Happy Fourth Birthday, Arianna!

Arianna is four years old today! We can hardly believe it! She is such a smart, beautiful, funny, happy little girl.
She was so excited for her Birthday she was up at 5:45 am. I said "Happy Birthday" to her first thing and she said, "I am going to love this day!" She was so delighted to see the Birthday sign and balloons and presents.
I wanted to write just a little bit about Arianna. She was such a good baby; always so happy, a great sleeper, and always able to soothe herself with her beloved thumb.

The day she was born.

She has always adored her big sister (and vice-verse) and they are the best of friends. They hardly know what to do with themselves if the other one is gone!

Emma looking in on her new little sister.

They love playing together!

Here are the two of them together just last month.

Arianna on her 1st Birthday

Arianna on her 2nd Birthday

Arianna's 3rd Birthday!

Arianna 3 1/2 year old- this picture is so Arianna.

For Kenneth's Birthday, in November, Arianna decided she was going to stop sucking her thumb during the day. We were so proud of her! We are amazed at her will to do something once she sets her mind to it. She still sucked at night time though, and when asked when she was going to stop sucking at night she would say, "when I am a mom." Needless to say, we thought the night-time thumb sucking would continue for a very long time! But, she again decided on her own last week that she was going to stop at night time. We helped her remember during the night for the first few days by putting a mitten on the hand she usually sucks on, but now, she will tell us in the morning that she just forgot to suck in the night! What a relief to us that she is done with that! Her determination and will are truly amazing - something we pray will be a huge strength to her throughout her life.

Arianna decided she did not want a big party with friends, so we are celebrating at home with just the five of us. She really prefers to just spend time with her closest friends - her family. We had a special Birthday Breakfast today and opened a couple of presents this morning. We will do some more celebrating at lunch time.

Here is her Birthday Interview:

How old are you today? "4"

What is your favorite animal? "Dinosaur"

What is your favorite color? "Black" (last year it was yellow- the pendulum doth swing, eh? We're hoping it's black because of her favorite black dance outfit she loves to wear lately!)

What is your favorite food? "Cake"

What is your favorite treat? "Brownie, actually, ice-cream"

What kind of ice-cream? "Umm, mint"

What is your favorite book? "When the bug went Kah-choo"

What do you want to be when you grow up? "An acrobat! Um, actually a farmer - because I want to live on a farm. Because I want to ride a horse - a black horse."

Who loves you the most? "Ah Daddy" {Mom's disclaimer- Dad was the one asking the question, otherwise she would have said me!}
Emma "That's not right. There is someone else that loves you even more."
Arianna "Um, Mommy."
Emma "No!"
Arianna "Grandpa Pilz?"
Emma "No, not someone who died." Then (whispering in Arianna's ear) "There is someone who loves you even more"
Arianna "Jesus"
Emma "Yes, that's right!"
Note: This exchange was quite comical - we're going to have to start videoing these interviews.

Arianna "This is taking too long."

What is your favorite time of the day? "When I can open my presents"
Mom "What about a normal day?"
Arianna "No, let's not talk about that."
Note: At this point, Arianna is really ready to move on and eat or open presents.

What is your favorite activity? "Playing Candy Land with you, Daddy."

Arianna "This is taking too long."

So, Arianna, since you are 4 years old and you stopped sucking your thumb, how do you feel? "Happy! I want you to take a picture of my thumb!"

Not sure how long it will take for the callus to go away, but at least the crack that was in it a week ago is healing!

Here are the pictures of the morning celebration:
Breakfast: Cinnamon rolls, scrambled eggs (we add flaxseed meal, in case you are wondering why they look funny), and a special Birthday Caterpillar who decided to visit.

Grant and Arianna couldn't wait to eat the raspberries!

Cinderella and carriage from mom and dad. Can you tell she was delighted?! After she opened it she said, "I love it! You got me just what I wanted!"

Pajamas from Grandma Pilz

We'll post pictures from the rest of the day later, but we wanted everyone to know earlier in the day that it's Arianna's Birthday!!!!

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

I told Emma this morning that we were going to the temple tomorrow. A few minutes later she returned with her favorite dress stating that is what she wanted to wear tomorrow to the temple. I explained that she wasn't going inside the temple and that I wanted her to wear something warm that she could play on the near-by playground in. She burst into tears and blurted out,

"It's not fair you get to be beautifuller than me!!! You get to wear something pretty and I don't!!"

Despite the fact that she was really upset, I couldn't help but laugh. Little does she know that I (and believe it or not already her 3 year old little sister) envy her hair. She is more beautiful than I any day of the week. . .

Christmas

I cannot believe it has already been over a month since Christmas! We had a wonderful Christmas season with family in Utah. Before leaving California, however, we spent a wonderful evening with Brian and Anita. We had a wonderful dinner, followed by gift giving. Boy, do they love to spoil our children!!! I don't know who had more fun opening gifts- the kids or Brian and Anita watching the kids! Here are some pictures of that:

Look at that face!
He adores his new car!

The girls in their dress-ups and Grant-man with his car.
Here is the playhouse they received from Brian and Anita. They are working on coloring it at our house and as you can see they are in their dress-up clothes as they do so- also from Brian and Anita.
Grant looking quite dapper in his new outfit from Brian and Anita.

