Enjoying the Small Stuff

Like enjoying pudding so much, you just can't help but getting it all over your face,


Or a fort just perfect for reading books, made by opening all of the kitchen cupboards,




Or searching for the "perfect pumpkin," or posing ON the pumpkins,




And trying to lift that perfect pumpkin once you find it,

And teaching your sister to roll the pumpkins instead of lifting them, just like Charlie Brown,

Or deciding it's easier to just pose for a picture with your pumpkin than lifting or rolling it

And then watching in awe as your daddy "one-hands" that heavy pumpkin to the car for you!



We enjoy the small stuff like waking up to the first snow of the season,



And although it is just a dusting we hear Kate excitedly exclaim in a hlaf-asleep voice, "Oh My Heck!" It's the little things like standing on the heater to stay warm as you look out the window at the snow and eat Cheetos for breakfast with your brother.

Sensory Overload...

...In a Good Way!

This past weekend, we dehydrated a bunch of apples. Talk about an awesome weekend!

They Looked so nice as they soaked before we peeled them.

We all Looked amazing in our pajama glory as we prepared the apples bright and early in the morning. Okay, Bill and the kids look great. :)

And check me out. Boy am I a Sight for sore eyes, or what!? I look amazing since I wore a hat the night before and thus have the ever-amazing hat hair, which is definitely worse on a girl than a guy. But oh no, the fantastic Looks don't stop there. I made sure my pajamas don't match either, just for your giggling enjoyment. Hey, I was tired the night before and was too lazy to change my shirt. So sue me.

The apple peeler/corer/slicer is always amazing to Watch.

The kids all had to take a turn trying out the apple peeler/corer/slicer. Good thing they all Look so darling!





They thought it was so fun to See the long, continuous apple peels.


We all thought it was funny Watching Lana using her peel as a jump rope.


See how pretty the apples are as they take a little bath in pineapple juice before they are put in the dehydrator!



While the apples soaked for a minute, some of the kids munched on the long apple peels. Lana threw hers away after she used it as a jump rope. Kate apparently thought they Tasted so yummy that she had to shove the whole thing in her mouth as fast as she could.

I then got the joy of Touching all of the stickiness as I fished the apples out of the juice to place them on the racks. But the girls wanted to help sprinkle the cinnamon/sugar on the apples.

See how pretty they look!

And what do you do with the leftover apples? No, you do not throw them away! You fish them out of the pineapple juice, sprinkle cinnamon/sugar on them and Eat them!!!

So, about a dozen Sticky hands and one VERY Sticky floor later, we have two dehydrators full of apples ready to go. (Thank you, mom and dad, for letting us borrow your dehydrator. It sure makes it go faster to have two dehydrators going at once!)

The best parts of the whole process is something I can't take pictures of. Have you ever Smelled what apples, soaked in pineapple juice and coated in cinnamon/sugar Smell like when they are drying? It is the yummiest Smell ever. It is the perfect fall Smell! It reminds me of being a kid and how excited I was for those apples to be dried so I could dig into them and Eat them!

The other thing I love about dehydrating apples is the Sound of the silent hum of the dehydrators. There is something so soothing about it. We did several batches of apples over the weekend, and my favorite batch was the one we did over night. I loved Hearing the hum of the dehydrators as I fell asleep.

There is something so comforting and nice about dehydrating apples. It brought a fall feeling to our home and was something we enjoyed doing together as a family. We will definitely be making this a fall tradition.

Picture Day

Today was picture day at school for the girls. But since I am a horrible mother and decided not to buy the dorky school picture package, I took pictures of them before they left for school and promised to blog them so we wouldn't forget what they looked like for picture day.

Notice how much alike they look. Lana really wanted to look "like Rylee" because she thought Rylee looked so pretty. So we did a similar hair-do and similar color shirt.

My two blue-eyed beauties!

Lana doesn't like to just do normal smiles. She cheeses it and poses like crazy. Any natural smiles we capture are purely candid shots. I wonder what her picture will look like in the yearbook?!

