November 2010

I looked at our blog and realized that it's been a month since I've updated. At first, I wondered why....have we been doing nothing of importance? So, I went to check our photo card and realized that I have just been too darn busy with every day stuff that I completely missed blogging all of November!

So, here's a few happenings from last month.

Curious George and Family Reading Night

I've heard of family reading nights at the library before. I've never been. I decided to take the kids this time because I heard about it so much during the weekly story-time that I take Max and Logan to. It sounded like a lot of fun and I really had no excuse for missing since I had been told every week for a month.

It was SO MUCH FUN! I really had no expectations, but really...it was FUN!

First, the kids got to meet Curious George, which everyone (except for Logan,of course) was very excited for. George was very friendly. Quiet, but friendly. I mean, ya never know when you meet a celebrity what kind of person he or she will be like. But, George, he's the real deal.

 

The kids came home with tons of stuff. Activity sheets, bananas (ya know...for George), and free books. And, when I say free books, these book were amazing! They gave our little family 5 books! Here's the whole stash:

The book Max got was amazing! It was a pop-up book like I've never seen before. There were pop-ups inside of pop-ups. Here's a few pictures:

It was a fun night! I'll definitely go to the next one.



Next up....

The Great Blizzard of 2010

We had a huge blizzard here. HUGE! I've seen some pretty bad weather come through these parts, but I don't think I've ever seen it quite this bad. The wind was blowing the snow around so hard that we couldn't even see the house across the street. It snowed for 4 days straight. Dave got some pictures of the snow starting on Saturday:

We got a lot of snow that day, but Saturday and Sunday were really like the calm before the storm. Monday was bad. Bad enough to cancel school. But, Tuesday was by far the worst. All of the county roads were closed - meaning not even the snow plows were out due to the severe weather. The only descent picture I got during the storm was our view through the back window:

Tuesday evening, the storm finally started to break. The wind was still blowing and drifting the snow around. But, the sun was shining and it was absolutely breathtaking outside. I took a ton of pictures and I just couldn't narrow it down to only a few.

I think this picture is rather beautiful and meaningful. The roads were completely closed, yet the Sears service truck was still out making repairs. Now THAT is customer service. You can't see it in the picture, but between the black power box and the house across the street is where the road is. It was buried in 4 feet of snow. Even with 4-wheel drive, you couldn't have driven through it...and that poor repair man was heading right for it.

Here's our house. I love how the windows have snow in the corners like an old fashioned Christmas card. Of course it didn't last, but it was pretty while it did.

To show you just how much snow we got, here's our neighbors fence on the Saturday it started:

It's probably about 4 feet high. After the storm, the drift completely buried part of his fence:

It was a very scary, and crazy, and cool storm.


Max's new obsession:

Max has been totally consumed with all things electronic lately. He plays the Wii, games on the computer and the Leapster quite a lot. I am kind of on the fence about this one. Most of the games he plays are educational. Plus, I think it's good for kids to be exposed to technology. But...I think that it can be a bad thing in a hurry if that's all that Max wants to do. So, we decided to give him some new options.

I hauled out the water colors. Bria has always been interested in art, but Max not so much. Apparently that's because he didn't know about water colors. He painted 19 pictures in one day. Now that's what I call dedication. While I was taking his pictures, he told me in detail what each picture was about. I really wish I had videotaped it also.

And...of course we can't forget Bria. She wanted to show some of her most recent artwork.

Last, but not least...

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving seems to be the holiday most notorious for the least amount of pictures taken. It's one of my favorite holidays - it's relaxing, there's good food and good company, we get to remember why we are thankful.

This year, we had Thanksgiving at our house. Dave's parents, brother Brad and his daughter Taryn, and his other brother Shane and his wife Amy and three of their kids came over. It was super easy for me because Dave's mom very graciously cooked nearly all of the food. So, I pretty much just got to enjoy the day. It was a ton of fun.

This picture wasn't even actually from Thanksgiving, but the colors in Logan's shirt seem to work. I think Dave was taking a picture mid-fit, which seems to be Logan's MO lately. I love the look of shock on his face. "Me? You finally decided to pay attention to me? Let me keep watching and see if this fit will get me what I want..."

And...can you see all the hair he is finally starting to grow? I think he might be a blondie like his big bro.

Well, I think that finally catches me up for November. I think I'll skip the proof reading. It took long enough to type. =)

Happy Birthday, Bria!!!

I can't believe that Bria turned 7!! Holy cow!

For her birthday this year, she really wanted to have a friend party. It was really fun to watch Bria and all the anticipation she had for her birthday. I do have to say one thing....friend birthday for a 7 year old are way easier than friend birthdays for a 3 year old. Bria and I sat down and decided what we wanted to do. We decided it would be fun to have a pizza party. Then, we made the invitations and I gave them to Bria to hand out to whomever she wanted. She gave a couple to neighborhood kids and a couple to school friends. It was a really fun group! Bria's done a great job at making good friends.