We had a great time in Salt Lake City. It was my first time having Christmas with my own Mother since 2002! The trip was nice. The children really do travel well. On the way to Salt Lake we stopped to visit the Lentz family. What fun it was to see them!

My mother lives right across from the Conference Center, down the street from the Temple. In fact, you can see the temple from her living room. View from my mom's balcony!

The kids especially loved the exhibits at the Church History Museum.
Look at that Nativity quilt- isn't it amazing!

Looking up to Moroni- if you look carefully, you can see the temple out the window.

They had all kinds of fun exhibits for the kids- hands-on stuff like this. As I write this I am realizing I didn't get any good pictures of them in the new Children's Book of Mormon exhibit, which was super fun. If you go to Salt Lake and have kids, you should definitely check it out!

My mom and all of us in front of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building Christmas Tree.

Chirstmas Eve, we made a visit to Kenneth's brother and sister-in-law in Lehi and a good friend in Provo. We drove around BYU's Campus- boy has a lot changed since I was there!
Gracie,our niece, was happy with the Elmo doll we brought her.

Visit to Cabella's with Jason, Rachel, Gracie, Katelyn and us.

Visit to good ol' Provo. The 'Y' on the Mountain.

Heidi and Andrea in Provo

The kids did NOT like the cold! We certainly are spoiled here in California. (The past couple weeks we have been going to the park without jackets- it has been beautiful!) We took them out to see the Christmas lights on Temple Square in the evening , and after a few minutes, they just wanted to go home! So, Kenneth and I went back again by ourselves after we put them to bed on Christmas Eve. We sure did enjoy ourselves! Some pictures of The Lights at Temple Square:

Christmas lights around the Conference Center- across from my mom's apartment building.

Salt Lake Temple- Nativity on the reflecting pool.

Gorgeous lights!

More gorgeous lights!

I'm cold! I want to go home!!!!

My Mom made us a wonderful Christmas Eve dinner with all the trimmings and a yummy breakfast the next morning. The girls were delighted with the candlelit Christmas Eve dinner.

Christmas Eve Pajamas- big hug!

I love this picture of Grant- want a funny guy! I can't even remember what we told them to do- make a funny pose or something.

Opening gifts Christmas morning.

Christmas morning with Grandma Pilz

After church, we had lunch and headed up to Logan to be with Kenneth's brother and sister. We also had a wonderful Christmas dinner there. The kids were so happy to be with their cousins. Kenneth's brother and his family who live in Lehi also joined us in Logan. We had a blast all together! We were able to stay with them for 5 days. The big project was tiling the bathroom floor. (Larchars always need a project. Work is what they do best!) And what put it all over the top was a surprise visit from Kenneth's parents, who live in New York State. The kids were in heaven!
Christmas Evening at the Dawes'. You can see Grant's gift from Santa- Thomas the Train set. He loves it!

Buddies! Tyler and Grant.

Emma, Ashley and Alyssa. So happy to be together again!

Look at all those little cousins lined up. Aren't they adorable? They had so much fun together!

Gingerbread house- making at Karen's house.

These two were the smart ones- why go to all that work when you are just going to eat it anyway? They just skipped the making part and ate!

The kids loving time with Grandma Louise.

Grant helping Daddy with the floor project.

Unfortunately, there were some lows to the visit, too. Kenneth started coughing and really started to feel ill. It came to the point that it hurt to breathe, and there was blood in his sputum, so we took him to the ER there in Logan. After some blood work and a CT Scan, the doctor diagnosed him with Bronchitis and sent us to pick up an antibiotic. We were, feeling grateful that he would soon be feeling better and went on our way. The next day, however, Kenneth's fever spiked to 104.5 and we knew something was wrong. We was already on the antibiotic and should be feeling better. We got the fever under control and he was stable. But, over the next couple of days the pain in his lungs continued to worsen and it was really hurting to breathe. ER visit #2. This time, they did an X-ray and looked at the scan from the 3 days before and found out he had an aggressive pneumonia. They were especially concerned with his history of cancer and decided he needed to have a Broncoscopy done to make sure there wasn't cancer in the lungs that could be causing all this. The problem is, they don't do Broncoscopies in Logan. So, they took him in an ambulance all the way to Salt Lake (about 1 1/2 hours away). Lucky for us, my mother lives right there, so the kids and I were able to come down and my mom could watch the kids while I went to be with Kenneth. They did not find cancer in the bronchial tubes (thank goodness!) and gave him some strong IV Antibiotics that really helped him to feel better. He ended up staying in the hospital for 3 days! At least he had a great view from his room! He could see the Salt Lake temple, Utah Capitol building and the gorgeous Oquirrh Mountains. So, it was there that Kenneth spent New Year's Eve!

After he was released from the hospital, we stuck around in Salt Lake for five days for Kenneth to recover before we made the long drive home. How thankful I am for my mother and her hospitality! While Kenneth was recovering, we did venture out to see a couple of things close to my mom's house.
Grant in the Conference Center

Kids looking out the windows in the top of the Jospeh Smith Memorial Building.

We also had one last visit from Dennis, Karen and Jason and family:
Tea party with Uncle Dennis

One last visit with Uncle Jason.

So, that was it, in a nutshell. It was great. There were also some downright scary parts, but I guess that's life.