Plum Tuckered Out!

So I am not a fan of 1:00 church at all!  We have had that time all year, and it feels like you sit home the whole morning, then right at nap and lunch time you pack everyone up and drag them in the car for church.  Plus, if you get ready at 9:00 in the morning, your kids are dirty by 1:00.  But if you wait until 11:00, somehow you are always late!  I am glad this year is coming to an end, and I am facing 11:00 church for next year!  So excited!  The other day though we came home and Jackson had been horrible the entire time!  He was so tired.  We sat down to eat and by the time I got his plate ready, this is what he looked like!

Brayden decided it was kind of smart to fake asleep.  You get out of eating your vegitables, which I always make my kids eat before I put out dinner.

And here was Katelyn.  That girl is like her mom and is willing to stay awake for food no matter how tired she is!

We're Walking!

Katelyn has been 1 year old for a month and a half now.  She could take a few steps on her birthday, but she didn't seem to like it and she would sit down and crawl where she needed to go.  This last Tuesday, out of no where, she up and walked around the house!  That was it!  She walks everywhere now.  She follows me around like a little puppy.  I LOVE IT!  I think I have been a mother of infants for too long.  I couldn't wait for her to his this stage.  She is still very needy, but she is also way more capable of doing things herself and entertaining herself for just a little longer.  Here are some pictures of her birthday and some recent ones of her and the boys.

Dinosaur Train

So PBS has a new show on called Dinosaur Train.  This is Brayden's new favorite show, and I have loved it too!  He will run in and tell me what dinosaurs he learned about and if they were carnivores, herbivores or omnivores, what time period they lived in,  and many other things they went over that day.  Yesterday, I sat down to watch it with him.  Jackson was sick, so I held him while we watched.  The subject for the day was-POO!  I'm not even kidding!  One of the main dinosaurs was having trouble going potty.  She was embarassed by it.  So they talked about what poo is and why we poo.  They even had a part where they were playing hide and seek and found out they weren't hiding behind rocks, they were actually giant dinosaur stools, feces, or poo. (whatever you want to call it.  Now Brayden knows all three names and is using them in turn when he goes #2)  Then to finish it, they showed the bottom part of a giant dinosaur dropping poo, and as a grand finale they had a poo song!  I about died laughing!  Brayden walked around after singing, "All kinds of species have to make their own feces, the more you eat the more you poop!"  I had to think about the show for a while.  I wasn't sure I liked them teaching my son about poop.  At the end of the show, a paleontologist came on and told the kids how they use fossilized dino poop to determine what the dinos ate and what kind of surroundings they were in.  All in all, I decided I liked it.  It was an educational light hearted way of teaching the kids that pooping is normal.  Maybe my son, being a boy, won't have to go through that phase where poop is funny and they use it as a bad word.  Maybe he will understand it in a different way now and won't think it is that funny.  He did laugh in some spots, but mostly he thought the new words he had learned were cool and he thought it was awesome that they can use poo to discover things about dinosaurs.  So thank you PBS for teaching my son about POO!

Halloween!

I love Halloween!  I think that holidays just get better as your kids get older and enjoy them more!  This year was a blast!  Jackson was so excited that when he knowcked on doors and smiled at people, they gave him candy!  He would look at us and yell, "I got a nodder cannie!" and "Dis Awesom!".  Brayden was a hoot too!  MY favorite though, Kirt!  My dad, Kirt, and I took the kids out this year and half way around the block Brayden told us his feet were exhausted and he needed to go home!  Well Kirt figures that half that candy is his and there was no way he was letting Brayden go home with half a block of candy!  So He pumped up Brayden and would yell with him about every piece.  He would race him to the doors and freak out over every candy he got.  Brayden was so excited and finished the rest of the block!  Last year Kirt convinced Brayden that the orange candy, (recess peanut butter cups) were the best thing to choose.  (they also happen to be Kirt's favorite!)  Brayden came home with 50 recess cups!  Kirt was thrilled!  Also, half way around Kirt started with his mathematics.  He figured that candy probably costs $4.50 a pound.  He figured that after 2 hours, each kid would probably have 2 pounds of candy.  With 5 kids that totaled $40 in candy.  We were making $20 bucks an hour!  He is so funny!  Here are some pics of my kids in costume!

