Kyle and Alli Gardner

Gladden Farms 10K

noreply@blogger.com (Kyle Gardner) — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 23:39:00 +0000

Awhile ago, I decided I wanted to become a runner. And, I did! :) This past weekend I ran in my first ever 10K! Yay!

I've been planning on running a 10K with my sister-in-law Kati in Marana for a couple months now, and the time finally came! My Mom came down this past Tuesday, and when she went home on Wednesday Macy talked us into letting her go with Grandma, and we would just pick Macy up that weekend when we went down to Marana for my race. Thursday after we had our Halloween party I started to feel a little weird, but just chalked it up to staying out too late and having too many sweets, so I went to bed hoping I'd feel better the next day. I woke up Friday with a head-cold- the headache, sinus pressure, runny nose whole bit. Kyle kept telling me that if I didn't feel good then we didn't have to go, but I really wanted to run and we needed to pick up Macy. We headed down to Marana and hoped for the best, that I would be feeling better the next day.

The morning of the race I woke up and felt good for about 10 minutes, and my head started to get back into the sinus pressure headache. I popped some sudafed and got some Ibuprofen and prayed that I would be able to run. We started our race and I felt really good for the first 2-3 miles. After that my head really started to hurt, I would start walking for a little bit until my head stopped pounding and then start running until it started to pound again. At one point I felt like I was going to pass out, so I stopped for 10 seconds or so until the ground stopped spinning and started running again. It was a really long 1 hour and 19 minutes, but I did it. I finished my first 10k! Actually, according to my phone we did 6.45, but we'll go with just a 10k :) I'm really excited that I finished, but I'm also bummed that I didn't run the whole thing. Now my next goal is to run the entire race. The coolest part of the whole thing? The thing that made all the head pounding worth it?! I WON THE RAFFLE! I never win anything, well- I guess I can't say that anymore, but before the raffle I had never won anything- but I did this time! I won $100 for a pair of new running shoes! I was so stoked! I found some shoes that I loved, and spent a total of $10.92! yay! Here is Kati and I at the start line...

Macy and London waiting for us at the park...

Daddy reading his new book while watching the girls...

My Mom got some pictures of Kati and I running, but I refuse to post them because I look absolutely ridiculous in all of them :) Stay tuned for more runs in the future!

Halloween Party 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Kyle Gardner) — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 21:42:00 +0000

Last Thursday we had our 1st Ever (going to be annual) Halloween Party! We had tasty food, awesome friends, and lots of fun. The pictures pretty much sum up the night, so I won't do a lot of explaining :)

We were Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head, accompanied by a smurf.

We had Johnny and June Cash

Fred, Wilma, and Pebbles Flinstone

"Lorin in 3D" and Lady GaGa

The girls won at the Mummy Race

It was an awesome night.

Pumpkin Carving

noreply@blogger.com (Kyle & Alli) — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 21:19:00 +0000

The Monday after we go to the Pumpkin Patch we get together, have some pizza, salad, pumpkin roll, and we carve our pumpkins!

I love her little toothy grin.

Cute little Bella

Our pumpkin! Kyle gets all the gross stuff out, and I carve it.

The whole group!

2011 Pumpkin Patch

noreply@blogger.com (Kyle & Alli) — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 20:57:00 +0000

Last week we had our annual Pumpkin Patch Pickin' saturday. Last year London was just a wee one, so this was really her first time getting to pick a pumpkin, and ride in the wheel barrow. The Millers also joined this us year and we were happy to have them with us!

This is Bella, the Miller's little girl.

Macy found a pumpkin, but it was kind of yucky.

The girls looking for the perfect pumpkin...

The Miller's

The Larsons

Our little family.

Macy kept seeing the kiddie train go by, and after she begged Daddy for 50 cents, she got to go on it. She was extremely excited, too excited to show it.

Kyle and I, man I love this guy.

Basket full of FUN!

noreply@blogger.com (Kyle & Alli) — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 20:24:00 +0000

Remember this post?

London finally talked Macy into pushing her around in the laundry basket.

Then they talked Daddy into pushing "bof girls" (as Macy would say).

