Easter

We had a great Easter weekend just listening to conference and enjoying some family time. I think Kaylynn said it best in her journal (Easter Sunday this is what she wrote) “I love Easter not because of all the goodies but because we remember Jesus' sacrifice.”

Kaylynns New Look

Kaylynn came home from school one day with a note from the school nurse that said we needed to take her into the eye doctor. So we did and now look how cute she is….

Our little artist

Aftyn is by far our most accomplished child at drawing on the walls. Seriously it’s everywhere. The older three love to color and can do it nicely sitting at the table for a couple of hours. Unfortunately that usually means marker, crayons, and pencils will roll off the table and then Aftyn will find them and get to work.

This one is my favorite because one day I pulled down the treadmill to work out and found this beautiful drawing behind the treadmill. It made me laugh.

Twirly Skirts

I made these twirly skirts for the girls. They were so easy and super fun to make. And I thought that they turned out great. If you want to make one too I found them online here

Jump Around Fun Zone

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Sledding Videos

The videos are here just push play and they'll show up.

A little catching up to do

Here are a few of the things we missed over the last couple of months.

Aftyn being swallowed by a doll stroller


Paytyn Ann turned 6 and was able to have a 3 day birthday celebration. Cameron had school on her actual birthday so we celebrated her birthday on March 1st as a family. Then on her actual birthday March 2nd we had a cupcake friend day and then on March 3rd she brought cupcakes into her kindergarten class. It was a fun week and we can hardly believe she is 6 years old.

Cameron had a short business trip to Utah and was able to see my sister and her cute family. I was so so sad not to be able to go.

We have taken a couple of trips to Lake Padden. We love this place and when we lived in Bellingham we use to jog around Lake Padden every night. ahhh I miss it.

Messy chicken night. One thing we pretty much never have in our family is chicken that is still attached to the bone. (Someone I know and love has a major meat on bone aversion) But the kids love it so every once in a great while I'll make them drumsticks they had a great time getting really messy.

and I turned 31

Our New Computer

It’s finally here and we’re very EXCITED!!

Stuffs Changin' Round Here

So this week I have been really feeling the need to get ready for baby #5 even though I have 8 + weeks to go. So I started by getting rid of our changing table. I sold it for $10.00 on Craigslist... I know I drive a hard bargain. Then I tried to sell our glider rocker for $15.00 but no takers. Seriously?? I thought $15.00 was a great deal now I'm trying to decided if I should re-post it for $10.00 or just give it to Goodwill. Then I purchased a dresser I'll spare you the dresser swapping saga that ensued at our house and just say that now all of the kids have their own dresser including baby Marriner (Yep, we decided on a name). So some of you have been in our home and some of you haven't but let me tell you that even though it's a 4 bedroom the fourth one is downstairs while all of the others including our is up. So really it's a 3 bedroom because I'm not about to let one of our children sleep downstairs by the front door all by themselves. So fitting 5 kids into 2 bedrooms roughly the size of nice walk-in closets has been fun. So I started moving furniture and like I said before getting rid of furniture I didn't think we really needed. So I did get everything I wanted into their bedrooms. Tanner and Marriner together in one room and the girls in the other room, the girls in a bunk bed and Aftyn in a toddler bed. So that brings me to the next big thing AFTYN in a toddler bed. She is 19 months and is actually the OLDEST (that's right I said oldest) kid we have every had still in a crib. So on Sunday we (I) decided that there is only two months before the baby gets here and that maybe we should move her to a big girl bed. So it actually hasn't been too bad once she is asleep she sleeps fine all night it's just getting her to go to sleep that's been a challenge. But last night (Thursday) was the first night that I just tucked her in and gave her a drink and left AND SHE STAYED IN BED!!! I don't know if it will continue tonight but at least I know it's possible. Now I'm wondering if it's possible to get her potty trained before the baby gets here. I have NEVER had two kids in diapers before and I'm not really looking forward to it but since Aftyn and Marriner are only going to be 21 1/2 months apart I might have to live with it until July when she turns two. So I also got all of the 0-3 month boy clothes washed and put in his dresser and put all of the boy stuff back on the crib. Next is blankets and burp clothes and moving around car seats in the car. Next month Kaylynn will turn 8 and be our first kid out of a car seat!! And it's a good thing because I'm not sure 5 car seats were meant to fit in a minivan. Tanner is so excited to move to a booster seat and sit in the back with the girls. And on a totally unrelated random note WE BOUGHT A NEW COMPUTER!! I can't wait for it to be here. So that is a few of the happenings around the Southams this week but not all even though I'm sure it felt like a told you our life story I did leave parts of it out :)

Our Computer Woes

Seriously I have had the worse luck with electronics lately. So our home computer got a virus that won't let me log into our computer at all. Following that our T.V. died and then Cameron's laptop (that he brings home from work for me to use) died too. SERIOUSLY not a good month for me. So you may be wondering how I'm posting this. Well a friend let us borrow their laptop until we get a new computer and another friend is loaning us a T.V. Thank goodness for good friends. The really sad thing is I lost all of our pictures from Christmas and beyond. But we're going to save the hard drive and hopefully someday retrieve the pictures from it. So until we get a new computer no new pictures from us.

Sledding Mt. Baker

This is the post I was working on when Cam's laptop died. I didn't get a chance to upload the videos or all pictures but here our a few of the pictures from a very fun day sledding at Mt. Baker.

On one of the Saturdays in January we marked one of the things off of our BEFORE WE MOVE AWAY FROM HERE LIST. And that thing was to take the kids sledding at Mt. Baker. We have had a really warm winter so the roads were clear all the way up but the Mountain had plenty of snow to sled on. We all had a great time but not all of the kids liked the sledding as much as Kaylynn she could have stayed forever. The other kids thought it was a little to steep, to bumpy and because it hadn't snowed for a while the snow was really hard so if you fell off your sled you would get cut up. I know doesn't sound real fun but it was and the kids who didn't like sledding had a fun time playing in the snow. We also brought lunch to eat after and that was quit the adventure too all in all a great day.

Our little Affie

Sunday was Aftyn's first day of nursery! She loved it! I can't believe she is growing up so fast and is such a cutie here are a few pictures of her antics around the house.

Happy Birthday

Cam's 33rd birthday was on the 21st unfortunately that is a day that he has class so we celebrated his birthday on the 22nd. I surprised him by arranging babysitting and taking him to see Avatar 3D. It was nice to spend the day together.

Eight is Great

For those who requested it. I got this idea off sugardoodle (of course) but I just changed it a little to make it my own. There was one for each child to take home with them.

Our Little Girl Scouts

The girls started Girl Scouts and I'm their troop leader. Kaylynn is a Brownie and Paytyn is a Daisy. We had our first meeting on Thursday and we all had a lot of fun.