Eva's two year tutu birthday party

So I had this crazy vision while planning Eva's birthday party. There were going to be 6 girls at the party (as well as two more baby girls) and I kept envisioning them running around in tutu's. My mom is always up for fun girlie, princess-y type of things so when I told her my idea she really ran with it. Oh my goodness was it kind of insane figuring out how to make tutu's! I got some instructions online and the first night we tried it my sister Jenny and I painstakingly cut each strip while mom trimmed up our jagged edges. We put together Eva's tutu and honestly we all wanted to be done with just that one! I did a little more reading online and discovered a MUCH easier way to cut the strips and we were done preparing the other 5 in no time. The night of the party was interesting to say the least. I was late getting to our apartment's office so we were locked out of the party room (grrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!) but we carried on outside. Each girl had someone helping them make their tutu (well, Malleri and Merissa who are 8 are really the only one's who helped make theirs!) but it went pretty fast and everyone said they really had a good time. The cutest thing I think was watching all of the girls walk through our apartments to get to our house for a potty break. Watching all of them walk with their tutu's on was priceless! Even though it was kind of insane organizing things and figuring out the best way to make the tutu's it was definitely worth it :) Here are some pictures from the party, enjoy!

The birthday girl :)



Mallina's tutu'ed bum :)



The girls

Happy, happy birthday.....

EVA dear!!! My baby is two today! Daddy is here and so is grandma! We ate at Olive Garden...and they brought ice cream and sang to a very scared looking two year old! We are having a party on Saturday so I will post some pictures from that later. Here is a small trip down Evangeline's memory lane.

**************AHH! THE PICTURES GOT CUT OFF! Please click on the picture to see the whole thing :( I will try to fix it...***************************

Oh the wonderful things you can do...

...when you've got an active imagination and a large drawer or empty plastic box. :)

An oldie but a goodie

This summer while we were in Utah Eva was learning how to sleep in a toddler bed-she had been in her crib since then. There were a few nights she fell out of the bed that were quite traumatizing for her, but she did learn how to stay in the bed eventually. However during the learning process one night I found her like this:


She was completely asleep, she hadn't cried or anything, she was just peacefully sleeping while halfway standing on the floor! Of course it was way too good of a picture to pass up. I've been wanting to share this picture for a while but for some reason never got around to it.

Also this week my dad was here in AZ for work so we got to go to breakfast with him yesterday. Mallina had me laughing because she kept referring to him as "grandfather" she sounded so formal. Like when she is pretending to be Cinderella and calls me "mother" The girls love Grandpa Paul...here is another picture from this summer. Eva was throwing a fit right before bedtime so he took her outside for a little walk and Mallina joined them. I found them hanging out on the porch a little while later. He is the best grandpa!



And one last thing my niece Madison turned in her mission papers and she got her call yesterday! She is going to Washington DC/Nauvoo tours French speaking! I am so so so excited for her. What a great opportunity to share the gospel, learn a language and see some amazing places. She is the first person in our family to go on a mission (including my siblings) so we are all REALLY excited to have a missionary! Congrats Maddie!

Feeding the ducks with Daddy

Ieli was home last week and he made sure the girls had fun while he was home. He took them to the park to feed the ducks twice. I stayed home the first time but tagged along the second day. I only had the camera on my phone to take pictures with, but this is what I got. It was fun playing with the light as the sun was setting-it's amazing how the light can really change a photograph just by changing the angle at which it is hitting your subject.

Playing with silhouettes, none of these came out great, but they are kinda fun.

Mallina had her fishing pole...it later broke. :(

This is a typical Eva stance with her head cocked to the side.

You can really see how much hair Mallina has now in these pictures. She was such a baldy for so long, I had hair envy whenever I saw a baby with hair. Now I get compliments on her hair all the time. Whew!

As we were walking to the car Ieli was fighting with Eva (she didn't want to leave and was screaming at him) so Mallina and I were ahead of them. She decided to climb a tree and I thought it was neat so I took some pictures. Shortly after I took this picture she slid down the tree and scraped one knee, one shin and even her side. She was very traumatized and Ieli got after her for it. He made sure to tell her that monkeys climb trees, not little girls. I felt really bad that I had let her do it after he lectured her. (hehe)


And I just have to point out that yes, these pictures were taken just last week, the second week in JANUARY. We were in shorts-the weather has been AMAZING here. But I shouldn't gloat too much, I am most likely going to be living in the north pole next winter :(

I love being a girl!

What is better than spending your days in dresses and tutu's? Mallina and Eva definitely enjoy being girls. Eva a little more so than Mallina. Every day she brings me a dress, tutu or skirt for her to wear so she can be a princess. Then she finds some of my heels ("slippers" according to Mallina and her Cinderella obsession.) as well as any other accessories she can find. I have assembled some pictures that have been taken on my phone (its is usually much more accessible than my big old camera) for your enjoyment. I can't wait to have a boy someday who wants to run around in a superman cape all day...I just hope he can fend off his big sisters who I am sure will want to put him in a dress :)

I think they thought the stroller was "carriage"-like.

This isn't a great picture, but you can see that she even had on little white lace gloves :)

You can see that she has her clothes on under her dress.

Mallina wanted in on the picture taking. She still had bed head. Oh, who am I kidding, her hair generally looks like that, it is so out of control.

I love that Mallina has a skull shirt on under her "dress" That is her "pirate" shirt.