Our lazy weekend

We all have been sick around here. Even Damma has had it! We pretty much kept to ourselves after K's birthday on friday. Saturday we bummed around all morning. I even forgot that C had piano lessons. Oops! We then took the kids to some of the Parade of Homes in Greensboro. They behaved so well last year that we decided that we didn't have to find babysitters anymore to go. They really do enjoy walking through the houses. After homes and naps, A1 had her very first Daddy-Daughter Date. Chik-fil-a advertised a Daddy-Daughter Date Night early in the week. I thought it would a be good opportunity for Cheeto and Sassy. And of course, Cheeto really likes their food. I would have really had to do some bribery to get him to take her to McDonalds. :) She was so excited- especially because she got to Rafi (Rafi is the name of Cheeto's car. I know we are wierd- we name our cars). She has only rode in his car twice that I can think of so this was a big deal to her. He asked her out earlier in the week. All day she was so concerned that he had forgotten their date. I'm sure this is something they will have to do more often. I can't tell you how much she has talked about "her" night with dad the past few days. She also has this thing about calling us royalty names. Cheeto taught her. She will say, "Mommy, I'm the princess. Right? And Addelyn is another princess. You are the Tueen (she can't say Q's). Daddy is a Ting (she can't say K's and hard C's either. :) ). And my boys are... hmm... what do you call them. Oh yes. Prince! They are my prince's! That's what my daddy taught me!" It's moments like these when I wonder how people go through life and never want to have children. These moments make up for all the stress and frustration they cause us otherwise.

We decided to keep the girls home from church. Cheeto had to go because his primary class was in charge of sharing time or he would have stayed home too. We even opted out of going to our usual Sunday dinner at mom's. Thought we would keep our germs seperate for another day. I always feel like Sunday is an incredible long day when I don't go to church. We had leftovers for dinner so that made things really easy. Cheeto slept a good part of the afternoon. I had forgotten that we hadn't finished Papa A's birthday present so we worked on that a bit. The kids love to paint and Papa loves homemade art. ("But look, really look-It's so perdy!") So, I thought this would be the perfect gift. I pretty much let the kids have at it. I help a bit just to get the paint so it wasn't dripping but the rest was all them. Pretty good- eh? I can post it on here now for 2 reasons. 1) Dad is in Mexico and 2) he never checks our blog unless Mom shows it to him. :) After painting we played the Wii for a bit. I just love that thing! So much family fun! I know that may be contriversal but I don't care. For us- it's fun!


When it was time to start getting ready for bed, A2 decides to perk right up and start entertaining. She was so stinking cute. How can a 5 month old have a room laughing in 5 seconds flat? Well, it didn't take much to get the older kids wound up. A2 did a great job. I know some of the video is long. I also apologize for how many times C says, "I'm Gungry!" It was making A2 laugh so he kept doing it. I'm just warning you it gets really old after the first 25 times. :) We also had to show that she is starting to sit up on her own. Oh- slow down the time- PLEASE!!!

A2 does this smacking thing with her lips. She can get pretty noisy and VERY slobbery!

Funny Kid Quote of the Day
My mom told me this this morning. When my sister called K for his birthday she asked him if he felt like he was six yet. He said, "Nope, I haven't had my cake yet. After I have my cake I'll feel older." Well, when K called my mom Saturday to thank him for his gifts she asked him if he felt like he was six now that he had his cake. He said, "Nope, I still feel five. I'm still little Grandma." She said, "But you are getting so big." K,"Have you seen me Grandma? I'm pretty little!"

A1 went to a friends house while I was with K on his field trip last week. She told me that A1 was so funny. This friend had just moved here from Utah. Her older brother and I were graduated together. Let's face it, small town Idaho, everyone knows everyone. She had told Sassy that she knew her grandparents. Sassy said, "Really? They live far away so they have to live in the airport!"

Our week of Kelson

Happy Birthday our sweet Kelson! You bring such a sweet spirit to our home. Our family wouldn't be complete without you! You have a twinkle in your eye that shows your tender heart and your love for life. We love you bunches and hope you have another fabulous year! Love you Mijo!

