Baseball and my boys!

So, what have the Cornell's been up to this past couple of months?

(I have a picture of my calendar that is supposed to upload here, but it won't work. So, I will show it later.)

Baseball, baseball, and MORE baseball! Good thing I love the sport. I have had so much fun watching Bryce and Cayden play these past couple of months. Bryce hit his first home run yesterday ~ he had a great game! And Cayden has been the starting pitcher all season pitching the first 3 innings of all but 3 games. The kids that age are only allowed to pitch 6 innings a week so when he had 3 games in a week he pitched the first 2 innings of each game. In his first 12 innings pitched he had only one kid he walked. We are so proud of these boys!

Three things of note:
1. Cayden was picked to be on the traveling ALL-STAR team this year. There were only two 9-year-old picked and he was one of them!
2. Today marks a special day for Bryce ~ He lost his first tooth! YAY for Bryce! He was hoping this would happen before he finished first grade and he made it with only two days of school left!
3. Gavyn has been the sweetest little boy. He has gladly gone to every game, every practice, and cheered on his brothers until he was blue in the face. He did however let his brothers know that he starts T-BALL next month and he expects them to be sitting down and cheering him on as well. I think he has earned it!

This post is all over the place, but I am trying to think of anything of importance that has happened since I last wrote. School is out on Friday. I am glad that school is almost over so that I will have the kids home to hang out with. I am one of those parents who LOVE when their kids are out of school.

I am no longer a Realtor. I have decided to go back to school full-time to get my teaching degree. I start in June and I am SO excited. I absolutely love school. I am going to be taking online courses through Grand Canyon University so the program will only take me 2 years max because of the prevoius schooling I have done.

Curtis got another free & clear check up from his oncologist last week. We dread those appointments, yet look forward to them at the same time. His next one is in November. I have to say that it is really nice knowing that they are keeping a close eye on him to make sure the cancer doesn't come back. It gives good peace of mind.

Cloud Analogy

As anyone living in Idaho knows, this past couple of weeks have been miserable with constant intermittent rain, snow, blasting wind (with advisory's), and bitter cold. We have had baseball games four nights a week and have had to sit through the lovely weather almost every night. As we were headed to one of Cayden's games last week Bryce looked up and noticed another dark cloud headed our way and asked what it meant when some clouds were darker than others and why the dark clouds rain on us. I gave him a small explanation of how colds can only hold so much precipitation making them darker until they can no longer hold it and then it starts to rain.

Bryce was still asking questions and Cayden jumped in to answer for me. He told Bryce that the clouds are like our bladders. Clouds hold the rain just like our bladders hold our pee. It can only hold so much pee before we have got to go to the bathroom and let it out just like the clouds eventually have to let the rain out.

After Cayden explained this Bryce thinks for a minute and replies, " oh, okay. I get it now." I turned around to Cayden and said, "Cayden, great analogy!"

I love my kids!

Christmas pictures from 2009

At Christmas time last year Cayden's class got to do some karaoke. Gavyn and I went to go listen. Cayden and his friend Dexter were singing a song together and let Gavyn sing it with them. It made Gavyn's day to be included!

Then Cayden and Gavyn sang their own song.

YAY ~ I am finally posting my santa pictures!

We took the kids out to dinner one night. They are all getting old enought now that dinner's out are quite pleasant. The kids are well behaved and just so much fun to take places.

Here they are in their Christmas Eve jammies. We get the kids a new pair of pajamas every year and let them open them on Christmas Eve.

I love how much these boys love each other!

Cayden opening his snowboard Christmas morning.

Bryce opening his snowboard.

Gavyn got skis for his big Christmas gift.

Our whole family got Steeler's jersey's in our stockings. Here the kids are opening their gift from Santa. They got RockBank for the Wii. I have to say this has turned out to be one of the funnest gifts. We have family nights about every other week where we go down and just play together. All the boys take turns doing the drums, playing the guitar, and singing.

