Luke Blaine is 2!

Two years later and he's more adorable every day!!! On Sunday, we celebrated Luke's 2nd birthday. It was tons of fun. Grandma and Grandpa Lay, Uncle Ryan and his family, and Uncle Ken and his family all came over for a little party. Luke was cute through the whole thing.
Opening presents with Daddy. Ross had to stick each present out of sight behind him after Luke opened it so that he'd move on to the next one.

What a handsome boy!

His candle didn't light very well and was basically out by the time we finished singing "Happy Birthday", but we cheered like he'd blown it out himself anyway.
This is the Thomas the Train present he got. He was SO excited about it he escaped from his chair after we sang to him and wouldn't even come back to have his cake and ice cream. He was jumping up and down and hardly able to contain himself while Uncle Ken opened it for him. In this picture we were in the process of trying to coax him into his pajamas, but he just kept playing. It's been his favorite toy the past few days and the train comes in the car with him, to the dinner table, and if we'd let him, he would take it to bed. He loves trains and my favorite thing (that sadly he's starting to outgrow) is when he tells us that a train says, "Chuppa Chup. Hoo. Hoo."

Luke was excited about his Sesame Street birthday sign too. Thanks Aunt Kathy!
This is Luke yesterday when we finally got him to sit down and enjoy some of his birthday cake. Isn't his grin great?

First Day of First Grade!

Our Samantha Anne started first grade today at Smith School. She was excited finally, because last week she'd told me she would be sick on the first day. But last night we went to meet her teacher and drop off her school supplies. Samantha was glad to see that a little girl named Carlin from her kindergarten class was assigned to the desk sitting next to her and she met a little boy named Reilly that she kept talking about.
It took a little effort to get her up this morning though. I went into her room and told her to wake up because it was the first day of school. She mumbled into her pillow, "It is?" Then she looked at her clock and said, "Seven minutes?" And I replied, "Uh, yes, it's 7:05." So I kept talking to her and rubbing her back and asking if she wanted waffles (Only the toaster kind. I'm not that domestic!) or cereal for breakfast. Finally she declared, "Mom! I'm tired! Can I just have seven more minutes?" I just started to laugh and said okay. She made me turn off her light and I went back to my room to keep getting myself ready. It makes me worry about how bad she'll be about getting up when she's a teenager if this is already how she's acting! Thankfully, a few minutes later I heard someone coming downstairs, and though I expected Logan, it was Samantha who was very proud of herself for getting up after seven minutes.
She got ready and Ross gave her a back to school blessing and then she and I were off! (At least we were off to the front porch to take pictures.) Then we were finally off to school. I took her right to her classroom this morning and her friend Carlin was already there. Samantha's teacher has been at Smith School for at least 20 years because my sister Wendy had her for a kindergarten teacher. It was funny because Wendy told me she remembered Mrs. Dundas with dark hair cut in a bob and that's still how it is!
I picked Samantha up after school and got a report that the morning was an adjustment, but she had a GREAT afternoon. That was good to hear. I'm so thankful there's so many people aware of her at the school and so willing to keep her safe and help her to have good experiences and learning opportunities. It makes me feel blessed.


Samantha and Carlin

Buzz Boys

I've been meaning to post forever and have tons of summer fun stuff to put up, but never seem to get it done. So for the moment here's some pics of my boys. My parents' new house is going to be in the Parade of Homes here in Helena and I went out there Monday night to help them get ready. I left Ross with the four kids and it was a nice little break. I didn't get back until about 11:00 PM. I crept into the kids' dark rooms and kissed them, but it wasn't until the next morning when Luke got up that I noticed anything. I had fallen asleep nursing Rebecca on the living room couch early Tuesday morning and Lukey came out of his room about 6:45. Bleary eyed, I saw him across the room. I made him come closer and I realized that Ross had buzzed the boys hair while I was gone! He hadn't mentioned that the night before! They've needed shorter hair cuts all summer, but with family pictures being taken at both of our family reunions, I didn't want it too short, and definitely not buzzed. We've just had them trimmed around their ears a bit for months. Well, family pictures are over now, so I guess Ross had no qualms about buzzing away! They both still look cute and I guess I don't need to worry about combing their hair for a little while...

Samantha is SIX!

Samantha Anne Wilkins was born on June 22, 2002 at 6:16 PM in Provo, Utah. (Yep, she's a BYU baby!) A few weeks ago she celebrated a very fun 6th Birthday. Mommy and Daddy got her a pretty green birthday dress that she wore to church that day. Then Grandma and Grandpa Lay came over for a taco dinner that night and we had ice cream sundaes and Samantha opened presents. The next day Samantha had her long awaited costume party. The kids came dressed up and played the typical party games and had a ton of fun smashing into a pinata in the backyard.

I was running late as usual and didn't have her cake finished by the time the party started. Thankfully, my sister-in-law Kathy has an amazing talent for cake decorating and stepped in for me and quickly decorated a totally adorable Strawberry Shortcake cake for Samantha! Samantha loved it and I was so happy and thankful. I had a Strawberry Shortcake cake (old school Strawberry Shortcake, of course) for my sixth birthday and wanted the same for my little girl!
Samantha is such a fun, happy, beautiful girl and we're extremely grateful to Heavenly Father for blessing our family with her! WE LOVE YOU SAMANTHA!

First Day of Summer

Adventurous Logan

Daddy kinking the hose

Daddy unkinking the hose!

A very excited Luke!

3 kids and a little sprinkler

Last Friday Ross decided that he'd better water the lawn now that it had stopped raining and the the weather finally warmed up. So he put a sprinkler out on our front lawn around 7 PM and the next thing we knew Logan had on his swim trunks. We laughed and shook our heads and told Logan to go get dressed. Then who should appear in her swimsuit but Samantha! We decided not to fight it and let them out to run through the sprinkler. Luke couldn't stand it and was so excited watching them that I put on his swimsuit too. They had so much fun that we were glad we'd decided not to be grumpy old parents but let them enjoy summertime instead.

How embarrassing...

So, last night I finally posted a real post to our blog. I have no idea what I'm doing so it took a lot of trial and error with the text and pictures. My poor husband laid in bed reading his book waiting and waiting for me to quit being a silly woman and come read scriptures and say prayers so we could go to bed. When I finished fussing with what I had written and then put the pics in the place I wanted them, I was so excited! I looked at our blog to see how it all turned out and much to my dismay, the new post was before the "tester" post. Then I looked at the date on the post I had just done. It's March 25th! Yesterday was June 16th. Not the same day obviously. (With a March post date, it doesn't make much sense that we could have a baby who is two months old, but born in April of this year!) So now I'm forced to admit what a procrastinator I am. I started writing that post waaaaaay back in March, and yes, it's taken me three months to finish it! Am I allowed to use the pregnancy/brand new baby excuse? I hope so...

Our first post

It's official. We have a blog. BLAAAAAAAHHHHHHHg.