So... he requested a Wii party! I wasn't quite sure how to start the cake for this one. I decided to take a picture of his Mii character and try to recreate it. Not sure it worked out as well as I would have liked but he was THRILLED, so I suppose that's all that matters!

So happy for his presents

His first pair of NEW shoes. He has always used Cade's hand-me-downs!

Got to love anything Star Wars! Thanks Aunt Becky and Uncle Kyle and kids!

Wii Mario Kart! So excited to share this one! Thank you G'ma and Papa C!
This math game is quite fun! Cade loves it! So for him to enjoy it I really thought Kelson would to. Kelson really is getting into math at school and is quite good at it. We played it this morning and Kelson schooled us all! Lots of story problems that will help him for later and also gets Cade thinking as well! I love it when the boys get along so well! Thanks Damma and Papa A!

This is the first time I have had a birthday for one of my kids during school. Cade's is in the summer. K's teachers were gone so their was a subsititute. He was telling her the "rules" for the birthday kid. He got a hat that he sported ALL DAY! He said the class had to sing to him and then he had to take the first bite of his snack. The first bite was a very big deal to him for some reason. Funny kid! He made all of this known then acted all shy about it.

Wednesday was K's field trip to the North Carolina Zoo in Asheboro, NC. A2 and I got to tag along. It was an interesting morning getting out the door. A1 was to spend the day with Damma. Unfortunately, she called early and said she was sure had pink eye- which she was right. Thank goodness for fabulous friends that bailed me out on short notice!
We had a great time. It was windy and cold at first but turned out to be an ok day. I felt like a car had hit my by that night. The wind was pretty rough on us. A2 got to sit and stay warm in the stroller. K asked at one point if I would carry A2so he could ride. I bet most of you know the answer he got as well as the look I gave him. :) I had a hand party that night as well. It was a very long and crazy day but a great one at that!

Sorry y'all!

Man, I had no idea I would get in so many people mad at me for not posting for a week or so. So many of you only post once a month, and you have the nerve to email me/facebook and wonder why I haven't posted. :) Common- give me a break. I have been sick since before Spring break, working, going on field trips, and working on hands. The medicine the doctor gave me made me more have some pretty bad pancreas attacks. Thankfully the kids were at Grandma's that day but it took me a few days to really feel up to doing anything at all. It has been SO CRAZY at our house. C is the only one that hasn't been sick. Yep- even Cheeto got it this time around. So... I finally got it together. Enjoy the pictures! Read as much or as little as you'd like! I hope you all are happy now! hee hee! :) just kidding.

Spring Break 2009

I don't believe we have ever taken a trip for spring break. I know we went to Idaho a couple of years ago from my brothers wedding but it wasn't even during the official spring break. Cheeto usually didn't have the days to get off work to go anywhere. Well, this year was awesome. Cheeto's partner has owns a condo at the beach. They offered it to us so we jumped at the opportunity. We assumed it was only one bedroom and thought the kids would have to sleep on the floor. Boy, were we wrong. It turned out that it was bigger than our house. C wasn't in the condo for an hour before he said he wanted to live there. It had a balcony that overlooked the intracoastal waterway and a big bridge.

The kids had a great time eating all but Sunday dinner out there. It made clean up much easier for me. Saturday we ran a few errands in the morning and then spent the afternoon on the beach. It was really windy. The water was freezing. At least it was to Cheeto and I. The kids could have cared less They were up to they necks in the water. We dug in the sand a bit and then called it a day. We decorated eggs for Sunday dinner that night. K was concerned that Da'ma wouldn't have anyone to decorate her eggs. I think he thought that you can't eat just white boiled eggs on Easter. :)



After decorating eggs, I realized I hadn't finished knitting A2's Easter dress yet. I didn't think I had that much left but the little stinker was much longer than I had thought. I stayed up until midnight knitting like a mad woman to get it done. If I were smart, I would have packed a "backup" dress in case I didn't have the time to finish. But since I wasn't smart, I HAD to finish it. Anyone that knows me knows that I couldn't just let it go. It turned out cute. I couldn't have added some to the bottom but didn't have time. Thanks to my sister for helping me with the pattern.



