Dog Days of Dena

Spring = Baseball

2010-04-09T14:11:00.004-07:00

Both boys wanted to play baseball this year. Our community has a really good and organized program. The best part is that since all the kids live close, the practices and games are close too! At least until you get older.

Since this is Jacob's first year playing baseball he is on the coach pitch team (6-8 yr. olds), not the minors where the kid's pitch. 8 yr. olds can play on either kind of team depending on their skill level. Bryson also plays coach pitch, so they get to be on the same team! It's fun for them and sooooooo convenient for us - especially since they have either a practice or game 3 times a week!

These pics were taken from their first game and both boys got a turn to play catcher. They look so cute, I mean tough, in all that get up!

This is Jacob in his catcher's gear. Bryson is looking up at him.

All ready!
Bryson was so excited to get a turn too! Fun stuff!
We just got video of them hitting, but will post more pictures later. Baseball is pretty much going to consume most of the next 7 or 8 weeks, so there will be plenty more opportunity for pictures!

Easter Morning

2010-04-09T13:42:00.004-07:00

The kids have to have their beds made before they get go downstairs to see what the Easter Bunny left. We know that they'll never make it back up to make them later and it's quite the motivator. Travis always says, "Oh, our bed isn't made. I guess we can't go down." The kids always hurry in to make it fast. It's pretty funny.

We put the gate up to remind everyone not to just go down and see what they got. Here they all are waiting. The get to come down youngest to oldest, so that the little ones don't get trampled or left too far behind.
After checking out their baskets, they started looking for eggs. We have made a deal w/ the Easter Bunny. We put empty eggs the color of each kid's basket in their basket before they go to bed. Of course everyone has the exact same amount of eggs. Then when the Easter Bunny comes, he puts candy in the eggs and hides them according to each child's ability to find them. ie. Maddy's eggs are purple and Ally's eggs are pink. The purple eggs get hidden much higher and are more difficult to find than the pink eggs are. This has worked out so well the last couple of years. The older kids love the challenge and the younger kids don't get stuck trying to find eggs that are too high or hard for them to find.
Travis got a great action shot of Ally. She was so excited to find her eggs!
This was Bryson's trickiest egg to find.
This was Jacob's hardest egg. It was totally camouflaged w/the vase and was even more difficult to notice when the door was closed.
This was Maddy's last egg. It was pretty well hidden in the plant.

All the kids enjoyed seeing all the fun candy the Easter Bunny brought them. It made for a nice snack during General Conference.

The kids also got new sand toys and silly spill proof bubbles from the Easter Bunny. Of course Ally's bubbles were pink. They all loved the crazy hair dippers in the top.

We had such a nice Easter. I wish every Easter fell on General Conference. The kids had their candy and we printed off some Conference activities from the Internet to keep them busy during the sessions. They especially love the Conference Bingo where you listen for the speakers to say the things on your card and then you can color it in. It's always a competition to see who gets Bingo first and to see if anyone can get blackout. Because of the activities, we found out that Bryson can do word searches....little smarty pants. I think the kids were more quiet than they are during sacrament meeting on a regular Sunday. Way to go kids! Travis and I actually got to hear most of it!

We hope you all had a wonderful Easter too!

Easter festivities

2010-04-09T12:58:00.005-07:00

Our town usually puts on a huge Easter Egg hunt, but due to budget cuts they cancelled it this year. Our community association decided to put one on. I don't think they anticipated such a huge turn out when they decided to do it. You had to get free tickets to participate, so they soon found out just how many kids would be there.

Here is Ally looking for eggs. Yes, those are empty eggs on the grass too and no, the kids did not just take the candy.

Here is Ally happy after finding some eggs. A few minutes later she's sad when she realizes that only 2 of her eggs have candy in them. At least she got 6 jelly beans.
Here is Bryson eagerly awaiting the hunt.
Here he is after the hunt. First he is sad that he only got a couple of eggs. Then, since he can open his own eggs, he realized right away that most of the eggs were empty. :( I guess the community association didn't have the budget for so many kids. I wish they would have asked for donations rather than putting out mostly empty eggs. I think the disappointment was so strong because the kids used to come home w/ their basket overflowing w/ eggs that each had a toy or candy in it. We had to remind Bryson that the Easter Bunny was coming that night and would leave him lots of good stuff.
Here are Maddy and Jacob waiting for their turn. I warned them ahead of time about the empty eggs so they wouldn't get disappointed too.

After lunch we dyed Easter eggs. Everyone was smiles once again. ;) Ally was taking a nap when we started, which was probably for the best. She didn't take very long dying hers since she can't dip them in multiple colors and she needed a lot of help.

Here is Bryson's favorite egg.

This is Jacob's favorite egg.

Here are Maddy's 2 favorites.

Ally mostly just wanted to put stickers on her eggs. There were 96 little stickers and she didn't stop until they were all gone. The older kids did take a few, when she was willing to share, but she used most of them! She LOVES pink, so the pink egg was her favorite.

Now we were ready for Easter!

The Kindergartners go hunting

2010-04-09T12:34:00.008-07:00

The Kindergarten classes at Bryson's school had an Easter Egg hunt on the Fri. before Easter. Ally and I went to help "hide" eggs.

Here's Bryson starting to find eggs with the cute bunny bag his class had made.

Ally helped Bryson find a cow shaped egg. I don't know if you'd really call it an egg, but it had candy inside and Bryson thought it was really funny! The kids were only supposed to find 10 eggs. Bryson wanted to make sure that he wasn't missing any. I let Ally find eggs after the Kindergartners had found their 10 eggs. She was a little disappointed that she couldn't find any eggs w/ pictures on them, but was still pretty pleased.

Ally turns 3!

2010-04-09T11:33:00.010-07:00

Ally turned 3 last month! Didn't I just have her? How could she be so big already?!

Here are some highlights from her birthday. Ally doesn't always look happy or into the camera because she really didn't want to be bothered w/ pictures. She just wanted to open presents and play w/ toys. She really did have a good time.

Bryson got her a Polly Pocket sized Sleeping Beauty doll. Surprisingly, she can change her clothes all by herself and loves it!

Maddy got Ally a little monkey and a little puppy that moves its head and wags its tail when you rub its back.
Jacob got Ally a big fluffy dog that she named "Fuzzy", but now calls "Roofus". She sleeps with it quite often. My mom got Ally some clothes, a Littlest Pet Shop toy, and a Zhu Zhu pet. She is happy to have her own Zhu Zhu pet (now named Cutie) instead of having to borrow the other kids'.
Ally LOVES the music cards that Travis' parents usually send. She will play them over and over and over and over ...... etc. ;) This happened to be a Sleeping Beauty card and went perfectly w/ her party. She would open it and dance around the room.
Travis' parents got her this remote control My Little Pony that rides a scooter. She loves driving it around!
You can't really tell how cute these clothes are in the picture, but trust me they are super cute! The jean capris have little tulips on them that match the shirt, hair clips and socks. What girly girl wouldn't love to be totally coordinated?!
We got Ally a baby Sleeping Beauty that moves, plays music, and giggles.
Here is the cake that I made Ally. It turned out alright. I didn't spend as much time on it as I would have normally and I didn't cut a hole in the cake for the doll. She ended up going in crooked. Oh well. From the front you can't tell how much she is leaning back. Wait for the blowing out the candles shot. Travis just joked that she was falling asleep ... she is "Sleeping Beauty" after all.
Ally loved her cake even though even she was concerned that she was tipping over.
Maddy had to help blow out the side candles.
All in all it was a fun birthday. For days after Ally kept asking me if she was still 3. She is proud to be "catching up" to the bigger kids. I don't think she realizes yet that she'll never really catch up. Oh well - she is enjoying being 3 for now.

Happy Birthday Ally!

Sad news

2010-03-13T11:48:00.007-07:00

I went to the Dr. last Friday for a routine check up and discovered that we lost both babies. The Dr. could not find either baby's heart beat. Neither baby was moving and they were measuring several weeks too small.

This came as a complete shock since I had no indication that anything was wrong. I still feel tired, like I need to eat every couple of hours, smells still bother me, etc. I haven't had any cramping or spotting at all.

To lose the babies this far along is very hard. Brooke and Jason were so excited and so looking forward to the twins. They have already had so much heartache and struggle trying to expand their family that this seems completely unfair. I feel sad, confused, and disappointed and wish things were different, but they're not.

I want to thank everyone for all the love and support you have given me throughout all of this. I really have an amazing network of support and am truly grateful!

Jacob's Special Day

2010-03-11T10:03:00.005-07:00

Jacob chose to go to a Monster Truck rally for his special day. I forgot to take a picture before they left, but here he is with his souvenir before it started. He brought Bryson's Blue Thunder monster truck hoping he'd be there and the purple things in the truck are his ear plugs. They were really glad they'd thought to bring them!

Here are some action shots from the night.

The Ninja Turtle Truck was one of the hits and ended up winning the competition! Notice all the donut rings on the ground. Jacob thought it was awesome how they did donuts and filled the whole place w/ smoke from burning rubber!

Grave Digger was definitely a crowd favorite! Too bad he had some mechanical problems and missed one of the events or he might have won the whole thing.
During the breaks they had other fun stuff to watch. Here are some motorcycles getting ready to ride around inside the cage together.
They had quad races.

They also had a silly guy running around doing funny things for comic relief.

Here is a pick up that is part of the Blue Thunder team, but that was as close as Jacob got. Too bad he didn't come to this one. Jacob still loved every min!

Glad you had a fun special day Jacob!

Bryson's Special Day

2010-03-11T09:31:00.004-07:00

This year Travis gets to take the kids out for a special day. Bryson chose to go see "Walking With Dinosaurs". Here they are before they left.

You aren't allowed to take any pictures during the show, so I downloaded some pictures so you could see how cool the show really was. They had some small dinosaur costumes worn by people and some HUGE robotic dinosaurs. The ceiling was probably about 40 ft. high and one of the dinosaurs barely fit! You can see how big they are next to the narrator on the stage.

These were costumes worn by people. If you look close you can see the people's legs.

Bryson chose a pretty fun souvenir. They bought it at intermission. Travis said that Bryson was probably responsible for a lot of sales from their section because once he came back to his seat everyone was saying how cool it was and how they wanted one too. Sorry parents! ;)

What's even more fun is that because it fits pretty snug on his jaw, if Bryson opens his own mouth, the dinosaur mouth moves up and down too!

I love this picture because it shows how much fun he had and how excited he was!

What a fun Special Day!

Maddy wins 1st Place!

2010-03-11T09:16:00.002-07:00

The 5th graders at our school have to do a science project. It is optional to have it judged, but if you have to do a project anyway, why not, right?

Well Maddy did a great job on her project and even had a good time doing it. She decided to see if your sense of smell really can affect how well you taste. We gathered 20 foods, basically in sets of items w/ similar textures - ie. barbecue and cheese chip, strawberry and peach yogurt, Sprite and rootbeer, chocolate and vanilla ice cream, etc. She had people come to our house one Sat., blindfolded them, and then helped them taste all the foods w/ their noses plugged and then again with their noses unplugged. We recorded all of their answers. People really struggled identifying most of the things with their noses plugged. Sometimes they just guessed right based on texture, but weren't really sure. With their noeses unplugged people did much better. On average people were able to identify twice as many things with their noses unplugged.

She put the board together herself. She did a really good job. Thanks Tara for letting us borrow your Cricut to make the title! I think it all turned out great and I guess so did the judges because she won 1st place! Now her project is sitting in a big convention center with hundred, maybe even thousands of other projects to be judged on a regional level. We'll find out tomorrow how she did there. She's just proud to have done as good as she has.

WAY TO GO MADDY!

Big News!

2010-02-05T15:12:00.002-07:00

Travis's sister, Brooke, is expecting! Why am I posting her big news here you might ask? Well, because I'm her gestational carrier. What does that mean? Well, here's the whole story...

A little over 4 years ago Travis' sister, Brooke, was expecting their first baby. She had a rough pregnancy and seemed to have the worst of pregnancy side-effects (ie. water retention, super tired, in pain, couldn't breathe well, etc.) Her water broke, but labor didn’t start until she was at the hospital. The Lord was definitely watching out for her because when her labor started, she went into congestive heart failure and had to have an emergency c-section. It turns out that she had developed a pregnancy related heart condition which was causing many of the "pregnancy side-effects", not the pregnancy. She has made a full recovery, but all the doctors she's seen think another pregnancy would be far too risky.

While I was pregnant with Ally, I kept thinking about whether or not I could do this for Brooke. I really felt it was what the Lord wanted me to do, so after much prayer and fasting, Travis and I offered for me to carry a baby for them if they chose to go that route.

They were a little concerned about the risks to me and felt like they should pursue adoption. Adoption has been a very long and heartbreaking process for them. Over the past couple of years, they have been contacted by a few birth moms who went a different way and even a few scam artists. This past summer a birth mom was very interested in them, communicated w/ them for close to 3 months even meeting them in person. They really felt that this baby was meant for their family and then the birth mom decided to keep the baby 1 week before it was due. They were heartbroken and didn't think they could keep going down this road.

They contacted me and asked if I'd still be willing to carry a baby for them. I said I'd be happy to. So the process began. None us knew anything about In-vitro fertilization or how this would all work, so I contacted a fertility specialist near me who was wonderful. They have done this before and were able to give us great information. Timing-wise everything just fell into place. We were able to get an appointment right away w/ the Dr. due to a cancellation, Brooke was able to start her medication the day after our appointment and I started a week later. On Dec. 11, they created 5 embryos from Brooke and Jason's biological contributions. They watched the embryos for 5 days to make sure they were developing properly before implanting or freezing them. So on Dec. 16th we had them implant the best embryo in me.

