button bunch

piers, bats 'n peter pan

2012-01-29T23:45:00.005-05:00

Okay, so Berni spent an hour writing all the captions to these pics and somehow they got erased. So please forgive the shortness of the rewrite and non funny nature (hers were hilarious). All the beach pics in this post were an hour north of where we live (avala beach) at a cool town w/ a few piers. This became our back up when the farm that we were going to go and visit was closed for the season. Kids had a great time-the restaraunt where we had lunch served the kids meals on frisbees-BONUS! It was a beautiful day despite the wind.

Makay is showing off her sand pie.

This bat in our entry way kept our kids and all their neighborhood friends entertained for a couple hours-don't think it got much rest.

If our kids ever start a band I think we'll use this for the album cover.

Creed getting ready to catch.

Beckham posing with his cool new fiz-uh-bee.

Wacky dollar store glasses = wacky kids.

Parker with her "self-manager" certificate that she has now been awarded two years in a row. You go girl!

Last but definitely not least...Berni is expecting (14 wks along) Button #6! We are all very excited. The boys would like a boy and the girls would like a girl. The kids are always coming up with names for the baby. Berni's favorite so far is from Creed, he has suggested Peter Pan Button. We will keep you posted!

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-19T00:21:00.001-05:00

Fun and Gore

2011-10-30T22:46:00.005-04:00

Happy Halloween!! What a wonderful time of year for children of all ages. I know the BIG day is tomorrow but we have already had some fun and gruesome times this weekend. I wanted to share them with you before we are all shut down by sugar induced comas tomorrow.

So today after church we thought it would be good family time to carve our pumpkins. Ryan pulled out the camera and had everyone smile while continuing with their work.

That wasn't good enough for Makay though. She demanded another picture of her posing by her pumpkin.

This was the scene on our back porch. I love this picture because it looks like we actually have growing grass.

Parker, gutting her pumpkin (doesn't that sound so morbid and festive?).

Easton... up-side-down

Creed... not actually sitting on his pumpkin, but he really got into gutting it.

Beckham... not really sure what was going on but loving that he got his own pumpkin and scoop

A picture of the finished products will be coming soon.

Last night was our ward trunk-or-treat. It was pretty great. Here are the kids in their costumes... the cutest vampire ever (sorry Edward)

Beckhams vampire role model, very in character here, was Easton.

The funniest Harry Potter I've ever seen (Ryan and I laughed till our sides hurt over this picture, what a clown Creed is!)!

Miss Magic herself, Parker. She picked the costume and I made the accessories (necklace and hair feathers). Once I was done with her hair, makeup and she was all dressed I wanted to take it all away... way too beautiful! I'm not ready for that!!!

It's hard to tell from this picture that Makay has metallic makeup on her face. I mention it because it almost looks like dirt from where I'm sitting. She was the perfect little fairy though. We made her jewelry too and she was so excited that she got a necklace that had a crystal on it!!

So that was it for the fun that we had this weekend. As for the gore... Ryan video taped me removing Eastons stitches. It's such a hassle having to make an appointment just for 3 minutes of cutting stitches out so I took matters into my own hands. I went online and found step by step how to remove stitches; thank you internet! (and it only ended up taking me 10 minutes)

The start was a bit shaky, Eastons skin had grown over some of the stitches and I had to get in the right position but as you can see by the end, I'm a total pro! For those of you who are already feeling queezy, there is no blood, just a lot of screaming and crying (just kidding).

Never a Dull Moment

2011-10-23T19:20:00.003-04:00

The weather here has been so beautiful lately! I love the fall in Cali. It's cool in the evenings and mornings and then perfect during the day to play outside and enjoy nature. Most people look forward to weather like this. If, on the other hand, you have five active children, it can bring a whole new element to enjoying the outdoors; danger!

Most kids have a certain amount of clumsiness. Being accident prone is part of being a kid. But, the more kids you have, the higher your chances are of those accidents actually happening.

Take for instance, a club house. It's just a bunch of branches that hang just right to make a little den, the kids have named it "7-up" (I have no idea why). The kids have been playing back in 7-up since we moved to this house 11 months ago. Then, all in one week, three of our kids slipped while climbing some branches and got some nasty scrapes. Beckhams' was definitely the worst and Parker asked to be removed from the picture (she's 9, do I need to explain any more?). (and I don't know why Beckham and Makay are wearing each others pillow cases)

This last Wednesday was a half day, as usual. Half days are fun because the kids can get their chores and homework done early and then have lots of time to play outside in the beautiful weather. Well, this Wednesday took a turn for the worse. Easton was playing with a friend in his yard and soon came home with a bloody tissue pressed to his leg.

Luckily there wasn't much pain with this gaping wound because it turned into quite the ordeal. Ryan had the car at work with him because they were running through disaster exercises all week. I called his work trying to get him to come home and he was out of the office doing a field exercise. The poor guy had to be tracked down with walkie talkies and told his son had to go to the hospital.

Ryan made it home, we all jumped in the car and took him back to work. Then I dropped the kids off at a friends house and Easton and I went to the nearest ER in Lompoc. I couldn't believe it was our first visit to the ER since we moved here. We were frequent flyers in Pittsburgh.

Anyway, Easton got 6 beautiful stitches and a frosty from Wendy's. (It has kind of become a tradition since Makay got one when she broke her clavical in Pittsburgh.) If things really do come in threes then I don't want to know what is coming next!

Along with our injuries have come some really good times and some pretty funny conversations. On our anniversery weekend we were heading home from church and Ryan asked the kids how they knew that mom and dad loved each other. Easton said he knew we loved each other because we are always hugging and kissing each other "in inappropriate places." !!!! What?!? Ryan asked him what he meant and he said, "Like how you always kiss in the kitchen and when you were kissing each other at the pool in front of other people. So gross!" Haha. We got a good laugh out of that one and our inappropriate kissing.

Here Makay got clever with a belt and made a "bunny pack"

For some reason, boxes are better then toys at our house. I thought the kids would have grown out of that stage once they were, um, 2 years old, but apparently not. Any new box, if not carefully protected by me, becomes subject to their imagination.

This one became a house that helped Makay sleep. She kept her head in it's house for three nights before it magically disappeared. She was very upset when she couldn't find it on the fourth night because "How am I supposed to sleep when my head doesn't have a house?"

How do you argue with that?

Pictures and Parties!

2011-10-06T16:13:00.006-04:00

Each day when the kids get home from school we go through the same routine. . .
-park bikes in garage
-do chores
-eat snack
-get our pencil and homework
-give mom all papers from school and start homework

Maybe it's just me or just Crestview (our elementary school) but it seems like there are a ton of papers for me every single day. Okay, that was an exageration, on average there are 2 or 3 from each kid a day. To me, that seems like a lot. Especially for someone who is unorganized, like me.

Anyway, to finally get where I'm going, my kids brought home school picture order forms. If I was to get the cheapest packets it would have cost us $180 for pictures and there wouldn't have even been enough to send to all the grandparents! No thank you! So instead of forking over a ton of dough that I don't have we had a little photo shoot. It turned out pretty succesful considering the budget I had ($0).

Apparently just walking outside gets Beckham completely dirty. So just this short venture to our fence left Beckhams face all mucked up, I have no idea how it happened. It's a good thing he's even cute when he's dirty.

Beckham decided that he wanted to go all out so he started posing and improvising all on his own. It was pretty funny.

He was even saying cheese here.

Parker is too cute for her own good if you ask me. I can't believe she's in third grade!!

The only way I could get Easton to pose for the camera was to let him have goofy pictures throughout. This is his impression of smashing into a glass door.

Having adult size teeth in these little kids mouths really changes their looks. Yeah it's a little goofy but it's like getting a glimps of their teenage years and it scares the heck out of me!

Poor Creed has no idea how to "smile naturally." Plus he has allergies so being out in the brush really made it hard to get a normal picture of him. I have more pictures of him with his eyes closed or making a weird face then I have of decent ones. The funny thing is that most of the goofy ones are truer to who he really is.

Makay loves being in front of the camera! The only hard part about her shoot was picking which picture to use.

Ryan and I just finished reading "The Hunger Games" (thanks Melinda!). One night while I was reading to Ryan, Meatball came in and wanted some attention from Ryan. Once he figured out that that wasn't going to happen he made himself comfortable at the foot of our bed. I thought it was adorable but I had to hurry and take the picture before Ryan kicked him off the bed (literally). Our little Meatball is a funny character but may not be with us for too much longer. I love the little guy but why do pets insist on being so needy? Can't they figure out that they have to be low maintenence or they'll get the boot? We shall see.

The kids ran in and asked if they could go inside our neighbors house to play with their friends. I said no, we only play outside with our friends. This is how they thought outside the box. I walked outside and found them watching a movie with their friends not inside their house.

Parker had her 9th birthday party on the 24th! It was a butterfly theme, very girly and fun. She had five friends over so of course we turned them all into butterflys.

Thanks to Orientel Trader we had butterfly things coming out of our ears! Heaven for Parker.

I found face painting things at Michaels so a few days before the party I did some practicing. The kids loved it and want it every day now. I would but by the end of the day it's a pretty big mess, yikes!

Beckham takes his super heroing very seriously.

Makay was born to be a butterfly

Creed got all the way into character and had his cape on

Easton later added his cape as well (thank you grandma button for providing super hero attire)

Parker was pretty excited about her transformation. She said she really did want to take Meatball for a walk (she usually complains) and had him out walking around the neighborhood for almost 40 minutes.

One of the guys that works with Ryan was transferred on Monday so we had a little going away party for him the week after Parkers party. We played some minute to win it games and it turned out really fun!

This is Master Sargent Knight and civilian Amy playing the "chocolate unicorn" minute to win it game.

This game was my favorite just because I can actually do it. You have to stack three chap sticks on top of each other using only chop sticks to touch them. Ryan and I stayed up the night before trying out the games and seeing if they were possible to play without prior practice. I had some very strange muscles that were sore the next day.

This is Chris, the one who's moving to Colorado to be with his new wife and soon-to-be born baby. It was really fun getting together with everyone that Ryan works with. He talks about them when he gets home but I hardly ever get to see them myself.

Overall, September was a pretty big party month for us, yee-haw!!

Summer in a flash

2011-09-11T22:20:00.005-04:00

This summer has been great. Of course there is never time to blog about all of it. So, instead of feeling guilty all the time I'm going to give you our simmer in fast forward, but because of the strange loading of pictures, it will be in no particular order.

For some strange reason the kids were feeling very united this night. They all gathered together and demanded I take their picture. As always, their wish is my command.

This is our new dog "Meatball". No we didn't name him, his previous owner did, but I would totally take the credit for it. This is when he was super shaggy. I have cut his hair since then and he looks so much cuter!

Creed and Lincoln in Lehi Utah. My mom and I took the kids to the library one morning so the other adults could finish a work project. Personally, I think we ended up doing more work then they did, hehehe.

Maizi (sorry guys, I don't know how to spell her name!) and Beckham being as cute as can be!

Creed with his birthday cake. It's supposed to be a bike rider at the top of a big muddy hill at the finish line. It kind of turned into a big chocolaty mess, but it tasted great!

Grandma Button is the maker of super heroes. Now all the boys race around the house rescuing us from daily peril.

Our girl bonding time. I love hair dye! If I can't do it to my own hair then I'm going to do it to my daughters hair (with their permission of course!).

Poor Beckham got a Costco cake, but he loved picking it out and honestly, he won't remember this birthday anyway. I'm good for another year, then I'll have to make his too.

We dog sat for some people that Ryan works with. Our dog is a Yorkshire Terrier. This dog was a Rat Terrier. Sadly the dogs didn't get along so we had to keep them seperated for four days, YIKES!

We had fun at a Vandenberg AFB celebration. The kids got to go on the bouncy obstacle course, play tug-a-war, win prizes, all kinds of good stuff.

The younger kids got to play on a bouncy house. Makay jumped right in and never came out again. Beckham tried it but had a lot more fun playing on the little entrance slide. Oh how different they are!

This is meatball when we first got him. He's a little smaller here. He's up to about five or six pounds now.

This is some of the summer fun we had in our back yard.

The water never even had to get warmed by the sun, it was perfect.

Easton wanted his own pool so people wouldn't splash him: this is what he got. Then of course, all the kids faught over the little pool. Ugh!

Now that school is back in we should get back on track with blogging too (the important word in that sentence is "should"). It was so great to see most of our family this summer, it was a total blast even though we ended up driving almost 6,000 miles by the end of summer!!!

Father son camping and family service project

2011-06-20T00:19:00.009-04:00

Missed a few months, so here's what's been going on. Kids are hard at work here, doing what they love best...breaking things! Service projects are a great outlet for destructive tendencies.

After breaking up and loading the bricks the kids were excited unload them at the magical land of "dump"...very sad when they weren't allowed to explore.

Who needs string? Just glue the mask to your face and it stays on all day!

Dress up time!

Had a barbecue with our friends who have their very own bouncy house...uh, luckyyyy. Kids had a blast.

Passed this on the way to Father Sons Campout. It was closed at the time, but I'm sure it's gotta be the second most happiest place on earth.

Beckham and Creed having fun with horseshoes. Concentrate...

Happy campers!

The boys and I had a great time, it was nice to spend time with them after being gone for a couple months...love em all!

Spring Break in San Diego!

2011-04-25T11:17:00.005-04:00

I FINALLY got my computer back!! You have no idea how long a month can be until you have lived through one with no computer (mostly meaning "Internet"). What did people do in the 70's and early 80's?

Since Ryan has been gone (8 weeks now with two more to go) we have been having two of the young women from the ward come over twice a week to play with and watch the kids so I can clean the house and such, uninterrupted. The girls are great and the kids adore them. Easton took it upon himself to teach Nancy (17) how to play xbox kinect. It was hilarious hearing him encouraging her, "that's okay, you're doing a really good job." it was like he was the 17 year old.

Creed has become the self proclaimed funny man (also what the kids call Jerry Lewis) of the house. He takes his role very seriously. In school they made leprechaun paraphernalia that Creed loved to wear. He became an expert hat repairer (he was a little more generous with the tape then I would have liked) but that hat lasted three days! I think by the end there was more tape then hat left.The thought of having the kids home for an entire week by myself brought tears to my eyes so I called up ol' ma and pa and asked if I could share the torture, I mean joy, of spring break with them. They were so great to agree.

We drove down to San Diego on Friday without a scratch on the car (which was amazing!). I knew that driving for almost 6 hours with 5 kids in the car would not be easy; but that was kind of an understatement. Yikes!!

