R-E-S-P-E-C-T

So, now I'm bragging about another kid...sorry, I just have great kids! ;) Evan was the "star student" this month (the student of the month). His school picks kids according to different "character" traits for student of the month. The last 2 years he has gotten it for honesty-which he totally is, there really isn't a sneaky bone his body (let's hope that lasts into his teenage years). This year he got the award for respect. Here is an example of his respect/a confession of my horrible mothering skills...I wrote the wrong day on the calendar for his breakfast/award ceremony, so we totally missed it. When talking to my mom on the phone about it, I said, "I guess what really mattered to him was getting his donut and shirt and his teacher got them for him." To this Evan says, "No, what really matters is I love you." Okay do kids get any sweeter than that? Love that kid!

That pose in the second picture???...100% his idea :) Still not sure what it is all about.

Bragging is not becoming

I know that bragging is not becoming, but I just have to. We all usually see a tease/feisty/mischievous side of Paxton, but there really is such a tender side to that little guy, and he can be incredibly sweet! I just got his progress report home and it said, "Paxton plays nice with all students at school. He has a couple friends whom he chooses to play with most days at preschool, but it is not uncommon for Paxton to choose to sit down next to a child who is younger or disabled and choose to help them learn to play a game or puzzle. Paxton is a very sweet, patient, empathetic child who is a wonderful role model for all the students in the program!" Ahhhhhhh!

Plus about two weeks ago, Great Grandma was talking to Paxton about his new room and said she heard it was nice, but couldn't get up the stairs to see it. To this Paxton offers, "I'll hold your hand Grandma!" Ahhhhh! Doesn't that just melt your heart?

Then he probably belched. :)

Check her out!

My "aunt" (she's closer to my age and I feel more like she's a sister in law) was in town and we tried to take our kids bowling. Both the places we tried to go to had really long waits, and they were headed back to Utah so we couldn't wait (sorry Ty). While we were attempting to bowl we found out the sub has the best FHE...only a $1.50 a game and $0 for shoes on Mondays! I talked to Jeff and we decided to head back down for FHE. We all loved it, but you have to check out this video of Rilynn!

Okay, I just realized I am totally lame and recorded this sideways, oops. It is still worth viewing though.






Don't mind the little bummy hanging out of the pants.

This was Rilynn's first time bowling and she couldn't get enough! After she threw the ball she would yell, "I wanna do it again!"
Jeff (Kung Fu) won, but team "hot chicks" (Rilynn and I) were close behind! X-man (Evan) and Power Ranger (Paxton) were probably closer, but for some reason the computer kept scoring Hot Chicks spares that we really didn't get.












Check out their form!

Cute shoes

Knuckles

her hair turned out cute huh?

Dad won't let me stick my head in the ball return! :(

Let's get physical!

Jeff has been playing indoor soccer for a little over 2 years and now he has gotten the rest of the family on board (w/an exception of the 2 year old and 6month old). We just finished our first session of indoor soccer. This session Jeff started on 3 teams-a men's, a co-ed, and another co-ed team Jeff put together about a year ago with people from our ward (called Nodacult). Jeff does really good. His all men's team moved up a league because they got 1st place.

The super star is Paxton. Indoor soccer is his specialty. Holy cow! In his last game he scored 10 goals!!! He probably averaged 4-5 goals per game for the season. I think indoor was much better for a 4 year old than outdoor, because there is no out of bounds-Pax quickly lost focus outside this fall. Don't play dirty against him though...he's got an aggressive sports side and he WILL retaliate (and he's not very discrete, he sees the "punk" who did it and sets his sights). Jeff gave him a speech on how its good not to let kids push him around on the soccer field, and started coaching him on how to get back and get away with it. Okay, probably not a totally appropriate conversation with a 4 year old, but when you have a competitive dad... :) lol

My camera didn't take very good pictures in the soccer place for some reason, so I don't have a picture of Evan or me.
Evan enjoyed the season too, but was pretty crushed after his last game because he didn't get a goal during this session. He did really improve through-out the season though. He played goalie a few times and did good, but was really hard on himself when he would get scored on.
I loved playing, but stunk pretty bad. I always thought I was a coordinated person-then I tried to play soccer. Well, to say the least-apparently I am on the UN-coordinated side. The new session just started and I am feeling Evan's same desire to score. Cross your fingers (I need ALL the help I can get). The best part is playing with Jeff, it is fun to be out there with him-and he scores every game so he kinda balances me out for never scoring right?!

