Copyrights and Credits

Blake took this fabulous photo of the kids last fall when we went leaf peeping. I was kind of frustrated at the time because the kids WOULD NOT look at the camera at the same time. And smiling was a whole different challenge. But somehow it all turned out for the best to make a very sweet and serene image. Just one more reminder that I need to chill out as a mommy and let my kids just be.
Has anyone else found themselves getting more stressed about how each photo looks (not to mention, taking pictures of things you never would have before) since becoming a blogger?

President Hinckley

As most of you know, our dear prophet passed away yesterday. We found out this morning because we went to bed early last night. My initial response was actually happiness for him to be with his darling wife again. I've felt a little guilty having him with us for so long since I can only imagine how much he missed her every day. But then I thought about it more and I cried. It kind of feels like a grandpa dying, or something. I never met him personally, but I did have the privilege to be in the Celestial Room for the Dedicatory Session for both the Albuquerque Temple and the Manhattan Temple (not because I'm extra special, just very blessed). Both experiences were absolutely amazing, but I must say that he exudes the same love and the same spirit whether in the same room or thousands of miles away via television. I've never been able to fully express my feelings and admiration for him and I'm still struggling with that now. I regret that my children won't really remember him. But I know they will come to know and love the prophets of their time. And the future prophets will be following the Lord's instructions just the same. What a wonderful reassurance for us as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I know President Monson is also a great man, but I will miss President Hinckley.

I Had a Good Day

We have some fabulous news--it's not really our news, but my nephew Matthew was able to come home from the hospital this last week. I am so happy to know that my brother's whole family is together again and that Matthew is growing and developing so quickly in spite of being premature. I know it is an answer to the many prayers and faith of so many people who love their family. Thanks to those of you who joined in.

We're trying to get a picture of the road just outside of our neighborhood (Blake Road, coincidentally) during each of the four seasons because it has a lot of trees so they all look better. I'm hoping to get a better one before winter is over, but here is my first attempt:

Kayli could not figure out why in the world I was stopping the car to get out on the middle of the road. She kept telling me that the cars were trying to hit me.
My little maestros
Bryce is so happy any time he gets to do something with his big sister.

I finally got the energy to put Christmas decorations away and throw Kayli's "Friend birthday party". This one was a Bug theme.

These balloons were supposed to look like bugs, but I ran out of time. The kids didn't care, fortunately. We hid little bugs around and the kids who were old enough to catch on went around to find them. Then the played with them, balloons, and play-doh for a long time. So the mommies got to visit. It's always nice when everyone is happy.
There are a couple things I would do differently next time, but overall, I was pretty pleased with my caterpillar cake. Kayli loved it, so that's all that really mattered.
And she LOVED the worms (they looked a lot like Cheetos Puffs). I think she ate at least half of the bag. Her hands were bright orange for a while.
Bryce woke up just before the end of the party and even though he was still in a sleepy daze, thought it was pretty fun to have a house full of kids. He really loves people.

A generous woman in my mom's ward gave us some cute dresses and this beautiful coat for Kayli. I had a really perfect picture in my mind of her in the snow, but as usual, she didn't have the same vision.

She really likes the pom-poms.
She would stand there smiling until the moment I clicked and would then turn away like this. I had so many pictures of the side of her head by the end.

Blake has been working some really long hours the last couple of weeks so this three-day weekend was a HUGE blessing for all of us. (I have to interject here. Although I complain about the long hours, we really are grateful for Blake's job. It's a great place for him to start his career. He was able to finish all the requirements to become a CPA. It pays for all the fun we have. And the less fun things like rent and bills. And most of the time he's happy there). We decided to celebrate by going to Chuck E. Cheese's.

Both of the kids enjoyed several rides on the carousel. I wasn't able to get any of Kayli looking at me though.

She definitely enjoyed the rides more than the games. Although, her absolute favorite was the playscape. She spent most of the time crawling through it, which was lovely because it wore her out.

Can you tell who was having more fun on this one?

We were expecting a bit of a tantrum when it came time to leave, but our little sweetheart came along without even a trace of a fuss. As we were walking to the car she said, "That was fun. I had a good day." Is she really only three? It was so sweet and definitely makes us more inclined to visit again. Well, after Blake's headache goes away. I mean, Blake Roper, CPA.

