Mylie is 7!

It's hard to believe, but Mylie is now 7 years old!

Mylie LOVES school so much, she wanted a "school" cake this year. I really had no idea what to do until she had the idea of putting letters or numbers or math problems on it.  From that, we came up with the idea of doing a "7" cake.  Super easy (which is completely my style), and Mylie loved it.

For birthdays, we always just invite all the cousins and grandparents, which is a houseful.  The kids all have a great time with each other. We are blessed to have so much family close by.

7 things about Mylie Jo:

1. She has a beautiful smile. From the time she was a baby, she has always been willing to share her smile. She was even nick-named "Smiley Mylie" before she was even a year old.
2. She loves her mama.  Of all my kids, I never question how much Mylie loves me. She's always been right beside me, doing whatever I'm doing.
3. She is a great reader.  She reads all the time and can now read just about anything. She cruises right through chapter books. From all this reading, she has also become a great speller.
4. She is a great big sister. She and Mariah have become best friends, which often takes a little patience on her part with the 3 year gap. She is also great with babies. She is always wanting to help with Brady, and he loves her too!
5. She is quite coordinated.  She picked up tumbling very quickly, and has since found that she is also good at tee ball, volleyball, and running.
6. She is very friendly. From the time Mylie was little, she has always made friends quickly.  Her teachers tell me she is a good friend to everyone in her class.  I remember once when Mylie was about 3 or 4 and we were at a McDonalds PlayPlace, Mylie quickly made a friend to play with, as usual. Connor came up to me and said, "Mylie already made a friend.  She really has a talent for that!"
7. She LOVES music. Although getting her to practice her piano is a chore right now, she loves dancing, singing, and watching musicals.

Happy Birthday, Mylie Jo!

Weekend Warriors

So, I actually had to get my calendar out before I could begin typing this post.  There have been 6--that's right, 6--weekends since volleyball ended. And it's amazing how great it's been to actually have some Saturdays with options as to how I should spend them! (I usually only have one Saturday off during an entire volleyball season.) So, here's a hopefully short little run-down of what we've done with this day I've added onto my week!

Saturday #1--Actually just stayed home. Very rare. I painted my laundry room ceiling, which had been water damaged after losing some shingles. Fun, right? Well, it gets better.  I put all my canned good from October's case lot sale on my storage room shelves and hauled a TON of garbage out of the basement and to the dumpster!  Maybe not the most exciting projects, but fabulous things to get done.

Saturday #2--A fun family trip to Laramie!  Tony and Connor went to 4 or 5 state championship football games, and the rest of us joined them for Cowgirl basketball, Cowgirl volleyball, and Cowboy basketball.  The pokes won every game we watched!  I also got to see Tyson, which was great. I love Laramie.

Saturday #3--We were able to go down to Provo to the temple. Olivia was kind enough to be our babysitter for the day. Thanks again, Livi!  After the temple, Tony, Connor, Mylie, and I went to Heber to watch a matinee showing of The Forgotten Carols, while Mariah and Brady stayed with Livi.  The show was fabulous as usual. It was Connor and Mylie's first time seeing it, and they really liked it.  We finished the day by eating . . . and eating . . . and eating at Chuck-a-Rama. Gotta love a good buffet!

Saturday#4--This was a really special weekend for the Micheli family.  Tony's grandpa Joe G, who was not a member of the church, passed away last November.  His wife, Grandma Becky, who had been a faithful member of the church all her life without the support of her husband, was finally able to go to the temple for her first time last December, which was an incredible experience!  Well, she passed away in July of this year.  Thanksgiving weekend, the all of their children and their spouses as well as many grandchildren were able to go to the temple and do all the temple work for Grandpa Joe G.  They were also finally sealed as a family, a blessing they had been hoping and praying for for years! 

Saturday #5--Tony was gone to his first basketball tournament of the year, and Tami came to visit!  She actually came on Friday and stayed the night.  Then we had a fun day with her boys here on Saturday while she went shopping in Utah.  We played and played and played some more!  The kids had so much fun together.

Saturday #6--Actually a pretty lazy day.  Slept in, worked out, went to a lunch/baby shower with some friends, did my grocery shopping, spent some time at Tony's sister's house, complete with pizza, then came home and hung out until bedtime.  Weird for our family to spend a day like this, but nice.

