So Sick...

None of my kids have puked on me, and I have not had to scrub puke out of carpet today.
I have not been able to say that for the last 5 days.
It has been a rough 5 days.
One sick kid is awful... 4 small sick kids is a nightmare.
On the positive side, I have gotten lots of cuddle time with each child. We seem to be over the worst of it, and I have spent the last two days vacuuming, sweeping, mopping, and doing nonstop laundry. And since Carson dusted on Saturday, my house is about as clean as it ever gets. (I rarely dust).
Now everyone is bathed and in bed with clean sheets, and tomorrow is looking like a new start with the fresh white snow that is falling.
Here's to tomorrow.

Happy Halloween!!!

I have so much fun dressing up my little family. I got the idea to dress up the babes as Mario, Luigi, and Princess Peach thinking that Kynlee would want to pick her own costume. But then Kynlee wanted to be a princess, and Grandma Ree got her the perfect pink princess dress so she became Princess Peach and Emery became Princess Daisy (although Kynlee thinks she was Princess Daisy).

I got all the costumes ready, but then 2 days before Halloween Carson and I decided that we would dress up too, and we looked up some more characters and decided on Toadstool and Bowser, and though our costumes weren't as cool as our kids, there was a guy at the "Trunk or Treat" who correctly named all of us, so we must have looked pretty convincing. 

I thought the babes would like trick or treating, and they did, for 1 piece of candy, then the boys were too focused on that one piece to even care about getting any more. Which was fine with me. Emery and Kynlee had fun getting a little more candy and then we headed home. Kynlee still wanted to "Trick or Treat" around our neighborhood but it was still a little too early to go door to door. Carson decided that after we got our first trick or treater then Kynlee could go out. So she ran an errand with Carson and then we had dinner. Well by the time we were done with all that we had had many trick or treaters and it was getting pretty late so I was trying to hurry Kynlee out the door before it got any later. She wanted to go with both Mommy and Daddy, so Grandma and Grandpa stayed with the babes and we headed out with Kynlee. We were standing in our driveway deciding which direction to start when we looked over and saw our neighbors head laying out his front door on his doormat... 

No this was not some really cool Halloween decoration, it was really him.

 Carson ran over, and was helping him up by the time Kynlee and I made our way over, luckily I don't think Kynlee saw him laying on the ground because I am still a bit tramatized for the few seconds where I thought we were going to find him dead. We don't really know how long he was laying there, but I have never been so glad that we got a late start "Trick or Treating."  Our neighbor is 87 or so, and his wife is bedridden. I didn't think he was there alone very often, his daughter in law has come over a few times to have Carson help her get him up when he has fallen. He has been falling a lot lately. Carson stayed with him while Kynlee and I went around the neighborhood, then Carson checked on him a few times until we went to bed. Talk about scary. 

 Next year I am not doing costumes that need any props, hats, masks, or accessories of any kind. We gave the kids fruit snacks and tried to hurry and get a picture before the babes took their hats off, and this is still the best we could do for our ward Halloween party. After this I went in and added elastic straps to the hats. 

 Kynlee is growing up into such a beautiful girl. I straightened her hair, which I always regret because it makes her look so grown up.

 This Halloween stuff is pretty great!!!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Carving Pumpkins!

We used to carve detailed pumpkins for Halloween. We would look up patterns online, and spend a good hour working on our really cool pumpkins.

Now we have kids!!!

We are lucky if we even draw a quick face on the pumpkin before we start carving away. 

And you know what?

 Our pumpkins still look pretty awesome.

 Even though they are not as time consuming or detailed, we get lots of laughs watching the babes try to eat pumpkin guts. And I think they even had fun too. 

This is one of the large pumpkins we grew in our garden.

 We had to get the power tools involved. 

 I thought Kynlee would want to carve the big pumpkin, but I was wrong, she wanted to carve the smallest pumpkin we grew. And you know what? It was super fast and easy, and I will be getting small pumpkins for my kids forevermore.

 Dallen and Shaylee joined us.

And a good time was had by all!!!

Happy Birthday to Me!!!

We headed to St. George for my birthday. We had a picnic, and did a little hiking. 

 This little girl wated to hike around all by herself, she didn't even want to be guided in the direction the rest of the group was going, she wanted to do her own thing. I spent most of the time chasing her around.

 We sure have cute kids, even if we couldn't get any of them to look at the camera.

 After naps we went to a park to play some more.

 Alex had a major achievement of learning to cross the monkey bars all by himself.

 And of course there was cake and ice cream.

Happy Birthday to Us!!!

Halloween Party!!!

Megan and I threw a little Halloween party for our kids... okay really Megan did all the work, I was just there. But it was lots of fun. I was hoping to get the pictures from Megan and Andrew, but that has't happened, so I am just going to post the few that I have. We watched "Hotel Transylvania," played "Don't Eat Frank," ate donuts off string, colored Halloween pictures, read spooky stories, and carved faces in apples. The kids had a great time. 

We had lots of fun watching the kids eat the donuts, and I love that Mckenna is in every picture ready for another bite.