Happy Birthday Morgie

My little Morgie turned 5 today, man I am getting old. She is such a sweet, affectionate, helpful, lovable, smiley part of our family. I'm so grateful I was chosen to be her mother. She has taught me soo much. Her birthday has kinda lasted all weekend, since her bday landed on a Sunday this year. Yesterday Morgan, McKenzie and I went shoe shopping and then to Toys R Us for her birthday hat and balloon. Then our neighbors invited us to go to the Scera Pool to help them use up their punch pass card before it closed Monday, we were happy to help them out. By the time we were done swimming it was dinner and I wasn't really in the mood to cook and so we went to Red Robin for dinner.

Here's Morgan after she ate the pizza she ordered, (if you can't already tell by the mess on her face).
Here are the cute sisters. I sure hope they grow up and stay as close as they are now, (believe me they have their moments of not wanting to be together, but for the most part they are inseparable).

This is the "other side" of the table, ya know the side I'm not cool enough to be a part of. jk, I love Micah's expression, "what they are they looking at, weirdos." After dinner they brought out a piece of their Mud Pie (a half of a serving) but it was still enormous. We all ate it and still couldn't finish the plate. It was sooooo goood though, I think I want that for my birthday, nothing else. Actually Randy asked me what kind of cake I wanted and I told him I didn't want anymore cake. Over the last two weeks, we have had so many cakes, and cupcakes and desserts that I just can't take it anymore, give me a salad with candles in it please.
Today after church Auntie Dee Da came over and we made pizza for dinner (Morgan's request) and she opened presents. She got some Littlest Pet Shop stuff, "Taylor" from HSM, the new Little Mermaid movie some artsy things and a cute little bird feeder. Even Jeffery the Giraffe from Toys R Us called her to wish her a happy birthday (apparently a part of the birthday club festivities when you join). Then a few neighbor families came over for cake and ice cream, not a party just a, "please get the cake out of my house gathering."
Morgan wanted a zebra cake, and since I really didn't want to serve pieces of cake to everyone, and thought cup cakes would be easier, we made zebra striped cupcakes, nothing fancy but she liked them. We found a couple of the kids' little zebra animals and put them on a few of the cakes. All in all it was a fun birthday for her, and since we have the day off tomorrow I think we are going to try and go see "Kung Fu Panda" at the dollar theater (man I love Utah).

Singing to Morgan

Morgan's first day of Kindergarten

It has officially happened, Morgan is a honest to goodness Kindergartner. What has happened to the time, she was just a baby last week I swear. I just recently found an old friend from school on Facebook and we were asking what each other was up to and he asked how many kids I had, and then said "When did we get so old?" I pondered that question for a while and I still don't have a good response. It was somewhere between 5 years and 10 years after graduation, but lately it's been hitting a lot harder, probably because my infamous 30th birthday is coming up and I am not ready for it. Anyway, enough about my reality checks, more about my sweet little kindergartner. Isn't she so stinkin cute?


She got the same teacher that McKenzie had, Ms. Headman, which I requested and had numerous talks with her reminding her that she needed to put Morgan in her class after the assessments last week. Ms. Headman called me later in the week and I wasn't able to answer the phone, her message stated (jokingly) that I was going to be with the other teacher in the afternoon, (complete opposite of what I requested). It's a good thing we're friends enough that I know when she's joking. I know Morgan is going to love her, McKenzie still wishes that she could go back and be in Kindergarten again. The second pic is of her friends Katelin and McKenna who also started Kindergarten today. I didn't realize how small she was until I saw this shot. She'll catch up sooner or later right?

Happy 1st Birthday EA!

Opening her gift from Aunt Dee Da.

This little girl loves to clap, say "Ya" to everything, except that I'm the coolest, wave "bye bye," crawl like Mogli from the Jungle Book, yell at us to get our attention, sleeps at least 12 hours a night, jump like a little frog (including on a trampoline), and loves to be held by her momma, sometimes daddy (more so lately thank goodness).
She is our little ham, always trying to get attention.
I love this little girl. A year ago today I was in the hospital going through the longest labor of my life (and that's weird cuz she is #4 and my others were a lot quicker). Anyway, after 12 hours of tonz `o fun, out came this 9 lb cutie, she was also my biggest. . . by far. But she has gotten back on track to be like her siblings, long and skinny. She keeps us on our toes with her little personality. She's full of life and energy and when she is awake she has the attention of the room.

We took her to Toys R Us, she's part of their birthday club and so we went there as a family and she got a hat and a balloon and we all picked out a present for her, (which the kids play with I think a little more than she does).

I made her spaghetti for her birthday dinner, I was trying to think of what to make a 1 year old and every time we have this she just inhales it, that and chicken nuggets. I let her feed herself, cuz I am such a nice mom and this is the how beautiful she looked after. She's got a sauce beard, she ate about 3 bowls of it, so I think it was a hit.
I am so grateful for the life and energy she has and the blessing that she is as a part of our family. I love you baby girl.

Malia's 1st birthday cake

I know I know, her birthday isn't until tomorrow, but I wanted my brother and Randy's sister there, so we opted for Sunday for the Schmidt tradition of walking through the 1st birthday cake. I did this with all my kids, each had a special cake made by me, nothing fancy but I try to make it a little cute. Then they can have at it. Unfortunately none of MY kids have really been the messy types, Micah and Morgan actually screamed as I got them closer, and I was afraid Malia was going to do the same but she did ok, as long as I sat there. So I got some scrubby clothes on and let her got for it. Here are some video shots that we took. Towards the end of the last clip Malia lets out a pretty good burp, it's right before we start laughing really hard, you may want to turn your volume up for that one. I'll post more tomorrow for her real birthday. but I thought you may enjoy seeing a sneak peak to her fun day.

Foot in the Cake

The Dainty Eater

The Burp

McKenzie's 1st day of 2nd Grade!!!

WHOO HOOOOOOO!!!! It has finally arrived, the blessed day for mother's all over the world, THE 1ST DAY OF SCHOOL!!!!!! Can you tell I am excited. So we've just been really busy the last couple of weeks, partly because I had an activity for Relief Society that I was in charge of and kids getting sick, again, that I haven't had time to blog and barely had enough time to kind of go school shopping. Last Thursday was Hillcrest's open house and McKenzie got to meet her teacher Ms. Braun. She came highly recommended and so I requested her at the end of last school year. So I was pretty excited when we got the letter that she was in Braun's class. Then Friday, Mac and went shopping for a couple of outfits. I don't really want to go school shopping cuz it's still so hot outside and by the time she is going to need pants and stuff she will have probably grown out of them. So I am waiting, but I wanted her to have a couple of new outfits for the 1st day of school. Then Saturday the kids had their annual water day primary activity. They go to the park and have a bunch of water games to play and just get wet. I figured once they were already wet that we were going to have an end of summer water balloon fight. I had a package of 450 balloons (that is not a typo) and got about 50 done and my fingers were killing me, so I recruited my friend Trisha to help me finish them off. We did it and the kids had a blast. So we woke up this morning and I was nice mommy and made German pancakes, (Mac's favorite) and got ready for school. She loves dresses so of course the outfit she picked for today had to be a dress. Morgan's first day of kindergarten is next Monday. She has to be assessed this week and then they start, so I'll have a different post for her. Oh and be looking for all the birthday posts that will be coming shortly, (3 in the next 2 weeks, ahhhhhhhhh).