Thanksgiving

This last year has had so many good and bad things happen and I am so grateful for all of them. I truly have so much to be thankful for. I have an awesome husband (and best friend) who I get to spend eternity with. I have vibrant, healthy children, something which is so priceless now-a-day. I hear stories so often of families whose children are struck with terminal illnesses and my heart goes out to them. I can not even imagine. I am especially grateful for my knowledge of the gospel; it is basically my self improvement program. I could go on and on, but my sleeping has become a priceless commodity and I have to take advantage of every minute. LOL

This year we spent Thanksgiving with Jared's side of the family and I'm horrible and didn't get any pictures. It was a lot of fun and Jared's grandma always goes to so much work to make sure everything is just right. Afterward we headed to Delta for the weekend. My cousin Jade had his mission farewell so we did a lot of family bonding.

Hanging out at the Mexican Restaurant in Delta.

We took Ryah to the roller skating rink...and yes, you can only wear roller skates, no roller blades allowed. Ry thought it was the best thing ever, she didn't want to take off her skates.

Jared was a trooper and put on a pair of skates to take Ryah around...she was laughing.

My brother wishing he was a figure skater :)

Jared and me at the end of our skating adventure. I guess I should say Jared's skating adventure. We had a great time and I can't wait to take Ryah to my family's big skating party. I get so excited just taking her places now to see her reaction.

All-in-all we had a great holiday...couldn't ask for any better.

Happy 30th Jared

A little late, but better than never...right??? Jared turned 30 last month and I had him a surprise party with family. One of the many perks of living in a small town is the ability to use the large municipal building at no cost. This building comes in handy due to the large family Jared and I have on both sides. I served a main dish of italian chicken and rice and others brought some pot luck items. It was a huge success and Jared was totally surprised. There is a lot more video footage than pics. Things got a little crazy and I abandoned the camera :(

I (my mom actually) decided on the Oh No, three Oh instead of Over the Hill. There's no way I could have pulled it off without her. Jared would have been way too suspicious...

My dad did a great job distracting Jared most of the day so I could get things ready along with the help of my mom and sisters. Jared wasn't suspicious of anything until my dad told him they had to go look at quilts down by our house...not sure where that one came from.

Ryah loved having Maddi drag her around on the floor.

Jared (with the help of the munchkins) blowing out the candles. His grandma made his favorite spice cake.

My mom is really big into making videos, so I scanned in all the pictures and she did the rest of the work. It turned out so good and Jared loved it. It is crazy all the memories we've made in the short amount of time we've known each other. I can't wait to make lots more :)

Thanks to everyone who came and helped out, I couldn't have pulled it off without you.

Our Two Princesses

Often I ask myself how we do it...sometimes I think the twins (as most people know, we lost them in 2006) would have been easier than the age closeness of Ry and Kes who are not even 13 months apart. Then I am reminded of the challenges we went through when trying to conceive Ry and am so grateful Kes came when she did, surprise and all!!! Our lives have been so fulfilling and rewarding over the last year with these two little ones. Ryah is such a great big sister. She adores Keslee and makes sure she we never forget to put her in or get her out of the car, tend to her when she's crying, etc. My favorite time of day is first thing in the morning when they both wake up. They are full of smiles and Ryah loves to cuddle in our bed with Keslee and watch cartoons. Note the pic below. On a side note, I caught Ryah letting Keslee suck on her finger the other morning while they were watching cartoons. I wondered what all the sudden made Kes stop crying.

Keslee has discovered her tongue, can you tell :)

Ryah putting all of her bouncy balls in her purse.

Keslee fell asleep in the bumbo.

One of Ryah's favorite past times when she gets her PJ's on at night...sliding on the kitchen floor.

One of my most favorite things of all...seeing my girls so happy.

I do have to admit, throughout all of this, there is one thing I think I have lost (hopefully just temporarily misplaced) and that is my mind. I used to be so organized and on top of things, now I am lucky to remember that "special" place I put my phone. keys, purse, etc. It is driving me absolutely nutso...I have decided it is best to just things day by day. I hope one day it returns, but as for now sorry, if I seem completely forgetful. It really is not intentional, at least I have a good excuse...our two princesses :)

Happy Halloween

Our Halloween festivities started on Friday with a party at Jared's parents house with all the cousins. There was yummy food, pumpking carving, and playing "catch" up with everyone since it seems we only see some family a hand full of times throughout the year. Thanks Rock and Lorraine for a good time!!!

In order to attend you had to dress up so we decided to be farmer's since Ryah was a dog (she insisted on having the costume) and Keslee was a chicken.

Daddy and his girls

Grandma and Keslee



















Jared's brother Brad and his fam...gotta love Brynlee's pose in the middle. Why do girls have to be so drama sometimes :)
























The Joker (Jared's uncle) I didn't recognize him when he first walked in.



















"Amazing" Man (Jared's Bro) and Braxton...if you know any single ladies "Amazing" Man is on the look-out



















Mom and Kes



















Ry was so excited to wear the cowboy hats when we got home.

For Halloween night we went to my parent's house, ate Tepanyaki sushi, and took the kids around trick-or-treating. Our neighborhood does the trunk-or-treat and I am a little biased to the tradition of going house to house, which is why we went to my parent's neighborhood. After about three houses, Ryah was mesmerized that if she held out her pumpkin bucket and said trick-or-treat people gave her candy.
















Keslee, Jax, and Ryah

Ryah soon got to the point where she wanted to sit on the grass of each house and eat the candy she had just received. She danced all around and absolutely loved the fact mom was not taking the candy away from her.

This pic goes to show just how excited she was. She started dancing around the pole of the mailbox...such a silly girl.

