Fear Factor Birthday Party

Well my Connor turns 7 today. Can't believe it. Connor is such a special guy. He definitely has his own way of doing things. Seriously everybody needs a Connor in their life. He cracks me up every single day and makes me want to pull my hair out every single day. He is the sweetest kid on earth too. He loves to get hands on with things and he loves school. He is in the 1st grade. His favorite thing is math. He is very advanced in math and there have been times I have caught him doing his older brother's (who is in 4th grade) homework. His school work is too easy for him and he will beg me to make harder math sheets for him to do at night in his bed. (Now he cannot be my kid---I know what your thinking---me and math do not get along--he is all his father's child there). He is also an excellent reader. He is sooo far advanced at his age in reading too. He loves to play with his older brother (that is when they are not fighting). They really get along great and I love having two boys together like that to keep each other entertained and do boy stuff together. They really have such a love/hate relationship. Connor is really into karate right now. He has the most flexible body you can hardly believe it. His favorite thing is to show everybody in the world how he can jump down into the splits. We will be at the store and he will just show the lady at the counter how he can go into the splits. I have to tell him all the time that not everyone is interested in seeing him do the splits. He LOVES to be the center of attention but at the same time is a very shy kid. Kind of a weird situation there. He will do very good in karate with that flexibility. He wins a lot of their competitions in karate classes for his kicks and kung fu's because he can bend real good. He also loves ocean animals. He has been obsessed with sharks and whales for many years. We really want to take the kids to Alaska in a couple years because of this. He has always loved dinosaurs too but is phasing out of this. My oldest son Garrett is the kind of kid who never really cares about stuff or doesn't have an opinion really but Connor knows what he wants and has to really have things the way he wants them. He is pretty stubborn in that way. I'm kind of glad for this because he will know what he wants and will set out to do it. He will go far with an attitude like that. I'm so grateful for him in my life. He definitely keeps it interesting.

For his birthday this year he wanted to have a Fear Factor birthday party. It is his favorite show and he is obsessed with it. He didn't want to do anything too scary or gross. Everything I suggested got shot down (maybe they were too young because Garrett thought it would be cool).

I made up these cute invitations:



and Chelton made him a Fear Factor cake and he was very specific about what he wanted. He had to have the words written on it in a specific way and he designed it himself. I think it turned out awesome and Chelton got off easy because this was a lot easier than cakes requested in the past.



We played a few games...We played a game where we would see who could balance the longest on a can of food on one foot. This was really hard for little kids. Connor won at 30 seconds but after that the kids could only get like 5 seconds. We also played a game where we could see who could suck the most M&Ms from a straw and into a cup in a minute. (Thanks to my sister-in-law Meridee for the idea of this game). I was going to get the Scooby Doo dog bone graham cracker treats that look like real dog treats and do a game with that but couldn't find them so had to come up with a game last minute. We also did an eating challenge. This was hilarious. I had the kids roll the dice to see how many "worms" they would eat. For instance Connor rolled a 5 and had to eat 5 worms. I let them choose their choice of pudding cup and then put 5 sour gummy worms into a pudding cup and they had to eat the sour gummy worms out of the pudding cup. Now that isn't that bad right? Just gummy worms and pudding...but you would think I was making them eat real worms. Some kids shoveled it down like nothing but like Garrett was dry heaving. Kylie made me take the worms out. They got a prize if they finished the challenge but I thought it was hilarious the way some of them responded. Don't think they are ready for the real Fear Factor.

The last game we played was their favorite. I boiled a BIG batch of spaghetti and put green food coloring in it and bought like 140 plastic spiders and mixed them in. They took turns and each had a minute to see how many spiders then could pull out of the spaghetti in that minute. It was slimy and gross and they loved that.



For their goody bags they took home I made a bag and put the Fear Factor logo on it and inside they had eyeball suckers, gummy body parts (like intestines, hearts, brains and lungs) and blood bag juice, eye gum and gummy worms. It turned out cute.

Here is a picture of Connor blowing out his candles



And we gave Connor his sparring gear on the day of his party. He was so excited. Once he reaches his orange belt he is required to have his own sparring gear so he keeps asking us for his own so he was very excited to get this. I also let him open up two pair of pants I got him but he wasn't as excited about that. We are giving him the rest of his present tonight as today is his real birthday. We got him a DS game to go with the new DSI we got him for Christmas and a Wii game and Garrett and Kylie got him one of those blow up jumper balls you sit on and bounce on that is Star Wars. Since we already did the cake thing he wanted to have popsicles tonight which I am glad since we are leaving for our trip tomorrow (yeah!!!)



