White Christmas with the Bleak's

So this first picture is when we Cade dropped me off at City Creek Center in Salt Lake for a little surprise get-together for Kristen's birthday. But since it was supposed to be a surprise and I happened up almost run in to them on the way to our lunch destination, I had to hide behind this wall for a time- pregnant belly and all. It was a really funny moment and seemed to last forever because they stopped just in time for me to have to stand waiting for them :). It's fun having Sisten's bday around Christmas (not for her, but for the rest of us) because then we are all together for it!

Cousin LOVE! We now have 8 little grand babies and Nora will be number 9. It's fun to see them all together and our family growing.

CUTEST PIC OF THE COUSINS! I LOVE THIS ONE...especially James' face. This picture is just adorable of him and his cute, cute smile!

I had to include this picture for memories sake :). We like to play a game called Telestrations as a family. It is like pictionary and telephone put together. The best part is that we play it so late and everyone gets giddy and crazy. This picture though is a picture of "Apple Juice". Yes, apple juice :). 

That is one of my favorite things to do with my family is stay up and play games together. After all the kiddies are in bed, us adults can stay up and act like kiddies :).

Christmas Eve was really great. We sang songs and read stories with the grand kids. Then they all exchanged a gift with each other. This year we drew names and it worked out well. Then we sent the kiddos downstairs with their new gift and put on Mickey's Christmas Carol while us adults sang more songs, read in the Bible of Christ's birth and exchanged our "Gifts from the heart". This year Cade made a "Mustard Toast" plate with a funny poem that went with it- it was a great gift :)! And I gave Stephanie some Family Home Evening magnetic board stories that she can have her boys help with teaching scripture lessons for FHE. This is definitely a favorite tradition and Cade and I will continue it in our own home as the years go on.

I LOVE this picture. The little ones were asked to wait for a few minutes before opening their gifts. So Reese sat on hers with her arms folded while she waited :). VERY patient girl! Or she knows that she would be tempted so sitting on it helped her be good :).

Christmas morning is always magical. Especially as a parent! I LOVE seeing the excitement on their faces. Now that Emma and Reese are old enough to get excited about things. One of my favorite things to see them open are their stockings. Emma was especially excited about her Ariel shoes and wand she asked for from Santa. The best thing Reese got the entire holiday was her ring pop :). She was so happy and wouldn't let it go!

Also on Christmas day, Cade, Boose, Bud and I took Emma, William, and Reese down the hill to Mueller Park to sled. Reese and I just watched, but the rest of them had a BLAST going extremely fast down long icy slopes. I don't know who had more fun- the kids or adults- but it was so fun to see them all so excited and having a great time. 

Another fun thing we did was the day after Christmas we went to Discovery Museum at the Gateway in Salt Lake. It is such a cute, fun museum and the kids loved it. There were all sorts of things to do and play pretend like the little shopping store and little house with different rooms. There was a construction site, a water play area, helicopter and airplane to explore and much more. Good times!

Again, another successful holiday with family! And I am so thankful Cade gives me enough time to spend with my siblings. Especially with Kristen living in California and Boose-Boose leaving on her mission soon. I love being with them and spending time. Time to be cherished for sure!

Emma's First Dance Recital

Emma started taking a dance class this fall from Dance Showcase Company that is right her in Pleasant Grove. She is in the 3-4 year old class and her teacher is Ms. Andrea. The first few weeks Emma actually told me she didn't want to keep going, but I told her we needed to keep going until her dance recital at Christmas time. I'm glad I did, because she has ended up LOVING dance. I think those first few weeks were just hard work and she wasn't used to it, but now she is doing so great.

She is a social little butterfly and sometimes the teacher has to separate her from certain girls because they are too crazy and chatty :). But overall, her teacher has seen tons of improvement and she is really learning to listen and obey what her teacher is asking her to do.

