"Hiding my Breakfast"

This is Liev at breakfast.

This is Liev when he thinks I'm not watching him.

And this is Liev's cereal disappearing.

I'm afraid this is not where it's supposed to end up.

And he thinks he's hilarious.

Beauty and the Beast

Grammie and Papa have season tickets to the Capitol Theatre this year and Beauty and the Beast is one of the plays included in their tickets.  The night of the play came and Grammie called Rease to see if she would like to go on a date with Papa and see the play.  Rease was more than excited!  Grammie had already seen the play so she thought Rease would enjoy it and gave her ticket up so that Rease could spend the evening with Papa.  (This is the only picture that Papa got of her at the play so don't mind the quality of the phone camera photo.)   

Rease came home and couldn't stop talking about how much fun she had.

"Belle was so beautiful!"

"Gaston was really really funny!"

"The Beast was very nice."

"I had so much fun with Papa!"

Thanks Grammie for letting Rease have a night out on the town with her Papa!

Clean teeth

Rhen has been waiting to turn 3 so that she could get her teeth cleaned at Papa's office. Fortunately our kids are around the office so much that when it comes time for them to be in the chair they are excited instead of being nervous about it. Rhen was ready for her turn!

Kristina is super sweet and did a great job getting Rhen to open her mouth even though she was more interested in the movie she was watching.

Papa gave Rhen a "No Cavities" verdict and she was excited to be able to put her picture on the No Cavity Club board. We walked out with a balloon, a new toothbrush, a prize and super clean teeth!

Park Time

One of the first nice days of the year and we decided to take advantage of it. We took the kids to the park and rode bikes/walked on the trail.

Rease's bike is hilarious because she is much too big for it and we haven't taught her to ride one without training wheels. So this is Rease on her tiny bike pedaling as fast as she can.

And Rhen is still on her trike bike and she pedals as fast as she can too to keep up with
Rease. They didn't make it too far on their teeny bikes but we had a fun enjoying the nice weather.

Baby Liev enjoyed his time on the swings after our bike ride.

Doesn't he look relaxed?

For some reason he layed his head back and was just swinging while watching the clouds. It was the cutest thing.

This handsome man is so sweet and loved playing at the park with the girls!

Painting Project

Justin and Steph were doing some painting and yard work and we decided to go help out.  Rease was happy to be put on painting duty and went right to work.  Our job was to paint the fence that goes around the yard - fun work and Rease and I made a good team on our side of the fence!

 Rease was very into it and was concentrating so much on her portion of the fence.

 (Don't mind my outfit.  I was wearing some jeans that I didn't want to get paint on so Justin loaned me his hunting coveralls.  They did the trick!)

We made a good team! 

Handsome boy

I combed Liev's hair for the first time today. Oh man is he handsome!

Rhen's Princess Birthday Party

Rhen turned 3 this year and decided that she wanted to have a Princess Party. Since we still do family parties only and haven't switched to inviting friends yet, I thought that would be fun and entertaining for everyone. So Aunt Hayley and I went to work on the invitations and the rest of the plans for her "Spectacular Celebration."

These are the invitations we came up with - a crown fit for Princess Rhen.

All the royal guests were asked to dress in their best attire and I have to say they did not disappoint. We had some handsome princes and lovely princesses at the party.

Rhen was dressed as a beautiful princess and let me know that she was "Rapunzel" for the night. She did look darling with her curls and dress.

Rease and Rhen - the 2 sister princesses.

The proud King and Queen.

And the rest of the royal guests. Aunt Hayley made Uncle Caleb's prince outfit and Grammie and Papa went all out! Everyone looked fabulous and Rhen was super excited! We did have a costume contest and had all these fabulous contestants(winners to be announced later.)

Us girls dressed up and pretty!

We had a royal feast (but I forgot to get a picture of all the food.) I did get a picture of the best part - the yummy dessert. We had plenty of cupcakes and cake to go around.

I have to say I am proud of the cake. I have been making my kids' cakes for their birthdays for the past couple years and thought this one would be fun to try for the princess party. I will admit it was much harder than I first anticipated but it turned out being okay. Rhen was very happy with the result and that is what matters!

We played the "Who Knows Rhen" game. I think Uncle Caleb won.

Present time. She got so much fun stuff (once again I didn't take many pictures of this.) She was super excited that it was actually her birthday and all the gifts were hers!

Sweet Rease drew this picture for her to hang by her bed.

Winners of the costume contest:

Grammie in her beautiful (bride) dress.

Uncle Caleb as the handsome prince (Baby Canyon in a close second.)

Overall the party was a huge success. Unfortunately Baby Liev was sick that night and this is the only picture we got with all 5 of us.

Rhen's 3 years stats from Dr. Erickson

Height: 39.96 inches - 97%

Weight: 34.61 lbs - 83%

BMI: 15.2 - 34%

A few things I want to say about my sweet Rhenner girl on her birthday:

1) Rhen is a little sweetheart even though she comes across as a little crazy. She always wants to "snuggle" with her dad or give mommy one more goodnight kiss. I hope she keeps that up cause I want her to always be "my girl."

2) Rhen is hilarious. She is the life of the party when she wants to be. She is always making up new words to make Rease laugh or doing something crazy that Liev thinks is just for him. She is witty and cute and I love this about her!

3) Rhen takes after me in the sleep department. I think she would sleep in everyday if she could, but since she shares a room with Rease she is forced to wake up at the crack of dawn when her sister gets up. The days that they happen to be sleeping in separate places, Rhen will sleep in an hour or two longer than Rease. That's my girl!

4) Rhen is a little bit of a home-body. She loves to be outside, play with friends, have fun and all that but when it's time to slow down she wants to be back home and in her own bed. She loves to snuggle up with her blanket and watch a movie or just hang out at home when she's tired.

5) Rhen has a mind of her own. She will not and does not do anything until she decides to do it herself. I have had to change my parenting strategy a little bit with this girl compared to Rease. I have learned that I have to give Rhen choices on mostly everything she does during the day so that she can feel like she's making her own decisions. Example: "Rhen you can either eat your dinner or get down without any dessert." "Rhen you can stop hitting or sit in timeout." "Rhen you can have the strawberry or the kiwi." I try and fix it so that she makes the decision I want her to make but it has worked with her and she feels like she is being independent and choosing on her own.

I love this 3 year old of mind and can't wait for the years and years we have ahead to make more memories with her!

Happy Birthday Princess Rhen!

Mastering the Stairs

Liev has been trying so hard to make it down the stairs.  After falling all the way from top to bottom a couple of times we decided to help him master the stairs so he could go down accident free.  After a couple days of working with him, I still tried to block him out because I wasn't sure he had it down.  He is one determined guy though and found a way to make it through the obstacles.

"And that's how it's done folks."