Conversations with a 4 year old

I had to write a couple of recent conversations before I forget them.

We were driving in the car the other day and a conversation ensued with Payten.

Payten: "Mommy, when are we going to a garage sale?"

Now, I was not planning on going to garage sale at all, so the question took me by surprise.

Me: "We are not going to one, Sweaty."

Payten: "But Mommy, how are we going to start buying all the stuff we are going to need for our mansions when we live with Heavenly Father? It's going to take lots of stuff to fill it up, so we need to start now."

I just love when they share a little of what's going on in their heads :=)

Jon took the kids up to Jonesboro for the past few days and on the way home, another conversation:

Payten: "Daddy, someone is going to be waiting for us when we get home."

Jon: "Who might that be?"

Payten: "She has hair just like mine. She loves Me, Seth and You, and she has an attitude just like me too."

Of course Jon was laughing because he is always telling me that she gets her attitude (which she has a lot of these days) from her me. Again, another testament that kids listen and pick up on everything!

Arkansas State Fair 2007

We braved the crowds this year and took the kids to the fair. Every once in a while, I am reminded of the fact that, yes, we are Arkansans. Making a trip to the state fair is definitely one of those times! I should have just taken my camera to take pictures of all of the people around us. I am pretty sure that there are a lot of them that only get out once a year to come to the "big city," and this was it. Aside from thoroughly enjoying people watching, Payten had fun riding on a few of the rides. The dragon ride was her favorite. It's one of those rides that you can spin as fast or slow as you want. Jon got in with her and made them go around so fast she was almost sick. I'm glad he was there to do that with her, because those kinds of rides make me sick. I would much rather go on a roller coaster. It didn't matter much since I am pregnant, but I did enjoy watching them. There was also a show going on that we stopped to watch. Payten volunteered to go up on stage when they asked for helpers. She got to play cowgirl and dance to the music. Although Seth wasn't able to get on stage, he had just as good a time dancing in his seat. And of course, in addition to all of the fun we had, we ate lots of good, greasy fair food! That's my favorite part of the fair! (I even ate a fried Twinkie this year-not sure I would recommend it to anyone unless you really want to have a heart attack, but it was good to try it.)

Payten giving her ticket to go on the "Dragon Tale" ride!
She had to have the pink dragon
If you look real close, you can see her laughing back there. She was laughing so hard she couldn't breathe.Payten and Seth love to dance together. There was some music playing, so they were entertaining us.

Seth watching the show. He had his hands flying everywhere.
The star herself
These toys are such a rip off, but they definitely know how to market to four year olds, and when she batted her eyes and asked Daddy if she could get one, Jon couldn't resist.
Jon and Seth tearing up this turkey leg. (Jon was not happy about me taking this picture-if you can't tell.)

Our Princess Turned 4

Another year has gone by. Can't believe it! On October 18, Payten turned 4. We had her birthday party the weekend before. This year, we had all of our family come. We did cake, presents etc. at Grandma's and afterwards we all went to Mayflower to a pumpkin farm. This was a pretty neat place for the kids. There were hay tunnels, playground stuff, a hayride and Payten even got to ride a horse for the first time. She took right to it....thought she was a cowgirl.

Opening her presents
Blowing out her candles on her HUGE Dora cake.
There was a little mix up in communication when the 1/4 sheet cake was ordered. When we picked it up we had a full sheet cake. We had cake for days!

Gram and Ethan, Gramdma and Seth
There she is, the cowgirl herself.

At the end of the hay tunnel
More presents. She got lots of clothes to play dress up in. This was her Dora dress.

It's a.............

Boy!!!! We are so excited! Everything went really well at out ultrasound appointment. He is healthy and growing well, which is what we love to hear! We took Payten with us, and she was so excited she could hardly contain herself. She just knew that she was going to have a baby sister. When we saw that it was going to be a brother, she started to cry. For the remainder of the ultrasound, I was trying to contain my excitement, watch everything that was going on and she sat in her Daddy's lap crying. We told her that she would be Daddy's only princess, and her response, "But I was going to share being a Princess." So, for the following couple hours, we went out for ice cream and thought of all the cool things about being the only sister. She has finally been convinced, and she is really excited now. (Thank goodness....I was really worried there for a little bit.) We actually got about 20 ultrasound pictures, but since as his Mommy, I'm probably the only one that wants to sit and look at all of them, I'll put just a couple on here. The ultrasound tech told us that all of his images could be put in text books because they turned out so clear and well. We got a picture of him sucking his thumb, swallowing, showing us his toes, multiple profiles and of course a few of him letting us know that he was a boy.

Showing the world his manhood

Not sure if you all can see it as clearly with the picture being scanned, but you can actually see his cheeks! All of out kids are destined to have their Daddy's cheeks!

Welcome home Uncle Matt!!!!!!!!!!!

It's been two long years since we have seen Uncle Matt, and he came home yesterday! He has been on a mission in Costa Rica for the last two years. For those of you who don't know, when young men in the LDS church turn 19, they can choose to volunteer for two years to service a mission. During this time, aside from letters and e-mail, they don't see their family, friends etc. Matt was called to the Costa Rica mission. I'm sure coming back to the States after that long is a little bit of a culture shock. We are so glad that he is home! After we picked him up from the airport, we all went out to eat at a steakhouse. He has spent most of the last two years eating rice, beans and tropical fruit. We love you Uncle Matt! Welcome home!

Jordan, Payten and Jenna waiting for Uncle Matt

Getting closer! If you look between the balloons, you can see Gram (Matt's Mom), smiling!
Poppy and Aunt Rachel
Me and Seth-we got there late, which is a whole other story. Thank goodness we made it!
Daddy and Seth


And here is the man of the hour....Elder Free
All of us except for Mandie, Richard and Ethan (Jon's other sister and her family). Unfortunately, they were not able to make it.
Check out the shoes-he spend two years without a bike or car..just walking.
Uncle Matt got Payten a ring that has Choose the Right in Spanish. You'd of thought it was a new diamond.

Gram lost her car in the parking lot, so we were hunting. Matt was just excited to be home!

An attempt at a Sunday photo session

No matter how hard I try, I cannot seem to ever get my kids to pose for the camera. One of these days, I will figure out the trick. Until then, I will continue to post my attempts :) Grandma has been wanting some more recent pictures of the kids, so Sunday afternoon, we took them out to her backyard after church.

Afternoon at the Zoo

Every year we get a membership to the Little Rock Zoo, so we often go walk around there. We went last weekend, and had a pretty good time. Seth is really starting to get excited about all of the animals and remember their names. I finally remembered to bring my camera along this time around, so I was able to get some pictures.

Payten being silly
He was trying to figure out if he should attemt the slide all by himself, and he finally did. We ended up spending a long time at the playground.
Checking out the giraffeHere, we were in the bird room (I'm sure that is not the correct name for it, but I don't know what it's called).

The biggest turtle in the world-according to Payten.
This was the taken at the butterfly garden