Brock turns 9!!!

Brock had a nerf gun war party this year, it has been about the only thing he has played with except his IPOD of course:)  We had a bunch of boys over to first draw their pictures for target practice, then we built forts to do our war.  While we let the paint dry on the forts we moved on to target practice, they had water balloons to throw at the set up they got a point for hitting someones can and two points for hitting the star.  The kids LOVED this (even Chad was talking about it later) we will be doing this in some form again!  Then they had cake and homemade rootbeer and then they went to war.  It was a really great party and I think everyone had a lot of fun.  
His cake was made to look like a battle field, I had a lot of fun with it.  The leaves are painted onto basil leaves and then the chocolate is peeled off when dry, the grass was a new tip I got and I love it made it really easy to do.
I cannot believe that my baby boy is already 9, it just cannot be!!  He makes me feel old almost everyday, we are hitting the tweener years and you can really tell lately.  He has an attitude about everything and mom is NOT that smartest person in the world or even smart anymore.  He can still be such a sweetheart when he wants to be though and really loves to help Kaylee with doing things (sometimes when she does not want the help).  He is as always a great student with straight As, he is SO much like his daddy it is not funny.  If he doesn't get it right right away it is stupid and he hates it, so it is good that he gets things most of the time!  

He loves to draw, he always has a sketch pad out trying to draw something.  He has been making little comic strips this year and it is a lot of fun to watch how he is growing in it and how the story keep evolving into more and more.  His biggest strength is math again but it has finally started to move to a level where he actually has to learn something at school which has been nice this year.  I do not have to hear how bored he is everyday now:) I can't wait to see what he grows up to be and I know whatever it is he will be great!!

Brayden growing so fast!!! (and his hair cut)

Wow has Brayden grown so much this last year, it is weird once they hit school it seems like everything goes so much faster.  I guess since you miss out on a lot of things while they are gone all day.  He is such a smart boy and LOVES science, anything he can do that is science related he is there!!  We make lots of projects at home and lots of arts and crafts.  He is in first grade this year and really loves it, he is really great at math and not too fond of reading.  He has been improving a lot lately on his reading so hopefully as it gets easier he will like it more and more.
He is playing soccer again this year and daddy is his coach which he loves.  Their last game is this week and then the big party/short games the next weekend.  He is a lot like my brother Kevin, very loving and VERY sensitive.  He is a great big brother and loves to help, really wants to have a little brother and is so excited that Aunt Charlene is going to have a little boy (hopefully that will hold him over for a while!)

He has been letting his hair grow out for about a year and it was finally to a normal looking skater boy hair cut and he decided he wanted it gone last week.  School pictures were this week and we wanted him to wait and take it like that since we had not gotten a picture with his long hair yet.  So he took school pictures on Wed and we cut it Wed after school.  It is funny he looks younger I think with the short hair, but he is just adorable I love it!!!!

There is so much more that I could say but this will have to do for right now, hopefully one of these days I will get on top of things and do this more often.

Brayden's 7th Birthday

Wow I can't believe that Brayden is already 7 it is so weird to see how fast time goes by. His party this year was pretty funny, Aunt Charlene gave me a cupcake book and he saw a penguin one in there that he had to have. SO we had to design his party around his cake, only Brayden. Well we knew we were going to do the water slide so it actually worked out pretty well. I had been choose for a Capri Sun house party, which gives you a bunch of supplies and then you throw a party using them. So I had freebies from them so first we decorated them with stickers, which it was surprisingly hard to find penguin stickers and they ended up being a ton of money but everyone really liked it. Then we played pinned the beak on the penguin, that Chad drew for me, didn't it turn out great? Brayden liked it so much it is now hanging on his door inside :) After that we made the homemade root beer that is tradition and let them play on the water slide and the trampoline with the sprinkler on it. Then he finally got to eat his penguin cupcakes, they took forever but I think that they turned out really cute. The kids loved them and their faces were covered in black icing!!! Brayden has awesome friends and got some really great presents that he LOVES!! Nothing is better than knowing your child had a  great party and that night he prayed saying thank you for my party it was so much fun I want another one :)

Kenzie's 4th birthday

This is my beautiful 4 year old, we have been trying to get pictures taken for our wall and so Grandmas will leave me alone. This one is my favorite so far I think but we are going to give it one more try:)

She has gotten so big in this past year it is hard to imagine she is already 4! She has been learning so much in this past year and just LOVES to learn. We do preschool at home and she is always begging for more, she now knows all of her letters big and small and we have moved on to site words. I have several first readers from my sis that she can read by herself now. She loves that she can read and reads them to pretty much anyone that will listen.

