Blah!!

It is official! I have finally found Kenton playing in the toilet! Now don't get me wrong, this was not something I was looking forward to, but something I was expecting to happen in the future. I found him with his snack cup full of fruit loops leaning over the open-lid toilet. He had dunked the snack cup in the toilet water and some of the fruit loops had escaped into the bowl. He was proceeding to put them in his mouth. (I am getting disgusted as I write this). He was pretty mad when I took the cup away from him and wouldn't give it back. I locked the bathroom door which makes for a sticky situation for when Kinsley decides that she needs to go to the bathroom. I just thought I would share one of the pitfalls of parenthood and especially with boys! Blah!!

Silly Kids

Kenton was being silly at the dinner table. I just thought it was funny and cute!

ummm....

Ok, so the video came up, but for me it is having really bad delays. I am still new at the whole posting video thing. I would really appreciate some suggestions and help in this. Please tell me what I am doing wrong and what I can do right!

Thanks!

Bubble popping

I will be so excited if this works!!

So I have tried before to put on videos and had no success. I had a friend talking about putting it on youtube and then posting it so I decided to try it and here we are.

So, Grandma and Grandpa Connell had mailed out Kinsley's birthday present and inside was also packing bubbles. I don't know of one kid who doesn't like to pop these. We put them on the ground and let them at it. Kenton didn't like it as much because he wasn't getting the hang of it and couldn't really get it to pop. I just thought it was cute!

Kinsley turns 5!

Here is pictures from Kinsley's mermaid and pirate birthday party. Like the pinata? I made it myself! I would never recommend doing that because it took way too much time! Not worth the effort or savings. All the kids got little mermaid or pirate costumes. It was so cute! They got their little treasure bags and then went on a treasure hunt to find the treasure box (pinata) and then we had cupcakes and opened presents. The cupcakes were lovingly made by my friend Anne (thank you so much Anne!! They were super good and adorable!). I got to help frost them, but she did most of the hard labor. It went pretty well, it was just exhausting to plan and execute!

October and beyond

So, this is being written at this time because of my sister Amy. She got bored in one of her classes and proceeded to email me informing me I was falling behind on our blog. Well, life has been beyond crazy and I have literally had no time to do something so "time consuming" as posting on the blog. And I figured I didn't want to do it until I could change the background since it is past halloween now. So, now the background is changed, onto october and beginning of november happenings.

So we decided to have a little family excursion and we went to a pumpkin patch to pick out our pumpkins. We really had a blast spending time together as a family.


The last day of preschool before halloween the kids got to go door to door at the high school and go trick or treating. The teacher of the preschool class had arranged with the teachers ahead of time and given them all candy to hand out. Kids both old and young loved it! Kinsley loved it because she got to dress in her costume more than once!

The night before halloween we carved our 2 large pumpkins that we got at the pumpkin patch. The Heatons joined us with their pumpkins as well. It was a night of frights and slime. They turned out rather cute though in the end!

For halloween Kinsley was Ariel and Kenton was a doctor. Kinsley is quite the little poser! You should see the other pictures that I took of her! It was like she was pretending to be on America's Next Top Model, and she has never even seen it! Kenton was upset for whatever reason when I was trying to take pictures so daddy had to hold him to get a decent shot. Even then, it was short lived and not that good of a picture.



So the following day after halloween is Kinsley's birthday. Even though we were having her birthday party the next Saturday we still had her open her gifts from us and grandma and grandpa Connell. We still celebrated that day and made it special. We pretty much didn't see her most of the morning though because she was gone in her room with all of her new toys, having fun! I can't believe she is now 5! Next fall she will be in Kindergarten. That is crazy to think about.

My neighbor and friend Kristi is the JV coach for volleyball at the High School and she asked me to come take pictures for her of JV and Varsity. I have gone to 3 games so far. JV has won and they are done. Varsity is going on to State this weekend so I will be there to take those pictures and hope to get some really good pictures. Everyone cross your fingers for me. I am still pretty ameteur and learning when it comes to sports pictures. I have definitely improved though in the last few weeks.

