O Christmas Tree...Hat

A couple of years ago (maybe last year, I'm not sure) Nathan's mom made us a Christmas tree decoration. This year as we were getting Christmas out of storage, Matt found it. He pulled the styrofoam form out and put the crocheted tree on his head. It is now the most coveted hat in our house. :)

November...In a Nut Shell

November 6th--we had a primary activity. One of my responsibilities as the First Counselor is planning our quarterly activities. Going into the 4th quarter I wanted to do something really low key. I mean, you've got Halloween in October, Thanksgiving in November, and Christmas in December. Two of those months the ward does a big party already and let's face it...those months are busy. Tiffin told me about an activity her sister-in-law did (or their primary did). It was a box car drive-in. Then, mom told me that her ward did one too and I thought it would be perfect for our last activity. The kids brought their cars, ate popcorn and watched a movie. I think it went really well.

 
This is the only picture I have from Thanksgiving. It is my mom and my cousin Dee. I'm sure they will both be thrilled knowing I put this on here. Last year I volunteered to make Thanksgiving assignments for this year. Don't ask me why, just trust that I will not do that again. It was hard. I was trying to make assignments for food for 100 people, some of whom would be driving into town that day. I was stressing about it for a long time. Then Nathan came up with the brilliant idea to just have each of my mom's brothers and sisters families make a Thanksgiving meal that would feed their family and bring it for a potluck. Clear as mud, right? Yeah, it got lost in translation explaining it to everyone, too. Once I got it all straightened out and everyone understood what was going on it went really well. We had it at the church building since there are so many of us (I think there were 87 people). We had so much food and such a huge variety it was great.

I'm sure we did lots of other fun things in November, I just can't remember. Kade frequently tells me he thinks my brain is on vacation. Maybe he is right.

Happy Halloween!

Nathan made lunch for us today. Jack-O-Lantern pancakes! Yummy!

Halloween Party in Pictures

 Matt and Ray wouldn't put their costumes on this year. Mom's costume was the hit of the night (I loved that she was crying--from laughing--from the minute she put it on). I don't really want to sit here and caption everything, so use your imagination and come up with them yourself.

I think this pretty much sums up how we all felt at the end of the night.

LEGO Store Opening

This is a model of the large one they are building.

Kade was invited to the LEGO Store Grand Opening (along with pretty much every other person in the valley). I decided that since the kids had a half day at school on the Friday of the Grand Opening Weekend that I would take them to the mall and let them help build the 8 foot Yoda the Master Builders were building. We got there and it wasn't really crowded. I was so happy! We had no trouble building our bricks.

Hailey building her brick.

Kade building his brick.

Then we got in a short line to hand our bricks to the Master Builders.

Kade with his brick.

Matt with his brick.

Ray with her brick (actually Matt's--she didnt' make one of her own).

Hailey with her brick.

Then we were supposed to get certificates saying we had helped build Yoda, but the line for the certificates wrapped around the mall! It was crazy. Luckily, the kids weren't too attached to the certificates and I was able to convince them that we didn't need them. 

Besides, Rachel had peed all over herself and I didn't have a change of clothes for her. (I hope my Grandma isn't reading this right now or she'd be so mad that I left the house without a change of clothes for my kids.)

Last Swim of the Season

(In the pool, at least. There's always the hot tub.)

We got one last swim in before the nights make the air too cold to swim (more like too cold to get out of the pool). The kids have had a great time this summer. Hailey and Kade are swimming much better.

 Kade hardly uses anything to help him anymore. He even started doing flips off the diving board.

Hailey still likes her noodle, but at least we finally got the floaties off. 

Matt started the summer HATING the pool. He would cry and hang on to me for dear life. Luckily, that only lasted two or three weeks. 

 Rachel took to the water like a fish. One time she came running out of the house and into the pool without stopping. Thankfully she had on floaties.

