Drawings of a Four-Year-Old

I think I reached the point today where I'm ready for K&K to be back at school. I'm one of those rare parents who actually, for the most part, really likes having her kids home for the summer. But today? I felt like hanging a sign on the front window that read, "Sorry, we're closed for the season." Yes, the entertainment factory that I have become has been disabled. This old brain and body need a revamp, a new battery.

Luke and Layne genuinely need some individual help with getting themselves dressed, fed, played with, carried around the house, etc., but the older two were above and beyond needy of my attention today (makes me sound pretty lame for a mom, huh?). When Koria whined for the whateverith time today that I was not doing something with her, I suggested that she draw a picture right by me while I make dinner for the night. Of course, that was not good enough. I had to tell her what to draw. They've been on such a "Star Wars" kick that I suggested that she draw a picture of one of the characters. Naturally, she chose pictures of her favorite, Princess Leia.

When she showed me the pictures, I couldn't help but smile. I love her hair buns. Doesn't get better than that, does it? In fact, that beats any drawing that I've ever done, hands down. Leave it to a four-year-old to show the schooled artist how it's done.

Can't wait to see all the art projects she'll be bringing home from preschool in another week ...

Laundry

It seems we had a laundry list of things to do today -- including laundry. This is what happens when we let the laundry pile up for three days at our house.

My Little Pony Scratch Art

Jared brought home a packet of scratch art from work that was not given away to the kids during some of their benefits fair events, which Koria and Kimball decided was great. They've been having a good time making all kinds of pictures, especially Koria. I think she's inherited my right-brain way of thinking and creating. Kimball's got the logical, problem-solving nature of Jared. Whatever the case, here's some of the artwork and my four-year-olds in the process.

Good-Things-to-Come

Good-Things-to-Come

Lady Killer/Fresh Salsa

I had originally thought of writing about Kimball, pictured below, but when I typed up the title to this post, I couldn't resist putting a picture on here as well of the fresh salsa that I made today. Both titles apply ... to both pictures. You can imagine why.

This, of course, if Kimball "Lady Killer" Black. Today he was spotlighted in Primary, and he could not have been more excited. I wrote up some info about him that was read during Primary, and all of the other kids had a chance to guess who it was. Koria told me that when it was read that the spotlight person was said to like orange as his/her favorite color, she "KNEW then that it was Kimball," as if no other mortal on the face of the earth loves orange in quite the same way as her twin brother. Made me laugh. And yeah, Kimball's quite a good mix, so "fresh salsa" with a lot of jalepeno applies as well to him as the mixture above. I love 'em both.

Patience and Faith

For those of you unfamiliar with our garage, here it is ... at it's best.

Really.

We decided that enough was enough, and we cleaned it up as best as we could. Here's the result.

Tonight while reading scriptures, we read about how the Lord tries His peoples' patience and their faith. Koria replied, "Just like when we cleaned the garage today, right? That was testing our patience AND faith!"

Jared just told me that while he was fixing up their bikes this aftenoon, he mentioned to Kimball that he found a needed screw driver. Kimball's response?

"Yes, Daddy! The screwdriver of awesomeness!"

They've promised to be both "reverent" and "quiet," in their own words, tomorrow at church. That way they get to do their latest hit activity, play board games with us. We hope they succeed ... at both.

Old Barns

I think that barns just get better with age. There's a lot of old barns in the area to take pictures of, and I think they make good subjects.

Good Day For Climbing

It was hot. We were sick of the house. It was a good day for climbing.

Point of View

On Tuesday, August 24, we found ourselves in Salt Lake City for a variety of reasons, mainly Layne's appointment with a geneticist at Primary Children's Hospital. I'll write more about that on the other blog. We also took the time to wander with the kids around temple square, eat at a Mongolian BBQ grill that we loved while living in Orem, and visit the Orem City Park. I loved taking pictures all along the way, but here's just a few of the temple that I took, from a variety of perspectives. I liked them all.

