April Happenings

March started our few months of birthday celebrations. We had a niece born (Brooklyn) and our best friends had a baby boy (Eli). From March - June, the girls have 4 uncles, 5 aunts, 5 cousins, great-grandma, mom, dad, and both of their own birthdays. Maybe our baby will come a few days earlier to add another June birthday. We also have had 4 of their friends invite them to birthday parties in the last few weeks. They have learned to sing "Happy Birthday" very well. They take turns playing whose birthday it is, then sing and pretend to blow out candles. It's really cute especially to hear Lucy trying to sing.

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Our weather has been gorgeous so we have been able to spend a lot of time outdoors. We ventured to Boxerwood Gardens to play and have a picnic. The girls had so much fun. Aunt Zebra came down for the day to hang out with the girls, then took Leland on a special birthday date for ice cream and shopping. They had a lot of fun.

Lucy's new favorite word is "Wait!" You can see in the above picture she is yelling wait with her hand stretched out. She likes to yell it especially after being put in bed to sleep. The first few times I fell for her cute little voice yelling, wait! I would go back in her to see what she needed, only to realize she didn't need anything at all.

Lucy is also obsessed with Peter Pan. She calls it Fly and asks to watch it or listen to the music several times a day. She has started being able to sing certain Disney songs. She doesn't get the words out, but definitely the tune. It's pretty adorable to watch and listen to her.

Today was Chuck's LAST LAW SCHOOL FINAL!! Woohoo!! I'm not sure either of us can feel total relief quite yet, now it's on to finding a job and prepping for the Bar Exam.

Today is my last day in my 20's. It's not as depressing as I thought it would be. I'm excited to be 30. Bring it on!!

Happy Birthday Leland

This week our Leland Joy turned 4 years old. I can't believe how big she is getting. She is so much fun and always excited about everything. Her enthusiasm is infectious. She absolutely adores her little sister and is very excited about the new sibling joining us in a few more months.

We celebrated her birthday with her cousins the weekend before her birthday. In the weeks leading up to her birthday, she kept telling me that she wanted a blueberry birthday cake. I wasn't sure how I was going to pull that off, but it worked out great to do a breakfast feast for her. We made blueberry muffins and stacked them up like a cake for her to blow out her candles. We also had a big bowl of blueberries along with lots of other breakfast items. It was fun to celebrate her birthday with cousins again this year. (I'm sad I didn't get any good pictures of all the cousins at breakfast, but that's to be expected with all the craziness that entails feeding 8 kids.)

We celebrated back at home on her actual birthday by going out to Red Robin, a visit to Target for her to pick out her presents (a watch and wallet), and a trip to the mall. The mall is somewhere she always asks to go and we rarely do because it's 45 mins away.

Leland's facial expressions crack me up in this video. She goes from excitement for the ice cream sundae, to astonishment that our waitress was yelling to everyone that it was her birthday, to a little shy while they were singing. She is just so much fun!

We discovered a store called Puppy Love in the mall that sells puppies. The girls loved watching the puppies. I couldn't believe that I heard the words "It almost makes you want to take a puppy home" actually come out of my husband's mouth.

It was such a fun evening together as a family to celebrate Leland's birthday.

A look back at Leland's birthdays:

Our little performer

The girls and I spent the weekend in NC with my mom, sisters, and their families. My mom was in charge of a pre-show at an opening night of a new outdoor amphitheater in her area. The pre-show included 2 songs by "Nana's Family & Friends" singing group along with some other singing and dancing groups.

We had been listening to the songs the previous whole week so Leland could learn the words. When we got to NC, she learned the motions and had it down after a few practices. She was so excited to "go on stage in front of the audience."

All of the kids did so great during practice and dress rehearsal. Even the 2 year old cousins did well standing and singing during the practice, so we decided it would be okay for the actual show.

That may not have been the wisest decision. During the show, 2 year old Noah decided to do his own little routine. It was pretty funny, except when he decided to stomp on the floor microphones. We were all a little nervous that he may have damaged what the stage director said "to protect with our lives". Luckily he did not. 2 year old Emily surprised us all by going on stage and performing (see more pictures here). It was so cute to watch them all up there together.

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

I was so proud of Leland. She did such an awesome job. She was so excited to sing a song about "her" Blue mountains. The song was pretty fitting for her to learn - our home is in the Blue Ridge Mountains right now and we, hopefully, will be going back to NC soon, and there are many friends here that we may never see again. It makes me a little teary (should I mention again that I'm a very emotional pregnant woman).

Here is Leland's solo performance of the 2 songs she sang for her dad when we got home.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Kids Are Music we are ready for you on the East Coast!

We had such a fun weekend together. I always love watching the cousins all play together. It is so great that they go without seeing each for months, but still are best friends playing together when they do get together. Luckily there were no visits to the Emergency Room like last time, but not without teasing Aunt Christine a lot.

Family pictures

On Easter Sunday, we went for a drive around the area. It was so gorgeous to see all the green coming out and trees starting to bloom. We decided to go to the same place that we went last Easter and took family pictures.

