Update

 Lincoln is nine months old!  How time flies!  He is such a happy boy, but don't be fooled by that sweet face!  He's a little ball of trouble!  :)  If I even turn my back on him for a second, chances are I'll find him playing in the wet shower or in the ashes of our fireplace.  We put a gate on our stairs long ago and since added one to the entrance of the kitchen.  He finds everything on the floor!  He started choking on a chip crumb the other day, so we had to solve that by fencing him out of the dining area.  He's our busiest baby by far and keeps my constantly on my toes, but I love him in this stage and wouldn't change a thing!  He pretty much never lets me put him down, so I've become quite good at cleaning, cooking, or you name it, with him on my hip.  :)  He still wakes up 2 times a night and does not like baby food...even the fruit kind....sigh...another picky kid.

 Lincoln loves playing with the kids outside.  Lately, I'll have Natalie bring him outside while I'm making dinner.  The kids take turns pushing him around in the car and all the while he's in heaven!

 Work on our kitchen is done!  This was such a happy sight for me when all my kiddos could sit up to the bar for breakfast and I didn't even have to clean the table!  Yay!  We love how it turned out.

It's even better than I imagined!

I'm really enjoying having a working dishwasher, sink and oven.  I won't ever take those for granted again!

 We love being outdoors, especially now that it's nice weather.

 I thank Heavenly Father every day for these four blessings of mine.  Motherhood is not easy, but it's so rewarding and worth it.  I think my heart might burst with how much love it holds for my precious children.

Mother's Day was AMAZING!  I got spoiled rotten.  The kids and Rob took such great care of me.  Rob woke up early so he could catch Jane before she came into our bedroom to wake me up at the crack of dawn as usual.  :)

I came out to the kitchen and Natalie was making me scrambled eggs while Blake was making toast.  It was so sweet.  Then while I was eating they brought me their homemade cards and told me how much they loved me.  My heart was so full at the end of the day.  I didn't want it to end.

Rob made me lunch and dinner too and took me out to the Cheesecake Factory the night before and bought me a giant piece to take home and save for my special day.  He also took me shopping and bought me a new skirt.  The kids were perfect at church as another gift to me.  Can we just celebrate Mother's Day every Sunday?

 Sideways, but these kiddos love playing together.

 I love when the kids dress up and play pretend.

 Jovie, my piano student and the kids' friend, with Jane.  Every Wednesday morning I teach my friend Angel's girls piano and then they stay and play (usually) for the rest of the day.  So fun!

 I have little laundry helpers every week.  What would I ever do without them?  Though it takes much longer to get things done around here, I wouldn't have it any other way.  These kiddos bring me such great joy.

 Lincoln loves to stand up to the oven and look inside when I'm baking cookies.  :)  He already loves sweets and he can't even eat them yet.  Ha!

 We attended a scout fundraiser dinner/auction for our ward a few weeks ago and purchased this adorable picnic table for the kids.  We thought it would be fun to let them paint it since it's theirs.  They had a ball.  It's far from perfect looking, but it's got some serious character and they made lots of memories doing it.

 I went to Natalie's class awards ceremony last week before school got out.  I was so proud of my smart, sweet girl.  She got the award for "Outstanding Student of the Year" out of all the kids in her class.  She also got an award for the "Best Reader". Natalie was a champ and made it through a very difficult year because her personality didn't mesh well with her teacher's method of discipline.  Basically Natalie is perfectly behaved in the classroom and her teacher punished everyone, over and over again, when the few bad kids in the class misbehaved.  Natalie learned lots of lessons that things aren't always "fair" and that we can still learn to make the best of less than ideal situations.  We're still hoping greatly for a good teacher next time around!

 Then I got to go to Blake's Kindergarten graduation.  I pretty much cried through the whole thing.  I just hate that my kids are growing up.  It's so bittersweet.  I can't believe he'll be a big first grader this coming school year.  Time goes by too fast.

 His teacher, Ms. Johnson, was AMAZING.  I want Jane to have her in a few years.

 Ms. B. was a wonderful classroom aid.  Blake had such a wonderful year, mostly thanks to these sweet women.

 Blake with his best friend Vaden.

 Another good friend, Carson, who's also in our ward.

 This was on the last day of school. I always like to compare how they've grown and changed.

First day of school 2015.  Why do they have to grow up so fast?

 Natalie is such a good helper with Lincoln when I need to get something done.

 Lincoln already really looks up to Blake.  They are best buds.

 This past weekend we went to a lake/reservoir that's about an hour from our house.  Rob was asked to help the scouts from another ward learn to kayak and paddle, so we thought it would be fun if we all tagged along.  We brought a picnic lunch and then the kiddos got in the inflatable kayak with Rob and swam while I watched from the shore with the baby.  The kids are already asking when we can go back.  We all had a blast.

