Peek-a-boo

I, of course, have no picture to go with this because my camera has been sent away to be fixed (so sad). But I know if I wait until I can take a picture of this, then Mya will stop doing it and then I'll forget about how cute it is.
The past few days, every time she wakes up in the morning or from a nap, as soon as I open the door she starts giggling. When I get to the crib she has her blanket pulled up over her head, still giggling, laying perfectly still.
I say "Where's Mya?" then the blanket comes down, the feet start to kick, and she gives me the biggest smile ever as I say "There she is!" We do this at least 5 or 6 times. It is the cutest thing ever!!! She's been playing peek-a-boo for a while now, but I love that it's this funny little game that she likes to plya when I go to get her out of her crib.
I love this stage - she's getting to be so much fun!

Here We Go Again....

Just when I thought I was safe from classic car restoration, this came along.

She's a '63 Falcon, in pretty good condition. Bryan's dad has wanted to buy a car with him for a long time now, and while we were camping in Wasatch they found this on the way up to Kamas in some little town that I can't remember the name of.

Anyway, it was a really good price, so Bryan went and looked at it. Then hauled Hyrum up to look at it. Then went and looked at it again. And finally brought it home.

I do have to admit, she's really nice. And I'm glad for Bryan to have something around to work on again since he loves it so much. And it actually has a back seat, unlike the Mustang, so we can ALL go places in it.

She's really pretty, except for one not so small detail.....

the early 1980's Ford LTD dash. It is absolutely hideous!!! What the?????

And there are no door handles - you get into the car by either opening it from the inside or using the secret button behind the side mirror that doesn't work. Hilarious.

A "No Picture" Weekend :(

Of course this would happen to me - our camera broke on Friday night, right as we were starting the fireworks with the kiddies. Oh well. So here's what you will never see pictures of:

Lauren "roasting smarshmallows" in our backyard, wearing sunglasses and carrying a purse - and by roasting, I mean sticking them into our fire bowl, nowhere near any flames, and covering them in black soot. Mmmm, delicious. And no, I did not let her eat them.

Lo taking her first 4-wheeler ride - she had so much fun! We were invited to go up with our friends the Cooks Saturday, and decided to stay overnight. We had a blasty blast! Lo & their 3 year old son Tanner had so much fun together - they walked around more than once holding hands, so cute!

Julie & I found a teeter totter, and we'll just say that they are just as fun as I remember. Especially when the person on the other end is a good 6 inches shorter than me :). And the teeter totter we were on was nowhere near this nice or safe looking.

The dirtiest I have ever seen my bathtub - this was soooo camera worthy. I had given both girls a thorough scrub down with a washrag on Saturday night before they went to bed. I still dumped them in the tub first thing when we got home on Sunday, I had no idea how much was in Lauren's hair! It was disgusting!

And yesterday we went to the zoo with some of our friends, rain storm free this time, and NO CAMERA.

Luckily, for the first time EVER we will use the extended warranty that we debated about not spending the extra $100 on when we bought it. Good thing we did!!

Hazardous

OK, so I'm no child safety expert, but I'm pretty sure this would be considered a "hazardous sleeping environment".

Here is an estimated list of items she took to bed with her last night:

frog pillow, ladybug pillow, 3 barbies, approx 4 books, at least 5 stuffed animals, 3 "b's" (blankets), at least 1 wand, snake, lizard, frog, dinosaur, comb, flower....and that's all that I can see. Who knows what else she's smuggled in there.

Kinyon Family Day O' Fun!

Bryan & I both had the 23rd of July off, so we decided that we would make it the Kinyon Family Day O' Fun!!

We decided since it was so hot outside we would find something to do indoors and take the girls to Discovery Gateway. Well, apparently everyone else in the county had the same idea - it was CRAZY!!! At first we were worried that it was going to be a huge waste of money, because there were so many kids and Lauren was just getting manhandled at every turn. Poor kid, I felt so bad for her! But I think a bunch of us just got there at the same time, because once we made it past the the big ball beehive and out of the "kid's eye view" things weren't so bad.

Lo takes percussion very seriously.

Making friends in the helicopter

Blocks were a great time

I had to try really hard to not think about the germs that were probably on EVERYTHING

And yes, I gave Mya piggies -extremely ridiculous, or extremely cute? Maybe a little of both.

At first it was hard to drag Lauren away from what she was playing with, but once she realized that there was so much and we were just taking her to play with something else, she was all about it.

Snake in one hand, whistle sucker in the other hand, zonked out the entire way home. Nice.

