And...It's over!

Christmas has come and gone and the wrapping paper and toys are finally cleaned up! As the children grow older Christmas is becoming more and more fun. Savanna woke up at 6 excited as can be! She laid down on the floor in our bedroom playing games on the IPod until 7, then we woke up Miles and Avery and started the madness of present opening. They were so cute and excited. Avery was especially sweet, she was so animated and excited about everything. She had a smile on her face the whole day! After opening presents we had breakfast at home. Every year since we've been married we have gone to James' parents house for Christmas breakfast but we shook things up a bit this year and stayed home for awhile. We had eggs, sausage, cinnamon rolls and orange rolls, it was yum. After breakfast we went to church. We figured this was going to be difficult, how were the kids going to behave for and hour and 15 minutes on such an exciting day? I have to tell you, they surprised us. They did just fine and I actually got to hear some of the talks. It was a really good experience. Our Bishop spoke about the first Christmas Eve he worked as an EMT. He said that he thought working that night would be super easy, it was Christmas, everyone would be with family and loved ones and taken care of, nothing bad would happen. He said the first call they went on was a heroine overdose, the next five or six calls were attempted suicides. He realized then that not everyone had a happy Christmas and that there were a lot of people who were in need of compassion and help this time of year. It made me remember that Christmas is just another day and to be grateful for what I have and to remember others. It might seem like that story would have been depressing for a Christmas morning, but I thought it was something we all needed to hear.
After church we headed up to the Bayless' for presents and games and a wonderful Christmas dinner. The entire day was wonderful. Our whole family was together. Something that struck me at the end of the day was how well behaved my kids were. They were just sweet as pie all day. Like I said, Avery's smile never left her face. James' brother commented on how good they were being for such a crazy day, maybe that was my Christmas present, happy kids! I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas!

Yay Christmas! Although I always loved Christmas as a kid, as I got older I became sort of a Scrooge. Christmas just started to stress me out! All the money being spent, the zillions of family get-togethers, and the unavoidable let down when it was all over. But this year something is different, I am so excited for Christmas and I'm having so much fun with my kids! They are at a good age, Christmas is so magical and fun and they are starting to remember our family's traditions and are excited to start new ones. Yay! We have jumped right into the season with some fun stuff! The day after Thanksgiving we went to the annual Christmas Lights Parade here in Spanish Fork. We have gone for the past few years and it's awesome! It has this very small town feel with homemade floats, inflatable Frosty the Snowman tied to a Jazzy, and a Elk head dressed up like Rudolph attached to the front of a truck pulling a trailer full of snowmobiles wrapped in Christmas lights. Like I said, awesome! The kids loooove it! One of the floats was a trailer that had a light up Nativity on it. When it passed us Miles shouted out "Bye Baby Jesus!" After the parade we went home and set up the Christmas tree. We pretty much let the kids do it all and we have such a mish mosh collection of ornaments that it looks a little like Christmas throw-up, but it's cute. The next week I took the kids to see Santa at Macey's grocery store. I am too much of a wuss to brave the malls at Christmas time so I thought it was a good option. He was a very convincing looking Santa I thought and both Savanna and Miles sat on his lap for the first time. Avery was too shy, maybe next year. The next day my mom came down and we baked and decorated Christmas cookies. This was really fun, the kids really got into it! Avery loved rolling the dough with the rolling pin. We also made ginger bread men. I don't know why I thought to make them so big, they puffed up so much in the oven! And finally, my oh-so-creative daughter made herself a crown and skirt out of wrapping paper. 'Tis the season!

What I'm Thankful For This Thanksgiving

My husband, Savanna, Miles, and Avery. My home, my car, food on my table, Savanna's school and teacher. My mom, dad, Charles and Trish and Asher. James' family and the two new sister's we got this year. James' ability to work like a mad man everyday and be able to pay every bill that is thrown at us. The great gift I have to be home raising my kids. My Heavenly Father and Jesus, my church and all the people in my ward who teach me and my children the gospel. My best friends' baby girl that she is being blessed with after four sons. My health and my family's health. My exercising buddies and the motivation I get from them to stay in shape. In addition to these and many, many more, I am utterly and extremely grateful that I am not going shopping on Black Friday. HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

My 3 Ducks

For memory sake I wanted to post the pics of each of my kids as The Duck for Halloween. So Cute!

