Update From Halloween to Thanksgiving

That just shows you how bad I have been about this. So for Halloween Kenna was a Princess and Bryn was a Pea. It was so fun. Kenna understood the get candy and it didn't take Bryn long at all. The first door we went to she held out her bag got a treat, looked in the bag said WOW! followed by Tank U (thank you). They had fun all week with the ward party, a school party, and of course trick or treating.

Kenna turned 4 this year! It is so crazy! She has been so fun to have. She makes us laugh everyday and is so smart. She is learning to read and loves to sit down with mom to read a book. She is very into Barbies and will play with them for hours. For her birthday she wanted a hula hoop, jewelry box, and a big coloring book. She had a party with her friends and was able to take some treats to school for her birthday. These little things were the highlight of her year. Oh to be four and have your biggest worry be to use a Magenta Crayon or a Fuchsia one to color in your My Little Pony coloring book.

For Thanksgiving we stayed home and had Brad's cousin Jake over for the week

as well as some friends dogs. The girls have loved having the dogs over. Kenna asked if she cried would John still take them home? Thank you Jake for coming to visit Kenna keeps talking about riding on a horse with you when she goes to Idaho. Also Thank You John and Terra for letting us have your dogs for the week. Brad I don't want them to go home either we will watch them anytime.

This one is for Jess

My sisters Jessica's little boy (as you can see in the photo) has hair that well runs perpendicular to his head. So cute! I call this "Lewis hair" as I have seen this trend on both Teagan (Tom's Nephew) and Lydia and Jane (Tom's Nieces) I find it absolutely adorable and would give anything for a baby with that much hair and would care less what way it stood. Alas I have been blessed with baldies that look just like me or my sister Tiffany. And Jessica has been blessed with kids that look like their dad. After Bryn's bath the other night I was blowing her dry like we always do. She has some hair on the top of her head now and when I was done it was perpendicular to her head. I laughed and thought this is what Jessica's kids would look like if she ever has one that looks like a Norby. Enjoy Jess .

OBX

So I realize that this is a little late but we have been very busy with life since returning from our annual Outer Banks NC trip. We had a ton of fun. We spent some fabulous time on the beach. Went and saw some of the stuff about Blackbeard (a real pirate who's birth name was Edward Teach), went on a boat and saw dolphins out in the wild this was amazing. It was a wonderful family vacation. Kenna's favorite part was as she says "the whole thing". Bryn loved the sand and running around with Tanner. Brad and I loved the beach and the dolphins. Here are some of the photos.

Brynlee

McKenna

Pirates

On the Ferry. This threw our GPS for a whirl. It kept saying recalculating and showed the picture of the car in the middle of the Ocean. Teach's Hole

Dolphins Flying a Kite Family Photos

Okay so most of you know this primary song. The words go Follow the prophet follow the prophet follow the prophet don't go astray. Anyway my sisters little boy is Ryan and we call him Ryan the Lion. In primary they were singing Follow the Prophet. Kenna was singing the loudest only singing the wrong words she was singing "Ryan the Lion, Ryan the Lion, Ryan the Lion, don't go astray". This is very good advice to Ryan however only being 1 I am sure it is not an issue yet.

Olympics

I love the Olympics. The competition, the stories behind the athletes, and just watching people beat the odds and accomplish goals. We have been following Michael Phelps and his goal for 10 gold medals. I have no doubt that he can do this. I have been awe struck with his speed, form, and sportsmanship. Kenna has also enjoyed watching with me, she finds him "very handsome". Another favorite has been the gymnastics of course and Kenna now wants to be in gymnastics to compete, we just told her it would take a lot of work and it would be expensive but if she wanted we would help her do it. She is doing somersaults all over the house and trying to leave Brad alone so as she says "he can be a dentist and pay for it". Bryn enjoys watching the Beach Volleyball and will stand there for several minutes watching. While she watches she squats and then stands I have no idea as to why she does this but it is cute. If I could figure out how to post a video I will. Anyone know?

