Thursday, April 30, 2009

Spring Pictures


The girls got their school spring pictures back from school a couple of weeks ago. When I first saw Ady's I started laughing. I couldn't help it. She looks like she is in pain. Apparently, that was the wrong thing to do. She burst into tears! But it is pretty funny.

Daily Adventures

This next post probably won't interest alot of people, but since this blog is my journal that I plan on printing out and binding once a year, I thought that this might be kind of fun to go back and read in 20 years when my kids are grown.

It seems like every day there is some new adventure, crisis or excitement in our house. It's never ending! Here is some of what went on yesterday, which is a perfect example of a typical day at our house:

1) Alysa waits until the last minute to put her shoes on, and then can't find them. She can never find her shoes. But today was WEDNESDAY and she has PE. This is a crisis because if she doesn't have tennis shoes on, she will get a dreaded "black mark", and Mr. Pointer will "yell" at her. So instead of looking for her shoes, she lays on the couch and cries and whines and freaks out and says she won't go to school without tennis shoes. She tends to be a little dramatic. Luckily, Ady saves the day and finds her shoes, just as it is time to go. They were in the shoe closet, on the shelf, where they were suppose to be.

2) Sunday, Taylor had lost his glasses and we turned the entire house upside down and inside out looking for them... twice. Taylor was convinced that somebody had stolen them. I had an Ipod, a camera, my purse, and $200 in cash sitting on the kitchen counter, but an intruder broke in to our locked house, undetected, and chose only to steal a pair of glasses. That makes alot of sense. That theory made me giggle - alot. Anyway, yesterday Brian found them sitting on the fireplace mantle where we have all looked about 9,000 times. Maybe the intruder decided to bring them back?

3) I was upstairs making my bed, and Brylee comes running upstairs screaming bloody murder into my room. It took me a second to calm her down and understand what she was saying. According to her, there is a cockroach downstairs in the kitchen. It came after her, and was hopping (?) all over! I walked downstairs to find a dead cockroach outside, on the patio, behind the closed and locked patio door. She stood clear across the room while I opened the door to throw it away. Luckily for us, Eddie saved the day, when he stopped it from getting us, by attacking it and trying to eat it. At least that is the version that Brylee told Brian later.
About a half hour later, after Brylee had recovered from the traumatic cockroach attack, she came up to me really pissed off. She said, "that cockroach didn't even bring us a pizza!" and stamped her foot to emphasize her anger. She got that from the Orkin commercial, where a giant cockroach tries to get into a lady's house by posing as a pizza delivery man. I was drinking a glass of water when she said this, and almost choked from laughing!

4) Brian had to patch a hole in the wall - which he actually did an excellent job of. You can't even tell it has been patched. There was some paint cans in the garage marked "house walls" (all the walls in our house are the same color, except for the kids bedrooms). So we got them out to paint over the patch. Well, we decided that while we were at it, we would touch up a couple of little scuffs on the walls around the house. It looked a little darker when we put it on, but I thought it just needed to dry. Nope. It's the wrong color.

5) Ady came home from school really excited that her friend, Isabelle, is back at school after a 10 day vacation. I asked her where Isabelle has been. The answer: In Mexico visiting family. They had to come home a day early because of the swine flu. Nice. Now we are all probably infected with swine flu.

6) Alysa was running around the house teasing Brylee, "bite me, bite me!" I told her to stop running around the house teasing Brylee or she was going to get hurt. She didn't. Brylee finally caught her, and bit her really hard. It drew blood. Alysa then, was really mad at Brylee for the rest of the night. Duh.

7) Brian cooked hamburgers on the BBQ for dinner. Brylee took one bite of hers and wouldn't eat the rest. She said it tasted like "dog food". I made the joke, "well, how do you know what dog food tastes like?". Ady and Alysa then informed me that she does know what dog food tastes like because she sometimes eats it. Great! On top of swine flu, Brylee will also have worms.

8) I finally put the kids to bed, and was looking forward to watching LOST. They didn't have a new episode last Wednesday so I was extra excited. 5 minutes before it started I fell asleep. Thank goodness for Itunes!

