So Thankful

We had a enjoyable Thanksgiving weekend. We stayed home and had Thanksgiving with our little family it was nice to be surrounded all weekend by everyone that I am So Thankful for. It was nice not to travel for a change.

Hope everyone had a Happy Turkey Day.

Logan's 18 Months & Full of Crazy Antics

Logan is officially a year and a half old. He is so crazy and so much fun all at the same time. I really don't like to wish my kids lives away, but on Sunday's 18 months couldn't get here fast enough. The kid is a terror at church,. One week we walked into the chapel and he started crying, he knew what was coming. He has been going to nursery for a few weeks now and is doing great. He cries a little at first but adjusts quickly and when I go check on him he is having a great time. I did watch the teacher try to keep him in his seat during singing time, it was entertaining to watch. I am grateful for her efforts in trying to start him out on the right foot. These photos give a pretty good peak into the life of Logan.........

This stool is my nemesis. He uses it to climb onto everything, I put it up but someone always gets it down. Ellie uses it to wash her hands. Logan uses it to wreak havoc, he also uses to climb up by the phone and push all the buttons on the answering machine portion. He makes the base ring, he turns the answering machine on and off because the guy says "calls will not be answered" or "calls will be answered" he thinks its hilarious. And of course most of the time he leaves it on calls will NOT be answered, and then people have to listen to my phone ring in their ear like 20 times. Sorry.


He has discovered markers, pens, pencils, anything he can find. I call them writing utensils. So usually I hear Ellie yelling "Logan has a writing untincil, Logan has a writing untincil." You must get there quickly when this is the case, if not this is what you get. I did make him take a picture with his master piece, just so I can show his kids someday.

He is definitely a Payne, he LOVES to dip. He will eat anything if you give him a little ketchup to go with it. This is during dinner, his typical is.... he climbs out of his highchair, climbs onto the table and starts eating or stepping in every one's food. This is actually some ranch dip that he found on the table and took one of Bailey's carrots and helped himself to some dip.

He loves to get in the fridge, he can hear you open the door from just about anywhere in the house. He likes to sit in there, or look for his milk or a string cheese, and when you close it......he is not happy. It is helpful when I am trying to cook dinner though.

Good thing he is so dang cute. He loves to RUN, play with balls and cars, watch football with his dad, and play with his sisters. He is obsessed with dogs, he points them out on anything and everything he sees, he barks like on dog 100+ times a day (he also things most animals are dogs, he barks at everything). He loves to read Panda Bear Panda Bear and Goodnight Moon. He will bring them to me and climb up on my lap, so cute. He is a good eater and a good sleeper. He loves his binky and blanket he doesn't have words for them, he just grunts and points when he wants them. He is in the 27% for weight and the 83% for height (we've never had a kid over 40% in anything). He is spoiled because we all give into his every desire, although I will not get a dog. I love you Loggy but even I have my limits.

Since I didn't have this blog when the girls were 18 months I thought I would just keep track of a few things they liked at that age..........

Bailey: 15-20% for everything, loved the book If You Give a Pig a Pancake and could say the last word of each sentence. She loved the movie Monsters Inc. she watched it a million times over the Christmas break when she was this age. She always had to have bink and case (her binky and a ratty pillowcase that she always packed around). She had tons of hair and cute dimples, she was not a good eater, we would chase her around with food trying to get her to eat. She did finally get some teeth at this age. She was a great sleeper once she got to sleep. She never wanted to go to bed, she wanted to stay up and see what was going on. This did not get better until about age 4 or 5.

Ellie: 20-30% for everything. Loved the book What Makes a Rainbow, she knew her colors at a pretty early age. She said a lot of words at this age, I think she listened to Bailey's every word and wanted to be able to communicate with her, she spoke clearly pretty early. She loved shoes, it was her first word, she always had to have at least two pairs on, hers and mine usually. She was a good eater and a good sleeper. I think the sleeping wasn't an issue because she always wanted to be where Bailey was. She always said "I hold you" when she wanted me to pick her up. She has always had her strawberry blond hair and bright blue eyes, she also had really chubby cheeks at this age with little dimples. She called her binky, night night and her blanket mae mae and could not sleep without them.

I love this age, when the world is such a mystery and they are still so innocent. I love watching them learn from their surroundings. I love that they aren't sassy yet and still dependent on me.

The time goes too quickly !

Shootin Birds

Ryan has been after me for about 2 weeks to post about his pheasant hunting trip. Seeing that I am a blogging slacker as of late I told him I would get around to it. So here it is a few weeks later......I wanted to make it a part of the Fall Fun post seeing that most of the "fall fun" took place during the week that he was gone, but he was insistent that the birds have their own time in the spotlight. So here they are in all their glory.......

