Family Pictures

We knew it was way, way past time to do an updated Darrington family picture when we looked and realized that Keli and Jared and Mike and Jill had both had 2 more kids added to their families!! My cousin Denae told us she would be willing to brave all these little kids (and the big ones) to do a big group shot. Here is one she did of just my family. Corey is one lucky guy...look at all those pretty little blond girls. He jokes around that he is "a thorn amongst roses". But we all know he's better than a thorn!

The whole group. I will give you a run down. Mike and Jill together in the back are the owners of all the little boys in blue shirts and the little girl in front in the white dress. Keli and Jared are in black. They are the owners of the boy in front in white and the dark haired little girl and the one Keli is holding. Randy and Jesse are in green and white shirts. They are the owners of the oldest boy in green and the little girl in white. My parents are in yellow they own us big kids. The rest of the little girls Corey and I own.....I know they are the cutest ones....don't tell anyone!

Gosh with 14 kids...9 under the age of 6.....a couple of obnoxious boys....mine included!....I think we got a few cute ones!! Thanks Denae!!!

If everyone will stop having babies already we could be done with these "updates" J/K!!

Birthday Girl

Yesterday was Maycie's birthday!! As tradition goes in our family the whole day is her special day to do all of her favorite things, so here are a few things that she picked.Swimming!
Going running with me and Adelyn.

How cute is she holding up her 4 little fingers!! FOUR I can not believe my baby is 4!!!

She got a new outfit for her American Girl doll, nail polish (she LOVES to paint her nails), and "nake-up" as she would say.

On the girls B-day they get to pick where we go to dinner. As hard as we try to steer them in the direction away from Chuck e Cheese and McDonald's some years it just doesn't workout! So we went t0 Chuck e Cheese....the girls had a blast! I guess once in a while we can brave the nasty pizza for the great smiles we get in return!

Happy Birthday Maycie!!

Adelyn's Flower Shop

My little Entrepreneur

Addy is trying to earn money to go to Disneyland with some of her cousins and my mom. She has done all sorts of things to earn money here and there. I was trying to think of a way she could make some more money and not have it coming from me ; ) . I heard my dad talking about the sidewalk sales on center street for the freedom festival (he owns a store on center) and I thought hey she should make some hair flowers and sell those. So she spent half the day on Thursday and all day Friday down at my dad's store selling flowers. She made 75 dollars!! I think I might need to go sell flowers next time! It was super cute to see how excited she got when someone was approaching her table to look and she was so elated when they bought one!

*Big huge thanks to my dad for letting her sell them at his store and for selling them for her Friday night and Saturday morning!!*

Bear Lake

For Christmas Linda gave us a trip to Bear Lake. We have never been there before so we were super excited! We had a great time. The weather did not cooperate with us but we made the best of it. Lots of fun playing games, eating good food, playing on the beach and lots of talking! The whole crew outside Minnetonka caves. It was a great activity while it was raining. The girls did awesome walking up and down all those stairs....over 800 stairs!! It was really cool inside.
The kiddos went fishing and frog hunting. It was so cold but that didn't seem to bother the kids!

The very first day we were there started out the warmest so we did play at the beach. The girls had lots of fun playing in the sand....until the wind storm....holy cow it came up really fast!

Lexi and Makenley building a sand castle.

Corey and the girls on the drive there. It was such a long canyon!! Really pretty but long!! Poor Lexi got car sick which is why we stopped and got out for a minute. Overall it was a fun trip. Thank you Linda and Larry for all your hard work!!

LAST day of school!!

Goodbye to homework, waking up early, carpool, the rush of the morning and the tight schedule of soccer, dance, piano and preschool!!

Hello to sleeping in, chillin' in our jammies all morning, swimming all day, having no schedule and being home more than being in the car!!

I am so excited that school is out!!

*I can not believe how much the girls have changed since the first day of school!*

Talent Show

Every year the school has a talent show. Every year I have asked the girls if they wanted to try out, just to give them the opportunity. Well this year when I asked Adelyn said she wanted to do it. I said great that will be fun we will sign you up, BUT inside I was SO nervous! I was super proud of her for trying out but so nervous for her and didn't want her to be sad if she didn't make it. I kept telling her I was so proud of her for even trying out and that it didn't matter if she made it just the fact that she was brave enough to try was a huge accomplishment! Well they posted the list of those who made it and she made it along with her best friend Sadie! Oh I was so relieved! I am so proud of her for doing it. I didn't try for so many things in life out of fear I am so glad she tried. She play Fur Elise she did so wonderful!! I am so proud of her!

Preshool Graduations

Lexi waving hello
Lexi with her teacher Miss Sariah. She absolutely loved her teacher this year!

The kids sang "what a wonderful world" with sign language....one of the cutest things I have ever seen! Lexi has had kind of a hard time with the little performances they have done throughout the year so I was a little nervous if she would stay up there the whole time. I was so proud of her! She stayed there with a smile on her face and sang the whole time, even had a speaking part that she did fabulous on!!

Maycie and Alexiya had the same assistant teacher, Miss Marsha. She was wonderful helped me out more than once with a little girls crying and clinging to my leg!

Maycie and her teacher Miss Amber. She was so super nice. She loved Maycie so much she was always telling me how darling she was and she even looked through the registration forms for next year to make sure Maycie was in her class next year!

How long did it take you to look at this post? That is about how long this smile lasted! She get really scared in front of big groups. She was up there for a few minutes. Once they started singing she started crying. I motioned her to come down to me and I asked her if she wanted to stay. She said no she wanted to go home, so we did!