Gardner Village

In case any of you haven't heard me complain about it, my dad has been working in Oklahoma since June or July. It stinks more than the diaper that was changed this morning...that is a lot of stink. When he comes into town and isn't overwhelmed with a honey-do list, weddings/receptions, church duties, spending time with my mom and brother, and of course working from home over his weekend, we get to do some fun stuff to spend some time with him when he is home. Back in October...I think...we got to go to Gardner Village up there somewhere north of where I live but south of Salt Lake.

They get it all decked out for the holidays and we were there right before Halloween so they had it set up like a Halloween Village complete with witches and all that good stuff.

The first thing we did was get tickets for the "Ride-to-a-witch". The ticket was this gross little slimy squishy bug thing. Ew. But while we were waiting for the ride to leave the kids spotted ponies.

So they each got to go on a little horse ride. They loved it and had a blast even thought it was freezing cold.

Then we took our ride out to the little witches village. I was so glad to do this because Halloween time freaks my kids out with all of the make believe stuff that they see around. I hadn't been able to convince them that witches weren't out to get them.

So we got to meet some really cute nice witches. I think this ones name is Elloise...

Jack spent the whole time asleep in the baby carrier which worked out great for me.
The next witch we got to see was disco Diana. She was just a bit too good at her job and playing the part that I wonder what she is like as a normal person...if she is a normal person

She taught the kids (and everybody else who was there had to participate OR ELSE) a little dance.

Grandpa got to hold the disco ball because he claimed a dancing disability. I just wish I would have thought of it first.

The kids got to play around the little witches village and they all came and talked to the kids and showed them around.

I think that the best part of that leg of the day was when the kids asked them if they knew any mean witches and ones of them said "No! Mean witches don't come around here and if they did we would throw a rock and them and make them leave." Which on one hand is great because any time since then when one of my kids gets scared of a witch the other one reminds them all they have to do it throw a rock. But then at the same time, she just gave them permission to throw rocks, and that part stinks. Oh well.

Then after that we headed back to the main part with the shops and all of the other stuff to do and we just had a fun day. Jack woke up just in time for lunch and then was content to be carried the rest of the day. We had a blast!

These are the kinds of witches they had decorating the village and they were everywhere!

After we were all worn out, we went back over to the pumpkin patch so the kids could get there pumpkin and they were right next to the pony rides, so....They got another pony ride. Grandpa thought it was cruel and unusual punishment to take them back that way without being able to ride again. :) Luke asked Grandpa if he could take his favorite pony, Rocky, home with him. I am kind of surprised Gramps didn't say yes, he is such a pushover for those kids!

We had such an awesome and fun day! Thanks Grandma and PopPop!

Halloween 2011

We had a fun Halloween this year, but we have fun holidays all of the time :)

Hey-Ho, Kool-Aid!

I am pretty sure she got a little bit of a power high when I would refer to her as "Your highness!"

"Look Out! He's a Spiderman!"

Jack hated everything about that day. Especially the hat.

Had some fun time at Grandma's showing her Taylie's Halloween program

After doing our visits to our family, we headed down to Springville and spent the night with Jessica, Trent, Lily, and Riley. It was so much fun to spend some time with our friends, just be able to eat some pizza, take our kids trick-or-treating, then we came back to their house and Jessica (in all of her awesome glory) actually thought of some cute crafts to do with the kiddos. I was pretty much no help at all. The kids loved their little spiders and treats that they got to eat while the hubby's played video games.

We went home full of yummy food, treats and had a great time! Thanks for having us guys! Lets do it again next year, okay?! Okay. :)

Taylie turns 5!

Oh my little baby girl...I don't even know where to start!

You have changed so much since last year but yet your very essence has stayed exactly the same.

• I just love your reaction when you discover new things, it pretty much rocks your world.
• You love to help do anything that I will let you help with, unless I ask you first, then you act like I am trying to re-start the institution of slavery/child labor. One of your favorite things to help with is cooking.
• You have always loved music, and you are STILL a huge Taylor Swift fan and can pick her music out anywhere. But for some reason, you heard this one song JUST ONE TIME and you love it. That doesn't seem so bad until I actually listened to the lyrics and found it to be horribly inappropriate, for adults as well as children. You hate being cut off cold turkey from anything. It is for your own good, trust me. Just because Nicki Minaj has pink hair and you think that is awe.some. doesn't mean she is a good influence.
  
