Beauty and the Beast

So my princess Hailey was acting a little too much like a spoiled princess.  She was complaining every time she got dressed, did her hair, cleaned her room, or took a batch.  Some of the problem was the transition from summer to fall.  She is my summer girl, and when cold weather hit she did not want to wear anything but dresses or shorts.  That's how it started, and somehow she started having fits about everything else in her life.  I lost my sweet Hailey and had this tantrum throwing crazy girl.  Mike and I talked about what we should do and I came up with the Beauty and the Beast solution.  Hailey loves anything princess, and Beauty and the Beast is definitely on her list of favorites.  I saw that Bingham High School was doing a production of Beauty and the Beast and I thought it would be a great thing for Hailey to work towards. 

I made up a chart and Hailey had to check off a certain number of things every week for 1 month in order to be able to go to Beauty and the Beast.  She had to get dressed, let me do her hair, clean her room, and take bath's without whining or throwing a fit.  I made it so if she did all these things during the day, she got a check mark.  She had to get check marks 6 out of every 7 days a week.  The first week was the hardest, and I had huge doubts that she would ever make it the month.  Ben decided he wanted to go also, so we made him a similar chart, but switched up some of the activities.  I think including Ben really motivated Hailey.  He easily got his checks every day, so Hailey quickly saw that Ben would be going and she might not be.  I was determined to not let her go if she slipped up at all just to prove a point, but she surprised me.  From the 2nd to 4th week, she did amazing.  I had my Hailey back and no more tiny-whiny.  There were times when I'd ask her to do something, and I could tell she was going to go into whine mode.  I just had to remind her of her check-marks and she'd snap right out of it.  It was down to the last day, but she made it with enough checks and we got to go to the play.  Mike stayed home to watch Eliza.  Me, Aly, my mom, Ben and Hailey were able to go.  It was so much fun, what an amazing production!  Ben and Hailey were so impressed that the Beast was a teen aged football player, and they thought it was great that all the kids were in high school.  Even better than Beauty and the Beast was the fact that this seemed to snap Hailey out of her crazy stage and she had done amazingly better ever since!

Thanksgiving

This year for Thanksgiving we headed over to Blake and Nicole's brand new house! I love their house it is so fabulous.  I was very impressed that they already had drapes and pictures up on the wall!  My Grandpa Marsh joined us, and gave all the kids books, which they thought was great.  I made one of the turkey's and luckily it turned out well.  All the food was amazing and it is always great spending time with family.  Hailey wore her 2 favorite dresses today.  I bought her a new purplicious dress which she loves, and her rainbow dress which she would wear every day if I let her.  Earlier that day we headed over to the Wootton's for our annual Thanksgiving breakfast.  Unfortunately we didn't get any pictures there.  The food was great, and it is really fun as our kids get older and love playing with their cousins.  We have so much to be thankful for! 

Eliza says the cutest things.  One of my favorites is mongey, she loves mongey's!  I always ask her something she doesn't know because she says, "I 'on't know" so cute!  Eliza also says "okay da mommy" all the time, too cute!  Eliza loves the song Old MacDonald.  For a couple of weeks, every time she cried she would say eieiooooo while crying, it's hard to not laugh at our funny little one!

Halloween Fun

The Thursday before Halloween, Hailey's preschool class did an adorable play that we were able to come and see.  The kids were all so excited to be able to dress up in their costumes.  Eliza was very entertained by the cute preschool kids.

Me, Hailey and Eliza headed over to Ben's school Halloween morning to see the school's parade.  It is so fun seeing my own son doing things that I remember when I was in elementary school.  Ben loves Scooby Doo, so that was his chosen costume for this year.  It worked out great for me because it was a costume that my mom already had, that we borrowed.  Later that day, my mom watched the girls and I was able to go help with Ben's Halloween party for his class.  He is so cute, and was so excited when I came into his class.  I thought Ben would change out of his costume after the parade, but his teachers said it was up to him.  So, he ended up wearing his costume all day.  The class party was a lot of fun!  I was in charge of helping make candy spiders, which was a lot of fun.  All the kids would ask who's mom I was.  After I told them Ben, they would say..oh Ben is so great or I like Ben a lot.

