The FIVE Year Old!

Our big event in January every year is Aurora's birthday.  She's been looking forward to turning 5 since the day she turned 4!  Silly kid.  I think she's talked about her birthday all year long!  I love the excitement and enthusiasm of kids :)

Aurora really wanted a "Merida" birthday party this year, but with moving and the craziness of everything, I wasn't on the ball and it just didn't happen.  We decided to do something fun together as a family instead.  At first she said she wanted to go ice skating and then decided it might be a little too hard to do and decided she wanted to go bowling instead.  I feel a little bit bad that this was the first time we've ever taken our kids "real" bowling.  We bowl on the Wii together every now and then, but "real" bowling was a big hit and I definitely think we'll be going again soon!
We went to the Provo Beach Resort--they have more than just a bowling alley there :)

Daddy helped Aurora the first few times until she felt comfortable doing it on her own.

It was so fun to watch her bowl :)

I'm not sure how well you can see it, but they were playing the movie "Brave" while we were bowling.  It was PERFECT!  She didn't get a Merida birthday party, but she got to watch Merida while we bowled.  Someone was inspired!

Checking her score on the screen.

Savannah loved it just as much as Rori did!

We invited our favorite Aussies to join us, and we all had lots of fun!  P and R even bowled without the guide rail thing.

Then the kids got their hands on the camera.  Our girls LOVE and adore baby Q.  They can't wait to meet their baby brother.  He's probably going to get way more love than he can handle! :)

Miss Savy
(Red-eye removal didn't work on this picture for some reason. Ugh!)

 Go Savy!

Savy took this picture of Jared and R :)

And this one of Mr. P

And the employee who gave us our shoes :)  He couldn't help but smile when he realized a little tot was taking his picture. Haha!

Savy generally would squat down below the bar to watch her ball go down the isle, but happened to sit down the one time I was trying to get a picture of her squatting.  Go figure :)

Final scores!
Savannah got the highest score out of all the kids.  Rori was next, then R and Mr. P.  Dar bowled with the kids too and the rest of us watched :)

Such cute kiddos!

Thanks for coming with us, Aussies!  Rori had a blast!
After bowling, we went downstairs for a quick ride on the merry-go-round.  Our camera was out of space so I didn't get any pictures :(  We then said goodbye to our Aussies and we headed to Wingers for Aurora's birthday dinner.

January 11th - The big day!
We always decorate the girls room over night so when they wake up on their birthday morning they're showered with ribbons and balloons.  They love it!  Aurora was pretty excited that she got to go to school on her birthday.  We had a nice, relaxing morning.  The girls spent a little bit of time watching the snake move.  They think the snake is so silly (the snake is at school with Daddy at this point).

Don't you love our new birthday headband? :)

After a yummy breakfast (Aurora wanted toast), we got everyone ready for the day and took some pictures before taking Rori to school.  She was so excited to bring birthday treats for all of her friends!
Rori showing me she's 5, and Savannah already tells everyone that "I'll be sree on my birsday".

Cutie birthday girl!
(I think her b-day outfit is big enough she'll be able to wear it again next year!)

She's so silly.

There's our little princess! :)

SO excited to be FIVE!

After school, lunch, and getting Savy down for a nap, Aurora got to help me make her cake.  She's such a great little helper!

Then she practiced her letters while we waited for the cake to bake.

Daddy came home from work and brought her a bouquet of balloons and a beautiful flower.  And he brought a flower for me too as he always does because he's so sweet to acknowledge my hard work in bringing her into this world :)

Daddy frosted the cake and then the girls helped him decorate it with a bunch of sprinkles and yummy Sixlets!

It turned out beautiful! ;)  Not to mention, super tasty!

After a yummy dinner of tacos (Rori's request), some friends came over for cake and ice cream and presents.

Happy birthday, Aurora!

"Let 'zem eat cake!"

 Time for presents!

From Grandma and Grandpa she got this cute little Merida doll and a bigger Merida barbie that has a magical dress when you get it wet.

One thing she really wanted for her birthday was her own set of scriptures.  And we gave her a new bike.  It was well overdue!

She got a new Sophia lego set from Aunt Georgiana (all the way from Pittsburgh!)

She got a bunch of other gifts too and loves them all!  Thanks to everyone who came to celebrate with us!  (And to those who wanted to be there but couldn't.)

Our birthday girl with the pretty flowers Daddy brought home for us.

Happy birthday, our sweet Aurora!
We love you so incredibly and we're so glad you're in our family!
We love you!

P.S. Ever since her birthday, she now refers to herself frequently as "the five year old", hence the title of this blog post :)

And here are some random photos of Aurora in January:
In addition to falling asleep with her hat and gloves on, she had 3 pairs of socks on underneath her footed pajamas.  Needless to say she woke up a few hours after falling asleep and I had to help her take everything off and change her into some cooler pajamas.  Silly kid.

She was very patient in waiting for us to set up the Barbie dream house she and Savy got for Christmas while some projects were being worked on downstairs.  She was thrilled when Daddy was finally able to set it up for her!  And she was a big help in putting it together too!



We had about 4 inches taken off her hair in January.  This is the before shot--with it wet and combed straight.  Look how long it was!  Not too shabby for a kid who was bald until after she was 2!

Both girls like to sleep with their water bottle close by in case they need a drink during the night.  We went in to kiss them one last time before going to bed ourselves and found Aurora with her water bottle like this :)

New Year's Eve

New Year's Eve was pretty mellow and low-key for us this year, but we managed to make and eat some yummy finger foods and enjoyed ringing in the new year nonetheless!
(Gotta love Savy's crazy hair--it always looks like that when she pulls her hair bows out by herself. Haha!)

