Tappana Times: Things I'm Thankful For

November is a month I try to spend reflecting on the things I'm grateful for. I have SO many blessing to count, but I'll just name a few here.

First, I'm grateful that this boy turned 11 months. Because that means I get one more month before my baby turns one!

I usually try to delete my pictures down so I don't have a million of Kendrick on the same day in different poses, but each of these capture his personality in a different way so that I had to include them.

He's at such a fun stage. It took longer with him for me to really be able to enjoy a particular age with him, but I'm loving this one.  He's trouble, but fun to watch explore. He's clingy and needy, but SO cuddly - oh I love that. He loves chasing and being chased and his burp rag. Naps are still questionable, and he's super shy. He's getting good at throwing fits but his squeals of excitement, especially for his siblings, come often.

 One thing I want to remember about this age: he is the cutest eater. I don't know what it is, but I could watch his fat, dimpled hands pick up food from his tray and then his chubby cheeks and puckered lips bounce as he chews, all day. I may sound weird, but I'm not the only one in this house that feels that way. We all just sit and watch him eat and adore him. When he spits out food it's literally one of the cutest, funniest things I've ever seen. I'm going to be in trouble when I have to train him to eat what's on his plate, because no matter how hard I try, I can't help but laugh as his little tongue darts in and out until all the food is out and then blows a raspberry to really make sure it's all clear, all while making this guttural sound of disgust. You probably have to be there, but it's hilarious.

Besides Baby Kendrick, I'm grateful for these two:

They are both so helpful, so silly, so smart, and such lights in my life. And boy are they good looking. Ammon is really starting to find his groove in Kindergarten and his handwriting is awesome for his age. His sense of humor just kills me. And Lydia only got raving reviews from her teacher. My favorite was that she is just so KIND. Now that makes me proud.

I'm grateful for my body. This picture doesn't do it justice, but I was playing basketball with my family and my brother's friend, Carter, who is big and tall and skilled. I decided I was going to get the rebound no matter what, and went up against Carter. Bad idea. My middle finger hit the ball and then I was in a world of pain. I thought I broke my three middle fingers at first, the pain was so bad, but after a few hours I could tell my middle finger was just jammed. It swelled up twice its normal size (that's what I was trying to take a picture of, but you can't really tell) and the entire finger was black and blue and green and yellow and purple and red for a couple weeks. I looked and felt really really bad.

When my hand got cold, that finger would go completely numb, and it would often go white. It still feels a little stiff and hurts when I use it to pull my shoes on. But, three weeks later, I was back on the court with my family, killing it at tornado and poison. The body is an amazing thing!


I've also been grateful for my calling. I'm the young women's sports athletic director for our ward, and I've been loving it. I felt a lot of pressure at first because, while I love watching and playing sports, I'm not actually skilled and I don't really know how to coach, but it's been a blast.

Our young women's team even made it to regionals, and while the competition was tough, it was fun to be part of it. Basketball season is next!

I'm grateful for cookies.

Especially babies and cookies. Cookies are delicious.

In fact I'm grateful for food in general.

It tastes good, it keeps the body going, and it allows us to have Thanksgiving feasts with friends and family.

Thanksgiving was good this year. Turkeybowl, where I caught my first kickoff return and had a blast. Games and conversation and food. Time with my niece Amelia and brother and sister-in-law.

Like I said, I have a lot to be grateful for.

One last person I'm going to express gratitude for is this birthday boy.

He's been working so hard and he comes home and still puts in time to take care of things with the family. He still tells me how beautiful I am when I just woke up or stayed in my greasy hair and sweats all day. He LOVES his kids and is a smart, handsome, kind-hearted man and father.

I'm grateful that I can finally listen to Christmas music and that we have twinkling Christmas lights to cheer me up during these dark, gray winter days.

I loved watching my kids (kids here means Lydia and Ammon. Kendrick mostly just whined because I was ignoring him) decorate the tree this year and the glee they had in their eyes and voices. Though, when they turned their backs, I had to hurry and re-disperse their ornaments all clustered in the same spot.

