Happy Birthday Mikayla!

We have been in party mode the last week here at the Mount household. My sister, Danielle, and I spent hours decorating our unfinished basement for Mikayla's halloween birthday party last Saturday. It was such a blast! She invited 8 friends plus her 5 cousins (not to mention Grandma Debbie and all her nearby aunts and uncles). All in all I'd say the party was a success--Lots of laughter and fun. Among other things, we did an art project, played pin the stem on the pumpkin and had a pinata with way too much candy (thanks for spearheading that one, Kale!).
The kids all looked so cute in their costumes!




"Glinda" with her Carpenter cousins





Thanks to everyone who helped out!

So far so good with the sleep training! We decided to let her "cry it out" because nothing else was working. Kale had the hard part, though....I went over to Debbie's house to sleep for a few hours that first night so I wouldn't rush in and pick her up. Luckily Aubrey is a quick study---she is waking only once at night now!! We may get back to normal again after all :)

I have been feeling bad that I don't have as many baby pictures of Aubrey as I do of Mikayla so I got to work--Here are a few of my favorites:


Sitting up all by myself! (5 months)

Little "Bow" Peep (as her daddy calls her)

Playing blocks with Mikayla

I'm already getting behind! The summer has come and gone and I haven't posted a single picture for grandma's and grandpa's to see. I think if I had ONE decent night's sleep I'd be a different person. Hopefully by next week that will be the case. Last night I decided that I was no longer feeding Aubrey at 12:00...and 3:00...and 5:30 as she has come accustomed to. I thought it was going to be a disaster, but she handled it pretty well (but I'm a wreck). Wish me luck for tonight!

We have had a really great summer...afternoons at the pool, a couple of weeks in California (including Sea World) and lot's of playing with friends, but Mikayla is ready for school to start next week.



















She has a new best friend who moved in across the street--Paige--and they play together EVERY single day. It's great because they just bounce back from one house to the other and they adore each other.

Kale and I also just celebrated our 7th anniversary about a month ago. We went to dinner at the Tree Room in Sundance which was wonderful until after dessert when Kale announced that he had a kidney stone and needed me to drive him to the hospital. He spent the rest of the evening in pain and drugged up. That was an unforgetable night!



















As for Aubrey, she is 5 months old now and she just learned how to sit by herself and she loves eating solid foods (just rice cereal and pears so far). I'll post pictures of that soon!

Preschool

Mikayla just finished up her first few months of preschool. "Ms. Sherri" has been a great teacher and Mikayla has come to look forward to every Tuesday and Thursday. She even got to go on a fieldtrip which she really loved. The experience has been so good for her and we look forward to starting up again in the fall. They finished up the year with a cute program where the kids sang some of their favorite songs (Mikayla was the whale with a polka dot tail). Kale and Aubrey and I all went to watch and cheer her on.

Peer Pressure

Well, I finally succumbed to peer pressure to start a family blog (thanks Kandis and Shea). Our family is growing and changing...here are a few pictures to get started. I hope I can keep up with this... :)