more pictures

Here are some more pictures of the girls. We raked up all the leaves in the backyard and the girls had a blast playing in them!












And here's a picture from Halloween. We didn't really do much this year. The girls just picked costumes out of our costume box and we went to the mall to trick-or-treat. We took their two friends from next door with us. As you can see, Elena is wearing the Jessie hat (from Toy Story) with a princess dress and a gun. She was Princess Jessie. :)


Amya had backwards day at her school and came up with this whole outfit by herself. I was only going to put her hair in a side ponytail and then she said "Wait! Do my bangs on the other side!"So we did that, she wore her shirt and pants backwards, she has on my socks, and two different shoes. She really had a lot of fun with it.


And here's Maricela in her pretty birthday dress from my mom, when she was barely starting to walk.

pictures

here's a link to my flickr pictures. I put up pictures from disney, sea world, and the beach. Let me know if you have any problems viewing them.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/raisingmygirls/sets/72157602914048593/

my eyes hurt

Well, I finally came upstairs and loaded the pictures onto the computer. But since my eyes are hurting and it's after 11, I think I'll wait till tomorrow to upload them here. And there are so many I want to share - I might have to put them on Flickr.

When I was typing the title, I remembered an Amya story I wanted to share. We went to the church the other night for a Family Home Evening type activity. They were telling the story that goes along with the "I'll Find You My Friend" song. It talks about how there were two friends in the pre-existence, and they both find out it's their time to come to Earth, and one is going to an LDS home and the other isn't and the one who isn't asks the other friend to come find him and share the gospel with him after they get there. Anyway, they're telling this story and then they start singing the song, and Amya leans over to me. She says "Mom, my eyes hurt and I feel like crying, but I don't have to." I asked her if her bangs were bothering her eyes and she said no. I asked if she liked what they were talking about and she said no. I asked her if she was feeling the Holy Ghost and that's why she was crying and she said she didn't think so. I told her it was okay for her to cry, it just meant she liked what they were saying and she buried her head in Keith's back and cried a little. It was so touching to me. I know she felt the Spirit (cause I was pretty close to crying myself) and just didn't know how to express it. I don't even know how to say what I'm trying to say, but I just thought it was such a sweet moment and I hope that she'll remember it.

And one other funny thing. Keith was talking about someone the other day and said "Yeah, he's crazy." Téa immediately asked "Crazy? Fox crazy?" Keith likes to say crazy like a fox and she had remembered that. Keith said he busted up laughing when she said that.

Okay, hopefully I'll either have pictures up tomorrow, or a link to my Flickr account with lots of pictures.

sorry mom

still no pictures. I just can't get my lazy butt up the stairs to load them onto the computer. This wireless on my laptop is totally spoiling me. But here are some updates sin fotos (that's spanish for without pictures).

Maricela folds her arms to say the prayer. Every time. And the other night Keith said "Hey you know what you can do to calm her down when she's going crazy?" He started saying a prayer and she immediately turned around, folded her arms and smiled. SO cute. She waves bye, has 12 teeth, walks and gets into everything everywhere, and is just turning into the cutest little person ever.

Elena can write her own name!!!! And guess who taught her - Amya! Amya absolutely loves to play school with the girls. She has rules and makes 'plans' and everything. We got a little annoyed with her the other day because she glued a class schedule she had made to the wall. Nice. Anyway, back to Elena. Amya was making her practice the letters in her name. She totally got the E and the L and then just needed a little more help from me to get the N and the A. But now she's writing it all by herself and is so smart! She's so proud of herself and keeps asking us if we want to watch her write her name again.

Amya and Elena both know their parts for the Primary presentation. Elena's is "Tengo fe en el Senor Jesucristo". And Amya's is "Yo tambien soy una hija de Dios. Mi padre celestial tiene un plan para mi". Elena is so cute - she'll say "Mom do you want me to say my prayer?" and then say her little part.

Did I already tell you about all the coloring Téa is doing? I think I did. But I just can't get over it. She's constantly coloring (even on our walls) and today she wanted to write her name like Elena was. I helped her write it, and then she tried to do it again by herself. She didn't do too bad for her first try! And then she drew a picture of herself next to her name - a cute little potato with hair and sticks for arms. It's so neat to watch these girls go through the same stages of writing and drawing that we saw with Amya. It's just really interesting to me to have learned all this stuff about how kids learn and when they start to do things like read and write and how they go through these different phases, and then to watch my kids do those things I learned about. (Sorry for that annoying run-on sentence.)

Well, maybe if I get enough sleep tonight, I'll have enough energy to go upstairs tomorrow and get some pictures posted. Don't cross your fingers though. :) TTFN!

new favorite movie

Keith and I went to see Dan in Real Life last night. LOVED it. It was definitely one of the best movies I've seen in a long time. It even made Keith tear up a little. And then later when we were walking in the mall, I told him I knew he had started to tear up, and he did again! Girly-man. :) You all have to go see this movie. It was awesome and it's totally in my top ten movies. Keith was asking today when we're going to go see it again. I'm not lying, and I can't say it enough, this movie is awesome.

