"There's that beautiful little girl..."

Since Elaina was born we have been stopped by countless people in countless locations who stop to comment on what a beautiful little girl she is. Every piece of her adds to the whole package that makes up her beauty but her most stunning features has always been her dark hair [and lots of it], big blue eyes and delicate, flawless little face. She has literally stopped 'traffic' in stores and such while people fuss over how beautiful she is and call someone over to come look at this baby or little girl. Seeing how she is now 2 1/2 we've become accustomed to this sort of thing and as long as people don't violate the personal space or get too weird or crazy with her, I [we] thank them for the compliment and are on our way.

I have used Sam's Photo lab several times to print off pictures I've taken of the kids whether it's their milestone pictures or snap shots. Many times it's the same lady there that checks me out. Today we were doing some shopping at Sam's Club to get ready for the baby. Elaina was in the shopping cart which my Mom was pushing and I had stopped to look at some kites. Once I caught up to them, my Mom tells me that a lady just came up to her and said "there's that beautiful little girl whose Mom takes so many cute pictures of." She laughs and joked saying, "Wow Jana, that's pretty pathetic she recognizes Elaina in the store from ALL your pictures." We had a good laugh and continued on shopping. A few minutes later she came walking back towards us said hi to me and was talking about Elaina and how beautiful she was. I told her what my Mom and I had just said and she said, "No, I don't blame you for taking all those pictures, her eyes are just so beautiful and stunning, how could you forget them?" Then she talked to Elaina and told her how beautiful she was and that she loved seeing pictures of her and her handsome brother.

We thought it was pretty funny, not the first experience like this, so I decided to write this one down so I don't forget it. I think she's pretty dang adorable but I do have a biased opinion. :)

The Big 5

March 16th

Children's Discovery Museum

Marcus' preschool class had a field trip to the Children's Discovery Museum at The Gateway the day of his birthday. We all had a really fun time with the kids, complete chaos, but it was way fun nonetheless! It was especially fun to have the Meyers and Justin there to explore with as well. We took a ton of pictures, here are a few of them. [I just used the collages Ang made from this day to save time. ;) ]

Exploring in mini market store and in the farm.

The 3 youngest LOVED the water area! They all came home sopping wet!

We let Marcus open one gift on his actual birthday [his baby book I made for him] and the rest he had to wait until his family birthday party/dinner on Sunday. For part of his birthday, he had a date with Daddy to the Monster Truck show back in February. He asked for a Monster Truck cake so that's what I made for him. He also received a lot of cute clothes, sandals, and toys including a few monster trucks and remote control car. We sure had a lot of fun with you kiddo and hope you know just how much you are loved. We are so glad you are part of our family and are so grateful for the joy and happiness you bring to our lives. Hard to believe you are already 5, seems like yesterday we were at Utah's Hogle Zoo celebrating your first birthday.

We love you. Happy 5th Birthday Lil' Buckaroo. xoxo

Marcus' 5th Birthday

Starry Party Birthday Invitation

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Elaina's New Princess Big Girl Bed!

Elaina has needed to upgrade to a big girl bed for awhile but we had been able to find one we liked well enough to buy for her. We looked and looked and still had been unable to find what we wanted. With William's expected arrival date around the first part of May we wanted to get her in her new bed no later than January so she wouldn't feel like she got booted out of her bed [which was the crib turned into a toddler bed] for the baby. Crazy enough, Manny stopped in a furniture store not 4 minutes away from our house and found what we wanted! After he showed me, I told him it looked really nice and exactly what I had in mind for her. He went back the next day and bought it, it should arrive in a week. About 30 minutes after he got home we got a call saying we probably wouldn't get the bed until January 10th since the bed may not be ready to go out in last shipment before the holidays and because the drivers take a week off the week of Christmas and New Years the didn't anticipate it coming in until January. They said, we had a 3% chance of it coming the 23rd of December but she didn't want us to get our hopes up and told us it'd be more of a surprise than something to expect to happen. We hoped for our own little "Christmas Miracle." Elaina's Christmas gifts from Mommy and Daddy was the bedding and such to go with her new bed so we wanted her to be able to have it by Christmas so we could put it together. We decided we'd go ahead and keep what we ordered because it was exactly what we wanted and if it got here early, GREAT, if not...sometimes waiting for exactly what you want is so worth it so either way it'd be fine just so long as it was here by January!