We had so much fun all day just being together as a family and not worrying about laundry, yard work, side jobs, cooking, cleaning. I think we'll do it again very soon.

A Scootin'

I just need to document that Mya began scooting over the weekend. We've been working with her so hard - she's 11 months now - and Bryan FINALLY got her to scoot! This is a big deal for us, because Lauren didn't scoot/crawl/ANYTHING until she was 15 months old. And only after we had a therapist come into the house and show us ways to get her to move that we wouldn't have thought of. Luckily, we have been much more proactive with Mya, especially when we noticed that she was just like her sister - content to sit in the same spot. Most babies will just start doing these things on their own. Well, apparently our kids just like to challenge us a bit more. And if one more person says to me "oh, you don't want her to move!" because, you know, that's when kids start getting into things, I think I might punch somebody.
They obviously never had a child who didn't crawl until 15 months, and didn't walk until 18 months. They never had to have Early Intervention therapists come in twice a month that had your child screaming for over an hour straight because her stubborn personality doesn't mesh well with someone trying to make her do something. And they probably never had to carry around a 20 + pound kid everywhere when they were pregnant because the kid couldn't walk.
So, yes, I want Mya to move. I want her to move as much as possible so that we don't have to go through that again. I want to have to put up a baby gate, and be constantly chasing after her, because the alternative is so hard, and I'd prefer not to have to do it again.
Yay for B Mya! Let's cross our fingers, she may just be crawling by one, woo hoo!!

Big Kids

Requirements:

30 lbs - check

38 inches tall - check

3 years old - check (well, close enough)

"The pink one - it's my favorite color, Mom" - double check

Just bought Lo a booster seat so Mya can have the Britax one Lo's using now when she turns 1.

Which is in a mere 28 days from today.

SNIFFLE

SIGH

My girls are getting SO BIG!!

Wasatch

A few pictures from our camping trip last weekend to Wasatch. I only took approximately 3 pictures, so most of these are stolen from Shara & Mat's Facebook albums (he he).

We had fun, regardless of mine & Lo's crappy colds and B's, well "B-ness"

Here's Lo with a walking stick (I think it's Brock's) - as Shara put it, looking like Shera from Masters of the Universe (oh, how I LOVED that show when I was a kid!!)

Playing with Grandpa Jerry

I don't think I even knew this picture was being taken (hence the lack of the cheeser smile). But I'm pretty sure Mya was being a butt, or something along those lines - I look so mad!

This is where B spent the majority of her time....in the stroller.

Poor kid, when you grow up and ask me "Mommy, why is every picture of me as a baby in a stroller?". I'm going to smile and say "Well, love of my life, because you were just a big butt most of the time." My arm was seriously sore for pushing the stroller back and forth, back and forth for an hour plus every day we were there. I did discover, to my frustration, that she is an angel when I'm not around.

Lo and I came back down to WJ for my nephew's baptism (go Tanner!) on Saturday, so the family was nice enough to watch Mya while I was gone and Bryan was golfing. Apparently she was great, until I got back, then the butt came out again.

She is stinking cute, though.

After we got there on Thursday afternoon, since it was just us and the Burnsides, we decided to head into Heber for some Dairy Keen. The kids loved the trains - we got to hear "Look, the train, the train" about 58 times from Lauren, who was amazed every time the train went by up on the wall.

Bryan took a little siesta, and when I looked back there, he was all snuggled up to this princess ball. I couldn't resist.

We attempted to go to the Kamas Fish Hatchery. The drive was the only chance we would get a nap out of Lo, so we were glad for it. When we got there, we looked at the sign outside and it said "Self Guided Tours All Day". So we woke up Lo, who was NOT ready and became a huge beast. We drove down to the hatchery, walked in, and were greeted by a sign telling us because of the spread of Whirling Disease (whatever that is) they were only doing guided tours, and only at 11:00, 1:00, 3:00. It was exactly 2:00. All for nothing. So we threw the kids back in the truck, and drove up to Provo Falls, didn't get out because the beast was asleep again, and drove back to camp. At least the drive was pretty. Everyone else stopped at Provo Falls and had a great time. Gotta love sick 2 year olds.

You can kind of tell by the look on Lauren's face what kind of mood she was in. Also, I promise we did not beat her. This is what happens when she goes camping - she falls. ALL THE TIME. Poor kid came home with scrapes and bruises all over her face and knees. She didn't seem to mind. In fact, if you asked her about her eye (which had a nice sized scape on it) she would scream "It doesn't hurt!!"

