Dad's Money is as Good as the Tooth Fairy's

This is the first lost tooth that really counted for Tam.  When he first came home, he had his top 4 front teeth pulled, and then immediately lost his bottom two teeth after that.  A year and a half later, he's had plenty of time to be fully indoctrinated about the tooth fairy and how cool it is to lose teeth (thank you public education!).

So when his bottom side tooth started getting loose, he was pretty excited, but wary enough about pain that he didn't want Kerry to pull it.  He let me try a couple times, but I'm kind of a wimp about it, so it was pretty halfhearted on my part.  It finally fell out during dinner one evening, and from then until bedtime he talked nonstop about the tooth fairy coming and the money she would bring him.

Well, let's just say that the tooth fairy had a detour, and at 2am Tam came into our room all disappointed that she hadn't showed up yet.  Oops.  And it became apparent from what he said that he had been waking up repeatedly to check whether the tooth fairy had come, and that the trend would continue till he got his cash.

Kerry was so done with the fact that he was having a conversation with a kid at 2am that he flat out offered to buy the tooth right then, and told Tam that he would pay the same amount that the tooth fairy gives.  Tam took him up on it, went to bed, and finally slept.

We kind of stink at keeping the mythical character stuff going.  We are never getting an elf on the shelf.

Halloween 2014

Halloween is such a great holiday with kids!  They had all been deciding and re-deciding what they wanted to be for Halloween for months now, and as of the end of September, Kate had made a solid decision about being Rapunzel, Yeb wanted to be a knight (same costume Tam wore last year), and Tam was waffling between a fairy and a butterfly.  Like, the kind that have sparkly fairy wings.  Although I wish that a 6 year old boy could choose either of those costume ideas and not have negative social repercussions, the reality is that there probably would be.  I was prepared to steer him toward a cool/scary butterfly costume idea if that's what he really wanted to do, but when Kate and I were at the thrift store and in addition to a perfect Rapunzel dress found a spiderman costume in his size, I decided to get it and give him the option to choose between a butterfly and spiderman.  When he got home from school and I showed it to him, he was sold.  I bought face paint, too, so that he could have the spideweb pattern on his face, which he thought was awesome.

We had a Halloween party with our Pie Night college friend group, which now includes a whole horde of little kids.  All the kids had a great time, we ate a yummy dinner, and the kids got to show off their costumes.

There's not a picture of Kate in her costume here, because as soon as we got to our friends' house, she needed to potty, and right after that she decided that she didn't want to wear her costume anymore.  Funny girl.

The day before Halloween we carved our pumpkins.  We grew all of them in our garden this year, which the kids thought was great.  We also saved the seeds and baked them with some Ethiopian berbere spice on top.  Mmmm....

On Halloween evening the kids got the costumes on and we went trick-or-treating around our block and then to a few other houses in our neighborhood.  The weather was so nice we didn't even need jackets!

GenCon Oct 2014

Every April and October, our church has what's called General Conference, where the church leaders address church members and give spiritual messages.  It's a whole weekend thing, with three 2-hour sessions on Saturday, and then 2 more 2-hour sessions on Sunday.  It takes the place of Sunday church services, so it's fun to be able to stay in PJ's, eat a big breakfast, and then settle in for a spiritual feast.  It's broadcast on a local TV station here in utah, on the radio, and online.  We listened to a lot of it on the radio, but also watched online.

I try to gather some activities and snacks to keep the kids as quietly busy as possible so Kerry and I can focus on the talks, and some activities to hopefully help them start to pay attention to what's going on during conference,too.

We posted the picture list of the church leaders so that the kids could find and mark who the speakers were as they talked.

In between Saturday sessions, we stacked the bunkbeds in the boys' room to make room for another bed in there.  Kate hadn't been sleeping in her own bed for months because she didn't like being all by herself in her room, so she started sleeping on the floor in the boys' room, and after a few months of that she asked about having a real bed in there.  Poor girl.  So we stacked the bunkbeds, and (much to Yeabsera's dismay) she gets the top bunk!  It's nice to have an official bed configuration, and we now have a designated toy room.

Presenting: Blanket Burritos

I turned 30!

This year I pretty much had a birthday month instead of just a day or a weekend celebration.  I got to go on a girl overnighter with some neighborhood friends the week before my birthday, and it was so much fun!  We stayed at another neighbor's house up in Coalville.  We drove up together, ate dinner, changed into comfy clothes, then watched 2 movies, ate treats and talked till way too late.  It was a blast.  The next morning we slept in, ate breakfast, then cleaned up after ourselves and headed out.  I tend to forget how beneficial things like this are for my emotional state until I do something like this and realize how much I needed to get away and be with other girls.

Kerry and I just don't really do big birthdays for the two of us, but for Kerry's 30th I put a surprise party together with friends and family, and I told him that I really wanted a party for my 30th, too.  Even though I don't buy into the idea that busting into a new decade of life changes who you are, I do think that it's a great excuse for a get together.   We had friends and family over for cake, ice cream and some games in our backyard.  Too bad we didn't think when we first planned stuff that the it was getting darker so much earlier than in the summer, so we forgot to figure out lighting.  Oops.

