Buzzing Bees

Kyler's first soccer practice was yesterday! He is soo excited to be playing soccer again. His team is the Buzzing Bees! He wanted the Lightening Bolts, but he's good with the team name now. He has a couple friends on the team this season which makes for fun practices. The first game is Wednesday! Let's hope it isn't snowing . . .

It's Open Again!!!

We are ecstatic! Our favorite place ever, the Thanksgiving Point Gardens, is open again! Yeah for spring! (Even though it was snowing today it was beautiful yesterday).

So we spent some time at the Children's Gardens and had a picnic.

They had these cool t-shirts you could make. You take leaves and flowers and place them on the t-shirt (organic cotton, mind you). You place plastic wrap on top of your design and hammer. The color stays on the shirt. You spray it with vinegar and Viola! An environmentally friendly and beautiful shirt!

Kacin's attention span=very short

So he hid in the puppet shown and made daddy finish hammering. Though, I think hammering was a bit of stress relief for Eric.

I'm sure there will be many more days at the Gardens!!

Chicken Sunday

The chickens moved out of the garage this weekend and into the Cottage!

And then it snowed.

And the wind blew--a lot.

And we began to fear for the chickens lives.

But alas, they are OK.

A little snow came into the cottage through the cracks, but they seem fine. This week is supposed to be pretty cold and snowy so let's hope we still have 4 live chickens at the end of the week. :)

Just Trying to Be Like Daddy

We were getting ready for bed tonight and Kyler went into the bathroom to brush his teeth. A few minutes later, I walked in and wished I had the camera! He was using his toothbrush and toothpaste as a razor and shaving cream and was "shaving" his whole face! At the time I was a little more irritated than I should've been, but now I realize how cute it was! Just trying to be like daddy . . .

So then I went to Target and couldn't resist buying this for him. He "shaves" like twice a day now!

Pinkalicious

"Pink, pink, pink. More than anything Pinkalicious loves pink . . .", except when it's in your eye!


We all have pink eye. Well, except Kyler. This whole let's be sick for a whole week thing bypassed Kyler in every way. Just as long as we're all done with being sick for Disneyland, I'm OK!

Blessings

After church today, we gathered at our house with a few friends and family for the naming and blessing of our two cute boys. We are so grateful to have such sweet boys. Some people have told us that we've been so good for the boys, but I most definately think it's the other way around--they have been so good for us!

Most people recieve their name and blessing as an infant . . . Since our boys are older, we knew they would most likely carry some memories of this day, so we tried to add to the specialness of it all. We wrapped 2 books last night and left them in the hallway for the boys to find. When they woke up in the morning they were so excited to find an unexpected, silvery gift for each of them. I heard someone wake up and went to the stairs and saw Kyler smiling and hugging his gift. He told me he thought he knew what it was--a book. To be specific, his guess was a Curious George book. Partly right he was. They both opened their books and we read and cuddled in the hallway. Kacin's book was "I Am a Child of God" and Kyler's was "Beautiful Savior" (both with artwork by Greg Olsen).

When we got home from church, Kacin asked to take a nap (a sure sign of sickness). He had a fever. We debated canceling, but decided to just go ahead and do it. (We found out later he had an ear infection).

I was a little nervous when it was time to start and Kyler started karate chopping, but he settled down. I peeked at both of their faces during their blessings--so reverent and sweet. They were beautiful blessings. Later, I asked Kacin what he thought about it and he said "I felt really happy inside."

We missed having our families with us, but were grateful to share the day with such great friends. It was a beautiful day!

Survey Says . . .

There were so many things I meant to blog about this week. I'm blaming my lack of blogging about them on losing my voice. Which I blame the loss of my voice on the state of Utah. I never used to lose my voice in AZ, but since being in Utah for the past 2 years this is like the 4th time!! This was the worst though. There were times when I would open my mouth to talk and absolutely nothing would come out! I could manage a few squeaks and croaks every now and then. I feel like I somewhat understand what it would be like to be mute. So frustrating! Luckily, at Book Club AnnMarie was so kind as to be my voice when I had things to say. Thank you, AnnMarie! And luckily, I didn't have to teach on Friday--I was in on all day math class instead. The lack of voice got me out of speaking in front of the whole group though. That's a positive.

And though St. Patrick's Day 2009 is now gone and passed, I meant to post this that day. It's a survey that one of my 1st grade students took. They each wrote their own survey questions and gathered data about other kids in our class. I laughed so hard at this! It says, "Do you like Mrs. Allred or a Leprechaun?"


At least I got the majority!

