Christmas in Willard

Once again we were able to get all the Bell siblings and their families together for a celebration!! It amazes me how hard it is to get everyone's schedules to coordinate sometimes!! But that's old hat to me with my own family of coordinating 8 families! So the weekend before Christmas all of Nick's siblings got together at Mooma's house in Willard for our pre-Christmas celebration.

Most everyone got there Thursday night or met us Friday morning at Silver Dollar City. It was all of our last times to go this year as the year is coming to an end and no one was planning on getting season passes for this new year. Nick and I got there just in time to see the Frosty the Snowman outdoor show (It's a really cute show for the kids and this show and the Christmas Carol are always my favorites to see!) Every year the Frosty show has a part where the kids can come up to the stage and sing songs with Frosty. My girls NEVER want to go up! This year however, they actually went up (probably because their cousins were up there!) So Kayley is up in the top left picture sitting by Aunt Shannon and Addison. She's in the pink and red striped hat. Cora is in the bottom right in the purple and blue striped hat. Rex sat with Uncle Kyle for a bit and then later we joined Aunt Shannon as he was dying to get up on stage too! Then the light display is always fun to see, but it's always cuter to see the kids and their excitement! It was pretty chilly when the sun went down, but it wasn't as cold as it has been in the past!

Then Saturday morning we got up and all went out to breakfast (a tradition that was started about 4 years ago I believe)...it's the idea of stuffing our faces with breakfast food that gets us all going in the morning!! This year we decided to extend it to include some extended family and it was so great to catch up with some of them! I sadly didn't get a picture of everyone that was there, but Lorraine, Mike, Sarah and her kids were there. Kenny & Sharon, Eric and Sarah and their boys were also there. Then all of us, minus Shannon and her crew, but they joined us later for the rest of the weekend celebration. It was fun and thank goodness Hemingways (inside Bass Pro...another bonus for some of the Dads!) has a big seating area for all of us and a great, cheap breakfast buffet!! It was a lot of fun! Then afterwards we took the kids to the Santa Workshop display at Bass Pro. The line for Santa Claus was horrendous so we just had the kids ride the carousel and then do the craft.
Then the most anticipated part of the trip for the kids....the present exchange!! Each year we have the kids exchange names and then Grandma also gets them each a gift. You would think they were waiting for a truckload of toys by their excitement! But my girls were very excited about their gifts! Rex also enjoyed getting presents. He finally gets it this year about what's included under the wrapping!

And these two boys were so cute to watch. Rex and Garrett are the closest in age as Bell cousins and it shows. We are always seeing them exchange tricks, taking toys aways from each other, and running around together to put on a show for everyone! And of course they are always loving on each other too!! Altogether it is so fun for me to see my kids have such a great relationship with all of their cousins, on both sides of the family! I have such fond memories of my cousins as a kid and I'm so glad that we live close to a lot of our family, on both sides, so we can have frequent get togethers like this so my kids can develop strong ties with "their friends" as they call them!

Christmas is Here at the Bell House

It is officially Christmas at our house! Well, I guess it has been for a while now. I put out my decorations early this year only because we were going to be gone over Thanksgiving weekend and usually that's when I put up decorations. But I waited until after Thanksgiving to put up our tree, which we did the Monday we got home! The kids absolutely love putting up the tree. See every year when I was growing up my 2nd cousin, Carrie would each kid in my family a couple of ornaments. Now I have all my ornaments from when I grew up and she continues to send my kids their ornaments every year. They get so excited to open them up and see what ornaments they got. So when we put up the tree we all get to go down memory lane with all or ornaments. Here are the kids after putting up the tree. Rex has surprisingly done very well with keeping the tree alone this year. I only have to get onto him every now and then. And the girls wanted to do a silly faced picture so you can see that below! Some crazy girls!

Then last week was Lauren's birthday party. She absolutely LOVES Wizard of Oz so she obviously had a Wizard of Oz party. The kids had a blast and we just love the fact that Andrew and Sarah live so close to us now! It's so fun to have family nearby, especially family that has kids almost exactly the same age as our kids (which we haven't planned this, but I'm almost thinking we should coordinate as to when we have our next kid so we can keep the tradition going!) :) So here the kids are playing musical yellow brick road (like musical chairs). They played this for at least 20 minutes if not longer, they had a blast with it!
And no party Sarah plans isn't complete without a piñata! She usually makes hers, but had to do a store bought one this time around. We've determined she makes more durable ones than the store bought one! But the kids still had fun even though it was sprinkling very cold rain on them!

