Night Time Ninja

She looks cute and sweet.  But don't let that fool you. Because in the dark of the night, she becomes the "Night Time Ninja."

Why, you ask? Because in the dead of the night, she sneaks out of her room and soundlessly (okay, maybe not so soundlessly) makes her way to my bedroom.  Where she proceeds to karate-chop her way over my weary body and roll into the middle of the bed.  If you think it ends there you would be naive.  Because at this point she will shove me over onto my side so as to better use her "wax-on, wax-off" skills.  In my hair.  Both little hands twirling and dancing through my hair while she lulls herself back to sleep.  Now is when I mistakenly drift off to dreamland instead of staying on guard.

 Because the Night Time Ninja does not sleep.

While I'm ignorantly sleeping, Shayli is now flailing in bed.  Karate kicking her blankets off and doing aerial helicopter moves in the center of my bed.  Now most of this movement gently jogs me to the edge of consciousness.  Which is good because at about this time, the karate kicks are coming dangerously close to causing serious injury......such as a nose bleed.  (Okay, maybe not "serious" injury but you get the gist.).

 I'll tell you about one time I was  playing peek-a-boo with sleep. Shayli was already comfy-cozy in my bed.  I instinctively jerked my head to the side just as her little foot arced out and slammed into the side of my head.  Better than the nose. Which is where it would've landed had I not moved.

 Now at this point you may be wondering why I don't always take her back to her own bed the second I hear her little ninja footsteps.  And the answer is.....I have gotten very lazy.  I don't want to leave my bed unless there is no other choice. Back to dreamland.

I think I may have gotten an hour or two of sleep before the next attack.  And then I was jolted awake to little hands in my hair again.  Nothing to worry about there.  Until she twirled my hair so tightly around her little fingers and then chose to jerk her hands back.  I heard the RIIIPP more than I felt it.  I decided to wave the white flag.  I shoved her over towards her daddy and I crept to the edge of my side.

And in the morning I checked out my new bangs.

Happy 5th Birthday Kyson!

Kyson woke up on his big day to being wrapped up in his room with balloons bouncing everywhere! We wrapped the whole doorway up while he was sleeping.  It seemed like a fun idea at the time.  But since it was a last minute decision, we had to use our left-over angel wrapping paper.  So that's what Kyson woke up to.  Christmas angels blowing their trumpets wrapping paper.  Which may have led to some confusion as to what exactly was going on.  But I decided that because he couldn't read, and I wanted a picture of the doorway, we should put the birthday wishes on the outside of the door.  (That way at least the girls would understand what was going on.) 

Anyway, I slept lousy the whole night worrying that Kyson would get up in the middle of the night and walk smack into the wall of wrapping paper which would then lead to confusion and panic and in the end wake the whole house with his terrified screams.  None of that happened by the way.

What did happen was I heard him at 6:00 am giving the paper a  little "tap, tap". And then I heard his actual door slam shut and the lights flick on.  And then a few more "taps". At this point I decided I'd better check on him and see if he had any idea what was happening.  He had no clue what any of it was for.  He couldn't figure out how the balloons got in his room and the wrapped door made no sense.  But he was a good sport about it and played along.  Eventually I told him he could pull the wrapping paper down and that it was supposed to be like unwrapping a giant present to start his day off.  He was more than happy to get rid of that irritating paper!

Lexi and Kendri surprised him by bringing up breakfast for him!  It seems like that's their little forte, doesn't it?

We met the family at Menchie's for frozen yogurt and presents later that night.

The owners were nice enough to bring out a little treat for Kyson with a candle on it.  We had a great time partying with the family and Kyson was certainly eating it up!

On Saturday Kyson invited a few of the neighborhood boys over for a little friend party.  The girls helped him plan the party and took care of  pretty much everything including the invitations, the games, the magic show and the general entertainment. You don't hear me complaining, do you?  Kyson was set on having a "bomb" cake.  Don't ask me.  I don't know.  And the bomb cake sort of "bombed" if you know what I mean.  All I can say was, I was given strict instructions as to what it had to be and I followed them to a "T".  Even down to the licorice fuse.  I have to be honest here.  I was looking back through my pictures and was trying to figure out why I had a picture of a chocolate dipped apple.  The End.

