3rd week of Christmas

This last week was busy but not with alot of fun stuff. Blake's flight coming home from his brother's graduation was delayed so we ended up picking him up at 2:30am on Monday morning, which made for a very hard day as everyone was tired. The very next day Blake took a quick business trip to Atlanta and was gone for 2 days. I finished up Christmas shopping and Kierstyn had her last few days of school before the Christmas break.
















Her school also had a big Holiday Party which was also their big fundraiser. We didn't stay too long but long enough for Kierstyn to sing "I Want a Hippotamus for Christmas" with her class. This is a picture of her by her art work that was being auctioned off.


















After the school party we went with some friends to look at the Christmas lights at Ethel M. Chocolate Factory. Then we went to look at a street in Henderson that was all decorated and was amazing. The kids were pretty tired by then so we plan to go back and look some more.






On Saturday we took the kids to the Bass Pro Shop. We did all their little activities, saw the fish, sat on the 4 wheelers, and looked at the boats. I asked the kids if they wanted to go see Santa and both said no. Which was fine by me since I didn't want to wait in the line to see him.

2nd week of Christmas

The second week of December has come and gone. Here's what we have been doing this week.

Kierstyn & Bentley painted some Christmas tree ornaments to give to some special grandparents!!!




We decorated gingerbread houses with some friends!


And something that we have done the past 2 years, we went to the annual Winterfest parade in downtown Henderson. This year we went without Blake who was attending his brother's graduation. Congratulations Casey!


Kierstyn & Bentley's favorite activity is riding the horses.




They also liked playing in the snow, a novelty here in Henderson.



And looking through the craft fair. We found this cute hat for Kierstyn and Ben wanted a snake (Yeah he's all boy!)


Looking forward to the 3rd week of Christmas!!!!!

It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

I love Christmas time. Yes it always is so busy and goes by so quickly but I love it!

So the first week of Christmas here's a few things we did:

We put up the Christmas tree



We hung up the stockings



And put out a few other Christmas decorations. Blake hung the lights outside with 2 little helpers doing their very best to assist.



We started our Christmas countdown



And started reading a Christmas story everyday. Maybe some of my family remember this binder. It use to be at my Grandmother's house and is filled with different short Christmas stories. Now I have it and love reading the stories to my children.



We also attended our Ward Christmas Breakfast. Yes, it was a breakfast this year and not a dinner but it was still fun with alot of good food. What a way to kick off the holidays!

Our Thanksgiving!!

Yes I know I'm extremely slow. What can I say other than I've been busy. But I wanted to post some pics of our Thanksgiving.

We spend Wednesday evening with Blake's family taking some family pictures and just hanging out. Kierstyn and Ben had alot of fun running around with thier little cousins.

The rest of the weekend was filled with a Gardner family reunion. And it was jam packed with activities thanks to some wonderful planners who put it all together(Jamie, Robyn, JaLane, & summer)!!!

So here is the schedule so you know how busy we were:

Thursday-all activities held at the church

Thanksgiving Day Parade
Movie Room
Jedi Knight Training for boys
Beauty Parlor for girls
Dodge Ball
Pictures with GreatGrandma
Dinner
Turkery bowl
Turkey pageant

Friday

We had a quick breakfast with our friends the Hepworths!
Play time and lunch at Game World
Family Pictures
Dinner at the hotel
Wii tournment/ Scrapbook night

Saturday

Scavenger Hunt
Bowling & lunch
Temple sealings
Traditional Gardner Christmas party

Maybe that doesn't sound like all that much just looking at it but doing it all sure kept us busy. We had a great time and it was so much fun to see everyone. It was about 70 people so almost everyone was there. And of course it was great to see Grandma enjoying all the family!!! Thanks Grandma for giving us a reason to all get together had have a good time!! Love ya!

Hiking Black Mountain

About 2 weeks ago I had the chance to go to Time Out for women in St. George. While I was gone, Blake took the kids hiking. They hiked all the way to the top of Black Mountain about a 4 hr hike round trip. He said the kids did pretty good and walked most of the way.




They went hiking again yesterday with the Elders Quorum. They seem to really like hiking and now is the best weather for it!

Happy Halloween!

Halloween was alot of fun this year. We did the trunk or treating thing but that was a week before Halloween. Lucky for us, we were invited to a couple of great parties. The kids went to one last Friday that was just for kids, and had a great time. They played some games and did some crafts and just had fun playing with their friends.



Then on Halloween we went to another bash for the whole family it included pumpkin carving, carmel apples, slime, dinner, and of course trick or treating. Can I just say I have never seen trick or treating like that before. The whole neighborhood was filled with small groups of kids going door to door. And I was amazed at how much candy my kids got. Kierstyn was a tropper and finished the whole neightborhood, Bentley was done half way through and just wanted me to carry him.





Thanks Jeanna and Yvonne for putting on the great parties, we had a great time!!

Oh what a moment!

So last Friday I had one of those moments when I thought, I'm not a very good mom I need to pay more attention to my kids. Both kids were downstairs playing and I was upstairs paying bills on the computer. Then I hear Bentley start yelling and crying. Well I didn't even get up, I just thought oh great the kids are fighting again. But then he really started screaming and I knew he must be hurt so I went to investigate. Bentley was coming up the stairs just screaming and rubbing his eye. So I assumed he got something in his eye. I took him in the bathroom and flushed out his eye but he was still yelling. I tried several times to ask him what was in his eye but all he would dp was just scream at me. So finally I asked him to show me. Well he takes me downstairs and gets in a drawer he isn't suppose to be in and pulls out my small can of pepper spray I take jogging with me. He had apparently been playing with it and sprayed himself in the side of the head and then it dripped down into his eyes. Poor kid!



