A look back.............

As I look at my two beautiful girls I can't help but be a little sad over how BIG they're both getting! So to make myself feel beter about my "babies" not being babies anymore I decided to post some pictures of them showing their growth through the years. Enjoy!

Here's my chubby baby Shaylie! She was about 3 1/2 months old!

Here's Shaylie at about 7 months old!

Shaylie at 14 months!

Shaylie at 2 years old!

Shaylie at 3 years old!

Shaylie at 4 years old!

Shaylie at 5 years old!

Shaylie at 6 years old!

My BEAUTIFUL 7 year old Shaylie!!!!

McKinley at about 2 months old!

McKinley at 3 months old!

McKinley at 7 months old!

McKinley at 15 months old!

McKinley at 2 years old!

McKinley at 3 years old!

My BEAUTIFUL 4 year old McKinley!!!!

My Dancing McKinley!!!!

I was organizing videos on our computer and found this one of McKinley and had to share it! LOL She is sooo freakin' funny. Enjoy!

Easter Bunny and Guns?!

Well I hope all of you had as great of an Easter weekend as we did! After getting to sleep in (which at our house is a rare occasion for mom) McKinley woke Marc and I up telling us "Mom, that big Easter bunny left us CANDY and eggs!". After getting up and doing the regular morning activities (baths, breakfast, hair, etc...) we went over to Marc's mom's house. After visiting there for a bit, and the girls getting some very cute porcelain tea sets (with Disney Princesses on them), we packed up and headed out to Goshen to go shooting. Marc has purchased a few guns and we took them out shooting on the west side of West Mountain. The girls have fun shooting the guns and hunting for caterpillars while we're up there! After our shooting fun we went to my parents house for a BBQ (first one of the season, WAHOO) and Easter Egg Hunt! The girls got to color Easter Eggs, hunt for eggs in the backyard, and play outside in the FRESH AIR! Here are some pictures from our fun filled day, enjoy!

Shaylie and McKinley in my parents backyard. Easter surprises! Hunting for caterpillars! (After finding them the girls keep them in the empty shotgun shells, LOL.)

Shaylie shooting Marc's new .223 rifle, and McKinley shooting the .22.

Coloring Easter eggs!

Hunting for the Easter eggs!

Awards, Hair Cuts, Tea Parties, and Jiu Jitsu!!!

It's been a while since my last post on here so I decided I should do a "catch up" post and let you know what's been going on since Valentine's Day.

To start it off, Shaylie received an award at school for basically doing her VERY best work in all areas. Shaylie is on the highest reading level in her 1st grade class (the level she's on for take home books would normally be for 4th grade), she gets 100% consistently on her math and spelling, and is an all around great student! She was thrilled that her daddy was able to make it to this award assembly to see her.

Both girls were in need of getting their hair trimmed up so I took them to Great Clips here in Springville and had my friend Bailie cut their hair. Ok, Shaylie got her hair cut and McKinley got a trim (as many of you know we can't actually cut much off of McKinley's hair). Shaylie and I decided to go short with her hair so instead of her hair being down below her shoulder blades it is now a little above her shoulders, and she looks ADORABLE! For McKinley it was the same thing as usual, a trim, just to even out the left and right sides, and she still looks as CUTE as ever! (Maybe someday McKinley's hair will grow and she'll get an actual hair cut instead of a trim.)

Just look at those curls!!!!

Shaylie's cute short hair!!!!

One morning after dropping Shaylie off at school I was busy cleaning and realized I hadn't seen or heard McKinley so I went into the playroom and found that she was busy having a teaparty with her dolls! Let me just say it was too cute! She had set the table and had "everyone" in their own chairs.

And last but not least, the girls had evaluations in Jiu Jitsu last week! Both of them did AWESOME! Shaylie recieved 2 stripes towards her "high yellow" belt in the youth division, and McKinley earned her "green strip belt" in the Samurai Kids division!

Working the heavy bags! (I was able to get both girls at the same time!)

Hopefully you enjoyed this round of pictures! I'll try to be better about posting more often. Have a wonderful Easter weekend!

HaPpY VaLeNtInEs DaY!!!!