• You are loving your second year of preschool and have totally won the hearts of your teachers. But that doesn't surprise me, you have always had this type of gravitational pull that just sucks people in and they have to love you with no choice.
• Grandma is your best friend and you want to play with her every minute of every day.
  
• You have developed an even bigger gift for theatrics. I didn't think it was possible, but it has exploded into a huge part of who you are. A.HUGE.PART. You are known for it, and it is epic. Just the other night you called up your grandpa and the conversation went like this: "Grandpa! *sniffle sniffle* I am STUCK here in the house with nobody to visit me because dad is at work with the car and I am just STUCK HERE and I can't go anywhere! *sniffle sniffle* STUCK HERE! UGH!" I about died laughing and Grandpa came right over. :)
• You are the best sister I could have ever hoped to have for my other kids. You just love them so much. More times than I can count I have come around the corner to see you playing with Jack and make him laugh hysterically and you are usually saying something like "Who's the best sister? I'm the best sister! Yes, and you are a cute little baby yes you are, and you love to giggle, yes you do...." and you use that cute little baby voice and tickle him and make him giggle. You can make him giggle and laugh in ways that nobody else can. I am convinced you have the spirit of a pure angel living in your sweet little body.
• I love how when you see jet wash left over from a plane in the sky you see it and tell me that there are angels flying next to us while we drive.
• One of my favorite moments from you this year was when you tried on my bra, sighed, and looked at me and in the most serious voice said "Mom, I think I need bigger boobs." I pretty much croaked.

Tay, I can't even tell you how lucky your brothers are to have you as their sister and that we are so lucky to have you in our family. There are not enough words to express how lucky I am that you are mine!

Love, Mom

Luke turns 3 (11/19/2011)

Oh, my baby bear! I cannot believe how you have grown this last year :) Some parts of you have changed so much and in many ways you are still the same.

Here is how I described you last year:

"You have gone from a little baby boy to an active little toddler. You are stubborn and a cuddle bug, loud and dramatic, loving and a beast all at the same time. I couldn't imagine you any other way. :)"

All of that is exactly the same. You still love me to hold you like a baby, but only when it is your idea. Your volume rivals that of a full grown adult and you are very animated when you speak. My favorite is when you give me the: "Really, Mom? You think I am gonna buy that?" look. You tilt your head to the side, and raise your eyebrow at me and say "Huh?!" I really need to get it on video...

You are fascinated by super heros! You love Iron Man and SpiderMan, they are your favorites. Pretty much anything that you could find in a comic book just draws you in.

You are very...what's the word...determined? Yeah, that's as good as any. ;)
When you want something or are done doing something, that is it. You are done, that is the way it is and nobody is going to change your little mind about it. NO-BODY. EVER. EVER. EVER.

I hope that you keep your sense of determination the rest of your life. While it drives me crazy and makes life a bit more complicated, it is a wonderful thing to have and it will take you wherever you want to go.

Recently, I asked you what you wanted me to call you. I said: "Hey buddy, what do you want me to call you; Lucas or Luke?" and you looked at me with your big brown eyes and did "the head tilt" and said: "Mom...my name is Lukie." So we call you Lukie. :) I am very interested to see how long you will let all of us call you Lukie, because I am pretty sure that it will stick forever now.

So my little baby bear, I love you so much and I still have a hard time realizing that you are actually 3. You talk about going to preschool and learning to write letters and wanting to ride your bike and you can dress yourself all by yourself...there are so many things about you that just amaze me. My favorite thing about you and me is that when I tuck you into bed at night and say "good night my baby bear, I Love You" you answer "goodnight my momma bear" and then after I walk out of the room, I always hear you tell me that you love me, even when you are trying to be sneaky. ;) You love to be sneaky and I love that you love to be sneaky <3

Keep being sneaky forever, please. <3

Chocolate chip waffles for breakfast, heart-shaped peanut butter and jam for lunch, and pizza and cheese bread for dinner and a Spiderman cake for dessert? What more could a 3 year old want?! The last thing you wanted was to cuddle for just 5 more minutes at the end of the day. Who could say no to that, birthday boy or not?! Certainly not me ;)

fun on the farm

Wow...I totally just found this stashed away in my draft folder from forever ago. Oops.

Farm Day @ Preschool. Yay for kids. Ugh for me. I love doing activities with my kids, but I really hate farm day. The main reason being it is really hard for me to keep track of 2 kids (Jack was in the strap on carrier thingy) among a gazillion others and farm day ALWAYS is bound to come a few days after heavy rain. So then it is a muddy, poopy, cold-until-it-warms-up-and-i-have-to-carry-everyones-coats-around-the-farm-day. The trip out to the pumpkin patch is the worst. Mud Mud Mud. AND I took all 3 kids this year because Jacob claimed *allergies*. (psh!)

