Making the Beautiful more Beautiful

Railey LOVES makeup. The boys gave her some for her birthday last year and she uses it regularly. Every Sunday she has to put on her lip gloss before church and her nails always have to be painted. This love of makeup is now being passed on to Kenna (Railey is determined). The other day I found Railey putting her lipstick on Kenna. It was too cute to not grab the camera and snap away. Here you go. Notice the gentle arm reaching out and holding her head still. I Love It!

The finished product. She's licking it off because it's the kind of lipstick that's flavored. Railey kept getting so upset that she would lick it off and so she had to keep reapplying it.

Happy Birthday Kenna!

It's Kenna's birthday today! She is now 2. I can hardly believe it. In so many ways I feel like she is so much older. I was looking to throw together a collage of pictures from when she was a baby just had to laugh at all the pictures. She has so many different Kenna faces. Most of them are somber, where she will refuse to smile for the camera but every now and again I get the cute Kenna smile that we as a family know. But then as you see below there are definitely some where she isn't too happy (I tried not to put to many in). But Kenna is Kenna and we love her.

I love how her hair is coming in curly, although it is coming in really really slow. I still love it. I have always thought that she looked so much like Seth. Everyone has always thought that but the other day David told me she looked like my mom. I just laughed and said really thinking he was crazy (although there is one picture of me at this age that we really look alike), but the other day I came across a picture of Mom at about the same age and had to smile. I immediately went and got Kenna and told her to look (she loves pointing out her pictures and saying "Enna" whenever she sees them. Well that's exactly what she did, even she thought it was a picture of herself.

She has the darkest, biggest, brightest eyes that can either shine or glare at you. She's just like her dad in that her face is very expressive. She is not afraid to let you know how she feels about something. She is a little chatter box here at home but quiet as a mouse in nursery (notice I didn't say sacrament mtg.). She knows all of her colors and can even count to 10 if you get her on a good day. She loves to sing twinkle, twinkle and calls everyone a doo, doo head. We keep telling her to use nice words like cute head and pretty, or handsome, or funny head but the other day she came back with a stupid head and a weinny head. Oh when will this pass? She is starting to thin out some but it still solid and just so darn cute. I have a picture of her in a leotard dancing and doing somersaults all while singing Twinkle. It's so stinkin cute. She loves her brothers and Railey and gives them hugs and kisses but not too generously only when she really feels the love. Oh we love having her in our family.

Steve called earlier and asked if I was glad that we had her. Of course I said. How about you. He quietly, yet a jokingly said well I almost killed her once and luckily that didn't happen. Oh we are so grateful that didn't happen. We love this girl to pieces and those cheeks, there's never ever been anything on earth so nice to nibble and smooch on for such a long time (the rest of my kids had lost their cheeks by now).

We celebrated Kenna's birthday yesturday since Steve was supposed to work today. Last night we skyped Mom and Dad so they could see her open her present from them. It was fun that they could be a part of it.

She got clothes from them and princess stuff from us (shoes, tiara and necklaces)

As I said earlier she know her colors. We kept asking her what kind of cake she wanted like a butterfly or a flower and all she would say was a brown cake. So that's what she got, plus some princess tiara cupcakes.

She keeps putting the crown on upside down. I think it doesn't hurt her head as bad. Either way it's cute!

Happy 2nd Birthday Kenna. We love you!

UVU Game

The kids got tickets to go and see a UVU game from the school. They were so excited so they gave Steve the tickets for Christmas. If you give them as a gift they are bound to go right? Steve was able to get off work a little earlier on that night and I met him down in Orem and passed the boys over to him. I got to deal with screaming girls the rest of the way home. But the boys had a great time. They especially liked the fact that they could take pictures of themselves at the game due to the really small camera we got for Christmas. Here's a few pics of the boys. Even though the team lost they still had a great time with their Dad.

Skiing

As everyone in Utah and now around the country knows we have no snow. Steve has been wanting to take the kids skiing but when there is no snow it makes it a little rocky. But the resorts are doing their best and keep making it so over the break Steve took the kids up for half the day and let them ride the free lifts. He got a few photos and a few videos of them. I don't think this free thing is going to last past this year if that. Damen already went with the school and tried out other runs and loved it. Steve says they are ready to move on but are we ready for the bill that comes with that? I'm not sure!

