Kate's Life of Crime

You may not realize it, but you are looking into the face of a hardened criminal. Don't let those baby blues and adorable pouting lips fool you.
Kate is goin down a bad road. She has committed a crime against the state at the tender age of 3(almost). The picture is proof positive. She's been caught red (well blue) handed.
Yep....Kate picked a bluebonnet...the state flower. A big no no in Texas. Where were her parents (especially her native Texan mother who should have known better)? Well, apparently they went on a walk last week during nursery class at church while I was teaching my own class. That was when Kate committed this crime. You think your kids are out in the right places with the right people and BAM! a life of crime begins. LOL
After church she came running up to me saying "Mommy! I picked a flower! See how beautiful!" I think my look of horror kind of freaked her out a little. I gently told her how beautiful it was and that we don't pick those flowers because we want everyone to see them. Then we took our smooth criminal and her pilfered pansy home. Yep, we kept the flower. It really was beautiful, and she was so precious. Hopefully, they won't go to hard on her when these pictures surface. :)
On a side note: the bluebonnets here are amazingly beautiful they just take my breath away. Everywhere there are fields of blue flowers all over. It looks like giant waving lakes of blue in the grass. People don't mow them here so they are growing all over the city. Austin is bathed in blue and I am loving it!

Happy Birthday Grandma Faye!

We had an extra special treat last week. We got to celebrate my Grandma Faye's birthday with her here in Texas! Grandma came down for a visit and stayed all week. The kids were completely out of their minds with excitement over her visit. Kate kept coming over and talking to Grandma.....and talking...and talking....and talking. Grandma hung on every word. Kate adored it! Dallin really loves being around Grandma too. He threw his arms around her right when he first saw her yelling "Grandma Faye Grandma Faye!" and he cried when she left. On this visit, Dallin made a discovery--Grandma only has 1 complete hand. The other has only a couple of fingers. It has always been this way, and it has never been something that I can really say I have ever even noticed. My Grandma can do anything anyone else can. Anyways, Dallin noticed this during her visit (maybe the 2nd day?) and was just mesmerized. He kept talking and talking and talking about it. After lots of questions and asking if he could touch it and shake it, he let it go. Thankfully, Grandma was very patient and gracious about it. Later in the week, Dallin asked me if his hand would be like that when he grew up. I thought he was afraid and told him no. God makes people all different ways. Well, before Grandma left, Dallin announced "I wish my hand was going to be like Grandma's. Grandma is soo lucky! God made her really special!" I can honestly say I never really thought about it that way, but I think he's right!
On Sunday we had our big family dinner on Grandma's birthday so we had a big birthday party! It was really fun!
There was wonderful food and family.There were lots of hugs. The hug between Maddie and Kate is monumental since they have only recently begun liking each other much. Also, Kate seems to have an aversion to hugging (except from me...of course) There were even some games (like ring around the rosie)There were presents. Even my kiddos got in on it and colored Grandma a picture. They were very proud of their works of art and Grandma LOVED them!Grandma got mostly pictures from everyone. She LOVES pictures (and they are really easy to fly with!) We had a really swingin' time!And, of course, we had a delicious German Chocolate birthday cake (Grandma's favorite) with really snazzy Happy Birthday candles. It took all 4 guys to light them up quickly. Unfortunately, the first time dad wasn't quite quick enough and as I was telling my children NOT to blow the candles because Grandma was a big girl and could do it herself.....my dad's match got to his fingers and he starting huffing and puffing and ended up blowing out ALL the candles in addition to the match. My children totally gave me a look like "why does HE get to?" So they lit them again (this time we told dad that Grandma was old enough to do her own candles LOL)
Before we left, the missionaries took pictures of our entire family with Grandma. That was really awesome and I am glad that we got those shots! We sure love Grandma! Grandma Faye now has 2 daughters, 1 son-in-law, 6 grandchildren, 3 grand-in-laws, and 3 great grandchildren in all (with one on the way---Tammy and Will's). Happy Birthday Grandma!

Sunday Photo Shoot

So I thought that this past Sunday, the kids looked TOO TOO adorable in their cute Spring/Easter duds. Fortunately, Kate was being SUPER cooperative and I got some adorable pictures of my little princess. Unfortunately, Dallin was not. The above picture was the best one of them together. Enjoy!
He was so absolutely adorable that I HAD to get some pictures of him all dressed up. The only way I could get him to stand still and look at me was if he was holding Kate's hand....hence the floating hand in all the pictures.
Thoughtful AND handsome!
Got A LOT of this. I don't know why he was so ticked on this particular afternoon. Normally, I can't get a decent picture of Kate on a Sunday.
Here is Kate's cutie patootie butterfly hairdo. It is our quick fix when we want to look really fancy and are out of time before church.
See! See my dress! The mice made it! I am Cinderyeya!
What a beautiful princess! I really do like having a girly girl (most days....NOT the days we fight ALL DAY long because she won't wear anything but her best dress). She is even getting big enough to wear some of the beautiful jewelry her Grandma Faye has sent her (notice her pretty necklace and bracelet!)
LOVE MY WONDERFUL KIDDOS!

