Analeigh's 8th birthday party

Analeigh wanted a dance party this year.  We have had so much fun with the Wii game "Just Dance 3", so we decided to let the girls play that, make french bread pizzas and smoothies and have cupcakes.  We hung a disco ball and it really set the mood!  It was a very fun party!


Abigail helped me with the cupcakes

Dancing the night away

Silliness

Party girls

Analeigh's Baptism + 101 Dalmations

Analeigh turned 8 in January, and Alex had a play production he was in for school on February 16th and 17th, so we planned to have her baptism the weekend after the play so the Grandparents could be here for both events.  Grandma Sims flew in on Wednesday afternoon (2/15).  The kids were so excited to have their grandparents in town.  Abigail started squealing when she saw an airplane landing at the airport she was so excited.  We got Grandma and headed home for Waffle Wednesday (we have waffles quite often for dinner on Wednesday nights).  Alex was at his 101 Dalmations rehearsal, so I swung by the school and picked him up, then we went home to eat.  I am taking a tap class right now, and I have class on Wednesday evenings so I left them and went to tap.  We got the kids off to school on Thursday morning and just had the little ones home.  Susan wanted to find a picture to use for her talk on baptism for Analeigh's baptism, so we planned to find one online and then have it printed out somewhere.  Well, the power went out just as we started looking on the internet.  And it was out for a few hours.  So we went to McDonalds for lunch and I brought my laptop and we used their wi-fi so we could find a picture and order a print of it.  It worked out great.  Grandma and Papa Waters flew in that evening.  I took Analeigh, Alex and Abigail with me to the airport (they flew in late and we couldn't all fit in the van) and then dropped them off at the hotel where they were staying for the weekend (we're a little tight on space and beds right now :) ).
    Friday was the big day of the play.  Alex has had play practice for months getting ready for 101 Dalmations where he would be playing the part of Pongo.  He has given up a lot of his extra time going to all of the practices.  We were all excited to see the production, and it was really great!! They all did an excellent job.

Pongo and Perdita

Alex in front of one of the sets

  On Friday night we started noticing the weather report for Sunday...they were calling for several inches of snow!  And in Virginia, snow = no church.  The snow was scheduled to start around 9 or 10am and snow all day.  If church was cancelled and we couldn't have the baptism, Susan would miss the main event that she had flown all the way from Utah for.  We made the decision on Saturday morning that we would move the baptism to Saturday afternoon.  There was a wedding at our church building that same day, so we had to plan around that (the bishop had a very long day at the church that day).  We quickly made some phone calls and the bishop and primary president sent out emails to the ward letting them know the baptism date and time had been changed. 
    Analeigh was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints on Saturday, February 18, 2012.  We are very happy with her choice to do so.  She is a good, smart girl who wants to do what's right and follow the example of Jesus Christ. 
The Program:
Opening song - When I Am Baptized
Opening prayer - Alex
Talk on Baptism - Susan Sims
Baptism - performed by Dad Scott Sims
Talk on the Holy Ghost - Kim Waters
Confirmation
Remarks by Bishop Aaron Hancock
Welcome by the Primary Presidency (Karen Mayry)
Closing Song - Teach Me To Walk In the Light
Closing Prayer - Bill Waters
    It was a wonderful meeting with the spirit felt strongly by those in attendance.  We had cake for refreshments afterward.  We had a great turnout for such short notice.  It was a great day. 

    We tried to go out to the Wood Grill Buffet afterward for dinner, but the line was out the door of the restaurant and at least an hour wait for our size group, so we went to Guadalajara instead to celebrate.  After changing the baptism to Saturday...the weather stayed clear until late afternoon on Sunday, so we had all meetings at church and could have still had the baptism, oh well.  It started snowing at around 3pm and we got about 5 or 6 inches of snow, and the power went out from about 8pm to just after midnight.  The kids had a great time playing in the snow.  Scott even took Andrew out in it, tubing down our little hill in front of our townhome.  They all had so much fun in it.  It is the only snow we have seen all winter.  It has been around 60 degrees for most of the winter, so we were glad to see some snow finally (although we realllly like the 60's too)!  They played in it most of Monday also, as it melted quickly around them.  It warmed back up and was pretty much gone by the end of Monday.  We had to take Grandma Sims to the airport that afternoon for her flight back to UT.  We are so glad she was able to come and be with us for Analeigh's baptism! 

    My mom and dad were able to stay the rest of the week and we had lots of fun doing things like going to Richmond for shopping and Papa took the big kids to Dave & Buster's arcade, ate out at Red Robin, mom and dad watched the little ones all day on Thursday while I went on a field trip tubing with Analeigh's 2nd grade class, and we went to see the movie "The Secret World of Arriety".  We are always so glad when Grandma and Papa come to visit! 

