Wait.........What?

So remember last week when I told you Ryan failed both his hearing and vision tests at school?

Well today was the day we found out if our youngest son was a little deaf or blind.

Wait.....what? 

are two words we hear from Ryan ALL the time, it's actually become a

 family joke now so if he was hard of hearing I guess we wouldn't of been all that surprised

but the vision part did have us thinking because we have never noticed anything.

So our day looked a little something like this:

9:00 am appointment with pediatrician 

(checking for any infections and abnormalities)

12:30 pm appointment with audiologist

(hearing tests)

1:30 back to the pediatricians 

(to go over hearing results)

3:00 pm appointment with optometrist

(regular eye exam)

Ryan was a trooper.

Today was a lot of waiting in waiting rooms

and would of tested anyone's patience

so I was proud of Ryan

even more proud that he passed all of his tests with flying colors

and can see and hear just fine.

Wait........What?

 wasn't expecting those outcomes from our day

but I'll take 'em
so thankful for those blessings.

our thanksgiving

Thanksgiving 2012

my family

including Matt's dog Dixie

I love the traditions of our day

the dinner that we eat off of my great grandmas's china

the kids wondering when and if they will move up to the grown up table

the turkey being carved by my dad

the kitchen full of everyone helping to get it all done

the jokes of me always over eating

the feeling of us all being together

I didn't take one picture at Thanksgiving and don't really know why

I had my camera but sometimes it seems like too much work

but at least I have these that I stole from the family.

It was a good day together.

The family was all there including a few others

Jim's parents and his son Tyler.

We ate a delicious dinner 

played apples to apples

watched football

looked at the sales papers

watched old videos of my mom's singing group

took naps

and hung out.

 Kimber was such a happy girl

she is changing so much and is watching everything

she loved having a house of people to watch

and we loved watching her

she giggled

and smiled

and laughed all day long.

Luke spent a lot of time with her.

He was so sweet. 

We also have fun writing anonymously something that we are thankful for

then going around the room drawing one out at a time to guess who wrote what.

Some are so obvious (like my moms) and then some are a little harder to figure out

but it's fun.

 Since my brothers birthday always falls somewhere around Thanksgiving

we usually get to spend part of the day celebrating him.

He is something I tell you.

He brings a lot of fun, excitement and craziness to our family.

My baby brother is twenty nine, now that is crazy.

 Matt had asked that everyone make him a home made birthday card this year,

We don't know if he was serious or just kidding around but that's what we did.

My mom printed off this picture for his birthday card

it was taken just a few days after he was born.

Matt thought that it would be fun to re-create it

so that's what we did.

Twenty nine years later

So that was our day.

Thankful for so much.

quick catch up

  I don't know what I've been doing the last two weeks, 

obviously not blogging

so here is a quick catch up.

Ryan had a parade at school.

He had to make a float out of a shoe box.

We copied the same one we had done for Cody in first grade

and made a Lego brick.

Ryan was happy so I was too.

Being creative isn't my thing.

Luke has been bugging my mom about making a blanket with her,

so we met her at the fabric store.

Have I told you how much I hate these stores?

Anyway.

Ryan thought it sounded like fun too so he jumped on board with it.

He picked out his material right away.

Sharks.

Luke however took awhile, a long long while.

He reminded me of my sister from years ago

and I wanted to poke my eyeballs out.

Luke found the pattern print right away and knew that was the look he wanted

but there were too many other colors to choose from, oh my!

Then he found a fuzzy black material and the boy was in love, he wouldn't put it down.

Finally after some time and patience on my part Luke decided on the red

and the boy couldn't of been happier.

 Luke and Ryan went home with Grammy to stay the night

and to sew on their blankets.

They loved how they turned out

and I love that Grammy can teach them about sewing.

Cody and I met up with Heath after work for dinner.

I chose Mongolian BBQ.

I love that place

and I love to stack as much food as possible into my bowl

and I really love the leftovers the next day.

I was a happy girl.  

I met back up with my parents the next day to get the boys.

they had fun.

Cody got to spend the morning out shopping with me

he probably didn't have fun. 