We decided to trick-or-treat our own neighborhood this year.  I stayed home to pass out candy and Mike took the kids.  It was amazing weather!  I started out by waiting for the knocks or doorbell rings, but they were one after another.  So, I just sat on my porch handing out candy (in my awesome king-kong lady outfit).  It was a lot of fun to see all our cute neighbor children.  Mike and the kids did great and eventually met up with some of Ben's friends and made their way around the neighborhood in a huge mob.  They eventually ended up at the Henderson's for hot chocolate and donuts. Ben and Hailey could barely lift their bags by the time they got home.  Such a fun Halloween!  We are so blessed to live in such a great neighborhood.

Ben's Birthday at Grandma and Papa's

One more birthday celebration for Ben!  He got to celebrate with his cousin Jaxon at Mike's parents house.  We had a great dinner and a fabulous dessert.  The only thing Ben asked for, for his Birthday, was a pillow pet.  Mike's mom bought him one, but I was a little worried because he would be getting it after his official birthday.  But he never said anything about his present or the pillow pet.  When he opened his present from grandma and papa he was sooo excited.  He loves his pillow pet!

Soccer, Friend Birthday Party, and Halloween Party

Just another fun filled Saturday!  It started off with some soccer action.  Ben's age of soccer doesn't have goalies, so there is no specific goalie.  But, that is definitely his favorite spot!  He loves to hang out around our goal and man is he good at blocking shots!  One game I counted 10 saves, and he's not even using his hands because he's not an official goalie!  We will definitely have him try being a real goalie next year.

After the soccer game we had some neighborhood friends over to celebrate Ben's birthday.  Mike did a great job setting up a treasure hunt around our house for the kids to find their ultimate birthday treasure bags.  We had a fun pizza lunch and played a bunch of fun games in the backyard.  The funniest game to watch was a relay race, a zombie relay race, the kids were so funny trying to hop and skip their ways like zombies!  (Oh and we got a fence in our backyard! It is so nice!  You've never seen kids so excited for a fence.  This is becuase they are afraid of the neighbors dog Stitch, which has bitten multiple children.)

To top of this great day we got to go to a fun Halloween party.  Our motivated friends throw a great Halloween party every year that is so fun to go to.  They had it at the Sandy park this year.  It was such nice weather that the kids got to play outside for a while.  Ben is actually being Scooby Doo this year, but decided to dress as a power ranger for this party because it wasn't actually Halloween yet.  Hailey was Dorothy, I found the costume and thought it was so cute.  Hailey had no idea who Dorothy or the wizard of Oz were.  So we had to watch the show before coming to the party.  She agreed that she liked Dorothy and that would be a great costume.  Eliza was our cute little monkey.  Mike is wearing a quite hideous clown costume.  It was actually my clown costume that I wore in 6th grade, so I'm impressed he was able to wear it.  When I was the clown in 6th grade I had stilts and walked around the school in them.  Unfortunately the stilts are long gone and Mike had to do without.  The party was a lot of fun with good food, friends, and family.  Bri and Jake were definitely the stars of the night with their roller-coaster costume!

Garden of Weeds

Okay, so we've lived in our house for 1 & 1/2 years and the garden thing has not worked out so far.  Last summer we didn't even try, Eliza was a new baby and with a new house and everything it wasn't worth it.  So, we said next year for sure, well that would be this year and it didn't happen again.  I'm going to blame this year on the scouts.   Mike was asking if I had any suggestions for activities, and I kept saying bring your scouts over and weed our garden and plant it.  Well, they found better things to do and we never got it going.  Mike was motivated one Friday when I was working in the Spring and planted peas with the kids in one corner of our garden.  Those actually grew great and we enjoyed picking lots of peas in early summer. 