Tumble Tykes

Kenna is a Tumble Tyke! She started her first class on Friday. She is loved it. So did I it used some of her energy and allowed for an easy nap in the afternoon. It is a 5 week class. Brad and I decided that we would do a summer class and if she really liked it then we would see about a fall class. When I asked her what her favorite part of the class was she said "the flipping over part". She has been practicing her somersault and cartwheels all week. Hopefully by next week she will not need as much help. She did very well for her first class.

Blackberries

I took the girls to Linvilla to get some blackberries. They had so much fun. I got Bryn out of the stroller and showed her how to pick them. She was to cute. The ones she picked went strait into her mouth. I had my back to her and was helping Kenna reach "the perfect one". I heard some ladies laughing and then one of them say "Miss you should get a picture of that". I turned around to see this: I suppose when you have little one year old chubby fingers it makes it hard to pick berries as fast as you need to to eat them. She used her ingenuity and decided to forgo the picking step and go strait to the eating part.

Brad is at Scout Camp this week. He left on Saturday afternoon and will be back on Saturday. It has only been 3 days and I have decided that I don't want to be a single parent ever. Church on Sunday was pointless at least when Brad is here I get about 30% of what is going on during Sacrament meeting all I got was that the kids who went to the Hill Camorah Pageant were going to tell about the experience that they had. It went downhill from there chasing a 13 month around the Primary room while trying to do your calling is next to impossible. Bryn needs her nails cut, this is something Brad does. I started the clipping on Sunday I got 3 fingers cut, Monday I got another 3 done, today maybe I will get lucky and be able to do the last 4. How does he get her to hold still that long? The girls miss him tons. This morning Bryn brought me the phone and said "DAD" so we called so he could say hi. Right now they are up in their room playing "scout camp" Kenna has blankets hanging everywhere and Bryn is just running around the room taking Kenna's instructions. I am not allowed in cause mom's can't go to scout camp.

Kenna is at that wonderful age were internal monologue doesn't happen. No fault of her own it just hasn't developed yet. She hasn't said anything that isn't true, just socially inappropriate and I have found myself walking briskly out of stores or awkwardly trying to explain what she means. Here are a few of them.

• To the clerk at the grocery store "you have the biggest butt" Thank goodness we had already paid! after a quick apology all I had to do was push the cart right out the door.
• Poor kid has another yeast infection (you were right Jess). This is something that should just be kept to her self, but does she, nope, she tells a lady at Target "I have a yeast infection" I wish you all could have seen her eyes get wide and then how she looked at me like "did she just really say what I think she said." Again another apology.
• This is my favorite.It is just funny but did make me look like a little bit of a bad mom. Kenna loves to have Brad speak to her in Spanish, sometimes she will just say "Dad talk in Spanish" She knows about 20 words really well . Anyway we were talking to a missionary at church and his first language is Spanish. So I tell Kenna that he speaks Spanish. Kenna looks at him and says "callate means shut up in Spanish". All I could think is Kenna you have 20 words that you know and that is the one you decide to use. So I reminded her that was a naughty word and that we get in trouble for saying it in Spanish just the same as English. Meanwhile the missionary had to walk away so that Kenna wouldn't see him laughing.
• A woman was out walking with her kids in the stroller. Kenna informs her that her kids are funny looking. They are funny looking, no disabilities just funny looking kids eyes kind of bugged out a bit and this kids ears were huge my internal monologue works so I was thinking the same thing as well as wow I wonder if these kids have Acromegaly. So once again I find myself saying in an exasperated tone "Kenna Margaret" and apologizing to this poor woman who may or may not know that her kids are funny looking but just the same didn't want to here from a 3yr old.

Anyway we will be having a Family night lesson on tact, saying only nice things, and watching the words that we say because obviously the honesty lesson worked well.

