A Nice Break

Ever since Ethan started kindergarten, Kyle has always taken the first day of school off of work. That way he can be with the family to walk the school kids to school and say goodbye, and so that he could be home when it was time to pick up the kids from school. THIS year, Kyle decided to take the whole week off, so that he could be home for the first day of school, but also so that he could spend some time with the family, and get some things done around the house. 🙂

So Monday we just spent the day around the house hanging out, and trying to keep the house clean. Monday evening we got to go to the school to meet Tyra’s first grade teacher. That was when we found out that her teacher was NOT going to be the teacher that was posted on the window at the front of the school. The school had decided the Saturday, just two days previous that they were going to switch the teacher listed on the class list out front, with Mrs Jaque. Tyra didn’t skip a beat, she didn’t whine about what happened to the other teacher she was just totally excited to be meeting her new teacher!

After our field trip to the school we made a run to wal mart to buy a griddle. When we decided to say goodbye to Ihop we also decided that we would buy a griddle so that we can make our own pancakes, and make them faster than just with the frying pan. So it’s official, Ihop is history!

Tuesday, Kyle was SUPPOSED to go the home depot to get supplies for some shelves that we wanted built in the garage. But he ended up on the phone Tuesday morning. He had applied for a better position at Symantec, and someone was calling for a preliminary phone interview, and when she was done asking him questions she set up an appointment for the official phone interview later that afternoon. So when Kyle got off the phone he spent the rest of the morning adding LOTS of details, of his experience at all of his different employers over the years, to his resume. Then he spent a good chunk of the afternoon on his phone interview.

We also got to go renew our temple recommends with a member of our bishopric. 🙂

Wednesday was the big day! The first day of school! After getting Ethan and Tyra off to their classes, we came home and I had a meeting to go to, then Kyle went to Home Depot for shelf supplies.

Thursday, Kyle worked on the shelves most of the day and I went out to help when he needed a second set of hands. And after school we went to “Back to School Night” to meet Ethan’s teacher, and check out his classroom, then we got to go see what Tyra had been up to in her class the first two days of school.

Then we got to go have a member of the stake presidency sign our temple recommends. I’m SOOOO glad that we were able to take care of getting those renewed while Kyle was home this week, otherwise I just don’t know when we would have been able to do it.

Friday morning I went to the dentist to start work on crown #8. How stinky is that. I’m not even 28 years old yet and I already have SEVEN crowns and am in the process of having the 8th crowned! It really stinks to have crummy genetics when it comes to teeth! Kyle decided to take our three little kids and join with me at the dentist. His reason being that he couldn’t work on the shelves with me gone anyways, and the house would stay cleaner if they just came with me, than if they stayed home and waited for me to come back. After the dentist we did a bit of grocery shopping, while I was totally miserable because I couldn’t feel my face. I couldn’t even drink water without it spraying out the numb side of my mouth…. I think all the numbness wore off my 2 or 3 that afternoon. And my appointment was at 9:30 that morning and they numbed me first thing! So I was numb for about 5 hours or so! Ugh.

Friday, Kyle finished building the shelves! Then it was my turn to do some work and fill them! 😉 Actually I haven’t finished filling them yet. I did put all of our holiday stuff on them (minus the Christmas tree and Christmas dishes). I still need to sort and pack up all of the clothes that the kids have outgrown or are too big for them and then those buckets will be stacked up on the shelves too.

Garage Before:

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Garage After:

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So now we can ALMOST park Kyle’s car in the garage. We just need to clean up the other side of the garage enough to get the trash cans over there then Kyle will be able to park in the garage! How exciting!

Saturday we didn’t really have anything planned aside from make a big pot of chili and some form of dessert to take to the Stake Harvest Festival (which was to be an outdoor activity). But about 2 or 3 in the afternoon we got a call from someone in our ward saying that the Harvest Festival was being canceled due to the weather (it was REALLY windy and there was dirt blowing everywhere outside). BUT our ward decided to have an impromptu activity at the church building instead and that we should just bring our chili and dessert to that. So Ethan was REALLY upset that we weren’t going to the Stake Harvest Festival, because he had heard that there were to be bounce houses and other fun things there, but we packed up the kids and the food and went to the church. There was plenty of chili and rolls and chips & salsa. The dessert table was somewhat lacking and because of that the 3 dozen cupcakes that I made were gone before we even got through the line for food. The bishopric did have a couple of guys outside making scones for dessert too, since that was one of the booths that our ward was going to have at the festival. I felt bad for the guys that had to stand outside in the super windy weather and make scones for everyone else that was sitting in the church eating a yummy dinner.

There was also face painting, which was to be the booth at the festival that the young women were in charge of. Now I have to say that I highly disapprove of face painting. Why you may ask? Well I disapprove of face painting, writing on our bodies, tattoos (even those cheap washable tattoos that look like stickers) and anything of that nature. Shoot I don’t even wear make up! As close to make up as I get is chapstick and nail polish. Our bodies are temples! They are the temples that house our spirits. Now you wouldn’t walk up to the temple and paint it, or write on it in any way, so therefore you shouldn’t be doing anything like that to your body. So I have tried to teach my kids this. I don’t want them scribbling on themselves. So my sweet daughter Tyra, walked into the room where they were doing face painting and blurted out, loud enough for everyone in the room to hear “Our bodies are temples!” Then she gave into peer pressure and had her face painted. I guess the lesson on peer pressure will be coming up soon in our family home evenings. 😉

I actually wasn’t in there when this happened, but a sister that Kyle home teaches was in there and told him about it when he was visiting their family. I’m glad to know that she did learn that our bodies are temples and that that lesson didn’t just go in one ear and out the other.

