana got a jump rope... which has since been thrown in the garbage because it broke. Worse buck I ever spent. It didn't even last a whole day! :(
Overall, Easter was a beautiful day! I'm so thankful for the Savior's example here on earth. For the ultimate sacrifice he made by Atoning for our sins so we may be able to repent and return to our Father in Heaven.
Below are the pictures I took really quick of the kids before we left for church:

Changing

I was thinking back to when I was pregnant with my first child, and I remembered when someone made the comment to me, "enjoy every minute, it goes by really fast!" . . . well thats where I'm at now.
I was so stuck in the moment with having a new baby, thinking it was going to last forever. Then its like I turned around and my baby turned into a 3 year old, and now I have another that's not so "baby" anymore. Time is literally flying by. Sometimes I think its so sad, but then I'm having so much fun watching my kiddos change.

I've decided I need to update my blog more frequently to get the pictures that I have been taking on here. Then I can print it all out in a book and have for them to look back on. That's my goal anyway. ;) Basically it'll be their glorified baby book.

About a week ago, I took the kids upstairs to just play in their room for a while. I let them pull out toys and basically do what they wanted. It was so nice to just sit back (camera in hand of course) and watch them play. Aubriana is especially fun to watch/listen to now. She has quite the imagination. She kept knocking on the door and asking, "who is it?" and then she would answer, "it's princess Cinderella!" She then would open the door and let her in. This was repeated over and over until every Disney princess you could think of had been let into her room. After all that, she told me she was leaving to go shopping at Costco. Now that's my girl!

The above pictures are of Aubri building a castle with Noah. Of course he's standing on top of all his animals. She does this with a lot of things. She'll get out her matching card game and ask if I'll build a castle with her. She's such a funny girl.

While Aubri's building her castles, Timmy's favorite thing is to stand at the toy buckets and pull each toy out one by one. He loves it! Sometimes he'll stop to taste a toy or two before dropping it, creating a huge mess at his feet. Surprisingly, his messes aren't as bad as Aubri's. LOL!


I just like this picture. He loves to hang out in his crib and play while watching Aubri. Can you tell he's teething?


Aubri always has to have a skirt/dress on. Usually it doesn't matter which one it is, however, the frillier the better.


She's in the same skirt, different day. This time enjoying a banana... which she'll ask me, at least 3 times a day, "mom, my tummy hurts. I think I'm hungry. Can I have a banana?" Don't worry, I don't give it to her more than once a day or her tummy really will be hurting. ;)


Look at him!!! Can you believe he just turned 9 months a couple of days ago? He looks like he's 12 months! He's growing so fast and he's so handsome!!! . . . sigh. At his well check, the Dr. said, "Well, I'm guessing you have yourself a basketball player on your hands. Tall and thin!" That's fine by me! Must get it from my Dad. I miss him.


Some of Timmy's favorite things...

Daddies computer. He always knows which button to push that will lock the whole thing up. Already a genius.


He loves his Daddies attention as well. Probably because Tim feeds him crackers and stuff. Can you tell? I thought it was a sweet daddy/son moment.


He loves to play... adrenaline junky! Aubri never liked to be thrown. She's more of a scaredy-cat.


Ok. I can see everyone's getting a bit bored here. This is what happens when I take so long between blog posts. Sorry. :) No, but seriously, how awesome that they are napping at the same time?!! In the same place!! It was such a great day!!