My darling daughter

Annie has had her own style since she could get dressed on her own.  Everyday she goes in her room and spends hours with her clothes.  My sister has four daughters and passes most of the clothes on to Annie so she has a wide variety to "play" with each day.  I WISH I could have taken a picture of her when we went to lunch yesterday.  She always comes up with the craziest combinations.  Usually her outfits combine skirts, shorts, tights, and various sweaters or jackets.  Stripes, dots, flowers-the busier the better.  Usually Sundays are the only day I really put my foot down.  I try to pick my battles.  I am wondering what will happen when school starts. 



One favorite trick is to get into the bin of "too small" clothes in the basement.  Here she found a beautiful combination of stars and stripes from last summer.  I told her it was too cold for shorts.



"Oh, don't worry Mom, I have these sweet tights on to keep me warm."

When shopping with me she goes nuts, throwing tons of clothes into the basket. I always wonder where she thinks they went when she gets home.  (I hand them all to the checker and tell her we don't really want them!)

Let's see...today she was going with the jean dress/sparkle shoes/butterfly wings/baseball look!

Here is Chloe wearing the same dress 10 years ago! (My sister posted this on her blog on 9-11, the girls look so much alike!)

"Mom, seriously!?  What do you mean these 6-12 month summer clothes of Sophie's won't work for this snowy day?"

 

 "Okay, I will throw on this hat and a sweater...and you gotta admit, I look pretty cute!"

I am glad she has so much fun with her clothes.  I was trying to find a picture of me when I was her age because my mom said the apple didn't fall far from the tree. I could not find a picture but my mom did write this about me in my scrapbook....

"Natalie was always very opinionated about clothes.  She has more than the other girls because of hand-me-downs, but she has one or two favorites she wears over and over.  Unfortunately, she doesn't always choose the best looking.  The summer she turned three everytime I turned around she had on an old swimming suit.  She liked skirts." 

Well, I guess at least Annie likes to mix it up!  

Sophie's First Birthday Party

Well...it looks like I am averaging about a month behind on events for my blog.  This month has FLOWN by!  Sophie's party was great.  It was on a school night and since everyone is so busy with church, scouts, sports, and everything else it was a miracle we were able to squeeze a quick party in!  I guess that is the way it goes when you are child #6!  Here is a quick recap of the festivities....

As you can see, we went with a rainbow of colors for a "theme".  The cute little chair Sophie is sitting on was one of her gifts.  She looks pretty terrified.

Singing to little Sophie...

Grandma showing the inside of the cupcakes.  These are super easy...right up my ally!

Ryan told me to get in the picture after I showed him my blogpost about how I have no pictures of Sophie and I together!

"So, guys, what do I do?"

"You guys are right, this is pretty good!"

 I am not sure if this was a laugh or a cry...

  

 London, Eliza, Alexis, Emmaline, Annie, and Isabelle

Thanks for all the presents peeps!  Nana sent the cutest shoes and some money so get her something, Grandma gave her a great little music light in the hopes she might want to sleep in her crib. She got some bracelets and bows.  Her cousins gave her a super cute swimsuit, robe, and summer dress (thanks Garzas!)  and Rebecca gave her the cutest PJ's.  What a lucky girl! 

Thanks everyone for celebrating with us!  We love you!

A Hat Party

I was planning on doing a post today about our Valentine's Day, when I realized I never posted about our festive New Year's Party.  Since New Year's Eve was on a Saturday and we all have early church, we decided to have the party the Friday before.  I was the hostess, but Heidi was the party planner.  She came up with the fabulous hat theme.  Everyone came decked out in their best hats. 

Here are the Pollard girls in donning their best "fascinators" in honor of Prince William's wedding in 2011.  (I made up that last part, but it could be true.)

The ladies of the night...

Chloe and Sophie

Yin and Yang (James so solemn and Nic so celebratory.)

Sadie knows how to party-it-up, as usual.

Annie

The whole crew of cousins, minus the California Cousins. :(

 Oh, and Will and Max...

Each person's hat was unique and this is one Luke put together all by himself!

Alexis

Look at these two beauties....Chloe and Abigail.

This is my favorite picture of the night, it cracks me up! Uncle Brett lookin' like a pimped-out rap star from the 90's.  Well, sort of.  That is my take on it at least.

The kids played lots of minute-to-win-it games done by Uncle Travis.

Uncle Travis could be a professional game show host, either that or a BINGO caller, or an Auctionair-

Grandpa even got in on the games.

Grandma and Sophie

Someone usually comes up with some fireworks to let off for the New Year, but this year things didn't go off with a "BANG".  It started snowing hard just as they all headed outside and it was too wet to let anything off. 

We will just have to wait until the 4th of July, which will be here before you know it! 

Happy Birthday, Nic!

Happy Birthday, Nicholas!

Hope you had an AWESOME day!

I know I have missed a lot of birthdays on here, but I was feeling ESPECIALLY lame about Nic because for some reason (maybe because he was TURNING 11) I was thinking his b-day was ON the 11th. Anyway, we missed it.  So we hope it was a GREAT DAY!  Hope to see you soon, Nic! 

Love, The Bogren Family

Mom's in Time Out

That is what I told my kids at least.  I went down to Utah and attended Time Out for Women with my sisters and cousins. I had so much fun!  Ryan held down the fort with all six kids.  I was a little nervous leaving since I had never left Sophie before and I am still nursing. Ryan and the kids did great though! Emily wrote an awesome review of the weekend here. Emily was such a great hostess.  It was even her husband's birthday that weekend and she opened her home to us.  Rebecca lives really close and so we all hung out.  We didn't sleep much, but got a lot of quality talking in!  I didn't take many pictures, but here are a few I snapped during a break at Time Out.

