New Year's Eve Sleepover

Kaymin has been bugging me for some time now to have a sleep over. We decided with as many crazy things that are happening in the world today that we would rather our kids not have sleep overs, except with family. So she has been bugging me to have her cousins sleepover. But see, I already average 4 to 6 hours of sleep a night and I can't stand the thoughts to be more sleep deprived with a bunch of wild and crazy kids. So, I finally caved and decided that tonight would be a perfect night for it to happen. That way, I can still sleep in on Saturday and Sunday. I made pigs in a blanket and mozzarella sticks, apple juice, popcorn and had a big tray full of candy. We decided to have all of the cousins 4 and up sleep over on both sides of our families. There is only one that couldn't make it, but the other 4 could. So right now there are 8 kids at my house: my four, Lann, Rees, Oakley, and Olivia. Can I tell you how grateful I am that I only have 4 kids. There are kids everywhere and to think that some people actually have this many...WOW! The kids have had fun playing the Gamecube, karaoke, and just running around. I finally had to put the sugar tray up. I told them they had to go to bed after the ball drops at midnight. If they really do then I might get 5 to 6 hours of sleep....hooray...until Gerrit wakes up. I sure will be glad when this is over.

Sledding

Of course I would have forgotten my camera today, but thank goodness my sister-in-law didn't. She is going to email me some pictures, but I haven't gotten them yet. The day after Christmas we went sledding with my family to try out the new sleds. The kids had a lot of fun. Deilen the first time down decided to go on the steepest and longest trail. He flew off of the sled since he wasn't holding on tight and didn't want to go anymore. Luckily they had some smaller hills and that is where Kameni and Gerrit were going, so Deilen joined in. Gerrit had no fear and kept going down and down by himself. The snow was perfect and the sleds were just as I remembered them. They are awesome.

Christmas Day

On Christmas Day we spend it with my family. Once we open presents and see Blake's Grandma (she is the only grandparent that we have left) then we head to my parent's house for more food and fun. This year my parents gave all of the grand kids steel snow saucers. You know the kind in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. My grandma gave us one on Christmas one year. In fact one has still been floating around at my parent's house. They last forever and are so SUPER fast. They just don't absorb the bumps very well. I remember everyone always wanting to trade me sleds. Anyway, the grand kids were really excited or maybe it was just me. I begged my mom to get Blake and I one, but she didn't. Instead she got some really great knives. I have had the same set of knives for almost 14 years now and they are crap. They hardly cut anymore at all. In fact one day Gerrit opened the dishwasher and pulled out a knife and began poking his pants with it...it never cut him nor his pants. They are dull...dull...pieces of crap. After all of the present opening, Grandpa has to pull all of the kids in his duck decoy sleds with his tractor since no one in the family has snowmobiles anymore. The kids love it! Blake and my brother, Justin, went and saw a show. Blake took the whole week off, which he has never done before. Since he was gone, I stayed with the kids at my parent's house and we rocked out to the karaoke microphone. Even my mom and dad got into it and we had so much fun.

Christmas Morning

Christmas morning is always so much fun. I love the magic and excitement that is in their air. Santa came to visit us and spoiled us rotten. We got many cool and fun things. One of our favorite family gifts was a karaoke microphone and Lego Star Wars for the Gamecube. I don't think Deilen has stopped playing it yet. Kaymin got a die cut machine, Deilen got a Nerf gun, Kameni got a butterfly garden where she can raise real butterflies, and Gerrit got a huge dump truck that he prefers riding in than pushing. I got my Memory Mixer 3 that I have been wanting and Blake got some gift cards to Borders. It was a wonderful morning and now we are ready for the rest of the day.

Christmas Eve

Every Christmas Eve we spend with Blake's family. This year we decided to have the kids act out the Navity scene while Ryan read it from the scriptures. The kids had so much fun. They went and picked out their outfits and all. They did a really great job. Blake's dad came too and it was great to have the whole family together again. We had a great time eating good food and being together. His parents gave us an ice cream maker and some money. The kids all got a piggy bank and some money. They were so excited, but not as much as we were. We think that was the best present ever! It was a wonderful night.

Mom's Shoes

Gerrit has a shoe fetish. I can't remember if Deilen ever had one, but I know the girls definitely did. He loves to put on shoes, especially those that aren't his. He was walking around in my shoes saying "cheese". I guess that meant he wanted his picture taken. I couldn't resist.

Gingerbread Houses

The other night for family night we decided to make gingerbread houses. Nothing fancy, just graham crackers, frosting and candy...could it get any better? The kids had fun, eating frosting, eating candy, and every once in a while trying to build a house. They did a really great job and had a lot of fun. Even Gerrit got in on the action and had fun.