One of errands Saturday was to find the meeting house to go to church on Sunday. When we found it we really thought it was the bishop's store house. Nope. It was a garage turned into a meeting house. The kids called it the funny blue church. There were less than 50 people there. We sat down and the guy behind us handed C 2 pirated dvd's that he burned. C gave them to me. When we got home I told the boys that we had to throw them away. They were both movies that were released within the last month so the boys were excited. But they were good sports to understand why we couldn't keep them. I started cooking dinner and then went down for quiet time. This was the first Easter we have had with just our family. It was quiet. We went for a Sunday afternoon walk around the condo property. It was a great day!

Monday was raining and in the mid-60's. We rode a ferry to Fort Fisher. This got the kids all excited and rambunctious. We had to get them back in the car to keep them from running around the boat. They enjoyed watching the GPS icon showing us floating on the water and saying, "please drive to highlighted route." Fort Fisher was interesting. It's hard to really read and enjoy it when you have a 3 year old pulling you to the next exhibit after only 5 seconds of looking. C really looked and read a lot. He was getting some scouting passed of by going. We drove around the island for a bit and then headed back. It had started raining and wasn't any fun site seeing. We spent the rest of the day inside playing the Wii. We did have an "Spring" egg hunt. I decided to start doing a Spring day instead of the traditional Easter egg hunt with Easter. It's my effort to make a more Christ centered Easter. We had debated on whether to explain the Easter bunny but it never did come up that he didn't come so maybe that discussion will come next year.
Kelson went to the beach feeling crappy. By Saturday I had the really bad sore throat, headache, body aches on top of allergies. I was up most of the nights while we were there. I suppose it wasn't bad, A2 was up anyway!


Funny Kid Quote of the Day
The first night we were at the beach, A1 was having a hard time falling asleep. I went in multiple times to get her to sit still, be quiet and shut her eyes. I said, "I'm going to make you sleep.....????? (the first thing that came to mind was a closet) in the closet." She cocked her head to the side and said her cute sassy voice, "A shoooe closet? Why mommy?" I didn't even make it out of the room before I busted out laughing.

Tonight K was being rude to Sassy. He was picking things up and didn't want her to help, nor look at him. She brought me a book so we started reading instead. It wasn't 2 seconds before K wanted to look and listen to the story too. I decided to teach him a lesson and said, "K, I don't want you to look at the book." He walked off slow and then started to cry once he hit the hallway. Once he came back I asked him if I had heard his feelings. He said, "No, it feels like my heart is broken." :( I apologized. He then said, "My heart feels better now." It sure doesn't take much to break his heart.

Grasshopper Stadium Egg Drop

The first Saturday in April, our local baseball team hosted an Egg drop. They had a helicopter drop 20,000 eggs over the field. All the county elementary students got a free ticket. Cheeto had to pay $3 for A1. Not bad for a day of fun. The kids had a great time being down on the field- well, from what I heard anyway. I was working at a show at the Women's Hospital so I didn't get to go. I was proud of Cheeto. He took all 3 kids by himself to one of the most crowded places in the 'Boro. When it was time to run out and gather eggs he decided that it wasn't organized or safe to have our little kids on the field. He convinced them they would be safer and happier to just watch from a distance. None of the little kids got a single egg that were down there anyway. It was poorly planned. Rumor has it that they won't do it again. If they do, they will have to do something completely different. They estimated about 7-8,000 people were there. WAY too many people for our taste.

Were we really?

