Little Changes!

My mom called me on Monday to tell me someone she knew was getting rid of 2 sets of bunk beds. She arranged it so I could run to Raymond to take a look. As the kids and I were leaving Richard pulled up, so he jumped in and came along. I decided to buy the metal bunk bed. It was a futon on the bottom that also goes into a double bed with a single bed on top. I got it for $80.

Richard and I, with DJ, ran and got dad's truck. We got the bunk bed and came home. We unloaded, then ran back to my parents to return the truck. I was smart and brought my Sunday leftovers and combined it with mom's (it was roast beef dinner) and we ate dinner there. We then had a quick FHE lesson with my mom. She did a really cute one with an orange. The kids listened very well. It was fun. We then came home and put them to bed.
A very random picture in all this, but here are the kids playing with playdough one morning. It's DJ's favorite thing and the girls like it too! I was able to get both bathrooms clean while they played! Bonus!

Oh, I almost forgot to write about the crazy thing that happened Monday afternoon. DJ was tired and went down for a nap at about 12:15pm. I got the girls ready for school. At 12:30pm I checked on DJ who was sound asleep. I put the girls in the burb and ran and checked on DJ again. Then I ran and raced to the school to drop them off (seriously don't do this very often, but I wasn't going to wake him up). Ran the girls up to the door and it was locked. Was a little confused. Looked around and noticed it was very quiet and nobody around, which isn't normal. I told the girls to stay there and was going to run to the next door. They yelled, NO to me. Then the door opened and it was a RCMP officer telling me that the school was in a lock down and nobody was coming in or out. So I ran back to the burb with the girls and we raced home, we were gone for all of 5 mins. I noticed on the way home that there was a RCMP car at each corner around the school.

It kind of freaked me out. I talked to one of the mom's who had 4 kids in the school, one of them in preschool. She said that she didn't know much but was waiting anxiously for any news. The kids were let out just after 1pm. I found out later that a student got very upset and issued some threats and then ran off. The officers put the school on lock down till they were able to find the student and take him into custody. I am so thankful my girls were home with me. Even though all the students were fine, that would of freaked me out. Not having control over getting my own kids back to me. It was a little scary.

That incident helped me to decide to not send Cadence to school on Tuesday. I needed to make a trip to Cut Bank and decided to go yesterday. We left at about 9:30am in the morning and made the border by 10am. The officer told me I was the only crazy person driving and the first to cross the border that morning. It was snowing and the radio was issuing a snow fall warning. But the roads were pretty clear and I drove 100km/h the whole way. I told him the roads were fine. He then said that there was a storm warning and he advises me not to drive. He was so focused on warning me that he didn't ask me any questions, oh except if I had any fruit in the vehicle. Which I did. Totally forgot that I shouldn't. I couldn't hide it either because Cadence was sitting there eating the grapes. He again got after me about that but said she could finish eating them, which was nice. Then he told me to drive safe.

I quickly gave all the kids a bath and washed their hair before we left. Abbi decided to get my camera and take a picture of this (without me knowing). I just did some editing to get my butt out of the picture! DJ loves taking bathes but HATES getting his hair washed. He was realizing that it was his turn next!

We took off and everything was fine. I'm pretty confident with driving on bad roads. Sometimes too confident! But driving while big, fat, fluffy flakes are coming down doesn't bother me at all! The roads were just fine. We made it there and I picked up a package from the post office and sent one off to David. Then we did some shopping at JC Penny's (my favorite store), and then went to the local furniture shop. Got some nice dressers, 2 of them to be exact, for a real good price. They were already put together, another bonus, and they loaded them into the burb. I had to reposition all the kids. DJ sat up front with me and the girls all sat in the middle seat. That way I pulled the back seat out and leaned it up against the middle seat and the 2 dressers came in. Then I went and did some grocery shopping. We were packed! Oh my vehicle's passenger airbag does not come on unless more then 80lbs are sitting in the front seat, which DJ is not!

I promised the kids that if they were good I would take them to the dollar store and they could pick out a toy. They were all so AWESOME! I had a lady stop me and comment on how good they all were. I was shopping and they were all trailing behind me! She couldn't believe how good they were. I laughed and said thank you. We do have our moments sometimes, but they were all so good yesterday. It made it easy to get so much done! They were all excited to pick out a toy (a cheap bribe!). Then we went through McDonald's drive through and got lunch. I got them all set up and away we went home. DJ zonked on the way home and the girls got a little wild, being so close to each other. But they did good! We made it home by 2:30pm. It was a successful trip!

