Early to Bed

(This is an old picture of Kayden.)

So we finally figured out how to get the boys to bed early without any trouble.

1. Take them to play at their cousins so they get worn out and only take a 20 minute nap in the car on the way home.

2. Give baths before dinner.

3. After dinner go look at Christmas lights where they will fall asleep in the car and not even get to look at the lights.

4. Take them home and put them in bed.

Easy, right!

(Note: Do not have their sheets in the dryer. Then you have to put them to bed somewhere else and move them after you make their beds. Without fail they will wake up when you move them to their beds.)

Decorating

Kayden is in a helping phase. So he helped me decorate the tree. You obviously can't tell because my camera insists on taking blurry pictures, but the ornaments are all together in two groups: one where Kayden could reach from standing on the couch, and the other group at his height standing on the floor. He kept putting all the ornaments on the same branch. By about the 5th one they would all fall off and he would have to start over. It took a while to decorate the tree! I even left them where he put them and haven't rearranged them.

We had to move all of the bulbs up though because Drew pulls them off, bites them and breaks them. Our tree actually looks pretty good though. (Progress from last year when I didn't even put up a tree.)

The Fireman and the Monkey

Here is Kayden in his fireman costume for Halloween. And below is Drew the monkey.


We had all been sick all week with the flu and didn't even know if we were going to be able to go to our ward Trunk-or-Treat. Kayden kept asking all day to go, so a couple hours before we went and got a costume and decided to let him go since he had been couped up at home all week. It had been really windy and the whether was finally calm again. Kayden insisted on using the Strawberry Shortcake bucket for his candy, which Steve was not too happy about. Drew just ran around the parking lot the entire time with his tail dragging behind him. Everyone commented how cute he was, after they would almost run over him because it was hard to see him in the dark. We had a fun Halloween and then went back to being sick.

Here are some other random pictures:
Dad and Kayden taking a nap.

Kayden and Drew eating cookies on the counter (Hey, if I can get dinner made then I guess a cookie is ok.)

Birthday Presents & Cake

Drew's birthday was a while ago now, but here are some pictures from it. Kayden, of course, helped him open his gifts, and then played with them.



We just had cake and ice cream with the family for Drew's birthday party. Drew was very clean with his cake, and hardly made any mess.


Kayden and his cousisn.

Last Summer Days

So here are some way belated pictures. I think that these were actually from September. The boys loved playing outside this summer, and since it is so hot I would usually MAKE them turn on the water so the cement didn't burn their feet.

On this day it wasn't too hot outside, but I went out and found them playing in the water, which was freezing cold. They didn't seem to notice though.


This is Drew's favorite bike, even though he can't ride it yet. He loves to go out and sit on it. He loves it even more if someone will push him on it. Kayden just pushes him into the grass though.






Obviously, Kayden had been pushing Drew in this picture.

Husbands are worse than kids for some things

Does anybody notice something wrong with this picture?

This is my pilgrim boy and girl for Thanksgiving that I have sitting on a shelf. Today I found the Turkey tipped over. I was a little annoyed thinking that Kayden had gotten up and messed with the Thanksgiving decorations. But I sat the turkey back up and didn't think about it again the rest of the day.

Then Steve comes home tonight and says, "Hey, who turned the turkey back up?!" I said, "I did. Are you the one that knocked it over." Can you even guess what his explanation was??


--The turkey is dead!!-- It is Thanksgiving and we kill and eat the turykey. The boy pilgrim shot him and he's dead so the turkey needs to be tipped over.

I told Steve he is worse than a child.

So if you come to our house our Thanksgiving turkey is dead.


On a better note. Tonight for family home evening we read our traditional Book of Mormon story, and then Steve made Kayden a race track for his cars from this piece of cardboard. Kayden loved it and played with it the rest of the night. Why do we even buy toys at the store??

Sneaky

Dad: "Kayden, pick up the corn dog stick and put it in the garbage"
Kayden: "Anni chewed this up"
Mom: "How did Anni even get it"
Kayden: "She's sneaky!"

Potty Time

So I finally decided to do it and get Kayden potty trained. We do not need 3 kids in diapers! All of our summer trips are over, so it's time.
(Kayden will probaby hate me someday for posting this, but it was too cute to pass up.)

But, what do you do when your kid is so good about going potty in the toilet that they wake up in the middle of the night and go to the bathroom and then come wake you up to put a diaper back on them?

Yep, this happens most nights.

Or, what do you do when you are at Stake Conference and your wife is up on the stand, so you are trying to watch two kids and they tell you they need to go to the bathroom? You put a diaper on them before church because you didn't want to deal with potty training at church. So you tell them to go potty in their diaper, but they won't and keep bugging you that they need to go. So the baby gets to crawl around the bathroom floor while you help the other one go potty on the toilet.

