Miss Mallory my Second Grader

Second grade?  What the what?!  

This girls of mine has grown up too fast for words.  She is going to be 8 in November and I just can't believe how quickly time passes by.

She is SO very excited for school to start today.  She couldn't really sleep last night .. and she woke up at 6:30 this morning, wide awake and ready for school.

I hope she has a great year.

I got some pictures of Mallory and Zach right before heading out the door.

They definitely have their moments when they seem to do everything in their power to bother each other, but most of the time they are sweet to one another.  I love that Mallory is protective of Zach and wanted to walk him to his class today.  She is a sweet big sister.

Here's to another school year!  

Now, Avery and I have shopping and napping to do.  Life is SO good.

Pre-Kindergarten

This guy is SO excited for school to start tomorrow ... and I am so excited for him to start school.  He is beyond ready.

He was such a trooper, letting me take all these pictures of him this evening.  The first day of school is always so hectic and I rarely remember to take pictures of my kids while we are rushing out the door.

This boy of mine just melts my heart.  He is so sweet and kind and loving.

He is going to have a great year.

Avery has a little announcement to make ...

This is sort of "old" news .. now that I'm just about 20 weeks along, but I thought I should put it on my blog instead of just Facebook and Instagram.

Baby Cullumber #4 due January 16th 2015.  We are so very excited and we are going to hold out and find out the gender in January.  

Easter 2014

 

Happy Happy Easter from the Cullumber Family!

 

I know it has been so very, VERY long since I have posted anything on my blog.  I'm not on here much anymore.  I post a lot of pictures on Instagram these days .. so go on there to see what we're up to!

 

We had a beautiful Easter Sunday today and we are so very grateful for our Savior who atoned for our sins so that we might live with him again.

 

Avery was done at this point.  Love these kids.  They are getting too big.  Avery will be 18 months on May 1st.  I can NOT believe how fast she has grown up.  She is definitely not a baby anymore.

Christmas 2013

I am having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that it is now 2014.

I still can't believe Christmas is over, let alone it is a new year.

How does this happen!?

I tried to keep things pretty low key around here this holiday season.  I didn't want to lose myself in the insanity that Christmas sometimes can be. 

We had some friends over for our Annual Gingerbread House Decorating towards the middle of December.  We are going to try and invite different families every year so we can get to know more people in our ward.

 

I remembered to take a picture before we started decorating, but didn't get any picture of our friends or their finished houses.  What can you do?

 

I really love this tradition.  It's a Cullumber Family tradition that I hope we continue to do every single year.

 

Here's a few camera phone pictures of our completed houses.  Wesley and Mallory did this one.

 

 

And Zachary and I decorated this one.

 

 

We ended up giving away ours to a family in our ward.

 

We had to give it away before little fingers ate all the candy off of it.  This girl gets up on the dining room table all by herself.  Her shenanigans are for an entirely different post all on it's own. 

 

We ended up eating Mallory and Wesley's house.  It. Was. Delicious.

 

 

 

Instead of making TONS of goodies for friends and neighbors, like I tend to do every year, I went simple this year with some hand soap I had bought at JoAnn Fabrics months ago. They were $1 each.  I found these cute tags off Pinterest that say "We WASH you a merry Christmas" and called it good.  Best dollar ever spent! 

 

 

 

Christmas Eve - we sprinkled some special reindeer food (oats with glitter) out on the "lawn" (we don't have lawn at the moment .. it's just dead weeds).   We wanted to make sure the reindeers could find our house.

 

Then we decorated our Christmas Plates - a Danish tradition we have done on my side of the family since my Dad was little.

You decorate a plate and leave it out on the dining room table and Santa fills it with candy, nuts, fruit (but he forgot about the fruit this year .. whoops) and some gum, little toys, etc.  

 I was really impressed by Zachary - he wrote his name on his plate all by himself.  He has learned a lot at pre-school this year and it's fun to watch him learn and grow.  Mallory made a cute snowman and Daddy helped Avery draw on her plate as well.

 

(Pictures from my phone)

 

After plates, we opened up our Christmas Pajamas. 

 

I love Avery's face in this picture.

 

And Zach's goofy face in this one.

 

Mallory was thrilled to get "feet pajamas" this year.  She hasn't had them since she was really little.  Zach was super excited about his Avengers PJ's .. as you can tell.

 

 

 

Santa came!!

 

 

All the hard work we go through to make Christmas memorable is totally worth it .. just look at those happy faces.

 

This is the only picture I got of Avery on Christmas.  She was SUPER excited about her new battery-operated toothbrush.  She kind of has an obsession with toothbrushes.  I guess there are worse things.

 

Here's a little bit of the chaos that ensued after presents started getting unwrapped.  My living room looked like this for a few days after Christmas. 

 

 

Merry Christmas!! 

 

Love, The Cullumber's