Cora is 3!!!

I can't believe that my baby is 3 years old! 

Cora is growing up way too fast! If I could freeze time right now and keep my kids young I would. This is seriously the best time of my life and I am enjoying every single minute of being their mom. Cora loves her older siblings and freaks out if she doesn't get to do everything that Vela does. The two of them are becoming such good buddies and it makes my heart happy. 

Cora has really grown up food preferences. She LOVES chips and salsa and sometimes even just eats salsa with a spoon. She is part Mexican!! 

Cora loves her birth mom Krychele and her family. She is so blessed to have an open relationship with them. Here she is delivering some Mother's Day love to Krychele.

Pretty girls!!

Cora recently got her first haircut. Her cute cousin Kaili cut it for her and she loved going into the salon and getting pampered!

Cora has been so excited for her birthday. She wanted to have a farm party. Little Hema and Vela tried to talk her in to 7 Peaks, but in the end she stuck with the farm. She had a great time playing with her cousins and family and was completely spoiled with lots of great presents!
Cora's sweet birth dad Uziel and his brother Ernie came. Uziel gave Cora the cutest aqua sparkle TOMS. She loves them!

Kisses from Uziel! Cora is blessed to have so many people that love her so much!

Cora got so many presents! She got lots of adorable outfits, 5 pair of darling shoes and lots of toys! She also got the present she's been asking us for for months now - a new car seat. Thanks so much to all those who came out including Grandma Kim (how did we not get a picture of you?), cousins, uncles and aunts!

 Cora has a special bond with my brother Jason and his family! She stayed with them while Hema and I went on pioneer trek and she can't get enough of them!

The cousins singing Happy Birthday and getting ready for cake.

One of the toys we got Cora was this adorable baby alive doll. It has a little bottle and you can feed her water and them she wets in her diaper. She was so excited to go home and try it out!

After the party we went home and Cora changed right in to her darling new kitty jammies from Grandma Kim!

We went inside and she tried out baby alive. She thought it was so awesome... until while changing the diaper she picked the doll up and it peed on her new jammies. There was no convincing her that it was just water. She was so sad and it was pretty funny!

She can laugh about it now.  Cora is such a sweet girl. She is a total mommy's girl. It is so nice especially since she is our last baby. The other 2 kids were definitely more of daddy'd kids. She loves to go everywhere with me and is the best little helper around. Cora could go to preschool this fall and really wants to, but I can;t stand the thought f her leaving the house so I am going to do my own little mommy school for her here! She is such an angel and we are grateful every single day that she is part of our family! 

Last Week...

Last week was a good one. Here are a few highlights:

Hema and the kids blowing out his birthday. Check out Cora's sweet PJ bottoms.
She literally changes her clothes or adds to her outfit 50 times a day!

One afternoon the girls were talking and laughing and it suddenly went silent.
I went to check on them and they had both fallen asleep at the same time. THey went from laughing to silent
in like 5 seconds. It was so funny!
I hope they are little BFFs always! 

Hema making himself scrambled eggs for breakfast! He is getting to be a great cook! 

Party favors from my friend Kira's baby shower. Me and my friend Rachel made these. 

The adorable Kira due with baby boy Rocky in a week! 

The weather has been warm and sunny and we went to the park nearly every day last week. We went to Olympic Park, the park at Hema's Elementary school, Discovery Park in Pleasant Grove and the New park in Saratoga Springs called Neptune Park. It was by far the kids favorite. 

Neptune Park has this cool climbing thing. 

Hema made it all the way to the top.

Vela was a little more cautious! :)

We are loving the spring weather! The kids are all at such fun ages and all 3 play and get along so well. It is so cute to watch Cora follow Hema and Vela everywhere and try and do everything they do! I am grateful every single day to get to be the mom to these three little sweeties!

Playing Catch Up

Boy have I fallen of the face of the blogging world! Time to play a little catch up!

I can not get enough of these two little girls! They are so much fun!  

 Sweet Vela loves to carry her scriptures around all the time. It is so cute!

 We have finally had a few good snow storms and Hema has love playing in the snow. 

 Vela started gymnastics. She LOVES it! It is so cute to watch. 

 She loves everything she does in gymnastics and is always looking up to make sure I am watching her. 

 Cora is just 3 months away from being two and she is BIG BUSINESS! She walks around like this all day long. She is always carrying a baby. She is so adorable!

 Vela's St. Patricks Day hairdo. I was going for a 4 leaf clover. 

 We took a trip to St George last weekend and Grandma Katoa came with us.

It was so much fun to spend so much time with her. 

 Elder Bill Katoa returned home form his mission in the Philippines. He is such an amazing young man and a great example to my kids. Here he is with his grandpa Paul Katoa.

The kids loved the warm St George weather and wanted to swim every single minute we were there. Vela is a little fish and she literally would swim al day every day if she could. 

 Hema loves doing all kinds of tricks in the pool. His favorite are the ones that splash everyone. 

 My three little sweeties! 

This hunk of burning love had a birthday on Tuesday. I feel so very blessed to have him as my eternal companion. He makes me happy every single day and still get butterflies when he smiles at me. 

Well that's a little catch up for now. All in all life is fabulous and I've got nothing to complain about. 

A Baking Birthday Party

We had Vela's birthday party on Thursday and did a Baking Party. I made little aprons for each of the girls and they decorated cupcakes to take home. One of the girls got sick the morning of the party and one had a dance class, but these 5 had a lot of fun. 

Nita, Breelyn, Vela, Sarah and Nessa - adorable little bakers!

I had lots of chocolate and white cupcakes and all kids of toppings. 

I was surprised with how much time each girl took on every cupcake.
It was a totally different experience than when Little Hema and some friends decorated cookies.
The boys just tried to put as much junk on as fast as they could. 

I put frosting in squeeze bottles and it worked really well for these girls ages 4-6. 

I had lots of random sprinkles and treats in little bowls and containers.
It was fun to see what they used.

They kept saying this is so fun. I'm glad they liked it.
Right before they came I had a sudden fear that they may hate it and I didn't have a backup plan. 

I had some cute ideas to make little individual cake pedestals for each girl to decorate on and some larger ones for the cupcakes to sit on. It would have made for great pictures. But in the end I couldn't justify the cost and I couldn't see any possible future use for them. But if any of you are interested they are made from clay flower pots, round clay trays and spray paint. 

The little flags I picked up were a total hit!

Blowing out the candles. 

Vela loved every single present she got. 

Each girl went home with her hat, apron and a box full of her decorate cupcakes. 

I think the party was a total success! 

I really loved the way the little aprons I made turned out. I didn't have a pattern, just an idea in my mind of what I wanted them to look like. I hate it when I do that because often it doesn't work out. These however, came together exactly as I pictured. They were really easy to make, just a little time consuming with the gathering of the ruffles. The girls loved the aprons so it was worth it. 

Here's the back view of the aprons. 

It sure is fun having little girls. (Boys of course are fun too - just not as fun to sew stuff for.) I've got lots of other fun little sewing projects planned for the next few weeks so stay tuned!