A Salute and a Howdy

On September 23, Chris became the Charlie Company Commander of 1st Battalion, 7th Group, Special Forces. It was held outside, which was neat, albeit very hot and humid. It was a neat ceremony and Chris did a great job giving his speech. I had taken a great video of the official passing of the flag ceremony -- and it was actually like being there, with Kate talking and waving her yellow rose in front of the camera (they gave one to each of the girls, including me) -- unfortunately, after three attempts to download the video, I gave up. It was just too big of a file. So the pictures will have to suffice.

The girls sat pretty well through the ceremony, but enjoyed getting some pent up energy out after the fact.

During the reception afterwards there was brunch and a cake - there's always got to be a cake. So the girls had cake for their second breakfast . . . and then found this utility cart to play on - more pent up energy I suppose.

And here he is in his new office - hooray for an office with a window! He just looks the part, doesn't he? Chris, you're going to be a great commander! We support and salute you.

And now for the howdy . . .

September 23 was a very busy day for us, because, that night, was Kate's Howdy night for her preschool. Families brought a picnic lunch and then the kids performed a few songs. It was super cute. My favorite song went like this:

5 little cowboys galloped off to school,

The first one said, "ya-hoo, school is cool."

The second one said, "there's learning to be done."

The third one said, "there's also time for fun."

The fourth one said, "I'll learn my abc's."

The fifth one said, "I'll learn my 123's."

"Yippee", said the five, as they learned all day

And the five little cowboys galloped off to play

They also taught the families a cowboy dance, "Yippee yi yo, yippe yi yay, do the cowboy dance this way!" It was just as much a crack up watching my family "do the cowboy dance" as it was watching the little kids. Aly and Chris were kind of bending their knees up and down and Kylie was bee-boppin' along, but Lise was doing some sort of interpretive dance that was very interesting to watch. Wish I could have gotten some video of that.

After Howdy Night we took the kids to Dairy Queen for ice cream. We were pure entertainment for the entire joint, as everyone kept staring at us and counting our kids - especially when Chris got into a tug of war with Kylie over a cup of ice cream. She's got the death grip, I tell ya.

Family Pictures and a Tropical Storm

So, it was that time again. Time for the annual family picture. I wanted to do the ever-popular "pictures on the beach" at least once while we lived here. Little did I know the adventure that would turn out to be . . . First of all, you can never underestimate mother nature. I had scheduled our photo shoot weeks in advance, only to have Tropical Storm Lee hit the coast on that very day. So, we did the only thing we could do - take the kids to see "Winnie the Pooh" and rescheduled.

On our next attempt, the weather was beautiful - not too hot and sunny. But man it's hard to smile with that sun glaring in your eyes. And trying to get the girl's hair all nice was kind of a joke too, because of course it is always windy at the beach!

And finally, there's the kid factor. It is hard enough to get four kids to smile in pictures without having them completely distracted by seashells and wanting to run on the sand and get soaked in the water!! Kylie wanted to do nothing but run straight toward the water any second someone put her down. So we got a lot of pictures like the one above as well.

So yeah, one of our best shots is this one of us from behind, where Kylie is content because we are actually moving, the sun isn't in our eyes, and it doesn't matter that our hair is all blowing in our face.

However, despite all the obstacles, we did end up with some cute pictures, and *hooray!* family pictures are over for another year.

The things that keep life interesting

Despite all my best intentions to do a blog a week, it seems the mass 3-4 blogs at one time at the end/beginning of the month seems to be my plight. At least it eventually gets recorded for posterity's sake, right? The past month has kept us hopping with lots of busyness, running around, and lots of fun and silliness as well. Here is a picture of our family at Back to School Night with the Plew Panther. Good times there meeting the girl's teachers and the pizza dinner they offered in the cafeteria while listening to an impromptu PTA meeting (Ooh, they're sneaky, those PTA people!) It was even more awesome because Chris was able to come participate and see the girl's classrooms and stuff. They loved it.

Hey, is that a Duct Tape Purse? That's right, duct tape really does work for everything!! We were at our friend's house for dinner and they had all these different colored/patterned duct tapes. The kids went wild with it, turning it into bandaids, hair bows, etc. Obviously, duct tape is no longer just for men; it's a fashion statement.

Aly is transitioning well into school, learning to become an independent studier, and excelling in all of her advanced classes. She just finished giving her first current event oral presentation on NASA's new rocket program and got 105% on it! Go Aly! She has to give one of these a month, so she is off to a good start. She's also set a goal to be one of the top 10 runners in her grade for Mile Club. I just hope Kylie and I don't slow her down! (She runs/walks with us for about a quarter of every lap).