Aunt Brittany was nice enough to let us come spend Saturday at the Bunker house. The kids weren't even afraid of the dog this time. We had a little pizza party for lunch ... (notice the funny man)

and then took a walk to a local park. I thought it funny that Brittany brought a stroller for Austin and yet my kids were the only ones I ever saw in it. I think Austin only got a couple of minutes in it. But not to worry, when he wasn't in the stroller he was usually being accompanied by the hand (weather he liked it or not).

There was an amazing area by the park that the kids LOVED. There were all kinds of statues and colors, snakes (not real) and rocks. We could have spent much longer there.

Of course each kid wanted a picture of themselves on each statue. Brittany was much nicer then me and I think she took about 100 pictures of the kids climbing, posing and being silly.

It really was cool to walk around and see everything there. Just the rocks and glass that were used was really fun to look at.

Easton is standing on a snake head if you hadn't noticed. He wanted to have is arm in there like the snake was eating him but then decided to go with his "Native American pose." I think he got it off Pocahontas.

So Parker and Avery went with the "being eaten" pose. If you haven't seen the movie Madagascar there is a part where Alex the Lion turns wild and bites his friend Marty on the rear end. The kids are normally not supposed to dwell on that part because they end up saying the world "butt." Anyway, it was pretty funny when Creed saw Parker and Avery posing and said under his breath, "Uh Alex, you're biting my butt!"

This was the main statue in the middle. I should have taken a picture of the underside of the inside of it too, it was pretty amazing.

So that concluded our Saturday with the Bunkers. We watched General Conference on Sunday and then geared up for a week long party. On Tuesday we went to mission bay and then on Wednesday we went back again with the Bunkers. It was a cool day, temperature wise, but that didn't stop the kids.

Seriously, we were chilly just standing there watching them. They played in the water for a good 30 minutes though. We had just bought new bathing suits for all the kids the day before. If they had one like Maks in my size I totally would have gotten it. Grandma Kim described it perfectly when she said she looks like a birthday party.

It was really hard trying to get all the kids together for a group photo.

Finally we got six out of the seven and we called it good.

That is Makay, Avery, Parker, Creed, Easton and Beckham. Where is Austin you ask? He was the only one with sense enough to be cold.

When the kids finally came out, Grandma was great for warming them up.

We forgot to bring kites, thank goodness for Brittany. Easton loves kites and at first was a little embarrassed to be seen with an Aerial kite but he got over that pretty fast. How the heck did my little boy grow up into such a big kid so fast!?! Look at him, he's huge!!!

There was a playground near by so the kids ran around and warmed up while the women cooked dinner on a mini grill. I think it was a first, not having a man there to do the grilling (insert a Tim the Tool Man Taylor grunt here).

The kids adore Austin and Avery! I just hope they didn't "adore" them too much. 5 kids, all giving too much of a good thing can get a little overwhelming sometimes.

Over all it was a party week and very bearable for me, so by all accounts, a success. Thanks mom and dad for being our entertainment for what would have been, a very rough week. Britt, it was great to see you and the kids! And a special shout out to cold stone creamery, thanks for letting us women (me, Britt and Mary) have some much needed (at least on my part) therapy. Oh, and also to Jared and Andy for letting me steal your wives because I don't have a husband right now. I have the best friends and family in the world!!

A Conversation with Creed

2011-03-10T17:32:00.002-05:00

Creed is the joke-ster in our family. He is always doing something silly trying to get his brothers and sisters to laugh. But his funniest moments have always been when he wasn't trying to be. Case in point:

Creed wanted to wear a Spider Man shirt to school one day. Our conversation went something like this...

Me- "Creed, you can't wear that to school, please pick another shirt."

Creed- "Why can't I wear it?"

Me- "Because it's a character shirt, it's against your schools dress code."

Creed- "What?"

Me- "YOU JUST CAN'T WEAR THE SHIRT OKAY, PICK ANOTHER ONE!"

Creed- "But other people wear character shirts (I knew he had heard me). Girls wear Justin Beaver (Bieber) shirts all the time and I never get in trouble when I wear mine. So why can't I wear Spider Man?"

Me- "Creed, you don't have a Justin Bieber shirt."

Creed- "Yes hu!"

Creed ran to get the proof and prove me wrong.

Of course Creed has a Justin Bieber shirt, what was I thinking.

Me- "Okay, you have Justin Bieber but you still can't wear your Spider Man shirt."

Creed- "WHAT!?! AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!"

He's hilarious

Goodbye Ryan

2011-03-04T19:13:00.002-05:00

I have no pictures for this post so I'll keep it short. Maybe then it will be bearable. Ryan left on February 28 to go for some Public Health training on a base in Ohio. He is going to be gone for 10 weeks, 2 1/2 whole months. That is such a long time, I don't know how I'm going to handle it when he gets deployed. But so far things are going great. The kids are helping out a ton and we have things functioning way better then I thought they would be. My house is even staying clean (not magically by itself though).

I just wanted to get everyone caught up and now I'll get on the ball and take some pictures. Creed was citizen of the month and I didn't even take pictures, I'm such a bad parent. My poor middle child!

Introducing Jack!

2011-02-01T20:06:00.004-05:00

Congratulations to Parker and Easton for their school awards! Parker received the highest award their school gives; a self manager award. They only give it out three different times during the year, this being the second. She gets to wear a button to school every day proclaiming to all of her accomplishment. It also allows her to have special privileges. (It's a little over the top for my taste but Parker is very into it)

Easton was awarded the citizen of the month award for his first grade class...

and he got to give "Paws" a high five!

Now for our other news. We have been planning this for a while but didn't want to spill the beans until it was official. Please welcome the newest member of the Button family!

Meet Jack, our new puppy. We drove four hours away on Saturday to Norco where there is a gentle giants dog rescue. We saw a couple of dogs there but Jack was our favorite. He hadn't been vet checked yet so I had to drive back the next day to pick him up and bring him home. He is a brindle colored Great Dane who loves to be loved.

Looking at him in comparison to our kids you get an idea of how big he is. Already he is above the average height of a Great Dane and he still has 15 months of growing to do. Leave it to me to pick the biggest dog they had.

The kids are LOVING having him around. He's been a little hesitant with a new home and family to get used to but he's doing great!

We found a giant dog bed online and he claimed that pretty quick. I just hope it's still big enough when he's full grown!

Right now his rear end is up higher then his head which means he's in the middle of a growth spurt. It's crazy, his back is higher then our kitchen table. He can walk up to it and perfectly rest his chin on the top, yikes.

He wouldn't hold still for a picture standing up so we just had Easton lay down next to him for a comparison. All my life I have wanted a dog and now I finally have one. I have the best husband in the world to let me get a dog. Thank you baby!!! This was the best birthday present ever!!!!

Meet the Kids!

2011-01-23T22:14:00.004-05:00

Hello everyone,

So my mom is crazy unorganized and can't find things all the time. (Don't tell her I said that though) She couldn't find the cord to the camera to download our pictures for like, ever. She's like, way stressed out, so when she finally found it I thought it would help her out by doing the family post for her. (Plus, her posts are pretty boring (don't tell her I said that either!))

So hello, I'm Parker. A little bit about my favorite subject, Me. I LOVE attention. I'm really good at reading and spelling. I get all A's on my spelling tests. I'm not bragging, I'm just telling you the truth. My favorite color is probably pink but I change it up a lot. I love to ride my bike!

Let me tell you about my brothers and sister. Easton was born next. His birthday is coming up on the 4th and he's going to be 7. He says that's old, but I'm still older then him. Easton loves to draw and I guess he's pretty good at it too. We ride bikes together with our friends that live by us. We usually play "war" boys against girls. The boys always say they won but they didn't, the girls almost always win! He just lost one of his top front teeth. Maybe I can take a picture and post it because he looks funny with it gone. We all laughed when mom yanked it out.

This is Creed, he was born after Easton. He's 5 1/2 and in kindergarten. We all walk to school together and Creed is always complaining that he's tired. I know that he's not though because they already fixed his heart and he doesn't have holes in it any more. Creed is really goofy and always makes us laugh, especially at bed time and at dinner time.

The other day Creed was complaining to mom that girls got to do things that boys don't (because I got to go inside my friends house to play with dolls and the boys couldn't) and that it's wrong! "Martha Lutha King" said that we could all do the same things! (We all learned about Martin Luther King Jr. in school last week) Mom thought he was pretty funny that time but I don't know why because Creed wasn't even trying to be funny then.

Makay is my little sister. EVERYBODY says that she has beautiful eyes. Makay loves to play dress up and take her stuffed animals on walks, take care of her babys, things like that. She got a bike that has training wheels on it for Christmas so she can ride outside with us now. She does pretty well but when we go on family bike rides, SHE TAKES FOREVER!!

This is our baby, Beckham. We all love him and usually he's really fun to play with. He's funny too. If we tell him to show us him bum bum, he turns around and sticks his bum out! We laugh forever when he does that. He likes to take rides on our backs like we are horses and follow us around at the park. It's okay, he's a pretty good little brother to have. Plus, all of our friends love him and are always asking if he can come along.

Now that you know a little about us I'll tell you about some of the things we have been doing lately. Last Sunday we got board so Easton started pulling us around the kitchen on his blanket. He wouldn't give me one because he said I was too big, whatever!, but he gave them to everyone else. Easton makes a pretty good sled dog.

Mom ordered some shoes online and they finally came. Like I said, Makay loves to dress up. She likes mom shoes but she can only really stand in them, every time she tried to walk she fell over.

She didn't really care that she couldn't walk though. She stood in them for a really long time.

Beckham still plays with his food a lot. We had oranges for snack and he had to separate all the sections and then lined them up before he ate any of them. My mom said, " like Mother like son," but I don't know why.

We spend Christmas in Washington with our Button grandparents. We could only stay a few days and we had to drive FOREVER (17 hours one way!), but we had a lot of fun. We hadn't been there in so long so we had a ton of fun with our cousins and uncles and aunts. We had SO much fun in fact that mom and dad forgot to take pictures! I keep telling them they should just buy me one and then they wouldn't have to worry about it. They never listen to me though. (don't tell them I said that! but it's true!)

Uncle Nick has a real guitar and we all got to take turns with it. Grandma is really good at piano and we got to play with that a little too.

This was the other picture they took. Grandma sewed a lot and made all the grand kids some really cool things for Christmas. This was Eastons crayon caddy. We all got one with cool fabric (mine is purple and pink with sparkles and buttons on it). We also got our very own pillow cases and books!

Before we left for Christmas we got our chairs in the mail. We have a cool fire place at our house and you turn it on like you turn on the light, it's awesome! My mom turned it into our reading area so we got chairs and a rug to go in front of the fire place. Makay likes it the most, whenever we can't find her we just go to the fireplace and she is on the floor in front of it with her toes stuck in the heat vents (she hates wearing socks so her feet are always cold).

This was one night of our Christmas break when Dad was giving Easton rides by pulling him on the floor who was giving Beckham rides by letting him sit on his back. It was pretty funny, Becks kept saying, "yeehaw."

We had a Christmas party for the people that work with my dad. Grandma Kim was in town and she helped my mom get things ready. They made the house look really nice. All the adults stayed in the kitchen and living room and talked and stuff and the kids got to play in the garage. It was poring rain so we turned our garage into the play room and we put our toy house in there and we had huge moving boxes, it was awesome!

These are all the adults from the party. The guy on the left, Mr. Hays, made like 50 deserts and we got to try ALL of them. The fudge was our favorite so we told the little kids to go in and sneak some into the garage for us. (don't tell my parents)

Two days before that party we had Makays 4th birthday party. Grandma and mom made a cool cake with fondant, (it's like edible play dough! (we snuck some of that too)) and we had a lot of fun.

One of Makies presents was a monkey from Grandma Button. It's big and it makes monkey noises and claps it's hands and stuff. It's really cool and Makay LOVES it! She even takes it with her when we go to the store and stuff, it's really funny. See, here in the picture, she did her hair and her monkeys hair to match!

Well, that's about all we have been doing. Feel free to tell my mom how much you liked my post. Maybe she will see that people like mine more then hers and she'll let me do it all the time! Bye.

2010-12-12T19:12:00.008-05:00

I know everyone was worried that something had happened to us, but we are alive, no worries. Things have been somewhat crazy for us lately as far as normal everyday life, routines, our personal belongings. We are finally getting back on track though. Hence, the blog update.

Let me fill you in on some things for anyone who doesn't know what's been going on. We packed up our house in Pittsburgh and left for San Diego at the end of July. We left all of our stuff in our house so the Air Force could come, pick it up and move it to Cali for us. We stayed with my parents in San Diego for nine weeks. (Bless them for their patience!) Ryan left for Officer Training Camp in Alabama at the end of August and was gone for five weeks. While he was away the kids and I stayed with my parents and the kids (Parker, Easton and Creed) started school across the street at Sandberg Elementry School.

Ryan finished his training and came back to San Diego on a Friday at the end of September. His parents flew in the next day for Parkers baptism which was on Sunday. It was an amazing baptism by the way. Shanna Riches gave an awesome talk about the Holy Ghost and the spirit was really strong. The Buttons were able to stay for a few days to play with the grand kids and enjoy San Diego. They left on Wednesday evening. Ryan, me and the two youngest kids drove up to Vandenberg AFB the next day to see if we could find some housing. We drove back to San Diego on Saturday, packed up all of our stuff at my parents house and moved to the bases Temporary Housing Facility (TLF) on Monday. WHEW!

We lived in temporary housing for six weeks. The kids settled right into the school that's here on base and all we had to do was wait for them to finish building the house that we were to move into. It was a long wait, I got pretty sick of not having any of our things but I can't complain too much (we had housekeepers come by every day).

Finally, a week before Thanksgiving we were able to move into our new home. Things are still crazy and unorganized but at least we are in a permanent place. So without any more gabbing, here are some pictures of the house!

The Air Force takes care of our front yard for us. The sprinklers are on a timer and they come by once a week and cut the grass. We are in charge of our back yard but I've heard it's pretty serious. They can ticket you if your grass is too long. Yikes.

The other day I heard male voices right outside my front door so I went to see what was going on. Two men where standing in the garden bent over, weeding. Seriously!?!

Our lovely front door and mat that still has the tag on it. I love the bench. they have a thrift store here on base that I found it at.

As you can see, I only have half of our curtains up. I wanted to make sure they would look the way I wanted before I bought all of them. Now I just have to get them finished before any company comes over!

The kids decorated the Christmas tree all by themselves. I handed them the ornaments and they put them where ever they wanted. That is why half the ornaments are on the bottom branches. I love it.

The main living area is all connected so this is from the front window looking to the back yard. I'm not sure if I like the set up yet but so far it's working okay. At least it's easy to keep an eye on the kids.