P.S. If you don't know what movie I'm talking about, here's a link to the official site
http://daninreallife.movies.go.com/

comin to ya live... (part 2)

from San Diego!! We left our hotel this morning to drive down here to take the girls to Sea World. They were so excited to see Shamu again. And this time we got to feed the dolphins and all the girls got the chance to touch a dolphin. That was pretty dang cool. We also fed the seals. The trainer told us not to dangle the little fish over the edge because there were seagulls all around, just waiting for you to do that so they can fly in and steal the fish before the seal gets it. Sure enough, Elena dangled hers over and I got a picture of the bird stealing it out of her hand. Speaking of Elena, we only lost her twice today. So I'd say our parenting skills have greatly improved. Side note - I walked away from her just a little (like 5 feet), but she didn't see me walk away. She turned around, and started looking all around for me. Once she saw that I was nearby, she kind of chuckled and then said "Oh! I thought I was lost again!" And if anyone is wondering, the Orlando Sea World is definitely better than the San Diego one. Not that this one wasn't fun, because it was, the Orlando one is just bigger and better. I don't know what we'll do tomorrow. We don't really know. Maybe check out the Pacific coast beaches (I've never seen the Pacific before - but I'm sure it can't compare with the beaches of Naples) or just sightsee around town. I guess if you care you can check back in tomorrow night. And I still can't post any pictures, but I was able to find these ones of us from the Buzz Lightyear ride at Disney. The one of Amya and Téa didn't come out for some reason, but there's one of me with Maricela, and Keith with Elena. And just so you know, my score is slightly lower than Keith's because I was trying to take pictures and wasn't really concentrating on shooting. (It's actually an improvement on my score from last year!)

comin to ya live...

from Disney!! Amya and I have our fall break this weekend. Keith and I had talked about taking the girls to Disney but didn't have any definite plans. Wed night we were talking about what we wanted to do over this break and Keith said, "So what about Disney?" We packed up and left the next morning. We just spent 11 hours at Disneyland with the girls (which may have been a few too many). I don't have a cord to connect my camera to my laptop, so I can't post any pics, but we had a great time. The girls looked for characters to get autographs, we rode all the rides they wanted to, we lost Elena at least four times and we watched the parade twice. It was a blast. But I'm seriously thinking about stopping at WalMart for a leash for Elena tomorrow before we take off for SeaWorld. If our hotel down there has wireless, I'll update again....maybe we'll only lose her three times tomorrow.



=

so......

I don't even know where to start. I think I'll just separate by girl, and we'll start with the oldest.

Amya:
Amya had her seventh birthday almost two weeks ago. It seems like I say this all the time, but I just can't believe how fast she is growing up. She got a new bike from us for her birthday and, though she didn't want us to, we got her a big one with no training wheels and different speeds and all that stuff. She was very apprehensive about riding it. She wanted us to buy training wheels to put on it until she could get used to it. But Keith said we should just get it and teach her to ride it without the training wheels. We got home and tried it out. She wanted me to help her, not Keith, because she was afraid Keith would let her fall. So I ran alongside her while she pedaled. She thought I was holding on to the back of her seat, but I had let go almost as soon as she had taken off. She rode that thing the very first time she got on! I was so excited - I was having to hold in the shouts of congratulations so that she wouldn't realize I wasn't holding on. She didn't even know until we got to the end of the road and I told her she had ridden the whole way by herself. After that, she rode up and down the road all by herself. She's still having a little bit of a hard time turning, and starting, but she'll get it. We are just so proud of her!

Elena:
Elena's fourth birthday is this coming Wednesday. Again, how did she get so big? We bought a new bike for her birthday present as well, and she is so excited about it. She picked out a pretty princess bike with streamers and a backpack and then insisted on getting a princess helmet to go with it. She is our little princess girl. It's amazing how much of a girly girl she is, while still being a tomboy. She'll be out playing in the mud while wearing a princess costume. But she has a lot of fun riding on her bike and trying to keep up with Amya.


Tea:
Tea has had a bike since her second birthday. We got her this little tiny tricycle that we thought she would be able to ride. She has never actually ridden it. She would sit on the bike and push her feet along the road to go. She never pedaled. The day we brought home Amya and Elena's new bikes and were encouraging them to ride and helping them with their bikes, she finally decided to ride. It was like one second she couldn't ride, and the next second she could. And that little girl can go fast on her bike. It's so cute to see her pedaling her little feet and trying to keep up with her big sisters. Tea has also started to really love coloring. It used to be that she would grab a crayon and just scribble all over anything in front of her. Now she's coloring in actual coloring books and trying hard to stay inside the lines. She's so cute when she comes to show us the new page she's colored. You can see how proud she is of herself and how happy it makes her when we make a big deal out of it.


