The Basement is done (well almost)

This is Ryan's new bedroom downstairs in our basement. He loves having his own space now that he no longer shares with his baby sister. Amazingly the kids have even been sleeping in longer since the move! Ryan is glad that now he can stay up longer and read. He is also very excited to have his very own desk to do homework on. We also finished an extra bedroom (in case anyone wants to come for a visit) and an office. The almost done part is the bathroom . The plumbers come just after the new year to install the fixtures and the toilet. It has been a long drawn out process. We started the first piece of drywall back in May! So hip hip hooray for us!

Kaylee Turns 4

Our Big Girl turned 4 on December 18th!

She was such a sport to pose for this picture in the snow.
This was at Kaylee's princess Birthday party. She got her very first webkin from Aunt Janelle and Brooke. As if she needs another reason to think Janelle is the best.

Kaylee is such a loyal, persistent, and smart little girl. If she puts her mind to do something she will stick to it until it is accomplished. She even recently taught herself to write her own name. She loves preschool, playing with friends, playing with Ryan and Taylor, going to primary, singing songs, gymnastics, playing on the computer, being outside, and helping mom. She is adored by those who know her best.

Kaylee posing by cinderella. We had a great party with balloons, cupcakes, nail painting, princess tatoos, and a pinata. We had a brunch and stuffed ourselves. It was fun to see the little girly girls all dressed up swinging a bat at the pinata.

What a great group of friends!

We love you Kaylee!

Princess Tea Party

Kaylee and I and some friends got to attend the princess tea party last week. We had a great time and Kaylee looked beautiful in her pretty party dress. There were quite a few moms that dressed up as princesses or one mom that wore her wedding dress. Good for her for getting it on again, but it did seem like it was a bit much. For dinner we had pink milk, yogurt, cheese stick, fresh veggies, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches cut in cute shapes. Of course Kaylee didn't eat a bite. She didn't even want her cupcake with pink frosting and sprinkles. It was awesome and over the top. We loved it. For activites we got to decorate a crown, color a placemat and listen to live music and entertainment by our Own Fairy godmother. There were princesses and princes dressed up all around us. Kaylee was really wondering where Arial was (her favorite princess) but we decided that she must still be in the ocean.

Events

A couple of recent events at our house were Ryan losing his front tooth (sorry about the blood) and Kaylee getting her third laser treatment. We were hopeful that Ryan would lose his other top tooth so that he could sing, All I want for Christmas is my 2 front teeth.

The first picture of Kaylee was taken a few days after treatment. I won't go into detail about the day that we took her to SLC because it involved throwing up again and again and again, we've had enough of that on our blog. Agreed?

Anyways as you can see from the last picture it is healing up nicely and we may only have one or two more treatments left. For anyone that is curious, the laser treatment last seconds and is not painful because we put a topical numbing cream on her before the treatment. The only hard part is that she gets so nervous. It must be intimidating for her to have to go into the operating room. She is a real trooper!

Tae Tae's Mullet

Just thought I would share a picture or Taylor's mullet. It is especially cute right out of the bath when it is all curly. Gotta love awkward hair stage.

Shot from above. This would make many Yinzers(Pittsburghers) gealous.

New Furniture

Okay I have been really lazy. I have some really cute pictures that I want to blog about on my camera. Since there are so many, I know it will take a few minutes so I just haven't done it. I did want to tell everyone that we finally bought furniture for our house. Yes that's right real furniture. Stuff that hasn't been slept on, sat on or ate on before. We got a bedroom set for the master bedroom, a set for Ryan's new room (should be finished a week from Monday), and a love seat, chair, and side table for the living room. It is really weird to see our house filled with furniture. After 11 1/2 years of marriage, it is about time Jeff started acting like the sugar daddy that I thought I married. : ) We really are grateful for our blessings, we will post more with pics when I convince Jeff to download pics for me.

Family Pictures

Here are a few of the pictures from our photo shoot. We went to a local park and had a lady in our ward take them. We had over 600 pictures taken, so I think we got a few good ones. Taylor was not the most cooperative. Most of the pictures I am trying all the tricks to get her to turn and look. It was exhausting.

Happy halloween

Ryan carved his pumpkin almost all by himself this year. He made a pirate. The pumpkin almost lasted until Halloween. The day before we had to toss it because it was leaking goo all over the front porch.

Presenting Darth Vader. On Halloween night Ryan was complaining that his head hurt. Jeff said he was sorry but couldn't do anything about it. The next day Ryan had a bruise on his forehead from his mask. Just in time for family pictures.





Here is Kaylee's painted pumpkin. I do not love carving pumpkins so I decided to paint mine this year. Kaylee was set on carving hers like scooby doo until she saw the paint. What a budding little artist.

This is the saddest Witch on the block!! Kaylee had decided she wanted to be a mean witch for Halloween. I told her she could even though I was surprised she didn't want to be a princess. We picked out her outfit at the store, and even tried it on before the tags came off. She loved it. So we got ready for the church Halloween party and we had a meltdown. Everything was so itchy. She was running around the house like a Banshee! It was horrible crying and screaming in Kaylee fashion only 10 times worse than normal. I pinned her down (literally with her kicking and hitting me) and put on the long sleeve shirt. Then another wrestling match to get the tights on. You would think that would have eased the itch since her entire body was covered in 100% cotton, but no she was too far gone by this point. So I went into her closet ready to get her a plain old outfit and I saw the tinkerbell costume from last year....and it fit and we all went to the party happy! Well I was still miffed about spending money on the costume. Well at least I convinced her to chill long enough for a picture. She makes a beautiful tinkerbell!


