Tooth Fairy

The tooth fairy sent me a copy of this little note Kylie left her Sunday night after loosing yet another tooth. Its says
"Dear Tooth Fairie, Thank you for the note and for the money, and I did have a great birthday party. I love you. I lost a tooth today and I dream abowt you. what are you doing today? I have three dollars. To the Tooth Fairie Frum Kylie"
A few weeks ago when Kylie lost a tooth, the tooth fairy left Kylie a note on a whim. This gave Kylie an idea. She wrote her a note that night and left it under her pillow. The tooth fairy took that note, but didnt leave one in return-(oops). SO Kylie decided to try corresponding again when her tooth fell out Sunday. She was literally like a kid on Christmas morning- she woke up in the middle of the night and came running into our room to show us the note the tooth fairy left her. Anyway when the tooth fairy showed me the note "frum" Kylie it made me laugh cuz its so flippin cute. She dreams about the tooth fairy? And how is it that kids are so eager to love- even those they have never really met? If I could just find a way to keep this adorable innocence last into her teens that would make me happy.

Sing Choir of Angels

This conference has been a fun one as my Kylie has been somewhat interested this time. Usually I just let my kids do their thing and only try to draw their attention when the prophet speaks. But as she is growing up on me, and since the 2nd counselor in our primary presidency made a little conference packet of little activities, she has been sitting by me and actually paying attention-mainly to figure out what topic she gets to put a sticker on, but it was really fun to watch her try to comprehend whats being said. When Sister Dalton spoke to the young women about preparing for the temple and said something about being an instrument to the Lord, Kylie just looked so perplexed for a minute before she said, "i cant be an instrument-I'm a girl!" I love how kids think.
Yesterday, when the choir of children sang "We Thank Thee o God for a Prophet," both Kylie and Toast sang along. That is now a memory I hope to have forever.
Daniel has a journal that he takes to priesthood session, and after he gets home he lets me devour it and we talk about his notes. He particularly loved last nights priesthood session, and even just reading his notes I felt how powerful some of those talks were.
The thing that has stood out to me the most this conference was the powerful spirit from the "choir of angels" singing "I am a Child of God." My eyes started burning as I tried unsuccessfully not to cry, but they sang with such power and assurity and I was awed by those sweet children. And then every other song they sang got me choked up again.
I am just so grateful for conference. Every time I walk away with an added appreciation for this glorious gospel. How truly blessed we are. Nothing can compare to the hope and purpose and joy the Gospel brings. I love it!

Kids

I tend to jump the gun in regards to Christmas. I decorate before Thanksgiving and to be honest, I never really stop listening to Christmas music. Yesterday I was listening to the Oak Ridge Boys Christmas CD. I thought the following words were pretty profound:
"Thank God for kids there's magic for a while
A special kind of sunshine in a smile
Do you ever stop to think or wonder why...
the nearest thing to heaven is a child?"

Those few words struck a chord and I couldnt help but hold my kids a little closer for a little longer yesterday. They really are heaven sent and each one does bring a special spirit into our home. I tend to forget how special they are from time to time while dealing with the whining/grumpiness/"gimmee gimmee gimmee, I need!"(movie trivia)/bickering they tend to make a daily habit out of. But really when I step back from the little frustrations there is no other feeling in the world to compare to the love I have for them. I love this time of their lives where there is a simple magic to everything. I need to step back more often to appreciate this time before its just a memory.

Bad luck

"Seven years' bad-- Ooh! Luck. That's what it is. Besides, you broke your mother's mirror"--movie trivia?

We have had a bit of bad luck lately- It started off with my mirror breaking.(hence the quote) and then my blow-dryer, the iron, my laptop-(which thankfully Daniel was able to fix) followed by my cell phone, the universal remote, and now my camera. Nothing too serious of course, except the camera. It broke yesterday as we were trying to take pictures of our birthday boy. Poor kid didnt have that great of a day. His sister woke him up before 6 am to check out his presents, which he was excited for until he started the pukes. So he spent the next several hours feeling pretty yucky. He did start to feel a little better close to bedtime, so we went ahead with his celebration, but who likes spending their birthday puking?
So I am hoping that we dont have a 7 year run of bad luck but rather a 7 things of bad luck cuz then our debt is paid. Heres to hoping this week is a lucky one!

CONNECTION!!!!

