Fun with Dad!

I have to say, these guys love our Luv Sac. Most of the time they like to jump off the playhouse and on to the love sack. In fact, a couple of days ago, Dylan and Brenner were doing cool Power Ranger moves as they flew through the air. Anyway, this is the new thing that they love to do with Dad. Sometimes they can fly really high into the air.

Sledding!

Ryan has been coming home from work early every day this week:) So, yesterday I thought it would be fun to take the kids sledding down the hill behind our house. It took...

15 minutes to get dressed in our snow gear.

20 minutes to hike around the fence and up the hill to go sledding.

5 minutes to go sledding because the kids got too cold and didn't like the snow blowing in their faces as they went down the hill. (Brenner crashed once and got a little upset. However, he bounced back quickly and went down a smaller hill- by himself even!)

5 seconds to get out of our snow suits.

15 minutes to get Joren to stop crying.

Happy Birthday Ryan!!!

I just wanted to wish Ryan a Happy Birthday! He is a whopping 34 today!

Ryan is truly one of the nicest guys you will ever meet. He will do anything for anyone and is always willing to help out. Ryan is technical support on the computer. He can figure anything out. He can literally sit and read an instructional manual and then be able to use the program. He loves gadgets! He is very handy and has learned quite a few skills. He has tiled, installed wood floors, painted, put bead board on our walls, built a deck, etc. He can just figure out how to do that kind of stuff. He has two roudy boys... he's the one that has made them roudy. They love playing with Daddy.

Happy Birthday, Ryan!

Can a child live on Cheetos alone?

Nothing better than laying on the family room floor eating a bag of Cheetos. This kid has eaten nothing but Cheetos for 3 or 4 days straight. Okay, he's also had a few other things to eat, but mostly Cheetos. I hope he survives. Surprisingly, he's pretty good at cleaning his fingers with a wet wipe, so I haven't had too much orange to clean off the walls and furniture.

Is he stubborn or what?

Sometimes I don't know where this kid gets his ideas. We got the kids dressed for church on sunday and as soon as Ry put Brenner's sweater vest on, he insisted on wearing a tie. The only tie I have that fits him well is baby blue and white striped. So, I found this frog tie from when he was a baby. I thought it would be okay because only the top part of the tie would stick out of the sweater vest. No, not so. Brenner insisted on the tie being on the outside of his sweater vest. And since his shirt wouldn't stay tucked in and his sweater vest shrank about 3 sizes too small, this is what he looked like at church on Sunday. What a cute kid!

The votes are in

So, I was getting a little nervous there for awhile because only 4 people voted and all for different things. And none of them were the one that I really wanted. So, thanks to whomever vote #5 was and to the fact that it was the saying that actually fit the best, here it is. And especially thanks to Shellie who let me borrow her cricut so that I could cut out these vinyl letters. It only cost me $8 and I even have a little bit left over. I have a feeling I'm going to have vinyl lettering all over my house!!!

The spaceship has returned

I thought I had solved the space ship problem of having cushions all over my family room by getting rid of the couches with removable cushions. I just made it worse. Now, Brenner builds his space ship in the living room and brings down all the pillows from his bedroom as well. What to do?

Help from professional bloggers

So, I am really loving the blog thing because I don't keep a journal. So, here is my question. How do I save this thing? Can I save it as a pdf? Can I download it to a CD? I really don't know.

Anisa

What a smartie!!!

Last night Brenner was drawing on some paper and was sitting there reciting the Pledge of Allegience to himself. It took Ryan and I by surprise because we haven't taught it to him- thank goodness for Preschool. He is such a little smartie. He also has his phone # memorized (and Dylan's too!).

So let it be written

If you write something down, you are more likely to commit to it, right? So let it be writtin for all to see.... I will NOT be making homemade Christmas Cards next year! That does not mean that I will not be sending out Christmas cards. It just means that I will make some cute little photo digital card that all I have to do is stuff in an envelope. Which by the way, addressing, stamping and licking over 50 cards is bad enough, but MAKING over 50 cards is ridiculous. I was going to have a fun little card making party as suggested by my friend, Jessica. But after I hurt my back hefting an empty rubbermaid bin down the stairs after I decorated the tree, I just wasn't in the mood. But, these cards were just a pain in the butt. I couldn't figure out the right adhesive to use. I thought they would be cute and they turned out OK at best. So, hopefully everyone that reads my blog is on my card list and will be receiving a card within the week. Now, don't think I'm a bah humbug, because I'm not. I am very much in the Christmas spirit and very excited for Christmas. MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

It still makes me a little sad

Some people come into our lives and quickly go. Others stay awhile and leave footprints on our hearts. And we are never quite the same.

