Kents

4/4/11

11 Steps to insure you want to have a baby

Lesson 1

1. Go to the grocery store.

2. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office.

3. Go home.

4. Pick up the paper.

5. Read it for the last time.

Lesson 2

Before you finally go ahead and have children, find a couple who already are parents and berate them about their...

1. Methods of discipline.

2. Lack of patience.

3. Appallingly low tolerance levels.

4. Allowing their children to run wild.

5. Suggest ways in which they might improve their child's breastfeeding, sleep habits, toilet training, table manners, and overall behavior.

Enjoy it because it will be the last time in your life you will have all the answers.

Lesson 3

A really good way to discover how the nights might feel...

1. Get home from work and immediately begin walking around the living room from 5PM to 10PM carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 8-12 pounds, with a radio turned to static playing loudly. (Eat cold food with one hand for dinner)

2. At 10PM, put the bag gently down, set the alarm for midnight, and go to sleep.

3. Get up at 12 and walk around the living room again, with the bag, until 1AM.

4. Set the alarm for 3AM.

5. As you can't get back to sleep, get up at 2AM and make a drink and watch an infomercial.

6. Go to bed at 2:45AM.

7. Get up at 3AM when the alarm goes off.

8. Sing songs quietly in the dark until 4AM.

9. Get up. Make breakfast. Get ready for work and go to work (work hard and be productive)

Repeat steps 1-9 each night. Keep this up for 3-5 years. Look cheerful and together.

Lesson 4

Can you stand the mess children make? To find out...

1. Smear peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains.

2. Hide a piece of raw chicken behind the stereo and leave it there all summer.

3. Stick your fingers in the flower bed.

4. Then rub them on the clean walls.

5. Take your favorite book, photo album, etc. Wreck it.

6. Spill milk on your new pillows. Cover the stains with crayons. How does that look?

Lesson 5

Dressing small children is not as easy as it seems.

1. Buy an octopus and a small bag made out of loose mesh.

2. Attempt to put the octopus into the bag so that none of the arms hang out.

Time allowed for this - all morning.

Lesson 6

Forget the BMW and buy a mini-van. And don't think that you can leave it out in the driveway spotless and shining. Family cars don't look like that.

1. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment. Leave it there.

2. Get a dime. Stick it in the CD player.

3. Take a family size package of chocolate cookies. Mash them into the back seat. Sprinkle cheerios all over the floor, then smash them with your foot.

4. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car.

Lesson 7

Go to the local grocery store. Take with you the closest thing you can find to a pre-school child. (A full-grown goat is an excellent choice). If you intend to have more than one child, then definitely take more than one goat. Buy your week's groceries without letting the goats out of your sight. Pay for everything the goat eats or destroys. Until you can easily accomplish this, do not even contemplate having children.

Lesson 8

1. Hollow out a melon.

2. Make a small hole in the side.

3. Suspend it from the ceiling and swing it from side to side.

4. Now get a bowl of soggy Cheerios and attempt to spoon them into the swaying melon by pretending to be an airplane.

5. Continue until half the Cheerios are gone.

6. Tip half into your lap. The other half, just throw up in the air.

You are now ready to feed a nine-month-old baby.

Lesson 9

Learn the names of every character from Sesame Street , Barney, Disney, the Teletubbies, and Pokemon. Watch nothing else on TV but PBS, the Disney channel or Noggin for at least five years. (I know, you're thinking What's 'Noggin'?) Exactly the point.

Lesson 10

Make a recording of Fran Drescher saying 'mommy' repeatedly. (Important: no more than a four second delay between each 'mommy'; occasional crescendo to the level of a supersonic jet is required). Play this tape in your car everywhere you go for the next four years. You are now ready to take a long trip with a toddler.

Lesson 11

Start talking to an adult of your choice. Have someone else continually tug on your skirt hem, shirt-sleeve, or elbow while playing the 'mommy' tape made from Lesson 10 above. You are now ready to have a conversation with an adult while there is a child in the room.

4/2/11

Leaves are falling all around...and spooks coming out to play

The kids look forward to fall every year, not only because the colors are beautiful everywhere you look, but because of the leaves. They are like every other kid in fall and can't look at a pile of leaves and not want to jump in them. Normally, we head to the park when the leaves are just right and spend the afternoon playing our hearts out!

Luckly, this year Grandpa Moulton had plenty of leaves to share. He would even put them in piles, just so the kids could play. (what a great Grandpa) So, we took advantage one day and went to get pictures of the kids playing in them.

They all had so much fun!

Now, years ago, when Hadley was just a few month old, we went to play in the leaves and took some pictures. There was one picture that I took, that I LOVED. Now that our family is complete, I wanted one like it of all my kids..so, here is our recreation...

It's not quite like the first, but it has ALL my kids so that makes me a happy Mama!

Then, of course, we had to throw leaves on them, lol!

That same day, we carved our pumpkins...

and because Cadence didn't carve her own....

And, while we are at it, we will put Halloween pictures on here too.

