Maura is 8!!

How can Maura be 8 already? Where has the time gone? Just yesterday she was a newborn screaming all day and all day. Now she is a sweet, sensitive, caring young lady. We sure do love her. Here are 8 things about Maura:

1. She is super sensitive.

2. She loves her dog Marley. She will go out and talk and play with her for a long time.

3. She can be known to pout sometimes when she doesn't get her way.

4. She like to have "girls days/nights" with her mom.

5. She helps change Mila's diapers.

6. She just learned to ride her bike without training wheels about 3 weeks ago.

7. She loves to sing, just not in front of a crowd.

8. She needs her beauty sleep. If she doesn't get enough, it is hard to get her out of bed.

St. Patrick's and Easter

On St. Patrick's Day we had some green treats show up over night thanks to some little leprechauns and to celebrate we had green pancakes and green milk. 

We had a good time Easter weekend making bunnies, coloring eggs, and playing egg toss. The Easter Bunny came to see us Saturday and we got all dressed up in our Sunday best Easter morning, but only made it through Sacrament meeting because got called out to work and Topher was running a fever and feeling terrible, but we did manage to get one picture after church before everyone scattered. 

Our February

February was a whirlwind for us. TJ was working half the week in Mesa and half the week in Thatcher, we were getting to ready to move and right in the middle of trying to sell the house. We still had time to celebrate Valentine's Day with heart pancakes and decorating cookies. Timmy got his bear badge in cub scouts. We were so proud of him. Mila also turned 2! My baby is getting so big. Good thing she probably won't remember this birthday because we were moving that day and only spent about 10 minutes celebrating. She loved her cake and presents though, especially her clothes. She didn't want to wait to wear them. That night after we dropped all of our stuff at our new house in Thatcher, the kids and I came back to an empty house and had a sleepover in one room. The kids went to their last day of school and I cleaned the house. When the kids got home, we left our house for good. We were all super sad to say goodbye to our family and friends. 

Topher turns 5!

Topher is 5! Where has the time gone? He was super excited for his big day. We started the day by opening presents. This made Mila really sad because she couldn't open any. Our awesome neighbors brought him balloons before school, which he played with for 2 more weeks. They were his favorite present. We had McDonalds for lunch and had cousins over for cupcakes that evening. It was a special day for a special boy.

Some fun things about Topher are:

He is very passionate. He can love you one minute and hate you the next.

He is super sensitive.

He has a great sense of humor.

He just learned to ride his bike without training wheels and could ride for hours.

He is super excited to start school in August.

December 2012

Our month of December was crazy and fun. To start off the month, Maura and I got a chance to go see a part of the Nut Cracker that Maura's best friend was in. It was so neat to get to go all by ourselves and  enjoy a great show. Girls dates are the best!

Topher went through a phase of reading before bed. He didn't last very long. :)

We had an Elf on the Shelf come to our house and the kids named him Nick Buzz Snowball (because they couldn't agree on one name). He was in some crazy spots some days, but I happened to catch this message of "Be Good" on camera.

Drew and Cassie came from Buffalo. They got to stay with us for the first few days and we had lots of fun. Besides eating (a lot) we made and decorated cookies, shopped, and went to the temple to see the lights. It was so good to see them.

We had a great Christmas too. It was nice to have our first and only Christmas in our new house. The kids made sure to leave Santa cookies and carrots for the reindeer. Santa was good to us all.

Happy Halloween!

We had a fun Halloween this year. We had the ward Trunk or treat on Saturday night, then went out into the neighborhood with Kam, Sarah, Bentley, and Sophie on Halloween night. Our neighborhood goes all out. There was a cotton candy machine, haunted houses, BBQ's and TONS of people. The kids had a blast.

After all of the trick or treating festivities, we hung out outside for a while because our neighbor had loud music playing outside his house. The kids couldn't help but to bust a move.