Halloween 2007

We just got back from trick or treating at the the church Halloween party.  Its nice because the kids get to trick or treat inside and its all people we know.  They got plenty of candy and there are also little games in the gym with little prizes too.

Here are the pictures of us all dressed up.

Here is me with the kids.  This year I told them they had to be stuff that we already had costumes for.  Kyler reused my witch attire to be a wizard.  Tayden reused Kyler's sumo suit from last year.  Ady wanted to be a fairy godmother.  The wings are reused from her first birthday.  We did end up buying her a dress though.  She loves purple and was very insistent.   She will get plenty of use out of it though, because she loves to dress up. ( I wonder where she gets that from :) )  I wanted to wear a blond wig, so I ended up being a rock star-ish trashy blond I guess. My friends kept asking if I was Anna Nicole Smith or if Dave has a thing for blonds... he doesnt, by the way.  I already owned the pleather pants and disco shirt, believe it or not. The kids and I talked Dave into being a detective.  Ady originally wanted to be a detective but changed her mind yesterday.  So we made Dave do it. It was his hat that she would have used anyway.

 ( He looks a little tired, huh?  He has had a very stressful week.)

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween Everyone! Halloween really is one of my favorite holidays. I love to dress up! So I thought it would be fun to show you some pictures from Halloweens past.

October 1999

We were the Dead bride and groom for our Utah wedding reception.

Halloween 1999

We were hippies.

Halloween 2001

Kyler was a Spider and Mommy was the Spider's web

Daddy was the moth that the spider catches in his web.

On the left is Kyler's friend Lillian as a cute little Devil. And of course Kyler is stealing her sucker :)

Halloween 2002

We all went as Scarecrows

Halloween 2004

The kids went as zoo animals and Dave and Heather were Zoo keepers.

(Ady was a newborn and went as a little lion)

I wish I had more pictures of us from this Halloween.

Halloween 2005

The boys were ghosts, Dave and Heather dressed in 80's clothes and

Ady was a cute little ballerina

2006

Kyler wanted to be Kirby (a Nintendo character) which is basically just a big pink ball, so we bought a big sumo wrestler suit and covered it with pink fabric. Tayden and Ady were the Wonderpets and I was a witch. I don't remember what Dave was.

As you can see I don't have any pictures from 2000 or 2003 , so if any of you have pictures of us from those years, please email them to me! In 2000 I was pregnant with Kyler and we went as Bees to pass out candy at the church. In 2003 I think Kyler was a pumpkin and Tayden was a spider. Heather was a witch and Dave was a ghost.

Tomorrow I will post pictures of what we are going as this year.

You will have to wait in suspense :)

Doll house

We celebrated the October Birthdays with my extended family on Saturday. It was a lot of fun to have them all up to our house. My Aunt Debbie and Cousin Jenny were here for the first time. We had 4 birthdays to celebrate; Ady, My cousin Jenny, My Brother-in-law, Mark and my Grandma.

Dave has been working for about 6 weeks on making a doll house for Ady for her birthday. It isn't quite finished yet, but we went ahead and gave it to her on Saturday because some of the presents she was getting were for the doll house. Dave is still planning to fill the screw holes, stain it and put a back on it, but for the most part it is all done. It turned out so much better than I imagined it would. Dave spent a lot of time on it and did an excellent job. He pays a lot of attention to the details and does such an amazing job when I give him the time. :)

Here is a picture of it. We are going to let her enjoy it for a few weeks before we take it back to the garage to finish it. As you can see she doesn't have a whole lot in it yet, but for Christmas we will be giving her more furniture and little rugs and things for it.

TV Stars!

My friend sent me an email today saying her son had seen Tayden and Ady on TV. She didn't believe him at first, but they paused the DVR and rewound it and sure enough there they were, so she emailed me to let me know. Last year Ady and Tayden were The Wonder Pets for Halloween and on the Nick Jr website last winter there was a place to submit pictures of your child dressed as the Wonder Pets and they might be featured on the website or the TV. I saw their picture on the website right away after I had submitted it and that was fun, but we didn't really think any more about it until now.

My friend recorded it to her DVR and took a picture for me. Fun stuff!

 

 Tayden was a guinea pig named Linny and Ady was a duck named Ming Ming, there is a third Wonder Pet that is a turtle named Tuck and he is in Tayden's Basket.

Pumpkin Patch

    Last night we went with our friends the Allens to the Pumpkin Patch. We had so much fun taking pictures and walking through the corn maze. The kids each picked out a pumpkin too, then we came home and decorated them. It was a lot of fun and really made it feel like Fall. The weather was so nice. It was a lovely evening.

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Kiss Me!

We were taking some Fall Pictures last night, and Ady wanted to kiss Tayden. Hilarity ensued.

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He did it!!

Kyler has been trying so hard to learn to tie his shoes and actually have them stay tied.  He got very creative trying to get them to stay, and we had to untangle a lot of crazy knots, but he has finally mastered it.  I can now feel confident letting him tie them himself, even when we are in a hurry.

Fall Pictures

Last night we went up to the Campus where Dave works and took some pictures. Some of them turned out really cute. Enjoy :)

Report Cards

     We just got our first report cards of the year and had Parent Teacher Conferences.  I am so proud of both Tayden and Kyler.  They are doing extremely well both academically and socially.