And here's the cake Sarah made...pretty impressive huh!?! She amazes me!! And here's a cute picture I got of my Rex! He's just growing way too fast, but I just love this boy! He's starting to introduce me into being a boy lately as he's figuring out how to climb onto things. However, I still find him playing with his sisters, in fact tonight he was brushing one of their Barbie's hair...I think he needs a brother!! (No announcements here!!) But he is such a sweet boy and I just love him so much!
Rex and Cora are alike in a lot of ways, but one thing they are alike in is their immediate love of baby dolls. I try not to think of it being a girlie thing that Rex likes babies, but that he is going to be a very sweet and loving father and husband someday because of it! So we found him in the baby's bed the other day and had to take a picture of it. And it came out a bit blurry but the girls wanted to do a picture with them kissing his cheeks...they really are kissable and I can never kiss them enough!!This year was our first year doing a Gingerbread house. I always think about doing one but never want to pay 10-15 for a kit and let's face it, I'm not going to make my own!! But I found this kit at Aldi's for 6 or 7 bucks and couldn't resist. The kids loved doing it! And Grandpa Bell even got to come and do it with us! Rex liked testing the candy for us of course! It passed the test! It was fun and I'm sure going to be a continual tradition!
And then today we got Carrie's package of the new ornaments for this year. The girls were so excited! They both got a Barbie ornament, which they LOVE!! And two of Rex's were Mickey Mouse ones...which he really loves now! So we took some pictures of them after they put their ornaments on the tree. And the Rex and Cora had some fun in their Santa hats looking for Santa in the chimney. He's not here yet, but we are ready for him! Kayley has been counting down with her new calendar she bought the other day from the dollar spot. We hope everyone else is as excited about Christmas as we are at this house. The other day I realized that these years are the most precious in regards to Christmas!! I really do just love watching their excitement with everything for Christmas....goodies, movies, crafts, songs, activities, the countdown, and then Christmas morning! I can't wait!!

I love my kids and what they say and do!!

So I don't have any pictures with this post but I wanted to write these things down before I forget them. My kids have done some funny things lately that I wanted to record.

Kayley...so my father in law growing up would play this game called "Don't eat Pete." Basically, you have a poster of pictures (we use some of quiet vanilla folders that have matching magnets to the folder that we use during church.)...anyway, you put candy or whatever small food items you want on each picture. You have one person go out of the room and the others in the room pick which picture is "Pete." The person comes back in the room and then picks up each piece of candy to eat them, but once they get to the picture that is "Pete" the others yell, "Don't eat Pete." Then rinse and repeat. A fun game, right? Grandpa introduced it to my kids and they love playing it. Well last week we went down to Sikeston and we introduced the game to the cousins on my side of the family. Even the older cousins were having a hay-day playing this game. During our trip we unfortunately attended Stephanie's brother's funeral. While we were here I'm constantly trying to get my kids to be quiet, it's a funeral, and trying to enjoy the funeral, because it really was a good funeral service. So Rex and Cora were both out in the hallway with Nick and Kayley was sitting next to me with two of her other cousins. I look over and she has out her play cell phone and she is turning away from one cousin, picking a number with the other one, then turns around and slowly the cousin that is "it" is slowly picking a number until the other two whisper rather excitedly, "Don't eat Pete!" I was cracking up and trying to get them to stop because I didn't think that was very reverent during a funeral. But I was really impressed they thought of how to play it without candy and to do it fairly quietly.

Cora...I've learned this girl has no direct answer without many details! This last week we had her screened for the Early Childhood Preschool. One of the questions asks, What a plane is? She responds, "a plane". What does it do? Cora: "takes you places you need to go." The answer they are looking for is "flies" so the Educator asks, "does it go in the water or where does it go?" Cora: "Well, it starts out going like this (she puts her hand on the table and slides it across the table) then she says it slowly goes up in the air (she's lifting it slowly off the table), and then she says it flies in the air to where you need to go (she continues to fly it across the air.) Then later that same day our Parents as Teacher educator came for a visit with Rex and Cora to our house. She brought some before mentioned vanilla folders with matching games etc on them. There was one folder you had to pick which item didn't belong. The first category had shapes with a pencil in it. When asked which one doesn't belong, she responds, "well, that one is a square, this one is a triangle, and this one is a circle, so that one is a pencil and it doesn't belong." Then the rest of the groups continue like this, she describes exactly why the one that doesn't belong, doesn't belong. Cracks me up!

Rex...so we are currently working on rebuilding a car for Nick's mom. A couple of weeks ago we were running errands trying to get things for our car tow dolly. We went to a trailer store and Cora needed to go to the bathroom. Not so thrilled, since the bathroom is very tiny and it's a trailer store, so not very tidy, I take her anyway and Rex comes too. Rex is very loving and he is continually giving her hug after hug after hug (while she is on the toilet going poop, by the way.) During the 5th hug he hugs her and immediately says "ick" but of course the way he says it is really cute and it's hard to type how he says it. It was hilarious!

Kayley...last night was kind of crazy for dinner as our plans changed quickly with Nick getting called in. So I was at walmart and decided to do tv dinners since we don't do them often. I had the girls pick out which dinner they wanted and of course they were thrilled. We got home and I started cooking them. I told the girls to get their table ready, etc as we were going to do what you're supposed to do with tv dinners and watch them in front of the tv. I get Kayley's ready and she asked me if she should get a plate out for the dinner. I told her no that her dinner had a tray with it and she would just eat out of that. She then responds with a very ecstatic "It has a tray!?!?!" Then when Nick came home from work and she was so excited to take his "tray" to him. I guess it's the little things!

Cora...the other night Randy came over for dinner and a visit. We talked about how Randy got to spend Thanksgiving with Michelle and Kendall and their family. He talks about how all three dogs were there, Henna, Einstein, and Butters. He jokes about how it was a fun party and Henna was the host of the party. Cora asks what a host was and Randy explains to her about how it's someone who prepares the party and plans it, etc. Cora sits and thinks for a minute and then very honestly responds with a "I don't think Henna knows how to bake a cake!" It was cracking us up, literally to tears! Then we start reading scriptures and saying prayers and Einstein starts doing this weird cough that he does sometimes and doesn't stop for a while. It almost sounds like he's coughing up a hairball. Randy comments how we needed to pray for Einstein and we must have all been in a very giggly mood that night because we all continue to just crack up to the point that we are looking at each other and just us seeing each other laugh, made us laugh more. None of us can stop laughing and here we are trying to say prayers, not very reverent, huh!? Then Cora holds out both her hands and says, "Guys, guys, I'll say the prayer!" Like we were these incompetent prayer-sayers! It was hilarious!