Aly also got a great "quote of the week". We were having a caesar salad as part of our dinner. Lise asked why it was called a "Caesar" salad and what a Caesar was. Chris and I started to explain when Aly burst in, "If we have the Caesar dressing, then we'll all have Caesar's". Chris and I look at each other and asked Aly what did she think a Caesar was? To which she replied, "It's when you fall on the ground and start shaking". So, apparently Aly thought we were having a "Seizure" salad. No wonder she never wanted to try the dressing!! :)

Here's a picture of Lise with her cute new haircut. Lovin' the bob. Anyhoo, Lise and Aly have been involved in The American Girl Book Club through the library, and they love it. You have to read the assigned American Girl Mystery book for the month and then they get together to talk about the book, make a craft, and eat snacks that came from the time period they are reading about. Super fun. I have also joined in on this fun by volunteering to read the books out loud to the girls; otherwise they could never both read it in time.

Lise still likes to be super silly with her friends and sisters. She also tried to convince me the other day that she needs a cell phone "now", because she's going to get a cold and die when she's 16 and so then it would be too late for her to get one. Nice try Lise. I think I might actually be extending your life (and brain cells) by not exposing you to the radiation emanating from said cell phone. :) (Oh yeah, don't even try to outlogic me!)

And another great Analise Quote:

Aly (bringing Kylie to me) - Mom, Kylie's poopy

Lise (walking into the room) - Hey, what smells like popcorn?

Kater-schmater-bug is L-O-V-I-N-G preschool. I was able to go to her school for "grandparents day" as a fill in (since the grandparents all live far away), and all Kate wanted to do was put together puzzles the whole time. She was very good at it. She is learning how to write her letters and already knows all of the sounds they make. She also likes to paint, sing songs, and play with her friends. We've had a few of her friends over for playdates and she has loved that as well.

Kate has also discovered that she likes to climb trees. I was cleaning one day when Kate asked me if she could go out on the back porch. I said yes, and, about 10 minutes later when I looked out the window, I saw Kate all the way to the top of this tree, purposefully making it bounce back and forth. It freaked me out just a tad.

Also, Kate is really into trying to make funny faces lately. . .

Kylie's quickly becoming her own person as her personality continues to emerge more and more. We are finally done with the baby food phase (hooray!), and bottles and formula have given way to sippy cups of milk. She also has Kate's climbing bug, and I have found her up on chairs and the kitchen table a few times. She's got Kylie also loves when her Dad is home. Here they are chillin' on the couch, watchin' a show, and sippin' her waterbottle.

We also recently discovered that Kylie likes celery. When I was chopping some up for chicken salad, she picked the end out of the garbage and started eating it. . . We gave her her own stalk. Kylie's also gotten a few more words: Wow, Thank you (Day-doo), Yes (knee-es), and No,no,no,no (that's, right, 4 no's. She never says that one just once.) And finally below, a funny picture of Kylie as we were getting ready to go to a neighborhood Labor Day pool party. For some reason she reminds me of a penguin.

Below is a picture of Kylie playing with her babies. She likes to carry them around and push them in the stroller. What a cutie!

So, as Kylie is becoming a little person, not so much a baby anymore, one day Kate decided to reverse in the opposite direction. I was rotating Kylie into the 12-24 month clothes, and Kate actually remembered wearing the clothes I was pulling out! So she started reminiscing about her favorite jammies and such . . . by trying them on. The kicker is, they still fit! (kind of.)

So here is a picture of Kate and Kylie wearing the exact same 18 month shorts and 24 month top. There is an obvious height discrepancy, but the thing that cracks me up is that they are the same size around and that my four year old and one year old could be sharing clothes if I let them. Too funny.

Back to School

Well, it's that time again. We had an awesome summer, but now it's time for back to school. I know that I am weird, but I actually liked school when I was younger, and now I'm reliving it through my children. I love buying school supplies - crisp new folders and crayons - yum! Luckily, my kids humor me and so far seem to like school pretty well also.


Aly didn't want to go back, until she discovered that she got the teacher she wanted (who also happens to be a member of our ward) and that she has some friends in her class. Then she couldn't wait for Monday to come! Lise was happy that she got the "Skittles" teacher who gives out skittles for good behavior. Her best school friend wasn't in her class, but she plays with her at recess and has been warming up to her new class slowly. I'm going to be volunteering in Lise's class as the "Smiley Math" helper (yeah, cheesy name, I know), and helping out with special events in Aly's class. I also hope to get over there to run with the kids for Mile club as well and have lunch with them now and again. So yeah, even though I'm not in school anymore, I'm still excited for back to school and to be a part of it - I'm still weird.

