We...Post#2

We...Went to Zoo lights! It was fun. There were more lights than I thought there would be. I am very happy with the improvements our zoo has made and continues to make. I am excited for the upcoming changes too! Anyway, we didn't really see any animals aside from the reptiles, which, by the way, the new exhibits are AWESOME, go to the reptile house if you haven't seen the changes there yet.
Santa was at the zoo too, one of his helpers was anyhow. I had one of the boys get a picture of me and Tyler because I am trying to make a point of getting more than just pictures of my kids!

Last, but definately not least, this is my baby Peyton, my baby! She's 3 today! We have had an incredibly fun day. We went to the Dollar Tree together to get a few things for her "tea party" that we had this afternoon. We went through the drive-thru at McDonald's and got her a sausage McMuffin and hashbrown (which she ate ALL of). Peyt accompanied me to my eye appt. where she asked a bazillion questions and I got a new rx. My left eye has worsened, but only slightly. We came home, I made sandwiches for the party, we had a little party with just about all of her little friends and their mommies. I will post pictures of that later, including her awesome teapot cake and tea cupcakes. Tonight after dinner I took her to the library to pick out a few shows and then to TOYS R' US. It's a birthday tradition in our family and Tyler always takes the boys and I got to take my girl this year, her first time for this tradition. We are part of Geoffery's Birthday Club. He calls on the kids birthday's to wish them a happy birthday, and he sends them a card in the mail with a $3 off card. We take the birthday child on or near their birthday and let them pick out a gift, usually something around 10 or 15 dollars. Peyton found a carseat/babycarrier for her dolls, it was $20. What can I say, I caved. I like girl stuff.

This is her at Zoo Lights with her hot chocolate that the kids said tasted like hot water. She is a ton of fun and full of personality. She reminds us a lot of Micah, I'll leave it at that. She knows what she wants, she sings, all the time, she loves baby dolls, barbies, clothes, shoes, cheese, animals and Dora the Explorer and Diego. Her favorite color is purple but she likes pink and red as well. She likes alone time, she goes in her room and closes the door, when her door is shut, that means she is playing happily on her own. If you go in to check on her she yells, "Close the door!" I love this girl and I'm thrilled that she is part of our family. Last night when I got home from a friends house I found her and Ben sleeping all cuddled up in her bed. Tyler fell asleep before the two of them went to bed. Ben had been playing with her in her room and he went to bed, Peyton cried for him and "made" him lay with her. It was just about the cutest thing I've ever seen, I got a picture, I'll post that soon too. I'm happy right now, really happy.

The First Year

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We...Post#1

We... were so busy in December! Has anyone wondered where I've been? Well, we did our best to make this a Christmas full of wonderful memories and keep it extra low cost. I would have started playing catch-up sooner but my camera has been missing since December 30th! Tyler found it this morning! If you want to find out where you'll have to keep reading all of my "We..." series of posts!
Has anyone heard of Lowe's Build and Grow clinics for kids? They are awesome, and free, 100% FREE (unless you feel like you need to shop afterward!) Well, we just started taking our kids in December, I've been wanting to do them for a long time and now we can't stop. 3 Saturdays in December we made a different part to a train, first the caboose, then a passenger car and last, the engine. 12/3
The kids really like building, Peyton only likes the hammering part! They each got a free apron and goggles and everytime they make a project they earn a patch for their aprons, so cool.

12/4 To keep gift costs down we did some more crafting for gifts. Micah made a few hats on the knifty knitter (he wanted to make one for himself but made it too small and it went to Dustin) and I made about 20! A while back I learned how to crochet a flower on you tube and added flowers to the girl hats, so cute!

12/4 We made it to the Parade in downtown Clovis this year!

My 8 year old and a new addition to our family...

Today is Jacob's 8th birthday. A very special birthday in our family as he will soon be baptised! My mom and Morgan came over this morning right as we were getting ready for Jake to open his presents. He opened my mom's first, a new Lego set, Star Wars. After that it was time for him to open my sisters gift to him...Another snake, yes, we're trying it again folks. This time instead of a king snake we have a ball python and she is up on a higher counter and Miss P has been seriously instructed that she is not to get him out on her own. She is a beautiful snake and very calm, as ball pythons are. I am excited to have a snake in our home again and hope that this one will live in the tank rather than roam freely in our house!