Monday, April 27, 2009

Weekend Fun

The boys came to visit this last weekend, just in time for the weather to get cold and windy. Okay, I say cold - it was in the 60's and 70's. That is warm for everyone back home in Utah who got snow! But it was cold for us!!! So we ended up just hanging around the house, renting a few movies, and letting the kids play with a few kids in the neighborhood. The wind stopped Saturday afternoon, so the kids begged to go swimming! It didn't last long though. Then they all came in and took a bath (with their swim suits on of course) in my bathtub!
We had a great weekend, and everything went smoothly. Until Taylor lost his glasses Sunday morning. We looked and looked, until it was time for me and the girls to go to church and Brian to take the boys home. We still haven't found them. So guess what I get to do this week... deep clean the entire house searching for them! yay! At least I will have a really clean house, in the end!


In other news, my sister, Maren is getting married!!! Matt proposed to her this last week in Butte, Montana while they were visiting his parents. On August 15th they will officially become Mr. and Mrs. Kaldor. They will be getting married in Butte, Montana. Matt is in the military and currently stationed in Kansas, so they will be moving onto the base there after the wedding. I will be getting her a pair of ruby red slippers and a stuffed Toto dog as a wedding gift!!! We are so happy for them! Matt is a great guy - and he is getting a great (but kind of ornery :) ) wife!!!

I also had to show everyone the cute bows I learned how to make! It's my new hobby. I have three girls and alot of cute little nieces, so it is super exciting to me! The bees still need wings - the ribbion I bought was was to big, so I have to get a smaller kind!



Friday, April 24, 2009

Night of Art

Every year Adalyn and Alysa's elementary school holds a "Night of Art". Each grade chooses one child to perform either a vocal number, a instrumental number, or read a piece that the child wrote. Ady was chosen to read her story, "Trip to Book Reading Island". At first she was excited because she got to miss two hours of class every day this week to go to the gym and practice. But, as the Night of Art drew closer, she started to get really nervous. She was a giant ball of anxiety all day today. However, she read her story loud and clear without any hint of nerves! Brian and I are so proud of her!!!


Trip to Book Reading Island

by

Adalyn Brown


Yesterday, my sisters, a pop star, and I went to Book Reading Island for a vacation. Alysa, Brylee, Hannah Montana, and I wanted to go to the Fun Library, so we set off. Right before we entered, a book storm started and huge books piled in front of the Fun Library door. We ran to the Big Readers Quilt Club. Books were covering everything. Then, a big long basket came and started catching the falling books. We ran outside to help. We started to give people books, gave them to the library, gave them to the school, and then we took them to the Big Readers Quilt Club. Then I had a solution. I could go and knock the clouds away. Everyone said, "okay". I went to the reading river and took the book floating boat through the river to the flying book. Then I began knocking the clouds away. Everyone in Book Reading Island helped to clear everything.


The End.



Tuesday, April 21, 2009

New Plans

I think that I forgot to mention... we are NOT moving to California. We have decided to stay in Vegas. Brian has got a couple of contracts here, and is bidding on some projects here. So we decided to stay. It is also closer to the boys, and family, and we really like the girls' school here, and our house. So we will be staying in Vegas for a while. Well, if Brian can get enough work - things have been really slow. At least that is the plan for this week!!!

Monday, April 20, 2009

weekend fun

This last weekend some friends from Utah, KayLyn, Debbie, Rachael and Kevin came to visit. Friday night, we had a BBQ, where Kevin introduced me to Morning Star Farms meatless chicken patties - they are the best! Saturday we went and walked around on the strip for a few hours. Nothing to exciting, but we had fun! Everyone left Saturday night.
Sunday morning, it was really hot! So, we called a few friends to come over. All the kids swam, while the grown ups socialized. I am so excited now that the weather is getting hotter! I love summer and the Las Vegas heat!!!



Friday, April 17, 2009

My Birthday!

On April 15th I turned 29. I have officially decided that this is my last birthday. I am not going to leave the 20's!

We didn't do anything exciting. Brian wanted to go out, and even arranged a babysitter, but I just wanted to hang out at home and celebrate with the fam. I didn't even want a cake! I hate cake! So we celebrated with some TGI Friday's green bean fries (you can buy them in bulk at Sam's Club - I love Sam's Club and green bean fries.


Bee patiently waiting for the green bean fries to cook.




