Alexandra's 3rd Birthday

Alexandra's birthday was low-key. We went to Panda Express/Rubio's for her birthday dinner. (Then Caden and I had to go to Kohl's to pick him up a new pair of shoes.)

Zani got lots of dresses for her birthday. What else could a princess want? She also got a princess trike and some My Little Ponies.

Let's count how many outfits she goes through in an hour's time!

Outfit #1 (from Grandma & Grandpa Redding)

Outfit #2 (from Grandma & Grandpa Doll)

Ta-Da!

Outfit #3 (from Grandma & Grandpa Redding)

Outfit #4 (from Mom & Dad)

She is talking to my mom on the phone and holding up "3" fingers for her birthday. She loves birthdays and opening presents.

Almost everyday I have this conversation:
Alexandra: "Zani's birthday?"
Me: "No, it's daddy's birthday." (or fill in the blank of someones birthday ex: mommy's, Sophie's ect.)
Alexandra: "No it's Zani's birthday today. Open presents?"

She is talking so clear. And is definitely a drama queen and wants to be independent. She can be pretty funny. She will put her toys away and say "2 points." Tim is so proud! I think her favorite foods are popcorn and yogurt. She is tall and super skinny. She will put herself to bed for a nap all by herself, but getting to go to sleep at night is a whole different story.

I am also trying to potty train her but I'm not consistent enough. But she likes wearing her "underwears" aka pull-ups. She will go potty all by herself at home only when she wants to. And if we are out in public she will use the potty there anytime. Tim and her went to the A's game the other night together and he had to take her potty in the men's restroom there.

We love this little girl!

Let's go fly a kite...

Today we went to Caden's school for an afternoon of kite flying. All the 1st graders were able to fly kites with their families. It was actually a perfect day for kite flying. Nice and warm and enough wind to keep the kites up. I bought Caden a little Star Wars kite at the .99 cent store. I was a little worried that it would tear or not fly. But it flew better than the big, expensive kites.




It was Alexandra's nap time. She wasn't happy unless she got to fly the kite by herself.

February 2010

Starting with Miles' birthday we go into Birthday mode for 6 1/2 weeks. We celebrate all of our birthday's (except Avery's) within those 6 1/2 weeks.

Caden is next! He turned 7 this year. For me Caden has always been a "big kid." He plays with the older boys and acts older than he really is. He is such a naturally athletic little dude. And he is pretty funny. And he is a good helper with his little sisters. For his birthday we went to dinner at Panda Express. Then I took him to ToysRUs and bought him a DS lite. (He used his birthday money he had gotten to pay for part of it.)
I put together a small birthday party for Caden with his 2 best buddies: Ryan and Logan. We went and got pizza at Mountain Mike's then 2 games of bowling at Clayton Valley Bowl and then went to Baskin Robbins for some ice cream. Easy and they had a lot of fun!

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Tim, Miles and Zani went to Utah to go to Zoe's baby blessing. (They were gone for Caden's birthday celebrations.)
While they were in Utah, my mom and my sister took Zani, Mayley and Hunter to ride some horses. I guess Alexandra LOVED it and wasn't afraid at all.

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Miles had his Science Fair in February. The Monday before it was due I decided to get my act together and help Miles start/finish it. He was out of school that day for President's day. So we were working on this:
I thought Alexandra was sleeping. Instead she was working on her own little project and did this:
Did I mention that she loves to color? That is blue marker all over her walls and the blinds. Gotta love her though!
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Tim and I went to see Wicked on the 24th. We went to Buca di Beppo for dinner and then to the show. I really enjoyed it. (We didn't take any pictures.) I was able to find a coupon code and got $30 off each ticket. It was the perfect girl date.
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Speaking of coupons. I am a little obsessed. Or I call it my new hobby. We now get 3 Sunday papers. My favorite store to shop at is Walgreens. I have a coupon binder. For my birthday I all I wanted was a new computer printer so I could print more coupons! Who can pass up a few of these deals:

Total: .34 cents plus tax at Walgreens.