Maricela:
I think Maricela is the one we've seen the most growth in during the last month. But then again, she's a growing baby who's learning new things every day. The most exciting thing is that she's walking! It has taken her what seems like such a long time to get to this point. She started taking just little baby steps (baby steps down the hall, baby steps onto the elevator...) and now she's walking around the house. She's been trying for about a month now. Like I said, it started with just one little step here and there. Then she was taking two steps, falling down, and crawling the rest of the way. Then it was like five steps before she would fall, and then crawl. Now she's walking everywhere, and if she falls, she gets right back up and walks some more. She doesn't want to crawl at all anymore. She's so cute! I'm having a hard time finding clothes for her though. You'd think having three girls before her would give me plenty of things to choose from. I don't know where things have gone, but I can't find enough clothes in my stockpile to keep her clothed. And the scary thing is that she's wearing basically the same size clothes as Tea! Tea is so tiny, and Maricela is so big, that they can basically share clothes! And we finally found some tennies that fit her....her feet were so fat that they wouldn't fit into any shoes we tried on her. She could wear sandals that would velcro over, but we could not find tennis shoes that her feet would fit into. I was getting scared because it's getting colder here, and she needed some shoes to protect her feet. Thankfully, we found some and she loves them! When she sees me coming towards her with the shoes, she starts laughing and wiggling her feet. She's such a fun little baby! Oh yeah, she also has four molars now! And I didn't even know they had come in. I was tickling her one day, and she was throwing her head back to laugh, and I saw something in her mouth. I tipped her back to inspect, and there were four molars in there! She hadn't had a fever, hadn't complained, nothing. Such an easy baby!

Well, I've got all the typing done, now I need to add some pictures. I'll have to go upstairs for that (I am loving our new wireless - I can get on the internet from my school laptop downstairs and still be with the kids!). So hopefully during naps today I can get upstairs to upload some pictures. I also have video of the girls on their bikes and Maricela walking. So if you read this and there aren't any pictures yet, come back later to see those.

slacking

so I'm a slacker and I know it. believe me, i feel really guilty. so guilty that i've stopped using capitals. actually, i think that's just laziness, but who knows. i need to post some pictures. i need to talk about amya's birthday, and all the milestones ALL of my girls have crossed. but it's so hard to climb the stairs and listen to my girls playing downstairs. i want to be with them because i've missed them all day long. and at the end of the day i just want to go to bed, i don't want to get on the computer. but i need to get this stuff down. otherwise i'll forget. so i'm making a goal to blog every day this week and get caught up on the memory keeping i'm supposed to be doing. and i'll start that tomorrow. (look at me procrastinating already)

daddy's girl

Oh my sweet Mari. She is growing up so fast, and her cute little personality is totally coming out. I think we've got another Kei Jr. on our hands. She loves to make silly little faces and laugh and giggle with her sisters.

And if you were wondering, she has her seventh tooth. It's been there for awhile and I keep forgetting to document it. But it's her bottom right, next to the front teeth. So now she has four on top and three on the bottom.

I start my first full week of school this week. The past two weeks we had half-days so that we could hold SEP conferences. So I felt like it was a lot of fluff work, not a lot of curriculum, as we got all of our beginning of the year testing done. Now that that's over, and it's time to start the "real" stuff, I'm starting to get nervous all over again. Ugh. Wish me luck!!

amya's first day of school

I made this page today. I can't believe how big she's getting. I know I keep saying that, but seriously, the time is just flying.

I blurred the names of her school and her teachers cause I didn't want to put too much info out there for all the crazies.

And, just in case you were wondering, this is my 100th post! Cool.

new pictures

So, I have way too many pictures I want to show you guys. Way more than blogger will let me put up. So I put them all on my flickr account, which you can access here http://www.flickr.com/photos/raisingmygirls/. I'll be adding more later today, but for now there are some pictures of the girls and of my classroom. Enjoy!

silly baby

Someone pointed out this video on YouTube and I thought it was so funny. You can't help but laugh along with this baby.



And I should be updating with some pics soon. I know I've been neglecting the old blog, but this teaching thing is SO much harder than I expected. I'm lucky if I can remember how to get home by the end of the day.... blogging's not that high on my list right now. But I do have some things to share, so hopefully I'll get to that either today or tomorrow. I'm not sure what your guys' houses would look like after a week of you not being there and your husband taking care of your CRAZY kids, but mine's looking like a pack of ravenous wolves (who also like to pull toys and clothes out of their proper places) ransacked the house. Yesterday I came home to hard-boiled egg all over the living room floor. Seriously, pieces of egg (and the shells) all over the floor. I'm wondering if Keith goes around blindfolded during the day. And what did I do? Did I clean it up? No, I took the kids out for pizza. So I think I better go get started on some cleaning, before deadly bacteria start growing in our house. See ya later.

i think i'm going to cry

Seriously. When did a teenager move into my house? Okay, maybe not a teenager, but someone older than 6! Look at this....

Amya has been wanting bangs like mine for awhile now. Yesterday we went up to Ogden to visit Ian's family. While we were up there, Kristy (my college roommate and hair stylist) came over and Amya asked her to finally cut her some bangs. I just can't believe how old and mature she looks now. I can still see my little baby Amya in there, but she's growing and changing and it's just happening WAY too fast. Amya is so happy with her bangs though. She made this scrapbook page tonight. Again, if you could leave her a comment, that would be so cool. She was so excited about all the ones you guys left her for her last page. (If you click on the scrapbook page, you can see it a lot bigger.)

And now I'm off to cry myself to sleep....