St Louis/ Indianapolis

I was SO nervous and anxious about traveling with Brooklyn.  She did struggle sleeping a little bit but she was an angel (as usual).  Despite our lack of sleep it was a really fun trip.

We went swimming with Holly on Saturday, which is sadly the only time we have been swimming in this weird weather summer we've been having.  I haven't seen them love something that much for a while and it made me sad that we hadn't been to the pool more.  Sunday we just hung out and then we left Monday morning for St Louis.

We got there later than we wanted to and ended up not being able to go to Grant's Farm like we wanted to.  We did go check out the Laumeier Sculpture Park and it was fun to walk around and see all the crazy creations.

The next day was by far our favorite, we spent the ENTIRE day at City Museum and could have stayed longer.  It was the best place we've ever been with our little family and I would seriously go back to St Louis just for this!  More cities should definitely do this.  I wish I could describe every awesome thing about it but there was just too much!  Our pictures will just have to try to do it justice.  Let's just say you could climb on, in, or around absolutely anything there (and they had a little bit of everything)- it was the perfect kid's paradise.

The next day we took advantage of all the free things in St Louis and went to the Science Center and Planetarium in the morning.  It was pretty good but after City Museum nothing could seem quite as cool!

We did get to the zoo for about an hour and didn't see a ton of animals but did a LOT of walking.  It is a very pretty zoo but the animals are spread out and have lots of space to wander so it's hard to see them sometimes.  The animal we did LOVE were the hippos.  They were chasing each other all over, biting each other, and diving in to the water.  They were actually super graceful and extremely entertaining to watch!!!

That night we ate at Fitz's, which is a root beer factory and restaurant and it was the best food we had.  We even bought some of their root beer BBQ sauce to use at home.  The girls loved watching the root beer being bottled and Kaylee could explain every detail of the process to me.  

The next morning we headed back to IN.  We wanted to do even more in St Louis so maybe we'll make it back there one day- it was a great city to visit!!

On our way home we were able to go to the Indianapolis temple open house with Holly.  It is a gorgeous temple and it was fun to go through a temple with our kids for the first time.  

We had one last trip to the park the next morning before we headed out.  We were sad to only go to Holly's once this summer but we had a blast while we were there! 

Summertime

MAY:

May was a super busy month for Richard- probably the busiest he has been since his first year in the PhD.  We all couldn't wait for May to be over :)  But while we waited for Richard's schedule to calm back down, we had a few things going on...

First off was my birthday!  Julie and Kristi spoiled me with a birthday celebration before they left but Richard was still super awesome and made my real birthday great too.  We decided to go mini golfing and luckily Brooklyn was zonked out the whole time.  McKenna had fallen out of her bed that morning and couldn't put any weight on her foot.  I was convinced it was broken but Richard told me to give it some time before we went to the doctor.  Kenna is NOT one to complain about being hurt.  She has a VERY high pain tolerance.  She was so sad to not be golfing with us so we tried to figure out a way to let her still participate without leaving the stroller

However that wasn't enough and she kept getting out and wincing around, limping, until it hurt too much and she would get back in the stroller.  Eventually it started hurting less and less and by the time we left she was running around like normal.  Thank goodness!

Kaylee had her end of the year preschool program, which was adorable.  They did snatches of Disney songs and she got really into the actions.  I'm so glad they do this instead of a graduation! We will miss BEARS preschool, it was perfect for Kaylee.

Brooklyn started her real smiles and pretty much hasn't stopped.  She is so easy to get a smile out of and brightens our day so fast with just one look.

JUNE:

Holly came to visit in June and asked if I would put together a birthday party for Madeline, since she hates that kind of thing.  Since I love it I was more than happy to do it!  Madeline is obsessed with mermaids so I went with that for our theme. We had a mermaid race across the floor, played a musical chairs type of game with seashells, toss the coins in the treasure chest, Little Mermaid BINGO, Don't Eat Pete, face painting, and pin the tail on the mermaid.  Holly also made an amazing ice cream cake with this super cute frosting mermaid.  All in all I think it was a success!

We also had one of our neighbor's recently get into face painting and Madeline has been wanting her face painted for a while so he was nice enough to paint all their faces and we went to COSI to show them off.  We also hit up the zoo to show Holly the new Africa part.

It worked out perfectly that while Holly was here we also were able to bless Brooklyn in our ward.  Richard gave her a beautiful blessing and we were so happy to have some family in town for the event. 

