RANGER!

Over the summer my boys spend a pretty good amount of time riding Papa's Polaris Ranger.  Seriously they would ask for a ride everyday and 1000 times a day on camping trips when it was actually possible to go for a ride.  Whenever possible Uncle Matthew, Uncle Eric, or Papa would give in (because who can say no to these cute boys?).  They would look up at you with those sweet puppy dog eyes and say, ride ranger?  Seriously, they LOVE the Ranger.  Anyways, just the other day I was carrying Bryson (who was fast asleep) in from the car when he heard a power wheel.  He immediately woke up and yelled, "Power wheel Mom, Go see!!  So we walked back outside to see the power wheel and this is what we saw...

Bryson looked back up at me and whispered in an almost reverent voice, "its a ranger".  So we sat outside watching this poor mom chase her little guy around on his "ranger" for a good 20 minutes.  Oh I love it when they are so excited about something... even when they know they can't get a ride.  

WE'RE BACK!!!!

Does anybody remember that movie from forever ago.. the one with the Dinosaurs?  I know totally not what I was meaning with that title, but as soon as I typed it I could here the crazy dinosaur yelling "WE'RE BACK!!!!!  Anyways, I decided since we are now embarking on yet another adventure it would be a good time to start blogging again... we will see how long this lasts... hopefully longer than the last time (or two).

Since we have been in TX we have had a whole lot going on!  Taylor started Middle SChool, Kennady started Kindergarten and both of them love their schools.  It was a bit of a shocker for Kennady to go from a school with 90 kids to one with 900 but all is well and she LOVES her teacher.  Taylor is excited that she gets a locker and changes classes now... it makes her feel cool! :)

Since Bill is in PA school we are trying hard to entertain ourselves and stay busy while he is locked away in our closet studying.  We try to go to Sea World once a week WHICH IS AMAZING!  There is so much to do there and since we have annual passes we can go as often as we want and don't feel bad if we don't spend the entire day there.  The boys are starting a music class on Mondays and attend a playgroup on Wednesdays.  We went to the first playgroup today which was at a community pool close by an they had a blast!  We will be going there again for sure!

And of course we have plenty of down time to relax....

Summertime FUN!!!

We started out our vacation with a little camping.... Really both boys LOVED it, but poor Bryson did not want to put down his flower and go take a nap.

The twins loved going on rides on the 4 wheelers.  Seriously it made them so happy that I am considering buying one to drive around the block at home! LOL

Bill was here for our camping adventure too!

Kennady loved playing with her cousins!  She kept forgetting Korby and Ashlyns names so she refered to them as "my cousin".

Jenn and Boeden came out to visit and we went to the spray park in Boise.  The kids had a blast!!

All three boys!

TWINNERS!

JAY!!

Jayden and cousin Boeden!

Kennady!

Happy 4th of July!!

Our fourth of July celebration started a week early!  They had a huge "festival" on base with carnival rides, food, and even a soap box car race.  Taylor got to take her friend Kate, who is British, so she had obviously never celebrated the 4th of July, but they had a GREAT TIME!!!  She said even after we move, she is going to ask her parents if they can celebrate the 4th from now on!  LOL

Kennady LOVED the go carts!  As for he driving skills, lets just say I'm glad she is no where near 16!    She would be driving along then see Bill and I and start waving, then as we were yelling WATCH WHERE YOU ARE GOING she would crash right into the barrier or another inocent go carter. LOL

This was the first ride Taylor and Kate went on.  They made it flip one complete time and their faces were priceless!

Kennady wasn't very happy that she was too little for the ride pictured above.

The fun house.  I think Kennady went through this at least 1000 times.  There was never a line so she would just go in and out over and over and over.

Taylor and Kate were great and took Kennady on several rides with them.

And we cant forget the cutest little boys in the whole park!!

They even made some new friends at the duck pond.

The girls got their faces painted!

Kennady asked to be a princess.

And Taylor and Kate chose hearts.

There were all sorts of arts and crafts for the kids in this tent!

And since it was raining we finished off the day watching fireworks in the car.  Bryson and Jayden LOVED it!  They just stared out he windows in amazement!

In between the festival and the fireworks we came home to watch the football (soccer) game and let the kids play outside for a while.  Jayden just sat in this chair most of the time!