On Christmas Eve I started feeling nauseous and was pretty confident that I was pregnant (and surprised the morning sickness was starting so early). I was supposed to take a pregnancy test on Dec. 26th, but felt guilty not letting Brooke know I was pregnant since I was confident I was. So I took the test early and found out on Christmas that I was pregnant. They were so happy and felt it was the best present ever!

Things kept moving along. I don't get terribly sick when pregnant, but sick enough to look forward to it almost being over (I hope!). The fertility specialist did 2 blood draws to make sure my pregnancy hormone levels were increasing, which they were and had me come in for an ultrasound at about 7 weeks to make sure all was on track before sending me back to my regular OB. The ultrasound was going well, the baby had a strong heartbeat and looked good. Then when he was almost done, he saw ANOTHER BABY!!! They couldn't believe it! IDENTICAL TWINS!!! There is less than a 0.5% chance that an embryo will split and they've never had it happen at their office before. They had to start the ultrasound all over labeling both babies. They measured 5 mm and 7 mm. I still can't believe how tiny they were to have 2 little hearts beating there on the screen! So instead of 1 baby, Brooke and Jason will get 2.

The fertility Dr. couldn't tell if there were 2 yoke sacs and 2 amniotic sacs and told me to get an ultrasound soon w/ my OB to make sure there were 2 sacs. She couldn't see 2 either, so she sent me to a specialist who was able to see the tiny thin membrane separating the babies. I can't tell you what a relief that was! Having both babies in the same amniotic sac means that their cords can tangle up, cutting off the blood and food supply to one or both babies or the cords could wrap around each other chocking them or restricting limb development. I would have had to be in the hospital once I reached 28 weeks, then they would take the babies prematurely. I would have had to be monitored very closely up to 28 weeks as well. There were several very stressful tear-filled days between my OB ultrasound and the specialist ultrasound. We were all so grateful, happy, and relieved to know that there are 2 sacs and that we don't have to worry about all that. There are obviously more risks that come w/ a twin pregnancy compared to just carrying 1 baby, but I feel confident that everything will be alright and whatever hiccups we face will still be better than having the babies in the same sac.

Definitely Twins!

So that's our big news and why I've been so behind in blogging. I've been really busy and growing twins sure makes a person tired!

New Year's Eve

2010-02-05T13:41:00.004-07:00

I forgot about these pictures from New Year's Eve. The kids all got silly string from Santa and had a big silly string fight. It was fun!

Ally did NOT like all the craziness and commotion! She just cried and ran away.
Bryson thought that I, the camera person w/ no way to defend myself, should get in on the fun. I love the determination on his face.
Someone got Travis in the eye and thought it was hilarious! They had to have a picture!

Once everyone else ran out of silly string and things settled down a bit, Ally got in the spirit and w/ a little help from grandma got everyone too.

Here they were getting Bryson and accidentally shot him in the mouth. My mom felt so bad, but it turned out to be Bryson's favorite part! Go figure?!

The aftermath! I think most of the silly string was on them!

At least it cleaned up pretty easy. Bryson collected as much as he could for his silly string ball. The rest vacuumed up pretty easy once it was all dry.

Fun stuff! If we make this a tradition, we may do it outside next time - easier clean up and no one would care if we just waited to clean it up the next day.

1st of many Pinewood Derbys

2010-02-05T13:26:00.004-07:00

In January, Jacob got to participate in his very first Pinewood Derby. He was so excited and had such a good time making his car w/ his dad. His car is the red one in the middle w/yellow lightning on it. They gave it number 4.

Jacob's car wasn't the fastest, but he did win a few races. Travis already has plans to do something diferent to the wheels next year to make it faster. Boys! Gotta love 'em!

Jacob was pretty excited about his award. He loved the way it looked and liked the award for "Best copy of a real racecar".

Here's a little video clip of one of Jacob's winning races. I think Jacob was off camera to get a better view of the finish, but you can hear him when he wins. YEAH! :)

Bryson's Alien Birthday!

2010-02-05T12:45:00.005-07:00

Bryson turned 6 in January. We do friend birthday parties for even birthdays and he really wanted to have an alien party this year. I'm not sure why he's so into aliens lately, but ever since Halloween (he was an alien for Halloween) he's been really into them.

Here's my best attempt at a fun "alien" party. There were not as many ideas to be found on the internet as I usually find, but I think it turned out good.

Here is pin the antenna on the alien.

I made this comet toss game. (I got the idea from here.) The kids loved throwing the comets at the solar system. Now we still have a fun dart type game to play later!

We made flying saucers (another idea from here). They were fun to make and even more fun to throw. They fly pretty good when you throw them like a Frisbee!
Here is the alien cake that I made Bryson. He totally cracked up about the huge head on the tiny body. He loved it and it was a pretty easy cake to make. Win-win!
Make a wish!
Look at them scramble for the candy! Pinatas are always a hit!
We also played hot asteroid, decorated goodie bags w/alien stickers and flying saucer foam stickers, and played freeze dance.

All in all I think it turned out pretty good and what matters most is that Bryson had a great time!

Happy Birthday Buddy!

We love Grandma

2010-02-05T12:37:00.002-07:00

My mom was able to spend Christmas with us. We loved having her, as we always do.

Here are some pictures we took just before she left.

Come and visit any time!

Christmas in Feb.???

2010-02-04T13:18:00.008-07:00

OK, OK, I know that it's Feb., but I've had a really hard time finding the time and energy to blog lately. Plus we got a new camera and network storage device, so I don't know how to get the pictures off the new camera and onto the new storage thing. I'll have to have Travis show me so I can post pics of Bryson's birthday next.

Anyway, here's a snapshot of our Christmas.

What silly gooses (geese?)!
We were lucky enough to have Santa come to our ward party. Here are the kids telling him what they want.

Ally was terrified of Santa, but saw the candy cane the kids got and wanted one too. This was her "brave" attempt at seeing Santa. At least she wasn't crying, but there was no way she was going any closer either. Maybe next year.

My little rag-a-muffin and her haul. She was so thrilled that Santa brought her baby doll stuff like she wanted!
Bryson was excited to have his very own MP3 player, but pretty excited about the bike too! He really needed it!
Jacob was really excited about his new golf clubs to get to go golfing w/ his dad!
Maddy was excited about her golf clubs too, but I think she liked the zhu zhu pets the best since that's about as close to a real pet as she's going to get. (Travis is definitely not a pet person.)

Well that was a quick catch up of our Christmas, the healthy part anyway. We had a bout of pink eye infect Jacob, Bryson, Ally and myself, but at least we were all healthy on Christmas. We were lucky to have my mom w/ us for Christmas too. I wanted to post pics of her, but they're on the new camera. Maybe tomorrow.

Jacob's Special Day

2009-11-17T13:29:00.005-07:00

Jacob wanted to play laser tag for his special day, so we went to a family fun place here. Here we are before we left.

We started out with some mini-golf. Jacob beat me by 8 strokes! He even got a hole in one!
We had fun squirting each other with the bumper boats, but once was enough for me. Jacob rode it 3 times throughout the day.
He was pretty wet every time!
Jacob loved driving the go carts. They had some bigger ones, but he wasn't tall enough to drive those by himself, so since I was driving I couldn't get any pictures.

I wish this picture was more clear because I love his face! Jacob is actually a really good driver and avoided several accidents caused by less skilled drivers.

I couldn't get any pictures of laser tag because it was dark and I gave a worker my purse to stow away until it was over. Jacob had a BLAST with laser tag and would do it again in a heart beat. Out of 25 people he came in 5th! I was more like 15th. He definitely showed me up!

When we were done playing, we went out to dinner at IHOP. Breakfast for dinner is one of Jacob's favorite dinners. The only bad part was that because he went on the bumper boats one last time right before we left, he was a little cold in the restaurant. I guess that's what happens when you're soaked.

Thanks for a super fun day Jacob!!!

Halloween

2009-11-17T13:27:00.002-07:00

We have found that it is much easier for the kids to paint pumpkins rather than carve them, plus they last better.

Here is Ally's pumpkin that is just the right size for her. The problem with a pumpkin that is just the right size is that she can pick it up and ended up dropping it the next day and breaking off the kitty ears much to her disappointment. At least it didn't break open!

Here is Bryson's pumpkin and his silly face to match.
Jacob didn't use as many stick in pieces, but made good use of the paint. He really liked how scary it turned out.
Maddy really wanted a pumpkin w/ a unique characteristic. This one had a crease that she turned into his mouth. She decided to make him a zombie that she loving named "Dead Larry". She cracks me up!

Here are all the kids getting ready to go Trick-or-Treating. Ally was Tinkerbell, Jacob was a ninja again, this time red (his favorite color), Bryson wanted to be an alien, and Maddy was an M&M (she was a green one when she was little).

Here they are heading out. Too much fun!

The kids had a great time! Hope you did too!

Maddy's Special Day

2009-11-17T12:38:00.003-07:00

I can't seem to keep up with my life, especially blogging! I've been a total slacker so the next few posts will document the fun things we've been up to in the last month.

Last year Travis took everyone out for their very own special day. It was so much fun that we decided to alternate doing it with the kids. He gets the even years and I get the odd years. In October Maddy chose to go to Disney on Ice again. Last year was HS musical and this year it was a combination of Cars, Lion King, Little Mermaid and Tinkerbell.

Here we are before we left.

Before the show.
Mickey and Minnie kicked off the show.
It was pretty cool to see all the "Cars" driving around on the ice.

Next was Little Mermaid. My favorite part was Ursula, but I didn't get a good picture. She had a pretty big blow up costume on that I'm sure made it difficult to skate in, but looked cool.

The Lion King was pretty amazing. The costumes were awesome! I couldn't believe that the Pumba skater was skating on all fours and even did some jumps!

Here is Maddy during the intermission w/ her souvenir lightning bug from Tinkerbell.

Maddy still enjoys Tinkerbell and this was her favorite part of the show. I loved how they were able to make Tinkerbell's tinker-fairy friend's eyes look huge like in the movie.

Maddy enjoyed seeing queen Clarion floating around. The picture isn't the best because I had to take it before they shined the spotlight on her to make her glow or it wouldn't have come out at all.

Tinkerbell was a really good skater!

Maddy and I went out to dinner afterwards and did a little shopping. It was a really fun day! Thanks for spending it with me Maddy!

Maddy's Birthday

2009-10-02T14:20:00.006-07:00

Happy 11th Birthday Maddy! (A little late!)

Here is Maddy before school on her birthday. She wore the pin all day, but not the hat. ;)

My kids aren't big cake eaters, so for Maddy's birthday we got a yummy fruit tart. She LOVES fruit and LOVED her tart!
Maddy's birthday was on a Tues., which is a SUPER BUSY day for our family. So we celebrated her birthday the next day. Here she is opening presents.

Thanks Grandma and Grandpa for the money, earrings, and lip gloss. She loves them!

Not sure why this picture turned out so blurry, but it's the only one we had of the skirt that her Grandma made her. She loves the outfit! Thanks mom!
From all of us, Maddy got a "wiggle racer". This one is actually called a plasma car. She has been asking for one for a long time and was really excited!

Wait a minute ... Who's birthday present is this again?

Maddy was very generous and let everyone have rides on her new wiggle racer. For some reason we didn't get a picture of Jacob on it. Maybe he was too fast! ;)

Even Travis and I can ride it! :D

Maddy chose to go to a funny dinner theater for her birthday. All the kids had a GREAT time. They were laughing so hard that they were crying. The actors were great and incorporated the kids into part of the play when they were in the audience. It was really fun!

Thanks for sharing your birthday with us Maddy! We all had a great time and can't believe how old you are! You are such a sweet and responsible girl and we love you very much!

The rest of Jacob's birthday

2009-09-05T16:16:00.003-07:00

We opened all the family presents after dinner. This is what Maddy and Ally gave Jacob.

Bryson got him a new Lego Star Wars ship.

My mom gives the kids scriptures when they turn 8. Jacob thought his were cool because they have "gold" pages! (Maddy's are silver and for some reason he thinks gold is way better.)

He loves his shirts from Travis's parents!

He loves his Hot Wheels track too. What could be better than crashing cars?!
He's really wanted an MP3 player and has been using Maddy's old pink MP3 player that is broken. It would only play through the list of songs, you couldn't skip through or pick songs and then when it played through the list you had to remove the songs and reload them - plus it was pink! He is soooooo excited to have his own new RED MP3 player. This boy LOVES music!
Here is Ally getting ready to play dart tag. Silly girl!
Jacob also got to have his special bath in our bath tub. The kids think it's great how deep it is and love all the bubbles!
All in all it was a really fun birthday! We love you Jacob and hope you had as much fun as we did celebrating with you!

Jacob's birthday

2009-09-05T15:24:00.006-07:00

It was Jacob's birthday last month and I'm finally getting the pictures up. He wanted to have an "army" party. It was definitely a boy party! First we painted everyone's faces camouflage and gave them dog tags.

Maddy just wanted a little face paint.
Next we had a basic training obstacle course. Everyone loved it so much that we did it again later. Here are the obstacles they had to do.

High knees through the circles ...
Crawl through the tunnel ...
Across the balance beam ...

Across the monkey bars ... Then they had to go up the stairs and down the slide. Jacob is so fast that he beat everyone both times - but at least we warned him ahead of time that he didn't get to get any prizes.

Next we played "Hot Grenade" w/ a grenade water balloon.

We played Drill Sergeant Says.

And we had target practice trying to see who could land the most grenades in the hula hoop. It was more difficult than the boys thought it would be.

After lunch, presents, cake / pie and ice cream, they had a water war. They all had a really good time!

