Lucy’s 2nd

I am usually the kind of mom who has birthdays planned out for months in advance.   I have also been known to go a little overboard with these kind of celebrations for my children.  Lucy’s 1st birthday was an awesome party but perhaps a little over kill for a child who won’t even remember it.  (Thank you Tammy for making all of the the little girls darling tutu’s and Annie for running our photo shoot area.)  After that extravaganza Taylor was not wanting make such a huge fuss out her Lucy’s birthday this year.  I actually saw the fear in his eyes as her birthday grew closer.  Since I am the kind of girl who likes to keep him guessing I decided to actually tone down her birthday and have a low key affair.  We had a little hot dog dinner at the local park with just family and a few close friends.  Shocking, I know.  It was actually a ton of fun just letting Lucy run around with her little cousins and buddies.  We had cupcakes and a piñata which are basically the easiest party tricks ever.  I had an accident with a piñata when I was a child that involved getting railed in the head with a piñata stick so I always purchase the piñatas that have the ribbons you pull instead of the kind you hit.  I thought by doing this I would be in the clear for someone getting hurt.  Not so.  Weston got smacked in the face when Taylor was spilling out candy from the opened piñata.   I had to include this cute pic of Lucy and her darling little friend Layla.  Susan (Layla’s Mom) is one of my favorite people and we were so happy that our kids love each other too!   A picture with my good friend Catherine is becoming a tradition for Lucy’s birthdays.  Her first birthday Catherine is holding her in most the pictures.  I must say that the party was fun and I sure didn’t miss the all the planning and work that go into a big party.  Most importantly Lucy was happy and felt the love of those close to us. 

Oh James

Today Jameson got four stars at preschool!! Way to go James!  When that happens he gets to choose a prize out of the treasure box.  He chose a stamper, a red stamper.  He then proceeded to suck on the cap of it on the way home and stain his lips bright red for a few days.  I love this silly, wacky little darling cutie of mine. 

Christmas 2011

I didn’t take a ton of pictures this Christmas! I’m shocked and disappointed in myself.   However I think I got the important ones.  Every year on Christmas Eve Taylor’s wonderful mother cooks us all an amazing Christmas Eve feast.  After we have sufficiently stuffed ourselves silly we have a little Christmas program were the kids reenact the Christmas story.  This year Wes got to be Joseph!  Lucy was a sheep with Dagen and James was a shepherd.  It is always a lot of work but I love having that special time where the kids focus on Christ and what Christmas is all about.  When we came home from that we opened our Christmas PJ’s ( Wes got Iron Man, Thomas for James and Ariel for Lucy) and put out Christmas cookies for Santa ( nice finger Wes!) Next the kids wanted to say goodbye to Poppy our “Elf on the Shelf.”  (If you don’t know what this is look it up…best thing we ever got…..thank you Megan McEwan!)   Then the kids hopped into bed. 

PS  Notice the eyeliner stain on Weston’s chin from his Joseph beard.

Christmas morning the kids were up bright and early and were so excited to run downstairs.  We blockaded the stairs so they couldn’t get down there while we were still asleep.  The look or pure joy on their faces when they see there presents is so precious.  It’s just pure joy and excitement.  Weston wanted a pogo stick.  James got a power wheels jeep and a Polar Express toy train set, and Lucy a kitchen set amongst other gifts.  We put toys together until our fingers bleed.  Seriously why do they have to secure toys in their packaging with wire and all manner of craziness?!?!?! After playing with our toys ( and new trampoline!) we head to our Christmas movie with the family.  This year was the new Chipmunks: the Squeakquel movie followed by dinner at Panda Express.  A lovely Christmas indeed.

That’s the way things happen on the Polar Express!

The Polar Express train ride has been a tradition for our family for 5 years now.  We absolutely love the Polar Express movie and of course our kids love trains.  We found that the Polar Express ride in Arizona was WAY better than the one in Utah.  For those who don’t know the Polar Express comes to a local train station and you get to board a ride to the North Pole.  The train car has Chef helpers (like the hot chocolate ones in the movie.)  They serve hot chocolate and cookies, read the story of the Polar Express, and greet Santa as we arrive in the north Pole.  The North Pole is a big village of lights complete with the sleigh scene from the movie with Elves and the big man himself.  Then Santa boards the train and greets every child and gives them a bell.  The look on the kids faces in priceless and it is now and forever a Proudfit Family Christmas tradition.

