Fun Memory Book Maker

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Our New Puppy

Ben and I have been wanting a dog again ever since we gave our dog Sadie away. I just wanted a small dog that doesn't shed which is exactly what Sadie wasn't. Well, Ben has been looking for a few weeks for good dog for us and he finally found one. I didn't want to have to try and house train a dog during the school year when no one is home during the day, so I was a little bit hesitant, but once we went and looked at the puppies I was hooked.

Our puppy is a Silky Tzu, which is a mix between a Silky Terrier and a Shih Tzu. She is just so darn cute, and was so fun to watch play with the kids when we went to see the puppies. We named her Tillie, we gave the girls two options and that was the one that they started calling her. Her coat will probably lighten as she gets older and loses her puppy hair, but for now we have a dark gray dog, I think later she will be more tan. The first few days with her have been great and we are looking forward to many more years with her.

My Feelings on Halloween

Some how growing up has made me really come to dislike Halloween.
I remember as a kid getting so excited to dress-up and go trick-or-treating and thinking long and hard about what my costume should be each year. Then I would save my candy and make it last until at least Christmas when I got new candy. My favorite year was when I was Raggedy-Anne and wore an old costume my mom made for her in high school, it has this awsome wig made out of yarn.
But now I just really hate it, especially this year since Kiya is old enough to know that you dress-up (only because people keep asking her what she wants to be for Halloween), and now I have to come up with a costume for her. I just don't want to. Although she does want to be Batman, which is really cute, but I'm too cheap to make a Batman outfit and don't have the time, or sewing skills to make one.

It also boggles my mind knowing that people like to intentionally get scared. There is nothing in this world that I like less than being scared. Why would anyone waste thier time putting up scarey decorations or going to a scary haunted house or put one together to scare other people. I just don't get it.

I do like the pumpkin carving and decorating part of Halloween though. My pumpkins never look really fabulous, but it still delights me to come up with an idea and make it come to life in a orange squash. Even better is watching my kids get so excited about it. For the young men and young women activity in our ward this week we let the youth decorate pumpkins for the ward Halloween party. Kiya and Jaynie kept watching all of the kids painted and they wanted to paint to, so I finally gave in and let them paint a pumpkin too. We ended up with 2 sets of ruined clothes and a pumpkin covered in 20 different colors of paint all mixed together. But my girls thought that it was the funnest thing ever. I enjoyed the pumpkin so much that I actually brought it home to put on our porch.

So I have come to my dilema . . . Do I just give Kiya a black piece of fabric and Jaynie a white one (since she thinks she needs to be a ghost) and let them run around my house having fun being "dressed-up" or do I give in and hurry and get them or make them costumes and take them to the ward Halloween Party and Trick-or-Treating?

A Rocket Lesson

Information you need to know:

1) Okay, so we try and have family home evening every week. We are not very successful at that, but when we have a lesson we just get a church picture out of the file and talk about the picture. I figure just learning the scripture stories is a good way to start.

2) My grandpa worked at Thikol as an engineer on the rockets. So last week when ATK (the new Thikol) had a static test for a rocket he was up and off at the crack of dawn to go see the scheduled 1:00 launch. While there he was given some posters and papers describing the information on the rocket.

The story that makes having Family Home Evening worth my time and wrestling with the girls to sit still and listen:

One evening last week we were on our way home from my grandparents house. My Grandpa gave me some of his posters of the rocket and some of the informational sheets to put up in my classroom. On our way home we had to stop at the grocery store to pick up some milk. Ben just ran into the store while I sat in the car with the girls so we wouldn't have to take lots of time getting them in and out of the car. Shortly after Ben walked into the story Kiya asked me, "Mom, Do you want to have a Rocket Lesson?" I turned and look at her curiously and noticed that she had picked up one of the informational sheets on the rocket. So I told her that I would love to have a rocket lesson. Her reply was, "Okay, but first we need to say a prayer." So we said a prayer and she proceeded to teach me a Rocket Lesson. Kiya taught me all about how Grandpa worked on rockets like that one, not that exact one, but some like it. And rockets can go in the sky and she has a red and a blue and a pink rocket and we can go for a ride in one of her rockets tomorrow. Then our lesson was over and we said another prayer and about that time Ben came back from the store and we made our way home.