(Shame on Steve for telling Kayden to just go in his diaper.)

Or what do you do when you are at the store, and you already went in the bathroom once, but now they need to go again and you are at the checkout paying for a full cart of groceries and they take off running to the bathroom. You can't let a 3 year old go off by themselves at the store, but you can't leave $200 worth of paid for groceries unattended. So you tell them they have to hold it until you get home, and they literally HOLD IT.

Or if you're at a store and just took them to the bathroom less than 15 minutes ago and they tell you they have to go again? Do they really have to go, and do you really need to take them? Steve found out that YES, you do take them! Otherwise you get to walk around with a huge wet spot on your shirt.

Kayden is really doing pretty well. We really only had accidents the first few days. He goes without us reminding him, and he will go poop now too. (Thank Goodness!) The first time he did this he told his Dad to go het his Mommy so she could see. (This was the hardest thing . He would usually just wait and go at night when he had a diaper on or in his underwear, but at least he would come and tell me right away that he went in his underwear. I will never have cloth diapers - GROSS.) Kayden even took his step-stool to the babysitters everyday. And he has only peed all over the bathroom once so far. I know there will probably be more of this to come with boys.

Drew's new favorite play toy is the toilet, and Kayden forgets to flush ALOT!

I really can't complain, but it's only the first. We still have at least 2 more to go!! (Hope this wasn't too much info)

(Once I opened to door to see if Kayden needed help and this was what I found.)

Heartbreaker

For playgroup a few weeks back we were going over to Kayden's friend, Mark's house. Usually I will just tell him we are going to playgroup today, but this week I kept asking him if he wanted to go play at Mark's house. Thursday night at dinner when we were talking about going to Mark's house tomorrow, Kayden says, "You leave me Mom?" Oh my gosh, it broke my heart!

All weekend when we were going somewhere he keept asking if I'm going to leave him. On Monday, I had a doctor's appointment. So I tell Kayden we are going over to Grandma's house. "You leave me Mom?" he asked me. I had to tell him yes I was leaving him for a little bit and it made me so sad! He knows that I will be back and he doesn't get upset or anything, but still.

He never asks if I am going to leave him when we go to the babysitter's. I guess he already knows that I am. Everywhere we go now he asks if we are leaving him and if Drew is staying with him. I this already kills me, how will I ever leave him at college, or the MTC?

Story time

(Kayden thinks everything needs to be on his bed. One day I couldn't find the dirty laundry pile that had been in the hallway. Found it on his bed.)

These are just a few things that I wanted to get written down, and since I am a horrible journal keeper (as in non-existent) I am recording it here and everyone else can read it as well.

Our house is a barnyard. I am always the horsee and Drew is always the cow. Kayden's room is the barn. Some typical phrases from Kayden are:

"Come on horsee, let's go in the barn."

"Horsee, get the cow"

When I asked Kayden what animal Steve was Kayden said, "He's the chicken. Get in the barn chicken!"

The other night when Steve walked in the door from work Kayden said, "Come on big fat chicken, come and see."

Steve doens't know why he has to always be the chicken.

Here's another one of my conversations with Kayden:

Kayden: "Mommy, what's your name?"

Mom: "My name is Mom."

K: "No, what's your name?"
M: "My name is Christina."
K: "Oh, you're Christina Monkey."

M: "What's your name?"

K: "I'm Kayden Monkey."

M: "What's Dad's name?" (Thinking he'll ask me what Dad's name is."

K: "He's Stephen Monkey. His name's Stephen, Mom." (How did he know Stephen? I always call him Steve?)

Later that night in the car (after we got some delicious $3.00 cupcakes for free for family home evening. Yes, $3.00 each!!) Kayden started yelling, "Steve! Steve! What are you doing Steve? Driving the car?"

Steve tried to explain for about 5 minutes that his name was Dad. Kayden calls him Dad and Mom can call him Steve. Finally, Steve gave up and said, "Yes, I'm driving the car."

Evil at the Cabin

(Do you see the evil? It is in the bottom right corner!)

For Labor Day we took our last family trip up to the cabin for the year. It was georgous! The river was honestly sparkling in the sun. That is how perfect it was.

There was just one problem.

Mark brought up a portable satellite (and a flatscreen) so the they could watch the Oklahoma vs. BYU football game. Well of course that game turned into watching football all night. And for men that claim they don't like BYU, they sure do watch A LOT of BYU FOOTBALL!!

(Watching football on the deck. The TV was brought inside before it got dark. Notice Robin and I are reading.)

