My baby's 8!

Ella turned 8 on Friday! We had a fun day! She woke up to balloons falling down on her from the sky! Chad made her pancakes with sprinkles on them (of course) along with some bacon and eggs! 

   Later for lunch Nix and I brought Ella some MickeyDs and ate lunch with her. Then that night there was a school shindig called the "Rock Hop" where they played 80s music (👍) and had Popsicles. It was fun, Ella really knows how to get down with her bad self. Jack was a little gun shy on dancing, he wasn't sure if it was cool to do or not. ;) Nixon liked dancing with mommy and daddy. Then after we took the kiddos to get fro-yo. Loads of fun to be had!

Brain freeze???

The next day we had a little party for ella belle. I was terrible and didn't take pics of barely anything. :( But some is better than none, so here we go! 

Present time!

Pink cupcakes oh yeah!

A preggo mommy singing to the birthday girl! Btw for those of you who do not live near me you may not know I'm 6 months preggo with our 4th bambino! Henkel baby girl is due the beginning of July! 😊

I can't believe how big she is getting! We had a little spa party and did hair and make-up and nails and got all glammed up! We made friendship bracelets, homemade lip balm and handed out a homemade salt scrub to take home and get all exfoliated! 

They jumped on the tramp, put make-up on paper doll faces, played Ever After High with the dolls she got and of course ate pizza, Cheetos, soda and cake! Can't get a whole lot more b-day'd out than that! 😜

Unfortunately I didn't get a pic of the whole crew but I got some of her and her twin sidekicks being very vogue! 

I realized I forgot to take a pic of the set up at the end so I just threw a few of the left overs I hadn't put away yet on there so i could remember the jist. :)

There was a green balloon in there! :(

Here's the contraption I made over her door at night so that when she woke up balloons would fall all over her! 

    All in all I'd say it was a success! She was such a sweetie and gave me one of the most heartfelt thank yous I've ever heard! It made the late night, the glitter covered floors and the swollen preggo feet all worth it! 😍 love that girl!

Zoo Boise

Ok so we actually did this the last week in March but hey baby steps in this whole new leaf I am turning over to start blogging again! 😊 be gentle with me! Ha

Petting zoo, always a kid favorite!

Yikes that's her in only 8 more years! Lol hopefully there won't be kids hanging off the sides of the car she's driving! 😜

Just couldn't help zooming in on this little cutie posin' in the back!

The kiddo crew on their jungle safari through the zoo. 

    We went on discount day and during spring break which really was two strikes against us but in actuality I think because we got there at around 2:30 the mad rush of it all was somewhat clearing out so it really wasn't too bad. We just brought our own mad rush along with us! J/k the kiddos actually did really good. Glad we got to go and with friends! 

Easter Egg Hunt

We went to the Easter egg hunt (I mean mad dash) at Albertsons this morning. It literally lasted only maybe a whole ten seconds and bam it was over! It was not the traditional look around for the "hidden" eggs.  These eggs were all in plain sight and kids were moving their little awkward limbs as quick as they could to pound those eggs into their baskets before the others. Then once the eggs were cleared out children were busting open the eggs as quick as possible to see if they had gotten any of these Willy Wonka style golden tickets that gave them access to free goodies they were handing out inside the store. Though this seemed like a great idea it ended up being a somewhat of a tumultuous event for my little family because somehow Ella was blessed with the lucky streak and got like 7-8 little tickets whereas her brothers only got two combined. Chad and I decided that we would divvy up the loot once we got it and make it fair... To my sweet daughters dismay this did not seem very ideal. In the end the spoils were divided and kids were satisfied but it made me think I'm not so sure I'm interested in doing that kind of Easter egg hunt again! Ha ha thank you Albertsons for that fun-filled experience this morning! 😉

So I told the kids let's go take a picture with the Easter bunny. Ella's reaction, "Dad, I know that this Easter bunny is not real but the one that comes tomorrow with baskets for us is." Jackson was not interested AT ALL about getting in a picture with him. I think he was somewhat leery of the creep that might be inside. Ha ha. Nixon then says to me, "Mom he not weal (real) I see his skin!" lol very observant young grasshopper! Chad agreed to get in the pic and finally Jack was ok to take the picture as long as he could hold tight to Daddy. Sweet boy.

🐰💐🌸🌷HAPPY EASTER!🌷🌸💐🐣

Ella's new tooth!