Rex...lately when we are getting ready to leave to go somewhere, I will tell the girls to go get their shoes on. Lately when I ask the girls to go get their shoes on, Rex will leave the room, go get his shoes and come in asking me to put his on. So this last weekend we went to Lauren's birthday party. We were getting ready to go and everyone had their coats on except Kayley. I kept telling her to get her coat on, so Rex on his own goes to get her coat and takes it to Kayley saying his infamous "Muh" (which is what he calls Kayley and Cora)...but holding up her coat constantly saying that till she takes it and puts it on. So cute and so smart!! And today at church he stood up on the pew and then fell backwards off the pew and hit his head pretty hard. I rushed to pick him and take him out to console him. He just grabbed onto me and wouldn't let go (which doesn't normally happen when he gets hurt, I try to console him and he usually pushes me away.) So I went into the mother's lounge and rocked him in the rocker while listening to the rest of sacrament through the speaker. He cuddled with me the whole time and then sat next to me on the rocker and kept putting his little hands on mine. I wish I had brought my camera in with me. I just love seeing his little hands, they make me melt!

Then tonight we were watching our churches First Presidency Christmas Devotional and there was a nativity movie in the middle of it. When Baby Jesus is shown Cora says, "Awww...Baby Jesus is too cute!" Then she turns to me and says, "Mom, Jesus is really real, he's going to come again someday!" I just love my kids and the things they say and do!!

Thanksgiving Festivities 2011

Over Thanksgiving weekend we went down to Sikeston to visit my family. Sadly I didn't get many pictures (too busy having fun I guess!) But I did get pictures of one of the very special reasons why we went down there...Sterling's baptism and Amelia's blessing. Sadly we missed the blessing (story below) but the baptism was great! It's amazing to me to see the growth of each of our nieces and nephews and to see them make such great decisions in the Gospel. We are so proud of Sterling!

Our Thanksgiving weekend was kind of eventful but very fun nonetheless. We started out in Cape Girardeau to eat Thanksgiving dinner with my Dad's side of the family. This was Nick's first time at this side's get together (so obviously the kids first time too). He's met a lot of people on my Dad's side, it's just never worked out for us to go to Thanksgiving there. It was a lot of fun and it was great to catch up with that side. 4 of the 7 Felker kids and their families were there so that was fun that a lot of us got to go at the same time.

The Friday after Thanksgiving we pretty much just let the kids play all day at Jan's while Nick went back up to Cape to pick up Arlaine's car that we were going to tow back with us. Friday night we met up with Jami and her husband and Abby and her husband for dinner. That was fun to catch up with all of them and visit. Our kids definitely kept them entertained as well as wondering why they each wanted kids!!

Saturday we attended Ben Wright's funeral. It was a very emotional day as this funeral was not expected at all. There were many people at his funeral and you could really tell he was really loved. We got to visit with Edward and his family afterwards and it was good to let the kids play with one another and to visit with Edward and Stephanie.

Then there's Sunday. We left the hotel in time to get to Jan's to hook up the car and head to church on time. It was freezing cold and raining, so I was outside trying to keep Nick covered with an umbrella. We got the car hooked up and pulled forward a bit so the rest of my family could leave to go to the church as the truck was blocking them while we were hooking up the car. Nick went to check it and noticed it wasn't latched all the way, so he unhooked the car to hook it up again correctly. The tongue of the trailer was just like 1/2 an inch away from the hitch so Nick decided to try and push the tongue over the hitch instead of jacking up the trailer again and moving it over. Well, as mentioned before it was raining and we're heading to church so he has on his church shoes. His feet slip right out from under him and his head hits the pavement. He gets up and his face is all bloody and scrapped down the whole front of his face. I'm freaking out trying to figure out what I can do to help with anything. He gets white and has to sit down so as not to faint. Then after a bit he gets up and gets the car hooked up the rest of the way. Mike and Katie were still at the house and saw him fall, their girls still pray for him now as they saw all the blood on his face. So after all this we thought we'd still make the blessing, but we barely missed it and everyone at church thought I had beat Nick! Haha! It was a stressful morning but we did get to go to the baptism. So it was a good Thanksgiving altogether but very eventful!

Pumpkins and Parties

Two posts in one week...I've officially out-done myself! But I figured I better get a jump on things with the holidays coming up! I don't want to be too far behind! Which is exactly what happened with these pictures...we are carving pumpkins, yes 3 days after Halloween! I think in the past 4 years we have lived here we have probably carved pumpkins after Halloween at least 2 years if not 3 years. Oh well...what counts is the fun the kids have doing it, or watching Nick do it! We aren't fancy with our carvings...pretty basic jack o lantern faces. I thought maybe this year we might do one of those fancy carvings/tracings, but I misplaced the paper we were going to carve. Maybe next year! This was Rex's 1st year to be able to actually participate. He enjoyed figuring out what that icky stuff was out of the pumpkin and it was fun watching him figure it out.

