Tyson's Creations

I fixed Tyson's diorama as much as I could so I could get a few photo's. He labeled all of the plants and animals and it was so cute. He put some real rocks in it and the bottom is made of clay that he and I painted. A river runs through it. The plants are from a fake branch I bought from Michael's Crafts and Mike and Tyson cut it up to make trees and bushes. Fun.

This next picture is of a "Double Pencil Drawer" that Tyson made out of various pieces of garbage and "things" he found. Creative little guy.

The next photo is a really imaginative creation. The world is taped to the center and the toy Star Wars character is looking at a piece of paper that is taped onto the front of the world. At first I thought the Star Wars chick was attacking the world but no, the paper on the front of the world is a machine. When someone wants to know something about the world, they can use the machine to find any information they need. On the bottom of the paper is all of the wires and cords that are underneath the machine. I thought it was very interesting. Oh, and the circle taped to the side of the character is a garbage can (just in case you were wondering).

Joining the club of Private blogs....

OK, so I've thought a lot about this private blog thing, but haven't done it for numerous reasons. I read an article in October's Ensign about safe guarding your blog, and it pushed me over the fence. At first, my main goal of this blog was to keep people informed of what was happening in our family. Over the past nearly two years, my goal has changed to having this be a family record of sorts. I no longer feel I need to keep this open to the world. If you want to still be able to view our blog, please give me your e-mail and I'll keep it open to you. I'll be going private in 2 weeks, so that should give you enough time to get me your info. Thanks friends!

Life Update

This week we found out our buyers bailed on us. They needed to get into the place to prepare for a baby that's due in a month and the "approval people" were just taking too long. We have plans A, B and C, but we don't want to have to do any of them. Hopefully a new offer will come in the next week or so and we won't have to seriously consider those other plans. Ups and downs in life are constant and we know that. We have to believe this is for a reason and maybe it's just another lesson (although I think we've learned the lesson a year ago and we would like to move on now). Time will tell.

Brayden is off a bottle and VERY active. He learned to climb onto the counter this week. He's broken most of the baby locks and so our house is very far from being baby proof. Brayden seems to conquer all baby proofing materials that we install. Lucky us. He's so funny though and a sweet kid. Gives lots of hugs, open mouthed kisses, and though he gets into everything, he will very willingly put things away, shut drawers, etc if asked. We do have to watch him like a hawk to be sure he doesn't kill himself, but that's just part of the fun, right?

Tyson did his first diorama this week. It was an animal habitat. Mike and I helped him, but we didn't go overboard. He did a lot of the work. We put fake trees, animals, and even a hiker in our desert forest. The bottom was clay and there was a river that ran through it all. I was stupid and didn't take a photo of it before he took it to school. I thought it would take one when he brought it home. I didn't take into consideration that he's in first grade and that it might get broken. When he came home with it today, it was in many pieces from another kid bumping it at school. Next time I'll take the photo before.

The community does a craft day every Friday for kids. I've been taking Ty and Anna. We love activities- especially on early out day at school. It gives us something to do to fill the time. Anna just loves these and Tyson tolerates them. Anna is always so proud of the finished product. Today we did the activity and then went and participated in some free games at a nearby park, then went to a farmers market and got some baby pumpkins. The best part was showing Daddy when we came home.

So, there you go for now. I won't say much about me and Mike except that life is what it is and we are happy though stressed. We are just waiting for more miracles (though we may have met our quota by now). Later.

A bit of Nothin'

This is our life. Everything is on it's side turned over, or hidden. Bray likes to climb now and the table and piano are his favorites. Yay for us.
Funny.

One of the many things he climbs on to get to where he wants to go. In this case, he's climbing his car to get to the banister. He then walks sideways on the banister just to scare the pee out of me.

THis was a white trash pool day. I couldn't find Anna's swimsuit, so I decided to let them both go in their birthday suits. Well, almost anyway. Anna is wearing some underwear.

Ha ha.

My baby

Parade #1

This is the parade season in So. Utah. It's way too hot to have parades during the summer, so we have about a billion of them in the fall. This was the first one the bands were in. I took the kids and we cheered for Daddy and all of the other bands that came down the parade route. It was kind of humorous keeping the kids out of the gutter water. They put their feet in at first, but I was a little scared when Ty put his hands in and then slipped and fell int he water. Brayden liked kicking in it but wanted to swim, so he was locked in his stroller for the rest of the time. I made the kids put shoes back on and cleaned them up so they would keep their hands out of whatever nasty was hanging out in the water. Then came the candy. SO much candy. That's why the kids want to go to parades. It was fun. The live camel from Aida was in the parade and so was Annie. Anna LOVED that. There were some cute floats, a TON of horses, and about 8 bands. I love seeing all those kids play. It was fun to watch them. Mike's band did good. They did a turn right in front of us and that was pretty cool. Mike ran over and said hi to us. Fun fun.

Look, the camera is fixed!

We fixed the camera! Thank heavens! Here are the photo's that were on it before it died. Now I have to take new ones of Anna's haircut and Brayden's haircut (no more curls). Oh, and the Squish had a Dr. appt. the other day and he's still fat, but not as fat. The curve isn't as crazy as it has been his whole life. He's in the 55% for height, the 78% for weight, and his head measures in the 85%. We love our funny little man. Ok, so enjoy some pictures-finally! Anna and her friend from church having a play date at our house.
Brayden "hugging" his kitty.

Oh the joy of homemade tents!

September....REALLY?

I can't believe it's already September. That means in less than one month I'll be 29, in 3 months Anna will be 5, Brayden will be 18 months, and in 4 months Tyson will be 7. That means Mike and I have been married for 7 1/2 years already. Insane.

So, no pictures yet. I replaced the one battery, and it still didn't work. Now I have to replace two other batteries and it might work. Stupid camera. In the meantime you just get to read the play-by-play of our lives.

The latest is that we are almost done with birthday/holiday shopping. WOOT! (as the kids say these days). We decided that for birthdays this year we'll re-do bedrooms instead of buying toys. Bray will be in a bed soon and the boys will need bunk beds. Tyson has out grown the "Cars" theme he has in his room and is all about "Star Wars". So, we found bunk beds for a steal and since Anna's bed is ready to fall apart, we figured out a new bed for her as well. I found a bed set for Bray that matches Ty's and I'm planning on painting the boys room blue and black. One wall will be black with starts all over it and Star Wars Decals while the other walls will be blue with Star Wars posters framed and the boys names in big letters. Anna's room will pretty much stay the same but with a new bed and bedding.

We painted our bathroom downstairs and it looks SO much better. I've hated that bathroom since we moved in and the color just adds so much. I love it now.

We are all getting sick. YIPEE! First big illness of the season. I have strep and Mike is losing his voice. Ty was coughing this morning and Anna has napped for 2 hours this afternoon (that never happens). So, I'm sure we are in for it for at least a couple weeks. Hey, as long as we stay away from pneumonia and RSV this year I'll be happy. Oh, and I'd rather avoid Swine Flu too. Ok, really I'd rather avoid it all, but chances of that are slim considering I teach, Mike teaches, and the kids bring home their own versions of all illnesses.

So, there's the life right now. Always entertaining and fun.