We divided the carpeted area into living room (off limits to kids) and family room areas. This is the family room area. (Does it look like Parker and Easton are doing River Dance or what?)

This is the view you would have if you opened the door and walked in. We finally found a bench with cubby holes for the kids shoes, I love it! The computer area is right next to that and then what we are calling the library area.

Our backyard is a good size with a cute little patio. We put our old kitchen table out there so the kids can do homework outside on nice days, messy craft projects etc. The grass hadn't grown hardly at all when we got here so they asked us to stay off of it until it came in more. I've been watering it and it doesn't look much different. Did I mention they can ticket us if we let our grass die too?

You can look down and see the whole streets back yards in either direction. Not the most privacy but. . .

we were lucky to get the running trail behind our house. We have all these trees and wild area for the kids to play in and right after that is a trail that goes a couple of miles to the fitness center. The kids love it back there and in fact, now have three different club houses built.

This is our dining room and kitchen area. It's awesome, the fake wood floor they put down doesn't scratch. I'm so thankful!

This is the view from the kitchen to the dining area. As you can see they put the fire place on the other side of the table. Odd place if you ask me but we turned it into a cozy reading area.

We have a bar now, I love it. The kids can do homework while I'm cooking dinner (theoretically) and the best part about it. . . we found red bar stools! Heck yes!!

Okay so this is the kitchen. I know, it's a crazy mess. I'm still trying to figure out where I want all the food to go so it's kind of been a disaster. But, we have a dishwasher now so who cares what the kitchen looks like! Between the dishwasher and having a garbage disposal, I'm in heaven! (Oddly enough we have lived in places for the past five years that have not had either. I never would have thought that a garbage disposal could be such a plus about a house.)

We have a pantry and then a little walk way to the garage door and opposite the laundry room.

Since the laundry room is no longer in the scary, spider infested basement, I no longer have an excuse not to do it. Is that a plus or minus?

Connected to the laundry room is another little storage room that we are using as a second pantry/food storage room. If you have been watching Glen Beck at all you are probably gathering food storage as well. If not, START!

Okay, lets take a visit to the other side of the house where the bedrooms are.

First bedroom is the master. As you can see, our room has not taken priority in unpacking. Don't worry, we aren't becoming hoarders, I just haven't had time to find a place for anything.

Same with our bathroom so I figured this was the safest view for everyone to see. Haha. That's our shower curtain if you can't tell what you're looking at.

Check it! We have a walk in closet. After the houses that we have been in (especially our Pittsburgh house) these seemingly little things make me slap happy. Check out my shoes on the floor, they are zebra print and my new favorite pair of shoes.

Ryans side of the walk in. I'm so nice, I even shared the shoe rack. And can I just say that my husband looks hot in his uniforms! Woohoo!

Another thing that makes me smile just thinking about, a linen closet. Oh happy day. Beckham likes it too but for other purposes. If you can't find him, he's in there doing his business. I think I'm going to have to get some air fresheners.

Once again, we aren't secret hoarders. This is, or will be someday, my craft room. Right now it's, "anything we can't find a place for or need out of the way put it in here" room.

Boys room. Easton and Creed sleep on the bunk beds and Beckham is supposed to sleep on the toddler bed but lately he's been sneaking up to the top bunk with Easton during the night. It's made my heart jump a couple of times, walking in there and not seeing him in his bed.

Creed wanted to be in all the pictures, can you tell? He "organized" the toys in their toy bins and very proud of it.

Kids bathroom. It's so nice not having to share with them any more. They all mysteriously have to go to the bathroom every time you shower, what's with that?

And finally, at the end of the hall is the girls room.

So there you have it. Nothing extraordinary but we love it. My mom is coming up this week and I'm hoping to get her help in hanging some things on the walls. Then it will feel more like home I think.

I would like to give a special thanks to my parents who made those two months of living with them wonderful, (for me at least) and for everyone who has helped and supported us in getting this job. We feel so blessed to have a job right now and know that the Lord has definitely provided for our family.

Re-connect

2010-11-07T17:06:00.003-05:00

Hello world! I feel like I'm back from the dead. Ryan, the kids and I moved out of my parents house on October 3 and headed up here to Vandenberg Air Force Base. We have been living in the on-base temporary housing. This is the first time I have touched a computer since leaving my parents house! Talk about being disconnected with the world.

So the computer that I'm touching right now is our new lap top. Ryan got a signing bonus from the Air Force so we got this and I have big plans for a new kitchen table. Once I figure out how to use this thing and download my pictures everyone will be able to see all the great things that have been happening to us her on the central coast. Peace out!

Accident Prone Makay

2010-08-24T16:57:00.003-04:00

We have been in San Diego with my parents for almost a month now. Ryan left for Officer Training Camp on Sunday. He called me after his first day there and was proud to report that he hadn't cried yet. I am working on registering our kids for school which will start in two weeks. We have gone to the beach a couple of times, the pool and last weekend before Ryan left we went camping.

The camping turned out to not be so good. With five kids running around wild, out in the wild, an accident is bound to happen. And who would that accident fall upon? Our accident prone child of course, Makay.

It's the saddest thing ever. It was about 11:30 in the morning and the kids were playing with ropes. While no one was looking Makay lost her balance (we don't know if she tripped or what) and fell into the fire pit. There was no fire going but we had one that morning so there was lots of hot embers there. She landed on her right elbow and hand.

My mom was the closest so she grabbed her and pulled her out, Ryan and I were running over by this time. My mom tried to brush the hot ashes off and her skin started to come off to. Ryan grabbed the ten gallon water jug and took of the top so we could put her arm in it. Between Makay and my's screaming we had drawn some attention of the other campers around us. They were great to run and try to find a ranger. There was a nurse in the next camp site to he came over and tried to clean her up as best he could.

Ryan and I drove her to the ranger station and they gave us directions to an emergency care place about twenty minutes away. We drove back to our camp and decided that my mom would drive Makay and I and Ryan would stay with the other kids. We got to the emergency care place and they said they needed to send us to a special burn unit. Poor Makay was so good about waiting, and it's good because that's all we did for most of the day!

We drove to downtown San Diego, another 30 minutes, to UCSD Hospitals burn unit. We finally got in there at about 2:30 and they took a good look at her burns. First they gave her some good drugs, poor kid deserved them, and then cleaned her arm. The nurse took a cloth with warm soapy water and just started to scrub, it was horrible to watch. All the dead skin came off and then they cut off all the blisters that had formed. We found out that most of the burn is a second degree burn with is good because it will be able to heal by itself. But there is a small area on the under side of her arm near her elbow that stayed white, a third degree burn. We still don't know weather she will need surgery for that part. The skin is burned so deeply that the cells can't regenerate themselves.

They taught me how to clean and dress her arm so I have been doing that the last couple of days. We go back on Thursday again to see how it's healing. Things are looking good so far but the doctor is still worried about the third degree burn area. She is the toughest kid ever. The doctor and nurse couldn't believe how brave she was being on Monday when we went in for a check up. She hadn't had any pain medicine before hand and the nurse really had to scrub but she didn't make a peep.

It's so hard to see your child in pain! I want so badly to be able to take it away from her, she's so young and Innocent to be going through so much pain. It just proves how vibrant her spirit is though that she can still act like a normal kid and not complain about the inconvenience of eating with her left hand or not being able to go to the bathroom herself. We will keep everyone updated when we learn more and I think I may have some pictures to share. It sounds morbid but I thought she would want to see her arm when she grows up and has a big scar on her arm that she doesn't remember getting (cross your fingers!).

Parting with Pittsburgh

2010-07-25T20:51:00.005-04:00

I have to make this post a quick one because we are piling into our car and moving out of here in less then 12 hours! (and there is still a good amount of work that needs to get done in that time. . . along with sleeping if we can) Our last two weeks in Pittsburgh have been . . . well . . . hell.

I know, it's terrible to say but it's true! The weather has been awful, in the 90's every day with humidity in the 90's too. Normally this kind of weather isn't fun but you just go to the pool and wait it out. We haven't been able to do that though because we have been packing and cleaning.

I don't think you can fully understand the misery of humid weather until you have actually experienced it. For instance, last night I was scrubbing our bathroom clean with a fan in the doorway turned on to high. I had to take my glasses off because they kept fogging up, the sweat was pouring off my forehead so bad that my eye brows weren't doing their job and I was sliding all over the place on the bathroom floor because my legs were sweating! Sick! Crazy! Yuck! I hate sticky weather!!!

One night at the dinner table we were all miserable. Finally it got to Ryan and he half grunted, half yelled (it was very manly) took his shirt off and threw it on the floor. Immediately all the kids were doing the same. It's like they were waiting for any excuse to take their shirts off. I laughed so hard, and then pulled out the camera. We had a hot, shirtless dinner that night!

On a better note, we are leaving tomorrow to a land of moderate temperatures, light cool breezes and no severe weather warnings in all seasons of the year!!! (sigh of pleasure)

We met up with some friends from the ward this last week at a great little park for some pizza and fun. They are the only other family that has five kids also and we just love them! We are really going to miss them when we leave.

I forgot that this park has a splash pad so that is why our kids are running around half naked (again), or a little more then that in Makays case. It looks like a lot of kids for only two sets of parents huh? It was a great evening.

The kids have been in the back yard a lot since Ryan and I have been busy with the house. As you can guess, when there is a lot of rain things grow like crazy. I don't know how long it took these plants to swallow the kids bikes but one day the bikes were there and the next, they were gone! (This is the only place Ryan and I have ever seen where there are no sprinklers. . . anywhere. No one needs them!)

They kind of look peaceful don't they?

The kids have been good about trying to entertain themselves. Their "trying" didn't always work but they gave it a good effort. This is Easton getting creative with triangle dominoes. Does that face look happy to you? Maybe he's trying to tell us something about the way he's feeling. It's been hard for the kids to have their lives so disrupted.

When the days get too long and the kids can't "try" anymore Ryan and I have to come up with something. You saw the plastic bags parade (see last post if you missed it). Well we were running out of materials because we were packing everything up. So what could we use to entertain kids? We had paper. So, Ryan got creative with the paper. . . and it worked!! A day and a half of entertainment, woohoo!!

Let's hope we can get that lucky with entertaining them in the car for seven days!

creeds buried treasure and other summer tales

2010-07-11T20:36:00.005-04:00

So Creed just celebrated his 5th birthday and what a party it was! Berni decided to throw him a pirate theme party and spent many hours preparing for the celebration.
These invitations had many piratey words like "buried treasure, loot, ye, plunderin, sea dogs, and captain creed." (The kids wanted very badly to assist with the part where Berni burnt the edges).

Amazing! Thats what comes to mind when I look at the cake scene that Berni made.

She spent many hours on this beautiful masterpiece...and then I chopped it up with a knife...

Here's ole "mad maky", strikin' fear into the heart of many a brave folk...well, maybe if her sword were turned the right way...shiver me timbers.

Aye, whats a pirate party without "pin the patch on the pirate"?...

and a hunt for buried treasure...

Creeds presents along with other pirate bootie (chocolate coins, candy necklaces and ring pops) made for some jolly pirates mates...

Heres captain Creed, the ole sea dog himself, makin a secret birthday wish...Arrr matey...may ye delite in a wish come true. Many thanks to the fair maiden "Beautimus Berni" for a very satisfyin' and plentiful party!

Okay, back to a normal voice now...

This is what happens when bored children use their imagination...well, our children anyway: The recycle bin replaces the dress up bin. (As for our parenting, Warning: to avoid danger and suffocation...hey we warned em.)

The kids have been surviving the recent heat wave by spending many an hour at the public pool...Don't worry, Creeds just practicing...

Beckham lookin all serious in his froggy goggles. He loves the water and enjoys falling over in it, now we just need to teach him how to get back up...

For the third of July (since 4th was on a sunday) we bought some sparklers and let the kids run wild before bedtime...yes it is light outside, a little lame, I know, but they still had fun. And no this isn't trick photography, Makay is actually sticking the sparkler up her nose. Please don't try this at home, she is a professional.

This last shot is of me being commissioned into the Air Force. a good friend from church who is a retired marine officer was able to swear me in. This photo came from our phone and is a little fuzzy but you get the picture...looks like lueitenant Button needs to work on his standing at attention...and on spelling leuitenant...yeah no idea. :)

Grandma Kim Birthday

2010-06-30T15:10:00.002-04:00

Happy Birthday Grandma Kim!!

We wish that we could be there to help you celebrate because you know we are serious party animals. Party hard for us anyway and know that we are thinking of you. We love you!!

Recap

2010-06-17T17:26:00.008-04:00

Wow, it's so great to have our family back together again! Two weeks before I was supposed to leave for San Diego Ryan's grandpa passed away. Ryan flew up to Washington for Floyd's funeral and got to spend a couple of days with all his brothers and parents. It's been a while since they have all been together so they enjoyed being together even though it was a somber occasion. Floyd touched many lives and was a wonderful man. We're going to miss you gramps!

Ryan has a quirky dream of looking like Tom Hanks in Cast Away after he had been on the island for four years. He was reviewing some air force material and found out that he must be clean shaven for work every day. This summer became his last chance to realize his caveman hair dream. A week and a half into his shaving fast, Ryan had to get ready for the funeral. He didn't think it was appropriate to sing and speak at the funeral with such distractions on his face so once again, his "dream" was put on hold. In the process of shaving away his dreams he paid tribute to one of Floyd's old looks (and he wonders why I wouldn't kiss him like that ?).

While Ryan was away the kids and I had some good times. This is the boys bathing where the wild things are. Notice Eastons hair. He wants to grow it out so bad but we just had to cut it for the wedding.

Luckily Ryan got back in time to help me with some complicated surgery. Out of five kids you would think I would have to deal with things stuffed up kids noses all the time. But for some strange reason (or because I tell the story of Grandma Great sticking beans up her nose as a kid and then having them swell all the time) I have not.

Out of all the things that would fit up his nose, I guess macaroni isn't too bad. (yum)

Then it was time for Parker, Easton and I to leave. While we were away in San Diego for a week for my little brothers wedding Ryan got some good bonding time in with the three younger kids...

while we went to the beach. We were supposed to have a cook out at La Jolla Shores once all the family got into town. We finally got EVERYTHING loaded into the cars and rides for everyone out there and it started to rain. What's a little rain though right? The kids even got into the water! Once everyone was sufficiently freezing we loaded everything back into the cars and drove home to have a nice cookout (papa cooking the food in the back yard alone in the drizzle while everyone else ate in the comfy kitchen) together.

It was pretty fun watching the kids play in the water together.

No matter how freezing Lincoln was he wanted to be playing in that sand. I think just the fact that they were getting dirty was making them fuzzy all over.