The girls with their fries


Brylee gets so excited when it is some one's birthday, because it means that it will be her birthday soon. She can hardly wait for it to be her birthday. She has been begging for a Nintendo DS, which she won't be getting, because she will only be 4!!! Anyway, she was so cute about wanting to get me a present for my birthday. She spent half the day finding things around the house to wrap up for me. Then she told me I had to wait until Ady and Alysa got home from school before I could open it. She made me open it, as soon as the girls walked in the door. In the bag were a few random toys, and pencils, and then on the very bottom two Nintendo DS's. They were Ady and Alysa's. She was so proud of herself for getting me TWO Nintendo Ds's for my birthday. It was really cute!

In other news, work has been really slow for Brian. He has been spending ALOT of time at home. But things are starting to look up. He got a contract at two property management companies to do the plumbing repairs and 550 houses. Not enough to pay the bills, but it is better than nothing! They have also talked to him about repairing foreclosed houses in the area, which would be great!!! And he is bidding on the finish plumbing at the new prison here in Clark county, which should be starting in June. It shouldn't be long before things start to pick up again! Until then, we will be pinching pennies!

Random. Bee wanted to do a "funny face" picture.

Easter!

We didn't do anything exciting for Easter this year. In fact, I didn't even take any pictures. I am a bad mom. Anyway, the girls got the entire week before Easter off of school for Spring Break. We just hung out at home for the first part of the week, and went to the park a couple of times.
Thursday, we went to California to visit James and Rhonda. They have got all moved into their new house, and it looks really cute! Their son, Asher, is getting so big! I couldn't believe how much he has grown in the short time since we saw him last. The girls hovered over him the whole time (well, most of it). They are not used to having a baby around, so they got excited over every little thing he did!
Friday, we were going to do something exciting - either go to Hollywood or the beach (we knew it would be to cold to swim, but we though it would be fun for the kids to splash around, and collect sea shells) but it was rainy and cold. So we just hung out at James and Rhonda's house. That evening, when the weather cleared up a little, Brian took the girls out golfing in the course behind their house. It was nice just to get out of the house and have a change of scenery! We appreciate James and Rhonda letting us crash at their house, and mess up their routine! :)
Saturday, we drove home and got ready for the Easter Bunny to come Sunday morning.
The girls woke us up early Sunday morning. They were excited to find their baskets full of candy, swimming goggles, and a new summer outfit! That afternoon, they went swimming in the pool, but it didn't last very long. The water was COLD!
Overall, it was a really good week. Nothing exciting, like I said, but sometimes, it's nice just to kick back at home!

Saturday, April 4, 2009

Pet-a-Palooza

Today, we loaded the kids up and took them to the Pet-a-Palooza at the Star Nursery Fields behind UNLV. The Pet-a-Palooza is a big outdoor concert, that you can bring your pet too. We didn't bring our dogs, Eddie and MaKayla. We thought that it would be way to hectic with three kids and two dogs! They also had alot of booths to browse and games and rides for kids. We had alot of fun, the weather was perfect, and we got to watch Matt Kearney and Gavin Rossdale perform... and see ALOT of dogs!

The girls with their balloon animals. Ady has a horse, Alysa has a cat, and Brylee has a spiderman hat!


Michael and Alysa's Birthdays

On March 13th Michael turned 10! Alysa turned 7 on March 28th. We celebrated both their birthday's on Saturday March 28. I can't believe how old they are getting!!!

Michael has been wanting a video Mp3 player. He was super excited when he opened his present and it was exactly what he wanted! I think he will have alot of fun with it. We also got him a cute t-shirt.
Alysa has had her heart set on getting a Nintendo DS (all of her older siblings have one). I decided it would be fun to play a little trick on her. I wrapped up the nintendo DS in wrapping paper, then folded it inside a cute purple summer dress that I bought her, then wrapped that up in wrapping paper. So it looked like just one present. I told her that I didn't think she was old enough for a DS yet, but I got her something else fun and gave the the present. She was really upset! I finally talked her into "trying on the dress", and when she unfolded it the second gift fell out. It was funny!

That afternoon she had a pizza and swimming party with a few of her friends from school. It was kind of crazy with that many kids running around, but they had alot of fun!