Sun, Sand, and Water....

This last week we headed down to Mexico for a few days with some friends. It was a short trip, but we still managed to get in all in (quads, banana boat ride, jet skis, etc...) and it was a lot of fun. Also, the weather could not have been better!! The girls got their hair braided with their cousins the first day, and they thought it was so cool. Payton would shake her head back and forth to hear the beads slapping on her head. I REALLY didn't think she'd sit still for the process, (I can hardly get one pony in her each day!) But she did! Of course we gave her snacks and drinks....but the best trick was when the lady handed her the squirt bottle in between uses! Also for the record, Payton was so good and so happy the whole time!! I was in heaven...(this is not including the drive home-haha) Of course I took WAY too many pictures as usual, but here are some of my favorites....


Here's the girls last night....this is Payton sad face after a 5 hour drive home(we had an hour stop at the border) with no nap, and then having to sit still while I unbraided her hair!

Quick story....Payton saw the ice cream vendor on the beach and she stood by him just staring for a little while. He started chatting with her and seconds later pulled out an ice cream and handed it to her!! She came back over to us so excited. It was too cute of him, so I sent her back with a dollar to give him, and he just looked and her and smiled and told her to keep it. It was fun to watch it all happen from a distance.

Happy Birthday PAYTON!!

Payton is 2 years old! Even though she's just now turning 2, she seems to be getting easier than she has been the past few months. Just happier and more easy going. It's probably because she can communicate better and has less or a reason to get frustrated. She's slowly getting nicer to the little ones around her, but we're still working on that one!

My favorite thing about Payton right now is just the funny things she says.
~It cracks me up every morning when I get her up, she looks at me and says....bre-fas. (breakfast)
~80% of the words she says all day are things like, bre-fas, lunsh, dinna, snact, tweet, tandy. (can you translate all of those??-FOOD in other words)
~Her other favorite phrase (like most kids her age) is , "I do it".
~She loves to play with her brother and sister and follow them around and try and do everything they do.
~She's pretty mellow and not a very hyperactive child, UNTIL it comes time for FHE or sacrament meeting. Then she gets on some kind of high and loves to run in circles and make loud noises and try and be funny.
~She's always happy at home.....but she does not like the car. I can count on her whining or crying about 90% of the time we have to drive anywhere. BUT she may be getting better....she did SO good driving to and from Mesa yesterday!!!

Playhouse Disney

On Tuesday night my sister Heidi and I took the kids to see Playhouse Disney Live. They loved it and Tanner thought it was so cool that he was at the place where they play basketball. We'll have to try and take him to a game this year, I bet he'd love it. Anyway, it was a fun night and I enjoyed the time with just the "big" kids!

Oh, what to do....

About 2 months ago Payton had an ear infection...(her 7Th or 8Th since she had tubes put in a year ago) Anyway, from that she began to pick at her ear lobe. She'll pick and pick until it bleeds. It used to be both ears, but one side cleared up 100% about a week ago. I just can't figure out a way to get her to stop! We've tried bandaids and that seems to help a ton, but they don't stay on very well. And as soon as it's ALMOST healed, she's got the scab all picked off again. She often wakes up from her nap with blood all in her hair also! Well, finally today I put two and two together and noticed she's got a little cut on her arm and one on her leg (like the size of a little mosquito bite) And those have been there for almost a month also! She keeps picking those scabs as well. What to do.....maybe she just likes blood???

Here's a picture I found where you can see her little red ear if you click it bigger. It doesn't look too bad here, probably because she had just gotten out of the bath! I'm sure most of you have seen it in real life the past couple months anyway....

Hey, I just noticed you can see the one on her leg that won't heal also!!

Just hanging out....

Sundays are always crazy after church...trying to get dinner ready or headed out the door to someones house, etc. But in November we get to move to 8 am!! Yes, that is in fact 30 mins after we all usually wake up, but it's worth it! We usually can get Payton to take at least an hour nap at 10:30 or 11, but it's getting harder and harder, so this is great timing! We are still a ways away from November, but between general conference and stake conference, we only have 3 more weeks at 1:00! Well, this last Sunday Payton wouldn't sleep in the morning, so the good thing is she slept after church! We had a great time relaxing while the other two colored and just hung out with us.

Thanks Rachel!!