It was so much fun to have some cousin bonding time!

I don't know how I ended up not getting pictures of the wedding but I'll try to get some from those people that were prepared. Calvin and Becky make a beautiful couple and it was such a blessing that we could all be there together for his big day. I hope he knows how much we all love him.

The kids and I flew all night and arrived back in Pittsburgh Wednesday morning at about 9:30. It happened to be the kids last day of school so while I slept (to make up for the two hours I got on the plane) Ryan took the kids to say bye to their friends and teachers.

Parker is done with First grade, despite all of Ryans threats to hold her back (I think he's just bitter because he did two years of kindergarten).

We will all miss Mrs. Green. She is the best kindergarten teacher I have ever seen. I wish all of our kids could have her. Maybe there are teachers like her in San Diego that we just never got growing up. haha

back to "normal"

2010-05-23T17:39:00.008-04:00

It has been three full weeks now since Creeds surgery. We are still counting our blessings and thanking the Lord every day for how well his operation went. Thanks to all of you too for the prayers and fasting on Creeds behalf. We went to see Dr. Russo for Creeds follow up appointment on Thursday and his heart couldn't be working better. What wonderful news to hear! We thought, since he is healing so well, we would give you a little comparison.

This is Creed about an hour after his surgery. They had about a million things that he was connected to.
-he got blood (that's the red tube) for the first couple of hours post-op
-he had a chest tube in to drain any excess blood from his chest
-he had IV's in both arms as well as a central line in his neck
-a catheter
-you can see the two blue wires coiled by the blanket; those are both connected to him by a stitch until they know they wont need them (there to jump his heart if there are complications)
-the circle stickers are for his vitals
-the square ones are to monitor his heart (there are 10 of them)
-and finally a blood pressure cuff on his leg (seeing as his arms were pretty occupied)

Now, three weeks later he's running around like a maniac. His new found energy (from his way more efficient heart) can be a little overwhelming at times but we love it! This is his "check out my rugged scar" pose.

Since he has been healing so well it's been pretty easy for the family to get back to normal. . .

eating yummy snacks,

Ryan visiting the kids at school for their "take your father to school" day,

we have been able to add a plethora of looks to our "funny faces" collection,

Creed received a bunch of art supplies to keep him occupied during his recovery which has turned out well for the whole family, our art wall is overflowing!

As you can see, even Beckham got in on the action. That is, until I caught him drinking the dirty paint water and he was speedily removed from the premises!

We have had amazing works of art constructed during the kids free time. This particular one happens to be a "Moosedragon"...

along with Creeds "tower of power"

Finally, when the days are over and our minds and bodies are worn out, we settle down for a good jump on . . . an old mattress.

I love living in a house where every day there are endless possibilities before us.

family pictures

2010-05-09T21:43:00.019-04:00

A few days before Creeds surgery, we had a friend from church take our family pictures. Creed is doing great by the way...he's running around like a crazy man and you would never know that he had surgery just a week ago. We have to remind him to be careful...he's not supposed to do anything strenous like lifting, jumping or wrestling, etc. (basically trying to keep a boy from being a boy) Below are a few of our favorite pictures...for many different reasons.

creeds back home

2010-05-06T15:39:00.003-04:00

Just wanted to let everyone know that Creed is back home and doing very well. Berni and Creed came home today and we are very happy. Thanks again for all your prayers etc!!

creeds recovery

2010-05-04T20:37:00.003-04:00

Creed is doing relatively great for someone that just had heart surgery. He was moved from the ICU to a normal recovery room and bed today. His central line and catheter were removed and he was able to walk to and from the bathroom with a little bit of pain of course. But we're very happy with how things are going...what a blessing it is! He's still pretty somber but will crack a smile every now and then. He is keeping busy with puzzles, coloring books, action figures and movies. Childrens Hospital does a very good job with catering to your childs needs and desires. They are definitely making his stay as enjoyable as it can be. He's also enjoying his one on one time with mom. I hope going home isn't going to be to much of a let down. ;) Speaking of which, he'll probably be home around Friday. Anyway, just wanted you all to know that the recovery process is going very well. Thanks again for all of your prayers.

creed update

2010-05-03T21:30:00.005-04:00

First of all, everything went great! Thanks for your fasting and prayers and all of your support in other ways as well. Creeds surgery went fantastic. The surgeon said that Creeds heart should shrink back down to the "normal" size within a couple of months, it was abnormally large due to all the extra work it was doing. He also said that it was good that we had gotten this taken care of when we did because of how serious it had become which he realized once they started operating. This experience has definitely caused us to reflect on God's guiding hand in our lives. I could go on and on about that though. :) I will just say, "thanks be to God...all of it!"

Above is a picture of a very exhausted 4 year old. Creed is in the ICU Cardiac unit and will most likely be moved to recovery in the next day depending on how things go. Berni is staying with him for what will likely be about a 5 day stay. My Mom came up to help which is such a wonderful blessing. Thanks Mom! Thank you to everyone that has fasted, prayed or thought on Creeds behalf. Heavenly Father manifested himself in many ways during this event and our testimonies have definitely been strengthened concerning the power of prayer.

Creeds surgery was pushed back by about 4 hours (due to an emergency surgery just prior), so he had alot of extra time to play with the array of cool toys at the Childrens hospital...and I guess I kinda did too.

Creed was definitely nervous but in a giddy sort of way, which was only enhanced by the drugs that were given him. And yes, Berni was hysterical but with laughter, due to how loopy the drugs made Creed. He said and did alot of funny things, for one, he was amazed at the "magic paper" and how the drawings were "dancing around." However, he was quite disapointed when he discovered that no matter how fast he was, he couldn't quite catch them (the drawings).

We love you Creedo!

Creeds operation and other things

2010-05-02T16:18:00.014-04:00

So the first couple of pictures are of Beckham. He is getting bigger and its fun watching him interact more with his brothers and sisters. He pretty much knows who to go to if he wants someone to share with him...Easton is quite a softy when it comes to sharing. He discovered how to make the other kids laugh one day and continues to enjoy being the clown every now and then...yes, those are strawberry shortcake panties. Creed somehow managed to catch his shirt on the stairwell, he was calling for help and is obviously happy that mom came to the rescue.

I have officially graduated as of today(didn't go since it was on sunday though) and Berni totally blew me away with a surprise graduation present...this beautiful new barbecue grill (she somehow managed to heft it up our front steps solo...what a strong mama). Thanks Babe!

Here is Creed completing the Button human pyramid at the primary talent show yesterday. He definitely had fun sitting on top of Parker and Easton (its usually the other way around in their wrestling matches).

This week Creed was pretty nervous about his operation and still is but we noticed today that he is considerably more calm about tomorrow than he has been lately. Berni and I know its from all of your prayers and fasting. We would just like to thank everyone for that support. We love you guys! We were able to give him a blessing after church at our house so now we are content to let things unfold as Heavenly Father sees fit. We will keep you posted. :)

our "american idol"

2010-04-18T20:04:00.002-04:00

First of all, thanks for being so supportive and excited for us. So Parker and I were working on putting together a new bunk bed for the boys...she was a very good helper by the way. Anyway, as we were working, Makay was off in her own little world practicing her vocal abilities. This video caught her at the very end of her performance. So enjoy our talented daughter...American Idol, here we come...and Santa Barbara (oops. sorry...not about me).

Aim High Baby!

2010-04-13T14:47:00.005-04:00

So I'm supposed to be working on my thesis right this very second because I'm defending in front of my committee this Thursday! ...but I'm having a hard time sitting down ...and not shouting or for that matter crying uncontrollably or laughing like a complete lunatic ...all the while, running around the computer lab like a wild man and scaring unsuspecting college students ...take your pick.

I have been accepted to the Air Force people! Yeah, Wow! Thank you everyone for your prayers because they were answered! Berni and I are very excited and feel the burden of "job uncertainty" lifted from off of our shoulders. Oh and did I mention that we are going to be stationed in Santa Barbara? Amazing! Just thought I'd let everyone know. Oh man, my thesis, better get that done, I guess I have to graduate first right!?

Can I please get a "hallelujah"!

The Date is Set

2010-03-29T14:15:00.003-04:00

We were finally able to set a date for Creeds heart surgery! He is scheduled for his pre-op physical on April 28 and his surgery will be the next Monday, May 3, at 7:30 am. This has been hanging in the air for so long that we are really happy to finally know when it's going to happen. Now the only thing to work on is not getting nervous about it. Creed couldn't be more excited. He has been complaining for the last month that he wants to do the surgery NOW. Just the thought of being able to have jello every day at the hospital after the surgery has him bouncing off the walls.

Ryan is busy finishing up his last semester! I love saying that. HIS LAST SEMESTER!!! He has several big projects going on, no final tests thank goodness, and his thesis to finish and defend all in the next four weeks. His last week of school is the week before Creeds surgery so he'll be able to be home with the kids and I'll be free to stay at the hospital with Creed while he recovers.

As for jobs, we still don't know. The Air Force said they could let us know any time up to mid May. We are hoping that it won't take THAT long. But what choice to we have really, other than to wait? Ryan has been applying to other jobs in the meantime but we have no positive news from any of those either. I'm actually pretty excited to see where the Lord will send us next.

Oh, How They Grow

2010-02-28T18:19:00.009-05:00

I'm too tired to organize my pictures today so you just get a random smattering.

I was feeling nostalgic while looking through some of the old pictures so I decided to share a few. This is Beckham with some daddy time.

Looking back, this is one of the first pictures that truly shows Makays personality well. She really knew what she was doing when she threw her feet up on the table. She was queen of the world that day.

This is Creed during the summer when he was a little blondy. We were trying to potty train so that's the reason for the diaper and no clothes. For some reason Creed loved those shoes, he would walk around and around the table just clop-clopping away.

I loved that hair cut on her!

Easton used to wear his underwear backwards so he could see the picture on them. One night he needed to wash his hands but wanted to try himself. He has always been a bigger boy but that really came in handy that night. He just jumped up and hooked his tummy on the counter and wa-la, he could wash his hands! Who needs a stool?

Easton was excited to be able to try out his big brother skills. We kept asking him to hold the bottle up and does he need any help. You can see the triumph when she finished the whole bottle on his watch.

Makay on a chubby, cute day.

This is Parker taking her turn with Creed the day we came home from the hospital. You may not know what Parkers first sentence was. She was 16 months old and said, "I can do it!" Right then we knew we were in for trouble and she has repeated that sentence many times since then. This was one of those times.

We showed some pictures of Easton and Creed helping me make some Valentine sugar cookies last post. Well, the next day we frosted them which is always an adventure.

I think the knife made its' way to Makays mouth more times then to the cookies. Don't worry, we don't give away the ones the kids frost.

Easton was by far the most creative with his decorating. He did cookies with half pink frosting and half white, cookies with pink and white stripes, and cookies with smiley face red hot candies.
He's definitely not afraid to let his inner decorator out.

As you probably could have guessed, Parker is into the sprinkles. We have to keep an eye on her or we run out of them really fast!

I know everyone is going to love this next one but I had to get a picture of my lovely tonsils while they were choking me to death. This last week I had tonsillitis and NEVER want to have it again! Thank goodness for antibiotics.

We had a fun Valentine dinner with candles and hearts all over the table. If I can't have a romantic dinner with just my husband then I'm going to have one with my whole family. It was a lot of fun doing a fancy three course meal for them. For the dessert I got out the melting chocolates and wrote Valentine messages on wax paper and made some hearts. Then we decorated our dessert with Valentine love, it was pretty fun!

Snow Daze

2010-02-14T22:30:00.006-05:00

Kids are definitely the biggest benefactors of a snow storm: 1 week off of school, enuf snow to entertain you for hours, enuf snow to freeze your extremities making it necessary for lots of hot cocoa and fun activities for inside the house with mom and also dad because he had the week off too.

Despite her enthusiasm when getting all bundled up inside...five minutes outside proved plenty for our Makay...San Diego girl at heart, just like her mommy.

Easton at home in his snow cave...Give him a blanket and I really think he'd sleep there.

Sugar cookie creation time with mom and boys.

Birthdays and Blizzards

2010-02-07T11:43:00.000-05:00

Hello world! Yes, the Button family is alive and finally doing well. We had a sick house for most of January and some of February, not fun. Hopefully it's out of our systems though and we can get through the rest of winter sick-free.

Some fun things have happened since our last post. For one, Beckham is growing up so quickly. He now complains if we forget to give him silverware at a meal, and he actually uses them!

He has also learned to cuddle with his favorite stuffed animal of the day. He has been one of our most affectionate babies and I LOVE it.

While we've been in the sick-house we have really had to use our imaginations to keep the boredom away. Thank goodness for stuffed animals. . .

and the many ways to play with them. This is my giant moose that BJ got for me while I was at college and him, on his mission. It's also Eastons favorite friend, his own version of "my buddy."

When the stuffed animals don't cut it anymore we are left with desperate measures. Ryan and Easton take them in stride.

Last Sunday, when we were all better, we decided to make cookies for our neighbors. Every once in a while we like to make giant cookies, they are super fun. The kids all got to decorate six cookies with mini m&m's. Our neighbors loved them.

These ones actually turned out a little bigger then we had planned.

This last week we also started on making some valentines. I've never seen so many hearts or gone through so much paper!

It's was really fun getting into the spirit of valentines day early this year. February is a party month at our house and sometimes the actual holiday gets overlooked. Not this year, besides valentines day is Ryan and mine half year anniversary. On the 14th we will have been married for 8 1/2 years!!

(Don't ask about the bunny ears, they get worn year round at our house)

On the 4th we celebrated Eastons birthday, my little boy is 6! He couldn't decide what kind of cake he wanted and every time I asked him it would be something totally different. I just decided to make something cool and surprise him. I finally found a cake on-line that looked manageable, a dragon.

What I thought was manageable turned into a whole day thing. It was good that Ryan didn't have any school that day! Here are some of the stages.

The cutting and frosting took the longest, the decorating part was fun.

The wings and candles were the last thing to add. Then it was party time!

I picked up some $1 sunglasses at Target as a filler present and what do you think he loved more then the "cool" present we got him?

Easton also got some rockin' presents from grandparents this year. Grandma Button made him a super hero cape with a patch for "Super Easton" on one side and "Super Button" on the other. He wears it all the time but we had to draw the line at sleeping with it on.

Grandma Kim and Papa got him a glow station. I had to play around with it while reading the instructions to get how to use it and see all the things it can do and it was so much fun that finally Easton had to take the glow pen out of my hand and say, "mom, I get how to do it okay?"

