We won the lottery!

Okay, not THAT lottery (I don't gamble!!). . . but we won the Xavier Charter School lottery for Kira. (Okay Mark, I promise I am not plagarizing your blog. . . I have been planning to write this in hopes that we would win. Just a coincidence. . . ;) ) Yay! She will be starting her third school for first grade (Poor kid! Hopefully we will stay in this school a little longer. . .). And, now that Kira is in, Kamber will have a much better chance of getting in for Kindergarten.



So, what is a charter school you ask? Well, honestly, I don't really know. But I do know that it is like private school for free! Apparently there are many perks over public school. And they even bus the kids. Great! I think it will be perfect for Kira (and for Kamber!). Fewer kids, more one on one time, all that good stuff.

A Giveaway!

Brandon's cousin, Lyndsey has become one of my favorite blogging buddies and she is hosting a GIVEAWAY!!!! It is for handcrafted cards-- beautiful! And since I have no talent whatsoever in the paper world, I am hoping that I win. . . so DON'T visit this link!!! ;0)

Playtime with Kira and Kamber

The setup- mom's fabric cutting mat on the table. Kira brings some various fabrics from mom's stash to the table.

Kamber: "How many yards do you need?"

Kira: "Ummm, sixty-nine hundred!"

Any guesses on where we spend TOO much time?

100 (yes, 100!) Things About Me

So, my sister Lexie decided to finally get on board and do a blog tag-- only she did 100 things!!! 100!!! Crazy girl! Now, when she tagged me and a few others, she said we could do 10, 50 or whatever, but-- she is my LITTLE sister. How can I let her outdo me? So, here we go. . .

1. I ran cross country and track in high school. And I was pretty good-- for Jackson.

2. I dislike cooking. No, no, no. . . I suck at cooking. Well, I pretty much CAN'T cook. Well, anyway, you get the picture.

3. I LOVE to sew. Creating something just is somehow fulfilling.

4. When I was in high school and college, I had a shoe collection. They were all at least 3 inches high and pretty funky. Pregnancy and babies pretty much ruined the fun.

5. Hmmm, this is getting tough. Oh, wait! I have 95 left. . . shoot! Okay, ummm, I didn't weigh 100 pounds until I was a senior in high school. People actually thought I was anorexic. But, no longer! I was asked a few weeks ago if I was pregnant though. Kinda the same. . . okay-- not even close! Darn it!

6. I had never tasted asparagus until this past summer (thanks, Brooke for broadening my horizons).7. My computer overheats after 30 minutes. It's like having parental restrictions-- only I'm the parent!

8. I have never mowed a lawn. 9. I am very different from my sister. Suprising, but very interesting.

10. I am the oldest of three girls and now have my own three girls. I LOVE girls!!!

11. I had a great grandfather that lived to be 103 AND he helped confirm me a member of the church (four generations!). Cool.

12. I LOVE to give gifts!!! I am not even really worried about recieving them, but I love to give them. Especially hand made ones.

13. I have spent many hours selling our stuff on ebay.

14. I have spent many hours shopping on ebay to spend the money I made. ;0)

15. I LOVE color! Lots and lots of bright, happy colors!

16. I have the fashion sense of a five year old. If there are two dresses, side by side, one navy blue, the other bright colored stripes, I will go for the striped dress 95% of the time. I sort of look like a circus tent most of the time.

17. I have never owned a cell phone-- NEVER!

18. It has almost been a year since I broke my elbow.

19. I like to get rid of things. I don't hold on to much for very long. Except fabric, of course.

20. I was in the last graduating class at Ricks College, before it became BYU-I.


21. Brandon and I were only engaged for 7 weeks.

22. Kira was born the day before our third anniversary.

23. Brandon proposed to me in the Idaho Falls airport with about 200 people watching. I said 'yes'!

24. My name comes from the Sound of Music, but is spelled using the letters of my dad's name: Leslie to Leisel.


25. My middle name is Susan, after my mom.

26. My maiden name is May.

27. I am related to Charlemagne, emporer of France.

28. I am also related to Adam and Eve-- and I can prove it! (Thanks to my mom, of course!)

29. I took many years of piano lessons-- apparently it didn't stick.

30. I played the trumpet in the high school band. I wonder if I can still play?


31. I was married in the Bountiful temple.

32. My wedding ring is a size 3 and 1/4.

33. I am only 5 feet, 3 inches tall.

34. I wear contacts.

35. I wear a size 6 shoe.

36. My first official boyfriend was over a foot taller than me.

37. I once jumped off of a HUGE rock into a freezing lake in the middle of the night. You couldn't see the lake-- at all! (Talk about STUPIDITY!)

38. I learned to drive a clutch while test driving a car at age 16.

39. Brandon and I got to help with the Nauvoo temple open house.

40. When I was growing up, I kept a page in my journal of all the names that I really liked. All three of my girls' names are listed on that page!