Both Rachel's that is! One for the flowers and one for the frame! We're done! Well at least with the walls. The kids pictures were all that was left to hang since we moved in. But don't get me wrong, there's still a lot of work to do around here. For example over 100 cabinet knobs are sitting in a bucket ready to go on, etc...This wall turned out just how I wanted it. I may move the family picture up or down if I ever find something to go in the middle section along with it! We put this one off because of the difficulty in reaching the wall with the stairs right there and all. But late one night Brian figured a way to rig it with a ladder and some scaffolding sitting on a tiny little niche ledge! I only had his cell phone camera that night so that's why it's dark and fuzzy. Here's some pictures of the event:

Funny (and FUN) Day!

So today was my first chance to help out in Tanner's class. It was so fun to get to see him with his friends doing "school" stuff. I thought I'd share a couple funny conversations I heard while down at the school....

**First, I was walking down the hall and passed a first or second grade room with the door open. A couple boys were by the door putting papers in their cubby and boy 1 says to boy 2, "Are you Mormon?" Then Boy 2 answers, "Well, My Dad is a Priesthood" Boy 1, "So are you Mormon?" Boy 2, "And since he's a Priesthood, then I'll be a Priesthood someday" Boy 1, "SO are you Mormon?" Boy 2, "Yeah, I think I'm Mormon"

**While putting little books together, Tanner and about 4 other boys were at the Art Job table behind me and I overheard some real "BOY" talk. The kind girls always think boys NEVER think about let alone talk about. The first convo started with Aiden complaining that the girls always chase him....then Jacob says, "They never chase me, I wish they would!" And Tanner then agreeing, "Yeah, I want them to chase me too...they did before..." Then somehow the conversation turned to WHO these boys were going to MARRY?!? They keep saying things like , "Who are you going to Marry, I don't know, hhmmmmm, etc" Then Tanner says, "I know, I'm going to marry Kylee" (a girl in the class)The boys instantly start cracking up saying, "you're going to marry kylee, (repeated over and over)" Then one boy says to him, "I'm going to go tell her!!" Tanner quickly replied, "NAH....I'm just KIDDING!" (in a cute funny voice) Then they laughed about it a while. Reminder-This is KINDERGARTEN!!!

Point being, I LOVE little kids! It was too much fun to be back in the schools. It's been too long since I have gotten to be in the classroom! When I left I told his teacher I'll come back as often as she needs me! I just loved it...and loved that Tanner liked having me there also!

We're on hold over here.....

I haven't posted, or even emailed anyone back this week because....my keyboard has been spazzing and would randomly get stuck in shift mode, etc, then it'd be fine again, then stuck again. Anyway, it finally decided to be completely stuck and it took me days to remember I had an extra right here in the drawer the whole time!! So I can now type again!!

Now if I only could find my camera battery charger then I'd be back in business!! (I think I lost it in Utah this summer?!?) So we're on hold over here until I find the charger or remember to take it over and use my sisters one day. But I realized how much I use it since I haven't been able to snap random pictures throughout the last week or so!!

Soccer Season...

Kamryn had her first soccer game ever! She was excited, but has had a little bit of a cold off and on all week, so she didn't play. But, she still wanted to get dressed and go watch them! She seems excited for next week, so we'll how to see how that goes!


Tanner has played once before when he was 3, but it consisted mostly of his cousin and him holding hands and running in circles! It seems as though this will be an entirely different experience for him, and he did SO good today! When he was out there he was constantly trying to get to the ball and he loved every second of it.


The only bad part of the day was how HOT!! it was. After 2 hours in the sun we were ready to head home to the air conditioned house. Now we know that next week it'll be worth toting around the HUGE easy up shade for sure! If you look closely, you can see how wet Payton's hair is from the heat, and she even got a little sunburn on her chest! But she loved it out there also...

Mountains...

My sister went camping this weekend and talked us into driving up to hang out on Saturday. The kids were so excited and we had lots of fun. Payton (the anti-car child) didn't do too bad...she only cried the last 45 mins on the way there and besides that she was great! Even with no nap all day... I got some cute pictures, but best of all, I got some GREAT video!

Here's Kylee showing Kamryn how to ride her quad:

Here's Kamryn taking off for the first time:

Do you like how when my daughter crashed I turned around and took off running the other direction?!?!? I don't even remember doing that, but there's the proof! The good thing is she didn't even get hurt, so that helped! She said the only part that hurt was her middle finger.

