2015 Birthday Questions

CODY, age 10

Nicknames: Code

How old are you? 10

What is your favorite color? any kind of green

What is your favorite animal? Humans

What is your favorite book? Harry Potter and Nicholas Flamel books

What is your favorite TV show? Phineas and Ferb

What is your favorite movie? Star Wars and Tron

What is your favorite song? Don’t have one

What is your favorite food? Nachos and Double Bacon Cheese Pizza

What is your favorite dessert? Chocolate Chip Mint ice cream and Brownies

What is your favorite drink? Vanilla Sprite

What is your favorite breakfast food? Lucky Charms

What is your favorite snack? Cool Ranch Doritos

What is your favorite outfit? t-shirts and shorts

What is your favorite game? Chess, PowerGrid, Pandemic, Puerto Rico, Settlers, and XBOX Lego games

What is your favorite toy? Legos

Who is your best friend? Don’t have one currently because we just moved to WA

What is your favorite thing to do? play games, eat, play with toys, or play outside

What is your favorite thing to do outside? play tag games or trampoline games

What is your favorite holiday? Christmas and any person’s birthdays

What is your favorite restaurant? Five Guys or Cafe Rio

What do you like to take to bed with you at night? Nothing

What is your favorite place to go? vacation

Where do you want to go on vacation? Go on a cruise around the world

What do you want to be when you grow up? A Lego Designer

What did you do on your birthday? Went to Boise to see Duncan and Charlie

KYLEE, age 7

Nicknames: Ky

How old are you? 7

What is your favorite color? Blue and Orange

What is your favorite animal? Dolphin

What is your favorite book? Arthur books

What is your favorite TV show? Good Luck Charlie

What is your favorite movie? Cinderella Story

What is your favorite song? Uptown Funk (kids edited version)

What is your favorite food? German Pancakes and Nachos

What is your favorite dessert? Dark Chocolate Mousse Pie

What is your favorite drink? Lemonade

What is your favorite breakfast food? German Pancakes

What is your favorite snack? Dorito chips

What is your favorite outfit? shorts

What is your favorite game? Ticket to Ride

What is your favorite toy? Strawberry Shortcake Cafe

Who is your best friend? Isabella Brenfleck, Darcy Christensen, Bealyn Horford, Vaishnavi Battharum,

What is your favorite thing to do? play outside

What is your favorite thing to do outside? hide and seek, tag, hide and seek tag

What is your favorite holiday? my birthday and Christmas and the 4th of July

What is your favorite restaurant? Chik-fil-A

What do you like to take to bed with you at night? Monkey Berta and a warm blanket

What is your favorite place to go? Utah, Nevada, Maryland, Texas

Where do you want to go on vacation? Utah, Nevada

What do you want to be when you grow up? artist and teacher

What did you do on your birthday? Baymax party, went to school and got a birthday hat and pencil

OLIVIA, age 4

Nicknames: Lou, Liv, Livy

How old are you? 4

What is your favorite color? Red and Blue

What is your favorite animal? Giraffe

What is your favorite book? Arthur books

What is your favorite TV show? Sofia the First

What is your favorite movie? Sleeping Beauty

What is your favorite song? I Am a Child of God

What is your favorite food? Apples

What is your favorite dessert? Ice Cream cake

What is your favorite drink? Lemonade

What is your favorite breakfast food? Waffles

What is your favorite snack? Cool Ranch Burritos (Doritos)

What is your favorite outfit? dress

What is your favorite game? Sleeping Queens

What is your favorite toy? Kitchen and Phone

Who is your best friend? Callie Freeman

What is your favorite thing to do? play games

What is your favorite thing to do outside? Play with scooters and ride in my car

What is your favorite holiday? Christmas

What is your favorite restaurant? Cafe Rio

What do you like to take to bed with you at night? Lucky

What is your favorite place to go? to a restaurant

Where do you want to go on vacation? to Grandma’s house

What do you want to be when you grow up? mommy

What did you do on your birthday? Ate lunch with Callie Freeman

Cody's Boise Birthday: the BIG 10!

All Cody wanted for his birthday was to be with Duncan and Charlie. So we made a quick weekend trip down to Boise.

The Rich's set up their tent in the backyard and all the kids got to watch a movie and sleep out there with Grandpa Dean.

Our poor kids kept running into the glass door at full speed thinking there wasn't a door there. We'd get one child picked up off the floor and another would smack the door. Finally, Sara gave the kids dry erase markers and had them write all over the glass so they could see it better and hopefully help them keep the rest of their brain cells. They wrote "Danger" and "STOP" and all kinds of funny things.

Bob and Steve were able to sneak in a ride on Saturday morning.

Play-doh!

Aunt Sara helped the girls make their animals that they sleep with out of play-doh. Here is Lucky.

And here's Berta.

Duncan and Cody made a fort.

Water fight!!

Instead of going straight for Grandpa, Liv stooped to a new low: filling grandpa's shoes with water.

Birthday pizza. Papa John's is Cody's favorite.

And Aunt Sara made a yellow cake with chocolate frosting at Cody's request.

All the kids listened really well during family scriptures.

Grandpa Dean brought all kinds of wood scraps for the kids to glue together and make mini tree houses.

Duncan and Kylee

After church we ate a quick dinner and headed home. On the way home we listened to some episodes of "Conversations" on the Mormon Channel and had some awesome discussions as a family. It was a fun ride home.