And the family pose...or at least poses with Nick and then with myself. I should have set up the timer, but the kids were very excited to light the candle and put it in the pumpkin with the lights out so there wasn't much time to fiddle with the camera.
Then the next weekend we went to celebrate Ruby's 1st birthday. She didn't get as fancy of a party as Audrey, but she is only 1 so that's ok! It was still fun none the less! Sarah's Dad was in town for the weekend and her brother and his wife came up and so including us and the Felker's it was a fun and small intimate celebration. Sarah made a very cute lady bug cake for Ruby. She didn't really delve into the cake as much as we all wanted her to, but she's a very clean girl overall.
My girls are so excited for Christmas coming up! Kayley has a calendar on the fridge that she is marking off each day and doing a countdown. It's cute. This is one of my favorite times of the year too because I just love to find the presents for my kids and I love to see them get so excited about getting their presents. On to Thanksgiving coming up in about a week! Crazy but so exciting!!

October 2011 Events

So here we are in the middle of November and I'm just now getting our October pictures posted! Oh well...that's how I roll!!

I finally got my kids yearly pictures taken! I actually got them all three taken in September, but getting them posted now. Kayley's 6 year picture...

Cora's 4 year picture...
Rex's 1 year picture...it amazes me how much he changes in only a few months! He looks completely different to me now! But he'll be taking his 18 month picture very soon at the end of December!
And, October brought about my brave-ness. I finally let Kayley start riding the bus! This has always been a big fear of mine, but I finally broke down after her begging me for a couple of weeks. She only rides it on the way home as she would never be on time if she rode it in the morning. She loved it for the first couple of days, but then begged me to start picking her up again...but I quickly became accustomed to her riding it as this means leaving Rex (and sometimes Cora) asleep in their beds to finish their naps! Ahhh...bliss to me! But now she told me the other day that she does really like riding the bus and being a car-rider because she gets to do both and most of her friends have to one or the other.
I also got to go with Audrey for her "grandparents/special person" day at her school. It was so fun for me to go and let her show me everything at her school. She's the same age as Kayley so of course school is as exciting to her as it is to Kayley. They sang some fun songs for us, I ate lunch with her, we took pictures together, and then I even tried to teach her how to play teether ball on her playground. It was a lot of fun!
Then we also got to head down to Arkansas to meet our newest nephew, Jonas McKay Hufford. So cute!! Cora got her fill in with holding him....Rex won't hold still for her when she holds him now or at least when she tries to hold him, so she loved being able to hold him. Nick got some cuddle time in too. It was an interesting weekend with our hotel stay though...not the greatest, but we did get a breakfast...err I mean food in the morning! But there was a pool, or an oversized hot/cold tub that the cousins got to swim in together. I'm just glad that our girls are old enough now to not really have to have an adult to swim with them...it was freezing! I think the kids had more fun afterwards taking a bath together in the big tub at the house Michelle and Cassie were staying in. I took pictures, but decided it might not be good to post those pictures!
Kayley has been loving school and continues to do so! In fact tonight she was talking about how she wanted to stay up late so she could stay by me longer. I told her she'd be cranky for school the next day if she did that. She said she wouldn't because she loved school as much as she loves me. It made me melt a bit. But anyway, here is a picture of her in her class with one of her "book buddies"...an older kid who comes and reads with them or does activities with them. Here she is building an edible fire truck with her book buddy. And also take note of the boy next to her. This is Jack....she has not admitted it to me, but I think he think he's her boyfriend. The 2nd day of riding the bus someone asked Jack who his girlfriend was and he pointed to Kayley. She talks about him a lot. It's cute, but seriously...already in kindergarten I have to start worrying about this!?!? Oh...and she's really not that much taller than him, he's just sitting in a chair and Kayley is standing! There has been another boy in her class that says he wants to kiss her, etc. I've asked her what she should do if a boy tried to come kiss her...she didn't know and got all embarrassed. I've been teaching her to RUN, RUN, RUN!!!
Kayley also had her Kindergarten music program a couple of weeks ago. Cora, Rex, and I were able to go to the daytime program and then Sarah and her girls joined Nick and I and the kids for her evening program. Kayley was so excited to show Audrey and Lauren her classroom and wanted a picture to mark the event! She did so well in her program. It was so cute to watch her do all her hand motions...she knew everyone of them...and of course she knows all the words...she loves to sing. It was a program with all the nursery rhymes songs. It was cute! Note in the bottom left picture...she's standing by Jack...again!
And what is the month of October without a visit to the pumpkin patch!? The month of October was so nice weather-wise, but of course the one day that works for us to go with cousins to the patch it's freezing cold and the coldest day of the month! Oh well...they had fun anyway! The highlights were being able to be there with their cousins and play on the playground equipment and of course to ride the hayride to the pumpkin patch...or the field with all the pumpkins thrown in it! Rex was cute trying to pick up some of the big ones!
Audrey turned 6 in October so she had a very fun birthday party. Sarah always plans fantastic parties and they are always so much fun! We are excited to go to Lauren's! Audrey's theme was the very hungry caterpillar. So the kids pinned the feet on the caterpillar and had yummy cupcakes!
And of course one of Sarah's parties isn't complete without a fantastic piñata! I'm always so impressed with her piñata's...she seriously should sell them! It took a lot of hits for this one to be busted...then once a tiny hole was opened, Andrew helped the rest of the candy fall out. And if you notice on the bottom right, Rex even got to hone in on the piñata action! It was cute! But once he realized there was candy inside of it...he was ecstatic!
Then the weekend of Halloween was a 4 day weekend for both Kayley and Nick, which almost never happens so we took off to Branson for some Silver Dollar City fun and some relaxation! With it being the weekend before Halloween I tried to find some fun halloween activities for the kids to do since we would be missing our ward's trunk or treat and of course I always want to let the kids wear their costumes as much as possible. I had seen on Bass Pro's website that they were having this huge halloween event with crafts, trick or treating, picture with Charlie brown and the pumpkin patch display, and other fun stuff...so I was so excited to go to the bass pro at Branson Landing to let the kids have fun while Nick shopped! Note to self...call the Bass Pro beforehand!! Apparently they weren't a participating Bass Pro! So we looked pretty silly walking in with our kids in costumes. At least they were still cute and they are young enough to not be embarrassed!

