Matthew

Matthew is so intelligent and creative. We are in awe of the creations he makes. He has a great talent for music and plays the piano any chance he gets. He is also a great help at home and very sensitive to the feelings of others.

Matthew likes to combine different Lego sets and create epic battles.

Lord Vladek's castle

Valentine's day

Christmas morning

Matthew was so thrilled to finally get his brother here!

For Halloween 2009, Matthew wanted to be Link from the Zelda video games (no, he's not Peter Pan or Robin Hood). He made the shield completely on his own.

One Sunday afternoon, he decided to make up his own cookie recipe, altered from another recipe he found. He even included Cool Whip in the ingredient list! The only part I helped him with was when he said we ran out of salt (alarms go off in my head!). He had measured out the salt in cups rather than teaspoons! Luckily, we were able to catch it before the recipe progressed too much farther. They tasted like snickerdoodles and were really pretty good.

Matthew with his 2009 Pinewood Derby car.

For his 9th birthday, Matthew went with his dad, Uncle, and cousin Jordan to Legoland in California. For this Lego fanatic, it was a dream come true!

Matthew with his 9th birthday Lego cake

On his first day of third grade, about a week before we moved out of our house in Spanish Fork. Brent drove Matthew and Elizabeth 40 minutes to school in Cedar Hills that first week!

Rachel

Rachel loves to be a little mommy. Everything she says and does is just plain cute. Her smile just lights up my day. We feel so blessed to have her be a part of our family.

At the Museum of Church History's children's exhibit, enjoying the baby nursery. She was in heaven with all the babies to play with!

A real baby is fun, too.

Rachel has an adorable bunny hooded towel. She had just gotten out of the tub and was looking so cute, I had to take a picture.

Any time Rachel can get her hands on anything teeny, she is fascinated: legos, Polly Pockets, beads, jewelry, Battleship...

I was more focused on getting a picture of her cute hair that Sunday than worrying out "choking hazards".

Here Rachel is lying next to Joshua under his toy gym.

This is so priceless. She was not happy about taking a nap one day, and later I found she had fallen asleep in her basket of dirty laundry!




Another time, she fell asleep at night reading a kitten board book.

Emma

Emma had a special birthday this year: she turned five the same day as Easter and General Conference. She also had her first birthday party with friends the Friday before. Since she is pretty obsessed with horses, we had a pony-themed birthday party. The girls got to wear pony "manes" (we ran out of yarn for the tails we planned to make) and made magic wands with plenty of flowers, ribbons, and glitter glue. They also played pin the tail on the donkey and all sorts of fun pony games outside. Even though it was cold and overcast, they had so much fun running around outside and it helped to channel their energy.

Cupcake time

Everyone gathered for pictures and presents

Elizabeth and Emma hunting for Easter eggs outside. It was cold! Emma absolutely loves to wear her "cowgirl" boots anytime. As you can see, she also gets pretty creative in her choices of outfits.

On her actual birthday, we held Easter dinner at our house with my family and served Emma's pony cake in between sessions of General Conference. It was one crazy day, although looking back, there were lots of great memories. We all had a wonderful day.

Emma with her stuffed pony from G&G W.

Her main present was a Madame Alexander doll. One of the first things she did with her was accessorize her hair and change her clothes.

Emma and Rachel enjoying their new strawberry and cupcake PJ's

Rachel and Emma getting ready for her party

Emma also had her first "real" haircut shortly before her birthday (not counting an emergency repair session when she was mischevious with scissors as a toddler!). It is so much easier to work with now.

Elizabeth and Emma decided to try on each other's clothes. It was so funny. Rachel was just thrilled to be dressed up.

Elizabeth

Elizabeth is such a sweet girl. She has a natural ability to take care of her baby brother that is amazing to me. She is also very enthusiastic and loves life in general. I cannot believe she is seven already! She is growing up way too quickly. We had so many cute pictures of her from her 7th birthday and other times that I thought an Elizabeth blog post was in order.

Elizabeth and Joshua dressed in their Easter outfits

On her 7th birthday, opening up her gift cards from G&G

Elizabeth's cupcake-themed birthday party was so cute. I think I had just as much fun with it as the girls did! They made cupcake cards and bags, played freeze dance and twister, decorated their own cupcakes, and generally had fun being hyper.

Elizabeth received perfect gifts for a 7-year-old girl: a glitter ball, diary, porcelain tea set, a game, and a movie. From us she received a new bike that she got to pick out.

Elizabeth with her cousin Ashlyn

Emma, Elizabeth, and her friend Claire

Emma spent her own money to help buy Elizabeth a "sequin purse" she was hoping for at Kohl's. These close moments of sisterhood make it all worth it. :'-)

The craft table

The day before her party, Elizabeth had her first real haircut. She had wanted to grow her hair out forever, but it was getting to difficult to brush through each day. She was not happy going into it, but loved the way she looked at the end!

For the 100th day of school, Elizabeth was assigned to make a poster of 100 of something. Borrowing the idea from a box of Kix, she glued 100 pieces of Kix cereal onto a drawing of an ear of corn. It turned out pretty cute.

Family Home Evening Fun

For a family home evening lesson on "the armor of righteousness", we gave each family member a few minutes to find an item from a scripture story. Matthew is Captain Moroni with the Title of Liberty; Brent is Moses with his staff; Elizabeth is Ammon with the sword of disarmament; Rachel is Joseph wearing mommy's robe of many colors, and Emma is Nephi with his famous bow. It was amazing how much fun this activity was for our family. No, I am not brilliant enough to come up with this idea myself-- thank you, Friend magazine.

Matthew, Elizabeth, Brent, Rachel, Emma.