We've got some fun Christmas surprises in store for these three and I CANNOT wait.

I'm grateful for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Because of it I get to be with these people for forever.

 The grace, healing, knowledge, promises and hope the gospel message brings is the greatest blessing in my life.





I hope your Thanksgiving was wonderful and that you were able to reflect on some of the things that you are blessed with as well.

Tappana Times: October with the Incredibles

The Tappanas did not float away this October, despite Washington's best efforts. It was the wettest October EVER recorded.

Kendrick pulling faces

Despite the dreary, dreary rain, we have managed to maintain entertaining times and Halloween fun.
Kendrick decided to really find his voice and LOVES animal sounds. He practices until he can say most of them. He also pulls this weird funny face ALL THE TIME. What a character.

We have also discovered that Kendrick is TERRIFIED of umbrellas. Like ridiculously so - scream hysterically, climb up my body, and shake and tremble in fear so.

It doesn't matter if they are opened or closed. It's all the same scary beast to him.

Normally, being Washingtonians, we do without umbrellas, but it's not fun standing at the bus stop getting soaked every day as we send Ammon off to school. So our neighborhood gets to endure lots of hysterical screaming. The bus driver finally asked me what Kendrick's problem was, and when I told her Kendrick is afraid of umbrellas, she said,"That's weird! I've never heard of that."

Neither have I, lady.

It's funny, sad, and painful all at the same.

In October, we of course had to carve pumpkins and we invited my parents and sister over for a fun family night activity. My mom hates carving pumpkins so she observed while Kayleen and my dad worked their magic.

I made my kids do a little more work this year, and they were required to get out all their guts before I would help them. They did ok...but I still had to do most of the scraping.

We each had our own pumpkin and the kids were quite creative with their designs. I had them draw on paper what they wanted it to look like before I carved the face for them. Ammon wanted six eyes, sharp teeth, and a triangle nose. Lydia wanted eyelashes and a bat and star decoration on the sides.

The baby mostly observed with my mom, and honestly was the crankiest monster that night. He still got a baby pumpkin that I carved for him with a cute little face.

He liked playing with it...for a minute, and then he didn't anymore. Twice.

This year our family theme for our Halloween costumes was The Incredibles. I mean, we are pretty Incredible.

Brigham REALLY wanted to do it since we have all the right people to mimic the family, but he was the only one. So we made a deal with him that if he exercised for one month (at least 30 minutes, 5 days a week) then we would do it. Brigham held up his end of the bargain and so the Incredibles we were.

And I have to admit, it worked out great. I even got a new "mom" haircut last month that I could style to look just like Elastigirl (note: not for the costume - the timing just worked out), Lydia is growing out her bangs so she had the perfect hair to hang in her eyes (though it's not dark), Ammon is blonde like Dash, and Kendrick and JackJack are both babies...and trouble. Brigham could use some toning he was told, but hey, he worked out to earn these costumes!

We had a friend that loaned Brigham and I our costumes and I sewed Incredible shirts for the kids. Probably one of the easiest years to put together costumes. Thank goodness!!

Halloween morning Kendrick decided to work on his own masterpiece for his costume. More like he was left unsupervised  with Lydia and Ammon watching him for far too long and found a marker he managed to get the lid off of.

In person it really looked like he had black blood coming out of his mouth - vampire style. And he sure turned into a devil when I took the marker away from him.

That morning was my regular boot camp exercise class at the church. The instructor (dressed as Richard Simmons) turned it into a Halloween edition. We all came dressed up, got our butts kicked like normal, and then had "healthy-ish" treats of protein balls and whole wheat muffins afterwards.















I dressed up as Zorro and it helped me realize how uneducated my kids are about the good old movies. Ammon asked me who Zorro was, so I showed him the movie case so he could see what Zorro looks like. When I was all ready to go he exclaimed, "You look just like him!" Hahahahaha. Made my day.

