Fun times at Burger King!

My sister, Lisa, and I went to Burger King with our 2 little kids for lunch today. We were having a nice lunch. I was showing Lisa my scentsy candles so that she could decide which one she wanted to give her friend for Christmas. Needless to say, I wasn't paying enough attention to my little Kyson (age 3). I looked up at him and he had his Ketchup container smashed to the side of his face. It was one of those little cups that if you pull all around the sides they come out to form a flat circle...just perfect to stick to the side of his face! I started laughing and then really laughed hard when I pulled it off and it looked like he had been in a terrible car accident or something. I think the people in Burger King got a kick out of it. His older brother, Jake, didn't like it very much and kept telling me to wipe it off. It took several napkins to get it all off. He's going to need a bath for sure because his whole head smells like Ketchup!

Jadon & Kierra are in their school choir called Harmony. This year the choir was invited to sing Christmas songs for a Toys for Tots concert. That concert ended up getting cancelled and the kids were really bummed about it. Luckily, the director made arrangements for them to perform at other places. This picture was taken at Macey's one crazy Saturday afternoon. They crammed all the kids into a little corner and had them sing 4 Christmas songs. The songs were actually really pretty and it was fun that they got to sing about Jesus. There were a lot of unhappy people there that day because it was hard for shoppers to get in and out of the store with the choir kids in the way but I was in a great mood because of the songs and I always love to watch me kids perform!

What great Friends!

A little over a year ago my dear friend, Amy Bailey, invited me to join a "ROOK CLUB" that she started with her sisters. We get together every month at someone's house and have dinner and play ROOK...well sometimes we actually take the cards out of the box. At Christmas time we go out to dinner together. This year we went to Outback Steakhouse. It was so yummy, especially the cheese fries! We had such a good time together. After dinner we went to Target and Toys R Us to do some Christmas shopping. We had lots of fun. I haven't laughed that hard in a really long time! I have really come to cherish the friendship I have with these ladies and look forward to Club night every month!

Trust your KIDS!

Trust your kids to always tell you how it is. I was having a shower and Jake burst into the bathroom because he had to poop. I didn't want to damage him by letting him watch me have a shower but I didn't have much of a choice since he was already on the toilet taking care of business. So I turned around. I figured the back view wouldn't be as bad as the front. All of a sudden he yelled "YIKES...your bum is looking at me. It's wiggly mom." What a way to start your day!

Tonight Jadon and Kierra had their annual Harmony performance. The Theme was "We Rememeber America". It was awesome! This was the 3rd time I had seen it because I went to the performances at the school. I could watch it over and over. The songs were so neat and they had a slide show of some very neat pictures from American History playing on the wall while they sang. It brought tears to my eyes every time I watched it. There aren't many things neater than when you take songs about our great country and have your children sing them!

Kierra the Party Girl!

My daughter, Kierra (8), is turning into quite the little party girl! She is currently been off track and has kept herself busy. She and her cousin, Kamry, have decided to start their own school. They have signed up about 8 kids in the neighborhood to come to their school. They are going to teach Math, Science, Art and Gymnastics. I'm not sure how she is going to teach gymnastics since she's never taken gymnastics. I'm sure she'll figure it out. So she went around the neighborhood and told the kids that if they wanted to come to her school, she had to have their parent's signature. On the form that the parents signed, it said "Kierra's mom will be there and she is nice." Kierra arranged for the kids to come to our house every Thursday. Since Halloween was coming up, her first class was, of coarse, a Halloween Party. I found this out AFTER she had given everyone their invitations. Well she has better luck than me with parties. EVERYONE she invited showed up with their treat to share with all the kids. I had already planned to do some wallpapering in Jaxon's room with my mom that day so I told her that I couldn't help her very much. She told me that she had it all planned and didn't need any help. She did a great job! She had a lot of outside games planned, including a get to know you game. The house actually wasn't that messy, except for all the fun dips that a parent thought would be fun to send for everyone...blue sugar all over the floor! I told Kierra that it's fun to have a party but part of having a party was cleaning up. So she and Kamry sweapt up all the blue sugar. I was very impressed with the little party animal!

Dale and I went to our first Halloween Party since we've been married. Our neighborhood has a Halloween Party every year and we finally decided to get brave and dress up to go to it. Dale wanted to be Batman and I was fine matching him with something to go with Batman. I looked at Batgirl costumes, but since my size or religion wouldn't allow those kind of costumes, I went with Robin. I thought that Dale looked very cool. I felt more like Peter Pan than a super hero but oh well. Dale's costume was made out of rubber so it was kind of difficult to put on. It kept sticking to itself. Once he got it all on I bet you can't guess what he said....I'm HOT! We were at the party for about 20 minutes and he was dripping with sweat. He finally took off the mask to eat dinner. After about and hour, we went home just to put our little kids to bed. Dale decided he couldn't stand it another minute in this costume. He took off all the rubber and every single piece, including the book covers, were wet with sweat. When we went back to the party he still wore the cape with black clothes under it. We decided he was Jammy Batman. He says the good thing about wearing that costume was he lost 5 pounds. We really had fun at the party. Next year I think we'll pick something more comfortable!