I paid $40.51 at RiteAid for all of this but I am getting a $10 RiteAid Gift Card plus a Mail-in Rebate for $30 for everything. So I basically paid .51 for it all (that includes tax).Maybe the reason I haven't been blogging is because I have been busy couponing and shopping!

Oh yeah - the boys started practicing for baseball. They are in 2 different leagues this year which is even more fundraising/snack shack duties/umpiring ect...!! Fun for us.

January 2010

My lack of blogging is very sad. And I really don't have a good reason.
Lazy? Tired? Stressed? Worried? Busy? All of the above?
I enjoy reading others blogs then writing on my own.
So I will try a re-cap what we have been up to month-by-month.

Miles turned 10!! I can't believe that he is now in double digits!
He is a hard one to get a smile out of. Unless you give him a Yankees shirt!

Tim went to a lot of Warriors games and Ward Conferences. It seemed like he wasn't home much.

Miles and I went to the San Francisco de Asis Mission one afternoon so he could work on his 4th grade Mission Project. I didn't grow up in California so I'd never been to a mission and don't know a lot about them.

Jail Bird

We have a routine.

We put Avery bed. 20 minutes later she is up again. She has usually pooped, disassembled her entire bottle (she has figured out how to untwist the top off) and thrown it on the floor.

Sunday night we went to go get her after she had completed her "routine" and she looked like this:
She is a cute little jail bird isn't she??

The boys recent school projects

I haven't posted anything for a while. I have been super busy helping the boys with school projects. Here are pictures of what we have finished:

Miles: California Mission Project
(Miles and I actually visited the mission in San Francisco. We took a bunch of pictures and made collages out of the pictures.)
Miles: Science Fair
Caden: White Flippered Penguin Report
Caden: Dentist office for classroom city

Baseball had already started. Miles practices 4 times a week and Caden 2 to 3 times a week.
I need a break after all these projects. I'm tired!!

Sounds like life to me ...

There is this country song by Darryl Worley called Sounds Like Life To Me. Here are some of the lyrics:

"Sarah’s old car’s about to fall apart
And the washer quit last week
We had to put momma in the nursing home
And the baby’s cutting teeth
I didn’t get much work this week
And I got bills to pay
I said I know this ain’t what you wanna hear
But it’s what I’m gonna say

(Chorus)
Sounds like life to me it ain’t no fantasy
It’s just a common case of everyday reality
Man I know it’s tough but you gotta suck it up
To hear you talk you’re caught up in some tragedy
It sounds like life to me"

I feel like this has been our life the last week. Our water heater quit working last Saturday night. Chris has come over to light the pilot light. Both Tim and I have lit the pilot light. PG&E came out on Tuesday to look at it. The problem is that the pilot light will not stay on. Wednesday we had an appliance guy come out and look at it. After 20 minutes of looking at the water heater (and being an hour and a half late) he said he couldn't fix it and called some of his friends to see if they could come out. So on Thursday we had someone else come to the house. He got the pilot light lit and said everything was fixed. OK... I called him back an hour later and said the pilot light was out again. So he came back and replaced the thermocoupler. (It was dark and rainy outside by the time he came back.) He said it should be good now. But guess what? We still have no hot water. The frustrating part is that the water heater is only a year and half old. The bank paid to have it put in before we bought the house. It has a 6 year warranty but we have NO paperwork on the unit. The water company said that they would replace it if we got the info on where the water heater was purchased and who installed it. So right now we have called our realtor and she has contacted the listing agent who is trying to figure out the info for us. If we don't get any information in the next day or 2 we are going to have to buy a new water heater.

So I took a freezing cold shower this morning. I have taken 3 somewhat warm showers at home. And 2 hot showers at the Ballins. Tim has been taking showers at work or at the gym. We took all the kids over to the Ballins last night for baths.

On top of this Caden has a penguin report due on Tuesday. It is Miles' birthday on Wednesday and Miles' 4th grade Mission report is due on Thursday. What a crazy week!!