Happy Valentines Day! Today I tried to do some fun stuff for the girls so for breakfast I made strawberry muffins in Valentines paper wraps, did their hair with cute Valentines ribbons in it, and put them in heart shirts. For dinner I had to continue with the "festivities" so I made heart shaped french toast and vanilla pudding with pink and red sprinkles in heart shaped tins for dessert! All in all we've had a great day eventhough poor McKinley woke up with a high fever (103.4) and not feeling well. For a fun evening activity we're going to put on our jammies and watch a movie together! I hope your holiday was as fun as ours was. Here are some pictures taken throughout the day.

Here are the yummy strawberry muffins I made for breakfast! My super cute Shaylie eating breakfast! Shaylie's cute hair do!

My poor sick McKinley (she was trying to be happy).

Even though she didn't feel good she was a trooper and got all cleaned up and in her cute Valentines Day shirt! What a good sport! McKinley's cute hair do! Our YUMMY dinner (notice the heart shaped french toast)! Dessert...........yum! Here's the LOOT!

What a good big sister!

So this week I have been a single mom as Marc has been away on a business trip and won't be back until late Saturday evening (I'm quite jealous of where he got to go too!). The girls and I have been doing the usual things that dictate our routine for each week, such as jiu jitsu, preschool, school, homework, etc..... and but for a few instances it has been a great couple of days and everything has gone smoothly. Well tonight it snowed quite a bit and I wanted to get most of it shoveled off of the driveway and sidewalks so that it didn't have a chance to freeze making my job even more fun in the morning before taking Shaylie to school. So I go outside and do my little thing and when I come back in I find Shaylie and McKinley have done EVERYTHING I asked them to do before going outside. The girls had cleaned up all the toys, gotten their pj's on, put their dirty clothes in their hamper, straightened up the living room, playroom, and bedroom, and brushed their teeth (I know that sounds like a lot, but if you were here to see it there really wasn't that much to do, mostly straightening.). After completing all of these tasks Shaylie took it upon herself to have McKinley pick out the book of her choice, sit down on the couch and read it to her! Can I just say how AWESOME it is to come in and find that they did what I asked and that they were getting along so well!!!! I may not be the perfect mom, my kids may not be the perfect kids, and sometimes I'd like to pull my hair out but then there are moments like this that make all the bad days worth it! Not to get all sappy, but when I see my two beautiful girls acting so great and doing what they know they should and then going the extra mile with each other it really makes me feel absolutely blessed to have them in my life. I try my hardest to be a good mom and teach them the things I know I need to, but there are those days that I feel like an absolute failure (if you're a parent I'm sure you know what I'm talking about), but then my girls turn around and reward me with stuff like this. I know it was nothing huge and extravagant but it doesn't have to be to make me feel great! Well now that I've bored you to death with my rambling here's a picture of my girls tonight reading on the couch.

If you look close the book they're reading is Mermaid Dora, so you know that Shaylie let McKinley pick it out! I love these girls so much!!!!

HANNAH MONTANA in 3D!!!!

So for a treat today Marc decided that we would take the girls to the Hannah Montana 3D movie playing at Provo Town Center! Shaylie and McKinley were both quite excited about this and were COMPLETELY entranced through the WHOLE movie! In case you have questions as to how much our girls LOVE Hannah Montana just scroll down through the Halloween pictures and you'll notice that Shaylie was dressed up as Hannah Montana. Not only do they rock out to her music on a VERY regular basis (Shaylie even has her albums on her MP3 player) but if there is an episode of Hannah Montana on TV you'll find both girls sitting in their room watching it. Here are a few pictures I took of the girls with their 3D glasses on after we got home .............. if you'll notice they are both wearing Hannah Montana t-shirts!

Shaylie and McKinley are CRAZY for Hannah Montana!!!!

Snow and Playing with Daddy!

So lately there has been A LOT of snow coming down and the girls have enjoyed playing in it (to a point). Here are some random pictures of the girls in the snow and playing with Marc inside where it's warm!

Here's some pictures of the girls playing with daddy!

Here's our dog Princess sleeping through all of the excitement!

Here's one of my favorite pictures of my cute girls with their daddy! Getting ready for bed and ready a quick story, can you tell McKinley chose the book!