JULY:

We tried face painting our kids faces for the 4th of July again this year and it turned out pretty good.  The girls liked it so much they were sure that Daddy would love it too and he was nice enough to accommodate them.

As usual we had our neighborhood BBQ and bought some snaps and sparklers for the girls to enjoy.  We also let Kaylee stay up and watch the fireworks that we can see from our house.  We had planned on letting McKenna stay up too but she didn't make it that long!  It was a fabulous holiday. 

We went to visit Franklin Park Conservatory for their big bugs exhibit and it was actually really fun!  They were spread out all over the conservatory so it made a fun little scavenger hunt for us.  McKenna was pretty terrified of them and wouldn't get too close to the scary ones but she still liked seeing them from a distance :)

Chick-Fil-A had their "Dress like a cow and eat free" day again.  We weren't planning on going but our neighbor was painting the kids faces and a bunch of moms were going together so we tagged along.  I think it will have to be a tradition of ours!

I have been going back through the preschool my sisters and I did a couple years ago and doing the same lessons over again for Kenna.  She has been loving it!  She asks every day now if we can do more preschool projects.  By far the girls favorite one was doing shaving cream fireworks that ended up in a shaving cream battle in the bath.  I think they could do this one every day!

We also went to Indianapolis and St Louis at the end of July. Because we did so much, I'm giving our trip it's own post... That ended July for us and I can't believe the summer is already almost over!!!

2015

Well I'm already almost halfway through the new year before doing a new post... sorry to anyone who still might check this blog.  We have had so many fun and exciting things happen!

JANUARY:

January was pretty quiet. I was mostly back to being on the couch as I was in so much pain all the time. So we improvised some fun ways for me to play with the girls, such as having tea parties on their little table next to the couch where I could lay down.  

Richard decided he needed to pick up a new hobby that can keep him busy when I am always sleeping! Ha ha.  He found this super cheap guitar on craigslist and has already gotten a few simple songs down.  I love watching him play!

FEBRUARY:

We completely revamped the way we do FHE and it has been amazing so far! I went to a Relief Society activity that completely changed the way I think about and plan for FHE.  The girls were not super into FHE every week and only waited somewhat patiently until they got a treat at the end but now they love teaching the lessons and getting out our special blanket to sit on and picking a "microphone" to do our announcements in.  Hopefully we can keep up this new attitude!  These are our fun lion treats we made when we talked about Daniel in the lion's den

We have also started going to COSI a lot more.  I usually hate taking the girls places like this on my own but we have discovered that hardly anyone is their on Friday afternoons.  They also discovered a fun art room that they will spend hours in and the crafts change in there every couple of weeks. 

Kaylee got to go to Disney on Ice with Richard for an early birthday present. We gave her the option of going to that or having a birthday party and luckily for me she chose Disney on Ice.  I was worried about how I would do a party without knowing for sure when baby girl would arrive so that was a big weight off my shoulders!  Kaylee had a blast even though she was up until 10:30 and was exhausted!

MARCH:

Obviously March was a huge month for us!  We had our favorite little Kaylee turn 5 and even though she was in the ER for asthma earlier in the week and throwing up all the night before, she still had a blast on her birthday and was able to celebrate it with Grandma Sharon here. We got in a lot of fun activities too, since Brooklyn decided to come a week late!

We were so happy to welcome Brooklyn Skye Henricksen to our family on the 27th.  I wanted to name her after someone that has made an impact on me and that I could tell her stories about and pass on good family traits.  I kept thinking that it would be someone in our family history but that never felt right.  Finally I decided that some of the best people I know and the ones that will have a good influence on her personally are my siblings.  So I took one letter from each of their names to create Skye for her middle name.  I am excited to teach her about each of my amazing siblings and see how she has inherited good things from each of them.  Brooklyn's first name was harder and I pretty much just let Richard choose since I could never settle on one I loved!  She is such an easy and special baby and we have loved having her in our little family. The girls can't get enough of her! I hope she survives all of their smothering :)

APRIL:

April brought fun visitors to our door.  Rob and Ingrid were able to stop by on their NY/Kirtland trip without their kids and it was fun to see them, even if it was just for a few hours. 

Kristi and Julie came at the end of April and their sweet husbands took a full week off of work to be with their kiddos while Kristi and Julie visited Holly and I.  They were miracle workers and cleaned my whole house, entertained my kids, took care of the baby, gave me naps, made tons of freezer meals, and made me so incredibly happy to have them here with me.  I was so so grateful two of my favorite people could be here to help me since Mom is so far away.  

