Quotes and Funny Stuff

     Here are some of the latest quotes and funny stories that have happened recently. Most of these are from miss Brynlee but there are a few from Annalyn.

Bryn: "Mom, guess what song we sang in church today. It goes like this Our Door is Always Open. Isn't that so terrible? They are going to get so many flies."

Bryn: "Dad said he is going to get me some candy."
Me: "Do I get candy too?"
Bryn: "I think he will get You some candy because you are his sweetheart."

     Brynlee came in singing this song the other day "shake shake shake, shake shake shake, shake your booby. Shake your boobies." She was even shaking her chest while she was singing.

      We went and got some snow cones this summer and they came with a spoon that turned colors when they got cold. Brynlee decided she was going to keep hers. "I better hide this from my friends," she remarked on the ride home. "They are going to be so jealous."

     At church a few Sundays ago they were talking about miracles and the teacher brought in a dead plant to illustrate her point. Brynlee raised her hand and told everyone, "we have dead plants at out house." Thanks for telling everyone. We really don't have any dead plants that I can think of so I am not sure what she was talking about.

     Our home teachers came over a few months ago and they were teaching us about the wise man and the foolish man. (There is a song he was talking about where the wise man builds his house on a rock while the foolish man builds his house on the sand. The house on the sand washes away in the end.) He asked Brynlee what a wise man builds his house on and Brynlee was quick to respond "concrete." Joel was pretty proud of her.

     We went to grandma Hirtle's house one day after church and Annalyn walked in the kitchen and saw that grandma was cooking corn. She gasped and happily exclaimed, "Corn! I was dreaming about corn!"

     I told Brynlee her friend Lachlan would be at the church party we were going to a few months ago and she said, "Oh good. Lachlan is my boyfriend." I gasped and she looked at me and said. "Don't worry mom. We are not going to get married yet. Not until we get big."

     Brynlee: "mom guess what I want to be when I grow up. I want to be a ballerina or a gymnastics girl, or maybe Sister Whiting" (she is the music leader in primary.)

     Brynlee had a kindergarten screening before school started. They asked her all of these questions to see what she knew. She came out of the room when it was over and said, "I knew everything mom. I could do everything they asked me."
"Good," I replied. "Did you even remember your address?"
"Yup. Kuna, Idaho."
"How about your phone number?"
"Uh, actually I couldn't remember that one."
"Did you write your last name?"
"I remember the H and the I and the R but I couldn't remember what came after that."
Yup Bryn. It sounds like you knew everything.

     We were playing outside and Brynlee didn't have her shoes on. I told her she had to go get them but she did not want to run in the house. Instead she ran over to our neighbor who was working outside and yelled at him to see if he would go into her bedroom and get her shoes. I made her go and get them.

     We smelled a dead skunk on the way over to visit grandma and we looked out our car window where Brynlee could see the dead squished skunk. She got really excited about that. "I can't believe I saw a dead skunk," she marveled. "I am going to tell grandma about this right away."

     Brynlee went up to the neighbor by our new house and asked; "Are you going to die soon?" Joel was really mad at her and told her to never ask those kinds of questions. Our neighbor just smiled and said, "well how is she supposed to know if she doesn't ask?" Then he told her he thought he would be around for a little bit longer.

     Before bed a few nights ago Brynlee had on her bumblebee pajamas and Joel sang her the baby bumblebee song before bed. Then we tucked her in bed only to have her wake up crying hysterically a few hours later. She was convinced there was a giant bumblebee in her bedroom that was trying to sting her. Apparently it puffed itself up and tried to attack her. It took me a long time to get her to calm down and go to sleep. The next morning she was still talking about the bee in her room that night. "There wasn't really a bee in there;" I tried to assure her. Bryn just gasped and asked, "Was it a wasp?"

     At the library several months ago Annalyn ended up knocking her chair over and falling. She cried really loudly and the fall made a loud bang so several of the people who worked in the library ran over to check on Anna. She was already having a rough day and we were getting ready to leave when it happened. Once Annalyn calmed down one of the librarians offered Anna a sticker. She was excited about that but then she ended up crying because they didn't have the sticker she got last time. She finally found one she wanted but it ripped when She tried to tear it off the back of the paper. She ended up crying again so Brynlee went and asked for another sticker. They didn't have the same sticker so there was more crying but eventually we found a Hello Kitty sticker that Annalyn happily stuck on her dress. We were almost out of the library when she discovered that her sticker was missing. She wanted another one when we looked for it and couldn't find it but I made her leave without a sticker. She cried the whole way home.

     We went to the rodeo this summer, Brynlee called it the "Radio" and she had a blast. She keeps asking when we will go again. We got tickets at the library so last week she asked the librarian if they had anymore tickets so she could go again. While we were at the rodeo they sang the national anthem. Brynlee thought it took a little too long. "Why is this taking so long?" She questioned. "It never takes this long at preschool."