On December 16th, she had her first dance recital and it was SO adorable to see the little 3 and 4 year olds shaking it in their hula skirts on stage. The only issue was that Emma's hula skirt fell down...twice. Poor skinny girl :). I had it up on her swim suit tutu before I went and sat with the audience. But somewhere between back stage and being on stage, it fell below her tutu and had no chance. It was pretty funny and a lot of the audience laughed because it was just too cute. Cade was worried that she may not want to dance again. Luckily that wasn't the case. After the show, I ran backstage to congratulate her and she had the biggest grin on her face. She loved being up there performing. I told her what an awesome job she did and asked if she had a good time. She said, "Yes! But my skirt kept falling down." I told her that it was just fine and that I was so proud of her for just dancing anyway and not letting it stop her from having a good time. Emma's favorite parts about having a recital were 1) she got to wear real make-up and have her hair done cute and 2) she got her very own rose from Daddy. She was very excited about those two things :).

She said she wants to continue taking dance so that's good :). Boose and Grandma Bleak also came to watch the recital along with Adrianne and her mom (Adri is one of Emma's good friends...only she is 9 and Emma is 4:)). It was so fun to see her on stage. I hope she continues to enjoy it and want to take all sorts of classes as she gets older. Whatever she wants to do, I am excited to support her and be there for her!

BEST CHRISTMAS PRESENT EVER!!!!

Well, Cade and I would both have to agree than there is one thing than happened in 2013 that trumps anything else that happened this year.

One day Emma said to me, "Mom, I'm a big girl now so I'm going to go poo in the potty." I said, "okay, Emma," not really confident in her statement becoming reality. For anyone who knows, it's been over a year of her going pee in the potty, but refusing to go poo anywhere but in her diaper hiding in a closet. The frustrating part hasn't been cleaning up accidents as much as seeing her in so much pain from holding it and then being so constipated that she screams and cries like nothing else. It is extremely hard seeing your child in so much pain especially when you try to explain the solution and they don't take your advice.

Anyway, the following day I picked her up from preschool and as we passed by "Chuck-E-Cheese" she said, "Mom, I"m going to go poo in the potty and then we can go to Chuck-E-Cheese!" I told her that if she decided she wanted to go in the potty we could go there. She had never even been to Chuck-E-Cheese in her life, but knew that was the reward for her cousin Ashur when he was being potty trained. So that evening, she ran upstairs to go potty and soon after called me up. I ran upstairs and when she showed me, I almost started bawling I was so happy!!! BUT it was only ONE time and I wasn't completely sure it would continue. However, it was a giant feat for her to decide ALL ON HER OWN to do it. So we took her to Chuck-E-Cheese and made a sticker chart and she was so excited!

Well, I am extremely happy to say that she has continued to go on the potty for almost an entire month now. She has been going at least every other day and is doing SO well!!! She mentioned to me, "Mom, now that I go poo on the potty I can go to Kindergarten!" Little does she know that Kindergarten is a year and half away, however, there have been times I've wondered if she would be going in the potty by then. She has come a long, LONG way.

It truly was the best Christmas present I could have asked for!

Nora Pregnancy

It's been fun to document my pregnancies and I haven't really said much since we found out we are having another girl. So far this pregnancy hasn't been too hard and I really don't have much to complain about. The first trimester was more rough than the first two pregnancies with more nausea and being more tired (I am also chasing around two toddlers now so I know its to be expected). But since then, there have only been a few weeks where I have been in pain and wondered why this pregnancy was so much more painful than the last two. Luckily that was in the beginning of the 3rd trimester and didn't last more than a few weeks!

I am counting my blessings now that Nora is considered full-term and seems to be doing really well! It's exciting that we made it past Christmas and she can come any time now :). Bring on baby #3!

19 Weeks (on my birthday):

21 Weeks (found out we are having a girl):

28 Weeks (Last trimester here we come!):

 30 Weeks (when I was told everything from "you are tiny" to "are you having triplets?"):

34 Weeks (Nephew Ashur asked, "Mom, does she have a ball in her tummy for the baby to play with?):

Week 36 (almost there!):

And a random picture showing one of my favorite things to do while being pregnant and making use of my round tummy.

Reese: 2 Going on 12

Reese is such a delight to have in our family. She is so full of personality and spunk and is such a lively, dramatic and exciting child. She is also a mystery in the way that you just don't always know what you are going to get with her :). This first picture above says so much about who she is.

