Halloween 2011

We had an entire weekend full of Halloween plans this year but because of some bug Kallon brought home from school I ended up being sick so most of our plans were cancelled. I was a little upset because this year I actually made costumes for Cory and I. We still managed to have a fun Halloween and enjoyed the time we spent together. Kallon decided he was going to be black Spiderman this year opposed to last year which he was regular Spiderman and Kate was Ariel. Saturday night we went to our ward truck or treat and the kids got a ton of candy. Tonight for whatever reason Kallon decided he was going to be a knight instead of black Spiderman. We took the kids around our neighborhood for some good old fashioned trick or treating. This is the first time we have ever gone in Texas we've always gone to the truck or treats and called it good. It's funny to me that most people sit out in their lawn chairs on the drive way waiting for the kids to come by. I don't blame them it was a wonderful 79 degrees outside, it's just too darn cold to do that in Idaho. Again, for the few houses we went to the kids made out with way too much candy, I think we will be getting a visit from the candy fairy in the next few days.




Don't mind me still not feeling 100%

The Loot

New

We have had a few changes around our house lately, some big and some not so big but still exciting. First of all Kate got a big girl bed. As Cory and I were setting up the bed Kate kept saying over and over again, "this is so wonafull (wonderful)." Everyday she tells me she loves her bed and I have to go in there and look at with her. I'm very happy that she loves it.




Second, we redid our front yard area. It looked terrible before so we laid the black plastic down put red bark over it and planted a few flowers in a pot. I still isn't quite finished but it looks much better than it did.



Third we brought this addition home last week. With baby number three on the way we needed to upgrade to a car where we could all ride safely. I love our little Toyota but we just could not fit three seats safely in the back. We ended up getting a really good deal and it was too good to pass up. Kallon and Kate love it! They think they are hot stuff getting to be up high. I think it will be a good car for our family.




Other than that life is about the same. We are all happy and healthy and realize we are so very blessed. I don't know if its the pregnancy or what but I am so emotional lately. I am overwhelmed at the the many blessings our little family has been given.

It's a....

So like usual this post is late, it's the new theme of my blog. Anyway I had my ultrasound on September 15th and we found out we are having another baby girl!! We are so excited. Kallon wasn't too happy about it mostly because he is worried both girls are going to follow him around everywhere. haha Once he figures out he won't have to share a room I think he will be okay. Kate still has no opinion on the matter, she still wants a puppy.
My belly is starting to poke out and it is becoming more and more obvious that I'm pregnant. I am feeling much better now and I am starting to enjoy food again. Now I just want to eat a lot and all the time. ugh! My sweet tooth is also returning which I'm not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing. This week marks my half way point of pregnancy at 20 weeks, only 20 more to go.
Our next big task is to choose a name. Cory and I are no good at agreeing on names, especially girls names. We have an entire list of boys names but no girls names. Guess we better get brainstorming.

Kindergarten

This post is a about three weeks late but better late than never I suppose. Kallon started kindergarten on Monday August 22nd. He was so excited to go and be a big boy. As the day got closer and closer for him to start he started getting a little nervous and would say "mom, I'm excited to go to school but I'm a little nervous." We told him it was normal to be a little nervous and he would soon get over it. His teachers name is Ms. Moore and Kallon really seems to like her. Kallon is loving school and has no complaints except for the fact that he has to go everyday. Little does he know he will be going for the next long while. I love the school's curriculum for the kids, Kallon has music and P.E. everyday. He is exhausted when I pick him up at the end of the day but he gets up every morning without complaint. That could also be because we told him if he is happy in the morning he gets to play nintendo later, haha. Bribery is a wonderful thing.
It's really weird just having one child at home during the day but I am adjusting, it wasn't too hard. :) I am able to get a lot more done and Kate has joined a little co-op preschool group with ladies and kids from both of the wards here and she is loving it. She was so excited the first morning that I told her she got to go to school that day too. Come February I won't have as much free time anymore so I am going to enjoy it while I can.


First day of school, love the sleepy eyes.