My kids are not big cake eaters. This is ironic because my mom makes the BEST cakes and I've tried to pick up cake decorating as well. Jacob just wanted a pie for his birthday. I convinced him to let me bake cupcakes too since not everyone likes pie. We put tank and star candles on the pie and army men on the cupcakes. The only problem was that I thought I'd just buy a pie to save time and the pie I bought w/a "cherry pie" sticker on it turned out to be apple. At least Jacob likes apple and he wasn't too disappointed. Happy birthday Jacob! I can't believe that you're 8 already!

Just a note to any parents who want to do any kind of armed forces party. If you go to your armed forces recruitment center, they'll give you a ton of free stuff! From the Marines we got 4 posters and some really cool foil stickers. From the Army we got bracelets, lanyards, pens, pencils folders, pins, little American flags, and carabiners. All I did was go in and tell them that my son was have a army birthday party and asked if they had anything that they give out to little kids. I didn't go into the navy or air force because Jacob really just wanted every thing camouflage, but I'm sure they would have had great stuff too.

1st day of school

2009-09-03T22:05:00.007-07:00

We've been in school for quite a while, but being the slacker that I am, I never got the pictures up. So here's my effort to get all caught up.

Here's Maddy on the 1st day. Do you think she likes monkeys?

Here are the boys showing off their new shirts.
Jacob was bound and determined to find a camouflage backpack. He is thrilled with his "army" backpack! Can't you just see the pride in his face!
Bryson was the easiest to buy a backpack for. We found this holographic Mario Kart backpack at the 1st store we went to and he was set!
I drove the kids to school the 1st day to help them carry all the supplies and donations and to meet their teachers, well Maddy's anyway - I already knew the boys teachers. If you look closely, you'll notice that even the Kleenex Maddy donated have monkey's on the boxes.

Bryson was soooooo excited to Finally start school! After we had dropped Maddy, Jacob and Bryson off in their classes, Ally asked me where her class was. I told her that she got to go home with mommy. She was a little disappointed, but I don't think she really wanted to stay. She seemed to enjoy having mom all to herself for a little while.

When I told Bryson that I was driving them on the 1st day of school he said, "Ah, come on!" He has been waiting FOREVER to be able to ride the bus with the big kids. At least it was some consolation that he got to ride the bus home. Here are the kids walking to the bus stop on the 2nd day of school. Ally had to have a backpack just like the rest of them.

Bryson was so excited!

Now the problem is that Ally keeps wanting to ride the bus. She wants to walk the kids to the bus stop everyday wearing her backpack. I guess she'll have to wait FOREVER too.

Crazy bungee tramp!

2009-09-03T15:37:00.004-07:00

Here are the pictures from the bungee tramp. It was a full size trampoline that had poles up the side with bungee cords attached. They hooked several bungee cords to your harness according to your weight. After the cords were tightened up so that you were several feet off the trampoline, the worker would jump up and pull down on the cords to launch you super high!

Maddy was super brave and went first. They eased the kids into it and didn't shoot them the full height at first. They made sure they were able to handle the gradual increases.

She was even brave enough to do a few flips!!!

Jacob was smiling the whole time. He always looked like an X because he kept his legs out. Bryson loved it too, but he didn't go quite as high as the others. He wanted to do it again though. Too bad you only get one turn w/the passes or you have to pay extra. It was A LOT higher than I thought! I kept laughing and screaming at the same time and kept begging the guy not to launch me so high, but everyone else was telling him "higher, higher!". So of course he kept launching me HIGH! I would totally do it again though! I think I could have handled it better if he had eased me into like the kids - I'm just not as brave as I used to be!
I didn't do any flips. I was actually trying really hard to stay up right! Travis is much braver than I am! He was doing flips the whole time! It's pretty safe to say that the bungee tramp was super fun and we'd all do it again given the chance!

Family Reunion

2009-09-03T14:32:00.011-07:00

The last part of our vacation in July was a family reunion for Travis's family. We were up in the mountains of CO. Their family used to have a cabin up there and this river was right by their old cabin. The kids had fun playing where dad played when he was a kid.

Ally loved watching the rocks splash in the water! She would squeal in delight every time!

What could be more fun than throwing big rocks in the river?
Especially so that Jacob gets splashed! ;) He was wet from the waist down before we left!

Maddy loved the walking stick she found - so of course everyone else to find one too.

We stayed at a hotel that had great amenities! We got to do some really fun activities! Bryson and I were riding the chairlift up to ride the Alpine slide. Even the ride up was fun!

Looks like Jacob was beating Bryson and I. He is a speed demon!

Maddy and her cousin Jenna rode the Alpine slide more than anyone else. They really packed it in!

There was a rock climbing wall. Bryson wasn't so sure about climbing high. He did get a few feet off the ground though.

Jacob and Maddy both reached the top!

We lucked out and it was one of 2 special "family days" there so the kids got to get their faces painted, got balloon animals and saw a magic show!

Bryson asked for a mad face. He was pleased with the result!

Jacob wanted fire!

Here are the boys panning for "gold". Jacob found some cool rocks and crystals and Bryson found some cool arrowheads.

Ally mainly loved the jumping castle.

The most unique activity was a bungee tramp. I'll post those pics next.

Here's our whole group at the end. What a fun reunion and what a great family!

More vacaton fun!

2009-08-11T13:59:00.004-07:00

Phase 2 of our vacation was spent at Travis's parents house. My kids love to do Pixos there. I think they keep going until she finally runs out of beads. They just love it!

Travis's mom had all the grandkids paint rocks to put in her garden. Ally could have painted all day. We finally stopped her when all the colors were just being smeared together.
The next 2 shots show all the rocks. I tried to show which were my kids, but couldn't get the type any bigger in paint. Too bad I don't have photoshop or something. Oh well. Jacobs is the red one and Maddy's is the one that looks like a bug.

Ally's is the pink and purple and Bryson's is the one w/ orange writing on it.

The kids also got to do sparklers. They had a great time!

I had to hurry to get this picture before the sparks got too close to his cheeks! Crazy kid!

They loved these ones that had red fire.

Here is what Ally did every time someone got too close to her w/ one of the sparklers. She only liked to watch from a safe distance. Smart girl!

She finally decided it was safer to just sit on the step with her cousin next to grandpa.

Thanks for the fun time! We had a blast!

Stay tuned for our reunion fun!

Fun at my mom's

2009-08-10T15:41:00.005-07:00

We got to be at my mom's over the 4th of July. It's so fun because the kids get to do fireworks in the street and then we can just watch the big fireworks from her driveway. My mom lives 2 houses down the street from the high school where they shoot off the fireworks. You can even hear the music a little. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE that I don't have to get stuck in any after fireworks traffic and yet get to have front row seats!

This is another picture from the reception, but it's the only one I got of my niece Jessica and her son Spencer who were at my mom's the whole time we were. It was fun since I haven't gotten to spend much time with her in the last few years. My sister Denise is also in the picture ( I think I caught her in the middle of saying something - sorry Denise!) It's not weird for me to think of Jessica as a mom, but I still can't believe that my sister is a grandma!!!
Here is another one of my kids' big cousins. Austin was wrestling and tickling the boys again. You'd think they liked it or something! :)
My kids love to go to the children's museum by my mom's. Here is a pic of the kids on a huge map of the USA. You press a button to hear a clue about a state and then run and stand on that spot on the map.

Here is my fire crew. I'm not sure they'd make it to the right place w/ Ally driving! Hopefully she won't dump Jacob off the side! ;)

Maddy's BEST FRIEND in the WHOLE WIDE WORLD moved last fall. We were able to go visit Payton while on vacation. They hugged for several mins. when they 1st saw each other. Payton's mom and I went inside to visit a little and they were still standing there hugging. I think they missed each other!

While Maddy spent the day w/ Payton, the rest of the kids and I went to my sister Dalynn's house and then to a petting zoo near her house. Here's a cute shot of all the boys "locked up" in jail. Too bad there's such a gap in the bars on the left side! ;)

The kids loved the pony ride. Ally was not sure that she wanted to get on the pony at first, but ended up LOVING the ride and didn't want to get off! You can see Jacob in the background too, Bryson must have been out of the picture.

After a picnic dinner at the park, it was time to go and pick up Maddy. Here are the boys saying good-bye to their cousins, Seth and Bryson - how fun to have cousins so close in age, only a year apart!

Jacob and Calvin - even closer in age, only 4 months!

Saying good-bye was hard! What cute friends! I guess these hugs (and webkinz and phone calls) will have to do until next summer!

As always, we had a GREAT time at my mom's!

Meagan's big day

2009-08-09T18:45:00.005-07:00

My niece Meagan got married July 2 and we were lucky enough to get to go. Since we don't live close to anyone, we don't always get to be there for these special days, but we were glad we could make it for this one.

Here is Meagan and her new husband Garrett.

Since I'm crazy about hair, I fixed Maddy's and her cousin Morgan's hair in the same fancy do. Maddy really, really wanted to match Morgan and I'm sure Morgan's mom was happy not to have to worry about one more thing that morning! It's a little busy being mother of the bride!!!
Here's a view from the back. They got lots of compliments. Here is where I got the idea from.

It was fun for the boys to have some of their older cousins around. Alan was tickling Jacob, Bryson and their other cousin Calvin. Got to do something to keep them entertained! ;)

Here is a picture of all my siblings, my niece and my mom.

Doug, Denise, Me, Megan, Dianne (mother of the bride), Dalynn and Donna (my mom)

Notice all of my siblings start w/ "D" - even my parents Denzel and Donna!

Meagan wanted a garden reception, but due to rain, we had to move it to the church. It still looked very garden like w/all the decorations we had for the outdoors. She wanted the reception to be very bright and fun. Her colors were hot pink w/ lime green, yellow, orange and bright blue.

This was my kids favorite part of the reception! I think they could have hung around this table all night! Lucky for them there was leftovers!

What cute boys!

What beautiful girls!

Remember what I said about her wanting a bright and fun reception. I think the cake fit the bill! Meagan absolutely loved it!

Bryson is my "huggy" boy. If you ever, and I mean ever, need a hug - just come on over. His big cousins loved all his hugs! Here is is w/ his cousin Emilee (Meagan's younger sister).

Bryson couldn't let Meagan go without one more big hug! She loved it!

It was so fun to get to see so many of my family and extended family members! Weddings really bring everyone out. It was a really fun day!

Been a total slacker!

2009-08-08T16:43:00.007-07:00

Well, I have been a total slacker this summer. Not even one post! The next several posts will be a major catch up of all that's gone on during our busy summer!

We spent almost every morning at the pool for swim team and swimming lessons. I was hoping that Bryson would be able to swim the whole length of the pool by end of his lessons so that he could be on swim team next year, but he's not quite there yet. Part of the problem was that we weren't as blazing hot as usual during June, so the water was really cold. Oh well, he really enjoyed it anyway. Here are a few pictures of him at his lessons.

He can swim about 1/2 the length of the pool. We'll keep working.
Jacob did so much better swimming this year! I always love the shots of him at the beginning of his races - he really starts well. His favorite strokes this year were backstroke and freestyle. An hour of swim every morning helped to use up a little of his endless energy.

At championships Jacob got to swim in the medal heat for the freestyle relay and his team got 2nd place medals!

Maddy really improved this year as well. It's fun to watch her swim because it's the only activity that she's involved in where we can cheer her on during it. Her favorite stroke is the butterfly with backstroke as a close 2nd. Her goal this year was to finally get a blue ribbon and she actually got several! One butterfly race had 9-10 boys swimming their heat at the same time as the 9-10 girls and only 1 boy beat her, she beat the other 3 boys as well as all the girls! She was only timed against the girls, so that was one of her blue ribbons!

Getting ready for backstroke. Maddy was fast enough this year to swim in the medal heat for backstroke at championships. That means she was in the top 8. She came in 4th, just out of medal contention. Darn.

Maddy's coach made a mistake and didn't put her in the medal heat for butterfly (her favorite stroke) even though her time beat 4 of the girls in the event. One of the girls didn't show up, so they told her she would get to swim after all. She was soooo excited that attempting to jump over a little half-wall, she scraped up her leg. She didn't even care about her leg, she was so excited to be able to do butterfly.
Well... at the very last min. (Maddy was already lined up in front of her lane for the race) they told Maddy that she couldn't swim because the girl showed up. She was devastated, but tried to pull it together for her other races.

Maddy was also in the medley relay, swimming backstroke, and in the freestyle relay. Her team got 1st place medals for the medley relay and 3rd place medals for the freestyle relay!

Our team got 1st place out of all 8 teams at championships! Way to go!
Here are Maddy and Jacob posing with the team trophy. It's taller than Maddy!
I didn't have my camera w/ me, but at the closing swim team party, their coach gave all the kids little individual trophies. Maddy was so thrilled because since swimming is really her only sport, she never gets trophies like Jacob does. She has lots of ribbons, and now 2 medals, but never had a trophy until now.

All in all, swim this summer was GREAT!

Stay tuned for more of our summer happenings. ;)

Graduation Day

2009-05-20T14:40:00.003-07:00

Last week was Bryson's last day of preschool. Here he is with his teacher Miss Louise.

Bryson had his preschool graduation last Sat. Here he is marching in to pomp and circumstance.
Each class sang a couple of songs for everyone.
His favorite song was Tony Chestnut because it had fun actions to go along with it. (ie. they pointed to their "toe", "knee", "chest", Nut=head) In this picture he's doing the 2nd verse "Ilene Chestnut" - notice the lean.

This was the "Bob-Bob Chestnut" verse - his favorite because he got to hold up his arms and bob his head like a rock star. Too cute!

Here Bryson was giving his teacher "5" before she gave him his "diploma".

Here is Bryson with all 3 of his teachers - Miss Louise, Miss Bri, and Miss Yvonne.

