Kayden's Smile

Kayden woke up the other day and his smile looked somewhat different. It kind of resembled Mater from Cars:

His right front tooth was slightly crooked.  It was so loose it was flapping in the wind!

It took some convincing, but he let his dad pull it out:

His new smile looks completely different!

He immediately put his tooth under his pillow to await the Tooth Fairy.  He was delighted when he discovered a whole dollar under his pillow the next morning.  Man he is growing up fast.

Raingutter Regatta

I was just called to be the Cub Committee Chair person in our ward.  Whew!  I had no idea what went into this calling.  Our last pack meeting was the raingutter regatta.  After building three sets of raingutters, buying awards, delegating out award certificates and pre-activites, etc. the night finally arrived.  Jeremy helped Joshua build his cool BYU boat and we were off to the races!

Josh's boat is the BYU boat that is to the right.  His good friend Matt made the other BYU boat.  (No wonder they are friends!)

Josh practicing his blowing skills before the big race began.

Josh racing his friend Matt.

Josh and his boat did very well.  Above he is in the final race of the night and he won first place!

Josh and his first place metal (pinned to his shirt).

Overall the night was a big success!  Of course I learned a few things that I would do differently as a pack leader next time.  But I was excited for Josh and was happy he won. :)

Naohiro

We had the privilege of having a Japanese foreign exchange student stay with us for a week. We had never done anything like this before and we were quite nervous about the experience. But it turned out great and we had a good time while Naohiro (pronounced Now-Hero) was staying with us.  We received a packet of information about Naohiro before he arrived.  In that packet we learned that he loves to go bowling, speaks a little English, has one little sister, has a calm demeanor, and is allergic to house dust.  I had to laugh because there is nothing I hate more than dusting.  We spent a couple of days getting the house ready for our student to arrive and Kayden graciously gave up his bedroom so Naohiro had a place to stay.  Then finally he arrived.  The night he arrived we took him out for American hamburgers and fries.  When we got home we showed him around and then he showered us with gifts.  He brought us several greeting cards, chopsticks, child's chopsticks for Kayden, Japanese games, handkerchiefs, tons of traditional Japanese snacks, stickers of Japanese currency, gifts bags, and Japanese comic books.  I am sure I am forgetting something!  Despite his jet lag, he wanted to stay up and show the boys how everything worked and to play with them.  He also loved playing with our dog Suki--which is a Japanese name much to Naohiro's delight.

Naohiro showing Kayden how the practice chopsticks work.

I insisted he showed me how to use the chopsticks as well.  I figured it out that night, but I haven't be able to figure it out since.  Even Kayden has tried giving me tips.  Also above, McKay is playing one of the Japanese games that he brought to us.

After his first full day here (he was gone all day on the weekdays), we took him to Trafalga after dinner to have some fun.  He loved the Frog Hopper Ride even though he was nervous at first.  We even ran into another host family that are some friends of ours while we were there and had some fun hanging out with them and playing Laser Tag.  The boys all climbed the rock wall as well.

The second day Naohiro was here was Halloween.  We dressed him up and McKay took him trick-or-treating.

Friday morning, Naohiro when to school with McKay and shadowed him all day.  He liked seeing how McKay's school was different than his.  He really enjoyed McKay's art class.

On Friday night we invited some friends of ours--who were also host families to Japanese exchange students--to roast hotdogs and s'mores over the fire.  While we were setting up, Naohiro discovered the trampoline and jumped on it for the first time.  He liked it.

The kids all had a good time eating, playing catch with the football, playing basketball and playing games.  Above they are playing Duck, Duck, Goose.

On Saturday I guess jet lag caught up with Naohiro and he took a nap on the couch.  He had been going nonstop since his arrival.  In fact, I was pretty worn out myself!

Saturday afternoon we took him bowling which is his favorite thing to do.  It was no surprise that he beat us all.  After bowling, we went laser tagging again.  Laser tagging ended up being his favorite activity while he was here.

On Sunday we took him to church.  I asked him what he thought about it and he said, "It was very long."  I laughed.  After church we took him with us to Grandma and Grandpa White's house for family dinner.  We had homemade pizza and he loved it!

Monday night they had a big thank you social and wrap up.  We had dinner and then there was a program.  The students performed various things and did some dancing.  It was fun to watch Naohiro.

Saying good-bye the night before he left.  We were just about to have family prayer when there was a last minute dog pile on Jaxon.  Naohiro joined in on the fun.

 The boys really enjoyed having him here and they were sad to see him go.

I have to insert here that Naohiro had great manners, was very polite and was such a good kid.  He liked all of my cooking and always wanted seconds.  He and McKay got along great as well and became good friends.  They didn't even need to talk to each other. (Talking to Naohiro was not an easy feat.)  It was like they could read each others' thoughts.  They had a good time together and McKay was bummed when it was time for Naohiro to leave. 

Naohiro left us the following card when he left:

 His card made me smile.

It didn't hit me until I was cleaning up and putting all the things that he had given us away that we would never see him again.  As glad as I was to get things back to normal, it made me sad that he was gone forever.  It was a good experience and we will have to maybe see about hosting again another year.

