Taya's 6th Family Birthday

For Taya's birthday dinner she specifically asked for her very favorite food:

Spaghetti & meatballs, garlic bread, & blue kool-aid.

After her birthday dinner we opened all of her presents from family members.  She got spoiled this year.  We had a blast opening it all.

Nancy sent her a horse outfit: sweater & hat,
shirt, pants, socks, & cowboy girl boots.

She also sent Taya a Breyer pony.  FUN.

She loved all her fun gifts from Nancy.

Lorien saved up her allowance & got her the
one thing Taya asked for.  Taya was DYING for
the Lego Friends Treehouse.  She was SO happy
Lorien got it for her that she cried.  SUPER
SWEET.

Cadence bought her an adorable Pinkie Pie
Stuffed animal.  She sleeps with it every night now.

Trek & I got her the Lego Friends Stables.

Auntie Char & Uncle Jay got her the Lego
Friends Pool she has been wanting.

And Mimi & Baba got her the Lego Friends
Bakery.

Opa & Oma got Taya a beautiful little fairy
keepsake treasure box & 2 beautiful necklaces.

Auntie Cari, Uncle Justin, Korbyn, & Brinley
got her the Lego Friends Beach Buggy & a
SUPER FUN dot to dot book.

Mamoo got Taya Mia's Bedroom Lego set.

Grandma Kinsfather sent her $10 to buy whatever
she wants to buy!

And Taya's brothers bought her a 200 piece puzzle because
they know how much Taya loves puzzles.  200 pieces might
challenge her a bit too.

Taya loved everything she got.  We literally felt like we were in a Lego Paradise.  Taya LOVES Lego's so much & we were in Lego heaven all week long.  It was a ton of fun.

Taya is such a sweetheart.  She was SO excited about everything she got.

Happy Birthday my little princess!

Cupcakes at School

Taya was SO excited to have mommy come eat lunch with her at school & bring cupcakes for all her friends.  It was really fun meeting all the super cute kids in her Kindergarten class.

Taya is all about oranges.  I swear this kid
should turn into an orange for all the oranges
she eats every day.

This is Taya's best friend, Danny.  He lives
just up the street from us & I just adore him
& his family.  He is a triplet (his brother & sister
are adorable too) & he has an older brother in
Cadence's class at school.  He's my buddy too.

My boys live to torment each other.  You can see the look
in Bladen's eyes. . . hmm. . . what can I do to irritate my
brother?

It was a really fun lunch though.  We brought blue & green & pink cupcakes & we all pigged out with frosting on our faces.  I loved every second of it!

Happy Birthday Taya Girl.

Taya's 6th Birthday Breakfast

Happy Birthday to my little Taya girl.  I can't believe she is 6 years old already.  Where does the time go?  I still remember driving as fast as we could through the forests of Germany trying to get to the hospital in Trier, Germany before she came.  I seriously didn't think we'd make it.  We made it to a room at least, then Trek, an anesthesiologist, & a 16 year old candy striper delivered her into my arms.  Our lives have never been the same.  We love our little Squick.

For her special birthday breakfast she begged me to make her some chocolate chip pancakes, sausage, & of course the Potter birthday tradition of Ding Dongs with candles in them.  We woke up at the crack of dawn (also known as 5:30 am) to celebrate her special day.

Taya is funny.  She can be SO outgoing, spunky, & tornado-like at times, & then so demure, shy, & quiet at other times.  She was very shy for her birthday this year which made me laugh.

Happy 6th Birthday Taya!  We love you more than anything & are SO glad you are a part of our family.  The Potters just wouldn't be the Potters without our little Taya.

The Oboe

Here in VA where we live they don't offer string orchestra which really broke my heart being a devout string player.  Yes, I could teach it myself, but my kids really need a teacher other than mom.  Plus I want them to have the opportunity to experience music in SCHOOL.

So, band it is. . . not that band is a bad thing.  I was in band too, remember.  So the more I ponder on my band memories, the more excited I'm getting about Cadence being in the band at school.  We went to the parent info meeting & talked to the band teacher about instruments & started the decision making process.

Cadence is a lot like me.  I never could handle being the girl that played the most obvious choices for instruments. . . violin, flute, clarinet.  Nope, that just wasn't me.  I opted for the unusual guys like the viola, bassoon, & vibraphone.  (In the end I played well over 30, but I had my favorites for sure.)

