memorial day

for memorial day tyler and i hosted a memorial day breakfast for many of our friends in the neighborhood.  it's always nerve wracking being the one to host an event.  who knows if anyone will be interested or even want to come.  thankfully though, we had such a great response!  we had many, many families come.  it was such a fun morning chatting with friends and eating all of the delicious food everyone brought.  

after everyone was done eating, all of the kids ran around at the park or in the splash pad, the adults chatted and some of the men played ultimate frisbee.

by the time i pulled my camera out, katelyn and tanner were long gone playing with their friends.

brindley at nine months

clapping

dancing

brynn is the sweetest little nine month old.  she is happy, happy, happy all day long!  she loves to play and adores the attention from her siblings, but maybe at times not always tanner's attention.  he can get a little rough with her.  brynn learned to clap and is perfecting her dance moves.  she has also learned how to do the 'roll it' hand movement in patty cake.  now she does it all of the time, and as her mother, i think it's pretty adorable.  brynn now has three teeth with a fourth on the way. brynn loves bath time, especially with her siblings.  she loves food, especially applesauce pouches, any kind of fruit and most veggies.  she is still an absolutely terrible night sleeper, waking up repeatedly and many times staying up feeling uncomfortable for about an hour two.   she really seems to have the worst time digesting her food.  i've started wondering if there is an underlying problem or if this is something she is going to grow out of.  since she is so happy during the day i'm thinking it's the latter.  brynn isn't crawling yet, but she is getting so, so close.  we sure love this little sweetheart.  i really can't say enough about how much we love her and are so grateful for her.

easy bake oven

katelyn got an easy bake oven from her grandma and grandpa hedin for her birthday.  the kids have loved it!  katelyn really feels like she's cooking and is very willing to share all of her treats with anyone who is around.
one afternoon while katelyn was making some cookies, reese decided to see if she could watch them bake.

thanksgiving point

while my mom was in town we hit up thanksgiving point to see the farm animals. this is always a fun time for the kids.

we started off with a horse ride.  reese chose not to ride.

all of the animals were entertaining to see.  the turkey had every feather puffed out and shaking.

this was the fattest goat i've ever seen. seriously, how can that goats belly stretch any further?

i don't have a ton of pictures of me with my mom.  this was the perfect opportunity!

family visits

my mom came into town, so we headed to grandpa's house for a visit.  it just so happens that her sister, marsha was also in town visiting.  great timing!  we were all able to get together and hang out for the day to catch up on each others lives.

katelyn's birthday celebration

katelyn's birthday is always a highly anticipated day for katelyn.  she loves her birthday and being celebrated (and we love celebrating her)!  

one of katelyn's requests for the day was that we joined her for lunch at school.  i was kind of nervous bringing all of the kids, but they did so well.  they loved sitting with katelyn and getting to eat lunch with the big kids.

later that afternoon, katelyn's teacher invited us into the classroom so katelyn could read her favorite book to the class, share her favorite toy and also share a scrapbook page she made of herself.

when we got home from school she was dying to play with her new present, a school set so she can pretend to teach.  she wants to be a teacher one day and loves to pretend.  we got this purely for the fun aspect of it!

katelyn had also been begging to do silly string for about six months, so i thought getting to do it on her birthday was perfect.  she had a ton of fun doing and i had a stomachache from the huge mess it made in our backyard.  the one and only time we will be doing silly string.

we celebrated her katelyn's birthday later that night with family.  katelyn loved the attention and the wonderful presents everyone got her.  she was spoiled!

the day after her birthday katelyn got right to work playing with all of her toys.  she loved each and every thing she got.

dollhouse

i often find reese playing with our dollhouse or asking me to join her while playing. in the dollhouse there are four little people inside and she has named each one: daddy, tanner, katelyn and mommy.  when she plays, her dolls are either swinging on the swings, going potty or watching t.v.  she doesn't like it when i rearrange the furniture.  she likes to organize the house herself.  it really is so fun to watch her play.  she has been so good at using her imagination from a very young age.  it's fun to see it come alive during moments like these.