She has no name as of yet and if you have any ideas please comment. Our last snake was named Porter and we loved that name. Jacob is thinking maybe Scarlett ( I know, funny that the Saunders have a boy named Porter and one of the girls is Scarlett).

The typical 8 year old presents in our family are a first set of scriptures, complete with the childs full name, a scripture case and a journal (Jacob is very excited about his journal, he has been saying he has a lot of stuff to journal about.) We continued the pocket knife tradition as well, Micah got his for Christmas that year, but Jacob wanted one for his birthday.

He can't believe he got one, he thought he wouldn't get one until he was 9. His is just like Micah's but instead of red it's black.

Jacob is a very smart and outgoing boy. He is doing well in piano and is now practicing on his own, without being reminded. He loves Legos and building things, jumping on the tramp and playing outside, he also still loves video games and has been enjoying Lego Harry Potter which Micah bought with his birthday money (Jacob is very happy about that) and baseball on the wii. this morning he told me that his arms have been really sore and he had a hard time believing it was from a video game. I knew this only because Tyler and I played the other night and both experienced the same thing, that pitching is good exercise! We love you Jacob and are excited about your decision to get baptised. You will do great things, I know.

I got Legos from my husband for our anniversary...

11 years of wedded bliss. Ok, so maybe actually more like 8! Just kidding. Tyler and I celebrated our 11th anniversary last night, even though it is actually today. Money is tight because we are trying to be good and live within a budget and get and stay out of debt, so we had to be thoughtful and creative this year.

Tyler is a drummer, which I think is pretty hot. He asked me a few weeks ago if I thought he was ever cool. I told him no, but that was ok because I loved him and had fun with him, he didn't need to ever be "cool". Well, I have been wanting to get him another drum set since he got rid of his last one about 5 years ago. I knew it was definately not financially feasable at this time. I heard Melissa Bogle talking about her husbands new drum set and my wheels started turning. I told her that if he was getting rid of his old drum set I might be interested in buying it. That night I was like, "What am I thinking, even if he was only asking $100 bucks I really couldn't do it, Ty would be mad." Melissa's husband Darrin found me at church and told me that we could have it. I asked him how much and he told me he couldn't take any money for it, that it wasn't that great. I felt elated, and a little guilty, but it really was ideal, an answer to my prayers. Ty is always doing and getting great things for me and I really wanted to do something special and nice for him. He cleaned it up and I went and got it, he loaded it all up in my van for me and I brought it home! Tyler was very happy and told me that it is the nicest drum set he's ever had.

Ok, so back to my mean comment about him not being cool. I gave him a card first that said...

"Remember the other day when you asked me if you were cool and I said no? Well, I thought of something that you used to do that was cool. I know you think you aren't very good, but you are and you need a hobby and to develope your talents." That was something like part of what I wrote in his card. I really do love to watch him play the drums. It sounds good and he'll sometimes turn his hat backwards and I think he looks hot, yes, hot. I think my husband is a very good looking man and I love him dearly and I often wonder how it was that I was so fortunate to snag such a great guy.

So here he is still in his work clothes and no baseball cap of course, so he isn't looking hot here, but you can see in his face how happy he is. I did good this year, thanks Bogles!

So, Tyler was very romantic and creative this year with his gifts to me. One of them was a Lego set. Ha ha! It's true, but there is more to the story. I'll tell it with pictures, the idea is really that each gift is a substitute for what he really wanted to get me. Read the notes to really get the full story, it's cute...



This Lego set is actually one I've been wanting the boys to get. I think it's pretty cool. Hannah and Tanner Dockstader are moving in down the street from us and they came over today and helped me put it together. They have the same set at their Grandma's. It was cute how excited my kids and my kids friends have been that I got Legos.