• One last story This one didn't embarrass me at all in fact it made me almost cry. After reading a chapter in her chapter book she looked out the window and said "Mom the sunset is pink tonight. That is how Jesus and God tell us that they love us, they make the sky pink before we go to bed. Sometimes he will make it purple because he knows you like purple the best, but pink is just for me" and then to make sure that I knew she added, "but he still is saying that he loves you Mom when it is pink we just have to take turns with the colors." This took me off guard as we have never discussed anything like this before, all I could do was hug her and say you are right they love us very much and we must always remember those little things around us that show their love. I walked out of the room still trying not to cry. It is moments like these that make me forget her lack of internal monologue and all of those embarrassing moments. Even though she gives me a rough time once in awhile I am sure glad she is mine.

Concussion and Lightning

Okay the Lightning didn't cause the concussion it just all happened the other day. So here is how it happened: after Brynlee's nap she was playing with some of her toys in the living room and climbing on the furniture. She climbed upon the gliding rocker (see where this is going) and fell off right onto her little head face down on the hardwood floors mind you. She hit hard I saw the whole thing helplessly from the other side of the couch I was unable to hurdle. She didn't start crying until I picked her up and then had a hard time at that. Little trooper she only cried for a minute. She had a huge bump on her for head and some bleeding from her mouth above right incisor. The tooth wasn't loose but I called Brad anyway and said I am taking her in to have her checked out because she kept trying to go to sleep (remember this was after a 2 1/2 hour nap). Kenna was such a helper she kept her awake all the way to the hospital. Right when we pulled into the parking lot she started vomiting (fabulous was all I thought). 6 hours, and a CT scan later we were on our way home. Thank you Hawleys for watching Kenna for that whole time!!! She slept like a rock and was tired the next day but is fine now.

As we pulled onto our street and come up to our corner this is what we saw

Impressive huh? We had a nice lightening storm that afternoon while we were in the hospital with a mild concussion. According to our neighbor lighting struck our tree right before it started to down poor. It was 8:30 when we got home and after all of this excitment in one day we were all asleep by 9pm.

(Thank you for the good picture Riv)

1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn’t matter if you knew me a little or a lot, if we’ve actually met in person or not, anything you remember about me!
2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It’s actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I’ll assume you’re playing the game and I’ll come to your blog and leave one about you. If you don’t want to play on your blog, or if you don’t have a blog, I’ll leave my memory of you in my comments.

Laurel Ave Piano

This Piano has been on our street for the last 30+ years. The 1st owner of our home got it from a friend and her kids learned to play on it. When they had grown (and she got another) it was given to a family down the road, after they learned to play on it is made it's way back down the street to the Flood's home where Maureen and Chris learned to play. Now that Judy is in a nursing home and the house is getting cleaned out Chis and Maureen asked us if we would want the piano. On Sunday it was lifted, pushed and pulled, across the street to our house. It is out of tune big time but other than that it is in good shape. Kenna will start lessons this Fall (thanks Mom and Dad Norby) and is very excited. She asked me to play her a primary song so I got out the book and attempted an easy one (no sharps or flats) and it was a little rough but not bad for not looking at any music or being at a piano for years and years. She was not impressed and asked "can't you do it like Uncle Blaine?" Sadly no.

Peaches and Raspberries

Saturday afternoon after lawns were mowed we took the girls out to Linvilla to get some fresh peaches and raspberries. The Raspberries were slim but we were able to find enough to put on some ice cream. The girls had fun even though it was humid beyond belief. The outing served it's purpose and when we got home we were able to put the quarter round up in the living room and dining room while Bryn slept. Thanks to Carter and Steph for coming over to help. I would also like to thank Nathan and Tiff for finding our camera so that we could take pictures of the fuzz on a peach. Here are some of my favorite shots that we got of the girls and Brad.

Bryn got a good kick out of the hey ride. She laughed the whole way to the peach orchard.

Kenna out to find the perfect peach.

The perfect one.

Bryn's Peach