Letter to Santa

The other day Kiersten saw a mailbox at our community clubhouse collecting letters to Santa. She came home and sat right down and wrote the following letter . . .
(Sorry about the folds - I couldn't sneak the letter away to scan it until after she'd folded up, put it in an envelope and addressed it. Good thing she hadn't actually mailed it yet or I might be a felon!)
(To Santa; From Kiersten Merry Christmas)

(Dear Santa, I love you. My mom said not to bring a lot of candy but please do. Merry Christmas. Love Kiersten.)

Just before Kiersten saw the mailbox I'd overheard Kiersten telling Tanner how great Santa is because he brings lots of candy. I suggested that I might write to Santa this year and ask him not to bring quite so much candy. This is apparently what Kiersten thought of my plan! :)

Sometimes she cracks me up! Now I'd better get the letter back in it's envelope and reseal it so she doesn't know it's been tampered with!

I So Wasn't Ready for This!

With Kiersten starting Kindergarten this year, there were a lot of things I was psyching myself up for . . . when it came down to it, those weren't the things that ended up causing me the most stress!

I usually ask Kiersten about her day as we walk home from the bus stop or drive home (if it's a day I've picked her up from school). A couple of weeks into the school year she starts telling me about a boy in her class that she and her friends call "Kissing Alex" because he tries to kiss the girls all the time. That sets me into a panic - she's in Kindergarten, for crying out loud! I did learn that he doesn't necessarily try to kiss them on the lips , usually it was on the arm or even their backpack - just whatever he could reach!

She also told me that when he would chase them around the playground at recess she and her friends would try and hide from him (good girl!). But she also admitted that if he wasn't chasing her around the playground that they would go looking for him, and sometimes, she admitted, she "peeked" in the boys bathroom. WHOA!!! We immediately had a big discussion about how that is not appropriate and how she needed to stop doing that right away. I also emailed the teacher and let her know what was going on and asked her to let me know if the peeking continued. ( How did the aids miss that?) I realize it was purely innocent on her part, and she and I had never had a discussion about how that's not an ok thing to do (it had never been an issue before), but I wanted it to stop right then! Thankfully I haven't heard anything about it since, so I think we're good there.

Anyway, a week or so later when I was asking about Alex (he's become one of my daily questions!) and if he was still trying to kiss her she gave me this look that said, "Mom, don't you know anything?" and said, "No, he's my boy-friend!" I'm not sure if this revelation was worse than the "peeking" in the boys bathroom one, but another one that completely blindsided me! After several clarifying questions, and more looks that said, "What a dumb question. Don't you know anything?" I learned that he "became" her boyfriend because she gave him a hug (or maybe it was that she hugged him back when he hugged her), and now that he's her boyfriend he doesn't try to kiss her anymore, but he still tries to kiss all the other girls. In that case, I asked if all the boys in her class could be her boyfriends. She just laughed - I don't think she thought I was serous!

Sadly (?) that relationship didn't last too long, and within a week or so she told me that she'd "lost" him as her boyfriend, but she might "get him back," as if it was the same thing as saying, "I haven't exactly decided what I'm going to do - I might go run errands today."

One of the girls in Kiersten's primary class recently told her mom, "Mom, Kiersten isn't shy any more." Apparently she's come out of her shell as school, because she still is pretty shy when I'm around, but I'm convinced it's all an act!

All I know is that I can't wait for her to discover that boys have cooties, and I hope it lasts until she's 21 at least!

What does Tanner do all day?

I've had several people ask me what Tanner does all day now that Kiersten is in school I thought this picture captured the essence of our days together pretty well . . .


He loves to collect everything in the house he can find with a cord and "plugs" them into the couch (we try to encourage him to plug things into the couch instead of pulling out the "childproof" outlet covers and really plugging things into the wall). Then he "reads" the time on the clock - somehow it's always "40-clock." He likes me to sit down on one of Kiersten's chairs while he does my hair with the curling iron (and sometimes he likes to do his own). He also likes to make me pancakes on the griddle (for that he needs the "flipper" (spatula/pancake flipper) and real plates from the kitchen). He also likes to take left over pancakes or a piece of bread out of the cupboard(he never asks, he just climbs up on the counter and helps himself to whatever he'd like) and put it in the waffle iron to make "wavvles."

I'm not sure how my blow dryer, the vacuum and the carpet cleaner didn't make it into the picture - they are every day staples.

And how do I spend my day? Why playing pretend with Tanner and then trying to get him to clean up his mess, of course! It's no wonder I'm exhausted every day. :)

A Little Overboard?!?!?