Sister Moments

noreply@blogger.com (Kyle & Alli) — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 19:53:00 +0000

I was raised with 3 brothers. I loved having brothers- I'm a much tougher girl because of them and they are awesome. I definitely wouldn't trade them, but I never got to have someone at home to do all the "girlie" things with me. I never had a big sister to do my hair, or try and borrow her clothes, or all those other "sister" things that sisters do, and sometimes I feel a little jipped that I never got to experience that. Having girls, I finally get to experience living with girls :) I get to live with Macy's little attitude and moodiness (yes, already) and constantly changing her mind but I absolutely love my girls. They are both so sweet and sometimes just too cute for words.

On Sundays I usually paint my toenails for church, and almost always Macy runs up and wants me to paint her toe nails too. She picks a color, I paint them, and she almost always decides she wants a different color. The first few times I humored her and changed her color, and now I just tell her she has to wait until next time. London has started to join in on our toenail painting parties and is surprisingly still when she wants her toes painted. It's adorable.

These are the things I don't want to forget, the little fingers taking off last weeks nail polish, the girls "helping" each other file and "clip" their nails. I'm so excited that they have each other so do the "sister" things with, and I'm excited to watch as they go through their sister moments.

Helping Hands

noreply@blogger.com (Kyle & Alli) — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 02:36:00 +0000

Macy has always been a great helper. When she's "in the mood," she will help with just about anything you ask her to do. Earlier today I was changing London's diaper and asked her to throw it away for me, she gave me "I don't really want to..." I told her "I'm sorry that you don't really want to, but I asked you to, so you need to go throw it away" "FINE. fine fine fine." and can you even believe that when I told my husband about this he gave me an apple-doesn't-fall-far-from-the-tree comment?

Her favorite "chore" right now is helping Daddy with the dishes, she loves playing with the bubbles... and trying to eat them... Daddy is working on that.

I love these progression pictures. I've started having Macy take her laundry basket into the laundry room, and what else is more fun the hopping into a basket that is being drug across the floor by your big sister?! Macy doesn't think that's very fun though, at least when she's the one doing the pulling.

"Okay okay, I'll get out"

I'm hoping to get her to be able to fold and put away the clothes, scrub the bathrooms, mop, and vacuum before her 3rd birthday. Then I can kick back with a movie, a blanket and eat some bon bons (whatever those are)... I think we're off to a great start.

Day at the Park

noreply@blogger.com (Kyle & Alli) — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 22:26:00 +0000

Since it's starting to get colder here I've been trying to do more things outside with the girls before it gets too cold to go outside in general. We were headed to the park and I decided to take my camera with me and get some shots of the girls as they were playing. I didn't stage a single picture, even the one at the top of the slide, they did all by themselves. Enjoy!

Navajo County Fair

noreply@blogger.com (Kyle & Alli) — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 20:19:00 +0000

We live in a pretty central part of town. The elementary school, pool, library, park, and fair grounds are all a 5 minute walk away from us. It is really nice to be so close to all the community activities and I could definitely get used to it. The only down side from this is when anything is going on Macy can see it out our family room window and begs and pleads until we go do it, which is actually good for us because it gets us out of the house. When the fair comes to town we can see the lights of the ferris wheel, as clear as day. The picture below isn't from our window, but it pretty much looks like this.

When Macy saw all the pretty lights she asked "what's goin' on over there" and I let her know that the fair was in town and maybe we'll go check it out. "Mom! What's the circle?!" "That's the ferris wheel" "I wanna go on the ferris wheel!" and that's how it started, Macy's love of the ferris wheel. Every few minutes she would ask me when we were going to go on it. Kyle and I were already planning on going to the demolition derby so we decided to bring Macy along with us and see how she did. All day long Macy kept asking if it was time to go to the fair, and all day long I let her know "you have to take a nap, eat dinner, drop London off at Grandmas, THEN we get to go to the fair"... She did awesome and patiently waited all day, when it was time for a nap she got all excited because we were that much closer to riding the ferris wheel.

The demolition derby wasn't as good as it was last year, it had rained like crazy all day so it was extremely muddy and all the cars kept getting stuck and couldn't pick up very much speed. It was fun to watch though and be with friends. We meant Lisa there (Lorin was working) and then ran into the Wheelers too. Yay for friends!

While we were talking into the stadium a guy from a booth handed Macy a big red balloon. She was having lots of fun playing with it until....

