Kyrie's BIG day!

Our little girl is ONE (since last Saturday)! It is so hard to believe. It has been a joyful year having her in our lives. She is such a sweetie! I usually can't even look at this girl without getting an overwhelming feeling inside. Every move she makes is just adorable and I wish somehow I could record it or document it all. She has such a special part in our family and in my heart. I love this little one bunches and bunches! Love ya Kyrie Belle! Happy Birthday!

Kyrie with her hairstyle which her dad calls "the three little pigs".
Ky with her birthday gifts
She is a PRO at opening presents!

She got spoiled for her birthday. She got a wagon, a doll, bath toys, a glow worm and a Hello Kitty bag that was filled with other Hello Kitty items, and a few other small items. Thank you grandparents for the gifts!

She is in love with her new babies. I LOVE to watch little girls try to be mommies. Kyrie gets so excited whenever she sees or hears this doll. She gives it squeezes and tries to poke it's eyes out when it blinks. And she gets MAD if she sees one of her brothers holding it. She is a protective new little mother.

Our birthday PRINCESS

Kyrie's cake

Our cake - When I pulled the Hello Kitty napkins out I realized that I arranged the faces wrong on the cakes. I thought I knew how to make a kitty, but soon found out it was not much like Hello Kitty. Oh well!

She was not so sure about the candle. I wasn't either!

What to do?

First of all, you have to dump the cake

Get ready

Dig in! I love this picture!

Kyrie had so much fun throwing her cake onto the floor. She couldn't stand having it mashed in her hands and kept trying to flip it everywhere. She didn't want to eat any of it, she only took one little taste (which I forced into her mouth).

When you can't handle any more goop in your hands, you stand up to finish the job with your feet!

Ky slept half of her birthday away, she had been up the night before with a stomach bug. So we started celebrating late, but we had a great little party. She went in for her 1 year check-up and remains on the small side, which she doesn't seem so small to me! She weighed in at 18 lbs, 11oz (10th percentile) and was almost 28'' long (15th percentile). Her head, however is in the 70th percentile with a circumfrance of 18". Ever since her birthday she has decided that she is a BIG girl and she is now walking all over the place! She is just learning how to slide off the couch by herself, and has been pretty proud the few times she accomplished it. She has been going up the stairs for some time now, but has never once tried to come down, she will sit at the top of the stairs and yell at us when she wants to come downstairs. She says only a few words, one of which she says all day long, "mama, mom, ma" . She also says, "Dada, Dad, ya", and what sounds like "Thank you". She loves to empty my bag (Yeah, now she has her own), she loves to empty the cupboards, shred paper, chew on toothbrushes, unroll all of the toilet paper and tear it into tiny bits. One of her favorites the last few months is to play with tampons. She loves them! She likes to join me while I get ready for the day and she opens the cupboard and they are the first items she goes for and sometimes she'll play with them the whole time I'm getting ready. She wants to be included with the boys, she has learned how to push a car around and I've even heard a few car sounds come out of her mouth while she plays with them. She also wants to be included with everything I do. She is very observant and loves watching me and helping me. She likes to stick her hand down my shirt, she acts like it's her little pocket, she will try to shove her whole arm down there when she is tired. She loves attention and one of my favorite's is when she sticks her cute little face right in front of mine and as soon as she has my attention she gives me the worlds cutest grin. I feel so spoiled and lucky to have her. I LOVE being her mommy!

My clean house

I found a way to get my whole house really clean. You get the whole family really sick. I didn't want any sick germs left in my house so EVERYTHING got washed and sanitized yesterday. Kyrie got sick Christmas night and ended up sleeping half of her 1st birthday away. Then Sunday after church it hit me, then Chris and Hayden. Thankfully it didn't hit Dusty until much later that evening, he took good care of the rest of us. He was such a good helper. Hayden was so sick he would run to the bathroom and then he'd lay on the tile floor and fall asleep. One time he didn't make it to the bathroom, lost it all in the hallway, laid there in it and fell asleep. Chris and I felt so bad that we were both so sick that we couldn't do much to help him. Luckily were we finally able to convince him to use a bucket. Thankfully we are ALL feeling much better now! I am so tired of doing laundry and making beds. I counted, 14 loads of yucky laundry in 2 days! We were wishing we could hire a maid for a day, a massage therapist would've been nice too - to help our achy bodies. The crud was no fun! But now my house is VERY clean!

Christmas 2009

Wahoo! It is over, I am horrible, I know!

Hayden was so funny Christmas morning. He went downstairs in his underware, hanging onto his clothes that were draped over his shoulder. He looked and the tree, dropped his clothes and said, "WOW! And I didn't even ask for presents!"
Wow! A remote controlled helicoter! A police one! Dusty thinks he is a cop.

This is all what Kyrie got. She loved it all, but she mostly loved Hayden's stocking and Chris's presents.

WEEEee!

Here is Hayden and all of his stuff. His favorite thing is "all of it". Both him and Dusty got a pair of roller skating shoes. They spent quite a bit of time today trying to catch their balance on wheels.

And Here is Dusty and his stuff. I asked him to gather his things for a picture, and he put everything that he could on himself: his robe, superhero cape, roller shoes, and his Mix Stick. You can't really see, but he also lined up all of his candy for the picture. What a kid! His favorite gift was the Disney Mix Stick and the Kids Bop cd from Gma and Gpa Anderson. Of course they are his favs, they make noise!

The boys also got this from Santa. It looks like next year Chris could use a toy for Christmas. He spent a lot of time playing with the kids toys. He got cool stuff like socks, a computer bag, a levi quilt and some shirts! The kids got spoiled, and we had a great day!