Hay Bales

The other day as we were driving back from the park, Koria and Kimball decided to try and teach Luke a few things to say. Kimball stuck to the basics, but Koria, seeing the nearby field, turned to him and said, "Luke, can you say, 'stack of circle hay bales?'" Kinda reminded me of myself at her age. Hope you can still say "gourmet" Derek.

K&K are always saying things that crack us up, but just to mention another from this last Sunday, they were putting stickers onto their chore charts when Koria grew really excited.

"Hey Mom, we moked our beds this morning!"

Took me a second to figure out that she's creating her own tenses. Hope you "moked" your bed this morning too.

Cow Sign Tipping

We realize that there isn't much to do in Emery County, and although I've heard of "cow tipping" as something for teenagers to do out of sheer boredom, I've never heard of cow "sign" tipping. We really do live in the middle of nowhere.

Per Request of Wendy

How could I resist the urge to post one more classic pic of Uncle Scotty when I had just posted one of the all-time greats of his wife? You rock, bro, you rock!

Ode to Wendy

Ahhhh, man, I've gotta stop looking through old photos and get the kids up from their naps. I couldn't resist doing a little photo editing to this one though. Wendy, I love the clip-on pearls and the mega-poof. I'm speachless!

My How Time Flies Part 2

Alright, that last photo has been topped. Awesome, huh?

My How Time Flies

I edited this shot a few weeks ago and thought to myself, "Really? Were we ever that young?"

Kick Off Your Sunday Shoes

One of Kimball's favorite songs is "Footloose" from the original movie, and he loves to sing the line, "Kick of your Sunday Shoes!" and then laugh his head off. Yesterday, after Jared returned home from meetings, they found it quite entertaining to help him do just that. Luke just likes to eat anything in sight. You'd think he was deprived of food.

More Make-up pics

I realize that all of these shots were taken yesterday, and technically don't fit the picture a day description, but oh well. This first one is of Layne, and I don't know if you can tell or not, but she's been focusing her eyes together so much better. It's exciting. You can also see a peak of the FOUR new teeth that she happened to push through last week amid all of the picc line blood and fever trauma. Maybe the teeth were the reason for the fever, but regardless, the fever ended up getting the picc line pulled out, so I say Hallelujah to teething!

Here's Captain Trouble. He's really in to squinting up his nose right now, especially when he knows that he's in trouble, and yes, he does have a tiny amount of hair. It's that red fuzz on the back of his head that you just get a peak at.

And this last shot is a very familiar sight in our household. One twin plowing over the other. The girls seem to always be the ones on the bottom end.

Just my kids being kids

I apologize for not being up to date and very with it the past few weeks. Circumstance sometimes doesn't allow for it, but I'll try to do some make-up work. I took a few pictures yesterday of the kids just sitting around together playing with toys. We had a great Sabbath, and more and more, I find myself just wanting to enjoy each day for whatever it brings. I sometimes catch myself thinking that tomorrow will be a better day while forgetting that today can be just as great if I decided to let it be. I really enjoyed the moment to just sit and watch and play with my kids. They're pretty great. By the way, Luke loves that pink Barbie phone, Koria put together her own outfit (not me!), Kimball still loves those blocks that he used when he was Luke and Layne's age, and Layne is enjoying all the new things around her that she can finally see to interact with. Good stuff.

Layne's Eye on Monday, August 17, 2010

Believe it or not, this is a vast improvement over what Layne's eye has been looking like for the past couple of weeks, especially since last Thursday. That's not a sight I'll post. Those with weak stomachs will appreciate my self-restraint. This kid really deserves some sympathy though. She's a fighter....

... as demonstrated in this photo. Loved whatever she decided to do with her face here. Just made me laugh.

Who Needs a Gift When You've Got Aunt Becky and a Box?

It's all in the title.

Quote from Layne's Brain

What in the heck is a sippy cup and why do I need it?

The Cupcake Reigns Supreme

First taste of cake..... that makes my taste buds go KAPOW!

