Kade’s Reading List

 
Kade has quite the talent of procrastinating bed time. But it's one that I willingly give in to. This kid loves his books. Here are a couple of his favorites.

• Welcome to Bob's Building Yard
• Go, Dog Go!
• Clifford's First Valentines
• Brown Bear Brown Bear
• Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb (Dum Ditty Dum Ditty Dum Dum Dum)
• The Going to Bed Book
• The Spot Series 

There are many nights we will go through the whole stack before he's satisfied.

Tanyard Creek

The kids were out of school today for Martin Luther King Day. It was obvious they needed some re-bonding time. The weekend was a rough one… constant fighting and bickering. We couldn't go 10 minutes without someone being bugged by someone or someone doing something to someone. So, I decided we just needed to do something fun, just the 4 of us (Greg still had to work) to reconnect. Thank goodness it was a beautiful day. Mid 50's, no wind, clear sky kind of beautiful. So, we packed a lunch and headed down to Tanyard Creek. Tanyard Creek is a fun area full of nature trails. All the trails run alongside the creek and there is even a small waterfall you can hike up to. We spent 2 hours walking these trails. Just taking at their pace. Stopping to throw rocks every chance we could get and reading all the signs that are posted along the trail. They all loved it, and the timing for lunch was perfect. We spread the blanket out on the grass and ate our sandwiches. It was awesome. And, I think it worked. {Can you hear my sigh of relief?} I think I need to plan these things in a little more often. Not worry about keeping up with the friends so much, but just taking the time to focus on our little family. Here are some pictures to enjoy:

{Bryn in front of the waterfall… Isn't she beautiful?}

{All three of them standing still at the same time??? I had to bribe Little Mister with M&M's!)

{Of course! Thanks Tanner, we can always count on you!}

{Picking up Rocks}

{Throwing Rocks}

{Reading Signs}

{Finding Seashells}

{Finding and throwing more rocks}

{Eating Lunch}

{Picking up sticks}

{Taking a break…. See, it worked, they are touching and no one is yelling!}

{Finding another stick}

{Poking Tanner with new stick}

IT WAS AWESOME!

As a side note:  as we were getting out of the car one of Tanner's friends came running around to let us know that he was there too.  He came with his Grandma and Grandpa.  As we were walking together we found out that Grandma and Grandpa were originally from Sanpete County.  Grandma moved when she was young, but would go back to visit her grandma during the summer and she was really good friends with Greg's aunt and 2 of his uncles.  Her Grandma even went to school with Greg's grandma. I called  Lynda to let her know of the connection and she laughed as she said "All roads lead back to Sanpete County!"  It is so true! Lynda called back later to say that she had talked to Ralph and he could remember the Grandma's Grandma and Grandpa that lived in town and he can remember visits from this Grandma.  All roads lead back to Sanpete County!

Snow Days!

So, I love my kids, I feel like I need to make that completely clear before I move any further into this post….are we clear? I.love.my.kids. We were so lucky to have them home for two straight weeks over the holiday break. Then, the Saturday before they were supposed to go back for school we got a HUGE snow storm that dumped 4 inches of snow! (Ok, I say huge, but just remember huge is relative) So, slowly-ever so slowly- day by day school was cancelled for the next week! This is where I need to refer you back to the first line of this post. I love my kids. Three weeks at home with them can test that. They did get bored… they wouldn't admit that, but the arguing and teasing told me it was true. The first part of the week was a lot of fun. We were able to get out and enjoy the snow… but as the week moved on it got colder and colder. (Wind chill was said to be -20) So we were stuck. We tried to keep the days busy… I think we played with every friend we had –twice-. I am trying not to feel guilty for feeling this way… but I was so excited when school was back in session! Here are a few pics from our Snow Days:
Of course we had to get the 4 wheeler out and start towing the kiddos around. I feel bad I didn't get any pictures of Tan on the sled this year. Greg took him out early while I got the chili cooking at home. Next year Tan, I promise.

{Bryn started to get a little daring! She absolutely loved this!}

{You can't really tell by this picture, but Kade loved this! He got to the point where he wanted to do it by himself. He would lie down on his belly and just hang on! What a studly kid!}

{Family Picture. We don't come across many of these!}

Welcoming 2010

We had a great time welcoming in 2010. The evening started out with picking up a babysitter (that's when you know it's going to be a good evening!) We then met up with 4 other couples at PF Changs. Such a great place! Yummy, yummy dinner. The plan was to go bowling after dinner, but we were enjoying the food and conversation so much we didn't have time to fit the bowling in before we were supposed to picking up the kiddos. (Darn it, I was sooooo planning on kicking Greg's butt at bowling too!)

The rest of the evening was spent at our friends, The Owens, house with 6 other couples. I think I counted 26 kids… or something close to that. It was a great night spent playing games and eating more food. I was very surprised that all the kiddos were able to make it to midnight without any problem at all (including Kade! I was completely expecting to have to head home by 10:00 because he would be throwing one tired fit after another. Just another lesson in trying to out-guess that kid!) Here are some pics from the night. Enjoy!