     Brynlee keeps sucking on a little section of her hair. Joel told her that she better not do that or hair would grow all over her whole body. "That's what happened to me," he told her." A few days later we were driving in the car and one of Brynlee's friends was riding with us. I could hear her tell her friend, "Guess what? When my dad was little he had long hair and he sucked on it and then hair grew all over his whole body. He has hair everywhere!" I guess that is what Joel gets for lying to Brynlee.

     Brynlee got to spend the night at grandma Hirtle's house this summer and she used one of grandma's toothbrushes and some of her toothpaste to brush her teeth. The next time we went over to grandma's house Brynlee begged to brush her teeth. Grandma told us that Brynlee brushed her teeth like 5 times that night. Apparently she really liked grandma's mint toothpaste.

     Brynlee came home from school begging for me to put an icepack in her lunch box. I tried to ask her what she wanted to keep cold and I told her she didn't need an ice pack. "It's not to keep my food cold," she replied. "It's just incase I get hurt when I am eating so I can put an icepack on my owie."

     The Jehovah's Witnesses came to our house a few weeks ago. There was an older lady that shared a scripture with us and Brynlee talked her ear off. She told her all kinds of stuff and kept interrupting her scripture. The lady was nice. When she left Brynlee ran outside and gave her a huge hug. She waved to her and then looked at me and said, "I liked that lady."

     There have been lots of mice in the area lately and I could tell we have had several of them in our garage. We always keep D Con out in the garage just in case but the boxes have been emptying out really quickly. We must have a pack rat in there because I have found several stock piles in different places including in our stroller. I hate mice. I bought more mice poison and told Joel he should set a trap in the house again just in case. He just shook his head and told me there were no mice in the house. Later that night Joel was sitting on the toilet and I could hear this loud commotion. Apparently a mouse ran right across his feet and into our bedroom. He set a mouse trap right after that. Joel said he is going to make sure there are no holes in our new house so it will be mice proof.

     Brynlee is slowly learning the names of all of the kids in her class at school. The first day of school she told me all about this little girl that she played who had a boy's name. She called her John. She talked about John for about a week and then she came home and told me her name wasn't John, it was really Tanner. I looked up the class list that I wrote down and we discovered that her name was really Taylor. "Oh yeah, her name is Taylor. I just always keep calling her Tanner but everyone keeps reminding me of her real name." At least Brynlee has her name down now.

     At Brynlee's five year old check-up Dr. Bennett asked Brynlee several different questions about health and safety stuff. She asked her about brushing her teeth and wearing a seatbelt in the car, stuff like that. Then she asked Brynlee how many hours of TV she should be watching a day. Brynlee didn't even hesitate before she announced, 1. Dr. Bennett was super impressed that she knew the answer to that and I explained that they are only allowed to watch one show a day. She was impressed again and I was feeling pretty good about my parenting skills when Annalyn piped in, "my mommy and my daddy watch bad movies." We don't even watch rated R movies but she did come out of bed the other night when we were watching the Hunger Games and I told her it was a bad movie for kids. Thanks for telling your doctor about that Anna. As we left the doctor's office Annalyn pointed to Dr. Bennett with her middle finger (the finger she uses to point at everything lately) and she said "I really love that lady mom." You gotta love kids and sometimes it is best to just not explain. We just laughed and waved goodbye. At least Annalyn likes her pediatrician.

     The other night Annalyn came out of her room all worried because our house looked like "that." She kept pointed to our vaulted ceiling and panicking because she thought the house was going to fall over. I tried to calm her down and explain things to her but she just wanted her dad to come home and fix our house so it wouldn't fall over. We talked to Joel on the phone but that wasn't good enough. Eventually I got Anna to calm down enough to lay on the couch and fall asleep. It is kind of funny the things kids get scared of but in her mind it was a real valid fear. She really thought our house was going to fall over.

     I sure do love my girls. I love hearing the things they think and come up with. I can't wait for Kyla to be talking more so I can write down funny quotes from her too. 

Kyla at 15 Months

     Little Kyla is officially 15 months old. She runs all over the place, climbs on everything, and babbles all of the time. She is such a fun little ray of sunshine. She is getting so big. Here are a few more facts about Kyla.

