Audrey's 3rd birthday

Audrey had a crazy, fantastic birthday party. I decided to combine family and her friends from church which made for a very loud but fun party. Audrey adores Mickey and Minnie Mouse so her party was based on the show Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. The kids went through scenarios where they needed help from Toodles to fish for food, catch water from water balloons and at the very end was able to adpot an animal... which was a Beanie baby. The kiddos her age group were a little shy but played the games and had fun.

Right before her party I found a Minnie Mouse dress at Costco and she fell in love with it instantly. She wears it almost every Sunday at church.

She's pretty serious when giving a hug.

 She had two cakes, one on her actual birthday ( as seen above) and one at her birthday party (see pic below)

Audrey is so full of life and just fun to watch when she is babbling about the pretend worlds she puts herself in. She will make Legos or graham crackers have conversations with each other. She will definitely speak what is on her mind and always seems hungry. She is a bundle of energy in the morning and always wakes up happy and ready for someone to make her breakfast. There is never a dull moment with her. We love you Audrey.

Time Flies

You would think with only one child at home I could keep up with the blog more but for some reason I am worse. Leia's birthday came and went last August. She had a lot of fun with some of her friends coming over for a fairy/ butterfly party. The kids made fairy journals, painted fairy houses and went outside to catch some butterflies made out of tissue paper and candies. Leia LOVED having her friends over and enjoyed being able to play with them. I can't really think of anything else that happened but I'm sure she won't either.

Our little Leia is now five. She is continuing to improve at reading, loves to draw... still on her hands and I find her name written all over the house.  I just adore her laugh and the cackle that escapes her mouth when she finds something extremely funny. She still gives the best hugs. We love you Leia.

School has begun! 2014-2015

I currently cannot get to the pictures I wanted, so I am skipping a few months of Southworth happenings and will just begin, for now, with what we are currently doing. School started about a week and a half ago and so far things are going pretty well. My kiddos did not act how I thought they would on their first day, which was interesting to say the least.

Leia started Kindergarten this year and I was a bit nervous how she would do. I had flashbacks of the day her preschool teacher had to pry Leia off my leg or of the many conversations we had about how great Kindergarten would be and she would just simply say, "I don't want to go." Even enticing her by explaining she would have many, many parties in Kindergarten she stated, "I just will go the days they have a party and nothing else." I was pleasantly surprised that she had a great first day, even though she was there for six hours. I'll take the enthusiasm any day.

Ella was super excited to start school because she would see her friends. An added bonus was her teacher for Second grade is the teacher she had for Kindergarten. As we walked Ella to the playground she started to panic and decided she was not ready. I was in complete shock and just kind of stared in amazement as Ella started to cry and not want to start school. Crazy. I gave her a few big hugs, told her everything would be okay, that once she got into the classroom, looked around at all her friends and was once again with an awesome teacher, she would calm down and have a great day. She did eventually calm down and had an awesome day.

Jonathan started middle school this year which is a learning curve for him... and also me. He had to get use to maneuvering through a sea of students to get to the next class. I had to figure out the best path and method to dropping him off and picking him up. I won't lie, he was nervous but let's be truthful. I think just about everyone was nervous starting Jr. High. He did get his top choices for electives so that makes things better. So far he likes his classes and teachers.

As for the last kiddo, Audrey, she is loving having the house to herself. I thought she would miss Leia but I think Audrey just likes having the place to herself, where she does not have to share or compromise. That sounds like a pretty sweet deal.

 Meet the teacher night for Leia and Ella. They are in front of Leia's classroom. Leia's teacher was Ella's reading teacher in Kindergarten.

 Fist day of school! The kids started JULY 21st!!!

 Jonathan- 7th grade

 Ella- 2nd grade

 Leia- Kindergarten

During the first week of school, there was a curriculum night where just the parents attended and basically were instructed about how the teachers run their classroom and gave a general idea of what will be taught this year. I was able to find the picture Leia made of herself  the first day of school that night. She was sad it had to stay in the classroom and could not show me the picture. :( I think she did a fabulous job! I am so glad the girl loves Kindergarten because I was prepping for her to come home and declare, " worst. day. ever!"

Ella turned 7!

Life gave us a curve ball so the blog has been MIA. I am going to try and catch up, but many little details have escaped my fleeting memory so I am only able to write what I remember... which isn't a lot.

Ella had a fun b-day but had a weird time set for her party since we were leaving the next day for California. Her theme was My Little Pony and she helped pick out some of the decorations. I think we started out the day by making her pancakes and then doing a few last minute things for the party. My older kids are use to having friend/ school parties so we had friends first and then later family.

 Since her b-day was during the week, in the middle of spring vacation, in the middle of the day... only three friends were able to come. It actually made things low key and the kids were able to just enjoy playing together.

