Sunday, December 30, 2007

Rayman.....



This game is a must have for friends, family, New Years', any good time that is wanted.
Cameron's sister and her husband got us this game for Christmas- and we love it!!!!! Kairi has to have a time limit to play it, because otherwise, she would play all day long. Last night we had some family over and the boys played this game. The antics it created were so funny I snapped a few pictures so that all could see how ridiculous it made you look, but what a great time we were having. Happy New Years'!!!!!


Santa & Santa?


My Dad and his wife are quite the adventurous couple. They decided to sign up to run in the Las Vegas "Santa Run" that benefits Opportunity Village. Anyhow, this year was of particular importance as they attempted to break the world record of the most people dressed as Santa in one place. They actually beat the world record with over 7,000 people. However, England stomped them within the week with over 10,000 people. Better luck next year, Dad.

Eskimos, & Igloos & Penguins & ICE?!

Well not only has the Uintah Basin been blessed with extreme cold a few weeks ago. It was then nudged out by some storms which warmed us up, and then brought SNOW, lots and lots of Snow. One day I measured 11 inches on the ground with probably a 3 inch layer of ICE underneath that. We have icicles everywhere and snow and it feels like all of the above. Some time has gone by that we haven't had snow, but they keep telling us it will continue to come. I think it may have been about a week now that we haven't had any snow which has been a welcome reprieve. Anyhow, the amount of snow has led the people here to become creative with snow removal and management. We caught this being done across the street from our apartment and snapped the shot as it truly shows what it has been like around here....



Yup, he has a snow blower on the roof and a salt spreader too. We have come up with all kinds of scenarios that could explain Why someone would go to such great lengths and the most popular is that since it is a business, an icicle dropped and hit someone and so it has become important to manage the snow and ice in this way.. Leave your comments as to what could have caused this and after a few days I will post them and we will take a poll.

Christmas Day!!!

Every year for Christmas, Cameron and I go overboard. This year was no exception, financially.... but the gifts were a much smaller scale as we are holding out for that darn house to complete. However that is a whole other post/blog. So needless to say it was great fun. Kairi loves what she got and most of it consists of accessories to some other "thing" that we have. The one other thing that stays consistent is our #1 Christmas rule (instituted the, year we were married) absolutely no Christmas presents can be anything that is needed!!!!! It must be frivolous and materialistic and unneeded. Perhaps this detracts from the Christmas spirit, but it left us time to just enjoy the season (because we all have wants) and teach Kairi about gifting and how the Lord didn't receive anything he needed. He gave the one thing that we all WANT (whether we know it or not.) It was a wonderful Christmas.

Emo-snowman


Nuff said......

Grandpa's Hat


My dad and Talon came here for the holiday and of course, came bearing gifts. My dad also came with this outstanding hat that the girls thoroughly enjoyed- especially Kairi. So we went outside to showcase the hat, the Grandpa, the Girl and the Snow..... Merry Christmas!!!!

SANTA CLAUS



Yup it is time for the annual trip to see Santa Claus. In years past Kairi would have nothing to do with the Jolly Fat Man, but this year she was all about him. She was still a little nervous, but managed just the same when I went and sat by Santa too. After a few minutes she finally warmed up enough to tell him what she wanted. Kesslynn was with us when we went to see Santa, however she fell asleep before our turn, so she missed out. Kairi, of course, asked for a horse with a carrot. Now she spoke of this several times and when I finally went Christmas shopping, we discovered exactly what she was talking about-- that stupid "Butterscotch" Furr-real Pony that is touch activated and moves around and is HUGE!!!!! Heck no was I getting her that thing!!!! So Santa just forgot and that was that. Maybe I'll be the one with the coal this year as a result....

Tumbling





Kairi started Tumbling last summer and really enjoyed herself. So I kept her going in it. For Christmas, her tumbling group had an exhibition. It was fun to go and see her perform, however she mostly just jumped on the trampoline. She really struggled at the beginning, because she wanted to be all decorated like some of the other kids and after a classic Kairi-meltdown, we finally got her calmed down enough to participate. Needless to say she (and we!) finally pulled through.

