Circus!

Last night Clay and I took the girls to the Barnum and Bailey Circus for the first time! They had such a great time. We did also. Clay surprised me a few weeks ago and asked if I wanted to go. So we bought the tickets and went! When I asked Elyse what her favorite thing was she said..."the swinging lady." Elyse loved eating her cotton candy and snow cone as well! Madyson enjoyed the show, but she didn't want to sit down. At least she watched while standing. By far Madyson's favorite part was the Tigers. She sat on my lap and watched the whole part! Thanks Clay for the great night!

Facial hair...yuck!

Clay had this thing for about two weeks of NOT shaving! I couldn't believe that he would do it especially when I specifically told him that I HATE facial hair. But to know avail he continued to grow it out for about 2 weeks. This is what it looked like when he finally shaved. What makes it even more funny is that the night after he shaved I dreamed that he had facial hair again and I actually liked it. Hmmm... dreams are weird because I still do NOT like facial hair, but I still LOVE my husband.

Creative?

I have NEVER considered myself creative, but I might have to take what I said back. I joined a scrap swap group and have had a ton of fun creating and putting together our first months assignment. The assignment was birds.When I first heard that was what we were doing I didn't think I would be able to do it, but after some research online I came up with this. I chose to make two cards per person this time. I found a bird pattern online and came up with the rest myself. Not too bad for someone who says she's not creative. I had fun doing it even if it is not the most creative thing out there.

Nap time

Grandma...does this remind you of somebody???

Madyson has really found the love for reading. She started babbling while reading about a month ago. So there was no surprise here when I walked in her room at nap time today to find her passed out with her book still in her hand! Like Mother like Daughter. You can still find me doing this at times. Clay can attest to it!

No more stitches

We finally got the stitches out on Thursday! Here is Elyse with the stitches gone! It still doesn't look great, but it definitely looks MUCH BETTER! She is still a beautiful little girl boo boo and all!

Mady's 2nd birthday!

Happy Birthday Mady!

I cannot believe that my youngest is already 2! How fast time flies. She is such an adorable 2 year old with her super blond hair and bright blue eyes! She brings so much happiness into my life with her happy go lucky attitude. She really is a happy little girl. She always has a smile on her face. She loves following her big sister around doing big girl things. Madyson loves to read and can be caught talking out loud while turning the pages. I have no idea what she is saying, but she does! In fact, today during nap time she probably read out loud for about 30 minutes before finally giving in to take her nap! Like Mother like daughters!

Last night (Saturday) we took the girls to the lake (less than 10 min from the house) with some Whataburger (wasn't that great and I blew a gazillion weight watcher points on it). It was a little windy, but it felt nice except for the fact that I came down with something the previous day and hadn't been feeling too hot all day and Clay all of a sudden got a really bad headache. We tried to make the best of it, but only lasted about an hour. We got out the fishing poles that Grandpa Minson got for the girls and tried our hand at some "pretend" fishing. Clay didn't actually put a hook on it. He wanted them to practice first. I think they enjoyed the time that we spent with them!

Look at all these presents! You would have thought that she had a HUGE birthday party! Actually this was from all of her Grandmas and Grandpas that couldn't be here today! Thanks everyone for making Madyson's day so special!

"Ummm...this present is really big! I wonder what's in here???"

She was really excited about her Minny Mouse and Daisy Duck. She said, "Oh boy!" This was a hit Mom!

Tonight we had an ice cream cake for Madyson's cake! It was super yummy! I love Baskin and Robbins! What a treat to have a two year old in our home! They are so sweet and I have enjoyed every minute of being a mommy to Madyson!