All 3 of my kids have had Miss Louise for preschool. Sadly, they announced at the graduation that she will be retiring. I guess Ally will have to do w/o Miss Louise.

Now that Bryson is done with preschool he's really looking forward to Kindergarten. So much so that he thought he got to start on Monday. He's disappointed to have to wait until next year, but once the other kids get out of school too, I'm sure the wait won't seem so long.

Assemblies, Assemblies, Assemblies

2009-05-20T12:22:00.008-07:00

As the school year winds down, my kids have been in a few assemblies to show off what they've been doing at school.

Both Maddy and Jacob had a jump rope assembly a few weeks ago. Jacob was really excited to show that he could do double dutch!

Maddy and her group choreographed their own routine. They did lots of tricks like this one where she is jumping w/ her friend using just her rope.

Maddy also did an assembly for chorus. They were doing an "Around the World" theme and sang songs from many different countries. Maddy is on the right on the bottom row. I tried to put a circle around her so you could see, but it's not very dark.
The kids read lines that told about the people and places they were singing about.
Here's a little bit of the song from New Zealand. She loved practicing with the poi balls. She taught herself how to do them with one hand just by watching someone on the computer. That was her favorite trick.

Maddy also had a 4th grade recorder concert last night. I haven't downloaded the pictures yet, so I'll post those later.

Fun stuff, but we're glad that summer is almost here!

Empty well

2009-05-14T09:30:00.007-07:00

Do you ever feel like you're nothing more than a pair of hands?

Hands that:
wake the kids up in the morning,
fix breakfast,
make school lunches,
fix girls' hair,
fill up water bottles,
drive to preschool and sign in,
push the grocery cart and load it up w/ food,
put all the groceries away at home,
sign out of preschool and drive home,
fix lunches,
change diapers,
get out crayons and coloring books - put them away,
get out play dough - put it away,
flush toilets all day,
carry toddler upstairs and put her down for a nap,
vacuum and mop the floors, wipe the table and counters, clean the bathrooms, do the laundry, pick up toys, etc.,
refill drinks and snacks all day,
drive to various activities,
fix dinner,
tuck kids into bed,
etc.

Sometimes I think that if I disappeared and was nothing more than a pair of hands no one would even notice. I know it's not really true, but it sure feels like it sometimes.

Sorry this is such a downer of a post. I just needed to get it off my chest. I guess I just kind of feel swallowed up by day to day to life. It's not even that I don't like it. I'm so grateful to get to be the one who does all these things for my family and I love them more than I could ever express. I think I've just lost sight of who I am separate from my life as wife and mom and feel very inadequate as mom. There's always so much to do - much more than I can ever get done. I want to have a clean and organized house and can't seem to keep it that way. I want to be a patient mother, but inevitably loose my cool at some point in the day and have to apologize. I want to be the one my family can depend on and lean on, but I don't feel very strong. I want to be fun and someone my family loves to be around, but don't feel that way right now.

I don't want anyone to feel sorry for me. I know we all feel down at times. I'm just having a hard time pulling myself out of this rut. I guess I just need to keep trying and be more forgiving of my shortcomings and just try to focus on all the wonderful blessings I have. I just read "Daughters of God" by Elder Ballard from the April 2008 Gen. Conf. There are two things I from his talk that I know I can and should work on. 1) Live more in the moment and enjoy the moments more w/o worrying about the next thing that needs to get done. 2) Find time to cultivate my gifts and talents. Elder Ballard says that "water cannot be drawn from an empty well, and if you are not setting aside a little time for what replenishes you, you will have less and less to give to others, even your children". I think this is my biggest problem at the moment - I've let my well run dry. The problem with having an empty well is that I've forgotten how to fill it up. Thankfully, Elder Ballard gave the advice that I needed, "Turn to the Lord in faith, and you will know what to do and how to do it."

I have a friend who puts three things she is grateful for at the end of each post she does. I think I'd like to start that too - so here goes:

1. "big hugs" and kisses from my kids, 2. a family who is patient with me, 3. the gospel to guide me and to help give me an eternal perspective.

Bryson's special day

2009-05-06T11:18:00.005-07:00

Last year Travis took all the kids out to have a "special day". We decided to keep doing this and to have him do even years and me do odd years.

Bryson decided that he wanted to see Monsters vs. Aliens in 3D for his special day, so on Sat. we had a date. He was sooooo cute. Once I told him it was a date, he got all dressed up and wanted me to wear a skirt too. Here we are before we left.

Bryson LOVED the movie and thought that seeing it in 3D was awesome! He ate almost a whole a bucket of pop corn, which was special becuase we rarely go to the movies, let alone get treats!

After the movie, we got slushy drinks and got a pizza to eat in the park.
Bryson wanted to show off some of the fun things he does at the park when his school class goes there.

Our community was also having a concert in the park, so there was some extra entertainment - including a balloon lady. Bryson is posing with his new tiger after a FUN date!

What a fun day!

Dirty Laundry

2009-04-28T19:00:00.003-07:00

So the boys have been leaving their dirty clothes all over the floor. I tried only washing the clothes that were in the hamper, but they'd just clean up the clothes about once a week and still have clothes to wear. It didn't get them to put their clothes in the hamper.

Attempt # 2 - I started taking away all the clothes I found on the floor each night. Today Jacob ran out of shorts and it's supposed to be getting into the 90s over the next few days. I've told them I was doing this and that they won't get their clothes back until the next washing day after they start putting their dirty clothes away.

This is the amount of clothing that I've collected over the past week. Needless to say, not many of their clothes has actually made it to the hamper!

So which do you think will happen first: (1) the boys will completely run out of clothes or (2) they will finally start putting the few remaining articles of clothing into the hamper. I guess only time will tell.

The big man!

2009-04-26T18:21:00.003-07:00

Last Sat. Travis taught Bryson how to ride his bike without training wheels. He's been asking for us to teach him for a while, but we just haven't had the time. He learned really quick and is soooooo proud of himself. Now he can keep up better with Jacob.

Way to go buddy!

Literacy Night

2009-04-26T17:50:00.004-07:00

Thursday was pretty busy. Not only did we go to the zoo, but the kids had a special literacy night at school. The school had a book fair and the kids got to show off some of the things they have been working on.

Here are the kids with the characters walking around. This is Geronimo Stilton. Travis was surprised I actually knew who it was, but my kids really like that series.

Everyone knows Clifford, including Ally, but she didn't want to get too close. ;)
Sweet Franklin was there too.

Jacob did a report on Anacondas. Here is showing off the model he made and his report.

Jacob's picture was chosen to be hung up in the "gallery".

Maddy's class did a reader's theater. She was one of 2 narrators in a Ben Franklin play and was Mary Lincoln, Abe's wife, in the 2nd play.

Both of Maddy's projects were chosen to be hung up in the gallery too. This is her Eskimo bird mask.

Here is Maddy's Matisse art. It's called Egypt's pyramids. She just finished a huge project - making an A - Z book on Ancient Egypt, so she was pretty into the whole Egypt thing.

The kids did so good and had a great time. They were sooooo excited to show us what they have been up to. They are both doing so well!

It's a zoo out there!

2009-04-26T17:33:00.005-07:00

Bryson's preschool class took a field trip to the zoo last Thurs. We had a good time! Here are some of the things we saw.

Ally kept sticking out her tongue when I told her to say cheese, so this is what we got.
My turtle Bryson!

They had a couple of lizards and snakes and a Guinea pig to pet. Bryson liked feeling all of them.

Ally was brave enough to touch (not pet) the snakes for about 1/2 a second. I was too slow to get the first snake she touched. I had to be really ready to catch the 2nd. She had NO interest in touching the lizards. ( I can't say that I blame her.)

We took this picture Ally was not too happy I had Bryson sit on the peacock with her. She is one who definitely likes her space.

We had a fun time and despite Ally's face in the last picture, she did too. The zoo is always a fun place!

Happy Easter

2009-04-14T13:53:00.005-07:00

Happy Easter Everyone!

This was the first year we actually had to wear jackets in stead of shorts to our town's Easter Egg Hunt. It was pretty cold and rainy, but at least it wasn't quite as crowed. I REALLY did NOT want to be in any pictures as I had only gotten 2 hrs. of sleep the night before at our ward's youth retreat and hadn't even had time to shower yet - in fact I left early just to make the hunt, but Ally wouldn't get close to the Easter bunny unless I was holding her. I tried to pass her off to Maddy, but to no avail. Oh well.

All the Easter Egg Hunts were broken down by age. Here is Ally waiting for her turn. She was crying because Travis wouldn't just let her go and get all the eggs before the hunt started. What a mean dad! ;D
She was very pleased after the hunt and she was able to actually get those eggs that were tempting her before.
We didn't get any pictures of the boys hunts because they were going on at the same time. I wish I could have seen Jacob's though. He came out w/ his bucket barely containing all his eggs. Bryson was a little disappointed that he didn't get very many eggs, so I asked Jacob if he could share some of his. He proceeded to start emptying his pockets into Bryson's bucket. Apparently, when he ran out of room in his bucket, he filled up his pockets w/ 6-8 more! He only stopped because he couldn't figure out any way to carry more eggs, not because there weren't any more left. I think he counted 52 eggs, and that is not counting the ones he gave Bryson. Crazy kid!

Here is Maddy lined up for her hunt. Her age bracket is the most ruthless. Last year her bucket spilled and she ended up w/ very few eggs. This year it spilled again, but early on, so she was able to recover pretty well.

I didn't think to take any pictures of the kids coloring eggs. Like I said, I was pretty tired on Sat. (In fact, I still am!)

Here are the kids examining their baskets before they went to look for the eggs the Easter Bunny hid. We have finally figured out to leave plastic eggs the color of each child's basket for the Easter Bunny to fill and hide. That way he can hide the big kid's eggs in more difficult spots and Ally can still find eggs. Ally's eggs were the easiest and would have all been found before she knew what was going on if the older kids didn't know to leave the pink eggs alone.

Here are my attempts at a picture of all the kids before church. Ally was NOT being cooperative and when she was finally looking, someone else wasn't.

Jacob is very sensitive and I think I had just yelled for everyone to just look at the camera so we could make it to church. I don't think he appreciated that very much. Sorry Jacob!

Here is Maddy's hair for school on Monday. It was pretty much like on Sunday, but w/ brighter eggs. I wasn't sure how appropriate Easter egg hair was for church, but I had forgotten to put curlers in her hair on Sat., so I went ahead and did it, but w/ lighter eggs. Here is where I got the idea. So cute, don't you think?! I am definitely not this creative on my own!

Ally's birthday party

2009-03-29T21:43:00.004-07:00

While we were visiting Travis' parents over spring break, we celebrated Ally's birthday. Since we're not that close to any family, it was fun to celebrate with them!

Here's a shot of her cake. It's the first cake that any of the kids have had that my mom or I didn't make. I thought it turned out pretty cute, but it always amazes me how expensive they are!

Make a wish! She actually blew out the candles!
Here Ally is holding up 2 fingers to show how old she is. We learned with Maddy that 2 yr. olds can't show 2 fingers on 1 hand very well at first. This is the easiest way for them to do it.
Here she is looking at the sounds and pop-up book that Maddy gave her.
Here are the cute outfits she got.

She loved the vacuum from Grandma and Grandpa! She still has fun with it. In fact when I was vacuuming yesterday, she followed me all around the house with her little vacuum. Too bad that cleaning enthusiasm doesn't last!

Now she has her very own jump rope and will quit taking the older kids'. She's really cute when she jump ropes. She holds the handles and moves her arms up and down and jumps a bunch of times. I tried to get it on video it, but kept missing it.

She also got a farm play-dough set. She loves play-dough!

Here she is in her new dress from Grandma on her actual birthday.

It's hard to believe she's already 2! It seems like she was just born - but on the other hand, I can hardly remember life without her. She is so cute and fun! We all love her so much!

Happy Birthday!

2009-03-22T17:11:00.004-07:00

Happy Birthday Ally!

We can't believe you're 2 already! You've grown up so fast. We sure love having you in our family silly girl!

What a cutie!!!

Crazy Hair Day

2009-03-15T16:16:00.005-07:00

Friday was Crazy hair day at school. My kids always want to get as crazy as possible.

Here is Maddy's bun-hawk. I got the idea here. She liked it and got a lot of compliments on it.

Jacob would LOVE to have a Mohawk, but his hair absolutely will NOT say up no matter what I put in it. His hair was way too short this time anyway. We settle for painting his head. Yep, you heard right, paint. I just use washable poster paint and it comes right out in the shower.

Crazy hair day was another success!

Missing friends

2009-03-04T14:02:00.005-07:00

This has been the year of best friends moving away from us. :( All three of my kids lost their best friend. Good thing Ally doesn't have a best friend yet or they'd probably move too!

Maddy and Payton have been best friends since preschool 6 years ago! Here are a couple of pictures of them through the years. They look so little here! It was taken in Jan. 2005. (Obviously we didn't have as good of a camera back then!)

September 2006
September 2008
Payton moved the day after Halloween, so she got to come Trick-or-Treating with us and then had to move the next day. Maddy really misses her. At least they can call each other, play together on Webkinz and we'll get to visit her when we go to visit my mom this summer.
Jacob's best friend Kyle moved the day after Thanksgiving. He just lived down the street and they would play and ride bikes together all the time. Here they are at Jacob's birthday party in 2007.

They've even been in the same class at school for the last 2 years. Here they are on the first day this year.

They were also on the same soccer team. They sure had a good time! It was also great that Kyle's mom and I could carpool and didn't have to drive as much!

