She wanted to stay up so bad she would not go to bed. She finally gave in and literally fell asleep standing up.
Merry Christmas!
Every ornament that is within the reach of Tyli has been placed with in a 2 foot square area. She takes them off and has put them all back in the same spot. She has learned to be careful with them, but we really do need those ornament spread out to help block the tree behind it.
We do love our tree and thankfully our kids are little enough that they still think the tree is awesome. We'll see how long we can still get them to believe that. I don't know that our family will cry however when this tree comes down for the last time.
With a week full of football it was nice to have a day to just spend with the family. We got up and decided to hike in the San Tan Mountains. It is close and fun. We did this during spring break before but this time we went much further. The boys almost hiked to the very top but it got too steep and I climbed the last 100 ft or so to take a picture for them. They were very excited to find not one but two caves/mines at the top of the mountain. Tyli had a good time and we managed to make it out with out any bloody knees or elbows. The only injury we had when climbing/sliding down the mountain I managed to find a small cactus. When I asked the boys to look and see if there were any spines still in my shorts they just laughed and asked why I sat on a cactus in the first place. Good question. 
Tyli has quite the hair
Quick picture after coming down off the peak of the mountain. I have to say my legs were burning a little bit at this point.
We started at eleven in the morning and didn't climb into bed until 2 in the morning. We were a little pooped but we were done. We only have our room, Tyli's room, the bathrooms, and two walls upstairs to do until we are done. 
Our TV needed a part replaced so we had to do without for about a week and a half. In many ways it was a nice change. So one day we decided to make rock videos. Here are some samples.
By the way they all picked out the songs they wanted from a CD that Uncle Scott had originally made for the Foster boys. Our boys liked it so much they had to have a copy.
McKado gets a little crazy and tries to run away from the camera. You may notice that he had a few tone/timing issues in this song.
This was a lot of fun. They wanted to do more but the "bug" guy came to spray our house. It was funny as Tyli was following him around saying the bad guy is still here, the bad guy is in my room, ect... Like I said, lots of fun.
Here is the a picture showing all the nails and screws removed from the walls.
This does not include the holes without a nail or screw in it.
The boys helped us pick out the colors. It is a little bright but it lookes pretty cool. We plan on putting up some white shelves and doing something with the ceiling.
For some reason all the white in the room ended up looking pink??? It is white. I don't think the boys would go for pink. It was a good warm up for painting our front room which has some very high walls. We might mellow the color out for the rest of the house. :)
Wed. we had a good day. Almost everyone qualified for finals. We didn't do quite as well as we would have liked in a few events but what can you do. Thursday after the first day the meet is when we received the keys to our house. So after practice the next two days we were going crazy trying to fix everything up in order to move into the new house. We had some help from Steph and my mom. My dad took the kids to Fathers and sons so they were out of our hair for a while making things easier. They came back with all kinds of crazy stories. Jami was very impressed at my handyman skills as I was able to fix almost everything they thought we would have to pay someone to fix. I don't know how to drywall so we will leave that to someone else. On Saturday morning we had our new fridge and washing machine delivered. As soon as the people from Lowes left I had to hurry home shower and head off to the track meet. Our kids did great. No athlete came in lower then what they were seeded. Most moved up and scored more points. My pole vaulter PR'ed and won state with a jump of 11' 04". She would have cleared 11'08" on her 11'04" attempt. We had two relays 4 x 800 and 4x100 that both came in second by a little. The our 400 runner came in third as two other ran much faster as they had in the prelims. I was a little down as all the kids who had chances to win state kept getting second. Our last chance to will a state championship was the 4x400. Two members of the relay ran the best races of their lives and we won by 30 feet. The goal I had for the boys was to finish in the top 5. As they announced the results they read off Queen Creek as third which means we beat their track team for the first time ever. 
We finished runners up just a few points behind Notre Dame. This was our best finish in state ever. It was awesome to see how excited kids where down on the track. One kid the week before was so angry to lose to Queen Creek in the very end in everything. He is a senior and was just fed up. He finished his high school career as a state champion in the 4 x 400 and beat Queen Creek in the only meet that really matters. It was a great year and we have great kids on our track team.
Since it is the weekend and I didn't go back to my room I got to take the trophy home. I felt like it was the Stanley cup or something and the kids just wanted to touch it.
It is fun to see them so excited. I remember always looking at the trophy cases at all the schools I went to and thinking how cool it must be to earn awards like this. It was great to see my kids so excited. Now instead of relaxing finals are on Monday/Tues., Graduation is Wednesday and our track banquet is on Thursday. Saturday I leave for Georgia to help Jenn and Ryan move back so I need to find some time to move my family. Fun , Fun, Fun! I wouldn't know what to do if I wasn't busy. Go Knights!
I kept a little soul patch for my throwers. They told me not to shave as I would lose my powers. They also asked me if I got discounts at restaurants because of my beard. They are funny. So I will keep this little bit a little longer so I don't completely lose all my powers until they are done throwing. Now we have to get ready to move. Yeah!!!
April 7th I told Jami that I will not shave again until we have closed on our house. As you can see we still have not closed on our house. We were supposed to have closed on the 10th. Life must not be crazy enough yet as we probably won't close until next week.(HOPEFULLY) I hope we close next week as 100 degree temperatures are not really fun with a beard. Jami isn't the biggest fan but McKade thinks my face is soft and likes to sit by me and rub my face.
If you are wondering why he is wearing a milk jug helmet on his head, I am cheap but very creative. He wanted a helmet so I looked around to see what we had. McKade and Dallin were using them to be robots. Dallin adapted his into a racing helmet. You can see the intensity in his face.
After the game we went and picked up the dog. 
His name is ?????? Jami likes the name Zeek, Dallin likes the name Chim Chim, but we would call him Chimmy, McKade likes the name Jazz, and Tyli likes Princess. It seems like we are leaning toward Chimmy even though Jami doesn't like it. It will be hard to convince Dallin of anything else. The puppy had a good car ride home and the kids were loving him to death. We took him for a short walk and you can see it wiped him out.
The kids would play with him until he got tired and fell asleep then they would come in until he woke up again. The dog is a mix between a Chocolate Lab and a German Short haired Pointer. We'll see how well he sleeps tonight. I made him a bed from an old pillow and some towels and he walked right up to it, laid down, and went to sleep. I told the kids the dog would miss his family very much so they had to love him lots and lots so he knew he had a new family that would love him. From this picture it looks like he still misses his brothers and sisters.
To end off I wanted to share some fun stories we forgot to mention about Tyli. When we got back from Christmas vacation Tyli kept putting her blanket on her head and walking around the house. It took us a while to figure out that she was saying baby Jesus. She had seen the Christmas eve program the Ruth Family puts on and she walked around like this for at least a week.
She does a good job of playing the part of Mary. You may notice she is playing with Jami's old cabbage patch doll not with any of her new dolls. Tyli has also started to come out of her room after we put her to bed. This is how we found her in her room. 
The light was on and she was laying in the middle of her floor. on her pillow. She has been keeping us on our toes. This morning after oatmeal I also started making smoothies. I left the room to hear McKade yelling at Tyli to "stop that." I hurried back in to see Tyli with our scissors. She had taken them out of a drawer and was trying to cut open the bag of strawberries. Who knows what she will do next? Thank goodness Sundays are a day of rest, right?