 

We decided to stop the the cabin on the way up to the train ride and check out the progress.  Only the foundation was poured and we thought it would be cute to get a picture of the kids sitting on it to later put in the finished cabin.   Mel and I also took the opportunity to take family Christmas card photos in the picturesque woods.

Halloween 2011

We LOVE Halloween in this house!  This year Wes decided to be Wolverine, James Woody and Lucy Minnie Mouse.  As always they were completely decked out and as cute as ever.  We took them for our traditional Halloween free picture at Kiddie Kandids ( thanks for that awesome idea Mike and Mel!)  This year Halloween was a little different because it fell on a SUnday.  So we went to 2 ward trunk or treats and then stayed home and handed out candy with Mike and Mel on Halloween.  We still did our traditional chili dinner and mulled cider.  I think the kids had even more fun handing out candy than they do trick or treating!  We let them eat candy while we did it and we all sat in the drive so the kids could play the whole time.  I think it might have been the best Halloween ever!

Weston’s First Day of Kindergarten

Weston has on of those unfortunate birthdays that lands him two days outside of the cutoff date for school.  He tested in early for kindergarten and attended a year but we decided to hold him back and have him repeat kindergarten again.  I mean why rush him through school?  He was just as excited for this first day and just as cute as ever.  The nausea induced by having him gone subsided after a few days since he was older now.  He did great in school this year and totally lead his class.  Great job Westers!

Family Camping trip

I’m going to let the pictures tell the story of this fun Proudfit family camping trip.  It was dirty, exhausting. fun, hilarious and we were outta there first thing in the morning.

 

A Rough Night

It seems an uncanny truth that whenever Taylor is out of town all heck breaks loose.  Either someone throws up or my children become possessed little monsters.  This was one such night.  Taylor and Mike were out of town on business and of course my kids were acting like little monsters.  I spent a lot of the day yelling (really yelling) at my kids.  By the end of the day I had had it and was on the verge of really losing it so I called Mel.  We decided to get the kids Chik Fil A and take them to Grandma’s swimming.  By the time everyone ate and was swimming things had clamed down (plus there was another adult there to keep things in perspective.)  As Mel and I talked she was telling me how her day was similar to mine.  We both began to get sad with the thought that all our kids were going to remember us for was yelling at them.  We then hatched a brilliant plan.  First let me say that neither Mel nor I usually swim with the kids ( that early in the season anyway) so much so that we don’t even bother wearing our swimsuits most of the time.  It hit us that if we jumped in the pool with our clothes on to play with the kids they would be so shocked and happy that they would forget our grumpy behavior earlier in the day.  In we went.  Then we pushed Grandma and Grandpa in the water in their clothes as well.  It was so much fun and the kids thought we had lost our minds……….but they had forgotten all about our yelling and just remembered how fun and crazy their moms were.  Mission accomplished.

Weston’s 6th Birthday

Weston turned 6!!!  I can hardly believe my baby is 6 years old.  He is truly a dream child.  So loving and respectful, always trying to do what is right.  He changed my life forever and will forever be my little man.  My kids usually start thinking about the “theme” of their birthday parties months in advance (I have no idea where they get that from ).  Wes decided to have a Mario Brothers birthday since he is recently obsessed with Super Mario Bros. for the Wii.  We had family and a few friends over for a Mario themed spaghetti dinner.   Since it is roughly 5,000 degrees here in September we also put up our huge blow up water slide for the kids to play on.  He had a blast.

That night after the festivities we had Isaac and Collin sleep over for more party time.  They we crazy, went to bed late and had a blast.  When they woke up we surprised them and took them to breakfast at Krispy Kreme (Weston’s favorite breakfast spot.) After that we figured we had better take them to a place to work out all of that sugar so we went to Oasis Gymnastics for open gym and let then run wild.   It was a great birthday for a great boy.  Love you baby!