Also I wanted to post a better picture of Kylie's dance recital. The one I took before was from my phone and it was really blurry. Here is a pic that is not so blurry and one of her up on stage doing her dance.





Only three more days and I will be relaxing on the Mariner of the Seas!!!!

Christmas Holidays

With living in Fillmore we had a few different Christmas traditions this year than we are used to. Chelton had to work the Christmas shift this year so we had to spend the Christmas holidays at home and have a quiet at home Christmas by ourselves. We went up the weekend before Christmas to spend with our families. On Friday night (which was mine and Chelton's 11th anniversary) we went to our annual friend party with Chelton's friends Brady and Emily Reeves and Nate and Brooke Mueller. We always have such a good time hanging out with our friends and letting the kids run and play together and take turns destroying each other's house. On Saturday morning we had a brunch with my family. This is a new tradition for us and they were very nice enough to pull this together since we were not able to attend for Christmas Eve. My mom wanted to have all the grandkids together to decorate gingerbread houses. We have never done this before and it was a blast for the kids. We got to enjoy some very yummy breakfast too. Later that evening we had a party with Chelton's family. We had a very yummy dinner and played some fun games. We opened Christmas gifts with cousins that drew names and with Chelton's parents since we were not going to see them on Christmas.

On Tuesday after that weekend Kylie had her first dance recital. She did such a great job. She was the youngest (and by far the littlest) girl in the whole recital and it made her that much cuter. She did a cute dance to the "Lollipop and Candy Girl" songs medley and then at the end all the girls did a finale together to "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" and then Santa came. It was so cute because Kylie got really scared on stage when Santa came and almost started to cry and you can see her on camera practically jump off the stage into her teacher's arms and tell her she wants her mommy. I was trying hard not to laugh but then figured I probably ought to go and get her. Then by the time I got her we were of course the last in line to see Santa and when we get up there Kylie tells Santa she wants a Kit Kat for Christmas...all the parents and Santa looked at me and had to clarify if she meant like the candy bar...and yes...that is what she wanted...a Kit Kat candy bar. That is her favorite thing in the world right now. What a goof ball. She sure looked darling. She was excited that my mom and dad were able to come down and see her for her dance recital.



After coming home from up north the boys got sick and didn't get to go back to school before Christmas but luckily they got over it before Christmas. This year as we didn't have any family around we spent Christmas Eve with some friends of ours here in Fillmore. We had a nice dinner and played a few games. After they left and Chelton had to go to work :( I played a few more games with the kids and we read the Christmas story. This year was a little hard on my kids because Chelton's shift was 5 to 5 so he had to come home and sleep until 10:30 so my kids had to wake up and wait until he woke up until we could open presents. That was a real test for them. We stayed upstairs and watched Home Alone and then played some Wii games and then a few board games until 10:30 when I just couldn't keep them under control any longer and then we woke Chelton up and opened up presents. It was kind of fun to wait that long because it made Christmas last longer. We got Garrett and Connor DSI's and Kylie inherited their old one so we got her some new games for that and we got her a strawberry shortcake dollhouse and a princess sleeping bag.

Santa brought Garrett the electric scooter he asked for:



Santa brought Connor the Air Swimmer's Extreme shark he asked for:



Santa brought Kylie the Rapunzel Sing and Glow doll she asked for:



They also got a few other things they asked for too. They had a great Christmas. It was real quiet. Kind of weird not to have to go anywhere on Christmas or see any family but it was kind of nice at the same to have a quiet family Christmas and the kids had all day to just sit and play with their presents. Chelton and I got a lot of new clothes and stuff for our cruise which is now seven days away :)

Family Pictures

We got our family pictures done with Chelton's family and I thought I would post the pictures and how cute they turned out. It has been a very long time since we got our family pictures done so we were in desparate need of an update. Thanks Annette (my mother-in-law) for arranging for it to be done.

Here is one of my cute kids who are growing up much too fast!!!



Here is one of just me and Chelton. She took one of us where we look like we actually like each other and we were actually touching and hugging but we didn't get a copy of that one :) I don't like this picture so much but it is all we got.



Here is one of the whole Spendlove clan (minus one niece who was in Las Vegas for a dance competition who was greatly missed) but what a clan it is. And about two weeks after we took the picture we found out one of my brother in laws is getting married so now we are missing two people from the picture. Doesn't that always happen. You take a family picture and suddenly you find out someone is pregnant or getting married or something and it is out of date?