Height: 31 in (66%)

Weight: 21.6 lb (56%)
Shoe Size: 4
Clothes: 18 months
Diaper Size: 4
Teeth: 10 - She has all 8 of her front teeth and the top and bottom molar on the left side of her mouth.
Sleeping: Kyla learned how to climb out of her crib when she was still only 13 months old. It was more like she would fall out of bed and hurt herself. Usually she would climb on top of her porta crib and just hang there crying until I came and rescued her. I was so afraid that she would hurt herself that I started bringing her into our bed at night and I would rock her to sleep for her naps and for bed. She is a super wiggly sleeper. That lasted for over a month before I couldn't take it anymore. I love rocking her to sleep but I just didn't have the time. Plus sometimes she would wake when I tried to put her in bed and I would have to rock her again. It was hard because she would cry and wake Brynlee up at night. I finally got Brynlee to just leave Kyla alone and let her cry. Brynlee still tends to get her out of bed and she will bring her to me in the middle of the night sometimes, but for the most part she is good about sharing a room with Kyla. It only took two nights of letting Kyla cry a little bit, I would go in and check on her every little bit and lay her back down, and then she finally started napping and sleeping in her own bed without being rocked. She only tried to climb out once or twice and then she settled down and went to sleep. She still tries to climb out of her bed every once in a while but usually she is easy to get to sleep. For a while she was sleeping thought the night but once she got those molars in she would wake up and scream and wake Brynlee up so she has been sleeping with us for part of the night. Hopefully we will have her done with that habit soon.
Eating: Kyla likes to eat and eats pretty well. She loves sweets just as much as the rest of us and will usually eat whatever we eat. She has gotten a bit more picky but for the most part she still likes her veggies and she loves fruits. Every single time we got to grandma Verna's house Kyla has to leave with a handful of blackberries from grandma's bushes. She goes crazy for watermelon and cantaloupe, she can eat a lot of that stuff. I stopped nursing Kyla right before she turned 14 months and she transitioned to whole milk with some reluctance but she does not like the stuff all that much. She would rather drink water. She seems to be fine with me not nursing her but she likes to lay on my belly and suck her thumb when she wakes up in the morning.

Talking: Kyla seems to understand everything I say and she babbles all the time. It almost sounds like she is speaking German. She follows most of my requests. She throws her diaper away after I change it, she gets her diaper and the wipes when I tell her to, gets her shoes when it is time to go outside, and she will go and get the scriptures when I tell her to. She recently learned to say "no" and she uses it quite often; whenever her sisters bother her or when I tell her to do something she doesn't want to do. She also nods her head "yes." really it is her whole little body she nods. I love it. She can shake her head no too. Kyla can say "mama," "dada," "Jo," (for Joel), "hot," "shuh" (for shoes),  "kee E" (for kitty), "no," "hi," "bye," "chi" (for chicken and ba ba for the sound they make). She says ahh, when something is soft, she says ouch or ow when she gets hurt, and she has repeated several other sounds and words that people say.
Things she loves: Kyla loves markers and is constantly writing on herself. Anytime she finds a marker, (Brynlee and Annalyn have been using them a lot and they keep leaving them on the table) Kyla takes of the lid and draws on her legs. One day she found a permanent marker sitting by my computer and she drew all over the keyboard and the computer screen. She still climbs on the table all the time and she will climb on whatever else she can climb on. She loves being with her sisters and doing whatever they do. She likes dolls and playing with toys. She loves to play outside, swing in the swing, and jump on the trampoline. She dances whenever she hears music by jumping from one foot to the other and she tries to sing.

Things she doesn't like: Lately she does not want me to cover her with a blanket and she immediately kicks them off, even when it is cold. She didn't like jacket at first but she tolerated it when I told her she had to have it on. Kyla is warming up to animals and seems to really like them but she has no desire to touch them most of the time. She is still scared of big animal. Lately she is getting more picky about what she gets. I broke her granola bar in half the other day and she threw herself to the ground and cried. I put her milk is a sippy cup instead of a cup without a lid and she threw another temper tantrum. She can scream really well and is quite loud. Kyla's last temper tantrum really made me laugh because she didn't really cry at all. She just laid on the ground, kicked the wall with her legs and whined a little bit at me. At Kyla's 15 month check-up we discovered that she had some Impetigo on her thumb and under her nose so she had to take medicine. Kyla didn't like that medicine one little bit. She came into the kitchen the other day and saw me getting her medicine out and she took off running yelling, "No!" It was a real fight to get that medicine down.

     I sure do love this little baby so much. She is really such a mama's girl but she sure does like being with her sisters. She gives the best hugs and kisses and she loves running to her dad and getting a hug and kiss from him every time he is around. We all love this girl a whole lot.

The Month of August

     We had so much fun enjoying our last few days of Summer. Joel was still as busy as ever working on our new house. The plumbing took forever. Joel said he had to tear out enough pieces to have done all of the plumbing three times. It took four different inspections and Joel had to redo all kinds of things, but as of the 31st of August the plumbing has officially passed. We also have the house wrapped in plastic and we put an extra layer of foam around the outside for some extra insulation. There was an inspection on the house wrap and it passed with flying colors. We put in the windows and I helped Joel wrap the outside of the windows with plastic to make them extra waterproofed. This house is going to be well built and well insulated. The house has doors and bathtubs and we finally picked the outside colors for our house and got them approved. We are going to do gray. Joel finished up most of the little framing stuff and now he is going to focus on finishing the electrical. We will have a few people come in and do some of the work for us now so hopefully it will go a little faster.

