5 year old artwork on little sister

OH Luke!!! If you're going to color on your sisters face then come down and tell me that she got a marker and did it to herself, don't sign your name across her forehead! (How did you know it was me mom? Um... let's see... Your sister can't write YOUR name on her own forehead!) At least it was a washable marker and not a Sharpie! (these are the kinds of things that happen while I'm trying to cook dinner!)

Family pictures and a hairclip holder

YAY! We had family pictures last night, and well.. they're up on the photographer's blog already! As soon as I get the CD I'll post them here! If you'd like a little preview click here.

I finally got sick of finding Brynley's clippies EVERYWHERE so I went to craft warehouse and picked up a canvas board, some pink polka dot material, and matching ribbon to made her a holder for all those clippies. It was SUPER fast and easy to make. I don't know why I didn't do this sooner! Everything cost me around $10.00 total (except for the staple gun that I ended up purchasing.. but that can be used for other things too!) And, it's much cuter than a little set of plastic drawers from Wally world! For those of you that have little girls... What do you do to keep track of all the clippies, headbands, elastics.. etc?

Boo at the Zoo... NEVER again!

Trying to get all my kids to look and smile (Nicely) at the same time. It usually doesn't happen as you can see!

We went to "Boo at the Zoo" today in hopes of having a good time! Let's just say there were WAY too many people, and all the parents were stressed out trying to watch their crazy costumed kids in all the madness! 2 hours was all we could take. We left with a screaming 2 year old and 2 whiney boys - and a very stressed out mama! The kids did get to see the new African Plains exhibit - giraffes and lions! I don't know what I was thinking. My first thought should have been to throw away the flyer when I noticed they were limiting admission to 13,000! The kids were NOT interested in pics at all. I did get a few of brynley that were cute - but would be MUCH cuter if she'd SMILE! Little Stinker!

Michael and Luke are "Mario and Luigi" Complete with plungers (which are getting them into a bit of trouble!)

Here's luke hanging from a huge tree branch. He LOVES to climb!

Such a cute little witch! We got the tutu from hannah's tutus. It's ADORABLE! She's still not fond of the hat though. I can usually only get it on her for a few seconds, then she wants it off!

AE Kids!

I am SO excited! American Eagle FINALLY launched their kids line!!! GO check it out! (AND.. a big bonus, I can use my all access rewards toward purchase of the kids stuff!! WHOO HOO!) I'm so in heaven right now!

PS For some reason if you try to get to ae kids from the regular AE site it doesn't work - click on my link and you'll be able to browse around the shop!

Lil' pumpkins

ON V & Co's blog the other day she had a tutorial on creating a quick little applique, and well, it got me thinking I could use some of her SIMPLY SCRUMPTIOUS scraps that I won from her blog a while back to make some little pumpkins on a shirt for Brynley. It's not really as bright as the photo shows - but I think it turned out kinda cute! Thanks for sparking a creative moment!

More Pumpkin Patch Fun

We finally hit the pumpin patch as a family yesterday. It was SO nice outside and despite Brynley's crankiness from being up too late the night before we had a good time. There were so many pumpkins! Luke grabbed the first one he saw, then proceded to look for corn. Brynley didn't like the vines tripping her, so we hunted for pumpkins with her attached to the hip. Michael looked at several and finally with mom's prompting picked one out. Here's a few (too many!) pics from the day.

Ready for the hayride

Scraping the mud off with a stick (they have to be clean you know!)

Look mom! More corn! (he was quite disappointed when we told him it would NOT be ok to eat it for dinner!)

OH! So heavy!

Best Buds

Mario & Luigi

The boys want to be these guys for halloween...



Simple enough right? WRONG? Apprently all denim overalls in Michael's size are MIA. I've searched thrift and retail stores - with no luck. I can find some at Target for Luke, but since they want to match they are getting stuck with Carhartts (not the right color - but at least they are overalls). I could have made blue fabric ones - but who really wants to do that? (And it's diffficult to find an "easy" overall pattern in Michael's size as well!) Now off to dollar tree to grab some cheap plungers!

pumpkin patch no. 1

The kids and I went to my parents over the weekend and helped grandma pick out some pumpkins for her house, and had a little fun in the maze. It was SOOOO cold on Saturday! The wind was horrible and the kids were freezing, but we still got a few smiles out of them for pictures! We'll be hitting a pumpkin patch around here somewhere this weekend and our ward is having its Fall Festival so my camera will be seeing plenty of action!