Tragedy on the Home Front

As you've probably noticed, we have a new background. I decided I need to get a cooler one like so many of you. Unfortunately, I only proved, yet again, that I am not smarter than the average bear (or blogger). I couldn't really figure it out and in the process of trying out this semi-decent one, I lost pretty much the whole left column (now on the right). So, I need your help. First off, if your blog link is missing, please email it to me. Second, and most important, Kayli's quotes. I cried over these. If you remember any, please refresh my memory. I remember there was a conversation between a green bean and an apricot, but I can't really remember it. And about 20 others. Please help if you can!!
Oh, and how do you have those cool templates? Did you make your own? I am not that smart. I don't love this one, but I am afraid to mess with it now.

Hangin' Tough

The other day when I was complaining about never having enough time to get everything done, Blake suggested that maybe I spend too much time blogging. Where would he get that idea?!

This seemed so cool when we did it the other night, but now I'm thinking, "Why in the heck did we even try this to begin with?" The answer--I have no idea. But I'm still pretty impressed with my strong little man.

As you can tell, he was being closely supervised at all times.
But when I had this zoomed in to do some editing, I noticed the look of fear on his face. Now I feel bad. Sort of.

It snowed last night, so we had to build a snowman.
I told her to stand by it for a picture and she wanted to give it a hug first. She named him Rudolph. Unfortunately, we didn't have a red carrot.
Afterwards, we went inside to drink hot cocoa and call Grandma Roper. Kayli told her that we made this snowman for her and that we were going to put it on a sled and bring it to her. So, I won't be blogging for a few months while we trek across the country with this guy. I hope he doesn't melt before we get there. I think she's sad that she doesn't get to share things like snowmen with Blake's parents because they live far away. I thought it was a very sweet, albeit impractical, idea.
This picture is from a couple weeks ago. It was our last hurrah with Megan & Weston before they headed back to Happy Valley. What trip to the East Coast would be complete without a visit to Stew Leonard's? I LOVE the look on Kayli's face here--one of pure joy. For that (and many other reasons) I am excited to have Weston join our family. This game would make me sick. Thank goodness for tireless uncles.

Privacy

Another funny from the Kayli Archives

Sorry about the fun new step to see our blog. Regardless of my "blalker" theory, I didn't really think that we had strangers looking at our blog. But I've been getting comments posted by people that I am pretty sure I don't know and that feels like someone is just walking into our living room and watching us eat dinner, or something. So, I thought I would follow in the footsteps of some of you and keep those people out. I hope it's not too much of a pain.

Aaaahhh-choooo!

We've basically known that Kayli has allergies for about a year now because she has pretty much all of the fun symptoms that go with them. But we decided recently to take action against them. So, her doctor gave us a list of things we can do depending on how much effort we want to put into it. She has the "hay fever" version, not like a food allergy. That means she's probably allergic to things like mold (according to the googled info about allergies, we should move out of our house. Nice.) and dust. Actually, dust is not the allergen. *WARNING* What you are about to read is disgusting and disturbing! No, the real culprit is caused by dust mites that live in the dust (one article I read said about 1,000 of these little mites are in each dust particle. Nice.) And guess what is the real cause of the allergies?! The dust mites' poop! Yep. Guess who did some heavy duty dusting this morning?
That being said, the allergies aren't doing any damage, it just comes down to quality of life (and the grossness factor). And even though she doesn't seem too bothered by the symptoms, they do prevent us from getting out and being social A LOT. So, the first thing on the list is to "allergy-proof" her bedroom. This includes getting "allergy-free" covers and sheets and pillows for her bed, having plastic furniture, removing all stuffed animals...

These pictures are a couple years old. She doesn't have a pile of stuffed animals in her room like that any more--it's grown.
But look how happy she is! And look how tasty! Yum... dust mite doo doo!

We're also supposed to remove pretty much everything else from her room because it could collect dust. This includes the plant that I put in there for the very purpose of cleaning the air. But its leaves gather dust. So, this is a child's dream come true. Bare walls, bare everything bedroom. And the real tragedy here is what will become of Horsey? He is Kayli's beloved lovey. A cute little horse who is, unfortunately, stuffed. She can't sleep without him. Maybe he will get a Ziploc baggy sleeping bag so he can stay in her bed. Yay for allergies.

But she's healthy in every other way, so I can't really complain too much. She measured in at the 90th percentile for height and weight. Thanks to my number dyslexia (dsynumbia?) and two children to keep track of, I can't tell you either measurement. She's big and I expect her to be taller than me by Kindergarten.