It was really nice to have Kyle home all week. Actually with the weekends on both sides of the week he was home for a total of nine days! But now we’re back to the normal routine of him being gone working two jobs, 5 days a week. He has an in person interview scheduled for this Thursday. I’m really hoping he gets the job, because it most likely means a higher income (I’m not sure how much higher), but that would mean that he would be able to quit the second job sooner, than we were thinking. So here’s to hoping.

Happy Birthday Kyle

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KYLE!

Wasn’t my hubby such a cute little boy?

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Then he was a cute young man too….

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And now he’s my awesome husband.

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He works so hard to pay the bills and pay off debt and so that I can stay at home with our munchkins. He’s an AWESOME daddy, and uncle….he’s just great with kids. And I just love him so much. 🙂 Happy Birthday Babe!

In case you missed it…

Rebecca and I were working on a long post about our Easter weekend adventure in cake balls, that I finally finished.

http://www.klamation.com/blog/2010/04/900-cake-balls/

Let’s just say that 11 flavours of cake balls, plus an ice cream cake and round wedding cakes made for 15 different pan-fulls of cake, and dozens of eggs and other ingredients being consumed all within a single week.  My wife might have her lazy moments (usually occurs between 3-6am, give or take an hour) but she certainly pulled out all the stops on getting these made.

Of course, I helped.

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As did her family. Since they were in town for the wedding, we had something of an assembly line going for rolling, dipping, decorating, then packaging these items.

I suspect she’ll make a fine business lady, should she ever get into this professionally.

“I Want to Ride My Bicycle”

BICYCLE! BICYCLE! BICYCLE! I want to ride my bicycle! 😉

We opened up the garage on Saturday and dusted off the bikes and pumped up the tires, and the kids rode up and down the street, over and over and over….. So tonight Kyle decided to take the kids over to the school so they can ride around on the pavement at their own paces. Jeremy and Dinah are very slow, but we are SO excited that they both learned to pedal on Saturday. And Ethan and Tyra, having had much more practice can go much faster than the little ones. So Kyle figured the school yard would be the perfect place to go so they could all ride around as much as they wanted, as fast or as slow as they wanted, without the little ones holding everybody up because they are so slow. 😉 Of course as soon as they got to the school yard, the little ones jumped off their bikes and ran for the playground. But Ethan, Tyra and Kyle rode around. I’m so glad that Kyle has finally had a chance to use the bike I got him for Christmas. It’s been too cold and too snowy for him to get out on his new bike before now.

Well as Ethan was riding on the pavement he heard a clink and he turned around to look and his last training wheel had fallen off (the other one had fallen off months ago and we refused to put it back on hoping that it would encourage him to ride without them). But he just kept riding! Ethan has graduated to riding a bike without training wheels!

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And the most exciting part is that he did it all on his own. I am also VERY glad that he didn’t freak out and insist that he NEEDED that training wheel (which is what happened when the other one fell off.) Good times 🙂

He wanted me to take a picture of him riding standing up, so here’s the best shot I got:

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Will the weekend never come?

This week is just CRAWLING by. I’m so tired, and really stressed out, and I just can’t wait for the weekend. Well for Friday night really. You see, Kyle’s out of town on a business trip. His manager came up to him Friday and asked him if he would go because he’s the best they’ve got, to send. And quick as a flash they had flights and a hotel arranged, and Kyle headed off very early Monday morning to catch his flight to Cincinnati, Ohio.

Me on the other hand, I’m just going crazy being alone with the five kids ALL week! I know that really this week shouldn’t seem much different from what I normally go through. I mean, Kyle works two jobs. He leaves first thing in the morning (he used to leave before the kids got up, but they’ve been getting up earlier and earlier for a chance to see him), and then he goes from job #1 straight to job #2 then he will sometimes go to the gym before heading home, and when he finally does get home the kids are all asleep and I’m usually asleep as well. So really this week shouldn’t be much different right? WRONG! Just knowing in the back of my mind that he’s hundreds of miles away from me is like a dark cloud hanging over my day. Waking up in the middle of the night and finding him still not home drives me crazy. I don’t sleep well, knowing he’s gone and isn’t coming home tonight. Here it is Wednesday night, and I feel like he’s been gone forever, and Friday night just can’t possibly come fast enough!

The last time Kyle went on a business trip I handled things rather nicely. Granted, we only had Ethan then. But Kyle went to North Carolina and was going to be gone for two weeks, so I just said “Ok then I’m going to California for two weeks!” This time I didn’t have that luxury. Having 5 kids now, and with Ethan and Tyra both in school I’m tied to my current location, or believe me I would have packed the van up so fast and we would have gone to Ohio WITH Kyle.