*cupcake creations*

The other night when I was babysitting, I thought it would be a fun activity to let the kids make cupcakes. So we decided to do a Halloween theme...since it's just around the corner. The kids helped me make the mix. After they baked, the kids frosted, and decorated their own. We used orange frosting, Halloween sprinkles, and plastic spiders (for the full effect)! I even found cute little cupcake papers with bats, and ghosts, etc... on them! The best part, of course, was eating them!

Spongey Curlers

I tried Addy's hair in sponge curlers for the first time. I washed her hair before bed time last night, added lot's of gel, and then took section's, and rolled them. I put a hair net over it, and she slept on them all night. It didn't seem to bother her at all. So here it is with all the curlers in it!! Here it is this morning:
Here is the back view:
I thought it turned out pretty cute!! :)

My not so brilliant idea! ☼

I can't believe I forgot to blog about this!! Last weekend (while babysitting) I decided it would be fun to go to the park. My dilemma was, that I had all 6 kids, only 5 children seats in my van, and no one else was home to help drive. So my brilliant idea was to walk all 6 children to the park near our house. Okay, so it's a block up, and SEVERAL blocks over!! I didn't think it would take as long as it would, but we left the house at 11:45, we spent 30 minutes at the park, and we returned home at 1:45. Which means we walked 90 minutes total!!!!! CrAzY!! Well it was an experience for sure, but I think I don't want to do it again! :)

They had a blast though, and that's what matters!

•3 months old, and growing•

Can you believe it's been 3 months since Kaitlon was born?? I can't!! She is getting so big, and so smart! I just can't believe how the time has flown!! Here are her 3 month snapshots!! I am not sure what her weight, and height are. I am guesstimating between 10-12lbs. !! She is my best eater, by far! She still gets up at least once, usually twice a night to eat. I am so looking forward to rice cereal! She is full of smiles, and just has the most happy, peaceful spirit about her! :) She loves her crib mobile, oh and speaking of...we have made the transition of sleeping in mom and dad's room to her bedroom! She loves watching the mobiles, and objects. She can grip toys, but doesn't hold them for long. She loves being cuddled, and held. She loves it when people talk to her! When she has tummy time, she usually can roll herself to her back. Sometimes she doesn't though. She is just a sweet, sweet baby! I love her bunches! ♥

The World's Littlest DIVA!!!

Addy is 22 months old. She is FILLED with personality! We got up this morning, by 8:30 she was dressed hair done, shoes on, and ready to go! By 8:40 she had tried on, and changed her shoes 4 different times. She put on my shoes, the boys' shoes, and daddy's shoes. By 8:50 she was putting shoes on Kaitlon! She is very girly, but with a tom boy streak. She wears bracelets, and picks her nose! She loves having her nails painted, and then walks around with her hands in the air showing them off! She makes me laugh, and it's so hard to tell her no! So one of her favorite things to do is "cheese for the camera", but I found it hilarious when she started posing tonight!! So here are my little diva's first modeling poses!

Better Blogging

When I opened up the October Ensign today, I noticed an article called 'Better Blogging'. I thought it was neat, good ideas, and tips. Especially on safety. Then there was another article about being a missionary through blogging. I thought they were neat. So if you blog, and read the Ensign you should check it out! :)

FaLL iS In ThE aiR

I love Autumn!! I love the colors, the activities, the holidays, the weather, I LOVE Sweaters, the leaves falling from trees, pumpkins, decorating, fall scented candles, and I love what I call "Fall Treats"!! So Last night for family night we made caramel apples! MMMM!!! It was so much fun. We unwrapped caramels--which really went fast this year. Usually I do it alone for the kids, and it takes forever. Then Clint, and I took turns melting them on the stove...that was a process!
Preston and Tyson worked so hard putting the sticks in the apples for me!
They did a really good job...we only had one wounded apple! :)

Then after we had all the caramel melted, we covered the apples with them!! Clint gave us a nice lesson about the 2000 Strippling Warriors. It was a great lesson for the boys to hear. Then we sat around eating our apples, and just having a great time!

We also have 3 out of 4 Halloween costumes now. We need to find one for Kaitlon. I was going to dress up with Clint this year, but he will be at work. So I am trying to decided if I still want to dress up or not. We got out all of our Halloween decorations, and put those up! I pulled out all of our Halloween books as well! The kids have had a great time reading them, every time I come in the living room they are sitting around looking at a new book. I love it!! It makes me feel confident that my children's book addiction is worth while! :) (If any of you have seen our play room book shelves you understand why I say that.)

