Things that concern me....

So Cole is doing really well in school.  He loves going and unlike his sister never whines about it.  His writing is really good, he knows his letters and numbers and his reading is really coming along.  My concerns come after school.  This kid is such a T.V. junkie.  As soon as he gets home from school he wants to steal the iPad and sit in the corner of my bedroom behind the chair and watch T.V. We really don't have any good channels and so are in the middle of a one month trial of Netflix.  He is addicted! One day he came home from school with the above paper in his backpack.  He was supposed to draw a picture of something that started with 'N'.  He did just that and I was pretty entertained by the level of detail. He colored the back red and bolded the letters to write  Netflix just like on the iPad.  Genius? Maybe... Concerning, DEFINATELY!

I'm concerned about this boy for many reasons, but my most recent is the intense level of temper tantrums he throws.  This particular day he layed on the floor kicking and screaming for well over 30 minutes before I realized that he just wanted a paper and pencil to do homework with the kids.  I really struggle to understand his "speech", and in return he throws fits out of frustration.

I constantly hear from friends, family and even my husband how impressed they are with Hagen's vision.  Yes I have been pleasantly surprised at how well he has done, but as his mother I see a few things that worry me.  Number 1, his speech...it's bad. Number 2, Hagen is starting to be interested in books a little, he never has before but he holds those things right up to his little nose to look at them. Number 3.  Hagen show NO interest in the T.V. He acts like he doesn't even notice it, but he has started to get excited over little shows on the iPad. He lays on his tummy and his face is literally an inch from the thing, his attention span for that is only 2 minutes tops.

Kallie Jo concerns me too, she is growing up WAY too fast! I can't stand the thought of her being big.  She brought home a Fancy Nancy book from school and then decided that I needed to attend her "Ooh La La Beauty Spa!" It was delightful!

The Cuteness of this boy is delightfully concerning. Our parenting is embarrasingly relaxed with him, we have got to get on the ball because a monster is developing here!

Thanksgiving 2012

Thanksgiving this year was at the Crapo's and it was so much fun.  Jeff and Hali and their family were not there but the party happened anyway.  Cole and Creed are best buddies and they played all day.  We ate way too much and then decided to try and burn a few calories bowling.  Weston loves bowling and is usually pretty good, it was fun to see the men have a little friendly competition.  After bowling we went back to Grandma's for more food and fun.  We had a ping pong tournament, laughed a lot and ate a bunch of really good fudge! (Okay just me ate all the fudge)

Next to July 4th, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.  I love the idea of reflecting on all of my blessings.  Sometimes I watch the news and sit in wonder and awe at how lucky I am.  My family is healthy and happy; we have a warm place to sleep, plenty of food to eat and many opportunities for growth and fun! I love spending time with family and one of my all time favorite past times is eating.  I love the stress free holiday and the lack of commercialism that goes along with it. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Boys....& Veterans

 Why is it that I have a million and one pictures my kids have taken of themselves?? Seriously every time I dump my pics onto the computer this is what I find! I love it though because sometimes my kids can capture their own personalities better than I can.  The above picture for example looks more like my brother Regg than it does of Cole himself, but it perfectly portrays the look he gives me when I ask him to do anything that isn't watching T.V!

Hagen has now unfortunately decided that the high chair is for babies and he refuses to sit in it.  He is now up to the bar on a booster seat that he has only fallen out of six or seven times.  He can much more easily dump his food onto the floor and smear it all under the countertop here than he could from the high chair! This boy is a MESS but we love him so much and are continually amazed with how much he changes.  His vocabulary is now growing at a rate of a word per day and he is starting to say the funniest things! His and our new favorite...."shoot" when he drops something or spills!

Every time I sit down at the computer Hagen runs to the bathroom to fetch a brush or comb.  He then climbs onto the chair behind me and combs my hair.  It is oh so sweet, but none too gentle! (My mom used to pay us to do this when she would do her bills:)

Lastly the kids put on a wonderful Veterans Day program at their school and they proud to show off their Grandpa Dayton.  He and Granny are always so supportive of all the kids activities and we love to have them come!

Halloween 2012

 The day after we got home from our big trip was Halloween.  I personally was exhausted from traveling and really needed a day to do some laundry and catch up on things around the house.  However with a house full of small children who were very excited about dressing up, my house remained hurricane-ish for one more day! Kallie, like every other girl her age is way into zebra striped anything, and was beside herself with excitement when I found this costume.  I have to admit it was pretty cute.  And just to clarify, I was always going to be one of those moms who made their kids costumes and was super creative and all that jazz.... well I had to come to the saddening realization that there just isn't a creative bone in my body and alas... I buy their costumes or use hand me downs!

 

Cole happened upon the movie Peter Pan not too long ago and much to his father's dismay insisted that this is what he wanted to be for Halloween! Maybe it is the fact that the costume came with a sword (if you remember the ninja from last year:) Weston was positive that this was a very bad choice and that Cole would live with torture from others for years to come.  Cole was very persistant though and at least the costume did not include tights!!! When the big day arrived though much to Weston's pleasure and Cole's dismay, eveyone thought he was Robin Hood!!