Smoothie Mustaches

The other day I made smoothies for breakfast. When the kids were done drinking theirs all of them had berry mustaches. It was so funny. It looked like blood and it freaked Kameni out. She was very concerned and was trying to get bandaids for everyone.

Gerrit's Green Mouth

I let the kids paint the other day and Gerrit found one of watercolors that was still wet and must have thought it was some sort of candy. He has such a sweet tooth like his mother. The kid can smell candy...I know it. He finds it everywhere and knows how to open it too. He is so funny. But I found him dipping his fingers in it and then sticking them in his mouth saying "mmmmmm". It took me a minute to figure out what he was eating. It was too funny.

Kameni Has Asthma

A couple of times this summer Kameni had asthma attacks. Thank goodness we have the equipment to handle them. Blake has asthma and I have been diagnosed with asthma, but I really have reactive airway disorder. Anyway, I talked to the doctor about Kameni and he said it was probably allergy induced since she does have seasonal allergies. However, since the weather has been really cold and the air has been really dry, Gerrit's asthma has been terrible. So bad in that every time we go outside he begins coughing. Thank goodness I am a home body and enjoy staying home. We have had to increase his steroid treatment to twice a day. When his asthma began acting up, we noticed that Kameni was beginning to have problems. We began giving her treatments and got her back to normal. However, we have to be really careful with her going outside as well. What I love most about Kameni having breathing treatments is that she can give them to herself. She understands that she needs to sit still and breathe. Instead of fighting, crying, kicking, pulling the plug out...well you get the picture. We also have a humidifier that is attached to our furnace and runs when it does. I noticed it wasn't plugged in yet, so I plugged that in and it has made such a difference in our kids. Recently I have been able to do just one breathing treatment per day for Gerrit, unless we go outside and Kameni only needs one if she has been outside as well. It is amazing how much I am learning in just a year.

Boxes

I am such an Internet shopper so many boxes come to my house. The poor UPS guy asked me the other day if he doing my Christmas shopping for me. I told him only if he is paying. Let's just say I'm one of his regular stops. So one day as I took the items out of the box so I could break it down for recycling, Deilen and Kameni climbed in it to play the Gamecube. It was so cute I had to take a picture. Deilen is like every other boy I know and LOVES video games. Kameni is like every other girl I know and could care less about them. Deilen loves to play with someone so he is constantly bribing her to play with him. I'm not sure where he learned that trick.

A Big Scare

We had quite a crazy, scary weekend. First, Thursday night I received a call from the paramedics that my mother-in-law was in a bad car accident and was being transported to Altaview Hospital. I called Blake and he went down there, where he had to drive her to the Intermountain Medical Center where she had to have surgery on her ankle. She shattered it when she slammed on her brake trying to avoid the full-sized truck in front of her that had stopped when she was going 40 mph. She shattered it and ended up with 7 pins to hold it together. She is okay and doing better and we are SO grateful. It could have/should have been worse. Then, Friday night the next cul-de-sac over from us had an accidental shooting. Two grown men were checking each other's guns out and one of the guns malfunctioned and went off, grazing one guys hand and hitting the other guy's hip. Apparently it did a lot of organ damage, but wow, was it scary. That same night our next door neighbors (three single guys) decided to get drunk and ride around on a motorcycle until 3 am. I was so proud of Blake when he went over on Saturday morning pounding on their door and ringing their doorbell until he woke all of the up to tell them if they ever do that again we are calling the cops. I know we should have in the first place, but since neither of us had gotten much sleep the night before because of his mom (Blake didn't get any sleep since he came home at 11am the next day), we weren't thinking. On Sunday night we actually went to bed at 9:30pm. At 11pm our dog was barking non stop. Blake kept yelling at him out the bathroom to be quiet, which usually works, but he wouldn't stop. Blake went outside to take care of it and noticed our gate was open. He went to go shut it and there was a guy standing at the side of our house with a dog. Luckily for us he was a cop. They were chasing a guy that had ran through our backyard and jumped the fence into our next door neighbor's house (the drunks with the motorcycles) and went in their backdoor. It was pretty easy to tell, since it had just snowed and so you could really see his footprints. Pretty soon we had 6 cop cars in our cul-de-sac and the next door neighbor's house was surrounded by cops. Then we heard the cops say in the megaphone "This is the Police Department, put the gun down and come outside with your hands up." Holy crap was I a wreck. I LOVE Cops and America's Most Wanted and this was a rush to me. Blake and I were planted in front of the window watching everything. After saying it twice in the megaphone, one of the neighbors came out and the cops patted him down. Then the another of the guys pulled up in his truck and talked to the cops. He went in and carried the other guy (who we believe is the other neighbor) and the cops put handcuffs on him and put him in their car. There was also a Taxi cab, in which the driver came over to ID him. I still don't know exactly what happened since I haven't seen any of the guys outside lately since it is 19 degrees during the day and snow, but I won't forget to ask, that is for sure! Now Blake will think twice about going out in the night to take care of the dog.