Halloween 2008

Bryson's best friend Jillian just moved. Unfortunately since he'd seen the other kids' best friends move, he knew what it meant. They were so cute together! They would hold hands while walking in the halls at church and loved to play together. They would totally look forward to seeing each other at the park at playgroup every Fri.! When ever you would take their picture, Bryson would automatically put his arm around her.

We will definitely keep in touch, so maybe Melinda and I will have to set them up when Bryson gets home from his mission. ;) They could use this picture along w/ their engagement photo! ;)

We sure miss our friends! Unfortunately, when the kids' best friends moved, their moms moved too and I lost 3 good friends as well! At least we can all keep in touch through blogging!

Polar Bear Swim ;)

2009-03-01T22:27:00.004-07:00

Polar Bear swim - isn't that what you call swimming in the winter? Well, it sure doesn't feel like winter around here this past week so I took the kids swimming on Sat. It helps that one of our community pools is heated. :)

Here is Bryson diving for an alligator diving stick. He has a hard time getting all the way down to the bottom (it was 3 1/2 feet), so he used the hand rails to push himself down.
Success!

Jacob was having fun jumping in over and over. I had to remind him a few times that you aren't allowed to dive. Here he is not quite diving and not quite jumping. I think "belly flop" is the more accurate term. ;)

Who says you can't walk on water? Jacob is pretty fast. Maybe he's as fast as Dash from the Incredibles!

Here Maddy is practicing her handstands.

Cannonball! Good thing you can't get splashed through the screen! ;)

We had a fun time in the pool, but probably won't be heading back for at least a little while. The forecast shows us going back into the 70s instead of our unusually warm 80s. It was a fun break from the norm though.

Ally's first hair cut

2009-02-24T22:12:00.002-07:00

Ally never got her bath on Sunday. If you are wondering why, read the relaxing Sunday post. Anyway, I was giving her a bath on Mon. morning and decided to be brave and finally trim up her hair. The underneath hair would tend to lay flat and the top layer would curl up and really emphasize the difference in length. Ally hates getting out of the tub and is sometimes already dry by the time I can coax her out. (Good thing its warm here!) I thought I'd take advantage of this and just let her play w/ her cups of water - she could pour those things back and forth all day - while I trimmed up her hair. The only draw back is that it was hard to get her to be really still for any length of time.

Here's a before picture of her long hair after I poured water on it straighten it out.

Here's what I trimmed off.
And here's the after. From the picture it looks like I may have left the edges too long. It was really hard to tell. At any rate, it looks a little more even now when it's dry and since her baby hair still curls a little in the back, you can't tell that I didn't get it exactly straight.

Relaxing Sunday?

2009-02-24T21:55:00.005-07:00

This Sunday was supposed to be nice and relaxing. We had Stake Conference, so I didn't need to teach and Travis didn't have any meetings. Well, while I was cooking dinner, I started hearing a crackly noise in the other room. I thought Ally had something w/ a crinkly wrapper and my hands were dirty, so while I finished what I was doing, I listened carefully to make sure the crackling didn't stop (meaning she would have gotten whatever it was open.). It was only like a min. or two, but when I went to go find Ally, this is what I saw instead!!!

Yep, that's water dripping out of the vent in the laundry room! I yelled up to Travis that the ceiling was leaking. He ran into the bathroom and found inches of water on the floor and the carpet outside of the bathroom soaked. He ran for a pile of towels to start soaking it up.
So what happened you might ask. Well, we had forgotten about baths on Sat. since we went to the adult session of Conference, so we had the kids take baths Sun. afternoon. Ever since Bryson had a bath in our big tub, he keeps wanting to fill their regular tub up high. We have told him before NOT to fill it up high, but he did anyway. So not only did he fill up the tub to the VERY TOP, he proceeded to splash around and "swim" in the tub, thus spill out water EVERYWHERE.

So, instead of having a relaxing evening, we spent it soaking up water, emptying buckets of water that had poured out of the ceiling, poking holes in the ceiling w/ a nail to make sure there wasn't water pooling up somewhere, doing several loads of towel and rug laundry, blowing fans on the carpet, and sending Bryson to bed EARLY.

The only reason I even thought to take pictures was because Travis' sister's 2 yr. old plugged up their bathroom sink and flooded their bathroom a few days ago. She said she had been too mad to take pictures. Well, I was pretty mad and wouldn't have thought to take any pictures either if I hadn't just read about her story. At least her mess was from a 2 year old, not a 5 yr. old who had already been told not to do what he was doing!

School Assembly

2009-02-24T21:46:00.003-07:00

Maddy told me Friday morning that she was going to be in the assembly that afternoon. Nice notice! Jacob couldn't remember if he was going to be in it or not, so he put on his jump rope shirt just in case and went to school. Good thing I'm pretty flexible and was able to go because both kids were finally in the same assembly!

Here's Maddy demonstrating her mad jump roping skills. I could never have jumped rope inside of another rope, but she did great!
Nice criss-cross action shot, don't you think?
Jacob's partner was home sick that day, so he just did whatever tricks he wanted. He and his partner were supposed to jump side by side holding one handle from their own rope and one from their partners. Instead, I got some criss-cross shots. (I didn't get as good of pics. of Jacob because Bryson was bored and was pulling on me. What can you do?)

Way to go guys! You were awesome!

Fun dates

2009-02-24T21:35:00.002-07:00

I had forgotten to do a post for the Mother-Son and Father-Daughter dances that the kids school puts on. Jacob gets a little shy about dancing in front of others, so he was really happy that they had 2 Wiis set up and he could play Mario cart instead of dancing. We still had a good time.

Maddy on the other hand LOVES any and all attention, so she and Travis danced the night away at their dance. They had a great time too! Travis figures it won't be much longer before she'll think dancing w/ her dad isn't cool anymore, so he'll take it while he can.

Easy way to follow blogs

2009-02-15T17:30:00.003-07:00

I've had a few friends ask me about how I keep up with everyone's blogs. I use a program called Feedreader. You could also use googlereader. It is fantastic for following public blogs. Sadly, it doesn't work for private blogs. Here is a link to download Feedreader for free.

http://fileforum.betanews.com/download/Feedreader/1027544364/1

Just follow the instructions to download and install. Once you have installed Feedreader, you will need to input the addresses for the blogs you wish to follow by clicking "New Feed" in the file menu. The program will automatically look for the feed to that blog. It will give you a prompt where you choose the RSS or Atom feed. Travis says it doesn't really matter which one you click - it's just two formats for the same thing. Also, he recommends that as you set up each feed for it to check, set the update period for 10 mins. or any time period rather than leaving it on Intelliupdate. He says that sometimes that doesn't work like it should.

Click on "Manage Feeds" from the file menu to make any changes to the name of the blog, the update period or whatever. Make sure to click "save" on each feed that you make changes to. Then just click "cancel" to go back to the regular screen where you can check blogs.

Once you've typed in the addresses, Feedreader will automatically let you know whenever someone updates their blog. You will have a little cube in the system tray at the bottom of your computer screen. When it's yellow instead of grey, click on it and it will open feedreader and show you who has a new post by bolding their name. Just click on the bolded name and you'll go directly to the new post. Then you won't have to keep checking around all the time - especially at those blogs that only update every few weeks or months. The first time it checks each blog, all the posts will be new to the new Feedreader program, so just click through all the posts you've already seen.

I hope this helps. If you run into trouble, just email or call me and I'll help you out (or get my husband to ;)

Happy Valentine's Day

2009-02-14T10:44:00.007-07:00

Happy Valentine's Day!

We started celebrating yesterday morning before school since that's when the kids were passing out their Valentine's. Here's what the kids got for breakfast.

Last night Travis and I "Heart-attacked" the kids' doors. We wrote down some of the many things that we love about each of them. We had to do the boys' closet doors so that they could tell whose hearts were whose.

I forgot to take pictures, but we had heart shaped pancakes for breakfast. Some had M&Ms and some had blueberries. YUM!

Thanks to the fun hair blogs I frequent, Maddy's and Ally's hair have hearts in them.
Here are the kids in their cute Valentine's shirts from Grandma and Grandpa.

We hope you have a fun and happy Valentine's Day!

Day at the park

2009-02-06T13:23:00.004-07:00

So we were at playgroup at the park today. While we were there, a father and son came with their horse, ooops, I mean dog, "Duchess". Seriously, can you believe the size of this thing?! You can't fully appreciate how big it was in this 1st picture since the dog is bending down. Check out the shot I got of Ally!

The dog really did tower over her. Her head came up a little past my waist! Fortunately Duchess was extremely calm and likes kids. I still wouldn't have let Ally pet her w/o me right there. That's my hand making sure that the dog didn't cover Ally's face w/ dog slobber. Her tongue was about the size of Ally's face. Not a pleasant thought!

Here's my "Beary Cute" girl sport'n my sunglasses. Silly girl!
We love the park and the beautiful weather!

Bad things happen in threes

2009-01-30T15:11:00.005-07:00

I've heard that bad things happen in threes. It seems to be true at our house... so far.

First, as you probably remember, Bryson fell out of the van and smacked his head in the parking lot leaving him w/ a huge goose egg and scrapes.

Second, Travis got poked in the eye playing basketball on Tues. getting ready for the stake tournament. His actual eye is fine, no permanent damage thank goodness - but he did miss their first game on Thurs. What can you do?
Third, while I was at New Beginnings, Ally fell down several stairs and hit her head on the tile. I guess it was bound to happen one of these times since she insists on walking up and down the stairs now. Her goose egg looks very tame compared to Bryson's, but Travis said that it was much worse right after it happened.
Fortunately everyone is healing well. Bryson's head is just about back to normal already. Let's hope that Travis' eye heals as quickly!

I just hope that the saying is true and that we're done with injuries around here for a while!

New Beginnings

2009-01-29T15:02:00.004-07:00

Last night was my first big activity since being called to Young Women's. We were doing it around the theme "What Heaven Sees in You" along with the "Parable of the Princesses" by Jenny Phillips. I was asked to come up w/ a dessert that went along w/ the princess theme. Well, I'm not that creative and google didn't help me much this time. I did find a picture of a cake that was princess themed w/o looking too childish. Since my mom does excellent cakes and could offer her advice and answer numerous questions, I thought I'd go ahead and try the cake. I also made cupcakes in the value colors and made some white chocolate mints with San Diego temple molds I had from my wedding. Here is how everything turned out.

I would have probably turned the cake so that the ruffled edge looked more straight, but there was a spot of frosting that cracked and slid down on the drive over that I had to fix in the back. It patched up OK, but not as smooth as the rest, so it stayed in the back.
Here is a close up of the mints. I think you can see the temples if you click on the picture to enlarge it.

A couple of the other leaders were in charge of decorations and did a FABULOUS job! They borrowed Maddy's baptism and blessing dresses and Ally's blessing dress for this display. My blessing dresses are the back two. Didn't it turn out so cute?! This display went along with the song that all the leaders sang, "What Heaven Sees in You". It makes me cry almost every time I sing it, so it was hard to sing it front of everyone. Especially since when I looked out, many of the girls and moms were crying too! Fortunately a couple of the leaders have excellent voices and could carry those of us who don't sing as well and were getting choked up. Click here if you'd like to hear the song. It's really touching.
The leaders in charge of decorations took "dress up" type pictures of all the girls. They edited them to be black and white w/ just the pink flower in color. They turned out sooooooo cute and really showed the girls fun personalities.

Here is a picture of my Mia Maids starting to act out their part of the Parable of the Princess story. I didn't get any shots further on because my batteries were low and wouldn't do more w/ the low lighting. The Mia Maids are the biggest group of girls - 12 girls!

It was such a great night. We had 24 out of 27 young women there. I haven't been in Young Women's very long, but it's amazing how quickly you fall in love with the girls. As they were all standing in front singing "Daughter of a King" I got all choked up and couldn't believe how much I loved each of them already. They really are such a special group of girls and I'm so lucky to get to work with them!

Maddy helped me with the cake by lending me one of her tiaras. Here are my 2 sweet princesses playing with her other tiaras before I left. They are pretty special too - Daughters of a King! I love them more than words could ever say!

The rest of the party

2009-01-22T13:41:00.005-07:00

After dinner (Bryson chose waffles, eggs, bacon and sausage), it was time for presents.

Jacob got him a bunch of Pokemon figures. (I think Jacob is as excited to play w/ them as Bryson is.)

Maddy got him a cool thing that shoots 3 cars and 3 planes at the same time when you punch down the launcher.
Bryson was too busy checking out the sunglasses from Grandma and Grandpa to look at the camera. I think this is a "thumbs up" sign. Thanks for the shirt too!
He also love the dinosaur. He's pretty scary when walking, chomping, and moving the fan-like cheek things.
Grandma got him a Nerf gun, or as Bryson calls it, a "Nerth" gun. He loves trying to get them to stick to things.Grandma also got him this stylin' shirt and shorts.

Mom and Dad got him this Pokemon mountain to use w/ all his new Pokemon figures. It even oozes slime like a volcano.

The thing he was most looking forward to was GUM!

Our family rule is that you can't chew gum until you are 5. All the kids totally looked forward to it! We could probably just have given him gum and he would have been thrilled! Simple pleasures!

Bryson is into zebras right now and wanted a zebra cake. Travis's first comment was, "Why do they always want cakes w/ black frosting!" Well, the only zebra plates that we could find had a blue and white zebra, so he decided he'd rather have his cake look like the plate. Whew! Blue frosting is a lot easier than black! I think it turned out pretty good and Bryson was thrilled.

Make a wish! He is being really careful not to tell us what he wished for until it comes true. Let's hope he didn't wish for something crazy and get disappointed!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRYSON!

We hope you had a great time and thanks for sharing all the fun w/us!

