koy fish

koy wanted a coi fish, so instead of the 28 cent fish at wal-mart we had to get like the $3.00 fish-koy's fishes never last long...i think it's all the shaking the bag gets on the way home:) so of course it died in a couple of days, well the next family home evening we were talking about how we can all be in heaven with the ones we love and kelsi, my animal lover asked if we get to see our pets that had died and i said that i thought so and koy piped up, "yeah, i get to see my coi fish." and we all kind of laughed and then he said, "is the toilet hooked to heaven?"

message board

i love my message board in my kids' bathroom...i copy little quotes or messages to them and then they will also write messages to me, mostly kelsi but i still love when brooke or koy even leave a little scribble: i know that means "i love you" in their own way! my mom used to leave messages for us in the bathroom too:)

puzzles

koy started to make all the puzzles during conference and stacked them all over the table, he wanted to save them because grandma anderson was coming the next day to visit and he wanted to show her. i had to take a picture because two things came to my mind:
1- that all my kids were old enough to leave them out and they wouldn't get all wrecked and
2- when i was little me and my brother monte would do all our puzzles and spread them out all over the ping pong table-what fun!
also i forgot to write how wonderful i thought conference was...we have such great leaders, my favorite quote by our prophet-President Monson:

"FIND JOY IN THE JOURNEY-NOW!"

october in review

well for the start of october we were in potato harvest-we were trying to figure out some fun stuff to do and of course my kids wanted to go to aunt christys house...i don't even think disneyland could rival aunt christys house to my kids. so we decided to stay a night-which turned into two. while we were there we wanted to get some potatoes from a "nearby" field, which turned into an adventure of it's own. we all piled into a little hatchback car that christy had on loan, while hers was being fixed: 9 kids, 2 adults, and 1 dog-daisy (you can't really see the dog but it is there behind kelsi's hand)
so we head off to the "nearby" field-christy has directions but for some reason we can't seem to find where they are digging the potatoes, so after about 20 minutes of driving the kids are getting hot and squished, well we pass a freshly hit skunk and the smell is too much and tyrel pukes in the back-the dog starts eating it, we hurry to the side of the road and everyone piles out, tyler then gets sick also. so christy takes the back part out and dumps a water bottle over it to clean it up...we pile some potato bags on the wet spot and pile back in. the smell is too much for everyone so now we have to drive with the windows down, which lets in all kinds of dust from the country roads. well the kids are getting kind of antsy by now and i have to admit i was getting car sick too. so we decide to go back to christys and call and see if our directions are right...we get new directions and head back out, just to drive around for another 20 minutes-lost! well christys older boys start teasing her about how she could get lost going to the mailbox but christy never lets anything get her down, she just said "well we haven't had a nice drive with our cousins for a long time." i love christys attitude, she can always see the positive in any situation:) we never did pick any potatoes but christy sent us home with plenty.
we made some potato people, one of my kids favorite things to do. but some how they turned a little crazy this year and this is what we got...
they were so excited to light the matches and fireworks on fire that night and "roast the marshmellows".
they had fun!!!
kelsi loved riding her ripstick all through christys house on her hardwood floors, another reason why they love aunt christys. we really had alot of fun-thanks aunt christy!
lisa marie brought us back some apples from her trip to boise...the kids love to help me dry them-kaden usually does the peeler/corer, but he shared pretty good. koy and brooke pretended to be like lady and the tramp when they eat the spagetti...
they would laugh so hard when they would kiss at the end!
i loved this cute little apple we found in our box of apples-lisa marie said meg picked those ones-so i loved it even more, it was in my window until it shriveled.
this was a crazy zucchinni from our garden-we called it the swan.
brooke had to make a monster for her kindergarten class-it turned out so cute, i love doing projects like this with my kids-they're so creative!
the day before the kids had to go back to school-we decided to go to leo's in idaho falls...we were especially happy when our daddy came with us, these kind of noisy places are not his favorite but the kids love to be with their dad!
i think he liked it too-even though he'll never admit it!
we had a straw maze right through the field this year-so it was fun to go with the kids, we made it through twice in the light but we never did find the end in the dark. we went back when it was haunted with monsters-koy came this time and he was so funny, he would not let me put him down and when one of the monsters came close to us he just stared at him and then he raised his hand and said "hi there". he still talks about the monsters- he'll say remember that goblin wanted to have me for dinner.
kent left the water on in the pasture-i thought it was so neat looking...koy went out there and karate chopped all the weeds down.

then we had halloween-with lots of fun activities: carving pumpkins, the nursing home carnival, class parties, a new carnival at rexburg motor sports, and the church trunk or treat.

kelsi was a football player again-this is actually last years picture, i didn't even get one of her this year. i think this is the 4th or 5th time she's been a football player but she told me this was her last year to dress up and trick or treat because she would be too old next year:(
koy was a power ranger:as he would say 5-2-8 activate!
brooke was a cute little "snappy" poodle-i had bought a hippie costume last year for cheap and she was suppose to be that but she said "what's a hippie?" i said like on scooby doo-but then i thought maybe you shouldn't encourage your kids to be hippies so i said "what do you want to be?" brooke says, "a poodle" i said, "do you know what a poodle is?"

she says, "yeah, it's what sirri is!"

kaden was the boy who lived-harry potter. we even dyed his hair black. he loves his costume (thanks mom for the scarf), he even puts it all on to read his book-he's currently on harry potter 5...his third time through the series. on a sad note: just yesterday i cut his hair and he has been growing it out since like may-i like it short, he likes it long...but i did feel bad because he cried when he saw how short i cut it, sorry!