Daddy accidentally poped it....

Luckily one of the guys from the booth that she got it from was sitting next to us, and he called one of his guys from the booth and they gave her a new one. After the demolition derby Macy was pretty wiped out but FINALLY got to go on her precious ferris wheel.

She was so excited to go but she was so tired and it was hard for her to show all her build up emotions.

For about 2 weeks Macy would tell everyone she met about her experience; "The cars were crashed and then they got STUCK in the mud, and then we went, we went, we went on the FERRIS wheel!!" The next day Macy asked if we could go on it again, I told her it was too much money to go on it more then once. After I told her that she kept telling everyone "But we can't go on it again, it's a hundred DOLLARS" When the fair left she asked me where it went and I told her it went home. She looked at me with a pretty puzzled look on her face and said "It didn't go home. It would make a MESS in the house!"

I'm so glad we decided to take her with us, she had so much fun and it was definitely a night to remember.

Where were you when the World Trade Center fell?

noreply@blogger.com (Kyle Gardner) — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 15:59:00 +0000

Image via WikipediaAs I was reading where everyone was 10 years ago today I remembered that during this time of my life I actually kept a Journal so I looked it up. Here is my Journal entry from 9/11/2001 unedited.

Where were you when the World Trade Center fell? I was in Lorca, Spain on exchanges with Elder Shaw in a coffee shop called Expresso watching on a big screen TV. At 4:00pm exactly the phone rang just as we were leaving. Juan Jose a member here in Lorca who works for the military called and asked "Have you seen the news?" I said, "No" he said, "I don't suggest you go in the street right now. The Twin Towers in New York and The Pentagon in Washington D.C. have just been attacked by terrorists. They hijacked planes and crashed them into the buildings. They are not sure who exactly did it but they think it was Muslims and there are as you know a lot of Muslims here." I was shocked. I didn't hardly believe it. It couldn't be, stuff like that just doesn't happen. I assured him that I would call the Mission President and figure it out. So Elder Shaw called the office and they said well President hasn't told us anything yet. So we said OK, well were going to hit the streets then. So then we left and went to the Coffee Shop where I knew there would be a TV and we watched for about a half hour. That is when we saw the second tower fall live. So then we went back to work. We taught the man from Santa Domingo and he said he thought his brother was in the building but we still taught him. Then we taught Lucas, Maria and their family the 5th Charla. Then we came back home when Elder Kallas called and said the Prophet had a message for us. We should not go to government buildings, stay out of Muslim neighborhoods, avoid contacting Muslims, and if we ever feel like we are in danger we should return to the piso. That was a great testament to me on the church. That so fast we had direct instructions from the Prophet. The Church is true. Then later Juan Jose called to give us an update on what's been going on and to find out our information. It was also good to know that the members are so concerned for us. It is definitely a day I will never forget. Where were you the 11th of September 2001 - 9-11

Soon after, I was transfered to another area that had an even higher concentration of Muslims and I remember waking through areas where all the TV's were watching the news of the events in arabic and feeling like I was behind enemy lines. My companion and I were also invited to an American Flag burning by a group of Muslim men about a week after. We didn't go :) Through it all I never felt in danger and most people actually treated us better than they ever had. Before this every time some one discovered we were americans they would tell us how much they didn't like americans. But there for a few months we didn't hear that.

Dumb vacuum.. or owner?

noreply@blogger.com (Kyle & Alli) — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 17:48:00 +0000

I love my vacuum, when it works. It sucks things right up and I love the way my carpet looks after I'm done, nice, fluffy and just plain lookin' clean. Every once in awhile my vacuum decides it's not going to work. Then we have to replace the belts- which aren't sold in stores, so I have to wait a week for them to get here. I end up borrowing Kyle's Moms vacuum because I hate dirty carpet. For the past 2 weeks my vacuum has been dead- the brushes are not spinning. I ordered the belts, two this time so that next time one goes out I'll order one when I put the 2nd one in and I'll always have one. That didn't work. Kyle looked at it a few times, and when my brother was in town a few weeks ago he looked at it. The were determined it was because of the 2nd belt, so I got the other belt... that didn't work either. I was determined that m vacuum was just dead. Whatever. I'm done with it anyway, I'll get a new one that actually works. Then I had a thought, and looked at these buttons.

