Slacking...

Something about this season makes me into a major blog slacker. Here are a couple pictures of the kids this season and I'll be sure to post later. We are just keeping so busy doing so many things that blogging seems to fall last on the list. Hope you all have a Merry Christmas! :)

Veteran's Day Remembered

When you drink from a well, remember the men who dug the well.

-Proverb I just wanted to write a note to remember the service of all those in the armed forces. Particularly my Great Grandpa, WWI, Grandpa Stratton and Grandpa Holt WWII and Uncle Roger Stratton, Vietnam. I can't even imagine the things that you saw and did for our country. Thank you so much- Love You!!

Lauryn's Baptism

Lauryn's baptism was Saturday November 1st. It turned out really nicely and it was so fun to have Grandma and Grandpa Klein and Grandma and Grandpa Holt there.

40% off Mary Kay Products

Hey everyone-I'm putting in my once a year 40% off Mary Kay order this Saturday, November 8th. Just go to http://www.marykay.com/ and check out the new products and catalog. You can order anything from the catalog. Subtract 40% from the suggested retail price to know what your cost would be (plus tax and $2 shipping). Let me know what you would like to order by Saturday. You can either call me or comment on my blog with a way I can contact you. Have fun shopping!

PS. If you are a friend of one of my sisters, I will be getting the products to them at Thanksgiving and they can bring the items out to you.

A Beehive to make mom proud :)

This post is a little self-indulgent-I admit. But I had so much fun dressing up for our Church Halloween party that I had to post a few pictures. I wore the dress my Grandma made and wore to my mom and dad's wedding in 1973. I also had her glasses, total coke bottles (sorry, grandma). Then after watching some tutorials on youtube-I did my hair in a beehive.

Basically you rat the heck out of it and spray it until it stands up in sections all over your head, then you smooth it into a mound that looks like shallacked cotton candy. My goal was to use the entire bottle of 99 cent hairspray I bought to get it to stay in place. I kept thinking- I can NOT believe people actually fixed their hair like this on a regular basis. I had to tell myself several times that once was not going to make my hair break off-but it sure feels like its going to!

We had a great time at the party eating and dancing-my friend Laurie posted a video on her blog of me breakdancing. Ha-Ha! I'll see if I can get a copy of it. :)

And amazingly enough, my hair did survive, and all the tangles came out after only two shampoo/conditionings! Happy Halloween everybody!

Here's the dress in full-length. I think it's adorable. Grandma was a tall lady! I'm wearing heels and its still dragging the floor! Thanks Grant and Lauryn for being my photographers!

Our 13th Wedding Anniversary

Wow-I can't believe we've been married 13 years! In some ways it seems like its been forever, while in other ways its like the time has flown by. I'm so blessed and lucky to have such a great guy. We have sure had some good times and I know there are a lot more to come. :) These are some pretty flowers I got as gifts for my anniversary. So sweet :)

I've Been Tagged :)

A friend of mine tagged me on her blog and told me to do a couple things. First, list six of my quirks, and then tag six more people. After reading some of my other friend's quirks it was fun to sit and try to think up some of mine. I had a bit of a stupor and decided to ask my family at dinner what they thought would be a quirky trait of mine.

Here's what my family's responses were:

Jeff said: I like to wear socks at night-My big toe is not really my biggest toe, I like to analyze handwriting and I'm never on time. True, true, true and well, I guess true.
Grant said: I like to look under dressing room stalls (Long story, but basically I once looked at a lady's shoes, who was in the stall next to me, and Grant has never let me live it down :)

Lauryn said: I like REALLY spicy food and

Carter said: "Uh, your arms are twice as long as they should be!"...Okie Dokie.

When I tried to think of some of my own this is what came to mind:

1. I'm a total rock hound. Any time we're hiking or on the beach or anywhere in nature, instead of looking out and up, I'm always looking down. It pays off though! A couple weeks ago while wading in my parent's stream I found a piece of petrified wood!! See-only a rock geek like me would care about that, I guess :)

2. I eat my hamburgers upside down-it works like this-I grab onto the hamburger with my thumbs on the upper side, so then when you pick it up and bite it, the hamburger is "bottoms up". It's just so much more logical to do it that way:)

3. I have a fear of deep water: When we went on our cruise, I couldn't look out any windows and when we walked on the deck I had to keep one arm on the inside wall at all times, presumably so that I wouldn't fall in. It's freaky to see that much water at once!!

4. I'm Extremely Ticklish-self explanatory...

5. I always look at things at the store and believe I could make them. (This is actually a family quirk I got from my mom and dad.)

6. Men's Bathrooms-I have accidentally walked into a men's bathroom at least six times. I've even done it at church on Sunday. Thankfully I have never walked in on anyone using the bathroom. I have walked out when some man is walking in and they are always very amused at my freaked out expression. It's always the little urinals that clue me in.


