4 years old!

I can't believe what a lazy blogger I have turned into. I almost forgot to post about my sweet Chandler turning 4 years old! I started asking her a couple months ago if she would just stay 3 and not turn 4 because her mom just didn't want her growing up but she just rolled her eyes and said " but mom I want to be a big girl!" so I guess for now I will let her turn one year older but 4 is the limit! I don't want her turning 5!

Chandler is such a sweetheart! She always has a smile on her cute face. She is pretty quiet and shy around most people but when she gets comfortable around you she has the funniest personality. She loves her sisters especially the baby. She always talks to her in a funny voice and asks her "where's my cute baby?" Since she was a baby my nickname for her was Angel. It totally fits too. She's always been such a good kid. Especially when her sisters are getting yelled at for doing something they're not suppose to. I guess you can say she's a brown noser. She'll stand by me while I'm yelling and say "I'm not being naughty". She has always been a mamas girl and still is. Even when Greg takes the big girls somewhere, before he can even ask her if she wants to go she says she's staying home with mom. I have always sort of secretly liked it though. I know not too long from now her mom is going to be the last person on earth she is going to want to hang out with. So until then, I'll enjoy the extra time I get to spend with her and when she grows into an obnoxious teenager I'll look back and remember that cute little face and remember when her mother was her favorite person in the whole wide world!Happy Birthday to my Sweet Chandler D. Thank you for being in our family and being such a good girl. We love you!

More Catch-up

Well May was very eventful also. It usually always is with the end of school and all that comes with that but add a couple family weddings to the mix and it makes for a busy schedule. First Greg's nephew Wyatt got married. It didn't take very long after he got home from his mission to find a girl but we all sure like her. Her name is Heidi and she's sweet. Hope it's okay that I stole this picture from Neina :)
Well Heidi and Wyatt got married on Monday and had a luncheon afterward in Salt Lake. Then Tuesday was their wedding reception, also in Salt Lake. Then Thursday my sister Jamie got married in Salem. It was super nice. Salem is famous for it's pond and they had the ceremony and reception at a city building right across from the pond. I didn't get very many pictures in Salem. I tried to turn it on right as they were walking down the aisle and the batteries were dead. I was so bummed and I kept thinking I need to get a picture of that! Then I kept remembering that was why there were photographers there. On Saturday they had a reception in Cokeville, Wyoming. That is where Justin is from and where they are living now. Our whole family went up and stayed the night there in a motel and I think we doubled the population of the town for the night! I thought Kamas was small but Cokeville is tiny! I think it's going to be quite an adjustment for Jamie to move there but I'm sure she will love it.

This is our family at the Cokeville reception.
Jamie didn't have bridesmaids or a maid of honor. She had men of honor instead. This is her with our nephews Cooper and Jordan . Here are my girls. They all looked so cute in their matching flower girl dresses. I need to steal some more pictures because I didn't get that many.

May was also the end of school. Hayden "graduated" from kindergarten. We've been really lucky that our girls like to go to school and do really well. Hayden liked school a lot She was quite the social butterfly and had a lot of cute friends in her class.

This is her with her teacher Mrs. Ure. Gracie had her in Kindergarten too and we really liked her.

This is Hayden and her "best friend" Kamryn

We also had the spring dance show. As usual it was awesome and the girls did really well. I'm not sure what it's going to be like to get 4 girls ready for the dance performances but I think I'm going to have to send Greg to hair school so he can help me out a little.

Gracie did something really exciting this year. She is a pretty good speller. She hardly ever missed a spelling word on her class spelling tests but she hasn't done that well in the school spelling bee's mostly because her mom is a slacker and we don't study as much as we should. She decided, I think with a little prompting from her teacher, that she wanted to try for the Park Record Spelling Bee. It is a county wide spelling bee separate from the schools bee and the students had to go before school and take a test to qualify to participate. Well Gracie was one of around 200 kids who took the test and the only one from her school in the 2nd and 3rd grade category to make it. She was one of 20 kids who qualified and only 18 showed up to participate in the spelling bee at the Egyptian Theatre in Park City. She was so nervous and so was I but she did awesome. She finished 8th place. I was so proud of her for even trying something like that. I know I wouldn't have had the guts to do that in 3rd grade let alone the brains! I think it was such a good experience for her and I hope she'll do it again next year. If we weren't traveling all over for wedding stuff we definitely could have studied a little more and I think she could have won it!This is the whole group. One little girl even came down and told her mom she changed her mind and she wanted to go home. They all looked pretty nervous to me.