Our Sealing

It's a month away, but I finished our email invitations today so we went ahead and sent them out right away. We're just a little excited! I have to say it was so much easier, not to mention cheaper, sending out invitations by email. Hopefully, we had correct email addresses and didn't miss anyone! Let us know if you should've received one, but didn't get one! We love you all! So here is the final invite:

Make a Smilebox postcard

Brazilian Birthday

On Friday night, we met Devon and Nicole, Trey and Lauren, Amber and John and 2 of their kids at Rodizio's Brazilian Steakhouse. Of course, these boys had to get some Brazilian food. It was Trey's birthday and we hadn't seen them all in so long so it was fun to get together. And we're excited that Devon and Nicole and Amber and John live up in Utah now! It was a pretty late night for the boys--at 8:00pm (bedtime) Kyler was so ready to go home and asking if we could leave. But Kacin was as happy as could be with an all-you-can-eat meal. At one point, the server gave Eric quite a bit more meat than Kacin got. When Kacin asked why, Eric explained it's because his belly is bigger. Kacin said "Then I want a fat belly!" Gotta love him.

Hope you had a Happy Birthday, Trey!

Chicken Sunday

Another Sunday, another update on the chickens . . .

Kyler has renamed Robin Hood to Speed. He came to terms with us today that the chickens are girls and told us that Robin Hood was not a girl's name. So now we have Speed (Now ain't that feminine?).

They are all so big now! There are so many chicken feathers and not a whole lot of down left. Goodbye cute little chicks and hello chickens.

Because of their size, they won't last in the box much longer. Eric started construction on their new home, lovingly known as the Colonel Sander's Cottage. They should be moving into it within the next few weeks when Eric puts the chicken wire, doors, and gates up.

Eric, the boys, and the chickens were glad there was warm weather today so they could all frolic together in the backyard. I don't have pictures, but they were out there together for hours.

Never Say Never

I was thinking today of all the things I promised myself I would never do . . .
I told myself I would NEVER highlight my hair. And I was sure that I would NEVER move to Utah. I would NEVER actually have chickens as pets. I would NEVER by choice put mayonnaise on a sandwich. And I would NEVER let my son tuck in his shirt and wear his pants quite so high. Hmmm. I've done all of them.

I guess it's true, never say never!

Does this have wheat?

We took Kacin to an allergist about a week ago. One of the things we talked about, minus the details, was the stomach issues he's been having the last two months. The treatment plan we left with included not eating wheat, corn, oats, peanuts, and soy for 2 weeks and then slowly reintroducing them to check for allergies. So Kacin has been living on rice and spelt everything. He knows he can't have bread or other food unless we give the OK or he eats the special kinds we make for him. He's actually been very good and careful about checking with us before he eats anything. For example, he asked

"Daddy, do boogers have wheat in them?"

Chicken Sunday

Just a little chicken update . . .

The "girls" have now been named. The yellow ones are named Crack-a-lack (Eric's) and Robin Hood (Kyler's). The red ones are Speedracer (Kacin's) and Nugget (ha ha, get it? Chicken Nugget! That one is mine.). We can't exactly tell Crack-a-lack and Robin Hood apart yet, but we know that Speedracer has black lines from her eyes to the back of her head--like racing stripes. She has also escaped from the box in the garage once. We think she was trying to fly. She pooped everywhere because she was so scared, but we found her and put her safely back in the box. It is now secured so, hopefully, we have no more escapees.

It is amazing how much the chicks have already grown for being 2 weeks old! They are already losing a lot of the down on their wings. It's fascinating.

On Feb 28th:

Today:

It is also fascinating that Eric thinks he speaks chicken and has become "Chicken Man". Except he calls himself "Lord of the Fowl". OK, maybe fascinating isn't the right word. How about frightening.

I've Been Tagged!

So here were my instructions:
1. Go to your My Documents/My Pictures
2. Go to your sixth file
3. Go to your sixth picture
4. Blog about it
5. Tag 6 people

And this is what I found. It's a picture of me and my mom at the Phoenix Zoo (oh, I miss that place--we used to go there all the time). We were standing like flamingos in front of the Flamingo exhibit. If only we were wearing pink . . .


So now I tag my mom, Jacqui, and Stefanie.

Happy Birthday, Jenny!

Jenna Marie is now 27!

She is a dear sister of mine so I hope she had the best birthday ever! I was thinking today of all the fun things we've gotten to do together over the years. . . our travels around Europe after I graduated HS . . . always being asked if we were twins . . . playing Monopoly (I guess it was more like cheating at monopoly) until all hours of the night . . . running as fast as we could, but not really running anywhere because we were laughing so hard . . . dressing up in random attire from the thrift store . . . The "Bum" Dance . . . stories about Princess Bob . . . singing "Sisters, Sisters" from White Christmas . . .creating the coolest dating game known to man . . . good times. I couldn't ask for a more creative, fun-loving 27 year-old sister!

We all love you, Jenny!

Kacin's Cuisine

We all know Kacin is quite the eater, but did you know he ate cuisine like this?
Pizza Dipped in Applesauce, Topped with Home-Grown Romaine Lettuce

I tell you, the kid will eat anything. I wish I had pictures of all the other concoctions he's put together on his plate and told us that he loved, but sadly I do not. They have been just as great as this one though, for example,

Grapes Dipped in Ranch.

Yum!