The first official snowfall and other things

I guess its official...Winter is here.

As in snow, ice, more snow, shoes (no more flip flops), jackets, gloves, boots, hats, mittens, cold, cold and more cold.

I miss Az!!!

We were a little caught off gaurd by this storm. We have had awesome weather this last month and we were not prepared for the snow. The weather man said we would get a couple inches. I had about 6 inches on my car in the morning. I had to break out the winter bins and get all the snow stuff out so the big kids could have boots for school and the little kids could go outside and play. Poor Lani, she grew a ton since last winter and her boots were way too small-she is now a womens size 6-she is 7. Noahs were ok but a little tight. I was happy to see that jackts still fit (except Lani) and most of the gloves and hats still fit. Snow pants are a different story. Caleb is the only one that is completly outfited(thank you hand me downs). Tysons were riding a little high, if you know what I mean, but he wanted to go outside so bad he was willing to suffer.

Since Avery was so little last year, I never really took her in the snow. She had the star suit when we went outside, but I never got her boots or anything like that. She wanted to go outside so bad, so I found some of Lani's old boots from Idaho (size 11), some gloves that were way too big, and Calebs old bibs from last winter and put them on her. She could barely walk because they were so big.

She loved it, she was having so much fun...

Until she fell and couldnt get up!

( Is it bad that I took a picture before I helped her?)

Its gonna be a long winter.

Some other things:

Avery has been sick with croup, the stomach flu and now a bad cough and cold. She has been so grumpy and clingy. The only thing I can bribe her with to give me a little break is Dora. She will sit on the couch with her blankie and sippie cup and not move until its over. Its gotta be Dora-nothing else will do!!

Tyson built this "crumb catcher" so that all the crumbs would go into it so he wouldnt have to wipe the table off anymore. He is pretty creative. Lazy, but creative.

The kids in our circle have named this hill "Mt. Fugi-wugi" and it is there new playing spot. It is across the street from out house, but just far enough away that they feel they are so far away from home. It makes them feel big!

They all went over there after it snowed and came home a muddy mess. I think MT. Fugi-Wugi is off limits until its ALL snow.

Lani lost another tooth. She was so excited because she was just playing with it and it came out. We have had some issues with Lani and trying to pull out loose teeth, so we were sooo happy this came out on its own. The tooth fairy even brought her $2!!

I have been trying for the last 30 minutes or so to download some pictures, but to no avail. I love when that happens!!! So instead of pictures(i will hopefully get it done tomorrow) you have to settle for my Jack Handy's (deep thoughts if no one caught that)

Im not quite sure what brought it on, maybe my many, many nights of no sleep due to too much in my head-nothing in particular-just too much. Maybe it was watching Noah make up these crazy stories on the computer-man that kid has an imagination. But whatever it was, I started remembering back in the day before marriage and kids and how much I LOVED to write. I had this massive folder full of poems and stories and I wrote in a journal everyday since I was in Junior High.(that stopped about 7 years ago) I just loved to write. Im not really sure when I stopped, but im pretty sure it was around the time I had kids and my brain became a jumbled mess. I have always had an overactive imagination and I could daydream all day(and night). My favorite thing to think about in bed is if I had tons and tons of money(or won the lottery) what I would do with it. I just have a lot of thoughts running through my head,just a bunch of randomness. I think I have figured out that I need to write. To write about nothing and everything. To write about my goals and what I want to accomplish in my life as a wife, mom and ME. Im sure im not the only one who has been thoughtful of what is most important in life these days. Its a scary time right now and unfortunately it just got worse. Im more focused on what I can do as a mom to make sure my kids are well armed. Ive been slowly, verly slowly getting my food storage put together. I dream about being a photographer. I am obsessed with taking pictures and capturing the moment. One of these days, when I have a second in time, im going to take classes and teach myself as much as I can. Thats my dream at the moment. I am nowhere near creative, anyone who knows me knows that, BUT... I sure am trying. I have always thought that my brain was so full already that it was impossible for me to learn anything. Maybe if I can push out all that useless US magazine and PEOPLE knowledge, then there just might be some room in there for some good stuff.

I think this is a good start.

