From Butterflies to Lizards

Back in South Jordan Alison was obsessed with butterflies and would spend hours outside trying to catch them. Here in St. George it has gone from butterfly catching to lizard catching. They are everywhere here, especially as the weather cools during a rainstorm. So far she has not been able to catch one. If you look in the bottom left picture there is a tiny one between the bottom of the second and third brick from the left. They grow bigger than that but that's the first one Hollie found to take a picture of.

Spencer (Pictures to bribe him with when he is older)

Spencer and Brittney have been playing together while the other kids are at school. One day Britt had her barbie down in the kitchen and had to leave for a moment. When she came back she found Spencer playing with it. She gently took it away from him and he SCREAMED! He threw a horrible tantrum. She ran upstairs and grabbed another barbie for him to play with and he immediately stopped the tantrum. Then the two of them played barbies for a while. I couldn't resist taking pictures of it to embarrass him with when he's older. The picture on the left is to show off his Jack-O-Lantern teeth. For some reason his other front tooth will not pop through and it's been a few weeks since it looked like it would. His teeth and his happy personality just makes us laugh

River Outside Our Front Door

With the monsoon rains we've been getting some amazing storms. This week we were watching the lightening in the sky and the rain pouring down when we saw a basketball (seen in the middled picture) floating down a big rush of water in the gutters. Alison went out to rescue it and the kids begged to play out in the raging waters. Since the lightening had stopped Hollie let them. By the time they got out there the water had reduced significantly but it was still enough to float their balls and a few toys down a ways.

Brittney's World

Brittney has been having so much fun lately. The picture to the left is her chef hat from when they played restaurant at preschool. The top right is when she did her hair "herself!" And the bottom right is of her and a girl a couple houses down who she has been playing with.

"Does This Match"

Kyle came down one morning wearing this. Hollie tried ever so gently to get him to change. He didn't buy into the notion that it didn't match because both the shirt and pants had the same color in them. A small debate started and they decided to ask people on Facebook their opinion. This turned out to be quite a funny post and ended up with 63 comments. Here are a few of our favorites:

 

Brynelle Thomas: Heck yes that matches!!! (Kurt wrote that)

 

Kyle Alverson: This is what I wear to work. I am one of the proud men left in this world that will not let his wife dress him.

Shannon Kirby Ipson: My first thoughts were "Am I seeing through a kaleidoscope?" My eyes had to adjust to the crazy :)

Kyle Alverson: Not every man is as confident as I am.

Bryan J Hurd: Please don't let people see him in public.

Miranda Hardle: Ummm, if confidence is what you want to call it then yes, no man does have as much as you ;) 

Shaie Humphries: I was going to like this post because I thought the conversation was pretty funny, but then realized Kyle might take that to mean I thought his outfit matches. :-)

Kyle Alverson: A man's wardrobe is one of the last freedoms that I refuse to forsake. I can take pictures of a lot of other dudes in my hood that also are bent on retaining this freedom.

Pam Bennett: if you're 80 years old in a retirement center!!!!!

Tiffany Young: But thanks for the laugh!! That picture my be permanently burned into my retinas!! That is a very bold wardrobe choice, maybe that is what the hoods of St George are into now!! haha. I may have to share that picture!!

Matthew Fusano: I think by "dudes in the hood" he means retired old men that can't even see let alone know if what they are wearing matches but I still stand by him wearing what he wants.

Hollie Anne Alverson:  Bryan J. Hurd I'm glad you are enjoying it because we may need your help again to move far away where it is always cold and you have to wear a coat no matter what clothes you chose to wear. Either that or I'll have to resort to Tiffany Young's idea and invest in a comfortable paper bag to wear over my head.

Shannon Mayne Freer:  Lol! This has a name...CLASHING. It is a lesson I taught my girls when they were 3 and dressing themselves. Putting different designs/colors/patterns together is called mix matching...This really reminded me of when I worked in an Alzheimer's unit and we had to hide their clothes. This is what they looked like when they found clothes and dressed themselves. Haha

Shirley Freer: I so happy you and Kyle can have such "fun". Keep it up forever. Kyle, we love you

Trisha Bush texted "Poor Kyle, does he have any self esteem left?"

Kyle responded, "Fortunately for me, my self esteem comes from other sources. If it came from the comments I would be suicidal right now."

There were so many other good comments but we couldn't include them all. Kyle claims he knew it didn't match and was just doing it to drive Hollie crazy. It worked! :)

First Day of School

August 14th was the first day of school for four of the kids. Alison started fourth grade with Mr. Garcia; Tyler started second grade with Mrs. Thomas; Katelyn started first grade in the Chinese
Dual Immersion program so she has two teachers: her English speaking one is Mrs. Murphy and her Chinese one is Mrs. Jia; and Brittney started her first day of preschool with Mrs. Sanchez and Mrs. Hurd. She is also doing an online preschool through Utah Upstart and works at least 15 minutes a day 5 days a week playing reading games as well as learning other fun things. Currently she is on it for almost an hour a day and begs to play the computer. The house is much more quiet now, it's so different!

Katelyn Lost Her First Tooth!

August 11, Kate lost her very first tooth. She was SO excited! The Tooth Fairy came and brought her a gold dollar, a certificate, and a book.

"Brown Vanilla"

Tyler hates chocolate anything. We ordered a white cake for Spencer's birthday but after cutting into it we found the bakery had messed up the order instead making a chocolate cake with strawberry filling. After waiting all day for it Tyler almost started to cry. Kyle told him it was "brown vanilla" so he tried it and really liked it. But if asked, he still hates chocolate. Hmmmm....

Spencer's First Birthday

Our little baby turned one! We just had a small family party and celebrated with a "Despicable Me" theme since we saw the "Despicable Me 2" a few weeks before and Spencer loved the Minions in it. We bought the first movie and watched it after eating cake, opening presents, and swimming. As a tradition we buy the kids a Mylar birthday balloon. Kyle picked up Spencer's and we had it tied to his high chair. Brittney, who is four, decided to play with it and decided to pop it by purposely stepping on it. For her punishment we made her hold up the balloon in all the pictures. Now it is actually kind of funny, but when it happened we were a little upset with her.

Kyle's 40th Birthday

Kyle's actual 40th birthday was a lot quieter. Kyle had the day off and he spent the day organizing things. We went out to Chuck-A-Rama (one of the kids favorite) and just enjoyed time together as a family. Spencer was a hit with all the old ladies at the restaurant.