All in all, we had a blast - great food, the kids slept pretty good, and some awesome times around the campfire.

Can't wait to go again!!

I Heart FroYo

Had my first Red Mango experience last night, thanks to the Jensons

I believe I'm officially addicted

Try it

Love it

4th O'July

We took the somewhat relaxed route this year for the 4th. Normally our day is filled with trying to fit in every BBQ we can and by the end of the day we are exhausted, Lo is a terror, and we wonder why we did it all.

So this year we decided to just go to Bryan's grandparents' BBQ in the afternoon and then spend time with just us the rest of the evening. It was fabulous!!!!

Here's the girls getting ready to leave that afternoon, B sporting her hilarious attempt at a pony tail.......I don't have a lot to work with here :)

After the BBQ, we walked over to the park to give the kids their first carnie experience at the Riverton carnival. Lo had the time of her life! She rode every ride that she could, and as you can see here, LOVED every ride.

And B sat quietly in the stroller and chewed on her binky clip strap


We had bought a few fireworks, just little stuff that we thought Lauren would like, and after we got home we sat out with all of our other neighbors and put on a little show in the circle. Here's Lo's little friend Kamryn from across the circle, who B thoroughly enjoyed sitting with (amazingly) while we lit snakes, parachutes, sparklers and threw snaps. We discovered that Lauren thinks all of it is stupid except for snaps - those are the best things ever!!

We then took the kids into the backyard (Kamryn & her brother Griffin in tow) to try and see the fireworks from Riverton park - kind of, but next year I think we'll get closer.

All in all we had a great Independence Day - I think we'll continue this whole relaxing thing again next year!

FB Status Updates

Kiersti Kinyon...

...became victim to Lauren's yucky cold somewhere in the course of the evening/night last night. As a result, it is 4:40, I have not/will not shower today, and my house is a mess.
...just gave Mya a glycerine suppository because she hasn't pooped in 3 days (despite lots of juice & fiber) and desperately needs to.
...has a fantastic, loving hubs who texted me repeatedly throughout the day asking if he needed to come home to take care of me. And when he got home, he had a PB Twix in his back pocket.
...is so happy for the peace and quiet of my computer, my work, and Pandora radio blasting through my headphones right now. It's been a very long day.

COMMENT LIKE

The Zoo

Last Thursday the Strong family girlies all went to the zoo. It would have been much more fun had it not rained like crazy about 20 minutes after we got there :(

Needless to say, we didn't stay too long, and because of the rain I only got a few pictures.

Here's Lo pointing something out to McKell (good thing she was there, she was good enough to try and keep Lo up with the rest of us.....slowest child ever)

The horrible attempt I made to get all of the cousins in one shot....we have Will, Matthew, Ady, Lexi, and Tanner. Missing Lauren (always, always behind), Mya, Jones, and Bennett.

This is where we were when the rain hit - the kids loved the carousel, though!
We ran for cover in the reptile house - Mya had been fighting sleep the whole time we were there. After a while, a lady said to me "Um, you might want to see this".
Classic!

"I Put It In the Potty!!!"

*Another poop post, you've been warned*

Lauren has yet to go #2 in the potty. I've tried to catch her in the act, but she likes to wait anywhere between 2 and 4 days between relieving herself, until we think she's asleep at night and then, **surprise** - she walks in and the huge lump in the bum of her jammies says it all.
Until last night.
She got quiet really fast after putting her to bed last night.
Too quiet, too fast.
So I went to do a "walk by", hoping to catch her in the act since it was the 4th day of no #2 action. She was laying in bed, but with no covers on. Warning sign. So I asked if she needed to go poop, she said yes and jumped out of bed. (BTW, this isn't unusual, any excuse to get out of bed, she takes it).
So into the bathroom we went, and she sat down to do her business. I knew she needed to go - how could she not???? 4 days - come on!!
Let's just say that she was stinking up the place, but nothing was happening. She was getting too distracted by talking to me about everythying under the sun. So I started making excuses to leave the room, hoping she would do better alone.
Well, I stepped onto the front porch for a moment with Bryan, and came back in to hear her yelling "I put it in the potty, Mommy, it's in the potty!"
Sure enough "it" was now in the potty!
I didn't care that it was 9:30 and Mya might wake up, you've never heard such a celebration of poop!
So today she gets to go to the store and pick out whatever she wants. This should be interesting.
And they say that usually once they do it once, they don't look back.
Let's just hope that "they" are right :)