Sunday was our average typical Sunday. We scrambled to make it out the door to church on time. It seems like I'm always in a rush and then go to church with the "Why do I even try" attitude. In fact, I think this even on our way home. All we do is fight fidgety kids and walk the halls. Last Sunday was no different, in our eyes anyway. We sat in our "area" of the chapel trying to calm crazy kids before sacrament meeting began. Then a member of our ward that has no little kids sat behind us. My blood pressure went through the roof! I was so uncomfortable with them sitting behind us. Cheeto, of course, could care less and told me to relax. This member of our ward is a well known author. After sacrament meeting and the closing prayer , he touched my arm and asked if it would be alright to write about our kids in his Mormon Times column. I said that would be fine. He got the kid's name and ages and simply said he was pleased that he was able to listen the meeting even though there were 4 little kids sitting directly in front of him. I WAS SHOCKED! I did not think our kids were that well behaved. Cheeto and I fight with kids each and every Sunday to sit still and be quiet just like everyone else. The thought goes through my mind each week how nice church will be when I don't have to pack "entertainment" or disipline children in the halls. Oh, will the day ever come?
Well, now that you know our side of the story, here is the column that Brother Card wrote. Please, DO NOT think that this is us bragging. Brother Card wrote a nice article and gave us some extremely nice compliments. Our kids are not always like this. Perhaps the spirit calmed our kids more last Sunday because He knew my blood pressure was rising by the second and was going to make me have a heart attack. :)
On another note, like I said earlier, I get that "Why do I even try" attitude. I think all mothers have that attitude from time to time. At this particular time in my life, this article that Brother Card wrote was what I needed. With Cade's schooling and me being at home alone with the kids so much I often get this attitude. I suppose I feel like that we must be doing at least one thing good for our kids. I can continue on for another day.

Student Conferences

Kelson had a student led conference yesterday. He was so cute. He had slept over at Grandma and Papa's and forgot a jacket. All he had was his Obi Wan cloak. He wore it proud! I was so proud as I saw all the hard work he does. He writes in a journal everyday. At the top of each page he draws a picture. These journals were awesome. It was great seeing how he would write the words how they sounded at the beginning of the year and now how he spells almost each word correctly. His pictures were fabulous. I will have to scan and post our favorites, ie the day after A2 was born, the day he had surgery, the day he lost his teeth. SO CUTE! Kelson really does love school. He told me he wasn't going to go to first grade because his teacher said she might cry when he left her. He didn't want to make her sad so he would be happy to stay in kindergarten. What can I say, that's my Kelson!

One step forward to Emergency preparedness

I am embarrassed to admit that our food storage and emergency kits are non-existant. I just don't have the room for it so I haven't put much time and energy in building it up. Well, I have had multiple promptings in the past weeks to change this. I had another one on Saturday, this one came in the way of Kelson Taylor. We were in the van waiting for Cade to finish his piano lessons. I had brought some Friend magazines for entertaining the wee ones. Kelson brought me his and asked me to read him a story. It was about a girl that received an emergency backpack from her aunt for Christmas and she was dying to use the contents. Her mom explained what an emergency was and that the backpacks would be no good if she used them now, but together they decided an emergency drill would be a good idea. Long story short, the power ended up going out and they had to use the backpacks. It turned out it wasn't a drill. Kelson asked if we had such backpacks. I said I had the packs they just weren't packed. He said, "Mom, we better fill ours. What if we have an emergency and we aren't ready? Can we fix this this afternoon?" I figured I probably had enough stuff around the house to complete them. So this is what we did. I didn't have a large pack for Cheeto so we will have to change that but all of the kids have there own bag. They were thrilled. Analise can barely carry hers but it's cute watching her try with such excitement. The big hit was the flashlights! Cade was not excited when we put applesauce in his. He hates applesauce. I told him if it had been days since he was eating and was starving I'm positive even applesauce would be good. I don't think he believed me. Oh well, we made one big step forward and we are pleased.


Funny Kid Quote of the Day
We have two step stools in our house that get used in a multitude of ways. Friday, Analise was using the two stepped one as her desk top and the wooden single step as her chair. I was on the couch feeding Addelyn when Analise jumped up and knocked over the wooden step. She didn't realize it because when she came back to her "desk" she plopped down on it pretty hard. The tears began to fall immediately. She held her bum as she ran over to me with tears of pain. I asked her, "Ah, did you hurt your bum?" She bent over and pointed, "Yes! Right in the hole!" I busted out laughing. I couldn't help it. She got MAD! "MOM, IT"S NOT FUNNY! DON"T LAUGHT AT ME!!!!"

Fun pictures

An awesome friend of ours too these pictures for me. I wanted my boys in their Bettis jerseys before the little boys outgrew them. I'm so pleased.