Making silly faces. A must!

We sure love these two little munchkins!

The one thing they were looking forward to the most for New Year's was the fireworks.  Luckily the neighbors were shooting some off and the girls got to watch from the window.

We were completely willing to let them stay up late, but they crashed about 10 minutes into the movie we started watching with them.  Darwin and I stayed up to watch a movie after we moved them to their beds (I may or may not have dozed off a few times) and we welcomed in the new year together.  It was nice, relaxing night!

Welcome, 2016!

Moving/Misc.

If there's one thing I've learned in life, it's that sometimes big changes are thrown at us pretty unexpectedly, and generally it's when we're comfortable with things how they are.

At the end of October we found out that Darwin's parents would be leaving in February to serve a mission for our church and they'd be gone for at least 8 months.  We've talked to them about the possibility of this happening, and if it did, we would move into their house while they're gone to help take care of the property and allow us a chance to save some money to potentially get us in a house faster that we would be able to otherwise.  So, with the news of them leaving, we started making plans to sell our condo and move into their house.  It was exciting but also sad/scary for us at the same time.  We've been in our condo for seven years, and although we felt like we were starting to burst at the seams (especially with another child coming in March) we thought we'd be there for a few more years at least.

We started moving forward with our plans to move and things have gone pretty smoothly for the most part.  It's been a little bit crazy at the same time too though.  We wanted to be settled before the baby comes in March and Darwin wanted to do our big move while he was home for Christmas break, so we did the big haul the Monday after Christmas (on December 28th).  Moving during the holidays was hard and I honestly don't recommend it, but it ended up working out really well.  Darwin came down with strep throat the day after Christmas but luckily he started on antibiotics really quickly and we nipped it before it got too bad for him.  The morning of our big move, I ended up going to the eye doctor because I somehow got an abrasion on my cornea!  How does that happen?!  My eye has never hurt that bad in my life!  In some ways I felt like we were getting signs that maybe we really weren't supposed to move, but our condo was already under contract to sell and we've felt good about the changes, even though they are hard.  We knew we wouldn't be in our condo forever when we bought it, but it's been really hard for us to leave so many people we've grown to love so much!

The girls have been troopers through all the craziness, and they've adjusted really well!  They were good helpers with packing (they got their toys taken away one day because they wouldn't clean them up, and they even helped us pack them away in boxes!).  I think they've enjoyed the excitement of the change, for the most part.  Aurora has told us several times that she misses the condo and doesn't want to leave her friends, but she also loves the chance to meet new friends and experience the fun of the changes too.  Savannah hasn't really missed a beat and has been so easy going through it all, although she told me the other day too that she also misses the condo.

The girls loved playing in the empty boxes and finding new hiding places as we cleaned things out of the condo.

We inherited a bunch of boxes from a friend I went to UVU with who moved into our ward not too long before we realized we'd be moving out, and some from our new neighbor downstairs.  You can't beat free boxes!

 Signs of moving.  Even though we are in Darwin's parents house at this point, it still doesn't quite seem completely real that we've moved on from our cute condo that we loved living in for so long.

Finding new hiding places :)

Playing in our "packing" paper :) Silly kids!

Savannah helped Daddy take all the glow-in-the-dark stars down from the ceiling in their bedroom. Our girls are good helpers!

 
Silly little goof ball :)

 Rori helped Daddy a bunch too!

Darwin and I were packing up in another room one afternoon when we heard the girls giggling from the living room.  We went to check on them and found them snuggled up together in their blankets between some totes and boxes and the couches.  Little cuties.

Being silly. Of course!


Then the day of the big move came.  My cousin's two sons, Nick and Robby, came and helped Darwin move the bulk of everything during the day.  Their sisters, Aeryka and Jessy helped take care of our girls all day at their house.  They were all troopers and a HUGE help!  I don't know what we would do without our awesome family!  That night we had help from some friends and some guys from the ward to move the big furniture.  Darwin and I went back a couple of days later to finish packing up the kitchen and then we took a couple of weeks to get all the cleaning and touch-ups done to make the place super nice for the new owner.  It was a lot of work!  Showing the condo was a little tricky, but we only had to show it seven times before we were under contract for our asking price.  Unfortunately it only appraised for the same amount we bought it for seven years ago.  We were disappointed and hoped to get a little more out of it, but there's not much we can do about it either.  We'll be closing on the condo later this month and it'll be nice to have everything wrapped up there.
Darwin and the boys drove the Uhaul and I followed in the Pilot behind them. 

Look at the beautiful mountains we get to live so close to for the next little while!

As we've been unpacking, we've found it pretty comical that probably 80% of our boxes were labeled as the room they came from with some specifics, and then "Misc."  Apparently 80% of the things we own are "miscellaneous" items. :)  Thanks for making me smile, babe!

Here's to new adventures and saving up some money to get us in a bigger place of our own.  Bring on the next 8 months! And good luck to Darwin's amazing parents on their mission! ;)

**One other little side story from moving that we don't want to forget is that one day when Darwin and I were packing up some things in the girls room, Savannah suddenly came to the door way and said, "Bwuah-ha-ha!  You'll never find a way!" and walked off.  We just looked at each other and laughed!  It was so random!  Later when Darwin asked her where she got that from she just said, "Nexflix."  Silly kiddo! :)**