Kenzie has finally started to grow some again and finally made it to the 30 pound mark! We were not so sure that she would, it is a big deal to her since she wants to ride in a booster like her brother and couldn't until she weighed at least 30 pounds. She still is pretty short for it so she doesn't get to ride in it very often but she wants to all of the time.

Her favorite things right now are probably art and crafts (anything with paint and glitter glue), play-duh, and baby dolls. Yes I truely have a girlie girl, never thought I would know what to do but it is a lot of fun getting to play house with her.

She says funny things all of the time and I just wanted to write a few from the past year. First that comes to mind is at Sonic she asked for teeter-totters instead of tatter-tots. We told her a whole bunch of times after that it was tatter tots so the next time we went she says "okay I was tic-tots", it is so funny because she is always so serious when saying it you can't help but laugh. When we found out Aunt Charlene was pregnant she announces really loud "I think she should have a girl because I am a girl!".

My favorite memory this year was going to Sea World and taking her on her first roller coaster! She LOVES them she is only tall enough for two but we make sure we do them each time we go. The one is a water ride that drops really fast, like Splash Mountain, she LOVES it we will not even be off and she is asking to go again. She is so big and beautiful and we love every minute with our ditsy girl!


This year Kenzie decided she wanted to have a beach party (probably with some help from us since we bought a big blowup water slide for the kids big gift this year). We made flip-flop invitations that she helped pick out the ribbon and put together. Then we decided that we would decorate flip-flops with everyone at the party. The girls had a lot of fun getting to chose their beads and get them on, it took a little too long but they turned out really cute. After we made out flip-flops they had to dig for treasure in the sandbox where we had hidden little flip-flop key chains. Then daddy had filled water balloons to throw at a picture of a coconut tree that he had drawn, they were suppose to hit the coconuts with the balloons. It was so funny since not one of the girls threw them hard enough to pop when they hit the wall! Then they got to play on the big water slide which they loved and it was so funny to see them all having a good time and get to relax. After that we had a flip-flop cake that I made and opened the presents. She got lots of great presents from all of her friends. We got a picture of all of the girls feet wearing their new flip-flops before they left. It was a lot of fun and I loved watching Kenzie be so happy :)

Vacation

We went to a family reunion in Colorado to start out our vacation and then we had time to ourselves. This was the first time that we took a trip just us and it was a lot of fun, it was hard for it to end.

On the way to Colorado we stopped in New Mexico and visited a volcano, it was a lot of fun Brayden was worried about it erupting even after we told him lots of times it was extint. We drove the rest of the way that day and made it to Manitou Springs, while there we visited a little with everybody but not really enough. We went to see Helen Hunt Falls, Garden of the Gods, Olympic Training Center, Manitou Cliff Dwellings, and Seven Falls. The kids really enjoyed getting to climb and seeing all of the different things they had not seen before. This was there first time to see mountains (at least that they could remember) and it was at about the first hill we started to hear are those mountains? It was a ton of fun getting to see them enjoying everything!

When the reunion ended we drove up to Denver with Mom, Dad, Greyson, and Zach. We saw Coors Field since the boys really wanted to see it, not that exciting for us since we live close to one, but it was nice to see Greyson and Zach so happy!!! Then we started to drive up to Rocky Mountain National Park, it was so cool getting up there but it took forever. We ended up having to stay in a hotel up there and do the park the next day. We started out early and walked up Adam Falls first which was the best waterfall that we saw. The bigger boys went to climb a little bit extra while mom and I took the girls and Brayden to the top of the falls. We let them play in the stream up there and it was so funny to watch their faces when they realized how cold it was. After that we drove through the park, we found snow and let them get out and play in it for a little bit. It was not really in a great spot to play but we wanted to say they had played in snow in JULY! We drove the whole road and were over 2 miles above sea level, we ate lunch with them and then stopped and got their Jr Ranger badges and then they had to leave. So they started to drive home and we headed back to Manitou Springs for just our time.

