Monday, October 31, 2011

Kay talk

I went upstairs to get something and Kay is sitting in Kitty and Blondie's room playing. She gives me a funny look like she's scared of something so I go in to see what's wrong. She's pointing at something near the bookshelf and I look and there is a snail shell on the floor there. Kay thinks that there is a snail in it which is why she is scared, but it is just an empty shell so I tell her that. Then I go into my room and she follows me and tells me, "Yeah, I just saw that snail shell there and it freaked me out!"

Pinewood Derby 2011

Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Our last Pinewood Derby!

Luke hasn't been too excited about doing a Pinewood Derby car this year and with everything going on we didn't have a lot of time and energy to spend on one either. We finally got him excited about doing one and he and his dad worked on a design for it. It ended up changing a little bit here and there and in the end he said it was his favorite looking car of the three they have done. It ended up being a shark design and we even found a few stickers that went along with the shark theme. We were lucky to get it finished in time - but unfortunately not without some mess-ups with the paint and then not having time to tweak the wheels for speed at all. Thankfully it was a pretty low-key event this year - only 11 cars in the race. One of the Webelos leaders in the ward has his own race track so he ran the whole thing and did it all at no cost to the pack. Luke's car didn't finish last overall, but it didn't do as well as we would have liked - 9th. And now we are officially finished with Pinewood Derby cars!!

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Kay talk

DH picked out clothes for the two little ones yesterday. He checked with me first to make sure they were alright. He grabbed a pair of jeans and a shirt for Kay. The shirt he picked does have a matching pair of leggings for it, but it would look fine with the jeans so I didn't say anything. He put the jeans on Kay, made sure they felt alright and then he put the shirt on her. As soon as he got it on her she looked down and said, "Uhhh, this doesn't match!"

She then ran to her room and found the matching leggings and had DH put them on her instead!

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Kay talk

DH has a sword that he bought while on his mission in Spain. Just a couple of months ago he hung it up in his office downstairs. This evening Kay was down with him in his offiice and asked, "Dad, why do you have a sword? Who did you have to kill?"

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Kay talk

Kay at the dinner table today after I came home from my first chemo treatment: "Mom, you didn't get bald yet!"

New blog

I am starting up a new blog for those that are interested in reading updates on me. I still intend on keeping this blog, but it will focus more on the happenings of the family and kids.

My new blog is: Time to make lemonade

Monday, October 10, 2011

Sleeping soundly

Monday, October 3
MJ has a hard time sleeping in her bed for naptime. About 9 times out of 10 that I try and lay her down in her bed she will wake right up, so sometimes I don't even bother moving her. This time she ended up on the couch in my room, cozying up to a pillow:

Perfect fit

Monday, October 3
MJ discovered that she just barely fits inside one of our step stools when turned upside down. Here she is all set with Luke's two water bottles!

Rock Canyon

Monday, October 3
For one of his Webelos Activity pins, Luke needed to go on a Geology field trip. I decided that while the weather was still nice, it would be fun to take the kids down to Rock Canyon in Provo to go for a little hike and look at the rocks up there. Luke's friend is also off-track from school so I let Luke invite him to come along. We took a picnic lunch with us and stopped at a park to eat lunch before we headed off to the canyon. It was a beautiful day!

Yummy, oranges!

Saturday, September 24
I was cutting up some oranges to take to one of the kids' soccer games for a halftime treat. MJ was wandering hungry so I gave her a slice. She loved it!

Sleeping Kay

Thursday, September 22
Kay was wearing a dress this day and during the afternoon she kept sticking the end of her dress in her mouth and sucking on it. I kept telling her to stop doing this and finally after telling her over and over again and still seeing her do it, I got mad and took the dress off of her. I threw the dress (which was soaking wet now) in the hamper and then left her for a few minutes (she was not too happy about having her dress taken off of her). When I came back downstairs a few minutes later, this is what I found amongst the mess on the floor:

Fall harvest

Okay, I totally slacked with our garden this year and it pretty much all turned to weeds... Here are a few things that we miraculously managed to get from it, despite my lack of care: 5 peaches from our tiny peach tree (that we planted last year), one cucumber, a small pumpkin (which I still need to take a picture of) and TONS of tomatoes. We have also gotten several strawberries throughout the season.

Play time

Thursday, September 22, 2011
I love seeing these two playing together:

Big sister, littlest sister

Sunday, September 18, 2011
MJ curled up with M&M after church on Sunday:

Utah State Fair

Saturday, September 17, 2011
There is a summer reading program here in Utah where kids ages 5-12 can earn free tickets to the state fair. This is the second year that I had the kids participate in the program. Last year we ended up not making it to the fair, so this year I was determined to take them and actually use those tickets! DH was out of town so I braved the fair by myself with the 6 kids. Traffic and parking was an absolute nightmare, but we finally made there! My parents met us down there and we first took the kids to see some of the animals. Kay especially loved this part - wanting to pet everything that she saw!Luckily I thought to bring this wrist strap to put on Kay so she couldn't run off!

After the animal exhibits my parents wanted to go to an indoor exhibit that I didn't think the kids would be interested in so we separated and I went to find a ride for the kids to go on. As part of the reading program, the kids also got a free ticket to use on any of the fair rides. M&M, Luke and Blondie used their ticket on Thunder Bolt:Kitty was indecisive on whether she wanted to ride on it or not and at the last minute I pulled her out of the line because she hadn't made it clear if she wanted to or not. Then she stood next to me while the kids were on the ride and sulked and stomped her foot the whole time because she was mad at me! I was just afraid that with me not being able to go on the ride with her she would have freaked out...

After the ride we went to find a restroom and while the kids were in there I got a call from DH in China! We were able to talk for a few minutes and then the kids and I went to buy some cotton candy. Kay wasn't sure if that was something that should really be consumed so it took a little bit of convincing before she finally tried some - and loved it!At this point we met up with my parents again for a few minutes, then we split to get some food at different places and never met up again. (Cell phone reception was poor and it was really loud there as well.)

After the kids tried a funnel cake we decided to go look for the horses that we still hadn't been able to see. They were separate from the rest of the animal exhibits so we found a map and figured out where they were supposed to be. On our way over there a fair worker in a golf cart drove up to us and told us that there were no horses there anymore - apparently the horse exhibitions had taken place already and the animals gone home. We were a little bummed and turned around to leave. The worker asked me if we were just going to go home now. I said that we probably would and so he reached into his pocket and pulled out a bunch of ride tickets and handed them to me. "Here," he said, "go have some fun." He ended up giving us 40 free tickets to use on rides at the fair (most rides required at least 2-4 tickets per person). I had looked into buying some tickets so the kids could have a little more fun before we left, but they were more money then I wanted to spend.

We probably ended up spending another 2 hours there at the fair, letting the kids enjoy some rides. Luckily, M&M is tall enough that she was able to take Kay on a few rides as well. (On our way to find the horse stalls we stumbled across the kid section of the fair that had a lot more kid friendly rides than we had seen so far. The kids did some bumper cars, a big slide (which they did more than once), a carousel and bounce house for the younger ones, and a fun speedway car ride for all of them. They ended up having a blast! When we first went to the fair Luke was not excited at all about being there and it showed in his face, but in the end he had a lot of fun and was glad that we had gone!

Luke on the left, M&M with Kay in the middle
We got home after 10:00 that night!