Markers and More

     Nate got attacked today by a 2 year-old with a marker!  We had a Joy School meeting at my house this morning.  All of a sudden I heard Nate crying in the bedroom.  I went to investigate and there was a kid laying on top of him.  When I pulled him off and picked Nathan up, I found that he was very colorful.  At first I thought maybe he had done it to himself but was surprised that he would have gone for his own eye.  Kelsey and another child pointed to the kid who had been laying on top of him.  I found it a little funny and had to take a picture.



I was taking pictures of Natalee's letters and Nate came running over saying, "Cheeeeese!" with this big grin on his face. 

       Later in the day Kelsey decided to get Nathan dressed for me.  I was talking on the phone and they were in his bedroom.  All of a sudden he came running out with shorts on.  Kelsey followed closely behind with his shirt in her hand.  She started to try to put it on and he was not happy about it.  I explained to her that I would do the shirt so she wouldn't accidentally smother him.  She put his socks on for him though.  She tried to get his shoes on as well but they just didn't seem to want to fit over the socks like this. :)  Besides, she picked his shoes that have shoelaces so I don't know how she was planning on tying them.  I told her that he didn't need shoes because he wasn't going to have to get out of the car to go get the kids from school.

     Today was a bit of an emotional day.  Natalee just seemed so sad after school so I asked her if she wanted to come talk in my room.  Sure enough, she's been struggling with bullies again.  It doesn't seem quite as bad as last year, but because things got so out of hand last year, she's a lot more sensitive to it now.  We talked for a pretty long time and I got a late start on dinner.  So I decided maybe today was a McDonald's day.  We had a lot of coupons for McDonald's that we hadn't used yet.  We had 4 coupons for Meals (over $6 value each) and a coupon for one free item from the dollar menu.  So we used all of our coupons and bought 2 happy meals.  After we ate the kids went and played in the play area.  Nathan was having fun in the one little spot they have down low.  Then the kids encouraged him to climb a little higher.  He was not terribly happy to be in there by the second level but the only way to get down by then was to either go back the way he came, or to go one more level to the top and use the big slide down.  They kept him going up and I heard him start to fuss a little a couple of times.  But he finally made it to the slide and seemed to really like going down.  He was on Haylee's lap the whole way down and she used her feet to keep from going too fast.  When they got to the bottom, I picked him up and he gave me such a tight hug and was just making such happy faces and sounds.  Then he reached for Daren and so I handed him over and he started hugging Daren so tightly and patting his back.  He was just so happy to be out of that thing and back in the arms of his parents.  It was so adorable and I was so happy to have him back in one piece as well!

Letters to Thomase :)

     A very good friend of our family, Thomas Sorenson, has left for college.  The kids wrote him some letters and we made him some cookies.  Thomas was so sweet and wrote back to each kid individually so they could get their own letter in the mail.  Natalee has written some very heartfelt letters to Thomas that are very journal worthy so I have been holding on to them so I could blog about them.  Poor Thomas needs his letters!  So I'm finally blogging!

This first letter was the one Natalee wrote the day we got Thomas' letters in the mail:

Dear Thomase,
I got your letter today.  Mom read hers and Dads out loud.  School's great.  Me and Katie got our first horse buyer today.  In case your wondering it was Joey.  We made up the idie of haveing Birth certificates.  Joey named the horse Brent after his middle name.  I drew the horse picture myself from a Drawing and Learning About Horses Book.  Well a supize I wonder what they are.  Mabey I can get mom to through in a couple packs of top romen.  Three weeks without it I think thats a record.  Love, Natalee
P.S.  I miss you so much call us when you can scype.

I miss you more than you miss me

hope to see you soon!

(flip)

Other side of the letter:
Mackenzie's ears are doing great.  Nathan is a little stinker.  He climds into the trash can all the time.  Haylee and me are still mean to each other.  I mean it's a habbit and all you can't blame me she's the one who's mean not me I'm just the one who is mean back.  I started reading a new book series Animorphs.  I realy like it.  It's about five kids (Teenagers), a hawk (a kid who got stuck in a hawk body), and Ax (a andalite alian kid) who keep the eath safe from Yeerks.  Evil gray slugs that are able to take over a human being.  It's a realy fun book.