See how that little switch says "Flooring"? Well, when it is switched to "Hard" that means the power brushes turn off... ya those brushes that kept not spinning and we thought it was because of the belts... duh- so I switched the switch to "carpet".

And walla, 2.5 weeks, a mail order, trip to the store, a husband and brother, and a switch later, it works.

Happy 1st Birthday London!

noreply@blogger.com (Kyle & Alli) — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 18:22:00 +0000

For London's first birthday we celebrated in Buckeye with some of our family. Steven was blessing his little boy the next day, so we decided while everyone was there we should do the party as well.My Grandma and Grandpa Bochat, Chris and Kati and their kids, and Steven were all able to make it out to the party. My mom spent the day making shells for dinner and then Kati and I made some cupcakes for the party. I found the idea for the cupcakes on Pinterest, and they were SUPER cute. We looked all over and we couldn't find the sour airheads that we were supposed to use (they were striped different colors, so it looked like a rainbow) so we had to use just plain colored ones, but that's okay. We took a trip into town to go birthday shopping and the boys watched some (okay, a lot) of football.

London wasn't shy about eating the cupcake at all, in act she thoroughly enjoyed it.

The kids were so excited about eating the cupcakes. Kati and I made them about 1/2 an hour before the party started and the kids could hardly keep their pants on they were so excited to eat them.

London has enjoyed all of her presents... sometimes we have to remind Macy whose presents they were, but they are doing good sharing and London doesn't really mind all the much.

Grandma Bochat bough London her very own tissue box, she loves to pull them out- it was one of her favorites.

After opening presents we went over to the neighbors house and went swimming, I'll have to add those pictures after I get them from my Mom. It was a great way to get the kids energy out.

Here is our happy baby girl that next morning. She is such a baby happy when she first wakes up in the morning, I love it.

Overall it was a fantastic weekend! We went to the Baby Jack's blessing the morning after and had a day filled of family fun. Thanks for having us Mom and Dad!

My Toddler

noreply@blogger.com (Kyle & Alli) — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 16:51:00 +0000

I just got an e-mail from Enfamil congratulating me on my toddler turning one. It immediately threw me into a defensive "She is not a toddler, she's just a baby" attitude. I started thinking about all the non-toddler things she does, and the list is getting shorter and shorter. London has been walking for about a month, and she even will stand up all by herself in the middle of the floor. She knows the word "no" and usually listens (okay so that's not so toddler like hehe) and she's learning words like "let's go" and will walk to the door when I say it. She waves bye bye when anyone says the word "bye" and now wants to drink out of a cup instead of a sippy or a bottle, even though she still drenches herself with water every time. London is such a joy to have around, she really does just light up the room when she smiles. She has a way of putting me in a good mood but I'm grumpy and reminding me of the sweet innocence of little children. She is so nice to Macy, even when Macy doesn't deserve it, and always shares her toys. Macy will run up and grab the toy London is playing with and I'll tell Macy to give it back, only to have London hand it right back to her. It's almost like she's saying "It's alright, if you really want it you can have it." She is a championship sleeper and hardly ever wakes up during the night and almost always go to sleep without fussing a bit. She loves to talk on the phone and uses anything as one, from a cup to a sock. It's such a bitter sweet feeling when you realize they are growing up, and the time she has as my Little Lou Lou is just going too fast.

Long Day in Show Low

noreply@blogger.com (Kyle & Alli) — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 14:28:00 +0000

This past weekend our very old and very rusted out evaporative cooler officially bit the dust. Luckily, our house didn't get up to 105 degrees like those people in Phoenix, but it was definitely a warm 85 the past few days. Macy had an appointment to get her cast off (Yay!) so while I was in Show Low I was on assignment to pick one up. Our morning started out in Holbrook where I was to Walt's to check out their selection. They said they had a few in stock that would fit my needs for a decent price, but I wanted to check out Home Depot and Lowe's before I went ahead and bought it, so we headed out to Show Low at 9am.

I knew I was leaving a little early, so I was super good and went the exact speed limit the entire way - which worked out because it gave the girls a little nap before our busy day. We first went to Lowe's, no luck- they were all out, so I threw the girls back in the car and went to Home Depot. We found one that might work there. I called Kyle to go to Walt's and look at the cooler again to find out about it's specs in more detail. He was at work, so he couldn't do that till lunch and instead of hanging out at Home Depot for 3 hours, we headed over to Walmart.