But, I redeemed myself the next day with crafts at the condos that they kids loved doing and then the City of Branson had a Boonanza at their recreation baseball fields. There was trick-or-treating, hayrides, bounce-houses, pumpkin carving, haunted house, cotton candy (Nick's fav!), and other fun stuff! And it was only $2/kid to get a punch card to do 5 of these events. We bought only 2 punch cards and the kids had a blast and actually got quite a bit of candy! It was very well organized for as many people were there and it was fun!

A funny thing Cora did this weekend while in Branson was hold up a hand weight and said "look, guys I'm 'weighting'!" And then we were eating ice cream at Andy's frozen custard. We were leaving and Nick started to the car with Rex following him without holding our hands going for the road. I told him to stop and wait for me and he did. We got in the car and I told Nick just how impressed I had been with Rex's ability to listen to us and understand our receptive language to him even though he's not talking very much yet. Then Kayley says to him, "You sure are a good a thinker, Rex!" My kids are funny!
Then trick or treating was fun this year! As you can see Rex was Mike Wazowski from Monster's Inc. Cora was Boo from Monsters Inc, but she wouldn't wear her hood except for a few pictures so most people thought she was a glow-worm or something else. Kayley was Barbie of Swan Lake. We went down 3 cudlesacs and got tons of candy! Then I thought we would go down one more culdesac but Kayley was dying to get home and hand out candy to other kids. She kept saying, "I've always wanted to see what it was like!" So we went home and put some candy in a bucket and let them hand it out. Sadly it was towards the end of trick or treating so there weren't very many trick or treaters left. We told the girls to hand each person a couple of pieces of candy. Some kids came up and Kayley accidentally gave one girl only one piece of candy. They left and Cora yelled at the girl and starting chasing her to come back...she came back so Cora could give her the other piece of candy. They also kept singing "we are hear to trick or treat, trick or treat, trick or treat! Come and get some candy!" It was funny!

September Events

So here are our September Events since once again I'm behind in blogging.

Taking you back to Labor Day weekend. I had bought some groupon tickets to Adventure Oasis, which is a water park in Independence. We had plans to go with Michelle and Kendall and because our husbands work too much we couldn't get together until Labor Day weekend. Which of course was also the last weekend AO would be open for the season. Just our luck the whole weekend's high was going to only be about 70-something...not really swimming weather. Which is funny since tomorrow's high is like 80 and it's the end of September! Gotta love Missouri weather! So, we decided to brave the weather on the Saturday before Labor Day and it was rainy off and on all day too. We get there, literally take our shoes off, step in the freezing cold water and lightening strikes. So we had to get out of the water, wait 30 min without it striking again, but of course that didn't happen. So after using all of our $20 concession credit we decided to leave and come back to kill time while waiting for the sun to come out. We ventured to Dollar Tree and then headed back. We got out of the car, got everyone back into our suits (including the adults) and no lie, we step out of the car and it lightening's again! So we went to our fallback plan and wasted our money to Adventure Oasis, vowed to come back next year on a better weather day, and headed to the mall play place to use Kayley's credit for the free carousel ride from her birthday. Here are our pictures from the play place...I could never get Rex to look at my camera because he was just so excited to play on the toys!

Then the week after labor day we had quite the busy Saturday. These pictures are actually in the wrong order here as we went to the Parade first, then the soccer game, then the rodeo...but you get the idea!