 Of course I forgot towels, palm to the face, so the kids had to sun dry.  Luckily I slathered the sunscreen on and made them wear their hats most of the day so no one got burned.

Cuteness overload! I love a baby just in a diaper.  I could eat him right up!

To My Natalie on Her Ninth Birthday

Sweet Natalie.  You are becoming quite the beautiful young lady!  It seems like just yesterday you were baptized and now you are nine!

You are so intelligent.  Every report card we receive, your teacher boasts that you're "top of the class!"  You excel in all subjects at school, but especially in spelling, writing and literature.  You love to read, use your imagination and could play LEGOs all day!  You also love watching Doctor Who with your dad and siblings.

You've had a tough school year because of a mean, grumpy teacher, but after many pep talks, you're making it through with lessons learned that we need to make the best of hard situations.  You've come out stronger!

Your love breakfast foods...especially mom's homemade waffles.

You are shy and reserved, so the move this past year was a little rough on you.  You made some really sweet friends, though, especially in the church and are loving our new home.  You still have some great friends in Albuquerque-Jovie and Joslynn-that you play with every week on early out day.

You love to be outside, especially now that we have lots of land.  You are in your element when you're hiking and looking for animal life outdoors.  You like to catch lizards and observe the beautiful world around you.

You have a natural gift for playing the piano.  Once you decided that you wanted to learn and excel at it, about a year ago, you took off and improved by leaps and bounds.  You can now sight read any song in the Primary Children's Song Book and basically play perfectly any other new song I throw at you.  Nothing seems too hard for you!  You enjoy sitting at the piano and playing through your piano books.  I rarely have to remind you to practice.  I joke that you are pretty much self-taught.  I gave you the basics to get you started and then you ran with it, full speed ahead.  You started learning the violin this past year and struggle to practice that because you want to be really good at it really fast like you were at the piano.  It's teaching you lessons on persistence and how to conquer challenges.


You look forward to activity days twice a month and love the fact that your mom is your leader.

You are a light and a joy in our home and your brothers and sister adore and look up to you.

Your Mom and Dad love you so much and feel so blessed to be your parents.  Watching you grow up is so bittersweet.  We know that all too soon you'll be dating and then leaving our home to go off to college.  Time flies! But you've assured us that you're going to move next door with your future family.  :)

I'm so glad you came along and made me a mom for the first time.

Love,

Mom

Natalie's Birthday

Natalie requested a Stuffed Animal Themed birthday party, so I delivered. 

 Luckily this was the one day that week where the weather was nice.  We had a picnic on the tennis court.

 Then we played lots of fun games that involved the kids' stuffed animals that they brought.

 Oh so much fun!  This relay got pretty intense!

 Then, it got a little chilly outside, so we went inside to open presents.

 She has the sweetest friends!

And we got to eat Costco Chocolate Cake.  So good!  It was a day to remember!

 For Natalie's actual birthday, she woke up and opened presents and then went to school, which she wasn't very happy about.  I sent some big chocolate chip cookies with her for her class birthday treat.

 When she got home, we went for a family hike, got pizza and then ate Reese's Ice Cream, at her request.

 We hiked to these beautiful springs that are just a few miles from our house! Not sure how we'd never heard about it until now after living here for almost 8 years.  It was such a pretty place.  The kids didn't want to leave.

We did a separate short hike to a waterfall that was only running a trickle. We're going to go back after our monsoon season this summer and I'm sure it will be running well.

Randoms

 These two are best buddies (most the time) while the other kids are at school.

 We went as a family to the archery range, which is just a few miles from our house, the other evening.  Natalie and Blake have been begging to show me their bow-shooting skills.  I was impressed.  They had a vintage but very fun playground that Jane had a ball on.

 Lincoln spends most of his day playing in the shower.  I think he's going to be super clean when he grows up.

 We planted a little "garden" the other day.  I'm hopeful that the seeds will grow, but not too convinced that the plants will stay alive with my brown thumb. :)  But at least the kids got a taste of the process.

 I could sit and watch him sleep in my arms all day.

 Rob and I finished putting in the swing set.  The kids are on it all the time, as long as the weather's nice, even at seven in the morning before school.

 This was Lincoln's first time pulling himself up to the couch.  He was pretty proud.

 Lincoln's first time sitting up in the shopping cart.  He wasn't so sure about it at first, but now throws a fit if I put him in his carrier instead of letting him be a big boy in the cart.

 Jane likes to pose in pretty places for a photo opp.

 Lincoln loves helping me with laundry.

The sit 'n spin is his new favorite toy.