So far this is our life along with callings and getting ready for Christmas. Oh yeah, we are going to Disneyland next week!!!!! We are beyond excited and thrilled to have something exciting coming up in life and to have a break from the crazies of life! I will include pix of Kinsley's birthday party soon!

A Bloody Mess

Ok, so don't read the title wrong and think I am swearing the British way or anything, there really was blood involved. So, if any of you know me well enough I have suffered with bloody noses all my life. When I was little I had them pretty much every day, and especially during the summer. I freaked out Geoff's family one time because we had just returned from Puerto Rico (humid climate) to St. George (hot, dry climate) and I had 5 bloody noses in a matter of 24 hours (not at all surprising to me since that was my life) but it left them wondering if there was something wrong with me. Anyways, I don't have them that often now, but every once in a while they will come.

So, to get on with my story. I am checking my email on the computer when Kinsley comes up to me hysterical and sobbing something about blood. Well, she had been putting away the silverware and while I always take out the knives myself and put them away, I have missed some before so I thought there was a knife involved and am quickly parusing her body with my eyes to find the source of the so-called blood. I then understand her and she is sobbing about her nose has blood coming out of it and it is all red. Quickly relieved I take her to the kitchen, hand her a kleenex, turn on the tv to calm her down, and tell her that all is fine and that she is not hurt. I left the kitchen chuckling because she really was freaking out about nothing. I just thought it was funny and thought I would share it.

Breath of fresh air

So I have decided that the day to day bit of life was getting too monotonous so I decided to add some Halloween decorations to spruce life up a bit and give the kids something different to look at and hopefully pick everyone's spirits up for the holiday spirit. I had a small budget to work with, but with some creativity and some stuff around the house, I added some festive stuff. I also got some ideas off the internet and others blogs. I think my favorite would have to be my Happy Halloween wood board that I made this morning. I don't know how well the picture shows it off, but I absolutely love it! It is so rustic and halloweeny, while staying chic. I also glitterfied (is that a technical term?) some small pumpkins, but you can't really tell by looking at the pictures. Anyways, I wanted to show it off since I am so proud of my cheap, but adorable creations. Geoff puts it as tooting my own horn, but every once in a while we have to be proud of ourselves, right?

Change partII

Umm, yeah. Sorry I forgot to say our callings I guess. So Geoff is the Elders Quorum President and I am the 1st counselor in Young Womens. Since Geoff was going to be president we would have had to be at the same meetings, so I got released as well. I am having mixed feelings about it. I already miss Primary and loved being apart of it, but am excited about being in Young Womens. I know it was time for a change so I am ok with it, but it is still sad to leave.

So, I have learned that Kinsley really doesn't handle change well at all. She started preschool today and was so excited when she woke up! She changed clothes 3 times and chatted animatedly all morning.........until we got there. Then she suddenly burst into tears when we got in the room. She said she didn't know the teachers and didn't think she would like them. The only one that was still there is the actual teacher of the high school class, Miss Zimmet, and she came up and gave Kinsley a big hug. She was ok after that, but when I went to pick her up she said she didn't have fun and didn't want to go back. I think she did have fun, but the change of teachers she was not prepared for. She will have fun, it just might take a while before she is used to everyone.

Kenton and I went shopping while she was at preschool. He definitely didn't like to be the only one with me. He kept whining and was bored beyond belief. He usually has Kinsley to pick on (Yes, he does the picking on her most of the time) and she was not there. I guess change is good, but hard for all. I think Geoff is the only one handling the change the best.

Change

So, life has been a bit crazy lately so the blogging and anything else seems to be really behind (you should see my house), but I did get the blog background changed over for the holiday :).