Shoot-Bang

I recently was asked to take pictures for friends and family. Kaitlynn is the subject of many a picture because she is so fun to shoot and Kathy (my mother-in-law) claims she likes my work. Anyway so Kaitlynn's school pictures are here and we did them in like 30 minutes. We take a lot of pictures here at the Temple grounds because not only is it the Temple, but it also has beautiful landscaping and masonry work that dates back to 1907. Needless to say that I always know I can get a great shot off here. The other subjects are of our friends the Young's. They have been friends for 7 years and asked me to take a picture for them for Christmas. I was more than happy to do it and we had fun with the snow. It made for beautiful scenery as a great backdrop. The only drawback is how incredibly cold it was. Especially for the girls who had to be without coats to get just the right picture. I hope you enjoy the pictures......

Saturday, December 8, 2007

Men of the Snow

There has been a lot of snow. Now that means there are a lot of snow men being built. Here are a few that our family has contributed to:


Gingerbread Houses




I am normally ambitious and make my own gingerbread and all of that stuff. However, I decided this year I could make the gingerbread and be burned out on decorating the house, or improvise with graham crackers and enjoy the decorating part. Option B had more appeal and so that is what we went with. Kairi and I spent an hour or so decorating the houses and had a blast doing it.

Clapping Kesslynn




Sorry about the naked (mostly) baby, but we caught her clapping and it was so cute!!!! I just had to share it. The more you cheered for her the more she would clap. How fun!!!!!

First Snow

Ya!!! We finally got our first snow of the season. And how appropriate it was on December 1. (Happy Birthday, Madeline!!!) Nothing gets me more into the season than the Snow. Cameron says I am funny, because I grew up where there was no snow, so he struggles to understand how it matters. Personally I think the snow carries a magic with it that draws our thoughts a little quieter and allows us to slow down and appreciate the season. Anyway, we all got out and enjoyed the snow and all the fun things it offers. Our neighbor and his little girl that is Kairi's age joined us as well. Trevor and Tarah. They were a lot of fun and Trevor wasn't afraid to get in there with the kids. It was inspiring....

Mental Note

I have been trying to give my kids every conceivable Christmas experience I can this year. And that would include writing a letter to Santa Claus. So as Kairi is learning to write, I decided that I could help her write a letter to Santa Claus. This is what we came up with...



Her letter reads:

Dear Santa,
I have been good. May I have 1. Horse 2. Ice Cream 3. Violin 4. Dolls 5. Books Love, Kairi

Where she came up with this stuff, I don't know. I also think that we will have to leave a couple of these up to Santa, because we don't have room for the horse for sure.

I'm really good at.......

STANDING!!!!!! Kesslynn is mastering the art of standing on her own. She is also walking up and down the furniture. This month she has exploded in the number of things that she is doing. I am anticipating that any day now she will just take off walking. She can pull herself up to anything, bend down to pick up a toy and stand again without falling over and now she is even taking Kairi's doll stroller and walking around the living room. It has been fun to watch and she enjoys the freedom it brings her.

Community Holly Days

Each year Vernal has "Community Holly Days." They are great fun with all kinds of free activities throughout the day on the day after Thanksgiving. We went this year. It was cold, but we were rewarded with some fun things to see and do. We barely touched what was available, but Kairi seemed to enjoy it and that is all that mattered.

There is always a parade of lights with Santa at the end.......



And the "Polar Express"......



This year they had the fire dancers and they were pretty cool as well.......