As some of you may know, we got slammed with a snow storm this weekend. It started snowing Friday around 4pm and went all through the night. This was Pittsburgh's 4th biggest snow storm in recorded history, woohoo! We are so happy that we could be here when it happened. . . not!

The kids thought it would be fun to go out and play in it. Luckily they know that mommy doesn't play in snow so they didn't even pressure me this time.

This is Creed trying to climb his way back up our stairs. It didn't work very well. He lasted about 15 minutes outside.

Easton, sporting his new glasses, did pretty well. He lasted about 45 minutes. He said it wasn't so bad after he couldn't feel his hands any more.

This is Ryan rescuing Makay after about 5 minutes of being outside. She got cold and would have come in after two but she couldn't make it up the stairs. She said that it was bumpy so she couldn't walk and then she fell on the snow with her face, ouch. Do you see why I don't play in the snow?

Parker and our neighbor girl lasted the longest, almost a full hour.

This is a shot of our street. The power lines were so weighed down with snow that many of them broke. Luckily we didn't have our power go out but a lot of people did. The power company was having trouble moving around in the snow to repair them so some people went two days with out power. They actually set up "warming centers" for people with no power to go to. It was pretty crazy.

Yep, our poor car had a good two feet of snow on top of it. It took Ryan almost three hours to dig out around our car so we could move it.

So that's us, stranded in the house eating birthday cake. (Not me though mom and Kiki, promise!)

Endless Winter

2010-01-24T18:05:00.000-05:00

There are many reason why I don't like winter. I have mentioned a couple of them in previous posts. Our winters are usually an endless cycle of coughs, soar throats and vomiting spells. There is almost always at least one child who isn't breathing well because of being stuffed up and there for can't sleep well at night so they come and wake up mom and dad. It's always great when they start to feel better but by then it has usually moved on to another member of the family.

You can understand our awe and enjoyment when not one of the kids so much as sniffled all the way up until Christmas. It was great but as you can guess, we broke the dry spell. This time however, we decided to get it all over with at once instead of passing it slowly around the family. Ryan and Parker were the only ones who escaped unscathed, I think she kinda felt left out. Easton had it the worst with a double ear infection, one of which ruptured before we could get him into the doctor. The rest of us only had coughs and congestion. I don't get sick very often but when I do, it's usually pretty bad. Moms, in my opinion, shouldn't be allowed to get sick unless they have a mom to take care of them too.

One funny story:
Ryan was in the girls room playing with all the kids. He was laying on his stomach across Parkers bed and Creed was sitting on his back. Ryan told Creed to not jump on his neck because his face was by a side board and any jerking would make him smack his face. Creed, instead of jumping, slid up Ryans back to his neck and then off his head onto the floor. Ryan smashed his nose into the side board and quickly ran from the room because he thought he was bleeding. (Not to worry, the injury wasn't too serious, just a lot of pain.) When Ryan came back to the room to talk to Creed about it he found Creed howling with tears running down his face. Ryan asked what on earth happened to him. Creed bawled, "it's because I feel TERRIBLE!!" His little boy was having a soul wrenching experience that was so cute Ryan had to try hard not to laugh. So in the end, Ryan, who had his nose smashed in, was comforting and hugging Creed who got a fun slide ride off the bed. Oh to be a child again.

kid potential

2010-01-16T20:32:00.000-05:00

So the Button family is doing good, just haven't had a lot to post lately. Thought I'd give Berni a break and post this time. Also wanted to quickly add to a past posting of hers that talked about how you know if you live in a ghetto. Two more evidences that may manifest this include the bullet proof glass shielding the post office workers from the possible dangers lurking on the other side as well as the sign posted on Rite Aids front door (my personal favorite) that asks everyone to please take off their ski masks before entering.

One of the things that I am constantly guilty of as a father is the tendency I have to underestimate my childrens abilities. As much as I'd like to say that the artwork pictured above is mine...Our five year old Easton was messing around on paintbrush today and came up with this (I'm flattered to say that the handsome man driving this beautiful automobile is actually supposed to be me).

I guess the reason I hold my kids back is the fact that I am always comparing them to me and well, if I couldn't do something at their age, then neither can they. Yeah, good thing they have a talented mother.

So one of the gifts Parker recieved on Christmas was the game of chess. I figured I'd tell her what a boring game it was and get out of ever having to play this game that pretty much makes my brain hurt from the strategy involved. Well, Parker won me over in the end. I had to brush up on the instructions so that I could teach her the way all the pieces move etc. She soaked everything up and asked spot on follow-up questions about almost every rule that I taught her. A few days later when we played again, she remembered everything.

Anyway, I guess my point is, you know how when you are a teenager and you think your parents don't know anything? I'm afraid that for my childrens father, that may actually turn out to be truer than I'd like.

Julie & Julia. . . and Berni

2010-01-03T17:51:00.000-05:00

Most of the family got a vacation from school for a few weeks so I took a vacation from blogging. The break has allowed me to return to my center, blogging is very stressful work you know.

Well, it's great to say but we really haven't done anything. The kids have been playing with the toys they got at Christmas. . .

or more like fighting for each others. The toys are always better on the other side of the fence, even if they were meant for a one year old.

One thing we have been doing is actively trying to stay warm. Christmas brought the cold weather (30's and below) and our house is feeling it. Most of you know we keep the thermostat at 60 during the day and turn it down to 50 at 7:00 when the kids go to bed. (Yes, we have plenty of blankets.)

Last night Ryan and I were watching a movie and shivering like crazy. I burst out laughing when our atomic clock said it was 47 degrees in our living room! Don't anybody worry, we are all staying warm enough, we just can't afford the $500 bill to keep our house at 65 during the day and 60 at night (we about had a heart attack that month). It's just one more story for "Our lives as college students."

Since it's too cold to play outside, the kids have been finding ways to entertain themselves. For instance, Easton found a circle paper clasp which provided hours of enjoyment.

But oh no, Creed couldn't find one. Where is the justice in this world!?!

Oh (sigh) don't worry, everything is okay now. He found a penny.

I made the mistake of renting "Julie and Julia" during the break. This set in motion a string of events that were not at all conducive to a dieting lifestyle.

I had so much fun! I made two pounds of English Toffee and "sugar 'n' spice" creme brulee that had vanilla beans and cinnamon sticks in it for a Christmas party, we had sweet potatoes that we made with our vita mixer, for New Years Eve we made Pina Colada's and Peach Daiquiri's (don't worry I made virgin ones for the kids ;) and my most favorite thing yet was the bruschetta with spinach, tomatoes and mozzarella! Don't I sound just like Julia Child, so in love with food. She just made it look so fun! I went so far as to make our decorations out of food. Scratch that, not food, candy.

This is Beckham eating some New Years Eve crackers and cheese ball.

So basically other then food we haven't done a whole lot. I did however finally take some pictures of some things I have been working on in the tower (my craft room) for a while.

A flower cuff bracelet

Some green mother of pearl earrings

Funky pink mother of pearl and black crystal earrings

And my favorite, a butterfly necklace that gave me a run for my money. I had to rework it several times and do some research online of how to make this kind of necklace. I love the look of them but man, are they a pain in the rear-end!

a christmas "potpouri" (if you will)

2009-12-27T19:47:00.000-05:00

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! Our family sure did. This photo was taken after many hours of playing with new toys on Christmas day. Instead of "cheese" we told them to say "Merry Christmas". Hence the non-uniform mouth positions...and yes, it appears that Makay and Creed are in fact howling at the moon.

Good times at the Nelson house for Christmas Eve dinner. They are a wonderful and very brave family in our ward that hosts several get togethers a year with many families at once.

Kids partyin' at their own private table.

Makay and Easton at home, enjoying the orange bounties of the new vita-mix. Thanks Papa and Grama Kim!

After Christmas was over the girls wanted to be ready to ring in the new year in style...

Parker loves her red hair and enjoys sporting the "fohawk" as well as the "Kate Gosselin" look (for lack of a better description).

No matter how many times a night we cover Beckham up with blankets, he always ends up like this...bum in the air with his pillow on top.

For your viewing pleasure...

December Joys

2009-12-20T20:43:00.000-05:00

Our daughter Makay celebrated her 3rd birthday recently and boy did she enjoy her special day! Since I'm on Christmas break from school, Berni and I took Makay and Beckham out to Red Robin for Makays birthday lunch (the other kids were in school). She had a great time being with mom and dad one-on-one (kinda), and to top it off, the servers sang a special birthday song to her and gave her ice cream. Yeah, she ate it all up...the attention too.
(She was very sad when the decorations finally came down!)

Thank you Grandma and Grandpa Button and Grandma Kim and Papa for the awesome gifts!Berni made a "strawberry shortcake" cake for Makay
Our glamour queen put on a birthday fashion show (note her face is same color as outfit-fashion always prevails over freezing temperatures).
Saturday brought a fresh blanket of snow and of course instant fun for the kids. I think I was more worried about them getting cold then they were.

Sledding is always a party favorite with this group.

Berni wanted to add some more Christmas spirit to our home, so she decided to try her hand at painting...I know I'm a little biased, but she did pretty darn good if you ask me.
Our family loves this time of year and the excitement that comes with it. We have enjoyed spending time with our children and talking about the birth of our lord and savior Jesus Christ. We hope all of you have a very Merry Christmas! Love-the Button fam

Liven' In The Ghetto Baby

2009-12-11T10:46:00.000-05:00

You might live in the ghetto if . . .

1. you hear sirens on your street more then once a day

2. the question "what area of the city do you feel needs the most help?" is presented to the mayor and he immediately replies with the name of your community

3. there is a memorial at the entrance to the local park because of a gang shooting casualty

4. the Rite Aid closes at 6:00 pm instead of the nation wide standard of 10:00 pm

5. you find bullet shells at the playground

6. the school in your area was closed because of poor performance and the kids are know bused to other communities

7. there have been four murders less then a mile from your house in the past year

8. you accidentally slam your screen door on your way out of the house at night and a man on the sidewalk says you scared him and he was about to reach for his gun

9. a man in working on a friends car across the street and he runs up to you frantically trying to find a ride home because he's on house arrest and is breaking his curfew (we gave him the ride)

10. the local drug dealer lives a few houses down and is actually a really nice guy

and finally

11. Pizza Hut won't deliver in your area after 5:00 pm

If any (or all in our case) of those apply to you, then you might live in a ghetto.

Don't get us wrong, we love our home (not the actual house) and our neighbors are great. We have had many wonderful experiences with them. When we first moved here we where scared to death but we know that this is where the Lord wants us so we are happy to be here. It's just funny to us all the crazy things that happen in our neighborhood and we wanted to share some of them with you.

Elementry Experiences

2009-11-29T19:52:00.000-05:00

Things the kids bring home from school. . .

1. yucky words (no swear words yet thank goodness!)
2. candy from friends
3. homework
4. dirt and paint on their clothes
5. graded work (all good so far)
6. tragic stories of who is being nice today and who isn't
7. occasionally stolen goods (money from Eastons classroom)
8. new found attitudes and gestures that annoy mom
9. a sense of independence

and

10. HEAD LICE!

Ryan and I went into red alert, lock down mode when we found them (last night). Ryan bought war supplies (a RID kit) and I psyched myself up for the battle. Today all members of the family received a nasty RID shampoo job, all four boys received buzz cuts and Parker and Makay got chopped. (I know, sorry mom.)

Parkers hair (the source of the problem) was the worst. She has incredibly thick hair and it was past her chin. That's not long for most peoples standards but for her, it's a lot of work to keep up that much hair. Ryan was two seconds away from buzzing her head and just buying her some scarfs to cover it up. After many tears she talked me into just cutting it shorter so it would be easier to RID the pests.

She's still adorable but I'm seriously considering getting her ears pierced.

Mak thought the whole day was a glamor party and loved getting pampered (her hair cut and two showers). Her hair is much more fine so I didn't have to cut hers as short as Parkers. She looks pretty darn cute.

If Ryan is going to cut someones hair you can bet that he's going to cut it weird first (just for shock value or a few funny pictures) and then finish the job. This time he didn't finish the job. Creed thinks he has "cute hair" and is now demanding to keep it. That's fine by me but he won't be leaving our house until his "bangs" (Parker calls it a third eyebrow) are gone.

I think we put a months worth of laundry through our washing machine for this ordeal. All the sheets, blankets, pillows, stuffed animals, coats, hats, clothing, combs and hair accessories that came in contact with anything got washed or boiled. We want this to be over and done with!

So thank you to our public school system for the valuable and memorable experiences that our kids are receiving at your hands.

Pickle Juice

2009-11-15T18:48:00.000-05:00

How in the world is it already the middle of month 11! One good thing about this time of year are the colors. Ryan took the kids to the park one day and had a little photo shoot. Makay loved being in front of the camera.

I love how many trees there are around here and if there are a lot of trees, there are a lot of leaves.

You can really work up a sweat by trying to see how many leaves you can get into the air at the same time. Creed would live in a leaf pile if we would let him.

I picked up some fancy dresses at the local Goodwill for $3 each. Originally they were for dress up but they fit so well and were in such good condition that they are now our fancy church clothes.

Some parents have to struggle with their kids every day to get them to sit at the table and eat. We have never had that problem. Our main food struggle is usually trying to get them to stop. They aren't picky eaters either (of which I am so not complaining about!). Sometimes, to encourage them to stop eating we will give them the option of something disgusting or being done. This tactic usually works. . . but sometimes it backfires. This is Easton, Creed and Makay (not pictured) drinking pickle juice. Yes, I said pickle juice. Go figure.

My kids do occasionally eat normal food too; like Halloween candy. Some days I will let them pick something out of their bag for a snack. They are pretty clever and go for either a sucker or gum. Creed thought he would be a nice brother and share his sucker with Beckham. The only problem was when Beckham got a taste, he was not about to let that thing out of his mouth. Creed pulled and pulled and Beckham cried and cried (while never opening his mouth wide enough to get the sucker out) until Creed gave in and asked if he could pick out another piece of candy.

We have a little sun room off the back of our kitchen (during winters it's known as the "ice box"). Ryan and I noticed that what were once small cracks in the ceiling were now big cracks in the ceiling. We called our land lords' maintenance man Dominic to come take a look. He said he was going to have to rip the whole thing down and replace it (just the ceiling). It took a whole evening for me to clear the room out of the four food stacked shelves and mounds of junk I had in there. It took Dominic two days of cursing under his breath and breathing in toxic dust to get our room liveable again.

It looks great and it gave me a chance to organize my junk! Yeehaw! Plus, for a short time we had a room that was just for balls. Isn't that every kids dream?

Over and out.