Moving on.  The girls did a fantastic job putting on a magic show. The audience was left stumped and delighted.

And the boys were all easy to please and they couldn't care less what the cake looked like.....they all came back for seconds!  And that cake was rich.  I couldn't finish one piece much less two!

Happy birthday Kyson!

He also insisted on one candle that "never goes out" and the number "5" candle.  As long as we are all happy, happy, happy.

At 5 Kyson is still our active little dare-devil.  He loves to push the limits but is the sweetest little boy around.  He showers people with love and can't get enough kisses and hugs from his sisters and mommy.  He also is quite debonair and while there is music playing will come find me or one of his sisters, strike a "princely" pose and say, "May I have this dance?"  But don't let that fool you.  He loves to wrestle and has taught Shayli the finer tips of body slamming. He has a fun personality and brings an excitement with him wherever we are!  We love Kyson!

A Hairy Situation

Shayli has become aware of her growing hair.  And she loves it.  As you can see.  She has never had a "real" haircut.  (Those of you faithful followers will recall the unfortunate incident of gum, Kendri, and my little babe's newborn hair.  I suppose that would qualify as a first haircut. But we aren't going to count it.) 

But really, somehow her hair has grown in with side bangs and trendy layers.  (Please don't shatter my naive mother illusions if you disagree.) Yes, there was the MacGyver stage.  And the mullet stage.  Or perhaps they were the same stage.  And this picture has a little Fabio flair to it. But overall, when it's dry and not slicked back, it looks pretty decent.  Compared to what my other kids hair have done at this age, that is.  So I have yet to feel the need to do anything with it.  And as you can see, she's pleased as punch.  

Now on to Kyson.  As you can see, he is NOT pleased as punch.  He came to me very disturbed the other day.  (See his face? Disturbed.)  He had just been in the bathroom for a little while checking himself out in the mirror apparently. (Now this comment leaves the door wide open for any of you who know his daddy.  I will take the high road and refuse to state who I believe Kyson is taking after in this respect of self admiration.  The rest of you are left to your own guilty consciences for "jumping" to conclusions....) Now back to the story. Kyson came to me after being in the bathoom, very concerned.  He asked me if I had ever noticed his "baldness."  Ahem.

 "Your baldness?" I asked. "I don't see any baldness."

His answer, "YES! I just SAW it in the mirror!"

Well, obviously we weren't on the same page, he and I. So I asked him to show me what exactly he had seen.  This was the problem.  Go ahead and take a look.

His BALDNESS. Right there in front of me and I had never even mentioned it to him.  How dare I?  He thinks his scalp is baldness. It's sort of cute.

I still haven't figured out if he wants to be bald or if he's terrified of it.  He was obsessed with our neighbor Frank, who was bald.  He had many a conversation over our fence line with Frank about his bald head and mustache.  That's the other thing Kyson can't stop thinking about.  When his mustache is going to grow.  (Not as long as you keep up that shaving routine, boy. He, he, he!)  I'm sure in time all of this will get worked out.  Until then I'll just have to assure Kyson that being bald is in!

Christmas in Camelot

Ryan's dad has been calling Angel's Camp "Camelot" since they first started staying up there (before they owned a house there).  So here is our Christmas stay in "Camelot"!  Everyone was up at Gammi's house by 1:00 and we started our festivities.  First on the list - presents!

Kyson loved Grandma Reese's present to him.....a new bike!

And in case you're wondering, he also loves his new muscle shirt. And he's been working out so he can show off his muscles.  He flexes often to check and make sure they are hardening up.  Although the first time he gave his biceps a little squeeze, he proclaimed them "a little squishy."  He was not deterred.  He gave a few more squeezes until made contact with some that were "weely hard."  His elbow.  I didn't have the heart to tell him the difference between muscle and bone.  I just told him he must be super strong.