Thanksgiving 2009

Thanksgiving was wonderful as it always is. The Tuesday before Thanksgiving, Deilen and Kameni made Indian necklaces, vests, and headbands at preschool. They wore those at Thanksgiving dinner. They looked so cute! I love holidays. Every year our stake does a 5K Turkey Trot in the morning. I always go and usually my family will tag along, depending on how cold it is. This year we all started out but only Kameni and I made it to the end. I even ran most of it pushing her in our double jogging stroller, in which the front wheel will not lock anymore. I was pretty proud of myself. Then we went to my parents and I ate as much pie as I wanted since I burned off calories earlier that morning.

New Pics

So when Blake was at Wood Badge, I took the kids to the Hooper park. A family there with 7 kids (they will make it to heaven for sure) was there taking pictures of their kids in a pile of leaves. There are a million leaves and it took minutes to rake a huge pile. I thought it was such a great idea that I took the kids back there to take their pictures. They turned out SO cute.

Gerrit's 18-Month Check-Up

Holy cow, I'm really falling behind. I am not sure where the time goes. I took Gerrit in about 2 weeks ago for his 18-month check-up. He weighed 24 pounds 4 ounces (25%) and 31 inches long (50%). I have never had a child in the 50% for their height. The lowest has been 70% so this is quite a surprise. No wonder he is still wearing 18-month clothes. The nurse was asking me a series of questions. One of which was how many wet diapers I changed a day. I really had to think about it because I rarely change a wet diaper...they are always poopy. I told her I change about 5-6 poopy diapers a day. She looked really surprised and told me he must have an excellent digestive system. Then she preceded to ask me how many servings of the different food pyramid items he ate a day. It dawned on me there and then that the reason he poops so much is that all he eats are fruit and vegetables and wheat bread. I had to laugh because I think if I ate that every day all day, how great my digestive system would be. His asthma has really been acting up and the once a day steriod treatment is working the best so I have had to up it to twice a day, once in the morning and once at night. We can always tell when his asthma is bad because he has big purple bags under his eyes from lack of oxygen...well that and he can't sleep. He also has a goose egg on his forehead that he originally got from falling into the door frame. However, when he begins to throw a tantrum he LOVES to bang his head on anything hard. That or he likes to find something, ANYTHING to destroy. He has already broke our trim off of our fridge, one of the shelves in the fridge, has put numerous holes in the wall, and many countless other things. I was concerned that he had anger issues, but the doctor assured me that it was most likely his temperament (it's that red hair I know it). Anyway when he hits his head he hits that same spot. He has a bump there that is hard as stone. The fluid has gelled and it should go away by the time he is an adult. Needless to say he is my accident prone child. He has no fear and can climb or do anything he puts his mind to. He is sure going to keep me young.

Rob's Frosted Rock

Last week Gerrit and I got to go tag along with Deilen and Kameni's preschool class on their first field trip to Rob's Frosted Rock. This is one of our favorite places so I was very excited. Deilen and Kameni were excited that I was going to let them eat ice cream at 10am. They had a lot of fun making Cotton Candy flavored ice cream and seeing how they make the waffle cones. Afterwards they got to eat the ice cream they made and even pick out their own "mix-in". Both of them chose gummi bears. They were in heaven.

Gummi Foot

Blake has been at Wood Badge for half of the week so it has been just me and the kids. My mom gave them a dollar for Halloween and the kids wanted to spend it. So I took the kids to the dollar store to buy something. Kameni bought a wand, Deilen bought a bow and arrow with the knife, and Kaymin decided to go to Kohl's and buy some Halloween earrings. After I needed to grab a few things at Walmart. All of their Halloween stuff was 75% off and among the stuff was this gummi foot. It looks completely disgusting. It is a bloody, flesh covered foot that has crunchy candy for the bones inside. Of course, the kids and I had to get it to try it. By the time I realized that I wanted to take a picture of it, we had already cut off the toes to try it. So this is a picture of the toeless foot. It was pretty good, if you could get past the thought of a foot. After Walmart I took the kids to the park with some lunch from McDonalds. We had a lot of fun and wasted time there until Blake came home. We were so excited to see him after 3 days.

