Beautiful Dress

I was shopping at a second hand store and ran across the most beautiful old fashion dress. It's obviously hand made but looked brand new. It's the kind of dress my mom LOVES. I knew that if she was with me she would have grabbed it off the rack immediately. So what did I do.......THE SAME THING!! I was so anxious to get it home and try it on Kaia. I when I did, Thayne was chuckling at me. I'm sure he was thinking...."Ally and her dolls!". When she was completely dressed, Josie came in the room and said, "Oh mommy, I want to hug her!". Then Indi came in next and said, "Mommy, Kaia looks like wonderland!". It was a great girl (chic) moment and I was glad to be able to experience it with my daughters :). Jaed did look up from the T.V. and said,"Yeah, she does look beautiful", but then he went right on watching t.v..

So here she is:

My little Elfs!

I saw this funny elf thing on a friend's blog and I thought I'd do it for my kids. Here's a quick snapshot of my little elfs:











And if you click on the link below you can watch them dance!
Dancing Elves

No More FOOD!

Feeding Kaia is a quite a chore. She takes a couple of bites and then decides that she doesn't want anymore. But, then we get up to do something else and she acts like she wants more so we sit down to feed her and she takes another bite. Then it starts all over again with not wanting any more. Here's some pictures of Kaia trying to tell us she doesn't want anymore:


First it usually starts with her just putting her head down:



















Then she goes for the fingers in the mouth so no food can get in:



















Then she puts her hands straight out and does the "stop" sign:



















She even tries to bury her face:



















And finally she goes for closing her eyes and swatting the air in front of her:

Jaed playing basketball

We signed Jaed up to play basketball with some hesitation. He played basketball a couple of years ago and absolutely hated it. He threw himself on the floor and refused to do anything. I remember Thayne and I being so frustrated and saying that we would never sign him up for basketball again. Well, a couple of months ago he asked me to sign him up. I explained what happened the last time we signed him up and told him I was afraid it would happen again but he reassured me that he would like it and would participate. So, we signed him up......and he LOVES IT! I think the hardest thing for him to remember is that it is not a full contact sport. At first, he was grabbing and tackling. It was quite funny but something that we had to talk to him about. He was a great rebounder even if it was tackling his own teammate for the ball when it was shot. I do have to say that in the several weeks that he's been playing, every week he is improving.

What a handsome boy he is. All this running is really slimming him out!




















Here's Jaed and his team. As you can see, he is one of the tallest kids on the team.












Here's one of the full contact sport pictures. He elbowed one of his own players in the face.




















Jaed is the one in the middle with the red shirt ready for the ball to come down.




















There he is (red shirt) again with his arms stretched high. He got the rebound and the other boy went down to the ground!

Ewww.....

A hilarious conversation:

Thayne: "Jaed your breathe smells bad!"

Jaed: "No it doesnt, Daddy. I just farted!"

Thayne: "Oh..."

I overheard this mini conversation and have been laughing about it all day. I thought I'd share it so the rest of you could have a chuckle for the day.

Do as I say......not as I do!

It seems like the last couple of days my eyes have been open to how the saying "Do as I say...not as I do" doesn't really work. Let me give you some examples that have happened recently:

Jaed is a very loud boy and sometimes I have had about all I can handle. So instead of saying it in a normal voice, I yell "Jaed, you are tooo LOUD!". How ridiculous is that. I want him to be quiet but yet I'm yelling at him. Hmmm......

When I clean the kitchen and wipe off the counters I brush everything onto the floor because I have to sweep anyways and it seems easier to me. Well, the other day Jaed saw me do it and asked me why I was brushing it on the floor. I explained to him that I had to sweep anyways so it was easier for me to just put it all on the floor. WELL......(can you guess where I'm going with this example?), yesterday morning Jaed spilt his cereal on the table and I told him to clean it up. He proceeded to push it all on the floor. I was dying and couldn't believe he would do such a naughty thing. I asked him what he was doing and he responded "It's easier to just push it on the floor since you have to sweep anyways!". AHHHHHHHHHHH......

Thayne and I are really bad about taking off our clothes and putting them in the dirty clothes basket (mostly because our basket is usually full and spilling over), so the clothes just go on the floor in the area of the basket. Last night, Thayne told Indi to take off her clothes and get her pajamas on. Indi took her clothes off, grabbed them and threw them in different places of the room. Thayne was so bugged. He told her that she needs to put them in her dirty clothes basket, not all over the floor. She looked at him with a confused look on her face, like she never knew that was what she was suppose to do.

We have had extended conversation about how important it is that when the kids are in the car they buckle their seat belts. A couple of times the girls have pretended to buckle and lied about it. Well, I HATE wearing my seatbelt. I know all the reasons I should and try to be mature about it and wear it but sometimes I rebel. Well, since our little talk with the kids I have been put in my place. If we start to drive the car and I don't have my seat belt on, Indi starts chanting "Mommy is not being safe, Mommy is not being safe", and she won't stop until I put the dang belt on.

So the moral of this post is that Thayne and I should be better examples to our children and not expect them to do anything different than what we do. Will we change? Hmmm....I'd like to say "YES" but I might be lying!

No HAIR!!

Kaia is 9 months old today and I'm dying that she has no hair. When Josie and Indi were this age I had their hair up in pony-tails. So, I sat Kaia in front of me and put a pony-tail in her hair. She didn't like any of it and gave me this look like she couldn't believe I was doing it to her, but I succeeded. I even got a bow in it. What do you think?

Halloween

Okay, so I've been getting nasty emails from some of you viewers, wondering why I haven't updated my blog recently. My answer........I don't have one. I intend to but run out of time and think "Oh, I'll do it tomorrow" but then tomorrow comes and I do the same thing. Welcome to my life :).

I guess I'll start by telling you about Halloween. I bought the girls princess dresses (of course) and I bought Jaed a Storm Trooper (Star Wars) costume and got them all at GOODWILL!! They were brand new with tags still attached. I was so excited and so were the kids! My good friend loaned me a flower costume for Kaia which fit great.

The Law School had it's annual trick-or-treating fest the day before Halloween. They give the kids "Evidence" bags and they go trick-or-treating at all the professors offices. It was funny to see there bags when they got home because Josie had at least double the candy that the other two did. Thayne said he caught her, a couple of times, taking handfuls of candy instead of the one piece we continuously try to enforce.

We decided to go trick-or-treating with some friends, on Halloween night, which turned out to be a lot of fun. My three kids were running from one house to the next singing "More candy, more candy!". We had to constantly remind them to say 'Thank You' and several times it was a yelling 'Thank You' as they ran away from the door on their way to another house. They were so happy with their bags of candy and were excited to get home and eat it. Thayne and I give the kids a set amount of time (usually 20 minutes), after we get home, to eat as much candy as they want. The clock started and the unwrapping the candy began. I was amazed at how much candy they could each eat in a short period of time. After the time was up the candy was piled in a bowl and Thayne hid it after the kids went to bed. He brings out a piece for each of them every once in a while but as far as they know, the candy is gone and the candy they are getting is candy we have had for a while. Being SNEAKY, as a parent, IS GREAT!!


What a dang cute flower!















Indi twirled and danced like a princess when she had her costume on.



















I did buy Josie a princess costume and she wore it a couple of times but then she saw last year's costume and wanted to wear it. I said no at first but she was very sad so I let her wear it. So, two years in a row as a unicorn and she's still so cute!



















Jaed was very proud to wear his costume. He was a "bad guy Trooper"!



















One of the houses we visited had this HUGE pumpkin in its drive way and there was guy hiding behind it with a microphone. The kids thought it was the pumpkin talking to them.