That satellite is my root of all evil as far as the cabin goes, and I can honestly say I never want satellite at the cabin. The cabin is my ESPN FREE ZONE!! So I guess it is good that football and basketball are not on during the summer months when we go up there because Steve would be missing a lot of sports.

Other than that we really didn't do much besides take Kayden on 4-wheeler rides, eat and hang-out. It was a good weekend.

When we went to the cabin on Memorial Day Drew was almost crawling, and now Drew is almost walking. What a summer!

Disneyland - but not us

So on Saturday everyone went to Disneyland, but not me. Are you crazy? Waiting in line all day at Disneyland with two little boys who won't even remember it and pushing a stroller around does not sound fun to me. It will be a few years before we go to Disneyland.

We went to the beach instead. Sarah decided to go with the other teenagers to Disneyland, so Mom stayed with me to take the boys to the beach. Kayden was so excited to go. The day before he was constantly asking me if it was time to go to the beach yet, and I felt so bad always having to tell him no.

When we got in the car to go to the zoo:
"Mom, are we going to the beach now?" "No."

After we stopped to get Uncle Kevin's car stuff:
"Mom, do we get to go to the beach now?" "No."

When we stopped to eat lunch:
"Mom, are we going to the beach" "No."

When we got to the zoo:
"Mom, are we at the beach yet?" "No."

So I was so excited to tell him we were FINALLY going to the beach. We found a great parking spot right next to Huntington beach, loaded up the diaper bag, cooler, beach toys, umbrella, and towels and headed down to the water. It was such a nice day. We set everything up and Kayden started playing in the sand.

Mom was so good about helping him build his sand castles, getting him water in his buckets, and finding seashells for him. When he finally got the nerve to stand in the water the wave took awile to go out and I could feel Kayden's grip on my hand getting tighter and tighter. He didn't like the sand going out from under his feet. He wouldn't go near the water again.

(Grandma & Kayden)
(Grandma looking for seashells)



Drew was a totally different story. We couldn't keep him out of the water! We would take him down and hold his feet in the water. Then after a while we would bring him back up and set him in the sand by Kayden. Drew would just turn right back around and slide down the hill and head back out to the water. It didn't matter how far out the waves were, he would keep going until he reached the water.

(Going out to sea)

(Can you see his scooting trail in the sand?)
Next time we go I need to get a board and just walk up and down the beach because apparently that is the cool thing to do. Do those guys even know how to surf, or do they just walk around all day?

After a few hours we decided to go (plus our parking meter was going to run out). Drew was covered EVERYWHERE in sand and it took a while to get him washed off. Kayden didn't want to go and was happy just sitting in the sand eating a poptart. We loaded everything back up. (We didn't sit on the beach towels, or sit under the umbrella, or eat anything in the cooler. So much for being prepared.)

Next was nap time. One of the best of my life! We were all so exhausted. My mom even came down to go to dinner and none of us woke up so she went exploring.

Eventually Drew woke us up, I tracked down Mom, and we walked down to the Cheesecake factory for dinner. And guess who we saw while crossing the street? Sister Nelson and some of her family. Crazy how you can grow up less than a mile from someone and you never run into them and then you see them in some random place. (Don't you always run in to someone you know at Disneyland?) It was fun to talk to her for a few minutes.

After dinner it was finally time to check out the pool. Well, the big pool was definitely too cold for me, and Kayden didn't want to stay in by himself. So then we tried a couple of the spas. Those were too hot to stay in for very long. Mom had taken Drew over to the kiddie pool, so finally Kayden decided he wanted to go too.

This is the most perfect pool EVER!! It was only 1 1/2 feet deep and the water was like bath water. (Mom said it reminded her of the 3 bears: too hot, too cold, and just right.) Drew was able to sit in his tube and still touch the bottom, so he could walk all over. The other kids in the pool played with him and kept him from climbing out. All of the parents seemed to like it too. (I don't think some of them even had kids in there, they just wanted to chill the the "just right" pool.) Places need to have more pools like this, and I need one too!

Well, Kayden didn't forget about the fireworks from the night before, and as soon as it got dark he started asking to go see them. I went and put Drew to bed and then took Kayden to watch the fireworks again.

So it was another fun and long day. Sunday we got up and headed home. Next time we go to Disneyland I think besides skipping Disneyland we might skip the zoo too, and just hit the beach and the kiddie pool. Thank you Don for the condo and Brit for letting us share it with her.

Here is Drew heading down to the water. We were at the top of a hill, so he would scoot down backwards. Sometimes he was still going backwards, sticking his foot out trying to find the water.