Well Cadence wanted me to put together her new bed. The plan was the bunk bed I bought was going in DJ's room and him and Cadence were going to share a room now. So I took apart his bed and took it downstairs and put it back together in the toy room. Then I carried all the pieces upstairs for the bunk bed. I gave each of the kids a wet cloth to wipe down all the pieces. I slowly got it together and got the beds all made and set up. Then it was supper time, so I hurried and made boy scout supper (pancakes, eggs and bacon). Richard ran home and ate and then had to run to scouts. He helped me carry the dressers upstairs before he left.

So after supper I put all the knobs on the dressers and got them into the rooms. Then we had to reorganize clothes. The girls were SO EXCITED. I knew the day was coming when I had to separate their clothes. Well it happened. They now all have their own drawers with their own pants, and jammies. Since they are all in different sizes it does make it easier for them to get dressed on their own. So we did that and then I was trying to hurry and clean up the disaster zone (all upstairs) before bedtime. Well the girls were so excited that they all cleaned their own rooms. Really good too, then they cleaned mine, while I was cleaning the kitchen. It was a nice surprise.

Here's DJ and Cadence's new bunk bed set. DJ is on the bottom (he's sound asleep!) and Cadence is up top under the covers somewhere, asleep too!

Here's Brianna and Abbi's room. Having one less bed makes things so much more roomier, if that's a word!

DJ was excited to have Cadence in the room with him. He went to bed so good. He only came out once and I tucked him back in. He has a bad habit to stick his head out of his room and just stare at me in my room. It`s kind of funny and today I finally got a picture of it. Because he won't come out of his room till I say something but he`ll just have his head poking around the corner. It cracks me up! Cadence slept so good too on the top bunk. I was a little worried, but she didn't wake up once. They were still so excited this morning that they all went and made their beds and cleaned their rooms before breakfast. So funny!

Here's DJ when he first pokes his head out. All I see is his cute little eyes and nose! This was when I was trying to put him down for a nap.
He saw me taking his picture so he was trying to decide if it was ok to come out!

So that was our fun filled couple of days. I was worried about changing the sleeping arrangements, but it seems I didn't have too. The kids all love it and are all very happy with the changes. This morning they were playing house and would go back and forth between the rooms. It was cute.

So that's some of our little changes that's been going on here. They've all been good and we're all happy! Yesterday I helped Cadence move all her shirts into the closet with DJ. It's been good for me to clean up and organize a little more too!

Our Inside Picnics!

We are all starting to get a little bit of cabin fever. We were very excited with some of the weather we had last week. On Friday it was so NICE out! The kids ran around and played outside. The only downside is the mud, but I can deal with that. The kids thought it was great and I just let them go. The girls are getting older and know our rules of outside. We have the one road beside us that some cars go way too fast on. So they always have to come talk to me before going across (with me watching). It's been good for them to stop, look and look again, before crossing to go see the cats at our neighbours house.



With the cold, windy, snowy and just plain yucky weather we've had, I've had to think of different things to do. One of my kids favorites is a picnic for lunch time. They always do it in my room while they watch "Clifford". It's an easy lunch and they all eat it so good, including DJ! So we've done it a few times. I'm afraid to say with all this gross weather we've gotten into a bad habit of watching too much tv. I think it's the combination of sick kids and cold weather. The girls have been complaining about the weather too and asking if winter is ever going away! They want to play outside!


Last Tuesday I watched Ali and Mary for the day. They all decided that they needed a bath. So we took turns and that's what we did in the morning was play in the bathtub! I got a picture of my girls with Ali in the bathtub together. They had so much fun. DJ and Mary had fun in the bath too! It's was the perfect way to get through the morning!
Here is Brianna, Cadence, Ali and Abbi in the bathtub about 3 years ago. So my girls were 2 1/2 yrs and Ali was 2 yrs old.

Now here they are today, Abbi, Brianna, Ali and Cadence! They had a blast in the bathtub!
Here's Ali, Mary and DJ. DJ thought it was great to show Mary his car toys in the bathtub!

Then for lunch they all had a picnic in my room. The kids all thought it was great and it was great for me too. Easy to clean up and everyone was happy!
Lunch time! Brianna, Cadence, DJ, Ali, Abbi and Mary eating their lunch!

We had a pretty good week. Cadence got sick last weekend. It happened quickly and it actually a very violent 24hr flu for her. I ended up taking her into the hospital at midnight, Sunday morning. She couldn't stop throwing up and dry heaving. She had nothing left to throw up, but she still couldn't stop. I got scared when blood started coming up, so I ran her in. The doctor was really good and checked her out and was initially worried about her appendix. But we both had our doubts. He said that she must of popped a blood vessel and that's why there was blood. They gave her gravol, in a way that she couldn't throw it up! We came home and she slept ok. By Tuesday she was feeling great. Luckily nobody else got it. Still not sure where she got it from, it came on so fast, poor girl!