Saturday, November 24, 2007

Bliss of Youth



I once recounted how Kairi and her cousins loved to sing the
"Girlfriend" song by Avril Lavigne. Well we had them all together and
the music was playing. This is what was captured. I hope the video
works. Someone e-mail me if it doesn't. Oh, By the way, there is no sound.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Blog Tag

Okay, so now I am it. Thanks a lot Chandra!!! I don't know that there are random facts about me, let alone 6.... I am kind of an open book. But there is always something new to learn isn't there. Well first I have to tag someone else to leave there own random things and I think I will tag two people. The first is Shawna, my cousin's wife, I don't know you that well, but we have this in common and it would be great to learn something new about you. The second is Juliann. You love to blog, Juliann and we don't see a lot of one another and so I know things have changed. 1. I am very opinionated (perhaps that is not very random:-) however I don't like that fact about me. I have been allowing myself the opportunity to change that. I feel that my opinion hurts people and comes across as judgemental, which is not my intention. 2. I love to take pictures of everything, but mainly to document my life with my family and the things that we do together so that when I am 70 I can look back and recognize how rich my life has been. 3. I try to find the silver lining in the clouds. I think that this is my coping strategy. Otherwise I would pity myself. 4. I love to take chances when I cook. Not much of a risk taker, but with cooking there is always a plan b in the fast food industry. 5. This is for you Chandra. I trace peoples veins as far up their arms as I can. Just to see if I can still find a good vein and identify the places where an IV should go. I will do this anytime, day or night. Anywhere- church, boring places. I did it to my Mom, my dad, brothers, sister, husband, I've even done it to my daughter. The nurse in me has been put on the shelf, but she rears her head in this way to make me realize that it is still apart of who I am. 6. I love to travel. And I married a homebody. I am breaking him in with the help of the medical community and his job that sends him on business trips 1-2 times a year. Then of course there is the trips to Overton. Unfortunately, he is still holding out for the teleportal unit to be repaired to streamline the process. (I know there is no number 7 technically for this, but this is for the girls from high school.) 7. I still watch Days of Our Lives- religiously. I also don't feel bad about it when they talk about how soap operas are bad and we shouldn't watch them, in Relief Society. Will I be meeting the Devil over this?

Dentist


Well we decided to bite the bullet and go to the dentist after 3 years or so.... Juliann don't cringe...... but without dental insurance it hasn't been a priority. However, Kairi has never been and I thought that it was high time that it was addressed. I scheduled all three of us to go in. I would have scheduled Kesslynn, but without teeth there isn't much need for a dentist. Cameron, of course had a perfect check-up. Kairi did also. Me, on the other hand, had a cavity. However, one cavity in three years I consider not bad. Now if I could just afford braces, they tell me that the cavities would improve. I'll let you know when I get the means together for them!!!!!

She's got a Boyfriend now.....


Long story short.... Kairi has a second cousin (who feels like a first) who is in Kindergarten, who has a "girlfriend". He bought this little girl a gift and drew her a picture. His brother is about 6 months younger than Kairi and has proclaimed that Kairi is his girlfriend. In an effort to express his feelings, he followed his brother's example and got Kairi a necklace/bracelet combination and drew her a picture. She just ate it up. It was so cute I had to post about it. His mother and I just laugh and laugh about how cute it is. Even funnier still is that this isn't the first time I have heard that Kairi is someone's girlfriend.........

Disneyland......

