Kyleigh's 9th Birthday

I already wrote a little about Kyleigh's birthday this year, but then I found some of my lost pictures.  It's been awhile so I don't recall why all of the kids are stripped down to diapers and in pajamas?  I do know that Kyleigh wanted a tic tac toe birthday party.  Hence, the tic tac toe cupcakes.  We drew tic tac toe boards on the plastic tablecloth and had a little tournament.  Kyleigh looks darn cute with her bow, if I do say so myself.  She is such a fun girl with so many fun interests and hobbies.  We love her and appreciate all of her big sister help.  She is SO willing to share and give what she has.  She saves like her Dad, especially when it comes to candy.  But she is a little firey and speaks her mind.  There is really no question where that came from.  We love our Kyleigh!!!

Backtrack-First Day of School

I was more prepared than I thought.  When I went to transfer pictures from my desktop to my backup system I found a bunch of pictures I thought I had lost with my old phone.  Surprise!  The first day of school was among those.  Don't they look cute!  GG took them shopping for their first day outfits.  This was the first day of "public school" for both of them.  The were so excited and nervous.  They came home and asked how many hours until they could go to school again.

Katelyn Turns 6!

Our sweet little Katelyn is already 6 years old.  Time flies.  My birthday goal for all of my kids is that they will remember how special they felt on their day.  Katelyn still talks about the day she got breakfast in bed.  It happened to be a day I got breakfast in bed and Rusty walked in her room with the tray and her eyes lit up thinking it was for her.  Rusty couldn't say it wasn't for her went so he went and made her a breakfast, too.  Ever since then she has wanted breakfast in bed again.  At the same time she had chosen to make pancake men on her birthday.  Since you can't make pancake men from bed, we took her a piece of pie in bed prior to pancake men.  Doubly special.  She loved it.  Her birthday fell on a general conference Sunday so we had all day to play.  In the afternoon we decorated the house up.  By we I mean Kyleigh.  She took over the decorations while I made the flower cake.  Kyleigh went all out with streamers and signs throughout the house.  Katelyn wanted dorito casserole for dinner so we made her that.  We also made strawberry lemonade to drink and home mixed peppermint ice cream with the cake.  Mike and Holly and girls joined us.  Katelyn decided to have "dinner" early so she could go over to Grammy's (Rulon and Kathy)  house to play with the kids, which she always loves.  And that is how her birthday came to an end. 

 

We also took a treat to the school for her birthday.  We took it about 1 1/2 weeks early when Merrill and Nancy were here so Nama could come with us.  She chose cupcakes that looked like bear paws.  Not being an expert tracker she just saw them and thought of the bear paws as panther paws.  And since she attends Pierce Park Elementary, home of the Panthers, that is what she chose.  We also had purple frosting, the official color of the PP Panthers.  Her teacher did a cool thing and had the kids all sign a birthday poster for the birthday girl.  I have a terrible memory, but one thing I remember is wearing a crown with a glittery 5 on it when I had my birthday during kindergarten.  I felt so special.  I hope she did, too.

Trick or Treat

Pocohontas, Sacajawea, and Curious George the Fireman were at our house on Halloween.  Before the big trick or treat I made sure they had plenty of real food.  For breakfast we had pumpkin muffins, lunch was goblin tongues and Halloween yogurt.  Dinner included mummies and swamp punch.  Mostly real food except the sprinkles in the yogurt and hot dogs for dinner.  Who cares though, it's Halloween!  We decided to stay in our own neighborhood then head over to a subdivision just down the road.  We stopped at our Bishops house.  He cooks scones on the driveway.  They were really, really good.  Ridge got tired of getting out of the wagon about halfway through and decided to ride instead, while eating candy as fast as he could unwrap it.  We passed Holly and Amy (Holly's sister) as we were walking home.  They were still going so Kyleigh jumped in the car with them and made some more stops before they brought her home.  The rest of us came home for the big sort which is always a highlight.  Over the few days after Halloween the girls did a lot of sharing because Ridge ate all of his candy by 10:00 the next morning.  He spent the next few days begging his sisters for more.  Lucky for him his sisters are generous.  When their candy was gone we had several 2 year old tantrums because he thought they were hiding it.  I  really do love Halloween and I love it when the candy is gone.

Pumpkin Carving

Halloween snuck up on us this year.  We missed our crazy Kauai Halloween season, but had a great time anyway.  We found this giant pumpkin at the Linder Farms pumpkin patch.  We got a good deal on corn maze tickets so we went out to do the corn maze.  As soon as we got there we spotted hay bale tractor rides.  Since Ridge loves tractors more than anything we went for a ride.  It turned out the tractor was going past the pumpkin patch.  We hadn't planned on buying a pumpkin, but when we saw that the per pound price maxed out at $9 we set out to find the biggest, roundest, orangest pumpkin of them all.  We fared well in our search.  It was so fun I don't know that we will ever buy a pumpkin from Walmart again.  We also played in the dried corn pit, on the tires in the tire garden, the kids rode the barrel train and we made it through the very short version of the corn maze.  We could have spent a few more hours there.  Next year we will know to plan more time.  The pictures of the big carve speak for themselves.  Once again, I am so happy to be married to superman.  He can even carve a pumpkin with a Ridgerman monkey on his back/down his shirt/laying on his neck.

Hangman

Katelyn has learned how to play hangman and likes to practice spelling words she knows.  She drew up a game and wanted to play at dinner tonight.  Ridge grabbed Rusty's neck, lifted his legs and started laughing and saying, "this is how you play hangman!"

:(

I have a very sad story to tell.  Characters include an iphone loaded with important pictures, a terrible toilet, and a cute girl.  The cute girl was dutifully doing her chores when she asked her kind mother if only she could listen to music on the said phone to pass the chores quickly.  Of course the nice mother obliged.  The phone was carefully placed on the counter and then accidentally bumped directly into the terrible toilet while the cute girl was cleaning the counter.  The poor phone never turned on again.  Phones can be replaced but the pictures cannot.  I told you it was sad.  Most of the pictures don't matter much, but the pictures of Kyleigh's birthday were the worst to lose.  So you have to picture that super cute girl (Kyleigh) turning 9. 

She chose a tic tac toe themed birthday.  We had cupcakes on a platter in the shape of an x and an o.  The tablecloth had tic tac toe boards drawn on it.  Each cupcake had an x or an o and we played a few games with our cupcakes before we ate them.  She had dorito casserole for dinner and her big gift was a new compound bow.  It is camo and will look great in the indian room she is planning for our new house.  Because she started school the day after her birthday we are going to take cupcakes to her class for her 1/2 birthday.  We also decided not to have a friend party this year because she hadn't started school to make lots of new friends yet.  She was O.K. with that, though, because she had figured it out and every other year parties weren't going to land on her 16th birthday.  How funny that she is thinking ahead to her 16th birthday party.  Happy Birthday to my big 9 year old. 

Just the other day Holly and I were riding in a car with a lady who asked how old our kids were.  I said mine were 9, 6, and 2.  Later Holly said she had to take a minute and figure out who was 9.  I agree, it seems like yesterday that Kyleigh was turning 8 and getting baptized.

On another note, I also lost pictures of Kyleigh's first time to shoot her bow, our trip to the Western Idaho State Fair, pictures of Ridge on Bob the tractor guy's tractor, our house as the concrete was being put in, and many, many other things.  Next time I will save them sooner!