(Disclaimer: I never said I was GOOD at writing, I just said I LIKED to write. Just so you know)

P.S. The other night when I went to check on the kids before I went to bed, Lani had fallen asleep with her radio on her bed, with Radio Disney blasting. I just had to smile-thats so much like me. I could only fall asleep with the radio on (it helped distract the crazy head)I love that she loves music!! Im going to read this in about 5 years and wish that she still liked the sweet music of HSM. Speaking of Lani, she is puking her guts out right now. I sent Bill upstairs because even the sight of throwup makes me gag. Poor thing. I better go comfort my girl.

Blah, blah, Change, blah, blah, Hope, blah, blah.

Pumpkin Patch and Halloween!!

This Halloween season was actually pretty lame. It seems that every year, the kids get dressed up at least 3 or 4 times. I always dread getting them ready over and over again and am usually burned out by the big day. But this year, they dressed up on Halloween and thats it. Our ward is new and the activitys comittee was not on the ball.

For family night we decided to go get a pumpkin. There is this adorable little pumpkin patch in front of this old mans house and the pumpkins are so cheap. The kids had a blast. I tried to get a family picture, but the kids were more interested in climbing all over the pumkins.

Tyson had fun climbing in his enormous tree

There was also this really old swingset that my kids would not get off of. I told them I was leaving and I got in the car and they still didnt come. Im starting to think my threats dont work anymore. Time to think of some new ones!!!

Noah and Lani got to wear their costumes to school for a Halloween parade.

Tyson is in afternoon preschool so he got to wear his the whole day.

I think Tyson was trying to imitate the Jack Sparrow drunken stance!!

These cute boys are just some of the 5000 boys his age in our neighborhood. They are at the bus stop waiting and sooooo excited for their school parade.

Halloween night:

Noah was G.I. Joe army guy

Lani was a dead bride

Tyson was the awesome Jack Sparrow. I told him Jack didnt wear and eye patch, but a pirate isnt a pirate without a patch.

He loved his beard and said he was going to grow one when he got bigger because he thought he looked sooo cool.

We really dont know what Caleb was. I guess a trooper of some sort. He just liked that it looked like he had big muscles.

Avery was the cutest of all little Ladybugs. Isnt this the sweetest costume!!!

I couldnt stop taking pictures of her because she looked so dang cute.

It was such a nice day and we couldnt believe that we were actually going to get a nice Halloween night. Last year, it was like 30 degrees and windy and snowing. This year it was supposed to be 70. All the weather men need to be fired because they said that rain was coming on Sunday and what do you know, the second we walk out the door it starts raining. And... the second we all came inside it stopped. At least it was warm.

Avery was so excited to dress up and do what the older kids were doing even though she had no idea what she was really doing. She was all geared up and ready to go...

And then she realized that she had to go up to strangers doors and she was NOT having it.

(if you look closely at her face you can see her panic)

So I ended up just carrying her from door to door.

(excuse my 50 year old face in this picture)

After going for a while, we realized that there were too many empty houses and it was too hard to tell if they were occupied or not, so we decided to head over to Scott and Andreas neighborhood.

The kids had better luck and I got to see this cute little Lia.

Isnt she the cutest thing!!!

Avery decided she was done so we stayed with Andrea and played with tractors in the rain.

I think they did pretty good this year.

Im already so sick of candy.

When they came in, they all dumped out their buckets in piles and starting chowing down.

It was so cute, after we made them put the candy away, they went and sat on the front step so they could pass out the candy. Tyson and Caleb were yelling "candy over here-free candy"

Claire was the cutest dragon, but she wouldnt let me take a picture of her. I think she decided that since her face was painted so cute, she needed her nails to look cute too, so she broke out the polish, sat on the front porch and painted them. She is almost 5 and can paint better than me.

Fun night and too much candy...cant wait till next year!!!

Love this guy!!

Picture time!!!

Or something like it.

I had planned about 2 months ago when I wanted to take the kids pictures. I think its ridiculous to go to a studio with ALL the kids because it NEVER works out. So I was pretty proud of myself for being on top of it this year. I had picked a Monday that I knew would be good weather and the kids had off of school.

So what happens the Friday before???

Avery takes a nice nose dive out of the car onto the cement and gets some nice road rash.

How cute!!!