Nothing too exciting happened this week. I was just busy with kids in school and keeping the house clean. You know, the normal. Yesterday we cleaned up the yard and house really good. It was pretty nice out and it felt good to clean things up. The wind blew ALL our toys and stuff outside EVERYWHERE. The kids and I took our bottles in too. They helped me and I stopped afterwards and they each got to pick a treat out. While they were eating that I quickly wash our very dirty burb!

In the afternoon the girls were bugging me about playing with friends. I told them they could run over to Lilly's house and ask her to come out to play. She lives at the end of our block. They've never gone over before. I didn't realize she lived there (she's in the girls class at school) till later. I thought it was a family with older kids. Which it is, but Lilly is the youngest. Anyways I told the girls to do it on their own. It took them about an half hour, between running back and forth, to finally get the courage to knock on the door! They ended up going inside the house, so I walked over to make sure everything was good. Abbi and Cadence ended up staying for a couple hours, while we ran to my parents house so Richard could look at their hot water tank. I wasn't planning on leaving them there, but when we stopped by to pick them up Barb (Lilly's mom) insisted that they stay, since they were having so much fun together. So we just had Brianna (she chose to come with us) and DJ with us. Kind of nice! Brianna, Abbi and Cadence playing with the cats at the neighbours house. It was so nice out and they loved running around outside. They all fell asleep so quickly that night!

Last night after the kids had their baths, I decided to put curlers in Cadence's hair. Of course, the other two wanted them to so I did. This morning I took the curlers out and we had some pretty curly hair. Cadence was out of this world curly, though! It was so tight that it looked like she had a curly wig on. Abbi summed it up perfectly when she said, "You look like a clown Cadence." That didn't phase her at all, Cadence replied, "That's ok I look like a clown, but I'm no clown, right mom." While she was happily bouncing around as she was watching herself in a hand held mirror. So funny! She loved her hair. Abbi on the other hand was not impressed with hers and I caught her in the bathroom spraying her hair and brushing the curls out.....grrrrr. I stopped her before too much damage was done and showed her how I was going to put her hair half up. Then she was happy!

Cadence loved to look at herself in the mirror. She walked around with the mirror for most of the morning!

Cadence's crazy curly hair! So cute!
Ready to go to church. I wasn't quick enough to get everyone, me and Cadence were the slow pokes. Everyone else were already in the burb ready to go!

At church today we got there 15 mins early and got the kids settled and had them go to the bathroom before it started. It worked out great. Well during the sacrament song DJ got annoyed with Brianna, who was bossing him around. Before I could stop him he turned and threw his little truck at Brianna's head. It hit her right in the middle of her forehead. She started sobbing, but luckily I got her settled down on my lap. He can be a little stinker sometimes!

Every week the girls always take their scriptures to church. The primary presidency has tried so hard to get all the kids to bring them. So they started a thing where whoever brings their scriptures can put a penny into a big jar. The idea is to earn enough money to buy scriptures for someone. It's worked so good, almost 95% of the kids bring their scriptures. My girls kept telling me they needed some. So I bought them a tiny Book of Mormon and a scripture carrier for each of them. We just decorated their carrier with their names on it. They love them! So every week they bring their scriptures to church.

Well that kind of summarizes what we've been up to the past week or so. Hope everyone has a GREAT week!

About DJ!

My cute little boy. He is such a busy, busy boy! That's for sure! I have realized that I do write a lot about him, but have been trying to figure out what is new that he is doing. As I am typing this I can hear him kicking his bedroom wall, which is also my bathroom wall. BANG, BANG, BANG! That always tells me that he is almost asleep. For some reason just before he nods off, his feet start kicking. Crazy kid!

We have been trying to wean him off of his chocolate milk. This was totally my fault. This boy LOVES his chocolate milk. So that's what he has been drinking. Not the healthiest, all the time. So now he's allowed two sippy cups full of chocolate milk a day. He's been doing good. He does love his milk too. He now takes his sippy cup of water to bed, instead of milk. He just started taking his sippy cup to bed in the past month. He's never done it before, but he was crying for it and I gave in. It's usually at 5 or 5:30 in the morning. He usually takes a couple of sips and goes back to sleep till 7am. If I don't then he's up wandering the house waking everybody up (yes that has happened).