Bump in the celebration

2009-01-22T13:21:00.004-07:00

As we were getting ready to leave the primary ice cream party, Bryson was climbing back out of the van and tripped over a bag. He fell out the door, landing on his head in the parking lot. He instantly had a HUGE goose egg which unfortunately was also full of gravel and dirt. Travis scooped him up and hurried him into the bathroom to wash it out. Travis tried to keep him from seeing himself in the mirror, but Bryson wanted to see and turned around to look in the mirror. Then the crying got REALLY LOUD. Through his sobs he said, "Now everyone is going to laugh at me!". We told him no one would laugh, but would probably feel bad for him (and everyone has). He had a few other scrapes and pretty big cut on his hand. We told him he had to have a bath to get everything clean. He was afraid it would hurt (and so were we) so we let him have a "birthday bath" in our new airtub. Once he got in and realized that it didn't sting, he really had fun. He LOVED having the water so high, LOVED the bubbles and LOVED doing silly things with the soap bubbles after he was washed. Here are some pictures of the fun and his huge goose egg.

Looks like a fun bath fixed everything. Whew - crisis averted, birthday saved, and luckily he didn't have a concussion!

Bryson's birthday fun - part 1

2009-01-22T09:26:00.004-07:00

Happy 5th Birthday Bryson!

In our family we do friends parties on even birthdays and have a special family day on odd birthdays. This year Bryson chose to go bowling. He was a little disappointed during the first game that he doesn't bowl for real as well as he bowls on the Wii.

He had more success using the ramp (with dad's help aiming).
It surprised me how well Jacob did considering that his ball bounced off the bumpers several times. I couldn't believe how often he hit right were he wanted to. In fact, he won the 2nd game. Travis bowled the last frame between his legs to give Jacob more of a shot at winning and ended up w/ 2 gutter balls. Way to beat us all, Jacob!
Maddy's arm probably got tired since she would swing her ball back and forth several times before she actually bowled it.
Here is Travis's between the legs shot. Too bad he couldn't quite keep the ball straight. Jacob didn't mind though. ;-)

Ally was our little cheerleader! She's saying, "YAY"!

The kids also had a good time in the arcade. Bryson did really good at skee-ball.

Jacob enjoyed the skee-ball as well. He couldn't do quite as well as Bryson. Hey, you can't win everything, right?! Notice Maddy's huge handful of tickets. She dropped her token into one of those games where you try to land it in the truck beds. Hers landed in the truck bed and dumped the truck over, so she got 250 tickets! She was ecstatic and kind enough to share w/ her brothers so they could all get better prizes.

Bryson had fun bowling and then we had to hurry off to a primary activity. They were having an Articles of Faith Ice cream party. Just more fun to celebrate his birthday!

Life in the wild

2009-01-11T17:22:00.005-07:00

Over winter break we went to a wildlife preserve. It was a beautiful day and the kids had a great time. Here are a few of the fun things we saw.

The kids get so excited to see the animals up close!

The day started getting pretty warm and that nap looked pretty good to me too!

Is this not the FATTEST prairie dog that you've ever seen?! They were pretty cute though!

This otter kept swimming in a circle and pushing off of the glass right in front of the kids. They laughed and said that it was giving them five !

Travis took this picture of us by the big horn sheep exhibit. They were down too low to get a shot with real sheep, so we settled for the statue. :)

As we were leaving, one of the rangers was showing off this parrot and answering questions. This shot shows how he can crack open a peanut to eat it. The amazing thing was that it used it's tongue and beak to peal off the skin of the nut as well as the shell. We were pretty impressed.

Now it's time to go. Maddy and Travis were the only smart ones in short sleeves, so the rest of us were getting pretty warm and Ally was definitely ready for a nap. We had a fun time though!

Maddy and the bee

2009-01-11T16:54:00.004-07:00

Maddy just participated in her school's spelling bee. She already got 2nd place in her class spelling bee, so she got to be 1 out of 18 kids to be in the school spelling bee. She was a little nervous and wanted to do her best, but at the same hoped she wouldn't win so that she didn't have to go on to the district spelling bee. That was a bit intimidating.

She did really well! About half the kids got out on their first word, but she spelled "topical" correctly. She got out on her 2nd word "talc" because she thought they said "talic". Oh well. She got 5th place and we were all pretty proud of that, especially since she was up against 5th and 6th graders as well as other 4th graders. She was also relieved that she won't have to go on to the district spelling bee. That would be a bit stressful for her.

Here she is spelling her 1st word.
I didn't realize that the kids would be facing the other direction, so I took this picture afterword so that we could actually see her face.

Way to go Maddy!

The things kids say ...

2009-01-07T12:54:00.002-07:00

I was changing Ally's diaper this afternoon getting her ready for her nap and she started singing, "Shake, shake, shake, ... shake your boowie". It totally made me laugh, which in turn made her laugh and want to keep singing it. We were both cracking up! Who knew a diaper change could be so entertaining?! The things they pick up from their siblings. Hilarious!

This picture is Ally enjoying the bubble machine that Santa brought her. It totally cracks her up! She is pretty fun!

A Wii bit of fun!

2009-01-04T19:59:00.005-07:00

Everyone had a lot of fun with our new Wii. Here are Maddy and Jacob concentrating on one of the new games.

Ally isn't quite ready for the Wii, but she sure loves the new kitchen that Santa left her. She was always pulling whoever wasn't playing the Wii into the other room to play with her. She kept pretending to shake a little packet of pop rocks into a pan. The packet made noise when she shook it, so it was almost like baking. She also loves to make the stove make bubbling noises. She acts surprised every time she pushes the button.
Ally also found that she could get into the kids new toys while they were distracted by the Wii. Here she is listening to Jacob's new Transformers radio. It cracks me up that she even knows to put the ear buds in. She is very observant!
The very first time the kids and Travis bowled, Bryson smoked everyone, even with his unconventional just run up and swing your arm bowling style. It just killed grandpa to watch him swing crazy and keep getting strikes and spares! How do you like the Mii Bryson created. Looks just like him don't you think? ;-)
Here is Jacob when he got his first win in bowling. He also bowls pretty crazy with a hop throw and does well every time. His Mii is also a spitting image of himself, right?!

The first time they golfed, Maddy won. She even beat her grandpa who is a pretty good golfer in the real world. Her Mii actually does look like the real Maddy.

Travis's mom, Maddy, myself and Travis bowled Christmas night. His mom and I didn't have our own Miis so we used the boys. She got the high score and no one could top her score for a long time. Maddy did excellent as well. I came in third with the highest score I've ever gotten. I guess it was beginners luck. In any case, I Wii bowl better than I really bowl. Pretty fun!

Grandpa won a game too. He got an excellent score as well, but not the highest. ;-)

Travis couldn't stand not to be able to bowl well consistently. He finally figured out how to make his ball spin and to do what he wanted and broke his mom's record of 199. Only Bryson was here to take his picture for him. Pretty good shot Bryson!

I had to laugh when I saw Travis playing tennis with Ally's "help". She does love her daddy and wanted to be right there with him. The really sad thing is that he can play tennis sitting down with Ally on his lap better than I can all by myself with no distractions.

Thanks for the Wii Santa. I'm sure we'll have a lot of fun times using it!

Grandparent Christmas

2009-01-04T19:32:00.005-07:00

Travis's parents were able to spend Christmas with us this year. We really enjoyed having them and wished they could have stayed longer. I didn't get too many pictures of his mom. She spent a lot of time playing kitchen with Ally or games like Kerplunk with the kids. She also held the top score on Wii bowling until just recently when Travis finally perfected his bowling.

Here are the boys being tickled by grandpa. It's funny how they just keep coming back for more!
Ally and Maddy couldn't be left out of the fun either!

One evening Ally was getting sleepy and wanted Grandpa. He put her right to sleep. Must be the Grandpa touch.

Here are all the kids with Grandma and Grandpa before they left.
Thanks for making Christmas that much more special! Feel free to come and visit any time!

Our fun Christmas!

2009-01-01T21:02:00.005-07:00

Merry Christmas a little late. I've been a little lazy about downloading the pictures and it seems that one of the kids is always logged onto webkinz now that that Bryson and Jacob got webkinz for Christmas and can join Maddy online. Of course Maddy being the expert has volunteered to "help" them spend their webkinz money and earn more playing games.

Here is the first installment of our Christmas pictures. Bryson is being silly as always with some of his candy canes before we opened presents.

All of the kids made quite a haul as usual. Here is what Ally got. I put in 2 pictures because she covered up some when she was in the picture, but she looked too cute not to show too. I wasn't going to push my luck and try to have her sit down in front of her presents.

Ally wouldn't let go of Bryson's koala webkinz, so rather than have her in tears for her picture, I just let her hold it even though it was not one of her presents. She thought ALL the new stuff was GREAT!

Bryson had to make a scary Hulk face for the picture. Isn't he terrifying?!

Poor Jacob was fighting a cold over Christmas and looking back at the pictures I see how sick he really was. He's such a trooper and rarely complains. He has sooooooo much energy, that he doesn't even slow down much when he's sick. He also lost his 3rd front tooth on Christmas Eve and thought it was pretty cool that he could suck on a candy cane without even opening his teeth. The last front tooth looks crooked and should be falling out any day now. Then he really won't need to open his mouth to eat them!

Maddy quickly changed into her new PJs and slippers, so she's all set in her new stuff. Of course she never put her new clothes on that day. Oh well, we weren't going anywhere.

The big hit was that Santa left our family a Wii and a few games in the other room. The kids found them after all the other presents were opened. They each unwrapped a game. You could see the light come on as they were first confused as to why Santa left a Wii game and then realizing that the present dad was opening was a Wii.

Bryson looked disappointed because he thought the game he opened was just his and wasn't sure if that was the game he wanted.

We explained that they were all for our whole family and let him trade w/ the one that Ally opened. Now he's happy!

They have had A LOT of fun with the Wii and their other Christmas presents! Thanks everyone!

Olive the other reindeer

2008-12-18T19:33:00.003-07:00

The other day Bryson asked, "Is Rudolph's dad's name Olive?" I said, "No, what made you think that?" He said, "Because Olive the other reindeer is in the song." I couldn't help but laugh out loud. He definitely brightens up our days. What a cutie!

All I want for Christmas is my 2 front teeth

2008-12-18T19:20:00.005-07:00

I wish I could say that ALL Jacob wanted for Christmas was his 2 front teeth, but he is pretty excited to have lost his 2nd tooth.!

He lost the bottom left of his front teeth and now the top left. It's left a pretty good size gap. His other front teeth are loose too. I'm sure they'd already be out if wasn't too "busy" to wiggle them. If you look close in the picture, his gums have a pointy part where his tooth used to be. After examining his tooth and seeing the huge hole inside it, I realized that his gums had pushed down inside the tooth since it was probably ready to be out a long time ago. I'll have to make sure he wiggles his other teeth to get them out soon too.

Here he's stuck in the corner after having slid down the back side of 3 bean bags. You can see the hole on top and bottom good in this picture. Plus, this is just typical Jacob being crazy. We heard him saying, "Can someone help me?", but couldn't see him until we went right up to the bean bags. He's always up to something!

It's finally done!!!

2008-12-14T14:59:00.009-07:00

Some of you know that we started a remodel of our master bathroom in mid Sept. It was supposed to be fairly quick, but as any of you who have done any construction or remodeling may know, it's never that easy. The vanity took several weeks to come in, and so did the glass for the shower and when that came in, one piece was cut wrong and needed to be reordered. Well, we finally got everything finished just before Thanksgiving. Thank goodness we didn't have company coming for Thanksgiving, because we still had to use the shower in the kid's bathroom until Fri. to let all the silicone set. Six people sharing a shower is plenty! Luckily the kids bathe at night, so there wasn't too much overlap, but it was a pain none the less.

Here are some pictures of our bathroom "before" the remodel. This is what it looked like when you walked in. The door swung into the bathroom. We had vinyl flooring.

Here was our bathtub/shower. It was all just plastic stuff.
The door to the left was a linen closet.
Here's a look inside the closet. The hole in the wall is because we had to check that there was no vents or pipes in the space between the closet wall and the bedroom wall.
Now for the "After" shots.

Here is the bathroom from the doorway. We haven't hung any towel rods or done any decorating yet. The door now swings into the bedroom. The floor is now tile.
Here is our new air tub. It is WONDERFUL!!!! If you click on the picture to enlarge it, you can see the tiny holes that shoot out warm air. It feels better than a hot tub and is cleaner than a typical jetted tub because it doesn't run water through the tubes. About 15 mins. after it runs or senses humidity, it blows air out of the holes for another min. to make sure no mildew grows in there.
Here is a shot of our new walk in shower. Yay, no more climbing in and out of the tub!
Here is another shot of our new vanity to show that the medicine cabinet has been removed. The new vanity is 2.5 feet longer than our old one, and we have an extra bank of drawers.
"Where did we put all that stuff that was in the linen closet?" you may ask .... Well, Travis built some shelves in our walk-in closet behind the door. There was a bout 2 feet of space between where the door was and the wall. Now I have even more space than before!

Major catch up

2008-12-12T09:30:00.009-07:00

It's been forever since I last posted and so much has happened. I guess I need to be more diligent about downloading the pictures from the camera so that I'll post more often even when it's busy. I keep thinking, oh I don't have enough time right now, and then I never do it. Here's a quick run down of all that's been going on at our house for the last few weeks.

Jacob got to show off his awesome jump roping skills at a school assembly. It was also Pajama day, so he wore his pajamas to school and put on his jump rope shirt for the assembly.

Here is Bryson watching the assembly with his Dad. I just thought it was a cute picture.

The soccer season came to an end. Here are the boys after soccerfest with their trophies. Someone on Bryson's team brought green hair paint for the player's hair and he's got a bit of his cupcake on him. I guess you can tell they had a good time!

