Hiking with Daddy

One Saturday I had a lot of work to do, it was raining, and the kids were BORED. Matt decided to pack them up, make a picnic lunch, and take them up to the mountains to give me a break :). They LOVED it, and it was really great for them to spend some quality time with Daddy since he is always so busy! Such big hikers! They walked the way, bouncing on rocks and jumping up and down!The monkeys and their Daddy!Picnic by the riverThanks Daddy, they had a blast!6-20-2009

The road to independance

I had decided that it was time for my kids to learn to do a few new chores - ones that I prefer to not do ;). I figured at 2 and 4, they are old enough to set the table, do the dishes, empty the dishwasher, and put away their own laundry. However, doing so DID require some adjustments. First, I purchased several sets of these melamine dishes from Costco to replace all glass dishes - they aren't quite ready for the real glass stuff yet. I moved all of the glass to a high cabinet, so we only use these dishes (most of the time). Then I rearranged our cabinets - if you come to my house, don't expect anything to be in a normal place! How could I expect the kids to empty the dishwasher and set the table if they couldn't reach anything? :) I put all of the cups in the lazy susan, the dishes under the sink, and I even moved the silverware down to the second drawer so they could reach easier and so they could make sure that all of the utensils go into the right compartment. I got on photoshop and made some cute 12 x 18 placemats (this is just one side, they are double sided, the back sides all coordinate, the front sides are all different). I printed them at Costco (they print 12 x 18 prints), glued them back to back, then laminated them. Now the kids know exactly how I want the table set (no more piles of cups, plates at random, and missing silverware! By the way, I KNOW this is not a proper table setting, but I had to simplify it to make it easier for the kids, and it works for us!)My hard-working girl! She did great scrubbing the dishes while I helped to load them into the dishwasher - Mason helped too! They loved it! Yes, I know that won't last!This was after dinner, but you get the idea, the kids were able to set the table and put everything in it's place - they even learned how to fold the napkins into triangles ;)And finally, the laundry issue. I know they can't quite fold everything nicely yet, so everything that would go in drawers is in these bins, so they can just be tossed in, they don't need to be folded. All of their church clothes are on the top racks, I help hang those up. Their everyday clothes are on the bottom racks where they can reach them to get themselves dressed every morning (no, I did not dress Mason in cowboy boots, brown plaid shorts, and a bright blue football shirt!), and they can reach everything to put their own clothes away. Their bins are color coordinated, Mason's are navy and McKinley's are beige. McKinley does have to use a chair to reach hers, but she manages just fine!Nothing wears kids out like a day of hard work! :)

Animal Farm Fun

6-2-2009 - we took the kids to Farm Country at Thanksgiving Point to see all of the cute baby animals, it was so much fun! The kids LOVED feeding the baby pony!Mason ready to feed some chickens!McKinley, Mason, and their friends waiting for their pony ridesMason was pretty sure he was a real cowboy riding that pony! :)

Amanda and Ben's Wedding

Well, you saw the guest book, now here's the main event. I wish I would have taken pictures of every detail of it, her wedding was absolutely amazing! Congrats guys!The back of Amanda's dress was incredible!Matt with his cute sisters, brother-in-law Greg (who might as well be his brother), and Amanda Don't ask :)We had to get a picture with cousin Jake, we miss him!Family Photo :)The WHOLE family - minus Grandma and Grandpa - wish they had been there, but keep them in your prayers!How gorgeous is that cake? It's a shame we had to eat it, but it tasted even better than it looked!She can have her cake and eat it too! Uncle Darryl shared his yummy wedding cake with McKinley - she must have known mommy wouldn't share ;)Cute flower girl! McKinley LOVED twirling around in her dress with the other little girls!Oh, and he looked so innocent :) Mason spent most of the wedding throwing rocks in Uncle Greggie's fountains, sorry Greg!McKinley enjoying a Daddy-daughter danceThe kiddos with Grandpa - we were glad he was able to come for a little while!McKinley caught the bouquet - we are SERIOUSLY in for it if tradition holds true! Sorry boys, she's not technically available yet!I had to get a shot with the beautiful bride!Three generations :) Can you see the resemblance? The flower arrangements were amazing, this was one of the hundredsIn the background you can see the crazy cool ice sculpture fruit tray - it was awesome! This was at the end of the night, it looked even cooler at the beginning of the night before it started to melt away!Little Mason has had enough wedding fun for a while, he was WIPED out!

Californiaaaaa here we coooommme...

Okay, here we go, the major blog catch-up begins (grab a comfy chair and a caffeinated beverage:)

McKinley and Mommy needed a day of pampering, so we went to get manicures and pedicures before our trip to California. McKinley LOVED the pampering, and looked so cute in her pink Glitter Toes pedi!
Over Memorial Weekend we went to California for my sister Amy's wedding. It was BEAUTIFUL, and SO much fun!
Congrats Amy and Brett!!!McKinley LOVED all of the fancy fun wedding details :) - she followed Amy everywhere, and thought it was SO cool that she got to wear the same outfit as Amy's other neices!The wedding lunch was so yummy!And my kids were SO well behaved, as you can see :)Amy looked amazing, and her hair deserves it's own post, it was fabulous! I LOVE the flower!Cutting the cake - they were SO much nicer than we were at our wedding :)The next day we enjoyed a day at the beach with my high school friends, and a BBQ afterwards at Natalie's cute house - however for some reason I have NO pictures of these events, only this one shot on the beach with Brittany and Ian in the background :( ooops! It was SO much fun to see everyone!Saturday we rode the ferry over to Balboa Island - the kids thought that riding on a boat next to cars was the coolest thing ever!McKinley posing :) She loved walking along the beach on Balboa!Daddy took the kids on a fun ferris wheel ride at the Balboa Fun Zone - you could watch sea lions pop up in the ocean from the ferris wheel!And no California trip would be complete without shakes at Ruby's on the Pier - YUM!