Gavyn's 5th birthday.

My sweet little Gavyn turned 5 on December 20, 2009.

Gavyn is such a good little boy and I adore him so much. He definately has a strong personality, but I love it! He is an energetic, busy little boy full of hugs, kisses, snuggles, and smiles.

Gavyn woke up just before 2:30 in the morning to open his presents. He was so tired, yet so excited at the same time. Curtis and I decided to let him open just one present. He climbed up into our bed, got the present opened, and then we were able to talk him back into bed. Here is a video I got of the event.

Gavyn showing us how old he is.

This was at exactly 2:23 a.m. He is looking a little tired still at this point.

He opened up a truck with a trailer. This little boy LOVES his trucks and trailers!

Here he is opening his presents later on in the morning when his brothers were awake.




Gavyn has to do everything his brothers do and taught himself how to ride the ripstick earlier this year. He has been asking for one of his own since August...and now he finally got one.

After he opened out presents we got ready to go to church when grandma and grandpa Smith came to the door with their present for Gavyn.

Gavyn had a great birthday.

We love you Gavyn

Thanks for filling our home with happiness, humor, and love!

Grandpa, Bed, and other Miscellaneous Pictures

I found these cute pictures of my dad with my boys and nephew. We were watching a basketball game my nephew Andrew was playing in and these guys went to the top of the bleachers and hung out. You can tell that they adore each other! I had to take a lot of pictures because every time I looked up there Bryce was sitting in a different position. He certainly is a squirmy one.

Gavyn has had a cheap bed for a while and it has held up so we didn't worry too much about it. So I went in to Gavyn's room one evening to read him some books and I went to sit on his bed and as I sat the bed went down. Gavyn started crying and asking me why I would break his bed. I felt horrible. When daddy got home we went to Walmart and found him a new bed. Gavyn was so excited, he would not leave the box. This is how he went through Walmart.

Sadly, I have not even posted my Christmas pictures yet, but this was our 2009 Christmas tree. The kids decorated it all by themselves, including the tinsel. They were so excited. I was impressed at how even they got it.

Gavyn and Abigail

Gavyn decided that we do not have any pictures of momma or daddy so he took about 20 pictures of us around the house for the next couple of days. I promised him I would post a few...so here we go.

And...here is the culprit.

The boys had their school Christmas program in December 2009. Their program was really well done and they boys both did great with their parts. I tried to record some of it, but did not do so well. Next year I will take a camcorder instead of just my camera.

Cayden gave Gavyn his old bathrobe and I can't get the little man to stop wearing it. He'll strip down all the time just so he can wear his robe. I keep telling him he could keep his clothes on, but he is persistent that robes are not to be worn that way. He is so cute!

My ward did a Christmas skit for the party this year and Curtis was in it. He played the sheriff. The kids LOVED watching their daddy on stage. They all did a great job.

Praying for a loose tooth.

I have always kept a candy drawer in the kitchen where the kids can go for when they get a treat. Since Easter last weekend our candy drawer as been overflowing. Usually the boys are not too bad about how much candy they eat, but I have been battling with a certain boy all week in keeping out of the drawer.

Bryce is in 1st grade right now and has realized that he is the only child in the class not loosing teeth. He has not had one single loose tooth yet and he is not happy about it. He asked me a couple of months ago if I could please help him knock out his tooth. I let him know that was not an option and then I found him a little while later trying to talk his brother into knocking out a tooth for him. Luckily, Cayden didn't think it was such a good idea either. He has been constantly coming up with different ways to get a loose tooth.

Fastforward to this week. Bryce has been constantly sneaking candy out of the drawer. Tonight I finally sat him down to talk about why he continues to sneak candy when he knows its a bad choice and will get him in trouble. He informed me that he is eating candy in hopes of getting a tooth to fall out. He said he is eating lots of hard chewy candies in hopes of it loosening a tooth. He also told me that if that doesn't work then he knows that soon a tooth is going to fall out anyway because I had told him if he eats too much junk food it will rot his teeth and they will fall out.