We went to an old church with a cemetery behind it and a pretty hill with lots of flowers spread over the hill. Lucy had fallen asleep on our drive, so we decided to wake her up to take pictures. That was an obvious mistake. She was not in a very good mood for picture taking.

I remember last year being so easy getting some great pictures of the girls and our family. A 9 month old sits still a lot better than a 22 month old.

This year was not as successful in the picture taking, but was still a fun little excursion. I broke out the snacks in our "emergency" kit from the car and had a little picnic in the grass.

I love Leland's blue eyes in the cracker picture. Lucy's face peaking behind the flower in the picture above right is pretty cute. I also love the picture below of the girls and I.

Here is my favorite picture from Easter last year. I can't believe how much both of the girls have grown up over the last year.

Easter Egg Hunt

The Law Families club hosted a Easter Egg Hunt and Picnic lunch last Saturday. We even had a visit from the Easter bunny! The kids there ranged from 10 months - 2 yrs old and none of them cried while sitting by the bunny. Not all of them sat with the bunny by themselves, but I thought for sure that one would cry or be upset.

There were some dark clouds looming that we almost took the party inside our house, but I'm so glad we didn't. We had such a fun afternoon outside. The kids hunted for their eggs and played on the playground. We have had such a fun year with Law Families and have been able to do some really fun activities. Our kids have all been such great friends, we sure are going to miss everyone when we all spread across the country over the next few months.


Lucy and the Easter Bunny.

Lucy loved collecting her eggs. She had so many eggs in her basket that as she walked some would fall out, she would pick them up, start to walk, then they would fall out again. It was pretty funny. I finally convinced her to just leave some on the ground for others.

I'm surprised that we were able to get such a good shot of all the kids that were there. Not all are looking, but no one is crying and they all sat still.

On the slide are Lucy's BFF's Anna, Jace, and Ty. It's nice that they all have such easy names because she can say all of them. She loves these kids so much. She has seen them at least twice a week every week almost for 9 months between playgroup and nursery at church. It has been so much fun to watch them grow and play together.

If you are wondering why Leland is not in any of the Egg hunt festivities, she got to go to a friend's birthday party all by herself. She was so excited that morning, she could barely stand it. The party was for a little girl in our neighborhood who is also in her preschool class.

Leland helped me make this butterfly t-shirt for her present. It had a big butterfly on the front and a small one on the back. It turned out pretty cute and Leland was so proud of it.

The girls

A few weeks ago, my friend Abbie took some pictures of my girls. She did a great job. The girls were a little hard capturing together, but did better on their own. Lucy just wanted to run around, but she still got some really cute shots. Check out her website here.



I love Lucy's curls and Leland's facial expressions.

Abbie took this picture of Chuck and I at Barrister's Ball in February.

Happenings

Our life is about to get pretty crazy with the end of law school approaching, the job search intensifying, and we are about to enter our 2 months of back to back birthdays. Here are some things we have been up to lately, so I do not get too far behind.

Last week was the 3L Banquet for Chuck's graduating class. It was a nice night of dinner and toasts with friends. One of the wonderful things about being at a small school is feeling so a part of everything. I love going to events with Chuck at school to see his friends that he spends so much time with and how much he enjoys it.

Chuck was one of the few people that were asked to give a speech/toast. Most were jokes, poems, and such, but Chuck's speech was very sincere and from the heart. He did a great job and it made me tear up as I listened to him talk about how much we have been welcomed into this law school community as transfers and as not your "typical" law student. He said "as a 32 year old Mormon, with a wife and 2.8 kids." We have made some great friends over these last 2 years and I'll be excited to come back for Law reunions and see them all.

Lucy has grown up significantly in the last month - physically and socially. She grew out of her church shoes in a matter of 2 weeks. She wore them to church one week, then last Sunday I literally could not get them on her feet. Most of her 2T pants are high waters on her, good thing we are approaching shorts weather. I have put her hair in pigtails a few times lately and it makes her look so grown up to me.

Leland and Lucy are becoming such great sisters. I love watching them play and interact with one another. They get so excited to see each other after taking naps or being apart during the day. They play well together most of the time. The other morning they had been watching a show and I come out front to see them cuddled up together on their little couch. Usually Lucy sits in the little couch and Leland in on the big couch.

Since most of my girlfriends will be gone for the summer, we had a baby shower last week for my friend Heidi and I who are both due in July. It was a fun evening and we made onsies like the ones we did a few months ago for other new mommies. Thanks girls!

We have had such a great year with our TNLC. It's been a great group of friends and we have had a lot of fun. I'm going to miss TNLC so much. The planned one night a week that I have to go out with the girls and have fun. Chuck has been so supportive and recognized how important it is to me to have that time with my friends.

We have had some nice Spring weather off and on lately. Every chance I get, I take my girls to the park. They LOVE the park. Lucy yells "Slide!" whenever we drive past, which is every time we leave the house since the park is at the end of our street.

I love watching them run themselves ragged. Lucy has no fear at the park and loves going down the slide head first. I love this picture of Leland and the excitement on her face.