Cade's Birthday

Our newest family member - Ming, a panda hamster

He has already brought a lot of joy to 3 people in the house

2 others remain decidely uncertain about having a rodent in the house

Two of the happy people and the arm
of the third happy person

Opening presents

Cade had a slumber party with LOTS of

video game time

Halloween

Anticipating the joy of candy!

Armed & Dangerous

A Bewitching Princess

I'll wear anything if they give me candy -

even this Dinosaur costume with the scratchy chin

Trick - or - Trio

Soccer Stars

Happy Birthday Cade!

Funny Things Our kids Say

Kellen's sayings:
As we were riding home from eating out the other night, Kellen asked what we were going to have for dessert. I explained that it was late and that his dessert was all the Sprite he had just had to drink. In his most sarcastic voice he replied, "HA. HA. No, Dad." I suppose that I deserve this somehow, but I just didn't expect it at two years old.

Gabby's sayings:
Gabby lost another tooth this week and we put it in a baggy for safe-keeping and got her ready for bed. After she was down, Crystal and I headed back downstairs to relax. Not too long later, I heard Gabby calling for me so I went back upstairs to talk to her. "Dad," she said, "Can I put keep my tooth for another night?" I was puzzled since the tooth was of no value except as collateral for the tooth fairy and asked why she wanted to wait. "Because I love my tooth so much that I can't stop kissing it!"

We decided to put the tooth outside her room for a day and then the next day we were able to leave it for the toothfairy.

Cade's sayings:
For some reason that I can't remember Crystal was telling Cade that she knew exactly what he was thinking (I'm sure you'll be shocked to know that he was thinking about a Star Wars video game). Anyway, as Crystal was talking about her prowess as a mind-reader the kids challenge her skill. As she went around the kids, she correctly guessed Kellen's mind (Star Wars - heavily influenced by the moment) and Gabby's mind after a few tries (princesses) and then she was stumped by Cade. We both guessed and guessed and guessed and eventually gave up. "I was thinking about hot bikini girls!" Great. A few days later he followed it up with this comment when we were watching the football game. "That's the hot bikini girls I was talking about," he said when the cheerleaders (NFL variety no less) were flouncing across the screen.

I suppose I earned this too.

Football Sunday

As we sat around watching Conference this morning, Cade was feeling generous towards his Mom and sidled up to her to rub her feet. As it turns out, he was only angling for a piece of gum, which his Mom gave him. After he retrieved the gum and came back to the couch. As he did, I suggested that he should thank his Mom by continuing to rub her feet. He went down beside her, started rubbing her feet and when Crystal closed her eyes and sighed, he looked over at me said, "When she's asleep, Dad, we can change the channel to football."

A boy after my own heart.

Our green kid

So the other day I mentioned to John that the price of gas has gone down enough that we see Hummers driving around again. Cade heard this and filled it away in his steel trap of a memory (where he gets this I don't know I can't even find my keys most days). The other day, he said" Look Mom there's a Hummer. Do you know what kind of car I want when I grow up?" I thought "of course, a Hummer" but said, "What?" Imagine my surprise when he said, " I want a Toyota Prius." When I asked him why he said because they get such great gas mileage. He was very impressed that his grandpa already had one. He probably wants to save all that gas money for video games. We were trying to talk about if the house was on fire what we should do for his health homework. He still hasn't told me that he wouldn't rush back in the house to save his Wii.

A Boy's Best Friend

Kellen has decided that this heavy plastic puppy is now his best friend and takes him everywhere. He has to be tucked into Kellen's elmo chair with the puppy's blanket at naptime and borrows some of Kellen's blanket to listen to books. He has to bring him to the bus stop, the store, the school, friend's houses. I bought him for Cade for like 3 dollars at walmart and all this love could kill him off. This day, Kellen was letting his puppy use his scooter while he rode his bike.

Why?

Kellen is in full on "why" mode and has been so for the past month or so. And Why is a question that can be asked of any explanation and almost always is. Even our best attempts have been foiled - that is until we learned a new technique from a friend.

Our previous best efforts have been to answer "just because" or "Heavenly Father made it that way" or asking "what do you think, Kellen." These are desperate attempts but really do you have any better answers to the original query of why the car's tire was flat and having been through explanations as far-ranging as the basics of the impact of a nail on a tire and up to the complex of the vagaries of vulcanized rubber with steel radials versus a galvanized steel nail and the differences between two-penny and six-penny nails and on to the basic forces to physics?

To each of these he earnestly responds, "because why, daddy?" "Why Heavenly Father make it that way, Daddy" "Daddy what YOU think?"

So yesterday I tried our new technique:
Kellen: "Daddy why there a park here?"
Dad: "Because they thought it would be fun for little boys to play on"
K: "Why they it be fun?"
D: "Well, because little boys like to swing. Do you like to swing?"
K: "Why little boys like to swing?"
D: "Because its fun and you can go fast. Do you like to swing?"
K: "Why you go fast Daddy?"
D: "Well because I'm big and I can push you in the air and the combined force of the gravity pulling you back to the earth and tension of the chains on the swings cause you to move in an arc like motion that when I act upon it with my mass causes acceleration that is significantly greater than the friction of the air or of the friction of the chains on the swing's structure."
K: "Why gravy pull you back Daddy?"
[and this is where the new technique comes in] D: "because the car won't start"

That really caused his head to churn. I almost laughed out loud with glee that I had cold-cocked the questions with a notion that was so out of place and incongruous that it short circuited the logical process in his little brain.

We walked on towards the play area in blissful silence.

Well, at least for another minute we did.

As we reached the edge of the bark chips, Kellen asked, "Daddy, why car won't start?"