This Girl...

...Is so obsessed with cutting EVERYTHING!!!

Her fingernails.

She really will sit there and look for nails to cut. There are many days when I go in to her room to get her up from her nap and she is sitting up picking at her toe nails, just looking for nails that need to be cut. Why is this so fun?

And her hair. Ugh.

She cut her bangs - TWICE - within a week. What a turd! She is now my lovely baby.

And before you say, "Well, duh, you stupid mommy - just put the scissors up," I just want to say, "I HAVE!!!" She has little helpers. They are ganging up on me in their little plots. Heaven help the poor baby sister who can't get into the scissors because mommy is so mean. Never fear, sweet little sister. We will save you. You will not be deprived of the joys of childhood...

Aren't they sweet siblings? I have raised angels. :)

You know Fall is in the air when...

I use the fact that it is "Orange Day" in kindergarten to make Lana an orange skirt and make it a whole fall ensemble (complete with orange nails if you could see them!)...

The Fall decorations have reappeared in the house...

And there were signs of Halloween everywhere at Lagoon this weekend...


Yep, Fall is in the air all right...Well, somewhere it is. Obviously it doesn't feel much like Fall yet. The kids were in shorts and wanted to get soaked on the water rides yesterday. It can't be too cool if that is the case.





Although I can't wait for the cool, crisp air to come our way, it was sure nice to enjoy the weekend outside. We will enjoy it as long as it lasts.

Those weather guys say that a major cool-down is headed our way this week. So we have enjoyed the last blast of summer and are now ready to jump in to fall. I can't wait to be able to start baking again without wanting to die because it heats up the house so much. I can't wait for the pumpkin cookie smell again, for the pumpkin carving, for the trick-or-treaters, and for the snuggling under a blanket during college football games. Bring on the cooler weather. We are ready.:)

Reaping What I Have Sown...

This is one of those posts that I really should never admit to, but whatever. I never claimed to be the perfect mother. This is the proof that I'm not.

In one day, I had two things happen that are a direct result of my lovely parenting skills.

On Monday, it was raining so I took Hayden and Kate to the store really quick before the girls got out of school. It's always much easier to take two kids to the store in the rain instead of four. As we are at the check stand, my sweet little Hayden starts singing.

At first I think, "Aw, what a cute boy." But then, I really start listening to what he is singing. I am mortified.

He is singing at the top of his lungs, "I don't dance, I do big poops." Then he laughs and says, "No, not big poops *giggle, giggle.*" I say, "Hayden, stop singing please." Oh no, the kid continues with, "I don't dance. I just do farts." Again, he giggles.

Oh jeez, where is a hole that I can crawl in? By now the checker is giggling, Hayden is loving the attention and Kate is laughing.

His grand finale is his rendition of, "We all go poop together." Seriously, I couldn't get out of there fast enough. But the only one to blame for my humiliation is myself.

You see, at night when I am tucking Hayden in he always asks me to "make him laugh." His favorite is when I change the lyrics of songs to wrong lyrics and then say, "No, that's not what it says." For some reason, the High School Musical and HSM2 lyrics are the most fun to change. And, yes, I usually sing those very lyrics that he was singing at the top of his lungs in the store.

So, you see, it's all my fault. I am reaping what I have sown.

Story #2 is the one I am even more humiliated to admit.

That very same, rainy day, I was taking Rylee to piano lessons. Before we left, she shoved a huge wad of Bubblicious bubble gum in her mouth.

Those wads are so huge, it makes me want to gag just thinking about shoving a whole piece in my mouth. But my sweet girl loves the stuff and apparently doesn't mind the fact that you can't breathe when a whole piece is in your mouth.

She is chomping away and we are on our way out of the neighborhood. I turn to her and say, "Rylee, you really need to get rid of that gum. You can't be chomping on that at piano lessons. It is distracting and no one wants to listen to you sloshing the stuff around and chomping on it." I am just a firm believer that there is no polite way to chew on a piece of gum that big. So I tell her to spit it out.

