Thanksgiving Day

I love thanksgiving!

I love the family all being together

I love my mom's dinner

I love the smells from the kitchen

I love being warm in the house

I love the cold winter weather outside

I love the conversations

I love the excitement of Christmas coming soon

I love looking through the sales papers

I love us all working in the kitchen together

I love the kids playing with their cousins

I love cuddling up and taking a nap

I love that the kids asked to stay the night and my parents said yes

I love that Heath and Tucker braved the 18 degree weather to stand in line

four hours at ToysRUs for a good deal on video games

I love that my Dad made Luke's day because he told him he could have 7 pens

from the junk drawer that Luke had been going through all day

I love that Ryan only wanted to stay the night if his brothers were staying too

and when he asked me, "Are you going to miss me mom?"

I love watching Christmas Lampoons Vacation

I love how giving my parents are

I love that they took my boys Christmas shopping the next day to buy

presents for Heath and I, so far no one has told

I love the laughing and how funny the family is

I love celebrating Matt's birthday because I think he is such a great brother

I love that when Matt got down his Lego's from when he was little, Cody could

hardly contain his excitement and talked about every Lego fact he knew

I love that we called to talk with Jim and Brooke who we were missing that day

I love that my first ever Pecan pie really did turn out and it was good

I love that we stuff ourselves silly and that my mom makes HUGE portions

so we all have enough to take home for leftovers

I love sharing Christmas ideas and talking about our upcoming candy day

I love our family traditions

We have so much to be Thankful for!

baby, it's cold outside....

Nine days together...
that's what I have with my boys.
they are out of school, home with me
and I'm loving it.
The weather has turned cold in a hurry
but that hasn't stopped us from having some fun.
Heath and Luke headed out Friday night to watch the BSU game.

They enjoyed some great one on one time,
going out to dinner (Luke's pick a corn dog from Red Robin)
eating treats (sugar cookies and hot chocolate)
all while trying to stay warm and dry at the game.
Spent the weekend Christmas shopping
out at the stores and home online (I love free shipping).
We have been drinking lots of hot cocoa
watching movie after movie and
going over and over the Christmas toy catalogs.
I ran all my errands yesterday
in anticipation of the blizzard that was coming our way.
We didn't quite get the blizzard but it is so very cold outside.
The boys were in and out all day long playing in the snow,
they had been waiting for this day long enough.
This is what Cody came out to play in.
Are pants and a shirt really that much work?

Making a dash outside.

Ryan running from his brother,
a snowball fight has started.

I even had the kids get dressed up to try and take a Christmas card picture
outside in the 24 degree weather wearing only their fancy clothes!
Can't say that it was the best photo shoot ever,
it did end with tears and blood
and not from the same kid
but maybe
just maybe we got a shot that might work!
Looking forward to more of our days together.
Oh, and a happy 27th birthday to Matt!

This Boy

Luke informed me last night of his really loose tooth.

He let Heath try to pull it out and then decided he wanted to do it all on his own,

because he would get more money from the tooth fairy that way.

Finally we heard the snap and his tooth flew out.

So it's now his turn to have no front teeth,

well actually Ryan still has no front teeth either but we are used to him that way.

That leads me to the question, what is the going rate for the tooth fairy these days?

Luke told me that you get more money if you pull the tooth yourself and

that since it's close to Christmas you should make more money too,

like $7.00 he was thinking.

The tooth fairy decided on $4.00!

A few funnies:

Ryan has now memorized the girls' phone number but when you ask him what our phone number is he just shrugs his shoulders and says, "my don't know". Guess we better work on that.

When watching a new series on the National Geographic channel about animals they showed a crab eating another crab and Cody commented, "well what do you know, it's crabalism ( instead of cannibalism.)

When Cody's teacher was going over his report card with him and asked what he felt his strengths were Cody replied, "Well obviously it's reading!"

community service

Saturday we spent 2 hours with 10 people

raking leaves for two families.

It was a community service project that

Cody's teacher asked for volunteers on,

we were happy to help.

See that sweet older man in the picture?

That's Darryl, one of the people that we helped.

He wasn't too excited about getting in the picture

but I made him.

Heath helped too, he just volunteered to take the picture!

It was a good day to show the kids how we needed to help others.

I was proud of them.

doing something right

I love being a mother.