Thanks to the Rich's for making Cody's 10th birthday a great one!!

Pool Rats

For the last two weeks the kids did swimming lessons. We went to the pool for lessons for about two hours every morning, then we would come home and eat lunch, and then the kids wanted to go to the apartment pool for the afternoon. They pretty much live in their swimming suits now. I have been so happy with the progress they've each made.

Although Cody was already pretty comfortable in the water, he worked on learning proper form for strokes and diving. 

Kylee was not happy with me when I signed her up for lessons and dreaded the idea of having to put her face in the water. During lessons, she would sit at the edge of the pool with her class and look at me like she was being tortured. On the third day, just before her lesson began she started to cry. She didn't want to go in the pool. As I bent down and hugged her, I whispered in her ear, "Do you want to say a prayer?" She nodded. We stayed right there at the edge of the pool as I whispered a prayer in her ear. I prayed that she would learn quickly and enjoy her classes. As soon as I finished the prayer she calmly walked over to her class, got in the water, and didn't look back. As we drove home from the pool that day Kylee said, "that was my best lesson yet!" It was true! We talked about how we had prayed beforehand and how she needs to remember to say a prayer of thanks as her prayers are answered. She did. Right there in the back of the car while everybody else went in the house she said a silent prayer. She felt so good the rest of that day, facing her fears and gaining confidence. The next day right before her lesson, we said another prayer at her request. Again, she made leaps of progress. At her lesson on Friday she was completely different from the first day. She was actually swimming! Her favorite part was jumping off the diving board at the end of each lesson.

Olivia was off and on when it came to her lessons. Some mornings she loved the idea of going and other times it was a wrestling match to get her suit on. But she doesn't mind going under the water now and she is getting better at kicking and feeling comfortable in the water. Her favorite part was jumping from the side of the pool into her teacher's arms at the end of each lesson.

I included a bunch of movies of the kids swimming (below). They love to watch these!

WA-WA-Washington...

Washington has been good to us so far. On Saturday night (June 27th), we came "home" to our furnished temporary apartment with two bedrooms. For apartment living, it has been pretty good. We are on the bottom floor so we don't have to worry about quiet feet, which is such a relief.

The very next Monday I took the kids to the library and got them a library card and signed them up for the summer reading program. One of the activities was painting a canvas to be displayed in the library. The kids had fun on the back porch bringing out their inner Picaso.

Steve and I checked out the mall and some furniture stores one Saturday. This was taken 10 seconds after entering the first store.

Five hours later....

 ...the kids were barely keeping it together. At one point, Steve and I had to divide and conquer. He had Kylee with him and I sat with Cody and Olivia. Cody was fine if he was laying or sitting on something comfy and Liv was just all over the place. In the video below, Liv is singing Cody to sleep. She is singing her own version of "Hi Ho the Dairy-o" that goes something like "Hi Ho the Dairy-o Goodnight Cody"

The first few weeks we were we went to Costa Vida three or four times. 

Liv only wanted to drink the queso. 

This is our apartment pool. This is pretty accurate for showing how the kids were before swimming lessons. Cody loved the water, Kylee would get in if she had her puddle jumper on, and you were lucky if Liv put her suit on at all, but she wasn't going to get wet.

(Kylee) 

We discovered a splash pad close to our apartment.

Cody and Kylee squirting each other.

On another Saturday we packed some snacks and set off to go hiking. A few minutes into the drive we changed plans and wandered until we found a park. We had a good time playing as a family and eating snacks under a shade tree. Below is a movie of the kids spinning.

Since our apartment complex is right on the Yakima river, we walked down to the river one evening. The kids discovered a rope swing and had fun chucking rocks in the river.

We bought this car for Liv a few weeks ago. The deal was she had to stop sucking her thumb for 10 days in order to open the box.

We are excited to move into our new house. Even with our move being as smooth as it could possibly be with all that we've had to do we are still emotionally exhausted and ready to settle into "normal"

This is What Happens When Mom Takes a Nap...

I'm really good at taking naps. It's one of my talents, actually. If I sit down to read books with the kids it's not a matter of if, but when I will fall asleep. Well, on this particular day Kylee and I were in my room and I made the mistake of laying on my bed. She likes to take pictures and make movies on my phone and so she was having fun with that for a minute. The next thing I knew I was face down on my bed waking up from a deep sleep. In the mean time, Kylee entertained herself with my phone. There's not a lot to do in our apartment right now so there's at least a bajillion movies on my phone since we moved here.

Utah in July

After being in Washington just one week we decided to hop in the car again and head down to Utah for the 4th of July. It's so great to be able to do that now!

Steve woke up super early one morning and headed up the canyon to take some sunrise pictures.

We also went to the Annual Cramer Family reunion. It was so fun catching up with family that we hadn't seen for awhile. Just two days before Raquel had her baby and was coming home from the hospital on the 4th. As crazy as it is, Raquel let us come over and we had the best time hanging out with the Hess family. It was hard to leave knowing we wouldn't see them again before they moved to New Mexico.

Kylee holding baby Dallin, our newest cousin!

That night we had fun at my parent's house watching and lighting fireworks.

Simon upgraded his go-cart with sparklers.

These boys have a special bond called firework enhancements.

We had so much fun and we're looking forward to doing it again next year!