Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Underpants = Superman

Dalin is in the very early stages of potty training (meaning he likes to wear underpants, but he doesn't really make an effort to make it to the toilet). We've told him that big boys wear underpants and in his mind that means he's faster, stronger and taller every time he wears them. We were at the park today and he wanted to climb on top of the tube slide and I told him I didn't think that was such a good idea. He told me, "I wearing underpants, I stronger!" When Jayden comes over it's almost like he's embarrassed to be wearing a diaper, so he will hurry and change into underwear. He actually does really well for the first half of the day, then I think he feels to much responsibility and he opts for a diaper. I am in no hurry to enter this stage of toddler-hood, so I'm letting him go at his own pace, but I am getting a good laugh this time around.

One more quote from Dalin. As I was taking down the Christmas decorations, he asked me why I was taking them down. I told him Christmas is over. He seemed a little depressed and with every ornament he took off the tree he would say, "Christmas over."

Friday, December 26, 2008

Happy Kwanzaa!

Although we actually celebrate Christmas in our home, I wanted to give some respect to Chris's heritage (in the eyes of our children anyway!).

We had a really nice, albeit insanely early Christmas. We told the kids they weren't allowed to wake us up before 5 am. Kaylee is the only one who has a hard time waiting that long. At 3:37 ( I made her tell me what time it was), after already checking out the loot, she came in and told me she couldn't stop chattering. I remember that feeling from when I was her age, you know the excitement combined with the cold so you can't stop shaking, but I was unsympathetic and told her to go back to bed and get under the blanket. About five minutes later I heard two sets of footsteps coming down the hall. I guess she didn't take my advice. Five minutes after that I hear three sets of footsteps coming down the hall. To their credit they didn't come in to wake us up, but they were not talking in hushed tones. I think they were having a little party or something in the girls room and I could hear it quite clearly. At about four Dalin woke up to join in the fun and I finally gave up my slumbering endeavor and we all headed into the front room. Everyone was happy with their haul, but Aiden tried to turn on the TV after the presents were all open (What! you can't find anything else to entertain yourself?) but we were having none of that. We had breakfast with my family, and more presents, then we came home to try and convince the kids to take naps. Dalin was the only taker, but not by choice. We then had a delicious dinner at my brothers house, with visiting and Wii playing. It was a really nice day, and I was even able to relax, so it was a winner for me.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Birthdays and Snow days

Yesterday was my mom's 60th birthday! We had a nice family party with Mexican food (her favorite) and a "Mom'/Grandma's favorite things game. After that we shared memories her sisters sent and memories from her kids and husband. My dad even made a nice DVD and we put together a real published book of her life. (Check out blurb.com it is really cool and very reasonably priced) Unfortunately, but entirely predictably, I forgot my camera so no pictures but it was really nice nonetheless.

Today the kids didn't have school (parent teacher conferences) but it turned into an actual snow day! Around 11:30 am Ashton came in and said she saw some snow flakes to which I replied, "no you didn't." About an hour later I actually saw the flurries and I had to believe. Having lived in Henderson for my entire life I have seen it snow here before, but nothing that ever stuck for more than a few hours. Today we may be close to breaking the record. As I mentioned before, the snow started at about 12:30 and now at 9:00 it just barely let up. Our driveway is pretty steep, so it turned into the neighborhood sledding hill. Luckily Chris likes to go to the mountains for his birthday so we have snow garb and sleds. Aiden and Dalin were having a blast throwing (but mostly missing) snowballs at Chris. We went to the high school field behind our house which had an even better sledding hill and plenty of space for snow man making. I am usuallly not a fan of sledding, because there are too many people/rocks/trees but I loved it today because none of those things were a problem. Unfortunately I had to leave early because poor little Dalin was freezing and very tired so I took him home to warm up. The rest of the family joined us about 45 min later. The most amazing part of the whole thing is that school is cancelled tomorrow because of snow! An actual snow day in Las Vegas!

First signs of snow. I was sure that was all we were going to get

Driveway sledding

Snow angels and snowman!

Friday, December 5, 2008

You gotta make a living...