Really late in the summer, Hailey found packs of seeds in our house and wanted to plant them in our garden.  I thought, sure why not.  So, we cleared some ground and planted a few rows of seeds although I knew they had no chance of growing that late in the year.  So, we did not water or weed or take care of our late planted seeds at all.  We came out this day in October, and we found our cute little watermelon growing in our garden of weeds.  Way to go little watermelon.  The kids were so excited!  We had Gavin over playing for a little while, and I'm sure he thought we were very strange to love our little watermelon.  Well, here's hoping for a real garden next year!

Ben's Birthday Swimming Party!

Oh, the great wedding photos we'll have of these two if they end up getting married like they plan.  We had to do something on Ben's actual birthday, according to Ben.  So, I let him decide.  He said the thing he most wanted to do was to go swimming at the Herriman Rec. Center.  Done!  After finishing up homework and getting Mike home from work we headed over and met the Gooches there.  Ben was really happy that Isabelle and him were able to celebrate their birthday's together on their actual birthday.  Of course Ben's trip wouldn't have been complete without a jump off the high dive. 

After swimming fun, we headed over to the Gooches house for some lemon cake and ice cream (oh and chocolate but that doesn't count for Ben, he's a lemon cake fan). 

We headed home and he opened his presents from us.  Mike and I had other plans in mind for Ben's gifts, but Hailey had her own plans.  I was shopping with Hailey a month before Ben's birthday and she spotted these wall tracks.  She told me we had to get them for Ben's birthday, because she knew he would love them.  I thought it was so cute that she would pick out a great present for him, that we bought it.  She was great at keeping it a secret from him until he opened it up.  Sure enough, he was so excited, and it was just what he wanted.  Cute, thoughtful Hailey!  It was a great Birthday day, and Ben was happy to be able to take treats to school earlier in the day.  I have a 7 year old!!!

It's T-ball time!

More t-ball fun, what a swing!  After the first game we played coach pitch and Hailey was really good at hitting the ball.  Did you notice she's wearing a skirt, fashion is a must even when playing t-ball!  I think Eliza is doing a babe ruth move, a home run must be coming up next!

The First of Ben's Birthday Celebrations!

We had a fabulous Birthday party for Ben and Nicole at our house!  Eliza loves mixing and cooking, so she was a great help in the cupcake department.  My family got Ben some awesome clothes.  The cutest thing was that Ben was so excited when he pulled out each thing!  He said "wow this ones great, I really like this one, look how cool this one is."  I just love that kid, turning 7 and so excited about getting clothes for his birthday.

The funniest thing was Eliza cozying up with my brother Blake.  Eliza has been a mommy's girl since she was tiny.  She willingly goes to me, Mike, my mom, and other people occasionally.  It was so cute seeing her walk over to my brother, sit on his lap and cuddle with him.

Hailey's Field Trip to Hee-Haw Farms

This is one of the fabulous field trips that Hailey's preschool has done.  It was our first time to Hee-Haw Farms and it was so much fun!  We started by going down the big slide, which was a huge hit with the kids.  I even got in on the fun and took Eliza down a few times.  Then the kids jumped on fun hay surrounded trampolines.  Our next stop was the petting zoo.  I think Eliza would have been happy to stay there the entire time.  She loved the baby pigs, they were so cute, it would be fun to have one of those as a pet! 

Then we headed over for a hay ride.  Unfortunately, Hailey got stung by a bee right as we were going to board the wagon.  She got stung right above her eye on her forehead, poor little thing was in so much pain.  I was just nervous because I am allergic to bee stings, and Mike and Ben are hyper-sensitive to all bug bites.  I was stung once as a child on my foot, and I had a huge club foot for weeks.  When Mike and Ben get spider bites the area swells up immensely.  Ben's ear was once 4 times it's normal size after being bit by a spider on a father-son campout.  When Mike was younger his eye was swollen shut after a spider bite.  So, I was watching Hailey like a hawk ready to run to the store for some benadryl.  Luckily she was fine, and just had a little red mark all day.  She was a good sport about the whole thing and was doing better after we ate lunch.