I am so happy! I finally have a connection! Now I can finally join the blogging world once again.
So since my last post Kylie lost one of her front teeth, and turned 6. She had a little party of her own planning. We painted toenails, decorated flip-flops, made bracelets, and wacked the fetch out of a pinata. She is quite the party planner, and it turned out to be quite fun.
Toast turns 5 on Saturday, and keeps changing his mind about what kind of birthday he wants. It used to be Diego, but he really isnt into him anymore, and then he wanted it to be Starwars, but now he says he just wants muffins. No idea what that even means. Daniel has been telling him chewbacca stories at bedtime, and thats been stemming his growing interest in star wars, but the other day he pulled out the starwars dvds and asked if he could watch them. I told him they were a little too scary but he insisted he wouldnt get scared and that he would be brave. So I decided we would try it out. He LOVED it. Now he wants to watch all of them. I am surprised cuz this is the kid who is terrified of swiper the fox. Apparently Darth Vader is tame when compared to a sneaky fox who swipes your stuff. Go figure.
James is coming up on his 2nd b-day in two more weeks. A few weeks ago we finally bought him a crib-tent, which has been the best thing EVER! He was climbing out of his crib more than 30 times each night and it was seriously killing me off hauling him up the stairs that many times over. Now the little monkey cant escape. Happy day for me!
Ben is 6 months old now and he is solid as can be. He is huge! He has started crawling and he sits up -kinda- he leans on his arms so he's at a weird 45 degree angle. But he seems pretty happy about it-until he tries to move and flops over. He still is spitting up gallons. Tyler got quite the surprise a few weeks ago in the middle of sacrament meeting. he went to give Ben a hug and as his face was right under Bens, Ben spewed his entire bottles worth of puke right in Tys face. Tylers look of horrification was just just too good to be true. Oh how i wish I had a camera for that memory. It still is making me laugh.
So seeing as how the kids birthdays are just a few weeks within each others, we take them to go get their birthday pictures, and since we dont have a kiddie kandids in yuma, we go to san diego and make a little trip out of it. We headed there last Friday. Saturday, after pictures and lunch, we spent the day on the beach. I love watching Daniel play with the kids. It melts my heart. He is such a cute dad. Anyway it was a fun quick trip.
Now that I have this written I can hopefully spend the next few days/week catching up on 2 months worth of blogs. Hooray!

7 years

Yesterday was our 7 year wedding anniversary. We celebrated earlier on Friday night by heading to San Diego. Our friend Debbie watched the kids, and we are so so grateful she did that for us. It was so nice to get away and celebrate us. After checking into the hotel we went to Claim Jumper for dinner. Oh how I miss having one of those nearby. We then went for a moonlit stroll on the beach. We stopped walking and put our feet in the water for a minute and unfortunately a nice wave drenched my pants, so we had to find a store so I could get something dry as we were going to see a late night showing of Batman, but by the time we stopped and bought some new pants we were too late for the movie. In the morning we headed over to the temple. Sadly we haven’t been since we moved here, although we have tried a few times, but for one reason or another we haven’t been able to actually go. So we finally made it, and it was so wonderful to go back. My mind was flooded with so many thoughts and feelings. I just loved being there. We stopped at Veijas on the way back and that took a little longer than expected, so we missed a baptism we were planning on going to in our ward. Drats. But we had a great time.
I am just so grateful that I have Daniel. He is one in a million. When we got married we didn’t know each other extremely well. He could have turned out to be psycho. But as we have gotten to know each other, I am just amazed with how incredible he is. He has a heart of gold. He loves others so unconditionally. He is so supportive and kind, and giving. I am seriously so blessed!-(not in the blog named so way though!) I love being married to this man! He is the best!

Updates

We have been having some connection problems for the past two weeks and I am going crazy. I use the internet for a zillion things and to not be able to do such is totally throwing me off my groove. But the thing that has been bugging me the most-- blogging. Not being able to read up on blogs makes me feel really disconnected and homesick. Weird. And I really miss having “my place” to write my thoughts and certain events going on in our lives. Hopefully I can get this post to post and hopefully we can get this connection thing straightened out soon.
We have now been in Yuma for a year. In some ways it feels like we have been here forever, but in others its gone by so fast. Daniels job was a bigger project to organize than we initially thought , but he has learned volumes through it all. Overall it was a good decision for us, and we have met some of the most wonderful people here.
Kylie started 1st grade last week. She was so excited to go, but one week in and she is already bored with it. That’s probably because they are going over stuff she learned in preschool. I can understand the need to review and find out where the kids are, but shouldn’t they be reviewing kindergarten stuff? If the 1st graders don’t know where there head, shoulders, knees and toes are by now, then they shouldn’t be in the 1st grade. Her friends from church are in a different class, and I am feeling pretty bad about that now cuz on her first day she asked another girl in her class if she wanted to be friends, which is something hard for Kylie to do cuz she is very shy, especially in new situations. This girl told her flat out no, and so Kylie spent her first day without a friend. That just made me mad. What kind of kid tells another kid they don’t want to be friends? Come on. Thankfully by Wednesday she figured out where her friends from church play at recess, and has fun with them. She told me she wanted to go back to the school she was at last year, and I have been questioning my decision about that. If it wasn’t so expensive I probably would switch her back. But hopefully all will be well this week.
Tyler has a new found obsession. Star wars. I wont let him watch the movies cuz he gets scared just watching swiper swipe stuff. But he loves playing lego star wars on the playstation even if he doesn’t really know what hes doing, and loves his daddy telling him the stories. He use to pretend he was Diego, but now he thinks hes Chew-bacca. It’ll be sad to say adios to Diego as hes been part of the family for 2 years now, but maybe James and Ben will develop a bond for the animal rescuer some day too.
James has been missing his “sss-sa” (sister) during the day. He had been so attached to her the past 2 months, and without her around, he is so sad. His big brother doesn’t mother him like Kylie, and since Ben is out of the newborn stage he is awake most of the time, so he has to share my lap and attention and its just not what he wants. Two weeks ago he started climbing out of his crib whenever I put him down for naps or bedtime. I have to put him down 6-8 times each time before he stays. Its outta control. I need to find one of those crib tents to put over the top, but alas without a connection, I cant find/ order one.
Ben has been gnawing on his fist for the past 3 weeks and his gums are all swollen. His first tooth is ready to break through any day now. He is getting so big. Hopefully my arms will get some tonation with me carrying around those 15 pounds all day long. Yeah, I wish.