He is, by far, my pickiest kid to get dressed. My girls always let me dress them up matching, meaning I picked out what they wore when they were 2yrs old. Not DJ, he has to pick and sometimes the things he wants makes me laugh. He loves to wear his jammie shorts. So I make him put on a pair of pants, he screams the whole time I am stuffing his legs in his pants! Then I take his shorts and put them on him, then he is a happy boy! He loves wearing his shorts! He looks so goofy, but oh well!

One of DJ's favorite things to do is to carry his tools around and fix things. It's hilarious. He'll come till me he's fixing things by making his "fixing" sound (chhh, chhh) and turning his hand back and forth. He'll fix my walls, his car and the doors. It's very cute. Sometimes if his sisters keep bugging him, he'll start chasing them and try to fix them! They all think it's very fun and it turns into a game!

Here he is packing up some of his tools. Oh I forgot to mention DJ's love of hats! I bought this new Cars hat in Kalispel and he has to wear it everywhere!

DJ ready to go work on somethng with his tool box in hand!

After struggling so much with taking DJ to nursery he now LOVES it! On Sunday we were going to leave DJ home with Cadence (she was sick) and Richard. But he over heard us talking about not taking him to church and he ran into his room and tore through his drawer and came running into my room with his sunday pants. He kept grunting and pointing to himself. I asked if he wanted to go to church and he goes, "uh hu". He came to church with me and the girls and did ok during sacrament meeting. The big problem was I didn't check to see what was packed in his bag before we came. He went and put all his Cars in with the Mack truck. Which is ok except the truck makes LOTS of noises. Luckily I caught it before he pulled it out of the bag (this was during sacrament), and took it away. This caused DJ to start screaming. We had to leave. When we came back I quickly took the truck and hid it underneath the bench. He kept putting his hands out, asking me where it was. Then he played happily the rest of the time, and was excited to go to nursery. YEAH! So that's good!

This isn't nursery but Stay and Play in Raymond. He would never let me move around the room, he'd scream. But now he runs off and plays with everything. He played with this tool bench for awhile.

DJ asking me to help him make the train track. I think I'd fail if it were a test. I couldn't make a good one at all! But he was happy!

DJ is always the puppy or kitty when the girls play house. He really gets into the mode and does very good! He loves playing puppy and it's so funny to watch. I caught Abbi throwing a fake doggy bone down the hallway and DJ takes off on all fours to go get it. He'll pick it up with his mouth and bring it back to Abbi. She even went and got him a bowl of water and he sat there and drank from it with his tongue. So cute! DJ decided to eat like a puppy at the dinner table one night.

He actually ate quite a bit that night so I didn't stop him. He's usually pretty picky, but he ate everything on his plate!

One of his favorite things to do is wrestle. He loves to tackle his sisters and take them down. He's very good at it and they don't mind it, most of the time! They will roll around and he can usually pin them down. If Richard or I get down on the floor he is very quick to jump onto our backs and ride us like a horse! He loves to do that and sometimes he jumps on me when I'm not expecting it. He's a funny little boy!

DJ taking Cadence down. It's so funny to see them all wrestle!

It's so fun to see what he does every day. Like yesterday, I walked into the tv room and saw him lifting my weight. He was grunting and pumping the weight up and down. Then he put it down and got down in a push up stance, and started grunting and moving his butt up and down!! Then he jumped up and started jumping and flapping his arms around (jumping jacks). Guess who he was copying....yup me, even though I wasn't exercising right then. He did that all on his own. It was pretty funny! Abbi thought it was hilarious.
DJ's normal place to be in the morning. He likes to cuddle in all my pillows and watch Curious George, with his toast and Mack truck!

He is such a funny little boy. He loves to get his sisters to laugh and he trys really hard everyday to do that!

About Cadence!

What to say about Cadence! Where to start! She is also loving school. She totally adores her teachers aide, Mrs Perks. I always know when Mrs. Perks was sick or not at school, because Cadence will come home kind of sad and not all excited like she usually does. It makes me happy knowing there are such good teachers in the pre-school.


Cadence LOVES to paint. She is always asking me if she can paint. We've had many "paint incidents" in our house because of her love of painting! She also loves to do crafts but painting is her favorite. I try to take them to Stay and Play in Raymond a few times a month and that's basically all they do there, is paint. It's a great place for them to do it and less mess for me to worry about.

Cadence painting at Stay and Play. This is our main reason for going so they can paint their little hearts out! We were the only ones there for the first hour, so nice!

She's showing me her lion puppet that she made all by herself, she did very good!

Doing the messy play at stay and play. This time they gave them glue and cotton balls and cotton sticks. She loves it, made a huge mess and was very happy!