All of this probably occurred in a 3 minute time span, but it truly made me grateful for having Family Home Evening lessons. Now I know that despite the wiggly-ness and short attention spans of my girls they are learning something. And that is enough for me.

p.s. I am way behind again. No big surprise, but I will post the pictures of the rest of our summer and Kiya's birthday soon.

p.s.s. School as started again for both Ben and I. My classes seem to be going well so far and I only have 1 rambunctious one so I am very excited about that.

Revenge of the Mullets 2009 Ragnar Video

This is our video documentary of the adventure we had

running the Wasatch Back Ragnar Relay. If this has now

inspired you to run with us next year let us know. You

will never have so much fun running as you do on this

race.

Cheney and Shaffer Reunions

Last weekend we had the Cheney and Shaffer Reunions in Cache Valley. Friday our family had a Cheney reunion at the Bear River Bottom Ultimate Slip-n-Slide. I don't think that any of the Cheneys have had so much fun on a slip-n-slide before. Some crazy stunts were happening. We had jumpers, backward riders, trains, and even some surfers.

Jaynie didn't like the slide so she just played with Miska.

Ben

Spencer and Jesika

Aubrey, I love the water spraying in her face.

Janessa, Tiffany, and my Dad

Ben running and jumping down the hill.

Janessa, Aubrey, and Tiffany

Chantry attempting surfing.

Amanda

Spencer going knee-board style

After the slide we went to Willow park for the Shaffer Reunion, but my camera died so I have no pictures. Saturday Ben went paintballing with lots of the Cheneys and Shaffers. Here they are all covered in paint.

It was great to see everyone, and it was everyone. It has been several years since all of the 7 siblings in my moms family have all been together so we took a big family picture. What a good looking bunch of folks.

4th of July

For the 4th of July this year we spent lots of time with family. And amidst all of the family activities we got to watch fireworks three days in a row. You may ask, "Wow! How is this possible?" Well let me explain.

July 2nd: Ben and I had just attended youth conference with our ward at Cinnamon Creek in Avon. While we were gone Ben's parents watched our kids for us, so we just stayed up in Cache Valley for a few extra days to get some family time in. We (Ben and I, my sister Tiffany and a date) went miniature golfing, and the girls loved it. Especially the hole on the course that has a hole that the ball goes in and then comes out a little further down and goes into the real hole. (Carly, sorry for using the same word 3 times in one sentence. Any suggestions?) This was the most amazing game of golf I have ever played because I got two; yes count them 1, 2, holes-in-one! It was fabulous, and I did so well that I even won the game, which I believe has never happened before. After golf we drove out to Hyrum and watched their fireworks from the hood of our car. Jaynie thought it was fabulous to get to sit on the car, and Kiya was terrified at the thought so the two of us stood next to the car.

July 3rd: We spent the day playing at Ben's parents house, boating, and then we rushed out to Logan for the traditional Bowling and Charlie's Ice Cream and watching the Logan fireworks from the Bowling Alley parking lot so that we can miss traffic and get home quickly. We played boys against girls, and the girls were slaughtered. Next year we will have to remember not to set teams up like that again.

July 4th: The morning was spent waiting for the Hyrum parade, and visiting with all of Ben's extended family. Kiya, Jaynie, and Carter all had matching shirts and I tried to get a good picture of the three of them together because the were so cute, but trying to get three children 3 years old and younger to look at the camera at the same time is definitely impossible. This is the best I could do, Carter just only wanted to show me his cotton candy, Kiya has some mischievous look on her face, and Jaynie is just being Jaynie.

After the parade we decided to go back out on the boat for more tubing, riding the water 'weenie', and water skiing. This is the first year that I have let Kiya and Jaynie ride on the boat, and they seemed to have a good time. Kiya even got to ride on the water weenie with Ben, which absolutely scared me to death, but she had fun so I guess that is all that matters. I have decided that I enjoy skiing the most because I actually feel in control on the skis versus the other tubes and such where you are at the mercy of the driver (and our driver has no mercy).

Then we finally headed home to Roy to spend some time with my family. We swam in my grandma's pool for a while, then walked down to a little park to watch the Riverdale fireworks.

All of this made for an exhausting couple of days for the girls and I don't think they have ever slept better than they did that night.

Ragnar Relay - Wasatch Back 2009

After many months of training, shin splints, tendonitis, and sore legs the day we had been waiting for has finally come and gone. On June 19th and 20th we ran the Wasatch Back Relay Race. It was 188 miles from Logan to Park City. Each team has 12 runners who each run 3 different legs to total the 188 miles. The race was 30 hours of fun and partying and 3 hours of running here and there mingled within all the fun.