Lampoon Temple Vacation

2009-11-08T20:11:00.000-05:00

Lets start off with how great it was to attend the temple this weekend. Berni and the kids picked me up from school on Thursday and we were off to D.C. area to start the Button Family Quarterly Temple Vacation (BFQTV). The kids were pretty excited about all the cool perks of a hotel from our previous trips. Sorry kids, those perks don't come with this hotel. But ya know what, they still had fun. They still had fun without the swimming, the delicious free continental breakfast, and they only complained alittle when the pizza was 2 hours late. Nothing dampened their spirits. The nights were filled with the excitement of getting to do things that you don't normally get to do at home. Jumping on the bed, eating lots of junk food, getting thrown on the bed by dad, getting a head laceration (little bit of an exageration) when dad is having to much fun and throws you on the bed at the wrong angle and you skim across and hit the nightstand, watching lots of cartoons, playing old maid and go fish with mom, going to the park with dad while mom is in a session, going to the visitors center and playing with all the cool touch screen displays, having one giant slumber party every night with the whole fam, and going to the visitors center again, this time for two and a half hours because dad locked the keys in the car just as mom got out from another session and then having fun at FuddRuckers and Coldstone as dads way of saying, I'm sorry for the key thing. Yes you can't rain on this parade. Although, mom and dad were feeling a little damp when they got the $200 dollar charge for the "key thing", the $12 dollar a night hotel parking fee and the charges for local phone calls from the hotel phone. Why didn't we use the cell? What can you do?...besides being a little more aware when booking our next hotel, and maybe complaining about something at the front desk, just out of spite, like the bug infestation in our hotel room...okay so they were ladybugs, but still, a little weird. I think we counted around 14 and how could we complain about this alternate form of entertainment that our children so enjoyed sharing their hotel room with. Despite the sarcasm, the vacation was very nice and most of all the temple was wonderful! We'll pay a key lock out charge of any price, any day, if that's the price of going to the temple...but we'd rather not

Trick or Treat!

2009-11-01T14:33:00.000-05:00

Is anyone else's family still on a sugar high because we sure are! We had class party's at school for Parker, Easton and Creed,our ward Halloween party on Friday night, a Halloween birthday party on Saturday for Eastons' friend and then Trick or Treating on Saturday night, woohoo! I'm not sure how much makeup we went through but I'm pretty sure it talked Parker out of ever wanting to become a model.

Here are our little monsters. . .

Beckham had a vampire costume on but the smudges around his eyes were hard enough so we kept it simple with him. Parker wasn't so simple, but we sure had fun! This was Saturday nights version of a butterfly fairy.

This was Friday nights version. They would have been the same both nights but I ran out of the red pencil makeup. We had fun experimenting though.

Creed is just too good at being a vampire! This year he really got into it too. He liked to go up to people with his mouth open ready to bite, it was pretty scary.

Easton, the peacemaker, wanted to bring world peace. Who better for the job than Batman!?! Masks aren't allowed at church parties so we painted this on. We should have taken a picture at the end of the night to compare, it was pretty funny where that black makeup got to. It is so much fun finding the perfect costume for your child. It's like finding someone the perfect gift for their birthday, something that you know they will love. When I saw this costume I knew it was for Makay.

She was the perfect little devil "princess" (she added the princess on herself), so mischievous and beautiful that you can't get mad at her schemes. We tried for a group shot but with Beckham so mobile it doesn't really work any more. Maybe in 10 years they will all hold still and look at the same time.

The boys received pumpkins from school events this year but Creed was the only one who wanted to operate. He ended up being quite the surgeon.

All the kids loved the final product and it strangely became a community pumpkin after that.

We took a walk on Sunday afternoon to help with the sugar detox. It was chilly but really nice.

Aaaahh, we survived the sugar highs.

button children

2009-10-26T00:04:00.000-04:00

we sure love these kids!

Hats, Gloves and Mohawks

2009-10-11T18:59:00.000-04:00

Not a whole lot has happened in the past two weeks. Probably the best thing that happened to us was General Conference where we were able to hear the prophet of the Lord speak. It was amazing, we are very inspired to start living better lives!

On a more mundane note, things have been running smoothly. The kids are still loving school and doing very well. Since Makay is the only child home with Beckham any more she thinks she is solely in charge of his learning and development and has taken it upon herself to teach him all kinds of new things including throwing all possible toys down the stairs and how to open the screen door. Thank goodness Beckham isn't the student that our other kids are!

The kids have been enjoying our last days at the park. Fall hit all of the sudden and in full swing so we really won't have much longer for outdoors stuff. This is Easton being a panther and hunting his prey.

My handsome boys got hair cuts again and this time Ryan did them. He loves turning our boys into little neanderthals.

We were able to eliminate our mold problem in the basement that occurred this summer but lost a few possessions along the way. One of the things we lost were our winter hats and gloves. The cooler weather forced us to the store before we thought we would need to. As many of you know, our house is old and drafty so yes, we are already bundling up inside as well as out.

I've finally been able to make it back to my beloved craft room!

I rented some library books about jewelry making and got some awesome ideas. One entire book was about using wire, I love it. These earrings are a spiral cage with beads going down the middle. They were too much fun.

This was my first attempt at a more formal piece. I found the center piece in a boutique at a huge discount so I bought it. It was originally a broach but I wanted to do a necklace with an antique feel with it. I have no idea if it turned out well or not. If you want to leave a comment and HONESTLY tell me what you think of it, it would be much appreciated.

Birthday Surprise!

2009-09-27T18:51:00.000-04:00

Parker had a birthday shout hurray! Our oldest offspring turned 7 on the 23 (Wednesday). Unfortunately we couldn't celebrate that day because "dad had to be at stinky school all day long!" The real reason is that Ryan's parents and brother weren't getting here until Wednesday night after the kids were in bed. I told Parker that she would have a birthday surprise on Thursday and she would love it so much that it would be worth the wait.

It would have been a great surprise too except that Parker ran into Grandma Button en route to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Despite the non-surprise she loved her birthday and it was worth waiting an extra day.

Parker wanted a cake that was very girly, "something pretty or pink or sparkly or something." (I have wondered several times how we could possibly be genetically linked) Well, there was no way I was attempting a castle or something sparkly (how could you make a sparkly cake !?!) so I opted for the most girly thing that could be in the shape of a square. . . a purse!

It actually turned out to be a lot of fun! It's strawberry cake on the inside so even the cake part is pink, I know, I really outdid myself. The handle was a bit tricky, it weighed a ton so I had to get some beading wire to help support it. I took this picture right after I stuck it in and by the time we ate the cake, about two hours later, the handle was laying flat.

Grandpa and Grandma Button took Parker out and bought her a new winter coat for her birthday. She had no inhibitions about putting on a fashion show for us. (Once again, is she my child?)

The kids had a hay day with Uncle Nick! They are his biggest fans.

On Friday we went to the zoo, the one day it didn't rain yippee! I think it wore the adults out more than the kids which was opposite of our plan.

Our biggest adventure at the zoo would have to be the sting ray exhibit. While Grandpa and Ryan were helping Makay pet one of the sting rays (which is allowed) Creed decided that he didn't need help. After one huge splash, a dazed Creed and many frightened sting rays, Ryan pulled Creed off of a flattened sting ray and out of the exhibit sopping wet. I'm not so sure they are going to allow the petting any more and I'm really not sure if that one sting ray recovered from all the 30 pounds of Creed that landed on him.

As you can tell we had an eventful weekend with the Buttons. It always comes to an end too quickly though! Dressed in our best the kids got some pictures with Grandpa and Grandma before they had to go.

It's amazing how well this picture turned out considering there's five kids in it!

More hugs for Uncle Nick and they were off. Thanks so much for flying across the country to visit us! We love you!

Holy Heart

2009-09-20T17:43:00.000-04:00

Well, our computer isn't letting us upload any pictures so sorry. I know an entry is no good without pictures.

So the biggest thing we did this last week was see Creeds Cardiologist. For all who don't know, Creed doesn't have a hole in his heart. . . he has three. Yeah, not the news we were looking for. He is going to need open heart surgery which is freaking me out. His heart is enlarged on one side due to the blood that is leaking back into it. The Dr. said that they will be able to sew one hole closed and then patch the other two.

Of course it's scary to find out that your child is going to have to go through something like this but it has definitely put things into a different perspective for us. Plus, everything is in the Lords hands anyway so there is no need to fear. We know that it all works out in the end.

With no pictures that's about all for us. We'll try to get the pictures working. Until then, some funny quotes from the kids. . .

*Ryan was helping Creed say the prayer and he prompted him, "we love thee" and Creed said, "you love me."

*pikey-pones are pine cones. We think they mixed porky pines and pine cones together for that one.

*I took Creed out to lunch after his cardiology appointment at his favorite Chinese restaurant. It's a very nice Chinese family that runs it. Creed (being physically incapable of whispering) asked if Chinese people sleep. Why is the mom and the kids Chinese? I tried explaining that they are just like us, they just speak a different language and that Chinese people have Chinese babies just like white people have white babies. A black man was waiting for his order and Creed pointed and said, "he's black." The man looked at us. "yes he is," I said. "Does he have black babies?" My face was very red.

two kids down, one more to go

2009-09-13T19:47:00.000-04:00

So Ryan started school two weeks ago. Parker started first grade one week and three days ago. Easton started kindergarten three days ago. Three days ago I was a wreck! My tender sweet boy is going off to be corrupted by the world!

Okay, so maybe it won't be that bad. Ryan's a big boy, he can take care of himself. Parker is a tough cookie that loves being independent. Easton is a teddy bear that likes to cuddle with mommy! I don't want him to lose that!!!

Well, he loves school, all two days so far. He was so upset that he only had two pages of homework that I had to calm him down by telling him that we can do more by ourselves. Yesterday was agony! Today was unbearable except for the small ray of hope that after today he could get back to school. I'm crossing my fingers that this will last and praying for his tender soul will stay intact.

While Parker and Easton were off getting their educations. . . Creed, Makay and Beckham were reaping the benefits of having fewer kids at home.

I guess I don't need to wonder how they get so dirty at the park anymore. There's all that lovely playground equipment and my kids choose to sit in the dirt. At least they have imaginations right?

Creed is an expert fence climber. It scares me to death and he thinks it's so funny to scare mom. As long as he keeps it simply going up and down and not over the top I think I can handle it.

Creed starts school on Tuesday of this week and he's slowly warming up to the idea. He has new teachers this year and is going without his big brother so it's going to be a big new adventure for him.

Creed also has his appointment with the cardiologist this week so hopefully we will get some answers about the hole in his heart and find out how serious this is. Ryan and I really want to thank everyone who fasted for Creed last week with us. It's wonderful to know that our families are always there and so willing to support us in any way we need it. Thank you!

No jewelry this week. Just two BIG cakes! I rented the Martha Stewart wedding cakes book from our local library and got inspired. That inspiration didn't quite pan out like I had hoped but all practice is good practice right?

I tried out my new square cake pans (which I love) and tried to think outside the box with the shapes and stacking of the cakes. I think I should stick to copying other people who think outside the box, the end result would pay off much better.

I go to a book club with some women from the ward and last night we had a re-gathering to pick our new books for the next year (we took a six month break do to not being organized). We all bring food (preferably to go along with the book theme) because what's a gathering without food right?

I baked one chocolate and one yellow cake, cut them both in half and slathered chocolate butter cream frosting between each layer. The outside is also butter cream frosting with appropriate pink decorations (believe it or not, I still need to work on my dots).

This thing was a beast! Ryan and I weighed it, it was almost 10 pounds! After cutting into it at our group we found out that 9 of those pounds was the frosting. Amazingly enough I was the only one who didn't finish all my frosting. . . wow.

That's it 'til next week! Over and out.

Schools In and I'm a Nerd!

2009-09-06T20:56:00.000-04:00

Once again a week with no pictures! We need to start doing more interesting things. It wasn't an event less week though, Ryan and Parker started school! Ryan has been sick all week so it wasn't the best week of his life but Parker couldn't be happier. She loves everything about school (thank goodness!) and she can't wait for Easton to start this coming Thursday.

Easton and I went and met his new kindergartner teacher on Friday and she is wonderful. I'm so excited that he has her (instead of Parker's old teacher). Luckily he's excited for school too, the only one we need to get hyped up now is Creed. But we still have some time before he is supposed to head back.

So, no new pictures means you get some from the archives. . .

This one of Beckham (who by the way is walking pretty well now) isn't really that old but it's just so darn cute!

This was our first camping trip with the kids at the wonderful Beaver Dick Park (I know, we hate the name too) in Rexburg. We went in August thinking it would be nice weather for camping, but we forgot where we were, Rexburg. We got a record breaking cold night with freezing temperatures and high winds (high enough to give us two new holes in our tent!). On top of that I was four months pregnant with Makay and not very comfortable on the lumpy, hard ground.

It was a long time before we camped again after this.

Ask me why we put Creed in a white shirt to go camping and I will have no good answer for you. But on the up side I think he got all the dirt on his face instead of the shirt.

A classic La Jolla shores picture in December of 2007. I love it but I have no idea who Parker is talking to.

This is a rare (very rare) tender moment between Creed and Makay at the Mira Mesa 1st ward Christmas party. It's nice to know that we have on record some sweet things like this to prove that they haven't ALWAYS been fighting.

This is a recent picture of the kids on a treasure hunt in one of the many wooded jungle areas of our fine city. On this particular excavation they found a dead raccoon, a key chain and two golf balls. . . a success!!

Jewelry update!

One of my most favorite new creations. My favorite color in the whole world is red and my favorite color combination is red, black and white. Can you guess why I like this bracelet and earring set so much?

I found these cool decorative buttons and given my last name, I just had to use them as inspiration. This is my first button necklace. The button is tied on over one of the pink shell beads and is removable. The button is supposed to be worn off to the side as opposed to a pendent. (I just realized what a huge jewelry nerd I am, sorry!!)

So I have been practicing cake decorating for Parker's birthday. My first attempt with fondant (pictured last week) didn't turn out so well. This week was much more of a success, I actually made the fondant correctly. This was my first creation of the week.

I was never a fondant fan because I hated the way it tasted, why ruin a cake!?! But that all changed when my mom gave me a fondant recipe that tastes great (how can you go wrong when it's made with marsh mellows?)!!

But by this time I was sick of making a cake just so I could play with fondant so I decided to use a shoe box. My children thought I had lost my mind, especially when I kept telling them that we were going to eat it for dessert (hehehe). But it was great practice with much less of the mess.

old and new

2009-08-30T22:25:00.000-04:00

I started to make a new post at nine tonight. It's now eleven and I haven't even organized the pictures yet. I got looking at all the pictures we have of the kids and I couldn't stop!

