Six on Valentine's Day

Novie turned six on Valentines day.  We had a little get together with my family on Sunday at our house to celebrate.  Nothing fancy, just family.

 I think the cousins had fun getting together.

 I love that Sterling is doing rabbit ears to the girls, Novalee is about to unleash her feisty spirit, Jared's dancing around and Sadie looks dazed, all so classic.  :)

Novalee took a really long time to think of her birthday wish.

 So when she finally had it figured out and was about ready to blow out the candles, Sterling was already one step ahead of her.  

 So cute! 

Grandma and Papa.

 She looks so grown up here.  

 This was her favorite present.  It is a monster high journal.  It has a lock on it that is voice activated and only lets in Novalee.  I told her to make the password something quick and easy so she wouldn't forget it.  I suggested "pumpkin" since that is what Wesley calls her.  But she insisted that it was, "I love my mommy!"  So sweet!  I loved hearing that over and over again the next day.

 My new favorite picture of Novalee.  I love how she is so creative.  I can just hear her saying, "Arghhh!"

Then on Thurday it was actually her birthday.  So I woke up early and made her a special breakfast.

 Sadie has started waking up in the middle of the night and coming into our room to ask Daddy if he will "nuggle" (snuggle) her.  ONE time he let her and now we have a little "nuggle" monster.  Anyways, the night before Valentine's day Daddy was trying to be more firm so she wouldn't always be getting up and he asked her a couple of times to go back to bed.  

I guess she thought the couch was a better option.  I was pretty startled when I flicked on the light and glanced over at the couch to see a little sleeping person on it.

 Novalee woke up to pink pancakes, pink eggs, pink sprinkled cinnamon toast and pink apple juice.  

Just what a birthday princess should have.

(Daddy surprised everyone with a box of chocolates.  Sadie thought hers needed a little more sugar on it and used the breakfast whipping cream to decorate the chocolates.)

Happy birthday Novalee!  Time is flying by and you are growing up so quickly.  Sometimes you are so silly and goofy.  And sometimes you are so sincere and thoughtful.  I love that you have so many sides to your big personality.  I love that you love to take care of others.  I love that sometimes I just find you in your room writing in your journal.  I love that you have so many journals and that is what you love to collect.  I love that you love learning about the church.  I love that you are so determined when you have made up your mind to do something. You are so creative and artsy.  You have an amazingly quick mind.  You have a natural gift for numbers and math.  I love that school and reading seems to come so naturally to you.  You have so many other wonderful and special talents.  You are just the girl any mother would be so happy to have.  

                                                       Thank you for lighting up our lives!

Two Little Birdies

I just finished a project I've had planned since we painted Kinsley's room. 

They were super easy to make.  I just found images online (yes, they were robbed) that I liked. I traced them on white paper straight from the monitor.  Then I cut them out and traced the cutout onto black paper.  Finally I glued the black birds onto scrapbook paper and framed them.

So easy!

So cute! 

My mother showed me this and I thought I should share.
For you entertainment: Portlandia: Put a Bird on It

Green

I painted the kids' bathroom last week.

White walls kill me.  They are so bleak, barren, boring, dreary, plain, depressing...I'm sure I could go on but you get the idea.

Wow, did this room need color!  

White tub surround...white towels...white sink...white toilet...eye twitch...straight jacket.

I bought a fun shower curtain for the kids two weeks ago which was my inspiration.  It has animals on it and the alphabet and you guessed, some of the curtain is green.

Here Sadie is helping me paint the walls. 

Her and Novalee each took a wall and painted cute pictures on it.  Sadie painted a penguin, a dog house and a horse.  Novalee spent most of her time painting a tower and painting on Sadie's wall, you know, to get her to cry.  So fun.

 About this time I'm mentally panicking and repeating in my head, "Holy crap, that's so green, what was I thinking!"  But also knowing that it took way to long to prep the walls (I hate having to fix other people's sloppy patch work AND IT'S ALL OVER THIS HOUSE) and also knowing I'm too lazy to go back to the store to get the color altered and so I had to just kept telling myself to keep going.  

I'm glad I did.  I actually love it!

 Before and after.

So much better!                                        

We also had one of those super plain mirrors in the bathroom.  The large rectangular ones that are held by little brackets.

I wanted to have something a little less boring.  I had already taken down the original one (which was held up by hot glue and the brackets (really, what are some people thinking).

As luck would have it, I found this one at Goodwill last week.  It was ridiculously cheap!  And absolutely perfect the way it was.

Yay for color!

Jared Turned 8 & Gets Baptized

Jared turned 8 this last year!  It is strange to see him change from being my little boy.  There are times when I have to check myself before being overly affectionate or teasing him and ask myself if I would have liked that at his age.  Most of the time I answer probably not.

When Jared was about 6 he really wanted a pocket knife. We told Jared he could have one after he was baptized at 8.  (You know, way in the future, a date to look forward to but one that would never really come.)  Anyways, it came and he has a knife.  Granted we keep it for him and he only uses it with supervision.