I always know if Cadence has woken up happy or sad in the mornings. If she is happy she'll quietly walk in our room or the kitchen (wherever we are) with her blanket over her head. We always say, "Oh look there's a ghost coming in the room." Then she'll do a little giggle and then pop the blanket off her head and ROAR! It's so cute and she has been doing it for a long time. She'll then giggle away about it and skip around and want to eat right now! As soon as Cadence wakes up she is hungry. Luckily she doesn't wake up at 5:30am anymore, it's usually around 7am. But when Cadence doesn't come in the room like that she is usually crying about something or just plain grumpy. So we are all happy when she comes in our room like a ghost!

This is how Cadence comes into our room (like she did today!) when she is happy!! It's so cute to watch and I love to hear her laugh after she roars at us!

Cadence has always been my girl that sometimes over reacts! She just over thinks things. She can hear something at school or wherever and just think about it and freak herself out. But most of the time I don't know what's going on in that little head of hers so I can't stop it before we have a "reaction"! But if I'm there I can put a stop to it. For example we were having a story time with Erin (she comes and works with Cadence twice a month), and it was talking about strangers. I was watching Cadence and could see her brain a working and the look on her face was telling me we were going to have a melt down. I hurried and talked to her about and Erin realized what I was doing and explained it more, which helped. Anyways, the past 2 months she's had a thing about the whole stranger thing. I don't know how it started but all of the sudden I couldn't run into the post office without Cadence flipping out (it takes me all of 10 sec).

Cadence is showing you this little squiggly worm, that is on a fishing line.
It took her a LONG time to be able to touch this thing. One time she thought she was brave and went to touch it, while it was on the ground. She bent down and touched it and then jumped back. Well when she bent over the fish line got caught on her pants so when she jumped back squiggly worm jumped towards her. She SCREAMED and started running, when she turned to look where it was and saw squiggly bouncing after her she about had a heart attack. I had to stop her and explain that it was caught on her pants. She then did a very nervous laugh. It was so funny! This happened a while a go but thought I should write it down!

So bed time has become a bit harder with Cadence. Before she would be fine, but now she'll start crying about bad dreams. I've tried everything with her, but didn't want to start staying in there. So finally last week after I read them a story and after prayers I asked Cadence if she would like me to sing a song (warning: I don't have a good voice at all!). She said yes. So I laid down beside her and rubbed her arm lightly and sang, "I am a Child of God". I sang that twice and I could feel Cadence relax and she was asleep before I walked out and she slept all night with no nightmares. We now do that every night and it has been two weeks and she hasn't had one nightmare. I wish I would of thought of it sooner. It works like a charm! She loves it when I sing to her.

Funny story about Cadence that happened the other night at supper. We were eating homemade pizza and drinking chocolate milk. I looked over at Cadence who was sucking so hard, because her straw was kinked. It looked so funny and her eyes were getting so big while she was sucking. I laughed and said, "Cadence your sucking so hard it looks like your eyes are going to pop out." About 5 seconds later Cadence is SCREAMING like crazy. I was confused and was about to ask Cadence what was wrong. She was slapping her hands over her eyes screaming. I then clued in. It was so funny. I grabbed her arm and had to yell her name to get her attention. She looked at me and I explained that her eyes are fine, that I was just joking (really I just said a stupid expression, didn't mean for her to freak out). I tried to explain to her that it's just a silly expression that people sometimes say when your eyes go really wide. So I pretended to lift the table and opened my eyes really wide, thinking I was explaining it really good. Nope! She started screaming, because she thought my eyes were going to pop out. Ha ha ha! It was so funny. We finally got her settled down and we stopped talking about eyes! Cadence eating her supper! This was not the night she freaked out though!

Cadence LOVES to make cookies and is always asking me. If the cookie jar is empty then it's time to make cookies. So hard for me when I'm trying to eat good and always baking things! It's been fun trying different cookie recipes and having her tell me which one is her favorite. She loves chocolate chip cookies and the ginger snap cookies (the ones you roll in sugar)!
Cadence rolling the gingerbread snaps in sugar. She was a happy camper!

Cadence is always very worried about other people. If her sisters or brother are sick, it really worries her and she trys to help them. It's very cute. She'll want to go and get them a little "surprise" to make them feel better. Or she'll sit down and make them something. Last month a family lost their home and everything they own in a fire. It was such a blessing that they weren't home with their 4 small kids at the time. They are members of the Lethbridge Twin and Triplet Club. Anyways Cadence heard me talking about it to someone and she was so worried about (so were her sisters). They walked around the house trying to figure out what they can give the family. We gathered up a lot of blankets, towels, and our crib and change table and took it in to them. The girls wanted to give them so much more, it was so cute. It's amazing to see the community and family and friends come together to help a family in need. This family was given everything they need. Sometimes out of the blue, Cadence will ask about this family and if they are ok. It's sweet to see her more worried about other people then herself.