On Manny's birthday he was driving home from running a few errands and happened to see the delivery truck at the store and stopped in to see if her bed happened to be in the delivery. The lady who had helped him asked if he got the message and he said no, she asked why he was there and he said, "I was driving by and saw the delivery truck so I stopped in to see if it made it here." Much to our amazement it HAD come in and it was our "Christmas Miracle" LOL We were so excited it made it in time for Christmas for Elaina, only problem we had now was we had to go find mattresses since we were waiting to see if it came or not. Next day Manny and Uncle Dave went and picked it up. The 23rd happened to be the day of floods and Manny worked until way late helping out family so Dave took me with his truck to go ahead and get the mattresses. Uncle Jason was kind enough to take down her other bed so I could clean the room and get it ready so Manny could put it together when he got home. After a long day, I wasn't sure if he'd be up to it but he got home just before 11:00, ate a quick bite and got to work putting her bed together.

We let the kids open one gift on Christmas Eve but this year Elaina got to open one on Maca's birthday too [the 23rd]. I let her open her new sheets so I could wash them and have them ready to put on her bed that night so she could sleep in her new bed...the rest of the bedding and decor would have to wait until Christmas Day but with the sheets and her princess blanket she would be plenty warm for one night.

So excited for her sheets and new bed!

She hung out with Grandma and Papa while we got her room together and had fallen right to sleep. I went and got her and brought her in and she snuggled in to her bed and was out for the count! First night in a few weeks she slept all night without waking up [so did Mom and Dad!]

I love my little sleeping angel...love the little hands under her cheek.

Christmas morning I set her bed up and everything for her but didn't make time to take her picture until the Monday night after Christmas. She's wearing her new Christmas jammie's and in her new bed! SHE LOVES IT!!! I've told everyone it's worth it's weight in gold because she sleeps SO good now that she has room to move around [since she's a wild woman in her sleep]. It's nice to have her comfortable in her own bed again and resting well!

SO EXCITED about her new big girl bed!

Ready for 'Mimi's.'

DECORATING OUR FAMILY CHRISTMAS TREE

As mentioned in an earlier post we decorate for Christmas the weekend after Thanksgiving. We didn't have Marcus that weekend because it was his turn to celebrate Thanksgiving with his Mom this year so we missed having him around to enjoy all the fun at our house as we prepared for Christmas! Also, I've really been missing seeing our family decorations [what few I did accumulate our first Christmas]. I especially missed decorating our tree as it's become a collective story of our joined lives and journey as a couple. My parents tree is 30 plus years of Bogenrief history and memories and it's the most beautiful tree, not to mention it is so fun to come home and see it and relive the memories as we decorate and enjoy it throughout the season.

Continuing on that same tradition, to start our collection we have an ornament from the day Manny proposed at Snowbird on his birthday in 2006, our first year as a couple ornament, ornaments from each place we visited on family vacation, we have babies first Christmas ornaments for Elaina and Marcus, etc. Well missing all of that, I had a hair brained idea to take the kids the 1st of December and go and see if we couldn't find a nice, real Christmas tree we could decorate as a family when Marcus was home again. I was really tempted to go get my ornaments and star and other decorations we had on our artificial tree we bought which is in storage but decided not too. Instead, since I planned to buy a smaller tree we went and picked out a few new additions and added them to the ones we had left out here at Mom's [baby ornaments and vacation ornaments from the last few years.] The favorite ones this year were seeing Mickey Mouse [which we bought in Disneyland in May] and our Newport Starfish with a bikini and surfboard. It's pretty bare compared to what I'm accustomed too [esp since the candy canes keep disappearing] BUT every year it will get new additions and one year the REST of our collection will be so beautifully displayed with them.

Daddy helping Elaina hang up some ornaments.

"Yay me! I did it!"

My cheesers! Love you two!

Elaina with our bare little tree but it smells beautiful and looks pretty regardless.

Marcus pointing at one of his 'babies first Christmas' ornaments.