We like to have parties more on the old fashion side of things so we had a pin the cutie mark on the My Little Pony (Jonathan did an awesome job drawing the pony) and a water balloon toss. The kids liked both games and played them several times. I also had a little obstacle course where the kids jumped over clouds and crawled through pool noodles.Towards the end of the party the kids had to follow clues to find their goodie bags. We did that last year as well and the kids LOVED it. It might just be a tradition for all of Ella's parties. Side note... Jonathan got so excited that he went ahead of the group and started snagging the clues to find the box first. Luckily I noticed what he was doing and put a stop to it. It must be a good game if you can get an 11 year old excited.

In the evening we had family come over for pizza, games, cake and presents. We actually only played one game... the kiddos were having fun just playing together. The game we played, Ella played last year with her friends so it was new for family. It is kind of like hot potato but whoever got the box was able to unwrap one layer of wrapping paper and hidden inside was a candy bar! Once the kids discovered the candy, the game became more exciting and they were more willing to sit a circle.

It was a good day.

We love you Ella and are so glad to have you in our family. It is wonderful to watch you grow up into an independent, smart, talented, beautiful girl. I can't call you little anymore... which is sad but exciting at the same time. Enjoy being 7!

The Low Down

Man these posts are getting pretty sparse. Oh well, at least I am trying. Here are some of the little things that have happened since Christmas.

Jonathan completed a Science project testing how effective two different insulations were. He enjoyed the process  and received second place for his class which he was pretty happy about. Here are a couple pics of the setup. On a side note, I am so glad to finally have my blowdryer back.

 

The biggest news around here, at least for the LDS community, was the open house of the Gilbert temple. Tickets sold out fast but we got some and were able to walk through with LynMarie and the kiddos. It was super cute to see Ella and Spencer walk through the temple hand in hand. I had a lot of fun showing Leia the different sealing rooms and she loved the sparkly room. It is a beautiful temple.

Our Stake has a special event where all the kids who memorize their Articles of Faith get to go to a special awards ceremony and then eat ice cream. Jonathan barely had them memorized in time but he did it and went. While there another parent told us last year they called kids up and asked them to randomly say an article. This made Jonathan extremely nervous and he wanted to use my phone to look over them "just in case". Well, kiddos were called up, but just to receive their award so a lot of worrying over nothing happened. 

Valentine's Day came and went. We made special cards for the grandparents.

 After waiting patiently for over 10 years I finally received some Hot Hearts from Sees candy. Soooo worth the wait. Best Valentine's Day ever!

Our troll...

 Soo, Audrey wanted me to take a picture of her and this is the face she made. While Ryan was in CA for training, I sent him the picture of Audrey, which made him laugh and he now refers to her as the troll :( I decided to spruce up the photo to make her look scary.

 In an attempt to get more veggies and fruits into the kiddos, I have been making smoothies. They only have fruit and spinach in them... none of the extra stuff. The kids like them but are starting to not gobble them down as quickly. Hopefully that will change as the weather gets warmer... and it has started to warm up.

MORE MESSES!! No matter how hard I try to keep the house clean, messes keep popping up everywhere.

 This happened while I was in the bathroom.

 This is the aftermath of some art projects.


We decided to take one more trip to the temple... on the last day of Open House. Trying to beat the long line, especially since we did not have tickets this time, we arrived 10 minutes before it began and there was already a huge line of people. We waited about an hour to get in and then it took another hour to go through the tour. The temple was averaging 12,000-20,000 visitors a day. They ordered 500,000 booties for people thinking that would be enough and then started to run out at the beginning of the last week! Lots of people took the opportunity to see the inside before it will be dedicated.

 Leia got a stylish haircut :)

At school Jonathan learned about Greek mythology and last Friday all the 6th graders had a wax museum we could go to. Each kid picked a person to learn about, wrote a script about that person, memorized it and then performed it if anyone stepped on their "button". We ended up pushing Jonathan's button four times. He, he, he. He actually had a lot of people push his button and was one busy guy at the event... or should I say girl because he was Athena.

 Audrey's lovely troll face... again.

 Later in the evening was an Open house type of event at school but unfortunately I did not get any photos of that. It was just me and the girls so I was pretty occupied. The girls had a lot of fun and I made a bid on a basket. I'll find out tomorrow if I won.


On Friday I finally made playdough from the recipe Leia's teacher gave her on Valentine's day. The girls had tons of fun playing with it... non stop for almost two days. We had playdough everywhere! Yet another mess but so much better than tv.

Leia's talk

Leia gave a talk in Primary today and I just want to write it down somewhere to remember it. I think this is the second talk she has given so far. She was awesome and I am so grateful she was willing to do it. Giving a talk can be scary, at any age! Anyways, here it is:

My body is created in the image of God. When I look in a mirror, what I see is an image of myself. I have two eyes, so my image has two eyes. I have two arms, so my image has two arms. Since we are created in God's image, we look like him. He has two ears, so we have two ears. He has fingers, so we have fingers.

President Thomas S. Monson said this about God: "God our Father has ears with which to hear our prayers. He has eyes with which to see our actions. He has a mouth with which to speak to us. He has a heart with which to feel compassion and love. He is real. He is living. We are his children made in his image. We look like him and he looks like us".