So, Geoff and I got new callings. That is the reason for the craziness. It is hard with changes and so overwhelming, but great blessings come in those times. When Geoff was set apart a week ago after church is was so amazing to hear what they were saying and feeling the spirit that was so evidently there. Even Kenton who was sitting on his lap (he threw a fit when I tried to take him) knew there was something going on and sat quite still with his arms folded and watched the men that were surrounding Geoff. No matter the changes and the challenges that come our way, I am grateful to be blessed with a wonderful husband who is so kind and loving and fun and so spiritual on top of that. I am proud of him for what he has done with work and in the church! I just hope I can measure up!

Ok, so this was not supposed to be so serious. Ok, back to the changes. Kenton is in nursery (FINALLY!!!) and Kinsley is starting preschool again tomorrow (YIPEEEE!!!!). We have done a bit of rearranging of our house. Yeah, so change is good, but it takes some getting used to. I just hope life can get back to normal again :)

Haircut

Kenton finally got a haircut!! Isn't he so cute?!

Who is my mommy?

Kins: You are my favorite mom.

Mom: What other mom do you have?

Kins: Hmmmm.....Grandma Bingham?

Mom: She isn't your mom. She is your grandma. I am your only mom.

Kins: Why is that?

Mom: Because she is daddy's mommy which makes her your grandma.

Kins: Who decided that?

Mom: Heavenly Father.

Kins: Why did he do that?

Mom: I don't know, ask him.

Kins: I can't do that! He doesn't talk to me!

Mom: then wait until we die and then ask.

Kins: (in a sing song voice) Nooooooo.

Yeah, kids come up with funny things!

Too fast

It is crazy how kids grow up too fast. I was in the bathroom doing something and Kenton kept trying to get into the top drawer to get his, Geoff's and my toothbrush out. He is absolutely fascinated with them and loves to have his teeth brushed. Well, to distract him I pointed out my shoes. He also loves shoes, probably more than the toothbrushes. To him it means leaving and going "bye, bye" so he absolutely loves it when I put on my shoes or bring him his shoes. So, I pointed out my shoes and told him to go put them away for me. I wasn't sure if he would or even know what that meant, but he went and picked them up and put them in the closet! Yeah, so my 16month old child knows how to put away shoes, or at least mine. I just thought that was amazing!

Summer 2009

Ummm......yeah, so really behind. I decided that instead of doing all of these separate posts to show what we did this summer, I decided to just post one picture per event and sum it all up in one post. Ok, ready?


So (this is so sad to admit) but here is a picture from Easter. This was actually the only one with the two of them in it together and it was from our Easter party held two days before with a lot of other kids, but it was fun. We also had a lot of fun decorating eggs and the kids (even Kenton) had fun searching for them all over the kitchen and family room.


Kenton's First Birthday (and he is now 16 months old). We ended up having two parties for him: one with the Connells up in Salt Lake when we were all together in March, and then the other with the Binghams here at our house on the 11th. He got chocolate cake at both and really was not hesitant to dig in. He was lunging for it before we could even put it in front of him! He was walking right after this as well and has received the nickname "Monster" for his many deeds of mischief.


Kinsley's Preschool Graduation (even though she is attending the same preschool for another year). She loved this! What child wouldn't though? After it officially ended Kinsley kept asking when she was going to go back to school. It was really hard to explain to her that she had several months to go. Her graduation was fun! THe kids sang songs for us and showed us some of the stuff they had done. We got to meet all of the High School students who had been their teachers for the year and had a nice treat at the end.


Memorial Day Weekend we were barbequeing out in our newly landscaped backyard complete with beautiful artificial grass. I guess Geoff and I take notice of this holiday because it was that one when he came down to visit me in Mesa and we started dating from then. The lighting was just perfect so I took some cute pictures of the kids, but for some reason the cute ones tend to be of them individually, not together. whatever...


Brittany's Wedding to Kyle Pierce (ironically a guy in our ward in Mesa). They met obviously from the ward but after his mission starting talking to her through facebook. I guess Geoff and I dated for a while through emails. So, June 20, 2009 they were married in the Mesa temple for time and all eternity. Luckily it wasn't as hot as Amy's wedding day had been just one year prior.


