My little boy is five!

Today is Kyson's 5th Birthday. He has been so excited for his birthday, especially since Jaxon and Katie recently had their birthdays. Kyson really is a good kid! He likes to do the right thing. I frequently find him watching all the other kids. If he sees that they are going to get in trouble, he will quickly do what he's suppose to so that he won't be in trouble also. He's also very smart. He is doing really well in school and is about to start reading. He is super good at puzzles. There is a website that has jigsaw puzzles on it and Dale has taught Kyson how to get on it and do the jigsaw puzzle every day. He is best buddies with Jake. They are so cute together and get along amazingly well. They never fight! They might get in a disagreement about something but they never get mad at each other. A few weeks ago, Kyson was watching a T.V. show where the kid on it got a medal for something. He asked me "Mom, why don't I ever get a medal?" So today, for his birthday, I gave him a medal. I told him it was the "Being such a great kid" medal. He wore it all day and night.

Tonight we went to McDonalds for dinner. Kyson was in heaven. He got to eat his happy meal right next to a video game and play the game while he ate. He loved it!

On Saturday we went to Jungle Jims to celebrate Kyson's and Katie's birthday. He had a great time there! My favorite part was when Jadon and Jaxon gave Kyson all their tickets that they had won from the video games. He was so excited to get his prizes! I thought that was very sweet of Jadon and Jaxon! I hope Kyson had a good birthday! I'm so thankful to have his sweet little spirit in our family!

Happy Birthday Katie!

Today was Katies' 1st Birthday. I think this has been the fastest year of my life! It seems like just a few months ago that she was born. We were in Pocatello today for Thanksgiving and Katie got up early so I took her down to the breakfast so she wouldn't wake everyone up. I really enjoyed spending the quiet time with her all by myself. I remembered a year ago when I spent Thanksgiving in the hospital with my sweet baby girl. I couldn't believe how perfect she was.

She has been an ultimate joy for our family. I don't think anybody knew just how in love with her we would be. She is so fun to snuggle and kiss! She has just started talking and will say "Ya" and "No" all the time. It's so fun to ask her questions just to hear her answer them. Katie loves loves loves baby dolls! We gave her a new doll with a stroller/walker for her birthday. She loves to walk around the house with it. She loves to take the doll in and out of the stroller.

I thought I would put these two pictures of Katie on her actual Birthday and Katie on her 1st birthday. She grew up so fast! It really makes me sad to think I won't be able to have a sweet newborn to take care of again. I have enjoyed this last year with her so much!

I love you Katie and hope you had a wonderful Birthday!

New calling

A few months ago, I was called to be the wolf leader in cub scouts. I was really excited because I love scouts. It was going very well. I guess it's true that they take you out of your calling just when you really like it. Yesterday I was called to be the 2nd counselor in our new Primary Presidency. I'm still kind of shocked but also excited. I am excited about the ladies that I'm going to work with. I'm excited to be with my kids and get to know all the other kids. I'm excited to learn all the new primary songs that I don't know. I'm excited to be a part of the primary program. The only thing that I'm not excited about is that I will probably have to speak in church soon. This will be a fun adventure!

I love the cabin!

I just got back from spending 5 days at my cabin. I am so thankful to have such a wonderful place to go and relax! It's the only place that I can go and let myself be lazy. I don't have anything that I have to do so I don't feel guilty if I sit on the couch all day and read my book. I read two books while I was there.

Kamry and Kayla came up for a few days. Kierra seems to have such a good time with them. I was cutting squares from all our old levi's to make into a quilt. Some how they got the idea to make all the scraps into clothes for their American Girl dolls. They spent hours putting them together. They started out using a stapler to hold the clothes together until we found a needle and thread and then they sewed them together. It was neat to see them be so creative.

I got all the levi's cut out and this is all the squares. I wanted to count them to see how many I have but that was just too much of a project. My goal is to have the levi quilt or quilts done by baseball season next year. Luckily I'm going to the cabin again in January so maybe I can do them then.

Jake and Kyson had so much fun playing video games. Our WII is broken so we borrowed Lisa's Nintendo 64 and brought that up. They have definately been on video game withdrawal. They pretty much played video games the whole time we were there. I know, I'm a bad mom. We ended up coming home a day early because there is suppose to be a huge snowstorm tomorrow. I hated to leave especially since all the trees were covered with new snow and it felt like Christmas there.

The best thing about coming home was the surprise Dale and Jadon had for me. (They didn't come with us because Jadon had school.) They painted my bedroom! I was shocked. Dale had recently talked about doing it but said we would do it next year. When I walked into my room to put my clothes away, Jadon was waiting with the video camera going. It looks soooo good! The picture doesn't really do it justice. It's amazing how painting a room can make you feel like you have a new house! I was so impressed with them especially since Dale has been pretty sick all week. We had a great time at the cabin but I was glad to come home and see my boys!

Daddy Daughter Fiesta!

Every year our ward has a Daddy Daughter date for achievement day girls. This year it was a fiesta. Kierra always loves to go on a date with her dad. They don't get a chance for one on one time very much and this is a great oppurtunity for them.

This is a really cute conversation that happened while they were gone. Jadon came home from his friends and asked where Daddy was. I told him that he was on a date with Kierra. A few minutes later, Jake asked me if he was getting a step-mom. I said "No, why do you ask that?" Jake said "You said that Daddy was out on a date. Why is he dating someone else?" He obviously didn't hear that he was on a date with Kierra!

Happy Halloween!

Last night we went to the annual Halloween party with friends from our ward. Dale and I don't really like to dress up so we decided to make our costumes simple and comfortable. There were a lot of people there with some really funny costumes. Maybe one of these years I'll get really creative and do something fun for our costumes. We had a lot of yummy food and learned some new games. It was a fun party

Happy Birthday Jax!

Yesterday was Jaxon's 9th Birthday. He has been so excited about his birthday for a long time. He made a list of things that he wanted for his Birthday. It had over 40 items on it. Some of them were small like a pack of Big Red gum while others were big and not very realistic like a whip or a real bow and arrow. He is always off track for his birthday so he was pretty bored in the morning. He kept looking at the clock because he wanted to know the minute he was nine years old (which is 12:45 in the afternoon). After he was officially nine, Dale and I took him out to lunch at Subway.

Later in the afternoon, he went to his last Wolf den meeting. I am his leader and we decided to have a Halloween party where we played Fear Factor. He got to be the one who had to fish for gummy worms in a plate of whip cream. He just dove in and got them as fast as he could. It was so funny!

After dinner, we had his yummy chocolate cake. It was a football cake and I thought it looked great! Dale asked him what piece he wanted and Jaxon said he wanted the 50 yard line piece. So that's what he got! Dale cut the first piece right out of the middle of the cake!

For a long time, Jaxon has seen the commercials on TV for Nightmare on 13th street (The Haunted House) and said that was what he wanted to do for his birthday. So that's what we did tonight. Kierra, Jake and Kyson said there was no way they were going, so we left them at my mom's. When we first got there, Jaxon decided he didn't want to go in. We finally talked him into it and we had a great time! It was a very well done haunted house and it was fun to watch the kids get scared (I was just as scared as them).

I hope Jaxon had a good Birthday. It's important to me that my kids have a good birthday because it's their day! We're so glad that Jaxon is part of our family. He definitely gives us some challenges but he has a lot of wonderful qualities and it's so fun to watch him excel at so many things. He's a great athlete and is doing great in school! He has a lot of friends and likes to have fun. I hope he goes far in life with his determination to be the best! I love you Jaxon!