Happy Halloween

We took these pictures on Friday - cuz Tate and Kyndi were headed to Jeremy's house for the weekend...

Jersi as A bowl of spaghetti and meatballs (I made this costume myself - woohoo)

She pretty much hated her costume - cried and cried until I took it off - hence the binkie to get a decent picture

Mike Wazowski

Snow Fairy

A Bumble Bee Witch

I had her all convinced she wanted to be a bumble bee - and then one day she said she wanted to be a witch... "i thought you wanted to be a bumble bee?" "I do, a bumble bee witch!"

Skeleton (and he glows in the dark!!) (Pajamas I found at Walmart)

Basket of Laundry (made this one too!)

Mr Creepy man... more on him on a later post...

 In Spanish Fork, they do a Main Street trick or treat - where all the busniesses on main street have someone outside the building handing out candy. We took the Littles to trick or treat up and down Main. It was super crowded - but they got lots of treats. And it was fun to see all the fun costumes on all the kids.

Oaks and Tona ready to go

What I wore to Main Street (and to the store with Kamron later. - I think he was embarrassed to be seen with me.)

Here is Tate in his school parade (Kyndi didn't have school that day, it was kindergarten parent teacher conference day)

For Trick-or-Treating that night (after the Haunting Hailstorm died down and completely left 20 minutes later...) we only had the Littles, Tate and Kyndi were gone, Morrissa was with her friend, Tyson was with his friends getting the infamous box of dozen donuts (one of his friends houses gives away a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts to each kid! Crazy, I know!!) Kamron and I put on some make-shift costumes for the night...

I took those pictures of us and everytime I'd look at the screen to see the picture i'd taken I'd laugh cuz he's so hideous!  That's Kamron for you! I love it!

We only had 4 groups of trick-or-treaters. Probably due to weather.  And one group of little kids (with their mom driving them around) showed up at 10 PM!!

On friday for snack, the kids had these: 

Various viles of animals floating in juices.  There was a rat, a spider, a snake, a lizrd and a frog. Gross. But the kids loved them.  Here's Tyson with his lizard:

This is Dayton Completely exhausted after Main Street:

And Oaklee trying on one of our Halloween Wigs... with this wig she looks like she has Kyndi's hair!! Ha ha

Happy Halloween!!

PS Here is my cousin Jake's family in costume. I love it!!!

Magnus is 6 months old here I think.

Haunting Hail

Holy cow! Today's weather has been mild and warm - this is until about 10 minutes ago...  Now it is pouring hail - so much and so hard it's coming through our swamp cooler and hailing in my house - and bouncing down the stairs! This is all accompanied by high winds and thunder and lightning like mad!  Looks Spooky out there!! We may not be going trick-or treating tonight afterall! (Good thing I took all their pictures yesterday!!)

This picture doesn't do the storm any justice - this storm is one of the best I've ever seen - just not good for Halloween night.

My New Best Friend

Introducing my new best friend: Prevacid

Why on earth would a medication suddenly become my new best friend you ask? Simple. Princess cries-a-lot has been diagnosed with GERD - a fancy term for chronic acid reflux & heartburn. That ladies and gentlemen os what makes her cranky every moment of the day. Enter Prevacid stage left and voila - she's suddenly such a happy baby!! It's like night and day. This is just day one of theis remedy so we'll see how it continues - but seriously, me and  Prevacid are oh so happy together!!

Masks

We had a fun day a few days ago on the Halloween aisle at Kmart. Case in point:
(Oaklee)

 (Oaklee) (Creepy, just plain creepy)

 (Kyndi)

 (Dayton) (He LOVES all things Buzz Lightyear)

