Valentine's Day

A few days before Valentine's Day we made and decorated sugar cookies. I love sugar cookies and I love this tradition. It doesn't feel like Valentine's Day without them!

Chad was gone to Ohio for an interview for PA school (cross your fingers and say your prayers for us, please!) and so he missed out on the fun. We started the day out with stuffed animals and chocolate. We skipped out on getting Clara anything, heaven knows we have PLENTY of stuffed animals in our house!

We filled the day with things we love. The day before I made some strips of paper that said:

For breakfast, I love...

For snack, I love...

To read, I love...

etc.

The girls took turns picking out the strips and telling me what they loved. Then on Valentine's Day we did all of the things we love.

Grace chose the breakfast strip and she said cereal (the fact that she was eating cereal when she picked the strip could have influenced her). To make it a little more interesting I bought the little boxes. The girls thought they were in heaven!

Here is Clara in her Valentine outfit. Somehow I did not get a picture of the two older girls in their V Day shirts.
Another fun activity we did this holiday was the 12 Days of Valentines. We made 12 hearts and wrote on each one something we could do or say to show love for our family. For 12 days before Valentine's Day we would pull out a heart and each of us would do that thing for someone in the family. My favorites were, "Make a Valentine for them" and "Tell them something you love about them." It helped us feel the love all season long!

Hannah made butterfly sucker Valentines for her class. She had so much fun decorating them with stickers.

Of course we had to have "Heart Hair"!

For snack we had yogurt covered raisins (Grace, although she calls them white raisins), we watched Lady and the Tramp(Hannah), ate pizza for dinner(Hannah), had milkshakes to drink(Hannah), played Break the Ice(Grace), and read Cat in the Hat(Hannah). It was a full day filled with love!

January 2012

Hannah was invited to a birthday party where they had costumes for all of the girls to dress up like some type of Barbie and had a fashion show. Hannah was 80's Barbie. She was so funny, she was so embarrassed that she practically ran up and down the runway!


Just a super cute picture of this little one! She had her 4 month check up on the 27th of January. She is growing healthy! She weighed in at a whopping 9lbs 15oz.



We celebrated my birthday on the 13th. I can not believe I am 28 years old. That is sooo close to 30!



A few days later on the 17th we celebrated Chad's birthday. He already is old! I made this peanut butter cup cake. Man it was yummy!




Clara has started giggling!

And singing!

In other exciting news: We moved! We are still in Sandy, we just moved into a bigger, nicer apartment. It is so wonderful to have so much space. I am loving it! We are also still close enough that I was able to keep Hannah in the same school. It has been amazing!

December 2011: Part 3 of 3

We had a fun New Years Eve at home. We ate fondue (a cheese one and a super yummy chocolate one), played Disney Princess Yahtzee, and had a countdown (at 8:00pm) with party hats, noise makers, and sparkling cider. We are party animals!

Well I had a couple cute videos I wanted to show, but they wouldn't load. Darn. You will just have to imagine the cuteness.

December 2011: Part 2 of 3

CHRISTMAS!

I love the traditions of Christmas, being with family, and all that comes along with Christmas!

The annual Wade Family Christmas Eve Eve party. Sad to say this was not the most enjoyable party I have ever been to. Clara was just beyond crying, more like screaming most of the time. She was so tired, but wouldn't sleep. She was just overwhelmed with all of the noise and the people. Chad and I took turns spending our time in the dark basement trying to calm her. Definitely not enjoyable! I am glad the girls had fun and were able to enjoy it.

Of course we couldn't miss the Burton Dance Around the Christmas Tree!

Christmas Eve night...letters, cookies, and milk for Santa (notice the cute plate and milk jug that Grandma Hurd gave us especially for this tradition), throwing reindeer food, Christmas pjs, and a picture with their stockings. Clara was sleeping (thankfully) and missed the fun.

Christmas morning! Hannah got exactly what she wanted (Wuggle Pets) and Grace loved what she got (Leap Frog ABC fridge magnet game).