6 months already!

This last month has been big for Cooper Boy (Rilynn's new name for Cooper). He has gotten so good with his hands and fingers-making them hold toys, pinch my face and neck (maybe I can try to blame my double chin on him "stretching me out?"), and pulling my hair. His favorite word is dada and the kids are thoroughly convinced he says hi. He has just started waving bye-bye and tried his first food on Christmas day-sweet potatoes that Santa brought him in his stocking.

He is ginormous. He weighs just over 20 pounds and is wearing 12-18month clothes. The kid gobbles down an 8oz bottle faster than I could gulp 8 oz of diet coke. He still has adorable dimples that you could just eat up. There is one thing that hasn't changed this month, he still stinks at sleeping. Any advise?

Holiday fun

I know this is long...bear with me

I feel like this year the holidays flew by faster than ever...we didn't get to do a lot of the things we normally do. We still had a lot of fun though...here's a glimpse into a few of the things we did.

Decorating the tree was fun. Rilynn was the most into it. She asked for the next two days to put more on the tree. Pax loved to hang the ornaments up as high as he could.

Jenae had a great plan to decorate sugar cookies for Santa. It was so fun. Us, Jenae, Ethan, and our surprise guests Colton and Dakota cut out and decorated cookies.

Paxton was my most focused. Rilynn was determined to do it all by her self (it made more of a mess than actual cookies), but her and Ethan sure did enjoy eating the frosting and candies that were supposed to going on the cookies. They were very efficient at that! The three oldest boy had fun too. We learned a lesson, next year use a table cloth...flour gets stuck in the grooves of the table.

We spent Christmas Eve at Chris and Jessica's. The kids had fun playing while we had fun playing Cities and Knights of Catan. Rilynn and Braxton are such cute little buddies.

This was the way home from Chris's. They were actually lucky because the roads were the worst roads I've ever been on. They were so covered in snow I was petrified! We got home with no problems though (it just took 2 hours).

This is one example of not getting everything done like normal. We just made our gingerbread house tonight for FHE. The kids didn't care that we were late. They we more than happy to indulge in more candy.

Rilynn loved to decorate the tress. Paxton loved doing the frosting and Ev was very precise on where he put the candy pieces. Cooper slept. Great Grandma even came over and joined us at the table and watched the kids work away.

These are the kids with their presents from everyone. Can you say spoiled?! They sure did make out good!

HIP HIP HOORAY!

It is finally done! It has taken two years, a few different plans, many headaches, and a lot of help from family, but the upstairs is finally finished! The boys officially moved up to their new room last Saturday!!! There are still a few odds and ends left to do-hang up the fan, paint the closet door (that will have to wait for spring), and get all of their BSU gear hung up and then it will be the proper Bronco room. They are so excited...Evan says he is sleeping better up there. :) Paxton said,"it's awesome."


Jeff has always said he wanted to buy an old house and fix it up...we've learned after this project that we are not so much up the "fix it up" type. We aren't so great at it and I can't stand the continuous project part...I want it to be done and not always "in the process." So, now Jeff is saying we'll just have Zach Evan's (a builder whose houses we both love) build for us and it won't need any fixing up. Sounds good to me!
This is the cute plaque my mom got my boys last Christmas and we just got it hung up. We knew I was pregnant, that is when we decided to move the boys upstairs, so we were waiting to hang it up in their new room. Isn't it cute?