Last day of School

I was wanting to take some pictures of Kenedy and Ryker on their last day of school. While I was waiting for them to finish getting ready Avynlea and Rylee wanted their pictures taken.

I think Avynlea is trying to show off her funky attitude!

Ryker on his last day of first grade and Kenedy on her last day of fourth grade! I can't believe how old my kids are getting. Next year I will have three in school and that is just crazy!

Kenedy couldn't find a matching pair of flip-flops so she went for a more funky trendsetter style. It made me laugh!

All four of my kiddos looking forward to the start of summer break.

Happy 34th Birthday Kefford!

Kefford had a Bishoprics meeting the day of his birthday so we had to celebrate fast. After a quick dinner we gathered together to watch him open his presents.

He picked whose present he wanted to open first and so first up was Rylee. Look at how excited she is in the picture. Just precious!

The kids are waiting for their turn to be picked!

Next was Rykers gift.

I liked the shorts we picked out, Kefford was not too sure about them. I assured him they were cool and he has worn them since and looks good doing it!

Avynlea gets to hand over her gift now.

And last but not least goes to Kenedy!

More shorts! yeah!

Photo with the kiddos!
Next it was time for cake. Keffords only request was a chocolate cake. I was happy because I saw a cute idea in a magazine for a fun chocolate cake. Normally when I see these ideas and try to execute them they turn out less then stellar. But this one I am happy to report turned out awesome.

I made a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and then unwrapped a bunch of miniature chocolate candies and put those on top. It looked fancy and tasted yummy!

We are so glad that Kefford was born 34 years ago!

Happy Birthday Kefford!!!

Things that made me laugh..hard!

I went to the Temple Thurday morning to the 6:00 session with my friend Marlene Terry. We were in the front row of the chapel waiting for the session to begin when I looked behind me and saw my Father-in-law sitting a couple rows back. I smiled, waved, and gave him the "how weird we are here at the same time' look. A couple minutes later he came and sat up next to me. We talked a little and he made the comment that the Temple workers were going to think we were married, i just laughed. Next thing I know the Cute old Temple worker walks up to us and asks if we were married so that we could be the witness couple. I laughed and said "no' while Bob told the guy that I was his Daughter-in-law. I don't know what he was thinking but he walked away and found somebody else. It makes me laugh everytime I think about it! Bob told me it was my new haircut that made me look old, I told him that he was just a lucky old man!

Rylee is my little flatterer. She is constantly telling me I am a pretty girl and a princess. I love it. If I am having an ugly day all I have to do is ask Rylee how I look and she never fails to tell me I look beautiful. She is such a sweetie. Whenever I ask her how she got so cute she tells me from Mommy. Yeah that's right I have trained her well. I have trained all of my kids to tell me how cute I am on a regular basis. But Rylee is the one who does it all the time spontaneously. So it made me laugh when this happened...
On Saturday we went out to the farm and while we were there I saw that Keffords Aunt Tami was outside talking to Avynlea so I went out there to say Hi. She was laughing and she told me that Avynlea just said the cutest thing. She was telling Avynlea how cute she was and she asked her "where did you get so cute" of course Avynlea answered "my Mommy made me cute"! I probably butchered the exact conversation but you get the general idea. I trained my kids well!

Monster Love

My brother Joshua likes to sew, which I think is pretty dang cool for a guy to do. He even took a sewing class at BYU! Imagine the lone male in a sewing class filled with women...not too shabby! He made a skirt for my Mom for Christmas which was super cute, he has made himself a pair of church pants and apparently he is working on making a little dress for Rylee to wear. I hope he finishes it before she grows too much and won't be able to wear it .... hint hint Joshua! :0)

He also makes the cutest little sock monsters you have ever seen. Big lips, button eyes, fancy socks! Sooo adorable!

Another thing that should be made mention about Joshua is the special relationship he has with my little Rylee. There was a time between the ages of birth and 2 years old when Rylee absolutely would not go to anyone who was not Mom or Dad, not even he Grandmas. She was a Mom and Dad only type of girl.