And Gammi did her Christmas shopping at the American Girl Doll store.  Shayli and her baby now have matching jammies!  Actually, all the girls have pajamas that match their dolls pajama's.  It's really quite cute.

New books!  Kendri loves to read so this was perfect for her.  She has 140 AR points for reading in school.  She's leading her class with points.  I'm pretty sure the 2nd place person has 50.  What can I say, she takes after her mother!

Kaitlyn and Kyson were Ipad buddies during our little vacation.  It's so fun to have cousins that like each other!

Kyson also requested this shaving set for Christmas.  Is it just me, does he seem eager to grow up??  At any rate I don't think I've seen anything cuter than when I sneak in and catch him "shaving".  He was doing it all by himself where no one would seem him.  In fact, I didn't even know he had used it until he told me he'd been "shaving".  I asked him where (meaning location) and he told me his tummy.  Evidently his tummy is hairier than his chin.

 And here is Gammi's new nursery.  This has been talked about for years and it's finally here!  It was the attic before and now it's a Peter Pan nursery. (Don't mind the mess.  Or the sleeping form in the background.)  We love it.

And on a side note, while presents and parties are fun during Christmas, I tried really hard to get our little family to think of why we had Christmas.  One of the things we did through the month of December was try to think of things we could do for others.  We called this our "presents for Jesus".  I sent an alarm on my phone for every night at 6:00 so we could talk about what we did for the day and what we had done for others.  And while it was mostly small little things, it was a great reminder of what Christmas is all about. Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

We woke up bright and early Christmas morning!  Actually Kendri came into our bedroom around 6:30 and we sent her back to bed to wait until some of the other kids woke up.  (I'm pretty sure they had some help waking up.)  By 7 we were up and headed downstairs to see what Christmas goodies awaited! 

Santa came! (Barely.  I may or may not have cancelled Christmas the week before. The kids spent Christmas Eve cleaning the house hoping Santa was still taking notes.)

At our house, we are planning on having to defend ourselves with nerf guns.  Hence the reason there are about 10 of them lying around. Actually, we have had some pretty serious enemy lines drawn around here. And a few snipers in training. Kendri got her first nerf gun this year and she's ready for action!

And Ryan likes to match the Christmas tree.....

And what is Christmas without something Giants??

We opened our presents and then packed our bags and headed up to Angels Camp for a few days with family.  Stay tuned!

Sharks Game

 This last month Ryan was able to score 4 tickets to the Sharks vs Avalanche hockey game.  Originally he was going to take 2 of the kids and me.  But then we were in the dilemma of which 2 kids got to go. In the end I sacrificed my ticket and sent the three oldest.  Shayli and I did some last minute Christmas shopping (it was Dec 23).  Shayli cried and cried about getting left out but I fixed that with a big bag of Reese's peanut butter cups.  It soothed both of us. ;)

Everyone really enjoyed the fights game they watched.  Lexi was lucky enough to get a puck handed to her.  And then Kyson took it upon himself to get the attention of the "ice cleaner".  (I have no idea what they are called, but the guy who cleans the ice during time outs or half time.  I didn't go to the game so I don't even know how often he shows up?)  Anywhoo, Kyson called the "ice cleaner" guy over and managed to get a puck out of him so they both came home with a souvenir.  When I asked Kendri where hers was, she told me she really wanted one but thought it would be rude to ask for one.  Little Miss Manners.  So if you think all we did was party in December, you would be right!

Nativity

We have a friend in our ward that takes it upon herself to do a little nativity video every Christmas.  She invites the primary and any friends to participate.  This was our first year of doing it.  Kyson was a shephard, Shayli was a lamb, Kendri was THE angel, and Lexi was a wiseman (much to her dismay.  She really wanted to be Mary.  Of course she did. But too bad so sad.)

The video turned out beautifully and we had a great time making it.

And if you look close in the picture below you can find my little (or big) wiseman.  (She's on the right side wearing the red.)

And it wouldn't feel like Christmas unless we had our annual sugar cookie party. Man, those cookies our good.  I dare say I'm salivating just looking at them!