Heath had to work

so he really didn't have any fun.

I had parent teacher conferences last week too.

The boys all did great.

Ryan is my little reader just like Cody

and likes to talk just like his momma

but is doing great in class.

Only bad news is that he failed his vision and hearing tests

so we have appointments next week to see what that means. 

 Luke is my math whiz

he loves numbers 

and the teacher was amazed at how he figures out his math problems

he's also quite the angel at school

respectful to everyone.

Imagine that.

Cody is my lover of school

he still loves to learn everything

maybe just not the new ways to do math though.

His teacher started crying during the conference

she really likes Cody and was so proud of his hard work.

He was the only student in his class to get straight A's.

I was so proud of all my boys.

One thing I wasn't so proud of was 

going to McDonald's five times within two days.

Thankfully it was mostly to get drinks and peppermint hot chocolates

but we did eat a couple of meals there.

It was most embarrassing when one of the employees had

recognized me from eating there earlier when I was in the drive thru.

Note to self

more home cooked meals this week.

my vote

 I voted today and so did the kids in their classes.

Luke was home sick with me today so he was an absentee ballot and 

I had to email the teacher with his vote.  

Three people in my family were first time voters this election

Yeah for Brooke, Tucker and Ricky.

I think this little girl gets a number one vote from her daddy.

 I finally got my hair cut and colored.

Did you know my last hair appointment was in March?

It's a dark brown, purplish, reddish color, I like it.

Does it get your vote?

 We celebrated these two birthday kids with a family party on Sunday.

My oldest and my sisters youngest.

It was a really good day with the whole family.

My vote is that I'm done celebrating birthdays for awhile,

it's been a long week of celebrations.

 Papa was a baby stealer the whole day.

He stole her right when it was time to feed her so he got the job.

He didn't do too bad but Grammy came in for the rescue and clean up.

I wonder who Kimber would vote for to feed her again?

Hailey loves owls so my sister made her this super cute owl cake.

I love it.

My sister has become a new person because of Pinterest.

Just ask her family, it gets their vote for sure!

 Hailey and her momma.

Hailey loved her party and got everything owl.

I'm talking owl phone case, owl sheets, owl sweater, owl jewelry,

Whoo knew there was so much owl stuff out there?  ha ha

I know Hailey would vote that her mom is the best.

My mom couldn't believe how much Brooke and I looked

alike on Sunday.

Brooke likes to call me Auntie M and I still call her Brookie,

just like when she was little.

What's your vote, are we twins?

We have had some great weather here still.

It's November 6th and the boys are still wearing shorts to school,

I can't even believe it.

Cody is also wearing his new favorite kind of socks, dress socks.

He likes them because they don't fall down, I tried to give him a little fashion advice

when he was wearing them with his athletic shorts but he said he didn't need it. 

My vote is that Cody will always be just one of a kind,

but I like him best that way!

 So Halo 4 came out today, this is the rest of Cody's birthday gifts.

I had to pick it up from Best Buy today,

you know just me and all the other gamers out there.

I was the only girl in the long line.

Good Times

This game for sure gets a vote from my boys!

 Amanda and I went out shopping on Monday.

You would think that we do it all the time with no kids at home but we really don't.

We had fun and even started our holiday outfits shopping.

I'm going with gray, black and maybe gold or cream for our colors.

I found this shirt for Luke and tie for Cody, the rest I ordered online.

I vote that I'm totally going to love our outfits more than the rest of my family.

Hope you had a good day of voting too!

Happy Halloween

Here are my boys.

I love how they all turned out.

Creepy, Scary and Cute

 Cody the Zombie
I love that Cody's costume was free, we just ruined three good pieces of clothing in the process but I didn't care because I really hate spending a lot of money on costumes.  It wasn't until we did the make up and the hair that it all came together but I think he looked quite creepy walking around.