Preschool Halloween Party

On Tuesday, Kameni and Deilen had their Halloween party at preschool. Their preschool teacher came down with the swine flu the week of Halloween and took the week off as she recovered, so their party was pushed back until this week. The kids were so excited to celebrate Halloween again and wear their costumes. Our neighbor and their best friend, Rylee, goes to the same preschool and so I got this picture of them as I took them to school that morning. Rylee was Pocahontas, Kameni was Snow White, and Deilen was Spiderman, again.

Rain Boots

I usually get my kids a little bag of "treats" for Halloween, however this year I decided to do something different. An online store had a killer deal on rain boots. My kids don't necessarily need rain boots, but they do NEED chore boots. Growing up on a farm chore boots were something that all kids had to have. And every time we go to my parents house my kids shoes come home covered in mud and animal feces, mainly cow poop. So, every time I swear to my self that I am going to come home and buy some and I never do. So when I found them for $6 each shipped, I jumped on that bandwagon and bought them for the kids. They love them and wear them constantly. The best thing...they spray clean. The day after I gave them to them, I found Deilen wearing his with nothing else on except for his underwear. I remember a picture my mom has of my brother, Brody in his underwear in my dad's cowboy boots...so I had to get a picture. One day I know he will hate me for taking this picture, but for now I will sit back and love it. The other day we got a load of manure from my parents for our garden and I was SO thankful we had "chore" boots. I even bought me a pair!

Halloween

Halloween was a lot of fun this year. It started off by having the batteries die in both the truck and the car. So the afternoon was spent getting new batteries and since we were out and about with the whole gang, we decided to stop and eat at Cafe Rio....yummy, my favorite! We got back and got the kids all dressed up to go out and trick-or-treat. Deilen and Gerrit were Spiderman, Kaymin was a vamiress, and Kameni was Snow White. Deilen practically ran from house to house until we got halfway around the block. Then he decided he had enough candy and wanted to go home to play video games with Blake. We convinced him to keep going since we were just going around the block, but it didn't last too much longer until he was adamant that he had "too much" candy. So the boys went home and the girls and I finished the block. I believe this is the first year we made it all around the block....the whole .6 mile. Half of the people weren't even home but the kids received so much from the people that were home that we had to put about half of their candy in the bottom of the stroller because they ran out of room. The weather was perfect and we had a lot of fun. Then as a tradition we come home and have hot chocolate and watch a movie.

Some Really Good Bread

Gerrit had some toast the other morning for breakfast. Instead of picking it up and eating it, he decided to mash his face in it to take a bite. Needless to say, butter was everywhere and he just started laughing.

Halloween Party at My Mom's House

Last night we had a Halloween party at my mom's house. Thank goodness we are all feeling better, except for me. I am still having some major problems with my sinuses again like I had in the early spring. So I may need to make another trip to the ENT. We all went and I brought my camera and forgot to take pictures until the end. I didn't even take one of the kids all dressed up. But I did get one of Kameni and Gerrit, sort of. Kameni had on my sister's wig. We frosted sugar cookies and carved pumpkins. Kaymin carved her pumpkin all by herself and Deilen wanted to use one of the patterns so he needed LOTS of help. We had a great time.

Halloween Party at Blake's Mom's House

Last Sunday Blake's mom had a Halloween party. Kaymin was still running a fever and had the body aches, and so did I. So we stayed home from church and the party. It was a bummer to have to miss and Kaymin was crying. But we tried to make the best of it and Kaymin painted a pumpkin. (I should have taken the picture a week ago when she did it but I didn't. I took this today after it has rained several times. She did a great job painting Dracula.) It was all she felt like doing and then we watched a chick flick. Meanwhile, Blake and the kids got all dressed up to go and had a great time. Deilen was Spiderman, Kameni was Snow White and Blake was Father Lucifer. Gerrit was really facinated with his mask and didn't want to be near him at all. Blake's mom always does a doughnut eating contest off a string and made sure to bring Kaymin home some doughnuts. She was in heaven!

Dinosaur Park During October

We have an annual family pass to the Dinosaur Park and my kids love to go. Last Saturday was such a nice day that we decided to go to the Dinosaur Park and invite Blake's dad to come with us. The park was all decorated for Halloween and was a lot of fun to see. I'm sure it would have been a lot more fun at night, but scarier too! With Kameni our fraidy cat, that would never fly. We had a wonderful time and the weather was in the upper 60's and perfect. However, later that day, Kaymin began running a fever so here came the swine flu for her.

Kaymin's 9-Year Old Pictures

Last Monday Kaymin and I went to Morgan to get our haircut. The beauty shop is across the street from the Morgan Park. We decided to go a little early so we could go to the park and take her 9-year old pictures. They turned out so cute. She is so photogenic so it has always been easy to take her pictures.