BINKY BE GONE!!

It's gone for good. This past week we've been talking alot about getting rid of the Binky, because BIG girl's don't have Binky's. I even threw in a bribe of getting a new dollie if she threw her binky in the garbage. Yesterday she saw a commercial for this doll by Fisher Price that goes potty and you can wash her hands, brush teeth, give her a drink, etc. Not a cheap doll. She saw that commercial and ran to get her binky and threw it away, then proceded to tell me - "I want that dolly, I throw my binky away, I want a new dollie. I be a big girl now." Why did she have to pick an expensive toy? We instantly ran to Toys R Us in search for the doll (or in hopes of something cheaper) but she stuck to her guns.

She is so proud of herself and apparently realizes that the Binky is gone for good. She didn't cry or ask for it last night or this morning. She constantly claps for herself and tells me she's a big girl now and "no more binky my whole life." (she is quite grown up sounding these days!) Maybe that's the key. Talk up giving the binky to the garbage for a week or so, then let them decide when they are ready - then of course there is the INSTANT gratification part. I don't think that the binky fairy idea (where she sets her binky's out for the binky fairy, only to get a prize the next morning) would have worked for her. She wanted rewarded instantly and well, for us - IT WORKED! Hooray! Now maybe this doll can get her potty trained too!

I DO IT MYSELF!

The pictures pretty much say it all.

Utah Vacation.. the good and the not so good

This past weekend we went to Utah for a little vacation while the kids had a 4 day weekend from school. We did a little outlet mall shopping in Park City.. while i was doing that, Steven took the kids up to Olympic Park to check out the sites. Brynley got to running down the hill (ON ASPHALT!) and took a dive on her face. (WHY? why does it always have to be the face?)

Here's a pic after the "accident" when she fell asleep in the car. Besides the outside cosmetic "damage" she had a good sized cut inside her top lip and the force of the fall PUSHED one of her front teeth backward a bit. That really freaked me out (my little girl is NOT going to lose a front tooth!) and luckily there was a pediatric dentist up in Park city that was sweet enough to let me bring her in and check her out. Brynley is such a binky girl and this actually turned out to be a good thing because the dentist said that by sucking on the binky it would help bring that front tooth back into position. I can actually tell a difference from Thursday to today. So I guess Binky's aren't all bad!! (and the fact that the binky has also caused a little bit of a cross bite also worked in her favor in this situation!) but seriously - I've never heard a dentist say that a binky was a good thing! :o) Brynley was certainly happy to be able to have the binky as much as she wanted and needed!

We stayed with Steven's brother and his family for a couple of nights. Their little daughter Millie is so cute and the kids had a blast playing with her. She is almost as tall as Brynley and a year younger, but weighs MUCH less than brynley as well). I think Millie loved the attention she got from her 3 cousins! Here's all the kids lounging on the bean bag at my BIL's house.

We also took the kids to HOGLE ZOO. Michael has a report on an animal to do for school, so we thought this would be a good time to see some different animals and pick one for his report. he chose a Rhino - so we got a good pic of him in front of the rhinos!





We also went to Thanksgiving point to check out some dinosaur bones and play in the sand.

Such a happy dead dino..

Building a dinosaur (with pieces that are a little worn and don't stick too well anymore!) The one one Brynley's hair COMLETELY destroyed her braid and we had a really hard time getting her hair unstuck from the velcro!

Brynley decided to WASH and line up each plastic dino.

Luke grabbed me and said, "MOM! Take my picture right here!" Such a handsome little DEVIL! (and I really do mean that in the nicest way only a mother could say!)

We also went to temple square Friday afternoon after the zoo and snapped a few pictures.

Because of the rain I didn't get more than a couple photos of the kids dressed up on Sunday, but here's the best one of the 8 or so that I took.
We also learned last week that kids under 8 aren't allowed in the conference center! it will be FOREVER until we can take all our kids to conference at the same time. We enjoyed Sunday morning session in the taberbacle though and it was good for the kids. They actually behaved somewhat decent too! YAHOO! It was great to get out and do a little something fun. But, there is something about a vacation that just WEARS ME OUT! I think I came home more exhausted. It definately makes vacationing more of a challenge with kids. Despite the exhaustion, I can't wait to go somewhere again... where to next? President Monson DID just announce temple in Rome, Italy. Maybe we need to go over there for the open house!! (we've got a while to save up!) Ya right.. oversees trip with kids. Am I just asking for trouble?!