Check out this adorable little guy! I absolutely love this age! Check out some more photographs here.

Soccer, a birthday, and muffins with mom

A couple weeks ago, (yeah, that's how far behind I am), Peyton started her first sport!! She's a little soccer player, and it's so dang fun to watch her out there!

Honestly, we thought she'd kinda be oblivious to what was going on out on the field. But, she proved us wrong, and is actually a pretty good little soccer player. She's not really aggressive, but if the ball comes to her, she knows what to do.

Not to mention, she looks ADORABLE in her uniform!

She also gets to be on the same team as her best buddy, and his dad is their coach, which Peyton loves.

The afternoon after their first game, we loaded the girls in the car and headed up to college station for my nieces first birthday part. She is one adorable little girl!

My sister-in-law did a 'spunky-monkey" party. It was so cute, and she even made these little sock monkeys that are so adorable!

Yep, Jill made lots o' monkeys for the party favors. The girls have been carrying theirs around since then. I'm just amazed that she made that many.

Then, the following tuesday, I got to head up to Peytons school for "muffins with mom". Those little kids love having their mom's come see them at school, and I love being able to go see her in her element a little bit.

I love that I'm able to spend a little more time with Peyton, and watch her grow up just a little more. It's kinda crazy how fast these kids grow up, and I absolutely love being able to watch it all happen!

The big guy's blessing

After our wonderfully fun weekend at the lake with my family, we rushed home with all the traffic heading back to Houston. It took longer than we expected, so there was only an hour before Kevin's family was going to show up at the house for Jaden's blessing.

We decided to do it at home so we would have more time to play with my family. We blessed Halli at home too when we were in Colorado. It's kinda nice doing it at home.

Kevin gave a beautiful blessing to our son. There's just something about seeing all these wonderful priesthood holders surrounding a baby, and giving them a blessing. I have been so very blessed to always have the gift of the priesthood in my home, and I truly feel even more blessed that now, Jaden will be able to learn and gain a love for this gosple through some truly amazing men.

Right after the blessing, all the girls and their cousins ran upstairs to play so we didn't get a family picture with them, and the pictures of the whole group were on my father-in-laws camera, so I'll have to steal them soon.:)

We had an fantastic weekend with our family, and wish we could live closer to everone, but for now this was pretty nice. I just wish it hadn't ended so soon!

Ten on Tuesday

1. Jaden had a rough night last night, it happens at least once a week. I'm pretty exhausted today though. I feel like it's so much harder to function on such little sleep than it was with the previous babies. But, getting up at 7 and getting three girls ready and two off to school, then taking care of JJ is really wearing on me. I miss sleep!:)

2. I got to go to muffins with mom this morning at Peytons preschool. It's so fun to get to go and spend time with that little cutie pie. I wish I could do it without the other two tagging along, and really spend some time with her, but either way, it's fun to get to go and see her as a big girl at school.

3. Soccer also started last week for Peyton, it is so much fun to watch all these little kids and their different personalities out on the field. Some are way aggressive and want to always kick the ball, and others hate the thought of being on the field. They seem so small to be there running around on that field.

4. I was cleaning out the car today, and found 7...yes, 7 sippy cups/water bottles in there. No wonder I haven't been able to find any in the house, now if only I could find all the bows that are missing.

5. One of my favorite things that Jaden does is when he almost sneezes. He takes a breath, and closes his eyes, and you think he's going to let out this big ol' sneeze, and then he just kinda makes a sweet noise as he blows the air out of his mouth. I'll have to get it on tape, it's so incredibly adorable!

6. I'm having so much fun with photography! I've been having more sessions lately with it being the fall and almost christmas card season. I feel like I'm learning so much with every session, and the more I learn, the more I realize there is so much I don't know! It's great to be able to have a creative outlet that pushes me and challenges me to improve all the time.

7. I am SO excited that it's cooling down this week a little bit. I hope this is the beginning of fall! I may even pull out all the fall/halloween decorations this week to really get in the fall mood. Pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, and some yummy hot cocoa sound delish right about now!