  

Abigail

Abigail...

• silly
• fun
• talking more...and more clearly lately.  She has a difficult time pronouncing the "s" and "r" sounds, but she's doing great.
• simply will not smile for the camera...only silly faces .
• her hair has gotten so long, and it's curly (mostly on humid days).  I have to make sure it is pulled back when she eats because she will constantly push it back and get her hair sticky with whatever she is eating.
• she can run!  She can run and run and run.  I took her to the Monticello trail recently and made her stay in the stroller on the way down the trail and let her out to walk up, thinking she would need to get back in before long, but she ran the whole way up (a mile and a half uphill).  I had to get her to slow down a few times because she was running faster than I was going.  When we go down to the bus stop to get the kids after school she runs the whole way too, and then one of the kids will hand her something of theirs to carry and it doesn't slow her down.
• does not like carrots.  She won't eat them.  We were reading a "Winnie the Pooh" book the other day and Rabbit was holding a carrot and Abigail said, "I don't like those things".
• early bird!  I would say she gets up at the crack of dawn, but really she gets up before dawn even begins to crack.  It doesn't matter if she has stayed up later than usual the night before, she's still up, getting dressed on her own some days.
• still loves her blankies
• doesn't like to me to sing her songs before bed, which I think is sad.  It's not that she's just fine if I don't sing to her, she tells me to stop singing if I try to.  If I somehow convince her to sing with me, she will for a minute before she starts singing in a silly voice.  She loves to sing and will sing at any other time of day, just doesn't like it at bed time. 
• can do somersaults all by herself.
• likes to do anything that her older siblings are doing.  If they are playing the Wii, they give her a remote and she goes to town. If they are practicing the piano, she is tapping keys beside them (I have to make her stop that one).  If they are riding bikes, she wants to go out and ride her trike.  She learned how to ride the scooter the other day so she can ride it like they do. 

She can curl her tongue

Run Abigirl, Run!

Silly, silly

Helping Mommy make cupcakes for Analeigh's birthday party

I was just trying to get a picture of the blue mouth...

Watching some shows...probably Mickey Mouse or Dora

Andrew

Andrew...or Drewby, as some of us like to call him, is growing and growing each day.  Of course, he is only 16 months old, so the past year was full of all the normal, exciting milestones...solid foods, sitting up, crawling, talking, first birthday, but we are still amazed every day to find that he has learned some new words or signs or can now stack blocks or some other feat (he's still supposed to be my baby).  He's not walking yet, so we are working with him on that and he is getting better...or braver, I should say.  I think he has mostly been too nervous to get up and walk.  He has always held his breath if we hold him up too high, and shakes if he is crawling up the stairs and looks back...things like that.  It won't be long before he's walking though.  He is walking while holding our finger and walks pushing things, so he's close.  He is still super snuggly and happy.  He says "thank you" when we give him something...it's too cute.  But then, he is mighty feisty when it comes to food.  He wants it, and and he wants it NOW.  We have had to move him away from the table a few times until he settles down and can ask nicely.  Balls are definitely his first love, well, maybe second to mommy ;) .  If he spots a ball somewhere, oh boy, he is after it like lightning.  Any ball.  Or anything shaped somewhat like a ball.  He has an arm too and loves to throw it back and forth with us.  But if he doesn't have anyone to throw or roll it with, then he just pushes it around chasing it.  He got some blocks for Christmas and absolutely loves them too.  He has been stacking some pretty great towers.  Oh, and I can't forget about the froggy blankie.  My mom made him a blanket out of some fleece frog fabric when he was born and he has become attached to it.  When I get him out of his crib he begs "please, please, please" until I get it for him.  Love that kid!

2011

I realize I am probably past the deadline for a 2011 posting, seeing as it is already January 6, 2012!  Oh well.  I was not very good at keeping up the blog last year...at all.  I will blame a few things ... 1. I had just had my 4th kid.  That 4th one has thrown a whole new busy-ness into the mix.  2. Our computer was very old...and slow...and my laptop broke and I was left with only that old, slow computer to use in a corner of my bedroom (not really a place you can hang out and blog from with those 4 kids running and crawling around). 3. Then we got a new computer (yay!), but it is a Mac, which I have had a hard time figuring out when it comes to blogging.  Especially getting to our photos that we brought over to the Mac via external hard drive.  So, no photos + no good computer + no time = no blogging.
However, I just got a new laptop, and I know how to use it (mostly anyway, I'm not really too technologically capable, haha), so I intend to pick back up on the blogging.  I'll just pick up here and hopefully move forward at a steady pace.  First, I'll give an update on everybody...to come soon, kids just got home from school.