What Madyson has been learning this year:

*animals and their sounds (dog, cat, cow, duck, sheep, bird)
* we have started working on colors
* Says "please" and "thank you" at the appropriate time! I love this one! It makes my heart melt.
* to talk on the phone! She loves talking on the phone...my little social butterfly!
* can eat with a fork and a spoon. Still using a sippy cup though. For my sake!
* puts away her own toys. And sings the "clean up song" while she does it. It sounds more like "peen up peen up" It's really cute!
* Learned to play with Elyse

Madyson... you bring a special spirit of happiness into our home. Heavenly Father knew that I needed a little girl that had a smile on her face all of the time! I am so proud to be your mommy and look forward to many more birthdays!

*** I can't believe I am all out of babies! :( Time really does go by really fast! Too fast. I need to spend more time cherishing the special moments that I have with my beautiful daughters!

Happy Birthday my sweet Angel!

Saturday Night Incident

All right... I know you are all dying to know about our excitement the night before Easter. If you are on Facebook you might have already seen. Okay... I am going to start by telling you about our day first. On Friday I got a call from my visiting teacher asking if I would like to go to the temple with her, another sister, and her mom. Going to the temple here is an all day excursion and by all day I mean ALL DAY! I knew this would be a hard one to get by Clay, but it actually wasn't. He said I could go! I was so excited. We left at 5:30 am to drive 3 1/2 hours to Lubbock. It was so wonderful being in the temple. Of course before we drove I offered the prayer and made sure I mentioned to keep our families SAFE while we were away. Of course, Heavenly Father answers prayers when you are doing what you should be doing. I had a nice day at the temple. Things came to me that I never thought of before and I think after 4 years I am starting to gain a better understanding. Yeah!
Clay spent the day with girls. From what I understand they had a fabulous day. A little girl in our ward had her birthday party at the park with an Easter Egg Hunt. I was happy because I felt I could check off the Easter Egg Hunt off my to do list. I knew that there were a few things that I wanted to do with the girls when I got home. I didn't get home until about 6:30. We ate dinner and then started our pre-Easter festivities. We had a Saturday Night Family Home Evening. I could feel the spirit and I could tell that Elyse was learning. We talked about Jesus and how he can heal us and make us feel comforted because of the atonement. We then talked about his death and resurrection. It was a wonderful night. Afterwards we decorated Easter Eggs. That was fun! The girls loved it! We only did 6 eggs because that was all we had. Honestly, 6 was enough! We put Mady to bed and I sat on the couch with Elyse.
It was getting close to Elyse's bedtime when I told her that she needed to get a book to read. Of course she told me she didn't want to go to bed. (This is a nightly ritual.) I then explained to her that the Easter Bunny wouldn't come if she was awake. So she immediately became really excited and jumped up to go pick out her story. DON'T READ THIS IF YOU HAVE QUEASY STOMACH! She was so excited that she jumped off the couch (we have told her numerous times NOT to do this). We have a tile landing leading up to the kitchen with a tile edge. Elyse jumped...tripped over her feet... and landed smack right on the edge of the tile with her head. Of course, I tried not to make a big deal out of it and went to her. She is screaming bloody murder. I am holding her and notice that my hands are becoming very wet. I turn her over and she is bleeding profusely. I see a whole in her forhead, next to her eyebrow, the size of a nickel maybe even a quarter. That scared me so I screamed at the top of my lungs for Clay. It has been almost 3 days and my throat feels so soar from my screams. Clay came running in and grabbed her and put pressure on her head. He made a head wrap for her. When he looked at it we knew that she was going to have to be taken to the hospital.We could see her skull bone from the wound.
IT'S OKAY TO READ NOW! I am so grateful for good friends. The Lord has blessed us with some good friends that live fairly close to us. We can call them day or night and they will come running. I called Brandi and her husband answered and he came over immediately. He and Clay gave Elyse a priesthood blessing. As soon as Clay asked Heavenly Father to comfort her she immediately calmed down and didn't cry until the anesthetic was put into her wound. Our friend Mike took Madyson over to there house to sleep while we took Elyse to the ER. He also came back to our house and cleaned our carpets for us where the blood was. What an amazing friend!

