David & Amy

Last Saturday, we celebrated Dallin's 4th birthday with nothing less than an awesome Pirate Party! We walked the plank and played tic-toc-find-the-croc and had a treasure hunt. We had swords and sword fights and explosions and hotdog boats to eat. We had lots of good times. Now if only it hadn't rained 2.5 inches the night before and the humidity wasn't 150% it would have been perfect. Now for pictures...
The cake


Peyton walking the plank

Sword fight

The crew: Ben, Peyton, Mason, Dallin, Chloe and Emily

Lots has happened the last week! Dallin turned four on Monday. Emily is constantly amazing us and Kylie--my word!--is she shocking the heck out of us!

We'll work our way backwards (mainly because my mind works better that way!)

So, tonight we get home from piano lessons around 5pm. Normally on Monday nights when we get home, I quickly usher the older two outside to play out back so I can make dinner. Well, it's raining in Texas in case anyone was wondering and that was not going to work. So, I told them to play with Kylie so I could make the soup I had planned for dinner. Not 5 seconds later, of course, all three of them are either screaming or crying. I marched over and tossed the new Gospel Art bound book (have you guys seen these- they are awesome and cost only $3) and the children's Book of Mormon reader at them and sent them upstairs to plan Family Home Evening. Now these kids love FHE, but having a newly-4 and 6 year-olds, we have never actually let them plan the lesson on their own before. They were ecstatic and I was excited to have some peace. So dinner comes and goes and it is time for FHE. Dallin starts by showing us a picture of Daniel in the Lions Den and proceeds to, fairly accurately, tell us the story (with just a little help from Emily). Then Emily reads us the story of Joseph Smith. She follows her story with a game.

Now you probably can't read that too well, but it was too cute not to take a picture. She wrote The Joseph Smith "Mix" up game at the top of the paper and then wrote and cut out words to a sentence that was in the story she read. She put the words in a bag and then we had to figure out the order. The sentence is "Joseph Smith went in the garden to pray." The writing and spelling are classic and it just had to be immortalized forever. I love it. 6-year-olds are the best!


One more thing and then I will have to finish later--I'm tired!
My dad made Kylie (for her birthday) the cutest best desk and chair set EVER! Her physical therapist had asked me to try to find one "Kylie-size." Impossible. So we decided it was best to have one made and my dad was up to the task. Thanks Texas Instruments for forcing early retirement on the guy!

Anyway, my dad went and talked with the PT and got measurements and my mom and sister painted and decorated it. We love it!! Thanks you three! And more importantly Kylie loves it and hopefully will be sitting in regular chairs super soon. In fact today the chair was against the couch and she turned around and stood up on the couch all by herself. That girl is doing something new everyday! Is this my kid? Can this be possible? Anyway thanks dad--I love you!


She's even learned to get off the chair and crawl inside. She actually got stuck yesterday and was pretty upset, but she has since learned to turn and get out.

David walked in the room yesterday and saw her sitting there and thought of Lucy from Peanuts. So, he made the appropriate sign.

Kylie gave me a bit of a shock this morning. As I said before, she is crawling quite a bit more. She will even travel out of a room now--but definitely not crawling all over the house. So, this morning I put Dallin in the living room with Super Why on (his favorite show) and laid Kylie on the floor with some toys and I headed for the shower. When I came back in the room dressed and ready to go, I couldn't find Kylie. Asking Dallin did nothing for my search--he had no idea. Finally, I hear her and discover her behind the couch. Now our couch is pulled off the wall and between the wall and the couch are all of her big toys--makes a great hiding place. Her rocking horse, walker, exersaucer, etc. are all back there and so it is not an easy place to navigate through. Anyway, I found her almost in the corner, she had unplugged a lamp, knocked over a fake tree I have back there and somehow meandered through all those toys. She was so happy with herself--and boy oh boy am I happy to see her exploring her world. Maybe we'll have to baby proof this place after all?!

Today has been crazy much like everyday in our house. We started off this really rainy Saturday with tee ball pictures, followed by a trip to Shipley's Donuts (Daddy was hungry--the kids didn't argue). After some errands we got home and David took down all of the hideous curtains that were left hanging in our house. Well, as sweet as that was, that left me with some really plain walls. It was driving me nuts, so plans were changed, David took Emily to (Ben a kid from her class') birthday party and I pulled out the paint cans. We got the dining room painted and put back together and the room looks much much better. We also had Chloe and Channing (some friends for the kids) over while their parents went out. (We went out last night.) So that helped occupy the kids while we finished up the painting. But it is done now yeah! That's what, three rooms done and only a million to go!
Ok on with Kylie...
Well we have been calling Kylie Ky-Ky for awhile now and she does actually respond occasionally to the name, which is fabulous. Also our little trooper has found a new love--bubble wrap. She will "army" crawl all over the place to get to the stuff. We have trained the older two to take it away from her after a few minutes and move it to another part of the room. Kylie will squawk for a second and then diligently crawl to the bubble wrap. We love it! She also has learned to sit up on her own--aaagh!! Can you believe it! She has only done it twice, but both times it was to more seriously investigate the bubble wrap. On Easter Sunday, she got a hold of a jelly bean and was very very upset at me when I had to get it out of her mouth. So we tried her on a Peep. She became a horrible sticky mess, but loved it. Her birthday was the following day and so the older kids and I decided she needed a Peep cake. They helped throughout the whole process and I think her cake turned out cute. Plus could it get any easier?!

If you haven't seen this yet, here is a wonderful video about Easter. Enjoy!