May 26, 2010

Kayson graduated today! Well, he graduated kindergarten anyways. (funny how even this graduation makes me a little teary:) When kindergarten is over, they officially aren't your "little" kids anymore. They start doing all day school and just get so independent on you. That is good, but a little sad. Kayson did a great job in his graduation program. The kids sang a bunch of fun songs for us.

Kayson with his class


Kayson receiving his certificate of completion from Principal Hawkes.


Kade, Deidra
Brancyn, Kayson, Brylee
We realized after the fact that we could have got Liberty out of class to watch his program. Oops!

Grammy and Kayson.
Thanks Grammy for coming, you always make the kids feel so special!

Brylee, Brancyn, and I got to go on a field trip to Bear World with Kayson today. We met at the school and rode the bus there! (This was half of the fun for Brylee)

Brylee and Kayson

We got to see and pet the baby bears. They were so stinking cute!

We also enjoyed the petting zoo. We pet deer, goats, and chickens. Aren't these baby pigs adorable?

Then we went on the driving part of the tour. We had a tour guide on our bus. It was fun to hear all of the fun facts about the animals.

Look at all of those bears!

We had a great day and it has us all excited for our trip to Yellowstone this year!

May 11, 2010

Liberty has been begging me to cut her hair for about a month now. We finally found time today so we went at it. I started out a couple of inches longer than this even though she told me she wanted it above her shoulders, kind of close to her chin. I was afraid I would go that short and she would freak out. But when I let her go and see where I was cutting at, she said go shorter, so shorter we went. After I had it as short as she wanted, I decided it needed a few layers. (I'm not a hug fan of a straight cut when it is this short.) So I started adding layers. I've done layers in her hair before and they have turned out pretty good, but this time I decided to try cutting them a little different. Bad idea! They were not blending at all-it was terrible and by this time I had her really scared (not to mention me) So I went back to my tried-and-true way of cutting layers. It took me a little while to clean it up and I think there are still a few random lenth layers in there, but I think i fixed ok. It definately looks fine when it is done, but Mimi don't judge my efforts:) Liberty was way excitied about it though, and that is all that matters. I'm glad she liked the end product. Whew!

May 7, 2010

Tonight we had an Elders Quorum party. The theme was Cinco de Mayo. They had mexican food and people made pinatas to bring. This one was made by the Elders Quorum Pres. He made this out of a box wrapped in Duct tape, wrapped in carpet, wrapped in cardboard, wrapped in carpet, wrapped in plastic wrap. The thing was crazy. They had every Elder and a lot of their wives beating on this thing with all their might, but it didn't give. They finally had to take the last three layers off before anyone could break it. It sure was funny to watch everyone try though. Just a word of wisdom for those who think this sounds like a fun idea for future use . . .don't have the dad's blindfolded and swinging a bat for all their worth on one end of the shelter while the kids are swinging at a kid pinata on the other end of the shelter. Every time the candy scattered, the kids followed and yep you guessed it, the candy scattered right over by where the dads were swinging. I don't know how many kids almost lost their heads tonight-literally. One of them being my son. Ugh, just makes me sick thinking how close a bat came to his little head . . .



The old Elders Quorum Pres. and his wife made this golden calf for us to beat. lol. It was HUGE!!!

May 7, 2010

While I was working on dinner tonight, Kayson was in the living room making a master piece of his own. He told me not to come in until he was done. When I was allowed to look, this is what I found . . . .

Awww, some days your kids just melt your heart, ya know? I love how he sculpted all of the letters out of blocks except the o in you, he just used one circle block for that one. It was just so five year old . . . adorable.