i love scouts

okay you caught me...i love scouts!
-i love my yellow shirt (thanks dad)

-i love the whole silly scout humor
-i love the marking off goals and earning badges
-i love all the activities,especially making cool stuff out of garbage
-i love acting like an 8 year old again
-i love being kaden's leader
-i just love scouts!

this was a way fun game we played at pack meeting, called toxic waste.
i do need to learn how to be a scout though-this was me and kara's fire up at swim camp...we thought we were just brilliant by having the kids get all the tiny dry little dead sticks and fill the whole fire pit with them and newspaper, it was keeping them busy...

well: we almost burned down all of green canyon...it was so flaming-ashes were flying everywhere, oops!

september in review

well i got a new camera and i love taking pictures with it-no more weird colors:^)but now i have the crazy computer thing where my computer won't recognize any of my new pictures...so i was all caught up and ready to do more of a weekly post but now i will probably have to wait for a new computer-thanks to lisa marie she let me come and download these pictures on her computer.

koy started pre-school this month with mrs.tammie(all my kids have had her and she is amazing). koy is a little different than my other kids and since his birthday is in november he won't go to kindergarten next year,but i wanted him to be in pre-school with his church and neighbor friends. all my other kids when they started pre-school knew the abc's, numbers, shapes, how to write their names, etc. but koy really knows very little and could actually really care less. so we were doing some flash cards of the alphabet the other night and he was just pretty much guessing at every letter...then brooke showed him the letter m and he says "that's a mcdonalds sign!"
the kids all got on their cooking attire to help me cook sunday dinner...they love to help in the kitchen-i actually really love when they help too:when everyone is helping it's not so boring for me to be in the kitchen. kelsi can pretty much make anything now from a recipe-that might be dangerous for me, i might put her on cooking dinner every night...then it might get done!
brooke is such a smarty pants-she came home from kindergarten the other day and asked if sirri could come over and play-i said she could and we would call her in a minute...well next thing i knew brooke had out the ward directory and was dialing the number all by herself.
brooke had a little friend land on her at kadens football game...

i love her cute new toothless grin-i really don't like grasshoppers though!

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kaden had a little dillema after school a couple of weeks ago-there was another boy pushing him around and trying to take his book. kelsi happened to be walking down the fourth grade hall and saw what was happening and went in to tell his teacher but there was only a substitute who said "i'll write a note for the teacher"-what? so kelsi held the other boy back and told kaden to run to the bus. kelsi was staying the night with a friend in sugar city so she called me and told me what had happened-of course i immediately started crying and worrying how kaden must be feeling...the bus ride home is an hour long, which took forever! i thought he would get off the bus all sad and distraught but he came off the same old happy smiley "hi mom" kaden. i asked how his day was and he said "great" i told him that kelsi had called me and told me what had happened after school-he said well colby, the mean boy, was joking around at first picking him up because that's what his other friend was doing, then he said stop it and colby wouldn't-then he said some kids in the hall started telling colby to knock it off. then kelsi came and he got on the bus. i asked why he didn't stand up for himself, he said "i know that colby was just embarrassed because everyone kept saying to leave me alone" i told him you can be mean back if someone is being mean to you and kaden said "mom,he didn't hurt me, i won't be mean to him-everybody else is and that's probably why he acts mean." i immediately thought of the scripture *a soft answer turneth away wrath* sometimes it's hard being a mom, i hate to hear of anything bad happening to my kids-but they sure teach me how i could act a little better in some situations. what really cracked me up was the next day when kaden is reading this book...

kaden said kelsi had checked it out for him-she was so sweet to help him and still worries about him getting picked on...kelsi is more like me and would have pushed the kid right back.

a few days later i decided i needed to tell the principle, not about the boy, but because i was really angry that the substitute did nothing-so i went in and before i could even say one word i'm crying...i hate being a blubbering cry baby-i can't have a serious conversation about anything without crying. i was also very happy to hear that two of the kids that stood up for kaden were from our ward-it makes me glad we live in an area where people look out for each other.

this is a borrowed picture from my friend karens post-her boys garrett and justin and koy needed some hot chocolate the other day at her house...i'm not ready for the cold-what was so funny was that they came back to my house and ate popsicles out in the garage bundled in blankets...i don't think anyone is ready for the cold.
kelsi wanted to take her friends natasha and nitchelle out for their birthday -it was fun and they really enjoyed the "cookie monster" dessert!

the end of the month i went to the womens conference... i love the womens broadcast-it reminds me how great it is to be a girl! my favorite quote was from president Uchtdorf:

those who bring sunshine to the lives of others...

cannot keep it from themselves!

conference october 2008

i am so looking forward to conference tommorrow. i have just been so excited since we had a sunday school lesson about a month ago when we were discussing alma 57:21...yea, and they did obey and observe to perform every word of command with exactness...the class started talking about what it meant to obey with exactness and bro. black who had been away on an internship working somehow with the army, had went to their graduation. he said to see a huge body of people moving with exactness as every command was being called was so amazing! and then he said what really hit me-what if we as members of the church, when our prophet and leaders gave us "commands" moved with exactness. wow; how powerful we would be-an unstoppable force of good! i am such a visual person and when i heard this i just immediately thought of conference and all the wonderful messages we are given to improve our lives and help us back to our Heavenly Father. and in my mind and i'm not meaning this irreverantly at all i can almost see as our leaders in conference are giving us these "commands"- we, as a whole church, standing and saying-yes sir, i can do that-i can obey with exactness. i am so excited! i love the gospel!