No more binkie!

Yesterday when Katie woke up she told me she had a hole in her binkie and we needed to throw it in the garbage. Without even thinking about it, I told her to go throw it away. Ever since her surgery we have been talking about how she is a big girl and we needed to throw her binkie away. We just haven't been strong enough to do it. I decided that since SHE threw it away, I would just go with it.

I had her skip her nap so that she would be really tired at night and go to sleep quicker. She didn't cry at all because Kierra was in there with her when she went to bed. Today, for her nap, was another story. When I put her down she started looking for her binkie and I reminded her that she threw it away. She told me to go get it out of the garbage. I told her the garbage man took it away. She started crying and saying she wanted to go see Dr. Snow to get a new binkie. (That's where she got her last binkie) I left her in her bed crying and told her to go to sleep. So sad. She cried for over half an hour. Dale and I took turns going in to talk to her. It was so sad! I am so mad at myself for not taking it away when she was a little baby, like I did with the rest of my kids.
One of the worst things about letting her have a binkie so long is that she really hasn't formed an attachment to her blankie. So we are putting her to bed with nothing to comfort herself with. I just wanted to scoop her up and hold her until she went to sleep. Fortunately, I know that is the worst thing we could do for her. I hope she gets use to this quickly because it breaks my heart to hear her cry like that.

Haircuts

This week Kierra, Katie and I all went to get our hair cut together. This was Katie's first real haircut. I have cut her bangs a few times but this was the first whole hair haircut. She was really good. Kierra got her hair cut into a cute little bob and I just got a trim.

It was fun to spend the time together getting pretty!

Look what I can do

Tonight I spent several hours with my friend, Suzy, learning how to work Photoshop. I got it for Christmas last year but never learned how the program worked. When I got a new computer for Christmas, Dale loaded the program on the computer so I no longer had an excuse not to try it. So this is the before picture of Jake. The one with the owies on the face

This is the after picture. The one with No More Owies. It was so fun to fix up his face. Now we will all look perfect in all our pictures! Yay!

First quilted quilt

After I made this quilt for Jaxon 's new room, I decided that I wanted it to be quilted. In the past, I have asked my mom to quilt things for me because she does such a wonderful job. She can't quilt anymore because it hurts her back so I decided I would attempt doing it myself. I actually really liked it and found it quite addicting. Lisa and my friend, Suzy, came over to help a few times. It took 5 days to get it done. At first, my stitches were pretty big and I couldn't figure out how my mom made such perfect little stitches. After some practice, they got better but never as good as hers.

One of the best things about doing this quilt is that I learned how to make my own binding. One of my mom's friends knows how to make binding for the whole quilt out of one yard of fabric. I decided, instead of asking her to make it for me, to ask her to teach me to make it. So hopefully I will be able to remember how to do it next time I need some binding.

So here's the finished product! The room is next. We haven't decided how to paint and decorate yet but at least the bed is done.

Look how fun the binding turned out. If you look really close you can see the little quilting stitches. It was so fun and I look forward to making another quilt someday.

Another fun stay at the cabin!

We just got back from another fun stay at the cabin. We originally planned on going for 5 days but because of basketball games, we were only able to go for 3. Paul's family and Lisa's family came up on Sunday night and stayed over and spent most of the day on Monday there. The kids had a great time playing with their cousins. We watched movies, played games and had a blast playing in the snow. We made Dale sit at the table with ALL the kids while we watched from the kitchen.

This is my favorite picture from this trip! Jaxon and Katie were just sitting in the snow so I took their picture. What cute faces!


The kids had a great time sledding down the road to the power plant. We got going very fast! We liked to have races and see how many people we could fit on the sled. The heavier the sled, the faster we went. It was awesome! I liked how it looked when everyone was walking back up to the top for another run!

It was fun to have Jenny out sledding with us. She loved running and playing in the snow. We found out how amazingly fast she can run. We would send someone down on their sled, wait about 5 seconds, then send Jenny after them. She beat them to the bottom every time!

Kierra, Katie and Kamry sitting in the cave that someone built. Katie thought it was so cool!

Kyson, Jadon, Kamry and Kierra getting ready to race down the hill. So much fun!

Our poor little Jake had a pretty bad sledding accident. He was riding his sled by himself to the bottom of the road. He got going really fast and didn't realize that he needed to either put his feet down to stop or jump off his sled before he reached the bottom. He crashed, really hard, right into the fence pole! He got a huge goose egg on his forehead, had a bloody nose and got pretty scraped up. This picture was taken the day after it happened and it doesn't really show how bruised up his face is getting. It breaks our hearts to look at his bruised little face. I was so proud of him because the next day he got back on his sled and had fun again!

It's always sad when we have to clean up and go home. Clean up was a breeze this time because everyone was so willing to work together and get everything done. I love seeing my boys doing the dishes and cleaning up the kitchen! We had such a great time together. I am so thankful for the chances we have to go to the cabin. We always make such wondeful memories there!

No More Medicine!

Yesterday, we took Katie to see Dr. Snow for an ultrasound to make sure her surgery worked. All morning we talked about how Dr. Snow will look at her tummy and back and we could watch it on the TV. She was pretty good but cried when they touched her incision. Dr. Snow said everything looks good and told her she didn't need to take the medicine that she has been taking every day for the last two years anymore. No more medicine! Yay! She told everyone she saw today that Dr. Snow said no more medicine!

Respect

A couple of weeks ago I noticed that a lot of the boys in our young mens were wearing pink ties at church. I asked Jadon about it and he said they all wear pink ties on fast Sunday and asked me if I would buy him a pink tie. I said sure and asked him why they wear the pink ties but he didn't know. He was excited to wear his pink tie for the first time last Sunday. It was so cool to see nearly all the boys, and a lot of men in the ward, in pink ties. That night we had a meeting welcoming the boys that will be turning 12 this year into young mens. At the meeting, I found out the reason for the pink ties. One of the young men's leaders suggested that the boys wear pink ties to remind them to respect the ladies. I thought that was very cool. I love how important it is to our leaders to teach our boys chivalry and respect. I also love how the idea is catching on and spreading through our ward.

Sledding Together

We all went sledding on New Year's Eve. Jadon and Jaxon got new tubes for Christmas and they were excited to try them out. Unfortunately, they weren't the best product ever made. They wouldn't even go. We tried everything. More weight, less weight, running and jumping on it as we try to go down the hill. We even tried spraying it with Pam cooking spray. Nothing! We were so disappointed! There were several other people there with the same tubes and the same problems. Needless to say, Walmart is going to have quite a few tube returns this week. Dispite the bad tube experience and the extreme cold weather conditions, we had a good time. Katie was amazingly brave. She kept wanting to go down the hill and had a big smile on her face. Everyone had fun making all kinds of trains to go down the hill. Hopefully we can find some better tubes to replace the ones we have and we can go again soon!