Then when she was a little over a year we went to Utah. Joshua was there and while we were at church she climbed into Joshuas lap and stayed there. I was so completely surprised and could not believe my little mamas girl had willingly went to somebody else. I think it made Joshuas day! From then on the only other person she would go to was Joshua. She loved him! They now have a pretty special relationship which I think is really cute.

Recently Joshua sent Rylee her very own sock monster to love. She loves it and she named him Grumpy.

How stinkin cute is this picture?
Kissy-kissy!!

keffords owie

You know what happens to me when I haven't posted in a while? I get non-posters guilt. Seriously! For the past couple of days I have been getting a wee bit of anxiety about looking at my blog. I would want to come on to see who has posted so that I could read their lovely new news but when I log on and see the same post on mine that has been there for what seems like forever I feel soooo guilty. So I started logging on and not even looking at my old news post but quickly scroll past it to where my friends postings are listed. Sad I know. Pathetic even! Its not like I don't have pictures to post it is just me being lazy or thinking I will get to it later. Finally I bit the bullet and have posted pictures of Keffords injury. I think I must be really tired this morning or else it could be that I have had to stop every couple of minutes to break up ANOTHER fight between my kids and it has left me disoriented but these pictures are not in the right order. I don't want to start over to get it more right so these will have to do. At least you have something new..although maybe slightly icky to look at. You know whats funny about my posters guilt? I still post way more then some people on my friends list! HA!





On May 19 Kefford got up and left super early to go play basketball at the church. I, of course, stayed in bed. A little while later I heard him come home and immediately get some ice from the fridge, then he came up the stairs and it sounded like he was not walking right. He came in the bedroom and I asked him what was going on. He said that he was coming down from a jump shot when it felt like somebody kicked him really hard in his Achilles. He turned around but nobody was behind him. Not a good thing. He came home and after waiting for Dr offices to be opened he went in. Turns out he tore his Achilles tendon completely apart and just like that he was scheduled for surgery in two days. Poor Kefford!



Luckily for me my Mom happened to be coming to visit us from California. It made things really nice when I had to take Kefford in for his surgery at 5:30 in the morning. So I took him in and we were waiting when Kefford decided he had to go to the bathroom. He went in the back and that was the last I saw of him until they came out to tell me 2 and a half hours later that he was waking up from surgery. I was a little bit bugged that they took him in without letting me kiss him goodbye or tell him good luck or anything, what if something horrible happened and I never got to have a last goodbye? Oh well he came through OK and so they were off the hook!

His leg was half casted and then wrapped up good and tight in an ace bandage. These first three pictures were taken after the cast had come off.

Look at how gross and swollen his foot was and still kinda is. He pressed his finger into the side of it and when he took it away he left a dent that stayed there for a good 10 to 15 minutes. It was kinda grossing me out.

Here you can see where the scar is and see some of the bruising still on his foot.

Seeing his fat and swollen foot really makes me appreciate the looks of his bony normal foot!

This picture shows how Kefford usually ends up when he comes home at the end of his work day. He gets to wear that lovely boot for at least 2 more months we think. He is always so tired and his foot is so sore and swollen by the end of the day that he likes to keep it elevated to try and reduce some of the swelling. I am not sure how much it really helps but he likes to do it so more power to him. In a perfect world he could just stay home all day and be waited on and not have to worry about constantly being on his feet at work. Poor guy!

Ryker enjoyed seeing Kefford on his crutches so much that he wrapped his foot in an ace bandage and pulled out his own crutches.

These next four pictures were taken at the Drs office while Kefford was getting his cast taken off.

Why the nurse cut the ace bandage off instead of unwrapping it I will never know. Maybe we should have asked because Kefford wondered the same thing.

The foot is slowly making its appearance.

Oh man the foot looks so sad. Look at that nasty bruising. He had really bad scrapes on top of his foot from where the cast rubbed at his skin. One night a couple of days after his surgery Kefford woke me up in the middle of the night to help him unwrap his bandage so he could adjust his foot because the pressure of the half cast (at this point we thought the cast was a hard brace we didn't realize it was a cast)on top of his foot was really bugging him. I told him that was not a good idea but in his druggish state he was not listening to me and insisted. So I, with my eyes barely open because I was barely awake, started to unwrap. That is when we realized his leg was in a cast and there was nothing we could do about his pressure points. So I started to rewrap, it was not easy, I was tired and a little irritated at Kefford for making me do this impossible task. I didn't rewrap it right and he didn't like the way I was doing it but we eventually figured it out and I went back to bed.

