I love it!

I love it when kids are learning to speak and they make silly little mistakes in their English. The other day McKenzie looked up in my closet and wanted to know why her clothes were in my closet. I asked her, "What clothes are in there?" and she responds, "Well, it's not clothes...it's just one cloe" So, cloe is one piece of clothing and clothes are two? I was laughing so hard it was hard to try and explain that cloe isn't a word for one article of clothing.

Then this morning I was listening to the kids play in the next room. McKenzie (again) says, "Ladies and Gentlemen...Boys and Girls...Welcome to the flableelus tunnel!" And she kept saying "flableelus" all day long! It was so cute, I couldn't correct her. When I asked her where she learned that word, she said she had heard it from Brayden, of course. I must have missed that part of the conversation.

Anyway, hope everyone has a "flableelus" day!

Messy Buns

OK, so I am on this new shift at work which keeps me there until 1 in the morning. Basically, that means that I have TONS of time to sit and do nothing on the internet. For the past couple of days I have been looking at various hair blogs (thanks Augustina!) and getting some really cute, simple ideas to do McKenzie's hair. Today, I decided to just be quick and put two little messy buns in her hair. We looked in the mirror and I commented on how cute she was...

Well, McKenzie was having none of that. She promptly burst into tears and hid behind a towel on the floor! She kept saying that she didn't want to be cute, that she wanted to be pretty! I was actually kind of hurt, because it was so quick and easy and looked so darn cute. Why do girls have to be so picky?!

Happy Mother's Day!!!

Happy Mother's Day to all of you moms. I wish that I could call you all and tell you, but unfortunately I have to work. Just know that I am thinking of you and hope you have a wonderful day!

Playing Catch-Up.

So, we still can't find the camera, but I have LOTS of pictures on my phone! So we're going to play catch up. Here are some of the things that we did in March and April....


To start with, Mason and I went to Disneyland for our birthdays. That's right - just us without the kids! It was nice being able to go on the "big" rides and not have to worry about the kids fighting over what we were going to do next. While we were there, we got our annual passes and put them on the new payment plan for socal residents. How cool is it that you can go to Disneyland all year long for only $20 per month for four people?! Anyway, Brayden and McKenzie stayed with our friends, and this is what they looked like on the way home:

After Disneyland, we all had a minivacation. We went to Las Vegas for a business trade show and had some fun while we were there. On our way, we visited a ghost town. In Vegas, we went swimming in the lazy river pool, played on the playground, saw the lions at the MGM grand, went to the m&m store, and to the Ethel M Chocolate Factory.

Then for McKenzie's birthday, we took her to Disneyland and let her do whatever she wanted. Most of those pictures are on a disposable camera that our friends the Coromandel's bought for us, so I'm going to get them developed soon. However, she wanted to dress up as Aurora so I do have a picture here...it's a little grainy. We let McKenzie pick all of our rides and activities for the day and we had a blast. For dinner, we ate at Ariel's Grotto with the princesses. We met Cinderella, Ariel, Aurora, and Snow White. They placed us at the first table, so they all came and told McKenzie happy birthday before they saw anyone else! It was super expensive, so it will probably only happen once or twice in a lifetime, but the food was fabulous and our little princess had a 3rd birthday to remember (we hope).

OK. Now onto Easter. My Dad, Corinne, Amber and Mindy all came down from Northern CA to visit. We haven't seen them since the previous summer, so we were really excited! We went to Belmont Park and had a nice Easter Dinner. Even my Grandpa and his wife, Alice, came to join in the fun!

After that we are now back to a normal schedule (if you can call it that) or soccer, t-ball and just plain life. We recently refinished our kitchen table, which Mason did a great job on for it being his first time.

And last, but not least, we have a family of opossum's at my work. There are four babies and Mom. They come out at night and take over our station cat's (Gary's) home. Here's the best pic that I could get of two of them the other night:

They're Growing Up (sniff, sniff)

So, we lost our camera and can't find it ANYWHERE! I am now resorting to using my phone, and thanks to my wonderful brother in law (thank you Mike), I have a way to transfer the pics/videos to the computer. So you'll have to forgive the 2mp pictures that are to follow, but they are better than none at all, I'd say.

Anyway, onto the title of my story today. Brayden is now 5, for those of you who didn't know. I would've posted birthday pictures, but I lost the camera a couple of days later. This week, he learned how to ride his bike without the training wheels! He was really scared at first, but his training wheel fell off and I told him that we weren't putting it back on. He cried and we put the bike away to go run errands. When we got home, he said, "Mom, I'm ready to try my bike now." So, we did and he got the hang of it in about 5 mins. Now, I can't get him off the bike and he keeps saying, "Thanks for letting me ride my bike without the training wheels!"