Kallie was apparently not the only girl in her class insistant upon being a zebra!!

After school we made our usual trip to G&G Munns' house and G&G Dayton's.  It is always so fun to see what Granny D will dress up like!

Hagen was a cute little gorilla who wasn't about to let me out of his sight! He was so scared I was going to leave him again, after being gone for so long.  He was not at all happy about going out to my moms house and would have nothing to do with her!  She was so sad, but by the end of the night he had warmed up a bit and was showing us all the new tricks her learned at Grammy's while we were gone!

Day 3/ Disneyland

 Our day at Disneyland was so much fun! We started out at California Adventure and rode a bunch of rides with the whole huge family.  We realized real quick that one day was not going to be enough for us and so we split off from everyone else and tried to hit as much as we could.  There were basically no lines, twenty minutes was about our longest wait all day.  Our kids were loving life! After getting our fill of Cars Land and The bug world, we headed over to Disneyland.  We were completely overwhelmed and didn't know where to sart. Neither Weston or I had ever been to Disneyland before.  After an hour or so we decided that we needed to meet back up with everyone else so they could show us the best stuff.  We were afraid that our kids were going to be too small to ride all the rides that everyone else's older kids wanted to do. We were very wrong.  Our kids were big enough and loved all the bigger rides.  There were very few rides that they didn't do. 

 The Matterhorn was at the top of their list. We rode that ride at least three times.  Space Mountain, Splash Mountain and Pirates of the Carribean were also big hits.  We had so much fun and zipped from one ride to the next.  Even with thirty people in our group, we rarely waited in line, it was the perfect day.  I followed the wise suggestions of friends and carried a backpack with lots of snacks and drinks and so we never really stopped to eat either, and snacking gave us something to do in line!

 One thing that kind of dissappointed me was that with our limited time the kids really didn't get to meet any characters.  The rest of the family was staying another day, but we just had the one.  Cole was pretty excited when he saw Tigger, he wanted a picture real bad but we would've had to wait in line for at least ten minutes.  I love that he was completely content to just photo bomb someone else and get a picture with the back of Tigger.  (I know I am a terrible parent!)  Then we saw a stuffed Tigger in the window of a little shop, so the boys got a picture with it!

 The men saved us this great bench to watch the parade and the kids and I hit the Matterhorn and the Buzz Lightyear ride a couple times in the process.  The kids loved the parade and were able to see all the characters that they were hoping to.

 They loved spending the day with all their cousins.  I am so grateful that they all love each other so much.  The big girls were great sports about the little girls hanging on them all day too.  This was seriously a dream vacation for us!  Personally I was just glad to have my other half with me for this leg of the trip!

 We of course had to get a picture in the entry way when we left.  We were pretty sad to be getting kicked out of the park early, but we just finished our evening at California Adventure!

 We are so grateful for and love these two so much.  They planned this fun trip for all of us that we will never forget! Patti was sad that Braxton and Hagen were left out, I assured her that when Braxton got himself a little family we would be glad to come back to Disneyland with them;) Hopefully we can make that happen in ten years!

 By the end of the night the kids were soooo tired and honestly so was I, but there was one thing that I really wanted them to see and we hadn't made it to it yet; the Bug's Life Show.  It was well worth the wait and the kids were pretty excited with having that be our grand finale! While one day was definately not enough time for us, the kids were thrilled and didn't know what they didn't see.  I was also beginning to experience severe anxiety about my baby at home, so we were happy to be headed that way!

Day 2/ Coronado Beach

 

The second day of our trip was on a Sunday.  When we were planning the trip we tried to plan this day to be fun but still attempt to observe the Sabbath.  After a very rough night in our room with Cole being up all night sick, I figured we would forego the plans to go to church.  However Cole bounced out of bed at 7 am and was ready to go.  We used all the city driving skills we could muster and with the help of a great gps app we found ourselves a local ward to attend.  We were quite the sight all trudging in there during the opening song, but we were pleased to find out it was that wards Primary Program! We were all really glad we made it to church, it was a great way to start our day off!

After Church we had some excitement with our junky van which I regret to inform I didn't get a picture of! Peytan may or may not have earned herself a new nickname during the course of the morning also! After some chaos we finally got our hotel room packed up and had some lunch then we were off to the gorgeous Coronado Beach!

 We were still planning to observe the sabbath by not swimming so we didn't even bring suits for the kids.  We figured they could wade in the water a bit and play in the sand.  Play they did! They loved it and had a blast making handprints in the sand, finding shells and sand dollars, and jumping the waves.  It was my kids first time seeing the ocean and they were mesmerized.

 

After an hour or two of playing and splashing it was time to head out and meet up with Weston and Bruce.  I was excited to see Weston and very done being a single parent! I felt like I sent him a million texts and pictures and I felt so bad that he was missing so much.  My kids later told me that the ocean was their favorite part of the trip!

 

By the time we were done at the beach the kids were completely soaked and full of sand.  It was a lovely mess and in order to find their clothes we would've had to unload the whole van! So the boys rode from San Diego to Aneheim in their skivvys! I was dying laughing when I turned around to see these two have a conversation with each other using their belly buttons! Oh my gosh those to are funny!