Grace's Blessing Day

I love the day we bless children. It is so nice to listen to the blessings they are given to start their lives & those that are meant for them throughout their lives. Babies are so precious & lovely...soft, wonderful, & new...a great way to come into this world! It's wonderful that Heavenly Father gave us the capacity to be able to open our hearts wider than we ever think would be possible to in order to love & cherish these precious children he entrusts to us! I love both my daughters immensely! I truly never knew I could love this much!

Top left: Tina & Alece. Top right: Great grandma Orie, Tina. Bottom Left: Mandi & Kinley.

Top Left: Kevin with Wendall Iverson & Wayne Glaus. Top right: Ethan. Bottom Right: Alyssa

Papa Jerry, Kevin, Aron, Grandpa Doug, Grandma Ruth, & Alyssa

Top Left: Bill, Aunt Kathy. Top Right: Alyssa & her dad, Guy. Bottom Left: Aron & Great Grandma Yates. Bottom Right: Wendall & Eda Iverson

Grace & Grandma Orimi

Sadie, Marley, & Kinley

Leslie & her daughters.

My sweet baby Grace!

Isn't Marley so lady-like?

Grace's Announcement

We are all so excited to have this lovely little girl in our lives!

Very First Tea Party

Marley & Sadie went to a tea party hosted by the Pottery Barn. Marley was really excited (but probably not as excited as me...I love this kind of stuff! It's so darn fun!) to go & see Sadie (but was really concerned that Kinley wasn't going to be there since Kinley wasn't old enough). They had sugar cookies with pink frosting, little cans of apple juice, talked about their dolls names & pets, had story time, made some paper flowers, and even got a little tiara. It was so lovely!!

First they "hanatize" (Marley's word for sanitize) their hands.

Then chow down on cookies & juice while they discuss their dolls & pets.

Story time consisted of "Fancy Nancy" & "Pinkalicious"...two of Marley's favorites.

With a little assistance, they made these adorable flowers using pipe cleaners & paper cut-outs of their hands.

And course, playing with toy kitchen! So much fun!

Blueberry Face

Marley has really started to like eating frozen blueberries. I'm glad she's eating them because they are healthy but they dye everything they come in contact with...like her hands, lips & tongue!

Is this how you wear a crown?

Marley has these princess items that she loves to play with/dress-up in. She came to me & asked me if this is how she wear her tiara!

Trapped in a Shopping Cart

I was in the kitchen making dinner when I heard, "mom, help me!!!" When I saw her she told me "I'm stuck, I'm stuck!" And, according to Mandi, I was a good mom & ran & got the camera first instead of helping my daughter! hehehe! I couldn't help but laugh! This kid makes me laugh every day! But she was really stuck as it was hard for me to even pull her out!!

Hairband

Marley has this insane infatuation with my hair/headbands. Every time she sees one in the drawer she wants to wear it. If I'm wearing one, she wants me to take it off so she can wear it. Sometimes she just seeks them out to put them on. I think she looks pretteeeeeee stylish!

Sweet Heart

I'm constantly taking pictures of Grace. One, because babies change so darn fast. And two, because I find her face so stinking cute! I could look at this little face all day!!!

I vant to suck your blood!

Marley is obsessed with putting these vampire teeth in her mouth & running around going "arrrgh". She also tries to speak with them in, which makes me laugh every time she does. She messed around with them so much that the teeth broke in half at the joint. She desperately wanted me to tape them together, but when I told her they were beyond repair & had to be thrown away, she sadly took them & slowly walked to the garbage to dump them. For whatever reason, just looking at this picture makes me laugh so hard!

Wig Out

We borrowed this wig from someone, and, of course, Marley tried it on. She can be such a goofball sometimes!

Happy Halloween

Marley was really excited for Halloween this year. I had gotten her a princess costume that said 2T, but I couldn't even fit it over her head. So she's either really large or the sizing was really weird. Even though costumes for kids her & Grace's age were super hard for me to find, fortunately, I was able to get this little poodle skirt outfit for her. I think she looks so adorable in it!!!

It was so hard for me to find Grace a cute costume, but Kevin found this at Pottery Barn (so I'm sure there were lots of infants dressed as bumblebees this year!)

My brother, Seth, & my parents, wanted to got Trick-or-Treating with Marley, especially since this year, she really started to get what it was all about.

Kevin went as Alan from the "Hangover" & I made the mistake of wearing this ill-fitting vampire costume (that I tried to turn into a witches costume). Lesson learned: Don't buy a costume that you haven't tried on, even though it's on sale!

Instead of going door-to-door in our neighborhood, we went to Foothill Village, which is this outdoor bi-level shopping center, that hands out candy to Trick-or-Treaters. Fortunately, we went early when the weather was still nice enough to be outside. Later it started to storm & rain!

A dentist office in Foothill Village put on this really cute spook alley for the little kids & then gave out vampire teeth & toothbrushes as the end!

We typically have very few trick-or-treaters, maybe 15 or 20 kids come by. But this year we only had two trick-or-treaters, Porter & Mack, & they only came over because they knew we were home & decided to brave the bad weather!

Chulo

Marley found this bandanna & wanted Kevin to put it on her...well of course he had to make her look like a little Chulo!

Spooky Cupcakes

While Kevin took me out to dinner & the music & dance stylings of Thriller this year for my birthday, Ruth & Jerry came over to tend the kids. Ruth & Marley made these adorable cupcakes! I love that Ruth has all of these fun little ideas & allows Marley to participate in them!

Vital Signs

Our friend Amie gave Marley this adorable play doctor kit for Marley's birthday this past year. Lately, she's taken a real interest in it & is always getting it out to take our blood pressure & temperature. I caught her trying to doctor our dog, Oscar, one day! She is such a nut!!

Before and After

We finally moved all of our stuff out of our Room of Shame (but don't let us fool you into thinking that we got rid of the Room of Shame...it sadly just moved locations!) It was the room that we put all this stuff we needed to store somewhere in, but we needed to turn it into Grace's bedroom. Kevin did HUGE, HUGE amounts of work in that room. He put up the bead board, painted the room two different colors, added crown molding, changed out the closet doors (which was a pain since the closet door frame wasn't standard, so he had to do all this finagling to shave off 3/4 inch from one of the new closet doors to make them fit), and ripped out the carpet & weird shelf thing in the closet. He was actually putting the finishing touches on it after I had Grace & was still in the hospital. But finally it was done!!!!

BEFORE....

...AFTER

Marley, Sadie & Kinley

We had dinner with the North family at Mo Betta Steaks (yeah, I didn't think that was the actual name either) primarily because Kevin said they served shaved ice that can compete with Matsumoto's Shave Ice in Hawaii. Sadly, we weren't able to test the shave ice for comparison as the machine was "closed for winter"...really?!

Anyway, they came over to our house to visit afterward, & I to take photos of the kids!

Sadie cracks me up because she was straining so hard to see through that telescope (which I don't even know if you can actually see through it!)

The way Marley & Kinley kept having a tea party & drinking out of their tea cups was SOOO adorable! I had a wonderful time just watching them play! So cute!