carlie is 5!

Surprise, surprise we had a FROZEN party at our house!  Carlie turned 5 and we had so much fun celebrating this amazing girl.  I scoured every store in town for this dress!  I had to buy it a size too big, but she still fit into it nicely.  

 Carlie chose donuts and I discovered you can custom order them from WalMart at no additional cost.  She was so excited for her "frozen" donuts!

 We also ate ice blocks, and snow man trail mix, but most girls just played with the ice (blue jello).

We made epsom salt snowflakes that turned out so awesome, but I didn't snag a picture!  We also built Olaf out of marshmallows, and of course had a dance party and sing along.

We LOVE this Carlie of ours!  I tell her constantly that she is my favorite Carlie ever, and I wish everyone could have a Carlie just like her.  I have learned so much from Carlie.  She has tested my patience, my know how, my love, my creativity, and my confidence.  I am a stronger person because she is in my life.  Her name means STRENGTH and she has and is living up to that name.  As she reads her scriptures she is beginning to ask such intelligent questions. She loves to play and is always wanting to do something fun. We are so proud of her, the way that she is growing and the love that she has for her family.

Happy Birthday Carlie Bug!

last Christmas

I know, I know we are WAY closer to this Christmas than last Christmas, but here it is nonetheless.  Grandma and Grandpa came again, and we LOVE having them for Christmas.  The kids all bunked in one room for Christmas Eve and woke up to a trail of marshmallows leading to their presents... BIKES!  Which we of course spent most of the day riding.  We love Christmas in Arizona for that reason!  It turned out to be our last Christmas in the Sebastian house, and we are going to miss that little house!  But our new house has brought new adventures and we can't wait for new memories!

first pics of the new baby

 We've made all the announcements on Facebook and talked to our families so now it's time to journal this pregnancy via blogger.  We are having another baby!  We are excited again and felt very clearly when it was time to have another baby.  We also felt very strongly that this would be a baby girl, Adam even had a name picked out an everything!  But guess what?

It is most definitely NOT a baby girl, but an obvious and undeniable baby boy!  What?!?!?  

To say we were surprised would be an understatement.  I still feel like I don't know what to do with boys!  I love Samuel so much, and I know another boy will be a great learning experience--but I still feel like there's so much to worry about with boys.  Probably the opposite of most moms I know.  Still, we are excited and I know Samuel is going to LOVE having a little brother.  

Names we are considering at this time are 

NOAH, ISAAC, and KIMBALL

Names I love, but I don't think would work are

CARTER, CARSON (too much like Carlie), PATRICK (can we use it if we aren't Irish?) JONAH (I don't like the JJ in Jonah Jardine) and AUSTIN (feels too trendy?)

I am settled on the middle name ADAM, but Adam isn't quite sold yet.  We've got time, my due date is 

April 30th, with baby most likely scheduled for April 15th.  

a pirate says arrrr

Here they are!  This year's Halloween fun!  

 For the last 3 years our kids have insisted on a family themed costume for everyone.  It started with our superheros, then last year again with birds, and this year we became pirates!  I love that the girls want to dress up as a family, but it does typically take a little extra planning.

 Carlie, Samuel and I joined her preschool at the pumpkin patch and had a great time!  Samuel loved being able to run around this year--stroller free!  Carlie and her friend Liana loved spending time together, despite this first picture.

 Here we are!  I bought Adam and Lucy's costumes, then used them as examples to make Samuel, Megan, and Carlie's.  Samuel's pants turned out so cute!  It was a little time consuming, but I was able to pull it off anyway.  My costume was made from my closet!  I wish pirate hair was in every day, frizzy is definitely my thing.

 We joined Seth and Caroline for pumpkin carving this year and the kids had a great time!  We were late getting our pumpkins, so all they had left were giant deformed ones.  But we made it work.  Carlie's has a mustache, she's a little obsessed right now.

Cutie pirates!  They have already started talking about next year!

lucy on her baptism day

Lucy was baptized on September 21st, and we are so proud of her!  We still can't believe that she's actually 8, but at the same time it feels like it has gone so fast!  Grandma and Grandpa Jardine were there, Seth and Caroline and Neal and Kristen and their families.  Because most of our family couldn't make it, we decided to let Lucy go crazy inviting friends and neighbors.  We made these invitations and Lucy ended up inviting about 40 friends!  I was a little nervous about all of them coming to our house after, and we did have a house full but I loved it!  And more importantly so did Lucy.  

 Here are some of our guests, we weren't able to catch all of them for a picture.  And we didn't get any pictures of the brunch after, we were a little busy cooking!  Lucy wanted cinnamon rolls, orange rolls, hash browns, sausage, cheesy eggs, juice, and fruit.  It kept us busy but we love being surrounded by our friends and family.  And really good food!

 Adam baptized and confirmed Lucy.  Uncle Seth, Uncle Neal, Grandpa Jardine, Brother Grandy, Brother Fulton, Brother Kleinman, and my cousin Jason joined him for the confirmation.  Cousin Luke held the microphone and it was cool to see him involved too as a priesthood holder.

 We had such a great day, I feel so blessed that everything went so well.  Lucy is such a great kid and we are so glad to have her in our family.

our virginia getaway

Adam and I had the amazing opportunity last month to take a short weekend getaway to North Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia.  We NEVER do things like this, so the whole thing felt like it wasn't going to happen, I was sure something would come up, but we planned and prepared and the stars aligned and we were able to go!  Hooray!