By the time we made it there it was too late to put up the tent so we stayed in a hotel that night. The next morning we went out to the camp site and set everything up. Then we went into Garden of the Gods again and actually got to do more hiking and found the easier paths down in the middle so we could push Kaylee. The next day we did the Air Force Academy, a really old fashioned arcade with penny games, and then camped again. After that it was time to head home which was really sad but we had a great time!!! We have decided we have to do more things just us since it really made the whole trip better :)

While the boys were gone in Illinois, the girls and I got a lot of hang out time. We did a bunch of art stuff and went swimming tons. I did not get pictures of much, but we made some butterfly banks one day and I got a few pictures. I wanted to put these up since butterflies are Kaylee's favorite thing. I can only get her to wear things that have butterflies on them, we are now up to four shirts that we can rotate :) They are both getting so big! It is so fun watching them learn so much new stuff, but hard at the same time that my babies are already 2 and 3 (might be time for another baby)!

To get ready for the big night we did a few science projects from Brayden's book. We did soda geysers and we made some homemade ice cream. The soda geysers everyone loved and wanted to help out so they could get messy. However the ice cream the kids did not think that it looked like fun to shake them, so the adults got stuck making each of them. We had a good time just hanging out at home through the day not making it a huge deal and not being in this horrible heat all day!!





We went to the fireworks with Charlene, Aaron, their friend Bradley, Lorena, Jesus, and kids, Erica, and Helder! It was so much fun being together and hanging out. I got glow sticks for the kids again ahead of time and had swords for the boys and butterfly wands for the girls. They love getting them and I love always having that little tradition for the fireworks. I had bough some suckers ahead of time for them since it was Sunday so I knew we would not be buying anything there. It was so cute while we were waiting they were sitting and having their suckers and Kaylee kept licking her wand thinking it was her sucker. She was so cute doing it her face was priceless.



Brock is getting so big and really just sat off to the side with Sebastian, it is starting already where he is thinking he is too good for us:) It is not going to be much longer and hanging out with the family is not going to be cool anymore! Brayden and Kenzie loved the fireworks, they continued on the Cluver tradition of yelling out which ones were theirs. Brayden liked the rainbow ones and the ones that looked like spaceships. Kenzie liked anything that was purple and pink of course!!! Kaylee was probably the most fun this year since she actually wanted to see them, but they started going off and she just kept saying no, no, no, stop, stop, stop. I looked at her and she didn't looked worried so I was not sure what to think, so I told her that they were suppose to be doing it and then it was right away, pretty, pretty, pretty. It cracked me up!!!

Okay well I wanted to do this to write fun little things that the kids do around here all the time. This was a while ago but I want to remember it. Kenzie always helps me cook dinner and when I am putting in something the kids do not like I just tell her it is for flavor. Mainly this is about onions since they all say they do not like them, but I put them tons of things and they just do not know it. Well the other day we are in playing with Kenzie's kitchen and we are making pretend soup. We have put in vegetables and noddles and then she says we are going add chocolate milk to it. I say "Oh I do not know about that in soup" she replies "mom it is just for flavor". I had already gotten a good laugh out of that, when we are sitting "eating" our soup a little bit later and she says "see mom you can't taste it, it was just for flavor!" It was so cute I just about died, she was just as serious as can be:)

Trying to get Kaylee's 2nd Birthday Pics taken

She was NOT very happy about having to go and take more pictures. When you tell her to smile she just says "smile" and keeps that same straight face! I will probably take her back out later today or tomorrow and try for a few more but these will do for now.

Not sure about this.................

Well I decided to give blogging a try I am sure it will take me awhile to get into this.  I wanted to try so family and friends that are far away can keep up with our family.  If it has been a while sine you have seen us, the kids are getting HUGE.  Brock is 8 and just about ready to end 2nd grade, Brayden is 6 about ready to end Kindergarten, Mackenzie is 3, and Makaylee is 2.  Yes if you were keeping track that is 4 kids in 6 years, funny but I always wondered how my mom could have us all so close together.  Then we were in the hospital and Chad points out to me that my first four are as close as her first four were!!!  Although we will not be going for 7 :)   We live in Sugar Land, TX and really love it down here.  Chad has a good job were he no longer has to be offshore on oil rigs (which I love) and he is home with the kids!  We live in a really nice neighborhood that is a great place to raise our kids.  I will try and put up pics of the kids and house and stuff soon, I am not sure I have ever really taken pictures of our house so it will be nice to have some.  Well hopefully I will have sometime to work on this and have some new pics and info each week, at least for the Grandparents :)