Halloween Festivities 2013

I have a love/hate relationship with fall. I love all the weather, colors and the festivities, but I hate that it means winter is coming.  We have made the best of our fall this year.  During Fall Break, we met up with some friends and went to Cornbelly's.  The kids all had a great time.  I liked it too.  I enjoy being with my friends just as much as the kids do.

McKay invited his friend Parker along.  This was the only time that I saw them the whole afternoon.  Being teenagers, they went off on their own and found their own fun.  Their "fun" may or may not have involved getting kicked out of the corn maze. 

Josh, Josh F., Addie F. and Kayden all lined up begging to have their picture taken.

Kayden and one of his best buddies, Josh.

Oh Jaxon.  He is such a jokester.  He and his friend JD had a good time together.

Josh and his buddy Kaden C.  They had such a good time reuniting and rekindling their friendship.  It had been way to long since they had been able to hangout together.

Not sure what Josh is riding, but he had fun riding it nonetheless.

Then Jaxon had fun punching it.

Jaxon (who is acting way too cool) and JD going for a ride.

Josh F., Kayden and Trace loving their tractor ride.  I had a good time riding with them too.

Kaden C. and Josh returning from their tractor ride.

Our ward had a Fall Festival where the boys got to dress up.  We went down to the church and had some dinner and played some carnival games.  It was a lot of fun.

Josh dressed up as Jeremy Warner from Studio C.  He won an award for the best TV costume.

Kayden had a good time with the doughnut eating contest.

Kayden especially loved getting his face painted.

Halloween finally arrived and the boys had a great time dressing up for school.  I missed getting a picture of McKay before he left for school (he dressed up as Dr. White), but here is who I caught:

Josh (as Jeremy Warner), Kayden (as a BYU football player), and Jaxon (as Si Robertson).

Kayden sharing is Halloween love with Suki.

Our elementary school has a fun tradition of having a Halloween parade where the kids get to show off their costumes while they walk through the school.

Josh as he is walking by.

Jaxon walking by (doing what I am not sure).  Sadly, since Jaxon is in 6th grade this year, this was his last Halloween parade.  Sniff, sniff.

Kayden and his friend Iron Man, I mean Chase, all set to ride to kindergarten on Halloween.

Kayden in his school Halloween parade.  He was slightly excited to see me.

All my Halloween boys all set to go out and trick-or-treat.  Kayden, McKay (as Dr. White), Josh, Jaxon and Naohiro (he is our foreign exchange student from Japan that as been staying with us the last few days--more on that later).

Happy Halloween!

Studio C Signing

If you didn't already know, we are BIG Studio C fans at our house.  We have our Monday night ritual of watching the show without fail.  I found out that they were having a DVD signing at the BYU Bookstore tonight.  Jeremy and Jaxon are away at scout camp, but the rest of us piled in the car and went down to meet the cast, get a DVD signed and McKay threw on one of his Studio C shirts so they could sign it as well.  We had a great time!

When we arrived at the bookstore, we found that the line to meet the cast wrapped around the whole store!  The wait wasn't too bad.  We were in line for about 45 minutes.

Kayden couldn't wait to meet Matt Meese to tell him that he is his favorite Studio C guy.  Matt was flattered and said. "Thanks man!"

Jeremy and his infamous mustache signing McKay's shirt.

Josh was excited to meet Matt as well.  Matt is an obvious favorite at our house.

Natalie and Whitney taking a turn signing McKay's shirt.  He was blushing, but all smiles!

At the end, Kayden asked me if Whitney could sign his shirt.  I told him it wasn't a very good idea, but that we could take his picture with Whitney.  Whitney told him his shirt was too cool to sign.  Afterwards Kayden said to me, "Whitney is my friend, not my girlfriend, just my new friend."

The whole cast was so courteous and nice.  I am glad that my kids love a show that casts such nice people!  The only thing that would have made the night better was having Jaxon and Jeremy there with us!

Harvest Time

The Fall brings harvest time.  Only this year, I have no garden to harvest.  That didn't stop me from harvesting everyone else's garden.  This year I harvested salsa, jalapeno jelly, peaches, grape juice and applesauce all from other people's garden.
 

 Kayden helped pick grapes.  There were a lot of grapes!  He was a good helper.

 

Bottling grape juice.  So simple yet it takes forever.  For next year my friend and I came up with a plan to use two juicers at once to make it go by faster.  This year I used just her juicer, but I ordered my own.  Next year we will have two!

 

I have to show off my grape juice.  It is so pretty all sealed up in bottles.  The lighter pink bottles are from green grapes and it sure is tasty!  All that food harvested, what a sense of accomplishment!

As I bottled applesauce today, I sat and thought about my mom and grandma.  They were major bottlers.  Sure love them.  When I was younger, I swore I would never bottle food.  Too much work.  All it took was for me to inherit my grandmother's steamer and bottling equipment and I caught the buzz.  Never say never, eh?  Happy Fall Harvest!

BYU Game Fun

Grandma and Grandpa are out of town so they gave us their BYU tickets for a couple of games.  This was Kayden's first BYU game.  He got to sit by Josh, and Jaxon and his Dad.  McKay and I sat in Grandma and Grandpa's seats.  All the boys had a good time--as long has they had snacks.  Admittedly, Kayden wanted more entertainment by the third quarter and therefore played his Dad's phone most of the remainder of the game. He still cheered like crazy.  Go Cougars!