Busy Bees

Kallyn wanted to make hairbows for Gammy to take home to her new cousins in Albuquerque. So, while Eric took his parents to the temple we stayed behind and made 30+ hair bows! Kallyn is actually quite good. I just have to handle the gluegun for her.

Mermaids

We went to Boston last Tuesday and Wednesday and we stayed in a hotel Tuesday night. The girls and I stayed there while Eric and his parents attended the Temple. We had a little allergy problem after Daddy ate some Cashews and touched Kallyn so I threw the girls into the tub and they couldn't get over how big it was. I didn't think it was bigger than ours, but I filled it up with more water. They were "tendin" to be mermaids. So cute!

New England Bowling

So bowling out here is VERY different than what I am used to. It's called Candle pin bowling and it is actually very fun! I think the hardest part was remembering to bowl 3 times each frame instead of only twice. And you have to enter the score and clear the lane manually (push the button when your frame is done) but then you can try to hit the fallen pins to spin them into the remaining pins. I actually won! I've never even been close to winning before!!!!!!! Maybe because the bowling balls are usually too heavy or my fingers get stuck and mess up my bowl! Even Allison could bowl by herself!





Usually you only get three balls for you lane. Can you count all 13 balls in this picture? A few of them were on their way back. They would hit into a pin and bounce back they were rolling so slow. We had to wait like 5 times for an employee to come and bring in all the standstill balls that would jam up the return contraption. But the girls had fun. Can you tell?

Easter '08

Finally! A sweet shot of Kallyn and she's actually smiling for the camera!
The girls had so much fun looking for the eggs. Maybe next year there won't be three feet of snow outside and we can do it outdoors! It was super cold and windy! Yuck!



The girls helped peel the eggs for the devilled eggs dish for dinner.

More pics to post later when I get the pictures from Eric. His parents were in town and because I had left my camera at Dee's house I don't have any pics of the proceedings. I'll just say that Kallyn takes after her mom and she had way too much fun coloring the eggs!

Allison was so excited for the egg hunt! She exclaimed "I did it!" every time she found a new egg and then she would throw it into her basket with a great thudding force! Thank goodness we were having devilled eggs and could use all her cracked eggs!

Dinner was a blast. I cooked my first Turkey ever! So exciting! But I think that Bug was more entertaining than my super yummy dinner! She was so tired and she NEVER eats-let me repeat that- NEVER NEVER eats mashed potatoes! So you can imagine how entertaining she was when she would eat anything put into her mouth. Until daddy gave her a bite of the spinach salad. Then she spit it out right away!! Of course!

Baby Cousin! Finally!

Finally my girls have a cousin on the Payne side! Her name is Kiaya Mckenzie Payne. She was born on March 22, 2008, at 8:35 a.m., weighing in at 8 lbs. 1 oz., 21 1/2 inches long. She was 1 week early and we are so excited to have her here! We hope to meet her soon!

I've gone Blog Wild!

OK, so Eric's friend (Mike) from school told him that I "went blog wild" LOL! Sorry, I haven't posted in a while and we had a lot of fun things going on and I had to include everything! I know I need to work a little on the girls scrapbooks, but Blogging is soooooo much easier! I can fold laundry while I wait for the pics to upload, or balance the checkbook. Who am I kidding! I don't fold laundry, I just throw it in the room it belongs in, and magically it gets taken care of! And I admit it, I unbalance the checkbook so I definitely don't want to be the one to balance it! So I guess that puts me at gluing myself to the computer and goggling over cute pics of the girls! 15 posts in 2 days is a lot, but hey, it's my blog and if you're going to stalk don't complain!

SOSO

The school out here has a club for the wives and families of the students. It's called the Significant Others and Spouses Organization-SOSO. We have a few social events every semester and this one was last weekend. The kids had a lot of fun with the pinata! And of course the adults had a blast with Bunco again! One of the reasons we felt so strongly about moving across the country was because this school sponsored a support group for the families and loved one of the students. Of course the majority of the club members are in our ward so we hang out with them on a regular basis. We were very suprised with the number of LDS students here. If I'm counting right there are 5 3L's (3 have moved on to externships this last semester) 7 2L's and 6 1L's (including us). There are also 2 Physical Therapy students and their families in our ward. We've just met the wife of a student coming next year and we hear there is another soon to be student visiting this week. Already I am so excited for the next year. I am so grateful to find that even though we are so far from family that we still have the extended network of friends in the Gospel.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

When I was little I loved the holiday traditions we had with food. We used to have green crepes for breakfast or dinner for St. Patty's day and it was so much fun to have a little diference to our day. I found a recipe for green eggs and I tried it. It's more just a nasty trick to play on your mind to eat scrambled eggs that are green. I think I had the hardest time eating them. Eric ate them up and both the girls ate all of theirs, too! Who knew? And of course we read Green Eggs and Ham afterwards!

