The newest addition to the family...Scotch Tape

Jake likes artistic things. Drawing, painting, cutting paper and taping it back together into different shapes. Since he likes to do that last one so much, his grandparents got him a ream of paper and a six pack of scotch tape, among other art supplies, for his birthday. Well the taping of things took on a life of its own. Why stop at taping paper when it can stick to so many things?

If you want your sister to stay out, tape your door nob. Luckily she is two so this strategy worked.

Just in cast that same sister grew three feet and could reach your lockers full of your prized possessions, tape them closed. Kind of.

I think this was being taped on, but not all of it has an obvious reason behind it.Like this one? Apparently tape also doubles as spiderwebs and if you are making your room into a haunted house you just put it everywhere to make things scary.More scariness?These are the remnants of what is left from when he taped some of his stuffed animals to the net.And what toy bin handle doesn't need a little tape?

These pictures hardly do justice to the presence that tape has had in our lives. It is on clothes when I get them out of the dryer. It is on blankets as I tuck the kids into bed. No less than 15 strands of it where used to block his entire doorway, as high as he could reach, to also keep people out. That worked a little too well because he can reach high these days and I could not step over it to get in his room to put laundry away. I find it on the carpet and even stuck to the bottom of peoples feet. The first six pack has long sense come and gone (over 6600 feet of tape might I add) but luckily Jake has a grandpa who would hate to see him go without tape, so he is now on the last roll of his second six pack. That is literally miles of tape that have come and gone through our home. I guess it is a small and sticky price to pay for his good time. Like his grandpa texted me,"His to enjoy, yours to clean up." So true.

Video highlights

Here are some videos from the last few months also. Fun times.

This first video is yet again Kate limping after scraping her knee. Telling her to "walk it off" is pretty much not going to happen, especially if she is going to walk like that.

This next video is of Mason. He is 2 and loves to wrestle. Then there is Jake. He is 5 and is ticklish and thinks that wrestling is so funny that any skill he might have is rendered useless by laughing. Then there is Kate. I guess her contribution to the whole event is a good back scratch.

Pretty much the whole month of June was full of thunderstorms. A lot of the mornings were nice but by afternoon the clouds would roll in. The kids thought it was pretty fun to watch. Here they were one afternoon watching a storm.

One night just before bed, the kids started playing this game. I don't know where it came from and have not seen it since. Jake tries to explain it but you can't really understand what he is saying. It is fun to watch them have fun together. Even if we have no clue what they are doing.

Some fun news

So we wanted to share some fun news and Bryan thought of this fun way to do it. We are going to have a little quiz. It will be multiple choice and you can leave your answer in the comment box. Comments must be left in the comment box before any phone calls will be accepted by us to give you the correct answer. Now you don't have to call to get the answer if you don't want to because we will post the correct answer in a few days. If you do call though, remember, we will only give you the correct answer if have left a comment. No calling other people to see if they already know the right answer because that would be cheating and we don't look highly upon cheaters. Good luck and the winner will get the knowledge of having answered correctly. What a prize!?

The fun news is...

A) We are moving...again...this time to the Phoenix, Arizona area because 2000 square foot, 3 year old houses that have 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, and a 2 car garage are selling for $85,000!

B) Bry is getting into the licenced banker program because he is awesome.

C) Jessica is pregnant, and we're thinking about naming him or her Quad or Quatro since this will be number 4! Pretty cool names, right?

D) After some pre-kindergarten evaluation we found out that Jake is going straight to first grade, following in the similar footsteps of his Uncle Mikel, who skipped 3rd grade.

E) Kate can bench press 50 pounds.

I know. It has been forever.

Between trips, babysitting, preschool, graduating from preschool, and life in general, I have not taken the time to post. Don't think that I haven't heard about it from MANY different people. Now it has been so long that I can't help but feel really behind so these may not be the way I would have posted them when they happened, but much shorter in the interest of time. Here are the last few months in a nut shell...

While Bry and I were in Vegas, the kids were in Oregon with my parents. Then we joined them for the rest of the week. They were happy to see us when we got there, but I don't think that many(if any) tears were shed in our absence because "dapa and dapa" know how to show a kid a good time. When we got there we got to go to Wild Life Safari.

Here is Jake feeding a goat.Kate would not feed a goat but would pose as a sheep.

I just had so show how comfy this guy looks.
The rest of the time in Medford was spent hanging out with family and visiting friends. The kids love hanging out with cousins.
Kate snuck in time to take a ride in dapa's car...and time to hold Caitlin's kitty.The ride home was long, but Jake is usually a happy traveler.

Kate struggles a bit more with traveling, but she did sneak a little snooze in. Once we got back to Utah it was busy life as usual.

Kate had some serious bed head.

Jake had his big preschool graduation. He had a great year and a great teacher. He was a little sad to realize that he was not going back there but once we told him he had to start kindergarten he recovered quickly. Here he is with his class. His waving hand blocks his cute face.Waiting for the big moment...and here it is. He had to hold his hat on when we was walking. He is growing up so fast.
Kate got a bike from her cousin Jamie while we were in Oregon and it only took a day or two before she was a pro at zipping around on it. Since she has a need for speed we got her a helmet. She also really wanted one because Jake wears his whenever he rides his bike and she must do whatever he does. Here she is sporting her helmet where you are supposed to wear it, on your bike.