They had this huge vat of dried corn kernels that the kids had a blast playing in.  Then one of the workers at the farm gave the kids some good farm information about corn.  Hailey was quizzing everyone about corn for a long time after that.  Then we headed into the corn maze which we amazingly made it through without losing any children.  The next thing was heading into the pumpkin patch to find a pumpkin. The kids all had a great time picking out their own pumpkins.  What a fun day!
Ben has come home from school every day saying he was chased by girls.  I laughed when he first told me, and asked him what they did when they caught him.  He said "I'm too fast, I haven't been caught yet and I don't know what the girls will do to me if they ever catch me."  At first I thought it was just cute, but as it went on I could tell it was really bothering Ben being chased every day.  He told me and my mom that he couldn't even play at recess because he was just running away the whole time.  My mom told him to tell the girls to stop chasing him.  The next day he told the girls and they stopped chasing him.  Now they play a slightly different chase game.  They have two teams and try to catch each other, it is much better than just being chased by a few girls!  Also, Eliza loves her squeaky shoes and anything Curious George.

Hailey is on 2 Wheels!

So, if you look closely at the first picture, we took off her training wheels and her pedals.  One of our neighbors recommended us to do this instead of buying a push bike.  It worked wonderfully!  Hailey pushed around on her pedal-less bike for about a month.  At first she was really wobbly, and her feet were on the ground most of the time.  But then she got the feel of being balanced.  Eventually she would push off with her feet and cruise with her feet off the ground until her bike stopped.  When she got to this point we put her pedals back on and crossed our fingers for her first bike ride without training wheels!

Oh my, it was simply amazing!  All we had to do was hold the back of her bike so she could get started and off she went on two wheels.  We rode around the neighborhood and she was a pro, she never even fell!  It took a couple more weeks for her to master her start off without any help, and she is our pro-little bike rider! 

This is so different from the experience we had with Ben.  We hadn't thought of taking off the pedals to help with balance.  It was just like you see in the movies.  Mike holding onto the back of Ben's bike and running after him, while he falls again and again.  It took agonizing and painful weeks for him to learn without training wheels. 

I'm so glad we had Hailey learn this way, she is such a good little bike rider!
The day before this grand bike adventure we took the kids to Trafalga.  It was a lot of fun and nice enough weather that we were able to go on all the rides outside.  Ben wanted to play laser tag, and read a sign that was explaining it.  He said "ninja laser tag, awesome, rocks the house!"  I'm pretty sure I passed on some 80's sayings to him.  Also Ben woke up that morning and said he had a Chinese dream.  I asked him what a Chinese dream was.  He explained that his Chinese dream had ghosts throwing pots at him, and everything was in China and speaking Chinese.  He said it was a bad dream but he told himself to change his dream to have a good one and he did.  I thought you weren't supposed to dream in a language until your fluent, well he has done amazing!  He is learning Chinese so fast and loving it.  We went to parent teacher conferences and I had no idea how he was doing, but his teacher said he is the best boy in his class.  I am so excited for him to continue learning Chinese!

Hailey's a T-ball Player

Oh, Hailey, definitely the cutest t-ball player I've ever seen!  My brother Blake was the coach and Nathan and Maelie were also on the team.  It was a fun t-ball season, and Hailey was a good little hitter!  Eliza took her job as cheerleader seriously!  She was great at cheering on the kids, although she did take a little time out to do some grass angels.  Of course the best part of the season was getting the trophy.