Although we had a great time celebrating the 4th of July, on the 23 of June, our real 4th was kindof boring.  Honestly, we did nothing!  I wish the base was able to do their celebration on the actual day, but due to protestors (yes we have people protesting at the base gate all the time) they have to schedule it for a different day every year! :(

My Adorable, Sweet, Amazingly Smart Little Girl

My daughter is growing up!

TOO FAST.

She has a fascination for learning new things and I LOVE IT!

She has mastered spelling and writing her name.

And Oso's from Special Agent Oso.

I always find her artwork taped the the walls around every corner of our house.

And although Bill doesn't like tape all over the walls of the house we are about to move out of...

I secretly LOVE it!!  How could I not LOVE the reminder that I am still her favorite person in the world, for at least a little while longer!

GREAT NEWS...

that I'm sure most of you already know!  Bill recently got accepted into the Physicians Assistant program through the Air Force.  I am so proud of him, he has always wanted to be a doctor and although he still technically wont be... its close enough!!  Because of this we have to leave England a little earlier than planned and we will be moving to San Antonio, Texas in November!  I am SO excited to get started on this journey, but also a little nervous.  Bill will be completely emersed in school - think 40 or so credit hours a semester of crazy hard classes - so that leaves me running the house and taking care of the kids on my own.  Everybody we have talked to that has been through the program suggests that it be treated like a deployment with the benefit of sleeping in the same bed.  In fact several people that go to IPAP leave their wives and children "home".  Thankfully, my REALLY good friend Lauren will be in San Antonio (actually she is already there) and her husband is attending IPAP also so we can team up a little bit!!  For now I am focusing on the major positive that it will be WARM and by warm I mean HOT. LOL  So here I am dreaming of this and since we will be living on base, Im sure the pool will look just as nice ;)

Also, we are counting down the days to our visit back to Idaho in July!  YAY!!  I can't wait to feel some real heat, eat some real food, and drive on real roads! LOL  Kennady is the most excited out of everyone, and the most exciting part for her is going shooting with her grandpa and uncle Eric!!

Reminiscing....

Pictures like this ALMOST make me want to do it again! ;)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KENNADY!!!

On Saturday, February 13th we celebrated Kennady's FOURTH birthday! I can't believe that she is officially 4 years old. To me turning 4 is the age that you are leaving toddlerhood and I can not believe that (she of course is still my baby though :) ) She had a great birthday party at Fun Planet, a bunch of her friends from pre school came and she had a blast! Kennady we love you and will never forget the day 4 years ago, you joined our family! You are so smart, funny, loving, and the best little 4 year old ever! WE LOVE YOU!!!

The other day I was feeding Bryson and Jayden and as I gave Jay a bite he goes "mmmm". Both of the boys do this ALL the time (what can I say, they love food) but everytime they do it I laugh. So this particular time I responded with "mmm thats good!" and continued feeding them. Next thing I know, I gave Bry a bite and he goes, "mmmm gooood." It was SO SO SO cute! It got me thinking though, where has the time gone? I mean really I feel like I still have twin BABIES, not TODDLERS that are learning to walk and talk! How have they grown so much and learned so much in such a short period of time? It really made me think that I definitely ned to be better at enjoying them and playing with them each and every day!! And just to prove to you that they have grown... here are a few pictures of my BIG BOYS!

Jayden!

Bryson!

Jayden!

Bryson!

I just wanted to share...

... a few things that have come out of the mouth of my sweet little Kennady. She is REALLY cracking us up lately!

• The other night we let Kennady sleep in our bed and she was really wound up and just so excited to be in there. Well it was getting late and so I said, "Its time to go to sleep Kennady, good night, I love you". She responded with her usual "Goodnight Mom, love you". Then she rolled over to Bill and said "and I love you too stinky butt, good night!

• Last week I was in the kitchen getting ready to make dinner so I asked Kennady what she wanted to eat. She said chicken nuggets. Well if you know Kennady she would eat chicken nuggets EVERYDAY if you let her so I asked her to choose something else and teased her about always wanting to eat them. Her response, "I just can't help it Mom, they are freakin delicious!" (yes I know Mom, I learned I REALLY need to watch my mouth around her)

• Today Kennady stayed home sick from preschool because she was puking. Well this evening she started acting like she felt better and ate dinner with us and everything. After dinner I was cleaning up and asked her if she was feeling better. She goes, "Yep, cough cough, see that didn't make me have the pooks".