Career Predicament

When I was little I was a big fan of the movie Annie. I remember telling my mom when I grow up I wanna own an orphanage. That was my dream. Imagine my disappointment when my mom explained to me that here in the US there is no orphanage to own. Dang.   (However  - many days in this house I feel I own an Orphanage! ha.)
Next idea I had a few years later work with foster kids. Not sure how old I was when I decided this is what I wanted to do with my life - but it goes as far back as I can remember.  As I got older it evolved into wanting to be a Child Psychologist to work with Foster Children. This has been my goal ever since. That is, until about 8 months ago or so. Don't really know what changed but that dream suddenly faded over night. As I think about it, I think it's the way the state runs their therapy-for-foster-kids system... Hm.
 Well, I'm in school going for a behavioral science degree, so what else would I love to do with that degree??
I've toyed with the idea of being a Marriage and Family Therapist - which would also have me working with children. Then I toyed with the idea of being a Play Therapist. This too is working with children. I loved both of these ideas but still as the weeks have gone by as much as I loved these ideas, they didn't quite click with me...  Then I remembered a career my sister had mentioned to me a year or two ago.  A Child Life Therapist. 
A Child Life Therapist works with terminally ill children and their families.  They spend time giving therapy and counsel to both the child and their family. They spend one on one time doing various activities with the child - crafts, play time, stories and even spend time educating them (on their level) on medical procedures and such that may be going on in their life.  This career fits for me.  It just clicks.  It incorporates both the marriage and family therapist as well as the play therapist. Yes, they are terminal, so it will be sad to eventually lose each one of them, but I love the idea. Who needs a friend and a therapist more than a a child and a family going through a situation such as this?
This job requires a bachelor degree and additional training. So I'm on track for that - AND I just registered for Spring semester, which leaves me with one semester left after that!!  Exciting, yes - but I find myself quite frustrated with the school.  Two of the classes I need are only taught once, at the exact same time as the other - and a third class is only offered in the mornings (when I am with my kidlets). the 4th is a practicum which includes doing an internship along with classes, yikes, that's the same as going to school and having a job at the same time, except I don't get paid for it. Dang. Frustrating. But hopefully I can get it to all work out.
I am also still planning on pursuing a Master's Degree, slowly, while working - or maybe when my kids are a wee bit older, say 35 - just kidding, but maybe when Jersi is in 1st grade it will be easier for me to work towards a Master's Degree.

Halloween Dinner

Sunday night was my 2nd annual Halloween Dinner. My parents and Sharli and Dan headed down to participate in eating the creepy food.
This year's menu:
Animal Dropping Stew (Chili)
Fingers and Eyeballs (a yummy concoction of carrots and grapes)
Brains (pasta Salad)
Magic Potion (A bright green punch with gummy worms in it)
Witch's Brew (a pepperminty frothy punch with floating plastic spiders)
Witches Fingers (Cookies)
and Kamron's famous caramel popcorn.

We had a good time - and cooking wasn't near as stressful as I had anticipated - EXCEPT, the bottom of the chili pan burned (due to Karo Syrup on the burner) and it made the chili taste nastily scorched. I was so bummed. It was going to be the most fabulous chili ever and it was awful. AND it made my house stink. No good. No good. I really can cook - it just didn't work out so well that night.
The kids love our Halloween dinner - and even though they all hated the chili - they had a great time!! Onto next year's bash!!

Catalogs

It seems like I get a new catalog in the mail almost daily. I don't mind so much - the littles love them - especially Oaklee.  She always asks if she can have them. Then she looks at every page and enthusiastically announces "I want that for Christmas" or "Mom, show this to Santa for me!" yesterday was of her catalog announcements was "Oh daddy, I'm gonna get that for Christmas and everyone will be so excited about that!" She's so funny. She always ecited about every single thing in the catalog. (Except the "boring stuff" of course!)  She reads those catalogs all day long over and over until the fall completely apart and then she anxiously awaits the next time I'll give her a new one. 
Sidenote: Although she wants every single item in every single catalog, if you simply ask her what she wants for Christmas, she'll still answer "Chicken and Rocks."

Football Playoffs

Tyson's first football playoff game was on saturday. It was freezing cold and rainy.  We left all the kids home except Dayton (and Tyson of course). Dayton is such a trooper - he had to have been freezing cold - but he was so good and never complained until the very end when we were in the car.
As for the game... Well... not so good.  They played Lehi and lost 28 to 0 or something like that. Not a fun game at all - (Tyson did have some great tackles, sacks and caused a fumble - he played awesome as usual!!) - and that concludes his football season for this year.   Bummer - now what will we do with our Saturdays?

Ready For the Weather

We had tickets to go to the BYU game today - it was rainy and cold. This is how cute Jersi is when it's cold..

Relaxin'

Oaks and Tona were playing in my room while I was feeding Jersi.  This is the conversation I heard:
Dayton: " ready!"
Oaklee: "We're not playing hide-a-seek right now - we're a-laxin'!!"  And that she was, sprawled across the Love Sac.

Christmas Lists

I had the kids each write up a list of what they want for Christmas. I realize it's not even Halloween yet, but I wanna be able to watch for sales and such - and also have ideas to give other people who want gift ideas for my children. Kyndi is just learning to read and write - so she asked if she could draw pictures of what she wanted - and of course Oaklee wanted to join in the fun. Oaklee brought me her list. I asked her what was on her list: "Just chicken and rocks"
Simple enough!