I had postponed once already because Caleb fell off his big wheel (dont ask me how) and scrapped the entire side of his face, so i wasnt going to do it again. If it wasnt one kid it would be the other.
While at church on Sunday, I was talking to a friend and she had said they were going to Gardner Village after church because they have all the Halloween decorations out and she said no one goes there on Sundays. I thought that would be a perfect place. So we rushed home and got ready in lightning speed.

I decided to give Avery a little nap so she wasnt too cranky. (Our church is from 1-4) Bad idea. We had to rip her out of the deepest sleep and she never did snap out of it.
She wanted nothing to do with it. It was so pretty there and it was the best lighting so I was so disapointed that out of over 200 shots, I really didnt get a good one.
Soooooo...I decided to stick with my original plan and give it another go the next day. I really wouldnt recommend it. One day is enough.


Here are a few that I liked-or the best of the worst-same diff.

I actually really liked this one, but it kinda looks like that jack-o-lantern is sitting on Lani's head.
Im ok with Avery not smiling- because she can still get away with it-as long as the other 4 are. Its a pretty hard task.

I really like the background in this, but the picture is a little blury.

This was my favorite background and I took like 30 pictures and didnt get ONE. I want to go back just for this tree, but im sure if I do, all the leaves will be gone.

I did have luck the next day and I got some cute ones, but I hate the backgrounds on the ones that turned out. Im so exausted and done, so what I have will have to do. I dont know why I put so much pressure on these pictures. I love my kiddies no matter what faces they make. I actually like the ones where they are being them the best. I really enjoy taking pictures and would love to do this on the side, but I might have some perfection issues so I might need to get over that. Im the same way with hair-im so slow because I get bugged if it doesnt come out just right. Now if I could just transfer that to house cleaning!!!

Hopefully I will get my favorites edited soon and then I will post them. Not all, but some. I need to keep at least one good one a suprise for Christmas cards.

Crazy Hair Day

Today was crazy hair day and the kids went all out. It helped that its Halloween season and we had a lot of options.

Tyson was a little nervous about his hair, but after I showed him the picture and told him he looked sooo awesome about 1000 times, he finally felt ok and said "I wish it could be crazy hair day every day!!"

Anywhere but my bed!!

For some strange reason, Caleb loves to sleep anywhere...but his bed.

He starts out in his bed, but we always later find him somewhere else. I thought it would be funny to take pictures of him all week and this is what I got.

This day he didnt even make it past the dinner table.

This is in between the stairs



He dragged "Pengi" all the way dowstairs, but looks like he forgot his blankie so he just grabbed what he could find for a blanket...a towel.

This is behind the couch. I love that his hand is down the back of his pants. He loves that penguin.

This is at the bottom of the stairs

So is this one, but he brought all the stuffed animals to keep him company. I think on this day he had a little nap, so he was up later than the rest of the kids. When this happens, I let him stay up, but it has to be in his room. I think he thought I wouldnt notice that he was playing at the bottom of the stairs. I just chose to ignore it!!

He is loving this frog costume and wants to wear it everyday and night. If we are home, I let him-and most nights he wears it to bed. I think its a bit too small, but I dont have the heart to tell him. Im pretty sure he will be this for Halloween...AGAIN!

One of those days

Its one of those days. One of those "I have NO motivation" days. Who knows why-maybe its the fact that its now only 43 outside and its supposed to snow tomorrow and Sunday. Maybe its the 5 loads of laundry that needs to be folded and put away. Maybe its the HUGE task of switching out the summer clothes with the winter clothes. Maybe its all the projects, projects and more projects that are calling my name. Maybe its the frustration of the mess in every room in the house despite the hours and hours of cleaning. Maybe its all of it. Who knows. All I know is I just want to curl up with my kiddies and watch a movie and drink hot chocolate and not make dinner and let the mess wait until tomorrow when my husband is home to help me.

And so I shall.

CRAP!!!

Wait a sec... What is this??

This is awesome!


This is the greatest thing I have ever seen!!

Guess who has been bitten by the "Yo crappa crappa" bug?

How did this happen? I went upstairs to throw in a load of laundry while Avery was eating breakfast and when I came down, yo gabba gabba was on. The first few seconds were enough to reel her in. Avery is not a tv watcher, but she sure loved this.

CRAP!!