AMEN

Last night after we said family prayers something special happened, Kaybri said "amen". It's been a very long time since we've heard her say that (probably about a year ago). Amen was one of the first words she learned when she was a year old, and she could repeat what you told her to say in a prayer when she got a little older, but these sweet words were some of the things that disappeared last year. We've been working on saying "amen" quite awhile with her after prayers, and last night I could tell she was actually thinking about it, so I stopped repeating amen to her and after a little bit she slowly said "aaaa...men" over and over again. We just started cheering her on and you could tell she was so proud of herself as she said it a couple more times. The proud feeling I have for her accomplishment is 10x stronger now than what it was when she was learning new words left and right a few years ago; I know now not to take those cute little words for granted.

I can tell she is a little more with it lately. She is responding much better to us and listening when we ask her to do something...most of the time. This last week she has repeated a lot of things I've told her to do like, "get down", "don't touch it", "don't spill it" (these all make me sound mean and bossy, but those short commands I guess are the easiest to say...maybe?). She also said "puh puh please" (please-an old word returned). And a brand new word last week....Trista!(my niece's name) I haven't been able to get her to say some of the words again, so I'm not sure how to make things stick-but I know it's all up in her little head.

Gimme gimme

Looking for a SUPER cute dress for your little girl? Enter HERE for the give-a-way!!

And if your kids are noise makers like mine, then you should enter another give-a-way for a darling quiet book. It looks like it just might hold the kids attention for more than 5 minutes! Take a look HERE for the rules to enter!

All You Need is Love

My good friend Amber took some pictures of Justin and I last month. She is starting up her photography business and we got to be her "models". I just love how they turned out!! It was actually kinda fun too--I mean just me and hubby, alone, being able to hold and hug on each other. When does that happen?! It's been almost 7 years since we took engagement pictures, and then we had kids and all the pictures become of them, so it's a little weird to have all these pictures of just us, but I totally recommend it. Just the other day my mom showed me a picture of her in her 20's and it's fun to see that stuff. You don't want to wait until something important like 25 or 50 years of marriage, these years are important too. So...go get some pictures of you and your man. He might grumble a little bit, but just remind him that she's going to ask for some kissy pics too ;) Amber's website and photography blog are as follows:

http://ambersmodernphoto.com/
http://halversenphotography.blogspot.com/

Check her out, she's AWESOME!!

The hardest part is picking which one I like the best!

The Sweetest Girl Ever

A few days after Justin's birthday was Kaybri's birthday. She turned 4 years old on the 10th. We ended up celebrating her birthday a few days later so daddy could make it. We still tried to make her day special though. She loves the birthday song and we sang it to her practically all day. She loved it! She was "chef of the day" at school that week and also had a valentine party, so she really ended up having more of a birthday week. I don't really know how much she comprehended it all, but I think she had a fun time.

On her actual birthday it snowed here in Arizona! Of course it only lasted an hour, which makes snow kinda fun and exciting. I tried to document it and snapped a picture of Kaybri outside before she left on the bus. You can't see much snow, but if you look really close it's all there behind Kaybri!

Remember how I said we were debating on taking her bike back because it was too big and she wouldn't get on it....well, we did and got her a dora tricycle instead. And since we got it at the same time as her birthday presents, we decided to wrap it up and re-give her her Christmas present :) I'm glad we took the other bike back, she's much more comfortable with trying to ride the tricycle. It also helped Paxton figure out how pedaling works and he can now ride his bike a little.

Kaybri carried this fake nail polish around all night. She loves to have her nails and toes clipped and painted.

Paxton trying out Kaybri's lipstick. (luckily fake too)

And here's the cute girl in front of her ice cream cake (request of Justin). I'm so glad she was in a good mood this day and actually participated in her birthday! She opened her presents on her own, played with them a little and gave us lots of kisses and smiles. It was a great day! She was afraid of blowing out her candles, but Pax gladly accepted the challenge.

We are so thankful for our sweet girl. Our life would definitely be boring with out her. She has taught us a lot the past few years. We are learning to be more patient and that we really aren't the ones in charge. Things can change literally in the blink of an eye. This past year we noticed a dramatic decrease in how fast she was learning and then she started losing some of her skills too. We are way excited that she was able to get funded through the state and that she will now be able to get some of the services she needs. It's work and no fun a lot of the time, but I know it's going to help her get back on track. We celebrate the smallest things with Kaybri, like when she says a new word, the return of an old word, she finished all of her dinner by herself, she tried to play with another kid (or at least said hi), she stayed in her bed all night, I didn't have to repeat her a million times, she followed a direction I gave her, etc...

Some of the things she's into now-a-days:

-painting/coloring

-watching movies (she has about 10-15 different ones that she'll sit through and watch)

-swinging, sliding, climbing (swingset)

-jumping on beds or trampolines

-manicures/pedicures

-putting on real makeup

-going to preschool

-screaming at Pax if he comes too close

-KISSING over and over again...does not matter who it is (and you must repeat "thanks" after she says it)

-loves to be tickled and has the cutest giggle to go with it

-playing with her hair (or mine) and sticking it in her ear

-singing popcorn popping, happy birthday, or itsy bitsy spider to her

If you know Kaybri, you know she's a little quirky, and WE LOVE IT!!

SO OLD!!!

As usual, last month was a crazy busy month for us. I was looking at my calendar/planner tonight and thought, "no wonder I haven't blogged...or feel like I will never catch up on everything. Something was marked on every single day of February (well, minus maybe a couple Sundays)." Now, a lot of things that we did were fun things, so I'm not complaining-I know I totally bring the craziness upon myself.

So, to start off the month we celebrated Justin's 30th Birthday!!! I've been teasing him for the past few months on how old he was getting. I know he doesn't look old or act old, but 30 just sounds OLD! :) I'm pretty sure it's more weird for me than him. Thank goodness I have a few years until I get "old". hahaha...I'm sure all my older friends/family are rolling their eyes thinking I have so much to learn and that it's so not a big deal.

Anyway...Justin's parents came down to AZ to visit, so the pretty much the whole family (we missed you Shawn!) got together and celebrated all the January and February birthdays (6 total birthdays I think). It was a fairly quick trip to Mesa, and overall we had a good time. We spent some time at a nearby park and then we all went to Amazing Jake's; it's a pretty cool place that has tons of stuff for the whole family. Little Kaybri had a seizure right before we got there, so she was an emotional wreck, but we did get her to ride a couple rides that she did ok on. After a couple of hours of carrying her around the place I decided to just take her out to the car and let her have what she really needed- a nap! I felt so bad for her, you just never know when that's going to happen. Justin and Pax had a blast though and got some good bonding time. We are so grateful for what a loving family we have and that they all wanted to make Justin's 30th special for him. We love our family so much and more than anything it was fun to see everyone and spend some time together. Justin had a good birthday and not much has really changed, we're still living today like he's 29! ;) I love you babe! You're a good sport!


Here are all the cute girl cousins loving the goodies that Grandma is known to bring.

Justin getting some help from Pax on blowing out his 1 candle.

Justin got a gun for his birthday this year. I have no idea the technical name/info on it. My dad just said, "This is a good gun; Justin needs it." So that's what I decided to get him. It totally took Justin by surprise, and he was pretty excited about it. I didn't dare have him open it up and take a picture of it, because we were in Amazing Jake's at the time.

Justin and Britni, the 2 birthday adults