9 Mumps

Here are some fantastically cute pictures of the cheeser now that she's 9 'mumps' old!

Sound asleep on her own lap!

 Her favorite pillow...

Jersi's Tricks

Jersille-Menerzille has lots of tricks - And I'm super far behind on announcing them, so here you go:

Clapping.  Everytime I say "Yay Baby" she smiles and claps. Love it! She's been doing this since March. (Now she claps all the time when she gets excited)

Crawling: She finally learned this skill - at first it was in slow motion and now she maneuvers every where - she learned this in April

Pulls herself to standing on any object she can find.  It started with the Love Sac and her crib - now its anything she can find. She's been doing this about 3 or 4 weeks.

Elephant Walk: She got rug burns on tops of her little feet from crawling all over, and she soon decided it was better to walk on her feet with her hands on the ground (resulting in a bum in the air) I love this walk! I call her Elly-phant. She started this about 2 weeks ago. (I really wish I could get a picture of this)

Waving (by opening and shutting her hand) when I say "Tell Daddy Hi" She waves, with both hands - I don't think she knows how to operate one hand without the other... (This is new today)

June 21st

June 21st is 6 weeks away...

Here are some pics of things pertaining to that day....

I'm so excited!!!!

Time on My Hands

Wow - what does one do with their time when not overwhelmed with school??  My friends joked that I might actually come to the realization now that I actually have 7 kids!! Ha ha
I'll tell you one thing for sure - I certainly sleep better now! In fact the next day I spontaneously (accidentally) took a 2 hour nap and then proceeded to sleep for 12 hours straight shortly thereafter! Sheesh!
Well Happy graduation to me!  (Just as a side note - I actually do have a couple classes in the summer, they allowed me to participate in graduation because I'd still be finishing my degree within the 2011 school year - but a "couple classes" compared to the 7 this past semester will be a total cake-walk (I hope) )

Sidenote: I wrote to my brother James, on his mission and said the following: 
News of this week: I graduated last friday - Can I get a Woot Woot?? 

To which he responded:
Yes you can. Here you go. Woot woot. Hope you enjoyed your woot woot-ness

Cute huh?

Miss Jelly Bean

Little Miss Jelly Bean (Oaklee) is now 4. I can hardly even believe it!

She is such a cute little hilarious girl!

*She's always got something funny or totally cute coming outta her mouth.

*Oaklee is a total sweetheart to Dayton. She always takes care of him. (when they aren't all out fighting that is)

*She loves all things yellow or 'chocolate'

*She is 100% girl (nails, dress-ups, make-up, lip gloss...) until she finds mud!

*Her best friend is Sharli (Sorry Sam) and she talks about her all the time.  She'd apparently rather have her for a mom than me...

*She has a major fear of monsters and scary things in the night, so we now spray "Monster Spray" (Febreeze brand) every night at bedtime

*She loves to catch bugs outside with Kyndi - but if she sees a bug in the house she lets out a high pitch scream and totally freaks out

*She is constantly begging for treats or gum. Constantly.

*She loves to dance and sing - she'll sing and/or dance to anything - and thinks its 100% hilarious to shake her bum.

We love this little Oaklee - can't imagine life without her!

Happy birthday Miss Jelly Bean!!

Post Graduation...

Upon returning from my graduation, this is what I found.

That's my eyeliner all over them! It's all over their backs and bellies and toys... Who even knows where Tyson was during all of this...

Graduation Ceremony...

Happy Graduation to me!!!

Technically I am not finished until August - but I was allowed to participate in the Graduation Ceremonies. It was fabulously excellent!  I sat with my friends Christina and Christy.  We had a blast! 
I was dared to wear hot pink tights with my grad gown, so I did!
(This picture isn't so fabulous - it was taken while we were sitting through the ceremony)

We took all kinds of fun pictures throughout the ceremony and had far too much fun.

When it was time to "walk" - each person would walk across shake the Dean's hand and smile for a photo.  I was "double-dog-dared" by Christy to pose for the camera. So I did. 

Hilarious!!
All in all, a great day! (Now to finish up my classes in the summer. Blah.) (Then off to grad school in the Fall)

Why Didn't I do it sooner?!?!

So, I recently made the executive decision to put Jersi in a different room. She's been sleeping in my room every night and is up all night long.  I'm not quite certain what brought my decision about but I set up her crib in my scrapbook room and put her in it for her night time sleeping. 
Why didn't I do this sooner?  She fell asleep after less than a mionute of crying (Compared to her consistent crying until someone picked her up in my room) and she only woke up at 3:00 to eat.  What?!?!  I gave it a few nights to see if this was a true change or just a fluke.  Definitely not a fluke! She falls asleep without any crying now - AND she sleeps straight through most nights without waking for a bottle! I'm loving it!  Plus, I love that she very quickly figured out how to do this:

So cute!