The girls and I spent lots of time visiting Joel while he worked. Sometimes we take dinner there and eat around our future fireplace. Sometimes we just drop the food off and leave. The girls like to climb in and out of the windows and run around outside and they like to build sawdust castles. Joel made them a little swing that is hanging from the trusses and they love swinging on that thing.

     We got to do a few fun things with Joel but for most of the time it was just me and the kids and my family. Joel came to our ward party with us. There were snow cones, games, and lots of great food. I took the girls to the ward party for our new ward and we had fun there as well. They had a dunk tank and a water slide for the kids to slide down. Our ward had a water slide too but it was a lot bigger and scarier. Brynlee went down it once but she kind of got hurt so we didn't do that anymore. The got their face painted at both of the parties. Annalyn loved that butterfly and refused to let me scrub it off of her. It didn't come off in the bath so it was there for a few days.

My family went with me to Kuna Days this year to watch the parade. Right before the parade started someone sat right in front of my grandma and their boys kept taking all of Anna's candy. My mom was fighting them for it. I had Anna move to a new spot so my kids got plenty of candy but the other kids still kept running over and trying to take Anna's candy. We went and let the kids jump on some of the bouncy houses and then left. Brynlee wanted to go see the fireworks so bad and my brother and his wife agreed to take her. They came around 9:30 pm to pick up my girls and they were both sleeping. I woke up Anna and she got her shoes on but Brynlee just stood there all dazed. She finally went to her closet, we all thought she was getting her shoes but then she climbed back into bed and got under the covers and went to sleep. We could not wake her. Annalyn had fun watching the firework and a few hours later Brynlee woke up wondering when she would get to see the fireworks. She was devastated that she missed them. Brian and Heather took her to see the movie Home a few days later to make up for it.

     Brynlee got to have her cousin Madison over to spend the night one night and they had a blast. They painted nails, watched movies and ate popcorn in the tent, we read stories, and the girls spent hours playing together. They were going to sleep in the tent but in the end everyone ended up sleeping in Brynlee's room. Brynlee got the bed, Kyla was in her porta crib in there, and Madison and Anna slept on the floor. The next day I watched Madison's twin brothers Nick and Jason. We packed up a picnic lunch and went to Settler's park so we could play in the splash park. The twins didn't have swim suits but that didn't stop them from getting wet. It was a really hot day so they dried off fast. We played at the park for several hours. Then we went to visit Joel and bring him a lunch and we came home and the kids watched a movie before their mom came and got them. Brynlee keeps asking when we are going to do that again.

     I took Kyla to the eye doctor this month just to have her eyes checked on. She winks a lot and her eyes seems to blink at different times so I wanted to make sure there weren't any problems. It turns out that her eyes are fine, she just has this cool habit of winking a lot. She did really well for the appointment. I wasn't sure which building I needed to go to for the appointment when I got there so I ended up walking all around this building before I found out I was in the wrong place. Then when I went to buckle Kyla in her carseat I realized that one of her shoes were missing. We spent the whole half hour while we waited for Kyla's eyes to dilate looking for that shoe but I never did find it. At least now I don't have to worry about her eyes.

     Bynlee got her hair cut and we made another trip to look for shoes before she started school. We never did find any school shoes but my mom found some tennis shoes at a garage sale. I did get a shirt for me and Kyla and Anna and I only spent three dollars. during the Summer Joanna's daughter Telissa did a little school for the kids at her house and my girls had a blast going over there. Brynlee couldn't wait for real school to start. So far she has been to school three times and she loves it. She is learning the names of the other kids and she likes to teach Anna what she learned when she gets home. She is having lots of fun, she likes riding the bus (although she complains about how long of a ride it is. Yesterday she didn't get home until 3:55 and she was the very last one on the bus.), and she loves recess. She got to have some play dates on her days off of school and we all went to visit Aunt Janeen one day. While Brynlee is at school Kyla and Anna and I have played lots of games, we made banana bread (Annalyn started to make it while I took a shower) and we spent lots of quality time together.

     I have spent lots of days helping grandma to can pears and freeze corn. I learned how to make pickles for the first time this month. I did Zumba a few times but we were so busy that I didn't make it very often. The last two times I went no one showed up.

     The only time we are together at home as a whole family is on Sundays. We decided to spend one entire Sunday at home just with our family and last month we spent that day building things with Joel's Kinexs. It was a fun day. I made a ferris wheel that I was pretty proud of, even if I did have to follow the instructions to figure out how to make it. Joel made several cars and motorcycles. We went out to eat as a family one day as well. The days sure are long and hard when Joel is gone but we are finding lots to do to keep busy and I think we had a pretty great summer.