1st Annual Family and Friends Music Night

the magic of the first snowfall...

Thanksgiving 2013

Cousins!

BOO!

a month of Instagrams

an indoor tree swing

St. George Marathon/General Conference weekend

Happy 7th Liliahna!

This sweet birthday girl  woke up on the morning of her birthday feeling terrible. She had a fever, was throwing up, and spent most of the morning (right after this picture was taken) laying on a mat on the family room floor feeling completely miserable. What a bummer to get sick on your birthday!

Nevertheless, she was a good sport and tried to put on a brave face. Kylan has become the birthday pancake master and loves to let the girls choose whatever kind of creation they want for their birthday breakfast. You can see that we're in a little bit of a peace sign phase...

The good thing about Lili's illnesses is that she responds really well to Ibuprofen. So even though she can be pretty sick and miserable, when the Ibuprofen kicks in, she's almost back to herself...at least for a few hours until the medication's effects wear off.

The gift that I was most excited to give Liliahna this year was my Samantha doll. I received Samantha when I was about Lili's age and she kicked off a deep love for history and imaginative play. I read all the American Girl books and I played with my dolls far longer than any of my friends, and probably longer than I should admit =)

It brings me so much joy to watch my sweet daughter enjoying the same doll that I have so many memories with. The perfect way to kick off the birthday celebration.

Mimi and Poppi stopped by the evening of Lili's birthday to deliver some yummy dinner and her gifts. It's amazing how well she perked up at the idea of getting to open a second round of presents =)

Liliahna loves to do art. She could spend hours upon hours sitting at the kitchen table with her supplies out cutting, gluing, drawing and folding as she works on her creations. So, we decided there was no better way to celebrate her birthday than with an "art party"! 

Because we are relatively new in our neighborhood and school, we decided it might be fun to throw Lili a huge playdate-type party. The vision was to invite all the kids from both her school and primary classes to a party at the park. We would have some snacks and a few activities and we would end with singing "Happy Birthday" and eating some cake. There's an awesome park just down the street from us and I thought I had everything planned out for a fun, low-key party for our sweet 7-year old...and then it snowed the day of her party.

 I made a few frantic last minute phone calls and made the decision to move the party to our house. This means that we had over 25 first graders running around our 1200 sq. ft. condo...with finger paint on their hands. We certainly did not end up with the low-key party I had anticipated!

Here's the birthday girl just happy as can be fingerprinting with her friends. Even though the party turned out to be much more stressful than I had anticipated or hoped it would be...seeing her play and laugh and do art with so many cute kids and new friends made it all worth it. I could tell she felt really special and that made all the difference.

That, and the fact that Kylan came home from work for a two-hour "lunch" to help manage the party. I seriously could not have even considered doing something like this without him! He is such a fun dad and he took on the monumental job of official t-shirt dyer out on the freezing cold patio. And, of course, the t-shirts were the absolute hit of the party!

I sure love this beautiful girl and feel so grateful to be her mom. She is bright, empathetic, creative, nurturing and she has the best giggle I've ever heard. She makes me feel like I'm the best mom in the world, and when I mess up and apologize for being less than I'd like to be she immediately forgives me and reassures me by saying, "that's ok mom, I love you". She is such a joy and I can't believe how quickly she's growing up!

Happy Birthday Liliahna!