I got some stuff for craft night and then we went to Wendy's for lunch. After lunch Kyle still hadn't called yet, and we had about 2.5 hours till Macy's doctors appointment. We've already been to 3 stores and a fast food place so the girls were a little tired and I was done lugging them in and out of the car, so I checked to see if Winnie-The-Pooh was playing in theaters, no dice.

I remember that there was a pet store with some small animals, so we headed over there. We looked at the birds and some cute cute puppies and Macy was done. I didn't know of any parks in the area and we still had 2 hours till her appointment.

We started driving around and we found a McDonalds with a play place, Perfect! I stopped and the girls played for a good 45 minutes in the play area, they had a blast. Kyle finally called me back and said that I needed to pick up the cooler from Home Depot. Back to Home Depot we go, I buy the cooler and some nice Home Depot men help me to the van. The HD men are chillin' in the loading zone and when I pulled up with my van they gave me the "This is so not going to fit" look. Well- great. I open up the trunk and told them it was bigger then they might expect so we just need to try it. It didn't fit one way, so they turned it and got it most of the way in. There was still the backside hanging out but with some ropes and a cardboard box we got it all in. Thank you HD men, we were off finally off to the doctors office to get Macy's cast off.

We got to the Dr. Office at about 1:50 and sat in the waiting room until 3:30. Gr. The girls were really good the first hour, but the last 30 minutes they were everywhere. It was nap time and I had been dragging them around all day- they were so done. Macy wanted to go read all the patient files so I had to keep to occupied from that and London just wanted to walk around everywhere. We finally got called back and waited another 30 minutes in the room for the doctor. There was a couple times I let London cry longed then I normally do to let them know that the lady with the grumpy children is still in the room. We got out of there at 4:15 and Macy's non-casted leg! She's hasn't been walking on it, she's crawling everywhere- but the Dr said that would be the case so I'm sure she'll feel better in a few days.

We got home and Lorin and Lisa came over to help us with installing the cooler. We got it onto the roof and the vent hood flashing thing didn't match up at all with our cooler, so we have to call someone to get it installed- bummer, but necessary. The joys of home ownership.

We stared potty training! I kept telling Macy when she got her cast off she was going to go pee in the potty, and as the nurse was taking off her cast Macy was telling her as well- so I went ahead and got a little potty, candy, stickers, and panties. She woke up this morning and we had our first success! She's enjoying her own potty and that helps a lot.

Wish us luck with the evaporative cooler and potty training! :)

Family Fun!

noreply@blogger.com (Kyle & Alli) — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 17:41:00 +0000

A few weekends ago my cousin Mark got married and they were having a wedding reception in Flagstaff this weekend for those of us that couldn't make it to Payson last weekend. Steven, Meghan, and Baby Jack came up to visit us on Friday and then we all went to Flagstaff yesterday. It was really fun having them for the weekend and we loved having a little baby in our house again (No, that doesn't mean I'm baby hungry and I don't plan on having another one for another year). :)

Baby Jack and Aunt Alli

We had to protect Jack because London just wanted to love on him a little too hard.

Poor London got so upset when she couldn't hold Baby Jack.

Macy loved having Jack around. She would play with her arms and legs and just look at him. It was adorable. She's such a great big cousin.

Thanks for coming and hanging out with us Steven and Meghan!
After a morning of just hanging out, we headed over to Flagstaff. Before we got to my Aunt and Uncle's house we stopped at Bun Huggers for some amazing hamburgers, YUM. Then we went over and met my parents at Aunt Janet and Uncle Greg's house. They have an absolutely gorgeous backyard and the weather was perfect which made for a very relaxing and fun day.

Here is the happy couple. Congratulations!

Macy kept running and yelling at Grandpa, it was pretty funny.

Macy told Uncle Steven "Okay- Your turn. Run and scream" So like a good uncle, he did.

I seriously can't get over how nice their backyard was, it was seriously so beautiful and it was really nice to just hang out back there. One day we'll have a nice backyard, one day.