Christmas Eve 2009

All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth!
We started the day out by decorating some graham cracker houses with some friends. Then this evening we played Bingo to see who got to open their gift first from another family member.

Kyrie won Bingo and got to go first!

The excited kiddos in their new pajamas.

Our treat for Santa

Santa Claus is coming to town. This is our newest decoration, compliments of Dusty Boy.

We had a great evening, the kids were tired and ready to go to bed at 8:00! I am ready for bed too! Mr. Claus had to wake me up to get my job done tonight. I am excited to have tomorrow over with. I have become a Christmas Grinch!

The Latest

Everyday I tell myself I need to blog, and everyday it seems like a chore that I need to squeeze in. I decided it wasn't worth it to blog if it felt like a chore, because then I might not like to post anymore. Tonight it doesn't feel like a chore. Here's a few things we have been up to:

This is Ky at 11 months. Almost a month late!

I love her curls. The boys had curls like this too. And I kept them until they were 1, then I chopped them off. The curls were so hard to get rid of. I'm SO glad I don't have to chop her curls!

Kyrie ate a whole apple and most of the core too. She then crawled to the garbage can and lifted the lid and threw it in. AWESOME!!! Let's just hope she only puts garbage in there!

Kyrie has also found a way to get what she wants. She was after my handbag. And she got it. And she dumped everything out of it. I think she needs her own little bag to dump. MAYBE then she will leave mine alone.

Aunt Kim and Uncle AJ came for a quick visit and gave Ky an early Christmas/birthday present. She was a pro at opening it. Tearing paper is one of her favorites!

We have been able to see Santa 3 times this year. This picture is at the ward breakfast/pajama party. Kyrie hates Santa! She is terrified like most little ones. One of the visits we were able to sneak a picture of her sleeping in Santa's arms. If she only knew.....

Chris's shop had a Childrens Christmas party. They went all out. They rented a bouncy house, had a craft to make, had lunch catered, hired a balloon artist and a magician and invited Santa (who brought presents for all the kids). The kids had a blast.

Hayden was chosen to be the magicians special helper. He also won a magic trick prize that was said to be worth "THOUSANDS" of dollars. I think it made Hayden's day! And I think his big brother was jealous!!!

We have been eating Frosty for breakfast.

This is one of the many things I have been doing, although lately I've been to busy to do much of it. I had no idea this picture was even taken until I just downloaded it to my camera. The heigth shows that Chris was the photographer.

The boys have been enjoying sleep overs on the air mattress and in their own little Cabelas tent.

Dusty is still producing and creating. This is his latest robot.

One night after we had all gone to bed, Dusty walked into our bedroom like this. He was being so goofy. He had Chris and I laughing SO hard. It was worth it to walk ALL THE WAY downstairs and resetting the alarm to get the camera for this. We laughed and laughed.

The boys are out of school for about 2 weeks for winter break. Hayden was so busy today that he didn't even have time to get dressed. Too much playing to do! I love having them home!

Love his style!

Dusty is SO good with matching! Three pieces of clothing: pants, shirt and vest - all the same color makes the perfect outfit. And yes, he does his own hair. It about killed me when he started dressing himself when he was 2. When he first started dressing himself I would change his outfit before we left the house, then learned just to be greatful that he was doing it on his own. But still every once in awhile I wish I could step in. He would see nothing wrong with this outfit, IT MATCHES!

As I was taking a few pictures this morning he kept being a goof and I said, "just be normal".

And this is what he did.

Then off to school, and I am going to vent, not that anybody else cares, it just helps me to get it out. There are things that drive me crazy about his school! When we moved here we got a tour of the school, and were told about some rules for their safety. We then asked why the school property doesn't have a fence, and were told they don't need one, there are always teachers out when the students are. The teachers are supposed to be out at 8:15, and many times the 1st grade teachers haven't come out until they come to let the kids in at 8:30. One day we were outside freezing and the teachers stayed inside, the bell rang and the students lined up like they are supposed to and then a teacher opened the door and invited the students to come in. So they made the kids stay out in the cold, when it was too cold for them. On another day, it had snowed and the kids weren't allowed to play on the toys. The school hadn't taken any effort to clean off the sidewalks, which were solid ice. Some of the kids were trying to slide across the ice and got in trouble. The kids were then told to stay off the ice. The whole sidewalk was covered in ice (and remained that way for the whole week), they can't play on the toys, they can't go inside the building -WHAT ARE THESE KIDS TO DO? Then a student got yelled at for bending down and touching the snow and the teacher said "YOU OWE ME MINUTES". That student lost 10 minutes of recess time. So this morning I go to take Dusty to the 1st grade doors, and being 17 degrees, they were letting students into the hallways. But his door is locked. There was another parent already there trying to get some kids in the building and said teachers had been right there and wouldn't let them in. We finally got a student to open the door (which they are not supposed to do for ANYONE). The school doesn't want the students entering through the main door, they are to enter through their designated doors, I'm standing outside in the freezing cold weather with a baby trying to get my son into school. I've had enough!!! The other parent said, "This school drives me nuts". And I thought, it's not just me, I'm going to do something about it! So now I am waiting for a return phone call from the principal. Another thing I HATE is during lunch, every time a student leaves the table, everyone else has to scoot down the bench. So the kids have to pay more attention to when it's time to scoot, then they are eating. They have to scoot into someone elses mess, someone elses germs, and what about the kids that brought lunch from home? They don't have everything on a lunch tray, they have their lunchbox, drink, and everything else they brought - they have to scoot several items! What a pain it would be, just let them EAT!