Happy birthday Rachel!

We had a little friend party for Rachel's birthday last Saturday. She was so excited to have a "princess" party.

The party-goers (minus one, who came late)

My princess doll cake. It really was pretty easy, even for me (I am very much impaired in the cake department).

And Rachel loved it.

Present time! Thanks everyone--she got some fun new toys that she's been enjoying all week.

The first game we played was a silly dress-up game. Two "princesses" were chosen, and everyone else was blindfolded with the task of getting dress-up clothes from the basket and putting them on the princesses. This was quite a hilarious process!

We did another game that involved two teams drawing and decorating their princess step by step. It was really fun and we ended up with some cute princesses!


We also played pin-the-crown-on-the-princess and did a pretty craft. It was a fun party!

On Rachel's actual birthday, we opened presents from family.

My amazing mom crochets these adorable bead socks for little girls. My girls have grown up wearing these; I love them so much. And my mom did a whole new batch of socks for Rachel in every color! This is especially neat because my mom's eyesight is not the best. Thank you so much, mom! These are a treasure.


Daddy was so cute and invited her to lunch at Wendy's on her birthday. She couldn't be more excited for her daddy-daughter date!

We love our miss Rachel so much! She is still called Ray-Ray quite a bit (those baby nicknames stick!!!), but she doesn't mind. She loves to draw pictures, put on her play make-up, play with stickers, play with Emma, read, go to school, make up stories, ride her trike, and snuggle. She LOVES to chew gum and asks for a piece almost every day. She also loves masking tape these days--she's either taping up her pictures all over the house or she uses the tape to decorate her pictures. She's starting to write words. Her favorite movie is "Cinderella." She's such a good girl and is so obedient. Her huge, dimply smile lights up my day! We can't imagine life without her! Happy "five," Rachel!

Three months

Sweet Max is three months old today! Isn't he cute? I'm having a hard time getting a good picture of his darling smile. Oh well.



Several weeks ago Rachel drew a picture for Max and taped it up in his room above his changing table. He ADORES it. Every time he gets changed he smiles and coos at that picture. Ben took some photos of him doing it last night. So sweet.


The kids love Max so much. They especially love it now that he can interact with them. Max loves to play peek-a-boo with Emma, be read to by Rachel, and snuggle with Luke. And Emma's pretty good at feeding Max a bottle too. It's awesome! I love my fantastic four.



Happy three months Max!

Oh happy day!

We love this kid! Doesn't he have the sweetest smile?
Did I mention Luke's two nicknames for Max? "Big guy" and "milk man." Hilarious!

School!

Emma's first day of 2nd grade two weeks ago.

Rachel started her last year of pre-school today. Woo hoo!

All Max

This post is all about Max. He'll be two months old on Saturday and I can't believe it! Well....I can and I can't. It does seem like awhile ago that I was hugely pregnant and sleeping all the way through the night (except for potty breaks!!). But I really can't believe that a full two months have passed since our little Maxi (yes, I know--it's a terrible nickname; hopefully it won't evolve into maxi-pad or something!!!) arrived. I love the stage he is in. He is becoming much more content and alert and is smiling and interacting more. He just started cooing and it melts my heart to have "conversations" with him. He's sleeping pretty good at night too, going down about 9:00ish and not waking up until around 5:00 a.m.; then he goes back to sleep until about 7:30 or 8:00 a.m. I can handle that. He's such a sweet baby and we all just love to be around him. Here are some pictures of him over the past several weeks.

My boys!

This is from the Fourth of July (don't you love the hand lopped over the side??). Max just slept in his bouncy seat the whole evening. It amazes me how babies can sleep through such noise and chaos!

2 weeks old

My four babies!

Look at that sweet profile.

Each of the kids with their new brother. So cute!



His "adopted" Aunt Sarah. :)

Grandpa time.

Chubby cheeks!

I love my boy so much!


7 weeks old

Smiling at Emma--she was over the moon!

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to capture a good photo of him smiling yet. Hopefully soon. His face just lights up!
Love you, Maximus!

Whew! Six weeks of fun.

What we've been up to in the past six weeks......

Snuggling Max. This kid gets more love than I ever imagined (and it's definitely TOO much love sometimes...poor kid). :)

The kids are loving our garden. They loved picking all of the snap peas and eating them right there. And Emma loves to go out every day and see what's ripe. Gardens are great. Too bad we can't have them year-round.

The Fourth of July was spent with my family this year. It was so fun to spend this day together! I'm so glad they were out here for it.
We did patriotic crafts,

jumped on the tramp,

colored with Aunt Ali (the best colorer in the universe),

watched the neighbors' fireworks, followed by going over to watch the city's fireworks show. It was great!

Even Max enjoyed his first Fourth of July, chillin' with his papa.


Ben turned ___ (I'll let you guess how old he is...). Happy birthday! We went to Tucano's with my parents (minus kids) and enjoyed lunch and a raucous happy birthday song. Isn't Ben awesome with that tambourine???

We had a family reunion for my mom's side of the family. We ate dinner at a park and then had the entire Lehi pool to ourselves from 9-11pm that night. It was late and the kids were tired, but we had a blast. Luke especially loved squirting my mom in the face with these little fountains.

We took a trip to Cascade Springs one afternoon. So pretty up there.

Heritage Park in Cedar Hills is always a fun place to visit in the summertime.

New cowgirl hats! Aren't they stinkin' cute???

We blessed Max! We were able to bless him just before a family reunion so many extended family were able to attend and participate in the blessing. It was great! Doesn't he look so handsome in his little white tux???

I got to meet my new nephew, Michael, five months old. He's so cute!

My grandparents celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary with a bang. We had a beautiful dinner catered by Magleby's, formal family portraits, and a dance DJed by none other than my sweet bro, Cameron. It was so much fun! This is my papa with Luke.

Getting down at the dance!


We've been swimming quite a bit, especially for having a new baby. We swam at the Lehi aquatics center, the pool at my parents' timeshare in Park City, and we tried out the Lindon Aquatics center (which we loved!!!).

A trip to Bridal Veil Falls with our best buddies.

We checked out the new and improved walkway south of BYU campus. There is a beautiful little creek running alongside it and five gorgeous waterfalls. It ends at the Botany Pond where turtles, fish, and ducks abound.


We then ate lunch at Brick Oven. Yummy root beer floats!!!

I know there weren't too many pictures of Max in this post. He deserves his own post, which hopefully I'll be able to get up in the next few days. He's getting so big already!