Girlies on the Couch

noreply@blogger.com (Kyle & Alli) — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 16:09:00 +0000

Macy and London were sitting on the couch while I was doing the dishes. Macy starts yelling at me "MOOOMMM, TAKE A PICTURE!!!" So I grabbed my camera and walked in to these two cute girls chilling all cute on the couch.

They like to yell at each other. London yells, then Macy yells.. back and forth. They especially like to do this in the car. They love each other :)

Water-color Painting

noreply@blogger.com (Kyle & Alli) — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 16:02:00 +0000

I was chillin' on Pinterest and I came across a "packet" for toddler/preschool age kids for parents to work on with them at home. I was flipping through the packet and most of the packet is worksheets. I was able to get my bachelors degree is Early Childhood and in my classes we were all taught how boring and lazy giving worksheets is to your children at school- which I take to mean especially at home. It also got me thinking that I went to school for 5 years to learn all this stuff and I haven't really been using any of with my kids. I decided that I need to try to do something "preschoolish" every day. We already read books all the time, do puzzles, play with blocks, so I'm talking the hands on interactive things like painting, playing with magnets, making clouds with cotton balls, that type of stuff. Macy was watching some PBS cartoons and I noticed some of the kids in the background water color painting, so I decided that would be our first activity. Macy had a ball with it and asks me all the time if she can paint some more.

We had to stop an hour later after she had done 10 pictures and the paint was starting to end up on the counters, chairs, slide outside, cups, and other random places. She seriously had so much fun and I'm excited for her to get to experience some new ideas. What are some activities that you guys do with your kids? I'd appreciate some comments on fun things that you guys do so Macy can experience all sorts of fun. Thanks!

My Blog Book

noreply@blogger.com (Kyle & Alli) — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 21:28:00 +0000

Thank you FEDEX Man for bringing me my blog book today! I love it! The quality is amazing and it is so fun to be able to have all our adventures written down in a book instead of only stored online. This one is from the beginning of my blog, September 2007 til December 2008. I haven't decided whether or not I want to do my year, or by big changes (like having Macy, having London, that sort of thing)... because I don't want to do it by year and then only have like 10 posts in one book, we'll have to see how it all plays out.

My only complaint about the book is 100% my fault. I will definitely proof read my posts as well as making sure all the fonts and headings are the way I want them. I THOUGHT I proof read really good, but I should have had some one besides myself do it before I ordered it. There are places where "i" isn't capitalized, extra words here and there, and the picture below shows a heading that was supposed to all be on one page, but "I'm going" is on one page and "Snowboarding" is on the next.

All in all, I am SO happy with the book and will definitely do it for all of my blog posts.

noreply@blogger.com (Kyle & Alli) — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 22:14:00 +0000

On Friday my cousin Mark got married (congratulations!!) so his sister Jennifer was in Arizona visiting for his wedding. After their reception Jennifer came over to my house and hung out with us for a few days. I learned some awesome techniques for making bows and some ideas that I'm so excited to implement for the Holiday seasons. The kids had a lot of fun playing together and we got to know each other a little better.

Jennifer's two oldest children, Ashlyn and Lincoln

Levi, Jennifer's youngest and Macy

Thanks for visiting! We'd love to have you guys again!

Summer BBQ

noreply@blogger.com (Kyle & Alli) — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 22:06:00 +0000

We have been so lucky here in Holbrook to find some awesome friends. Lorin and Lisa both grew up in Holbrook with Kyle, so when we moved here 4 years ago we started hanging out with them off and on. More recently we've been trying to do FHE together and it has been really fun. Amy and Justin moved here a little over a year ago when he got the job as the new seminary teacher and they started joining us for FHE. It has been so much fun becoming friends with these two awesome couples! All summer we have been trying to get together to have a barbecue and we finally were all in town on the same weekend, so we had it a few days ago. It was a lot of fun to have a Friday night just hanging out with friends and eating good food! Thanks for having us over Lorin and Lisa!

This girls getting the food together.

Lisa's AWESOME desert.

The Millers, Amy and Justin

The Larsons, Lorin and Lisa

Us, Kyle and Alli

Little London

The Miller's daughter, Bella

London and Macy

The jumping pictures!