Seasonal Festivities

I would have titled this post "Halloween!!!", but that would be so unoriginal. Is that a word? Anyway, Halloween!!!. Every year we go to Vineyard Nursery Pumpkinland. They have a corn maze, different farm animals to see, bouncy houses, a playground and a kid friendly spook alley. The kids love it! My mom came with me and she is still talking about how well behaved the kids were. I think it was the only time we have done an activity with no fits or fighting, my kids are getting older I guess.
This year for Halloween I really wanted to make the kids' costumes. Neither James or I could remember a time when we were kids that we had a store bought costume. Our mom's always made one or we scrounged something up and put one together ourselves. So I wanted to be creative this year and make something. Now, when I say make I mean I will hot glue or safety pin anything and farm out the rest of the work to more talented people. Savanna wanted to be a Lady Bug, easy! We got a red sweatshirt and wings at DI, felt, headband, pipe cleaners and pom poms at Joann's, and she owns a pair of red pants. A little glue, some pins and, voila! The sweetest Lady Bug ever! Miles' was little more challenging, he wanted to be the Eon Kid. Has anyone ever heard of it? My kids are Netflix experts and can log-in, search for and start their movies themselves. The Eon Kid was something they found, an animated super hero/slash robot awesome kid that Miles' loves. I tried to steer him towards something else for awhile because it looked hard, but he was set on it. We found the suit at DI, (the tag said Shadow Ninja) and an old bike helmet. The "Iron Fist" is my old ski glove with felt hot glued to it. The leg armor are soda boxes painted red. Oh the sacrifice I made for him, all those Vanilla Cokes I had to drink. My brother painted the helmet to match the Eon Kids' and I think it turned out very cool! Miles was so happy and excited! Avery wore a duck costume we already had, both Savanna and Miles have worn it. All in all I spent $16! I was proud, and they were happy! Trick-or-treating was awesome. They were all well behaved and very friendly, telling everyone thank you and Happy Halloween and Avery would say "quack quack" when she got her candy. Fun Holiday!

Pumpkin Party!

For my mom's birthday we had a pumpkin carving party! Halloween was always a big deal at our house growing up. My mom decorated the yard super scary like and she always dressed up and took us trick-or-treating, and we always carved pumpkins! So what better way to celebrate my Moms' October birthday then to carve pumpkins! We had a great time. My brother Charles brought his new puppy Asher (Trish was out of town), and of course, my mom came. We had pizza and treats and pumpkin birthday cake. The kids had so much fun. They love grandma and Uncle Charles and the newest family member, Asher. It got a little loud and crazy, but that's pretty normal around here. Happy Birthday Mom!

The Benefit of Blogging

Friday around lunch time I noticed at package on my front step. We get packages quite often, usually it's something for the business. James said he wasn't expecting anything and I knew I hadn't ordered anything so my first thought was it was something delivered to us accidentally. I picked up the box and saw that it was to Chevon Bayless from A. Bayless in PA! A package from my sister-in-law Amanda to me! Amanda is a notoriously great gift giver. She is one of the most thoughtful people when it comes to gift giving. She sends my kids birthday and Christmas gifts, she sent matching dresses for the girls when Avery was born. She sent my mother-in-law this awesome strawberry slicer and when I e-mailed her to see where she bought it, she sent me one too! One of my favorite sweaters was from her! She always remembers everyone's everything. So getting a package from her was exciting! Inside the box was some chocolate's, slippers, a CD, a magazine, a recipe book, popcorn, a cute tote bag, and the above note. I read the note and started to cry. As I mentioned in my previous post, things have been rough lately. It meant so much to me that someone was thinking of me and, as silly as it might sound, it's means a lot to me that people actually read this blog. I have always loved writing and blogging is such a convenient way to put my thoughts into words. I now know of two people who live out of my state that read my blog! Granted, they are both relatives, but still! I want to say thank you to Amanda, you are wonderful! I have been inspired by you to be more thoughtful and remember the people around me and what they might be going through. I really wish you lived closer so I could see you and your family more often. Us Bayless daughter-in-laws got to stick together, it's been rough out there for us lately! Thank you for reading and remembering me, I hope to see you soon!

