hairless

My poor kids.  All of them have been mane challenged.  A couple of the kids have out grown it, one has not yet, one is still to be determined.  Jacob was a bald baby, but at 3 was getting a hair cut every 2 months.  Every time we get his hair cut I make a deal with the devil that he keeps his curls.  So far so good.  Lauren too was a bald baby with some wisps of hair at about 3, but poor Taryn.  She longs for hair so bad.  She would put on tights, leggings, shirts, shorts on her head and pretend it was hair.  Every Halloween she would be some sort of princess that had long thick hair. What was a mom to do.  I got her wigs.  She would always have something on her head.  she would whip her head back, sweep her hand over her shoulder like she had long locks.  Taryn's hair is still painfully thin, and I am working with her hairdresser on anything that might work to thicken it up.  So far no luck on that.  The only ray of hope is that I had the same kind of hair when I was young, but when I got pregnant the first time my hair thickened right up.

(Taryn with shorts on her head)

Poor Bree is in the same predicament.  She loves the thought of long hair.  She loves all the princesses.  They may have an African American Princess, an Asian Princess, an Indian Princess, but no princess with thin hair.  Every Sunday she loves to play with Laurens or my hair, not so much Taryn's.

Bree has taken to putting things on her head for pretend hair.  This is funny because both Taryn and Bree did it.  One day Bree was in the kitchen with me and she took the dish towel off the fridge and put it on her head.  From there its been her blanket, towels, and her favorite, sweaters.  No pants or tights yet.  One day girls, one day.

At least she is color coordinated.

fall sports

This September and October were some busy months!  I only had one weekday a week that I didn't have something to do.  Jacob played his first season of soccer and loved every minute of it.  Even getting knocked down time and time again didn't stop him.  I can't find the pictures of him where you see his face, but he has a huge smile on his face all the time.  Jacob even scored a goal.  One for his team and one for the opposing team.  The one for our team, Jacob took the ball down the field all by himself.  The goal he scored for the other team, there was a lot of confusion by the goal, and it happened to be Jacobs foot that kicked the ball in.  Oh well.  Jacob can't wait till spring soccer.

Lauren played her first year of volleyball.  I was asked to help coach like this: (picking pears at the church pear farm) Damian: Hey Cherie, I saw Lauren at volleyball tryouts so I signed you up to coach with me.  Me:Okay.  We had a great time coaching these girls.  Practices were on the worst nights of the week, Mondays, which we would have family home evening, and Wed. when we had church activities, and Thursday were the game days.  Tuesday I play city league volleyball.  Last night was my last night of playing ball for 2 months so things will slow down now.  I always say that, but something else takes it's place. 

So proud

So these are the times you feel like you have succeeded at parenting.  Jacob got his first student of the month for October award.  Now I know what you are thinking, yea, well his aunt is his teacher, but his aunt didn't pick him.  It was his reading teacher.  All on his own, no family favoritism there.  Not only did Jacob get that award, but I got my girls progress reports this week and Taryn got straight A's, and Lauren got all A's with one B.  I am so proud off all my kids.  Now if I can just Bree to use the toilet all the time, I've got it made.

Jacob picking out his prize.

Looks like I punched him here or something, but he just found out he still had to go to class, that I was not driving him home.  Sad little boy.  And oh yea, it was pajama day.  At least I got him in matching ones.

Jacob just found out he could go home early.  Happy boy.  Thanks Aunt Kym, I mean teacher.

first day of school

 Lauren, age 11, 6th grade.  First year of middle school

                     Lauren and Taryn

   Taryn, age 13, 6th grade.  Middle school vet.

            The only day I drive them to school

      Jacob, age 5, kindergarten.  Teachers pet.

        I decided to let Jacob go to his Aunt Kym's kindergarten class.  She is an excellent teacher, and he will be exposed to many more things than is he went to our local kindergarten.  Our school is great, but Sam Valley, where Jacob goes, has all day kindergarten, as opposed to 2 1/2 hours.  He has a Aunt that will make sure he gets what he needs to succeed.  He is doing great.  He is very young for school this year, but has far exceeded my expectations for the whole year already.   If he would have been a full term baby, he would not have made the deadline for school this year.  I am so impressed with him and all the teachers out at the school.

Bree's second birthday

Poor girl.  We drove all day on her birthday, then her mean mom didn't even make her a cake.  I think
I had Lauren wrap the presents and gave them to her.  No celebration really, she is the last and therefore really lucky she even got any presents. 