This was a very stressful and fun Christmas. It is definitely one we won't forget.

December 2011: Part 1 of 3

We blessed Clara the first Sunday in December. The night before the blessing we went and saw the lights on Temple Square. It is so pretty every year and always fun to be with family.

Clara's blessing was great. I was so worried she was going to cry through the whole thing, but she was just perfect. She wore the same dress that both Hannah and Grace were blessed in. She also had a beautiful blanket made by Grandma Hurd. She has made a special one for each girl. We are so blessed to have such great families!

Just before Christmas we had family pictures taken. It was really fun and our photographer was so great at getting the girls to smile. I think they turned out adorable!

Our Little Cutie Clara

Silly Little Grace

Beautiful Hannah Banana

November 2011

I took Clara in for a "newborn" photo shoot. She was a 6 weeks old and they usually like to do it when they are younger. They wanted her to be asleep and hold still, but she was not cooperating! She was wide awake and wiggly! I still think we got some cute shots.

Here are some more cute shots of our little miss.

Grace likes to play with my phone. She will get the camera and take TONS of pictures. The other day I deleted 500! pictures that were all similar to the ones above! Silly Grace!

Grace's 2nd birthday was in November. Those pictures are gone also. Sad. So here is a college of some other cute pics of her.

We celebrated her birthday at my mom's house with lots of family. When I asked her what cake she wanted she said, "Heart cake." I asked her several times and made other suggestions, but every time she would say "heart cake." So that is what she got! It was one of the easier cakes I have made. It was a fun party for a fun girl! When people ask her how old she is she will always say, "Two. Heart cake."

Grace is such a funny girl. She makes me laugh and want to pull my hair out all at the same time. She has a way of charming people and making them love her. She isn't afraid of anything, even her mom's threats! She is super silly and very vocal. As my grandma used to always say, "She's a keeper!"

We were in Rexburg for Thanksgiving. They had a season starter party at the park. It was sooo cold. We rode on a horse drawn trailer, sat on Santa's lap, and ate cookies and hot chocolate. It was fun, but so so so cold!!

October 2011

Most of these pictures are from my phone, so please excuse the poor quality!

My 3 girls! I still can't believe I have 3!

At the beginning of October we went to Wheeler Farm to celebrate fall. They had a wagon ride, a hay maze, and a pumpkin patch. We all chose pumpkins, which we carved later (no pictures of that). I did a spider, Hannah painted hers white and made a skeleton, and Grace just painted hers. Chad helped Hannah and Grace this year with their pumpkins.

In the middle of October, Chad flew to Virginia to interview at a school there. So the girls and I had a Girl's Weekend. We went to a paint your own pottery place...

the aquarium...

watched General Conference....

and played dress up!

It was a fun weekend, but we were all glad when Chad came home!

A few days before Halloween they had free Halloween Face pancakes at IHOP. Who could say no to free pancakes? Not us!

For Halloween this year, Hannah was a girl vampire,

Grace was a skunk,

and Clara was just cute!

September '11

So like I mentioned, I had a mishap with my pictures. Something happened and more than half (probably close to 1,000) of my pictures on my computer were deleted. There were so many and I was literally sick to my stomach about it. Luckily we have a external hard drive that Chad updated in August, so we were able to get all of the pictures back except from September, October, and November of 2011. I am still in the process of using a photo recovery program on my computer to see if I can get those back. It is sad, but I am glad I was able to get back what I did! I am continuing on with the few pictures I do have of those months and if I get more back I will add those later.

So sadly we don't have the pictures from Clara's birth, but luckily we did take some pictures on our phones.

Clara Kaye Hurd

Born: September 27, 2011 12:40pm

Weight: 6lbs

Height: 19inches

I was induced at 9:30am. We were shooting for a noon birth since both Hannah and Grace were born at noon, but 12:40 is pretty close! Everything went really smooth. We were so surprised how tiny and perfect she was. My mom was there two watch the two girls and to help me afterwards. I loved having her there! We love little Miss Clara and are glad she has been added to our family!