Kyla was a hyppie

So, those lost pictures, I have..ya...the front of Bianca is one of them..She was

Frankinstein's Bride

Hadley is a vampire

And, yes, Gabe is a ladybug....

And so is Cadence

Going to Grandma's

Time to check out the goods!!!!

The next day....

It was a fun Halloween...

SEE YOU NEXT YEAR!!!

A new school year

First day of School 2010

Kyla going into Mrs. Inama's class in the 5th grade
Bianca going into Mrs. Yates class in the 3rd grade

Hadley starting Kindergarten in Mrs. Allred's class.

County Fair

This year the girls decided they wanted to do 4-H. So, instead of starting with one....we did 3. They did:
Chickens, with Erlene Torgrimson
Knitting with Beverly Ricks
and
Cooking with Lisa Kent and Carolyn Moulton

The summer was busy, but they had a lot of fun.
The fair was the first week of August 2010. I have more pictures, but...can't find them. So, we have a few pictures of them showing the Chickens.

Bianca having her "interview" with her chicken, Bob.

The interviews were just this man (a county guy) asking various questions
on chickens. Things they should have learned in 4-H. Bianca got quite
a few hard question...but did GREAT!

Kyla with her chicken, Pumpkin
I believe in this picture, she was showing how to pose a chicken for show.
He was quite impressed that she did it right THEN remembered to take a
step back.

They both got blue ribbons on showmanship

Kyla got 2nd Grand Champion on showman ship!

Then they all choose to participate in a quality category.
They both got red ribbons

In knitting, they both made slippers and participated in a runway show to show them off
That was really cute and a lot of fun..
They both received blue ribbons for their knitting projects
Kyla also got a blue ribbon for being the secretary in knitting and filling out her secretary book

In cooking:
Kyla made fresh blueberry muffins.
Bianca made chocolate mint cookies
They both turned out really good and they both got blue ribbons in that
Bianca also got a blue ribbon for being the secretary in cooking and filling out her secretary book.

4/1/11

MEP-Quite the ride

We were so excited to go to MEP this year.
MEP is the name of my Mom's family reunion. See, years ago when they started it they just called it a reunion. But, they decided it was MORE than a reunion. Reunions were boring and nobody ever wanted to go to a reunion. So, they decided to come up with a funner name. That is when MEP (MaryLou and Earl's Posterity) was born. I have had so many fond memories of MEP while growing up. I grew up in California for the most part (3 short years were spent in Oklahoma) before moving to Idaho when I was 12. So, I didn't get to play with my cousins. But, when MEP came...we got to play..and play we did. We have stories of talent shows gone bad, hiking with Grandpa, MEP birthday parties, flies, white wolfs, tents falling down mountains, songs about MEP, games of candy poker, the village, the "peach", baby eating bugs, streaking, card games,...I could go on and on.
The first MEP was held August 1979 and there were 23 Meppers there...now in 2011 we are at 113 and at least 3 more coming this year!!! We have each been assigned a MEP number (with cool coins on the way)
Lisa-#24
Brandon #53
Kyla #60
Bianca #61
Brayden #78
Andrew #79
Hadley #86
Gabriel #99
Cadence #110

So, now that we are into the 2nd generation of Meppers...we still hope our kids will love MEP just as much as we did. For the most part, my kids know their 2nd cousins and love to play with them AND their 1st cousins while there. I hope MEP will never die!

So, I have very few pictures this year since I didn't have a camera and only snapped a few pics with my phone.

The first picture is getting there....
We have a camper and love our camper. This year, we thought it would be wonderful for my parents to be able to camp in a camper also. So, we made arrangements to borrow my friends camper for them. The only problem was, we only had 1 truck. Brandon assured us that he could just pull doubles and all would be fine. So...off we go

It was quite scary at times. Mostly going up the one lane dirt road that had very sharp
turns about every 20 feet....I have to admit, I had to close my eyes and I can only imagine
what my parents were thinking behind us. Mom kept saying to Dad, "Is that the bad curve?"
But, because my husband is an awesome drive and knows what he is doing, we made it
there safely. We did have a slight problem with the transmission once we got there but
it all worked out and we were able to make it home safely also.

Cadence in her new hat!
Aunt Phylis had a friend who showed up at MEP to visit her
(it's not all that uncommon to have visitors because MEP is so much fun everyone wants
to join)
Well, she came bearing gifts...snow hats that she had made for each and every MEPPER!
It was so funny to see the kids running around in their snow hats with sweat dripping from
them because after all...it was July.

Gabe

Justin and Josh from Florida even wore theirs...probably the most use they got out of them, lol

This is my Grandma and Grandpa Jensen....the ones who started MEP!
(appologizes to my cousin MaryAnn...I stole this pic from her facebook )

Fishing

We love to fish. But, unfortunately, it's not something that we get to do too often. But, one day, Brandon and I decided that we needed to get the kids out and a good fishing trip sounded WONDERFUL. So, we borrowed a couple of fishing poles from my dad and with the ones we already had, had enough for, at least, the kids to fish. They were so darn excited. We stopped in Ashton and got stuff to have a picnic while we were up there. All in all it was a good day.