Tiffany, Ben and Amanda at 7:30 am waiting for the race to start.

Ben was the first runner for our team, so he is waiting at the starting line for the gun to go off.

Amanda running through Paradise (the city in Utah, but it did feel like paradise).

Ben at Snow Basin waiting for his second run of the day.

Tiffany cheering the runners on and getting ready for her second run.

Ben running down Trappers Loop towards Morgan. He had 8.5 miles of downhill running, sounds like torture to me.

Spraying Ben off and getting him a drink of water while he was making his trek down the mountain.

The Honey Buckets - we were great friends for 2 days.

Rock on Dude - final run.

Sandi, one of our team mates, and my favorite picture from the whole race. Check out that serious running face.

And we are finally done and home and ready for some sleep! We had such a blast and running a race like that puts you on such a high that we decided to sign up for next year already. There is still space on our team for a few more runners. Any one want to join us?

A Car Ride

We went to the park last night, this is how our conversation on the way home went:

KIYA: Mom, what you eating?
ME: Gum.
JAYNIE: Want some. (So I give her a small piece)

A few minutes later (okay really about 30 seconds)

JAYNIE: WOW! ( I turn around and she is stretching the gum out in a long string.)
ME: Jaynie, put the gum back in your mouth our I will take it away.
KIYA: Jaynie, put the gum in your mouth.
ME: Jaynie your going to get it all over the car, put it back on your mouth right now, or I will take it away.

Jaynie stretches the gum further, so I maneuver around so that I can get the gum away from her (don't worry Ben was driving). So Jaynie starts to cry and then comes my favorite part.

JAYNIE: Kiya, mommy take a gum away.

Isn't it great when a one year old tattles on you to a 2 year old.  I love my kids!

A very Merry Unbirthday to Me!

So my birthday was back on the 12th, and of course I am late on it just like everything else.  It was an exciting day for me.  I was at girls camp most of the day, and then came home in the afternoon to spend some time with my family and go to a rehearsal for a dance recital the next day.  

When I got home Ben surprised me with a cake that he made all by himself.  Amazing!  I was so proud of him, and he knows that I love fun birthday cakes and pigs so naturally he combined the two.

Also he got me some of the most beautiful roses I have ever seen, you can kind of see them in the background. What a great husband I have.  Every time I get a card from him for any reason I just cry.  I don't know why and I try not to cry because it is not my favorite thing to do but I just can't control it.  So Ben's goal this year was to get me a card that did not make my cry.  Sorry honey, that you were not successful.  He gave me some quirky little card and I still cried.

Dinner was something else because we took our girls with us.  I ordered some cheese sticks for all of us and Kiya and Jaynie thought that was the greatest thing ever.  They were very stretchy cheese sticks.

Jaynie's First Haircut

This is Jaynie last week at my birthday dinner.  Notice her hair.
This is Jaynie yesterday morning.  Notice the knot in her hair.  She has this habit that she inherited from her mother of playing with her hair.  Many mornings she wakes up with a huge rat's nest in her hair and we spend a great amount of time trying to get it out.  Well yesterday try as I might, I just couldn't get it out. So . . . . . 

 . . . . we got the scissors out and I tried my best to give her a nice even haircut while she wiggled all over and played with the toothpaste.

I like the new look, but it did take me a while to get used to seeing her with a new do.  Hopefully this will help keep the knots under control.

Girls Camp

Last week was our ward girls camp, and I LOVE girls camp.  Many of my favorite memories from Young Women's were at camp.  It really is tons of fun and the girls actually get along for once.  The only down fall was that we left on Thursday and it rained the whole day.  And since it had been raining for almost a week strait everything was so muddy.  I don't think I have ever since so much mud in one place before.  Our clothes were so soaked that I decided to dry my shoes and socks out by the fire.  I felt like a true Hobo roasting my socks :)  

The creek was just so tempting to the girls.  We were already soaked through to the bone from the rain so they just played in the creed in their clothes and shoes.  I think they actually ended up much cleaner than the rest of us.

And here is the whole group of us in our fabulous matching shirts.

 Our theme was SURVIVOR, so we had buffs that we wore, I think they made us look like we were cancer patients, but they came handy keeping my hair under control.

Memorial Day and Birthdays

Well I'm way behind on all the events going on at the White House, but school is out now (Hip Hip Hooray!) so maybe I'll be able to stay caught up with everything that is happening.  It has been wonderful to be home with my girls and and be a mom.  I actually got my dishes done and my bed made the past couple of days, so I feel like I have accomplished tons.  