Okay, I had a WAY better picture of Rebecca sleeping...but because I love her, I used this one.  She took a little snooze so I had to get a shot of it.  (Like I said, not much sleeping took place the night before!)

Melissa and Jennifer diligently taking notes.  (Or not?)

 Heidi and Melissa (Can I just throw in that Heidi just returned from Mexico a few weeks back AND she lives in Arizona, we are all white, but not THAT white!)

Heidi and I

Jennifer and Emily.  Sorry about the coloring guys, their hair is NOT this dark...I really do need to take a photography class. 

While at Time Out, one of the speakers mentioned that 81% of LDS women feel guilty about things they DON'T DO.  I was writing in my little spiral notebook as she was speaking and  I started laughing.  In the very notebook I was taking my notes in I have a "Guilt List".  I don't think of myself as someone who feels too guily about my life in general.  However, I am a list person. I like keeping my notebook next to my bed at night- just in case I have any great ideas about saving the world before I fall asleep.  One night a few months back I was feeling particularly guilty about all the things I had NOT gotten done that day, or for many days obviously.  I decided to make a list. I had never before verbalized or really consciously thought about all those things I was carrying around, feeling guilty about.  I am going to share my list, but not to get a pep talk from anyone.  (Heidi was already giving me one when I showed her my list at Time Out.)  Just more to show that I think it really is true about that 81%!   

Natalie's Guilt List

1. House not as clean and organized as I would like

2.  Didn't moisurize like I should, gonna get wrinkles

3.  Ate too much sugar

4.  Went to bad too late

5.  Don't read to the kids enough

6.  Don't write in journals enough

7.  Don't blog

8.  Don't exercise

9.  Don't go to temple enough

10.  Didn't use a coupon on this or that purchase, could have gotten it cheaper

11.  Didn't send out baby announcements (Check...included those with my Christmas Cards!)

12.  Didn't brush Annie and James's teeth tonight. 

13.  Can't keep up on the yard

14.  Didn't do Birthday parties for James, Luke, and Michael

15.  Didn't get Jennifer a birthday present (Check, did finally)

16.  Don't grow a garden or can

17.  Don't organize my pictures. Ever.

18.  Didn't change Michael's sheets.  Or Annie's.

19.  Kids didn't make beds before school...

20.  Kids don't take music lessons

21.  Kids eat too much junk food

What is on your guilt list?  Do you have things you feel guilty about running through your head during quiet or not-so-quiet moments?  It is all pretty ridiculous the pressure we put on ourselves sometimes.  Sheesh.  This particular speaker had a great idea...instead of making "To Do" lists, make a "Ta Da" list about all the things we DID get done that day.  (Especially those unexpected things that come up that are NOT on our list, but are important.) I tried to remind myself of this on Monday night when one of my "Ta Da's" was having to unexpectedly give the new dog a bath and a hair trim when she had the "runs" and got poop stuck in her hair. 

So, since Time Out I am trying to feel a little less guilty about all those "little" things that we all have but we just can't do sometimes, because we are human. 

One last thing from Time Out that I loved was a quote shared by D. Kelly Ogden.  

“Greatness is best measured by how well an individual responds to the happenings in life that appear to be totally unfair, unreasonable, and undeserved.”
― Marvin J. Ashton

Isn't that great?  Speaking of great...so are these ladies. 

Thanks to everyone for the WONDERFUL time out!  (Especially husbands, Grandma, and cousins that helped out with kids while we were gone.)



Birthdays and Roller Skates

I still have not totally caught up on all the holidays....here are a few things that we also did over the Christmas Break.  My brother David's Birthday is the day after Christmas so we always get together and play games and eat "bread pizza".  (Pizza on french bread slices)  

Grandpa is not much for games, but he is always willing to hold a baby.  I believe this is William taking a snooze with Grandpa.  

 Happy Birthday, David!  (His traditional cake is Marble, with chocolate frosting.)

The Garzas arrived late that night all the way from Arizona.  We went roller skating with them a few days later when the planned ski trip didn't pan out due to weather. 

 I love this picture of Travis and Heidi-roller skating naturals!

The roller rink lets you push strollers while skating.  Sophie and Annie loved it and both eventually fell asleep. (Another plus of roller skating, your kids can sleep while you skate)

Austin

 Luke-looking more like a hockey player than a roller skater.

I got quite the workout pushing these two around. I forgot how much I LOVE roller skating!  It brought back lots of memories for me.  My Grandma Adams would always take us roller skatings in Logan when we came to visit.  We would drive over in the HUGE, old, green cadillac Lincoln.  I thought it was the nicest car.  I still remember the smell of the leather shimmery green seats.  The roller rink was pretty old and I don't think the one here in Idaho Falls is much different! Grandma would cheer us on and tell us we were the best roller skaters she had ever seen.  I never wanted to leave.  I loved doing the limbo and "girl skate" and all the other fun games. She would also let us pick out a candy bar. I remember I would usually get a big tootsie roll or Nibs if they had them. (Food is usually always part of my childhood memories.) I think if the roller rink were closer I would get a season pass and go there instead of the gym!  It is so fun!

Uncle Travis and Michael

We will definately have to do that again soon.  If you want a time warp, go to your local skating rink and it will bring you right back to the 80's.