Hailey Starts Preschool

So, my cute Ben starts first grade and then my adorable Hailey starts preschool!  What a fun and crazy year!  My cute kiddos are growing up so fast.  It wasn't quite as hard to send Hailey to school, because it is only for 2 hours in the morning 3 days a week. The greatest thing is that her preschool is just 4 houses down and is run by our amazing neighbor Miss Nicole!

Hailey was so excited to do a little photo shoot before heading off for her first day of school, complete with her purple Tinkerbell backpack!  She picked out her outfit and requested her hair be braided in 2 little braids (I did my best).  Hailey always requests these crazy hairdos like; I would like a Cinderella ball hairdo or make my hair look like a mermaids.  I do my best but I still can't do my own hair!  Hopefully she will survive my ineptitude at hairdo's.  

Hailey has 7 kids in her preschool class; Hallie, Kate, August, Landon, Parker, and Isaac.  It's going to be a fun and fabulous preschool year!

Eliza know's what she wants, today she said "want cookie".  Yeah, she got her cookie.  Hailey was looking at my wedding ring and the right hand ring I got for our 10 year anniversary.  Hailey said "mom your rings are beautiful!  This one has two blings on the side and this one has blings all over."  Yes, she is my girly girl!

Ben is in First Grade!

Ben is in first grade!!!  It's amazing how time flies.  I thought sending him to preschool and kindergarten was heart wrenching, but first grade is a whole other story.  He is now gone from me for most of his day, and then he comes home and does homework and we eat dinner and then it's basically off to bed.  I feel like I have no time with my favorite buddy.  Things like the fact that he eats lunch at school are so hard for me to accept.  But, he absolutely loves school, which I'm so grateful for! 

Back in the Spring we applied for the Chinese Immersion program at Eastlake Elementary by our house.  We got a letter saying he didn't get in and he was #42 on their waiting list, meaning he was never going to get in.  The letter also said we could check with the other 2 schools that did Chinese in the area and see if he could get in.  We got the letter over the weekend and I was so stressed out.  It's hard to describe, but I felt like I had to do something to get him into the program to learn Chinese.  I had always felt like this was the right path for him so I couldn't believe it when he didn't get in.  I prayed to know if I should just accept that he wasn't supposed to get in and I just kept feeling this intense desire to do everything I could to get him in.  The first chance I had on Monday I called the first school and they laughed at me telling me they had a long waiting list and he could never get in because we were out of the boundaries.  Then I called Southland and the receptionist said I could try bringing in an application but didn't know if we would have any chance.  I printed out the form and took it right then.  After that I felt this calm reassurance that I did all I could do.  Amazingly a few weeks later I got a call saying he was in Southland's Chinese Immersion class.  I was so excited, and so was Ben.  We talked a lot about how he would have to leave his friends for a year or longer until a spot opened up at Eastlake, but he was willing to do that to learn Chinese!

A few weeks before school started he had a week "boot camp" for Chinese Immersion.  Ben picked up so much Chinese in just that one week, it was amazing.  He also met Hunter, and they became instant friends.  Ben and Hunter are playing on the playground before he goes in for his first day of 1st grade.  It was so hard for me to leave my handsome little man, and around 1pm I felt like he'd been gone for long enough.  But, he had a wonderful first day and loves school so much!

Soccer and Boating

Just a normal fun crazy summer Saturday.  Mike volunteered to be Ben's soccer coach this year, because Ben's coach last year was not involved at all.  Mike is a great coach!  He is super positive and makes practices fun for the kids while teaching them.  Isabelle is on Ben's team again and they have a lot of fun together (although their flirtations tend to be a bit distracting during the games.)  After a morning soccer game we headed out on Utah Lake with Mike's parents.  Eliza was tired and not a fan of her life jacket at all!  She was not the happiest boater, but she did okay.  I was sad that I missed Hailey's first knee boarding at Lake Powell, so they took us out so I could see her skills.  I am amazed at how good both Ben and Hailey are on the knee board.  It is so fun seeing these tiny people out behind the boat.  They both did great and had a fun time, it was a great day out on the lake!