8. We had a fun FHE yesterday that the girls just loved! Did you ever play restaurant as a kid? I loved it, as a mom not so much, but yesterday we did it for FHE. The girls came to 'Aprils Diner, where manners matter'. They had to keep their bums in their seats the whole time, say please and thank you, and there was to be no burping at the table. You wouldn't think that would be a problem with girls, but oh, it is! They did really well, and hopefully the lesson will last more than a few nights, I'm really tired of not having any peace at the dinner table.

9. Lexie, lexie, Lexie, I don't know what we're going to do about that girl, but she is hilarious, and quite exhausting. I've said it before, but she is one stubborn girl that is really giving me a run for my money right now. If anyone knows any tricks let me know. She hates holding my hand in the parking lot when we're headed into Peytons school, or the store. She has no volume control and is constantly screaming, she LOVES to say no to me, and she is the worst listener ever. But she loves me, and is completely adorable when she wants to snuggle. She wanted to play with the mole on my neck the other day after I finished insanity, and when she put her hand on my neck, said "ewe, is all wet!" so dang cute!

10. And now, I'm off to make-out with this hotty I know...heheh;)

Our weekend at the lake

my inlaw's were gracious enough to let my family come in and take over the lakehoue for labor day weekend. It was beautiful weather, quality time spent with my family, and some very spoiled little girls!

The day we got up there was my dad's birthday, but there had been three summer birthdays and a couple other birthdays coming up later in the month so we did a big ol' birthday celebration for all of them. My mom made yummy giant cupcakes, and they all dug in, some of them literally dug in!

This littl girl started it all. She made a mess of her cupcake, and everyone else thought it looked like fun!

THAT'S how you eat a cupcake!

When you can't make a big enough mess just eating...use you fingers!

After being pregnant, and not having gone wakeboarding for a few years, I finally got a chance. It was so much fun, until I looked at the pictures later, sorry if my massive white legs blind you!:) I was incredibly sore the next day, I hadn't used those muscles in YEARS! But it was totally worth it, so much fun!

The boat is the best, always putting kids to sleep, I love that!

Then everyone took turns on the jetskies

We were able to sit around and relax, enjoying the great weather we had, and time with family

Jaden enjoyed his first trip to the lakehouse. Next time I need to remember to bring a bouncer or something for him.

I love getting to see my girls enjoying everything up there. These are some lucky kids!

Jaden got to take one trip on the boat, when we went to the pier for dinner. He slept the whole time, so adorable!

We had a wonderful weekend, and I've learned that I'm not very good at getting pictures of everyone when we're all together. My mom, my sister and her little girl, and my brother, his wife and their daughter were there as well. I need to be better about that, maybe when I'm not carrying a baby with me everywhere I go!:)

Miss Peyton turns 4!

A couple weeks ago (yeah, that's how good I am!), our little sneaky girl turned 4!

I wasn't doing birthday parties this year, and the girls all knew it. With a new baby being born right in the middle of all the other kids birthdays, it just wasn't gonna happen.

But, Peyton got lucky. We were going to bless Jaden the first weekend of September, which is when her birthday is. So she was able to spend her birthday at the lake house with her aunts and uncles and grandma Shauna and Grandpa Logan. She was SO excited to get to go to the lake house for her birthday, these kids LOVE it up there!

Halli, being the wonderful (most of the time anyway) big sis she is, decided to help Peyton ride her bike that morning. I wasn't going to put on training wheels at all, and just teach her how to ride it from the get go. But then Kevin reminded me that she can't even pedal yet, so the training wheels were put on as soon as we got home.

What do you do at a lakehouse on your birthday? Spend the day on the lake of course!

Love that awesome hairdo.:)

She doesn't love to ride the tubes, but she loves to hold the flag, obviously.

After heading to dinner at the pier, where they get to feed their leftovers to the catfish, (I'm assuming that's why she choose to go there for her birthday dinner), it was home for cake and ice cream. It was a little rushed due to an incident with the dog when we got back, and it was already really late. But she loved it, and is lucky for me, a very easy girl to please!

We love this little munchkin and her happy little attitude. There's just something about her that's quiet, yet a little bit sneaky, that makes me just adore who she is. She is a truly beautiful little girl and I can't wait to see just who she'll become when she grows up!

