Decorations, & Daphne's Dress

Here is the darling dress Nona made for Daphne's Birthday.  

She wore it for picture day---Thanks Nona!  It's so cute!

Fun with vinyl letters.  

I made these Trick and Treat boxes by modge-podging paper on the boxes.  I used my cricut to do the letters.  It was super easy and it came out pretty cute, if I say so myself!  (but next time, I'll use a level to make sure the letters aren't crooked!)

I love this little witch I found at Real Deals.  She makes me smile every time I see her.

I love Fall Decorations!!

We have a wolf in the family

This happened last month, so I'm catching up a bit.

The theme for pack meeting that night was Cooperation.  So Charles and Dallin, both getting their Wolf pins, had to "cooperate" to pick up their pins off the ground without detaching from each other.  They were a good team.  :)

Good job getting your Wolf, Dallin! 

 

The first of many scouting pins for me.  ;)

Balloon "Fiester" 2010

Hayden couldn't wait to go to Balloon Fiester this year.  I thought it was cute that he called it "Fiester" so I didn't correct him.  But evidently one of his siblings set him straight because early that morning when I woke him up to go, I said, "Hayden are ready to go to the Balloon Fiester?"  And he said, "It's not Fiester, Mom.  It's fiesta." And yes, he was ready to go.

Enjoy some pictures from this year's Fiester.

The two bees had an addition to their family since last year.

The ever popular Darth Vader--a most impressive balloon.

One of the coolest things about the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta is walking around on the field while the balloonists are inflating the balloons, getting to see the whole process, and cheering for the balloons as they lift off the ground.

Sean thought it was too loud when they
were firing up the burners.

Yahoo for balloon fiesta!  Definitely one of our favorite things about Albuquerque.

they keep me smilin'

During scriptures reading one night, Arthur asked the kids what they thought "stiffnecked" means.  Daphne started laughing and asked, "Stiff Naked?!?"

Sean is a peer model at the Autism-specific preschool at our Elementary school.  Before I enrolled him there, I brought him in so we could observe the classroom, and I also wanted to see if Sean could actually be a "peer model."  While we were there, one of the other kids in the classroom hit the teacher and as a result had to go sit in "the Calming Space."  I watched Sean to see how he would process that.  Here's how it went:

Sean: So that's the time-out chair? 

Miss Jennifer: Yes, but we call it the calming space.  

Sean:  (after a few seconds) . . . Well, I call it the time-out chair.  

Miss Jennifer:  You can call it the time-out chair.

Sean: At home, our time-out chair is sitting on the dryer.

Hayden on pottytraining:  It'th jutht really hard, Mom.

Daphne:  Can we please get some silly bands?  They are really popular.  

Come on, Mom, we just want to fit in.

(Oh boy. I think I'm in for it if she's worried about fitting in 2nd grade?!?)

One day Sean asked me to play Lego Star Wars on the playstation with him.   He wanted help making Jar-jar Binks jump.  I told him I don't know how to make him jump, but I'd try.  After accidentally pitching Jar-jar off a cliff several times, Sean told me, "Thanks mom.  You can get outta here now."

Whenever we walk past one of these, Hayden checks inside to see if Buzz Lightyear is hiding underneath it.  (You have know Toy Story 2 to understand why he'd think Buzz Lightyear would be under a traffic cone.)  I don't know how many times we've done this and I've wished I'd had my camera with me.  And then, it finally happened that I did have my camera!

Daphne and I were talking about being a mom one day.  She was telling me that some of her friends' moms go to work.  I told her, some moms need to go to work.  And some moms want to go to work.  I told her that I felt pretty lucky that I get to stay home and take care of my kids.  She said, "Yeah, because then you can go shopping, and watch movies whenever you want to!  Maybe those other moms don't know that."

Mom:  How was preschool today?

Sean: Good.

Mom:  Did you play with Addi and Matthew?

Sean:  Yeah.  But Matthew . . . he sits on me all the time.

Mom:  He sits on you?

Sean: Yep, he sits on me.

Mom: So what do you do when he sits on you?

Sean:  I just tell him to get off.

Daphne in her prayer last night:
Heavenly Father, I want to tell you that I miss Uncle Reed, but I'm glad he went on a mission.

Sydney.

At least this cougar is still smiling!

Why 2 is actually 40

So I just got off the phone with a lady from the school district who needs me to come down to the school and sign a consent form.  I asked if there was any way she could send it home with my son in his backpack because I have three small children at home.

She gave me some explanation with a lot of technical terms about why I had to sign it in person, and then said, "But it's not a big deal--It takes 2 minutes--you can just bring the kids in with you, and we'll get it all taken care of."

It will take her 2 minutes.

But it will take me
10 minutes of rounding up shoes for everyone and getting them on their feet.

+ 7 minutes of loading everyone in the car, and getting everyone buckled and changing someone's diaper since inevitably, Sydney or Hayden will poop right before loading the car.

+ 10 minutes of driving to and from the school

+ 4 minutes unbuckling, unfolding the stroller and getting Sydney in her stroller.

+ 7 more minutes to herd the children to and from her classroom and keep them from touching everything  they see.

+2 minutes--to sign the paper and get my copy.  

=40 min.

Are we famous now?

This Saturday we went to the DVD release event for Susie Tallman's first Music Video DVD.  Dallin & Daphne were involved in some of the filming for this project, so it was super fun to see them in some of the songs.  When I told them we were going to watch the DVD that they were in, they were so excited and kept talking about how they were probably famous now.  

Thank goodness they are not famous, but being on a professionally produced DVD is still fun even if you're not famous.  ;)  

My kids with the FAMOUS Susie Tallman!

The release party was very fun with face painting, balloons, popcorn, a raffle for cool prizes (that we did not win), gift bags for the kids, and a showing of the DVD.

This DVD is GREAT!  It's 45 minutes of classic children's songs and nursery rhymes.  Some are funny, (even Arthur and I were laughing at a couple of them,) some are beautiful, and some just make you wanna dance.  My kids are loving it so far--(even Dallin who might be getting kind of old for this sort of thing.) After watching the song "Lavender's Blue" Hayden said, "That'th tho cute."

This is a great gift for anyone with kids, or even just for the young at heart.  Check her website to order, or they are also available through Amazon.  You can preview a couple of the songs from her DVD on YouTube. 

You definitely want to get your own copy!!!