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Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Cute things come in small packages

So I have a million things to blog about right now and we will get to those someday (hopefully soon, but I make no promises). But I had to tell this adorable story before it gets lost in the confines of this mush that once was my brain....

I went to the store today and because I like to buy my kids love with food, I got the kids all a treat. I came home put Riley down for a nap and told her that when she woke up she could have her treat. While she was sleeping and I was upstairs doing some work, Mason decided to help himself to not only his treat but also his sisters. So when she woke up from her nap, after we got the gum out of her hair (which she had slept in) by way of her very first haircut. And no, she didn't have enough hair to actually cut, but it was necessary. The first thing she asked for was, of course, her treat. I told Mason he was going to have to explain to Riley what happened to her treat. So he walks up next to her and says "Riley, I accidentally ate your treat" She says to him "Its ok Mason, just tell me your sorry, and its ok" So he tells her he's sorry, she gives him a hug and says its alright Mason. Then for being so cute I gave Riley a piece of chocolate and she insisted that she needed two to share one with Mason. I told her Mason had had enough candy and didnt need anymore which of course made her cry but it did warm my heart that she loves her brother and all she needs is a heartfelt solicited apology and life is just as it should be.
Ah... kids, they sure are cute and I think Ill keep 'em.
Now someday soon, Ill blog about our half century bike ride, Spencer's Baptism, Birthday, and many other fun adventures. Stay tuned....

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Cure for the common funk

I bring you random acts of fun, frivolity, and general craziness at its finest, from me to you, enjoy!

Fun with whipped cream
Frivolity with Whitney at Korean BBQ.
Crazy that my baby girl turned 3......
And started her first day of preschool.
Crazier still that Utah can be so beautiful and sunny, yet still so stinkin COLD!

And now, if that little bit of randomization helped to remedy your hyper-scheduled, over-planned doldrums, then I have accomplished what I came here to do.

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Who dunnit?! -50's Style-

I was in charge of the New Years party this year and decided that this was the perfect opportunity to torment my friends by making them dress up, go out in public, and show us their best acting skills. So like I mentioned in the previous post, I hosted a 1950's murder mystery party. Everyone had to dress up in their best 50's outfits, all of them turned out incredibly awesome, I then surprised them with an outing to In N Out for dinner and you should have seen the looks and heard the comments we got while we were there. Hilarious, and they were all troopers. Then we came back to my house and acted out our parts as best we could to find out which of us killed our good friend "David". There were even murders happening throughout the evening. It was a fun evening filled with all sorts of 50's candy and treats and delicious malts from the "malt shoppe". Thanks again everyone for going along with it and I hope you had as much fun as I did.

Now let me introduce you to our "players".....

Mark & Maria (The "Nice" Couple)
Michael and Mary (Highly Suspect)
Johnny and Jenny (Our Prom King and Queen)
Charles and Carol (The Detectives)
Nate and Nancy (The Gate Crashers)
Steven and Susan (The Wealthy Socialites)
Lenny and Linda (The Rockstars)
Thomas and Tisha (The Good Kids)
The Guys
The Dolls

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Do You Hear What I Hear?

Christmas in the Payne household was pretty quiet this year.
Just the way we like it ;-)
And although quiet, it was still none the less very, very exciting. With dress up clothes, skateboards, wii games, Dora toys, and candy galore. What more can any kid ask for?

The week after Christmas was not any less exciting with Darren's sister Marci in town we had a week packed full with Ice Skating (Riley's favorite new past time), bowling (Laura's favorite past time), a trip to the local knock off Chuck E Cheese, a day of play at a local favorite bounce house, followed up with a Rock Band tournament (girls against boys). As you can see truly a week to be rivaled, and a perfect lead up to my next blog post, our New Years 50's murder mystery dinner party. I promised not to post the pictures on Facebook, but I never said anything about my blog!

Saturday, January 2, 2010

Let the blog-a-thon begin!

So many blog posts so little time......

I am going to have to go way back in the photo archives for this one, but I wanted to post a bit about our Legoland trip before I get to Christmas, post Christmas, and New Years.