My Turn

I can't believe how many friends have announced they are expecting. In the last three weeks I have had five friends make the announcement. One after another I just keep hearing all the good news. I thought well, since everybody else is sharing I might as well too. That's right folks Cory and I are expecting, Spicer baby numero tres is in the making! Twelve weeks in the making that is and what a loonnggg few weeks it has been. All I have to say its a good thing I forgot about all the first trimester fun or I might not have done this again. The upset stomach, the headaches, nausea, gas, bloating, etc.... I could go on and on but I will spare you. Hopefully in the next few weeks I will start feeling better and can start exercising again and cooking for my family. What troopers they have been we have had a lot of pizza, pancakes, scrambled eggs, and chicken. Cory has been awesome taking care of me and the kids and even a lot of the house work. I am so lucky to be married to such a great guy! Kallon and Kate don't really understand what is going on yet. When asked if Kate wants a baby sister or a baby brother she responds "a puppy." Nice, but it's not gonna happen. Kallon wants both a sister and a brother, that's not happening either. At about week six or seven I was really sick and had gone outside to sit and get some fresh air. Kallon followed me out and sat down next to me. He asked me why I wasn't feeling good all the time. I told him the baby is growing inside my belly and makes me tired. That was not a good enough answer and our conversation went like this:

K-Why does it make you tired?
Me-because my body is working hard to help this baby grow and my hormones change and that's what makes me sick.
K-what is that big word you said?
Me-Hormones?
K-yea so your hormones go up and that's what makes your tummy hurt?
Me-yes
K-oh OK I get it now.

haha what a funny kid. He is so curious. His latest question is how do you get the baby out? Oh my! I explained that I go to the hospital and the doctors help me get the baby out when the baby is big enough. "But mom, HOW do the doctors get it out?" I just gave him the same answer and he continues to ask me this question almost daily. Silly boy. I have also gotten the question where do babies come from? We will save that one for later. This boy definitely keeps us on our toes. The other day I was attempting to make dinner and dropped a cookie sheet on my foot. The tears started flowing from the pain as well as all my frustration of not feeling well. The kids came running into the kitchen to see what was going on and Kate asked me "mommy why you cryin?" because I don't feel very good. "Oh, bebe make you sick?" Yes, a little bit. "Bebe makes me sick too, my tummy hurts." haha it was pretty cute. I am getting sympathy pains from my two year old.
Anyway we are very excited to welcome another sweet little baby into our family. Our little bundle of joy will join our family around February 13, 2012.

Kallon turns Five!

My little Kallon bubby turned five June thirteenth. We had a nice quiet little family party for him at home on his birthday.



Don't judge Kate and her no clothes look it was hot that day.


The following Saturday we had a full on birthday celebration with a Spiderman theme. Kallon had been asking me for months if he could have a b-day party. I decided what the heck, why not he is turning five and I have not done a party for him yet. Kallon decided it was to be a Spiderman party and that there must be a pinata. He was in luck because Walmart actually had a Spiderman pinata...who knew? When asking him what games he wanted to play at his party he replied "the one where you get to hit the big thing and candy comes out." My child is so descriptive. Oh, you mean a pinata? "No, the big thing made out of paper and stuff and you have to hit with a bat and break it so all the candy comes out." Yes Kallon, that is called a pinata. We went back and forth a little bit on this but he finally took my word for it. He had nine of his closest friends over for pizza, Spiderman cupcakes, Spiderman water balloon toss, pin the spider on Spiderman, and last but not least the Spiderman pinata!! The pinata was the highlight of the entire night. I should have known five year old boys would love hitting something as hard as they can without getting into trouble. Having nine sugared up 5 years olds for two hours is exhausting, but I think they all had a pretty good time.










Even Kate got into the party spirit.




Kallon is already planning next years big event.

Tball

After last falls soccer fiasco I thought Kallon would be done with sports for awhile, not so. He overheard Cory and I talking about t-ball and whether or not we should sign him up and right there he decided he wanted to play t-ball. I asked Kallon if he even knew what t-ball was and of course he said "no, well I think so but I want to do it." When we found out he could be on a team with his church buddies we decided give it a try. Kallon's team are the Redsox. He has had three games and so far it seems to be going well. There are two problems 1) the dirt in outfield is just so enticing to Kallon he cannot keep his hands out of it, thus not paying attention to what is going on in the game. 2) He is an instigator of bad behavior on the field. Kallon will take his mitt off and throw it into the air. The other kids around him see how cool it is and start doing it too. Then soon half the team has their mitts off throwing them into the air while they are supposed to be getting the ball. I pretend I don't know whats going on and mutter under my breath "whose kid is that out there?" Other than those two things it has been much less painful than soccer was and actually it is turning out to be really fun to watch him play. He is doing well and having fun. He gets to play pitcher quite a bit and does really well. He pitches gets the ball back and throws it right to first base. If they were to keep score Kallon would have his fair share of outs! He is pretty good at batting too. Most of the kids will hit the ball and watch it to see where it goes and then take off running the wrong direction. Kallon steps up there hits the ground with his bat a few times and hits the ball. After his hit he throws the bat behind him(thank goodness for the fence or the bat would be in the stands), and takes off running to first base. Kallon also loves to slide into home base. When I asked him what his favorite thing about t-ball was he said, "that I get to get all dirty and run around because its part of the game." I am so glad we found something he is interested in and can focus (mostly) his attention on and get some of his energy out. That kid is non-stop, he is wearing me out and he is only four!!

