My new secretary

It is so weird having a kid who can read and write all of the sudden, especially when a few months ago she wasn't even close. (Or so I thought!)

I can't get away with my standard "Oh, maybe tomorrow sweetie..." anymore without having little reminders waiting for me everywhere.

My kids are keeping me honest and that is a good thing.

Turns out 'Lulu' is a

BOY!!!

Two ultrasounds by a shoddy doctor at 18 and 22 weeks and a bunch by a veterinarian (ahem!) turned out to be WRONG!!! So time to start thinking blue...

***Yes! Shoddy! That is putting it nicely, in fact. If you want details you can ask me personally but I am SOOO glad I switched for my own health AND the health of this baby. The gender thing was the LEAST of my issues with him! (unfortunately!!)***

Happy Birthday to me :)

Yesterday was my birthday. It involved eating here: (two times :)



and here:



and shopping here:

Plus a gift card to do this:



and this:



and even some of these:



I know I am spoiled. What more could a girl want, really?

Thanks Kyle, I love you!

Check me out man

For a long time I've been wanting to make/buy some kind of chore chart to get my children motivated to help around the house. I wanted one that would last and really work well for our family. I finally found a nice one to buy on Etsy. But then... my super crafty friend with her super crafty blog wrote about how to make one. It was better than any I had seen and fit our needs perfectly. It didn't look too difficult even with my aversion to craftiness, so I decided to try it!



It took me a couple of weeks to gather supplies from several different stores but I finally set to it and it was easy and I LOVE the finished product! The kids are practically begging to do chores so they can move their magnet to the "done" column.



They are expected to do their jobs everyday just because they need to do their part by being a member of our family. The extra chores are just any big job or extra thing I think of that I will reward them for with money or a treat or whatever. Then we have the weekly chores. I made a few generic tiles with a star or heart just for jobs I think of that I didn't have already have a tile for. We decided the star would be homework, the smiley face is being happy and the heart is uh, keeping your heart beating. That is "Lulu's" job. (Not really the name of our baby for sure, but it is one of many on our list...)



Another thing I love is the paper can be easily removed so I can change it out for seasons, holidays, moods etc. or to change our baby's name to whatever it really will be. Not too bad, huh? So I'm ready to let the kids take over the household cleaning and sit back and relax!

If anyone wants the instructions they can be found on this post. Thanks Emily!!!

San Diego

We just got back from 5 days in San Diego. Kyle had CE there and the whole fam of course had to tag along. It was Kyle's first CE. He loved going to classes now that the information has such practical applications. The children and I had a blast too. We stayed in the gaslamp district right in the middle of all the action. We spend a lot of time swimming at the hotel and shopping at the mall right next to our hotel while Kyle was in class. Here's some of the other stuff we did-

We went to a cool children's museum.








Watched the huge ships in the bay.



Took a trip to the beach, at night. A first for us. It was very cool.



We checked out the SD temple. Breathtaking.



Took a trip to Coronado Island and then my favorite (besides the no cooking and cleaning!) was walking around Seaport Villiage. I loved all the shops there and would love to go back.

13 Days of Halloween - FINISHED

Yay! Another fun Halloween has ended. We've enjoyed new Halloween coloring books, watching Hocus Pocus & the skeleton dance too many times, read spooky stories and decorating sugar cookies. Whew! It was fabulous!

So, we did have a theme. Yes, I'm that mom. Sometimes I make my kids match too! Take that! Breckyn was Wendy. This is just exactly how Wendy is posing on the Disneyland ride, Peter Pan's Flight. It is one of our kids favorite rides that we always have to go on. Anyway, Breckyn nailed it!






Kyra was Tinkerbell. She flittered around for a minute then she said it was itchy and she was done.



Wendy and tink.



Then there was the man. Peter Pan. He hated his hat at first until Kyle talked him into thinking it was totally cool. Then he wouldn't take it off.



Getting a pic of all 3 looking cute turned out to be impossible, but this is the best we could do.



Here are a few pics of our pumpkin carving fun.

The Spooktacular Birthday Bash

Kyra is 4! She had a fun little Halloween birthday party. I think the little girls had a good time. Two silly sisters waiting impatiently for their friends to arrive.



The spread: candy corn pizza, mummy dogs, cheese fingers, grapes and cookies!







The cake:



3 sets of sisters all 5 and 3 (kyra wasn't officially 4 until 8:55pm) working very hard on a crafty project.



The ghost pinata:



Happy birthday Kyra! We love you!

Just lots of stuff

I've been neglecting the blog again... so I have lots of things to share.

Firstly, how does tinkerbell take all these pictures with little kids without flashing her chocha?


I got to go on a field trip with Breckyn and her class to Oak Glen. They had a petting zoo and a special visit from Johnny Appleseed. We tried 30 different kinds of apples and came home with some pumpkin butter. Yummy! It was so fun to see her among her little school chums.





We went to the BYU game in San Diego. It was SOOOO much fun! We sat super close to the field right by Mrs. Pitta and Mrs. Hall. The girls had a blast sitting on the nice clean bleacher ground and coloring the entire time. The sun was pretty fierce but we managed. BYU won too, so that is always good.





We started the fabulous 13 days of Halloween with a fun Halloween garland. I basically cut everything up and the girls had fun creating the faces and parts. Yes, clothing is always optional in our home.







For other Halloween activities we did our shrunken apple heads. Maybe I'll post a pic when they look super scary. We also picked out pumpkins and today the girls made Halloween cards to send to Grandparents. So fun!!



We are having a small Halloween birthday party for Kyra this year and I thought my invitations turned out cute! I just copied them from somewhere online, sorry I can't find where it was.





Whew! So that is it for now. I'm sure I'll have to post some more about our upcoming Halloween adventures...

A few of my Favorite Things

My blog has been lacking a lot lately. I've just felt uncreative and too busy with regular life to come up with interesting blogs. I don't know if this will be interesting to anyone, but I'm always interested to see what other people are in to. So maybe I'll do this once in a while. We'll see.

I've got a weakness. It is little girl clothes. I'll admit, if I love something I'll usually get it, no matter the cost. Yes, it is a weakness, but man my girls dress cute and I love it. Sorry Mom, sis, Grandpa Brown and all my frugal friends. It is my worldly side. Sue me.

When I saw this dress I immediately thought Christmas dress. My girls have to have matching Christmas dresses and I think this might be the one. LOVE.



I like the simplicity of this one maybe with some funky tights





Now I just have to get out how much I love these boots


Maybe a little more practical and versatile I'd settle for these booties. Breckyn needs something besides sandals to wear to school now that the weather has cooled off a bit. These may have to be it.




I found everything here in the Hanna Andersson catalog that came in the mail recently, also online here. The Minnetonka boots are cheaper at other venues though, like this one.