When It Rains It Pours...And Then Snows

Why is it that this expression is so true? Doesn't it always happen like that? One thing goes wrong then a hundred come behind it? This seems to be our life lately. One thing after another. James has had so much stress at work with one job on top of another, he barely gets any sleep. My Aunt passed away. I had to go to the Emergency Room with an injured arm. The fuel pump in the truck went out. James cut his arm at work,but thankfully our nurse neighbor came and sealed up the cut so we didn't have to go the ER again. Our lovely tenant in Orem is, well, GRRR! Miles got lost at James' brothers wedding (we found him). I have had a cold for hmm, about a month. It's SNOWING! And to top it all off my Netflix Instant Streaming to my TV won't work! Ok, so maybe if you piece it all apart, it's not so much. However, considering the fact that all of this happened in a weeks time, it's tough. That's why I'm sitting here blogging and eating a huge piece of leftover wedding cake. At least the sun came out for the wedding, it really was beautiful. Everyone looked so nice dressed up. By the end of the night Miles' tux looked as though it had been to war and all three of them were covered in cake, but this picture was taken before all that. Even though things get tough and stay tough sometimes I am grateful for what I have, my husband and my three cuties.

I have not had the creative juice lately for an awesome blog post, so here is a lame one. Life is puttering along in our family. So far school has turned out to be a great experience. It's helped us to get on a schedule and I can see academic progress in Savanna already. Her reading and writing has improved a lot. Wherever we go she is reading signs and she is figuring out how to spell things by herself. We went to the school carnival and on a field trip and both were fun new activities for us to enjoy. When Savanna is at school, Avery has a nap and I get to have some alone time with Miles. With being the middle child stuck between two sisters I worry that he sometimes gets lost in the shuffle. He is generally easy going and not as high maintenance as the girls so he gets passed up sometimes. Having time with just him has been really good for him. We play games, read books, look at funny videos on you tube, and work on his "school". We didn't finish the Summer Bridge workbooks this summer so I have been working with Miles to finish his. He always surprises me with how much he knows. He is working on the pre-school to kindergarten book and can pretty much do it all. He is not as talkative as Savanna and is not forever telling me all the things he knows, so sometimes I don't realize how smart he really is, but he can fly through those pages! Avery is growing up so fast! Just recently her vocabulary has exploded. She is always repeating words and songs and blurts our the funniest things. I have not been very good about a bedtime with her (oops) so she is accustomed to spending time with James and I after the other kids go to bed. She enjoys her time with just us, the other night we settled on the couch after putting the kids to bed and Avery said "watch a movie?" James and I just laughed, she is at the funnest age where everything she does is sooo cute! Although work is still really busy for James, he was able to have a few nights off and we had an awesome family night at Taco Amigo and Chuck E Cheese's! These are the days of my life!

Kindergarten!

It happened! My sweet Savanna started school! A week before she started we went to the schools open house. She got to meet her teacher and have a scavenger hunt of the school. She had to find her cubby, the bathroom, the playground, etc. She was so excited! She was bouncing around the whole time, her teacher commented on how excited she must be! Savanna was counting down the days until she started, the only time she can seem to remember the days of the week is when something exciting is going to happen. The morning of the first day she kept telling me that I could just drop her off, she knew where to go I didn't need to take her in. I told her that mommy's have to go in the first day to take pictures so I was going in no matter what! We got some cute pictures and she sat right down at her table and started coloring her picture. She barely said goodbye, I think she was ready! My new favorite thing is dropping her off and picking her up. When I drop her off she walks up to the door with her backpack on and turns around three of four times to wave goodbye with a huge grin on her face, it's the cutest thing ever. When I pick her up she is smiling so big and immediately starts telling me what she did that day, she stands outside the car telling me everything through the window. I have to remind her to get in the car so other parents can come get their kids. She just can't wait to tell me! We survived the first week, hopefully she can keep up the enthusiasm for a few months at least!