Those are all of the pictures from September that I have, but honestly that was the most important thing that happened anyways!

August '11: Part 3

At the beginning of August we went to the farm at Thanksgiving Point. We saw tons of animals, rode on the ponies, went on a wagon ride, and even milked a cow.

For some reason I can't get enough of my two little girls in matching/similar dresses! It just kills me. They are too cute!

Ummm....also...this one started 1st Grade. 1ST GRADE! Can you believe it?!? I can't. She was so excited that she got to eat lunch at school. What a big girl!

Grace thought she needed to get in on the action too! What a goof ball!

Of course we couldn't forget our traditional Back to School Banana Splits.

August '11: Part 2

After arriving home from California, we had one day to unpack, do laundry, and pack up again for our Wade Family Reunion! We were camping in the Park where my brother Chad is a ranger. The plan was to have two nights of camping, but the Hurd family only lasted one. I had picked up a chest cold and barely had any voice left, sleeping on a blow up mattress when big pregnant was not fun, and we were just exhausted from being away from home for so long.





While we were there though, we had a blast! We hung out with family, went on a nature walk, played games, sang campfire songs, and played in the water. Grace really loved the water. She even loved dipping her licorice in it before eating it (possible explanation for the VERY messy diapers for the next week)! There was a floating dock and Hannah was even brave enough to jump off!

Of course it wouldn't be the Wade Family Reunion if we didn't make shirts for the kids. They turned out really cute. I love spending time with my family and I can't wait until the reunion next year!

August '11: Part 1

August was a big month for us so I have divided it into three posts (also I have had a little (actually pretty big and I am sick about it) mishap with some of my photos and I am working on recovering them, so hopefully it will all be resolved by next week and I can move on to September.

In August Chad had just finished up his semester at school, I was super pregnant (at least I felt that way), Hannah was about ready to start school, and we just felt like we needed to get away. We had never had an official family vacation with just us before so we decided to plan one! It had been a very long time since we had seen Chad's dad, so we picked California as our destination.

We flew first to Los Angeles. Our trip was going to be pretty short and I didn't want to spend more than half our vacation driving! Hannah loved playing with the toys in her surprise bag and Grace watched Elmo on the DVD player and Chad's phone.

Our first stop was the Hollywood sign. Chad and I went to California on our honeymoon eight years ago (gulp) and we drove around for hours trying to get close to the sign. We were never able to do it, so we were determined to find it this time and we did!


Later that day we drove down to Santa Monica Pier. The whole time we were planning the trip I was so worried about dying of heat, so I was totally unprepared for the cold weather we experienced! We had to stop at a little shop and buy sweatshirts for all of us!



The next day was Sunday and we were able to go and visit Chad's dad and family. We went to church with them and just spent the day relaxing with them. Hannah loved her Aunt Mackenzie and Grace loved their dog, Lily.


We drove to San Diego next and went to some little shops along the beach. We even played a little in the sand and cold water. Again, it was chilly! Who would have expected that for August in California?!



Our next stop was Balboa Park. It was huge and amazing! We were able to see some beautiful buildings and landscaping.


That afternoon we put the girls in their suit and headed for the water. They loved it! Hannah was running from the waves and even got knocked over several times. Chad was so good to get in the water with them. I stayed back away from the water and protected the towels! On the walk back to the car there was a wedding on the beach. Grace kept yelling, "Princess!" It was pretty funny!

Our last day was spent at Sea World. Chad's sister Mackenzie was able to come and spend the day with us. She was so great, she was a buddy for Hannah and was able to go on the big ride with Chad that I wasn't allowed to go on. My favorite part was all of the shows. Grace was in Elmo heaven when we went to the Sesame Street Playland. She was able to take a picture with Elmo and Big Bird! It was an awesome day and I really wish that we could have had two days, because there was so much more to see and do!

This was a much needed and enjoyed vacation for our little family. It was fun to get away, experience new things, and enjoy just being together as a family.