Happy Birthday LaNea

My super cute niece is one today! I'd been wanting/dying to do a cake smash session for quite awhile, and she gave me the perfect opportunity! It was tons of fun for both of us, and I think she may have gotten the better end of the bargain, that cake was yummy!

Happy birthday cute girl!

Ten on Tuesday

I'm stealing this idea from my sister-in-law Jamie, cause I need to be better about remembering the little things. I'm pretty good about posting big stuff, most of the time, but it's all the little things that I don't want to forget. So here are ten things that have been on my mind, or things going on around here lately.

1. Halli has a very overactive imagination, which I love. Seriously, she's always creating something, and she's awesome at getting her sisters involved. She's essentially bossing them around, but they like it most of the time. It's the HUGE mess that comes with her overactive imagination that I have a problem with. On any given day I'll find a fort made in some random room, homemade signs all over the house featuring different stores or shops that she's created, or one of her MANY handmade books that she creates for anyone or anything. Someday I'll figure out how to contain the mess, but for now I think it's just part of her creative process.

2. Jaden had his 2 month check-up today. It was 2 hrs at the doctors office, I don't have time for a 2 hr appt. that should only take 30 min, but whatever. He's a little worn out from the shots, but he did great. He's also a whopping 15 lbs., off the charts, and a little over 24 inches which put him at 85th percentile. He's an amazing baby that is generally content with whatever, thank goodness. Now we just need to figure out how to get him to sleep through the night.

3. ahhh, sleep, how I miss it. But I did finally get to take a nap on sunday, it was awesome!:) Between school, preschool, Lexies naptime, which is never when Jaden is sleeping, and errands that I have to run, naps are way too low on the totem pole.

4. Lexie has anew nickname, it just comes out of my mouth about 5 times a day...she's the "little pill". Not quite the nicest name, but this girl is REALLY trying my patience lately. We have tried to get her to color on paper, and only paper, but she's two. I think she's colored on pretty much every wall in our house. One day she took a marker and colored on every step, all the way up the stairs. Nursing a baby is seeming to give her way too much free reign in our house. She's also learned how to push a chair up to the counter in the kitchen which then gives her access to anything and everything on top of the counters. That used to be my safe spot to keep things away from her. I may pull all of my hair out soon.

5. Basketball is over. Summer of Seals is over. We'll have the new renters in the house tomorrow, so no more cleaning up the rental house. Besides anything pertaining to Young Mens, or work, I have a husband again!:)

6. I saw Peyton playing with a magnet toy the other day, and then, when she was done, she put it away. All by herself, I didn't even have to ask!:)

7. I'm making new pillows for our couches, cause the ones we have are awful. The best part, I just bought some placemats at target, and took part of the seam apart, and filled it with batting. A brand new pillow for $4, that takes very little sewing, and they're cute too.

8. There's a pile of laundry on the floor in my room that I need to fold. I've been either running around like crazy so I haven't done it, or when I've had a few minutes, I just choose to ignore it. Is that bad? Maybe tonight it'll all get done.

9. I've started insanity workouts. They're SO very hard, and I should have some amazing looking legs by the time it's done. I'm enjoying doing them though, and feeling like I've actually had a really hard workout. It's been a long time since I've felt that worn out. But I do think that when you're nursing and not sleeping through the night, it's a little hard on your body. I'm taking fenugreek every now and then and trying to drink enough water so I don't lose my milk. Being exhausted from no sleep will probably not go away till he can make it all night.

10. I've had tons or orders lately for the lil' pumpkin baby shower invites from my etsy sight. Must be that time of year! It's so fun having a way to earn some extra money, even if it's not alot. Someday when I have more time I'd like to make more of an effort with graphic design, I really enjoy doing it, and would love to be able to somehow have that translate into some sort of income. But for now, I've got my hands quite full with these 4 little munchkins!

some recent photoshoots

These are just a couple of the photoshoots I've had recently, I'm still editing some other ones. But this first cutie pie is my newest niece, Adelyn, and my in-laws 13th grandchild! She is super cute, and I just love her already!

These cute kids were my first shoot after having a baby, and it was august in houston, and HOT! But they did great and were tons of fun.

For more previews from these sessions, check it out here.