I helped throw a goodbye / baby shower for a neighbor from our ward who just moved. After having 4 boys she was finally having a girl and we were all too excited for her to let her move without a shower. In their family we lost Jacob's best friend, Bryson's good friend, Maddy's ballroom dance partner and a great friend for me to trade babysitting with. Here is a picture of the cake I made for her shower. I never do as good as my mom, but for my level of talent, I think it turned out really good. Thanks for all the pointers mom!

We also had a ward Christmas party last Fri. Santa even made it to our party. How lucky are we?! Ally likes to look at Santa and say "Santa, Santa", but when Travis tried to put her on his lap she freaked out - hence the red eyes and sad face in the picture. I think for this year we'll just appreciate Santa at a distance.

This past Wed. Maddy had a Christmas concert at school. She LOVES to sing and to perform. They all did a great job.

Well, I think that about catches you all up on our goings on. We also finally completed our master bathroom remodel, but I'll do that on a separate post so I can show before and after pictures. The time I allotted myself to blog is up, so I'll have to post the remodel later.

Merry Christmas!

You should always be prepared!

2008-11-17T13:09:00.003-07:00

I found out on Sunday that you should ALWAYS be prepared, and it doesn't hurt to follow the promptings of the spirit either. ;-)

I'm the Education counselor in Relief Society, which means that I'm over the teachers and music. I know I should ALWAYS read the lessons ahead of time and really try to remember. I skimmed over it on Sat. night, but nothing in depth. During sacrament the teacher for that day was released and called to Primary. I got nervous and asked her after sacrament if she was still teaching. She looked at me wide-eyed and surprised and said, "No, I was released." Apparently, the bishopric member who released her told her not to worry about teaching yesterday. That would have been fine if he had told me or the RS president so that we could have gotten a substitute!!! Great! Guess who gets to cover things like that? Yep, it's me!!! So, off to my car during Sunday School for a quick lesson preparation before RS. Fortunately it was a lesson from the Joseph Smith manual where there are study/teaching questions at the end of each lesson.

The lesson went fine and everyone was sooo good to participate. I am soooooo glad that it is over! Now I know that if I have any question about the lesson, I'm going to call the teacher and double check things. Also, if the spirit is nagging at me to read the lesson, I ought to read it more thoroughly and definitely call the teacher!

It's also my turn to teach Dec. 7, so unfortunately for the sisters, they get me again in just a couple of weeks. Oh well. Hopefully it will be another 3 months before I have to teach again!

I knew we had too much Halloween candy!

2008-11-13T19:41:00.005-07:00

I knew all that Halloween candy would rot the kids' teeth. ;-)

Tonight Jacob finally lost his first tooth. My kids got their teeth late, they grew in extremely slowly, and they lose them late. It's hard being the only one of your friends who hasn't lost a tooth yet. His tooth has been pretty loose for a while. (In fact all of his front teeth are loose. I feel a certain Christmas song being sung a lot in our future.) Travis worked on his tooth last night, but it just wouldn't quite come out. Tonight Travis pulled and almost got it. He told Jacob to work on it just a little more and Jacob pulled it right out. He was sooooo excited. He wants to show his tooth to his best friend Kyle tomorrow, so we're waiting to put it under his pillow. I love how you can see the excitement in his eyes.

Way to go Jacob!

Which Twilight Female Are You?

2008-11-08T20:28:00.002-07:00

Take the Quiz and Share Your Results!

I took the short little quiz and found out I'm most like Esme. I really like Esme and I guess since she's the mom, that's pretty much me.

Who are you most like?

Maddy's Special Day

2008-11-05T11:49:00.004-07:00

Last month Maddy got to have her "Special Day" with Daddy. He took her to High School Musical on Ice. Maddy loves all things theatrical. When she watched HS Musical 1, I asked her, "Do you think high school is really like this?" (referring to all the singing). She chuckled and said, "No, but I WISH it was!!!" She was amazed at how they changed the scenery so smoothly and how they shined pictures and colors on the ice to go w/the scenes. She loved every minute of it.

Here she is very excitedly anticipating the show!

Travis has let the kids pick a souvenir from their special day. What to choose, what to choose? She decided on the stuffed megaphone and has been very happy with her choice.

She also got a HS Musical hat w/ cotton candy in it. It didn't quite fit over her buns.

It fit Travis better. ;-)
Here are a couple of shots from the show.

They said that Troy looked exactly like the real "Troy". The other characters were pretty close.
Ryan and Sharpay

The first half was HS Musical 1 and the second half was HS Musical 2.

With getting to see HS Musical on Ice 1 and 2 and then getting to go to a birthday party to watch HS Musical 3, she's had a very "Musical" month.

The BIG Night!

2008-11-03T21:46:00.005-07:00

I always try to make sure that kids actually eat their dinner before they start shoveling in the candy. This year I tried "worms on buns".

They were a hit, especially with Ally!
It was hard to get anyone to hold still and look at the camera to get their picture. This was the best I could get before they all left.
Ally went to a couple of houses with the kids, but mostly just hung around with me passing out the candy - or should I say sampling the candy.
She also enjoyed playing peek-a-boo with me from behind the wall.

Here is our crew after their buckets became too HEAVY to carry. Apparently Bryson even talked Payton and Maddy into carrying his bucket towards the end. Travis's rule is that he won't carry your bucket, if it gets too heavy, it's time to go home.

Halloween was bitter-sweet for Maddy. Payton, her best friend since preschool, was moving the next morning. Payton got to come Trick-or-Treating with us, so at least they got to spend every last minute that they could together. We'll miss you Payton. Fortunately she's moving close to my sister, so we'll be able to visit her in the summer.

Halloween was exceptionally warm this year and Jacob and Ally had hoods on their sweatshirts and Bryson had that HUGE head on his costume. When I went to pick him up from preschool, he was just in his regular clothes and said he had gotten too hot to keep his costume on. This was how sweaty he got walking around outside on Halloween night. It looked like he had just gotten out of the tub. Poor guy.

Well, all the kids made a haul. Lucky for me, our dentist will give the kids a dollar for every pound of candy that they bring in to him on Friday afternoon. He mails the candy he collects to the troops abroad. My kids will even part w/ candy for money and are actually looking forward to turning in part of their loot. Me too! None of my kids have a huge sweet tooth like me, so I usually end up throwing away at least half of their candy anyway. At least this way it's not around tempting me!

Pre-sugar overload

2008-11-03T21:34:00.003-07:00

All the kids had school Halloween parties. Bryson had his on Thursday. Here is a picture of some of the treats they were going to be having. They also had pizza, so hopefully he didn't only eat sugar.

Here are Maddy and Jacob on Halloween before school. I think they look pretty great, or should I say spooky! I let Maddy pick the color to spray her hair. It turned out pretty good.
Here is Maddy and her teacher. Her teacher is a "Charlie horse". Pretty clever!

The kids were also celebrating red ribbon week. There was a parade of classes and banners as they went to an assembly. Maddy's table got to carry the banner for her class.

Here is Jacob joining the parade.

They all had a fun parties and got a big jump start on the sugar overload on Halloween night!

Trunk-or-Treat

2008-11-03T21:25:00.003-07:00

Our ward had a Trunk-or-Treat last Wed. The kids were so excited to start the Halloween festivities! Here is the Tasmanian Devil (aka Bryson), Maddy the wicked witch, Jacob the bat and Maddy's black Ally cat.

I had to change Ally's diaper during the party and when she saw herself in the mirror she couldn't stop laughing! Fortunately she laughed at Maddy too and wasn't scared of her green face.
Here is Maddy's friend, "the color green" w/ Ally cat and the witch.

The boys enjoyed the face painting and the cake walk. Maddy was kind enough to do the cake walk a 2nd time so that I could have a cupcake too. Maybe she's not so wicked after all. ;-)

The kids had a great time and were even more excited to go Trick-or-Treating in just a couple of days!

Decorating pumpkins

2008-10-29T12:12:00.004-07:00

We postponed our annual pumpkin decorating Family Home Evening until Tues. after Bryson had gone to the pumpkin patch. Ally isn't quite ready for real paint, but here she is enjoying some paint w/ water courtesy of Grandma M. I've noticed lately that when she's concentrating, her tongue starts to poke out. Jacob does the same thing. I love it!

Here are Jacob and Bryson starting to paint their pumpkins after picking some crazy and fun poke-in faces.
Here is Bryson's masterpiece.
Jacob was pretty proud of his creation as well. Can you see why he wanted a long stem?

Here is Maddy painting her creative pumpkin. She was pretty pleased with what she came up with. She used an ear for hair and decided to create an Elvis pumpkin. She is pretty darn creative.

Here is her finished product. She's trying to do the Elvis "Thank you very much" pose here.

Here are all of our pumpkins. Pretty great and creative if you ask me!

We usually carve one as well, but we just didn't end up doing it last night. It's been about 10 degrees warmer than usual and it was already hard enough to keep a pumpkin from shriveling up and molding in just a few days that it's probably just as well that we didn't carve it. It doesn't help that our front porch faces West and we get the hot afternoon sun on the pumpkins. The painted pumpkins fair a lot better and the great part is, the kids can decorate them all by themselves, mostly. We do have 2 jack-o-lanterns that you just plug in. They work great for warmer climates. :-)

Pumpkin Patch

2008-10-29T11:43:00.004-07:00

Yesterday, Byrson's preschool took a field trip to a pumpkin patch. Here is a taste of the fun.

These are a couple of Bryson's friends from church and school. They enjoyed the horse and wagon ride. It was definitely Ally's favorite part. She kept saying "horsie" and "neigh" and loved all the bumps along the way. The bouncier it was, the more giggles and smiles I got from her.

Here is Bryson after he found the perfect pumpkin. Maddy had requested that I bring her home a white pumpkin and Jacob had a requested a green pumpkin w/a long stem. On the way to the pumpkin patch, Bryson asked if there were any red pumpkins. I told him no. Then when we were riding the wagon past several fields, I noticed that there were some red/orange pumpkins. He was thrilled w/ his almost red pumpkin, can't you tell! Leave it to my kids to want anything but the ordinary pumpkins.

When you see Bryson's pumpkin right next to the regular orange pumpkins, you can really tell how much darker it is.

Ally wasn't so sure about being put down in the pumpkin patch. She didn't mind the paths too much. Bryson is pretty sweet w/her. That is when he's not smothering her too much.
Here we all are waiting for the horse and wagon to pick us up.
Unfortunately, when we got back to where we started, Bryson dropped his pumpkin and cracked it open. Fortunately, they let us run over to the closest field and pick another one. The one we ended up w/ was the same type of pumpkin - just a little bigger and didn't have a stem. It was too heavy for him to carry by himself, so my friend had to help us out. We were in a hurry and couldn't find another almost red one that he could carry. Carrying Ally and the other 2 pumpkins was all I could do. Finding a green pumpkin w/ a stem ended up being a little more challenging that I thought and I ended up w/a bigger pumpkin than I normally would have gotten. It was pretty heavy and I couldn't even zip up the backpack that I brought all the way w/ both pumpkins inside. It was all worth it though to see how happy they all were with their perfect pumpkins. "Just like they imagined" they said!

We love Grandma!

2008-10-22T11:40:00.003-07:00

I am really good at taking pictures of the kids, but not so good at getting the adults we love too. I made sure to get a picture of each kid with Grandma while we were there.

Bryson can never make a straight face when he knows that his picture is being taken. I sill think it's pretty cute because it captures his personality right now.

Thanks for letting us come and visit mom! We had a great time!

Scarry cookies

2008-10-22T11:33:00.003-07:00

While I was gone for the day, my sister's and my kids baked and decorated sugar cookies. (With a little help from Dalynn and Grandma. ;-) It kept them all busy for hours. Here are the fruits of their labors. They were extremely proud of the results!

Bryson's cookies

Jacob's cookies
Maddy's cookies
Now they'll probably expect more out me when we do our Christmas cookies. I'll have to get out the piping bags this year. ;-)

Snow Wonder

2008-10-22T11:25:00.002-07:00

Travis's mom had a "girls weekend" while I happened to be up visiting my mom. So I got to join Travis' mom, his 2 sisters and other sister-in-law for Sat. until Sun. morning. It was a lot of fun and a nice little break.

It snowed a little while I was gone. My sister just sent me these pictures. Apparently Ally enjoys the snow in small doses. She loved watching it fall, but as you saw in the previous snow post, she didn't love it on the ground.

What a little cutie!

Climbin', slidin', rollin', ....

2008-10-21T20:50:00.005-07:00

One afternoon we went to a park near my mom's house. It was such a beautiful day and the kids had a great time!

My kids love to climb, especially Jacob! They had fun climbing all around this. I love the blue sky and mountains in the background!
Bryson was being silly hanging off the climbing tower. He's always making some sort of face for the camera. What a ham.
It was a pretty steep climbing wall. It made Bryson a little nervous, but he made it.
Ally liked exploring closer to the ground.

The slide was a little faster than she expected.
She preferred to climb around on the bottom and watch the boys race. It was neck and neck. They tied whenever one of them wasn't cheating.

There were some hills by the park. It looked kind of like a big drainage basin. The kids had a great time rolling down the hills.
Ally wasn't sure why they were rolling and somersaulting down the hills.
Quite frankly, this doesn't look like much fun to me either, but they loved it.
Here is Bryson checking to see if I got the picture of him somersaulting. I missed him, but got Maddy. I'm sure she'll be thrilled w/ this picture some day! ;-)
It hard to believe this was just a couple days after the snow!

A taste of Winter

2008-10-21T20:25:00.004-07:00

The kids and I went to visit my mom over their fall break from school. Surprisingly, we got a snow storm while we were there. The calendar said October, but it sure felt like winter. I don't think the trees were ready for the snow either!

