Wow

Since I'm on a posting roll, I might as well keep going. I like to record stuff so I can look back and see what life was like. Here is a Monday recap on the kid sichyation:

- Jordan arrives. Rhya and Jordan run around like hooligans copying and squealing at each other.
- Rhya falls down stairs (first time in months). Pretty sure she tripped on Jordan.
- Jordan bites Rhya. Rhya screams bloody murder. Her frequently used words for the rest of the day was boom and bite.
- Kendra and Makenna arrive. They don't want to say bye to their dad but as soon as he leaves Kendra starts wailing and flings herself out the door to him. MaKenna collapses on the floor in a bawling frenzy and says "All I wanted was one last hug!!" Their dad comes back in and works to console them. Finally he leaves and I start blabbing to them about water parks. Ten seconds later they forget about their dad and compete over who can have the next word in about water parks
- Bus comes for school. Relief
- Finish lunch. Relief.
- Put Makenna and Rhya down and start attempting to put Jordan down in the basement bed.
- Hear loud bang. Hear footsteps coming down steps.
- Rhya's head appears. (WHAT?!?) She looks at me in all seriousness and says, "No night night!!" over and over. This is the first time she's actually crawled out of her crib.  It's surprising to me that she didn't figure it out before now!
- Kids leave. I make supper. Rhya's a huge crab because she never did nap.
- Leave Nate with the monster and go to a 7pm chicken ordinance hearing. It's the first of three and it PASSED! Now if we can get the next hearings to pass it will be legal to have 6 chickens in Prescott. That ought to help sell the house, right? :-)

Gobblers

Nate and Court participated in the Hastings 8K Gobble Gait. Melanie, Saraiah, William, and I showed up for moral supper.. Rhya, Sakari, and I stood at the finish line and watched the runners flood in. Here he is:

The music was pounding away and people were all over the place. Rhya was in awe of the whole thing, and little miss in utero muffet was kicking up a storm. Pretty sure the music was getting to her too!

Later on, as we were walking up Mom and Dad's sidewalk for our T-day feast, mouth watering aromas serenaded us to THIS:

The legs fell off of the grill, so Mom plopped it in the wheelbarrow! How creative. It may have even made the turkey taste THAT much better. :-)

                                       I am very thankful for my family!! Every single member!

We joined yet another rank on Black Friday. I feel very professional at the moment. We are now GPS users. We can certainly justify the purchase since we figure we'll save $100 worth of gas by being able to drive exactly to our destination every time. It sure beats tooling around pretending we know which direction we are going. The only problem is when we tested it out on the way home from the grocery store one mile from our house it thought a dead end was a through street. Let the fun begin.

We celebrated Gpa and Gma's 60th wedding anniversary on Saturday! Ardi put on an amazing spread complete with gorgeous decorations. There was silver and glittery accessories every where we looked! Unfortunately my camera was dead, so I am once again hoping to glean pictures from my sis.

Sunday brought my dad's 54th birthday (well, one day in advance)! Everyone was still around so we had a little celebration complete with awesome chocolate cake.

We had no shortage of family time, parties, feasts over the weekend. So much so I had troubles remembering what I was supposed to be doing on a normal day when Monday showed its face. Oh yeah. Four kids who were trying to readjust from their own festivities. The bed couldn't have been comfier last night. :-)

There's been FUN

First there was the water park, thanks to Gpa Mark!! He treated all of his available kids and grand kids to a stay at the water park and hotel next to MOA. We spent the evening tooling around the indoor water park, and then traipsed up to the hotel room for a delicious meal of Chicken Alfredo pizza. The kids AND adults had a blast. What a wonderful way to get away from November blues and enjoy quality family time. I did not get a single picture so hopefully I can glean from Gma Mo or Shanda.

Next there was dog play. We went up to Nate's parents for Sunday lunch. Terry and Sarah were still around so we rediscovered the fun of card games and had fun watching the dogs romp around. I got some fun pics:

The rest of the holiday weekend was spent with the Boyd relatives. We tried to soak up every available minutes with Melanie and her family, since we haven't seen them since William was a baby! The kids are now thiiiisss big:

   More coming shortly...I'm just going to post this even though it's not done. Last time I let this sit without posting some little tyke (Jordie and he's usually not naughty) got to the computer and erased the whole thing.

