All about Rylee

The other night at dinner Rylee wanted to get down from her high chair. I told her that she needed to finish eating her chicken before she got down. When I looked a little bit later I saw an empty plate sitting on her tray.

I noticed something suspicious about the whole thing so I looked a little closer to find this...

hahaha is she a clever duck or what?

For the past couple of month Rylee would tell me she wants to wear panties and sometimes would even use the toilet when I would put her on it. So I would let her wear some panties but would always quickly switch back to diapers when she peed in them. This last Monday, same story. She wanted to wear panties. The difference this time? She went on the potty three times and one of those times it was a number two. I figured this girl has been wanting to use the potty and be a big girl for a while now so I was going to do it. Normally we do it around 3 but she really wanted to so who am I to say no?

I got her some Dora panties as well as Minnie mouse and pony and I also picked up a bag of M&M's for a reward. She has done OK this past week. Sometimes telling me when she has to go, sometimes going when I ask her and then we also had quite a few accidents.

Yesterday was a great day for Rylee. She did not have any accidents and even went on the potty when the babysitter was here. She has also been waking up dry from her naps and in the morning. On Thursday I put a diaper on her for her nap, only a diaper, because I was still leery about peeing in her bed. She wasn't wanting it on but I made her and put her to bed. When I went in to check on her she was sound asleep and she was also completely naked! The stinker had taken her diaper off! It made me laugh and also told me that she is done having diapers on. Oh my little baby is growing up!

Happy Fathers Day Kefford!

Usually for Fathers Day I would have the kids help me make breakfast for Kefford. But Kefford has early Sunday meetings and while I would have gotten up I didn't want the kids to get up that early. Church starts at 12:30 which is right when naptime should happen so I needed Rylee to get as much sleep as possible so she would be happy at church. So he left and later the kids woke up and I got them all fed and ready for church. We pulled in Keffords big Fathers day gift and when we heard the pickup pull into the garage I had the kids pose around it for the big "Surprise"!

Yeah Happy Fathers Day Daddy! A brand new gun safe. I had told Kefford a couple months ago this is what he was getting and that he had to pick it out himself. So it has been sitting in our garage for a while.

Kefford was quite happy to see all of our cute kids lined up to surprise him.

Then it was time for hugs. Notice how Kefford is busy inspecting his safe while getting hugged? Classic man!

With a little bit of help he got it out of the box and opened it up to check it out.

I love this great man! Kefford also got beef jerky and new pants for church. After church I made him a yummy dinner of pork ribs, corn on the cob, jello and potatoes. After dinner I cleaned up and then we watched Prince Caspian. We paused the movie in the middle so we could eat the fabulous cheescake I bought from Costco. This dessert is a favorite of mine as well as liked alot by Kefford so we both scored! :)

I think Kefford had a great day. We really tried hard to show him how much we love and appreciate him and I think we did a good job.
So now because I rarely do this I am going to list 9 things that make Kefford a fantastic Dad in honor of his 9th year of being a Dad.
1) His incredible patience with the kids
2) The way he includes them in his favorite activities.
3) How hands on he is with night time rituals.
4) Taking time to spend one on one time with each one.
5) Playing outside with the kids.
6) Kenedy loves that he plays with her, is really nice and that he takes her on bike rides with him.
7) Ryker loves that he takes him four-wheeler riding.
8) Avynlea loves her Dad because he gives her treats.
9) Rylee loves to snuggle with her Dad and she loves it when he tosses her up in the air like a rag doll.
So there you go we love Kefford and are very happy to have him in our lives!

Heather Graduates!

Today my sister Heather graduated from Cal State San Bernadino with her Masters degree in Environmental Sciences! I really wanted to fly down so I could be there for her graduation but, Alas, I could not get a ticket. Booo! But I was able to watch the graduation online with live feed directly from the ceremony. This was really exciting and quite the process for me here in Idaho. Let me share with you in my journey!

Here I am watching the live feed. I tried to look interested and engaged in the speaker but lets face it, it is a graduation and the speakers are not all that engaging or interesting.

Singing along with the national anthem. Yup I sang, yup I sounded not good! But I am patriotic, I didn't stand though, is that wrong?

Wait! I just lost the feed. Oh no! Now i am not happy!

I was having a hard time getting the feed back and I was starting to get a little stressed so I had to eat a brownie to calm me down. I just did not want to miss Heather walking and I was afraid that I would.