She does love her Minnie and princesses.  She also got light up dress up shoes that she has managed to wear to church a few times.  Those time being when Tom gets the kids ready for church because I have a meeting.  Like I said before, she is the 4th, so she is pretty lucky shes not wearing Jacobs old clothes. 

summer trip the conclusion

Almost to our final destination.  Las Vegas.

                                                                The dorks with Barney

The first show we went to was "Love" by the Beatles.  It was wonderful.  My dad had seen it years before so he stayed at the hotel with the little kids while we went to see it.  Everyone was so impressed.  If you get a chance to see it, do it!  I think my dad was still a little sad he didn't go.

                                                              The phone booth

Dork pictures.  Jesse acted like he didn't know us.  Taryn wanted to go to as many malls as she could.

Dessert after the show.  We went to Serendipity's.  I had frozen hot chocolate.  It was so yummy.  There was a dessert for 1000.00$.  I took a picture of it on the menu and sent a text to my dad that we were billing it to the room, but don't worry, we would split it,.  He didn't get the text till the next day.  the joke was lost.

The view from our room.  If you looked between two hotels, and squinted you could see the Bellagio fountain at night.  we were close to the strip, only 2 blocks, we could walk where we needed to go.  The pool was really neat, it was an outdoor, indoor pool.  We stayed indoor.  Way to hot outside.

This was the final show for Lauren and I.  It was Le Reve at the Wynn.  That show was amazing too.  the skill, and strengh of everyone was awesome.  It was a water show, and we were in the splash zone.  After, Lauren was tired so she and I went back to the hotel, but my dad and Melissa went to the Blue Man Group.   We had a very early morning.  We had to be up and out by 5 AM to get Melissa to the airport, so we would leave from the airport for our long 14 hour drive home.  We were so lucky to have this trip, but it will probably be a while till my dad asks us to go on another one.

summer trip part 3

This place was called the Valley of Fire.  That's what it felt like to at 117*.  I felt like I was melting.  On our way to Hoover dam from St. George my dad was navigating and told me to get off at the next exit, that it will still take us to the dam, and only add a "few" miles, and we get to see the valley too.  I think he was off by a "few" mile.  On the freeway I think it said 30 miles Hoover dam.  By the time we got there it was 3 hours later.  But hey, we got to see the Valley of Fire.

        The kids being kids.

Taryn climbing up to the rocks with little caves.  Taryn was the only one who wanted to put out the energy to get up that.  Half way up I thought about snakes, but she didn't see any.

                                                                         More rocks

 Hoover dam.  Only 116* there. I had never been there and I was pretty impressed.

summer trip part 2

From Provo we made our way to Bryce Canyon.  It was here during this picture that when we got back in the car I realized our mistake.  That is new asphalt.  Getting back into the new car with very light interior about made me sick, more so because I knew the fit Tom was going to have when we got home.  I got over it pretty fast.  I do have 4 kids and I know what the can do to cars.  Anyways we drove through this rock tunnel.  Pretty cool.

Here is a picture of all of us at the entrance.  We then got on a shuttle and were taken to all the lookouts. 

Here is Lauren protecting Jacob.  Taryn and Lauren thought someone would fall off at any moment.  I guessed I missed the part where I was the mom.  There were some cool shapes in the rocks.

                                              Jesse, Jacob, and Taryn

                                                       Lauren, Jesse, and Jacob

Grandpa was in a lot of pain but didn't want to show it.  He had a knee surgery a few months before, but the knee is worse and it was killing him that he was not able to get down those mountains and hike.  Another time for him.

Next stop was Zion Park.  It was over 100* that day.  It was misery.  I didn't bring a stroller because I didn't think we would have room in the car so I carried Bree everywhere.  My arms were killing me.  We were lucky enough to have a personal guide for this trip.  My Uncle Ferris goes up to Zion to hike a few times a week so he knows the ins and outs and the best places for smaller feet to go.  The   first one was the weeping rock.  The kids had a great time in the sprinkling water, and it felt good on the hot day.  Lauren was sick with an infection and was not able to join us this day. She stayed with my Aunt Ronnie.

        Jesse and Taryn at weeping rock.

This was a river that we rested at.  Jesse, grandpa, Taryn and Ferris went for a hike and I stayed with Jacob and Bree at the river where they had a great time.  The water was freezing but I got to soak my foot where I was bitten by a yellow jacket few days before.  It was so swollen I could barley tie my shoe.  I'll spare you the picture of that.