Peyton's in preschool

In all the craziness of the past two weeks, more of which will come later, I didn't post about Peyton starting preschool. There are so many times when I feel guilty about Peyton. She is seriously the easiest child ever. She's quiet, obedient (most of the time), good natured, and just so easy to have around.

I love, love, love that she's like this, but I so wish that I was better at remembering and making a big deal out of more things with her. She is the proverbial middle child, through and through, and I feel so bad about that sometimes.

She wasn't nervous for preschool, she didn't even really say much about it, she was just excited, for the week or so leading up to preschool. She'd been asking me since last year if she could go, so she was more than ready.

I waited till the last minute and the night before her first day I was running around trying to get leggings for her first day outfit. She loved it cause of the tutu, she's wanted one for awhile! I must say, it looks adorable on her too.

Her best buddy is in her class, and she introduced him and his favorite color to the rest of the class before he could do it. Poor Braden, Peyton was just looking out for her man! Little did she know it made him a little sad. She thought he was doing him a favor, silly girl!

Every day she heads into class with a smile on her face, happy to be there. Then when I pick her up, her face lights up, and she yells 'MOM', and runs to give me a hug. She adores her teachers and loves to be able to play on the playground like a big girl. Yet again, I can't believe how fast she's growing up, I just adore this little girl!

Halli's big day!

How in the world do we have a 7 year old? I know I say it all the time, but these kids are growing up SO fast!

To start Halli's birthday, we got up early, (not as early as Kevin), and headed to the pool where a bunch of people were competing in the "summer of seals" competition. It's a 500m swim, push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups and a 1.5 mile run. Kevin did this last year too, and I really wanted to do it then, but no, they decided to wait until this year to let the girls compete, and of course, I was way too pregnant to join in, next year though!

We showed up as Kevin was finishing his run, so we didn't get to see him do any of the competition, but he did great! He got the most pull-ups, 20. I told him to get 25, but he was trying to "save" is energy for the run!:) Because his ankle was still bothering him from earlier this summer, his run was a little slower, but he still did it.

(can I just say, wow, what a hottie!:)

I have to say, it's great that he did this, but now that he's taking a break from working out and giving his body a much needed rest, I love having him around just a little bit more! Next year it will be even more fun when we can do the competition together, he's good at pushing me.

We stayed to swim until they did the awards, and then it was home to open birthday presents for the birthday girl!

Yes , Cheetah sat in her lap the whole time. That is, until she opened her pillow pal, which she loves!

After opening gifts, I took her, Peyton and JJ with me to the mall. Yeah, that's always a good idea! But we had to head in so that Halli could get her ears pierced! I think I was more excited than her about this one, but it was fun for her to pick out her earrings.

She was told it might hurt a little, and she was pretty nervous about it.

And then it did hurt a little. I think she didn't really want the second side done after feeling the first. This is the face she made, right as they pierced her ear.

I guess you gotta teach them young, that sometimes beauty can be painful!:)

After that we headed out for ice cream. Although Peyton is almost 4, she doesn't really care how messy she is. I wonder when that will change.

The birthday girl was pretty pleased with how her day was going so far, I mean, who doesn't like ice cream?

All Halli really wanted to do for her birthday was to go rollerskating. She's not that great at it yet, but she's having fun learning. Because Kevin's ankle was bothering him, it was his turn to babysit JJ while the girls took turns having me take them around the rink.

Even little Lexie got in on it, actually, she did better than Peyton.

Halli did really well, and got quite the workout as well. I had fun doing something a little active, and hadn't been rollerskating in years, so it was fun to get out there and do it again!

After a yummy pizza dinner with cousins and grandparents, it was home for cake and ice cream. She really wanted a kitty cake, so I bought some fondant and tried my hand at making a cat...she loved it, so that's all that matters.

We sure love this girl, and are so proud of her and the person she is becoming. She loves her sisters, and is an excellent example to them most of the time. I love how she wants to be a little mom to her siblings, and always tells me that she can't wait to be a mom. She want's to grow up so fast, wanting to learn how to cook, she routinely makes her own lunch, and helps get her sisters dressed in the morning. I am so in love with this girl, and amazed by her all the time.