Cadence wanted to be different.  I jumped in on the possibility of the bassoon immediately.  I love the bassoon & I play it well so I could help her.  Nope.  They don't allow bassoons at her school.  They said maybe in high school, but not at this age as a starter instrument.  Hmmmm.  I asked the teacher about maybe allowing an oboe & her teacher jumped on it.  She hadn't had an oboist in 15 years & LOVES oboe.  Cadence got really excited at the thought of being the ONLY oboist in her entire school.  SO, oboe it is.

Turns out, oboe is a perfect match for her.  Double reed instruments are sometimes a lot more difficult to get air through for younger kids than other woodwind instruments so I didn't know how she'd do, but after 3 days she's already playing scales quite well.  I'm very proud of her.

I can't wait to be your "Band Mom" Cadence.  We are going to have a BLAST together.

Mother-Daughter Make-Over Night

I was in charge of Activity Days again for the month of September so I planned another 2 parter for my two nights with the girls.  The first week I sat down with the girls & we talked about hygiene.  I know, not the funnest thing to talk about with a bunch of tween girls, but it's one of their goals in their Faith in God booklet & you know, sometimes you just need a refresher.

I gave each of the girls a little gift bag with travel sized shampoo/conditioner, deodorant, toothpaste, & a washcloth in it to help them remember their hygiene is important.  

THEN, we started planning for our 2nd activity that kind of goes along with our hygiene talk:

Mother Daughter Make-Over Night.

I let the girls make homemade invites to invite their mothers to our activity.  We planned to bring blankets & pillows & have our mom's dressed up in their pajamas for the fun night.  We would do mud masks with cucumbers on our eyes, paint nails, eat cupcakes, & simply enjoy some one on one time with our moms.  Then I had each of the girls make a small jar of bath salts to give to their moms as a gift.  Each girl wrote a letter to their moms & attached it to their gift.

Then on the 3rd Wednesday of September we had our fun girls night!  I think the girls had a blast.  I had my own two girls to play with & all the other girls had their mom's.  One girl in our group lost her mom last summer so our other Activity Days leader (who just got married a few months back & doesn't have kids yet) jumped right in & played this girl's surrogate mother for the night.  We ended up having SO MUCH FUN.

I think these girls had fun feeling the masks tighten on their face & they thought those cucumbers were beyond awesome.

Me & my beautiful girls

I painted zebra stripes on my girls' nails.

This was Aaliyah's LAST activity days activity.  She turns
12 in two weeks & will be moving on to Young Womens.
We will miss her terribly!

I still say I have the best calling in the church.  I love Activity Days.

All Grown Up

There are days where you just feel really old.

I keep in touch with people from every part of my life.  Being in the military we move a LOT & I have to say good-bye to friends all the time.  But there's always that chance that your paths will cross again in the future.  It really does happen more often than you realize.

This week I had the opportunity to feed the Spanish missionaries for our Stake, & guess who one of those missionaries was?  My old piano student BJ Lovin!  When we were stationed at Hill AFB (2001-2007) I had about 12 piano students & BJ was one of them.  He was 9 at the time.  I still remember him playing the Star Wars Theme song at one of my recitals.  It's crazy how fast time flies.

Now BJ is all grown up & serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints here in the Virginia Chesapeake Mission.  I KNOW, what are the chances?  It was SO MUCH FUN having him over for dinner.  To me he'll always be that fun loving kid who LOVED to play the piano as fast as he could without counting.  He grew up, became a drummer (who has to count perfectly & at the correct speed) & then served a mission.  It was a pleasure having him over for dinner.

Lovin' on my Crazy Boys

I love being a mom.  I really do.  Sure you have those days where you just want to lock yourself in a closet with a half gallon of mint chocolate chip ice cream, but for the most part it's so much fun.

Canyon is growing like a week.  He's HUGE.  I wish he's stop.  He's my last baby so I want him to stay small forever.  He is rolling all around the room & likes to roll to the toys the kids leave around.  He's especially fond of Trek's old dog Russ.  We've had this old smelly dog for YEARS.  Trek got it when he was 8 years old so basically it's 25 years old.  But Canyon will roll over to it & lay on it.  It's the cutest thing ever.

And then of course there's Craiger, aka MONSTER.  Yup, he's always finding ways to make a mess.  This time he literally FELL into his dinner plate as he was clearing the table.  Good times.

I love moments where I can cuddle with my kids.

My kids are my world.  I love them all so much.