The Tree Fort



The Before Picture

So, this fort was my crazy idea.  But, Mike is amazing at actually making it.  He planned it all out and worked on it in our garage.  He had it all put together in 2 Saturday afternoons!  I am way impressed with his skills!

2/20/2011

The completed fort!  I made Mike add windows and a door to the fort so Eliza could go up there safely and not be able to fall out.  The front window can open, and we have a basket rigged so the kids can bring toys up and down.  My mom and my sister Bri were the awesome decorating duo.  They helped figure out how to make our awesome trunks, then painted all the leaves.  My mom and dad found awesome real branches for the walls and grandpa buddy came and put them up.  My kids love their tree fort, and think it's really cool that we are going to leave it up!

February

Mike and Hailey...future nascar driver???

We went to incredible pizza and our kids loved it!!!  They keep asking to go back.  We had a lot of fun, and our cute Eliza loved all the little rides.  If you are wondering why we are always going places like this and Hollywood Connection, it is because I am a deal finder.  Any place we go it is at least 1/2 off, and usually a lot cheaper than that.

 2/1/2011

So, I love this picture.  Eliza will only go to sleep in her car seat or her crib.  We have been told multiple times that we should not have her in this car seat because she is too big.  No worries, her real car seat in the car does not come out.  We just keep her baby car seat to put her to sleep when we are not home.  Mike swings her in the seat until she is asleep.  He tried unsuccessfully to put her to sleep at Ben's basketball game, and she poked her cute little head out to let us know she was awake!

This picture if right after he took a practice shot, love the stance!

Ben is #19 the one dribbling the ball

This is our first time doing Jr. Jazz basketball.  Ben had a lot of fun.  It was absolutely crazy.  At this age they try to teach the kids to dribble the ball, but only a few of them can actually do it well.  They also teach them to put up their hands for defense, but half of the time Ben had his hands up on defense and offense.  This was a good strategy, because his teamates passed him the ball a lot, because his hands were up.   Too funny!

2/12/2011

Happy First Birthday Eliza!

Eliza loved her cake!  She ended up eating almost 1/2 of it!  She definitely follows after her mother with a major sweet tooth.  She had no hesitation digging right in and eating.  I actually had to stop her because she would have kept going!  Ben was opposite of Eliza when he turned one.  Ben took one bite and was done.  I love my cute Eliza and can't believe she is all ready 1!

Eliza unwrapping her presents with Grandpa Buddy

We gave Eliza a drum set for her birthday.  She is our musical little girl.  She loves making music of every kind!  Eliza also does things that I don't remember our other kids doing at her age.  She loves to color, she will color at church and at home, it is so cute.  Eliza is such a girl, and loves walking around the house in every ones shoes.  She will hold her baby dolls and pat their backs and give them kisses.  She started walking right around her 1st birthday.

Happy Kings Day!

We wanted to go mini-golfing, but there were no balls.  So, Aly took control and got us some.

For Martin Luther King Day we got together with my mom, sister Aly, brother Blake, sister-in-law Nicole and kiddos.  All day long Hailey kept saying, Happy Kings Day.  We went to Hollywood Connection, and it was the first time my kids had gone.  It was super crowded, but we got to do everything!  They loved the rides and golfing and lunch.  We had so much fun.  As we left, Hailey asked if we could come every Happy Kings Day.  (Mike was working, so he missed out on the fun this time. Bummer.)

2011!!

We had a fun get-together with family.  I love Hailey's face in this picture!

Ben's first loose tooth!

Notice the 2 cute teeth on the bottom

I had lost Eliza for a few minutes.  When I found her, she had found our church bag and got into a bag of fishy crackers.  She was so proud of herself!

Hailey has had a lot of haircuts in her 3 years of life, she even had two cuts before she was 1.  This haircut was her most dramatic!  We cut off about 7 or 8 inches and donated her hair for wigs for cancer patients.  I wanted to see what she would look like with really short hair, and I love it!  She is such a cutie!  She loves it too, and tells everyone how she looks like a princess.

Eliza loves being like her older brother and sister.  She loves coloring and drawing.  I don't remember my other kids doing that at 1.

Eliza learned how to use this, just backwards.  She loved pushing it around backwards, occasionally we would get her to push it the right way.  She started walking right around her 1st birthday, just like her brother. 

January 2011

Christmas Outfits and New Year's



My cute kids and their cute cousins!  The rocking chair that Eliza is sitting in was actually made by my Great Grandpa (small Grandpa), my dad fixed it up a few years ago.  

Ben and Nathan
These 2 cute cousins love playing together!  Love it!

These two are just too cute!  This is Ben's best friend and future wife Isabelle.  We had her over for a fun sleepover, and here they are cuddled up watching a movie!

My kids love sledding!  Off for another sledding/snowboarding adventure.

Happy New Year!  We had my family all come over to celebrate New Years at our house.  We played games and ate great food and had so much fun.  Amazingly the kids all stayed awake for the party.

Christmas Day with the Marsh's

Ben got a crystal bakugan from Santa and Hailey got a Tinkerbell set.  This is the after everything was unwrapped pile. 

I got a surprise with a new beach cruiser bike!



The cousins sledding in Mormor's house

I love this picture, because all around the cute newlyweds (Jake and Bri)  there is mass chaos and they are just snuggling.

My kids can't get enough of sledding, especially with Mike!

Eliza decided that eating snow was the best thing about sledding!

Eliza playing with her huge chunk of snow!



Okay, so we all got these awesome monkey pj's that have footie's and everything.  Here is a picture of me riding my sweet new beach cruiser bike wearing my pj's.  Our neighbors got a good laugh!

We had such a fun Christmas Day.  The kids were so excited to see that Santa had come and unwrap their presents.  We went over to my mom's for a delicious breakfast and opened more presents there.  We have a new tradition of sledding with Santa on Christmas Day.  We did this last year and the kids loved it!  This year we had to go up to the canyons to find enough snow.  Unfortunately, Santa had a really bad sledding run and hit 2 major bumps going down.  Bump 1 he lost his hat, bump 2 he lost his glasses and beard.  Surprise to our kids that Santa was grandpa Buddy!  We quickly explained that Santa was tired from delivering presents and Buddy was his helper.  Our kids understood, but I'm sure we traumatized all the other kids sledding on the hill with us!



Christmas Eve with the Wootton's

Mike's mom playing Christmas carols and Hailey singing with Grandma Margaret and Grandpa Bert

Ben after the fun candy cane hunt!

These 2 pictures are my favorites.  All the kids got zhu-zhu pets from Santa.  Eliza made this cute and crazy face every time she caught the zhu-zhu.  We just kept sending it her way because it was so funny!

We had such a fun Christmas Eve with Mike's family.  Their family has great traditions.  The favorite is Christmas Bingo, complete with Bingo cards made by Mike's Grandma Margaret.  The kids and adults love the prize bucket for bingo.  We also added a candy cane hunt this year, and the kids loved it!  Eliza was so cute and excited about everything.  I love Christmas with kids, it is so fun seeing their excitement over everything.