Aiden likes to make a snack shack in our home on a regular basis. He stacks pillows around a little slide then gets treats from the pantry to "sell" to his siblings. As you can imagine Halloween was an abundant time for him, you know with all of the extra candy around to sell. One night his cousin Jayden was over while Aiden was in business, and Aiden was quick to loan him some of the money from my change jar. Aiden thought himself quite clever because he had made himself some money. One night when I was saying good night to him he said to me in a sing-song voice, "You don't know where I hid the money." To which I replied in the same voice, "That's called stealing." Aiden's response, "No it's not, it's called getting a job and earning some money." I think the laugh he gave me was worth whatever change he ended up with.

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Week in review

Here is the rundown on our fun and busy Thanksgiving week. (Warning! This will be a really long post with quite a few pictures. I will not be offended of you don't make it to the end) Chris's parents (our out-of-towners) were supposed to get in around 10:00 pm on Saturday night, but their flight was delayed so they didn't get in until about 8:00 am Sunday morning. It actually ended up being a good thing though because Chris suggested that they ask to see if they could get a flight a day later since they had lost a day. It worked and instead of having to leave at 7:00am the day after Thanksgiving, his parents didn't have to go until 1:00 pm on Saturday. I know, I'm married to a smarty. So that night we got together with his two sisters that live in town and had a nice family dinner. Chris and his sister and parents were also able to see the "Blue Man Group" which was a lot of fun for them.

On Monday my mother-in-law and my two sisters-in-law (Emily & Megan) drove up to St.George to go to Tai Pan (a super fantastic home decor store) and just have a fun girls day. Chris and his dad were nice enough to watch the kids and they even took them to the park to feed the ducks where they ended up being surrounded by pigeons. After we came home the guys went to a tea party, I mean fantasy football party (they are both pretend so I get mixed up sometimes).

We went to this really cute Thai place in St. George, and here is the proof that I actually ate some sushi! I really don't feel like I have been missing out on anything.
On Tuesday we had our annual family pictures taken and were lucky that none of them included Dalin crying. His progression went like this, trying to cry, trying to pretend he wanted to cry but barely holding back a smile then finally giving in to the funny voices and bunny ears going on behind the camera. The pictures have the same back drops as last year so they look about the same, we're just wearing different clothes. I'm less than excited with how they turned out, so we'll see how long I can stand to look at the picture before I have to get another one.
The kids discovered grandpa Hal's talent for crafting paper airplanes and filled most of Wednesday with various airplane related contests.

Grandma Lynne and aunt Emily provided the kids with a super cute craft project. The girls decoupaged some wooden purses and the boys did frames. They decorated them with some stickers I had in my scrapbook supplies. If you enlarge the picture you can Jayden's frame has a roll of toilet paper and some panties on it. His mom managed to get the "Atta Girl" sticker off before Jayden could notice.
Chris's sister Megan did a fabulous job of hosting Thanksgiving dinner and all of the Edwards family, except for our Texan Lindsay and her family, were able to be there. The food was delicious and we had a great time playing games and visiting.
Those of you who know Chris know of his black Friday tradition. We were this close to having him actually stay home Thanksgiving night, but he decided to check out the Best Buy near Meagan's house. He decided the line was less than formidable so once again he spent the night in line to buy absolutely nothing for himself. At least he got to hang out with his only brother and get a total of four hours of sleep in two days. I did a little shopping after he came home, but I am far from hard core and I only stayed out for about an hour and a half.
On Friday we went to the park to feed the ducks again and although there were fewer pigeons this time around there were still enough that Dalin is sure there are ducks on the roofs around us. We had an official paper airplane contest and all the kids got prizes at an awards breakfast the next day. After some tearful acceptance speeches and celebratory dances Chris and the kids went to drop grandma and grandpa off at the airport. I took advantage of my no kid situation and went shopping again. I got some really great deals so there is a slight chance I could be converted to the black friday shopping, but never the staying overnight part. That night Chris and his brother and his brothers wife went to bingo at Sunset Station and now they are big fans. It was probably the free dobber that won them over, because that is all they came away with.
We had a fun week full of family, and I hope you all had a great holiday as well. And if you made it through this whole post in one sitting kudos to you!