PHEW! After about 5 or 10 stressful minutes I got the feed back. I had to completely shut down my computer and restart it again. But I got it back in time and I was able to skip listening to the boring speakers..hehehe!

Heather has Graduated! I am so proud of her with her little Masters Hood. She even gave me a secret signal to let me know she knew I was watching. I saw you Heather and it made me tear up! :)

Does this mean I have to call her "Master Haather"?

YEAH!!!! I am so happy I got to watch this. It takes the sting out of not being there in person for sure! What a happy time for our family. I think what makes it the most special is knowing how proud my Dad would be of Heather. He always placed a special and great emphasis on education and this would have made him so happy. I am sure he was watching somewhere!
Congratulations Heather! I am so proud of you, love you ugly!

Door Art

A couple of year ago I had the grand idea to put my kids names on their bedroom doors. This was when I only had three and Kenedy and Avynlea shared a room. It didn't turn out quite the way I had invisioned it in my head but it was something and I was fine with it.

Over the couple of years that they were on a baby was born , Avy was put in with Ryker and Rykers name started to come off a little (notice the word reading "Pyker") So none if it was working and I was not liking it anymore but was too busy to change it. Fast forward to a couple of months ago when I bought my own vinyl at the hobby shop and using my own Cricut machine I redesigned the doors.

Now we have all three girls in one room and I think this captures the girlie theme I was going for. The colors match the colors on their blankets and all of the girls loved it as soon as they saw it. So fun!

And really nothing needs to be said about Rykers cool door. Simple yet so Ryker! I downloaded the Batman logo off the internet and then traced it onto the vinyl and cut it out! Ryker thinks it is way cool and it also fits with the theme of his room!
Mission accomplished for both rooms and we love looking at their fun, personalized doors!
I have a blue room and recently bought a new all white duvet cover to put on the bed. Some might call me crazy to have an all white bed when I still have little kids around, but the secret is bleach! Lots and lots of Bleach if the need ever arises. How many of you can do that when something gets on your beds?

I love the way the color looks with the blue wall. Now I need to find the perfect headboard and side tables to make this a complete room.
I am very slow with all of this so don't expect anything anytime soon! :)

Cocoons to Butterfly's

A couple of days before school got out we were walking through one of the teachers classrooms when we noticed her butterfly habitat. We started talking about it and I mentioned how I saw those on TV and always thought that it sounded like fun. She told me that if I was serious, I was, to come in on Monday and she would give me the extra one she had. The caterpillars had already wrapped themselves up into their cocoons, but it would still be fun for the kids to have. I agreed and then kinda forgot about it over the weekend. Not Avynlea though. On Monday we weren't at the school and so nothing was said about it but on Tuesday we were there for Rykers graduation and Avynlea asked me if we could go and get the butterfly's. After I got over the surprise of her remembering, but really I shouldn't have been, We went down to Ms. Compasses room and asked if we could take the butterfly's. She handed it over and we brought it home. The kids spent all day looking into the box and kept asking me when the butterfly's were going to come out. I told them it would not be for a couple of days and to just leave it alone for a while.
The next day Rylee climbed up on the stool to look into the box and she accidentally made it fall to the floor. I ran over to find one of the cocoons totally smashed, ewwww! I picked it back up told her to be careful and put it back up on the counter. Seeing the smashed cocoon had induced my gag reflux but what really got to me was when one of the cocoons started doing what seemed to me a death rattle. It started shaking like crazy and I thought maybe it was trying to come out but it kept doing it, and doing it, and doing it. I finally told Ryker to take it outside and put it in the garden. If it were still alive it could come out in peace but if it was dying I didn't want to have to witness it. Plus it was rattling quite loud and was making me sick thinking about the dying butterfly trapped in its cocoon. Who knows, it probably was fine and is now a beautiful butterfly flying to the tropical islands, and that is how it will be forever in my head!

The next day we noticed that one of the butterfly's had emerged from its cocoon! We all were so excited and stared and stared at this butterfly.

Throughout the next couple of days it was so fun to see these butterfly's appearing in our butterfly box. The kids and I even got to watch one emerging from its cocoon! Now that was pretty darn cool!
In all we had about 12 or 13 butterfly's pop out. After a couple days of them being in the box we would let them go in the front yard. I was still grossed out from the smashing ordeal of a couple days previous and wouldn't touch the butterfly's but Ryker was my right hand man and had no problems taking them outside. I finally had to tell him to leave them alone because he would take them out, leave them, and then later I would see him outside again with the butterfly back on his finger. He really is a gentle soul and was into these butterfly's.