So, this week you all get an unorganized post with some new things and mostly old but soooo sweet things. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did!

One of my most favorite pictures of Easton

Baby Creed taking a snooze while daddy studies

The kids were in a loving mood so they piled into the chair...Ryan found them like this all lovey dovey with no fighting going on and ran for the camera to capture this rare moment. :)

One moment you're posing for a picture and then with the flash of a camera, you are plummeting to the ground...

The next four are just the kids enjoying hanging out at the park.

Beckham enjoying his cake on his first birthday.

Who needs real makeup when you have crayons handy...

My practice run at fondent, getting ready for Parkers birthday next month...

Beckhams loving life, he was feeling left out while the kids were using moms stamps, so he was very happy when he got to play with a container of unused stamps...

Creed and Makay stamping it up...

Ups and Downs

2009-08-25T17:23:00.000-04:00

Well, I'm back. Where have I been? In SAN DIEGO!!! Yes, my wonderful husband took pity on me and let me return to the place of my roots that I have been missing SO badly. Did I mention that I went alone? Oh yeah, I went alone to refresh my mind and rejuvenate my body from seven long (constant) years of being pregnant and raising children. It's true "silence is golden."

Meanwhile Ryan had the kids all to himself for six days. We joke that it was his final HOORAH with the kids before he goes back to school in a week. I think after a week with the kids, he's very excited about getting back to school. ;) He really did do a great job, I couldn't have a better husband! Thank you so much Ryan!!!

So why would a woman leave her best friend and children for seven days?

Need I say more? Going almost two years without this just about killed me! Now that I've had my fix let's see if I can make it last until our next reunion.

Mom and I did some partying while the boys where off being boys on a mountain top. We hiked a trail at Torry Pines . . . can you see the sweat on our foreheads? Well, about 15 minutes after this picture was taken we were jumping in the waves!

One of my trips highlights was seeing Wicked! My dad got tickets for my mom and I for the night the men returned home from Mt. Whitney. It was AMAZING! Thank you dad a thousand pumpkins!

Sadly I have no other pictures of my dream vacation but it was filled with shopping, the temple and cake making (which turned out to be CC balls (that's ca ca for the layman) but looked great).

It was great to get home and see my family. The kids really did change in just one week and by the end of the day the kids were running away from me because I couldn't stop hugging them.

Two days after getting back Ryan and I heard a huge thud, tumble and roll on our crazy wooden stairs and both came running. Ryan saw the tail end of Makays feet flying up over her head for a crash landing at the bottom of our stairs. She's a pretty tough kid (we know from past incidents) and this time she was really hurting. I took her to Children's Hospital again (we took her just three weeks ago with a hole in her lip) and had some x-rays taken. Poor girl broke her clavicle. :( It's so hard to see your kids in pain!

She wasn't even that interested in her Frosty which shows you how much pain she really was in. When ever I would go to pick her up to carry her somewhere she would tell me, "be careful mommy" and "that hurts my shoulder mommy." It was a long night filled with doses of Children's Tylenol. We are supposed to keep the sling on her for two weeks but I don't know if she'll let us.

She's still in pain but even broken bones aren't going to stop this girl. We love our tough little angel!

And last of all, some new creations. . .

you'll laugh, you'll cry...

2009-08-09T22:39:00.000-04:00

Random videos from this summer...

.................................................................................

Trying to keep the kids minds on the sabbath and away from quoting movies etc is kind of hard. Today, we were at the dinner table and decided on a pop scripture quiz.

"Who knows what king Herod did when he found out about the Saviors birth?" (I know, could we have picked a more morbid question?)

Parker: He got mad. (okay go on...) He told his soldiers to go and kill Abinadi.
Easton: He prayed. He was a nice king wasn't he? Oh, I know, he threw him in the Lions Den.
Creed: He cut his arm off. (thinking of Ammon perhaps?)

Well...at least we know they hear some things during morning scripture study...

all she wants for Christmas...

2009-08-09T21:37:00.000-04:00

It's All About Creed

2009-07-26T20:18:00.000-04:00

Creeds birthday was this month! I can't believe he's four. He had two friends over to play for the afternoon while we did balloon games and pin the tail on the donkey.

I'm sure you've noticed by now that our kids are stuffed full of personality. It comes out in this picture. They can't just be normal and cute like the two adorable Westover girls. Makay and Easton are pretending to be birds, Parker is in her usual princess pose for any picture and Creed is charging the camera. Never a dull moment in our home!

Creed wanted a dinosaur cake this year. I was pretty worried until I found a Wiltons dinosaur cake pan at the Goodwill for 50 cents. KA-CHING! (I have no idea how to spell sound affects!)

Creed really got into the "it's my special day and I'm in charge" thing. The poor kid is a third child, we let him run with it. The kids all got one piece of cake, Creed had two. But the kicker was when he asked for cake the next day for breakfast. Well, who wants cake sitting around the house getting stale anyway! They loved it.

I don't know if we have mentioned how much Creed likes puzzles. Well if he didn't before, he does now because he got some of the coolest puzzles for his birthday. (yes, I helped him on this one. . . and well all of them. I like puzzles too.)

Ryan and I gave him some Disney puzzles and Papa and Grandma Kim gave him the big floor puzzles. He loved the "giant puzzle" pieces. He also got a cool Noah book from Grandma and Grandpa Button plus a dapper (and much needed) suit.

Just in case your wondering, our kids don't normally sit on the table this much.

So you were probably wondering what happened to our other kids for the month of July huh! Well they're still here. Parker's had her two front teeth sticking out of her mouth like a chipmunk for a while. She finally let me yank one of them out (just because she saw something at the store that she wanted to buy).

Front teeth are pretty valuable but our tooth fairy couldn't scrounge more then two dollars for it. Maybe after a couple more teeth she can buy a toy.

July has also been a month of new hairdo's in our family. Easton and Creed wanted desperately to have all the boys in the family match. How can you say no to male bonding!

Creed really did look sickly for the first couple of days. Kind of like he just came from chemo treatment. After he got some sun he looked much better.

I had been growing my hair out for a long time (10 months!) and was going crazy. I finally went to get it cut (my first hair cut done by someone who actually went to beauty school, instead of me with two mirrors, in about four years). It felt so good to get rid of all that hair!

And don't feel sorry for my husband my brothers! He likes my hair!

Mak had everyone in the ward talking about her hair by the end of church. She loved having it curly so much that she walked up to everyone saying, "pretty hair!" while she fluffed her curls. What a GIRL I have!

Lastly of course is jewelry. Sorry about the fuzzy picture, I'll have to fire my photographer. ;) This necklace was just too much fun to not show you mom, I love it.

Summer Adventures

2009-07-10T20:35:00.000-04:00

Summer is in full swing and the Buttons are loving it! We were able to head back down to D.C. at the end of June to visit the temple again. We were so excited that we got a hotel for three nights and were planing a spiritual marathon. The only problem was that once we got there we remembered that we had left our temple bags and recommends at home! HELLO!

We still went and visited the visitors center and spent time on the grounds. The temple is so beautiful! The last full day we were there the temple was able to contact our stake president so we could get in. At least we made it once. It was still a wonderful trip and we got to know the visitor center really well.

On the last day while I was in the temple, Ryan and the kids got to watch Testaments. The kids really enjoyed it. After the movie they went out and were looking at the statue of Christ. Creed walked up and lifter himself up so he could see the Saviors feet. He stayed there for a long time and then felt them. Ryan had to ask him to get down but when he did he said that he could see the holes in the Saviors feet from when he was crucified. It was such a sweet moment.

Once we got back things went strait back to normal. One day we were eating a salad for lunch and Easton was telling us how much he hates spinach. We told him about Popeye and how strong he is because he ate spinach. Easton grabbed the bag and started chomping. When he was done he flexed for us and asked if he was stronger. Of course we all shouted exclamations of awe at his huge muscles. Now he wont miss a chance to eat spinach. Who would have thought it would be so easy?

Before. . .

after!

Monkey see, monkey do! All our kids are Popeye strong now.

Grandma Button sent the kids some valentine things and we just found some of the stickers that we were saving for a rainy day. This is how Creed plays with stickers, he gave himself "robot legs." This is why we usually don't let the kids have them all at once.

How many kids does it take to build a tower? They were so proud of this that they are sure they broke a record with it.

This is Beckhams first take of cake. It took him a while but finally he got into it. We really are easing up on the kids, they usually don't have a taste of cake until their first birthday. Oh how we spoil the youngest!

Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting!

2009-06-14T21:13:00.000-04:00

One good thing about the crazy humidity here in Pittsburgh is we get occasional summer showers. Sometimes they are pretty impressive too. On one such day we let the kids out for a rain dance.

They quickly found the sidewalk chalk and proceeded to paint themselves with pink chalk/paint so they looked like warriors.

Then they gave us their most fearsome kung fu poses.

Meet Viper

Tie Lung

and Tigress! (Yes, Creed is aware that Tigress is a girl but still refuses to be anyone else.)

If you are asking yourself where our children learned such accurate kung fu positions you can look to their grandparents. So thank you Papa and Grandma Kim for the violence that has

filled our home since your visit. We will forever look to Kung Fu Panda and the lessons it has taught our children! Like this one. . .

Ryan - "Easton, will you teach me kung fu so I can do it like you?"

Easton - "I cannot teach a peach"

And this one . . .

Berni - "Creed, if the 64 piece puzzle is too hard for you, you can get a 25 piece one."

Creed - "But a true warrior never quits!"

Family Portrait

2009-05-30T10:49:00.000-04:00

Hello and yes we are alive! Time for some more pictures. Papa and Grandma Kim paid us a visit in May and took some great pictures including a family photo. Here are some of them. . .

Well, this obviously isn't a family photo but it's my favorite that papa took! I need to send it into a Parenting Magazine photo contest.

We got some good ones of the kids amazingly enough. Man! Kids and formal pictures just don't go together!

Here's our angel Beckham who's now almost ten months old! He was the most cooperative one for the pictures I think.

Creed wasn't too excited about sitting on this thing. He was freaking out actually, I'm surprised we got a smile out of him. Ryan is hiding behind the piller holding his pants so he won't fall, that's the only way we could get Creed up there.

Parker wanted to be in every picture but getting a genuine smile out of her was another thing. This is at least a natural expression if not a real smile.

Again, one of my favorite pictures! You can't see her face but I can just see this in black and white as a poster somewhere. Thank you papa for the great pictures!!

Yeah, it was scary having Makay holding Beckham. Ryan and I were both standing by ready to grab him if he started to slip. Luckily this one we were far enough out of the picture that I could crop us out.

This is our new official family portrait. If any grandparents want this just let us know and we can e-mail it to you.

We had a picnic at the park with the boys head start class. It was a really cool park with great toys to play on. Ryan and the boys found this up in one of the towers. Ryan lifted them up so they could see the baby birds. They couldn't stop talking about it!

Ryan had to hold the camera up over his head to get this shot. It took him a couple tries before he actually got the birds in the photo.

Easton found the scooper and wouldn't let that thing go until it was time to eat!

Makay fit in just fine with all the other kids. It was a hot day so she wore her pioneer bonnet, thanks Grandma Veteto!! She looked so cute!

All of Parkers friends at her school have beads in their hair (and also happen to be black). She kept asking me if she could have beads and I told her that it's harder for us to do because our hair is different. She slumped over in her chair and said so genuinely, "I wish I was black" that I had to try for her. I asked some of the moms from the bus stop and they told me how to do it.

I experimented on Makay first because if it was really bad then we just wouldn't have left the house. Makay loved them! She wouldn't stop turning her head from side to side to hear them click together.

It took a while to do. I was amazed that she sat still for it. It took so much work that we left it in for three days. Sadly I forgot to take pictures of Parker while she had them in. Next time I guess.

So I have found a new passion in my life. Which probably has contributed to why the blog has been ignored, sorry!

It's beading! And I love it!! Here is some of what I have been doing. . .

This one is called "Prince Charming," I love that little frog. As you can see I'm not real great at it or professional but it is so fun to be creative.

This is a bracelet that I did that I love to wear. I've made so much jewelry that I can't really wear it all. My mom has talked me into trying to sell some of it on Etsy.com. At least if I sold some I would have an excuse to make more and not just have it pile up in my craft room.

If anyone wants to they can see my shop on etsy at 5kidshappy.etsy.com It's such a fun website that I spend more time looking at stuff then actually posting my own jewelry. But I'll look for any excuse to make stuff so if anyone needs anything let me know and I'll do it at cost. I love this stuff!

Button Archives Part 2

2009-04-17T11:55:00.000-04:00

I have been trying to organize all of our pictures and here are some that I don't think you have ever seen. I hope you enjoy.

Hair dos; some good, some bad.

Parker loves getting her hair dyed but as you can tell, a professional did not do it.

An Easter do, we got inspiration from some Easter baskets.

Easton trying to fit in with his Papas.

One of my favorites!

Some of Dad's bath time fun.

Some attempts at nice kid pictures. . .

This was the closest we got to having everyone smiling and looking at the camera.

I have no idea how this one turned out so nice but I love it!!

I admire any photographer that can do a group photo with children in it!

Many of you have heard this story. Some thought we were exaggerating about the disaster and the number of Jell-O and pudding packets that were emptied on our carpet. Here is the proof!!

This is the floor around the pantry door, the source of the food.

Try counting the number of empty bags on the floor.

Here are some more bags to count.

The kids wanted to make an indoor sand box that also tasted good. It included various flavors of Jell-O, chocolate, vanilla and cheese cake pudding and two containers of raspberry lemonade powder! Yum.

Did we adopt a street urchin? No, this is Creed. Apparently someone emptied a packet of chocolate pudding on his head (or maybe he just rolled around on the ground).

It's amazing that all our children are still alive after that one!

Here's a few more minor messes.

Powder donuts are wonderful.

Creeds scared because he got caught playing with mommies favorite lipstick. It's a good shade on him though, don't you think?

Messes come standard with edible play-dough.

A few more cute ones

That's Makay with Grandma Button and Gigi. Look at the line of blue eyes, I love it!

Creed trying to be a gangsta'

This super hero doesn't hide his alter ego

Our three stooges picture

Parker just being silly

Strangely enough this picture describes Makay very well.

P.S. Parker is not a forgotten child. We just didn't have a digital camera when she was a baby.

Button Archives

2009-03-29T19:59:00.000-04:00

I was looking through our pictures the other day and found some pictures that you all might like. Here are some of them. . .

Easton with Grandma Veteto doing the dishes. How picture perfect can you get?

Makay loves to have the spot light. One night at dinner she got a laugh out of the kids and just kept going with it.

