Us Lately...

Kal's been working on her hula-hoop toss...

I think she has the form down!

Ben's been collecting wonderful prizes...

Kal's been fishing around for some too...

Chris and Andrew (and Ben) all got matching buzz cuts....(not my idea :))

Kal has taken makeup to a whole new level

Andrew shows his true side...

You may now call her "Princess Kallie"

Andrew doesn't want to be left out

Holding perfectly still

The gang and the loot

Andrew is my new fashion hero....please take note of

1. the fisherman hat he never takes off

2. the princess bandaid

3. the jammie shirt..but oddly no jammie pants

4. the tag still on his army boots

5. how incrediably happy he is with this outfit he put together

"Mom, you know my left side is my 'good' side!"

Say cheese!

K's mini me

For school Kallie was asked to make a doll that looked like her. So of course we had to do a dress, with sparkle shoes, and a sparkle bracelet and belt. You can't tell from the picture but she also has sparkles in her hair and sparkle earrings. Kal had so much fun making this doll! She is going to wear a dress that matches her doll, and of course her hair in braids! FYI - Kall picked out everything for this doll from fabric to buttons. What a little fashion designer we have!

Cabin

For Labor Day weekend we went and played at the cabin! We love going there and just relaxing. It is great to only pack clothes to lay around in, no makeup, no curling iron, no bows...just go up and leave the world away. I guess I was too relaxed because I was HORRIBLE at taking pictures! I didn't even get ONE of Amy's cute little baby! I did get a few cute ones on the rare (ok, the ONE time I took my camera out of its case). So here they are!
"Ava, say Cheese!" and you get this picture...

"Caden, say Cheese!" and you get this picture....

"Andrew, say Cheese"...and you get this (him running down the hallway)....
The BOYS did a lot of the cooking this weekend...see the cabin is a magical place!

Such a cute kid!

Andrew and Hailey jumping on the love sac.

This post did not do justice to what an amazing time we had at the cabin this weekend! We love going up there with family and letting the cousins play and the adults catch up. The only hard thing about going to the cabin is coming back home and facing life again :)

Take me out to the ball game!

I know the BURNING question in all of your minds is "what did Kallie wear to school on her second day?" Kallie, being a wonderfully thoughtful girl, had me take a picture of her on your second day of school so I could post it on the blog for all her fans :) A Kallie disclaimer...she would have worn something different today, but today they were learning about red...so she just HAD to wear red for her teacher!

And yes, the backpack is still the same one...just in case any of you were not completely sure :) (See, told you she was thoughtful!)

Also, I'm pretty sure I haven't blogged about it yet, but Ben is in SOCCER! He LOVES it and is constantly asking me why I didn't sign him up sooner. I have no idea what I was thinking! Hopefully, I will remember to take my camera next game day and get some action shots!

And here is Andrew being Andrew. He is such a cute little monkey!

Alright, now on to the baseball game! I will now turn the computer over to Chris for the funny stories that were so abundant!

Wow, the funny thing is I'm not usually very funny when I TRY to be or when I'm under pressure to be funny. But for all anybody knows there is really just one author to this post pretending (for whatever reason) to be two authors. You'll never know, but my friends at school tomorrow are going to be so impressed that I pulled off posting as BOTH my parents online! I'm the coolest 1st grader ever!

So back to the story. There are two things that I (my dad that is) never thought would happen. One was attending an Orem Owlz (D league) baseball game. There other was owning a BYUSA shirt. Well, the universe will never cease to amaze me. I've now attended an Orem Owlz baseball game and ended up owning a BYUSA t-shirt all in the same night. I'm not exactly calling it a miracle, but it's certainly "miraculous" that it happened. From a statistics point of view the probability of those two things happening on the same night, if at all, was about as good as winning the lottery. Yeah, I'd rather have won the lottery, but still.

Papa and Hailey met us at the game and THE Orem Owl met us just inside the gate. My photo-op happy wife could not have been photo-op happier. Now, study the picture below EXTREMELY carefully. It may not seem like it, but it is in fact one of those "the moment before you realize the pain" type pictures.

Now you can't see her in the picture (I just made you study it for nothing), but there is a little girl lurking behind the owl who is poised for attack. The second the shutter clicked she literally jumped the owl from behind and entwined her body in a death lock on the owl's tail. This led to a scuffle that partially revealed the secret of the giant owl. "It's just a man in there!" cried my kindergartner. She is so smart! Let's hope no one scuffles with Santa Claus in front of the kids until they're a little older...