Growing Like a Weed

At Jersi's 2 month appt she measured in at 24.5 inches!! Holy granola! That means she's grown 6 and a half inches in 2 months!! That is just crazy!  That puts her in the 95th percentile for her length. (She's in the 40th% for weight - 10 Lbs 9 oz,)
Here's some cute pictures at 2 months old:

Teeth

Dayton wanted me to get Jersi some Fruit Loops this morning.  I told him: "Jersi can't have cereal, she doesn't have teeth." Dayton's response: "Sharli has teeth!"    So there you go Sharli. Good to know that you have teeth.

Middle of October

It is the middle of October.(October 16th to be exact) Keep that in mind. We spent our time on Saturday on a boat in the middle of Utah Lake. It was completely delightful.  The air was a little cool - but nothing beats a day in a boat.

Kamron's work friend had plans to go waterskiing today while his wife was out town - but the friend he was originally going with bailed on him - so he called Kamron to see if he'd be willing to drive the boat for him so he could ski for an hour or so. He also told him he could bring the whole family if he wanted.  So off we went! Morrissa and Kyndi wanted to stay home so I left Jersi with them and we headed out.
Shaun was so great - he not only taught Kamron to drive the boat, but Tyson too - and he let Tate steer it in to shore. Oaklee even took her own turn at the wheel as we were riding up the ramp on the trailer.  Fun day.
(Some of the pictures are on Kam's phone - so I'll get them from him tonight and add them on)

Night of Amazingness - and a Wee Bit of Hallucinating

Last night Jersi slept 8 hours straight! Yes, you read that correctly, my overly fussy baby who eats every three hours like clockwork, slept through the night, a complete 8 hours, from 10:30 until 6:30. CRAZY, I know, but true... however, as many mom's do when their newborn first sleeps through the night, I didn't sleep so well, as I kept checking to make sure she was okay... but it got a little more drastic than that - I dreamt or hallucinated or something, that she was somehow caught inder the love sac in my room and couldn't breathe, I woke up and moved toward the love sac to rescue her and then it finally dawned on me that there wasn't much logic to that idea... There were probably 10 or 11 or even 17 different times I woke up to check and double check on her. It was madness - and all the while my brain kept getting crazier and crazier. I love that she slept straight through - now hopefully she and I will both sleep through the night tonight.

Mustache

Brownie Batter - That's all I have to say... (My littles and Kyndi think their mom is a total nutcase)

Comfy?

The puke festival came to our house this week. Kyndi had it monday and by tuesday Oaklee had it. It eventually cycled through everyone except Me and Jersi - but that is not the point of this post... THIS:

is the point of this post.  When I had last checked on her, she was sitting on the edge of the tub leaning against the toilet crying. I offered to go get her a drink and shortly there after i found her like this.

I was nice enough to move her to the floor after getting adequate pictures.

Boof Ball

Dayton is completely hilarious. He is a bundle of energy and does anything he can to crack people up. I constantly tell him he is a goof-ball.
Yesterday he was on a drive with Kamron and me - Kamron called him Brutus (which we've been calling him for several months now) - he got an irritated look on his face and firmly stated, "I not Bootis, I Boof-ball!!"  Hilarious! 
For the remainder of the day and all day today he's referred to himself as Boof-ball. What a freakin' character!

Mummy Suit

Jersi is a horrible sleeper. She sleeps just dandily in my arms until the very moment I lay her down - so sadly she ends up sleeping in my bed every night. Although this may be a comfy sleep spot for her, it's not so much for me.  I cannot sleep with her in my arms - too many worries, PLUS she gives off far too much heat! This makes for rough nights and a gargantuan amount of sleep deprivation...  Enter the Mummy Suit (aka Magic Blanket)  This thing is fabulous!!  I was reading everything I could online on how to get her to sleep on her own and came across a post about these "magic blankets" and there were millions of reviews stating how well they worked - I found an off-brand one on Amazon for like ten bucks. Sold. (And I get free 2 day delivery) Yhe day it arrived, I was counting down the hours for 9:30ish to roll around. As soon as it did, I slapped the delightful thing on her - and guess what? She went to sleep right in her bed, and only woke every 2 to 3 hours to eat, and then would go right back to sleep - this lasted about 6 hours of the night and then she got too fussy and I was too tired to convince her to sleep in her bed so she came to bed with me - but still, roughly 6 hours of sleep for me? That's HUGE!! I'll admit I was a wee bit concerned that it may have been a fluke... time will tell I guess...
The general idea of the blanket is that it swaddles her snuggly and velcros in place so no matter how much she moves she cannot un-swaddle. Who knew that would solve her sleep issues? Sheesh. I love this thing!!

Quick update - this mummy suit is still simply amazing!!  She sleeps in her bed every night now - and still only wakes to eat about every 2.5 to 3 hours. I love it. She does end up staying in bed with me sometime around 4 AM every time - but still - it's far better sleep than I was previously getting. Wow. I love it.