In BRIGHT Lights!

Brighton is a weird dichotomy because she's a total ham/drama-queen but she claims to have stage fright. She won't sing in church or be in a play but she really enjoys performing in groups. She doesn't seem to even get nervous. She did a GREAT job at her spring dance recital. She's gotten a lot better at dance this year even though (to put it nicely) her teacher and I have different "styles" of talking to children. It's a good thing Bright has no lack of self-confidence.
 Here are a few pics.

Piper also "performed" if you can call it that. I think the 2-3 year olds MAKE the recital, even though they are clueless. It just doesn't get cuter.

The best part was that my mom came just for the recital! The most "homesick" I ever get is when I look around at things like recitals and everyone has aunts/uncles/grandparents and I always wish my parents were closer, so this was super cool. I hope my girls appreciate how awesome that was that she came.

THEN our ward did something super cool. They did a ward musical! All the 8-12 year old girls did "A Hard Knock Life" from Annie and it was ADORABLE. Also Aaron and a few guys did "You Gotta Have Heart" from Damn Yankees. It was cute.

PS: I just found this today unpublished with a few pictures missing.  So I'll publish it now!

Tonsils and Tragedies

I KNOW I always have some excuse for not being great at keeping up this blog. The other day I was looking at my Jr high/High school diary and I start almost every entry with, "I'm sorry I haven't written in here in so long! Ugh!"   Some things never change.

But I have a good excuse! I started ANOTHER blog. Remember when I started the horrible MOM-ents blog? It's kinda like that but my goal is to have other writers write 50% of it so it's not all about me. :) I want a place women can go read stories about other moms that are totally real.  The mantra is no advice, no guilt, no judgment. But keeping it positive and fun! Anyway so all my spare time is being taken by that. I'm mean not ALL my spare time. That candy's not going to crush itself.

This week I'm at home with a laid-up Piper. Well, I wish she was more laid up. She had her tonsils out Tuesday and besides the "Devil's Breath" you wouldn't know. She has bounced back so fast!

Nana sent her these glasses and wand and she wanted to take them with her to the hospital. The hospital gave her the Teddy Bear who she named Sweets Ty. They were all so awesome at the hospital. They let her decorate her mask with stickers.

 Then she wanted to give Sweet Ty sleepy air.

After the surgery was kind of scary. Not out of the ordinary for the surgery but it's so hard to see your baby that way even though you know they're fine. When she woke up she was just confused and trying to sit up and kept trying to clear her throat which would send her into hysterics. The nurse had to give her more pain meds in her IV. After we got her calmed down she ate 7 popsicles right there in the room and 2 more on the way home. She was pretty inconsolable on the way home but has only had a few moments of crying since. I can't say enough about the breath though. HORRIBLE.

Now on to the tragedy. About 3 weeks ago we got two bunnies from our friends Ryan and Natalie who needed to get rid of them before they became stew meat. Ew. I thought they sounded like a pretty good low maintenance pet and better than our "Grow a Frog" who has to stay in the water all the time. So we got Lil' Ninja (the black one) and BunnDracula (The white one.) Lil' Ninja was clearly the house favorite. Firstly, because his eyes aren't red. Secondly, he's just sweeter and easier to hold.

So two days ago, as I was taking care of Piper, Deacon decided to go out and feed the bunnies.  The hutch has a big lid on a hinge and it's really heavy. Well, when Brighton got home from school she went out to check on the bunnies and came in hysterically crying saying Lil' Ninja was dead. I thought maybe the heat lamp was too much but no. We found him hanging halfway out of the hutch smooshed to death. I know, so gross. But also so sad and traumatizing! Deacon claims he didn't see it happen and I really hope he's right! Brighton was super traumatized by the sight and honestly, I was too! My friend Tina thankfully came and took care of it for me cause I was super disturbed. Last night we went and got a new one, a baby bunny named Carrot Nibbles. He's light tan and super cute!!!