Okay so now I tag: Kari, Betsy, Meredith, Nicole, Laurie and Jolin M.

Great Grandpa Twitchell

Our Sweet Great-Grandpa Twitchell came to an untimely end last week. Well, I dont' know if you can call it untimely, seeing as he was 93 in dog years. My mom and dad had Twitchell for 13 years and this week, on my mom's birthday, he ran into the yard of the wrong dog and was attacked and killed. It was a sad day, but here are two things that made us feel a little better about the situation:
#1 We gave Twitchell tons of hugs and cuddles right before he went out for his ill-fated walk.
#2 Twitchell died an honorable death in the heat of battle. A death any dog can be proud of. :)

You were a good dog Twitchell. We hope you have a nice soft stinky slipper to lay your head on in Doggy Heaven :)

The Klein Academy Press

We are excited to announce the launch of our new school virtual newspaper at www.kleinacademypress.blogspot.com . You can also link to it from this blog. If you're ever interested in what in the world the kids are studying, you can check it out. We also have "This day in history" and the "Astronomy picture of the day" among other things like fun links to kid friendly websites or funny videos the kids find. Anyway, we'd love for you to check it out!

Elise at 18 Months

This is a picture of Elise on her first day of Nursery at church. She didn't even look back when we dropped her off. She loves playing with the other kids and I'm glad it's been such an easy transition-but I can't believe she's already so big :).

Elise-Thank you for being such a fun little sister and baby girl!

Visit from the other Klein's

Hunter, Hayden and Hanna came to visit Grandma and Grandpa and so the kids got to spend some fun time together. We went to the baseball game and the amusement park together. It was so fun to see them, all three are growing up so much :)
This game, by the way, is where I was lucky to be featured on the Jumbo-Tron doing a rendition of my hill-billy dance. That was a moment to remember :)

Grant and Hayden both got balls from the game. Grant caught a foul ball, and the third base coach threw the other ball to the boys. They got them signed after the game :)

First Day of Homeschool

Today was our first day of Homeschool and the day that I fall off the radar :) I am excited about the program that Jeff and I designed, though. I really want to focus on self-motivation and independence. This year we're centered a lot on setting goals and having the kids chart their own progress. Then it's all tied together with some healthy competition. I hope it works :)

Here are some random pictures that have nothing to do with homeschool :)

Congratulations to my baby brother David and sweet new bride Megan.

Omaha Trip

We went to Omaha for the weekend. Carter made, um, friends I guess you could say, with this goat at the zoo. Carter was having fun and looking eye to eye with his buddy. But I'm not so sure the goat was messing around. When the goat lowered his head and stared back at Carter I quickly stopped taking pictures and yelled for Carter to give him some space. :) I think Carter may have been seeing stars if he hadn't backed away from their little showdown! One purpose of our Omaha trip was the Mid-America Music Festival. Lauryn and Grant had prepared two pieces on the piano and played them in front of a judge for a score. It was a great experience for the two of them. Their hard work paid off-they both scored at least a 95% and earned a trophy. This is a picture with their teacher who traveled up to support her students.

Here we are listening at the door to Lauryn's pieces. Nobody is allowed in. It's just the child and the judge.

We also got to go to the Winter Quarter's Temple. It's such a beautiful site, and has a lot of history. I have some pioneer ancestors who stopped there on their way out to Utah with the wagon and handcart companies. It's amazing what kind of strength and conviction they showed to walk all the way to Salt Lake. Wow!

The kids decided to sell soda during our neighborhood garage sale. They made $14. What good little entrepreneurs!

Hodge Podge of Fun at the Klein's

To my delight, our berry patch totally took off this year. We had tons of blackberries every day for almost a month. It was so fun to let the kids just pick and eat as many as they could.

This is just one day's worth of berries. Can you say blackberry jam?

Elise definitely enjoyed the blackberry pie we made.

Introducing our new play house! I am so excited because this was the thing I looked forward to most with the basement being finished. It turned out exactly like the picture I drew for Jeff when he asked me what I had in mind. What a handy guy:) The ceiling goes up a little higher above the castle so Carter and Lauryn can actually stand all the way up, though its hard to tell from here.

Elise and Lauryn playing the Wii! :)

Gotta love bubble baths!

Lauryn and Elise were snuggling and Lauryn was reading stories. Elise was not too happy with me disturbing their moment so she was being camera shy. :)

Grant's had his first tennis match. Since this, he played some other matches and two other tournaments. He got to the finals in one and the semi's in the other. It was great experience and lots of fun. We love our new family sport :)

Carter got put into a time out and Elise, who adores him, couldn't let him sit in the corner alone:)