She was a bit obsessed for a while so she wanted to wear it all the time. Here she is protecting her head while watching t.v. Safety first I guess.

So there you are...a few happenings from the last couple months. Now on to the next post. This may be the last one you read because it is the oldest so if that is the case, you are done.

Vegas!

Bryan and I got to go on a little trip to Vegas last week. We went with our friends Reese and Lacey. Other than the fact that every thing is dirty and smells like smoke, we had a super fun time. Here is a little slide show of our adventures.

Happy Birthday Jake!

April 29th Jake turned the big 5! We went to the dinner of his choice(Golden Corral), and opened a few presents here at home. Then just a few days later we were in Oregon and we got to have a bigger party with more family and friends. He had a great time even though in the video of him blowing his candles out he does not look to excited. The highlights were getting to play with cousins and friends, rainbow ice cream cake, and the pinata.

This boy is so much fun. He is so smart, funny, sweet, emotional, artistic, fast(running), and just so easy to love. It is so much fun to watch him learn new things everyday and always wanting to learn and know more. He is a great big brother and friend to his friends. We are sure lucky to have him around!

That's just where I wanted those

Who needs a shoe rack and a closet floor when Kate can display your shoes so well all over the room?

Easter

The kids got to hunt for eggs a couple times, which they loved. Easter morning the Easter bunny had hidden eggs and a few other treats around for them to find, which was a hit. Jake woke up way before the sun was up and told Bryan that he thought he saw "the bunny" himself in the living room. After a quick look around Bryan found that there were no large bunnies in the house and then sent Jake back to bed. He did not make it back to sleep right away though. He spent some time looking around the house to see where some of the eggs were. Not too long after he finally fell back to sleep we heard noises from Kate's room. When I walked in to see her she was sitting on her bed with two open eggs next to her trying to hold the candy that they once held in her hands, trembling. She looked up at me and said(in her deep just woke up voice)," Dees are mine. Da bunny put dem in my room, on my titchen(kitchen)."

Can't spend time looking at the camera when you are finding eggs.

Though it may look possessed, it is really just a sleepy euphoria face.


The kids looked cute as could be in their Easter outfits. I sure was a slacker and did not get a picture of them though. We will dress them in them again one Sunday soon and take a picture then.

Can you make a normal face?

Not to mention that cool outfit. Here we are at a neighborhood Easter egg hunt. These are the only pictures of Kate that I got. Isn't she lovely?

If they ask to do it it's not mean right?

This is a random stuff catching up post

It has been forever, so here are pictures and videos of some events that have transpired in the last month, in no particular order. I can't remember when all this happened...

Kyle came for a weekend and we took him to our awesome little zoo.

My baby grew up...ok a bit dramatic, but he did get registered for kindergarten. He can not wait!

We also found out that this beauty of a picture was given to him by his "girlfriend" at school. We asked what makes her his girlfriend and he said she is,"nice and fun." When asked if she knows she is his girlfriend he said,"I don't think so."

Here is a video of Kate. I don't know why she started doing this but whenever you ask her to show you her eyes this is what she does.

I started watching Brynn again and she loves to dance, much like Jake. Here is a long video with some pretty sweet moves hidden throughout. They are dancing to Jake's "cool" music, aka Bryan's old school hip hop CD.

Kate fell in the parking lot at Bryan's work and got her first pretty decent scrape on the knee. She limped around for several days afterward. I can only imagine what we are in for if real injury strikes. Her weird hitting of the box at the end is just that, her being weird hitting a box.

Jessica and the kids new ride

Jessica finally got her wish. I, Bryan, was able to find a sweet deal on a minivan at an auction. It is a 2003 Honda Odyssey EX-L/DVD. It's in great shape and has leather, heated seats, rear air, tinted windows, keyless entry, power sliding doors, a DVD player, CD player, A/C, cruise control, stow-and-go seating, power everything, it seats 7 people, and Jessica loves it. It's going to be great for traveling with all the extra room and once we have a couple more kids it will be nice to be able to have a place to put them. Basically, we're pretty cool now and all our friends are always asking us for rides now.

If manipulation had a face...

it might look like this(smashed nose and all).

Allow me to share a few recent conversations with Kate to demonstrate her efforts at manipulating situations to get things her way.

Let me set the scene. Last night around 5 p.m. I was kneading dough on the table to make pizza crust. A decent amount of flour is on the table. Kate climbs on the bench to "watch".

Kate: "Watch this mom."(flinging flour around with her hand)

Me: "Kate, hands down. If you throw it again you have to get down."

Kate: grabs more flour and flings it again.

Me: "Get down Kate."

