Saturday, January 27, 2007

Circus Folk and Carnies

Chris and the kids went to the circus with my brother Brandon and Emily and Jayden last week. They all had a really fun time, but this was the report I got the next day. Aiden was eating popcorn off the ground and my brother told him that wasn't the best idea to which Aiden replied, "Brandon you worry about you, and I'll worry about me."

Kaylee got an A on her Italy report, and they had a program this past Friday. It was really cute, and she got to dance to three of the songs that they sang. In honor of her uncle Brandon's mission to Australia she was excited to dance to "Waltzing Matilda." As soon as I can get Chris to teach me how to post pictures I'll put some up.

Every one in our home has taken a turn being sick this week except for Dalin and me. I'm hoping our luck holds out, because things kind of fall apart around here when I get sick. I think Chris got the worst of it. Kaylee and Ashton and Aiden were achey with fevers but they were pretty much done after about one day. Chris has had a terrible cough with fever and he has barely been able to get out of bed for a day and a half. I think he's on the tail end of the sickness, but he's still really tired and sleeping alot.

Friday, January 12, 2007

The Throne

Aiden and I came to an agreement about the pillow from the last entry. He wanted to sleep with it for the whole night and in exchange he agreed that he wouldn't take it off my bed any more. So far he's stayed true to the deal, but that was just one of the battles, the war is still on.

Aiden has now taken over Chris's recliner. He gets all of the throw pillows from the couch and spreads them on the chair. He then puts the foot rest up and leans the back of the chair as far back as it will go, climbs up with his blanket and kicks back. He told Chris, "it's not your chair it belongs to everybody." He is paranoid that someone will take his spot if he leaves so he has started asking me to bring everything to him (i.e. lunch, drinks, toys etc.) When he does get out of the chair he will slowly back away from the chair then sprint to wherever he needs to go. One day he needed to do something that would take him out of the chair and I could see him eyeing Ashton who was sitting on the floor eating her lunch. I told him that she was still eating her food so she wasn't going to take the chair. He looked over at Ashton's plate then looked back at me and asked if I could get her some more food. I guess he wanted to make sure he had enough time to get back to his "throne".

In other news, Chris and I were able to go to the Celine Dion show at Ceasars Palace. Chris did some computer work for some people who are friends with some people that usher at the show who gave them tickets to the show so they invited us to come. (I hope you could follow that last sentence) Now I'm not the biggest fan of Celine Dion, (I know I can hear the gasps of disbelief), but I actually enjoyed the show quite a bit. The sets were amazing. But the real excitement for me was looking for a particular dancer. If any of you watched the summer reality show "So You Think You Can Dance?" you may remember that one of the prizes for the winner was a one year contract for the Celine Dion show. The winner of the show was a guy named Benji, a mormon from Redlands CA. Chris and I really liked him so we spent the whole show trying to figure out which one of the dancers he was. We had pretty good seats but we still couldn't really tell which one he was. When we got home Chris did a little internet reasearch and found out that Benji declined the Vegas show offer so I felt a little cheated.

Sunday, January 7, 2007

Pillow Fights

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO CHRIS!!!! Today Chris becomes "a 34 year old man!" One of Kaylee's favorite things to do is to point out how old her dad is. When ever he isn't quite acting his age she will exclaim, "dad you are a 34 year old man!!" The Nintendo (from the last blog) was his birthday present as well as Christmas, and he has been making good use of it.

I got a new pillow a few months ago and I don't know if Aiden didn't notice it before or if he just finally decided that he really liked it, but a couple of weeks ago he started sneaking in my room right before bed and taking my pillow to his room to sleep with. I would in turn go take it from under his head and replace it with his own pillow before I go to bed. He's getting bolder every day and one day he announced to me that he was going to sleep with my pillow and I better not take it from him while he was sleeping or he would be really mad at me for alot of days. I took it back anyway. At seven the next morning I wake up to someone tugging on my pillow. I open my eyes and there is Aiden, ready to fight telling me I shouldn't have taken the pillow. I let him have it back but only because I had just gotten Dalin back to sleep and I didn't want the tantrum I could feel coming on to wake him up. I told him he could only have it if he went back to bed. He left still upset and I heard his over dramatic crying, "I wanted to sleep on the pillow the whole ni-i-i-i-i-ght!" He got some money from great grandpa Romney for Christmas so I told him he could get his own pillow, but we can only find a king size one, and that kid is spoiled enough he doesn't need a king size pillow for his four year old head! We'll keep looking and hopefully the battles will subside.

Kaylee's was assigned a report on Italy for school. They have a book to fill out and a poster to make, and then they are going to have a little program and feast. She is pretty excited, and started looking things up on the internet right away. She told me that her teacher said they should bring a sample of food from their country that they liked and Kaylee said, "but I think I'll just bring spagetti anyway." There are few things Kaylee actually likes to eat and I don't think any of them originate in Italy.

Ashton's reading is coming along really well. We got some first reader books from the library and she was able to sound out most of the words. She answered the phone the other day and this is what I heard on my end. "No he's still at work but you can call back when you think he might be home."

My sister-in-law is letting us borrow a baby walker for Dalin and he is quite a little natural. Because we have wood floors he can speed across the room pretty well, but he hasn't quite figured out how exactly to go the direction he wants to yet. He is happy to be mobile, so now I can actually set him down and get a few things done when he's not asleep.

Friday, January 5, 2007

The Holidays

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!! I've decided not to apologize for the infrequency of my blogs, because I really am doing my best (Chris!). I will say I didn't realize it's been almost a month since I last wrote so let me sum up our holiday season for you all.

Chris's parents came to visit for two weeks during December, and they were able to be here for Christmas. The kids were excited for weeks prior to their visit and they would tell any one who would listen that their "grandma and grandpa were coming to visit and they had made a fun list to do with them when they came." What is a fun list you may ask? It was whatever came into their little heads for the past two months when they first found out their grandparents were coming to visit. Chris's brother Nick also came to visit so almost everyone in his family was able to be together for Christmas. We all had a great time and it made this Christmas really special. We told Kaylee she couldn't wake us up until after 5 am on Christmas morning. I was telling Chris that I woke up to feed Dalin at about four, and Kaylee said, "No mom it was 4:07." Kaylee had already been awake for a couple of hours before she was allowed to wake us up. I remember being the same way when I was little, so it's all coming around now. I think Chris was probably the most excited because he bought a Nintendo Wii when they came out, and planned on selling it for a profit on ebay. I finally gave in and let him keep it (it wasn't making a whole lot more than it was worth on ebay) but he couldn't play it until all the wrappings were picked up. It was the fastest Christmas clean up we've ever had in our home. We then went to my parents house where there were more presents to open and I was able to talk to my brother who is in Portugal on a mission. Then it was back to our house for dinner and alot of video games. All in all I think it was a great success.

For New Year's we had a nice prime rib dinner at my brother Brian and his wife Natalie's house. It's become kind of a tradition for us to have prime rib that night because my other brother Aaron and his wife Danette do an excellent job in making it. After dinner they adults played games and our kids just played until midnight. Out of ten kids only one fell asleep before midnight, even Dalin wanted to be awake to ring in the New Year with us.

The girls went back to school on the second (they've been on track break for five weeks) and it it's been nice to get back to our regular schedule. Ater we dropped them off at school Aiden said, "good now I get to pick all the shows to watch." What a funny kid!