Jacksonville

As fun as that last post was for comments I figured I should get something new up quick before the men in my family propose a Hancock Family Project Runway at christmas to crown one of them Top Model.  Although I think Ben or Kyle would win if it ever did come to that.  Saturday we went to Jacksonville, a cute little touristy town about 6 miles from Medford.  We love it there.  It's just really cute and there is a milkshake shop that Ben has decided should be within walking distance from us.  He wants to move us all there someday so that he can get milkshakes while I join up with the town's cemetery restoration committee.  That may one day be our life.  But this Saturday the main businesses opened up for trick or treating.  We dressed the kids (Heidi and Kaylee are superheroes and Daisy is Angelina Ballerina)  

After getting some candy they sat down to enjoy their candy.  Blake was just Superman because we were saving his other outfit for a time when we didn't have to walk so much. Doesn't this just look like the cutest little town.  This bench is on their main road!  I love it!

 Here's Benji and his friend, Dr. Somogyi, drinking the oh-so-wonderful-milkshakes-that-we-will-move-for.  Ben works with Dr. Somogyi at the VA.  After this little break we walked to the Jacksonville Cemetery (appropriate for Halloween) and it was the coolest little cemetery.  I told Ben we could be buried there.  It needs to be fixed up a bit but it is this awesome graveyard where the markers are all above the ground and they are all grouped together as families.  The graveyard is even broken up into sections of Masons, Catholics, Jews and City folk.  It was really awesome.  They have graves from 1862 and Ben and I even tried to fix up a few that had been knocked over.

Last night was also the ward trunk or treat and this was when we brought out Blake's costume!!  There was no costume parade but I am positive that Blake would have won.
By the end of the night he even figured out how to say 'Or Treat' to get his candy.  He was super cute. And he did well with such a bulky costume as long as he was walking around.  He didn't like just standing for a picture or sitting in it.  I love how big his eye are in the picture where he got his candy.  He loved it last night.  I'm excited for tomorrow!

Brotherly Advice

So it has been suggested that this...(crying, pouting and being miserable)

may be the result from years of this...

Well the problem is that I LOVE to have my kids match!!  And if I can match along with them then that is even more awesome!  I love it!  I have never been a trendy/fashionable dresser.  I still can't even figure out what looks good on me so my kids have very little hope for that in the future.  Perhaps it is not trendy to match all your kids.  Perhaps I should take that advice since my brother and his wife are always in style.  But I would really miss it!  And for the record Kaylee picked her pumpkin shirt and both the matching bows.  That was not me although I guess I did buy the shirt specifically for the pumpkin patch but she was really excited about it.  OK, ok, writing that just now made me realize that yes, we have a problem but I guess it is a good thing we moved closer to family.  Perhaps in the future when it is school shopping time I will make arrangements for them to go shopping with their aunts and then maybe the aunts can take me out shopping and show me what I should be wearing.  (Oh yeah, and Erica, those pants that I bought that I loved are already ruined from the wash!  Why don't the expensive jeans last longer??)  But I can rest your minds at ease that Kaylee is not miserable nor does she need psychiatric help.  She just doesn't like attention so any time there is a big event revolving around her she will not cooperate.  And the more we push her to participate the more she pulls back and ends up crying in all her pictures.  She is actually a pretty happy kid and has been working really hard to earn a smiley face each day.

And while searching for other matching pictures I came across these of Daisy.  She was so cute!!  I love her round face.  I don't know of any other baby that has had as perfectly round a face as Daisy.  She is so funny.  She still remind me of Dumbo.  I love having kids.

Once again my kids just don't do school pictures well.  Heidi saw Kaylee's blog about the picture and asked for me to put hers up.  Kaylee's is hilarious in that she has her depressed pose down and that is all she will ever do when you try to capture a memorable moment.  Heidi on the other hand just took a bad picture.  I think her plan was to hide her teeth that are growing in at all different size, shapes and angles.  I get that.  But she just looks like she has a huge chin and there is an opening anyway that makes it look like she has no teeth at all.  Can these pictures be any worse?  They just aren't flattering.  On the order form it says "pictures this good would be a shame to miss"but I think my kids will thank me when they are older for not hanging these on my walls.  We will just wait until we can get a regular cute picture and then put that up.

PS-even though her teeth are growing in and I'm sure she will end up with braces one day they actually don't look too bad.  At least not yet anyway.  She looks really cute when she shows her teeth because she looks like a little girl with her teeth barely showing.

My cheeks are hurting

So when Kaylee said she wanted to wear her new ball shirt (Camry shirt) for school pictures I didn't care because I don't really buy the pictures anyway.  I figured we would just have Erica take some family pictures for us-a nice perk to living closer.  But then when I saw Angelee's son's school pictures I secretly thought maybe the picture would turn out and I'd end up buying it because it was just the perfect school picture.  Then the picture came home today and I have not laughed so hard in a long time.  My cheeks are hurting from laughing.  I know Linda would not like me to say this another classic Kaylee so I won't but seriously she is just something else.  She is determined to be miserable.

