Halloween with the Burnett's

Every year,

Tyler's sweet sister puts on a Halloween party. It is a night filled with lots of fun and belly laughs. This year she put together a minute to win it game. Peyton is "cleaning" up after a game that you play with kleenx. You try to pull all the tissues out of the box one at a time , but you can't put your hand inside of the box. Garrett is knocking over water bottles with a ball that is inside the panty hose attached to his head. Fun huh?! Thus the belly laughs!

Like a pro

Kyndra is riding a beautiful, sweet horse named Bree. (it's a boy) She of course it loving every minute. Thanks to my "cousin" shown in the corner we got to spent a great weekend riding horses. The only other time my kids get to ride horses is at the state fair. Compared to Bree, that is child's play.

my little cowboy

On Labor Day weekend, we got the opportunity to go to my uncle's ranch and ride horses. It was so much fun. I was totally nervous for Garrett to be on that huge animal (compared to Garrett) by himself, but he did great!!

First day of school

Garrett went to his first day of kindergarten on Monday and as you can see, he was excited!!! It feels really wierd to be dropping two kids off to school everyday. Luckily though, things are going really well for both Kyndra and Garrett, they both love their teachers, and as for me??? I love that school is back in. I love the routine the school year brings.

Graduation!!!!

Garrett graduated from preschool this week and it was cute as cute can be!!! Our main objective for Garrett to be in preschool was to bring him out of his shell. Our plan worked!!! During graduation Garrett had to stand up in front of at least 100 people and do his speaking part loudly and clearly, and he did it!!! We were so proud of him. During the graduation "ceremony" the teacher showed a video of the kids throughout the year. One of the songs that played on the DVD was a song called, "let them be little". I'm here to tell you, it was a tear jerker. It was yesterday that he was born. I have to remind myself that they grow up so fast especially on the hard days.

We are looking forward to a fun summer with lots of time at the park, the pool and maybe the zoo.
Kindergarten....here comes Garrett!!!!

The best Mother's day ever!!!

What better gift could a mother ask for than her kids to be happy, healthy, oh and a spa day. Peyton is working on my hair, while Kyndra and Garrett are working on my pedicure. I'm very grateful for my sweet kids. I think about a book I read a while ago called, "How to survive your greatest blessings". It was a funny book with some real true here and there throughout the pages. Being a stay at home mom is manotnous and mundane with very little reward at times, but also brings moments of pure joy. I'm so thankful that my Heavenly Father trusted me to be their mom and I pray I can do it well.

My future hall of famer

Garrett is playing T-ball and loving it. He tells everyone that he wins every game. (They don't keep score) We originally signed him up for tball to bring him out of his shell so he'll be ready for kindergarten. It's done that and more. He is really enjoying it. The kids start out the season by hitting off the T and by the end of the season they are being coach pitched and he hits it every time. I'm so proud of him, he is doing really well with his base ball skills and he is also opening up and talking to people more.

So, I'm usually about 3 months behind on my posts.--- Kyndra was baptized on February 6th. Here she is practicing with Tyler and then a cute picture of just moments before the big moment. I am so proud of her decision and her excitement to make this important step in her life.

GO COUGARS

Every year we like to take the kids to a BYU basketball game. We went just this last Saturday. We had a great time. This year Gaelynn, Tyler's sister came with us. It's always a treat to have her come. Although Peyton was a lot easier to handle last year, the game was still fun and BYU won. (BIG)

Kyndra with cosmo, Garrett was nestled behind Gaelynn a safe 20 yards away.

It is more economically feasible for us to take the whole family when we sit in the nose bleed section. It's cool, Garrett loved the binoculars.

Rrrreeeeeeeeeddddddd!!!!

My baby brother is HOME!!! Okay he isn't really a baby anymore, i'm his big sister and he'll always feel like that to me. Reed arrived in Salt Lake after serving an LDS mission in Alaska on Jan 5th at 8:00am. The funny thing is that my baby sister Valerie (Duck) arrived in Washington D.C. that same morning about the same time to begin her mission. The only missed each other by about 7 hours. Reed is doing great and has begun school at SLCC. Welcome home Reed, we love you!!!

Birthdays, birthdays and more birthdays

We celebrated birthdays right after new years. Kyndra's birthday is Jan 2. She chose to go to Olive Garden for lunch and then to the the aquarium museam. It was really neat. This is an octopus (and later calimari) j/k

Garrett chose chuck E cheese. It was really fun and not too busy which was also nice.