Broderick family reunion 2009. Yeah, they are always the same. They are fun, but too much drama and emotions running through them. We did a square dance and family follies and water games and a scrapbooking part (that I was put in charge of - yipee) but it was fun nonetheless and got to meet new people I had never met before.


We live in Las Vegas. It tends to get hot here. Actually we have had an unnaturally cooler summer. The highest it ever got that I am aware of was 114 and those days only lasted no longer than a week. This was one of those days and I had hosed off the kids in the back yard to help them to cool off and then we all ate otter pops on a towel in the cool house. This is what summer is all about :)


Campout. This was the vacation that was planned for us to enjoy the summer. Everything else was planned for us and we were expected to be there (ie wedding, family reunion, etc.) and we needed something for us to plan and look forward to for us. We went with our neighbors the Heatons and my sister Amy and her husband David. We went fishing, shooting, played games, walks, lounged, ate good food, and just had fun getting dirty. At one point all of us girls felt so dirty that we took some of our chairs and towels and washed our feet at the spiket that was near our campsite. It was so fun!! OH yeah, Kristie and I as we were looking for the campsite before everyone got there ended up on a 22mile road to Veyo (near the ranch where the kids were waiting for us) that Geoff told me later was called the Old Spanish Trail - not meant for anything less than a large 4-wheel drive car with plenty of clearance under the car for rocks, and I did it in my low rear-wheel drive Pontiac Grand Am. Yeah, the road was bad and I thought for sure that I had punctured something by the time we got back to the ranch. It took us almost 2 hours to go the full 22 miles (there was no turning around and going the longer way because of the sheer cliffs down on one side of a very narrow rock path) and I was a little shooken up by the end. Oh well, it was an adventure!


So while we went camping we went shooting with the Heaton's guns and Geoff's parents guns right across from the ranch. This was Amy's first time (my second) and Geoff helped Kinsley to shoot the BB gun. While they were gathering the guns at the ranch, one of the 22s went off in the kitchen. His brother had just bought the gun and assumed it was unloaded, but alas it was not. Luckily it was pointed at the ground and just went through the floor.



Kinsley and Kenton did swimming lessons. It was great because 3 days a week we all got to go swimming (Kenton and I did the Parent-Child class together). Despite the fact that I always sunblocked my kids with 50spf, they have come out of this summer looking like little indians. Kinsley did really well. She ended in level 3 and can swim very well by herself. She can even do the back stroke (although watching her is just looks like she is drowning) and was even learning how to dive. I am so proud of all she was able to accomplish in lessons and hopefully she will retain most of it for next summers lessons. Kenton just enjoyed swimming around with me and getting wet, but when we floated him between Kristie and I he would just go spread eagle and lay there. It was hilarious! (hence the two pictures)


So, Kinsley got a porcelean tea set for her 4th birthday last November. Geoff and I hid it because it is not age appropriate for her - it even says 8 and up. She found it recently when Geoff and I added shelves in our closet and cleaned it all out. She has been bugging us ever since to play with it and says she is going to turn 8 in 3 days. Finally I decided to do a little tea party with her in a controlled environment so that she gets to use her precious tea set, but we don't have to worry about it getting damaged. She got all dressed up and had her little friends there to join us.

Kinsleyism

hahahhaha!!!

Ok, even thinking about telling this story is making me laugh already, and I haven't even written yet! Ok, Kinsley has been going on and on about getting married (Geoff says it is all due to her watching Barbie movies, I think not). She keeps asking when she is getting married. I finally told her when she is 25 (just don't tell her when her mom, aunts, and grandmas got married!) and she has accepted it and has been telling everyone she sees (including the nurse that took her vitals at the doctors office) that she is getting married at 25, will get a very pretty white dress then and so on. So, this morning she was going off about it again to Geoff and I and he asked her "Kinsley, why do you want to get married? What do you do after you get married?" She said after you get married you drive. hehehehehe......yes I'm laughing again. We then asked her if she would kiss her husband and she said, "No! That's gross!" Of course, taking the hint, we started to kiss. So we got a kick out of that little conversation. So, after lunch I was working at my desk in our room and the kids were messing around in there with me. Kenton loves to empty things out (especially my drawers in the kitchen with my towels and measuring cups....you get the picture). So he emptied out the one in my dresser that had my bathing suits and....my lingerie. I just kind of ignored this since he could do no harm and it wouldn't hurt him. Kinsley saw them and knowing the hopeless romantic that she is, you can imagine what she thought. Well, she at first tries to hide it from me that she is trying these on. Well, I saw her and told her it was ok so then she just did it in the open. Well, she comes to me in one of them and says, "This one is not my right size. My chest is hanging out!" HAHAHAHAHA!!! She then asks, "Mom, what do you do with these anyways?" Yes, so to change the subject I tell her to go try another one on. She comes back with a flowing blue one and says, "Don't I look beautiful! I am now going to a wedding. It is a far ways away." I took a picture at this point. I was going to post it, but I don't think I will do it in my shame, but it sure is funny to see her in these.

So, I really had a good laugh over this. I hope you did too!!

The best gift ever!

So for my birthday last September Geoff had given me a day off - meaning he would take one of his vacation days from work and would do whatever I wanted him to do. I knew I would have to wait until Kenton was old enough he could take a bottle so I was free to do what I wanted to do. So here we are only a month until he turns 1 and I sent Geoff with the kids off to St. George to visit his parents so I could have the weekend to myself to scrapbook. They left Thursday evening and returned Sunday evening. It was a weekend of almost complete bliss! I still had a lot of church things I had to do, but I still got in many hours of scrapbooking. All in all I got 17 pages all the way done, but about 30 more are already planned out with their layouts and papers already picked - they just need to be done. I worked on Kenton's baby book since I have not done any of it since he was born. I moved the ping pong table (ie. craft table) to the family room and covered it in most of my scrapbooking stuff. It was great! I sat on the couch and scrapbooked while going though season after season of Hogan's Heroes and a few episodes of Psych with the Heatons who came over Saturday night to keep me company until 2am! Oh and when you look at the ping pong table you will see Kinsley there and her cheeks are all red. Yes, she came home Sunday night and was fine. She woke up Monday morning covered in red spots which are I guess Roseola or German Measles or Rosello or Sixth day disease or......... there are like 10 different names for the same stupid illness. She looks absolutely sickly, but ironically enough she is not contagious anymore. It was the week previous to this when she showed no signs. Oh well, poor girl was devastated to find her whole body covered as it is! What a way to come off such a relaxing weekend.

So, all in all I had a wonderful weekend and it was a wonderful gift from Geoff! I have assured him he is always welcome to repeat that one at any time, for my sanity and his!

Christmas pictures at last (hehehehe.....)

So, my mom gave me a hard time that I never got our christmas pictures at their house put on the blog (a lot of sickness and callings getting in the way, not to mention the everyday other stuff like kids and house, etc.) so here they are reeeaaaallly late. hehhehe. at least they are here for anyone who is interested to glance at. Christmas was fun though. We spent it in Chicago with the Connells. This is going to be our last Christmas traveling because it is such a crappy time to travel and with two kids.....well it is time we become our own family with our own traditions. Not that we didn't have fun with our families, but it is just time. So, We have the traditionaly opening of the presents. We don't have anything before that because we arrived horribly late on the 23rd, actually it turned out the 24th. Because of all the stinkin storms in Chicago our flight was delayed from 2:30 until after 5pm. We actually loaded the plane at 4:15 (after being at the airport since noon)and then didn't take off until 5:10. We landed and then the pilot told us we had to wait out on the pavement for a gate because there were none available and he said that we were fifth in line with the first one in line having waited over an hour! We ended up waiting an hour and a half just to get off the stupid plane!! We got to my parents house around 2am. We were supposed to be there at 10, but oh well. The crazy part of it all was the kids were absolutely perfect! And I am not kidding. The people around us kept saying that we had the best behaved kids ever. The guy in front of us told us we should teach classes on parenting kids to perfect behavior. Yeah, we were just blessed that night. The next night was Christmas Eve and we caroled at a rest home and went home to find the lights out and many guests with us. We lit all of these candles and spread them around the house so we could eat by candlelight. This took a good 30-45 minutes. Just as we were about to say the prayer to bless us that we didn't spill hot soup on us because we couldn't see a single thing, the lights came back on. Yeah, so no pictures of either of those events. So, back to the actual pictures. Opening presents......trying things on.......trying out new toys........saying thank you to everyone in particular..........yeah, you know the drill.

Later on Christmas Day Adam (cousin) and Bethany (cousin's wife) and their son Carston (I think? Sorry if I got that wrong) came to stay for a few days. Carston and Kenton are a matter of weeks apart and they really enjoyed getting around together. We caught them here playing on the stairs and yelling and pounding together. It really was cute to watch.

We played a lot of games and had a lot of fun. One of the things that was given to the "family" (more for something to have at home for the boys to play together when we are home) was several air soft guns. The day that Amy and David flew out they spent the morning out playing target practice on each other. Kinsley and Kenton spent quite a while at the back door watching these boys playing war games with each other.

So, all in all that was our Christmas vacation. Too bad it is so late, but hey it is there if you were truly interested in what we did for Christmas. If not, too bad for you that you just read all of that :)

Family pictures.....finally!!

So a kind friend of ours had a lot of credits at the Photo studio that she works at and was kind enough to share those points with us so we got some great family pictures. Kinsley and Kenton were gems during this! Neither of them could stop smiling, they both loved it! The pictures turned out really cute too. The only problem was that everytime that we got Kenton to smile, he would really big but then both feet and both arms would go straight out in front of him. It made it hard to get a decent shot without his arm covering his face. But they sure are cute pictures! What can I say, I have the cutest kids in the world! Just look at their faces! Who wouldn't want them as their children?

change

sooooo, I was supposed to change the background for Valentine's Day, but never got around to doing it. I even had a really cute one already made and ready to put up. But whatever. So then today I had a little bit of free time (more like I didn't want to clean) so I started to make a new one. The further I got into it the worse it looked. In the end I scrapped the whole think and tonight I came up with a different one, and it even took me less time than the earlier disaster. I like it, plus it is in season for St. Patty's Day. So hopefully I will get up some posts with pictures very soon!

Christmas!! (at last)

ok, so I am just now blogging about the whole month of December (which happens to include one of the biggest holidays of the year). I figured since everyone posts about theirs at the beginning of the month of January, I would do it at the end and give everyone a new Christmas to read about :D . Actually, I just never had the time and am just now getting to it. Oh well, nice thought though huh? So anyways, Christmastime is always busy and there was a lot that happened so I am going to try and keep this short. So this is us decorating our beautiful, fake, shorter-than-Geoff Christmas tree.

Kinsley did most of the decorating. So you can imagine it was starting to get a bit lopsided so daddy stepped in and helped. Kenton sat on my lap and helped hand out the ornaments. Perfect set up if you ask me!
Then we had the Breakfast with Santa that our ward put on. This was the first year that Kinsley liked Santa (last year she had a death grip on Geoff and wouldn't let go) and Kenton just couldn't stop starring at him.

The second counselor in our Bishopbric brought his firetruck (a personal toy of his - no he is not a fireman) and let everyone play around on it, and even put on the equipment/clothes he stores inside. The decal that says Radiator Springs - that is not a fluke: he put it on himself. I just thought it was funny and so like him. He is such a kid at heart!The biggest surprise of all was our freak snow storm we got a week before Christmas. It was 36 degrees outside and a blizzard! We got a good 6 inches at our house alone. Other parts of Vegas got almost a food!!! I thought this was a dry, hot desert! Yeah, we sledded down our driveway and in the street! I never thought I would see a white Christmas in Las Vegas!

I will continue posting the rest of December and Christmas later. It is too late tonight.