After we had settled down with our free 4" hot dogs and 24 oz. sodas with no lids or cardboard racks for carrying them we realized that nobody had thought to get napkins, but we had collectively managed to gather about 50 plastic straws between all of us. Katie went to make the switch and returned with an armful of BYUSA t-shirts. I'm not sure BYUSA meant for us to use their free t-shirts as napkins, but hey, whatever keeps the ketchup and mustard off the clothes we actually paid for.

Katie then decided that we should get at least 2 more free t-shirts to clean up any future soda spills we might have so I went off to the BYUSA table. The conversation was off to a bad start when I asked what BYUSA was doing at an Orem Owlz game and they insinuated that I was obviously too old to still be in college by asking if at one point in my history I had been a part of BYUSA. I remained the better man and held my tongue from retorting exactly what I thought of BYUSA and then I proceeded to dress them down by belittling their respective majors. Physicists can be such arrogant jerks sometimes. In the end, it was all for nothing since they were all out of shirts by the time I got there.

Also at the game: jolly fat people. Specifically jolly fat people who pose a smile in the background of your personal pictures. See if you can spot one (besides me of course) in the picture below.

In the end we got great seats. Front row right behind home plate. Notice how happy the kids look wearing their new napkins.

And, as at all events, we had to take our signature self portrait.

Notice how Katie picked the one where her wrinkles were minimized and mine were maximized.

Andrew was Papa's little buddy throughout the whole game.

Now again, the picture below is another one of these "the moment before the pain hits" type shots. See if you can spot it this time.

And again you would hate me because the picture itself gives no clue as to what is about to happen. Sitting right behind the home plate net can get a little exciting at times, and Papa was very diligent trying to keep the kids a safe distance away from the loose net in case a foul ball came flying at one of their little heads. Unfortunately, he was not so diligent with his soda. His hapless soda was sitting innocently on the wall behind the net when the batter clipped a fast one and sent it about eye level at the front row. The laws of physics took over and Papa's right foot got an iced soda bath. Katie could not stop laughing. This then served as an object lesson to the kids who, not wanting to have their brains under go the same fate as the soda, were very good about sitting in their seats for the rest of the game.

It turns out that the Orem Owlz are pretty good about spreading around free stuff in between all the innings and we ended up with free passes for everyone to Seven Peaks as well. This got Ben in the mood of trying to predict which section the Owl was going to be in during the next inning break to try and get more stuff. Needless to say it didn't really work out for him.

During the seventh inning stretch I asked myself a question I should have thought of long before. If you're playing a "sport" that takes so long to play and requires so little physical activity that you have to stop and strectch again before the game is over, is it really a sport? Not even golfers do that.

Kallie's first day

Kallie has been so excited to finally be in Kindergarten. It has been killing her that Ben has gotten to go to school for the past week, and she had to stay home. Today was finally her day to go and she was so excited. So excited that last night she had a hard time falling asleep. So excited that my 9am riser got up at 7:30 and wanted to get dressed for school. So excited that we had to change her finger nail polish 3 times so it was perfect. So excited that she has had her first day of school outfit on her bed for the last week...all laid out and ready to go. So excited that she wanted to get to school by 10am so she wouldn't be late (school starts at 12:20 for her). So needless to say...she was excited :)

Kallie with Daddy on her first day.

You must model the new backpack that is almost as big as you :)

"Did you know you can only wear curly hair with purple? If you want to wear straight hair you must wear pink" - Kallie schooling me on the proper hair style for certain colors. How dare I suggest she wear it down and straight with a headband?!?!

A close up of my cute girl :)

Kallie being Vanna White for her backpack (for Nini)

"Mom, we must show her it has a hook and a backside!" Appalled that I was only going to take a picture of the front side!

Riding to school

Kallie with her teacher Mrs. Parker. Kallie went up to her teacher and told her that her Nini wanted a picture of her...so if she could stand right there I would take a picture for her. We convinced Kallie to be in the picture too ;)

Kallie and her buddy playing play doh before school. There are two other girls from our ward in her class, which she was so excited about!

Kallie had the best day at school today. She can't wait to go back tomorrow and get more surprises in her backpack. As we were unloading her backpack she made me close my eyes for every new paper she handed me. So cute. :) Also, I have been informed that school is "sooooooooooo much funner than being home with you". Maybe not so cute :)