New Year's Day!!

Tyler and I got up (semi) early New Years Day and racked our brains of something we could do with our young family that would not be economically draining but would entertain all. We came up with sledding!! We had a blast!! Even Peyton wasn't ready to leave when it was time to go. Good times!!

Fun with Snow

We had to get creative during the winter break. This is our version of a one horse open sleigh.

Christmas at the Burnett's

Kyndra go a bathrobe,she feels real grown up. She is also going to be the coolest in the neighborhood with her new bike.

Peyton loves her new bug/bike/car thingy.

As, you can see, it was bike year. Santa was smart and spoiled us with bikes. Right in time too. The kids have all out grown the old ones. Now we just need the snow to clear up and we are set for some good bike rides this summer.

Farewell to an old friend

I know it is really silly to get attached to an "object", but I did. My very first car that I ever purchased is shown here in this picture. After 12 years, and 188000 + miles jampact with tons of memories, I have to say goodbye. We tried to change out the spark plugs and one got stuck in the engine. We had it towed to a repair shop and my dependable little car suddenly became a sad heap of metal. So before Kidney Kars came to get it, I had to have a picture taken.

Surely life has to slow down soon

then
January 2009


NOW!!!

So in my effort to update you on our family, I thought I would do some then and now pictures. Wow, turn around once and look what happens. They grow up and are into EVERYTHING including candy.

1st day of school!!!

My baby boy is growing so big!!!
He attends smarty pants preschool and loves it!! I can't believe how much he has changed (for the better) in such a short amount of time. We originally signed him so he would be ready to leave the nest and be ready for kindergarten next year. Well as it turns out, his preschool is as much for my emotional preparation as it is for his. Love ya Mrs. Mitchell

First day of Work, first day of work!!!!

So, with a gentle nudge from my sister in law I will update our family blog. Life has been filled with many, many, many roller coaster rides this last couple of months. For those of you that may not have heard, Tyler was laid off from his job of 6 years in June. It was heart breaking and terrifying at the same time. After we received the news that Beneficial Financial would no longer be selling new policies, it was less than two hours that Tyler got home with his last check in hand. It's all good though. It was an extremely intense trial that our family went through. We learned many things through unemployment. The most important one is that God lives and loves me and my family. You know that poem, "footprints in the sand"? Our experience literally felt like that. So many times, we felt carried and almost weightless when in reality the weight should have felt unbarable. We also learned to treasure the precious moments we have everyday with our loved ones. The very day Tyler lost his job, Tyler and I were to say the least distrought. We took the kids to chick-fila so they could play and we could talk and figure things out. Tyler and I were crying together in the middle of the restraunt terrified about our future and Garrett ran to us with a huge smile on his face and said, "this is the best day ever!!!" I wiped my tears and asked,"how so buddy?" And he replied, "cuz daddy's home and we get to play." My kids learned first hand from personal experience that Heavenly Father does hear and answer prayers. After Tyler found a new job and had been back to work for a few weeks, Garrett was saying our family prayer one night and in the prayer he thanked Heavenly Father for helping daddy find a new job. Priceless moments like these are what count. Tyler has been employed with Deseret Trust since the end of September and we are truly grateful everyday!!!

Let me clarify, it's not what it sounds like

Kids say the funniest things. We took the kids to get ice cream at Leatherbys the other day. Tyler took Garrett to the bathroom and as they returned, Garrett yelled, "Daddy went potty and missed"!! I started laughing as I saw a few heads turn in our direction. Tyler sat down and said, noooo, let me clarify. We went potty, I washed my hands, got a paper towel to dry my hands and threw it in the garbage and missed the garbage. Garrett was like, yeah and you missed!!!

Families, isn't it about time

So today I felt like I was in one of those LDS family commericals. Kyndra was at school, Tyler was at work, and Peyton was in her crib asleep. So, Garrett and I went outside to shovel the side walks. As I was working I felt a snowball hit me. I looked up and Garrett had a big cheesy grin on his face. In the back of my head, I thought, I really have to get this done. Anyway, we put our shovels down, had a snow ball fight until oops, I got him good. So we built a snowman instead. He is so prould, can't you tell?! I eventually got the snow shoveled, but I'm glad I listened to that voice that told me to play with my son. It breaks my heart how fast my kids are growing. Garrett is a Sunbeam!!! Augghhhh