kozy contest

So Kosy 106.5 is doing a contest, well I'm not sure if they are doing it anymore; but You submit a picture of your "prince" or "princess" and people vote on the cutest pictures.  The prizes were tickets to the disney on ice tickets, and the grand prize winner was a free trip to Disneyland!  I haven't been on a vacation in more than 2 years, so I was so excited to win this contest!  I dressed up Jackson and Katelyn, and sat them down to take pictures to enter.  They were so cute.  Jackson wrapped his arms around Katelyn and she smiled, they were adorable.  I took them upstairs to submit them, but our computer wouldn't pull up the link to do it.  We have tried 4 other computers and can't enter our picture!  So my photos were never entered =( but I couldn't let them go to waste, so I am putting them on here so that someone can see how cute my kids look!

The Zoo

Last week my mom and I took our kids to the zoo.  It was perfect weather for it!  I actually liked going in the colder weather than in the middle of the summer!  The animals were all out and put on some pretty good shows!

They had a lot of babies there!  A new elephant, giraffe, tiger cubs, & monkeys.  The baby elephant was way cute.  She would stand under her mom, but then when she got in her mom's way, the mom would kick her out from underneath her.  We saw her get kicked out three times!

  I love this picture because once when I was there with Kirt he stood next to the picture of the Male Gorilla and his arms were just as long as the picture!  The sign next to it said that there are few humans with an arm spand as long as a gorilla's.  A couple of Chinese people even walked up and asked if they could take his picture!  Got to love Chinese photographers!Interesting fact about camels!  See how the one camel's hump is hanging over?  Guess why?  During mating season, camels burn a excess amount of calories!  Their humps are full of fat and druing this particular time of fun, they lose a lot of the fat!  Funny!Katelyn was so funny!  I didn't think she would really enjoy the trip at all, on the contrary she loved the animals!  She would make monkey gestures and hit the windows!  She loved the zoo!  When we got home and told Kirt about our trip she started making her monkey gestures again!  I have never had a baby who even cared we were at the zoo.This monkey was so funny!  When we first walked over to them ,this one was holding a baby!  Another monkey ran up to it and grabbed the baby!  It took off with it, but the baby was upside down!  The grown monkey started spakning the monkey on the butt!  This monkey got mad and tried to take the monkey back, but the other one took off up the tree with it.  The poor baby would look between the legs of the older one and had this look of, "what's going on!" on its face!  This one sat in the corner and sulked after that!

The tigers were gorgeous. The mom was just laying there asleep. A lot of people were trying to make her move, but she wouldn't budge. Then Jackson walked up to the fence and said hi to the tiger. It lifted it's head up and looked straight at him! Not kidding! I took this picture of the tiger stareing at him. I wish I could have got Jackson in it too, they stared eachother down for a couple of seconds then the tiger laid back down and went back to sleep!

Potty Training

Well I wrote this once, but it didn't work, so I will try again.  This last week we have started potty training Jackson.  It is my first time potty training anyone, because Brayden was taught by Kirt's mom.  I went into labor with Jackson, sent Brayden to Denise's house for three days, and he came home in red underwear!  I loved it!  This time Denise is in Jerusalem so I am doing in on my own. 
The first day went really well.  He went peepee toilet all day with no accidents, but he couldn't get down the poop thing.  So I cleaned out two pair of underwear (This thanksgiving I am going to be thankful that I didn't live in the clothe diaper era!) and we tried again the next day.  Same story, could do the #1 but not #2.  Well I gave up for a couple of days because I wasn't going to be at home to take him potty every 30 minutes.  Well when we tried again I watched him better.  I saw him in the corner making that "face", you know the concentrating hard face!  I ran him into the bathroom where he proceeded to poop!  I was so excited! (This was one of those moments where I realized you absolutely had to be a mom to be cheering on poop!)  I pointed into the toilet and said, "Look Jackson you did it!"  He looked at me and looked down in the toilet and got really excited!  He then turned to me and pointed at the poop and said, "Look Mom, a fish!"  I about died laughing because he pushed out another piece and said, "Look Mom, another fish!"  After we wiped and washed his hands, Jackson ran out to tell everyone what he had just done.  He ran into the front room and yelled, "I pooped a fish!" 
That was two days ago and now everytime he needs to go #2 he tells me he needs to poop a fish!