Vaccination

After much debate yesterday I was able to do it. I got vaccinated for H1N1. This was a hard choice for me and I have been back and forth for months now. The lack of vaccine has made my choice until yesterday. My mom called me and said the clinic at MHS still had 1000 shots left and they were opening it up to everyone 25-65 with an underlying medical condition. I raced down there and thankfully there was no line. I got vaccinated along with my sis. Sometime before I got there they decided they would vaccinate everyone under 65, or at least the guy in the gym did the front desk woman was more picky. Unfortunately, I didn't bring the girls. Although, I am still debating them. For me the benefit out ways the risk, but our new doc said that it has been so mild and he isn't vaccinating his kids. I still don't know yet. I am thinking I will get them vaccinated when it becomes more available if we haven't had it yet. Until then I am hoping we just get a mild version of it. I know we have been exposed, I guess we will see.
I should make it clear that I am completely for vaccinations. We always and will always vaccinate our kids. I get the flu shot vaccination every year, which I am still waiting for. I know vaccinations work. The reason I hesitate with the H1N1 is because they mass produced it so quickly I don't think they had time to make sure it is completely safe and that there aren't any long term side effects. This is strictly my opinion. Again, I got vaccinated because I believe the benefits out way the risks for me.

Pumpkins

This past Sunday was our annual pumpkin carving with Ky's family. We had tons of fun and the weather even cooperated enough for some to carve outside. I will admit that me and the girls cheated this year and found ideas on the internet. Ash did a snake, Katie an owl, I did a mummy, and Kami did Mickey stickers. Ky came up with his own idea and did a transformers pumpkin. I think his was the coolest.
Chris, Chantelle, and Esau came all dressed up. Chantelle even made the costumes. They were so cute. Cindy and Mahon are having their annual pumpkin contest. They had some cute pumpkins. You can go here to vote.
I made a fun cake for the occasion. This was my first pumpkin and the first time I have frozen and then carved a cake into shape. I was pretty proud. I thought it turned out great and even tasted good. I also now know what I will do differently next time.
We had a fun night. The girls were so tired when we got home. Except Ash came down with a fever and cough. She has stayed home from school the past two days, but she looks great. I caught her standing on her head today. I think she is ready to go back tomorrow.
I thought this was a funny picture of Kami. Kami has a serious shoe fetish. She wears at least three pairs a day. Lately she has been branching out to the girl's shoes and now mine. She walks great in Katie's high heels, but she can barely walk in mine. She is all girl!

The Fun Has Begun

This past week has been red ribbon week. I will have to admit this has been hard for me. For some reason I have spaced almost every activity. Ash reminded me of some but for goodness sakes! We did remember to do her hair for crazy hair day. Although, I will admit we should have tried this out before hand. I found a cute idea for spider legs, and well my floral wire wasn't quite strong enough. Her legs were a little droopy and we couldn't find all of our spider rings. I have been really off my game this week. She still looked cute though. I wasn't sure if we could color it either or we would have done that.
Ash had her first non-school non-church Halloween party last night at her friend Cali's. I guess the "cat" is out of the bag on her costume... lame I know.
She had so much fun! They played a ton of games, had pizza, listened to scary stories, and even had a haunted house. There were seventeen kids there for four hours! Page is so brave! Ashley was so wound up when she got home, but we loved every minute of it. I remember how much fun those parties were and I was excited for her. She came home with two rubber mice and she has been hiding them all over the house in hopes of making me scream.
While Ash was gone Kaitlyn was my big helper. We are making a cake, a surprise cake. I am hoping it turns out really cute. She is such a ham and obviously loved licking everything clean! She is growing up so fast and is turning into quite the little girl.
We have even more fun planned for this week, including carving pumpkins and more parties. Halloween is always the start of the holidays for me, at least that is when all the parties and fun begins!

Space Burgers

We have had another busy week. Wednesday we drove down to Poky to see my doc and he had good news... My lung function is the best it has ever been and my numbers are even in the normal range, low end but normal. Woohoo! I have never been in the normal range before. The girls did really good, especially since they were in the car for so long. After the doc we drove down memory lane a bit, literally! Things have changed so much especially in our old neighborhood. We also saw where the daycare use to be and the new parking structure in its place, sad. I think Kaitlyn enjoyed seeing all the sights. She doesn't remember much before we moved here. Then we went for lunch. This was a tough choice. There are so many awesome places to eat down there. I would have loved to hit Buddy's, go there if you ever get the chance and take mints! We settled on Tastee Treat for a space burger and the best shakes ever. Kaitlyn loved her space burger and didn't want to eat it at first because it "looked so cool". We even brought one home for Ash who declared to me the night before "I am depressed. I am the one who wants to go into space, so I should get to go and eat the space burger". Sometimes I am not quite sure where she comes up with these things!

Kaitlyn with her space burger.

We had a good ride home and made it with about two minutes to spare before Ash got off the bus. We had a fun day. Kaitlyn is still eating up her mom time. I think I am still on cloud nine about my numbers. I just hope I don't get the flu and set them back again. My fingers are crossed!
I should also mention how beautiful the fall colors were. Everything was orange and yellow and STILL on the trees, they were just starting to fall off. It was so pretty!

WILSON!!!