Happy 2010 everyone!

Christmas Day

Christmas day for us was about as slow and relaxed as they come. We woke up about 7:00 to see what Santa had brought us and he definitely did not disappoint! Kade started it all off when he caught a glimpse of his Lightning McQueen 4-wheeler. We couldn't get him off of it to open another present. We had a video camera running and every once in a while you'll see him pass in the background going up and down the hall. Greg and I were both surprised at how well he was able to drive it, no running into walls or anything. It was even better when he figured out he could get off and lift the front end around to turn around when he hit a dead end. Now he is an old pro, getting tricky and standing on one side while he drives or standing up or crouching down and looking over the handle bars like he is going way fast. The one present we were able to get him to open was Buzz Lightyear. He calls him his robot. So cute to watch him take Robot for rides and then park and figure out what all the buttons on Robot do. Then giggle. Later in the morning Kade opened a big castle that comes with dragons and knights to fight (aka a doll house for boys). This has also been one of his favorites. As the morning went on, Kade definitely got overwhelmed and had a rough time sharing all the new things. Not much more can be expected from a 2 year old, but I was grateful when nap time came around for him.

I just realized I didn't get many pictures of Bryn opening gifts. Probably because she also liked to take her time and we'd get playing and forget about the camera. This Christmas really was all about the Barbie. She was able to get quite a few dolls and accessories to add to her collection. Another one of her favorite this was her Nintendo DS. She absolutely loves it. I am surprised at how well she does at it. After walking her through a couple of the games a couple times she was able to pick up on them and do really well.

{Here she is looking in her stocking. Each year Santa brings here some press on nails for little fingers. She absolutely loves them! What a girly girl!}

{Here is Bryn opening some new doll clothes for her babies. So much fun!}

With Kade and Bryn I mentioned that they liked to take things slow and take a minute to look at what was under the wrapping paper. Not my Tanner. So indicative of his personality, it was a race and he wanted to rip through his presents in record time. I think he did actually look at what was there, but there just wasn't time to find out much about it. J We love our Tanner. Tan's biggest wish this year was for a set of Golf Clubs so he could go out with Dad. Santa delivered.

It's just too bad that because of a certain little brother wanting to get the clubs out and swing them they found a quick home in the garage. I'm afraid he hasn't had much of a chance to get his hands on them. Tan also scored some science kits {because, you know, his favorite subject is Science}.
The remainder of the day was spent in our PJ's, eating yummy food and playing with toys and figuring out new games. Here are some other pictures from our day.

‘Twas the Night Before Christmas

The morning of the 23^rd I was hurting for family pretty bad. Greg and I hadn't made any party plans with our friends for the holidays so, about 10:30 Wednesday morning we decided we were going to party it up at our house. We invited 3 families over to have a good old fashioned Christmas Eve Party. We had the traditional Soup and Breadsticks. I made some Chicken Noodle Soup (it actually was horrible, because I timed it wrong, so by the time everyone was ready to eat my noodles were mush!) Luckily there were a couple other soups there to save the day. Everyone pitched in to help make it a great night.
We started off eating then let the kids play for a while before starting our program.

For our Christmas Program we tried to put in some of everyone's holiday traditions. The Denney's have a tradition of doing a reading of "'Twas the Night Before Christmas." I asked our friends, Matt and Alisha Lindsey, to do the honors. I think they thought I was a little crazy, but they were good sports and did an awesome job.

The Owen Family then hosted a white elephant exchange, including the traditional "Wright Family" passing game. I was glad this was one of their traditions because it was one of ours too! I was surprised at the boldness of my kids to get what they wanted. Tanner and Bryn had to steal their items from adults, not something I expected of them. Bryn ended up with a Hello Kitty Notepad and Tanner was the proud (very proud) owner of hand sanitizer. Funny kid, you would have thought he'd just been given $100. Kade was hilarious as the gifts were being passed from left to right; he thought it was the funnest game ever. I was worried he wouldn't want to give his gift up, but he played along with a huge smile on his face.


After the white elephant exchange all the kiddos opened their Christmas PJ's. So fun to have to have 13 kids running around in nice, cozy jammies as the excitement of Christmas was building.

 {And here is Tanner again showing off his hand sanitizer}

The kids played some more games as the party started winding down.

After everyone left it was time to set everything out for Santa and his reindeer.

Greg took care of sprinkling the reindeer food because (drum roll please) it was snowing!

The night ended soon after that. What a fun, busy way to spend Christmas Eve. We definitely missed our family in Utah (and Washington) but we are blessed to have good friends in Arkansas to help fill in the gaps.

“D” is For Dad

The kids LOVE their dad. Here are just a few pics we've taken recently of them. (Of course, Tanner is laying right where Kade wanted to, so we get a picture of Kade trying to fight his way into his desired spot.)

This is a picture Brynlee drew when they were talking about Dads at school.

She was also supposed to bring a picture of her and her dad into school to share with everyone.