Jake's thoughts about the zoo

When we went to the zoo Jake asked me why there were so many frozen animals at the zoo. (refering to the fake animals all around the zoo)

Taeya (Kyson's mom) is 3!

Today was Taeya's birthday. She is 6 weeks older than Kyson and they are great friends! They play so well together and it is very fun to spy on them. They have recently started calling each other mom and dad. If you ask Taeya where Kyson is she says "He's not Kyson, he's my dad!" The other day Taeya told her mom that she was going to marry her dad. Kris said you mean Daddy? Taeya says "No, my dad!" So Kris says "Oh, you mean Kyson." They really do love each other. We all went to Park City a few weeks ago. Taeya and Kyson were sitting next to each other in their car seats. I looked back and saw that they were just sitting there holding hands. It was so cute. They are always helping each other and are very concerned about each other. It's too bad that they can't really be "mom and dad" someday.

Tonight when I was putting my kids to bed, Jaxon (almost 7) said the funniest thing to me. He asked me if I had any pasta bake in our stroller. I looked at him very confused and asked why I would put pasta bake in the stroller. He said so we could have it when Jesus comes again. By this point I'm even more confused. I asked him if he really meant the stroller. He then said a few more words that sounded like stroller and he said "You know, the place where we keep food for when Jesus comes." Jadon was listening to our conversation and he said "Mom, he means our food storage!"

Mom's cooking!

This is kind of embarassing to actually put out there for anyone to see but if I don't then I'll forget it when I'm old. Ok, I'm making baked potatoes for dinner tonight. I decided I would try to make the best of my time while I wait for my oven to preheat (which takes way too long) and go pick Kierra up from dance while it's preheating. Dale is downstairs working so I leave Jaxon and Jake home playing the computer. I get back with Kierra and as soon as I get out of the van in the garage, I hear our smoke alarm going off inside the house. I know that the reason it's happening is because there is some cheese that spilled in the oven last time we made pizzas. The sad part about this story is that the shrill of the smoke alarm didn't faze anybody in the house!!! They were all just staring at their computers. To top it off, as soon as Kierra gets in the house she automatically opens all the doors and starts fanning out the smoke. They know the drill. Mom's trying to cook again!

My sweet boys!

Now that I have my 3 oldest kids in school full time, I have been able to spend a lot of time with Jake and Kyson. I have really been enjoying them. They are the best of friends. I'm thrilled about this because not too long ago they didn't get along very well together. Now they rarely fight or argue. My house is pretty quiet until about 4:00 in the afternoon. My sister, Lisa, and I took our little ones to the zoo last week. What a perfect day. We got there shortly after they opened and there was only a handful of people there. It pretty much stayed that way all day. The kids had so much fun! This was the first time Jake and Kyson had been to the zoo. They had a great time together. I really am going to enjoy this school year with them!

My Favorite Time of the Year!

Fall is, for sure, my favorite time of the year. The only bad thing about it is that it doesn't last long enough. About a month ago our family went for a drive up Butterfield Canyon to look at the leaves. I knew they would be pretty but I had absolutely no idea how amazing that canyon really is. It is not a heavily populated place so there is only a very narrow road that can barely fit two cars that are passing each other coming up and going down. About half way up the canyon we went around a bend and saw the most beautiful portrait of red, yellow and orange leaves. They were everywhere. We all got out for a few minutes to take some pictures. All the kids were amazed. The ride down was terrifying! I was in the passenger seat of the van. On the way up it was no big deal but on the way down I was on the drop off side of the road. Since our van is pretty high, I really felt like we were going to drive right off the side of the road and roll down the canyon. Other than that, it was a wonderful night. Dale wanted to go back on his motorcycle. A few weeks later, we finally got time to do that. He and I went up one evening. I couldn't believe how many of the leaves had fallen. It was still pretty but not quite the same. Luckily, the ride down wasn't as scary because I had a motorcycle helmet on so I couldn't kind of hide behind the side wall of the helmet. I'm very thankful for the place that we live. I love the season changes, especially summer to fall. It's so interesting to me that one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen is practically in my back yard.

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!

My kids were so excited to give their Dad his new raft for Father's Day. Kyson kept saying to Dale "Where's you Boat" before we gave it to him. Dale didn't have a clue what we were talking about. Jadon was the most excited about the raft. He wants to put a motor on it. We had a great night outside tonight, with the exception of Kyson getting hit in the head with a baseball. It was so sad. Jadon, Jaxon and I were playing catch and Jadon threw it from as far away as he could to me. Kyson was happily playing in the sand and all of a sudden he got thumped on the head. Everyone in the family was trying to comfort Kyson. How sweet. On this Father's Day I am very thankful for the father my children have. As Dale is having a hard time with his Dad and had the opportunity to speak to him tonight, I am so grateful that he really really loves his kids. They mean the world to him.