*I am aware that this post would be about 1000x more interesting with pictures, but let me just say that the pictures I did take in the past month are pretty much horrible quality since they were almost all indoors. I could actually use a new camera. HINT, HINT, Santa Clause!  So here are the 2 outdoor pics that I took in the past month, just in case you forgot what my kids look like. :)

LOVE

If you need a natural high today, look no further.

This afternoon . . .

 . . . while I was doing this (BORING, I know)

the rest of the family was doing WAY cooler stuff!

Mariah and Mylie were pretending to be bug doctors--that's right, bug doctors.

Giving the meds.

A little acupuncture.

Connor and Mylie (she bounces around a lot) made these sweet wallets out of duct tape!

And Tony and Brady were doing a little of this.

Life is simple, but good.

My Brave New Self

I've been thinking of doing this for quite awhile now.  And thanks to my sisters both cutting their hair in the past couple years, I finally decided to go for it!

And although it's only been a few days, so far I LOVE IT!!  I told Violet that I feel so much cooler with this haircut.  So cool, in fact, that I can even imagine myself wearing skinny jeans, boots, and a scarf!  Not saying that I will--just that I can now imagine it.  But my favorite thing of all? This hairdo, wet to finished, takes me less than ten minutes to do!  Oh, how I've longed for this day!

Brady--3 months

Somehow, as much as I'm trying to slow things down, Brady is already 3 months old.  It has been a crazy 3 months, trying to balance it all--school starting, volleyball practices and travel, and learning to manage 4 kids and all they are doing.  But it has also been a wonderful 3 months!  Brady has brought such love into our home.  I love seeing the older kids as they love him and care for him, and how much they want to interact with him.  They can hardly wait for him to grow up and play with them! 

He continues to be a chubby little guy.  We haven't had an official weight on him lately, but using the weigh-yourself-then-weigh-holding-the-baby method, we think he's just over 16 lbs.

Brady is getting close to figuring out his hands, but for now, he is constantly clasping them together and then trying to shove both fists into his mouth at once, which can sometimes make him crazy with frustration (not my favorite developmental milestone, I might add)!  He has also found his tongue, and loves sticking it out all the time.  Connor thinks this is a sign that he's going to be like Michael Jordan someday.

Brady is a really good night sleeper, and does ok during the day. We are struggling to find some consistency with daytime naps, as they sometimes only last 45 minutes, but other times will be 3-4 hours.  I never know what to expect.  But what has been consistent is that he either sleeps through the night (like 10-11 hours) or only wakes up once.  LOVE that!

Although I can rarely get him to do it for the camera, Brady smiles a lot, and already laughs!  I'm thrilled about this since Mariah didn't laugh until she was a year old.  He laughs when he's tickled, but has also laughed several times just because somebody does something funny. 

And since we couldn't get a smiling picture anytime in the last week, I'll just end this post with a pic that made me smile--the squishy-face photo.

Halloween Fun

Halloween really isn't a super big deal at this house.  I'm kind of the Halloween grinch, I guess. I don't dress up, don't really decorate for it, and generally just don't care all that much for this holiday.  But my kids do.  So I tried to do a few fun (but extremely SIMPLE, since that's how I roll) things this year.  Here's what we did:

Carved pumpkins, of course!  This year, we grew our own and ended up with two decent-sized ones.  We did one traditional scary-face jack-o-lantern, and then tried Connor's idea of a bucking horse, which turned out awesome, thanks to our talented carver, Tony.

And then we ate the seeds!  I roasted these with a little butter, garlic salt, and pepper. I think the kids liked these just as much as their candy.  They sure disappeared in a hurry!

Family Home Evening treats at this house are usually extremely simple--instant pudding or ice cream.  But I really stepped up this time, and made these fun whoopie pies with Halloween sprinkles.  Okay, they were from a boxed mix from Walmart, but my kids thought they were awesome!

Since I was going all out this year, we even did a little craft for our candy to hand out at the trunk-or-treat.  These cute little ghost pops were extremely simple (a tootsie pop covered with a tissue, tied with yarn, and then a little face drawn on) and fun for the girls to help make.

And the best part of all . . . the costumes!  This year, we had a football player, Hermoine, a ladybug, and a bumble bee.  (I really should have gotten one picture of them all together, but it didn't happen. Oh well.)

One final word on Halloween.  I've heard many mothers complain that the worst part of Halloween is having to manage all the candy consumption for weeks afterward.  I have a simple solution for that.  Just don't manage it, and the headache will be over very quickly.  The candy in this house was all gone in just 4-5 days. And if you want to speed up the process, just sneak a few of your favorite pieces here and there.  It works great!!!