Gabby's Teeth

Gabby lost another tooth (her second or third) last week and was very excited about it, insisting on taking it to school with her and showing all of her friends. This of course concerned her Mom and Dad that she might lose her tooth. So when it was time to go to bed, Dad was not surprised when the tooth was nowhere to be found. After enlisting Kellen to help her look through the house to no result. I reassured Gabby that we'd do everything we could to find it that night and I put her to bed.

After putting her to bed I similarly tore apart the downstairs and places upstairs that I could easily get to. This included a comprehensive search of the kitchen garbage (complete with watermelon rind, chicken packaging, and other assorted treats) and morass that is the little desk we have in our kitchen.

Crystal eventually returned from her meeting and she too searched everywhere (including a re-search of the kitchen garbage) to no avail . We finally decided that the tooth fairy would come anyway and that Gabby would have to find and replace the tooth for the tooth fairy another day and headed upstairs to go to bed and check on the kids.

Lo and behold, right in the middle of the floor of Cade's room was the tooth. I think the real lesson here is not trust a 2 1/2 year old to do a comprehensive search as that was the room that Kellen took on and cheerfully reported that the tooth was "not here!"

In the end, the crisis was averted, the tooth was found and Gabby is $1 richer and eagerly anticipating the next payday as she has four more loose teeth.

Happy Birthday Gabby!

Today you are six. I love you from the tip of the mole on your hairline to the tips of your beautiful toes with chipped pink nail polish.

Hawaii Pictures

Snorkeling Cruise off the Big Island
Two dorky Hawaiian cowpokes or Paniolos as the locals say
Rainbow Falls near Hilo
Kellen and Dad at Mauna Kea Beach
Snorkel Face Cade

Terrible Two

With our two older kids the notion of the terrible twos seemed to be an over-reaction to the developmental phases. Not for #3. We've recently endured some tremendous tantrums that rival anything John McEnroe could muster.

At Church on Sunday I had the audacity to pick him up from nursery. He wanted Mom. Mom is usually tied up in Primary and unable to come quickly after Church and relieve the poor nursery workers so I told Kellen that he needed to come with me and began collecting his pictures and shoes and tried to convince him that he needed to come with me. Unswayed he stayed back in the room screaming for Mom. After about a minute one of the nursery workers scooped him and brought him too me.

Bad move, nursery worker, bad move.

Kellen kicked his tantrum into high gear-complete with crying, full-body wriggling, kicking, and throwing his head back. Unable to find any way to reason with him I stuck him on the stairs into the upper classrooms and gave him a timeout - somewhat out of the hallway at least and let him scream his heart out. After he calmed down a little, and let me stress the little part of that comment, I told him he could either walk with me out to the car or stay on the stairs crying by himself.

He chose the latter option. In the meanwhile several concerned mothers wondered if this poor little baby was lost or possibly if his parents were negligent. Crystal and I reassured onlookers that he was okay and that we didn't really care if he screamed.

Finally Crystal dragged him out of the chapel and into the car. Once we got home, we told Kellen that Dad would be the one to get him out of the car and help him into the house.

"No. Mommy get me out."

Great.

So we left him in the car for 40 minutes while we fed the other kids their lunch and only after Crystal left to go to another Church meeting did Kellen finally assent to allowing me to bring him in.

All this paled in comparison to the tantrum he threw on Tuesday night.

The trigger this time? Who got him out of the bathtub. And to think, I'm the one that does the shake-shake-shake when I get him out of the tub.

This tantrum featured such violent body contortions that Kellen gouged his forehead on Crystal's mousse bottle and required me to use Kellen's pajama shirt as a straight-jacket to get a diaper on him. The usual arm bar and leg press were insufficient to get the pajamas on, but once I was able to secure both arms with a shirt and one of my fingers I was able to use my other legs and hand to secure his legs and get him into a diaper.

After finally wrestling him into his pajamas I wanted to calm him down so I offered to read him a book. He immediately calmed down, came and sat in my lap and sat nicely there while I read him a dinosaur book and truck book.

The second the cover closed on the second book, Kellen stood up started yelling and trying to pull his pajamas off.

I don't even remember how we got him into bed I just know I needed a stiff drink after the ordeal. Drinking cough syrup isn't breaking the word of wisdom is it?

The things our kids say

Crystal will likely kill me for posting this, but I couldn't resist -

Our kids have a ridiculous fascination with all things scatalogical and so when Crystal was out of the house all day yesterday she not surprisingly needed to avail herself of the facilities while out and about and so she dutifully dragged Gabby and Kellen into the bathroom with her and was in the bathroom while another woman was in the restroom as well.

Of course Gabby HAD to know what Crystal was doing, calling out to Crystal, "Mom, are you going pee or poop?" Crystal tried to ignore her, but Gabby called out again, "Mom, MOM! are you going PEE or POOP?" So, Crystal tried to deflect by responding, "I'm going potty, Gabby" But Gabby would not be detterred and asked a couple more times with Crystal giving the same response.

Finally, Kellen decided to take matters into his own hands. He was in the stall with Crystal to keep him from running amok elsewhere so he felt perfectly comfortable to walk around to the back of the toilet and answer for Crystal. "MOMMY GOING POOP, GABBY! MOMMY GOING POOP!"

Needless to say, my dear humiliated wife waited in the stall until the bathroom was empty before exiting.

Summer Vacation - Pictures

Kids at Capitol Reef










Cowboy Kellen











Outside the Haunted House in Lyman





More Capitol Reef











At the Black Sand Beach, Hawaii

joining the 21st century

Here it is - our long awaited entry into the blogosphere - of course even saying blogosphere is probably passe. Ah well, we're online and even have some pictures to boot.