GNO

OK--prepare to be jealous. My Mom treated my sisters and I to the ultimate girls night out. We met for dinner at Ruby Tuesdays then headed to the E Center for...So You Think You Can Dance! It was really fun. We had great seats and got to watch our favorite dances all over again. The concert was 3 hours long and and featured some of season 4's classics: "No Air" "Bleeding Love" the bed one, the door one etc.. Basically the E center was filled to capacity with screaming girls. Surprisingly enough, the star of the show was not Joshua, but Utah's own Gev. They spent the second half of the show making fun of his crush on his first partner Courtney. If you recognize all these names, then I am as embarrassed for you as I am for myself! All in all it was a great night--I love you Mom, Janny, and Shi!

P.S. On our way out they were handing out fliers for the NKOTB reunion concert--Anyone Game?

Yes--I am an animal lover!

Cosmo and I were very excited about this weeks BYU game. 44-0, Go Cougs!!

Homemade kazoo

I recently joined a "joy school" group in our neighborhood where a few moms around here take turns hosting preschool for our kids. It is a cheap way for Saylor to have a preschool experience and 6 days out of the month I get a couple of free hours. Anyway, today was my turn and I decided that we would make homemade kazoos. Instructions are as follows:

Take a toilet paper roll, slap some wax paper on it, hold it in place with a rubber band. Enjoy hours of loud kiddie entertainment. Saylor will not put hers down. She asked to take a nap with it. I said yes and after listening to her play Old MacDonald for an hour straight I had to take it away so she would sleep. I highly recommend this musical undertaking!

Toddler Logic

We were driving home from running errands today and Saylor and I had a very interesting conversation.

Saylor: Look mom, a flag!

Me: Oh, Hi Flag.

Saylor: No! The flag does not have eyes.

Me: The flag doesn't have eyes?

Saylor: Yes, so it doesn't have a mouth.

Me: Oh, so it can't say hi?

Saylor: Right. It doesn't have a nose or hands.

Game Day and Game Night

On Saturday we went to the BYU vs. UCLA game 59-0 need I say more? Afterwards we decided to keep the fun going by having a gamenight with my cousins and Snow's brothers at my parent's house. We resurrected some college favorites like Mafia (our version is called werewolves) and the sign game. Good food. Good People. Good Times.

Soccer Star

One day snow was in a local sporting goods store and they were have soccer sign ups. He thought this would be great for Saylor (who is not yet 3) and signed her up. She is now on a team of 5 other 3 year-olds named the white sharks. She loves her soccer ball, she loves her soccer shoes, she even loves her soccer socks (shin guards) what she does not love is playing soccer. Actually she really likes kicking the ball as long as no one else gets in her way and as long as it is only for like 3 minutes. Her amazing coach has a practice every week, during which time she usually does somersaults in the grass or begs to play on the slide. On game day Saylor usually only gets contact with the ball when it is her turn to kick it in from out of bounds. She even cries when other kids come and kick the ball away from her saying "it is my turn to kick the ball and they taked it". Her only goal this year may be the one she scored while they were warming up. I love that sharing and taking turns are virtues she has assimilated. I also like that she is not an aggressive girl, but what this translates to in soccer terms is that her soccer skills are about as good as mine. Those of you that know me well are now feeling really sorry for Saylor! It is fun for her to be a part of a team, and I am sure we will sign her up again next year. Oh yeah, the highlight of last weeks game: finding a "magic wand" (ie music baton) in the grass.

Cousins

Mary Ellen (Snow's sister) and Jeremy were in town visiting with their kids early September. It was nice for Saylor to get to play with her only cousins for a couple of days. We went to Jeremy's parents house and they had all kinds of fun stuff: a jumping castle, a giant ball you can be rolled in, a swingset etc. Saylor could not get enough of the ball. Honestly, I don't know where she got her sudden drive for extreme sports. We tried to get a picture of them together, but it is always tricky to try to get 4 kids looking happy at the same time. This was our best effort:

We miss you Ashton, Sydney, and Raymee!

Yuba Lake August 30th

My parents took us all to the lake to do a little boating. We had planned on wake boarding, but it was a little too cold and windy. We ended up getting out the tube and my daredevil of a daughter hogged it most of the time.

She loved riding it, she just sat there singing songs and protesting when her ride was over. She was also the only one, along with her Uncle Lot, to get in the frigid water voluntarily.The rest of us spent most of the time enjoying the boat ride and soaking in what sun we could.

Question: what do you do with a recently potty0trained child on a boat for several hours?

Answer:

It was a short trip to the lake because we had a BYU football game to get to, but it was really fun. Thanks Mom and Dad for your work to make it such a fun day!

Pool Party

Snow had a retreat for work the end of August. I didn't want to stay at home with Saylor by myself, so we decided to go spend the weekend with my parents. It was really fun. The highlight of the weekend for Saylor was going swimming at the Provo pool. We went with my Mom, Jan, and Gabby. Saylor was really excited about the beach ball Grandma had for her to bring.

She loved swimming with Gabby and worked up a serious appetite--for candy!She waited patiently when they had to do a safety check and made everyone get out of the water. But her favorite thing about the pool were the big slides. I was hesitant to take her at first--I just knew she would hate it and be traumatized--but she LOVED it. We rode about 6 times and she threw a serious tantrum when we had to leave.Side-note story: I don't know about kids these days. While Saylor was swimming with the aforementioned beach ball, it got away from her. An older boy (maybe 6) got it and started playing with it. Gabby tried to go to the rescue and asked the kid for her friend's ball back. The kid responded by holding it above Gabby's head and laughing while she tried to grab it. I decided to intervene so I walked over to the kid and asked if I could have my daughters ball back. He gave me a dirty look and threw it in my face. What the!!! I couldn't believe a kid would be rude like that to an adult. I said really loud "you need a time out" hoping a parent would here, but they were probably too busy reading twilight to pay attention to their child.