Best Trailer on the Block

Kamron loves, loves, loves his 4 wheeler.  All winter he can very often be found outside starting it up and just sitting on it.  Now the weather is finally clearing up (sort of) and he's determined to get riding the 4-wheeler.  For our 5 year anniversary I got the thing registered for him as a surprise.
Only one thing standing in his way now... no trailer to haul the thing on.
That didn't stop Kamron.
He took the little fishing boat off its trailer, and built the boat trailer into a 4 wheeler trailer.

He cracks me up.  Not so fancy - but it does the job!
Now we can go 4 wheeling every weekend!!

Zumba

At school this semester I have a Zumba class. I LOVE it!!  It's so much fun - I have even convinced my sister Sharli to try a zumba class out - and she seems to enjoy it quite nicely as well.  I recently took up taking a Zumba class at the Provo Rec center every week which is also quite enjoyable...  My kids always wanted to go. Then I discovered they had a saturday morning Zumba for Kids class! Woo Hoo!! So I took Tate, Kyndi, Oaklee and Morrissa (Morrissa has been going to the adult one with me anyways)
I think they had fun.  They were worn out after about a half hour of constant dancing - but they continued and loved it.  Oaklee was being her shy self that day and would only participate on occasion but when she did shake her little butt it was pretty cute!!

 I love this one of Tate!!

The Last Cupcake...

We celebrated Tate, Morrissa and Oaklee's birthday with Gramma and Grampa and Sharli, Sam and Dan - with the celebrating came cupcakes. Cupcakes with dark blue frositng.  Fancy frosting that stains the fingers and faces of all the children who eat them. 
Dayton was the messiest of all.

He got all scrubbed up, and still remained blue.
The party continued, and came to an end.  There was one cupcake remaining. Well, at least that's what was left until around 11 o'clock that night... I went to check on Dayton in his bed and once again he was covered in sugary blue goo.  And downstairs on the stove I found this:

That little Muffin Man! Too cute for his own good!

Story Time

This is what I found in my room today:

Dayton reading to Oaks.

The Definition of a Bad Hair Day

If you were to look up the term "Bad Hair Day" in the Encyclopedia, you'd most definitely find the following images...

She's too stinkin cute - even with the wild and crazy mane!

Recent Funnies

Me: You're my favorite Oaklee I ever knew! - Am I your favorite Stefanie?
Oaklee: No, Sharli is ... but I like you second!

We were out running errands and Dayton said: "Where we going nets (next)?"
Me: We're going home now.
Dayton: Well dat juss suts (sucks) doesn't it?"

Me: Why am I so lucky to be your mom?
Oaklee: I just wish Sharli was my mom

Bedtime is by far the biggest stressor of my day everyday.
On one particular night, I finally had all the kids tucked in and was working on homework in my room, I heard some talking and some giggles coming from the Little's room. Pretty soon Dayton approached my bedroom door and in a giggly voice said: Mom I hafta go potty
Me: No you don't
He ran back to his room and announced "Dang it didn't wurk"

Oaklee was using the potty in my room the other day and through the closed door I heard her ask herself, "Why do I fart so much??"

Moe

I officially have 2 teenagers in the house.
Morrissa is now 13. Whoa.

Morrissa has recently discovered the excitement of reading mystery novels.  Her English class had a mystery section they studied and now she can very oftenly be found reading in the quietness of her room (when she can escape the children)
Morrissa is all things girly - always curling her hair and the girls' hair (Except Jersi of course who remains bald) and painting everyone's fingernails and toenails numerous times a week. (Even Dayton's).
Morrissa dances anytime she comes in contact with a full length mirror.  She was recently at the mall with me and every time we were near mirrors she'd be doing some on-the-spot dance routine.
Morrissa is a very good student. She's very attentive to her grades and likes to make sure she is maintaining them at all costs.
As always, Morrissa is an excellent helper around the house. There are many days she'll get all her chores done, plus help the Littles with their stuff, and get them dressed, or fed or whatever, and then still come to me and say, "Is there anything I can do for you?"  She's definitely a keeper!

Happy Birthday Mortimor!

(She may not be too fond of this picture - it was taken spontaneously in the car... I'll keep searching my memory cards for a better one...)

Tater French

Tate just turned 9!

A few things of note for this Best Buddy of mine (not to be confused with "Little Buddy" (Dayton) and "Bestest buddy" (Samantha)...):

*He's loving the 4th grade. 
*He is a big time reader. Currently reading The 'How To Train Your Dragon' series.
*He loves scouts - and recently earned his Wolf.
*He has just recently taken up yo-yo-ing and he knows all the tricks (sleeping, the apple, the ufo, walking the dog...) He's pretty good at them.
*He's such a tender heart (When he wants to be) - Morrissa was trying to find ways to earn money to go to   Lagoon with her school. he piped up and offered to mow ll the lawns in the neighborhood and give her all the money for it. (What a good boy.  He never had to follow through on this as I was concerned his mowing skills may lead to catastrophe)

I love my Mister Tate!
Happy birthday buddy!!

PS - He got a new bike for his birthday and cannot wait to ride it to school!