Where did he come from?

Rhett started gymnastics in September this past year and has figured out that he is.....well......pretty much AMAZING!! Without working on it he discovered that he can do the chinese splits.
He can also do the regular splits. He just figured it out one day. He has always been flexible, but we had NO IDEA just how flexible. He loves to show-off this newly found talent. He can also stand-up straight bend down and put his nose on his knees. Can I just say....WOW!!! Ryan and I are NOT at all flexible people and have really NEVER been. We ask each other all the time - WHERE DID HE COME FROM ?
I was going to publish this post the other day, but was glad I waited until today because he also discovered that he can do this...

BACK FLIPS!!!

And he can also land his back hand springs on the trampoline as of today too. He continues to amaze us!! LOVE YOU BUDDY!!

Boys May Seriously be the Death of Me

I find myself saying this ALOT lately - Boys may seriously be the death of me!! These two little guys....as cute as they are.....WEAR ME OUT!! Dallin and Rhett are what we call BEST FRIENDS/WORST ENEMIES! It has been this way their whole life. They are either inseparable or beating on each other! We have had to have ALOT of talks over the years about being the right kind of brother. Our favorite example is the example of "The Josephs." There are 2 different kinds of Josephs that we learn about in church. The 1st being Joseph who was sold into Egypt by his BROTHERS!! The 2nd being Joseph Smith who when the mobs attacked had a big brother that took 4 bullets for him. I ask my boys ALL THE TIME which kind of brothers they are being?!

When we went into have our ultrasound to find out if Rhett would be a boy or a girl and we got the news we were having another boy I cried. Not because I didn't want another boy.....but because I knew we would have the BEST FRIENDS/WORST ENEMIES combo. PLUS....I know how little boys work - I have brothers - and I knew that there was a good possibility that these two would be typical boys and do things together like start things on fire, or tie sticks together to float the canal, or build homemade bombs, etc., etc., etc. So far no fires, no rafts and no bombs, but we are definitely right there in the thick of having boys!!

Here is a recent example -

We were getting ready for school and the boys were being a bunch of goofballs (similar to the above picture) as we waited for Oakley to finish her hair so we could read scriptures. I hear Rhett say to Dallin, "Dallin....DON'T MOVE!" So...Dallin, being obedient (which he NEVER is for his mommy! Hmmm....) freezes in place. Rhett walks over, puts his hands on Dallin's shoulders, picks up his foot and STOMPS down as hard as he can on Dallin's foot. They laughed as Dallin tackles him to the ground. I chalked it up to the goofballs that they are and finally got them settled for scriptures.

We finished scriptures, said our family prayer and I sent them out the door to wait for the bus. I looked out to see them standing in a line tallest to shortest with Dallin standing in the middle of Rhett and Oakley. I thought to myself how cute my 3 kids were! However, that thought vanished as I was just in time to see Dallin - with NO WARNING what-so-ever, pick-up his foot, reach over and STOMP on Rhetts foot as hard as he could.

OH MY WORD!! They laughed and jumped on the bus. Somedays I SERIOUSLY wonder if I am going to survive little boys!!:)

I am SO GRATEFUL to a Heavenly Father that knew I needed the challenge.....he better just be there to help when I am purely exhausted from them!! :)

Club Volleyball

Oakley has started playing volleyball this year. She LOVES it! And...she is actually really good at it! She has learned how to serve over hand already - which her mom couldn't do til half-way through high school. Infact, the very 1st overhand serve she did in a game I seriously had to work to not cry because I was SO PROUD OF HER!! Adjusting the knee pads! Super important! :)
Sorry that my phone takes such fuzzy pictures, but isn't she seriously so stinking cute!! I am DEFINITELY one PROUD MOMMY!!

Here she is headed out to play. She has 2 of her very best friends on her team and she LOVES playing with them. We are so lucky to live where we do so that my kids have the opportunities they have but can still have the country life that I love. We are so blessed! Oakley has 3 other tournaments before the end of the season and she is getting better and better every time she plays. She is wanting to try-out for Jr. High VBall next year so I am sure she will be practicing through the summer as well. Volleyball was one of my favorite things about school and I LOVE that my girl LOVES it too!!