I love shopping for cute clothes for Kiersten, so I've been a little bummed with Kiersten starting school and them having to wear uniforms. Well, not really uniforms, but "uniform colors" it's called. It's nothing like what my parents tell us about in Hong Kong, but there isn't much I can do within the guidelines. So now, for the first time in her life, Kiersten has an entire wardrobe centered around blues and khakis. So my shopping turned to ribbons and flowers for lots of hair bows. I know some of you think I've gone overboard with hair bows in the past, but this time I think I really may have gone overboard . . .

We're 4 weeks into school and she hasn't repeated a hair bow, she hasn't worn them all yet, and I still have ribbon that I haven't even used yet, so there are still more hair bows just waiting to be made!

Not only do I have an abundance of hair bows, but I also have lots of left over ribbon (because of course I can't make more than one bow (or set of bows) out of each kind of ribbon!), and I'm pretty sure if I'd clean my mess up I'd be well past my "limit" of 4 boxes of ribbon! It's a good thing Nate's a sweetheart and I think he always knew that I wouldn't be able to stick to only 4 boxes of ribbon

More than He Bargained For!

The other day Nate agreed to grill hamburgers for dinner. What he didn't know was that a monsoon would hit right as he headed out to get the grill started. Poor guy, by the time the burgers were done, he was soaked and the storm was pretty much done. Good thing he was in his swimsuit - he'd tried to take Kiersten and Tanner swimming that afternoon, but the pool closed right as they got there because of the coming storm. We have so many false alarms that even that wasn't enough to warn us that it might not be the best night for grilling outside! (Too bad rain doesn't photograph well; this doesn't do justice to the high winds and sheets of rain.)

Kiersten's First Day of School

Yesterday was Kiersten's first day of kindergarten, and I'm not sure who was more excited - me or her! Since the bus picks her up at 6:50 am, we'd spent the week before school started practicing getting up at 6:00. Well, she'd gotten up every morning about 6, and I usually rolled out of bed at 6:30 to the lovely sounds of her and Tanner fighting over something! So I think she was a little worried that I wouldn't be up to get her off to school on time that first morning. Such little faith in her mom!

She's had a closet full of school clothes all summer long that she's been dying to wear. She was always disappointed when I told her she had to wait, so yesterday morning was like Christmas, a closet full of brand new clothes that she could choose from! (Of all her clothes, this was not what I expected her to pick. Oh well, she never fails to amaze me.)

We decided that first morning I would take her and then after that she'd ride the bus. At first she wanted to ride the bus that first morning, then she decided that me taking her and just dropping her off would be good, then it was take her and park and help her find the kindergarten playground and then go, then it was park and help her find the playground and then wait until she was settled in her class. I was getting a little worried with how shy and clingy she can be great. (We were later leaving than I had planned on or I would have tried for better pictures in front of the house!) By the time we got to the school (I hadn't planned on quite so many other parents taking their kids to school too!) her teacher, Ms. Guerrero, had already brought everyone in from the playground and was getting everyone settled. Kiersten walked in, found her seat, smiled for this picture and then started coloring and didn't look back at me. So Tanner and I left. It was much easier than I was expecting! Tanner and I spent the day grocery shopping, doing the laundry, cleaning house and getting dinner made. Even though Tanner missed Kiersten, I think he enjoyed not having her there to boss him around! At 2:30 (yes, we have all day kindergarten here, and I think I'm going to love it!) we headed out to meet her buss. She was SO excited to be able to ride the school bus. Ever since she was 2 1/2 or 3 she's been asking how much longer before she was a big kid that got to ride the school bus to school every day. And now her dream had finally came true! She told me how nice and cool and comfortable the buss is because there are 2 fans going (maybe so, but there is no air conditioning, so I certainly wouldn't want to be on them in this 100 degree heat!). She had a wonderful day and couldn't stop talking about all the fun things that she did that day, and all the things that she would start doing, and how she's now ready to ride the bus to and from school every day. She can't wait to go back tomorrow, and I am absolutely delighted that she's so excited about it! Especially, since I can't wait for her to go back tomorrow!

Our First Monsoon of the Season

Last week we had our first monsoon of the season . . . Tanner was outside "helping" Nate cook dinner on the grill when it started raining. Next thing we knew, Tanner was darting out in the rain and then running back to the safety of the covered porch.

Once Kiersten saw what Tanner was doing, she wanted to join him. We had to laugh - Tanner would run out and get completely drenched where as Kiersten would only stick her hands out in the rain, not willing to leave the safety of the covered porch.