Kate: while not getting down and smiling at me," Happy birday mom. You fabulous pretty fairy, whole vide vorld." (since Kate's birthday she thinks that saying happy birthday is just a nice thing to say. She doesn't yet get the celebration of birth part of it. She also thinks if she ends any sentence with the phrase "whole wide world" she is being complimentary.)

I thanked her for her nice words and got her down.

Scene two. This morning. I'm cleaning her dishes off the table. From behind me I hear her come into the living room.

Kate: "Mom I det ready all my self."

Me: "I'm guessing you are wearing your favorite shorts." I turn around to find her with her go-to rainbow striped gaucho pants that she tries to wear everyday. I don't know what I will do when I can't tell her it is to cold for them anymore. We will see them a lot this summer.

Me: "It is to cold for those today love. You need to wear pants."

Kate: "I look pretty in them. I wear them." and she marches back into her room.

Sure Kate, since you think you look pretty in them you can wear them. Who cares that it is currently 20 degrees outside. She is wearing jeans today in case you were wondering.

Scene three. Moments ago. I hear her yelling from the back so I go to check it out and find her on my bed. She is not supposed to get up there unless Bry or I are in the room because she cannot get down herself.

Me: "Kate what are you doing up there?"

Kate: "Jakey (she has been calling him Jakey lately) needs me. I better go. Hop me down."

Me: "You need to stay down from here unless mom or dad is here."

Kate: "I luv you mom. Hop me down."

If she is already starting to work on her powers of manipulation now, it scares me to think of how good she will be when she is a teenager. We may keep her locked in her room.

Please make it stop!

Sunday afternoon we went for a walk/bike ride. The ground and sidewalks were clear. It was chilly but not to bad. Monday we woke up to a lot of snow and it didn't stop ALL DAY LONG! Monday night Bry measured 14 inches in our yard and on the news they said some places in Logan got 20 inches. Crazy! We need to find a way to let Mother Nature know we are ready for spring. Sure, I know I live in Utah and snowing is what it does here, but the official start of spring is a week and a half away so I don't feel like it is to much to ask for the snow to stop. Here are a few pics of the kids in the snow and here is to hoping these are the last ones for a LONG time!

The kids in the yard. The day before there was nothing but brown grass.

Around noon we were cleaning the van off to go somewhere and this is what the top of it looked like.

The pompoms on her hat had doubled in size because they were so caked with snow. She looks pretty ticked about it.

No time for losers, Cause he is the champion... of IHOP

That's right folks, Bryan has done it again. He entered an eating challenge and won. This time it was the most pancakes eaten at in a single sitting at IHOP. His first try he ate 21. A few days later his number was challenged and beaten by a single pancake. Not willing to settle for second, he valiantly made a trip back before the contest was over and came away having downed 25 pancakes, although he said he could have eaten more, but he did it while he was on his lunch break and was late getting back to work. Regardless, that was enough for him to be victorious. So now he has bragging rights, a $50 gift card, and I'm pretty sure pancake batter flowing through his veins.

Jake's new favorite pastime

Jake is really into letters and the sounds they make right now. I sure hope that keeps up once kindergarten starts. He likes to tell us a letter and we are all supposed to say words that start with that letter. It is funny because doing this with him I'm reminded how tricky some of the letters are. For instance, the letter C sounds like a K a lot of the time. The word "one" and the word "won", they sound just the same. I love how eager Jake is to learn new things. Sure, I have my days when I have answered so many questions that I am ready to hand over answering duties to Bryan when he gets home, but I love it none the less. Here is a little video of Jake thinking of some words last night after dinner. Some times I wish I could freeze him this age. We love him.

We feel so safe with these two around

Valentines Day

It seems Valentines Day is a family event for us. We were lazy most of the morning while the kids watched their new Curious George video from Bry and I, but finally we got our act together to go sledding.

Our snow bunnies(these pics were taken Valentines day though they look a lot like ones we took earlier in the week on our sledding trip)

An awesome pic of me and my love... not really an awesome pic at all but at least it is a pic of me and my love.

Here is a video of the kiddos racing on the slides.

And now for your viewing pleasure, allow me to introduce a collection of videos that we will call Bryan bites the snow. I know it may look like a lot with there being four videos and all, but they are all pretty short, some really short depending on how long it took him to fall. If you don't want to see them all Bryan's personal favorites are the first and last. Every time he has watched the last one he laughs so hard one might think it was the funniest thing he has ever seen.

Here we are ready for our all red dinner. It is actually mostly pink but who cares. Please don't mind Bryan's hair in this picture. He usually does not wear it like that but he said he needed to look "respectable" for dinner. Thanks for that Honey! He also thought our drink should be strawberry quick which we came to find out is GROSS! Of course the kids loved it, but one sip was enough for me. He said he remembered it tasting a lot better than that, but it turns out the last time he remembers drinking it it included blowing bubbles in it. Last year, or when he was five...who knows?

Jello jigglers for dessert.

Here are the pretty flowers and cute house plant that I got from Bry and the kids. I used to have lots of plants but they have all slowly bit the dust so that is my new start. May it be around longer than some of its predecessors.

I will have to echo Jake's sentiment that this was," the best balentimes ever!"