The Zoo - which we didn't see much of

My sister had a condo down by Disneyland the last week of August, so Sarah (my sister-in-law) and I headed down there with the boys for the weekend. Steve didn't want to miss work so he stayed home. (Don't feel bad for him though. He went golfing all day on Saturday.) We got to the hotel late Thursday night, and got a little sleep.

(Drew, Kayden, and Jameson went crazy playing and running around the condo. Brit - I left those tube thingys there.)

Then on Friday, my sister wanted to go down to the San Diego Zoo, so we were off (but not until mid-morning). My brother-in-law wanted to stop for some stuff for his car on the way. Well after a few stops, and a few times getting lost, we made it in 2 1/2 hours. Now it was time for lunch. So we stopped and ate at a good BBQ place without air conditioning that we happened to be lost by. So we got to the zoo around 1pm. It was HOT.
We of course took our own free pictures in front of the zoo before going in. (Do people really pay to have their picture taken in front of the zoo?) My brother-in-law wanted to know why we couldn't just wait and take the pictures on the way out. Oh, boys have so much to learn. :)
So if you are thinking about going to the San Diego Zoo anytime soon let me let you all in on a little secret: All of the kids stuff is to the left when you walk in, and all of the jungle animals are in the middle. So we got into the zoo and went right. Well we passed about 1/2 a mile of train loading stations. Then we finally got to see some koala bears, then some camels, and then the Elephants.
(Camels)
The elephants take up the whole right side of the zoo. There was a part where the trail went under the elephant's area and there was a 2 minute movie of elephants that played repeatedly on the wall under the bridge thingy. Kayden just wanted to sit and watch it forever. Forget about seeing the real elephants. I didn't really mind because it was shady down there.

When we were looking at one of the camels a lady came up and asked what it was. Really lady?!?! It has a hump on it's back! It's a camel!

We finally made it out of the safari animals area to the polar area. If you think that the polar area will be cold let me just tell you, it's not! To see the polar bears they have an under water viewing area. Hallelujah! A place with shade! The polar bear was up sleeping in the corner, of course, but we didn't care. We sat and watched the empty water for over 10 minutes because it was a place to sit out of the sun.

(There is not anything in that water, but who cares.)

Then we had to walk up this monster of a hill to take the air tram back across the park so we could make it to the sea lion show. We ended up just left of the entrance (see - go left, not right). At first Kayden was afraid to get in, but once we got up in the air he loved it. So much so, that he kept asking to go on it again the rest of the day. So when it was time to leave, I took Kayden across the park and back again while everyone else went out to the cars.

At the sea lion show we sat in the "get wet" section. We got a few drops, so now we were hot AND sticky. Kayden was not happy about getting sprayed and stared down the guy on stage the whole time. Drew would cry if he got squirted too much, but was pretty happy and clapped with everyone. I just wanted to jump in the pool with that sea lion, he looked friendly enough.

( Scuba man dancing on stage)

(This bird flew out straight at Kayden's head. I thought it was going to claw him in the face!)

(Drew and Kayden watching the show)

We were sweating to death after sitting in the sun at 3 in the afternoon. (Another tip, see the 5 pm seal lion show instead of the 3pm one.) So we took a break for Icees and ice cream.

Jameson found some leaves and was fanning his mom and dad.
Obviously Kayden and Sarah had a blue icee.
Next we headed to the petting zoo, since we were now on the good side of the park. Of course, most of the animals were sleeping in the roped off section, so the two brave goats that came out were getting mauled by the kids.



(Jameson the Caterpillar, and Kayden the Butterfly. This picture took forever to get because people wouldn't get their kids out of the way.)
The otter had underwater viewing like the polar bear, but the otter was actually swimming. He was going crazy all over the place, and Jameson kept saying, "Look, fish!" The kids kept following the otter, and I was entertained watching him too. When we came out of the kids area there was a science show starting, so we sat down and watched. I was in heaven sitting in the stroller in the nice shade having someone else entertain my kids. Well, Sarah was watching Drew.
(Drew was ready for a nice nap.)
(Kayden trying to give Drew some love.)

We decided that was enough of the zoo even though we didn't even get to see the whole middle of the park, which was most of it. I must say the San Diego Zoo is much better than the Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake (and it's way more expensive too).

(Me and Kayden on the sky tram. I promise he really did LOVE it!)

When we got back to the hotel Mom and the rest of the family had gotten there and were there making dinner (steaks and potatos-yum). I was too tired to take Kayden swimming so he just looked out Mom's balcony at the swimming pool and watched the fireworks at Disneyland (our balcony looked out over the Disneyland employee parking lot-exciting). And that was our day at the zoo.

(A tired little boy leaving the zoo.)

Here is Drew clapping at the sea lion show.