Where does Kailee come from????

I get questions about Kailee all the time: Is she adopted? Where does she get her blonde hair? blue eyes? fair skin? Are you sure she's yours? To answer so many people's questions, I figured I would show you:

Fair Kailee and Dark Tylie

Fair Jodie (my sister) and Dark Becky

Fair Mom with Jodie's Fair son and Dark Dad with Dark Tylie

My sister

For those of you who don't know my sister, she is awesome. Her husband has been in Iraq, training Iraqi soldiers for the past 6 MONTHS!!! She has 3 children under the age of 7 with NO family around her in CO. He comes home in 29 days, and needless to say, we are super stoked for her and the kids. Jodie has been very strong and amazing through this all. I look up to her in so many ways and I am in complete awe with how she has handled everything. I don't think I could last 6 days, yet alone 6 months. Her husband is also pretty amazing. For Mother's Day, he arranged for a weekend babysitter so Jodie could get away. Out of all the places she could have gone, she came here to UT this past weekend. I LOVE being with her. Seriously, and I know it's probably a little cliche, but my sister is my best friend. When I have something sad, scary, upsetting, and especially hilarious I have to call her. She listens when I am in tears, she laughs at my stories, and comes up with fun things to do when it is boring. Plus, she easily matches my hyper moments. 

I wanted everyone who reads my blog to know that I have the best friend a sister could ask for! 

Love you JoJo!

As easy as taking candy from a baby? I don't think so!

I don't know who came up with the saying "As easy as taking candy from a baby", but they must not have tried it before. Tylie has become obsessed with suckers! I am not sure how it started, but I came to the realization that it's a sad day when a 14 month old screams at her 4 year old sister for not sharing her sucker. Kailee let Ty have a lick, but Ty got ahold of it, and OMG! Trying to take it out of the little girls hands with her death grip was nearly impossible. Plus, the screaming that followed...it was so not worth it! At the store, one of the workers was handing out suckers to the kids, so Dallin and Ty got one (Kailee was playing at a friend's house). No matter what, Ty didn't put the thing down. She ate her sandwich, drank her sippy, crawled around and never let the sucker out of her hands. In one picture, her sucker was caught in a book, and instead of using her other hand to get it out, she just dipped her mouth down to lick it. I guess after this post I am off to the store to get a bag of dumdums!

1st Day of School

Yesterday was the kid's first day of school!!! Kailee and Dallin both love their teachers. They both go in the afternoon and yesterday morning, they were extremely excited (well, more like hyper!) When it was finally time to go, they were outside ready to go before I could tell them to get their shoes and backpacks. 

Kailee is in preschool again. This year she has a few of her friends in the same class. When I asked her what her favorite thing was, she said, "We get to go places!" (fieldtrips)

Dallin started KINDERGARTEN!! I have always heard stories of parents crying on their kids first day, but I more excited for Dallin than anything else. 

This is Mrs. Morgan. Dallin really likes her and loves school! He got to ride the school bus yesterday and now he wants to ride it to and from. We will see what happens. Our stop is the first stop, so the bus ride to school is 1 hour, but the ride home is 15 minutes. I told him we have to work out a deal. It is so hard to believe that my little man is already in school. He has grown up so fast! 

Fun week with Nani

 Last week, my mom came up to visit. We all loved having her here. The kids woke up every morning and went straight to the basement to see Nani and wanted her to snuggle with them every night in their beds.  I loved having her here. Ty was sick the first part of her trip, so we mostly staying at the house hanging out. Monday, Gus and I went to see The Dark Night (AWESOME movie, btw). It was so nice knowing that our kids were with Nani, having fun. 

Tuesday night we went to the Bee's game (minor league baseball)

The kids were so excited that they got too see Bumble and have Dallin's Bee's hat autographed.

Wednesday night, we took the kids downtown to the Visitor's Center (which they love). We picked Gus up from work then had him drop my mom and I off at the temple.  We went out to dinner afterwards. It was so nice to spend time alone with my mom.

Thursday night, we stopped by Gardner's Village. The kids love to do little things there. 

We also went to Hogle Zoo. It was Zoo Booster Member night. 

Kailee sometimes gets upset when you want to take her picture. Without looking, I knew exactly which face she was making

What's the zoo without a train ride?

Nani and Ty waited for us to ride past them. It was cute watching Ty's face light up when she saw us coming.

All the kids got to make visors while they were there.

The finished products.

Besides alligators, snakes are the another one I can pass, but my kids love.

Friday night was Gus' work picnic. The kids and I got our faces painted. Dallin wanted to be the Joker and Kailee a princess. Ty got a flower on her cheek and I got a butterfly. 

Also, Friday night/Saturday morning, Breaking Dawn was released. My mom stayed with the kids and Gus came with me to go get the book. I am glad that Gus got to see that there are women 10x more into than I am. Seriously, there were women screaming when they rolled the crate of books by. Hilarious! The book was SUPER good!!! That's all I am gonna say.

This weeks pictures

How is that you can be so busy, but not really recall what you have done? That has been our month so far. 

Here are a few pictures of the past week.

Every baby needs a messy face picture.

I love this little girl!

Dallin's version of a BBQ.

When we were at the zoo, Dallin asked to see 2 things: alligators and rhinos.

Out of all the animals, Tylie liked the monkeys and the giraffes the best.

Is it me, or are these things still creepy even when they are at the zoo?

(alligators, not my kids!!!!)

It was ice block day at the zoo. The animals got ice blocks with fruit in them, and the kids got to find treasure in a huge thing of ice.

Our stake had a Green Jell-o Festival (yes, you read it correctly.) Dallin wanted to be in the Dunk Tank.

Kailee decided to play in the bouncers instead.

All tuckered out from the week.

This is the Place

Saturday was a fun busy day. It was nonstop, but the best part of the day was going to This is the Place Heritage Park. Its a fun place to go when you feeling like visiting history. Its a little village that has the actual houses and buildings that are part of pioneer history. Everyone dresses and acts like pioneers, the music is from back then, and the entire experience is like you are a pioneer. Of course when I went to take pictures, my battery was dead. I used my phone to take these, so they aren't the greatest quality, but at least we have them to remember the fun we had.

The train ride around the village.

Dallin helped wash the clothes...

And Kailee helped water the plants.

We got to see how the pioneers made their wool blankets. This is the step were they make wool into "wool yarn".

The barber gave Dallin a close shave with a real straight edge and rum as after shave.

The kids were waiting all day long for the little train ride. Dallin even got to help the conductor give the rules.

Gus, Dallin, Kailee, and Tylie playing in the Teepee.

D and K at the old school house getting ready for the session to start.

Funny story: We walked into the Inn and they treated us like we were guests back in the day. When we walked into the parlor, the hostess told us that if we were to live there, Kailee would do all the house chores and Dallin would do all the outside chores. At night, the kids would be in charge of entertaining the guests. The kids were excited about it. Then when she told them that Kailee would sleep in the room (smaller than their bedroom now) with all the girls and Dallin would sleep in the barn, Dallin looked at me with the "Mom don't make me stay here PLEEEEEEEEEASE" expression. The boy had fear in his eyes. We told him it was pretend and then he got into it. When we went outside and saw the barn, he asked me to take a picture of him by his bed. I love that kid. 

Overall, it was a great experience to see our kids enjoy history. We didn't get to do everything, so we will have to go back.