My boys went in their cute Halloween shirts (not allowed to wear costumes to school, boo!) and I only wished I could have caught Lydia with them too. They later donned their Incredibles costumes for the evening.

Trick or treating was wet, but not too unbearable that night and we got PLENTY of candy! Kendrick lost it 2/3 of the way through so my mom finished taking my kids with my sister so I could take the baby home and dry ourselves off. I mean if you're afraid of umbrellas, it doesn't bode well for keeping dry. Or for nights of trick or treating when lots of parents are out with umbrellas.

That wraps up Halloween, but we still had more stuff like my brother's We The People competition that I went to (think government/constitution debate/trivia type event), Kendrick actually falling asleep on his own -miracle!-, and I found my nephew's absolute twin at our library. Seriously, when Quenton saw a picture, he even thought it was himself.

I keep trying to take videos of Kendrick reading to himself, because he does it all the time and makes all the animal sounds and there is nothing more adorable. But it is almost impossible to catch it.

This video is a mediocre capture of the cuteness, but it'll have to do.

Despite all the rain in October, the sun came out three times. And when it did, so did we.

Because, just like our costumes, fall colors in Washington are incredible!

Tappana Halloween Party #???

Because I had been sick for so long, this year I decided to have a more laid-back Halloween party. Meaning: instead of planning two or three games, I only planned one. I just didn't feel up to tackling more than that. But of course we still had all the other works. Treats, costumes, prizes, the Divorce Game. All kid-free. Because that's how you really party.

After some Halloween Would You Rather questions while waiting for all guests to show up, the game that I put together this year was Pyramid - Halloween Edition! I split the group up into to teams and they competed and chose categories and played just like the game show on TV. We then had a second round with even harder categories. The winning team got one of these cute little prizes I made.

Those edible skellys are on a brownie for the dirt. Thanks Pinterest!

We had awesome costumes this year. Here are some, but not all:

We've got a period costume, "sheet music", Mr. and Mrs. Incredible, a hunter and his dead deer, a penguin and a lady bug, a bowler and her hazmat husband.

The costume prize winners were the hunter and deer and the Back to the Future couple (with their bumble bee baby- nursing babies are my one exception to the no kid rule).

They won Pumpkin Juice and Ghost Tears (really sparkling cider) with skeleton necklaces to wear to declare their costume dominance.

After playing pyramid we had lots of good food and treats. Unfortunately, I only took a picture of my treat and forgot to take anymore of all the fun stuff that everyone brought - like Rachel's awesome Halloween cake balls.











Of course, no Halloween party thrown by Brigham and I is complete without the Divorce Game (otherwise known as the name game, celebrity, etc). This year the girls won -yeah baby!! We had eight million singers in the bucket and it was hilarious on the word round when someone would just say "....singer....". Worst clue ever because we had Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga, Tupac, Henry Connick Jr, Celine Dion, and many many more. Hahaha, SO many people tried to think of something good and then with much frustration only managed to say singer. Classic.

After that most people had to get home to relieve babysitters so the party wound down. It was a fabulous night. Though it wasn't as action packed as usual, it was still fun and I know that we'll have much more for future years of partying!

Tappana Times: September

Well, it seems I'm always a month behind these days. I have plenty of blog posts on my mind, but I just haven't gotten around to them. One excuse is that I STILL have been sick. I really hoped I was over it last time, but then my bronchitis came back and then when I was recovering from that with a second round of antibiotics and steroids, I got another deep sinus infection! And this one has been a kicker. I've been pulling all the stops to keep from having to do ANOTHER round of antibiotics, but it's slow going and miserable. Three months of being sick people. It really puts a damper on things.

To get back to our lives last month, we joined my parents on their ward camp out, but that was just after discovering Ammon had pneumonia (poor kid could hardly walk from the cabin to the bathrooms without coughing so hard he was gagging) so only Lydia stayed overnight with Grandpa and Kayleen and Ryan since the rest of us were sick.