Bakery Line 1

The other day Laiklie and I walked into Winco and as I was jumping her in the cart I heard over the speaker - "Bakery Line 1." Laiklie got big eyes....kinda looked confused and then asked me, "Did they just say my name?" I laughed and laughed. I had never thought of Bakery and Laiklie rhyming and sounding so much alike!! So....her new nickname around our house is BAKERY LINE 1!! :)

Paint, Paint, and MORE Paint

A couple weeks ago I decided to paint my living room. You may have read about it in my other post. I painted the pale (celery) green first, then the dark (cow manure) green second. I left the darker green for over a week trying to decide if I liked it or not. I mean....I liked it, but I didn't LOVE it and I wanted to LOVE it. Know what I mean?? So I decided last week since Ryan hated the green and I didn't necessarily love it we needed to repaint AGAIN!! We went together to the paint store and came home with three colors. A brownish, a blue/gray and a yellow. The blue was suppose to be for the living room. I knew before I ever left the store though that I was not going to like it. But Ryan was sure he was. So we got home and he left to go play basketball and when he got home this is what he found. Before - with my cute niece Danica as a model apparently! Ha, ha! One of those pictures I found on my camera that I am guessing one of my kids took.:)
After. I knew I would hate the blue so I painted it the pale yellow and LOVE it! It looks so much better than the green and I love it with my lime green decor and brown couches. SOOO MUCH BETTER!!
Then I decided to use the brownish color in the kitchen and after I painted it it dried kinda purply. I HATED it too. :( So...back to the paint store for a deeper brown. This one I decided would work. Thank goodness!!

Before - this is the kitchen wall that collects all the dirty fingerprints of EVERY kid that walks into my house.

After - YAY for a wall color the same color as the dirty fingerprints!! :)

So now I am FINALLY done painting! I am saving the blue/gray color for maybe Dallin's room when I forget how much I hate to paint! Ha, Ha! We will see if that ever happens!

Wanna See What I Mean?

Remember me talking about Oakley's swollen arm in the last post from her tetanus shots? Well, here it is. I wish you could REALLY see how bad it is. You can see the difference between the bottom of her skinny little Jacobson arm and the top fat swollen part. It actually looks like she got thumped with a baseball. It has a big knot in it. :( This was on day 3...so it looks better than day 2 did even.
Laiklie's was a little red too. Not swollen, just red. So we took a sister shots picture. :) What tough little girls!!

Fun + a little Drama

This week for FHE we decided to take our kids to the museum to see Sue the Dinosaur. This picture's lighting is HORRIBLE....but you can see the big dinosaur skull behind them. They thought the dinosaur exhibit was great.
They also liked all the regular stuff at the museum as well. Here they are being 4 little indians. :)
And here is Oakley driving the bus - hope there are no garages around to crash into. HA, HA! She might not think that is as funny as I do. :)
And for the drama part of the post.....
Well, I painted my living room on Monday....
I hated it...
So...
I painted again on Tuesday... The pale green (on the right) - we call it celery - is what I painted Monday. It was fine in the day light, but at night it seriously looked like celery. It was horrible! So I repainted on Tuesday the green on the left - we call it cow manure. I am still a little hesitant about how I feel about it. I LOVE it in the afternoon sunshine, but at night it is kinda looking like a Christmas tree threw-up on the walls. Hmmm....not sure what to do. I am leaving it for now until my sister comes on Saturday to give me her opinion. Until then NOBODY is invited over to my house! So please neighbors STAY AWAY!!
And....if that isn't enough drama we have more. When Oakley was 5 years old we took her in for kindergarten shots - no big deal - well, until it was a big deal. After getting her tetanus shot her arm swole up HUGE and got hot and red and hurt like crazy for days. The doctor told me it was semi-normal but not normal-normal to react like that and thought she would be good to have the tetanus again when she was older. Oakley was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes just 6 months later. I have had several doctors tell me that it is NOT related.....try telling my gut that though. My gut doesn't agree with the doctors!
So on Tuesday I took Laiklie in for her kindergarten shots - she did AMAZING!! - and Oakley in for her "new" jr. high shots that our state now requires. One of the shots was the tetanus and we decided to go ahead and try to give it to her again. DUMB, DUMB, DUMB!! Same reaction! Swollen, hot, red SOOO SUPER SORE arm!! We are on day 3 of it now and have dealt with ALOT of tears. It breaks my heart! I guess we know now that we only do tetanus in an emergency type situation. It has caused alot of unwanted, unneeded drama at my house this week! Hopefully next week is better. I am not sure though...I might be painting! :)