For the summer vacation I have several projects planned, so at the end of the summer I will have to see how many of them I actually completed.  The first is a throw for my couch that I am crocheting.  I really don't have that much experience crocheting besides a scarf that I made at Women's Conference this year, and attempts at a few hot pads during my jr. high years.  But I saw a picture of this blanket in a craft magazine, and it looked like a challenge I could handle.  So far it hasn't been to bad but I think that it will take much longer than expected.

Now to catch up on the past few weeks, Memorial Day Weekend was a nice break for us.  We got to spend an evening at Mark and Emily's house with Mike and Carly, and Phil and KaDee, and all of our little kidlets.  Visiting with all of them was highly overdue, and we enjoyed every minute.   Then on Memorial Day Ben and I ran from Grandma Smith's house to the Annual Paradise Breakfast, then had lunch with all of the Smith's and Grandma and Grandpa White.  We don't see all that clan often so we had a nice visit.  Kiya thought it was great to have lots of kids to play with and she even got them all to play Ring Around the Rosies on the trampoline for quite sometime.  Watching her tell them all how to play and what to do was absolutely hilarious, because they all did exactly what she told them.

After lunch we joined all the Bradfords for a pool party at my Grandma's house.  All day long Kiya had been telling us "My mouth feels sick."  I wasn't sure if she was getting more molars in or was car sick or sick.  But after eating a hot dog she confirmed to us that she really was sick when it all came right back up (sorry I tried to put that as mildly as I could), then like the trooper that she is she decided to go swimming any way.  What a tough kid.  Jaynie is going to be our little fish.  Once we get her in the pool we can't get her out,  she loves the water as much as her dad does.

Jaynie with Aunt Aubrey and Cousin Hayley

Kiya and Daddy

Last Friday was Tiffany's 23rd birthday and to celebrate we (Tiffany, Ben and I, my Mom and Dad, and Grandma and Doug) all went to Texas Roadhouse for dinner.  For a gift to herself Tiffany went and bought a camera.  Maybe I should take lessons from her and start buying myself a birthday present :)  After dinner we all went to Mom and Dad's house for Rice Crispies in the shape of a 23, instead of cake.  Tiffany has had that for her Birthday for as long as I can remember.  What a fun tradition.

Smithfield Health Days

On Saturday Ben and I ran our first official 10K (6.4 miles)! It was 3 miles up Smithfield Canyon, and then 3 miles back down with a small loop to get the extra little bit (which was up a super steep hill after 5 miles) to make it a full 10K. The temperature when we started the race was a balmy 33 degrees, which eventually warmed up to around 41 degrees by the time we finished. Ben completed his run in 56 minutes 24 seconds. Oh how I wish I could run that fast, but I wasn't too far behind. I crossed the finish line after 1 hour 3 minutes 19 seconds. We both enjoyed the run much more than we expected, and plan on running the same race again next year. It was the pick-me-up that we needed in our training to keep us going for the Wasatch Back in June. The sad thing is that I forgot to take my camera up so we have no pictures to show you, it was amazing to see over 200 people all geared up to go for a run. I'll have to remember for the next race that we do.

We did get our garden planted this past week.  Our garden includes things like tomatoes, peas, green beans, corn, peppers, zucchini, cucumbers, pumpkins, and my personal favorite eggplant.  We've never planted eggplant before and I don't think I've ever eaten it, but it came in a pack of starters that we bought so we'll see what happens with them.  Kiya and Jaynie had a great time digging in the dirt and putting the seeds in the holes, and getting their hands dirty.  They're just a handful of fun and make everything more exciting, because I even enjoyed planting this year.

Yes, I know I'm a slacker!

So I realized a few days ago that it was May. This means that I missed an entire month of blogging! I don't know how this happened . . . or maybe I do. First of all Ben had all these crazy bazillion page papers due for all of his finals in his classes and I was pretty much banned from the computer. Second my life is just plain busy and the time always go by way to super fast. Between being a mom, a teacher, and a Young Women's leader I don't get much time for anything else, so I am quickly learning to love a hectic life. If I don't love it I don't know how I could possibly make it through it (but that is why I love Ben, he is always so light-hearted and makes my laugh and smile at every situation we run into).
Sometime soon I will post of all the pictures that I have been taking, and update all y'all on what else has been going on with us besides lots of busy-ness. For now the following will have to do.