In Memoriam

Spirit--12/25/09-10/13/10

Hailey's pet fish Spirit died yesterday. She is heartbroken. Last night, she and Nathan dug a grave for him in the backyard and had a little funeral service.This morning I asked her what some of her favorite things were about Spirit.

1. She loved to play Hide-And-Seek and Peek-A-Boo with him.
2. His rainbow colors.
3. When he would flare his cheeks. Sometimes they would flare their cheeks together.
4. When he would spit out his food.
5. Sometimes, if two pieces of food were stuck together, he would break them apart with his mouth.

We're In Trouble

I found this in Hailey's backpack today. She did it in Art class.

An ER Trip for Kade

Yesterday I was in the kitchen starting to get dinner ready. Kade was "playing" with Rachel, but Hailey didn't want him to. She told him to leave Rachel alone twice and then I heard a crash and crying. I didn't realize that he was cut and bleeding and was trying to deal with Hailey. Then I heard the shriek. "I'm BLEEDING!" I looked up and saw that his temple was bleeding. We got the blood cleaned up and I decided he'd probably need stitches or dermabond. I made a quick call to my mom and asked if she'd come stay with the kids until Nathan got home. I bribed her with chalupa and she came over. I called Kelli to see if she would come over and stay with the kids until my mom got there. I bribed her with chalupa and she came over.

Our first stop was Urgent Care. I was hoping that they could just glue it shut and we'd be done, but since it was on his face the doctor there didn't want to do it. Next stop, Thunderbird Hospital.We got checked in pretty quickly. While we were waiting for triage a nurse asked Kade if he would like to color. She gave him some Halloween pictures and a set of markers to color with. There were also some Halloween stickers attached. He was in heaven.

We were called into the triage room where his temperature, blood pressure, pulse, and weight were taken. Along with his story of what happened--the who, what, where, when, and why. (Side note: I never know how to act when I'm at the ER or the doctor when one of my kids is hurt. Do I tell the doctors the whole story or does that look suspicious? Do I have my kid tell the story and I don't say anything or does that look suspicious. Not that I've done anything wrong, but I've heard the horror stories of parents being wrongly accused and their kids get taken away.) The triage guy gave Kade more stickers. Then we were taken to the Pediatric Unit.

The Peds Unit was great. The waiting room had little games, toys, and books for him. It had a little table for him to sit at and color. Plus it was quiet. We were called back and put in the "Camping Room". Kade sat on the bed and I got a chair. There was a TV and VCR and about 100 movies to choose from. He chose Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. While watching the movie, another nurse came in with more pictures to color, crayons, dinosaur stickers and a paper to put the stickers on to make a prehistoric scene. Kade said, "I think they must like me here!"

Kade's Loot

We saw a few nurses, a student doctor, a medical assistant, and finally the doctor. All of whom asked what happened. The doctor told Kade he''d need stitches and Kade lost it. He had been hoping the doctor would just put a bandaid on it. After the doctor left, Kade and I talked about it and I got him calmed down. The doctor came back in a couple of minutes later to have another look. He said he really didn't want to glue it because it was gaping open and that could lead to a bigger scar if the glue came off.

The student doctor did the stitches. Kade was very brave and only cried when he was being numbed. After getting three stitches he went to the "Toy Closet" and picked out a kite. We waited for about an hour after that and then we were discharged.

Four hours and three stitches later and we were on our way to McDonalds for some cookies.

King of the Bay

Kade is "King of the Bay" at school. It's the same thing as student of the week, but since the school's mascot is the barracuda his teacher made their class "Barracuda Bay". Thus, "King of the Bay". He got to fill out his poster and decorate it how he wanted. He was nice enough to let Hailey and me help him.

Some things about Kade:

He is 5 years old.
He wants to be a police officer when he grows up. (See how the picture is of a police officer pointing his gun at a "bad guy"?)
His favorite food is spaghetti. (He told me his picture actually looks like colored pancakes because he tried to draw a plate, but it just didn't work out like he'd planned.)
His favorite color is green.
His favorite book is Thomas the Tank Engine.
He has no pets.
He has a lot of friends.