Oh one thing I remembered is the way she says her grandparents name. If I tell her we are going to Grandma Spencer's house this is what she'll ask me, "Is that mama Pacman (how she says Paxman) or mama Katie?" Yup she calls her Grandma and Grandpa Spencer, mama Katie and papa Katie. Why you ask, because they have a dog named Katie. I get a kick out of it every time. I always say Grandma or pa Spencer but she still calls them Katie, ha ha ha! It makes me laugh, she's so funny!

Cadence jumping on my bed. Abbi was taking pictures of her without me knowing. They took a LOT of them. They sure had fun though!
Cadence laughing really hard in this picture. That's one thing I need to say, Cadence has the best laugh ever. Whenever she starts laughing really hard it's so hard for me not to join in. She sure is a cutie! Don't you love the chocolate all around her mouth!

So there are some things about Cadence and what she's been up to lately.

About Brianna!

It's been fun thinking of the things my kids have been up to lately. I just wanted to write down the things they have been doing or saying lately and thought that this would be kind of fun. Brianna is also loving pre-school. She went last year for about 4 months, so she was so excited to have her sisters come , "to my school", as she puts it! The teachers even commented that they noticed a huge difference in Brianna and how she interacted. Compared to last year she was very reserved but with her sisters there she is her normal self!





My Brianna can tend to be a little bossy sometimes! She listens to what I have to say, like don't walk in the house with your boots, or don't eat on the carpet, etc. Then when I'm not there she takes it upon herself to enforce it. She'll put her hands on her hips and tell her brother or sisters what to do. She'll even try to put them in time out! I've talked to her about it and she does better now, but there are moments!





Brianna loves to be organized. I noticed this when she was little but it's really come out now. She's always the one to go organize her bed nice and neat. She folds her blankets just right and has to put them in the perfect spot. Same with going to bed. The blankets have to be perfectly straight for her to get into her bed and then I have to organize them on top of her. Each of my girls have a big drawer in the boot room to put their shoes. I laugh every time I open Brianna's up. I think she checks it a couple times a day to make sure her shoes are in a perfect line and matching. Her sisters just throw their shoes in their own drawers. Sometimes they mess up Brianna's if they are looking for a certain pair of shoes and Brianna will just go fix it and ask them not to make a mess!

Brianna showing me her nice and neat drawer of shoes!


I'm afraid that when they get older she'll probably want her own room so she can keep it nice and clean. Abbi is a lot like I was as a kid. Not to worried about what my bed or room looked like! Brianna likes to organize everything, including her toys. She'll neatly put her own toys in a safe place so her brother can't get them!



Brianna sometimes comes up with the funniest sayings. For example she's the one that started saying hair bone instead of hair bow. So now they all call bows, bones. Whenever I do her hair she'll always say to me, "Mom I got really big hair." She can't stand it when her hair gets even a little bit messy. I always have to redo her hair for her. It's usually at the worse time too! Oh well, could be worse. Another thing she always says is, "Sisters I have a REAL idea!" (meaning a good idea!). She also calls panties, pants. It's just sounds funny when she is laughing and says to one of her sister, "ha ha, I see your pants." It's actually quite comical! I've tried to correct her many times, but she just thinks I'm funny!



Months ago I was watching my nieces, Ali and Mary and we drove into Lethbridge for something. Anyways when we drove by the old B&B just outside of Lethbridge and Ali yelled out that her babysitter lives there. It was kind of funny. She told us the babysitters name, but I can't remember it. It was a funny name though and my girls thought it was hilarious. This was way back in October. Just lately when we pass it now, Brianna usually yells out, "Ali's babysitter lives there and her name starts with a P." Well that's enough to get Cadence laughing so hard! It's pretty funny!

The house just outside of Lethbridge. It's always funny to hear them laugh about this house!



Brianna also loves to do crafts, and coloring. She'll usually pull out her book and crayons after breakfast and start coloring. She loves doing it and is always so careful to stay in the lines. She is also getting very good at drawing some really good pictures. It's always fun to see what she draws and who it is for.

Brianna painting away! She's always so nice and neat and careful when she is painting.

Playing dress up with her sisters at stay and play. Brianna is actually behind Abbi. They had a blast trying on all the different shoes.

Brianna excited to do the messy play. Of course she kept it nice and neat, she hardly ever gets them messy!