We went on a date the other night and of course hit the store, I know what a date. Anyway, we happen to be looking at plants and found one. I have decided that I cannot keep live plants in this house anymore, they don't survive the children and the cold weather. Kyle was skeptical of this plant at first and then it hit him... Wilson. He said we could buy it but only if we put a hand and some googly eyes on it. He said that it looked just like Wilson from Castaway. We got the plant and the googly eyes. I don't know if they will ever make it on but it is a funny thought just the same. Any ideas??

Kami has had a cold lately so today she stayed home from church, and we switched off to teach our classes. At one point I was on the computer and realized the house was really quiet, uh oh. I found Kami in her room building a tower out of blocks. She would build it up as tall as she could and when it fell over she would just start again. She spent quite a bit of the afternoon repeating this process.

She was so cute I had to get on the floor and join her. We had some good mommy time.

One of our sunrises while waiting for the bus.

The Grand Canyon State

He's back!!! Kyle walked in the door Sunday morning at about 730. We were so excited to see him. He had been gone for 10 days, a long 10 days. Kyle went to Phoenix with my family to help on a house they bought. I was so jealous, all that warm weather and we had snow! Although, he did say it was way hot. They were hoping to be done a few days earlier to do more sightseeing and possibly hit LA, instead they hit the Grand Canyon and other Phoenix attractions before heading home. They wanted us to head down to visit too. That would have been a fun spud harvest. However, I did not feel up to driving 14 plus hours with three kids (one who gets carsick) all by myself. We considered going and taking my bro. James but that didn't work out. I am glad we stayed home, that would have been a long drive. Here are some pictures Ky took while he was gone.

The house. Apparently, there is no grass anywhere down there.

The Phoenix temple is one of my very favorites. And those palm trees...
Kyle took this picture on the way home in Flagstaff. He said most of Flagstaff looks like this.

GRAND CANYON PICTURES

I have flown over the Grand Canyon before, I don't think it looked this pretty from the air. I can't wait to go and see it. Ky found some neat bracelets for me and the girls while they were there. We would like to take a tour to the bottom when we go.

Okay this is my favorite picture he took!

My sis thought she was going to go down there and get a nice tan. Well... she got so burned instead. Kyle said her face was as red as the Mr. Kool-aid guy! She never would let anyone take a picture though. Kyle did get this one of her putting her head in the freezer to get some relief from the burning. And you can't tell in this picture, but she went very blonde before she left. It looks cute. Do blonde and red go good together?

We are so glad to have Kyle home. Ashley was a little disappointed when he didn't bring her home a lizard tale. I told her about the time when I was little and went down there and pulled the tales off the lizards. She thought that was awesome and wanted to do the same. The girls were a big help while he was gone and it wasn't as bad as I thought. We stayed busy everyday and made it through. I think Kyle was glad to see us all. The girls kept climbing all over him and telling him stories, he won't be getting any peace and quiet for awhile! I think we are getting back into our routine again. Ash went back to school today and we had to adjust to getting up early again. I keep hoping things will slow down, but now we are back to focusing on the basement and getting the rest of our wood. It is going to be a long winter.

Proud Moment

Monday evening I heard a squeal of delight followed by "mom, mom I finished". Ashley finished her first chapter book. She read Flat Stanley's Christmas Adventure all by herself. She was so excited and I was so proud of her! She has really picked up reading and loves it! She is hoping to finish another chapter book before school starts on Monday. Good Luck Ashley!!!
Also, on Monday we canned our first applesauce. The girls were such a big help and we got all our apples pealed, mashed, and canned. It amazed me how well we worked together. I was hesitant to can them by myself, but the girls were awesome! We were all in amazement when we discovered that two of our trees at the back of our property are apple trees. We have a ton of crab apple trees, yuk, but had no idea we had two really good trees. Next year we will start picking and canning earlier, maybe we can get more done. We had some good moments this week!

Once there was a snowman...

So, we woke up to about four inches of snow today. Our trees in the backyard looked like they might fall over! We even got into the spirit of things and turned on the Christmas music! Yep, that is a first for me, it isn't even Halloween yet! I also thought about how much fun it would be to set up the tree and decorate it, I resisted! We did go outside though. We had fun building a snowman and making snow angels, except Kami. Later, our snowman fell over! The girls also played on their swing set. Kami loves to go down the slide! We had fun and enjoyed our hot cocoa and marshmallows when we were done. What a fun day!

Kami's snow angel- she didn't care for this!

Other fun pictures. The first one is of the girls bouncing Kami on the blow-up. She is a few inches off the bed. She loved it! Luckily they didn't bounce her off!

This one is for all you Bill Engvall fans, chee-toes! That one is the girls' all-time favorite episode. Don't worry they didn't eat them!

Wow, that was a lot of photos!

Snowflakes

Wednesday we had our first snowflakes. The flakes only stuck for a short time, but it did snow. I am NOT ready for this. I feel like I have been robbed of beautiful fall. Our trees in the backyard are quickly turning colors AND loosing leaves. And it has been just plain cold. I still refuse to use propane and we have already begun to burn our wood. Isn't it too early for all of this? I spent about three hours last night going through clothes for Kami. I only had a few pairs of pants in the closet for her, most of which she has outgrown. So, last night I had to find all the 18 mo warm clothes and I did the 24 mo while I was at it, who knows what size she wears anymore! Ky brought the rest of the clothes and Halloween totes in today. I now need to find all the snow clothes and pants for Kaitlyn. What a chore. I am still in denial, I don't want to pack away the summer shorts just yet! Anyway, I shot this pic while we were watching the flakes falling. Maybe she can catch one through the glass!