Seein' The Fam

e went to visit Tarl's family for Thanksgiving. It's been much too long since I've been able to go and Tarl went up a week early (with Makayla) for a job interview so it was especially nice to get up there and spend a week.

Last year there were 5 kids born into the family. Justus is four months older than Tyce and Martin is a month older than Tyce. The other two born were Kenadi and Elam which I never did get a picture of. (All week Makayla kept locking herself into this car seat. If anyone besides me offered to help her out she'd just put her head down and act shy....silly girl.)

The kids had a GREAT time running around the church playing. With a family this large there really isn't a better place to hold our activities. There were about 20 adults and at about 22 kids or so. I know that doesnt necessarily sound crazy but other than 8 of those 42+ people weren't immediate family to us. (The picture of the girls sitting down...there are a few other kids in there, they're playing 'primary'.)

The adults all got into some great games. It's fun that the kids could entertain themselves long enough for us all to actually play and chat! There was an intense Monopoly game (Javier, Rene, Heather, Angelica, ?, Antonio, Ben) and a hilarious Who, What, Where going on (Meggan, Flin, Jessica, MaryAnn, Shaelyn, Dallen, Chad, Tarl and me). Good times, good times. I think this is definitely a new family favorite! We played it about 3 or 4 times while we were there.

On Friday we met up with Adam, Brie and McKay and went to a little fair thing in downtown. They had bounce houses, face painting, train rides, petting/feeding goats, and a few other things we didn't make it to. Makayla and I got to go inside the fences and feed the goats. She wanted to feed the babies but the older ones were super pushy so we couldn't really push them away. Tyce and McKay loved it too (especially because they couldn't be knocked over).

The train ride was a bit (ok MUCH) crazier than we had anticipated. Turns out the way they rigged it if any of the kids wiggle back and forth the cars in the back shake violently. And although usually it's fun to have a super long ride, Brie and I were SO ready for it to end after the first 30 seconds. Makayla liked it though so I'm glad I went on it with her.

Also just a glimpse of some of the chaos during holiday time. Unfortunately by the time I grabbed my camera eight of the kids had gone downstairs. There are only two rooms to gather in at this house so sometimes it gets really loud!

Our two Haydens. Tyce loved to cuddle with grandpa (especially when he was eating). Pic 2: Kalyana tried to teach cousin Kyra how to play London Bridges. Grandma Cheryl taught it to her earlier this week and when Kyra heard it she begged to learn. It was cute watching Kalyana explain it. Pic 3: Tyce and Justus are trying to help me clean up. Cute little boogers they are.

The girls love their uncle "Flinny". Whenever he was around they'd run over to see him, beat him up, wrestle him, climb on him. He's a pretty fun uncle. Pic 2: Teige, Makayla, Kalyana, Abani watching a movie after a busy day of playing hard. Pic 3: Even before 9am grandma was kind enough to take the kids outside to jump on the trampoline. Gotta love that grandma (she even gets up and jumps too)!

Having one of many delicious breakfasts of homemade wheat pancakes, sausage and eggs. Pic 2: Creative games and imagination galore. Pic 3: Kaly holding her new cousin Cage born in October.

Having a treat at the mall. One of our favorite places to stop in at is the pet store/petting zoo. Tarl told me last week Makayla wanted to feed the goats, and did! So when we went back this week with the rest of us, I got to see it in action. (Is that llama smiling??)

Cute puppy, cute baby. Pic 2: Helping aunt Shantae make cookies. Messy, yes. Helpful, maybe. Good, absolutely.

On the way home we stopped at my parents house. Aunt Heather was in town and it was REALLY great to get to see her. The kids all LOVE spending time with Heather. The girls even got to spend the night last night.

I should mention also that we had our Thanksgiving on Friday because Thursday we went to the 'big' one. Every year my mother-in-law and her 9 siblings and their kids (whoever is in town) get together for the day so we went over and visited with everyone and then went back home for a quiet relaxing evening. No pictures from that.

And just a quick yahoo for gas near my parents house being 1.53 on Saturday (in fact there was another station across the street at 1.51 but to have to wait in line I figured my sanity was worth .30 or so.

A little reminiscing

In the last year I've hardly watched any broadcast tv. Sometimes I'll catch a show on the internet here or there but I think I've only seen a dozen or show episodes this year total.

It got me thinking of all those good ol' shows that I used to watch as a kid.

In no particular order I present theme songs from my past.

(Click on them to go to youtube to hear the theme song.)

Coach
Golden Girls
Family Ties
Punky Brewster (later was on Sabrina the Teenage Witch, college days)
Hogan Family (Jason Bateman, I totally forgot he was on this show!)
Whos the Boss
Mad About You
Gummi Bears
Alf
Growing Pains (one of many of Alan Thicke theme song)
Mr Belvader
Silver Spoons
Perfect Strangers and of course the dance of joy.
Charles in Charge
Chip N Dale Rescue Rangers
Tale Spin
Duck Tales
Out of This World (I got to see them film an episode!)
Small Wonder
Saved by the Bell
Night Court
Cheers
Empty Nest do you remember this one??