There was food and fun

 

Gary and Amber hosted a Sat. evening waffle potluck. As you can see, there was no shortage of wafffles or toppings. We even had delicious bacon and sausage compliments of Jason and Richelle's fair pig.

 After we stuffed ourselves silly Amber showed up with these amazing pudding cups. They were almost too pretty too eat but we indulged anyway.

Rhya had fun with the Auld kids/babies! Shaden is only ten weeks younger than Rhya, and Mattea is pushing 3. Little Wyatt is 4 months. Rhya thought he was great. She got an inch from his face and said 'HI! Hi! Hi!' over and over.
Somehow Dan, Lindsey, Jason, Mike, Kristina, and Jerome escaped my camera but they were there. What a good way to end the week.

Latest antics

- Loves to count. Can count to ten with help. Can count to three by herself, although the other day I heard her go up to six when she was doling out napkins. :-) She counts anything and everything.

- Loves to sing songs. She usually knows the last word of the phrases, like Hickory Dickory Dock, Hey Diddle Diddle, Sing a Song of Sixpence, ABCs.

- Hums to herself A LOT, especially when she's reading books by herself, which is her FAVORITE past time. Her usual hang out spot is the bookshelf in the living room. She takes out a huge stack, flips through a few pages of a book, then stacks it..and on to the next...and next...this can go on for a 1/2 hour easy.

- Is very intense in everything she does. She's got love! She's got silliness! She's got a temper (that goes along with an opinion)! She's got ENERGY!

- She hardly has an ounce of fat on her. I just weighed her. At 17 months she weighs 22 lbs and 31 inches tall. She's so wiry andsquirms/wiggles/climbs her way into all sorts of positions. Yesterday I came into the room to see her standing on top of the couch squealing with joy over her accomplishment.

- Is aware of emotions. She likes to say 'happy' after she takes a bite of food (it makes mommy and daddy happy!) or after she's done something nice to someone (which is usually after she's done something to push their buttons!)

Loves crafty stuff, like colors, paints, play do...all these fun things that she sees the daycare kids doing!

- Is getting good at the potty. The last two days she has come up to me and said 'toot', pointing to her butt. I ask her if she has to go poopy and she says 'YES' so we go racing in there to complete the mission.

- Knows lots of words and likes to use them. Doesn't say 'no' quite as much anymore. :-)

- Has a fascination with her sternum. Diaper changes consist of her pointing and poking at her sternum, saying 'Whasaaaat??'

- Always has to know where everyone is (which consists of about 6 people) She asks 'Daddy?' and puts her hands up. Then she usually says 'Work' (wuk).

What a fun age! I say that at every stage.

My favorestestest hobby

Thank goodness for 'the farm'!! Anyone wanna go for a ride?!? It'll have to be soon, while I still fit in the saddle. :-)

Rockin' with Grandpa Mark

My sister had a birthday

The sister that is only one year older than me for half a year. Kayla and I always felt pretty grown up and close to Kristina's age for the months of July through Oct. The rest of the year we were little whippersnappers and WAY younger...or so we thought. A whole whopping 20 months! She was always so adult-like. Maybe we twins were just immature. :-)

Now we're all living adult lives nearing young middle-ageism. gasp! (Maybe that's just the husband who is flirting with 30). The months somehow don't matter two tittles. They've melted together into one big happy sisterhood.

Anyway, wishing my big sis a WONDERFUL 27th year of life! I'm delighted to have such a gifted, spirit minded, caring, thoughtful, lively, and creative big sister! Looking forward to celebrating on Saturday.

Love, Diddle Diddle

A Hoppin' Halloween

We had a tigger in our family last night! We practiced how to say 'Trick or Treat' (which sounded like Tic teet) at home, but she was too shy to say it at the actual houses. She said 'tanks' instead after the candy landed in her basket.
We walked around the block and saw LOTS of adorable kids and some scary looking ones too! Rhya was so enthralled she wasn't saying a peep. In between people watching she had to stop every 15 feet or so and readjust the candy in her basket.
After we got home she immediately started arranging the candy on the dining room floor. We finally had to distract her enough to take it away since she figured out if she bit the wrapper hard enough something yummy came from within!!