One night for dinner I handed Kiya and Jaynie their food on their brightly colored plates. One plate was a dark blue, the other was a light blue that night. Kiya turned to me and asked what color the plates were. So I told her they were both blue, but could see that she wasn't satisfied with my response. She pondered the answer for a moment and then told me they were different blues. I was surprised that her two year old brain could figure something like this out. So I explained that one was a light blue plate and the other dark blue. Then a few nights later I was dishing up dinner again and asked Kiya what color plate she wanted for dinner, this was her response: " The lightly blue one." Oh how I love the things she says like this.

And Jaynie is also talking amazingly well and learning more words than I can keep track of, she has an incredible vocabulary for only being almost 18 months old (only 15 more days until she is old enough to do to Nursury:). Lately every time I tell her that I love her she just looks and me and says, "Daddy loves and Jesus." I don't know if that means in addition to, or instead of me. Either way I am glad that she knows that she is loved.

Surprises!

We love surprises and we sure have had lots lately.
On Friday Ben and I had just got done running when we recieved a phone call from his parents. This is about how it went, " Hi, we are in Brigham City on our way down to see you, so pick somewhere to go eat. Bye." Very short and sweet and to the point. No options, just this is what you are now going to be doing tonight. It was quite a shock to the both of us but we loved it. We had a great time, Kiya loves getting to see Grandma and Grandpa White and Madi so she had a blast. Thanks Brad and Teri for the visit, it was a nice evening with you since we don't see you very often.
Last night we were at Costco getting some shopping done when we got surprised once again. I had forgotten something so I ran back to get it while Ben stood in line and when I came back I could see that Kiya and Jaynie were waving at someone, but I couldn't quite figure out who they would be waving at. When I got close enough I could see that it was my Grandma Cheney, so I walked up behind her and surprised her with a hug. Then we saw Grandpa eating a salad so we decided to get some dinner at Costco also and eat with them. We had an enjoyable time visiting with them and eating our dinner. We talked lots about our up coming trip to Bryce Canyon so now we are even more anxious to go on a little vacation.
So now you all know that I love surprises and am up for them all the time. Who knows maybe someday I'll surprise you :)

Chastised by a 2-year Old

Last night Ben and I were downstairs watching the Biggest Loser while I was working on some school work. Every once in a while I would get a little nudge in the back from Ben while I was working, and this would cause me to mess up on what I was writing. This drives me absolutely nuts when I draw something on my paper that I don't want like an extra line, scribble, etc. or when my paper gets krinkled or it is in anyway not perfect I have to get a new paper. I know it's a little OCD, but it really bugs me. So after a few more nudges I just casually started writing on Ben's leg when he bumped me instead of on the paper.
Then this morning at school I got a phone call from Kiya telling me, "Mommy you don't write on Daddy's leg. Don't do that again. We don't color on us." I quickly apologized to her and said that I wouldn't color on Daddy's leg anymore. We have had this conversation with her a few times before about her coloring on her own arm and Jaynie's so I'm glad that it is finally sinking in.

The Joys of Teaching Jr. High

Last week in one of my geometry classes we talked about the Ice Cream Cone Theorem. And somehome I got talked into bringing the students ice cream to honor the Ice Cream Cone Theorem, as long as they brought the money and paid for it. So they brought in 50 cents to a dollar each and I went to buy them ice cream. I had Tiffany with me so we perused the ice cream and decided on the best option for the money that we had and made our way to the self chekc-out line to pay. The only thing was I had about $10.oo in ones and $10.00 in change; which is why we went to the self check-out line, we didn't want to count all of the change ourselves. Needless to say the whole point of the story is that I spent at least 7 minutes in Wal-Mart putting change into the machine (several students brought me a dollar in pennies), and made a huge line behind us and laughed and laughed about it.

A Trip to the Treehouse

Friday I decided to take a day off work because it had been a long week.  Wednesday was parent teacher conferences so I was at school from 7:30 in the morning to 7:30 at night.  But Monday and Tuesday I was also at school late because I had a lot of late work to correct before the parent teacher conferences.  It was a much needed break from school.  

Ben was also off of work and school so we spent the morning cleaning, and then decided to take the girls to the Children's Treehouse Museum for the afternoon.  Kiya and Jaynie had a blast.  They ran around all over playing with everything for a few seconds before moving onto the next thing.  It is so fun to see them growing up and playing with each other.  I hope that they will always be good friends.

Jaynie makes this deer-in-the-headlights-face all the time, we all laugh at her when she makes it so she keeps pulling this face. We have tried many times to capture a picture of it, and finally we timed it just right.