New Years Eve

We had a fun little New Years Eve party with Darc and Jared and their kids. They came over for dinner and then we had a Wii night. I think every one had a fun time. Here's a few pictures of the night

We had decided to watch the ball drop at 10 and then they would go home and all of us would put our kids to bed. Well we missed the actually ball drop by about 30 seconds but they still left shortly after that. Everyone in our family went to bed except Damen. He was bound and determined to stay awake until midnight. He brought a blanket and pillow out onto the couch and was watching some concert on TV. I came and checked on him at 11:30 and he was still awake but he mentioned that he was getting really tired. Well at midnight the fireworks woke me up so I grabbed Seth who was in bed with us and took him down to bed. He was so excited that he "stayed up till 12" (whatever some things just aren't worth arguing about). When we got downstairs Damen was out and was not waking up. Poor thing he missed it all. At least Seth heard and saw a few fireworks. Damen said in the morning that he last looked at his watch at 11:50. It looks like one of us will have to stay awake with him next year! I will tell you this it sure was hard for the kids to get up bright and early for 9 o'clock church but we still made it on time with 20 minutes to spare! We are looking forward to a new year and new resolutions to help us improve. Happy New Year!

One Year Older

This year Steve had to work on my birthday so we decided we would celebrate a day early since he had that day off. We had a good time! Probably the most fun done on my birthday (or non birthday this year) in years. Mom and Dad were back from Idaho and wanted to see what the kids had got for Christmas so they came over bright and early. The girls had too show them their princess dresses of course and the boys couldn't wait to show them their good as well. Then I opened a present from Seth. Earlier that morning he had found a piece of fabric, from and old skirt, and decided to make me something out of it. It turns out he made me a scarf. He really did do a great job and still continues to insist that I wear it. Which I DO!

Mom and Dad gave me a nice pan that will definitely get some good usage.
After they left we headed down to BYU. We have been buying our milk from down at the Creamery. One it tastes a lot better, and yes I can notice a difference, we all can even the boys. Two it's constantly 3/$5. I have been paying $2.50 in the stores so I figure if it keeps me from going to the store it's a good thing cause then I don't end up leaving the store with 20 other things. And Three after you buy 24 jugs of milk you get a free 1/2 gallon of ice cream. So we buy 12 at a time and throw most of it in the freezer. We've been trying to convince Seth to switch over to be a BYU fan and one of the ways we are working on him is through the milk and ice cream. When he said the milk was so good I commented on the fact that the milk came from righteous cows and that's what made all the difference and told him he needed to reconsider his loyalty towards the UTES (he is). After all that we stopped at McDonalds (Steve had a gift certificate otherwise we never step foot into that place). On the happy meals were these little mustache's that you could punch out so we did and took a few pictures.

Then Steve tried to be all Steve on me and decided to go and inconspicuously pose with Ronald. The pictures turned out so dark so I did my best to lighten them up on my computer but that only made them grainy. Sorry. They are still funny though!

We went home and made it in time for Steve to go coach Damen's team in their first basketball practice. I was expecting them home by 5 so dinner was all ready and waiting. By 6 they still weren't home so the girls and I went ahead and ate my birthday dinner and they showed up 45 minutes later (they had gone to buy shoes for the boys)

Here's a few pictures of Kenna. She was helping me decorate my birthday cake (note: don't make yourself a birthday cake if you don't even like cake, make something you like. But if the kids make it then smile and eat a big helping)

She is so darn cute!

Here I am blowing out the candles. We dished up the cake and ice cream and everyone was about to start eating when Steve said "no, Wait everyone have a bite of ice cream at the same time." (it was BYU Graham Canyon ice cream) So everyone got a fork of ice cream ready and on the count of three we put it in our mouths all three BOYS said "mmmmm. Righteous!" It was hilarious Steve and I seriously could not stop laughing. The boys did it but we had to explain it to them after. Yea it's from righteous cows too!!!! Very Good! It really was s fun day thanks family!

The next day on my real birthday I was going to go shopping and get a new shirt and get Steve some much needed pants, but his truck wouldn't start. After messing around with it for over an hour we finally got it going. I ran the boys down to Orem to play with Clark and Carson and Railey ended up staying as well and Kenna and I finally went shopping. We were on our way back to their house when on the middle of 8th north in Orem the truck died I quickly pulled over into the dollar store parking and it started up again. I kept thinking, great what's wrong now, but since it started up again I took off again only going on back streets and going past all the in-laws homes just in case something happened again. Well I was on 8th east crossing 8th north when it died again in the middle of the intersection. I coasted to the side of the road and again it started up again only to let me go about 100 ft before it was dead for good. That's when I realized that the truck must be out of gas (the gas gauge is off and I didn't know that since I never drive the truck). Caralee had lent me a cell phone so I quickly called them and Chris came to my rescue. I would have gone the 2 blocks back to get gas at Harmons but Kenna was now asleep in the back and I didn't think I could lug a gas can and a sleeping baby. But everything worked out fine in the end. In fact Steve ended up coming home early and beat us home by and hour plus, because of our car issues and had dinner waiting when we arrived. I was so glad he was able to get off work it was a welcome surprise to a cruddy afternoon!

Christmas--a few more

These didn't post when I did the other Christmas post so here they are.


These girls were dressed as princess all day. I did make then change long enough for church but then they were right back to being princesses.

My girls

All 3 girls

All the kids

The whole impatient family--why is it so much effort to take one family picture!