"My Mom" Surveys

I love those surveys where kids answer questions about their moms but why do I always come off looking bad? It's never a glowing portrayal of a put-together mom who keeps a perfect house and makes gourmet meals.
When Brighton was in Kindergarten the question was "My mom is good at...." and Brighton wrote "eating."  YESSSSSSS.

Here is the one Deacon brought home today:

Why is "watching TV" such a shameful answer. We all do it, but we all want to pretend we don't. The truth is though, I rarely watch TV during the day but ALWAYS watch TV when the kids are in bed, so it's funny that he answered that. Past answers have usually included shopping or cleaning (which I also don't do THAT much.)

Something I like to do with my mom is play Paper Mario. This is truth. We've been slightly addicted to this game lately and I do me WE. Sometimes he'll be like "Wait, how did we get this far in the game, I don't remember passing this level."  .... "Mommy MAY have spent last Friday night until Midnight playing Paper Mario alone." Shameful.

Also my favorite food is pop. This makes me laugh cause I gave up my diet Dr. Pepper addiction like 9 months ago. But I guess the multiple time a day trips to the drive-through only for diet DP are permanently seared into his brain. In fact, when he wants something badly he says "Pretty please with diet Dr. Pepper on top?"

I do love the picture of me he drew. Mostly cause I look super skinny. Except my neck. Kids are so observant. And I can only dream about having feet that "sproingy."

 Inside the red paper was a flower pot he painted for me filled with seeds and dirt. He's been telling me about this pot for at least two weeks and every time I pretend I forgot. He was SO excited to give it to me. I wanted to take a picture but in an effort to get a picture WITHOUT Piper in it (which is super tricky. See exhibit A:

We dropped it and it cracked and went all over the floor. Sad day.

Deacon Turns 5!

"...and she loved a little boy very, very much-- Even more than she loved herself." - Shel Silverstein,  The Giving Tree
   Deacon turned 5 and that's such a big age! Why does a 5-year-old seem so much older than a 4-year-old?  First thing on his birthday I took ice cream cone cupcakes to his Preschool for snack time. These are something my mom used to make for school treats, so they bring back fond memories!

This year we skipped a friend party but let him choose one friend to take to Chuck E Cheese and then to our house for cake and presents. He took his friend Zac Hansen.

The next day we invited the neighborhood kids over to bust open a piñata!

You can't really see it from the next picture but Deacon filled his entire bag with Double Bubble. There was literally not anything else in his bag. ha ha.

Some things about Deacon at barely 5:

   Does it have a screen, a keyboard or a remote control? Deacon loves it!

   He's a total Wii, computer, tablet geek. Loves it all! He just spent an hour on YouTube watching Donkey Kong videos. (He got Donkey Kong on Wii for his b-day.)

   He's CRAZY for CANDY!  And Candy makes him GO CRAZY.

He's such a boy! This summer we went to the Washington Coast and even though it was freezing he kept running into the waves fully clothed. And pictured below was a cold rainy day in our park when he just couldn't resist running through the freezing puddles!

 

 

He's SUPER tender-hearted and loves animals and especially babies! I've never met a 4-year-old boy who would rather play with/hold a baby than do anything else. For example, I took him into a Karate studio to watch for a few minutes and when we left he said, "Do I ever have to do that?" I said, "Not if you don't want to. Why?" He said, "I don't want to do that because I love everybody!"



He goes to Preschool at "The Preschool House" with Miss Malia.

I know I've mentioned this before, but he's SMART! Don't know where he gets it, but he started sounding out words before he was three and now he's full on reading books! He's also good at math!

His brown eyes melt my heart.

 

He makes up words for things that don't have names. Like in Mario Brothers he makes up names for the guys he has to beat. One of them ne named the "Ono Doody".  He also calls his red jeans his "crown pants". Stuff like that all the time.  I'm pretty sure this boy is destined for greatness. My hope is a plastic surgeon but I see "microbot engineer" in his future. (It'll be a thing by then. Or he'll invent it.)

