my favorite church song

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spjkgMpVDWQ

 

 

FlickR Photostream

May 2009 Slideshow link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/9967482@N04/show/

Memorial Day Weekend Report

Friday was Kysa’s last day of the little Tiger Tots preschool.  She only had about 60% attendance—but she enjoyed it when she was there.  Ty went to Lagoon as a chaperone on Friday and didn’t get home until around 7 p.m.  Raleigh had the chance to go fishing and camping with Grandpa Jer-Bear and the Gillette cousins on Friday night.  He came home Saturday evening with Austin’s family and they were able to hang out with us for an hour or two when they dropped him off.  The campers were Austin, Rachel, Tori, Kennedy, Layton, Stafford, Gina, Perry, Raleigh, and Jerry.  We were thinking of coming up on Saturday afternoon once Ty got home from the Butte County basketball tournament, but we were kind of relieved when we heard Raleigh was already on his way home. It’s a lot of work to go camping!  On Sunday we went out to the Annis Cemetary and then over to Ty’s parents house.  On Monday Ty got the garden planted and we went to Night at the Museum.  Raleigh and I also went to Sage Lakes and had putting and chipping contests.  It was a great weekend! 

 

Kids Say the Darndest Things

Today Raleigh asked, "Mom, when I'm 100, will Preslee be 99?"

I said, "Yes, Raleigh."

Preslee commented, "When you turn 100, you'll be in heaven!"

Raleigh was excited about his upcoming field day at school. He told Grandma Ro, "We aren't going to learn or anything--for 2 and a half hours."

Ogden Marathon

I ran my first marathon today. It was quite the experience--had to get up
at 4 to catch the bus at 5. Then we had to sit around in a cow pasture for
1.5 hours waiting for the 7 a.m. start. We sat around burn barrels that
helped keep us warm. I'm not gonna lie--when I looked at my watch and saw
that it was 5:30, dark, and cold and I had to wait to run, I just kept
thinking--"This is bullcrap. What am I doing?" But I actually ended up
having a good time visiting with some friends I made by the fire (David
Erickson and his son). And on the drive up on the bus I enjoyed talking to
Susan Richardson Chapman. I also want to make sure I remember Mark and Ann
Maeser who gave me a ride from the hotel to the buses in the morning.

I felt like the first 10 or so miles went pretty good, but then I slowed
down quite a bit. I saw two friends during the race--Melissa from Idaho
Falls who I hope to train with in the future, and Stephanie Clark Duff who
lives in Twin. A cute girl named Britney Thyfault and I ended up running
together for about the last 13 miles. It wasn't pretty, but we survived!
I have never pushed through pain for that long. It was quite the
experience. It was fun to have the kids and Ty waiting at the finish line.
Raleigh and Kysa ran across the finish line with me. We drove home and when
we got here I took a 4 hour nap.

My legs are extremely sore, but I don't feel like I'm injured. Just muscle
sore. My lower back is also sore to the touch, which I find kind of
strange, but it doesn't hurt unless I rub it.

Next marathon I will make sure to take ibuprofen before the race and have
some to take around hour 3. I think that would have helped. I did take
some aspirin and Tylenol that they had at the aid stations, but ibuprofen is
the best. I will also bring some bubble wrap to sit on that I can just
throw away. And I will make sure I train hard and complete all my long
runs! I'm sure that would have helped today. But honestly I felt fairly
good about it considering my training wasn't the best. I never cramped up
to the point where I couldn't run, and I mainly just walked at all the water
stations.

I would like to lose 10-15 pounds because I think it would make it a lot
easier not to be packing extra weight for 26.2 miles. Guess that's kind of
obvious, huh!

Overnighter to Ogden

Some pictures from the car ride to Ogden yesterday.

My Little Jailbird

Kysa looked a lot cuter in prison garb than I did at the MDA Lock-Up on
Thursday.

Happy Mother's Day!!!

Too Cute--Had to get the camera out

, originally uploaded by kalyship.

Kysa's hair looked adorable all day, so I finally broke out the camera when she was sitting on the couch watching "Surf's Up" tonight. When she wakes up I just get her hair wet and put some conditioner in it, and sometimes she ends up with a little "Super Girl" curl like this. Au natural.

Raleigh had his first baseball practice after school today with Barb Ehardt's team. His friend Brennan is going to play on the team with him. Barb told all the kids they had to practice playing catch with their parents for at least 10 minutes every day if they were going to be on her team. Raleigh made sure he told Ty about it when he got home, and he went downstairs and got his practice in. Ty is loving that. Raleigh's favorite part is running the bases. His throwing is decent, but he definitely needs to work on his catching.

Oo-ella-ella-ella

"Kysa, what did you do at Grandma Sue's house today?" I asked.

She replied, "We did some horsies, and we got some cheese, and some jello.
It was good..and Raleigh and dad was playing a game..mommy, I want m&m's.
There are m&m's in there.(pointing up to our closet)."

It's so much fun to have a conversation with her right now.

Shay and I were reading 101 Dalmations. She saw Cruella and blurted out,
"Oo-ella-ella-ella" before I even said anything. She kept repeating it
every time she saw a picture of her. FUNNY! She enjoys saying her L's
now-as in PIL-LOW and YEL-LOW and RA-LEIGH.

I ran on the river between 11-12 miles this morning and then had ball games
going on at Skyline in the afternoon/evening, so Ty took the kids out to the
farm. They were rounding up some cows so Raleigh got to see that with Ty.

Easter Egg Hunt in Pinedale

Kysa went Easter Egg hunting in between our volleyball games.