One of the fun activities included these blow up balls you could get in and ram others. Lydia loved it. Ammon really got the raw end of the deal. Not only could he not join because of pneumonia, but also because he still had his arm in a cast.

Although he cried because he didn't get to sleep over and couldn't get in "the soccer balls", Ammon soon was able to get his cast off!

He actually cried more about getting the cast off than when he broke his arm! He didn't like how it looked and felt floppy (it actually startled me too, it was SO floppy - it didn't look right at all. And I think my reaction was what made him so nervous...whoops!). He felt like it was unsafe and wanted the security of his cast back on. The doctors convinced us that after a couple of days of use he wouldn't even notice it anymore, and they were right. It took a lot of reminders and convincing on our part to get Ammon to use his right arm again, but now you would never know he broke it. Hooray!

Of course, in September football season is in full swing, so I did an impromptu photo shoot of Kendrick in his BYU outfit.

He wore out after about ten seconds of smiling, but I was able to use our outtakes to describe our unfortunate loss against the Utes.

The game was just bad, in so many ways.

What was good was walking in to this sight:

Two of my favorites: my children and books. Combined, they make my heart sing.

I hope my children develop the love that I have for reading. This makes me think they are on the right track.

Kendrick's hair is getting rather long and after bath time it gets quite poofy and silly-looking.

And this boy started to pull himself up in September.

Now, a month later, he's a madman and pulls himself up on everything and walks along the furniture to get into everything, causing all sorts of trouble. Oh to go back to just pulling himself up onto his knees.

The main excitement of September was the return of school.

Lydia started 2nd grade with Mrs. Sipila.




















Ammon started kindergarten with Mrs. Riggs.












Lydia started a week before Ammon and she was really excited. She loves everything about school and was ready to take on a new year. With her new haircut, she looked much too old and mature.

She has quickly made friends and complained about how boring math is. Her PE teacher, who adores her, sent her home with another prized eagle feather (a reward for good behavior) and it felt like Lydia never even left school.

Ammon had a bit harder time adjusting to Kindergarten. At first I was surprised, given how well he had done at preschool, but then a few days in we realized he had pneumonia and probably had been feeling terrible. Mix that with his shyness, loss of afternoon naps, and the overwhelming busyness of a big classroom, and it's no wonder he wished we were on vacation so he didn't have to go to school.

I thought it would be easier sending my second kid to kindergarten. But I found it was only a teeny-tiny sliver of a bit easier, and only because I knew what to expect. It still hurt just as much to know that now Ammon was starting on the path away from me. He was beginning down the same road that Lydia took a couple years ago, slowly headed for independence away from their mom.

I felt panicked that he wouldn't know what to do, that his shyness would disable him, that his cough would make him throw up at school, and that terrible things would happen without me. The poor guy was going to get overlooked and feel overwhelmed and it would just be terrible. Of course, I was being dramatic, and it did help that I knew his teacher from when Lydia had her, and she is AWESOME. I had faith in her and in Ammon to figure things out, but I had also gotten used to it being me and Ammon together. I missed my bud. And when he came home and said he had cried at recess because he had missed me I felt totally justified - see, he's mine, he's not ready, and we should stay together forever.

But my rational part keeps my in line and I knew Ammon would adjust and he would love school eventually. So I kept putting him on the bus. Though he cried the second day as well, he started to get used to the routine, recovered from being sick, and he now enjoys kindergarten. I love hearing about his afternoons at school. I can already tell that school is going to be quite different with him than Lydia. He's so much like his father and we already got a note home that he's working on focusing when instructions are given and knowing what to do when he doesn't know what to do. (when Brigham read that he said he got all sorts of flashbacks, haha) Ammon can read and do single digit addition and subtraction, but he obviously has plenty of other skills to start developing and I'm looking forward to seeing all that he can achieve and the joy on his face as he excels. He's one smart little boy!

It just stinks that he has to climb up those steps and ride away from me in order to be all that he can be. And yet I'm so happy that he gets to do so. The paradoxes of parenthood strike again!