Ryan, his dad, and his brothers and bro-in-law have been planning this trip for about a year. His dad had gone before and knew the boys would think it was a great time. They drove to North Dakota to shoot these babies, and I think a good time was had by all.

Ryan had to get this new truck for the trip, but he only drove the truck to Burley and then rode in my BIL truck the remainder of the way. I have a love/hate relationship with this truck. Love that it makes Ryan VERY happy, hate the context in which it was bought and the fact that his other car is still in my garage!!

Okay back to the birds.........Ryan left our house after work on Tuesday, met John in Burley, picked up Aaron and Matt in Pocatello and then they drove ALL night to get to North Dakota. They got there just in time to head out hunting with their dad and the rest of the gang. If you know Ryan or John there are very few things that could make either of them stay up much past 11 or 12 so the fact that they drove the entire night and then went hunting all day shows much love for hunting birds!!

I told him if he brought back any birds for me to "cook up" I would hurt him. His dad ended up taking them all home with him and is cooking them up for us all to enjoy in a few weeks. Could be interesting. I love his dad he is always trying to get us girls out of our comfort zone.

In this photo R's brother Matt, BIL John, Ryan, and brother Aaron

I am glad they all had a good time....I am not glad I had to wash the bloody bird vest with feathers in it.

Fall Activities

Bailey played soccer again this fall, she moved up to the bigger field and added a few more players, she said she still loves it but there is a lot more running. She played left defense a lot this season and she did a really good job at it. She has been playing with 3 of the girls on her team for a few seasons now, and they all decided to tryout for Select. It is a step above rec, but not competition, they practice a little more and a little harder, the coaches have more training, its just a little more serious. We found out this week that she made it, so I am hoping all of the girls will be able to stay together. We will see how the logistics of it work out in the spring, but I am excited for her to take it to the next level. I think it will be good for her.

Ellie decided she wanted to do gymnastics instead of dance and my oh my has the girl found her true love. She absolutely LOVES it. She goes on Tuesdays and pretty much every other day she tells me that she wishes it was Tuesday so she could go to gymnastics. She is good at it too. She has caught on really quick and really tries so hard when she is there. I have always thought she had the build of a gymnast, who knows how far she will go with it, but for right now she couldn't be happier.

I need to get some more pictures. I took this the first week, they do all sorts of fancy things now.

Halloween 2009

We had a great Halloween this year.
The girls had parties at school, we painted pumpkins, went to our

Trunk -R-Treat, had awesome pumpkin goulash and sugar cookies, and of course did lots and lots of

Trick or Treating.

The costumes all fell under the movie character theme

DORTHY

ANNIE

YODA

Logan was not happy when it came to taking pictures together any other time he was loving the costume, the treats, all of it, but he did not like having to sit still for 2 seconds for a photo, so this is the best that we got!!

He was also a little hesitant about the ears at first but he kept them on and eventually started to catch on to the whole costume thing and actually started looking at people when they would say Yoda. Bailey has wanted to be Dorthy for a few years so I am glad it worked out this year, and Ellie just had to be Annie at some point in her life so I was happy she was on board for it for this year. I thought they all looked the part :)

On Thursday the kids had their parties at school. Bailey's class did things a little different this year. They had a Boo Breakfast first thing in the morning. The kids couldn't put their costumes on until later in the day but they had fun starting off the day celebrating. They put their costumes on later and watched a movie and of course had more treats. While I was at Bailey's Boo Breakfast, Ellie's class came through for the Kindergarten parade. It was fun to see her and all of the little kids, they were so nervous walking through all the classrooms. I went to her party later in the day. The Kindergarten party never disappoints. They are so easy to please and have fun with whatever is going on. They are just excited to have a party.

Bailey at Boo Breakfast

and

Ellie playing balancing the eye balls

On Friday the girls didn't have school so we just hung out and painted pumpkins and got ready for the Trunk-R-Treat that night. It had been really cold last week put Friday and Saturday ended up being pretty great weather for all of the treating. We had our entire party outside this year and it was great. Ate chili, watched the kids run around with their friends, had a little parade and trunk-r-treating, and home we went. It was really fun.

The pumpkins are self portraits, I think they are very accurate


TRUNK OR TREAT

Ready for Trick or Treating with Ali and Aubrey

The wagon worked out well for everyone, the little kids at first and the big kids at the end because their bags were so heavy and their feet so tired. The prize we pay for

ALL THAT LOOT

Another successful HALLOWEEN

Fall Fun

The fall season brings certain requirements for fun with it. I enjoy doing all of these things with the kids, I think they like it too. My sister and her kids were able to come up and participate in some of the fun with us this year. It is always a little more enjoyable when you are sharing it with others. Here are some of the fall essentials............