We had the kids make their own mini-pizzas.

 Thanks so much to Dave for helping them not put too little or too much!

Their pizzas turned out fabulous! Bria made a cute face with hers. It even had ears and earrings (although it looks like by the time we took the picture, she had already eaten one ear).

Instead of a birthday cake, I tried my hand a second time at Bakerella's beautiful cake pops. Here's what I was going for:

Aren't they beautiful? Bakerella really makes them seem easy to make, too. Instead of flawless, beautiful cakepops, this is what we ended up with:

 

They did taste good, though. 

Next, Bria got to open her presents:

 

Afterward, the kids headed downstairs and watched How to Train Your Dragon.

It was a great night! Happy Birthday, Bria! We love you!

Halloween 2010

Halloween was fun this year. I didn't know how it would go since it actually landed on a Sunday. We also missed the ward trunk-or-treat and the school fall carnival. I was worried that it was slated to be the worst Halloween on record. But, it wasn't. It was really fun!

Bria dressed up as Daphne from Scooby Doo. She was in love with the costume when we found it at the store. The kids have a little bit of a Scooby Doo obsession right now.

 

Some people had a hard time seeing it. Bria mostly got..."What are you this year?" So, here's a Scooby Doo picture to compare:

Max was Bumblebee from Transformers:

 

I love how he has a huge smile underneath his mask.

Logan went as an adorable puppy:

We went trick-or-treating on Saturday night. Because we live in such a strong LDS community, when holidays fall on a Sunday, people tend to celebrate on Saturday. We didn't get even one trick-or-treater on Sunday, but we got quite a few on Saturday.

We saved carving pumpkins until Monday and we did that for Family Home Evening. I know it was technically November by this point, but whose counting, right?

We had Bria and Max draw what they wanted their pumpkin to look like:

Then, Dave helped them actually carve it:

 

Bria's was a cat and Max's was a scarecrow:

The Pacifier Wizard

We occasionally refer to Logan as "The Pacifier Wizard". He has this uncanny ability to lose pacifiers. I would completely understand if it was just normal every day losing. But, we have completely lost more pacifiers than I can keep track of. He has even been known to be put to bed with one and have it mysteriously come up missing. Really. He was in his crib and had no way to hide it or dispose of the evidence. I'm telling you. Pacifier Wizard!

This morning, I was deep cleaning the kitchen. I was tackling our very dirty oven. I decided to clean underneath, but instead of pulling the whole thing out like I usually do, I just pulled out the bottom drawer.

At the very back of the oven, I found this:

To get a full appreciation of the wizardry involved, let me mention that there is only 1" clearance from the bottom of the drawer to the floor. The funny thing is, if I had pulled the oven out as originally planned, it would have just been slid forward and I would never have even seen it.

Watch out, Harry Potter, there's a new kid on the block!

Spooky Storytime

I've been taking Max and Logan to our library's storytime every week. It's so fun! They sing songs and listen to stories. I love it because it's only about 1/2 hour. It also gets us to the library every week. It's been loads of fun.

This week was fun! They had a little Halloween party. The kids got to dress up......

And they got a special surprise at the end. Last week, the kids got to sprinkle "Magic Pumpkin Seeds". They had to wait a week to see what happened. To their surprise, "The Magic Pumpkin Fairy" came and change the seeds!

Max was absolutely delighted!

Speaking of the library, last week, I noticed they had the new Bakerella Cake Pop book. I had to check it out and I have to tell you...I'm hooked! That woman is amazing at decorating. I decided to try my hand a some of the pumpkin cake pops.

Mine look nothing like her perfect candy coating....and my food markers must be running dry, so I only decorated one. But, the kids can't get enough! I'm making more for Bria's birthday next week.

Aren't the flowers in the background gorgeous? Dave got them for me "just because". Isn't he wonderful?

Updates

I think all the time that I want to blog more. I even think of really good things to blog about. Then life seems to get in the way and by the end of the day I am exhausted. So, instead of lots of catch-up posts, I think I'll do an update. And, hopefully in the near future, I'll jump back on the blogging train and post more often.

This girl

I love this girl! She has been very busy in the first grade. Her teacher really keeps her on her toes with lots of homework. She is learning to read better and better every day. By far her best subject is math. In her spare time, she likes to play with friends and plan her birthday party - plans that by no means am I aware of. She is going to be a great party planner when she's older, for sure! She also loves to draw, decorate, and plan very elaborate games that entertain her and Max for hours. My favorite thing that she does right now is use the word "reckon-ized". She is trying to say recognized but she actually means realized.  She'll say "Mom, I reckon-ized that it was time for breakfast so I got some cereal." Or, "I reckon-ized that 2+2 is 4." You get the idea. It's so funny to me.