Mormons Don't Need Alcohol to Act Drunk

We do a lip sync every year. It's better if you're there in person, but we thought you'd enjoy this photos.

Life's One Great Big Party

So much has happened since my last blog. It's a new year! Somehow my baby turned three, and we've had a whole heap of fun with Megan and Weston in town. I forgot to take any pictures of it, but on Sunday night we had a recital with some family friends in New York. I use "recital" loosely. One of their daughters and a friend did a gymnastics routine on the beam, both moms baked. Kayli sang "I Like to Look for Rainbows", Megan and Weston sang "Somewhere Out There" while I accompanied, another daughter played the clarinet (I think!), Blake played "Music of the Night", I played "Pachelbel's Cannon in D" (I've been practicing off and on for about 7 years, so this was quite an accomplishment), and the dad of the other family played a couple songs that shamed us all. I can't remember what they're called, but his really amazing on the piano. Somehow, my dad got out of doing anything. Last year he played "Come, Come Ye Saints" on the harmonica. It was really cool.

Would you trust this man with your daughter?

We did trust him with our son.

We always celebrate Kayli's birthday on New Year's with all of my family that is in town. This year I decided to go with a snowman theme. But at the last minute, we decided to do things at my parents house instead of ours and I forgot a bunch of the stuff I needed so we had to improvise. The first was these snowman cake toppers. They weren't supposed to be meringues, but we thought it would work. But they melted in the oven. I guess we can't be too surprised--they are snowmen after all. Just a note to all you chefs out there--Although the bananas make cute noses, Runts candies don't do well in the oven either.

Here they are on top of the cupcakes. Not quite what I'd envisioned, but cute in a freakish sort of way.

All the dinner preparations took too long for Kayli. She made it her mission to eat all the really disastrous snowmen.

What is a party without party hats?

How can she be three?!

A snowman cheese ball. We were in a hurry and I forgot to make his hat and scarf. Next time...

Snowman dinner rolls. I forgot to take a picture but we had melted snow soup (a.k.a. clam chowder).

The table. If you look closely, you can see that we made the table into a snowman too.

Opening presents

Takes concentration.

Bryce wasn't really sure why we kept putting this on his head. I don't think he was a huge fan of it.

"No, Gwampa. It goes on your head!"

We had to re-light the candles because as soon as my Mom set this in front of her, she blew two out.

But then she couldn't blow them out again. "Uh oh! Somefing's wong wif these candles for me to blow them out!"

Grandma helped out.

Yummy cake!

Bryce enjoyed it too. His first chocolate cake.

So cute!

When we were kids we had a tradition of making doughnuts and taking them around to neighbors and friends. We thought it would be fun to do again. Here are the Doughnut Makers.

Blake had the tough job of frosting.

Weston was a Professional Froster, so Blake became the Sprinkle Sprinkler. I tried to show him how and managed to dump half the bottle out in one shake. So, I became the Doughnut Historian.

We all shared the responsibility of the taste test.

It snowed heavily one night and into the morning so we went out to play in it.

My dad and Kayli headed for the trees and we're not really sure what happened.

She's not really kicking him, just throwing snow in his face.

Grampa doesn't mind following Kayli's silly antics. She laughed hysterically when he joined her rolling around.

Kids are just too cute all bundled up.

Since the weather was so nice, we decided to go for a jog. It was awesome!

I ran around the yard while pulling Kayli in the sled.

Then she told me it was my turn. It looks like I'm dragging my hands, but I was really helping push.

How many people does it take to put on a snowman nose?

Then Kayli decided to play "Ring Around the Snowman." Now my parents' neighbors really think we're weird.

She sat on the stairs and said, "Grandma, take a picture of me now."

On Wednesday we got to go to NYC again while my mom watched the kids. She is so awesome. We went with Megan and Weston.

We rode the ferry to see the Statue of Liberty. It was FREEZING! Actually, it was below freezing. It was really windy too.

The Auditor had to get a picture with "The Bull" on Wall Street.

We walked out about halfway on the Brooklyn Bridge

It doesn't look as romantic when you're bundled in four layers and both wearing glasses, but it was!

Then we ate a Bubba Gump's. It was fun and the food was yummy, but beware of gnats in your water if you ever go!