Love, Natalee

A couple of weeks ago Natalee's cat showed up one morning looking pretty horrible.  Natalee needed an outlet for her feelings so she wrote the whole experience in a letter to Thomas.

October 7, 2011

Dear Thomase,

     Rosey has been looking bad for the last day or so.  Today we found out that she is burned.  I want to scream and cry.  I don't know how it happend.  We have some guesses though.  1 (one) someone burned her to torcher her or 2 two she got caught in an elextrick fence.  If it was number 1 (one) I want whoever did it to die.  I know it's horridle for me to think that, but I do.  I mean Rosey is my daughter and I'm very protective for her.  I Love her with all my heart.  This couldn't have happend to her.  Katie knows I just berly called her.  Tell me this didn't happen, but I know it did.  I'm glad Rosey is alive.  It's horrible.  Rosey has found a comfy place in the garage were she is now laying down.  It is a wonderful blessing that she is still alive.

Love,
Natalee

Letter 1-front

Artwork close-up

Letter 1-flip side

Letter 2

Cry in the NIght!

I originally wrote this post May 12, 2010 but decided not to post it.  I was worried that it would embarrass Mackenzie.  I was just cleaning things up and deleting posts that I had written but never posted when I found this.  I decided that I wanted to keep it after all.  It's a kind of funny story and Mackenzie will probably think so too when she's all grown up and reading the family blog books.  So here it is:

At about 4:00 this morning, Daren and I (and Kelsey) were awakened by a very frightened Mackenzie. Nightmares are not new to Mackenzie but they do tend to come in spurts. Since she has recently been waking up to nightmares of black widow spiders, I was sure this was another one. Because of my pregnant condition, Daren got out of bed to try to comfort her and calm her down. I realized pretty quickly that this was no nightmare about black widows. No, it was something much worse. It was about "slap" bracelets-a kind of bracelet they "buy" with their tickets at the John's Pizza Fun Factory. Mackenzie was screaming about how Natalee and Haylee have a slap bracelet and she doesn't.

Hoarders

PEEK-A-BOO! :)

     Before we cancelled Netflix, I had started watching Hoarders.  It was amazing how much it helped me to get into a cleaning mood.  But alas, the house still had it's moments.  Things were cluttered and I had been doing laundry, which meant about 5 unfolded loads on the couch.  I was just getting started and had my laundry baskets out when Daren said our family room looked like a scene from Hoarders.  So we decided to take a silly picture.  I had forgotten all about it until today when I was going back through my pictures to see what I had missed blogging about in my slump.  So just for fun, I thought I'd share our silly moment from July 2, 2011.  On to more important topics now!

Kylie "Heel"

     The Hills are our really good friends that live around the corner.  Haylee is friends with their oldest son Bryce and Kelsey loves their youngest daughter Kylie.
     I just wanted to share my conversation with Kelsey at lunch time today.

Kelsey: Will you make me a sandwich?
Me: I can, but I'm going to have to use a heel.
Kelsey:  A hill?  Like Kylie Hill?
Me:  Not that kind of hill.  Kylie is a 'Hill' but I'm going to use the 'heel'.  That's the end of the bread.
Kelsey (looking grumpy): Hey!  Kylie's not a hill (or heel, I couldn't tell at this point!)  Don't call Kylie a hill. That's not nice and I will be mad at you.  'Cause Kylie is my friend....(continues grumbling about my name calling.)

I was forgiven as soon as the sandwich landed in front of her.  Unlike my other kids, Kelsey doesn't seem to mind eating sandwiches with heels.  But I will still probably never bring it up again.  It's just too confusing!

Walk-A-Thon/Family Fun Fair Cont...(finally!)

I've been slacking on the blogging again.  But as promised, here are some pictures from the Walk-a-thon and the Family Fun Fair last month.