We bought tickets to Legoland back in August for Mason's birthday but could never find a good time to go after our original trip down got cancelled by a puking kid. Well finally, Thanksgiving weekend we made it, however it wasn't without its challenges. Our original plans were to hit Legoland on Friday, stay over night in Escondido and play at the pool or hit the beach Saturday to be home by Sunday. Well we got a bit of a late start on Friday so decided to move Legoland to Saturday as to make the most of our day there. Then the question became what should we do with our open Friday? As we were driving down we thought of all our options of things to do between home and San Diego County and came up with the La Brea Tar Pits. The kids and I had never been and the boys were pretty excited so that became stop #1 on our trip. It really was a lot of fun and the boys were incredibly fascinated with it all. (especially Spencer who has been learning about fossils in school. He even brought home some things for show and tell) After we blew a few hours at the Tar Pits, we stopped to take our picture in front of the longest continuous piece of the Berlin Wall in the US, we tried explaining what that was all about to the kids, and by that time we were all completely famished! So where, when your in the middle of Hollywood, do you stop for lunch? Why the Famous Pink's Hot Dogs of course! If you have no idea what that is well that only means you dont watch the food network nearly enough. It is a hot dog stand that has been in LA since 1939. Started as a hot dog cart and has evolved into a still pretty small hot dog stand. They make the most interesting combination of hot dogs you have ever heard of, things you would never think to put on a hot dog yourself. And if any of you know me very well you know that is just my kind of place! I love any and all hot dogs and will eat them at any time and in any fashion. (still frozen, still cold, hot, burned, petrified, you name it, I love 'em) So is it really any wonder that I would stand in a line for one of these famous babies for a good solid hour and a half? Not really, and even though they got our order wrong and I didnt notice until we drove off it was still good and now we can officially say we have been to Pinks. (I even kept the receipt as a souvenir)
After that it was late enough in the afternoon we decided we might as well head down to Escondido and check into our room. I had used our timeshare exchange company and had booked us a night or two at the Welk Resort. (you heard me, Welk, as in good old Lawrence himself) We really had no idea what to expect other than possibly quite a few "blue hairs" as my mom affectionately calls them. But were pleasantly surprised by a VERY kid friendly place with lots of pools, a water slide, game room (for our air hockey tournament), and even a theater. The rooms were themselves quite nice as well, again, we were pleasantly surprised and would highly recommend it for your next trip to San Diego County.
Once we had sufficiently enjoyed the Welk Resort accommodations we tried to get everyone to bed early enough for another day of fun in the sun at Legoland. Shows how much we know. We woke up the next morning to nothing but a literal downpour of rain. Sheets and sheets of it, with no end in sight, said the weather man. But we were already there, the park website said they were still open and this was our second attempt at Legoland so we were bound and determined to get there come hell or high water (literally). And thus began our rainy day at Legoland. We got absolutely soaked within the first half hour riding a roller coaster in the rain, which was probably a once in a lifetime experience as I believe they usually close roller coasters down in the rain and we were the last people to ride it before they closed this one down. But after that, we were so wet we roamed around the park like it was the beautiful sunny day we thought we would have, and had a great time.

It did eventually clear up even though it never did really warm up. At least we could make frequent stops for hot chocolate and hot apple cider for a bit of warmth to get us by.

As we were driving to the park that morning in the rain, Mason asked if we could say a prayer and ask Heavenly Father to make it stop raining while we were at Legoland. We told him that even though our Heavenly Father could absolutely stop the rain if He wanted to, we really do need the rain to help our crops grow so we can have food. But maybe instead of asking Him to stop the rain we could ask our Heavenly Father to help us to have a good time today in spite of the rain. And I can officially confirm that our prayers were answered and we had a great time at Legoland come rain or shine.


Thursday, December 10, 2009

UPDATE:
Remember this, only 2 posts and 2 short months ago?.........
"We celebrated Mason's Birthday last month as well, he is officially 6 and scored himself a pretty sweet big kid bike. One that I have been told will be awesome for going off ramps, jumps and bike courses. Greeeaaat, I can hardly wait."

Apparently it was awesome for all of those things and also only a matter of time before this.......

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Mad Mullets and Moody Mohawks

In this short post, before I get into more of the goings on around here, I pose a question....
Why, as a parent, is it so much fun to **(harmlessly!)** torture your children?
Why? It's because you are the parent and are obligated too, otherwise what will they have to complain to their therapists about.
So in the sport of good parenting we decided, after both boys came home within a week of each other having scissored into their own hair at school, that it was time to chop the mops. But before we shaved it all off we decided to have a little fun, and give them a few fine choices in hairstyles. And as you can clearly see, they enjoyed it at least as much as we did, and thought their parents are the funniest people ever. We couldn't agree more!

Spencer sporting a striking mullet (no need for a scarf this winter)

Mason modeling his masterful mohawk (Rock on!)

We did try and convince them to keep the hairstyles for a few days, Spencer wasn't having anything to do with that, and Mason did keep the mohawk for soccer but found it difficult to head the ball, so we shaved it off that afternoon. But lucky for them these locks of love will live on forever in pictures.