Thanksgiving

This year we held our Thanksgiving get together at my sister Robyn's Church. It was really nice to have it there since we're such a big crowd now-a-days.

We had our little craft table going while we were waiting for everyone to arrive with their dishes. We had candy to make gumdrop turkeys and Tiff helped the kids make these awesome head-dresses. The kids didn't stop there, they also made up turkeys and whatever they wanted.
Riley also made a huge gun to shoot his turkey. :)


Katelin just wanted to play basket ball all day long! So she did.

Cute cousins!

And Kaiya showed them how to make a pilgrim hat. Robyn gladly modeled it for us all. And that's Dave's cute mom, Phyllis in the background.

Sweet Juli filling up the cups with water. My mom ended up not being able to come because she was helping out her sister in California who had some broken bones. Poor thing! We were sad she couldn't be there. But even though she couldn't come she still made sure we had cute plates and utensils to eat with. Thanks mom! The utensils were silver plastic! They looked so real, it tricked everyone.
And there was some baby cuddling going on. Cute Oakley fell asleep in Kaiya's arms. She loved that!
Ryan and Randy cookin' in the kitchen.

Burke made this cool pvc pipe frame for the wii screen. We rocked out to guitar hero and band hero. That was lots of fun too.
Later we headed over to Burke's families get together. His cousin got married the next day so there was lots of family in town. Burke brought the wii set up here also and everyone got into it. Especially when they put in the Beatles Guitar Hero game. It was awesome watching the older people play and sing along to it.

What a fun day spending it with people we love!

33 is the age to be!!! :)

We had lots of fun celebrating my birthday. The kids were so excited this year for some reason so it added to the fun for sure. Burke cooked all weekend. Saturday we went to Chuck E. Cheese in Grand Junction and played. That is always fun! Sunday Burke made lasagna and a yummy chocolate pie. Then on my birthday on monday he made my favorite - chimichangas!!! SO good. And also a chocolate cake that we added canned cherries and cool whip to our individual pieces. YUM!
This is my birthday chair. We always decorate a chair that the birthday girl/boy sits in that day. They did a great job on mine. I loved it.
And to top it off, the kids were extra good that day. Here they are looking at a book together. Kaiya just got one out and then they started asking Katelin what everything in the book was. She loved it.
Then we had to play some Band Hero. Katelin took on the drums. She loves them.
And this year Burke decided to do something big for me. I had been wanting this painting to go on the wall above our bed. So he painted this at school AND made the frame for it there in the wood shop. I was so surprised. I just love it. Now we just need to get the hardware to hang it up.
What a fun day.

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Monkeys and Basketball

Well not together! Here's Katelin with her own version of 5 little monkey's jumping on the bed:



And here is her mad basket ball skills.

Kaiya's hair-do

It's more like a hair-don't! Hahahahaha. I did her hair in a pony tail before school and at school she took it out and decided to put the elastic on the side of her head. Can you see the blue on the left? So funny! She didn't have a mirror though. So when she got home and saw it she took it out and started doing it some other way. She learned how to put the elastics in and thinks it is so much fun and so now she tells me I don't have to worry about doing her hair in the morning because she knows how! Wonderful!!!

Picture time!

We needed a new family picture so we headed over near the Green River, set up the tripod, set the timer and smiled. This is the best one we got. It will do!

Then when we were headed home there was a sign that said "free pumpkins". So we let the kids each pick one out.

Kaleb wasn't excited about posing with his pumpkin. Hahaha, cutie!
Kaiya didn't mind at all.
Katelin was just excited she could carry it to the van, grunting from the heaviness the whole way.

Aprons

Here's a fun gift idea. My sister Robyn did this kind of a project with her YW a while back with t-shirts. I found these little aprons and decided to do it for my kids for Christmas.

I just cut out letters with the good ol' cricut cutter and the shapes I wanted and taped them on. I think stickers would work better though. That's what my sister used and then the bleach doesn't get underneath as easily. After you lay those on you spray bleach on it.


I would hold it back about 10 inches because I did that with Kaiya's and it worked better. Kaleb's I put a bit too much on and so only where the tape was stayed blue. Then let it dry completely.
Except for the back of his. Wierd! Kaiya's didn't go through like that at all! I must have sprayed too much. So I think the trick is to spray some then let it dry completely and if you want it to pop out more then spray it again.
Oh, and if your wondering where Katelin's is, her's is white. So I am going to lay the letters on and then sponge around it with colored paint. Just need to get the paint. :)

Fun! Thanks for the idea Robyn!!! :)

Flower Power!

As you know from the post below that I've been in a sewing mood. Last time we were at Walmart I was looking at fabric and Kaiya found this cute green with white polk-a-dot fabric. I told her we could get some and make a pillow case for her. So here is her pillow case:


We personalized it with a flower and a K. Katelin also wants one though, so maybe we'll have to do a princess tiara with a K on it to make them different, since all of my kids are K's. :)I decided to make one for my twin niece's Emily and Amberly since they just had a birthday and hadn't sent them anything yet. It's in the mail! I just put together scrap pieces I had left over from other projects. This is a fun idea for friend gifts for Christmas if you're needing an idea. Kaleb's friends mom made pillow cases last year for friends and then on the note it says: "Just in "case" you didn't know, you're my friend!" So cute.