First I met with Mrs. Utterback, Kyler's teacher.  She told me that kyler is so wonderful to have in class and she wishes all her students were as easy to teach as he is.  She said that she is amazed with the way he reasons through things in math and often figures out the answer to word problems before she does.  Everyday when she takes attendance the do a word problem - If there are 21 students in the class and three are absent, how many are here?  She said that Kyler is the first to raise his hand every day and knows the hard ones before even she has been able to think it through.  She said he is very well behaved and is really nice to all the other kids.   She also told me that their class has received many compliments on how quiet and well behaved they are and have had 2 "Compliment Parties" which are little popcorn and movie parties they get after they have received 5 compliments.  Last year her class only had three the entire year and this year they have had two in only 6 weeks.  I really like Mrs. Utterback and Kyler loves her class.  I am so pleased to see him doing so well.

I met with Mrs. Krug next.  She is Tayden's teacher this year and was Kyler's teacher last year.  She is very young and so tiny.  If she taught middle school she would look like a student.  She is a very organized and sweet person and a wonderful kindergarten teacher.  She said that she is amazed with Tayden's improvement.  If she would have had to grade him those first two weeks she would have had to give him "N"s (needs improvement) but he has caught on now (and really loves it now) and she gave him all good marks.  For his Social and listening skills she gave him all "M"s which are the highest you can get.  She said she rarely can give all "M"s for that section.  She told me that Tayden is such a hard worker and wants to do every task to the best of his ability.  He is not satisfied until it is done correctly.  I have been amazed with him at home too.  THe first few weeks he seemed so sad and miserable.  He never wanted to do his homework and he always wanted to stay home from school.  But he hasn't complained at all in the last month.  He is eager to go to school everyday and wants to do his homework and tell me all about his day as soon as he gets home.  He is reading really well now and is always telling us what letter everything around us starts with.  Mrs. Krug said that Tayden is very sweet and cares about her and the other kids so much.  Tayden's class was given a special honor this week for being so quiet and well behaved in the cafeteria.  The principle, Mrs Starlin, had them to a special lunch with her and she ordered pizza.  I have met Mrs. Starlin several times over the last 2 years and I am very impressed with her.  She knows most of the 428 kindergartener and 1st graders at her school by name and recognizes me and knows which kids I belong to.

This past Tuesday Ady and I were able to go into Kyler's classroom and help out. It was a lot of fun to see Kyler with his classmates and to meet his friends.  I also enjoyed seeing Mrs. Utterback in action.  She is nice to let me bring Ady and I am able to come in every Tuesday afternoon if I want to and help out.  On Wednesday I went in (without Ady this time) and helped the school nurse.  The did Vision screenings for all the kindergarteners and needed parents to volunteer to help direct the kids.  It was such chaos, but I enjoyed it so much.  I hope I have more opportunities to do things like that.  When Tayden's class came in for their screenings I was able to meet all his friends and they were all impressed tat I was there.  They told me that Tayden brings the best lunches and they wish they could trade with him.  I told them that he packs his lunch himself and they were in awe.

I am so happy with life lately.  I am so proud of the boys and how well they are doing both at school and at home.  Ady is also such a joy lately.  She and I are having so much fun together all day.  I feel extremely happy to be a mom.  :)

Brrrr...

It's so cold!!! It's 53° but it feels frigid in the house. And I am sad to have to turn on the heat!! I tried to just bundle Ady and I up, but her little fingers are still ice cold. And I am shivering under my layers! Its time to get the winter clothes out. That part I am excited about. Turning on the heat in October is sad, though.

I want some mild days. A few days ago I was sweaty and too hot. I want my in between fall weather. I want to be able to not use heat or AC. I want open the windows! Instead I have the boys asking to wear their winter coats to school!

On the other hand, Ady looks really cute in her new hooded sweater :)

Apparently she is too cold to smile. I love that she wanted to pose with her hand on her little hip. HeHeHe :)

Anniversary

Yesterday was Our Wedding Anniversary. We have been married for 8 years now. I cant believe it. In a way it feels a lot longer. I feel like we have always been together. But it has also gone by so fast. I feel so happy to be with Dave and it just keeps getting better. I feel like this year we are the happiest we have been. I am so lucky to have found someone so wonderful to share my life with. Being this happy after 8 years, I can't even imagine what it will be like after 18, 20, 40, 50 years. I look forward to finding out.

We rarely have the opportunity to have a picture taken of just the two of us, but last Christmas Kyler took this one. Its the most recent one I have! I will have to work on that.

Birthday Princess

 

Last Night was Ady's Birthday Party.  She had a really fun time.  We had a house full of princesses and knights.  The Knights went on a quest to slay the dragon (Dave) and steal his eggs (balloons) and get the treasure inside (silver and gold candy).  The Princesses played Crown the Princess. I reused a picture that my roommate had drawn of me for Pin the Veil on the Bride.  We also had a Castle Piñata and a Candy Castle Cake. Here are some pictures of it all.

 

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Happy Birthday Ady!

 

    Today Ady turns 3!  This is such a fun age.  She seems so grown up and she loves being girly. This evening we are having a Princess Party for her with her 3 best friends; Bryce, Morgan and Macie and their families, which will be 14 kids in total.  It should be fun.

 

Ady when she was born

 

                 

Ady on her first Birthday       Ady on her second Birthday