Fall favorites

Last week the kids got dressed in their halloween gear.  I tried to get a cute picture but this is as good as it gets.  Last night I worked on Blake's halloween costume.  I'm not so into halloween that i plan for months or even care much about the costumes but each year there is always one that will be just the right one and I put my effort into that one.  The rest of the kids have to make due with what we have on hand but they seem fine with it.  Last year the effort was put into Heidi being a witch (and at the last minute Daisy being an ipad).  The year before that Kaylee got the effort put into a Peter Pan costume and luckily we had a dress that would work for wendy and tinkerbell.  But this year Blake will get to be....

Lightning McQueen!!!

He loves, loves, loves playing with cars.  He carries 2 or 3 around wherever we go.  Lightning and Mater are his two favorites but if they are missing he will take any car he can.  Last night he was totally uninterested in the red box but once I put the eyes on he stood there and gasped.  You know he is excited because he will gasp with his mouth wide open like he can't believe it.  He is such a cute kid.  I still have the wheels to put on and it needs straps to keep it on his shoulders but otherwise his costume is about done.  Heidi and Kaylee are going to be super heroes and Daisy is just wearing a princess dress that we already have.  They would like Ben to dress up as Ernest but I don't know if we can find a cool jean vest that is cheap enough.  I love Halloween.  It is one holiday where my family had a real routine when we were younger that has become for most of us adult kids a tradition.  We'd always go to grandma's, have weenie stew, and then trick or treat with our cousins.  Plus it is the kickoff for the rest of the holidays coming up.  I love this time of year. 

Kaylee's Big Day!!

Today was Kaylee's field trip to the Pumpkin Patch!!  Yes!!  We were so excited and I got to chaperone (thanks to checka) and we got all dressed up in our best Halloween colors and went for a fun-filled day.  At least that's what I imagined.  However, I forgot who I was dealing with here.  

 Right when I showed up I took Kaylee's picture which she wouldn't look at me so these are the best I got.  I had Kaylee and two others in my group, Jackson and Melody.  Melody is about the quietest,  and most easily forgotten kid there.  She just blends in and you don't notice her so you forget she's is even around.  She reminded me of Cypher in the Snow or something like that.

 As I said, this was KAYLEE'S field trip, which meant that she did not partake in anything fun but instead clung to my leg and cried.  Why doesn't she just enjoy life?  And the worst part is that if I hadn't been there she would have joined in-no way would she have touched or clung to another adult.  For some reason when I am around my kids shrink into their own little shells and don't come out.  She didn't like the corn maze, wouldn't play on the hay slide with the kids, wouldn't sit in the tractor seat, wouldn't smile for her teacher, didn't want to eat lunch, wouldn't pick a pumpkin (they were all the wrong kind) and wouldn't talk to anyone around her.  It was chilly, she left her jacket at school, and she decided that she would only be happy if I held her the whole.  Regardless of my hip that is hurting I wouldn't have carried her around anyway so there she was, crying on her field trip.  Then crying at the bus because she wanted me to take her home instead of going back to school.

         
 The good thing about the trip was that I got to meet her school friends.  The boy in black is Logan, who she kinda likes and who is also kinda crazy; the lavendar shirt is Ava, her friend; the salmon colored shirt is her friend and fellow bus rider, Harrisen; and the other pink shirt with the headband is Claire from church.  Notice how they are all happily seating there?  But not Kaylee.

 This is the closest Kaylee would get to the tractor and she only did it because she thought I wasn't looking.

 This was when she realized I was looking.

My mom always says I put up posts of Kaylee being bad but this is just how Kaylee is.  And I'm not ever mad or angry about all the crying fits.  I got over that a long time ago.  Now I just know to expect it.  However, I feel bad that she is missing out on SO MUCH because she chooses to be grouchy.  She would have been much better if I hadn't gone but she also wanted me to come.  I have learned with Kaylee that if I am there she will act like a baby.  When she first started to ride the bus we were always late getting out the door so there was no time for my to go and wait with them.  We have since changed our routine and the girls are out there with plenty of time to spare (3-5 mins) and if I am out there with them Kaylee will start crying and go into hysterics about not wanting to go to school.  However if I just don't walk them out there and say goodbye at the door she is fine!  She loves it!  Not a single problem!  But if I am around she will throw a fit over something.  I don't understand why she does it but I know she does and I know not to get mad anymore because it doesn't help the situation anyway.  My current parental course now is just to expect it and get as many crying/pouting/sulking pictures as I can because otherwise she wouldn't have a single post made about her. I hope she grows out of it soon because I hate seeing her miss so much fun stuff.  There are so many experiences that could have been wonderful but she chose to pout and now they are only sad memories.  Although maybe I'm wrong.  Maybe when she grows up she will remember the pumpkin patch and she will only remember the fun parts of it like the hay ride and picking her pumpkin.  Who knows.  I definitely don't and I definitely understand-thanks to Kaylee-that just like parents on earth Heavenly Father is also right there waiting for us to grow out of things so that we can choose a better way to live and have a better earthly experience. Parenting really does make you understand how your parents felt while raising you and how Heavenly Father feels while watching us pass through our mortal existence. Overall the lesson learned was that next time she needs to just BRING HER JACKET!!