Weirdo

This is how my son slept one night (well, minus the goggles, he put those on a bit earlier). I take it he got hot before going to bed because this is how he woke up. I love that he has such a fun personality. He loves goggles and will wear them around constantly. Yep, he is WAAAYYY to old for his Paci but again, he naps so I DONT CARE! I also think I may be okay with him using it because Kai wont. Some weird subconscious effort at keeping my babies babies? Who knows! He loves his pacis and loves that ratty doggy sitting next to him. 

I love you little dude! I love your quirky little smile and the funny things you do. I love your obsession with trucks and firemen and ropes and purses. You are awesome and I'm thankful I'm your mom!

"N" is for Natural Science Museum

For our first Alphabet day, we chose the letter "N".We went to the Museum of Natural Science in Houston and they loved it. I was afraid it would be too huge and overwhelming but it was just the right size. The kids loved the dinosaur bones (you can just barely see one in the background).  Man, this picture makes my kids look pretty rough n tumble. They are well loved and taken care of, I promise!

Blakers loved to "ROAR" at this lion (in addition to the dinosaurs). He'd get up near and yell "roar" as loud as he could. Somewhat cute and somewhat embarrassing! 

In the butterfly exhibit they had a hands on room for the kiddos. I dont think this beehive was intended for kids to climb in but mine did. Aren't they cute? For lunch the kiddos ate Nuggets then we had Nachos for dinner. I love making the everyday things a little more special for them!

Inner turmoil

Those of you that know me know that I hate guns. I dont like 'um and I just dont see the need for Joe Blow to have them. I'm fine with law enforcement people having their guns but otherwise, I dont see the need. Tony says its cuz I'm a Democrat, I say its because I just dont like them. Anywhoo, one afternoon the men in our ward did a 'man-richment' and went clay pigeon shooting (for the first time that is one activity I didnt want to go to). Afterwards Tony was cleaning his gun and our kids were very curious (thank heavens Blake was asleep -- he would have LOVED it). So Tony taught them all about guns and gun safety. I'm glad he took the time and showed the girls the gun and talked about all the bad things that could happen. Although I wish he had not let them see the dumb thing, I am glad he took the time to educate them.  Unfortunately they've since asked twice to see it ... grrr. Its not a toy!

Yea, this picture sums up the difference between little girls and little boys. My girls are all serious and paying attention. Kai is all giddy and thinks its pretty cool!

My firemen!

Blakers has a new obsession. Firemen! He of course loves fire trucks but we've got a video that is all about anything related to fire fighters. He has more fun wearing my oven mits and calls them his 'fire gloves'. He LOVE his fireman hat (thanks Daddy for the fun excursion. They went on a walk one Sunday afternoon and were able to go in to the firestation near our house) and even has a fire bag (aka a purse). Love my firemen!

Good buddies

Taeya's got two best buddies that she does everything with: Lexis and Paulina. They have a ton of fun together and they are each such awesome kids. At the end of the school year they give awards out in each of their 'specials' (i.e. PE, Art and Music). Tae got the award in Art for going above and beyond as well as being a good friend and a postive role model. Lexis got the same award in PE and Paulina got the overall award. I like knowing that Tae has picked some topnotch friends. I only hope this continues! Love you crazy girls!

Top to Bottom: Aliya, Paulina, Tae and Lexis

Memorial Day 2010

We had a PAR-TAY for Memorial Day. It was sheer chaos but a ton of fun. We ended up having 4 families over (I think it ended up being 10 adults and 15 kids under the age of 9 -- mercy)! We had the Cannons, Davis', Moes' and Thompsons over. Of course we did the typical food-eat-play inside then we broke out the water stuff. Who knew a couple hoses could entertain the masses so well. It was pretty hot this afternoon so most of the parent stayed inside while the children loved the water!

Fun double slip-n-slide provided by the Moes family. This was the biggest hit!

I was surprised that even the littler kids enjoyed it. Here is Blake racing Dani. Too cute!

L-R: Riley, Dani, Kaylee, Jake, Tae, Gavin, Aliya, Tony, Blake and Drew. Not pictured are the two babies (Kai and Ady), Hadley, Emma, and Grace.

Oh he is cute ... even with a mis-shapened mohawk!

The other hit of the day is our ghetto swing set with a hose running down the slide. They had a ton of fun sliding down the slide then sliding on the grass. Sorry for all the grass stained knees and hineys. 

Crawler

So I'm months behind, nothin' new but figure I may as well get these all blogged about (unfortunately as I do these I dont do the stuff we are doing now so we are in a bad cycle of overdue blogs). Old Kai Kai is crawling and everywhere. His favorite trick is to throw something then chase after it and do it again. Its the human form of fetch. He loves it, it keeps him somewhat occupied and I love watching it. His cheeser smile is my favorite. Love ya little dude!

Watch out Kindergarten ...

Here Aliya comes. Its official, she graduated and is moving on to Kindergarten. Wahoo! I dont know who is more excited: Aliya because she gets to ride the bus and go to school with Taeya, or me because Houston has all day Kindergarten. I love her dearly but she's been ready for all day school for years now!

Although we are looking forward to Kindergarten, we'll be sad to see all the fun friends and teachers at ELP go.

This is two of the classes singing "Our God is a great big God". The actions were hilarious!

Aliya and her buddies: Nikki Nalamalapu, Aliya, Alyssa Johnson and her little sister. Its funny that half way through the school year Alyssa invited Aliya over to play. Once we got there I realized they were LDS too. Crazy that the two Mormon kids in the class were best buddies.

This is Wei Wei, Aliyas on-again, off-again boyfriend. They had quite the love hate relationship. I dont think he appreciated the fact that she dumped him for the shortest dude in their class, Tommy. When you like some one, you just do!