The weekend after the party I got to go on a long-awaited girls weekend with my friends Brianna, Jenny, and Erin.  We had decided last fall that we needed to do a girls weekend before we all turned 30 this year.  It got postponed a couple times, but we finally nailed it down to this September.  We stayed at a hotel downtown, got pedicures, ate at The Melting Pot (a fondue restaurant.  Fancy!), and then did a ton of shopping.  I forgot how fun it is to shop with other girls!  I usually have at least one kid with me, or if not, I'm on a pretty tight time schedule, so I can't look around and take my time.  I loved being able to ask what they thought about an item, and seeing the things they chose was just as fun as getting things for me.  After a long day of shopping, we walked to an Olive Garden that was close by and ate dinner.  After that, we all headed our separate ways home.  Sad!  It was so fun to take a break from real life, but I have to say I was excited to see Kerry and the kids when I got home that evening.  

Kate and Yeb Start Preschool

Both of these cuties had been looking forward to preschool for months.  Kate usually takes awhile to warm up to new situations, and since she went to preschool last year and knew what to expect, she was excited all summer to do it again.  Yeb, on the other hand, saw the other two going off to school last year, so he had been begging for about 6 months to go.  The way that the district preschools work is that the 4 year olds are signed up for 4 days a week of school, but when I registered Yeb last spring I got permission for him to only go 2 days because we're still working quite a bit on attachment with him.
As the summer ended, and we felt like 4 days a week was too much for Kate and that what she needed this school year was to be home and getting parent attention.  The district worked with us and allowed Kate and Yeb to split a 4 year old slot, so they each go two mornings a week, and then the other days they're home with me one-on-one.

It has worked out beautifully.  It's been so fun to have time with each of them, and to have it be so much more relaxed than when everyone is home.  After we take the other kids off to school, we do our morning housework, and then they get to choose an activity to do with mom.  Kate usually invents a game for us to play, then wants to color or do play dough.  Yeb usually chooses to paint, and then play with toys while I fold laundry or something.  It's very low key, but they have my undivided attention on a consistent basis.

This is a typical play scene at home.  Kate and these stuffed animals were all being kitties, and all looking out the window.

Meanwhile, they're both loving school, to.  We were worried about how Yeb would do in a school setting, but he's done really well.  They both love their school friends, and are learning a lot, and are always excited to tell me what they did in class.

This is after the first day of preschool for both of them.  I asked them to show on their faces how they felt about school.  Pretty sure they were trying to smile big, but they both settled on the fake no-teeth smiles.

Labor Day Huntington Family Vacation

We headed down to Huntington where Kerry's sister and her family live, and had a blast of a weekend!  They took everyone out to the reservoir just outside town, and we all got to do some tubing behind their boat.  Kerry tried waterskiing, too, with not much success.  Surprisingly, the kids all loved the tube, and Yeb couldn't get enough of it.  I think he had 4 or 5 turns, and was still going strong.  I wish we had pictures of his face!  We ate lunch at the reservoir, and then headed back to the house.

Kate played with Tay during any unscheduled time the whole weekend.  The boys tried out some kites, and we all relaxed and chatted.

After church on Sunday we got to go up the canyon for a cookout.  The kids had fun digging in the dirt and exploring, and making s'mores after dinner.

Steve Urkel Mini Me

Maybe it's just me, but I couldn't stop laughing at this dollar store "FBI Agent" getup that Tam bought.  Does he not look like Steve Urkell with a gun?

Tam's First Day of First Grade!

Tam started first grade this year, and he was super excited to be going to school all day.  He was mostly excited to be able to eat lunch at school, but was thrilled when he found out the first day that first graders get three recesses as well.  It's been a big transition for him, and there's a lot more expected of him behaviorally this year than last, but so far it's gone pretty well.  There have been a few times where he wishes he was back in kindergarten, but he's not shy about the fact that he's learned a lot so far in first grade.  As he frequently says when he's explaining why he's so awesome and knows so much: "Because I si-ix" (said with a head bob and a no-you-didn't attitude).

Sunday Best

The Sunday before school started everyone was ready for church with a few minutes to spare.  It's such an unusual occurrence that I didn't even know what to do with myself, so I decided to grab the camera and snap a few pics of the kids, who had gone outside and started to play.  There are pros and cons of having kids grouped so close in age, but for the most part, it's pretty great, particularly because they get to be friends with each other as well as siblings.

End of Summer Hike

Before school started we realized that we hadn't done any family hikes during the summer.  We decided to attempt the Lower Bell Canyon Reservoir hike, a hike we did last summer with the kids, which we barely survived.  We at least had a baseline, and figured the kiddos would be much better hikers this year than last, so it would be a good bet.  Fortunately we were right!

All of them hiked all the way up to the lake on their own, and just took turns getting piggyback rides from Kerry on the way down.  We laughed when we got 5 minutes up the trail and realized that spot had been the first of many rest breaks last summer, while this time our kids only needed a few water breaks till we got to the top.

Once we reached the reservoir, the kids fed the ducks and threw rocks into the water to see the splashes, and we had lunch.

After that we headed back down.  Hooray for family activities!