Birthday Picture Overload

My Saylor girl turned six on Wednesday.  Not quite sure how six years when that fast, but it did.

She is growing up and I'm beyond grateful to have her little spirit in our home.

Saylor is funny, dramatic, energetic, persistent, kind, loving and a blast to have around. 

She adds just enough girliness and spice to our Dixon family. 

I adore her to the moon and back.

Her birthday started off Dixon style with a big greasy Jim Bob's donut for breakfast.

Steve got up way before the sun to bring his girl home a birthday donut.

We sang Happy Birthday and let her open her presents first thing.

(We seem to only be together as a family in the mornings these days and I wanted everyone around for Saylor's present opening. Our schedules are all crazy!)

Grandma and Grandpa Walker got Saylor a new Sophia doll and matching dress.

We got Saylor a few more dress ups too.

 

Grandma's present was her favorite and that couldn't make me happier.

 Before Kindergarten started, I took Saylor and her friend Preslee out for a greasy lunch.

They are such fun cute girls!

Steve brought home roses for his girl after work.

(She has him wrapped around her little finger so blasted tight!)

 Crazy enough we were all home for about 45 minutes in between swimming and YM's so we were able to sing to Saylor again and eat cake.

 Saylor had a little help with her candles.

 My only picture with my princess on her birthday...with a little photo bomber.

Saylor came home with a little tummy ache from school on her actual birthday (maybe the junk food from breakfast and lunch) , so Friday I brought in treats to her Kindergarten class.

Saylor was treated like birthday royalty by her wonderful teacher Mrs. Stanger.

(I love love love this woman.  She is so fantastic!)

Real birthday candles and everything.

It must be pretty great to be six!

I tried to get Saylor to pose for birthday pictures in her new dresses on her actual birthday.

She showed me many of her crazy faces...but happy ones weren't prevalent.

She is a funny girl.

I love you Saylor Kate!

Happy Happy 6th Birthday!

While Steve was gone

Steve was in Seattle for education all weekend and didn't get home yesterday until after midnight.  Poor man had to get up at six and go to work this morning.  He's a hard worker that husband of mine.

But while he was gone ( I really hate when he is gone) we kept busy.

I obviously didn't do any of this work, but our landscaper Mike worked his tail off.  We now have our curbing in.

 He also planted a few of our trees.

I'm a little worried about the ones that didn't get planted.  Its freezing and super windy today so I'm guessing the trees shown on the back of my picture are on the ground today.  Sigh.

(Yes...Andrew can be obnoxious.)

Carter kept busy with endocrinologist appointments.

He has needed more insulin for a while now so I was happy to see his doctor.  Carter was not happy about getting his blood drawn and I don't blame him.

Good news is that Carter is growing and putting on weight.  All good things to be grateful for.

We are currently working on his new insulin rates and hoping they work better.

Saylor kept busy with friends this week.

One of her favorites is Preslee Bulkley.  Her mom and I switch off taking the girls some mornings, feeding them lunch and taking them to school.  We were lucky enough to have these two in the same kindergarten class.  It works seamlessly and these two play great with one another.

Carter had the best weekend of all of us I think.  My mom gave his some pie making lessons.

(Can I say how much I love that my parents have chef hats and aprons for such occasions?!)

 Learning the art of fluting.

Finished Pumpkin Pie Perfection.

This boy is a foodie.

House update:  Dry wall started yesterday.  I would have been there this morning to check it out, but its too blasted cold outside!!

braces and water polo

 

Monday morning last week Carter went to his Uncle Dixon's office and got braces.

Can I say how lucky (and kind of bratty) I feel because we are fortunate to have an uncle straightening my kids' teeth.  Talk about a HUGE blessing that I DO NOT take for granted.  Thanks Spencer!!

 

 

It was also our first snowfall of the year which made for a cold and exciting morning.

Carter has been a trooper even though I know his mouth has been killing him this last week.

Sore teeth are not fun.

He's been told if he wears his rubber bands he could have them off in 18 month.  Braces done before high school...awesome!

What else is awesome?  -my mom and her mad sewing skills.  She is currently working on my nieces baptism quilt.  It is fantastic and is keeping mom really busy.

I've been working on a few projects of my own that involve some really awesome photographs.

 

Pictures like this are priceless.  Maybe that is why I work so hard at getting family pictures all the time.

One day my kids with LOVE them.

 

Among other projects, it was that time of year again last weekend.