Here are the boys with a pumpkin I made. I bought vinyl pumpkin faces, and put them on the craft pumpkins you can buy at Micheal's. The kids love it, and they turned out cute! Oh I just love this season!! Happy Fall Y'all!!!

Happy Birthday Preston, Love Grammie and Papa!

My mom took Preston out to dinner for his birthday! The waitor sang to him, he thought that was wonderful! You can just see the cutest look on his face!! Then he got chocolate molten cake from chilli's! Mmmmm yummy!! I seriously had like 2 bites, and Preston had it eaten. It was fun, and nice to not have to cook tonight! :) Then he got to go to walmart and spend $20.00 from my Dad! He picked out an action figure, and 'Guess Who?' the game. So can you guess what we have been playing all night?? It's really a cute one! Thanks Grammie and Papa for the presents!

Letter Formation Sayings

This blog post is for all of you that I have taught with over the years, and all of you that have kids learning to write! Preston still struggles with lowercase d, and lowercase b. When he writes a lot of times, he flip flops them in the word. For example the word "down" he has a tendency to write it as "bown". He started spelling tests this week. I was so worried that he was going to flip flop the letters, then mis-spell. So I found a website that has cute little sayings to help children remember letter formation. It seemed to help him as we were mock testing this week. I just wanted to share! This is the preschool teacher in me!! I hate to see kids struggle, and try to come up with ways to help them love learning. So if you're in my situation or will be soon, or you teach I recommend checking it out! :) http://www.littlegiraffes.com/abc_letterformationpoems.html

Seven Years of Friendship: Then and Now!

When I was pregnant with Preston, two of my very close friends were pregnant as well! We delivered our babies with in weeks of each other, and despite the craziness in life we have remained good friends. We really don't see each other as often as we should, or I guess I should say, we would like. Anyway, they both happened to make it to Preston's birthday party this year! I wanted to get a picture of our kids together. I just thought it would be neat to post this picture. So here are our babies 7 years ago: And here are our babies now:

Such cute kids! I am so grateful for such great friends! :)

rOcKiN' iNtO 7!!

Wow! Time is flying by!! It feels like only yesterday I was leaving the hospital, getting ready to bring home my first born child, and tomorrow he will be 7 yrs. old! I have always tried to make birthdays really special around here. So this year I told Preston he could have a "friend party". When I asked him what kind of a party he wanted, he said, "A guitar one!" I thought hmm...guitar...really??...How will I pull that off!?! Well I am pleased to say it all came together pretty well. I made invitations using my good old printer, and my new cricut cartridge. :) Then I jazzed it up with some "rocker language!" LOL! I would also like to thank the maker of Pop Rocks, Guitar Hero, and Hannah Montana. They made party favors easy to come by. Also, thank you All-A-Dollar for carrying these products in your stores. We put together little treat bags that said, 'Thanks for "POP"ing in, and "Rock"in' out with me!' Each treat bag had a bag of pop rocks, and a guitar hero guitar or guitar pick in it.
Thanks to the Hannah Montana company, for making these wonderful guitar shaped gummies. I filled the pinata with! :)
I cut guitars out on my cricut machine for decorations. Then we hung them up! I also cut out phrases that were guitar themed, like: Rock Out, We will Rock You, Rock & Roll, and Party Time.
I got my brother to come up and play 'Happy Birthday', Preston gets his love of the guitar from A.J.!
Then his friends arrived!! And the party really got started!!

I cut poster board into a guitar shape, and let the kids color, and decorate them. Then we danced with our guitars to music! (Sorry I flip flopped the pictures when I was uploading them.)

We found a guitar pinata at Zurchers. We filled it with candy and treats!

It didn't take long to break open!! The kids were really cute trying to pick it all up!

We played Hot and Cold with a guitar pick. We also did a bean bag toss! Clint cut this out on his table saw. The kids did a great job throwing the bean bag in!! :)

Then it was present time. Preston got lot's of neat things. Thanks again everyone!!

We got Preston his first guitar, and it come with guitar lessons. Uncle A.J. is going to teach him how to play! :)

Then the part everyone was waiting for!! Cake and Ice Cream. I was so excited when I found this Guitar Shaped Cake Pan, at JoAnns! Clint frosted this--I was too afraid I would mess it up!

Here is Preston with his birthday cake!

The kids were so cute eating their cake and ice cream.

Thank you again everyone!! Preston just loves his friends, and had such a great time!!

○cArNiVaL○

We went to Preston's elementary school carnival last night. Lot's of fun games, and activities! We had a great time. Thanks Nila for coming, and helping me with the kids!! We wished Daddy was with us, but had fun regardless!! :)