I am not sure what to think about this other than I guess the child goes after what he wants. I hope this will come in handy some day when he is older. For now we will keep praying for him in our nightly family prayers that Bryce might get a loose tooth.

The BIG bandaid

It has been awhile..again..since I have posted, but I had to write about what Gavyn did last night.

Gavyn stubbed his foot on the edge of the counter last night and ended up with a scrape on the top of his foot that was bleeding. He told us he was going to go get a bandaid to put on it to help it feel better and we told him to go ahead. We heard him shuffling stuff around in our bathroom for a few minutes before he came out. Gavyn told me he couldn't find anything but the REALLY BIG bandaids. He was trying to figure out how to put the big bandaid on when he came around the couch and I could see that he had one of my maxi pads.

I watched as he tried to get the pad to work as a bandaid until he decided it just wouldn't work and I told him to go into the kitchen to ask daddy for help. He walked into the kitchen and asked Curtis for help. When Curtis turned around to help his little guy you could see him trying his best to hold back the laughter. Curtis looked at him and said, "Gavyn..you sure it won't work? Maybe you should try it one more time." Gavyn told him it would not work and asked him to find a smaller bandaid. Curtis told him where they were and after Gavyn walked out of the room he burst out laughing.

We haven't told him yet that those indeed are NOT bandaids. I think we will wait on that one for another day. I just love that Curtis and I both had pretty much the same reaction and that Gavyn is so entertaining!

Motorcross, Misc., Cayden Bday & Thanksgiving

Curtis and I have talked about taking the kids to a motorcross event in the past and this last year we decided we would do it. They LOVED it!!! These boys were so happy and so engaged in everything that was going on. I highly recommend this to everyone. I only got pictures at the very end when a snowmachine was making the jump. He made the jump, but when he tried to do it again with a backflip he did not make it and the show ended with a crash.

My boys leaving the event. Fuzzy picture, but oh so cute!

These are some odds and ends pictures that I have no idea where they came from.

Gavyn being cute as ever.

My boys giving me snuggles. I love these boys so much.

Curtis and the boys making lunch after church. We have scrambled egg sandwiches every single Sunday after church. It is a ritual that our family loves and we have done it for years. The boys love helping crack the eggs.

Bryce giving a sweet smile.

Cayden turned 9 years old on November 26, 2010...the same day as Thanksgiving. He is such an amazing kid and I love him so much. He has been such a help to me over the years with his brothers, the house, making meals, and whatever else I have needed him to do. This kid is one of the sweetest there is. He cares so much about everybody and is always trying to make his brothers happy and diffuse any problems that may be going on in the house.

Cayden also has really worked on strengthening his testimony this past year. He has been reading his scriptures, writing in his journal, and making sure that our family is having weekly family home evenings. I am so proud of him and grateful for the example he is to our family.

The only think he asked for on his birthday was a golf ball retriever. He goes golfing with his pappy every weekend all summer long which he something he looks forward to and enjoys. Cayden has become quite the golfer. Here he is with his favorite present!

He also got the Wimpy Kid series

and a bike ramp.

This is me putting my shoes on getting ready to leave for Preston for our family Thanksgiving dinner. As soon as Cayden was done opening presents we headed out the door.

The boys made these turkey's to put on some graves. We put one on Mayson's, Grandma Rumsey's, and Grandpa Wanner's. They were so excited to do this.

You can tell Gavyn has been using the camera a lot lately. That is how I keep having pictures of myself. Problem is I end up deleting at least 20 pics inbetween. Thank goodness for memory cards.

After the family dinner the boys went outside with some cousins to play football.

Here is are some of the boys who were playing outside. You can't tell by the pictures, but it was absolutely freezing outside.

And here was the view they had while playing. The mountains are beautiful!