Fishy Tales

This is the story of a couple of sad little fish, and more kid moments :)

We attended our ward service auction a couple of weeks ago where our kids insisted on catching the real live goldfish swimming in the kiddie pool. McKinley named hers 'Tarsa' (she likes to make up names?). When I asked Mason what his fish was named he said "he's a daddy fish, daddy's don't need names, they are just called daddy". Naturally. Well, I knew these fish weren't going to make it too long, but I figured a few days, right? Well, we went straight to Wal-Mart, bought fish food and a bowl, and put them in their happy home. The next morning the kids ate breakfast watching the fish swim around, they were so excited about them! Well, by lunch one of the fishies had decided to 'take a nap' and wasn't so much swimming anymore. The other one would swim to the top, then float to the bottom, swim to the top, then float to the bottom, until finally he came to 'rest' at the bottom of the bowl. I debated running out to the store when Matt got home to replace the fish before anyone noticed that they weren't 'waking up', but decided that it was a good opportunity to teach them about life and death. I prepped myself for sad tears and explained to the kids that the fish were not alive anymore, they had died and gone to fishy heaven. I tried to discuss this all very carefully and sensitively. Well, apparently my kids weren't too attached to these fish because when I told them that we would flush them down the toilet they were beyond thrilled! It was the most exciting thing they had ever heard! We flushed them down and they told me we could just get some new ones another day. So much for learning about life and death. We will work on the grieving process some other day. For now, every time Mason goes pee-pee in the potty he tells me he just peed in fishy heaven :). You can't say I didn't try!

Today I told my kids if they were really good listeners on our errands we could stop at the pet store and get some new fish. By the end of our list of errands I was WIPED out. I had forgotten about the fish promise, of course. We began to head home when McKinley said "Mom, are we going to get our new fish?" Not REALLY wanting to turn back around and make yet another stop, I said "we'll see" hoping that would appease her and we could do it another day. But instead she said "Mom, that's what you always say. Whenever you say "we'll see" you always figure out "no". :) She's right, dang-it. So, we went to the pet store and we purchased two female beta fish (since the females won't eat each other, and since the pet store guy said that beta's will live a lot longer than goldfish - we can hope :). Off on another fishy adventure. This time McKinley named hers 'Sweetie' and Mason decided this one isn't a daddy fish, so his name is 'Stinky'. I asked him why he named his fish 'Stinky' and he said "because he smells like fish." Of course - duh. Oh, and did I mention that this makes us the proud owners of two fish, one dog, one cat, a husband, and two children? I think we can officially call our house a zoo!

This one was a few weeks ago, but still makes me laugh :). We were outside playing and Mason went inside to go potty. He was in there quite a while, so I went in to see what was taking so long. He was just coming out of the bathroom and jumped when he saw me. Bad sign.

Me: Mason, you okay?

Mason: yeah

Me: What were you doing in there?

Mason: I don't think me want to tell you

Me: Why?

Mason: I maybe didn't flush anything down the toilet

Me: You did or you didn't flush something?

Mason: Me don't want to tell you

Me: What did you flush

Mason: I maybe didn't flush the white lids down the toilet (the white lids are the caps that cover the bolts on the bottom of the toilet)

Me: Mason, did you flush the white lids down the toilet?

Mason: Me did, but me not going to tell you, okay?

Me: (trying not to laugh at my 2-year-old telling on himself, I would never have noticed they were missing!) Mason, let's go look okay?

We went into the bathroom and sure enough both lids were gone, and we had a talk about not flushing anything down the toilet. I hope the fish didn't confuse him :) In conclusion, if you come to my house and notice that the white lids are missing, now you know why.

Again, I am PROMISING pictures next week! Thanks for checking in on us - all two of you! :)

Some kiddo-isms

We have been SOOO busy lately that I have (sigh) seriously neglected the blog. I have pictures from my sister's wedding, my niece's wedding, California, Orlando, hiking, 4th of July, and so forth to upload, but just no time. We have youth conference, family stuff, and crazy chaos in the coming week, but I should get to it next week... I hope... I keep telling myself things will settle down but they never really do. Here are some funnies from our kids lately:

Matt took the kids on a hike up Cottonwood Canyon while I got some work done one Saturday.
McKinley: (pointing to a river) That's a river, Dad.
Matt: Yep, you are right.
McKinley: Jesus got baptized in a river. He got baptized by John the Baptist.
Matt: That's very good, you are right.
They continued on for a ways, then sat down by the river for their picnic lunch. All the while apparently Mason had been considering the previous conversation.
Mason: (looking at Matt) Dad, that river is moving WAY too fast for Jesus!

During our Orlando trip McKinley was all over my newly-wed niece's husband. She would giggle and smile and 'flirt' with Ben. At one point we ended up driving to the pool while the boys walked over. While we were driving over McKinley looked out the window and saw Ben walking and said in the girliest voice "OOOOoooh, there's my boooyyyfriend."
Me: Who are you talking about?!? Which one is your boyfriend?!? (assuming she meant Matt or Mason since she makes them be the 'prince' when she plays princess)
McKinley: Beeeennnn is. He's my boyfriend.
Me: Oh no, it starts this young?!?
Once we got to the pool I told my niece, Amanda, about what McKinley had said.
Amanda: McKinley, who's your boyfriend?
McKinley: Ben!
Amanda: But I thought Ben was my boyfriend!
McKinley: Well, we can share!
Ben was pretty okay with that!

There are oh so many more, but I have got to run, so more stories and pictures to come! Thanks for checking in even though I never update!!!