Sometimes I wonder though if I am failing miserably at this motherhood thing.

Most days are wonderful when everyone is happy and life is going good

and others I would rather not experience again because it all just falls apart.

Laying in bed at night I sometimes wish that I could have a do-over and try it all over again because I see the mistakes I made and where I failed.

Thankfully today wasn't one of those days, I felt like I must be doing something right.

Cody and Luke each came home with an award today from school.

They weren't even the ones to tell me about them, sweet Abigail who also received an award was happy to share the exciting news with me!

Cody received the award for Most Respectful Student which is defined as

"Honoring individuals who show respect to their teachers, classmates, and school materials at all times."

Luke received the award for Most Disciplined Student which is defined as

"Honoring individuals who persevere in their work even when it is challenging and stay focused on their work at all times."

Ryan of course doesn't go to their school but his teacher asked to talk to me after school today (I have to admit that at first I was thinking what on Earth did he do now) but was so happy to hear how he is excelling in class and she just wanted to know if it was okay if she sends home extra work that she feels he is ready to do.

This is all great news that makes a mother feel proud and good about the job she's doing!

Way to go boys!

thoughts on friday

It was another rough start to the week but that was all caused by this stupid time change.
Whoever says that you gain an hour is just crazy! It really just means that my kids are getting up at five instead of six now, which leads to a moody bad attitude Luke, which leads to middle of the day naps for Ryan, which leads to late nights for Heath and I staying up with him, which leads to exhaustion and cranky parents.

My blog has been slow this month but I guess after the month we had in October that is something I should be thankful for, (no planned surgeries or unexpected ones, no quick trips to the doctor for stitches). So very thankful I am!

We are getting ready to send a care package to a special girl that won't make it home for Thanksgiving this year. A little something to help her stay warm for the holidays.

Saturday we are doing a community service project as a family, which I think will be a great experience for the boys. We have been talking about how we can serve others lately because the boys are stuck in the thinking that they want to do something only if it benefits them. So that made me want to start something else with them to get their thinking in the right place. Now whenever I see them serving someone else they will get to add a jingle bell to a jar which will represent a dollar to spend on a needy family this Christmas. Hopefully we will get a full jar.

We started watching Christmas movies this week which we usually wait until after Thanksgiving to do but since our movie collection has grown so much we had ran out of time last year. With the weather getting colder it has made for some perfect movie nights being cuddled up in the warm house.

The boys just have one more week of school and then they are off for a full week for Thanksgiving. We are all looking forward to that!

Guess I don't have that many thoughts for Friday...

One of Ryan's lovely naps this week.

five little pumpkins

Our Halloween traditions got a little mixed up this year due to the unexpected things that happen in life.

We never made it to the pumpkin patch as a family which we have done every year since Cody was a baby to enjoy in all of those festivities.

We tried growing our pumpkins again this year (which was a new tradition we started last year) but our whole garden was a loss and we only produced three pumpkins which are just now starting to turn orange.

Instead we got our cheap pumpkins at Walmart but never carved them, we just simply ran out of time. The kids were a little disappointed but recovered quickly.

Yesterday we started a new tradition though which the kids absolutely loved, I had a little fun with it myself.

We headed back out to the desert to shoot up our 5 little store bought, uncarved pumpkins.

The kids and I all had our first turns at shooting Heath's shotgun (they liked this gun way more than the rifle) mostly because of the big holes that were left behind.

The boys loved the demolition part and what pumpkin parts survived they destroyed by kicking, stomping, gutting, and throwing.

Hopefully next year we will be back to the old traditions but with this new one added.

Welcome November

So...
even though a parent gave me a dirty look in the drop off line at school and
even though Toys R Us wouldn't let me do a return and
even though my phone bill was 27.00 dollars more than I was expecting and
even though we have way too many after school play dates scheduled after school this week and
even though we have lost a library book and have no idea where it could be (anyone have a Zoo Book on Hippos?) and
even though I have no printer ink to print out coupons and
even though I made chicken noodle soup for dinner but didn't have any chicken to go in it and
even though Ryan happened to tell me tonight that he had to sit in the thinking chair today and he was telling me the "real" truth this time and
even though every part of my life feels like it's in chaos right now

it's going to be a Happy November, right?
I'm excited and looking forward to it!