I love their little uniforms


Up to bat


After sliding into home base he likes to hang out and PLAY IN THE DIRT!!! AHH!


Kate showing her team spirit...GO REDSOX!

Easter 2011

We had a fun Easter this year. I love this time of year especially in Idaho because after a long cold winter the first signs of spring finally start to arrive. Not in Texas though we have been enjoying our beautiful spring weather for over a month now. I especially love Easter because I can reflect on the great sacrifice my Savior made for me. I was so emotional yesterday all during church thinking about what He did for us, to atone for our sins so we could live again. I can't even begin to imagine the pain and suffering He went through and all because of His great love for each and every one of us. I just hope Cory and I are helping our kids see past the candy and bunnies to know the true meaning of Easter. I don't think we succeeded this year but hopefully next year Kallon will understand more. We did have fun dyeing eggs, going to egg hunts, and finding Easter baskets Sunday morning. Friday night our ward had an Easter Social at a member of our bishopric's home. It was a gorgeous home out in the country with a small lake in the backyard and lots of room to run around. The kids had a great time trying to find all their eggs at this fun place. Saturday night we dyed Easter eggs. Kate was overly tired and wanted nothing to do with it and Kallon was too impatient to let his eggs sit long enough to be dyed. We also discovered brown eggs don't dye so well, oh well. Sunday morning Kallon was up bright and early as usual but we made him wait until Kate was up to find their baskets. After a small search they each found their own baskets. In an effort to keep the candy to a minimum we I decided that they would get a small toy to hide the fact that there wasn't much candy in the basket. It seemed to work. No one complained that they didn't have a lot of candy. Kallon was too busy with his new "hot-mo-wheels" track and Kate was torn with the decision of which princess dress to wear, Rapunzel or Belle. She ultimately decided she likes the Rapunzel dress better because its pink! She is definitely turning into such a girl. To end the night we were able to Skype with family. It was a great Easter weekend.

Zoo

A few weeks ago for Spring Break the fam and I headed up to the Waco Zoo. I did not have very high expectations,but it turned out to be a fun day. The zoo was actually really fun and the kids had a great time! Kallon liked the playground, lions and the giraffes, in that order. Kate L-O-V-E-D the little spider monkeys. At the end of the day we were at the playground inside the zoo grounds and had lost track of Kate. Guess where we found her...at the monkey cage, good thing it was right next to the playground. The best part of the day was of course dinner at Rudy's and frozen yogurt at Orange Cup. I was sad when we left San Antonio that I would never again have an Orange Cup frozen delight. When I saw it as we were driving to the zoo I got so excited and knew we were going to have to make a special stop. Seriously if you have not tried it you need to, so good! Anyways it was nice to get out and have a fun family day they are few and far between with Cory's school schedule so we knew we had to take advantage.





Kate making a love connection with the monkey.


Kallon could have played here all day.


Checking out the elephants.


This is why Cory doesn't take the pictures....cut off heads. :)

New Toy

Now that it has warmed up here in Texas we finally bought Kallon and Kate their Christmas present from mom, dad, and both grandparents. It's been a few months coming and K and K were so excited when we told them we had ordered it. Kallon asked everyday all day if his present was here yet. On Tuesday evening I received a phone call from the UPS driver to verify our address. When I hung up the phone Kallon and Cory, yes Cory asked, "is it here yet?" haha I think Cory may have been even more excited than Kallon was. I was a little hesitant spending so much money on a toy for the kids but we have only had it five days and I think we have already made good use of the money spent. Here it is, our new toy................


A TRAMPOLINE!!!



Kallon and Kate's mad jumping skillz


Thank You Grandma and Grandpa Green and Grandma and Grandpa Spicer!!