 We were actually really excited about giving it to him because we had it engraved to say, "With love on your Baptism, December 1st, 2012."  

Right before his baptism.

 I'm not sure who taught them to hold their dresses like this but it's way cute!

 They are way cute!

The whole crew.

 What fun would a baptism be without a silly face picture? ;)

 I only just love each of these little ones,  A LOT!

I'm so proud of Jared for choosing to get baptized.  He knows way more about the church, about his own personal testimony and how much Heavenly Father loves him than I did at his age or even for years to follow.  I'm so grateful for his special prayers and strong testimony.  He is a reminder everyday how precious children are and their sweet innocence and desire to do good.  Probably everyday I notice something Jared did that was selfless or said something that was just pure truth and I can't help but pause and think I want to be more like that.

Here's Jared's reaction when we told him we were going to keep his presents for ourselves.

I guess they were a hit!

Happy Birthday Jared!  Thank you for being my first and thank you for challenging me and changing my life in so many ways for the better. 

Christmas Tree

Wow!  I'm seriously behind on blogging.  I have a inkling that being behind in most things will probably just be more and more common for me.

We went to Ryzn Tree Farm again this year to get our Christmas tree.  We've gone there every year since we've been married.

This year the guy that lives and works there kept staring at us as we were unloading our car.  I kept glancing over at him only to realize he was still looking at us.

Well, when we finally got our Christmas tree and started loading back up he said, "You guys always have one more when you come here."  (As in children).  Haha!  Then he asked, "You guys trying for more?"  Haha!

I'm pretty sure we did the awkward chuckle the Crockett's are so good at and then turned the subject.

We will see, maybe next Christmas we will have one more to unload.  :)

 Here we are at the farm with our two most recent additions to the family. :)

 We kind of laugh a little every year about finding the "perfect" tree because they are all pretty much cookie cutter trees and yet we still search for what seems like a good amount of time for the "perfect" one.  (It actually is just Wes and me that look.  The oldest two usually disappear to play with the farmers little girl after suggesting impossibly small starter trees.)

 This year Sadie couldn't be convinced that anything else would be better than a little Sadie for Christmas and spent a decent amount of time climbing under it. 

Our family!  

 Each year the kids get one new ornament that they get to open on Christmas eve that represents either an interest or an activity they were involved in during the year.  Because of that, I just love our theme-less Christmas tree.  I love walking around it and looking at the ornaments and remembering when they came to be part of our "Perfect" tree. 

 Doesn't Kinsley look big here?  I hate that time flies.

 Novalee lately has become quite a ham. Which I kind of like. :)

And just because everyone wants to gag a little and because its's tradition.  :)

 This one hopefully doesn't cause stomach convulsions.  :)

Christmas Stocking Countdown

I saw this cute idea for a Christmas countdown from Deseretbook.com  and really, REALLY wanted one.

But the colors were muted traditional Christmas colors and I'm not sure what the price was but I'm sure any price would have been beyond my budget.  So I decided to make something similar using bright traditional reds and whites to match our style a little better.  (I think it's kind of cool that some of the stockings are made from the fabric I used to make our tree skirt so they match).  :)

It's not exactly the same style as the Zion Mercantile ones but it works and the kids loved

 getting to pick candy out of the stockings each day.

 (We might need to get some new Christmas decorations for the mantle...)

Next year I want to add little metal numbers to them...we will see if it ever happens. :)

Our New Found Love and Cutting Down the Bush

Not super exciting but part of what we've been doing since we bought our home.

As soon as we saw this home, we loved it.  People ask us often if we love owning a home or if we love our home.  And I think Wes and I both struggle a little with how to answer that.  Because if we weren't limited by social norms I think we would probably respond similar to Tom Cruise declaring his love for Katie Holmes.

For those that somehow were able to block that out of their minds and yet are still vaguely curious about what that looks like....click here:  "Wes and Brandy are "In love" with their new home!  Haha!

Anyways, we really do love our home.  Sometimes I think we hesitate on expressing how much we really like it because it's not like it's a mansion (or even close), it doesn't have the newest styles (hardwood floors, granite counter tops or stainless steel appliances etc) and yet it's perfect for us.  It covers all our needs and even most of things we would consider luxuries.  And so if you are wondering how we really feel about our new house,
"WE'RE IN LOVE!" :)

Now onto cutting down the bush...totally not exciting.  :)

When we viewed the house we loved it and wanted to put an offer on it but we knew we were going to be making some changes to it right away...if we got it.  One of which was going to be cutting down one of a grand total of four bushes on the property.  Four bushes and one tree, pretty sparce.

But this one was so UGLY.  It just had to go.

So I wasted no time in cutting it down with Novalee.  

 Ta Da!  We're tough girlies!

Someday the tree is going down too but the kids kind of like getting stuck in it climbing it and so for now it stays.  :)