 We got word in June that Adam's mission president and his wife were not doing well, and didn't know how much longer they had.  Adam was very close to his mission president and decided that we should make the effort to go say goodbye.  We made plans for labor day weekend, got a hold of some stand by tickets that got us 75% off the ticket price, and arranged care for the kids.  We found out ten days before we left that Sister Heywood passed away.  We were too late.  We spoke with his family and they let us know that President needed visits now more than ever.  So we kept our plans to go.

Flying stand by is crazy, we'd never done it before.  The flight we planned on taking was filling up fast, so I went into panic mode--went to Adam's work to see if he could leave his classes, called the sitter to take the kids two hours earlier, and we left for the airport 1 hour before the flight would leave.  It's a 1/2 hour drive!  This was crazy!  We got through security, RAN through the terminal and arrived at the gate 5 minutes before departure.  CRAZY!  But we made it!

 This little adorable car drove us 12 of our 16 hours of driving over the weekend.  Thank goodness for unlimited miles!

 Our weekend lined up with BYU's first game of the season in Virginia.  Our friends the Welly's just moved to Virginia, so we were able to stay with them during our trip.  They had tickets and a big tailgate party arranged so we joined the fun!

 It was crazy hot we we got there, we were dripping sweat by the time the game started.  Our tailgating lasted about 5 hours but we had a great crowd!  It was awesome seeing all the BLUE!

 BYU!  They put all the BYU fans in the same section, and it was awesome.  There were a ton of us!

 After the first quarter they delayed the game for lightening.  We then got to watch a crazy storm for 2 1/2 hours.  That was nuts!  We just hung out in the hall of the stadium doing nothing!  Then they finally said that we would play, so we ran to our seats.  It was great, we scored, they scored and then--

 It started to POUR.  We decided a little rain couldn't hurt us but after about 3 minutes we looked like we'd hopped in a swimming pool.  We were completely DRENCHED!  And unlike Arizona storms, you don't dry after.  We were soaked until after midnight when we returned home.  I haven't been that cold in years!

 The next day we visited President Heywood.  It was a very sweet experience.  President Heywood has Leukemia and Lou Gerrig's disease and is not doing well.  He was able to talk more than we expected, and was still telling jokes.  When he smiled, we could see the real him under all his symptoms.  We spent the afternoon telling stories and crying, he is very emotional and cannot control his emotions due to his illnesses.  He told us some things from the mission Adam never knew, that I thought were very touching.

Adam served as President Heywood's assistant for about 5 months, and usually he would let the assistants stay until they finished, but Adam was put back in the field for his last transfer.  He had a special assignment with a missionary that had some difficulties.  President Heywood told us that that missionary needed to be loved, and there wasn't a missionary that had more love than Elder Jardine.  That was my favorite story.

 We were able to take the sacrament with President Heywood, and share lunch with him and his family.  We are so glad that he is well taken care of, but we could tell that he misses his wife very much.  He told us that she wouldn't have wanted us to see her the way she was before she died.  It was so great to see him, and a sad realization that it would be the last time.  We are so grateful that things worked out and we were able to make the trip!

lucy's fabulous all girl late night birthday

 The girls, all of them, have decided that sleepovers are the coolest thing ever.  Which is sad, because we have decided that sleepovers are not something that our family will do.  So this was the compromise this year, a late night pajama party, pillow fight included, with some of Lucy's best friends.

 I, for one, learned a lot.  

 1.  Never let a group of 8 year old girls, up past their bed time, have free reign on candy, frosting and cake.  Messes, sugar highs, and bad manners will inevitably follow.  But, as you can see, the fun that happened easily made up for it.

 2.  Be careful when picking a movie for a crowd!  Especially if your sweet, intelligent 8 year old happens to enjoy historical fiction based musicals (Newsies), when most of her friends prefer Lindsay Lohan's finest performance (Freaky Friday).  

 3.  Readers love writing, and she is so excited for this journal!  We started a second journal as well, one where we write notes between Lucy, Adam and myself.  We have decided to start this tradition with each of our kids as they turn 8.  

 4.  Delegate whatever you can, especially if you have a cake decorating loving husband.  I've said it before, and I'll say it again, I love that Adam started this tradition long ago to make all the birthday cakes!

 5.  Make sure to go over basic rules before starting the pillow fight.

 6. Be prepared for every rule to be completely ignored.

7.  Document the smiles, giggles, and happy faces as said rules are being ignored.  

Lucy loved her party, she got some amazing gifts, and it was really fun to see her friends in a new light.  Turning 8 is a big deal in our house, and Lucy is the first so Adam and I wanted to make sure we did it right.  We took Lucy to dinner, just the 3 of us to a restaurant of her choosing, but we told her it had to be fancy.  She chose the Cheesecake Factory, and we had a wonderful time.  It was so great to spend some one on one time with this special girl.  We talked to her about the great responsibility that comes with getting baptized, and about some of the changes that are going to happen over the next few years.  

We gave her this beautiful necklace to help remind her of her promise, and told her that the beads can remind her of Heavenly Father, Jesus and the Holy Ghost.  She will be baptized on the 21st and we are very proud of her decision.