Kaiya's pants got a hole in the knee and so I sewed a flower on them also. She thinks it's better than buying new pants! She loves them and couldn't wait to wear them to school today. Doesn't take much for that girl. :)

Grandma pillow

OK, I had to share this because I haven't done it before and it was so much fun! I caught the crafty bug the other day and it hasn't gone away yet, so I've been making stuff all weekend! It's been lot's of fun. We wanted to send Burke's mom something fun for her birthday and so I decided to make her a decorative pillow. I looked online to get a few cute ideas and the simplest one was the cutest - it just said - Grandma. I just used fabric I had, and the middle tan part was actually a pair of Burke's old pants that had gotten a hole in them. I've been saving things like that to use at times like these. It paid off! I used my cricut cutter to cut out Grandma and the flower for my pattern and then traced the letters onto the fabric I wanted. So here is the final product:

I decided I wanted it a little more personalized. I asked the kids to give me some words to describe Grandma Simmons and they came up with these: play, laugh, sing, beautiful, love and xoxo (Kaleb insisted on this instead of spelling out hugs and kisses). They were all from them, it was cute seeing them tell me all of these sweet words. So I stitched those words all around the pillow as a reminder of how her grand kids see her. I hope she likes it, we sure had fun making it for her. Here's a closer shot of some of the words.

Happy Birthday Cyndy!!!

good ol' Aladdin

This year for the school play they did Aladdin. Burke helped out with the music part and so now he's finished with that, a little less busy again. :) His art class also painted the set. Kaleb and Kaiya got to go with their school on Wednesday for their first real run through. They just loved it. It was just over an hour long and so much fun. The Jeannie was the best! She get's really into her part no matter what play they are doing and it's always fun to watch her. Katelin sat through the whole thing easily. She was very entertained. When Jafar left the stage and it was quiet she yelled, "mom, he's a bad guy!!!" She was so concerned, it was really cute. Then they made it so you thought Aladdin and Jasmine were flying on the carpet and singing their "A Whole New World" song - they were sitting on this tall thing they made out of wood and it had wheels on it and someone below was pushing them along while they sang - Kaiya was fooled and wondered how they did that!?! I was laughing so hard (silently with my shoulders jumping up and down) because there were microphones hanging from the ceiling so you could hear them singing up there and they were too low so as they passed them they would be dodging them with their heads and one hit Aladdin in the face - all this while singing the most well known song of the movie. Oh, I couldn't help it. Small school productions are the best! SO fun. :)

Halloween 2009

Pictures of our Halloween celebrations:

We went out trick-or-treating with my sister Robyn's kids. It was good, except when Kaiya fell down and got hurt. She seems to do this often. Hope that doesn't last. :) Then my kids went around in my mom's neighborhood for a little bit. Then the girls and I went back to my mom's and Burke and Kaleb went around another block! LOTS of cavities, I mean candy - same thing.

Katelin giving me her ballerina twirl.
And a kissy face.
Kaiya is a witch, but decided just before school that she was a fairy god mother - sounds good to me, whatever. And Kaleb is Iron Man. We spiked his hair for fun because they couldn't wear their masks at school, but they could wear them during the parade, so that was fun.
I told Kaiya I'd dress up like Minnie Mouse. So here I am.
Katelin got to walk with Kaiya in the parade. That was so cute. I always love the parades and am always surprised and how few parents come to this. I'm realizing though that in a small town like this, a lot of them need to travel to work so it's not as easy to just swing on by for the parade. The kids love it though and so do I.

(couple more posts of the week below :)

Halloween Wedding

Burke's cousin Alicia got married this weekend on Halloween. I've never heard of anyone getting married on this day. It was really fun. They had it at the Sleepy Ridge Golf Course in Orem. They decorated it all with these neat roses that looked like they were a bit dried at the edges and then they had white pumpkins everywhere. Really neat looking. I loved it. My mom watched the kids while Burke and I went with his parents and his sister Chalei. I'm really glad we were able to go.

We went out on the green afterward for the group pictures. Aren't they just so cute?!?!!!
The cake was cool and Halloweeny.


They had a plate to sign you name on. Burke's dad wanted Burke to do it for their family. Cute idea.

That was a good and different start to our Halloween day. We were finished there around 3:00, so then we headed out to spend the rest of the day with the kiddo's.

Volleyball is OVER!

The Lady Pirate's played their last game last Monday and lost. This means that they would not be going to state this year. It was a good season though. Lots of learning since it's a bit of a new team this year. Lots of new girls. It's nice having Burke home more often now. On Tuesday I decided we'd better have a party because of this. So I made a cake and got some party favors and we had a good night watching a movie and hanging out together.