His excited face.

 

 Love you Deacy Dooder!

 

 

Spelling Bee!

I'm just gonna start by saying I'm probably the worst "school mom" in the world. My kids better learn responsibility quickly because I'm TERRIBLE at making my kids do homework, or teaching them anything. Deacon taught himself to read at age 3-4 and whenever I tell anyone he can read I like to make sure they know that it has NOTHING to do with me. He's just a freak.
Anyway, through no fault of my own Brighton is an awesome speller! I noticed she was always getting perfect scores on spelling tests (again, not because I EVER maker her study them.) so when some information came about a school spelling bee I encouraged her to give it a try. She has stage fright (you wouldn't guess that if you know her) so it took some prodding. She made the top 10 in the class before we had a chance to really study the words and then we worked pretty hard on studying the words. But there were like 100 of them!
I was so excited when she made top 3 in her class and got to go on to the school bee! It was funny though because she didn't want to do the school bee. She said she only wanted to do the class one because "the kids think I'm not smart and I wanted to show them that I am." Mission accomplished. But she went on to the school-wide bee and she did a great job! She only messed up because she got going too fast.

Piper turns 3!

My BABY is 3! And the funniest thing on the planet.  Talk about personality! This kid is constantly on one, I swear. If you give her a little attention, she will put all she has into making you laugh! She's also a feisty-pants and a mamma's girl. When I was growing up I always heard about when I was a toddler I'd just slowly and quietly climb onto someone's lap in between what they were trying to do. I thought that was funny but didn't really get what they meant until I had Piper and she does the exact same thing. The minute I sit down to do anything, there's Piper nudging herself onto my lap. Or if I'm walking, it's less subtle. She'll speed up and run right in front of me, put her arms up and say "hold you!" And I do.  I can't resist holding this little pumpkin and it doesn't help that she only weighs 25 lbs at 3 years old! Yes, I should teacher her to say "hold me" instead of "hold you" but it's too stinkin' cute and she's my last, so dang it! I'm holding out. Don't judge.

Some things about Pip:
She's still completely persnickety. She wants what she wants, whether it's a certain cereal bowl or a dress she wants to wear. She'll be super stubborn until she gets it.
She's Miss Independent! You can tell her to go get dressed, forget you even asked her, and she'll come down 10 minutes later completely changed. And then she'll yell "Surprise!" 
Anything she CAN do (or thinks she can do) by herself, she will! She likes to be my "big helper".
She's finally over Daniel Tiger! For a solid year that is ALL she wanted to watch and she's finally outgrown him.
She loves to drink warm milk in a sippy cup WHILE watching TV. If I get her milk before her show is ready, she'll save her milk until the show she wants is on so she can watch it and drink at the same time. Kinda like how I like eating ice cream while watching the Bachelor. It's ceremonial.
Her favorite people are Matthew Stimpson and her cousin Michael.

And they both adore her in a dangerous way. Dangerous because she likes it when they do naughty things... so when they're together BAD things happen! Such as:

 

She's kind of a homebody. She likes going to do things but only for a little while and then it's "I want to go home!" When we're at the park, she'll play for a while and then want to spend the right of the time on my lap.

Her favorite thing in the world is "ballerina class".

 

 

Catching up- Soccer Season

This fall Deacon played on a little 4-year-old soccer team. It was Saturdays only, which was great for beginners. They both played in the Spring but it wasn't for Brighton. She liked it because her team was mostly girls. They named themselves the "Cheetah girls" and wanted to gab the whole time, whether they were on the sidelines or the fields. (Brighton had never met these girls before, but of course they were instant BFF's.)  It was funny, if the ball happened to be kicked right to her, she'd look at it, kick it away and go back to chatting. Hilarious.

Deacon wanted to play again in the fall. He's definitely not the best on the team, but not the worst either! Mostly he just runs fast and tries to get the ball if it breaks away from the kid-cluster. He scored one goal and grabbed the side of his head in excitement!

Some pics from Spring: