Chester

So I got out voted and now we have a pet. I'm just not such a big animal person, but at least this guy is small and quiet and doesn't stink...yet. And his "waste" makes excellent fertilizer (Chris' major selling point). We now have a bunny, Chester! Grandma Alice gave him to us. He is a tiny little thing right now. The kids are loving him...maybe a little too much :)

taking a rest from putting the cage together.
Payton and chester in his cage
Jayden and chester
Chester eating the instructions
the boys helping put the cage together....they look so involved!

We've now had chester for 2 days and I have to say it's not the worst thing that has ever happened to me. He's been dropped 3 times and overfed like EVERY day...but he's cute and soft and cuddly...YAY for us!

Vacuum Cleaner Fun

The boys love to take the parts of the vacuum cleaner and make guns and then chase each other around the house with them...gotta love cheap fun :)

We LOVE Mind Blowing Science....

Thank you grandma for the science experiments. The kids LOVE it! And are loving playing with it. (even though they don't looked too thrilled in this photo!) We did 3 things saturday night and have big plans to play with it some more today!!!

thank you thank you!!! and the timing is PERFECT! Right in time that we are stuck inside by cold weather and a few snow storms!

Toothless...

Chris pushed out Kenzie's other front tooth....we didn't even know it was loose!

Watch Out World...

Jayden got registered for kindergarten yesterday!

This is his happy face...So they do a little assessment when you register, just to get an idea of where the kids are at at this point. So the principal was the one doing the assessments. So he asks Jayden a few questions and has him do a few things...no problem. Then he asks Jayden to count some crayons. Jayden says, "No. I don't feel like it." And he completely refused to do it!! The principal had to keep encouraging him and ended up doing part of it for him. It was funny.
Payton is excited about being the only one home for half the day next year!

Valentine's Day

Breakfast--pink scrambled eggs and toast with heart shaped cinnamon sugar
Lunch--apple kisses
all ready for valentine's tea

They posed themselves...and I need to learn how to use my camera so all the faces aren't so washed out
Dinner table decorations



Jayden had a friend come over after I had set the table. She asked what all the candy was for. I told her we were just having a special dinner. She looks at me and then Jayden and says, "You know, friends should share. That's what friends do, they share." Later she went home and told her dad that we were having candy for dinner! (I even made peanut butter balls and dipped them in chocolate...they were yummy). Anyway...that was our valentine's day!

New Clothes...

So, Betsy, Tanner, Renee, Steve, Cris and Laree all came up and surprised me for my birthday a few weeks ago. My AWESOME sisters bought me a whole new outfit with jewelery and everything....I can't even remember the last time I bought jewelery! Betsy also brought a bag of clothes she was getting rid of. Some of the clothes were so small they fit Kenzie (above picture)!
Even new shoes (new to me, anyway)
I was annoyed...I was doing math homework with jax!
SO CUTE and pretty comfy too!!! Thanks guys!
How cute is kenz in Betsy's clothes...dang bets, you are small!

Mommy School

So Jayden gets to go to kindergarten this upcoming school year. In preparation for that, the kindergarten teacher has been hosting workshops at the school to help parents know how to get the kids ready. She give great ideas and also sent home a bag of things to practice with (a white board, marker, magnetic letters, rhyming books, number matching stuff, etc). So this last workshop was about numbers and math. So I took some of her ideas and used them at mommy school...that's what the kids call it when I try to teach jayden at home. Here he did some sorting and then....
organized some patterns by color and shape and even extended a pattern (he like the air head pattern better and was WAY more motivated to do that one than the blocks)
Also, we did writing in rice. In an attempt to help him recognize his numbers, he practiced writing them in the rice. It was a little messy, but he enjoyed it.
Got lots of other ideas to help him get ready for kindergarten...and until the end of august to accomplish them all!!!

Big Boss...

Jax built this big boss vehicle out of k'nex....it has guns and kind of transforms! He did such a great job and had fun doing it. These are the kinds of things that happen when we have early church and mom and dad take a nap.

Look Who's Feeling Better!!!

We've had a rough time the last few weeks...we've had one kid sick every week since the first week of January....it's been hard. But the worst of all was Payt...he whined and cried and needed to be held ALL DAY LONG. I'm not kidding. I spent an entire 6 hours one day holding him on the couch...it was a LONG DAY!


But this afternoon he was smiling and laughing and running around and playing guns (with vacuum attachments).

A healthy boy is a happy mom :)

10th Anniversary....almost anyway!

So, in 10 days we are gonna be celebrating ten years of marriage. Leading up to this, I've wanted a band to go with my engagment/wedding ring. So Friday night we went shopping...and found a place that was having a 45% off sale (and yes the guarantee their stuff)....


We decided to get one on each side and then had them all soldered together....

I LOVE IT! and today at church the woman sitting next to me commented on how beautiful my ring was. I just had to agree.

TWINNERS!!!

So last weekend Kenz decided to get out her easy bake oven and make dessert (for a mouse, because that's about all it feeds). So she took this ball of dough and stuck it in her mouth and bit down....and bit her loose tooth. To the point of blood and screams from the kitchen! So I looked at it and told her it had to come out. (for some reason my kids have this weird idea that if they leave their tooth alone it will just fall out on its own....whose kids are they, anyway?!?) So I twisted it sideways and made her go look in the mirror at it. Apparently that gave her the courage to pull it out...which really consisted of just barely touching it. And then she called everyone on the phone book. When I sat back and looked at kenz and jax they are both missing the same tooth! Funny kids!