See the boots? Those are because I learned from LAST years trip to the farm. ;)

This is Taylie and Katie. Katie is Taylie's favorite friend from school. Last year they were what I called "partners in crime". This year I guess they are more responsible with their mischief and I don't hear much about it. :)

Taylie loves animals and she loves to take care of things and people, and animals are no different. The funniest thing was when she walked up to her teacher and asked her to help her pick up a pig. Everyone laughed including me, and so she decided to ask the woman who worked there. She was so sweet and the woman showed her that when you pick up a pig it squeals. When she learned that they don't like it, she just wanted to feed something.

The woman let her break a pumpkin (!) and helped her feed a goat

Then they had this awesome slide that is huge! It was all she wanted to do once she saw it. Once we got there she showed Luke how to go down it and this was the face I caught of him going down:

and Taylie, being as sweet as she is and full of awesomeness, went down with her brother when he was having a hard time making it to the front of the line cause of the bagillion kids. She always made sure he was taken care of and having fun.

We really did have a fun time. We ate lunch and played all of the games and picked pumpkins in the pumpkin patch and had a great time. I was glad to go home and get everyone showers...that was my favorite part.

And just think...I get to go again...the next 2 years with Luke when he starts school. :)

First Day of Preschool--Year 2

I know, how super behind am I, right?!

This was back in September

This was September of last year:

Didn't she look like such a baby?! It makes me so sad to realize how fast she grew up in just one year.

This is this year

This is last year

I can't believe that in less than a year I will be taking pre-kindergarten pictures for Taylie and preschool pictures for Luke.

They grow way too fast. Don't take advantage of it.

Temple Square 2011

This little field trip we actually took in August, but you know babies keep my busy so I am just getting to it now.

Taylie has a picture of the Salt Lake Temple hanging on her wall and she has had it there for a long time. She has asked on a few occasions if she would be able to go and see "her castle". When I told her that it is something we would be able to take her to see, she was SO excited! Usually she asks if we can take her to Disneyland RIGHT NOW and we say no. Then she will ask to go to the beach RIGHT NOW and we say no. Or in the middle of the night she asks to go and see Grandpa in Oklahoma and then we tell her no again and she better get back in bed or else...
So for her to be told yes was very exciting.

When we got to the Temple, she was pretty much in awe. She was very giddy and excited and just really didn't know what to do with herself. There was the cutest Senior Missionary couple that asked if we wanted to hear a story. They told us the neatest story but the kids weren't really into it. They were just a little bit too young to hear about the man who lost his legs and continued to work on the Temple. They were trying look inside the windows of the lowest floors and were a little dissapointed when they couldn't see anything.

This has to be one of my favorite pictures

This is my other favorite. We took them all over the square and up to the top of the Joseph Smith Building so they could see the Temple from all vantage points.

I hope that Taylie remembers how much she is in awe of such a special place and that she will always keep a deep love of the Temple and the church and hold it in a special place in her heart.

I'm in love...

With my 3 favorite cutie pies!

Say what?!

We had the home teachers over today and I have a moment I need to document involving this little dude:

First off, we have the best Home Teachers ever. Hands down. Brother Mace and his son McKay gave us a very sweet lesson about President Monson's lesson from The Ensign about precious promises. After McKay finished his lesson the kids had started chasing each other around like tigers. *sigh*

I asked them to get into their seats and then I asked them what McKay had just taught us. Taylie took a breath and said: "The Book of Mormon....?"
Me: "Yep. Good Job, now what else?"
Taylie: "um...the prophet?"
Me: "Yep, great! Now what else?"
Luke: " HAPPY GHOSTS!"

All of us burst into laughter and told Luke that we were pretty sure that the Holy Ghost was happy, but he wasn't that type of ghost. :)

I sure do love that little boy!

Reason #37 I will never be Miss America...

Apparently when God was handing out gracefulness, I was chatting it up elsewhere (probably with my bestie Bri).

My brothers reaction sums it all up: "Old habits die hard huh sis?"

Yes, yes they do. It is nice to know that some things never change

(By the way, this is 2 days after the fact and my foot is still swollen down to the toes and up my leg a bit...I don't even have a cool story to go with it. Bummer.)

*UPDATE*
This is 3 days post clumsy-fall-off-the-curb:
Gross. Guess you can't tell which one I injured? ;)