Once again, Nate and I wondered why we spend so much money on toys and entertainment when they have just as much fun in a rainstorm! And then I remember, this is Arizona, and even though it is monsoon season we sure can't count on rain!

Splishin' and a'Splashin!

I've been meaning to sign Kiersten up for swimming lessons for the last few years, but never seemed to get around to doing it. This year I finally got her signed up (well, actually my friend got her signed up since we were out of town the day of swim lesson sign ups) - I figured that she's 5 and really ought to know something about swimming! And I figured that I should get Tanner going as well. I was hoping that, if nothing else, having Tanner learn to swim might help encourage Kiersten learn to swim! However, Tanner was so young I had to sign up with him - it was a mommy and me class.

Tanner and I spent the two weeks doing "up-downs" where I would let him go farther and farther in the water each time he went up then down. It would have worked much better if Tanner would have stopped laughing and shut his mouth!

We also spent a lot of time trying to get Tanner to kick. He's quite stubborn and refused to do most of what we asked. Usually when I asked him to do anything he would say, "Tanner all done," and move to get out of the pool. While he didn't really want to kick, he'd walk around all the time saying, "kick, kick, kick," and "splash mommy's nose."

Tanner and I were supposed to work on floating on his back and kicking. He wasn't willing to even try if he didn't have a racket in hand and a ball near his feet that moved with every kick.

I had warned Kiersten's swim teacher (who also happened to be in our ward) that I would be really pleased if, at the end of two weeks, Kiersten would put her face in the water. (I was trying to not set my sights too high!) Kiersten loved "doing the monkey bars" around the pool.

Kiersten and her friend, Macy, were the only two girls in their class, which was nice - almost private lessons! (Thankfully Macy is as timid as Kiersten is, so they were pretty much on the same level!) They had a great time learning to float on their backs and kick their legs.

However, Morgan (her teacher) worked wonders and Kiersten actually put her face in the water, even if it was only for a split second at a time. Now Kiersten thinks she's quite the swimmer!
Neither of my kids passed their levels, so we'll be repeating them next summer! For now, we head to the pool at least once a week and practice the things they learned (even though Kiersten cries and tells me she doesn't want to) so we don't have to start at square one again next year! I am just grateful that it's now only once or twice a week, and not every day!

She's Graduated!

Kiersten has done a co-op preschool for the last 2 years (well, really Kiersten and I have done a co-op preschool!), and just last month she graduated. She'll start kindergarten on August 3rd, and I'm not sure who is more excited - Kiersten or mom!

Here she is with the other 2 girls in the group,
Hailey Walton and Macy Husted.


Here is Kiersten receiving her diploma. She graduated "with honors" (as did all of the kids!).
(With at least 3 moms in the group who are avid scrapbookers, you would think that one of us would think to close the shades behind the kids so we could get decent pictures, but unfortunately none of us did!)

Kiersten's graduating class included:
(back row) Kiersten, Carter Burns, Macy Husted,
(front row) Jonah Carlson, Hailey Walton, Wyatt Burns.


One of the other moms was in charge of graduation. She played Pomp & Circumstance as each child marched down the stairs, carrying a rose for their mom/teacher. Another mom read a poem to you, and had a small gift for you. Then I read “I Knew You Could” and had a candy train for each of you. After that Sister Walton presented each of you with your diplomas, and then we ended with lunch. All too soon it was time to go home and preschool was officially over. And now it is off to kindergarten for you!
18 May 2010

My Rugged Outdoorsmen

Mother's Day weekend our ward held it's annual Fathers and Sons Camping Trip (officially called the Aaronic Priesthood Restoration Commemoration ). Nate and Tanner had a blast, of course!

Nate will have to come back later and fill in the details, since I wasn't there. All I know is that when he came home and I was looking at the pictures on the camera I started to freak out when I came to this first picture. I couldn't figure out what on earth had possessed Nate to give Tanner a rifle. Then I looked a little closer, and realized that it was nothing to worry about; it was just the tent poles. Nate was offended that I would assume he let Tanner play with a gun.


Even though I wasn't there, I could still tell Tanner had a great time , especially when it came to setting up the tent. He was right there in the middle of all the action, and I'm sure he was a great "help" to Nate; just like he is to me every day at home when I'm trying to get things done!

I just love sleeping children!

Just Say "Hi"

A few weeks ago I was in the kitchen doing the dishes and I looked over the counter and saw Kiersten in the family room playing church with her dolls. I'm not sure what she was doing - she was either giving a talk, giving a lesson, or reading a scripture, but she said, "Jesus said, love everyone. If you can't do that, (pause), well, just say "hi." Then she got embarrassed because she realized I was listening and didn't say anything else.