See how cute he is!

Kefford was a big help too in the letting go of the butterfly's.

This was really fun for the kids and someday I would like to do it again where we can watch them start out as caterpillars. Definitely fun for the kids, kinda gross for me, but it is always all about the kids...right? :)

Happy 33rd Kefford!

Kefford turned 33 yesterday and we celebrated by getting Chinese food for us adults while the kids got to eat chicken nuggets. We then gave him his presents and ate some yummy cake

I really try hard each year to get a picture of Kefford with the kids and, like his Dad, he makes it an almost impossible task.
If it wasn't him messing around, it was the kids goofing off.

We found this fun Batman bag to put his presents. In it we put a bunch of candy for him to eat and let Avynlea give it to him. He also got a 15 bottle pack of orange gatorade, his favorite, from Kenedy.

Ryker saw this "Super Dad" gift bag at the store and had to get it for Kefford because it said Dad on it. Ryker gave him two movies, "Darby O"Gill and the Little People" and "Ghostbusters 1&2" Rylee gave him a couple boxes of BottleCaps. We did not get him a whole lot of stuff because we got him something REALLY GRAND for Fathers Day.

I tried one last time to get a decent picture. I really appreciate Kefford trying so hard to make this one a winner!

I didn't have a number 33 candle and I couldn't find the little candles so I found this 7 and 6 and put those on his cake as a joke. It was Kefford who pointed out that 76 was the year he was born. I wanted to pretend I did that on purpose but I couldn't, oh well next year I will switch the numbers so that they read 67!

Kefford had Rylee help him blow out the candles!

I think he had a good birthday and we tried really hard to make it special.

Love You Kefford!

The Great Shiner!

So that nasty bump on her forehead has let gravity pull itself down into her eye! My sweet little girl now has one big shiner on her right eye!

I thought she looked like one of those accident victims taking pictures for insurance in this picture!
So I told her to smile for this one.
Despite the bruising on her face she is still one cute girl!

poor baby

While Kenedy and I were at Kaylie's baptism, Avynlea fell off the top of the swingset and did this to her head..

She landed on her forehead right onto the concrete. It looks so much worse in person, in fact Kefford recommended cutting the poor baby some bangs.

What am I to do with this girl? Will the injuries ever end?

Fancy hair

So my friend Lynn's little girl was getting baptised today and she called me this morning to see if I would do her daughters hair. Of course I agreed to do it. She wanted me to put french braids in but I wanted to try something a little bit fancier so I looked at one of the hair blogs I often read for some ideas. I found a cute little style and was able to do Kaylie's hair with a few little tweaks.

Here is cute Kaylie showing off the front.
And here is the back of her hair. It turned out sooo cute and Lynn absolutely loved it. I was pretty proud myself of how it turned out. All of my girls have short hair and so it was a lot of fun to play with the longer lengths of hair on Kaylie's head.
She really was an adorable kid all dressed up in her baptism dress!
So much fun!

Kindergarten Celebration!

On Tuesday Rylee, Avynlea and I went to the school to watch Ryker in his Kindergarten Celebration.

Here he is waiting for the program to begin. Good thing I got this picture of him smiling because it didn't last very long.

See..I think he got tired of waiting and decided to start making crazy faces. Or maybe he wanted to ham it up for all the cameras that were taking pictures. He is such a goof!

They sang a bunch of songs that they learned throughout the year. It was really cute and all the kids did a great job.

Afterwards they got their certificates from the principal. I thought I was ready to take the picture right when he was being handed his certificate but my boy is fast! He got it and quickly made the turn back to his seat, no posing for pictures from this kid.

As they filed out the principal turned on some funky music so that they could dance on there way out. Ryker had fun with that and showed us some pretty cool moves!

Ryker with his teacher Mrs. O'Connell. We really liked the teacher he had this year. She is a lot of fun and has a lot of patience for these kids. She is moving up to first grade for next year and I think it would be fun if he got her again.

It was a great program and now I cannot believe that my little boy will be in the first grade next year. So much fun!

Spiders!

Rylee found this plastic spider whistle and would not let anybody take it away from her!

Even while relaxing with Daddy on the couch she had to have it in her mouth.
She is a sweetie pie with sass!