Kate loved going to preschool as well. She loves doing puzzles, arts and crafts, the turtle tent, the sand table, the mini couches (and mini toilets), the playground, eating lunch with her friends, etc. She loves learning too and always comes home and sings to me the new songs she's learned. She can't wait to tell the teachers that she can count to 100 by herself and that she knows all the alphabet and most of the sounds. She is currently learning about the days of the week, which will be super helpful for me so that she doesn't keep asking me every day if it's movie night. The only down side for her is that she wants to know why she can't go to school on Friday like her sisters.

The only one who had a hard time with the kids going back to school was Kylie, who had to adjust to only having one mom, instead of 3 extras to entertain and get for her whatever she needs/wants. She was super clingy and whiny that first week, like she was having separation anxiety, was bored, and was worried that everyone had abandoned her and that I was going to leave her too. (Don't you just love how I psychoanalyze my kids - especially when they can't talk to defend themselves or say otherwise.) She's doing a little better now though and loves to go places and pick up Kate from school.

And as for me, I had a few little adjustments of my own with back to school. I totally tried to get the kids geared up and ready with getting bedtime back on track and everything, but I kind of forgot to mentally adjust myself to be ready for homework again and all that. Plus all my ideas of getting a ton of stuff done while the kids are at school went out the window when I realized that I still have Kylie here making messes faster than I can clean them up and no helpers here to entertain her. I did, however, have a "Back-to-School" Brunch at my house for anyone in the ward who wanted to come, which was a ton of fun and gave me some much needed adult conversation with other moms. And to celebrate back to school as a family, we also had free pizza from Papa Murphy's last weekend that the kids had earned from all the books they read this summer. Good work guys! And here's to another successful school year . . .

The Dog Days of Summer

As mentioned earlier, our summer was extended by a couple of weeks. We had many plans for those last couple of weeks, including birthday parties, trips to the water park, art lessons, etc. However, Monday morning, the girls woke up with this lovely rash all over their torsos. As Kylie had just had her live virus chicken pox vaccine ten days earlier, I was highly suspicious that my girls had a mild case of the chicken pox (Not to mention that this had happened before, when Lise got the chicken pox vaccination and Aly developed a rash). However, since there was no fever and the bumps didn't itch, the doctors ruled out chicken pox and promptly diagnosed it as a "viral rash", which pretty much means that they have no idea what it is either. Therefore, I am sticking to my theory. So, the good part was that even though my kids had this nasty looking rash, they didn't feel sick or have any symptoms. The bummer part is that since we had no idea what it was, I couldn't in good conscience let my kids go to a bunch of activities and expose a bunch of other kids to it (especially right before school started!)





Despite the drawback, however, we decided to make the most of our last few days of summer. . .



First of all, we had our own family birthday to celebrate. I made this "Better than Yada, Yada, Yada Cake" and, due to lack of candles, we only put on which year old he is, but not which decade of life he is in. Hmm, is he 26, 36, 46? - You decide. Chris and I were able to go out on a date for his b-day, which was super fun. Since we had gone to "Captain America" for my birthday, Chris was super nice and we went to see "The Help" for his birthday. I loved it. What a guy. Even on his birthday he's giving to others. :) Love ya hunnay! (Oh, and to show you how even more awesome he is, he ended up taking Aly and Lise to Big Kahunas, the water park, the Saturday after school started to make it up to them. He really is a great father and husband I tell ya. And we aren't raising any whoosies over here either. Both of the girls were daredevils, going down all the huge water slides like crazy! )

Another huge break was the awesome snowcone maker that the Paine's got for us. It was a huge hit! I also need to give a shout out to our awesome friend's mom that still let our kids play together, despite the rash, because, as she put it, "they were probably already exposed before the rash popped up, so we might as well let them play!" Thank you, thank you, thank you.

We also drove the 9 hours round trip to do an overnighter temple trip. The girls had fun swimming, ordering pizza, and watching shows on tv. Meanwhile Chris and I had a great spiritual feast going to the temple. I realized that with having Kylie, moving, etc. it had been over a year since I'd last been to the temple. Yikes! It was good to be back, although I did miss having Chris with me, since we had to swap out to watch the kiddos. The kids actually did really well during the drive, although on the way home we had to start getting creative, so we started playing, "what do you see in the clouds". Well, one of us saw a huge crocodile's mouth, open to eat us, when Kate said, "Dad, push the 'fly' button on the car so we can go into the crocodile's mouth!" I guess the "fly" button was the hazard triangle. If only we could fly home, that would really be something.

Another funny car trend that has emerged lately is the car game "banana" where you yell out "banana" every time you see a yellow car. So Aly and Lise have been playing this game ever since their cousins taught it to them when they were here on vacation. Kate was trying to play but not getting very many bananas, so she and I decided to play the game "fruit basket" where you yell out a fruit for whatever color car you see (as in strawberry/cherry for a red car). I love yelling out "blueberry, coconut, pineapple, avocado, hickuma!! (sp?)", and I'm not even sure if all of those are fruits! Plus I love the eye rolls I get from the back seat.