"Where?" Rylee is looking around the van wondering where she should spit out the horrendous wad.

Like a good mother I say, "Roll down your window and chuck it out the window. Just make sure it doesn't land on the sidewalk so you don't step on it when you walk to school tomorrow." I am so proud to admit I actually said that. (Really, where is the darned sarcasm font?)

So, Rylee rolls down her window and chucks her gum.

Fast forward to when we get back in the van to go pick her up. I walk around to the passenger side to help Kate get in and notice that the lovely wad is stuck to the side of my van. I could blame it on the fact that my daughter made a weak attempt to "throw" the gum out the window instead of gently placing it outside the window. But we all know it is my fault for telling her to huck it out the window in the first place.

So all of you people who are disgusted with my parenting skills, take comfort in knowing that I had to pull that yummy wad off the side of my van and take it in the house and throw it properly in the trash where it belonged.

Again, I reaped exactly what I had so perfectly sown. My kids have no shot at becoming proper, polite human beings if they learn from me. I think it's time to turn the parenting over to Bill. :)

Busy With Nothing Really...

Okay, that was a lie. We have been busy with four really important SOMETHINGS! They always keep us running.

We got to watch Brooke and Andy's baby a couple of weekends ago for a few hours and loved every minute of it.


Do you think the whole family loves babies?


Um, yes, we do...Just in case you were wondering. Ask any of my friends with babies (Alesha and Deb!) They will tell you I have to snag their babies any chance I get so I can get my baby fix.:)


Bill loves babies too. Seriously, honey, are you sure you don't want any more? ;)


Baby Danika sticking her tongue out at Uncle Bill while he took a picture. Watch out for this one. She has spunk already!;)


Last Monday was also Lana's first official day of school. The week before was kind of a "fake" first day of school. It was just orientation and then an extra week of summer before the "real' first day.


She was so excited and LOVES it there! Her teacher is fantastic and her class is darling. This will be a great year!


The first day she sat by two girls in our ward and felt so comfortable. And by the end of the week, she had made a new friend and begged me all weekend to let her come play. Unfortunately, I didn't have her number. Tuesday, when I took Lana to school, her new little friend's mom asked for our phone number because her daughter had also begged her all weekend to play with Lana. They are adorable together. We can't wait for a play date!


Saturday, Kate was anxiously awaiting the start of the BYU/Oklahoma football game. She was going so crazy waiting for the game (or just the treats we bought for the game) that she decided to entertain herself with her modeling skills. She seriously climbed on the counter and posed just like this. We are in serious trouble.



Gotta love the chocolate on the face. Just proves that THIS model eats! :)


And just after this picture, she kissed my cheek and got chocolate all over my face. So cute!


My favorite thing lately has been Hayden's love of one-on-one time with Bill and I after we put the kids in bed. He sneaks out of his room almost every night to come out and play and giggle with Bill and I. And we let him. It is so fun to be just with him for a while. Sometimes he wants a snack, sometimes he wants to play MarioKart with us, sometimes he just wants to wrestle and laugh.



How can you resist making this little guy smile?



Really...look at his face and tell me you wouldn't let him stay up for a while just to see that! I love my little Hayden Buddy.




Another big HIGHLIGHT of my week was when Kate went to Rylee and said, "I pooped. Change my bum." Oh yeah! And I was even more thrilled when Rylee said, "Okay," and said it with an excited smile. I thought she would change her mind, but no-siree.


See, she is even smiling (even if it is an unsure smile) as she begins the lovely task at hand.


Ah, poop wiped off and ready for a clean diaper. See...still smiling.

And she is almost finished. What a big helper!!! She even liked it so much that she followed Kate around the rest of the evening saying, "Kate, did you poop yet?" Dang, I should have started doing this one a long time ago. Now we are getting ready for potty training. Hey...Maybe I should let Rylee potty train her.;)

See, we have been busy with a whole bunch of fun little things. Hopefully I can get back onto a schedule now that school is back in session and become a regular blogger again. :)