I was addressing my Christmas cards today and I had to change Cami's address and move her from my "Ward" section to my "Friends" section. Although I know she is only 1.5 miles away and I will talk to her and see her often, it still makes me a little sad that I won't see her at church. I won't accidently run into her when I'm getting my mail. I was just telling Ryan the other day that the best thing that came from me going back to work after having Brenner was Cami. She baby sat Brenner while I worked and we became best friends from that. So, here's to good friends... those who live close by and those who have moved far away. May we do our best to keep in touch with those we love- especially at this time of year.

Here we go again!

Friday night when it started to snow, the boys were so excited to go and play in the snow again. We told them it was too cold and there wasn't enough snow yet to build a snowman. So, first thing Saturday morning, they were out there again. They were big helpers and helped Daddy get the snow off the driveway.

They even got pulled around on the sled a little bit. (We really want to take them sledding down the hill behind our house, but Ry had to go into work for a little while and then we helped Cami move, so we didn't have that much time.)

They built a giant snowman with the help of the neighbors and generally had tons of fun!

They had nice warm hands inside their mittens! Joren got bored after a little while and sat in the van to watch a movie.

It is so fun to see them grow up and really enjoy life! Brenner even made a snow angel!

Santa

I took the boys to the mall to sit on Santa's lap (or rather my lap next to Santa). I was just impressed that Joren got this close to Santa. Usually he says he's "gared." Brenner couldn't get the shyness out of him or his fingernails out of his mouth to tell Santa what he wanted. I told Santa he wanted Power Ranger stuff, so when Santa asked him if he wanted Power Ranger stuff, he was able to reply, "yes!" This was a big accomplishment.

Naughty little 23 month old

If I must post, I must post. I didn't take pics of this because I just didn't have time. I had to teach Brenner's joyschool this week. So, Wednesday morning I put the kids downstairs in front of the TV so I could get in the shower. I didn't go back downstairs until 5 minutes before preschool. When I got downstairs, there were smashed glass ball ornaments all over the family room floor. Totally my fault... what was I doing leaving them in reaching distance? Anyway, thankfully my friend, Cheri, was baby sitting him while I taught preschool so he did not get abused by his mother. However, I did call her to check all of his extremities to make sure there were no pieces of glass. I just envisioned him stomping on them with his bare feet!!!

Their own little trees!!!

My friend Cami has a tradition where they each get to buy or make one ornament for their Christmas tree each year. I thought this was a really fun idea, however, I like my fancy trees that only I can decorate and the kids are not allowed to touch them. So, I decided to pick up the tradition with the kids by letting them have their own tree as well. Joren's little tree only has 2 ornaments on it (and he put them right on top of each other.) Brenner now has 4 ornaments plus the ones that he has made in preschool and stole from my tree. This year Joren picked out some funky lizard and Brenner settled for Spiderman when there wasn't a power ranger one to be found! I think this is quite fun for the kids and they love having their own tree in their own room!!!

Ginger Bread Houses

We thought it would be fun to try to make ginger bread houses with the kids. We should have bought the kits, because these only turned out okay. I think the kids had fun!!

A fond farewell to Brenner's Wrist Band

We went to Classic Fun Center about 3 weeks ago. The kids got wrist bands to show that they had paid. Brenner did not want to take his off. No matter what we did, he insisted on keeping it on. Today it fell off. Brenner was so good about it. He didn't get too upset and he even let me throw it away. So, we'll say "Goodbye" in a blog. By the way, Joren wanted his off the second they put it on and was trying to pull it off, eat it off, etc. the whole time we were there.

First Snow!!!

The kids were out at 8:00 in the morning in the PJ's playing in the snow. They had sooo much fun. At that time, the snow wasn't sticky, so they couldn't build a snowman, but they tried. They had fun running around and playing with daddy.

Mommy even made some syrup so they could make snow cones.

Joren at 22 months

Brenner at 3 1/2

New Pics of the Kids

Why I haven't had time to blog

The things Daddy's teach their little Boys!!!

Trust me, I would never teach him how to do this.

He doesn't like to wear pants

Brenner has never liked to wear pants. When he was younger, you would always see him running around the house in diapers. Now that he doesn't wear diapers any more, I try to keep pants on him more. The other day he was dressed up like a power ranger. He had to take his costume off to go potty. He didn't want to take his shoes off and it was so cute when he came out of the bathroom with his shirt tucked into his underwear and shoes and socks on. I missed the perfect picture, but this one is pretty good!