I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Butterfly Wonderland

I think it was the week before Christmas we had a little family outing at a Butterfly place on the Indian Reserve. It boasted having the largest butterfly atrium. I am really at a loss for choosing the best words for telling this story so please forgive me.

We started out with watching a 3D movie about Monarch butterflies and the adventure they go through during their migration. It takes three generations of the butterfly to complete the migration with the last generation being a "super" butterfly that lives and flies longer than the first two generations. It was rather fascinating to watch. During the movie, the two little girlies got out of their seats trying to "catch" a butterfly. That was also fascinating, and quite entertaining.

After the movie we walked into a room with hundreds of cocoons and several different butterfly species. We stayed a while in there and were able to see a few butterflies hatch along with seeing some drying their wings. That was amazing as well.

The last leg was an area where you could walk around and be with the butterflies. I thought Leia would love this part, especially since every night she thanks Heavenly father for butterflies. Instead, she was incredibly nervous and towards the end had a major freak out when a butterfly tried to land on her. Other than that freak out and a few Audrey had, it was quite relaxing to be there listening to the mellow music and just enjoy looking at all the beautiful butterflies. Even Jonathan liked it so much he wants to go back someday.

 Right before the movie started.

 A shot of when we first walked into the butterfly atrium.

 Ella next to a Monarch butterfly.

 These two girlies started to have meltdowns so I took them aside and tried to calm them down.

 Jonathan with a butterfly on his head.

Ella spent a LONG time on that bench sitting still and waiting for a butterfly to land on her. Her patience paid off and at one time two were hanging out with her.

Christmas time

For the past couple years I have been trying to change the focus of the Christmas season for our family. I try to keep the kids occupied with thinking about others instead of themselves and what presents they will get for Christmas. To help switch the focus we have a special box where every time the kids do something for someone else, they write it down and it becomes one of the "gifts" we give Jesus. Then on Christmas we open the box and read all the papers. The kids also pick a name of a fellow sibling and buy a gift for that person. Everything is kept "secret" until gifts are exchanged. This year Jonathan and Ella used their own money to buy the gift, which they happened to get each other. This special gift is opened on Christmas Eve, along with the traditional PJs. Even though I feel like we could do more,  I also feel like we are truly trying to remember what the season is about.

We did a few things during the weeks leading up to Christmas which were fun. We took the kiddos to Build-A-Bear where they made a bear which would be donated to a local hospital for their children's intensive care unit. We donated the bears through a Boy Scouts eagle project. Our neighbor and a friend of hers came over to help the kiddos decorate cookies. Jonathan and I spent four hours putting together a play kitchen my parents bought for the girls. We were so happy when it was finally put together.

About a week and a half before Christmas we tried to complete the countdown to Christmas advent calendar that was in the Friend magazine. We took a special trip out to see the Gilbert temple at night, read a few different scriptures about light, sang a few songs and turned out the lights to our home and then one-by-one turned them back on. We also watched The Nativity and The Other Wise Man on the Monday before Christmas. The kids really got into the second movie and Ella seemed to get the message, that our acts of kindness and service to others is also a way we serve and show our Savior that we love him.

 On Christmas Eve I took the kids to our neighbors' houses where we dropped of a gift and some home made caramels. The kids had a lot of fun wrapping the caramels. Audrey actually did a fantastic job. Once at each house the kids were so excited they were practically yelling when they talked. Yowsers! It was nice to see how happy they were giving gifts rather than just receiving them. The girls also helped me make Jewish Apple cake. Christmas Eve is also when we have our "big" dinner which we ended up having Reuben and his family over. Then I made hot chocolate to go, we loaded into our cars and Jonathan led us on the Dolphin Express. He kept us occupied on a scavenger hunt, along with asking us questions while we took a trip out to the Mesa temple. The kids enjoyed the trip, except for Leia. She thought we would be able to walk around the temple and was disappointed that we only drove around it.

 We got our Christmas tree early this year! It was so big we had to buy a new stand. Jonathan and I had to move it into the house since Ryan was still recovering from his back issues.

 

 The kiddos had a lot of fun making and decorating cookies with our neighbor.

 An art project Leia made at preschool.

 The girls helping me make Jewish Apple cake. Audrey did a fantastic job at coating the apple slices with sugar and cinnamon.

 Christmas PJs!!!

 Leia received this gift from Audrey.

 Ella received this gift from Jonathan.

 Christmas morning!!!

 

At church I helped the little Nursery kids make this craft so they could take home their own baby Jesus. Ella and Leia loved them so much, they also made one when we came home.


The kids had an awesome Christmas. They loved all the toys our families members sent them. Audrey enjoyed eating lots of candy. The kids spent most of the day just playing with their new toys. In the evening, right before bed, we went through the box of "gifts" for Jesus. It was fun to see the girls' faces light up when an act of service was mentioned that they were a part of. I love this time of year and am always a little sad when it ends.