PlaYinG in the LeAvES

PicTuREs with PuMpKins

PictuRes on HaY BaLes

RIdIn the CoW TrAin


MakInG CarMel ApPleS

MaKinG and DecOrAting SuGar CooKieS

EaTinG SuGaR CooKiEs

Taking a picture with your mom when she hasn't showered or put on makeup.....oh wait that isn't a fall activity and actually should not be celebrated.

But the kids had so much fun I couldn't resist a photo op.

Fall Field Trips

The girls both went on field trips this fall. It was fun to tag along, chilly on both occasions but fun to spend time with the girls. Bailey's class went to the Ag Expo. I really enjoyed this field trip being that I have a little farm life and ag in my background, and I married a member of the FFA, I felt somewhat in my element. Plus they talked to kids about nutrition and where our food comes from and the importance of drinking milk (my soapbox).

I had a good time I think the kids did too.

Bailey's class
Her teacher is the one on the tractor, I know she looks like one of the kids

Bailey is getting ready to pet the bunny. She liked the baby quail and baby pigs the best (I am pretty sure Ryan made her say she loved the baby pigs because he thinks they are so cute, I honestly think I have heard him tell me how cute baby pigs are more times then he has said that about our children.......go figure)

The kido's drinking their milk, they got string cheese too. It was a good day for calcium!

I am excited to go to this again next year. I hope Ellie's class gets to go.

This year Ellie's kindergarten class went to the pumpkin patch for their field trip. This is the fourth year I have been to a field trip to this pumpkin patch and every single year it has been miserably cold. I have been there other times and it has been fine, but for some reason the weather gods hear I am going on the field trip and the first freezing cold day of the season comes that day.

Ellie had fun walking through the corn maze with all of her friends. Logan liked it for a little while but I think he got cold. The kids always get to go pick their own pumpkins and they can't pick anything bigger then they can carry, so its always fun to see what they come pack with.

Ellie with the pumpkin that she picked and the one she picked for Logan, he's not so happy, he will learn to love the pumpkin later when he warms up.

I am happy I was able to go field tripping with the girls. It is always fun to see them in their school environment and watch they interact with everyone and everything around them. Until next year pumpkin patch......please warm up!

SLC Weekend

At the first of October we thought about going to Hawaii for a dental conference with some of our friends from dental school. The trip fell through, so we decided that the next best thing was to meet in Utah! We met up with our good friends, Jon and Sarah and had such a fun weekend, it was nice to drop the kids off at my parents and just hang out with adults for the weekend. We stayed at Jon's sisters apartment, which we really appreciated, it was nice to be able to stay up late chatting and catching up.

Friday we spent the majority of the day shopping, mainly at Tai Pan, I love that store. Watching Sarah try to fit everything in her suitcase to fly home with was entertaining, she did have a few casualties but hopefully everything can be repaired. Friday night we went to the BYU v. Utah State football game. It was a fun game and thankfully it didn't get too cold. After the game we had to make a stop at Iceberg, one of Sarah's favorite Utah eating spots. I do take fry sauce for granted.

Most of my bestest friends are Cougar fans

Believe it or not the Aggies scored first, I had to take a picture just in case no one believed me. We were just happy that it was a good game!!

Saturday we got up and stood in line for General Conference. While we were waiting someone walked by and offered us four tickets so we ended up and getting really good seats in the Conference Center. Ryan can't get enough of Jon's IPhone.

It was such a good session of Conference. They talked a lot about love- Christ's love for us and our love for our family and friends. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir sang 'Come, Come, Ye Saints' at the end of the session and it was so powerful- the spirit was really strong. I love Conference, I enjoy when it comes around. This was my first time ever going and it was a great experience. I would love to do it again. I am so happy to be a member of this church!

After conference we ate at the Lion House restaurant for lunch and it was so good.

Their rolls and honey butter are amazing.
After lunch we did a little shopping at Gateway and then headed back over to Temple Square to watch the Joseph Smith movie at the Legacy Theater. Once the movie started I realized that we had seen it before, but I still enjoyed it. It makes you really appreciate everything Joseph Smith went through to restore the Church.

Ryan and Jon then headed back to the Conference Center for the Priesthood session and Sarah and I headed back to Gateway to do a little more shopping! We met up for dinner afterwards and then hung out at the apartment until 2:00 in the morning and headed back to my parents. It was such a good weekend and really was one of the highlights of our fall. We love Jon and Sarah and it's always a good time whenever we get to hang out!

I hope to do it again soon!!