When the doctor looked at it they wanted to do an Xray to make sure there was no bone damage where she hit. It made me a little nervous especially when the word Facial Surgeon came up. Luckily Heavenly Father was watching out for my little girl and there was NO bone damage. Just stitches.
I was able to have a bonding moment with Elyse while she was laying on the bed in the room at the hospital. I asked her if she wanted me to sing to her. I started to sing to her I Am A Child of God. I felt the spirit very strongly and I began to cry. Elyse just looks up at me and I can tell she feel the spirit too because she has a tear drop rolling down her cheek. We then had the discussion of what it feels like when we can feel the Holy Ghost. It was a neat moment for me that I will cherish and remember Forever.
Elyse did get stitches. 8 total. It looks much better, although her eye did begin to swell and bruise today. I am so proud of my little girl! She is so brave. I am so proud of my husband who holds the priesthood and was so willing to give her a blessing before we went to the hospital. I am so thankful to good friends who are so willing to help. Most of all I am so thankful to my Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ who listens to prayers and waited for me to be at home when this happened. I would have been a basket case if this happened while I was at the temple. We are so blessed. I realized how blessed we truly have been because nothing like this ever happened when Clay was out of work and we didn't have insurance!



One more small story. The next morning Elyse saw her booboo in the mirror and said, "Mommy, I don't like this booboo. I want Jesus to come down and heal me." We had a talk about the priesthood blessing she was given and how that was acting on behalf of Jesus. I also told her that she could say a prayer and ask Jesus to help heal her. She said the sweetest prayer without any help asking for Jesus to heal her. These experiences are meant to strengthen our testimonies. I truly feel like my testimony has been strengthened this Easter weekend. We truly learned the meaning of Easter and what Jesus Christ was sent here to do.

Birthday "Tea" Party

Elyse celebrated her 4th birthday with a "Tea" party with some friends. Unfortunately I scheduled the party right smack during conference. I didn't realize I did this until I had already printed the cards. So I just decided to leave it alone. I was really nervous about people coming, but it worked out. We didn't have too many kids and honestly that was perfect!

***I made Purse invitations for each of the girls. It was fun to do with my scrapbook paper that I hardly ever use.

***We decorated Tiaras, purses, and made necklaces. The girls really seemed to have fun doing this.
*** I read a story called The Teacup that Talked. The kids absolutely LOVED it! It had such a neat message. In the story the teacup tells a grandpa and grandma, who are looking for a perfect gift for their granddaughter, about how it wasn't always a beautiful teacup. I found a really beautiful teacup at an antique store and gave that to Elyse when I was finished with the story. She was able to drink out of her teacup when it was time for lunch and "tea" (lemonade)!
*** I was a little CRAZY and let them use my china tea cups. They felt like such big girls drinking lemonade from the tea cups. Luckily, not a single cup was broken. Thank goodness! I was a little nervous a few times.

Elyse's Favorite part of her birthday

Elyse had a lot of special moments this birthday. She loved having her friends come. Thank you for coming... Karleigh, Gracie, Claire, and Anna! You made Elyse's birthday so special. But the best part to her birthday party was that her Grandpa and Grandma Minson and Uncle Scott came from McKinney and surprised her! She was so happy. They drove in the night before. She had no idea they were there until she woke up and someone was in her bathroom. When Grandpa opened the door all she could say was, "GRANDPA!!!" I think that made the entire trip worth it to my Dad and Mom! We had such a nice time with them! We even got to spend some extra time with Grandma because she stayed a few extras days and then flew home! This will be a birthday that she will always rememeber... I think.

Next few blogs

There is so much I need to catch up on from the past week and a half. I will be doing some pretty heavy blogging for the next few blogs. There will probably be a lot to read. So if you want to skip some...do. Except don't skip the blog about our Easter excitement over here. You probably won't want to miss this. Trust me... it wasn't exciting in fact it was VERY scary.

slight delay

I have a slight delay on posting pictures from Elyse's birthday party. I lost my SD card. I can't find it anywhere. Unfortunately I had not uploaded her pictures onto the computer yet. My mom is going to send me some of her pictures. It was a really nice party and I am so disappointed that I lost it. Hopefully it turns up somewhere soon!