So if you look closely at his foot in this top picture you will notice a line running across the length of his leg and through the scar. That is part of the stitches and the Dr said he was just going to pull it out. I quickly volunteered to leave the room because that was not something I wanted to see. It was over very quick which was good because Kefford said that did not feel good at all. Ouch!

Kefford has been on crutches for the past four weeks or so and in a couple days he will be able to start walking on his foot while wearing the boot. He will have to wear that for a couple of months we think and then the physical therapy will start. He has a long road ahead of him and all because he wanted to play basketball for some exercise.

Exercising is not good for you!

HeartBreaker

For the past year and a half I was privileged to be the Beehive advisor for our ward. I was very excited when I got this call and have been happy every minute of my service. I think when the Lord gives us callings he is very active in helping us fulfill them. I don't know how else to explain how much I have loved these girls in my class and how much I have enjoyed being with them. I have served in the young women organization many times and while it has always been enjoyable it has been nothing to what I have experienced this time around. Lots of fun, lots of spiritual moments and lots of good times. I cannot express how much I have loved and enjoyed being with these girls.
A couple weeks ago we got a call from a member of the stake presidency saying he would like to meet with us. Kefford and I both wondered what was going on. I was quite happy in my calling and Kefford had been serving as the Elders Quorum president for almost two years and he was quite happy where he was at. We wondered which one was going to have a change. Little did we know that what was coming was going to require changes on both our parts.

President Koehler came and met with us and extended a new calling to Kefford...2nd counselor in the Bishopric. I knew as soon as that call was extended that my days with my amazing Beehives were soon over. I spent the next week discussing it with Kefford, analyzing it, even talking myself into believing that we can make it work and I could stay where I was at but deep down I knew my time was at an end.

Sure enough the next Sunday the Bishop called both of us into his office to talk about Keffords new calling and to let me know that I was being released. I got emotional. I was prepared and ready for it but I was still very sad.

Now don't get me wrong,I am happy for Kefford in his chance to serve in his new calling. He will be amazing and will do alot of good for the members of our ward. It will be challenging and I hope it will bring our family lots of blessings.

But...

Courtney Nicholes, Megan Pierce, Me :0), Jessica Tyler and Cheryl Howell

I will really miss my Beehives!

What would you do for a KitKat bar?

Last night we had a pretty good Family Home Evening. I helped Avynlea give a lesson on listening to the Spirit. We read a story out of the Friend magazine and then we talked about how to listen to the Spirit. I was even able to use the story about Rylee missing to help us illustrate how important it is to always listen to the Spirit. So after we got don't with all of that Ryker was in charge of the treat. Now in our house sometimes we are prepared and arrange before hand to have a really great treat ready and other times we improvise. This was an improvise night. Kenedy for whatever reason had it in her head that we were going to have pie, ice cream and whipping cream. I quickly vetoed that idea. We did not need the kids to be filling up their bellies with sugar right before bedtime. I told them they could have otter pops or one minature candy bar each. They chose the candy. So Ryker brought out a handful of candy for everyone to pick from. Kenedy made a grab for the KitKat bar and I guess Avynlea did too. Kefford quickly vetoed the KitKats, they are his favorite and he wanted them for him. I thought it was fair, the kids had tons of other choices but Kenedy was not happy.

Kenedy did not think it was fair and she started giving major attitude and feet stomping.

Avynlea quickly jumped on Kenedys band wagon except she took it to the next level. Screaming, crying, jumping up and down, throwing herself on the ground. It was a little ridiculous. After them carrying on for about 10 minutes we finally told them forget it they get nothing. Oh man the drama! Kenedy then took it up a notch and started crying and yelling and Avynlea just kept at it with more high pitched screaming involved. Kefford and I went in the back to escape with the other two and made the two drama queens stay inside. Kenedy eventually got over it and came outside but Avynlea did not let up until I forced her to bed. It was a bit much. Kenedy is old enough to know better and I am thinking Avynlea better think twice before she jumps on anyone else's bandwagon ever again!