So here are pictures from Audrey's soccer game! She did great!! She scored three goals in the game! We were impressed! Kayley has shown absolutely NO desire to play soccer, but you can see from the pictures below that she was having the time of her life playing on the sidelines with her sister and Lauren. She kept telling and showing us how she could score a goal just like Audrey did. Maybe next year I might get a soccer player on my hands...Cora for sure will want to play. And of course Rex and Ruby got some fun playing time in with each other!
So as mentioned before, the parade was first. It was the annual Grain Valley Fair Daze Parade. We've gone I think the past 4 years since we've been here and usually always sit in the same spot every year. This year we seemed to have gotten twice as much candy this year! And a very impressive Santa Claus was a quick draw to throw out three different small stuffed animals for the kids this year...they loved that! Rex was really cute snuggling with his!
And this was our second year going to the Jackson County Rodeo. This year Michelle and Kendall joined us and the kids had a blast. We actually stayed for the whole rodeo this year. Last year we only stayed for a little bit as Rex was younger and a little fussier as a baby. Not this year...he had a blast watching all the horses and bulls, etc. The kids had fun and we had some SUPER yummy kettle corn. Probably the best I've ever had in my opinion! I'm looking forward to next year's rodeo! It's definitely not as big as the Jaycee Bootheel Rodeo in Sikeston, but it's fun to do it with the kids!
And then two weeks ago Nick had a four day weekend with being off from work so we decided to try and take a quick fun visit to St. Louis, hit the temple, and then do something fun with the kids and get a hotel. We got a deal on a hotel on priceline the night before, checked out Kayley early from school on Friday so we could hit the road early and beat the Friday night traffic on the road and at the temple...only to find out that the temple was closed for cleaning! So we headed to the hotel, watched a movie with the kids in the room, took them swimming at the pool, went to get food to bring back to the room and have a party in the room (the kids, myself included) think that's a lot of fun. Then the next day we decided to go to Grant's Farm. We had not ever taken the kids there before and I think they had a lot of fun. We went through Ulysses S. Grant's home/tour and that was neat to see Kayley soak up that information and then headed to the farm to see the animals. It was cute because Kayley kept wanting me to take pictures of all the animals and we were on the tram so I had to act fast...good thing my camera is fast and has good zoom! Here are the pictures from the animals Kayley liked to see. We saw the elephants actually in the park and watched the elephant show. There is just something really neat watching the small trainer being able to tell that huge 15 ton elephant do things. It was neat! Kayley at first said she now loved elephants as soon as we walked up to their little habitat as they were really close and I think she loved seeing them. Then she said she thought she was allergic to the elephant when we went to the other side and all you could smell was the smell of the elephant and it's droppings! It was cute!
The goats...of course we all know goats eat anything! The kids liked the goats at first until they found out the same thing...including Rex. He was so willing to pet them at first and then they started eating his clothes and anything on him and he got a little skiddish. It was fun to see them interact with them though.
Then last week Kendall had a co-worker that has season passes to the Royals and being the end of the season she had a bunch of extra tickets. So we got to go to the game for free! The other great thing was it was on a Wednesday which is also the day during the week that most garage sales in Grain Valley are open. So I was able to get all the kids some Royal's type shirts. Kayley even changed out of her dress from school (she's been alternating two dresses almost every other day lately) and put on her royal's shirt very last minute! She wanted a picture of her at the game with the game in the background. The girls are both into having pictures by their bedside, I'm just not keeping up very well with printing them off. Oops! But the kids were really good and had a lot of fun.
The "Hall of Fame" letters I think were the biggest hit with the kids. Kayley was just posing left and right..."Mom take a picture of me here, and here, and here....." You get the idea...and she is also coming up with these posing faces. It's cute...but at least I can always count on her looking at the camera when I need to take a picture!
Kayley is doing awesome at school! They have this behavior chart and everyday you start on the color green and go up or down a color depending on your behavior for the day. She almost always goes up above the green everyday. She's reading!! And is so proud of herself! I knew when it would click, it would click! She would get so frustrated with me when I'd try to encourage or teach her so I never pushed it. I guess Mrs. Kirn is able to pull it out of her...now she loves being able to try to sound out words and is doing really well! I'm so proud of her!

Cora is excelling a lot in her speech class. You still have to remind her if she says a word incorrectly, like "Tora" for "Cora" (the t sound instead of saying the k sound) and other sounds. Her teacher is great and she really loves her. She has class with another little girl and enjoys being with her too. She is doing well with learning her letters too. We do a little bit of schoolwork at home and she loves that time. She knows how to spell her name out loud and is learning how to write some of the letters.

Rex is running around everywhere! On Kayley's birthday he decided to walk around without holding onto things and from then he has just built his confidence more and more. His favorite word is "do" for dog and says it every morning when he gets up and every night before he goes to bed and all the time in between. He can say "hulp" for help and of course Dada is his tried and true buddy still! He's growing so fast and I can't believe he's already almost 15 months old!

Kayley's birthday and more

So I was doing so good at blogging things on time and then life just happens and you get behind again. So here's a catch up post on the last couple of weeks. As some of you know August is our mega-month. Three birthdays, our anniversary, and now the start of school! So needless to say that explains why I'm just now posting about Kayley's birthday and other events from August.

Kayley had a very fun birthday. She had to go to school that day, but that's going to probably be the story of her life from now on with her birthday being on August 19th. She picked out her birthday outfit (just an outfit she had never worn before so it was a new one), she woke up and like Cora, I let her chose one present to open before school. She picked the one I didn't think she'd pick, the smallest one. But she was a bit more patient than Cora was for waiting to open her presents. Then I took her to school. Later in the day Cora, Rex and I were able to take treats to her school for her birthday. Then I went ahead and checked her out for the rest of the day because we were down to one car that day and Nick had taken the van to work and let's face it, it was blasted hot walking to and from school, so by the time I left from snack and got home we would have to turn around in 10 minutes to go back and pick her up for the day, so I just checked her out and saved us that extra time in the heat. Then the plan was to go eat out somewhere fun that night with her, but plans had changed with us being down to one car and we were going to go look at a truck we had found on craigslist in Topeka, KS. Before that however, Sarah and the girls came over for Audrey to drop off something for Kayley for her birthday and we had them join us to open her presents and eat cake and ice cream. Kayley was excited to have her cousins over for her actual birthday. Then we headed to Topeka to look at the truck, which we ended up buying the next day. But we ended up having a fun road trip for her birthday and they got to watch one of her new movies she got for her birthday in the car. I think she had a great birthday overall. She is so grown-up now it's hard to believe we have a 6 year old now. Kayley is very smart and always wanting to learn and know everything about something. She amazes me on a daily basis on things she knows that maybe I don't think she knows yet. She also is very willing and loves to learn anything and everything about the Gospel. Ever since our trip to Nauvoo she is very much into learning all about our Church's History. She is very willing to help out with her younger brother, although she is still the older sibling who likes to pick on her siblings every now and then. She is such a good student at school and always willing to learn there too. She loves arts and crafts and is very timid on trying anything physical. I asked her earlier this year if she wanted to do soccer. An immediate no was her response, not even a thought about it. However, this year she has seriously made leaps and bounds in swimming at the pool. She not only learned how to go all the way under, she has learned to jump off the side of the pool and go under all by herself without us catching her and without any type of floatation device. I'm very sad the pool is getting ready to close and hope that we are able to swim in hotel pools throughout the winter year so she doesn't forget this great accomplishment! Maybe swimming will be her thing!?! We love our Kayley and seriously can't believe how old she is getting and how much she has grown and we can't imagine life without her.