May 3, 2010

We have tried to take Bryle to the dentist twice already. Both times she sceamed and cried and wouldn't let them touch her. (Even Brancyn sat in the chair last time to show her how easy it is.) Anyone who knows Brylee, knows this is not her norm. She is usually a go getter and won't let anything slow her down. This is the kids that was riding a big girl bike with training wheels before she was three and could pump herself on a swing at two-she just wants to be one of the big kids soooo bad. So this has been a new thing for us to see her afraid of something. Well it came time for the 6 month cleanings again and we had to try her again. When I first told her about it, I could immediately see the anxiety creeping into her face, so we headed for the computer and found some encouraging videos of little kids getting their teeth cleaned on youtube. This seemed to settle her and so I didn't say anything for the next few days. The day of the cleaning, I told her what we were going to do that day and she started freakig out again-so back to the computer again. I settled her enough to get her there without tears . . . .

but just barely. You can see she is not really excited about going in. (We were taking pics to make it seem exciting-I told her I would put it in our photo book for this year so she could remember how brave she was and how cool it was.)

Ohoh, here come the tears. She just couldn't take the stress. I offered to sit in the seat with her though and that was just enough this time. She let them count, brush and floss her teeth (just with a regular tooth brush, so she wouldn't freak out again). But at least she did it. Major improvement over the last times when she wouldn't even open her mouth (even though i was holding her then too).

And look how happy she ws after she got her own bag complete with new toothbrush, floss, and a prize fro doing so well!!! Now hopefully next time we won't have so much drama!

April 25, 2010

I had to get a quick pic of this. Brancyn tried to head off to church today with Liberty's purse on his arm. Before you all freak out, this boy is as rough and tumble as they come-so no worries there. Besides that, the poor kid just wanted to be one of the crowd. All of the kids have scripture cases that they carry to church every week. He just went and found one for himself! No worries though, it give me a great idea for his birthday-he will be receiving his very own GREEN scripture case for his birthday in July.

April 25, 2010

We needed an updated family pic for a couple of projects I've been working on. So we took advantage of everyone looking nice on Sunday morning and snapped this one. I was pretty happy with it other than Kade and Kayson's white shirts kind of faded Brancynd and Kade out a little bit. But, still not bad for a quick snapshot.

Deidra, Kade, Kayson

Liberty, Brancyn, Brylee

The kids begged to do a silly one while we were at it, so here it is:)

April 23, 2010

The kids have again been begging for sleepovers with the cousins. This weekend, it finally worked out. We got it pretty easy this time. Kate came to our house while Kayson and Liberty went over to the cousins. First we took the girls to the Craze Fun Zone and let them crawl around in the play tunnels for awhile to run off some energy. Then we decided to let them go and pick out a treat to go with their movie. I asked Kate what kind of treat she liked and she told me the store kind. I was trying to figure out what store to go to (grocery store for good ice cream and baking goods, wal-mart for candy, etc.) so I said 'we'll go to a store, but do you want cake, cookies, icecream? . . ) ' She then says 'do you have a wal-mart store? they have treats there.' So off to wal-mart we The girls and Brancyn each picked out a treat. We came home split up the goods (there was tons-for only having 3 choices-they knew how to make the best of their one choice!) Then the girls settled down for their movie-strawberry shtortcake with their treats. I expected the girls to just sleep in the guest room where i had them set up, but after the movie, they remade beds on Brylee's floor and finally fell asleep around midnight. The finished off their sleepover with some good play time the next morning. It's great having cousins so close for sleepovers!

Kate and Brylee enjoying their lunch.

April 2, 2010
We started our Easter weekend a little early this year. Since conference was going to be on Saturday and Sunday, we decided we would color eggs on Friday, do eggs goldenrod that night, and hard boiled eggs for breakfast on Saturday morning. Then we would head to Grammy and Grampy's for the rest of Saturday and Sunday.


The kids had a blast coloring eggs. Especially Brancyn, that is until he decided his egg looked like a ball and that it would be fun to throw:)



We woke up to this 'beautiful' sight on Saturday morning. As you are looking at this great pic, keep in mind that everything was melted off the day before. We'd even had some days that were high 60's and low 70's in March, but this was what Mother Nature sent us for Easter weekend.



We were glad to go to Grammy's where there was plenty of room to run and play even if the weather didn't cooperate with us. The kids had a great time doing their Easter basket hunt and enjoyed having a treat for conference. We finished up the day with a nice Easter dinner with Aunts, Uncles, cousins, and of course Grammy and Grampy.