We ran into a few snags while decorating [one of them was loosing our ornament hangers I bought and paid for-yes,they were on my receipt so I know I did and am not THAT crazy (yet).] We looked for an hour and couldn't find them. Which begs the question, why can't a soul buy a box of ornaments that have the hangers with them??? One of life's mysteries eh? More frustrating because we had so much to do that day and ran our butts off so we'd have time to decorate and do our fun family activity and have a nice dinner and then that happened. I didn't get dinner on earlier and happened to run into my Mom in Wal Marts parking lot and she gave me some steaks she had just bought. I had threw in potatoes to bake and we were running out of time and I needed Manny's muscles to help with the tree so Jason was kind enough to grill the steaks so Manny could help me get things set up so we could decorate. We weren't able to find them before Marcus had to leave [ended up going and buying more] so he was only able to help with the family ornaments we had so I wasn't able to get a picture of him with Elaina and the tree as I had planned. I took one of him tonight before he left so I had one with him but that's why it's late and why I don't have more pictures of him [stressing about trying to get everything done (decorating, dinner, cleaning, making sure everything was perfect, memorable and fun like Mom's do) before he left I didn't pull out my camera until after I stopped running around like a chicken with my head cut off.] Regardless that it wasn't the day I envisioned once again when I had this GREAT night planned for us...it was more like the Montes' version of 'Griswald's' decorating esp when after going to buy a second box of hangers, I got home went to pull the bag off my purse to decorate and they were GONE again! Um, yes. Burst of anger this time, hahaha! Luckily this time we did find them in the car. LOL, we STILL had a great time with you and Lainey despite the chaos, memories were made, just not the ones I was planning on! ;)

We sure do love you kiddo's!

It's Beginning To Look A lot Like Christmas...

Growing up it was tradition to put our Christmas Tree up the weekend after Thanksgiving. We were taught to enjoy the season of Thanksgiving before all the hussel and bussel of Christmas. Growing up like that, I LOVE the Christmas season but have never liked to do anything Christmas-ee until after we celebrate Thanksgiving. I'm even crazy about listening to Christmas music as well. The cd's/music on the radio don't get played by ME until Pie Day which is the Wednesday before Thanksgiving where all the girls go to Mom's to make the pies for Thanksgiving.

I missed the exciting part with Elaina last year as the tree went up because I had worked the previous night so I was excited I was able to be there and watch her help and see things this year and help her decorate where she could. Amy, Jessie and Justin came to help since it's such a big job so Elaina had a blast with Justin and Aunts and Uncle Dave and Uncle Jason [when he got there after hunting.] Here's a few snap shots of our fun day of decorating!

In the morning I did some cleaning and laundry downstairs while we waited for Dave to bring in the tree and get the decorations down from the attic to start decorating. I ended up just showering and getting ready real quick and when I came upstairs I found Elaina right in the middle of all the decorating! Mom, Dad, Jessie, Amy, Dave and Elaina were in a circle around the tree shaping the bottom piece of the tree. She was so cute helping and having a blast being a big girl.

Elaina hanging up some candy canes. She loved this part!

LOL, I love Justin's face, I wonder what he's thinking.

Working together, having fun.

So cute doing their thing.

They both wanted to be where the other one was hanging the candy canes...

Elaina checking out her work and admiring the ornaments.

They were so eager to help. We thought it was funny how they hung 3 right together and 2 on top of each other...

This was a result of them wanting to hang their candy cane on the same branch at the same time...awesome that they made a heart in doing so. :)

We had a really fun day. Manny got off work and we went to Cafe Rio for dinner [haven't been there in a long time so it tasted really good!] Then we went to a few craft stores and bought a few Christmas decorations to add to our small collection! It was fun to buy something fun for a change instead of throwing it at bills-even if it was just a few little nic-knacks. :)

Going to the Candy Shop!

November 24th Marcus' preschool got to go on a fieldtrip to Sweets Candy Factory. It fell on a Wednesday which is Manny's day off so him and Elaina went. Only a limited number of people could go so I didn't plan on going to allow room for other parents/siblings to attend but Manny and the kids had a blast!

Elaina all dressed and ready to go meet Marcus at preschool! They could bring a dollar to buy some candy at the end of the tour so I let Elaina choose which purse she wanted to take and put her $1.25 in it to buy her candy by herself. She was so excited to go with Marcus and Megs and Daddy and take her "monies."

Anxiously awaiting to go! I can't believe how big my baby is getting!

So big!

Marcus with his classmates waiting for the tour to begin.

Everyone got to wear a fancy hair net. So cute Lainey.

Typical Marcus! :)

Elaina and Megs

Nice picture Manny, but the girls are still cute!

Proud big brother with his little sis. So cute kiddo's. Glad you had so much fun!