Blackmail!

I don't know what it is but my boys pee something fierce in the night. There are nights when Kai would wake up sopping wet from pee. Blake did the same thing and I ended up double diapering the kid (thank heavens he out grew it by about 1). I started double diaper Kai but sometimes he pees through BOTH diapers. On those nights when he'd pee through everything, I'd change his diapers and his jammies. I didn't want to wake him up anymore than I had to (okay, truthfully I really just didn't want to walk further than I had to) so I'd throw on whatever shirt was laying on the floor from when the kiddos got in their jammies the night before (yep, I just admitted that I don't always pick up my kids dirty clothes at night). One morning, I found my 8 month old SON dressed like this. Love it! A little lace never hurt anybody right?

Can you feel the love?

Honestly, there is love between these two. Blakers really is sweet with Kai most of the time. Sure he runs his bike into him and yes, he did try to pull him off the bed but it was only once. For the most part, Blake is very aware and concerned about Kai. If he hears Kai wake up from his nap he'll let me know "Kai, wake". Or if Kai is crying he's the first to let me know. I hope he will always look out for his little brother (although I have a feeling Kai will be the 'bigger' brother in size).

Poor Kai, so far he just takes the 'love'. One of these days he'll give it back to Blakers and we may be having a battle royale! UFC here we come!

8 months

I love this squishy boy. I love his little teeth (I dont love him biting me because he's getting them but I love them). I love his HUGE smile and how it looks like his face will crack in half its so big!
I love his little moobies (man boobies). I love that he can have fun with anything.
I love his eyes and how expressionative they are!
I love you little dude!

First sleepover

Tae had her first non-family sleepover. She had her bestest buddy Kaylee Moes over and they had fun. They were so good to go to sleep when asked I told Taeya she can definitely do it again. I thought it was cute that they dressed like twins (Tae just happened to have something that matched Kaylee's outfit). Gotta love buddies!

Alphabet Summer

This summer we swiped my girlfriend Krysta's idea and did an "Alphabet summer". Each week we picked a couple random letters from the Alphabet and incorporated it into our activities. It's been awesome!

On afternoon we decided to join the Moes' and do 'W' day: Water fountains in the Woodlands while eating Watermelon. The kids had a blast! Here's all the kiddos (well, except for Blakers, he was grump) L-R: Drew, Jake, Kai, Ady, Aliya, Kaylee and Taeya,

I love these two! They were so happy eating the big kids left over watermelon rinds.  Yucky but it kept them quite content for a while. Who knew?

The big girls loved hanging out at the real Water fountain. This is my ultimate fav of Aliya's bum. Her bum is so my bum. Her swimmin' suit never covers her cheeks and she's permanently got a wedgie. I feel for you honey, I really do! I still have that problem (although mine has gotten worse by the fact that mine is starting to droop to the back of my knees ... TMI sorry)!

Kaylee is Tae's best friend. Its cute to see them talk, giggle and scheme together! I only wish they went to the same school (Kaylee is a  year older).

These are the real water fountains we went to play in. 

Poor Kai! Tae thought he'd enjoy having the goggles on instead of getting water in his eyes. Sweet gesture but he hated it!

Much better!

I adore my kids. I love capturing them when they aren't posing (although those are fun too). Its just fun to see their expressions and them being themselves.

We wouldn't let them put their feet in here but they had fun putting their hands in! Lots of hineys!

Ah, bless his heart! Blake may be a bruiser but he has a really sweet side, especially for babies. He gave Ady this kiss all on his own. I was taking her picture and he came up and planted one on her. What a sweet boy!

Usually Kai is quite aware of his Ady's cries. This time, he was too engrossed in some one's juice box. He loved it ... Ady not so much!

These two make me laugh! They are so cute together!

Yep its a huge pain in the butt to schlep 4 kids on outings but its smiles like these that make it all worth it (well, that and a mind that forgets what a pain in the butt it is)!

Easter egg hunt

So I'm months behind - shocker I know - but at least I am getting it done! The day before Easter we got together with our friends the Moes' and Davis'. Each family brought way too many eggs and we let the kiddos go crazy on their search for cavity promoting goodness. I hate the way blogger uploads photos so we're starting at the end of the day and working our way backwards!

Here is Kai and his girlfriend Adyson. Again, she is teeny and he's a bruiser. Guess he's going to like those petite little girls (I always hated it when tall guys dated itty bitty short girls ... I am going to do my darnedest to teach my boys that tall girls rock).

Kai looks like he got caught doing something naughty ... who knows, maybe he did!
Blakers LOVES their sandbox. The Moes parents are smart and put their sandbox far away from their door so most of the sand would fall off before coming in the house (unlike Blakes dumb parents who put it RIGHT by the backdoor so there is a constant trail of sand). It was low 90's this day but he didn't care.
Ah, what a big boy. He loved getting to sit in a big kid chair by himself!
I don't think the kids said a word for 20 minutes straight. They were all encompassed in their loot!
L-R: Gavin, Hadley, Kaylee, Taeya, Emma, Aliya (aka cheeser), Jake, Drew, Blake and Kai
Still eating treats!
I love this kid. He's betrothed to Aliya ... hopefully he can handle her mood swings! I have seen him have a mood swing or two so maybe it'll work out!
The adults hid the eggs then had the kiddos search. I take after my dad and LOVE hiding eggs. Krysta said they found a couple eggs a week or two later. Whoops!
Dryer vent, yep, that was me!
He was so proud of each egg he found!

Being the youngest (walking) kid, Blakers got to go first. I think he found maybe one before all the older kids came barreling out of the house! Thanks for the fun memories Moes' and Davis'!