Gracie the Tree Frog

Here's a clip of our little diva in her school play "Rumpus in the Rain Forest". This girl has no fear! She worked so hard learning all her songs and memorizing her lines. We were so proud of her!

Baby Animals 2010

Here's the memories from visiting Baby Animals Days with cousin Henry and auntie Leigh. I know we post about this every year, but the pictures from this event are always so fun. The pictures speak for themselves. We had a ball!

Cousins

April was a great month for visiting with family...especially with cute garlock cousins! We were thrilled to have uncle David, aunt Lisa, and little cousin sawyer come for a stay. They officially came for our Great-Grandpa Walton's funeral, but we managed to spend some time together having a little fun.

Remember these two boys from this post? (you'll have to scroll down a bit) Here they are again....we even have the bumbo back in the picture! They were pretty sweet together. Lots of cousin-ly love.

We turned David, Lisa, and Sawyer into true Aggies. Cold true Aggies.

Here's the other Aggie family...

Then a few weeks later, we hosted cousin Henry and aunt Leigh. Little Hen-er-ry (as Sophie calls him) was recovering from a broken leg...poor guy had to crawl everywhere. But we did enjoy having him around. Leigh and Henry are so great.

Tubby time with Henry and Ben.

We had a great time with them, and even went to visit the baby animal farm (see other post...this one was getting too long).

Thanks for visiting us cousins!

We miss you!

It's Done!

After three months of spending evenings and Saturdays banished in the cold and cavernous basement, my husband has emerged victorious...and our basement is finished!

Seriously, Jake has earned himself the husband of the year award, because it was not easy for him!
Handy-ness does not flow in the male Garlock family veins, so this task was accomplished through a lot of trial and error and the help of a lot of VERY kind family, friends, and neighbors. And chances are, if you are reading this, you probably helped out in some way. So, thank you! We are so grateful for all of our great friends and family for sacrificing tools and time and knowledge to help Jake out.

Here's some of the 'before' pics....

....and here's the after!

We just love having more space to live in, and would love to have any visitors come now that we have a place for you to stay.

A Fancy Four-Year-Old

SOPHIA RUTH IS FOUR!

Our little princess, who has no problems deciding what she wants in life, chose to have a FANCY NANCY party this year. And since we have a rule to only do friend parties ever other year, we decided to have a tea party at grandma and grandpa's house. We invited cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and even great-grandparents. I must say, it was quite exquisite. Everyone was dressed extra fancy (with extra accessories), and we all ate delicious food on frilly toothpicks. Of course, we ate with pinkies up. Then there was dancing, storytelling, and even a game of 'pin the tail on the posh puppy'. A delightful time was had by all.

We just love having Sophie in our family. She is so unique and wonderful. She lights up a room with her laugh and smile. Sophie usually puts on about 5 different outfits a day, loves to dance, and loves candy. She is our little sweet tooth. We often find candy hidden in her covers that she has saved to a little midnight snack. Sophie also has such an imaginiation. She will often go into her room during the day and stay there for hours by herself, imagining up all sorts of play with her dolls and toys. She LOVES playing with her sister, and is so sweet with Ben. Sophie, we love you so much and are so glad you are four. Happy Birthday!

Doesn't Sophie look just like Fancy Nancy?

Here's the Posh Puppy cake that she picked out in a magazine for me to make. She kept on saying "it's sooooo posh" over and over while I was construing it.


Here's some of the fancy food...




More fancy food.....





Gracie read the Fancy Nancy book for everyone. She even read it like a real teacher...upside down!



Ben was hilarious. He knew that Sophie was getting a lot of attention, so he was adimate that he get his picture taken as well. How does a 15 month old understand so much?

The fancy cousins.

Check out Grandpa's sweet blazer and my Grandma's fabulous boa.

The G.G. Naylors were so cute. Sophie is so lucky to have so many people who love her!

Uncle Tanner and Aunt Estee seemed like they had done this before...have you?

Sorry, no picture of Kevin and Aubrey. Also missed having little Fancy Allie, Rach, and Mike. And Grandma Garlock. Actually, we really wish ALL of our family could have been there. It was a party to remember! Thanks to all for helping make our little Sophie feel so special.