This last week has been rough and I've been all emotional. But I guess that's life.

Thanksgiving 2009

We surprised my family and drove out for Thanksgiving. We let Parker in on the secret after we were on the road. It was a surprise because we were already going to Utah for Christmas. We survived the long drive and arrived in Utah about 2:30 am Sunday night/Monday morning.

When we got to Utah there was snow on the ground, so the boys enjoyed it for a few days before it melted.
We spent Thanksgiving day at my Aunt Jody and Uncle Bill's house, with our usual Thanksgiving food. I got to see most of my Aunts, Uncles, Cousins and my cousins kids on my Dad's side. I only get to see them once or twice a year. It's always good to see family that I grew up with. Miles and Caden had a great time playing with their cousins. There are boys that are close to their age, so we didn't see them much - they were all running around.

We have a tradition of taking the baby's picture by the pecan pie. We tried it last year and Avery was crying in every picture. So this year turned out better. I also made this pie from scratch -- even the crust!
Sitting at the big kids table!
Miles' Turkey day hair-do: He hadn't had a haircut since August. The longest it has ever been.
My dad, My bro-in-law Bryan and Tim: For some reason I didn't take many pictures that day!

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The next day Tim and I went shopping on Black Friday in American Fork. I was excited because #1 Tim was coming with me. and #2 any presents that we bought could be left at my parents, and not hauled back home. We left at 1:15 am and stood in line for Old Navy. There was a promotion if you bought $20 worth of merchandise you would get Lego Rock Band for free. But they were also passing out wristbands. They ran out of wristbands about 10 people in front of us. So we left. (After standing in the cold for an hour and a half.)

Then we drove over to Kohls. We knew what we were going to get. So I gave Tim his coupons and his list of items to purchase. We stood in the cold for about 20 minutes and then literally ran into the store. Success!! Tim was faster than me and didn't have to stand in line for very long. I stood in line for about 20 minutes. But the things you will do for a $30 microwave!

We were going to get a DS lite for Caden but we went to 2 different stores after Kohls and they were both sold out at 5 am. We did buy a few other items at Wal-Mart. But the lines were insane!! We stood in one line for at least 20 minutes and didn't move. Tim was getting tired so he went and sat in the car. I decided to be brave and try another line, I was able get out of there after another 30 mins or so. We got back at my parents house about 7:30 or so. It all started to blur together....

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That night Suzi, Jeff, Melinda, Dylan, Alyssa, Jana and Anthony came to my parents house to hang out. We pulled out my Mom's Beatles Rock Band Set that I secretly helped her buy. BTW - Jeff is the BEST Rock Band Drummer I have ever seen play.

Alyssa singing and being cute:
Dylan being grumpy:
Jana about 3 weeks before Zoe was born.

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When we got to Utah we realized that the BYU/Utah football game was on Saturday. Tim told my mom that was going to get tickets for the game -- and for FREE. My mom didn't believe that he could pull it off. Tim sent out some text messages to some friends. The next day he had scored 4 free tickets to the game thanks to his brother Jeff and APX. So Tim and the boys went to the game and met up with Suzi, Jana and Anthony. GO COUGARS! (Now Miles says that he wants to go to BYU after going to the game. (YAY!)

Halloween 2009

I am so behind on blogging...

For Halloween we had an
Army Guy: (he was an army guy about 4 years ago, but insisted on being one this year.)
Anakin Skywalker: (That mask freaks me out, too eerily real looking.)
A Kitty:
and Tinkerbell:

We went to dinner at Applebee's that night because if kids were in costume they got a free kids meal. We ended up paying $22.00 for all 6 of us to eat out.
Then we drove back to our neighborhood and did some trick or treating. Miles was done after about 8 houses. So we drove home. Then I took Caden out by himself. There weren't very many kids out trick-or-treating so every house we went to they gave him a handful of candy. So we took a pillowcase full of candy home and hit up more houses.

One bag of loot:

Our *New* favorite YouTube video