Braden's Birthday Party

Raleigh had a great time at Braden's birthday party in Rexburg a couple of
weeks ago. They played dodgeball, went swimming, and Aunt Claire even had
an Easter Egg hunt for them in the dance studio.

Tax Day Tea Party Has Come and Gone...

WHEW! Taxes done, in my usual form--at the last minute. It was quite a busy day today! Ty had a parent meeting tonight for summer basketball, then open gym. I went to the tax day tea party at the river prior to heading to Skyline. Good turnout despite the rain. I enjoyed hearing from Mel Richardson. He's great, and really understands the constitution. Fun to see Barb there and quite a few familiar faces, but many more than I didn't know. Whitney Shetrumpf and Jenna Zollinger babysat for us while we were at the gym. (Jenna was a bonus as we lined up Whit but she had Jenna come over!)

Funny thing Kysa said earlier in the week, kind of out of the blue...

"I am a HUGE princess."
I said, "Kysa, you're not a huge princess!"
She responded, "No, I am a BIG Little Princess!"

Yesterday she was in her car seat and exclaimed,
"Mom, I got my boog-ay (booger)...........I ATE IT!"

The babysitter reported that she told them "I can drive the car."
One of them said, "Wow, you can drive a car?"
She said confidently, "Of course!"

She often tells me she can do things, like go to school, because she turned three. She is actually going to get her chance in about a week. Idaho Falls High School home economics students are teaching a 4-week long preschool that goes from 1 p.m. - 2 p.m. every day. It only costs $20 and I got her signed up for it the other day. Shay can do it with her next year as it's for 3 and 4 year olds. I imagine Kysa is going to eat it up.

I am excited for the weekend as Kirby and Andrew are coming and Ty and I are actually going to get a babysitter and go out with them on Friday night. Gretchen and Dave are meeting us here at 7 and we are planning to go to Iggy's. Then on Sunday we are having some friends over for dinner...Kirby's friend Lindsay Beck and her husband who recently moved to Idaho Falls, and Brandon and Cynthia Taggart.

Now backtracking a day or two...
The volleyball tournament in Pinedale last Saturday was really fun. I had a great time driving over with Andrea Baldwin and she played some awesome v-ball in the tourney. Kysa came with us and was an absolute angel. She wasn't a bit of a problem and slept most of the car ride both there and back. Never even turned on the DVD player.

Raleigh got the "screature" he wanted for Easter, which he earned by keeping his room clean for a month and a half. He is a good kid. He does really good at the basketball clinics I'm doing on Tuesday nights at Skyline. Yesterday night he and his buddy Brennan Bodily (another kindergartner) won the dribble tag game with the 2nd and 3rd grade group. We had to call it a tie after a minute because they couldn't get each other out. Raleigh's favorite thing to do is not to play basketball though, it's to play HALO! We've been trying to limit it to only a day or two a week that he can play. We should probably just get rid of it altogether, but sometimes it's so helpful to have a "carrot". He'll do just about anything to earn HALO time. I hope it's not too bad for him to play. I guess as long as it's the good guys versus the bad guys, which it seems to be. I don't know how I feel about it. Some parents would probably condemn me for letting my kindergartner play Halo!

Shay is talking more and more every day, and she seems to say words exactly like Kysa. For example, they both pronounce the word "Paper"--"Pay-Pay". She gets along with Kysa more than she did a month or two ago, but they still have their battles. Today, Kysa handed her something she wanted, and she said, "Kysa share...Kysa share with me!" So I think she's starting to understand the concept of sharing, which is obviously huge. She is also becoming more sympathetic. If I get mad at Kysa, often Shay will stroke my arm and say, "Nice....Nice....mommy." But it's not like she is telling me to be nice to Kysa, but more like she is comforting me in a sweet little voice because she recognizes that I am upset. It's really interesting how she operates. I think Shay is going to be very bright. Raleigh has a great memory and is good with numbers. Kysa has amazing fine motor skills and is going to have excellent handwriting. But I think Shay will be our braniac-maniac. I hope they all do well in school. But my prediction is that Shay will have the highest ACT / SAT scores. That's probably silly to say at this age. We'll see if they prove me wrong.

Happy Easter!

Mom, thanks for all the fun Easter gifts…the kids loved all the stuff.  I wanted to also tell you something funny about our observant little Kysa.  We were getting in the Expedition at Apple the other day, and Kysa walked around the back of the Ex to get her side and exclaimed, “mom, this is not our car---look!”  She was pointing at the bumper where my McCain-Palin bumper sticker had been.  I finally took it off earlier in the week and she noticed it was gone.  I told her I took it off, and she just said, “Okay mom...it is our car?”  Yes, Kysa.

 

Spencer Maxfield came over tonight for a little while, at Raleigh’s request.  He babysat for us last weekend, and when I asked Raleigh how he compared to the other babysitters, Raleigh said, “Oh, he’s better mom.”  Raleigh said he was the best babysitter because 1) he liked Halo way more than the other babysitters 2) he knew how to make “real” food.  (Raleigh was impressed that he made them corn dogs from the freezer.)  3) he could do two things at once—play with Raleigh and help the girls  and 4)  he has a car—none of the other babysitters have a car!  Raleigh said the only problem is that he doesn’t know how to change diapers.  Good thing the girls are doing good with their potty training!  Ha.

 

 

morning trash talk--dance moves

The girls were bee boppin while they ate their cereal this morning, and I said, “Are you doing your dance moves?”  They both said yes.  Then Shay copied the side to side wiggle that Kysa was doing.  Ky didn’t like it and said,

 

“Shay, don’t do that.  That’s MY dance move!” 

 

Then Kysa got off her stool and did some moving and grooving.  She stopped, looked at me and said, “That was a BOY dance move.”