So, we had fun. We saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 1 (don't take your kids unless you want them to see a bit of nudity though) and then we went to Taho Joe's so I could stay on my diet ( I did really good and I was down again this morning! I also had 3 servings of chicken left after I finished my dinner!). It was a great anniversary, Thanks also to my parents and sister for having all 4 kids overnight. We also got to sleep in, it was awesome.

Candy Corn Parfaits, thanks Kirsten!

As promised, and a bit late, here they are. I am lazy and not posting directions, but if you want them you have to look on Enjoying the Journey blog found on the right of my blog. I made them mostly the same but I used crushed Oreos instead of Coco Puffs and I didn't use the chocolate pudding but I'm sure it would be great in it.

I am so glad I made these before I started my diet as they were SO yummy. Peyton ate one bite and was done, she didn't like the crushed Oreos for some reason. I ate hers.
I made Tyler a big one, he said the small one would have been better, it was filling and he could hardly finish it. I think I would have been fine with the big one though ;)

Candy Corn Parfait

Ninja, Flight Commander, Robin, Princess P, what do they have in common?

They all belong to me!
Oct 28
Every Thursday I help in Benji's Kindergarten class. The Thursday before Halloween they got invited to go trick or treating at the district offices. Peyton saw all of the kids there that morning in their costumes (we had to bring one to Ben because I didn't know they could dress up) and she wanted to get dressed up. She sat like a little angel while I curled all of her hair into ringlets, even the ones that are already in ringlets got curled, and did her make-up. She wanted to be a fairy, in her same costume from last year.

She was very happy.

This was Ben getting off the bus, it was his first school bus ride and first school field trip. I grabbed the spider-man costume because it was the most handy and only one piece. He was happy to have it, he only complained later that I didn't bring the mask. Shame on me.

Oct 30

Halloween for the most part. Trunk or Treat.

Micah was a ninja. Nana Paula got him this costume for his birthday, an early birthday gift. He was not up for something reused, recycled or repurposed.

Jacob was a flight commander. Aunt Lindsay got Micah this costume for his birthday a few years ago on after Halloween clearance. Jacob was very accomodating this year and had no complaints about reusing, this costume was never even worn for Halloween, it was perfect. He was the cutest pilot or flight commander I've ever seen.

I found this at Goodwill for $4 several years ago. Jacob wore it for Halloween once and now it's Ben's turn, a very adorable Robin.

The Linfords gave us this very pretty princess dress (a hat too) that was Lauren's. I am so glad that Peyton wore this, she was so stinkin cute. We had a nap issue that day and she went to sleep about 30 minutes before it was time to get ready. I had to wake her up (not a good idea) She did not want a costume on, any costume, she didn't even want to go to trunk or treat. My sister Morgan came over early and helped me to literally tackle her hair with a few curling irons and we did without the make-up. It worked, I am so happy she got out of her funk and was dressed up so cute. At the time we took this picture she was still in her funk and did not want to look at me, that's ok, you can see her curls better this way! Oh, her little crown comb was from Stefanie Adams in the conference basket she gave us (she's my VT).

First trunk of the night, Sis. Tanner. The boys were off on their own. Peyton moved slower that molasses, she didn't even make it to every trunk before the candy ran out. She was enjoying it though. She gave away most all of her candy anyway.

Suckers are one of her favorites, funny, I always traded suckers or ended up throwing them out as they were the last thing left.

We had an old fashioned stick pull. Next to the chili and cornbread it was my favorite part of the evening. All my kids lost. They were all paired with people about twice their height though. Leg length makes a huge difference. I beat Margaret but she was good competition, then Kendra beat me (mostly because Margaret wore me down and Kendra's about a foot taller than me, no, really, I could have taken her). Melissa Bogle beat Kendra (but only because I wore her down and Melissa really is like a foot taller than Kendra, maybe 2 feet taller than me) I wish we had pictures of the girls, it was really fun.

Oct 31

Since Halloween fell on a Sunday this year we opted out of trick or treating and instead let the kids dress up and pass out candy at my moms. It was perfect really. They are always wanting to pass out candy but never get to because they're always out trick or treating. We also picked up Grandma Kay and brought her with us, it was a nice night.

Still more backtracking to come. Next up, candy corn parfaits.