Last year I swore that we would be going to Disneyland in November of this year. Our house was supposed to be done. And it would have been a great reward for all of our hard wok on it. A chance for us to regroup as a family. Then Mom died.... and since a) it is the Happiest Place on Earth, and b) my Mom's favorite place to go, I knew no matter what we would go. I got my family in on the action, Dad and Talon, Dave and Sarah, Tenille and Mike, Sarah's Mom and all of us went. Somewhat in memory of my mother. We planned to pass back through Overton on the day she died and have all of the kids go together to her grave. That was a hard day. My little brother didn't join us, understandably, because he has the starkest reminder of her absence. The rest of us went to the grave, shed some tears, or in my case bawled like a baby.... At her burial we noticed that they misspelled her name "Jo" as "Joe." This year it bothered us a great deal and we finally got down in the dirt and rearranged the letters- McGuyver-style, with the help of a dime, a pocket knife, and scrabble-skills. (Sarah you know what I am talking about!!!) The relief of that was enormous and we are looking forward to a permanent headstone soon. Anyhow on a lighter note, we also enjoyed our time immensely at Disneyland. Cameron and I were slower than the others and they promptly split away from us to explore on a more adult level. Cool by us. We spent our time entertaining our kids riding the kiddy rides and watching the great faces that occurred. Kairi really enjoyed the Dumbo ride as well as the Teacups. Kesslynn enjoyed the Teacups as well. We were brave and took her on them with a rich reward. We also convinced Kairi to ride Splash Mountain twice which she still maintains that she didn't like. There was so much to do and because of our slow process we only saw Disneyland. We didn't even touch California Adventure, with the exception of about 15 minutes (which I spent in the Mother's Room.) We highly recommend anyone else being so adventure-some to pay the extra money, stay close to the park and take your kids to the hotel for naps. It killed about 2-3 hours of our day, but the kids managed much better.



Also just for fun: At Disneyland they have a thing called PhotoPass. You take pictures in the park via photographers that Disney employs. They scan your card and then you give this card to any of the photographers you encounter to take your pictures. You come home and can view and print your Disney pictures from home. I love the idea, and I do have a favorite photographer who just so happens to be my Aunt Connie. Here is the link, but if you are going to check it out you have to do it by 12/14/07 because they will expire on that day.

http://www.disneyphotopass.com/photopass.aspx

Sunday, November 18, 2007

All Hallows Eve....





Halloween was a lot of fun this year. There were so many activities that we barely had time for them all. But we had a great time. Kairi decided that she wanted to be a Pokemon trainer, and Kesslynn we decided to let her be Pikachu. For those of you not familiar with the game or show. Little kids have pocket monsters aka "Pokemon" and they train them to basically be obedient... anyway Pikachu is a pokemon. So does this mean that I am allowing my oldest daughter to take her younger sister and "train" her to be obedient. I hope not. Oh and by the way, these kids battle their Pokemon against each other in a type of dog fight type way. Nice. Now that I am putting this in context it doesn't seem as cute, hummmmm?! By the way of note, I guess you can only post pictures in landscape mode and not in portrait mode so you will all have to look at my super cute pictures sideways. Remember to rest your neck every so often to avoid a kink in your neck. :-)

Sleep Over......




My baby girl is getting so big. Okay, not that baby girl, the bigger one. I recently let her have her first sleep over at a friend's house. Olivia is a little girl Kairi has known for years and they have a strong bond. They did each others hair, played video games, watched a movie, played dress up and even had their hair done the same. Even Olivia's little sister, Alli, got in on the action. Anyway we had some really cute pictures and so here they are....

Sunday, October 28, 2007

Corn Maize

Just call me a country bumpkin, but every year since Kairi was born, we make our annual trip to the Corn Maize in Bluebell (about 45 minutes to the Northwest of Vernal). I really enjoy it and so does Kairi, Cameron likes to go because it makes Kai and I happy. Anyway this year was no exception. So we went on over and really had a good time. It's always fun to visit the pumpkin patch and pick your own pumpkin right off the vine and bring it home. This year is no exception. Enjoy the season!!!!!

Rough Week

Poor Kairi- She has had a rough week. First she was at tumbling, when one of the other little girls did a cartwheel into Kairi's face and bruised her eye.
The next day a friend's little sister, hit her in the ear and really turned it red. Then the real doozy happened when she was sleeping. We have a set of speakers above her bed on a shelf. Well in her snooze she must have gotten her hand wrapped in the cords and pulled them down.... right on her ear. She woke Cameron screaming. He went in and calmed her down. The next morning, he took a look at her ear, and this is what he found..... Poor girl.

It is beginning to look a little better, but not by much. On top of that, her ear is bruised all the way through and behind her ear. She really did a good job with it.