RaLee volunteers to baby sit for Crystal and Spencer every Friday night. Tonight they fed the missionaries and had their neighbors, and good friends, Jeremy and Kat over for dinner before their date. Apparently RaLee decided to show of her skill’s with a wheel chair and borrowed Jeremy’s.
Thanks Spencer for capturing a true “RaLee Moment” on film! Enjoy and laugh- I did.
Payten gets up every morning and looks forward to watching Sesame Street. It’s a nice break for Jessica because she sits still and watches her “Me Me” AKA Sesame. This morning she started saying “Elmo”. This is what I saw this morning as she watched TV. I thought it was too cute not to share.
She had all of her Elmo birthday presents all around her. I was surprised to see that Elmo and friends were also reading a book on the TV screen behind her…this was not staged I promise! 
This is the smile I get whenever I ask her to “smile or say Cheese” for the camera. It always makes me laugh!
Today Payten turned 2! My how time flies. She was so excited last month when she went to Jayden’s birthday party especially after we explained to her that her birthday was next. She is talking very well and we loved hearing her say, “It’s my Happy Cake Day!” all month long.
So imagine her excitement when she realized today was actually her “Happy Cake Day!”
We went to the Dollar store and bought some Elmo birthday plates, cups and napkins. ELMO is only her favorite person in the whole world! She can’t say Elmo yet so she calls him “Me Me” in an effort to say Sesame. Any way I decided to make her a Happy Cake Day banner…I’m not an artist so don’t laugh…she watched every move I made. I was very happy when she shouted, “Me Me! Me Me!” At least she knew what I was trying to draw.
She is trying to hold up two fingers
We were ready for her party by 2 pm. Her party didn’t start until 4! That was a long two hours for this little girl. She spent most of that time sitting at the table waiting for her friends to arrive.
Finally everyone arrived!
She got clothes with Elmo on them, Sesame street books, a purse, Dora back pack, more clothes, an Elmo doll, Elmo wash clothes, and a cute package of “Rella” shoes. That’s Payten’s word for Cinderella. The girl loves shoes.
I am so thankful for this little girl. Our family has always loved getting together to celebrate birthdays but now they have an even deeper meaning for us. I am so grateful for my grandchildren. We are truly a blessed family.
It was Valentines Day 2004 and the girls decided to walk Arizona Mills Mall. What an interesting day it turned out to be.
We saw a clown making balloon animals and the kids loved it!
Will, Kaitlen, Wayne and RaLee each got a balloon
Then there was the Hermit Crab Vendor…Will loved all things creepy crawly. So Crystal lifted him up to look at the crabs. He wanted one so bad but Crystal had other feelings….
The vendor tried to convince her that they were perfectly harmless as William observed…
When She freaked out over them Will decided he didn’t want anything that made mommy that scared!
Then, we have no pictures for what happened next but a little while later Will and Kaitlen disappeared from us. We started looking and looking and getting more and more frightened. Crowds of people everywhere and no kids in sight. We went back to the crab vendor, the clown, and Claire’s but no kids. I found a guard and he radioed for help. Still no kids. So they shut the mall down and called a “code Adam”. What a scary feeling that was and how crappy you feel as a parent because you couldn’t keep an eye on your kids. But they were finally found, I think they were in a dressing room, but what a relief!
Then we went to …
We decided to eat here and thought how fun it would be for the kids, no we were not feeling guilty about losing the children not one little bit, so I tried to get Kaitlen’s picture with Mr. Frog and she was terrified and ended up screaming at the top of her lungs then…
William saw the crocodile in the water, and it scared him so bad. Now we have two terrified children, so let’s just say we decided not to eat at the Rainforest. The poor kids thought the mall was a pretty scary place. They have scary Crabs, lots of places to get lost then mommy gets upset and cries, giant frogs and crocodiles, and some mean ladies that shoot holes in your ears.
So we left the mall and went to McDonald’s to make up for scaring our children half to death. All in All it was a pretty good day!
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