Where's Clinto

I'll set the scene: Kade and Clint are playing around the house. I'm in the kitchen making dinner. I realize I haven't seen or heard Clint for a while. Looking around I say to Kade, "Where's Clint?" Kade replies, "Right there." A closer inspection finds him with a can opener in a corner. I now know his little hiding place. He knows he can't play with the can opener so he hid. He moved the fake fish aquarium and the bag of library books to get into the corner. That kid just makes me laugh.

Spooky Dinner

Darryl's family has a Spooky Dinner tradition. They have a candlelight spaghetti dinner with a jack-o-lantern face cut in a slice of cheese. Then you carve pumpkins and decorate orange pumpkin cookies with orange icing. We did it tonight and the boys loved it. Kade was so tired though. He kept begging us to put his jammas on him, "I just wanna go to bed." Darryl was pretty clever with his carving. He had me draw a math pi sign so he could have 'pumpkin pie.' Ha Ha Ha! I love his dry humor.

Horsey Ride

The boys looked so cute riding the 'horsey' together. However, I couldn't get a good picture of them.

A Conversation

We're stopped at a red light in near main street in Heber where a business complex was built last year.
Kade pointing in a circular motion, "I built all these houses."
Surprised I questioned, "Really, you built all these?"
"Yep."
"Did anyone help you?"
"Ya, Greg."
"Greg who?"
"The Dani and Brie Greg." (Greg is Dani and Brie's dad)
"Oh, that sounds like hard work."
"Ya, I was just sweaty."
"You were pretty sweaty, hu. You must have been working hard."
"We just built them the one day and then they fell down."
"That doesn't sound good. What did you do then?"
"We just fix them. Then they break again and again, but we just fix them."
Smiling I say, "Hmmm. Maybe you ought to rethink your contractor."
Kade didn't respond and so with the break in conversation we sat in silence for a short while.
Then again he sighs and says, "Ya, I built all these."

Kids just kill me. I just love to listen to the things they all say.

UVU Kids Night

I wish I would have found out more about this before tonight so I could have told everyone about it. The UVU campus in Heber had a Halloween Kids Night tonight. I was leaving work and Amy askec me if I was bringing back my kids. She told me that the 'party' started at 7:00. I went and checked out the booths and figured I'd just see if the boys were up to it. I picked up the boys and mentioned a few of the booths and Kade was cheering, "Wahoo! Wahoo!"
I took the boys home got them dressed and headed back to the campus. The boys loved it. They had a fish pond, face painting, a popcorn walk, crafts, bean bag toss, pin the nose on the jack-o-lantern, ring toss, a 'feel the creepy things' table, and cookie decorating. The only down side is there were a TON of people there. The boys favorite thing about the night though was a fog bubble machine. I agree, it was pretty cool. My favorite though was to see the faces Kade would pull as he felt each item on the creepy things table. He hates when his hands are sticky or dirty so after he reached into each bucket he'd pull his hand out inspect it and then brush it off quickly.
Sorry no pictures for this one. It was too to hard to keep track of my kids, all our stuff, and dig out the camera.

Family Pictures

After 2 years we finally updated our family picture. I have never paid more than $8 for a huge package of family or kid pictures. Well this time I paid $160 for a much smaller package. Ouch!!!!!! I'm sure that's a typical package price, but I just wasn't use to it. Luckily the photographer did a fabulous job and so the pain was softened some. Paul Malan was the photographer. He works with Darryl and I'm so glad we had him take our pictures. If anyone would like his contact information let me know and I'll get it to you. They turned out great even though the kids weren't super happy. They hadn't seen Darryl all day so they just wanted him to hold them and they essentially didn't want me near them in the picture. After taking a few family pictures Darryl wanted one of me, and a one of the boys. The boys unfortunately were done so their expressions aren't the greatest but the picture still looks great.

Trick-Or-Treat Early

Our ward had a Halloween Dinner and Trunk-Or-Treat tonight. It was different. I've never been trunk-or-treating before. It was nice for the fact that you had 30 min. of 'answering the door' per say, instead of the all night sporadic calls. However, I felt like it took a lot of the fun out of it. The kids just went down the row of cars, most didn't even say 'trick-or-treat,' greedily filling their bags. Then they went back around a few times until everyone was out of candy. I prefer the good old door to door tradition. Kade was set on being Lightning McQueen and I couldn't change his mind, so it was to the drawing board for me. Clint loves to hop like a frog so when I saw this Frog Prince costume at the thrift store we went with it.