41. I have lived in 5 apartments in the last 8.5 years.

42. I used to go huckleberry picking almost every summer when I was little. (Huckleberries ROCK!)

43. We used to have moose come into our backyard almost every winter when I was growing up. Talk about HUGE!

44. One of my favorite books is Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.

45. I did not have epidurals with Kira or Kamber-- by choice! (I know, I am crazy!)

46. Kendi was delivered breech-- no c-section!

47. I am the ward librarian.

Okay, I give up. I am just not that interesting. And I am tired of thinking about myself. So there you have it. I can only think of 47 things to tell you about myself.

I Looked Out the Window. . .

And what did I see? Popcorn popping on the apricot tree!

No, wait. That was YESTERDAY. This is what we see today:

One last tidbit. . .

Okay, I forgot a few things about Kendi. Here is her crawling:

She looks so miniature when she crawls! I love it!

Kendi is a multi-tasker. While nursing she can also practice standing, flirt with her dad, talk to her sisters and do acrobatics all at the same time! Mom loves it (they don't come off, ya know!).

Her favorite thing at the moment is to crawl around the house and pull out all of our night lights. Both of our other girls did this, too. I guess it runs in the family.

Okay, that is all for now!

A Girlie Update

Since this blog is a way for me to keep a 'family journal', I guess it is about time I made a post about the family. ;0)

Kendi-

Today she is nine months old. My, how time flies! And she has changed so much in the past few months! She cut her first tooth this past week. She now crawls very well. When she gets tired and she is crawling, she will lay her forehead down on the ground and rest her head for a while, then put it back up and continue crawling. It is the funniest thing. . .

Kendi loves to eat. She doesn't like veggies anymore and spits them out. But if you will give her big girl food, she will be your friend forever! Her favorites are yogurt, goldfish crackers, applesauce, mac and cheese-- all the kid food. And although she STILL wakes up at least once a night, she only weighs 14 pounds. I guess she won't make the 20 pounds by her first birthday. . . ;0)

She is becoming much more independent. Sometimes she will go in the girls bedroom when no one else is in there and just play around all by herself. But she truly LOVES to play with her sisters. If they will sit and play with her, she is in heaven. Sometimes when she is fussy, if I will put her down with her sisters to play, she calms right down.

She has figured out how to stand up all on her own and has been practicing balancing without support the last few days. I figure it is just a matter of time before she is walking.

She makes the cutest little noises. She goes through phases. Sometimes it is "mama, mama." And sometimes she just sucks air in, making a little shrieky, happy noise. I just want to put those little noises in a jar and keep them forever!

Little blondie's hair is getting longer and tends to stick out in random places throughout the day. But it is so soft and pretty!

Kend is still a little stinker, but we all love her to pieces and she definitely completes our little family. We love you, babe!

Kamber-

This one I am not sure what to do with. She is sooooo stubborn! Her latest thing is that she does not like eating her veggies at dinner time. We threaten with anything we can think of, but to no avail. She just won't eat them if she doesn't want to. So opposite of Kira's disposition it is amazing!

I find her like this many nights:

I am not sure whether she just moves around before she falls asleep and ends up there or if she moves around in her sleep. But none the less, this is Kamber.

She climbs on anything and everything. It is amazing that she can be so coordinated and athletic and at the same time be so clumsy. She is always spilling something. You can count on it almost every meal.

Kamber used to be quiet as a mouse around other people. One time when her Grandma Payzant came to visit, she refused to speak one word to her for almost two weeks. But all of the sudden, she has no fear and talks to random people. The other day we had a guy here fixing our satellite dish. Of course this interupted her cartoons. I was in nursing the baby when I hear her go outside and ask the guy why he turned off her cartoons. What?!?! I was blown away! My Kamber is talking to a strange man? Crazy!

Kamber is learning to read, right behind her sister, Kira. She can't wait to go to school and I dread the day come next August, when she learns she has to wait ANOTHER year before she can go to school, too. Hopefully I can keep working with her and get her reading before then.

We love our little Kamber! Her giggle is infectious and she always keeps us on our toes!

Kira-

Our big girl is so smart! Her teacher loves her. She is doing amazingly well at reading and learning math. She LOVES school and is always dissappointed when we have a day off. Oh, except of course recess. She doesn't like recess because the boys always chase her and she doesn't like it. But thankfully, she has many girl friends. ;0) (Let's hope it stays that way for oh, about 12 more years!!!)

Her temperment is so different than Kamber's. She tries so hard to please her mom and dad. She hates being in trouble.

When Aunt Lacey was here, Kira got a hair cut and now has a cute, short cut like her sister. I miss having her long hair to play with, but she looks darling.

We are so proud of Kira! I love watching her walk into school everyday. I have never been very sentimental, but if I am in the right mood, I get a little teary-eyed watching her. We love our big girl!