Who's Your Daddy??

Tom and I get a lot of comments on who they think our girls look like. It is always funny to Tom and I when we hear how much Ella looks like Tom and how much Audrey looks like me. So we decided to let you see what we looked liked as kids and let you make a more informed opinion. **As a side note I dont' have many pictures as a kid. Our were all on slides and I don't have them and many of them got destroyed in a fire. So sorry for the poor choices. Also I don't have any pictures of my kids half dressed. I have made a decision not to scar them for lives as teenagers. **

FOUR

Ella turned FOUR yesterday (Sept 8). What a joy she has been in our life! I can not remember life without her. She wakes up so happy still. Every morning she tells me "It is a sunny happy day." She started doing this two years ago and it has become a habit. I love how loving, snuggly, and considerate she is. She hates feeling like you are mad at her and will try to make things right. I love her little spirit. She loves going to church and learning about Jesus and the Holy Ghost. (He is her favorite right now.) She loves praying and likes to be the one to say EVERY prayer. I love that she would still let me rock her to sleep and baby her (although I don't do it often anymore).
She is starting to get so big. She can open the door to the car, get in and buckle herself in (although she still needs help with the bottom buckle). Her chores are to put her own jammies, panties, and socks away, put away shoes, and set the table. She always brings her own plate to the sink when she is done.

Ella has always been able to reason things out. Sometimes I think she is going to be a lawyer. We had to go to Target the other night and she asked if she could have a Reeces' PB cup. I told her that she could but there are two in a package so she could have one and Audrey would have the other. She said, "Well, okay. Or we COULD just get Audrey her own. There are a lot of them over here and it would make her feel special to have her own." I thought the lady behind us was going to turn purple from trying not to laugh. She makes us laugh without trying constantly. She hates when we laugh though and gets embarrassed that we laugh. Ella loves to have friends over and play with other kids, but she can be shy when she feels like she has drawn attention to herself.

Ella, we love you so much. You are a great big sister, a wonderful friend and an amazing daughter. We love seeing you grow and the beautiful person you have become. You are such a special part of our family.


We had a party for Ella on Saturday and invited her whole primary class. Ten kids when you include Ella and our Audrey.


Daddy's special homemade cupcakes with pudding frosting.

She had a great time with all her friends and many of them stayed to watch the football game after. She thought all the people who came were her just for her birthday.

On her actual birthday opening Grandma and Gramps gift. (sorry for the bad lighting)

Our friend Jenny is going to be watching the girls one day a week while I work. Her daughter is Audrey too. I think our girls are going to have a GREAT time playing together. And our Audrey thinks it is funny that she is "little Audrey".

I Blinked....

and somehow my babies have become little girls. Today was both of their first day at Preschool. They got into Lake Norman Baptist Church Preschool. (Here a lot of the churches have preschools which helps them pay for the building and it provides great schools for the community.) LNB is a great school and I was so lucky to get both my girls in. They have been on a waiting list since Feb and it is really hard especially to get into a 2 year old program, but somehow we got Audrey in and then it worked out to get Ella in as well. We left this morning without the camera. My camera wasn't saving the picture for some reason so I was able to get a couple pictures when I came to pick the girls up. I couldn't get them to stand together though!


Audrey and her class with Miss Cindy and Miss Betty. (They have a 4:1 ratio)

Ella outside her class. She has Miss Melissa and Miss Starr (a 5:1 ratio)

Leaving school using the backpacks. Gotta love the wheels.

After school was out we met up with Ella's friend Emma and got some ice cream to celebrate the first day of school. We went up to Carolina Cones. The girls liked the ice cream but loved the train that circled around on the ceiling and they especially loved the carousel outside.

Super Y

Holiday Season started at our house on Saturday. That is right, BYU played their first game of the season. We always have pre-season chat going on about how we are going to do against other teams, how new recruits are going to do, etc. This year with BYU and the Independant chatter, the excitement was at a whole new level. (By the way, we are huge fans of the Independant decision.) We also always have an open door policy for games. We like everyone to have a place to feel comfortable to come watch the game. The first game we seem to have the most people show up. This year was no different. We actually ended up with 65 people that came. They didn't all come at the same time, and most didn't stay the entire time, but we had the majority of everyone here for the first half. It was really fun and we had tons of great food. From hamburgers, hot dogs, brats, pull pork sandwiches, salads, chips, salsa, dips, cookies, cupcakes, brownies, and more! The game was great. It was close enough that you wanted to pay close attention, but most importantly they won. Everyone kept saying the next day, "Sorry there were so many people there. Was your house trashed? " Actually we had everything cleaned up including food put away and dishes done within 20 mins of the game being over. We are already looking forward to next week vs Airforce. Rise and Shout, the Cougars are out.......even on the East Coast.

*PS. As for the name of the post, anytime Audrey sees the Y (on t-shirts, hats, the mountain) she calls it Super Y. We love it, so at our house BYU has been renamed Super Y. It was actually the first letter she learned to recognize.