Allison's favorite activity!

Eric got us an exercise trampoline at Wal-Mart for like $20 during the "New Years Resolution" sales. The girls use it more than either of us. So Bug gets her 30min of activity every day jumping on this little trampoline. She jumps all day long! And she sings while she jumps-so cute! This is definitely not the cutest picture, but all the pics I do have are blurry.


With all that activity I don't feel bad sticking them in front of the tube to allow me time for my activities!-dishes, laundry, mopping, blogging, etc. PS they are laying under an electric heating blanket. Quiet time is easier when they are confined to the warmth!

Addicted!

When Eric and I flew out here to find a place to live we picked up a SuDoKu puzzle and we were hooked. On the way back we got 2 sudoku books, the same books, and we raced through the same puzzles. I smoked him! Out of the 20+ puzzles we did I finished first each time. I'll give him 1 win, but it was so close. He's good at the harder puzzles, but I'm faster! Kallyn watches me fill them out all the time and I found her with one of our books filling in each box. Super cute!

Random Pictures

Yup, Bug figured out the "take the diaper off" routine!


She's always trying on my clothes.





A friend of mine lost all of her digital pictures on her computer and now the only ones she has are the ones she posted on her blog. I've backed up all of my pictures but just to be sure I'm not going to hold back on posting pics. So even if there's no story behind it, but it's captures my girls personalities, I'm stickin' it on here!

Tapping Maple Trees

Abbott taps the maple trees every year and with the addition of our yard he's got a lot of work ahead of him. These are the trees right off our driveway. It's hard to get there because of the 3 feet of snow! But with the last rain and freeze the top of the snow is hard enough for the girls to dance upon. If I was carefull I could walk lightly across the snow. Eric, yeah, not happening! He could walk on the already packed snow, but he ventured off and plumeted into the deep!

The girls had so much fun drinking the "sweet water". You really can't tell that it's sweet. Abbott told us that it takes about 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup. Thankfully he has an evaporator in his sugar shack and we don't have to do it the old-fashioned way.

I did get stuck once, but it's because I jumped into the snow to make a hole.

Then the girls scurried into the hole. They reminded me off little bunnies. Well, Easter is this Sunday!

Allison was in heaven because she LOVES to eat snow! That's about all she does in the snow!

Eric got stuck!

This is how much snow there is. The fenced in area is the garden. And this is just what's left after all the rain and warmer days have melted some of it.

Playgroup at our house

We had our turn for playgroup at our house first week of march. Kallyn had a blast playing with all the kids. Mostly the girls. It was quite a day for my girls. I made them clean up before everyone got there and again after they left. But thanks Kya and Mia for helping clean things up before you left!


Kallyn and Lexi.

Lexi. Kya, and Kallyn pretending to have a sleepover.

This is for Kallyn

Kallyn loves to take pictures. I have a few rolls of film and disposable cameras she's used that I need to get developed for her. But in the meantime, here are some she took for the "puter pictures" (Blog).



She asked me to do a big face. I think I just look a little constipated.

It's spring!

Guess what I found? I'm not sure if I'm grossed out or excited!

A huge fly! Maybe it just seems huge to me because I haven't seen one in a long time. But I'm excited because it means that it's spring. The bugs are waking up and I can hear birds chirping outside again!

Uh! Oh!

My girls are so mischevious!

I found Kallyn in the office under the table.

I asked her what she was doing and when she

turned around it was quite obvious

why she was under the table!

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Thankfully it was washable markers and with her skin still

damp from taking a bath a wet washcloth wiped her face clean.

GNO-crazy fun GNO!

Larisa had everyone over for a girls night out and we had too much fun! It all started when Adrienne asked Larisa to do her eyes for her. And from there we just got goofy and girly! It felt so good to be just girls! I haven't felt that way since living at home with my sisters. So here's the evidence of our fun. Thanks Larisa for a great night without the kids!



Taylor (Gold bow made by Larisa, complete with a button of Taylor's family crest), Dee, and Becky




Adrienne with her "Smokey" eyes. HOT!



Taylor before the Golden Globe Do



Taylor (after the gold rush), Janalee, Dee (another infamous bow by Larisa), Adrienne, and Becky