Nine is Fine

Yesterday was our NINTH anniversary. It blows me away that we've been married that long! I know this may sound cheesy, but he really has gotten better every year. And I thought he was great when I married him!
He won my heart yet again by arranging for us to spend the day skiing on our anniversary...something we haven't done since our honeymoon. Oh, how I had missed skiing! It was such a fun part of my growing up years. I forgot how amazing it feels to just fly down the mountain. It's also been a long time since I've spent an entire day alone with Jake. I love love my man. Happy Anniversary, Jake.

A little catch-up

Here's how our 2009 Holidays went....



We had a WONDERFUL Christmas this year. We, like last year, enjoyed just staying home for Christmas. Plus, we snatched up Jake's mom for the second year in a row. We're feeling pretty spoiled! There were two new traditions started this year:

1. Singing at a rest home on Christmas Eve (sorry, no picture)
My cute friend had an idea that we could teach our kids songs to sing on Christmas eve and put on a little show for all the lonely old people who were still around. It was great. Not only did it help pass the day as we waited for Christmas, but it also taught my girls how to think of others at a time when it seems like things are all about them and what they are getting from Santa. They all sang great, and were even joined by these amazing 5-year-old triplet girls who all played the violin. Sophie got yelled at by a sweet but crazy old man right before the performance, making her upset. She chose to opt out of the performance, but gave us a great encore at our own little Christmas Eve program at home. Overall, it was a success! Hopefully we'll do it again next year.

2. The New Years Olympics
This was actually Mary's (my amazing mother-in-law) doing. She planned this whole list of events like "carpet square hop" and "paper airplane throwing" and even a "see how long it takes for you to make Ben laugh". It was great. They earned all these silver and gold 'medals' for winning, participating, and being good winners/losers. It was great fun for all!

The 'carpet square hop' event

Christmas morning was exciting, as always. It was so fun for Ben to participate this year. (Last year, he slept through all the festivities) It was a very bike Christmas.

Ben was all smiles about his new T-ball set. This kid is super obsessed with balls.

Our little sleepy heads posing on their new bikes.

After we finished up with Christmas at home, we headed down to Grandma and Grandpa Shaw's house for more Christmas fun. While there, we took this great picture:

This is every single person in the Shaw Family. It's the first time we've all been together since before by little brother's mission! I'm quite proud of this cute family.

We had a wonderful time visting my parents and all my siblings for a few days, including my sister from Florida. Afterwards, we picked up Grandma Mary and headed back home for more fun. Jake had the whole two weeks off...it was heavenly!

Here's a picture of the kids saying good-bye to Grandma on her last day. Thanks for visiting us!

Turning 30

This month was my big 3-0! It was a little hard for me to move on from my 20's, but I'm over it now. However, I did have a great birthday celebration. Jake and the girls gave me the Royal treatment on my birthday, my cute friends hosted a birthday dinner party that night, and I even got to go to Salt Lake for a day (later that week) for a little break. I went shopping, went to dinner with my mom, and to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert. It was fabulous.

So in honor of my 30th birthday, I'm posting a list of 30 things that make me happy. Of course, this list isn't conclusive, because there are 100's of things that make me happy. Here's just of few that come to mind:

1. The Gospel
2. Being at home with my family
3. Gummy Bears
4. Playing or listening to classical music
5. The temple
6. Hearing my kids laugh
7. St. George
8. Skiing at Sundance
9. Being alone with Jake
10. A clean house
11. Being with my parents and parents-in-laws
12. Serving the primary children
13. Pear Mousse Dessert at Sweetly Divine
14. Talking to my friends
15. Seeing my kids progress and grow
16. Teaching piano
17. Being with ANY family
18. Holding my little tiny babies
19. 5:00 dance parities with the kids
20. Tulips
21. "Little Women"
22. Going to Church
23. Saturdays
24. My grandparents
25. Being in a canyon
26. Starting (and continuing) Holiday Traditions
27. Creating Things
28. Living in a small town
29. Singing as a family
30. The Savior

I feel pretty blessed to have to so many great things to make me happy. It's been a great 30 years.