Brianna is always the first to say "Thanks mom, this supper is so good." Even if she only took one bite! She always says thank you! She is my pickiest eater ever! She is getting where she'll at least try one bite of anything new. I always try to make a supper where I know she'll at least like one thing. She eats rice, broccoli, bread, potatoes, carrots and once in a while one little bite of chicken, oh and of course macaroni and any kind of noodles. It's cute when I've cooked spaghetti (her favorite) and she sees it. She'll come and give me a big hug and tell me that's my favorite!

Brianna and her sisters eating the sugar after we finished rolling the cookies in it! Silly girls!

Brianna is a sweetheart and loves everyone. I'm sure I'll remember all her other funny sayings later (she has quite a few)! But for now we'll leave it at this! Love ya Brianna!

About Abbi!

I thought that it would be fun to do a little update about each of my kids. So we'll start with Abbigail! What to say about her....oh there's lots! First off, she LOVES going to school. She just eats it all up! A couple of weeks ago she went to school by herself because her sisters were sick. She loved it! The teachers told me it was good for her because she ventured out and played with other kids that she normally didn't. She usually sticks right with her sisters. So it was good for her. She was pretty happy to come home and tell me what she did. Abbi really wanted me to take a picture of her and this is what she did!

Abbi can get very excited about things and if her sisters don't react the way she thinks they should she gets mad. I think I've posted before that she would call them stupid. But she quickly realized that that is not accepted in our house! So her new thing to do is to make up words. For example:

Abbi: Brianna don't be such a boosh.

Brianna: I'm no boosh.

Abbi: Yes you're being a boosh.

Brianna: MOM ABBI CALLING ME A BOOSH.

The first time this happened it was kind of comical, but now she just thinks up other made up names and calls them that. When I get after her, she'll just look at me all Innocent and say, "But mom I didn't say a bad word, I said a pretend word." Little stinker!

Abbi loves to sit down and write any word or name that she can. If I write all our names and then the numbers 1-10 on a paper, she'll sit there for a long time working on her numbers and letters. She's getting very good at it. Her dad fell asleep on the bed one afternoon and woke up to Abbi writing her name on the side of his hand! So be careful, Abbi might brand you!

There's Abbi sitting up to the piano bench ready to write her name. She is getting very good with her letters.

Abbi LOVES to do any kind of craft, like really LOVES it! She'll organize something downstairs and get everyone sitting at their table ready to make something. She'll get everything out (even if it means that she has to scale the fridge to get the things I hide!), and then she'll come find me. I'm usually cleaning up breakfast, or folding clothes or getting dressed, and she'll sweetly ask me if they can make something. I usually say, sure but just let me finish this first and I'll come help you. She'll look at me and say, "It's ok mom, I got everything ready." I now know when she asks me that they are already doing it! She's pretty good about cleaning up too, so whatever! It usually keeps them so busy and happy!

Abbi showing me her lion puppet that she made all on her own. Notice her stuffed pony that she is holding too. She does love her stuffed animals!

Abbi painting me a rainbow! She does very good rainbows. She loves to paint! This is the best place to do it, because she is so MESSY! Does a good job of painting but it's always all over her and everything else when she is done!

Abbi busy doing the messy play at stay and play. She loves to do anything messy, especially when I tell her to do it!

She has a thing about her babies and stuffed animals. I've caught her going through her closet to get the "perfect" shirt for her penguin! This girl cracks me up! She'll then ask me if it looks "gorgeous"! When she learns a new word she loves to use it all the time!

Abbi is getting tired of the winter and keeps asking when the snow is going to leave. She loves playing outside and doesn't like it when I give her restrictions! Like not getting all muddy! She will run around and play outside, when it's not freezing cold, and try to catch the neighbours kitty that is always at our house! She loves all animals and cried all the way to my mom's house when we took Macy back!

Abbi and her sisters took cookies over to our neighbours house. They kind of went by themselves. I watched from my window but they kept turning around. I found out it was because Abbi was yelling that there was a dog there (which she knows there isn't) and it would freak Cadence out, who would turn and start running. So I walked out there, but they went up to the door by themselves and gave them the cookies and asked Dean to come play with them! It was fun to see them so excited. They had fun outside!

Abbi is a sweet little girl and I love her to pieces. She can get a little attitude and makes the funniest faces ever. I always know if shes mad, frustrated, happy or sad, just my watching her face! Love you to death Abbi, don't you change!
The picture that Cadence took of Abbi, while jumping on my bed!

Fernie Trip #2!

I have posted in the past month about us skiing. It's been years, at least 6, since we've last skied. But now that we have a few times I've realized how much I love it. We were lucky enough to go again on Friday. We stayed the night at Richard's parents on Thursday and they watched the kids Friday.