 Luke the Grim Reaper
Luke originally wanted to be a zombie too but after not being able to decide on what he would or would not wear for his costume he wasn't too sure anymore.  Once Ryan found this in our dress up box and showed it to Luke, he was hooked and called himself a creeper, evil something or other.  It wasn't until today at school once he saw some other kids dressed in a similar costume that he decided he was going to call himself a grim reaper. Luke loved his look and really loved his hair being dyed (go figure), he didn't like that I was putting make-up on him because that was too girly sounding so asked that it be called man-up.  Luke definitely didn't have a problem pulling off the evil look.

 Ryan the Soldier or Marine (it just depends on when you ask him)
This was the best fifteen dollars that I've ever spent on ebay.  Ryan has already worn this costume so many times, he absolutely loves it.  I bought him his very own dog tags to go with it and he was all set. He looked so sweet and handsome all dressed up ready to protect our country, even though Heath did say that he needed to work on his salute.

The Friends

What a sweet group picture of them, I love it.

The girls were adorable dressed up as a cowgirl and Indian.

another Halloween has come and gone
thank goodness we survived it, I wasn't for sure that I would
the boys had a great day and like always
 loved trick or treating with the girls
now we just need a few normal days around here

double sticks

double sticks is what Papa told Cody this morning to tell everyone what his age was now

Cody along with his brothers were up first thing this morning for presents

the boy was so excited and he made out really good

eleven years old, really?

some of his loot

nerf gun from his brothers, Halo 4 Xbox game (coming soon), books, minecraft shirt

not to mention the one hundred and fifty dollars in cash, cha-ching

after school a celebration with the girls for more presents and ice cream bars

a picture of the five when their ages are 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10

Cody doesn't officially turn 11 until 10:28 pm so since we forgot to get a picture sooner

we are making this one count

heading out to Cody's birthday dinner stuck in the backseat helping him with his homework

Cody really wanted McDonald's or Wendy's for his dinner but Heath complained so

he decided on Red Robins

 Cody thought it was funny that their kids menu was for ten and under so he ordered off of ours

he really didn't want them to sing happy birthday to him but we told them to anyway

he was embarrassed and didn't even eat the sundae so Luke and Ryan scarfed it down, me too a little

I wanted a picture of Heath and I with Cody, this is the best that Luke did...embarrassing

 after dinner we headed to Target and Toys R Us because the boy had some money to spend

he got three new XBox games because they were buy two get one free

the new Skylanders Giants was one of them so Luke and Ryan were extremely happy too

after we got home we sang happy birthday and cut up the cheese cake 

it was Cody's request to have with chocolate chips and chocolate syrup but he didn't eat any, 

he was still full from dinner

so once again Luke scarfed his dessert down after I got Cody's picture at least

Happy Birthday Cody

we love you

the color run

 The Color Run was on Saturday

it was so so cold

and it didn't help that I was sick with a cold too.

It was an early morning leaving the house at 7:00 am.

Amanda and I met up with some of her friends 

and we headed to downtown Boise.

It was a fun group of girls.

Here we are before in our white clothes and our super cool headbands 

which made great ear warmers too.

We didn't quite go for the fashion look we were just trying to stay warm

but lots of people were decked out in tutu's, wigs,

spandex, leotards, and some even wearing their underwear on the outside 

of their clothes.

So even though it's called the color run don't let that mislead you,

it's not much of a run.  The funny thing is for the last two months I ran 3 miles three times a week

to get ready for this but it turns out there is nothing to get ready for.

There are so many people everywhere that you can hardly run unless you

want to constantly weave in and out of people and dodge strollers and wheel chairs, 

so we mostly walked and did a little jogging

which made it more fun to visit and talk and watch the crazy people that were out there.

As you run you go through four different color zones where colors get

thrown on you to slowly turn your whites into something more colorful.

They suggest for you to wear glasses to protect your eyes

and breathing in and tasting the stuff isn't that great either but

the atmosphere is so much fun

you can't help but smile, laugh and have a great time

even if you are sick.

At the end of the race they have a color party

where every ten minutes or so everyone throws their

color packs in the air and you dance around in the falling colors

until it turns into a thick smog and you can no longer breathe

and you have to lick your teeth clean because the powder

covers everything.

It was a fun and they are right

it really is the happiest 5K on the planet

 now I just need to run a real 5K.

thanks for the fun Amanda and girls.