In other news we have been doing a lot of yard work lately and we are planning a garden. I hope this time we can get something to grow. When we bought our house there was a huge pile of slate rock in the backyard. Last fall we moved all this rock onto the patio and made a garden where it had been. The rocks sat on our patio for months and months while we tried to decide what to do with them. A few weeks ago we pulled up a huge ugly bush that was growing in our backyard and it left a large hole. Instead of filling the hole and planting grass we thought it would an excellent idea to build a fire pit. We already had a TON of rock so we gave it a shot. We are so glad we did because we have used it quite a bit already and the kids love it. Its having the best part of camping right in our own backyard with flush-able toilets, shower, and a nice warm bed just a few feet away. That is my kind of camping!!

Check it out

I absolutely love the blog Kitchen Stewardship. It teaches me ways to keep my family healthy by feeding them whole foods. They are giving away a Nutrimill so you can make your own healthy whole wheat flour. Go see for yourself here

Stuck Inside

The past month it has been abnormally cold in good 'ol Texas and we have been stuck inside. These are the kinds of things we are doing trying to entertain ourselves...

Running around shirtless with goggles thinking about all the fun things we will do outside when it warms up.


Playing waaayyy too much Wii, and didn't you know its more fun while wearing a Spiderman costume?!


Hopefully it warms up soon because we are going a little stir crazy over here.

Christmas Catch Up

I finally have found some blogging motivation so now that its almost two months past Christmas I thought I better record before I forget.

We flew to Idaho five days before Christmas, the kids, well Kallon did awesome on the plane. Kate lost it the last fifteen minutes when I had to buckle her in for landing. The flight attendant made me wake her up to buckle her in her seat and Kate was not happy about it. She was screaming, crying, trying to bite me, kicking the seat in front of us etc... It was not pretty and I was so embarrassed I wanted to cry myself. When we finally got to the gate I apologized to the people around us and the lady in front of me said well its not the kicking of my seat that bothered me it was the screaming and crying. WHAT?? Well excuse me for not being able to force my child to be quiet. I love people and the dumb things they say sometimes. Honestly I was more surprised by her remark than I was mad. She was this sweet older lady wearing an awesome Christmas sweater with a necklace of lights that actually lit up. I thought for sure she would be the sweet understanding grandmother type but apparently not. haha So our vacation got started off right. Its always so fun to go to Idaho and see our families and friends we always have so much fun. One of the highlights of the trip was having the whole Spicer family together again. Cory's youngest brother Daniel had just got back from his mission a week before we arrived. It was fun to hang with everyone together again. We ate out, played in the snow, visited friends, met new babies, hung out with sisters, celebrated birthdays, and went skiing. Kate got to hang out with my mom and brother a lot while we went skiing and has come to love my brother Jonathan. Everyday she talks about jonsheen and his kitty and about how she wants to see him. Its pretty funny. We took Kallon skiing again this year and this time his cousin Bentli got to come too. They both did really well and seemed to have a good time. It was so cold the day we took them up so they didn't last too long but were good sports about it. Kallon did so good skiing and really seemed to have a good time. Cory and I actually let go of the harness a few times and Kallon went by himself. He likes to go fast so when we would let go Kallon would take off and when he decided he was done he would fall over to stop himself. It was pretty cool to watch him just go, I love that he loves it as much as we do. Thanks everyone for spending time with us and making our trip so much fun!

Kallon and Cousin Stratton playing in the snow


Christmas Eve Dinner



Dad and Jonathan


Cory and Aaron


My cute sisters


Kate licking the beaters


Christmas morning with Spicers and Grandpa Great


Strat's Birthday


Kallon getting his ski boots on...so excited!

This past weekend...

I went to the doctor and found out I had strep throat. Instead of having to drive to the pharmacy and wait forever I opted for the shot. I haven't been working for a while and did not even know they offered a penicillin shot, guess where it goes, in your bum! No big deal I have received and given many shots in school they don't usually hurt or bother me. Oh man, not this shot, it hurt! It didn't help the nurse went in sooo slow, I wanted to scream at her. Anyway the next day it still was tender to sit down and I was complaining about it and Kate was listening from across the room. She walked over to where I was sitting and asked "mommy, your bum hurts, change you?" I thought it was pretty funny. Whenever she needs a diaper change she will find me or Cory and say change you meaning she wants a diaper change. I love our little Kater.