Reese came out of me with very strong, healthy lungs and a loud scream...and it's still the same. She can go from 0 to 60 in a couple seconds, but can just as easily turn it off as well :). She knows what she wants and she will work to get it. She loves to use her lungs!

Reese is such a smart child and loves learning and growing. She speaks in complete sentences, knows her ABC's, numbers and colors and desires to be as old as Emma and know as much as Emma. She is constantly asking questions about everything around her and wants to know all about the world. Reese is also VERY VERY independant and one of her favorite things to say is, "No, I do it myself!" She wants so badly to be older than she is and demands that she learn how to do things on her own. A good example would be when she is trying to put on her shoes by herself. She will scream and cry and get frustrated while trying to do it, but as soon as she gets them on, she immediately stops and says in a happy voice, "I did it!!!"

One of her favorite things to do is read books. She loves having Daddy and I read to her, but my favorite is when she just sits on the floor with books surrounding her and reads to herself. She will turn each page and talk and talk about each page she sees. It is so fun to hear her babble and try to figure out what she is saying. She will go through about 25 books before getting bored with it.

Reese is very good at entertaining herself. She is not like her older sister who at the age of two would follow me around from room to room and want me to be by her side for everything. She does like to be around other people some of the time, however, she plays and does her own thing a lot of the time as well.

She is such a fun girl and we are so grateful to have her in our family. She makes life fun and full of entertaining moments! We love her so much and can't imagine our family without her!

AZ Thanksgiving

My doctor gave me the okay to travel to AZ for Thanksgiving and we were grateful I was feeling well enough to go! Cade made me a bed in the 4Runner so I was able to sleep through the night lying down. If he hadn't have done that, I probably would have had to stop every two hours. With the girls sleeping in the car through the night, that plan woulnd't have worked very well.  But overall the trip was really good and the girls travel so well. They slept both ways all but maybe two hours each way. I'm very grateful that both girls travel so good through the night. Now...traveling 10-11 hours during the day would have been a nightmare :).

We had a great time with the family! This Thanksgiving was more intimate with only our immediate family and Great-Grandma and Grandpa there. It was small, but very enjoyable and pretty stress-free. This year's trip had to be pretty short due to baby Carter being born the Sunday before Thanksgiving and baby Noah being blessed the Sunday after. It made for a shorter trip than we would have liked, but still had a great time. Unfortunately, Grandma Close had to work every day except for Thanksgiving day- Thanksgiving week is crazy busy for the Post office! We loved seeing the kiddos all play so well together. Emma and Ashur LOVE being around each other and this year was easier than ever. Now that they're 4 years old, we don't have to keep a close eye on them all the time and wonder what they are getting into together. They are a lot alike and play so well. Reese and Taft are sure learning to play well with each other too. They are so funny when they chase each other around the room giggling :).

 The day after Thanksgiving, Tara and I drove to Phoenix and spent some time at Aunt Gale's house with a lot of the family. Aunt Virginia and Uncle Johnny, Aunt Kelly, Cousin Tamara and her little Miss Liberty were all there. We went to spend time together and learn how to make tamales. I mainly spent time talking with Tamara and it was SO much fun to catch up! Then we went to lunch with Tamara before heading back to Prescott.

The day after Thanksgiving was also Reese's birthday this year so we got to spend it with all the family on the Close side. Reese does not like cake so instead of making cake or cupcakes for her, we bought a donut with sprinkles on top and she LOVED it :). On her first bday, she gagged at her cake and refused to eat it. So the donut was exciting to her. Reese and all the other kiddos got some ice cream cones. 

We had a great holiday and most of all were extremely grateful I was able to be healthy and travel safely there and back. It was the first time we were able to even go to AZ for Thanksgiving since 2007! Every other year when it's our turn to have Thanksgiving in AZ with the Close side we have a baby :). This year we barely were able to make it...and it was great to be there!

I am also extremely grateful for God sending me these wonderful people in the pic below. I love Cade, Emma and Reese with my whole heart and feel so blessed to have them in my life.