And last but not least family picture #1



And family picture #2



Can't believe how fast our family is growing and changing. What will the next 5 years bring?

Pickles and Beans

"Pickles and Beans" by Connor Spendlove

Being different is what diversity means.
Some people like pickles, some people like beans.
Some people have black hair, some people have brown.
Some people have smiles, some people have frowns.
We should all get along though we're not the same.
We can all be friends and play a game.

This is the poem that Connor entered in the Reflections contest this year. The theme this year was "Diversity Means." We sat down and wrote this poem and he wrote it pretty quickly actually. We had the assembly two days ago and he found out that he took second place and he got a medal and a dollar for writing his poem. Connor LOVES medals. He was sooo excited!!! Here is a picture of him and his medal for his poem.





The next day at karate Connor was chosen as the athlete of the day and received the karate medal (which he has done once when he first started karate so he had one other karate medal) so he had to take a picture with both of his karate medals. Now he gets really proud of his medals and keeps them in his special medal box and is proud of them. He is a very flexible kid and can do the splits very well and when he earned his medal they took a picture of him doing the splits in front with the whole class behind him. He loves the attention and being in the spotlight so he LOVED this!!! When he got home he had to run and get his other karate medal and take a picture with both of his karate medals on.



Also Connor lost a tooth recently (which he hasn't done in a long time). He hasn't been one of those kids that has been missing all his teeth. When he lost his bottom teeth his others were already grown in behind so he never had a hole like a normal kid should. He was so proud when he lost this tooth to actually have a real hole in his mouth. He put the tooth under his pillow and could you believe it that the tooth fairy didn't come? She must have been real tired or forgetful and the next night didn't come again? Darn that tooth fairy. Mom went upstairs and showed Connor that he just doesn't look very good and showed Connor that the money was there the whole time and that it was just hidden really good inside his pillow case and he got $5 because the tooth fairy didn't come the first night :)





Also I know it is going way back but we did have a good Thanksgiving. My mom and dad came down to Fillmore as it was their off year and we couldn't come up to my in-laws as Chelton had to work. We had a low key Thanksgiving with just my kids and my mom and dad. We watched some football and made these cute little felt turkeys with the kids. My mom and I stayed up until 1:00 in the morning after doing our version of black Friday getting the Walmart deals online. It was pretty hectic but so much better than going to any stores in the cold and dealing with people and lines. We actually got pretty much what we wanted to get too. It was great. On Saturday in Fillmore they have a light parade (pretty small but fun) and then they light up the town square and have hot chocolate and doughnuts with Santa. It was cold but fun. Plus Santa gives you a whole bag full of candy rather than a little candy cane so the kids liked that. Here is my kid's homemade felt turkey puppets we made on Thanksgiving.



So Garrett has been playing junior Jazz lately and has been doing pretty good with that. His team is the Pacers. He plays with a combined 3rd, 4th and 5th grade team and there is a big difference between 3rd, 4th and 5th graders but down here they don't have enough kids to have their own league so they have to combine. They basically have two teams. They put in the 3rd and 4th graders to play against the other team's 3rd an 4th graders for a quarter and then switch. It works out pretty good. Garrett has really improved quite a bit. Basketball is his favorite sport and you can really tell.





And last but not least on my super long blog post we had our ward party recently. We had a fun night where we had soup and salad and cookies and the kids sang songs and then Santa came. We had just seen Santa from the light parade and got pictures there but Kylie wasn't so sure about Santa but I got here to sit and smile pretty for me so I thought I would post how cute they were with Santa. I haven't got Santa pictures I think ever because we never went to any place were there was a Santa but we have them now.







Well that is the end of my really long blog post. If you made it this far thanks for hanging in there. Only 30 more days until my Caribbean cruise!!!

Look who turned 4

So my baby girl finally turned four. I can't believe how fast time flies. It seems like just yesterday she was born. She had a good birthday. The picture above is Kylie in her new dress my mom gave her that she wore to church on Sunday. Her birthday was really on Sunday but we did her party for her on Saturday. Mostly because she wanted to have a sleepover watching movies and we didn't want to do that on Sunday when the kids had school the next day. She wanted a princess themed birthday (suprise suprise if you know Kylie). We kept it low key (i.e. no friends and just family). So I made up some princess bingo cards. My mom and dad came down for a ride (what else do you have to do when you are retired?) and my in-laws sent their present down and texted us as they are having a wonderful vacation in Japan right now (lucky them and I soooo wish I was with them right now).

