Alyssa's Special Day

April 9, 2011
Alyssa's Baptism Day
Everyone who was able to join us for her special day!

Our little family!

Alyssa with Grandma & Grandpa Saul

Alyssa with Grandma & Grandpa Robison

We love you Alyssa, and are so proud of you!

Alyssa's 8th Birthday!

Finally catching up!! First up: Alyssa's Birthday!

This year for the kids birthdays I wanted to do something cheap, fun, but different. I decided to buy a huge bag of balloons and blow them up while they were at school. Since Alyssa's birthday is first, she got the first batch. Here is a couple pics of 72 balloons all over her room.

It would have been fun to do twice this many, but trust me 72 was enough. She loved it and thought it was so cool to have that many balloons in her room!

For her birthday she wanted Kentucky Fried Chicken, so we invited Grandma & Grandpa Robison over, and just ate, and opened presents. First off she got a new bedspread (you can see it in the background.) The jammies she is also holding were from Grandpa & Grandma Robison.

One of her favorite other gifts, a Justin Beiber shirt!! Also, the sheets next to her new bedspread are from her Great Grandma Wittick!

Next up was a really cute scripture bag from Grandma & Grandpa Saul.

And finally, her very own brand-new set of scriptures engraved with her name!

She was so happy! Here is a final shot of her checking out all her stuff. We let Preston take the photos, so we didn't end up with a shot of cake, or grandma and grandpa sitting there on the couch.

This year we also decided that instead of just adding to a already full toy collection, we would do a "room makeover". (Thus the new bedspread, sheets.) Here is a quick pic of her newly painted room and bedspread which she knew about and picked out herself along with the paint color. We still need to paint her dresser, and add a few more accessories, but it is a start. You can see before pics in the top picture of this post with the balloons.

Maybe we can add a bookshelf, along with a few more things for Christmas. We also need a valance or some curtains too! At least it's a start!

We love you sis! We're glad you had a fun birthday!

Alyssa turns 7!!!

Our season of birthdays is starting at my house. Once March hits, it seems we have birthdays or other family celebrations about every 2 weeks. We always start off with Alyssa, who turned 7 on March 1st.

We just went over to grandmas, had dinner & cake, and opened a few gifts. Grandma even made her a sign!

Here is dad bringing out her birthday cheesecake!

A piggy bank from Grandma & Grandpa Robison. She also got birthday cards from Grandma Wittick, and Grandma & Grandpa Saul both of which had money in, so she was thrilled to put that money right into her new bank!

A fun princess game set from her Aunt Celia and her family.

From us she got a couple toys which we let her pick out herself. She also got some clothes too! Nothing too spectacular, but she looks happy to me!

Happy Birthday Alyssa, we love you!!!!

Letting Go.....

I don't know about any of you, but I have a little Diva on my hands at the ripe old age of 6 (almost 7). She LOVES to do her own hair, and put together amazing outfits. Well, today I just let it go! I usually tell her, "That doesn't match, those don't go together, you're not going to wear that, etc."
Well, today she was so excited when she walked out and was ready for school, I just let it go. As hard as it was for me to let her wear this outfit to school, I just did. I mean after all, "It all has pink, mom." How can you deny that face?

I have never been into all the trends and styles as much, but I do like things to match. So, letting go and letting my kids be their own independent selves is probably one of the hardest things I'll ever do. If it is this hard to let them pick out their own outfits, who knows how I'll be by the time they get to college. Ha Ha

Alyssa's Christmas Program

I'm not sure what the schedule for grades is, but Alyssa was the only one with a Christmas program this year. Maybe it is a 1st grade thing. Here she is getting ready to show us her talents.

Still getting ready. Wow, what a job to get that many 1st graders organized and quiet. (I think there is like 6 classes with about 30 kids in each class).

Not quite serious enough, but at least singing!

Here is the whole group! So cute!

"It's Christmas" was the theme of their program this year. They all did a great job!

Flashback Friday!

Alyssa'a 1st Birthday!

Since we finally got our hard drive situation taken care of, I decided I better get back to posting my Flashback Friday posts. On the 1st of March it was Alyssa's birthday, so as a "flashback" I decided to post about another birthday from the past.

In our family on the 1st birthday, you get a jello cake. Your one chance to play in your food, and make a complete and total mess. None of my kids have ever really gone to town in it, but we can't not do it because it is tradition!

Happy Birthday Alyssa!!!

Cake and Ice Cream!

The pictures turned out horrible, but here is a couple pictures from that night. We just had cake and ice cream and grandma's and opened a couple more presents.

Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday dear Alyssa,

Happy Birthday to you!

Happy Birthday Girl!

Alyssa Turns 6 Today!

Alyssa Fun Facts:


Favorite color: Pink, Yellow, & Blue

Favorite food: Pizza

Favorite activity: Jump on the Trampoline

Favorite friends: Kylie, Marissa, and Jaida

Favorite Restaurant: Chucky Cheese

Favorite Store: Kid to Kid (with the pink "kid" door)

Favorite Song: Mary Had A Little Lamb

Favorite TV Show: Tom & Jerry

Favorite Movie: Pocahontas

We Love You!!! Happy Birthday!

Build-A-Bear!

This past weekend we headed up North to begin some birthday festivities for Alyssa who is turning 6!! We decided to surprise her this year and take her to Build-A-Bear. I'm sure most of you have been there, but we never had. It was all a good time, and in the next few weeks and month the other 2 have decided they want to go there as well! It was a big hit!

Here she is with the Hannah Montana bear she picked out. Absolutely refused every other single one in the whole place. Oh, and don't mind her black eye. She was running last night and plowed right into grandma's couch. Great present for your birthday huh, poor thing!


I told her, "Look at ALL the other choices." Nope, didn't work.


Stuffing the bear!

Giving it a bath!

Getting her dressed!

Getting her birth certificate.

It was the highlight of her day! It just dawned on me now, that we didn't even get a final product picture. I will have to get that and add it later.

Flashback Friday!

I jumped on the blogging bandwagon a little later than most, so I have so much "old stuff" I'd love to journal and write about. There is no way I will ever catch up, but I found this cute idea on another blog I stumbled across. I decided to use it also, so hopefully it's not copyrighted! :-)

This post is called Flashback Friday! Every Friday I will randomly pick an old photo or group of photos and post about it! If anything it will keep me posting at least once a week. :-)

The December Countdown was fun and all, but I'm just not that exciting of a writer to post every day! Anyway, enjoy my memories!

Here are some great shots from January of 2005. Grandma Saul was visiting and braved the snow with the kids! Building a totally cool snowman!

Building a snowfort and having a snowball fight!!!

And last but not least, making snow angels!!! Thanks for the good times grandma! We love you!

Christmas Countdown-Day 21

More playing in the Snow!!!

All the other kids have snow stuff, but Cade didn't. I ended up getting him some snow bibs so he could really enjoy the snow with the others. There is a ton of it, and it has been still snowing all day.

I need to get pictures of the other kids. I don't think about it when they get home from school. I guess they played in it at school, and are tired of it for a while!