Remember When......Naughty Naughty Naughty

So, my children are in this nasty habit of stealing my camera and taking pictures all over the house. Dallin especially likes to pretend that he is Peter Parker and is snapping shots to sell to the newspaper. This session happened back in January. You will have to ignore the mess. Our room is never particularly clean (which I am working on changing) and my children do not know how to frame the picture so as to minimize the mess. Normally, I would not publish these messy pics, but....they are pretty funny (looking back...way way back)
Anyways, apparently on this particular day.....Dallin/Peter Parker, my naughty little photographer, terrorized the dogchased down the cat and took pictures of her under the bedtook pictures of Kate pretending to be a Princessand the piece de resistance.......they decided to open the VERY FULL paper shredder, have a "snowball fight" with the paper inside AND Dallin took pictures to make sure I knew it was them(or at least Kate). Ummmmm....haven't you ever heard of destroy the evidence. I just remember them yelling "Snowballs snowballs! It's a snowball fight" Then they came downstairs covered in paper. In case you can't tell, I had a layer like 2 inches thick of shredded paper over the ENTIRE upstairs. Paper is still migrating out of places...STILL! LOL Crazy naughty children!

Snoozin

Yep....that is Christopher sleeping on the couch under a blanket which is under the dog which is under my clean laundry. How can this be comfortable? LOL Maybe it helped that he wasn't feeling well. As for the dog....she LOVES the clean laundry straight from the dryer. Maybe I should be mad....maybe I should shoo her away and yes I realize that many non-dog lovers (and even some dog lovers) may think this is all kinds of nasty, but part of me thinks "ahhhhh clean laundry straight from the dryer" and I think that if I were a dog or could get away with it...I would snuggle under the freshly dryed laundry on the couch until it was all magically folded as well. So I simply pull bits of laundry out from under the dog until it is all folded. She always looks a little disappointed then, but she never grumbles as I rumple her toasty warm "bed". I suppose she knows that it never lasts forever.....or that laundry never ends anyways...there will ALWAYS be more! LOL

Happy, Happy Birthday, Christopher Dear!

Christopher celebrated his 29th birthday on the 19th! It is hard to believe that I have known him for 10 years now! We had a quiet celebration at home for his birthday. We opted for a late dinner so that we could have dinner WITH him when he got off work at 7. I made him his favorite foods-a seafood feast! We had king crab legs, shrimp, rice pilaf, stuffed mushrooms, tossed salad, fried asparagus, garlic cheddar biscuits, strawberries n blackberries, and pop. Yes....I took pictures of the food.....it was sooo beautiful and colorful and I doubt that I will be that ambitious again (at least not in the near future) as it took me 4 hours to prepare and loads of dishes as well. But it was DELICIOUS and it made Christopher feel special :)
Then the kids and I quickly wrapped our gifts and they were presented to Daddy for opening. I love that the kids are picking out their own gifts now (we still foot the bill a little longer). They are always sooo proud of what they picked out. I am always impressed at how intuitive they are about getting people what they would ACTUALLY want. I don't think I was that tuned in until much later.
Dallin gave Christopher a new toolbox and measuring tape. He is really into tools and building things with Daddy and seems acutely aware of every tool Daddy is missing. LOL He has already helped Christopher load up the tool box with ALL of the tools he could find in the garage. The kids also helped Daddy open his gifts....so it was hard to get a good picture of JUST Christopher....too many little heads LOL Kate got Christopher a new belt. It was a very nice brown/black reversible belt. She always likes to get Daddy clothes and likes picking them out herself. This time the belt was a little small (but Christopher didn't let on...hopefully we can get it exchanged). I got Christopher a BlueRay copy of "The Phantom" and a DVD of Shanghai Noon and Shanghai Knights with Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson. It was a fun family evening and Christopher was able to relax and get lots of birthday wishes from family! :) It really made for a special evening.
I made Christopher a homemade Splenda apple pie. It is soooo good. I even got creative with my crust and put a 29 on the top! He was too stuffed to eat any, but I took his picture anyways and the kids sang Happy Birthday.On Saturday evening, we went to my parents home for Christopher's BIG family birthday dinner. It is a fun tradition that when your birthday comes around, you get to pick what you want for Sunday (or in this case Saturday dinner) and everybody brings you presents. Christopher picked BBQ steaks. The weather was somewhat uncooperative...VERY COLD! But my dad, the grillmaster, managed to turn out some wonderful steaks, pork chops, chicken legs, and sausage! My mom also made baked potatoes, broccoli, rolls, orange salad, tossed salad, and strawberries. It was super good! After dinner, Christopher opened gifts. Here are the girls dancing in the living room while we sang "Happy Birthday!" He got a the 12th Wheel of Time book from Michael, Will, and Tammy. Here is Maddie giving him the gift. It was really funny because they told Maddie to go give the gift to "Uncle" so she went over and gave it to Michael. LOL He also got Final Fantasy 13 from my parents. He was a very lucky man!
Finally we had cake. My mom, in her quest for birthday perfection, made 3 DIFFERENT cakes so that everyone would be able to celebrate: a sugar free german chocolate cake for Christopher and Dad, a gluten free chocolate cake for Dallin, and a regular chocolate cake for everyone else. We sure love mom (and her delicious cakes!). It was really fun celebrating with everyone and recognizing Christopher. Happy Birthday Christopher! We love you!