Of course the TGIF classics
Full House
Boy Meets World
Step by Step
Family Matters
-Dinosaurs (uhm?)

What did you think? What were your favorites or memories?? Anything you had forgotten about??

Hollywood

Since Julie was in town we wanted to have a party to get to play with her. She graciously let us meet at her parents beautiful home.

We figured an appropriate them would be Hollywood. Julie even put each of our names on stars out front so we did the whole Chinese Theater hand print thing. Holly made us some yummy 'mocktails' and we had a chocolate fountain and lots of yummy snacks.

We had a great evening talking about all the things we loved about the movie and all the things we didn't. We visited and laughed and enjoyed getting to spend a relaxing evening with the girls.

Twilight Movie Prom

It's all Danylle's fault. Haha. One of the theaters was having a "Twilight Prom" midnight movie release party (tickets were sold out in a few days--a month before the movie was released) so Danylle got a bunch of tickets and my friends and I all went.(I was actually surprised because I thought there would only be like 5 of us.) The party started at 9pm with a midnight movie to follow. My great friend Julie, flew in from Ohio and it was SUCH a blast to have her with us!!! She is SO fun.

They had a HUGE movie poster (to take your picture in front of) and professional photographers (just like the real prom type-we passed, it was $10), a big buffet complete with mushroom ravioli, a red chocolate fountain (with lots of things to dip), candy apples, a dj, dancing,(we ROCKED the dance floor with our loud and fantastic rendition of dancing queen), look a likes(shout out to Jules who claimed to be Mrs. Cope and Danylle for the waitress), prizes(movie posters, gift certificates to local places and even a trip to Washington!), and a fashion show of prom dresses from a local bridal shop.


We got into the theater around 11:15 and the energy around us was already starting. When the theater went dark everyone started screaming and when the movie started the squealing was fun. We were nervous we'd miss half the dialogue but everyone wanted to hear it so it quieted down quickly (with random bursts throughout the movie, but again, it made it fun). Twenty theaters were showing it at the same time and when it was over the parking lot was a mess! I went and sat in my car for 35 minutes listening to a book on CD and finally got home around 3am.


The kids and I were all up at my parents house and there is only one crib there. We put Tyce to bed, let him fall asleep and then moved him onto the floor in my room so they could put Austin down. So sure enough when I crawled into bed at 3am Tyce woke up and started laughing and walking around the room until he realized he could crawl up onto the bed and kicked Kalyana and I all night long.

(This picture is missing Havilah and her daughter and Shauna who couldn't stay for lunch.) I woke up this morning a bit before 9, played with the kids for a bit and then got ready and took off again back to the same theater to meet up with the other half of the SLTA who didn't go last night and also my cute friend Brie (I was SO glad she was able to make it!!). This time the theater was dead silent (made me glad for the energy of last night). After the movie we went out to lunch at Red Robin and chatted about all our thoughts of the movie.

**DONT READ if you don't want a few spoilers.**
For those of you interested in my opinion: I had very low expectations going into this movie. I had seen interviews with Robert Pattinson and thought he was a bit boring, and I'd seen movies with Kristen Stewart and thought she had non-emotional, flat acting. Also from what I knew of Summit and this project (money, connections) I really wasn't sure they'd pull it off. Knowing that, I enjoyed the movie. It was silly, and cheesy (about as much as I expected), but there were also some great scenes of innocent passion, and later intense emotion. With some of the news I heard before I actually thought there was going to be more action (that would over power the rest of it) and in that sense I thought they had an ok balance. Overall, I'd say, understand it's cheesy and there is no way they'd fit that huge book into 2 hours, but have a good time and enjoy a fun movie. Also just FYI Stephenie has a cameo. (I didn't realize so many people didn't know about it or didnt know what she looked like). And they just decided to allow them to film New Moon as well.

Parent Teacher Conference

This morning was our very first official parent teacher conference. We had a good time getting to visit with Kalyana's teacher. I always enjoy talking to her because she is SO great at filling us in on what the class is doing, how Kalyana is doing, and fun tips and good ideas on how to continue what they're doing in class with our reading and study at home.

She's doing great on her reading and constantly is surprising us with the huge words she's able read. They also have math, geometry, art, pe, music, library time, computers, and I think a few other things. Her teacher is confident by the end of the year she'll be at or above another grade level.

Last year some students from the nearby university did a study with her class focusing on literacy. She said in years past, and in most kindergarten classes, by the end of the year there are always a handful of kids who can't read. Last year, with this new technique they taught to her students EVERY single kid passed, even the ones they targeted as concern.

This year the study is still going on but they are videotaping and testing the students several times through out the year. They are going to begin focusing on about a dozen kids who aren't reading yet and are going to do more in depth studies to see if they can determine some similarities. The program has done so well they are going to take it national next year (and use the video, materials, studies from this year). Mrs. A was telling us that along with the dozen at risk kids they are also choosing a small handful of students who are excelling to have a comparison. Kalyana has been asked to be in that group which means they might come to our house to interview Tarl and I, see Kalyana's home environment, do one on one studies with her, etc. Sounds kinda fun!