Now, McKenzie has also been suprising me. She has been begging for a bike since Brayden started riding his and then I remembered: Brayden got his (with trainging wheels) when he was three. Ohmygosh -- she's almost THREE?! Where did the time go? Of course, when I was taking video of Brayden, McKenzie also wanted a video, so here she is singing her ABC's.

Missionary Work and Modern Times

I was on LDS.org when I found the coolest thing: The Church now has a You Tube Channel! There is supposed to be a new message each week promoting the basic beliefs of the Church. Here it is:

So true...

I got this email the other day and it was so true (minus the coffee part, but you can make it hot chocolate for me).... I just had to share.

AAADD- KNOW THE SYMPTOMS....

Thank goodness there ' s a name for this disorder.
Somehow I feel better, even though I have it!!
Recently, I was diagnosed with A.A.A.D.D. -
Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder.
This is how it manifests :

I decide to water my garden.
As I turn on the hose in the driveway,
I look over at my car and decide it needs washing.

As I start toward the garage,
I notice mail on the porch table that
I brought up from the mail box earlier.
I decide to go through the mail before I wash the car.

I lay my car keys on the table,
Put the junk mail in the garbage can under the table,
And notice that the can is full.

So, I decide to put the bills back
On the table and take out the garbage first.

But then I think,
Since I'm going to be near the mailbox
When I take out the garbage anyway,
I may as well pay the bills first.

I take my check book off the table,
And see that there is only one check left.
My extra checks are in my desk in the study,
So I go inside the house to my desk where
I find the cup of coffee I ' d been drinking.

I ' m going to look for my checks,
But first I need to push the Coffee aside
So that I don't accidentally knock it over.
The Coffee is getting cold,
And I decide to make another cup.

As I head toward the kitchen with the cold coffee,
A vase of flowers on the counter
Catches my eye--they need water..

I put the Coffee on the counter and
Discover my reading glasses that
I ' ve been searching for all morning.

I decide I better put them back on my desk,
But first I ' m going to water the flowers.

I set the glasses back down on the counter,
Fill a container with water and suddenly spot the TV remote.
Someone left it on the kitchen table.

I realize that tonight when we go to watch TV,
I ' ll be looking for the remote,
But I won ' t remember that it ' s on the kitchen table,
So I decide to put it back in the den where it belongs,
But first I ' ll water the flowers.

I pour some water in the flowers,
But quite a bit of it spills on the floor.

So, I set the remote back on the table,
Get some towels and wipe up the spill.

Then, I head down the hall trying to
Remember what I was planning to do.

At the end of the day :

The car isn ' t washed
The bills aren ' t paid
There is a cold cup of coffee sitting on the counter
The flowers don ' t have enough water,
There is still only 1 check in my check book,
I can ' t find the remote,
I can ' t find my glasses,
And I don ' t remember what I did with the car keys.

Then, when I try to figure out why nothing got done today,
I ' m really baffled because I know I was busy all day,
And I ' m really tired.

A Straight Jacket?!

When I picked up the kids the yesterday from the babysitter, I was informed that McKenzie didn't have a jacket. She was wearing long sleeves and jeans, and we were going to the car and home, so no big deal... Well, when we got home, McKenzie tells me, "Mommy I did have a jacket a Sasha's house."

So I asked her, "What jacket did you have? What kind of jacket?"

And she said, "Um...A straight one!"

I haven't laughed that hard in a while.

Our December Vacation

This year I took a vacation from work in December and for the first time, we didn't drive anywhere! We went to Big Bear with Mike, Melissa and Family and just kind of "hung out." We also went to Sea World and Knott's Berry Farm. I think it was the best vacation I've had in a long time...almost stress free! Here's some of my favorite pics:

Christmas 2008

OK, OK so I'm a little behind... We had a wonderful Christmas. The kids all performed a living nativity:



They all wanted to sleep under the Chrismas tree, but of course there wasn't enough room for all 6 kids under the tree. So, they all slept in the family room after opening one gift (which was just some sweet treats):



I tried to get a picture of both kids, but it was still so early in the morning that the lighting was just bad in that room.... McKenzie's "big" gift this year was an American Girl doll (really one half of a Bitty Twins set) that she has named Halle (like every other baby in her small collection). I really wanted to get her a nice doll with hair, but I can't bring myself to spend the money on an American Girl for my 2 year old. So, my friend and I each paid for half of a set of Bitty Twins. She took one, I the other.



And last, but not least is a small glimpse of the chaos that happened in our house of 10 people (Stengel Family plus ours) Christmas morning. I have to say that as bad as this looks, in the few hours that I was at work, they had it ALL cleaned up!