Grandpa

We were driving down the street today and Joren kept saying, "grandpa, grandpa." I kept saying, "You'll see grandpa tomorrow." But he kept on insisting. Finally I saw the diesel truck up ahead and realized what he was talking about. He loves grandpa.

The Panda Store

Whenever I ask Brenner what he wants to eat, he will say one of a few things. Peanut Butter sandwich, mini corndogs, macaroni and cheese and the Panda Store (Panda Express). He loves fried rice. So, we went to the library this morning. We didn't have much time before Brenner had to go to preschool. I didn't want to take them home and throw together a sandwich and make my house a mess, so he chose the Panda Store. They both love it and the mess is left for someone else to clean up. However, I think they are starting to recognize us too much there, so we might have to try different Panda stores. The lady came to our table and offered us spoons. Maybe she thought Joren would make less of a mess with a spoon. I think he made more of a mess by eating off bites of his styrofoam cup and spitting them out on the floor.

Refusing to Potty Train

I'm not putting another pic of Joren on the potty, yet again, but this kid is driving me crazy... except, he actually goes poo and pee in the potty sometimes now. He went yesterday morning, this morning and tonight before he got in the tub. I actually think I could potty train this kid if I could get up the energy to want to go through that again so soon.

Brenner is going to have surgery

As you can see from this photo (and most all of Brenner's photos), he has a Dermoid Cyst above his right eyebrow. He's had this since he was a baby and it keeps growing and it will keep growing. Years ago we asked Brenner's pediatrician about having it removed and he said to wait because baby skin scars more than older skin. So, now that Brenner is 3 1/2 and it is driving me crazy every time I see it in his pictures, we are getting it removed. We met with a plastic surgeon at Primary Children's Hospital yesterday. He said that the size of the bump on the outside is the same size as on the inside. So, he will have to fill in the bone as well. Surgery is scheduled for Dec. 28th. It will be a quick surgery... about an hour. Brenner is kind of understanding the idea, but I think it will freak him out a little when we actually get there. I hope he will be a big boy!

Keep your pants on Please!!!

About 5 times a day, Joren will start trying to take his pants off to go pee pee. He just starts shoving his pants and diaper down with shoes on or not. Sometimes it's when Brenner needs to go potty and sometimes it's not. It's really annoying because I have to help him take his diaper off. Then we go in the bathroom and he sits on the little potty. Then he climbs up on the big potty. He can't get off the big potty without putting one of his feet in the middle of the bowl, but he does not want any help. He has not yet gone potty. Oh boy!!!

Hypothetical ?

So, here's a question for you all. If I were to have another baby, would it survive Joren???

Okay, so he is really cute too!

Joren can open child proof locks on cabinets. Isn't that great. So, tonight he got into my cabinet in the bathroom and got into a basket of old hair things that I don't use any more. He kept putting the headbands on and saying, "Bobot." I'm not sure where he got the idea that he was a robot, but it was really cute!!!

The naughtiest boy I ever saw

This kid is driving me crazy. He must be feeling better from his croup because he is crazy today!!! He has been hitting Legacy. He has been throwing popcorn. He put the whole roll of toilet paper in the toilet, played in the toilet (at least his hands were wet), and flushed the t.p. down the toilet. We got it before it overflowed, but my goodness. He's been running around like crazy and this kid is just a naughty little boy!!!

The whole neighborhood

It seems like our house is the life of the neighborhood. I dont' know if it's because my kids are so spoiled and have tons of toys or if it's because I'm the only mom that will let all of the kids come over. Anyway, I was raking the leaves, but the neighbor kids thought they would make a bigger mess of things.

It's the same!

When the paint was wet on the wall, we told Joren not to touch it. Later that evening he was going up the stairs and accidently touched the wall. He said, "Oh no. I touch." Ryan told him it was okay, so he went around the whole room touching all the walls and saying. "It's the same." Sometimes he can be really cute.

My Gadget Man

Ryan has two computer monitors hooked up to his computer at work. He doesn't think that is enough... he would like 3.

Now that we have this enormous TV in our family room, Ryan has the computer hooked up to it. Do you think a 50" computer monitor is big enough for him?

New Furniture

Okay, so here are pics of the new furniture. We really love it, but now we need to do some decorating. I want new stuff on the wall and stuff to accessorize the entertainment center. It will be a work in progress. Any suggestions on what to do with the HUGE wall space about the sectional???

Our Little Helper

Joren is such a great helper. While we were eating dinner, he felt the need to empty out the lazy susan and bring every single dish over to the dinner table.