Luke and Layne's First (Memorable) Birthday

Jared took this shot on Friday the 13th, Luke and Layne's first birthday. We decided this year to celebrate in style by giving each of the babes some one-on-one attention. Becky, Jared, Luke, Kimball, and Koria chose to spend their personal time with Luke floating down the river in the Buckhorn Draw. Layne and Kendra chose to spend their day together in Primary Children's Hospital in style, enjoying a light breakfast, lunch and dinner of .... clear liquids. I think Layne just wanted me to herself for her birthday gift. She's very clever, that little one! We are lucky to have you both, Luke and Layne!

The Amazing Aunt Becky

Don't know when this pic was taken,but Jared took it while Layne and I were in the hospital and he and Becky ran the fort. Is it any wonder why everybody loves Becky? She's amazing.

Old Leaf

Less is more.

The Assignment

I realize that I just stated below that I would use this for my photo of the day tomorrow, after I edited it because I was too tired to mess around in Photoshop tonight. Well, that actually sparked a creative nerve in my brain and I knew that I couldn't make it calm down tonight until I did just that. I just went through a lot of old art assignments from a watercolor class that I took my first year of school at Ricks. The teacher required us to paint the same scene eight different ways (which I should have flunked, due to the quality of my painting skills at the time). I thought that I'd show you four (with the original below). Let me know which one's your favorite. That's YOUR new assignment.

The Park, My Mental Playground

Some would disagree that the park brings a small bit of sanity to the day, but I beg to differ. The kids were driving me crazy today, and I was driving them crazy, so around 3:30 this afternoon, I belted all five of us in the car and headed out to two different parks. Koria and Kimball loved the chance to get out and play pirates, as well as the ever popular, "Let's run from Mom every time she tries to take a decent picture of us" game. Here's a shot of Kimball mauling Koria, and trust me, there where plenty the other way around too. This one just happens to be one of the best.

I saw this scene on the drive home from the parks and thought that it would make a nice picture of the day too. No editing tonight. I'm a bit too tired. Maybe I'll edit it and post that for tomorrows ..... am I thinking outloud?

Kids, Lambs, and Calves

In summers past, I used to take Koria and Kimball on walks everyday around town and out into the country. I haven't built up the mental energy to do that with all four of the kids this summer. Koria and Kimball loved going to a field just about eight blocks from our home to see some goat kids, lambs, and calves. The animals would come running to us and fast as they could, probably because they thought that we were going to feed them, but the kids would always squeal out in laughter at the sight. I didn't take them with me last night to get these pictures, but the animals still were eager to come running to my side when I met them at the fence.

Uno Smack Attack and a Rain Storm

We had Stake Conference today, so it was one of those special Sundays when Jared and I actually get to see what each other look like in the light of day other than just after 9:00 p.m. at night. Koria and Kimball, mainly Kimball, has been asking us to play board games with them for quite a while now, and we kept our promise to play as many games with them that we could while Luke and Layne took a nap. We played several games, but ended with what is more commonly known to the word as Uno Attack. It's basically Uno, but with a machine that spits out cards at random when the "draw" button is pushed. Koria and Kimball tend to make everything more fun, but I've never had that much fun with a card game in my life. They were rolling everytime that cards came flying out at us. Jared and I decided to take turns teaching the two four-year-olds random "trash-talk" phrases as we played, which varied from an evil laugh (Wa-a-aaaaaaaa!), to "Would you like a slice of humble pie with that," to licking their fingers, holding them in the air, and making a sizzling sound. Each one was unique and individualized, as all good smack talking phrases should be, and the kids looked forward to each new phrase we could invent. Instills faith in us as parents, doesn't it?

In the middle of all the gameage, we received a downpour of rain. I had told the kids that the next time it rained, they needed to go outside and try to catch the raindrops on their tongues. I love summer rain and the clean air that it brings.

Needless to say, we enjoyed our Sunday afternoon to the fullest. Smack talk and all, FOOO!