Unluckily for him, I had to strip him down and put him in the shower to try and get it all off. Its pretty nasty stuff and I could instantly see where it had touched his face as one side had turned a bright red. Poor guy took a short nap and then felt better but it gave me a good scare to! Not the kind of scare I wanted for Halloween though.

International Day

Instead of a Halloween party, Kierstyn's school celebrated International Day. Each classroom choose a continent and they dressed up like people who lived on that continent. Kierstyn's class was North America which worked out great since she was a cowgirl for Halloween anyway. I volunteered in her class that day and was impressed at the effort put into the event. Each of the classrooms was decorated and had crafts,activities, and snacks centered around that continent. The kids rotated through each classroom and then had a costume parade outside. Kierstyn had so much fun and really enjoys her school. Abover is Kierstyn in the Antartica classroom.

ZOO!

Okay, so its time to catch up on my blog. Two weeks ago I had the opportunity to go with some friends to the San Diego Zoo. My kids were so excited! They love the zoo. In fact, one morning Ben asked me if we could go to the zoo today and I explained to him that there wasn't a zoo in Las Vegas. He says, "there's one in Africa we could go to Afica." I had to just smile at that. Needless to say he was very excited about going to the zoo. It was a quick trip and I think wore me out more than the kids since they were excited to go with their friends. Here's a few pics.

General Conference Weekend

I have to say that by far General Conference Weekend is the most relaxing Sunday there is. Blake and I have made it our tradition to have crepes every General Conference. So here was the brunch



My kids actually listened to some of conference. We played conference bingo and they did some fun coloring pages too!

Natural History Museum

Two weeks ago was National Museum Day, so we took advantage of the free day by taking our kids to the Natural History Museum. My kids loved it! We couldn't get Bentley away from the marine life exhibit and we were able to watch them feed the sharks. They also liked the young scientist center where there are several hands on things for them to do. Above they are trying to find fossils.

Kindergarten!?!

Who knew the start of school would be so emotionally exhausting. I guess when Kierstyn was first born I thought she would have a similar school experience that I had growing up. Silly as that sounds. But in reality, we live in a different place and things are not always ideal. So I had tremendous worries about Kierstyn going to school this year, some of which being an overcrowded school, that is year round, and she was assigned to a track that was shall I say not ideal. This was Kierstyn on her first day of school. I have to give her alot of credit because despite all my worries she didn't seem affected by any of them. What a trooper!

Unfortunately, it was one frustration and worry after another and after 3 emotionally draining weeks Kierstyn went on track break. It was then we decided to move her to a Montessori Charter school. Now its kind of a pain to drive her but we can tell a big difference. She comes home excited about school and the kids that are in her class. She likes the teacher and is doing great!

Potty training

I've been quite busy this last month or so. Part of the reason was I decided to potty train Ben after we got back from Idaho and hopefully before school started this year. I have to say that Kierstyn was a big help and it turned out to be easier than I expected. You just have to find the right motivation. Good job Ben!!!

Yellowstone trip

Again a little slow but here is our trip to Yellowstone. Our kids had never been there before so we decided to take them when we were up in Island Park. It rained part of the day but we still had a great time! We saw alot of geysers, the lower falls, and Old Faithful.

Here's are a few pictures of our trip to Island Park.

It turned out that my sisters were there with us. So my kids got to play with their cousins alot. Blake was the boat driver. Here he is helping Ethan & Carter drive.

We did alot of boating even though it was COLD! Kierstyn really liked the tube this year and Ben just liked riding in the boat. Blake & I went waterskiing about twice everyday.





We got out the paddle boat and the kids all went for a ride. They had alot of fun!

Ben's all time favorite thing to do was to throw rocks in the lake. He did it for hours. When we went on walks he would pick up rocks to throw in the lake. He cried when we made him leave.

And here's the 3 squirrels sleeping in the same bed. Amazing that we ever got them to go to sleep.

We love Island Park and our trips there every year. A big thanks to Grandma & Grandpa Davis for letting us stay at the cabin!!!!!

I didn't have a chance to post this before we left town but this is what my sweet little girl did to her hair. It happened one morning when the kids were downstairs doing some art projects. I ran upstairs just to get dressed. When I came back down Kierstyn was laying down on the floor with her hands behind her back. I asked her what she was doing and what was behind her back. She said she cut her hair. This chunk of hair was behind her back.


It looked like she took a handful of hair and pulled it down in front of her face and cut it off at her nose. I have to admit I didn't handle it very well, I yelled at her and then I cried because I loved her long hair. But I know it could have been alot worse. I took her to my stylist who fixed it up and looks pretty cute now. I guess there are always a few growing pains as kids grow up.

A few more Hawaii pics!

I know I'm pretty slow but I just got the pictures from our underwater camera and from parasailing.


We did the tandem parasail so we went up together. We had gone snorkeling the day before so I was a little sunburned and so did not wear my swimsuit. What I didn't know was that they like to "dip" you in the ocean. Lucky for me the boat driver only dipped my legs.


This is from our underwater camera, and I'm surprised they turned out as well as they did. I couldn't see anything I was trying to take a picture of trying to look through the little tiny hole with my snorkel on. So we just had to guess. This was the sea turtle we saw!


This was sailing on the catamarran, Blake's favorite. We didn't sit up front the whole time because it gets really wet up there.