10 Years Old!

Happy Birthday to my sweet Kaitlyn. She turned 10 yesterday, and we had fun festivities all weekend long. It was lots of fun, and there is so much to post about, so stay tuned. We sure do love you Kaitlyn, and we are proud of the girl you are.

Who Doesn't LOVE a Challenge?

I'm not one to turn down a challenge. Especially when that challenge is a cute little 4-yr-old with big blue eyes and the best laugh in town. We have had some challenging moments lately. I'm in the primary presidency, and last Sunday it was my turn to do sharing time. The Sunbeams in our ward are a very special group. I say special with tongue in cheek, because they are probably the rowdiest, wiggliest, craziest bunch of little people I've ever seen. Of course, one of them belongs to me! They like to move their chairs all around, sing at the top of their lungs, wander around the room (and sometimes escape into the restroom to make a sudsy soap mess)... it's all of them! They all have their reverent "moments" but they have definitely been a challenge. It was my kid's turn to be the super crazy one this past Sunday. Here I am, up in front, doing my sharing time... and my kid keeps coming up to the front wanting to help. Of course, they are supposed to be reverent if they want to help, so I keep telling him to sit down please (in my nicest primary-presidency-mommy voice) and he doesn't want to! Oh boy. It was all I could do to not pick him up and march him into Daddy. I think he just knew that there was nothing I could do. Well, he finally sat down after trying to draw on the board and move the game pieces we were using (with a huge frown on his face) and I was able to finish the game we were playing, but that wasn't the end of the challenge. About 20 minutes later (after he had gone to class) I was told that he had hurt his eye. What? Well, apparently, he had fallen off his chair in class and hit his eye. It had a huge scrape right underneath it, and was a bit swollen. When I asked him how it happened, he said "I was standing on my chair trying to get a silver thing." When I asked him where the silver thing was, he said "On the floor." Of course. Who doesn't stand on their chair to get something off the floor. I'm not sure what was going on that day, or what had been slipped into his milk at breakfast to make him so nutty, but it was quite the day. Don't get me wrong... these days are not in the majority, but when they come along, they are doozies! The rest of that lovely Sunday was quite similar... filled with time-outs and scoldings, but thankfully Monday came with the sweet, obedient half of my Jekyl and Hyde back in full force. He is normally a very fun, sweet, happy kid who makes me smile. He just has his challenging moments. And I definitely love this challenge of mine!

Here are the many faces of Hayds. Check out that shiner!

Thanksgiving

I remember many Thanksgiving dinners held at my Grandpa's church building when I was a kid. It was always so much fun. We got to play basketball in the gym, and hide and seek throughout the building. And dinner was always so yummy. We have started doing it at our church building, and the kids love it... not to mention, there is so much more room. We set up tables in the Relief Society room, and the kids just ran around the gym and the nursery. There really weren't a ton of us this year, but it was still nice having it at the church. Jared's favorite part is playing basketball, of course!

The kids had a blast just playing around until dinner.

Once it was time to eat, however, I put my camera away and never got it back out... so there are no fun pictures of the delicious food, or everyone sitting around at the table, or playing games and looking at Black Friday ads... but it was a nice, relaxing Thanksgiving. What a great time to remember the things we are thankful for. I'm so thankful for my parents and their love and support through the years (we sure missed dad this year since he was in Arizona!) I'm super thankful for my awesome hubby. He does so much for our family. I'm thankful for my sweet kids. They make me smile everyday. I'm thankful for my sisters and their friendships (and their cute families of course). I'm extremely thankful for the gospel and the knowledge I have of my Savior and all he has done for me. I am so blessed and grateful for all that I have - too much to mention. I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving too!

Ballroom

When Eryn found out that her school had a ballroom team, she wanted to join! I didn't say "yes" at first, because I didn't know how we would fit it into our crazy lives. She decided she would NOT play basketball, and after much negotiation, we gave in. It means I have to make an extra trip up to the school twice a week, but she has enjoyed it so much. I think it's been really good for her. We were super excited last night to finally be able to see her perform.


She is on the Level I team, since it's her first year, and they got to dance while Alex Boye' sang "Are you gonna go my way?" He did a concert, and sang a ton of songs, but shared the stage with a few other people for some of them. Eryn's team, and the Level II team both got to dance, as well as some other dancers. Jared's good friend served his mission with Alex Boye', and Jared thought he better get a picture with him. He was hilarious and very entertaining.

Here are a few pictures that I grabbed from the video I was able to take while they were dancing. She did so great! It was fun to finally see her in action :) I only wish she could have been in the front so we could see her a little bit better, but it was still fun seeing her with a big smile on her face and having such a great time.

Happy Birthday Jared!

Last week was Jared's birthday. Neither of us wanted a big deal made of our birthdays this year, and it was really hard for me to keep that promise, but I did manage to keep it fairly low key. He didn't want anything, but I did get him some new pants for work... and I planted a couple of hints to my mom of things I knew he'd like :) All he wanted was fried chicken and rice for dinner (I'm not sure how good it actually was, but I made it anyway). And he said NO CAKE... BUT he didn't say no ice cream!! So I called my family and said "Come over for ice cream." It was fun, and I think Jared enjoyed having a little bit of attention on his birthday.

One of the ideas that I gave Mom was the movie "Wolverine." Jared LOVED this movie. He rarely says he wants to buy a DVD, but this one he said he'd love to own, so Mom and Dad gave it to him. I think he was pretty happy about that!


All ready for Ice Cream! Happy Birthday DADDY!


And even with no cake, ya still gotta blow out some candles. Jared turned 37 this year, so I put 3 candles on one side, and 7 on the other... it looked a little more organized from above. Vanilla is his FAVE... but we added chocolate syrup and sprinkles to make it more fun :) Happy Birthday Jared. I love you!

I'm Thankful For My Family

I have so many things I'm grateful for, and of course Thanksgiving time makes me really sit back and think about it. One thing I'm SO, SO thankful for is my little family. I'm married to the best guy ever. He works so hard for our family and truly wants the best for us. He treats me like a queen, even when I definitely don't deserve it! He is definitely my best friend and we love hanging out together, working together, ANYTHING together! I have the four cutest, most amazing kids, too. They seem to love me in spite of my imperfections, and they've truly taught me so much about what real love is. I love how different they all are, and the great relationship I have with each of them. I've been meaning to post these pictures for a while. I've posted a couple, and I'm sure you've noticed the new one in our blog header, but I thought I should add the rest as well. We went out at the beginning of October to do our family pictures. I wanted to make sure it was still nice fall weather, with some pretty fall color left. It was a little chilly (we went on a Saturday morning) the ground was nice and wet, but we had fun. Our kids are old enough to be quite cooperative, and it makes it so much easier! I set up my camera on a tripod, and used the timer - which I'm sure made things very entertaining for my kids since I had to run back and forth and get into position quite quickly. And with the light blinking, the kids had something to look at... especially with me saying "watch the light... get ready!" They did great! It was so fun to hang up a bunch of new pictures in my living room. That way I can always look at these people that I love so much :)