At the end of the school year they have an awards assembly where they give certificates for different awards and accomplishments. Gracie got a few awards. One for citizenship, one for reading, and one i didn't even know about. She won 3rd place for story she wrote about where bread and butter come from. It was sponsored by Farm Bureau and she even won $10. The one I was most proud of was one for the Iowa test of basic skills. It's a nationwide test and she got 90 percent in 6 areas.That means she did better than 90% of the nation! But the one she was most proud of was a medal for playing the recorder in music class and passing off a certain number of songs. I guess a medal is a lot better than a certificate!

This is her teacher Mrs. Tuttle

I guess that does it for May. It took me long enough to finish this post and now I'm going to have to catch up for June. A blogger's work is never done right?

Catching Up

Well I can't believe it's been so long since I last posted. So many things have happened so I'll have to do a brief recap. I guess I'll begin with April. Of course there was Easter. Coloring Eggs and Easter egg hunts. As always the girls had a ball. The bad part was there was still so much snow on the ground in Kamas that it wasn't hard finding eggs and also we didn't get to fly kites at the Crandall's this year. It has become a tradition that the girls really look forward to every year and they were pretty bummed that they didn't get to do it this year. I don't think their dad was too bummed. 3 girls, 3 kites to put together and get in the air and of course I have to stay inside with the baby. Nuff said.

Ally B., Alley Mack, Shyanna, Gracie, Hayden,

and Chandler at Aunt Kay's Easter Egg hunt

All the Crazy cousins at the Averett Easter Egg Hunt

Next was the bridal shower we had for my younger sister Jamie. She and her boyfriend met last summer and planned on getting married in May. They weren't officially engaged however and she had given him a deadline because the wedding plans were well underway and they were scheduled to have their engagement pictures done so of course she wanted to be "engaged" for them. So my older sister Shelly and I threw her a shower the day before the pictures were scheduled. Jamie brought Justin over to meet all the friends and family at the shower because most of them hadn't met him yet. After he had been introduced he said "I guess now I've met everyone I'd better make it official" and got down on one knee and proposed in front of all of our cousins and Aunts who were there. It was quite the surprise even though we had an idea it was going to happen at some point. I sort of expected him to just hand her the ring and ask her if she wanted to get hitched. That happened to someone I know :).

Next, my nephew Jordan came home from serving his mission in Boston. What a cutie! We went to the airport to meet him and it was a lot of fun. The girls were excited and had never been to the airport. (Sad, I know) As we were pulling into the parking Garage, Chandler said "mom is this Boston?" I'm not sure who was more excited to see him. His mom or his 7 year old little sister. Even Greg choked up a little when she ran into his arms the second he walked off the escalator. 2 years is a long time when you're 7. Poor guy didn't even get a break. He came home on Thursday and had to start back to school the next Tuesday. This fall is going to be challenging for me and Greg. Jordan is playing football at BYU and we're going to try our hardest to cheer for the Cougars. It will be hard but we've had a couple years to get use to the idea and football season is still a few months away. I'm very excited for him and super proud.

I think that's enough catch up for now. I hear chaos going on in the other room and I have to go discipline some little people. Ahhh remember the days when you really looked forward to summer vacation? Those days are looooong gone!

My Gracie Jo turned 9 !

I say it every year but I just can't believe my big girl is another year older! Where has the time gone? It doesn't seem that long ago that we were celebrating her 8th birthday and it definitely doesn't seem like 9 years ago that we walked across the street to the Logan hospital to have our first baby! Gracie is such a sweetheart and has been such a big help to me these days. I'm realizing more and more that I really rely on her for help and it's so great to know she's getting old enough that i can really depend on her to help out. She is a such good student and loves school. We had to talk her into missing a half day of school to go to St. George with us last weekend. She was almost willing to miss out on our trip so she could go to school for half the day! Not sure where she gets that from! In the last year she has really grown up. She is more willing to try new things. She played junior Jazz basketball this year and really liked it and she also started taking guitar lessons. If she can just remember to practice I think she well be good at it. She has also become her dad's number one farm hand and drives the truck for him when he needs help feeding the cows. She is such a good example to her sisters and she loves them very much. She loves teaching them new things and is usually pretty willing to help them out. There are those times when she can get a little feisty and a tad on the moody side but she is a girl after all and we are learning that's what girls do. We love Gracie so much and can't wait to see what the future holds for her.

Cheese!

I finally caught a smile on camera! At 12 weeks old, this open mouth, toothless grin is priceless and for some reason it's even better at 3 am and mommy is the only one around who gets to enjoy it.