     Well we had a pretty eventful Friday night this week... It all started with a fun and relaxing day at the park. The kids were having so much fun basking in the 77 degree weather that we stayed there much longer than I had planned on. It was 5 o'clock and the kids and I were getting hungry. I herded my "cats" I mean children to the van and asked Ella to help Jackson bring his 2 razor scooters to the trunk. She sweetly agreed to help, and as I said goodbye to my sweet friend that was at the park with me I glance over at Ella on the scooter and see that she is riding Jackson's newer "powerwing" razor that has the ability to spin out and do donuts. She has never ridden this scooter before and is taking it slowly and cautiously but trying to do a little spin. Everything looked good I was actually proud of her for being adventurous and trying new things because she is usually pretty timid at things like bikes and scooters etc. Then in the last split second of the turn the scooter tipped over landing her directly on her face! Her hands were still holding on to the handle bars, she didn't even have a chance to brace for the fall! For a split second I think maybe it won't be that bad I will smile at her and assure her she's ok! When she looks up at me, blood is trickling out of her mouth and she looks very distraught and in shock. I rush over to her and to my dismay realize that she has knocked a little over half of her front tooth out! Her lips and gums are bleeding and swollen and I look down to find the chunk of tooth she just knocked out of her mouth. Thankfully I have a father who is an amazing dentist that lives near me and I give him a call. He was so sweet and had us come in right away on his day off and even though he has been sick with a cold! He took care of her so well and put her fears and pain at ease. She now has a new little tooth that he created out of resin. She looks great and is doing better as she heals from the scrapes and bumps she got from the fall as well! Poor little sweet heart! Of all my kiddos I would have voted her least likely to have this happen to her but that is life isn't it?

She loved "Mr. Nose ie. nitrous gas , she didn't even know she got a shot to numb her gums! Ha! I was proud of her for being brave through all the new things and thankful my dad was so gentle and sweet with her. She's a new gal with her new tooth and the swelling down! Feeling good! 😊

I'm back

I have decided to start blogging again! We'll see how this goes! Wish me luck! 

1st day of preschool

 We did a little photo shoot with my little Belle on Tuesday ( Ella's 1st day of her new  preschool.) I lucked out and found some great ladies in my ward to do a little Preschool Co-op where each of us teaches twice only every 6 weeks. I am actually teaching next week and I am excited to see how it goes!

She is getting so big it makes my heart ache a little bit! Where does time go? She is at such a fun age though. Constantly cracking me up with the things she says. Like for example I was getting ready to go to a baby shower and she looked at me all concerned and said, "Mom what is it going to feel like?" I was totally confused and was like, " What's what going to feel like? "The baby shower what is it going to feel like? Like is it going to be wet or cold or something?" I just laughed when I realized how strange the name of that tradition must seem to a kid. When I explained to her that it is not a "real" shower she was like "that's weird mom." She is super inquisitive and creative and  LOVES to make friends.  Lately she has been trying to tell me jokes that make absolutely no sense but she just cracks up about! It is so funny to watch her little sense of humor develop. She's such a sweet heart, very helpful and always itching to do crafts!  We love her so much and can't believe how blessed we are to have her in our lives!

A Henkel Weekend in March!

Back in March the Henkels were in town (when we were in Idaho still and I was still preggo!) and we all went bowling together. There was much fun to be had by all!




Havin a ball with G-pa as always!



Don't let this sour face fool you, Jason was a bowler extraordinaire! And Angie of course was an amazing bowling Diva!



A lot of cousin love!



G-ma and the girls!



Ella was so super excited to be bowing on her own! You could not wipe the smile of that girls face!



Our little Harper (hopper) was a joy as always, don't ya just want to kiss those cheeks! Chad tried to give her a sip of his coke to get Didi all railed up, he loves to be a little booger! :)





Pure bowling joy and amazingly enough she was actually pretty accurate with that little kid bowling ramp and got quite a few strikes and spares!



Jack-Jack our little muscle man! Always loved to heft that big ol' ball around and try to pick up the ones that were ridiculously heavy and amazingly enough for him he did not get his fingers or his toes crunched!



The next day we had a little dinner shin-dig together and I just thought all these girls together were just too darn cute not to take a pic of! Ella and Caz looked adorable in their little matching outfits G-ma Henkel got them.



G-pa & G-ma Henkel were really gettin these girls to crack up with if I remember correctly a song that G-ma taught them about a duck in a puddle. Quite cute!