• Kennady loves missionaries. I'm sure it has something to do with two of her uncles serving missions right now. So when I told her the other night that missionaries were coming over for dinner she was ECSTATIC. Well when they got here she was shy and hid from them the entire night. After they left I told her that they were really nice and that next time she should be nice too and talk to them. Her response, "I know they are nice Mom, but they AREN'T MY MISSIONARIES". I asked her who her missionaries are and she said, "my uncles mom!". What a tear jerker moment! She misses them SO much!

• Kennady also misses her Grandma and Grandpa like crazy! She frequently asks me if we can look at pictures on the "coocaputer" so that she can see them. She gets so excited every time she sees a picture of one of our family members and can really entertain herself with looking at the pictures for hours. So I left her to look at them and went back to homework. Pretty soon I looked over and she was saying "UGH Grandpa come on, Im helping you, just take a step out" She was trying to grab a hold of him through the screen to get him to walk on out.... she was quite devastated when he wouldn't budge!

Christmastime festivities!!

Despite being so far away from family we had a great Christmas this year.  We went to a fun Christmas Eve get together and came home and let the kids each open 1 present... pajamas of course and set out cookies and milk for santa.  Christmas day was full of fun and laughter!  We woke up at 8:00 -  yeah the kids let us sleep in and hurried down stairs to see what Santa had left!  Then around 3 we headed over to our great friends the Trotter's house where we ate more food and had MORE fun!  The kids all loved all the presents that they recieved and really had fun picking out presents for eachother this year.  The boys were at a great age to really enjoy Christmas and Jayden was an unwrapping machine.  We would give them each a present, Jayden would unwrap his, then Bryson would had Jayden his and Jay would unwrap it too!  

We got quite a bit of snow this year!  This is the road that we live on!

and here is our winter house! 

Taylor and Kennady send hugs to you all....

A life long dream of mine....

I have always loved loved loved kids and wanted a big family. I was raised in a relatively large family and my brothers and I have a bond that I wouldnt trade for anything, a bond that I HOPE my kids develop amongst themselves. Bill was raised an only child and swore he would give any child he had siblings. After the twins were born we reached our "ideal" of having four kids and tried to say that we were done, but both Bill and I have constantly found ourselves "justifying" having another child. I dont know why though! Why is it wrong to want a big family now, when thats what we have both wanted our whole lives? We have finally come to the conclusion that we aren't done. That whether or not we get funny looks when we haul a million kids into a restaurant... we ARENT done!

After we finally realized that its okay to have more than the average amount of kids, I started really thinking about a passion of mine. I have always been fascinated by adoption. I don't know why, maybe its just thinking that so many kids don't have loving homes that they deserve. Maybe its because my Mom was adopted. Maybe it's the example of my amazing Grandma. Maybe Im just weird. I dont know but whatever the reason, I feel like it's something that I should do, something that I am SUPPOSED to do. Now being that we already have 4 healthy, beautiful, amazing kids it makes adoption a little bit harder. Adopting within the US is pretty much out for us. We would like to adopt an infant/toddler and in the states, thats nearly impossible for people who are able to have kids. Plus, I want to adopt a child that really NEEDS us. That without us he/she would not be able to grow and learn and thrive and rise to his/her potential. And being that there are waiting lists for infant/toddler aged kids in the US I think we have to go elsewhere. So I have been doing research, research and more research on various countries. There are so many places to choose from, but they all have A LOT of restrictions. The fact the Bill has been divorced before weeds out a few, the fact that we already have children weeds out a few, and the fact that I don't want to wait until I am 30-35 weeds out a few more. BUT there are also a few that we qualify for... well almost. We meet all the requirements except that I have to be 25. Im 23 so that gives us 2 years to save.....

I think I have...

the CUTEST pumpkins in the whole patch!  I mean really, Im sure that I am a bit biased, but I just can't get over how incredibly adorable these babies are!  The twins had their first pumpkin carving experience on October 22, and Bryson LOVED it, Jayden on the other hand... definitly not going to be his fondest memory!

I LOVE LOVE LOVE this one.. B is looking at J like, seriously dude?  Get a grip!