The older kids thought is was WONDERFUL and couldn't get enough.

Jacob started to make a little snowman, but lost interest and wanted to just run around and throw it.
Do you like Bryson's Dora boots that were left at Grandma's from one of his girl cousins. At least his feet stayed dry, which is more than I can say for Maddy's and Jacob's.

Ally wasn't really sure what to think of the snow. She LOVES to be outside, and didn't want to come in. In fact when I tried to bring her in several times she said, "NO!" and shoved the door closed. Even though she wanted to stay outside, she didn't want to venture onto the snow either.
Here she is crying because I put her on the snow to show her it would be OK. Apparently she didn't agree.
Here is Maddy's little snowman, Bobby Bill. (The opposite of Billy Bob.) She got pretty creative and used dead flowers for his eyes. They look great here, but .....
He started to look pretty sad as the weather warmed back up to where it should be this time of year.
What a fun taste of winter for us!

Fun hair and first day

2008-09-21T20:54:00.009-07:00

Like I mentioned in a previous post, my sister-in-law told me about a fun blog for hair. I have since found a couple of others that I like and have been having a lot of fun fixing Maddy's hair. I love that the hairstyles look fancy, but the ones that I've done are really easy and not too time consuming. We fix it for church every Sunday and when we have time before school. I have found that if I fix her hair while she's practicing the piano in the morning, we kill 2 birds w/ 1 stone and usually have time to get something done.

Here Maddy is before church last Sunday.

This was for school 1 day. The best part about this one is that if she sleeps in the braids, it makes a really cute wavy hairdo the next day.

I did matching hair-dos for Maddy and Ally one day.
I've been hesitant to do much with Ally's hair since she is ALWAYS playing with it. I definitely can not put bows or barrettes of any kind in. She did good with this hair-do though. As long as she can reach some to twirl, she's OK. The right pony did end up more sideways than the left after a little while, but it stayed in good all day.
Like I said, she is ALWAYS playing with her hair.
Here is Maddy for church today.

Everyone has been OOOOing and Ahhing over Maddy's hair at church. A couple of people wanted me to send them the links to the blogs that I've been looking at, so here they are.
http://piggiesnponies.blogspot.com/
http://cute2tryhairdos.blogspot.com/
http://babesinhairland.blogspot.com/

I fixed Ally's hair in cute pony's today too. I did them from the bottom up, but didn't like the pony tails so far front, so at church I fixed them to the middle ponys. She was not cooperative this morning, so I don't have any cute pictures of it. The first picture is before we left. Notice that the right pony is already getting pulled lower than the other one.Here she is after church and a really short nap.

Today was an EXCITING day for Travis and I at church. It was Ally's first day in nursery! YAY! I can actually go to Sunday School now and Travis can go to Elder's quorum! I was a little nervous because she had a rough morning and cried most of it. She did GREAT though! Travis took her in and she couldn't have cared less where he was, so he just left. Other parents were amazed and jealous that dropping her off was so easy. When I went to get her, she didn't even care. She was dancing around the room as a mom in there was singing. I am sooooo happy that she's so happy to be there. It's better for all of us! Thanks nursery leaders!

I really want to ... but I'm scared!

2008-09-16T21:20:00.003-07:00

Maddy has wanted to get her ears pierced for as long as I can remember. She went with her best friend a couple of years ago for moral support when her friend got her ears pierced. She thought her friend was silly for freaking out after the first ear was done. Maddy was sooooo excited to get the earrings for her birthday, but when I said, we've got an hour free right now, do you want to run over and get your ears pierced before dad has to leave? She kind of freaked out. She really wanted to get them done, but she was scared at the same time. She really wanted some numbing stuff put on her ears first and wanted to have them both done at the same time. She kind of cried off and on all the way there. When we got there, we found out that they did not have numbing stuff and there was only one person there today who pierced ears, so she couldn't have them done at the same time. She cried again. Travis needed to leave soon, so I couldn't just stay at the store all day. She had to make up her mind. She finally gathered up the courage to sit in the chair.

Here she is in the preparation stages. Her eyes are red rimmed from all the worrying.

Squeezing my hand for courage.
Terrified of the pain that was sure to come.
Extremely relieved that it really didn't hurt that bad at all. "Just a little more than a shot", she said.
An up close look at her Sapphire birthstone earrings.
When she was writing thank you notes to her friends, she wrote us one thanking us sooooooo much for the earrings and for letting her pierce her ears saying, "I love my earrings and my ears!!!" She's so happy to have them pierced and I'm glad that she didn't drag it out forever worrying about it only to find out that the worrying was the worst part.

Monkey'n Around

2008-09-13T15:29:00.014-07:00

Maddy decided to have a monkey birthday party this year. We played a couple of monkey games. The hit was "monkey magic". Otherwise known as black magic or anything else magic - The game where 2 people know the secret, the one who is "it" leaves the room and the rest choose a secret object. When the person comes back, the other person who knows the secret points to things around the room saying, "Is it this?". Right before you point to the secret thing, you point to the secret code thing - in our case, a monkey. It took a while before other kids started catching on. We also made little surf board hula monkeys courtesy of Oriental Trading.

Instead of a cake, Maddy chose to decorate monkey cupcakes at the party. Here's what hers turned out like.

The girls also got to make banana splits.

The girls were really looking forward to the desserts. They all only ate one piece of pizza to make sure they had room.

Here is Maddy getting ready to enjoy her monkey cupcake and banana split.

Here is the rest of the bunch enjoying dessert.

One of Maddy's friends got her this cute Littlest Petshop monkey to go along with the rest of her monkey collection. Even though it's "Littlest Petshop", I would definitely not describe it as little! Pretty cute though!

We even had a monkey pinata. We didn't have a good place to hang it, so we just let the girls wack at it on the floor. They managed to break a hole in it, which Travis tore open and then shook candy all over the girls.
What party would be complete w/o some dancing?! The girls had fun playing freeze dance until it was time to go. They danced to "Another Postcard" with chimpanzees .... by the Bare Naked Ladies. It went along nicely with the monkey theme.

Ally thought the girls were being too crazy for a while, but even she couldn't resist the music for too long. You can see the top of her head as she joined in the dancing fun. The other girls thought she was so cute. Little do they know that almost every time I have a meeting, Travis and the kids have a "dance party", so she's had lots of practice already. We have some hillarious video to post of that later.

Maddy had a really fun party and got lots of great presents. She got some more jewelry, a Barbie that you fix her hair, a horse Webkinz (she also really loves horses), etc. I think they all had a great time. Now we're partied out at our house until 2009.

Maddy's birthday - part 1

2008-09-13T15:00:00.006-07:00

I can't believe that Maddy is 10 already! Where does the time go?!

Here Maddy is before she left for school on her birthday.

My sister-in-law told me about a blog with tons of really neat hair-dos for girls. It's http://piggiesnponies.blogspot.com/ . Here is a picture of the back of her hair so you can get the full effect. I also tried another really fun one a couple of days later for picture day, but neglected to take a picture w/ my own camera.
Maddy chose to go to Mimi's Cafe for dinner. She loves that she can order breakfast and especially that you can get fresh fruit (her favorite thing) as a side. Here she is enjoying her worms and dirt after dinner. Yummy! They come standard w/ the kids meals, but Maddy ended up with 2 since the waitress forgot to put a candle in the first one. She was excited to get one to take home too!

After dinner we came home to open presents.

Thanks Grandma W. for the Alice doll and cute shirt! Maddy was surprised that it could play music and was thrilled it was Fur Elise since she can play that on the piano. She didn't notice for a long time that her head moved when the music played. She thought that was pretty neat. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa M. for the shirts and money. She can't decide what to spend it on yet!
Jacob got her a monkey webkinz, Bryson got her a fish webkinz, and Ally got her some new headphones since her other ones got stepped on. Travis and I really surprised her with our gift. I wrapped up some earrings and then put them in a really big gift bag. She was surprised to find a little wrapped box inside and even more surprised to find out it was earrings since we had originally decided she had to be 12 to get her ears pierced. Ear piercing was part of the gift. She was pretty excited!
Maddy chose peach pie for dessert on her birthday, but we were all so full from dinner, that we ended up doing the pie the next day.
Maddy had a really fun birthday. Next came the party ... stay tuned.

Just kick'n it

2008-09-06T20:54:00.002-07:00

Well, soccer season has officially started at our house. This is Bryson's first year and he was pretty excited. Bryson's team needed a coach, so Travis became the coach of the red team. They try to keep it simple for the youngest group and stick w/ color names. Bryson is so little that they just have practice for 30 mins. and a 30 min. game every Sat. , no weekday practice. Today was Bryson's first practice as well as his first game, so he couldn't wait to get started this morning bright and early at 8 am. All of his games are at 8 am, so there won't be any sleeping in at our house for a while.

Jacob has had practice twice a week for 2 weeks, but today was his first game. He had a great time and loves that his best friend and another boy from our ward are on his team, the Cobras. Most of his games are at 9 am, so we don't have to leave quite as early as Bryson. Plus his games are only 3 mins. away vs. the 15 min. that Travis and Bryson have to go.
It's crazy having 2 boys in sports. Travis can catch the last 1/2 or quarter of Jacob's games and go to 2 entire games. I'll be able to go to 3 of Bryson's games. At least we only have to juggle 2 schedules. We had to take Jacob's best friend to and from the game today because his family has 3 boys in soccer and all the games overlapped today. Crazy! At least the boys are having a great time!

Shop 'til you drop!

2008-08-27T13:21:00.004-07:00

I'll have to admit that although Wal Mart isn't my favorite place in the world, I love being able to get just about everything that I need in one store rather than getting in and out of the car a bunch of times to go to several stores. Getting kids in and out of car seats really adds to the hassle. One bonus on my weekly trip to Wal Mart yesterday was that Ally got a morning nap along the way. Since I didn't have to jostle her in and out of her car seat, she just put her head down on the seat cover (thank goodness for those!) and fell asleep. Everyone couldn't get over how cute she was. Talk about "shop 'til you drop"!

Here she is waking up a little confused as we are about to leave the store. She probably got a 20 min. nap and was very happy the rest of the morning! Lucky me!
I sure wish that I could just crash whenever I got tired. The problem is, my house would be really TRASHED when I woke up! ;D

School daze...

2008-08-18T11:46:00.007-07:00

I never had a chance to post the kids' first days of school, so here it is a little late.

Here is Jacob sporting his new Kung-Fu Panda shirt. Lookin' good!

Jacob was soooo excited that his best friend was in his class again this year! They got to choose their seats, so they even get to start out the year sitting by one another.

Here is Maddy in her new "first day" outfit.

Here is Maddy at her new desk. Her teacher had gone to Cambodia over the summer and brought them back a little doll and some money. Maddy's was worth 12 cents.

I drove them to school on the first day, so here they are riding the bus for the first time this year on the 2nd day of school.

Bryson started Preschool on the older kids' 2nd day of school. Here he is in his new Ninja Turtles shirt. He was pretty excited to start school too!
Here Bryson is moving his name card from the OUT side to the IN side. This is for name recognition as well as a form of attendance.
They start school with free time. He jumped right in and had a great first day!

Happy 7th Birthday Jacob!

2008-08-18T10:58:00.008-07:00

I stole this picture from my sister-in-law who is much more talented than I am when it comes to editing pictures. In fact, we don't even have photoshop! This came from our family blog. Thanks for the fun picture Brooke!

Jacob is really in to Pokemon these days. He wanted a Pokemon cake. I've found that if you can find things to put on the cakes, it's A LOT easier than making the picture out of frosting. I'm not quite as talented as my mom, but the kids are still happy with their cakes. For those of you who are not Pokemon experts (I wish that I didn't know as much as I do ;-) , the cake is decorated like a poke-ball which is what the Pokemon characters are kept in until they are used in a battle. Then there are 3 Pokemon on top.
This is Jacob opening his present from us. At the last minute I decided to put some Pokemon cards in. This is his reaction to the Pokemon cards. Here is his less excited reaction to the note that says he gets to choose a new bike. Maddy asked Jacob if could only have Pokemon cards or a bike, which would he choose. He couldn't decide! I guess we could have saved ourselves lots of money and just got him the $4 Pokemon cards. ;-)
Here are the kids playing with some of Jacob's new toys.
We do a friends party on the kids' even birthdays. On their odd birthdays we do a special day with the family. This year for Jacob's special day, he chose to go to a bowling alley w/ an arcade. I guess this is the bowling alley's mascot, but I really don't know who he is. They kids were still excited!
Here are couple of fun shots of the kids bowling.
Way to go Jacob!

Here is Maddy celebrating a good frame!
Bryson had a hard time carrying the ball, but he did OK. It was kind of like watching bowling in slow motion, but the ball always made it to the pins.
YAY! Way to hit the pins! Ally was a pretty good sport and stayed in the stroller watching the kids most of the time. At least she got to eat pizza and have some fruit snacks. Travis entertained the kids with a fancy bowling move for his last frame. What form!
Travis used his nick names for us on the score board. As you can see, Ace (Travis) won. Missy Lou (Maddy) came in 2nd. Crazy Jake (Jacob) came in right behind Maddy taking 3rd. B-Rice (Bryson) came in 4th and Hot Mama (Dena) pulled up the rear. It has been a really long time since I bowled, I joked that I should have bumpers too! At least I can make everyone else feel good about their scores!
Here the kids are playing ski-ball. They had a good time at the arcade and choosing prizes with the tickets they earned.
After bowling, Travis took Jacob to pick out a bike
Look'n cool in his new sunglasses!
Happy 7th Birthday Jacob! We hope that you had a great time!