Eight is Great!!

Avery Jane turned Eight!! I can't believe it! My little girl is growing up so fast.

A few fun facts about Avery:
    *favorite color: blue (she is SO over pink and princesses. Is that phase really over? I must admit I am       a little sad)
    *Avery Loves to cook. She makes breakfast for the family on the weekends and loves to help me out whenever she can. Her specialties are french toast and German pancakes. She loves to be the little hostess too and set the table and serve everyone their food. It is pretty cute.
    *Avery calls herself a fashionista. She loves anything and everything "fashion".
    *She loves Barbies
    *Loves to play games
    *Thinks she is 16 and while she is sweet, she also has a very determined, stubborn,  sassy side too
    *Loves to sleep in in the morning
    *Has an eternally messy room
    *Loves to play school and wants to be an art teacher when she grows up
    *Avery is an amazing big sister. She takes such good care of Livi and Andrew. A good example is that she got a $10 gift card for her birthday. We went to the store to pick something out. She ended up using the money to buy Livi a doll that she really wanted. It made her so happy to see Livi happy.
    *Avery is a very good sharer. She rarely hesitates to share her treats with her siblings. She is very    caring
    *Still doing ballet and wants to get point shoes
    *started basketball and is actually really good. She scored 3 baskets at her first game
    *Avery is a beautiful girl and such a pleasure to have in our family!

Opening presents with the fam on her Birthday morning

This year for her party she wanted  a Princess Pamper party. We had a few ladies from the ward come over to the house and do the girls'  hair, make-up, and nails. They loved it! Then we had pizza, a dance party, movie night and sleepover. A perfect party for giggly 8 year old girls!

Getting all dolled up

While they waited for their turn, the girls made purses to hold all their girly make up and stuff!

Strike a pose!!

Silly faces!

Opening presents

Jammie time!

 Make a wish

After her party we took Avery to get her ears pierced. Se has been begging me incessantly for 4 years to get them pierced. We finally agreed that 8 would be the age that she could do it and boy was she ever excited! She talked about it constantly. Andy didn't want her to get them pierced, so he tried to scare her by talking about how much it was going to hurt. It almost worked. We got to Claire's and she totally freaked out. Even tried to run away and said she didn't want to do it. I kind of forced her into the chair because I knew she would be upset later on if she didn't do it. Her little heart was pounding. After they pierced them she was sooo happy and sad it wasn't that bad and she would do it again. Phew! She LOVES having her ears pierced.

It's a...

So I haven't written about our new little peanut yet. We found out in July that we are expecting!! Baby number 4 is due in March! We are all very excited about it. I have been SOOO sick and miserable. The kids have been so good and helpful though which is such a blessing. At 23 weeks I am finally off Zofran and feeling almost normal again. Livi has named the babies for us. She said that if it is a girl, we will call her squirt and if it is a boy it is peanut. So cute!

Andy really wanted this baby to be a surprise, but I hate surprises. I need to know so that I can be prepared and have everything ready. So as a compromise, we decided to have the ultrasound tech write the gender on a card and we would open it on Christmas. Sounded like a fun way to do it. Well, the card sat on our fireplace mantel for about 1 week before Andy could not stand it any more. He totally cracked and wanted to open it. So we did. :) And it looks like PEANUT will be joining our family! We all had mixed reactions. We thought that it was a girl. Livi kept saying it was a boy though. She knew. :) Avery was a little sad at first and went on and on about all the reasons she doesn't want a brother. It was kind of funny, but she has totally warmed up to the idea now.

The more I think about it, the more excited I get for this ute little boy. I can't wait to meet him!!! I don't know why, but I kind of picture him looking like Jonathan Lipnicky. HAHA. Spikey blond hair and blue eyes maybe even with a little lisp and glasses. lol.  I guess we will have to wait and see.

Baby at 13 weeks

Baby Peanut at 22 weeks

 5 little piggies on a cute little foot 

Disneyland Paris

For Thanksgiving this year we decided to take the kids to Disneyland Paris!! Before we even moved to England we told the kids that we would take them to Disneyland Paris to help them get excited about the move. Disney has great deals in November, so we decided to go before we add another little person to the family. If you stay in their hotel, you get free 4 day passes to the parks. We would staying right next to the park and being able to go back and forth through out the day if we needed. It was a fun relaxing trip. The kids can't stop talking about it.

We didn't tell the kdis where we were going at first. They knew we were headed to Paris, but that was it. We checked in to the hotel and waited for them to figure it out. After seeing all the Disney stuff, they finally figured it out and were SO excited!

Here is the lobby of the hotel. They had characters there to take pictures with through out the day which was so nice because we didn't have to wait in line at the park.

Meeting Minnie Mouse!

The entrance to Disneyland

Cinderella's castle

A view of Main street. I LOVE how everything was decorated for Christmas. It made the trip a little more magical. 

Livi's favorite ride, the spinning cars. I went on it like 5 times with her while the older kids went on the big rides.

Sword and the Stone!

Andrew loved all the rides, but really liked the Buzz lightyear ride

Pirates of the Caribbean 

Waiting in line and as happy as can be!!It really is the happiest place on earth!

Dumbo was the very first ride that we went on. you can't go to Disneyland and miss the Dumbo ride!

Flying carpets ride in the Studio park.

Andrew loves the tower of terror so Avery took a picture of it for him

Outside the car stunt show in Studio park

The line to see Santa was like 1.5 hours long. Livi REALLY wanted to see him, so Andy, being the good dad that he is, waited in line with her while I took the older kids on Thunder mountain. This picture was so worth the wait. I love the look on her face. So sweet and innocent. She was elated!

Meeting Goofy at the hotel

Livi really wanted to drive the car

The Christmas tree outside of the hotel

Livi hitching a ride on Daddy's shoulders

The kids really wanted to buy some mouse ears, but at $25, that wasn't going to happen. So we just let them take pictures with them on. Aren't we such nice parents? You can see how excited they were ;)

Mickey and Minnie in one of the parades we saw