That constantly runs through my head, and I try to remember her advice. When I don't feel like being nice, I try to at least smile and say hi.

(The picture doesn't have anything to do with the story - it is from when we took the kids to the Gila Valley Temple Open House. I just happened to like it, and it looks like my kids like each other!)

A Family Af"FAIR"

A couple of years ago Kiersten and I enjoyed our first county fair. Last year we didn't make it, since we planned our Disneyland trip at about the same time the fair came to town. Kiersten regularly brings up the fair and how much fun it was, so we decided to go again when it was in town this year. We picked Nate up from work and ate a picnic dinner in the car so we could get as early of a start as possible (because heaven forbid the kids go to bed late, and I have to deal with cranky kids the next day!).
Kiersten was obsessed that night with the Ferris Wheel. I didn't even know she knew what a ferris wheel was, but that was where she wanted to start the night. Thankfully we were able to talk her into going on the carousel first (another favorite), so that we could start the night out with everyone getting a ride.When we started our ride, Kiersten was a little nervous. Ok, I was nervous too! It was kind of freaky to be going backwards and up and just when you start to get a little momentum, you stop and wait for the next car to be loaded/unloaded. Once we made it around the first time, and we started moving continuously it was much more fun. Kiersten relaxed and was able to enjoy it, thankfully! For the rest of the evening that was all Kiersten talked about, and how she wants to go do it again!

Even though Tanner was technically too short to ride a lot of the rides without Mom or Dad, most of the operators (well, the 2 we asked!) were really nice and let him go anyway. We just had to assure them that he wouldn't try to climb out of the ride while it was moving or anything. Even though we assured the operators he wouldn't, I wasn't so sure! Thankfully he had such a great time on the rides that he didn't even come close to climbing out.
I was really impressed our little county fair this year. They had the things that I remembered from last time - the rides, games, animals (this year the kids even got to pet the pigs - they have really wirey/bristle-y hair), booths, and places to take our picture (after we tried to get one of the kids, Kiersten insisted on taking one of Nate and I),
but this year they seemed to have a lot more than I remembered - they had a fire dance show that I found fascinating (although I worried as I watched it that Kiersten and Tanner might get some crazy ideas. Thankfully so far we've been safe!),
and they even had a sea lion show with 3 sea lions who did all sorts of tricks. Tanner was completely fascinated. (Unfortunately it was getting dark - this was one of the last things we did - and none of the pictures turned out.)

Doesn't that look like a boy having a great time?

We ended the evening with funnel cakes, something I remember and love from my teenage days working at, and going to, our local amusement park (Elitch's Gardens) - yummy! I thought one was plenty for us to share, but there was some sort of miscommunication between Nate and I and he thought I told him to order 2, so darn! We ended up with two! :)

I'm Ca-ca!

In the last couple of weeks, Tanner has developed his own name for Kiersten. I don't even know exactly how to type it . . . the closest I can get to what it sounds like is "cu-cu," as if you were saying "cup" but forgot the "p" at the end, and repeated yourself. Kiersten loves that he now has a name for her. (He's been saying "Mommy" and "Daddy" forever, and he calls himself "baby" but he hasn't had any sort of a name for her, until now.) But, when she calls herself Tanner's name for her, it sounds more like "ca-ca." She goes around the house saying things like, "Tanner, Ca-ca's here." or "Look, it's ca-ca!" Nate and I just laugh- she has no idea what it sounds like she's calling herself!

It's bad enough that Tanner has a Whinnie the Pooh ball and notebook that he loves and when he's looking for them he walks around the house calling out, "Pooh!" Or, when Kiersten finds them, she says, "Look, Pooh!" which always gets me running. One of these days I'll learn!

On another note, Tanner's speech therapist is pretty convinced that he's caught up enough that he doesn't need therapy any more (he's got more than 50 words and he's starting to put 2 words together), so we're down to just once a month.

Why do I bother boying toys?

This is Tanner's favorite way to spend the day . . .
He can go all day without playing with a single toy, as long as he can have the vacuum! He takes the plug and "plugs" it into the end of the attachment and he's ready to go.
Unfortunately I can't use this to my advantage. He won't play with it when the vacuum is really on, so I still have to go back and vacuum. But, thankfully if I need him to be occupied while I get something done, I can say, "Tanner, go vacuum the family room," and I can count on him being occupied for at least 10-15 minutes!