One day while Ryan and my mom where driving the kids to the zoo, they heard a loud bang like something hit our car. They pulled over and looked but couldn't find any dents or evidence of damage. After that we heard a noise when our wheels would rotate, we checked them several times but never saw anything unusual. Then, two weeks after the bang, we were getting gas and spotted this. The wheels were rolled just right so we could see that we were driving on a huge hazard. Can you believe two weeks on a tire like that!?! The Lord was watching over us on that one.

Here is Makays wounded hand when she got her finger slammed in the door. We thought about taking a picture of it before she got the stitches but that seemed a little gory.

You can see her bloody shirt though. The accident happened at about 4pm. This picture was taken at 10pm after the docters fixed her up. She was at the hospital with a bloody shirt and no pants for six hours. Thank goodness she melted everyones heart with her eyes.

Can you guess which button baby is which?

Our Outings

2009-03-23T21:08:00.000-04:00

Spring has definitely been in the air so one Saturday we took advantage of the nice weather and ventured to the Pittsburgh Zoo.

We spent most of our time in the play area with no animals in sight. But the kids had a great time!

Makay insisted on being a big kid and climb the net. Here she is holding on for dear life.

They only had two slides open for about 45 kids, it was really crowded. That didn't bother the kids though, I couldn't have counted the number of times they went down.

They got more and more creative the longer we were there too. They went down head first, on their backs, feet first on their tummies and the big hit. . . in a train! They all held hands and went down together. One boy, about 7 or 8 thought they were having so much fun he asked to join them so for a while there was a train of 5 going down the slides.

Even Beckham had a good time!

We did end up seeing some animals. . . sheep. Makay couldn't keep her hands off them. She thought they really needed her tender loving care so she sang to them and treated them like one of her baby dolls.

The kids also got to ride the Turtle Cars, they were pretty cool little things.

Can you tell this picture was taken near the end of the day?

That's Easton about to pounce on Creed

D.C. Temple Trip

It's been 10 months since Ryan and I had been to the temple! We took advantage of Ryan's spring break and headed south. We stayed two night in a "cabin" (hotel) that had a swimming pool. The kids loved it but I have no idea why they called it a cabin.

The temple really is beautiful! I went to a session during the day while Ryan and the kids played in the "forest of darkness" near by. Ryan went to a session that night while I had the kids at the hotel. It was so nice to go to the temple, I miss having one close!

Here are the kids adventures in the forest of darkness...

Obviously something very painful has taken hold

The bridge to freedom and safety

The horrors inside the forest of darkness

Easton's Birthday Bash. . . and more

2009-02-16T15:15:00.000-05:00

Hello there fans of the Button Bunch. Thank you for coming to see what has been happening in our lives. I hope we don't disappoint.

I have been asked if Beckham is still alive. How rude! Of course he's alive and here's proof!

Not only is he alive, he's happy. . . see? If you look closely you can see his first two teeth too.

Steelers Mania

Of course the whole world knows that the Steelers won the super bowl. I must say that the Steelers have CRAZY fans! On super bowl Sunday we had a member bring his "terrible towel" to church and sing the fight song in Elders quorum. I think that's something that would only be considered normal in Pittsburgh though.

So, in honor of our team (and because all school classes were having a "black and gold" party) we made cookies.

Each kid got their own color of frosting and some cookies to frost and decorate.

Even Makay got the concept down, I was very impressed.

This was truly a test of my patients to watch them eat all the frosting, wipe their nose and then lick frosting off their fingers and then pick up their cookies to frost. It's all for the sake of memories right!

By the end the kids had cookies with heaps of sprinkles so high you couldn't move them for fear of an avalanche. Parker was rather upset that she had to take the cookies that I frosted and decorated to her class party instead of hers. What can I say, I'm a party pooper.

Birthday Bash

After we recovered from the Super Bowl it was Eastons Birthday! My first man-child is 5!!

He wanted a Wall-E cake so we got inventive.

I think I had more fun making it than anything. The cubes of trash that Wall-E makes are slices of Snicker bars. I drastically over estimated the amount of Snickers bars it would take to decorate the cake so we had enough extra for Easton to pass some out to his class and Ryan to pass some out to his class AND some for the Elders AND some left over for Ryan's lunches. HELLO!

Easton loved his presents so thanks again to all the grandmas and great grandmas (and the grandpas who paid for them ;)

Is a boys birthday complete without a super hero and a little action? It was too cold outside so we did the pinata in the basement (and we couldn't find rope so we hung him with an extension cord).

It was kind of scary how much Creed got into it.

Parker broke the tie that we hung him by so she beat him on the ground, cheater.

Makay didn't really get what was going on but after a while we got her to join in.

Has anyone ever read the short story called "The Lottery"? Enough said.

After he was beat on the floor Ryan tied the extension cord around Spideys neck and the boys finished the job.

This is our children basking in the carnage of our super hero. What kind of sick traditions do we embrace? When all was said and done Creed was still feeling the adrenaline and kept yelling, "Let's smack him again!" It was a great birthday!!

A Crime Has Been Committed

2009-01-30T15:35:00.000-05:00

Scene of the crime: Boys' Bedroom

Weapon used to commit crime: Wooden Hammer from Santa Clause

Crime committed: Smashing hole in bedroom window

Criminal: Easton Jace Button plead guilty

Oh, the things that happen behind closed doors! This is a "quiet time" happening. I was down stairs and I heard Easton run out of his room crying. He stood at the top of the stairs and said, "Mom, I broke the window." How can you get mad when he strait up tells you the truth. This boy is the king of blame, lying and half truths. He stood their crying and told me that he pounded hard on the window with his toy and then it broke.

He even posed for a picture for me. How can I be mad at that. My Easton teddy bear drives me crazy some times but this time, all I could do was hug him.

It wasn't until later that we got the bill of $45 for his little Handy Manny role play.

Ice and Glasses

2009-01-21T14:45:00.000-05:00

We have a sun room off the back of our kitchen. At least that is what it is called during the summer. This winter it has earned a new name, "the ice box." Why would we call it that you ask. Because the temperature during the day is roughly 32 degrees. So if you wonder why our blog has been slow moving or I'm not answering e-mails it's because our computer is living in the ice box. I put on a coat when I do venture in here but my fingers still go numb pretty quickly. On the bright side, not many people have a walk in fridge in their house. :)

Now for the news. Berni got glasses! Apparently I have been far sighted or quite some time, who knew. The Doctor said it's hard to diagnose because I can still see fine, it's just that my eyes are doing a lot more work then they are supposed to. I put my glasses on for the fist time and about fell over. They are really taking some getting used to. My depth perception is wacko and I can't move my head around too much without getting a headache. Glasses stink!!

If you wonder why I'm bundled up in the house with a coat and scarf that's because this picture was taken in the ice box. So these are the glasses, tell me what you think. I think I'm getting frost bite on my fingers!

More Pictures

2009-01-10T12:25:00.000-05:00

Things have quieted down since everyone has gone back to school. Nothing new has happened but here are a few more pictures from the holidays.

Parker and Makay are giving Beckham a ride in his walker. It's kind of funny because his feet don't actually reach the floor yet. The boys like to give him rides too but they tend to race with him and Beckham isn't ready for that kind of speed yet.

Maykay and Creed can be best buddy's when they want to be. It looks like she has a crazed look in her eye and is going to attack him while he is running for dear life but they are actually having races in the front room and having a ton of fun.

Here are all the kids the day after Christmas. Parker has started insisting on doing her own hair. I only give in on days that she doesn't go to school, do you blame me?

This is Beckhams' Christmas outfit that he got from Grandma Button. He's so stinkin' cute in it that we just had to take a picture. If Beckham is out of my hands then the kids are swarming so it's hard to get a picture of just him while all the others are awake.

End of Year Recap

2009-01-04T19:18:00.000-05:00

Is it just me, or is November and December put on fast forward? Here's a quick recap. . .

We had five little Indians running around our house on Thanksgiving.

For some reason we all got tattoos to celebrate our day of thanks.

Doug and Kim Button came to visit us on December 11 for a long weekend. It was wonderful to see them and for them to finally meet Beckham. They were here for the celebration on Makays party as well.

Makays birthday was on December 16, she blew out her two candles like a pro. (I think Elder Martinez secretly helped.)

Ryan had three weeks off of school for the holidays and it was wonderful. He got all A's last semester and is well rested and ready to go for next semester.

We acted out the nativity on Christmas Eve for the first time. We did the two minute version and still had some issues but overall it went well. (Cousin "it" on the left is Makay as a shepherd in case you were wondering.)

For New Years Eve we had a party with the kids. Parker made mini pizzas for dinner, Creed made a nacho cheese dip that only he could stomach and Easton made an Oreo cookie dessert. After dinner we played a game of charades and the kids were off to bed.

All Kinds of Vampires

2008-11-25T19:27:00.000-05:00

Vampires every where! These are the vampires I love most of all, besides Edward of course!

We were a parade of vampires, it was so much fun. Parker and Makay really fit the part too, can't you tell? I played down the makeup on the kids for the ward party but some of the other kids still said they were scary. I noticed that ours was the only family that had anything remotely scary. Everyone else were fairies, monkeys and traffic lights. Oh well.

That's me, the scary mom. Not many adults dressed up at our ward party. . . lame! My friend told me that if she didn't know me I could totally pull off this look. I don't think that's a compliment, or maybe my makeup was sooo good that it convinced her. Either way the Bishop didn't know what to say to me, it probably didn't help that he doesn't know me that well.

This was our ency, weensy spider. Too cute!!

Terrible picture, I know, but it was the only one we took. I go to book club with a few of the ladies in the ward and one of the books we read was Twilight. We decided to go to the midnight showing on the 21st. It was a ton of fun!

In Case of an Emergency . . .

2008-11-16T19:48:00.000-05:00

Most of my time is spent at home with my five children who are six and under. One day I was pondering the possible outcomes if something was to happen to me. Do my kids know what to do in the event of an emergency?

At dinner I asked them. "Parker, what do you do if mommy falls down and won't wake up?"
Parker - "Get out of the house as fast as you can!"

I think she's definitely on a "save yourself" mode. I was hoping Eastons answer would be better. "Easton, what do you do if mommy gets hurt and you can't wake her up?"
Easton - "Stop, drop and roll!"

I guess I know what our next Family Home Evening lesson should be about.

Fall Fun

2008-10-23T21:40:00.000-04:00

Being inspired by the talented people around me, I tried my hand at a little photography. It's exhausting! I think I need an assistant next time. Thank goodness Beckham was cool with hanging out in his stroller for a couple hours. Here's what my efforts turned out.

I asked Creed to lay in the leaves and this was the pose he gave me. I think we have a male model on our hands.

This was the coolest wall! I got to meet one of my neighbors when I asked him if I could take pictures of my kids by his front yard fence. It was a little embarrassing but he was nice enough about the crazy lady and all her kids taking pictures in his front yard.

They sure do look like they get along don't they. I would say it was my exceptional photography skills but really I think they are just good actors.

Our little miss blue eyes

This is my absolute favorite picture!!!

So just in case you thought this was all fun and games, here is just a taste of our bloopers.

Oh, you think Easton has spotted a UFO! No. . . there was a fly on my watch.

Oops, Makay fell and got a bloody hand. At least this was a genuine expression. She learned how to say "cheese" for the camera and most of her pictures came out looking very pained.

Is it too much to ask to have at least one real smile for a picture with four people in it?

A Beautiful Moment

2008-10-16T20:28:00.000-04:00

Between the hours of 3 to 7 pm my house is chaos. Makay (who will be 2 in December) no longer takes naps, but really still needs them. By that time of day the boys are home and the stimulation that they bring just about sends her over the edge. Beckham is particular about being held, he doesn't really like much else. He can eat, sleep and poop being held and would prefer it that way.

With this information you can understand why my house is a disaster and the act of cooking is basically extinct. With all of this swirling around me, along with the joyful screams of four playing children I sat in our "papa chair" and was caught up in the beauty of a baby.

The miracle swept over me as I looked at my little boys' perfect face and acknowledged that not too long ago he was in the presence of our Father in Heaven. My body was designed to provide for him. He grew inside me and birth, though so incredibly painful, is a miracle. My body can still provide for his needs and when he sleeps in my arms it's like we fit together so perfectly, like we did when he was in my tummy.

Maybe this is too much information for some and way too sappy for others. I get so caught up in the chaos of my life that I don't have beautiful moments like this one very often. Thank you Heavenly Father for letting me be a women that can have children. They are my joy and my trial. How can you know love until your a parent?

Horrors in the Check-Out Line

2008-10-08T21:47:00.000-04:00

Beckham, already learned in the ways of men by his brothers, doesn't like to shop. Therefore he protests. Crying is of course his only form of rebellion for now so that is what he does. He is very good at it too. Unless, by chance, he forgets his need to make a point and enjoys himself. He occasionally does this when the grocery cart is moving fast enough. But if I stop to compare prices or make sure I'm getting everything on my list, he quickly remembers that he is a man and must protest the shopping experience. The crying soon follows.

Makay, already learned in the ways of women by her sister, loves to shop. She is too young to be a proficient shopper. She is impulsive, a quality any professional shopper would look down on. She goes for the first thing that catches her eye and snatches it up. Another cardinal mistake is to shop without a budget. Luckily Makay has someone who is now very good at putting back on the shelves half the things that go into the cart right there with her.

I, being a women, should love to shop and think that one day I might enjoy it again (if I make it till then). For now, making it home safely and with food is an exhausting success. Take for instance the check-out line. The cart isn't moving so Beckham must protest and I have to stay in one place so Makay must try to go and find more things for me to buy. Just two days ago I was in this very situation. . .

I had a cart heaped with food, over $250 worth! Beckham was screaming so I was rocking the cart back and forth, back and forth. People in Pittsburgh don't know what to do with kids in a grocery store let alone one that's crying, it really makes you feel the pressure. Makay was surprisingly staying close to my legs. While I was checking my watch I felt a bump on the cart. I look down to find Makay with a very red face clutching her right hand. I realized the silence was from the enormous intake of air to support the howl that followed. The ring finger that just four weeks ago received many stitches was red, wet and dripping. She had her hand on the floor, I clipped it with the cart wheel and popped open half of what was once "healing nicely".

The next 15 minutes entailed both Beckham and Makay "protesting", Makay and me with bloody hands (mine from squeezing hers until the blood stopped flowing), a new cashier who didn't know what to do with my 4 WIC checks, me sweating profusely from holding Makay in one arm while loading my cart with bagged food, signing checks and trying to keep Beckhams pacifier in to stifle the sobs, and a man with makeup and a headband on running and getting band aids for us. So you see, when I say making it home safely and with food from the store is a success, I really mean it!!