our rollin' machine.

baby will has grown so much over the last 5 months. 

1 month

2 months

3 months

4 months

5 months

his 4 month well check stats:

12 lbs 14 oz {15%}

26 in long {75%}

16" head {10%}

we love this sweet boy!

an easter recap.

easter and spring are one of my favorite times of year. everything is new and so refreshing from the drear of the winter and inversion. and most of all, our focus turns to the savior. his life. his atonement. his sacrifice. his death. and his resurrection. how amazing it is to know he lives! how special it was to be in primary again this year during easter time. i love singing the easter primary songs, even though the kids don't know those songs as well, it usually ends up with me singing a solo! {not a pretty picture or...sound} but the spirit these songs bring is amazing. such tender moments that i'm grateful for.

here are a few shots from easter sunday.

thanks to granna & grandpa and nate & becky for all the loot they got at the packer hunt! the kids could not have been more excited!

sweet mae mae.

our sweet mabel turned 5 years old a few weeks ago. oh how fast the time has gone. some days seem long but the months and years seem to fly by. mabel is an incredible help to me at home. she loves to clean and organize. she loves to hold baby will. she loves to play with elsie. she loves to play with connor too. she loves going to preschool and can't wait until fall when she can finally ride the BUS! oh she's been waiting a long time for that! 

she is very talented at dancing and tumbling. she loves her tap and ballet class. her favorite though is her tumbling class. she loves to practice and i am very fortunate she gives me tumbling shows while i feed will.

she loves to sing and i love being in primary with her. what a sweet girl she is! oh how we love our mae mae!

one of mabel's birthday wishes was to go to the zoo. luckily it was early out week for connor and cory got off midday and so we ventured off to see the animals. it was such a fun day and the zoo made it even more fun! her other birthday wishes were to have homemade cheese pizzas for dinner with orange jello. and then for dessert she requested chocolate cupcakes with pink frosting and white sprinkles on top.

happy birthday sweet girl!

my girls.

elsie had gotten pretty upset about who knows what a few nights ago. she was pretty much hysterical and couldn't communicate what she wanted/needed. sadly, my patience seems to run out by 8 o'clock  these days and i wasn't getting anyway with her as far as settling her down. the only thing that calmed her down was laying with her mae mae. after she laid in the bed with mabel, she calmed right down. 10 min or so later, i went to check on my sweet girls and this is what i found.  

it probably will get interesting in the teenage years down the road, but i hope that they always close as sissy's and friends.

mabel is such a beautiful, happy girl. she's the best helper around the house, she loves to organize. she loves to dance and tumble. i love to watch the daily shows she puts on for me. and beautiful elsie with more personality in her little finger than many people have, always keeps us laughing! she has a unique deep voice that i always love to hear. she loves to play and is quite the helper around the house also.

such sweet, beautiful girls i have.

love them!

the trap.

this year connor was bound and determined to catch the leprechaun. he thought for a few days about what kind of trap he would do to catch him. he decided to use lincoln logs to make a tower. then he made a ladder putting pennies on each step to lure him in and cause him to fall inside the tower and be trapped! he thoughtfully put a glow stick in the bottom of the tower so he'd see where he was going. a pretty good plan i'd say. 

that night he prayed he'd be able to catch a leprechaun...he also added that if he couldn't catch one, that the leprechaun would build "something cool" with the pile of lincoln logs next to the trap. such a cute boy. well, sadly, the leprechaun got away, but his construction skills did not disappoint!!

the original trap, the pennies were replaced with gold nuggets. he left the pennies in the bottom of the tower and that sneaky leprechaun built a door and snuck out the back!

he even left the door open on his way out!

my lunch buddy.

thursday night connor asked if i could come to lunch with him the next day. i asked him if little brothers and sisters can come too. he said usually its just the mamas. i told him probably not tomorrow, we'd have to plan a day to do it when i can find a baby sitter. i could tell he was disappointed, but i didn't know what else to do on short notice. he didn't mention it in the morning, i hoped he was good and had forgotten that i couldn't come that day. cory called mid-morning saying that he could come home a little early {he only works half-days on fridays} and that i should go and surprise connor at lunch. so that's what i did. i stopped by and picked up a sandwich and cookies to share and met him at the cafeteria door, just as his class was heading for lunch. his smile was so precious. he has this shy smile he does when he's excited. it was such a treat for me. we talked, ate, and traded treats with his friends. so precious! then he asked me to stay for recess. of course! it was such a treat and gave me a little window into his "world" at school.

who needs to sliding handle when you can just climb across the top?!?

thanks for my lunch date bud, it was just what i needed. love you.

nine years.

{beautiful tulips cory brought me home}

cory and i celebrated our ninth wedding anniversary yesterday. what a wonderful nine years it has been. it has been filled with many, many memories. i made a slideshow for cory with pictures over the years. at first i started out thinking i'd just include the pics of me and cory, but soon realized that pics of me and cory don't tell the whole story, and plus, quite frankly, there's not many of them! i had to include pics of those precious babes that Heavenly Father has entrusted us with. we are nothing without them. cory and those four kiddos are the very best part of me for sure. i got really emotional {cried like a baby} as i watched it with cory. i was overcome with gratitude for our beautiful life and family. we have had our own struggles and hardships as any family does, but the best part about those struggles is that we go through them together and they continue to make us stronger.

happy anniversary to my sweetheart. 

here's to many, many more years to come.