Tanner was kinda scary watching at first, but then he got the hang of it pretty quickly:

Here's a couple more cute pictures from our day in the mountains... These monkeys were having a little too much fun!

I've been tagged...(I know you're jealous...)

4 jobs I have had
1. Preschool Teacher
2. Tutor @ Sylvan Learning Center
3. Nanny/babysitting through college
4. And of course, a mom

4 movies I can watch over and over
1. I asked my husband what he thought, and he just laughed.....He's a movie freak, and I'm the opposite! I don't usually enjoy watching movies at home, so it's hard to say what I'd want to watch more than once!
2. If I had to choose then there's only 2 that come to mind:
3. How to Lose a Guy in 10 days
4. Rudy also is a long time favorite of mine...


4 places I have lived
1. Indian Wells, CA
2. Good ol' Rexburg, ID
3. Provo, UT
4. Gilbert, AZ


4 Guilty Pleasures
1. Pretty much anything with lots of sugar as an ingredient
2. Finding "me" time during the day amongst our crazy days!
3. PopEm's...(I think that's what they're called-little donut hole thingys) I'll finish the box soon after we get home from the grocery store
4. Diet Coke


4 Places I have been on vacation
1. Growing up, vacation was going to Utah!!
2. Hawaii
3. New York
4. Mexico


4 Favorite Foods
1. Cereal
2. Donuts (hostess, sprinkle, KrispeyCream, Popems...ANY KIND will do!)
3. French Toast
4.


4 websites I visit
1. Gmail
2. Hotmail
3. Blogs
4. Wells Fargo


4 places I'd rather be right now
1. On the beach
2. On vacation of any sort..
3. Pedicure
4.


4 Books I love:
1. I have really only ever read books I had to read for school...
2. Maybe someday I'll have time to sit and read for entertainment!
3.
4.


4 Things I would like to know how to do
1. cook
2. photography
3. decorate
4. shop


4 things I worry about
1. Being home alone at night
2. Tanner at school all day
3. Extended Family
4. Keeping the house in order


4 Happy Moments
1. Playing with the kids
2. Wedding day
3. When the babies come out and I'm not pregnant anymore!
4. Watching my kids grow up


4 things I want to do this year or in the future
1. Get closer to being caught up on the family scrapbook
2. START Payton's baby book....(yes, she's almost 2!)
3. Be better at keeping things in order around here...
4. Teach Tanner to ride a bike!


4 People I am tagging
1. Heidi Stanford
2. Tricia Burrell
3. Kimmy Peine
4. Niki Chazen

YUCK!

Well, after a summer of the quads sitting with dead batteries, Tanner decided it was time to start riding again. Since it sat in the same place on the patio for months...this ginormous black widow had turned it into his home! I was watching Tanner through the kitchen window and could see something dangling off the tail end as he rode. The thing was hanging on for life as he sped around the yard a few times while I tried to get him to get stop.


And yes, those are HUMONGOUS weeds everywhere! It's SO fun to have just dirt in your backyard isn't it!
(what age do they finally get over the cheese face?!?)

I can drive again!

It looks like I ran over some sort of large rock, and it got my tire right in the inner side at the edge and pinched it good! Good enough to totally split?! the tire! I knew I heard something....

Well, he spare is on and we're good to go for now at least. Tomorrow is a crazy day, I have to get done everything I should have gotten done today, plus some.....so, it looks as though a trip to the tire place isn't going to happen anytime soon!

I have the worst luck

At least when it comes to TIRES!!!

I was just driving home from the gym, and I heard/felt something and I thought, what was that! I hadn't seen anything in the road, and I was only going 30 mph in my neighborhood. When I pulled into the garage and got out, and heard the ZZZZZZZZZZZ..... Air was gushing out. I couldn't find anything stuck in the tire!??! I wanted to go back out and see if there was anything in the road, but, I now had no way to get there! My sister is headed over right now so I can use her car to go pick up Kamryn from gymnastics! What luck......

April, Shireen and Lori, does this bring back memories or WHAT! Good times....

Preschool!

Another one grows up too fast! I can't believe I'm down to one kid for 4 whole hours a week! Haha. Kamryn has been talking about starting school all summer long. Her and Tanner will have little discussions about it and Tanner makes sure to end by telling her that his is better cause he gets to go all day! Does he like school better than home?!?! Probably so...there's boys at school, and only girls around here! Anyway, Kamryn had a great first day of school!