I LOVE THIS ONE! I just wish that Kelson didn't have to scratch!
Daddy's Boys

I'm bringin "SexyBack"!
Cheeto is just HOT! What can I say... I got a good man!

I'm too sexy for this shirt, to sexy for this shirt...

The Steeler brick road

I see your true colors shining through...

You've got a friend in me

Mother, tell me a story

I am a Child of God

Hush lil' Baby

Happy Birthday Dam'ma!

Today is Dam'ma A's birthday. However, because of Cade and scouts we celebrated her birthday last night at Outback. Cheeto and I laughed. We hadn't been to Outback in YEARS and now we have been there 3 times in less than a month. Good thing the food is so good. The girls and I almost didn't go. A2 was so cranky all afternoon that I didn't want to fight her at the restaurant. She almost acts like she is teething. Could it be? Well, after a dose of tylenol she started to act better and even fell asleep so I decided to try her. The food was great and the kids were pretty good. I realized while we were eating that it had months since we took the kids to a sit-down restaurant. It was probably August since we did so. They were very well behaved.

Grandma even got the "special" song sung to her. The kids loved that!

Analise has copied Cade and the way they take pictures. Can't y'all just smile cute?

Happy birthday! Hope you have fabtabulous day!

Millis Health Education Center

Kelson had a field trip yesterday. Analise spent the morning with Damma and Dampa. I had to take Addelyn with me. She was a great baby. I put her in the baby sling and she just hung out. Kelson was a proud big brother. I was curious to see what this field trip was going to be like. I had never heard of this place and what I saw online didn't tell me much. I decided to stop by the school to see if other parents might want to carpool down there. One parent did. She sounded like she had a Spanish accent so I asked her where she was from. She said she grew up in Mexico and then moved to California for high school. I asked her what part of Mexico. She said Jalisco. That is where Cheeto's dad is from- small world. Well, the world got smaller. She was shocked that my kids had a full on mexican grandfather. It obviously doesn't show they have some mexican blood in them. She asked what brought them to North Carolina. I told her about the restaurants. She told me she knew one of the owners. Long story short she went to church with Dad's cousin that lives behind them. It was funny. She also asked me if it bothered me to have a multi-raced marriage. HECK NO! If it did, do you think I still would have married into one. Race does not make a person- your actions do! My father-in-law is one of the most honest, loving man I know! If it weren't for him, I probably wouldn't have lasted so far away from my family for the past 9 years. She was almost shocked at my answer. She then asked what church we went to. This conversation lasted almost the entire trip home. She was very curious about our standards and how we raise our children. Who knows... maybe this was a good missionary moment. I hope I said the right things. I believe I set a good example of a good church member but I never feel like I'm a good missionary. That's where I needed Cheeto or Nola with me!

You might have to enlarge this to see it. It was dark but this model was pretty cool. Her name was TAM. Different parts of her body would light up when she talked about it. It took the children through how the digestive system worked, the muscular and nervous systems as well. They all laughed and ewed when it talked about how everyone has to get rid of the food they eat. I tried to say that as clean as possible.

This heart was in the middle of the room and made a heart beat sound the entire time. It was a low pounding hum. It put Addelyn to sleep. :)Kelson and his friend

This bike was awesome. When you pedaled the bike the skeleton behind the glass would pedal with you. This showed the kids how your bones move.

This girl was hilarious! She had such a great way to interact with kids. This was a room to teach the kids about their teeth. It was called the Tough Tooth room. Different parts of the room lit up as she talked about cavities and proper ways to brush. Part of that BIG tooth you see on the right came out. It was all dark and nasty- to represent a cavity. She then replaced the lid with a silver one to represent the "filling". Very cool!

This is Mr. Big Mouth. The kids were able to see what their teeth look like under the gums. She showed them that below their baby teeth they have only one set of adult teeth so you only have one chance to take care of them. Kelson leaned over and said, "Except for me mom! I have extra teeth!" His teacher was sitting next to me and we both looked at each other and laughed. Yep- Kelson did have extra teeth.

After it was over, I was so pleased. What a neat place to teach kids about their bodies and how it all works! I wish they had something like this in the children museums. Kelson and I had so much fun!