This little bee won the contest at the church for the cutest costume. After this pic, I put on a white onesie underneath, white tights and black mary janes, then I completed it with 2 little ponies on top of her head because of course she didn't leave the headband alone. Sorry no pics of the finshed product. She was adorable!

Taylor's handprint pumpkin. We put about 5 prints and this was the only one that looked like a handprint. It was a fun halloween full of fun activites and now great memories.

Trick or Treat??(warning if vomit bothers you don't look at pics)

We had a great time trick or treating this year. Ryan chose to be Darth Vader, Kaylee was tinkerbell (witch), and Taylor was the cutest bee ever. Before the night got under way we took a visit to see the Grandparents. First stop the Byington Grandparents house.

Our Next stop was to my grandparents house.

Next on the trick or treat trail was a stop to the McMinn grandparents.

We wait patiently for Grandma to open the door, notice Taylor knocking with two hands eagerly. (And sorry that we don't have any real time footage of the next scene, what was Jeff thinking not getting pictures.) As soon as Grandma opens the door to see her cute little Grandchildren dressed up in Halloween best, Taylor vomits all over Kaylee's tights and shoe, then she steps into the house and pukes on the front rug, the carnage continued for a few minutes getting the entire front porch. It happened with such perfect timing that we didn't even yell out trick or treat. I guess this year we were just doing tricks to grandma. Okay if seeing puke is not your thing, do not continue.

Here they are after clean up was complete, Taylor no longer a bee, Grandma was a little disappointed that she didn't get a picture in time. We had to split up our Halloween plans for the rest of the evening. Taylor was sick the rest of the night, which was fun to juggle trick or treaters with a baby being sick. She did feel better for our family pictures the next morning phew! We will post when we get those back.

Snow in October

Kaylee loading up the wagon
Brooke and her toothless smile

Ryan and Taryn working hard together.

In this picture Ryan is bossing Taryn around, I mean he is delegating and running the job.

On October 12th we got hit by a serious snowstorm. Jeff was in Utah for the BYU game and ended up sleeping in Utah to avoid bad roads. We had Rob & Janelle's kids for the weekend while they were in Hawaii. They picked a good time to leave. The snow stayed for a few days and then thanfully it was gone! We have enjoyed pretty fall weather ever since.

Ryan's 7th Birthday

This year we celebrated Ryan's birthday only 3 different times. There was the school treats, Taking a frind to the fun zone on his birthday, cake with our family and the archibalds, and then the family party with grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins. Ryan is such a good boy. We are so grateful to have him in our family. We also look forward to see what he will become in the next few years. I measured him and marked it on his growth chart. He grew almost 4 inches in one year. Wow, talk about growing like a weed!

First Day of school

Kaylee's first day of preschool. She goes to Playhouse preschool which is conveniently just down the road from our house
Ryan on his first day of 1st Grade. He goes to Gate City Elementary and Mrs. Johnson is his teacher. So far he is doing great. He is one of the top readers in his class.
Taylor is always ready for a picture. Notice Kaylee chose a princess backpack.

Vegas Vacation

Last weekend Maja and I made a weekend trip to Vegas for a break from the kids, good food, good shows, and shopping. We flew out Friday morning and came back on Sunday. We stayed at the MGM Signature hotels, which besides the drunks coming in from partying at 5AM and waking us up, it wasn't a bad place to stay. It was just off the strip and a quick cab ride to anywhere we wanted to go. Unfortunately we found out that the stores in the malls will ship your purchases, so the economy is not suffering from a lack of our input! My partner (business that is) Eric Johnson and his wife Nancy went with us. We parted was with our wives Friday afternoon at the mall so we could go look for computers at the apple store. About two hours later we hooked back up. They claimed to be shopping, but I found a flyer for the Thunder down under (see pic below) so who really knows what Maja was doing. Unfortunately "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas," so we may never know the truth. That evening we ate dinner at one of Emeril's restaraunts in the Palazzo casino, Table 10. It was really good food. I'd highly recommend it to anyone. We then went to see the off Broadway showing of Jersey Boys. On the billboards it states "Warning: Authentic Jersey language" Were they correct! I sounded like pittsburgh again with the F-bomb being used as an adjuctive for most any action of object. Other than that it was a great show with great music. It was a show about Frankie Valli and his career.

Friday we ate breakfast at the Paris at their Le Village buffet (can't go to vegas without hitting a buffet). We then went shopping again. We had lunch at a really good steak house located outside of the Fashion Show Mall, the Capital Grille. The food was really good, especially their desserts. That night we saw the Blue Man Group at the Venetian. I don't know if we were expecting more or that we'd heard too many good things about them, but we were disappointed. It was alright, but doubt we'd see them again.

We had a great time and can't wait to go back again. If you ever see any CE courses and want to go, let us know and we'll meet you there!