I forgot to write about this and it is a must remember!
When we were painting Kade's Lightning McQueen costume he said, "I'll go to my friend's houses and get candy. I'll say 'trick-or-treat ka-chow!' I told him he'd probably get double if he did that. 'Ka-chow' is Lightning McQueen's key phrase. Kade is so cute when he says it. He winks the whole side of his face trying to wink his eye like Lightningh McQueen.

YW Halloween Party

I'm sure all my fellow Salina cloggers will know which one I am. I know, I know, I look like I'm 10-- I'm suppose to. I was going for a 10 year old 'Sweet Home Alabama' look. My favorite costume was Wendy's pregnant skeleton.
Our Halloween activity is always a favorite. The girls are so fun. Twister was a fun addition this year. Every year they play a game where someone blindfolded tries to eat a doughnut from a string. It is always great entertainment to watch that one.

We love visitors!

We love when we get the chance to see friends, and we really love when we get the chance to have them stay with us. That is an invitation to anyone who would like a vacation to Heber Valley! You're welcome anytime!

On Sunday one of Darryl's lifelong buddies came to visit from Virginia. We enjoyed a great dinner with them that night and then after an extremely late night of reminiscing we crashed in our beds. Monday morning we took a quick trip to Cascade Springs. It was a short but great visit with Jeff and his family. The boys loved playing with their new little friends Emma and Ethne. Jen and I had a great time swapping mom stories and wife stories. It was funny to find out how similar Jeff and Darryl are as husbands and fathers.

Side story:

When we told Kade we were going to Cascade Springs he kept emphasizing, "But don't let me fall in the water. Okay? You will hold me Dad? Let's not get in the water." We assured him we wouldn't let him get wet. As soon as we arrived at the springs Kade ran up to a sign and started to 'read,' "Don't get in the water. Mom, it says, 'Don't get in the water.'" After that every sign we passed all the kids said, "It says, 'Don't get in the water.'" Kids are pretty funny. I have to say that Kade may sound concerned but his actions weren't consistent with his voiced concern. He was running all over the board walks from side to side. There were a few times I was certain he was going to fall in the water.

Like Father, Like Sons--part I

Here are our two little wrestlers in training. This video is proof that wrestling is genetic. The boys have never seen a wrestling match and Darryl has never wrestled with them. You'll see they have some good little moves, but obviously no one has told them the point is to not be on your back.
The videos are 30 sec. each. Parts I, II, & III are just them wrestling around. Darryl and I could watch them a million times but that might be because we're their parents. If you only watch one watch Part IV and turn up your volume; Clint throws a twist in the action at the end-- he's so cute I could just squeeze him (Oh wait, I do-- way too much I'm afraid).

part II

part III

part IV

Blogging Help?

I'm hoping someone can help me with a blogging issue. It's driving me crazy. I can only post text. I don't have any of the formatting buttons when I create a post or even edit a post. I don't even have the buttons for uploading images or video. It's not a matter of Compose Tab or Edit HTML Tab as they're not there either. Does anyone know how I get them back?
PS There is no spell checking button either so if there are errors-- Oops! ;)

Mommy time

A few days into our new schedule with me working and Kade began being very needy for mommy time. He wanted me to hold him a lot-- very unusual for him. I told Kade, "Tomorrow we'll do something special-- just you me and Clint. What do you want to do?" Kade's response, "Play with my friends!" So much for just time with me. He did play with friends but we also did something special; We rode the carousel at Zermat. Tim, Laynee, Mandy, and Dax joined us for the fun. The boys absolutely LOVED it. When we got there we had some time to kill while we waited for someone to start the carousel. The kids ran around deciding what animal they wanted to ride. Kade was very excited about the bunny. When it was time to ride the gentleman opened the gate to let us in and Kade, like he'd never seen the carousel, said, "Wwwwoooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwww." Clint, as you can see in the picture, wasn't too sure of the ride. After a short ride he had changed his mind. He wanted to do it again, again!