Coming soon...

Elyse had her birthday party today! It went really smooth despite my set back of setting the time during conference. I think having less kids was a relief. A more detailed post to come soon. I am really tired and just need to go to bed. I do not feel like trying to upload pictures to the computer.

Happy 4th Birthday

First of all... I can't believe I have a 4 year old! Elyse is such a sweet little girl who brings me so much happiness and joy! She is my little April Fool's baby! Today we had a whole day of celebration with just our family. We love our extended family, but it was so nice to be together just the four of us!

Elyse wanted to go to the park so we went and got Subway and met Dad at the park for lunch. We had a blast!

Tonight Elyse wanted to go swimming, but Mommy strategically talked her out of going. I was so tired! Instead we played with her new VTech game system that Grandpa and Grandma Hooten got her.

I asked Elyse a few days ago what she would like for her Birthday dinner. I told her that I would make anything she wanted. She asked for Fish and rice and cooked carrots! My healthy little eater! The birthday girl got what she wanted!

Earlier today I took her to Baskin and Robins and let her pick our her very own cup of ice cream. She wanted pink ice cream so she chose strawberry. Of course, mommy and daddy needed some to. ;) I probably should have gone without some, but it was so good. That is what the candle is on. I decided not to make her a cake because she is having a birthday party on Saturday. Her cake is being made by a friend from church. Stay tuned for pictures of that some time next week.

To top it all off she was able to play with her friend Karleigh tonight while we (I mean Clay) watched Karleigh and her siblings. They had fun. I had to run some errands for 30 minutes of the time.

Happy Birthday my Elyse Bryanne! You truly are a beautiful girl!

Top 10 Things I love about Elyse

1. She gives me hugs when I am sad! I know I shouldn't be sad in front of her, but she makes me feel so good when she does that!
2. She is a very caring child! She suprises me at how much she cares for her friends.
3. Elyse is very forgiving. Why is it that I can get mad at her or lose my patience and than not even a few minutes later she has forgotten the whole ordeal.
4. She plays so well with her little sister Madyson. I know now why I had my girls 2 years apart. They are so in love with each other. Elyse wants Mady included in everything she does. In fact she asked me yesterday if she could invite Madyson to her birthday party on Saturday. Of course you can baby! It makes my heart just melt watching them together!
5. She tries and tries. She is a little girl with lots of perserverance! She is an example of when you fall you try again! I know that she will be able to use this to her advantage some day!
6. She is the best snuggler! She still is waking up at the crack of dawn. I cannot get that child to sleep in unless she is snuggling with me! Bring on the snuggling because that means mommy gets a few more zzzz's in the morning!
7. Elyse is very artistic. She loves to color and draw! I can see a lot of talent developing in that area for her. She is much better at it than i was/am.
8. She remembers all of her family in her prayers! I love hearing her pray! I know that she is very close to her Father in Heaven. I pray that I can continue to teach her and that the relationship that she has will always be like it is now!
9. She is happy over the smallest things. We recently just put her in gymnastics and she is so happy to go each week. She loves when we do little things for her and her appreciation shows! That makes me want to do plenty more things just to see her happiness!
10. The thing that I love most about Elyse is that she is Elyse! She is my little girl who is the light of her mommy's eye. She doesn't try to be anyone else on herself. This little girl means so much to me. I am so thankful for the bond that I have with Elyse. She is my first born and most mom's out there can agree with me that there is a special bond between a mother and her first born.

Elyse, I want you to know how much I love you and how proud I am of you! You are such a big girl! You have learned to do so many things this past year! You are a precious little girl. Never forget that! Have a happy birthday! I love you!

Love,

Mommy