We had such a fun time. We absolutely love our kiddos and can't wait to see what next Halloween brings!!!

The Latest and Greatest...

Nothing too terribly exciting has been going on at our house. The last couple weeks have consisted of hanging out and trying to think of "indoor" type activities to do. We have been to the Treehouse (thanks Kirsten for introducing us to Toddler time), the park, purchased a drawing pad with washable markers and gel paints, grandma's, my cousin's, basically anywhere that lets us escape from the house for a bit. I remember to take my camera, but forget to take pictures so all the pics are a bunch of randomness.

Here is Ryah's creation on her drawing pad. Thank goodness for washable markers and paints. After she was done she brought me the camera, so I took a picture. She then was mad at me because she wanted to be in the picture...the little smarty. I've re-uploaded this picture at least three times so it would be landscape, but as you can tell it is uncooperative; at least you get the jist.

Uncle Shaun helping Ryah walk around in his ginormous boots.

Ryah's evidence of getting into Grandma's cupboards without anyone catching her.

Girls Night Out at the Cheesecake Factory while the men were at Priesthood.

I had to throw in this camparison picture of Ryah and Keslee. In this picture, Ryah is only a week older than where Keslee is right now. At times I think they look alike and then I see pictures like this and I realize how each of them has such their own look...however, there definitely is resemblance.

I had to put this picture up showing Kes's chub on her face. The women came down from Delta last weekend for annual shopping trip while they men were hunting. While we were out to dinner, we overheard my cousing Jerica, who is 8, explain to my other cousin why Keslee has three chins; it was hilarious.

I had to post this picture as evidence that I did can once in my life. No, really, I plan to do more of it. Jared's Grandma (and Grandpa) were kind enough to teach me how to can. It is so easy and I absolutely love it. This is only about 1/4 of what I did this eyar. I was only able to can pears and peaches since I decided to do it so late, but next year I plan on doing lots more.

Lastly, I had to throw up my candy poster Jared and the girls made me the other day. I am not one to complain about my days/weeks/etc...I feel very blessed for everything I have; however, this particular day was very rough and I voiced it to Jared. He came home so I could get some stuff done and when I came home there was a surprise for me on the counter. I was so overwhelmed with emotion, I could not believe it. I have an awesome husband and father for my girls; I feel so fortunate. It also happened to be my birthday this past weekend and he made sure it was special for me. We were able to spend some very quality (much needed) time together at my annual birthday lunch/dinner at Benihanas along with some fabulous presents including one of those magnification mirrors for getting ready. I decided that it is my best of friend, but also my worst of enemy :) Thanks Jar for everything, you are the best!!!

That basically wraps up life at the Kay household the last little while. I'm definitely looking forward to Ry's Halloween this weekend. She sure was excited to put on her costume for the Halloween Party at the Treehouse today, so we will see how this weekend goes.

Our Date to Cornbelly's

Grandma and I took Ryah to the Cornbelly's Pumpkin Fest at Thanksgiving Point last week...it was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed the down-to-earth atmosphere and the fact that it was not huge, but big enough that you could put in a few hours and be done. There were hay rides, tractor/train rides, slides, jumping pillows, pig races, etc.

Here are some pictures from our day...

There was a Princess area for little girls where you could dress up and listen to the Princess tell Princess stories and sit on the horse and in the carriage. Being the "mean" mom I am, we put a wig on Ry and I didn't let her take it off because I thought it was so stinkin' cute/funny. You can see from the above picture she was not amused about it. She warmed up to the idea after a minute...

There were stairs up to the slides, but do you think she wanted to take them...she insisted on climbing this rope thing.

She loved the slide.

Of course I had to throw in a picture of the munchkin; she is so much fun. Just full of smiles and is starting to "talk" a lot, I love it when they start interacting. Thanks to my sis for watching her while I took Ry, and thanks to Grandma for spending the day with us, we had lots of fun :)

Things Have Been Better...

The last two+ weeks Keslee has been running a fever off 100+. She would have it for a day or two, it would break for a couple days, and then return. In addition to the fever, she was not eating very good (Somedays she was only drinking 8-10 oz the whole day), was extremely fussy, and was more lethargic. I just figured she had caught the flu bug that both Ry and I had a few weeks ago.

Well, I took her for her two month check-up last week and told the doc it might not be a good idea to do her immunizations since she seemed to not be feeling well and had just broke her third fever the day prior. I explained what had been going on (I think the doc also had a hunch of how she felt because Keslee cried the entire time) and the doc suggested more testing be done as a precautionary since she is still under three months. We were admitted to the hospital and Keslee went under numerous testing i.e. x-rays, spinal tap, blood work, etc. It ended up she had a little bacterial infection, dehydration, and the rhinovirus. After pumping numerous fluids and antibiotics in her over a couple days, she has returned somewhat back to her normal self. We are still dealing with the whole cold, runny nose issue, but she is at least smiling, eating more, not nearly as fussy, etc. I felt bad she was so sick and I didn't take her in sooner...I guess it is a lesson learned.

Below are some pictures of her in the hospital. You can tell as the days progressed, she turned into a different kid.

By the end of our stay, Keslee was back to her alert self and smiling at everyone. It was so good to see.

Ryah was so good while staying up at the hospital with me. She thought it was so fun to go get ice out of the drink room and eat it. The picture above is Ryah getting ready to dump her ice on the floor. I know it is inappropriate, but it got to the point where I had to entertain her somehow and if it meant me taking a couple minutes to help her pick up her ice and help her put it back in her cup, it was worth it...and no, I wouldn't let her eat it afterward :)

Thanks to Jared's parents for coming and sitting with Keslee so we could grab some food at night and to my sis Tiffany who helped out with Ry and hanging/helping us out during the day.