This guy

This guy is quite the busy body. He is such a joy to have around. He has got the best sense of humor. It's hard not to feel happy with him nearby. Every morning, he wakes up, sneaks up the stairs, and tries to scare me with his monstrous growl. I love it! Right now, he is trying very hard to learn the alphabet to get ready for kindergarten next year. He is actually better at the letter sounds than the letter names. He knows almost all of them. He gets pretty bored when Bria is at school, but is fast finding a friend in Logan. The two of them tackle and chase each other all day. It's fun to watch!


Last, but not least, this guy

Where do I start with this one? He is such a handful, but also such a joy to have. Right now, he is at the age of discovery. Discovery of what's inside cupboards and drawers. Discovery of toilets and the splashy water inside. Discovery of pulling movies off the movie shelf. I have to remind myself that he is just learning. He's actually starting to say quite a few words. His favorite today is "Daddy". He says it quite well. He copies tons of sounds and actions. His new favorite action is Shhhsing people. He even puts his little finger by his mouth while doing it.

I finally figured out how to pull video's off of our video camera so I could post some on here. (You'd think it would have been easier since Dave is a wedding videographer. But, take into consideration that he is the technical guru, not me.) (If you are getting this in an email, Click Here to see the videos)

Logan is very resourceful. He is learning to walk, but his preferred method of transportation is definitely crawling. He has learned to tackle the problem of carrying and crawling quite well, I think. I call it his Limp Crawl:




While learning to walk, he got never ending enjoyment out of this toy. He spent hours pushing it around the livingroom:






Finally, after tons of practice, he learned how to walk. He is doing better and better everyday. He can take about 10 steps now. He could do more, but decides after that many that crawling is easier and faster.




This video cracks me up. I love how he acts like he is talking and making sense. All day, he talks like this. I turned the lcd screen around on the video camera so he could see himself being videoed.

Ten

Like all my other posts, this one is a bit late. Dave and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary last Wednesday. I've been thinking a lot all year about this day coming. It seems like such a long time; at the same time, it's gone so fast.  I wouldn't change a minute of it. I love Dave so much and I truly feel blessed every day to be married to such an amazing man.

For our anniversary this year, we took a little getaway to the Anniversary Inn. We highly, highly recommend it! (Thanks a million to Andrea for watching our kids) Dave picked the room and surprised me. It was fun. He picked the Vegas Nights room. It was so nice to get away and take a rest.

We got some good pictures of the room, but not one of us! Shame.

I love you, Dave. Here's to many, many more years together!

Family

One of the best parts about funerals is family. It is such a bitter sweet time to be together. We were lucky and got some family pictures with almost everyone. We're still missing 4. It's so hard to get everyone together at the same time!!

I don't know what it is with Max and his pirate face these days. He does that pose nearly every time we take a picture of him!

Grandma Moedl's Funeral

On September 20th grandma Moedl passed away. She was an absolutely remarkable woman. Grandma became a quadriplegic about 43 years ago after an exploratory surgery. She was a living example of patience and virtue. In all my 32 years I never heard grandma complain about her  circumstances. It was a great experience to make a slide show of her life. It was so fun to hear her life history and some of the stories that I had never heard before. I will always remember her smile and the quick wit she had. I am truly grateful for the opportunity to know Ruth W. Moedl.

Ice Blocking

There are some things I love about being a grown-up. I can stay up as late as I want. Eat anything I so desire. Spend my time doing pretty much whatever I want. Just because I don't always choose to do these things, doesn't mean I don't love having the choice.

Then, there are other things I hate about being a grown-up. Money. Endless loads of laundry. Money. But, most of all being so busy taking care of life that I forget to take time to play. Dave always says one of his favorite quotes is that people tend to be humans doing and not human beings. With every day stress, it's really easy to forget to enjoy life.

Enter the Young Women organization. I'm not really part of the playing side....I am the Sunday teacher. But, I do get to go to all the activities - and without the stress of planning. We have such a fun group of girls. They are so carefree and fun to be around. It brings back so many memories of being that age. Time goes way too fast.

Anyway, back to the post at hand. Last night, we went ice blocking. In my every day business for the last 10ish years or so, I completely forgot about ice blocking! It's the most wonderful thing in the world!!

Ice blocking is simple. It's a summer sledding activity. You need hills, a block of ice, a towel, bravery to make it to the bottom, and enough muscle to push the block of ice back to the top. It's a hoot! Our kids had a blast!!!

Bria got brave and decided to go head first.

Max took a little while to actually get the hang of it.

First, he went faster than the block.

Then, the block went faster than him.

 

 

By the end of the night, he was great at pushing the block back up the hill.

It was so much fun to get out and just have an enjoyable night off. I know we all needed it.!