Little Rex is starting to introduce me into boyhood little by little everyday. I thought the only thing I had to keep the trash away from was Einstein...apparently not. I had pulled out the trash sack to fill it a little bit more before closing it and Kayley came running into my bathroom, "Mom, come quick and look at Rex!" This is what I found...this cupcake was in the trash sack. He was going to town on it! I took it away and he actually wasn't as sad as I expected him to be. But how do you germ-x a mouth!?! That came from the trash!
And I mentioned that we ended up buying that truck in Topeka, KS...well the first day we bought it we all rode around town in it running our errands and the kids loved riding in it. We decided to do pizza that night and brought it home and did a pizza party in the bed of the truck. The girls thought that was the coolest thing ever! Rex of course realized how much he loves playing in Daddy's truck bed! It was a fun memory to be mad!
Here's another reason why Rex loves the truck bed...he can play in it without us hovering around him constantly because it's basically like a big play pen. The picture is not that great as it's from my phone, but here is Cora and Rex playing in the truck bed while Nick and I cleaned it out.
Then we had Nick's birthday. His birthday was pretty low key, but I think the older you get the more you live for those low key birthdays right? His celebration lasted two days long as the day before we cooked him cashew chicken...a birthday must for him! The girls were ecstatic as they absolutely love cashew chicken too. Then we went swimming that night and I finally got some pictures of Kayley jumping in by herself (top left) and her going completely underwater (top right) and her coming up from the being underwater...it's really a funny site because she comes up like she's been holding her breath forever and she comes up almost like Ariel does when she has legs? Know which part of The Little Mermaid I'm talking about? Anyway, it's the middle picture and little Rex is just cute to take pictures of at the pool. He's also getting pretty brave walking around, getting out and into the pool just because he can now. Cora has also made leaps and bounds this summer in jumping off the side every now and then by herself, but with a floaty thing on. She has also gone underwater a few times, not as much or as long as Kayley, but she has gone under much quicker than Kayley ever did so that's impressive in itself.
Then last week we went to Silver Dollar City for the last time to go during the hot weather. It was hot that day, but bearable at least in the shade. So hot that I couldn't believe we did, but we got on a water ride! We usually avoid these because we don't want to be walking around in wet clothes the rest of the day and because usually our girls freak out about getting wet for some reason. Well not this time around...we rode the new Huck Finn's water extravaganza or something like that. Basically you ride this little boat that goes as slow as molasses and you get to squirt water guns to objects around the ride as well as people standing around the ride. The kicker is they are standing at water guns too that shoot at you. They can move and dodge our water sprays, you on the other hand are helpless on this very slow moving boat! Cora, Rex, and I sat on the very drench able side. Nick, Grandma and Kayley were able to avoid the sprays a little bit more than us. Kayley wanted to ride a second time and had a blast on the ride. We didn't necessarily want to ride again and luckily the line had gotten a little bit longer after we got off so we got out of riding it again. Instead we let Kayley stand at a water gun to shoot all the upcoming riders and of course get shot at herself. Cora joined in a bit here and there, but Kayley probably could have stood there all day. She was getting drenched and even while she was getting soaked she would just keep shooting her gun even though she couldn't see who she was shooting towards. It was funny! Check out her expressions on some of these pictures! Then we also let Rex play in the sandbox..he didn't eat too much of it and I was reminded why I hate sandboxes myself. And we all rode the carousel. Rex LOVED the carousel!! He kept looking at the bears on the carousel and barking like they were dogs so he was in 7th heaven! Also this weekend trip was when he decided that he would take more than just two-three steps at a time. He's definitely loving to walk and it's really cute to see him toddler around! He's growing up so fast!

Oh..and I can't forget a big moment for Kayley that happened this same weekend, she lost her 6th tooth. It had been loose for a while but she wouldn't let us pull it. She would randomly get very upset about it but still wouldn't let us touch it. We were eating dinner that night at Freddy's and it came right out. She almost didn't eat anything else because in the past when she's lost a tooth while eating she's thought the reason why it fell out was because of eating and she didn't want to loose anymore teeth. But she got over it pretty quickly and finished her dinner. The tooth fairy was even good enough to visit her at the Condos in Branson, which she was really excited about!
And remember me telling you Rex is introducing me into boyhood little by little? One of his new things is to climb onto the girls' little tikes table and look out the window in our living room. Today he went from the table and climbed right into his toy box. He was having a blast for a while having all his toys at his finger tips, till he was ready to get out and couldn't figure out how. Cora luckily came to his rescue. The other funny thing he's been doing lately is pictured in the middle picture below. His feet are flat on the floor and he leans over and puts his head flat down on the ground and just stays there, will sit up and do it again! It's hilariously cute!