Richard and I went to the temple Thursday night too. Which was so nice. It was a very small session and just what we needed. I left feeling spiritually uplifted. We for sure need to go more often. I find it easy to make excuses, and there have been a lot lately.....kids sick, us sick, Richard's work, meetings, etc. Life is busy, more reason why we need to go. When we walk into the temple I feel like life slows down, I can take a deep breath and not worry about all the little things. Anyways, just thought I'd share some of my feelings about that.

We woke up early Friday morning and took off. We met my sister Megan in Fort Macleod and she jumped in with us. We made awesome timing and got to Fernie just about 9am. We were on the hill by 10am. Richard decided to snowboard again and I just stuck with skiing. Oh I should mention that in Kalispel I bought myself a much needed winter coat. It was originally $180.00 and I got it for $31.99. Then here in Lethbridge I bought myself some ski pants, gloves and neck warmer all for $55. So I spent under $100 and got myself a matching ski outfit. I was quite impressed with myself.

The weather was so nice out. It got to plus 3 with big fat snow flakes coming down almost the whole day. The only time it was windy was when we went to the top of the mountain. We stuck to the easy runs the first few times. Then we got adventurous and Megan and I studied the map (that's scary in of itself!) and showed Richard what we wanted to do. He had his doubts, but came with us. We went up one chair lift and had to ski down a steep part to get to another chair lift that took us to the very top! We found a green run that would take us down the mountain, according to the map. But as we were on the 2nd chair lift, we were noticing half the mountain was roped off with avalanche warning signs on the ropes. Not a good sign. Sure enough when we got to the top most of the runs were closed. It was so windy up there we were having a hard time standing still. We finally figured out that there was only ONE run open. The one that goes straight down the mountain. We stood there and my heart dropped. But there was no other way, so Richard (being the brave man he is) took off. Megan followed then I followed her. Oh my, it was CRAZY! That's the only word I have for it. Richard even agreed with me. He usually goes on any run (with skis anyways) and is fine. But the run we did was straight down and had the moguls, plus all the new fluffy snow piled everywhere. We all had some really good wipe outs. I was ready to give up and Megan yelled at me that we were almost halfway down. It took us a long time, but we made it!

Richard (on the left) and Megan, coming down the hill on their boards. This pictures perfectly shows you how much it was snowing most of the time.

Megan took this awesome picture of me skiing past her. Like my outfit...ha ha ha!

Megan making snowboarding look really easy!

Here comes Richard. For only his 2nd time snowboarding he is really good!

After we made it to the bottom we went for lunch at the lodge. I was completely exhausted. We all agreed not to do that again! After lunch we took off and did more runs. I brought my camera and we had fun taking pictures. We had some funny moments too! Richard and Megan wanted to practise their "carving", so they were going down really easy runs. So we agreed to meet back at a certain time and I took off by myself. I went half way up the mountain and came down. I realized half way down that my legs were so tired. They felt like jelly when I got to the bottom. So I went to find Richard and Megan. I stuck with them and we had a lot of fun. Megan was tired and went back to the lodge, and I did on more run with Richard. Then he decided to try a different bowl at the top of the mountain (different side then we did before). So I left and went back to the lodge at about 3:45pm. I was so tired. It was a fun day. I told Richard to smile and this is what I got! This was at the top of the run we were going down.

This is when I met back up with Megan and Richard. I saw that they were getting on the chair lift as I was heading up. So I waited and got a picture of them. It was kind of funny cause they were too busy noticing I was standing there that they almost forgot to get off the chair! It was funny!

Megan and I ready to go down the hill. We've had so much fun skiing with Megan the past couple of times!
Megan posing with her snowboard. This was while we were waiting for Richard to return his board.

We took off when Richard got back and headed for home. We had a lot of fun that day. Lots of laughing, like real hard laughing, where my eyes start crying cause I'm laughing so hard! For example on the way up I was driving and Megan and I were talking about seeing a Moose. I told her about when I saw my first moose and how it scared me. When all of the sudden I saw something on the side of the road. I screamed, "MOOSE", which promptly sent Richard flying up in his seat. Megan then screamed, "ANOTHER MOOSE". I went to say, "I see the Meese.", but Megan then yelled, "OH NOT MOOSE THEY ARE ELK." Richard looked and said, "You guys are crazy that's a statue (which it wasn't)." Anyways, I then told Megan that in the excitement I was going to call the two moose, meese. You know like goose and geese. Well that was enough to have us laughing so hard that my side hurt. Then Megan and I basically laughed for the rest of the ride, which was about 45 mins. We took turn telling stories and laughing so hard. The best was Megan and the fatcat (a motorbike), hilarious! Anyways, it was a real fun day.