While they were here we were also able to sneak away for an early anniversary dinner at Cheesecake Factory.  Happy 7 years to us!

November 2014

As we have with our other two kids, Richard and I made a bet on what gender the new baby was going to be.  This time, we got Kaylee and McKenna in on the action and Kaylee sided with me and said it would be a boy, while McKenna and Daddy decided it would be a girl. Unfortunately, Richard was right and we are having another girl!  I couldn't believe it and it has taken a LONG time to truly process the news :)  But we are thrilled.  If only we could come up with a third girl name that we really like!  Anyone have any suggestions??  

We also bought new bunk beds for the girls to try and consolidate their room, since we will soon have three girls sharing one tiny bedroom.  But that didn't last too long because I am paranoid and because it made it impossible for me to change the sheets with my big belly, etc.  So for now they are back to normal beds and we are trying to figure out how to fit everything we want into that room.  They definitely loved the bunk beds though and were sad to have them gone. 

The other big news for November was that McKenna turned THREE!!!  Wow that seems to have gone by fast. She had her birthday on Thanksgiving this year and so we were lucky enough to be able to celebrate her big day at Holly's house. We let her open her presents from us on her actual birthday and then had a party for her the next day.  We have been talking about her birthday for weeks and at first she was excited about it but for the last little bit she had gotten really quiet whenever we mentioned it.  I didn't think it was a big deal until the actual day.  She had NO interest in her presents or her party at all.  In fact, she kept telling her cousins they could open her presents and didn't play with them AT ALL while we were at Holly's.  I was so confused!  She must have felt too much pressure with all of the attention being on her? Plus she really hates the idea of growing up and would much rather pretend to be the baby all day so maybe she thought if she didn't celebrate it she wouldn't have to turn 3 :) 

We had a Minnie Mouse themed party and all of the kids (except McKenna of course) seemed to really like it. I made all the kids mouse ears and we had a scavenger hunt, colored bows and then played pin the bow on Minnie, played Minnie says, and made our own edible necklaces.  We also had a tea party with our Minnie decorated cupcakes.  All in all it was a success, especially since we coerced Kenna into doing most of the games with us.  It was a really good way to spend the Thanksgiving break and we loved being at Holly's house for all of it!

 

 

October 2014

Ok I think I'm just going to have to be good with doing month-long posts if I have any hope of catching up (and maybe one day staying on top again!) October was a fabulous month for the Henricksen family.  Richard passed his qualifying exam after many many months of hard work and contemplation about whether or not this is all worth it :)  We were so proud of him!!!!

The Andreasons were also able to come for a short visit and we even got Holly all to ourselves for two days because Chase took the kids to his brother's house. Mostly I made her go maternity shopping for me and she entertained my kids but we had a ton of fun sister moments as well.  I only wish we could do things like that more!  When Chase got back we took them all to see German Village and spent forever in the awesome bookstore and then ate at the famous Schmidt's Sausage Haus. 

We also got a visit from Uncle Robert who was in Ohio for business and stayed with us for a couple days. Kaylee is normally great with names but for some reason couldn't stop calling him Uncle Bryant (who we hadn't seen for months) and I thought it was hilarious.  I'm sure Rob didn't appreciate it as much as I did though!  Richard went to Kirtland with Rob and then when they got back we had a lot of fun with him and took him to the zoo, a short tour of campus, and to many of our favorite places to eat. 

Fall is always gorgeous here in Ohio but it did feel like it got cut a little short this year.  Most of October was still good weather and luckily trick-or-treating got moved to the day before Halloween when it was great weather because Oct 31st was freezing cold and kinda snowy. 

We had so many fun Halloween activities to go to, it felt like Halloween all month long.  We did pumpkin painting on campus, trick-or-treating at the zoo, Kaylee had her preschool party, trick-or-treating in our neighborhood and then a ward Halloween party too!  We had so much candy I didn't think we would ever get rid of it, but this pregnancy has given me many opportunities to take care of that problem :)

Because we had so many different events to go to, Kaylee decided to pick a different costume for every one.  Luckily we have a generous dress up box to choose from and it was fun to see all her different outfits.  I didn't take a picture of all of them but I think she ended up being an angel, a devil, a princess, and a wizard. 

McKenna wanted to be Cinderella for all of them except one.  And they were both gorgeous little princesses!  Holidays are so fun with little kids!!