So we had an exciting game of Princess bingo (well actually it turned out to be girl bingo because I ran out of princesses and had to add in a few extras like barbie and dora and lady and the tramp to fill in the rest. Every body (adults included) each got a chance to win a candybar. After that we played Don't Eat Pete but changed the name to Don't Eat Princess. The kids had a ball with this game. We had some homemade chicken noodle soup and rolls (per Kylie's request---I know a shock it wasn't hot dogs---her favorite thing) and then we had cake. Chelton always makes the cakes and she wanted an Aurora cake. He did a good job on it. He wasn't as thrilled. She didn't get a face but Kylie was thrilled with it and it tasted amazing. Cake is my weakness and I am tempted to throw the rest away as it has been calling my name (I know my sisters reading this know what I mean--ha ha ha). Here is a picture of Kylie with her cake.



After my parents left we watched Cars 2 with the kids. We have been saving it to watch until Kylie's birthday.

She also got this princess table you can kind of see over the birthday mess that she is obsessed with (thanks Brenna and Halley). She has been sitting and playing with it 24/7.



She got a lot of other presents too like this necklace kit.



She also got a Littlest Pet shop set that she has been obsessed with too and some Dora fingernail polish and chapstick that she LOVES and the Pinkie Pie learns to walk doll that she loves and makes me doll sit (instead of baby sit). She got a mermaid barbie and some seriously cute clothes. She also got $5 from her great grandma and she used it to pick out a Cinderalla phone at the store. I think she doesn't need Christmas to come because she is all set :)

She keeps asking me over and over again if she is 4. I don't think she quite believes me. She got to give a talk at church yesterday plus they sang happy birthday to her and they chose her to dismiss the classes so she was like the star of primary and she loved it. It was like her special weekend. She really loved it.

I don't know what we would do without our sweet, crazy tempered, extremely girly, pink Kylie. She sure makes it interesting around here. Now if I could just make it so she would stop growing.

Progress!!!

So I have been telling you for a few weeks now that I have started the Insanity workout program and I wanted to tell you about my success. Two weeks ago I started the program and you have to start on day one with a test. They have you do eight exercises to see how many of each you can get in a minute and then two weeks after doing the program you redo the test to see much you have improved. I was a wimp two weeks ago. I re-did the test yesterday after my two weeks on the program (and not skipping even one day of the program---yes I have been that good) and I totally kicked my own butt from two weeks ago....and I am so proud to blog about my results:

Switch kicks: Two weeks ago I did 60 and yesterday I did 93
Power jacks: Two weeks ago I did 26 and yesterday I did 52
Power knees: Two weeks ago I did 50 and yesterday I did 86
Power jumps: Two weeks ago I did 15 and yesterday I did 35
Globe jumps: Two weeks ago I did 7 and yesterday I did 10
Suicide jumps: Two weeks ago I did 9 and yesterday I did 14
Pushup jacks: Two weeks ago I did 2 and yesterday I did 12
Low plank obliques: Two weeks ago I did 30 and yesterday I did 63

I can't believe what a difference two weeks can make!!!! I wonder what another two weeks will bring. I can't imaging beating the scores I did yesterday but you never know. Now I'm not about to post a pic on here just yet but I'm getting there!!!

3 new posts (look at me go)

So I went like two new months without any posts and now in the past 3 days have done 3 new posts (so if you missed any make sure to catch all three)...I did the last post on halloween and did a picture of the kids together in their Halloween costume but here are a few more of them individually and threw one in of me and Kylie...









Also the day after Halloween it snowed here (as it probably did for most of you) so Connor and Kylie were excited to go out in the snow (Garrett was sick---too much candy?) Kylie I think was more excited to just get in the snow stuff because she only lasted like 2 minutes and then was back in but Chelton and Connor made a pretty cute snowman. I was shocked that the snow didn't come on Halloween. Usually it is so cold on Halloween but we actually had pretty decent weather and it waited until the day after. That was actually pretty nice.





Also last week Chelton went to a police training in Park City and took the department's Charger so when the boys got home they thought the car was pretty cool and wanted to take a picture by it so I thought the poses were pretty cute so I thought I would throw that in here too...such nerds I have...but I love. Garrett is also strutting his new BYU jersey we got him to wear because Chelton took him to a BYU football game a few weeks ago. Garrett was so excited and they had a great time. Garrett is starting to get into that age where he likes to do stuff like that and it is fun and Connor is also strutting his famous Connor pose in the last picture...where did these kids come from?