Lise and Kate had a great time getting decked out and playing in the rain one day, although I don't know why they put their jackets on because it was still like 85 degrees outside!

And finally, Aly made her own super creative version of Olive Garden out of Legos. Totally awesome! If you look, you can even see the little red round things they hand out that blink when your table's ready. She thought of everything.

Oh, and in looking at those braces - can you believe that Aly, at age 9, already has some of her 12 year old molars? Unfortunately, I think Kylie also is going to have an "advanced mouth" as they call it, because she already has all 4 of her 2 year old molars. Enough with the teeth already!

And now for some other funny- isms going on at our house. For one thing, our family has been watching the original Star Wars Trilogy for the past few weekends for movie night. Our girls LOVED IT! As in, they keep talking about it, and, as we speak, Kate is watching the original Star Wars to keep her entertained so I can blog. They love the robots, the creatures, spaceships, the whole thing. But Lise can't get over the whole "Princess Leia" thing and keeps asking me why, if Leia is a princess, isn't she the ruler, and why, since Luke is her brother, isn't he called "Prince Luke", because his aunt and uncle that he was raised by are still royalty probably . . . Man, that girl has thought of every angle. Kate is so animated about the whole thing too, and will ask tons of questions and make random exclamations during the movie like "oh yay! Princess Leia has a gun!" or "why is his sword green this time?" or "why do the robots walk so slow?" Oh yeah, passing the Star Wars legacy on to the next generation. I'm sure my girl's future husbands will thank me later. (And the latest Star Wars quote as we speak - Kate talking to Chris - "Dad, if I were in this movie, I would be Princess Leia. If you were in this movie, you'd be Darth Vador. If mom were in this movie, she'd be Chewy." Chris laughs and then Kate says, "Yeah, I know." Thanks Kate. What are you saying?)

Another funny discovery over the past few weeks has been that Aly, Kate, and Lise have named their shadows and mirror/window pals. Aly's are named Peddler (mirror) and Carter (shadow), Lise's are Anna (mirror) and Max (shadow), and Kate's are Kathy (mirror) and Katie (shadow). According to Kate your mirror buddy is nice because you can talk to them and stuff, but your shadow buddy is mean because they're always copying you and following you around.

Kate, the poor girl, has had yet another Kidney infection. We've been to see a urologist and since we've ruled out Kidney reflux and the kidney ultrasound came back normal, we've decided to just keep her on a low dose antibiotic for about 4 months to allow her bladder to rebuild it's own immune system. But anyhoo, when she got sick the last time she didn't want to eat or drink anything and I told her that the doctor said if she stopped eating and drinking that we'd have to take her back to the hospital and she'd have to sleep over there. She wanted to know why and I told her that if you don't eat and drink then you could die. So a few days later that led to this conversation:

Kate - Do even horses die if they don't eat or drink?

Me - yes

Kate - Everything with a mouth?

Me - yes.

(Oh, how little minds process things)

Another thing about Kate at the hospital. I had taken Kate to the bathroom and she got mad at me for helping her wash her hands when she wanted to do it by herself. So when I told her it was time to go she declared "I'm not walking one more step!" I was like, "fine, see ya" and started walking down the hall, pushing Kylie in her stroller. So Kate grabs the stroller and has me dragging her down the hallway of the hospital. So I guess technically she still wasn't taking any steps, so whatever. I wonder if the hospital people remember us from week to week; we always put on such a show. Another time when we were there I put Kate in charge of listening for our number to be called at the pharmacy and she kept shouting out, "that's not our number! Hey! That's not our number either!" for the 20 minutes we were waiting. She also randomly yelled out, "Hey! That lady stole our food!" at the commissary the other day. Oh yeah, I'm sure the people that work there remember us as well . . .

And one final conversation I had with Kate the other day:

Kate - Have you ever noticed your mom can talk like a boy?

Me - When did she do that? [Oh, and I have to mention how I love that she always calls her "my mom" instead of Grandma]

Kate - When I was playing baby dolls at her house.

Me - What did she say?

Kate (in a deep voice) - I'll be the Dad.

Priceless.

Kylie, the cute little goober, has now become a master a making messes quickly and efficiently. Plus she's climbing on everything - the rocking chair, the kitchen table, the step stool, even the wrong side of the stair railing! She's super helpful in decluttering my life, as in, she loves to throw things away in the kitchen garbage for me - like kitchen utensils, toys, play food, the phone, etc. It's tough keeping up with her trail of destruction, but she's still so dang cute! She has learned how to point, which is adorable, and she has recently decided that she loves baby dolls and will carry them around giving them huge slobbery kisses or push them around in a stroller. Man I love my little chaos maker.