Kayley's 1st Day of Kindergarten

So today was THE day...the most un-anticipated day yet for me I think! Kayley went to Kindergarten. Don't get me wrong, I know the girl has to grow up eventually and school is involved as I don't feel qualified to home school nor do I want her to miss out on some public school experience. However, it still doesn't make it any easier! I've seriously been dreading this day for a long time and stressing and worrying about it like crazy..trying not to show Kayley my worry as she had started to show a little bit of nervousness too recently. She luckily went to bed very willingly last night (usually she goes to bed just fine, I was just worried she would be too anxious to go to sleep..I was for sure not getting anymore than 3-4 hours of sleep.) But she woke up very willingly too and was very happy. Side note, my kids normally don't wake up till 8:30/9 on a daily basis, so to get up at 7:30 is quite the feat...myself included! Cora woke up a few minutes before we left and I was going to have her stay home with Daddy while I took her, but she really wanted to go with us, so she got dressed very quickly and joined us. The school was crazy busy to say the least. Apparently some people had poured sugar into the school buses gas tanks the night before, I'm assuming hoping to call off school for the day. So all the students had to be taken to school by their parents, making it a mad house in the parking lot. We started to walk her in, stopped to get a picture in front of the school and then headed in. I tried to test her to see if she remembered where her classroom was and I was impressed that she remembered. As she walked past another room by hers she saw a boy she went to preschool with and got really excited that he was in her same school. I told her she could eat lunch with him and have recess with him and she got really excited. We sat down at her desk and she met the boy that sat at her desk. I then asked her if she was ready for me to leave, she replied with a "not really" in her quiet voice that usually is followed by tears. So we stayed a little bit longer and then I headed out and waited for her to look up at me in the hallway, waved good-bye to her and she was ok it seemed. I then headed home to cry to Nick while re-telling him the story. All in all it was a good day. We picked her up and she said she had a great time. She got to see her friends from preschool during lunch and then for some reason they didn't get to have a recess today with all the craziness, so she is looking forward to having it tomorrow. She's excited to go back, so that's a good sign! I made it through one kid going to kindergarten, on to the next two, but thankfully not for a while from now!

Kayley & Cora's Birthday Party

This last Saturday the girls had their birthday party and let me tell you...it was fun and a bit stressful, but what party isn't stressful?!?! At least at this house it seems! If you remember from an earlier post about Rex's birthday party, it had to be changed to a different day last minute due to him having a fever, Nick was on call for both hospitals on accident that night and had a callback in the middle of the party, and on top of it all had a co-worker let go to make for a very stressful day at work for him! So, I was very glad that the girls had decided to do a party together this year to lessen the stress...or at least make it a stressful day for one day instead of two days! They pretty much have the same friends anyway so it worked out perfectly this way. And they both wanted a pool party, so that makes it easier too. Here they are posing in the morning of their party after I had finished making their cake. I've decided now that I might always make their cakes this way. It's an edible cake topper from ebay. Really cool, and really easy! Just make your cake and put it on top. And the girls of course loved it and got to pick out exactly which picture they wanted on top of it. I also had to add this picture of Rex. My friend was so nice to take pictures for me to lessen some stress for me...let me tell you..it's great knowing someone else is taking care of your picture taking while you are busy with everything else! But I had taken a few pictures before she started taking them and this was one of Rex that I had taken that I wanted to put in.

And of course there was tons of swimming at the party...the best part about a pool party...you don't have to plan as many activities. I only had to plan one game, then presents, cake/ice cream, then let them swim the rest of the time! It was fun to watch all the kids compare what they could do in the pool and then try to out-do the next kid. Talk about peer pressure!
And the craft...the one thing I had planned and tried to make it as simple as possible...it almost ended up being the most stressful part! I had the idea to have the kids find hidden jewels (that Flynn Ryder had hidden) and then make their own prince and princess crowns. I had found some jewels at the store that were self adhesive to make things easier, but apparently had bought the wrong box and didn't notice it until the party started! So I had to have Nick grab some glue sticks from home, he brought me glue sticks, but the glue sticks for my hot glue gun...and he didn't answer forever because we randomly had a flat tire in the van so he was stuck at home trying to fix it...I know of all times!! And these were brand new tires we had just put within the last month! Anyway, he finally came back and I went home to get the correct glue sticks and the kids ended up enjoying the craft.
And here they are displaying their crowns....even some of the babies joined in...notice Rex down in the bottom left trying to play too! A big thank you to Grandma for solely watching Rex!! It was very relieving not to have to worry about chasing this fast crawler around whether outside or inside the pool.
And of course the presents. The girls had a blast opening their presents and they had such fun presents from all of their friends. You should see the sides of their beds, they are sleeping with pretty much all of their new toys and the sides of their beds are cluttered with toys, but they love it!
So all in all...it was a very fun party! And I have to admit I really like the idea of them having birthday parties together from now on...only one party to stress about and now I've been able to try to ease into Kayley starting school in a few days without having to double stress about planning her party as her birthday is the third day of school. Which is a very good thing as I'm pretty stressed/worried already with her starting school. Anyway, they had a great birthday party and had so much fun celebrating it with their friends and family!