Last Week of Summer

Knowing it was our last week of Summer I wanted to enjoy it with some fun activities with the kids. Tuesday morning we had to stop at the school for Savanna's kindergarten assessment test. She did very well while Miles and Avery tore apart the class room. After the test we headed up to Thanksgiving Point Farm Country. We had never been before I wanted to take advantage of the 2 buck Tuesday deal. It would have been well worth it to me to go on another day, pay full price and not have to deal with the crowds! It was nuts, but the kids had fun anyway. They got to see and smell various farm life and go for a tractor ride. We had lunch at the restaurant there then stopped to get new shoes for the girls on the way home. I wanted Savanna to get velcro shoes for school so she could easily get them on and off by herself. She picked out her own shoes so Dora the Explorer will be going to kindergarten with her. A couple of days later she brought me some older shoes she has and showed me that she can now tie her own shoes, no problem. I hope I haven't stunted her shoe tying ability by making her wear those velcro ones anyway, oh well!
Later in the week we spent some time at the splash pad and playing in our backyard. We ate popsicles and ice cream cones too. On Saturday we went up Provo Canyon and had a picnic with my family and went to Bridal Veil Falls. The kids loved sitting at the bottom off the falls fishing rocks out of the water and throwing them back in. We also happened to have Backpack (we like Dora ok?) with us and filled him (her?) up with river rocks. While we were at the park having our lunch, there were a couple of guys going around with metal detectors. My dad filled his pockets with change and casually walked around the field where the metal detector guys were. My dad started dropping change at random spots in the field, just to give the guys something to find you know? That's just the kind of guy my dad is, kindhearted and helpful. I don't think I have laughed that hard in a long time!

Manual Labor

The joys of being a land lord are in full abundance lately! James and I get to trade off either telling adults to clean up their messes or just cleaning it up for them! It's awesome! I'm being sarcastic of course. The Orem house is giving us grief again (as per usual), so we have had to put more work into it. We have gotten discouraged, but right now we are being positive about the whole thing and just getting it done. This post is mostly being written as a shout out to my husband. He has been working himself to the bone this summer. Work with his business has been extremely busy and when he is not doing that he is working on the apartment. I wanted to help out and take some of the pressure off him, so I offered to do some of the apartment work myself. Monday I spent an entire FOUR hours cleaning and prepping the place for paint. At the end of the day I was exhausted! My eyes, nose, and throat hurt, I was so dirty and tired. Today I was there for just over FIVE hours doing some more grunt work because I have no skills. I am also very tired today. The whole time I am working I am thinking, how does James do this? I have been here for two hours and it sucks and James works like this for 12, 15, 20 hours a day! He is Super Man and I am a huge wuss. For all my hard work this week I get to have a break and go to dinner with a friend tomorrow while James does a backyard camp out with the kids. Things seem a little unbalanced, don't you think? I can make myself feel a little better by remembering that James has never used the dishwasher since we moved here five years ago.

Things I Don't Want To Forget

This post is for random, completely unrelated events that don't deserve their very own post but are things I don't want to forget. Most of life is like that actually, random events that somehow merge together to form an existence. And because it's my existence, I better not forget! I will start with "I am grateful for the splash pad." Last year a new park opened up about 5 minutes from our house. The best part of the new park is the splash pad. The kids love it, and it has given us something new to do this summer, it's free and safe and a great way to cool off!




Next: Funny posing and playing with camera. Savanna and Miles like when I get the camera out, especially Savanna. She is always posing in weird ways and making funny faces. They also like to take pictures themselves. One day we were playing in Miles' room and Savanna and Miles started playing "freeze pose", a game Savanna made up. I got out the camera and we took a bunch of silly pics, it was fun.
Finally: Paint Stick Swords. As I was preparing for Miles' pirate party I came across a crafty blog that had the idea of making swords out of paint stirrer sticks. I went to Home Depot and got a bunch, the sign said FREE! Take as many as you need! Sweet! My mom came over and helped us make them. We cut, painted, glued, and wrapped leather around the handles. I think they turned out pretty cool.
The End!