Our Backyard

noreply@blogger.com (Kyle & Alli) — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 21:39:00 +0000

My Mom called me one day and said that someone in her ward was getting rid of a slide and a play house for outback and she wanted to know if I wanted it. Free stuff?? Of course! I'm so glad we got them too because the girls play with them EVERY morning.

Since the girls have been loving playing outside lately I really have been wanting to get the backyard grass in. Kyle started step one a few days ago- clearing out the area! Thanks for working so hard babe!

It has a long way to go, but we are going to have one amazing backyard when it's all done.

Project Decorate My Bedroom: Phase 1, COMPLETE

noreply@blogger.com (Kyle & Alli) — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 15:38:00 +0000

Friday night Kyle, the girls, Marie, and I headed down to they valley. Marie was on her way to Kaleb's (Kathleen and Davids son) baptism and Kyle was on his way to the State Governors Meeting (for choir people). Stormy, Breezy, and Tara are all making these ridiculously cute comforters so I joined in on the fun and made one too. My mom really did most of the work, but I helped as much as I could :) My mom is a lot quicker then me so at about 10 Saturday night she sat down at the machine and finished it up. I took out the pins as we went. I got some throw pillows to match from Ross and I'm excited that the first part of project decorate my bedroom is complete! It was really fun to be able to hang out with my mom all weekend and work on a project together. Thanks Mom!

Our Pediatrician Rocks

noreply@blogger.com (Kyle & Alli) — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 01:23:00 +0000

After we gave Macy a bath last night we checked her cast and it had gotten wet. We checked it right after the bath and it didn’t feel wet, but then about 20 minutes later Macy kept saying there was “bird poop in my leg”. We don’t have a bird, and we’re inside the house so there is no way there was bird poop in there, so I asked her if she put anything in her cast and she just kept saying there was bird poop in there. I felt around her cast and it was wet. We put her to bed and then checked this morning and it was still wet. At about 8:30 I called her specialist and the receptionist told me to keep using a blow dryer and she couldn’t do anything for me because they didn’t have anyone in the office again until the 22^nd and if I wanted I could call my pediatrician and they would tell me what to do. I called my pediatrician and the receptionist told me she would have the doctor call me when he gets in the office. He called me back within 30 minutes and started off by telling me her was furious with my specialist because they didn’t give me any more resources. He said he called them and gave them a piece of his mind and then told me that if she started complaining of pain then I needed to take her to the ER and get the cast off and get a new one. Right as I was getting off the phone with him, the receptionist at the specialist called me and told me she had just spoken to my pediatrician and that someone would be coming in at 11 to get a new cast on Macy. I love my pediatrician, he totally had our backs. I threw the girls in the car and we got to the specialist and waited about 4 minutes for one of the doctors to get there. It wasn’t the original doctor that put her cast on, it was his partner. He took Macy’s cast off and told me he was very happy we called him in because her skin was starting to get red and irritated and said it was definitely wet. He checked Macy’s file and decided to put a walking cast on her that goes under her knee so she can start walking on it (even though he was aware she already was). Macy was a great patient and held perfectly still while the doctor was working on her leg. They kept telling me how well behaved she was and how most kids aren’t that cooperative for them. She picked a red cast this time, which was the nurses’ favorite color. When it was time to go the doctor even scooped her up and walked to the desk with her and handed her to the receptionist and told her to help us out to the car. I am so pleased with my pediatrician and how nice the new doctor was to us even though we didn’t have a great experience with the receptionist, I’m still happy with the fact that she’s in a walking cast.

And here are just some cute pictures of London :)

Runnin'

noreply@blogger.com (Kyle & Alli) — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 20:52:00 +0000

Remember this post when I pledged to start running?

It went well for like... a week.

Three weeks later I started again and that lasted like a day.

Then we had the musical, Califonia, and all kinds of other crazy excuses that I gave myself.

Really I didn't start really running and staying focused until the beginning of July.

When I first started I could barely run .5 a mile- seriously.

As of Saturday I can run 3 miles! Yay me!

I'm going up 1/4 of a mile a week and it's really going good for me. I think I'll probably start uping that a little bit as I get further distances, but the 1/4 of a mile was perfect to get up to 3 miles.

I love how when I run I really can get into a mode where I'm just running, not thinking about really anything, not doing anything for anyone, I'm just running. I go 3 days a week and I'll start going more as I start training for a 10k in October. Yay for running!