Andrew competed at State swimming with a water polo tournament afterwards.

 

In honor of State, Andrew decided to shave his legs to cut down on drag.

(If you could see my face you would know I was laughing my head off just typing that last sentence.)

 Please note the cute pink razor in his hand.  Pink is the only color I had to give him.

 

This is the face I got when I told him I was going to post this picture on Instagram.

...I didn't but thought long and hard about it.

 

Steve took Andrew to Boise Friday morning and then kept me posted on Andrews results.

This is the scoreboard after his 100 breaststroke.  Andrew (lane 3) won his heat,  took three seconds of his best time, and went from being 36 in rank to 23.  Not bad for a Friday afternoon!!  He also took 6 seconds off his 500 breast stroke.  Rightfully so, Andrew was THRILLED with his results.

Andrew didn't make times to swim in the finals on Saturday, but had a water polo tournament Saturday afternoon.  It is crazy stressful for me to watch Andrew play.  Its fast and violent...but he loves it.

Andrew made the A team this year and was excited.   He told me he wouldn't play much in the game, but did his best when he was put in.  He played at least a quarter both games in the tournament.  They won their first match against BK, but lost to Mountain View.

State water polo is coming up the first week in December.  I'll have to grow my nails long so I'll have something to bite during his games.

 

 Barrett Humble, Michael Ashby, Andrew and Aidan Humble.

These boys are all in our ward and make up 2/3 of our Canyon Ridge boys swim team.

While Steve and I attended Andrew's matches, my sister JaNae graciously watched the rest of my crew.  They weren't bored to say the least. 

 

JaNae sent me this picture...hilarious.

 

And this picture too.

My kids always have a spectacular time at Aunt JaNaes!

  

In house news, we spent some time looking for appliances.  We found a fridge at Lowes that we really liked and luckily it was the floor model, so we got it on sale.  Whew.  Refrigerators are really expensive.!

I was a little disturbed by the Kohler BIG Deal advertising that was all over the plumbing department.  I feel it was an unfortunate use of words...that or I've lived with questionable plumbing for the past four months and am sensitive to such things. 

Halloween

Halloween day Andrew and I spent our time at the pool here in Twin for Andrew's district meet.  We came home tired and sick of the humidity.  Andrew did great and improved his times.  He has state swimming this next weekend in Boise.

But I digress…Halloween.

After the meet, I got busy and got kids ready for trick or treating.

Saylor and Colby truly loved their vampire costumes and played the part well.

Colby especially loved being bad.

I had an adorable black bat cape for Grady, but he would only wear it for about 2 minutes while I took pictures.  Silly boy.

                         

Carter was all about the Darth Vader costume this year.  My mom provided the most amazing cape along with arm bands and boot covers.

The crew minus Andrew.

This is as festive as Andrew got this year.

Being 15 takes all the fun out of Halloween!

Grady was an adorable bat even if it was only for a few minutes.

Saylor practiced her "hiss" all day.

Im mad I didn't get more pictures of the back of the costumes.

Carter's cape was fantastic, was the perfect length and billowed just like the real Darth Vader's.

Saylors costume had the most adorable back to it.  It had layers and layers and she loved to hold it up like a (scary vampire) princess. Best $20 I've spent at Costco in a while.

The best part of Colby's costume was his teeth.

At the last minute, Steve took Colby to the office and shaped some fangs out of composite.

Colby was in heaven. (But sadly, he couldn't eat anything as the fangs kept his other teeth from touching.  He didn't eat one piece of candy!)

He wouldn't even try to gum the garlic bread at the Bulkley's Halloween dinner.

He played the vampire role very seriously.

 After dinner, Jeff Bulkley loaded up his trailer and the kids went out to beg for candy.

This is my kids' favorite tradition!!    They get pulled all over our neighborhood and some surrounding neighborhoods and come home with oodles of candy.

We live (or will again in three months) in the best neighborhood!

Grady wanted nothing to do with Halloween and demanded to sit in the back of the Land Cruiser and drive behind the trailer with Steve.

I stayed at the Bulkley house and hung out with the other moms.  Best Halloween tradition ever hands down.

The spoils were great.

The sugar was fantastic.

My kids are getting an awesome childhood experience.

I love where we live and LOVE the people we are friends with.

It wouldn't be a post without a house update.

The siding was finished up last week.

I can't wait to see it painted.

My house is cute…and I'm going to love it!

My tub came last week too.

Its bigger than I thought!