Happy Turkey Day

Here my kids are Thanksgiving morning before we left for my moms house.What cute little kids!Getting there and... Giving Thanksgiving greetingsWilliam went up to everyone and said, "Happy Thanksgiving!" When he said it to my mom I asked him if he wanted to tell her what he was thankful for and he said, "no, I just want to play." The other night he told us that he was thankful for his toys, our family, and the temple.Then it was time to eat. I love the red pepper jelly and cream cheese my mom always makes.Here is the beautiful turkeyHere is the spread made all by my mother. She is pretty amazing.Gracie decided that she wanted to watch a movie on a "horse" and Connie let her. She is the best aunt.

All the cousins together. Gracie was not happy about taking these pictures.

Making turkey cookies. Gracie did not want to put the candy corn on the cookie, she just wanted to eat them.

Here is Williams turkey cookie.

I had a lovely day and loved taking the time to stop and think of all my blessings and all I have to be grateful for. What a great holiday it is.

William the builder

William built a castle for his Little Einsteins that my mom got him.

Boy does he love those Little Einsteins. Him and Gracie are so cute when they sing the theme song together. He loves Leo and now he loves to conduct (that is what Leo does). He walks around the house with his drumstick and conducts me. I have to sing and I must say he is a very good leader.

He is also very into coloring pictures right now and does a great job. He always wants to hang his pictures on the fridge and we are running out of room. Here is his train he built. We have been doing a lot of re-arranging in their room and the blocks used to be hard to reach. Now they build a lot more.

Yes!!!!!

Gracie has learned to say "YES!"

And "no" but it is so much cuter when she says yes. Up until now when we asked he a questions she would just repeat whatever we said and I think add in a word so we would know if she wanted it or not, but I DID NOT KNOW. Sometimes it would take a lot of time and frustration. Russ and I would ask her a question and then beg her to say "yes or no". And then one day I asked her a question and she answered, "yes". I could hardly believe my ears but she continued the rest of the day. Russ and I were so happy about it. And we still are because she still does it. She is growing up so fast.*sniff* To celebrate this momentous occasion I am putting a picture up of her in true form as the worlds biggest... rag.a.muffin.

Okay, okay. I was probably the world biggest ragamuffin but she is close. She can usually be seen with wild hair and a dirty blanket. And the greatest smile known to man. Or angry face depending on the mood she is in. The other day she said, "what the freak?!" Yikes! Sounds like someone needs to have a talk with her daddy.

Learning

Sometimes in the last couple of weeks I have found myself lacking. Not doing the things that I usually do (like cleaning my house and making good dinners) and getting stressed/frustrated easily. It's not really bad, but I was trying to decide whats going on and I realized....I am just learning. Russ started his new job last month and the schedule is kinda crazy. 7-7 on three days and then off at 1 (but sometimes it is more like 2) on Tues and Fri. It is not that I hate this schedule, it is just taking some time for me to learn how to work around it. I definitely have not figured out how to do dinner yet and this shouldn't be hard, but I just don't have it down yet. I do make dinner, I am just not in a good flow.
Then there is William and his stubborn ways that need extra attention these days, trying to make and follow a budget, getting health insurance set up, house hunting, and trying to keep this place clean. When I say clean I mean organized because I am finding that we are running out of room here and I have a hard time staying motivated to organize and re-arrange when I think we will be moving soon.
So things will be better once I get a new routine down and learn to work with this schedule. Because it is awesome that Russ has a job he loves and that we have a budget to try and follow. It is wonderful that I have beautiful children (even if they are stubborn) to love, teach, and watch grow. And it is great that we have such a nice place to live while we have to endure the torture of finding a home to buy:)
I just have to tell myself, "don't worry, you're just learning".

Capable

William is growing up and becoming more capable. I like this. He discovered sometime ago that he can poor his own milk and coincidentally started drinking lots more milk. But I wasn't too concerned because I knew it was a phase and he would grow out of it, and he has. But every once in awhile he will pull up a chair and get himself a cup of milk. This particular day made me laugh when I looked in the kitchen to see the 2 munchkins with "matching cups". An orange one for him and pink one for her and he even got them straws.

I am not sure why, but I just thought it was so cute. Look how big they are getting. When will another sibling come join them!?!

Dear Mr. 5 Year old

Happy birthday! This letter is a couple of weeks past your birthday but I have not had a good quiet moment to sit down and write this. In fact it is not quiet right now, but I decided I just need to do it. Especially since you are being an extremely ornery boy today....I need to be reminded of the fun, irresistible you.So your five year old self is pretty awesome. You are still really good at basketball. The other day in the car you asked me, "why do only boys really like to fight?" I believe you meant play fight because you sure love to play fight. You love being any super hero.You love to play computer games and watch movies and would do those two things ALL DAY LONG if I let you. In fact that is where most of our arguments come in...when you have to get off or be told no when you want to do one of those things. You can do really well on the computer and have figured most things out on your own. You have a new bed that is up high with a ladder and you like it. You like it. You love going up and down the ladder. You love it so much you do it all night:) Okay, okay you don't do it all night. Just for the first hour or so after you go to bed. You love to be silly and be tickled. You love to watch funny videos with your dad on the computer. You like to help me cook. You like to pour your own drinks. You don't like to wipe your own bum (which I decided a five your old can do).

Your name suits you because you are very strong willed. You will stay in time out for an hour before you will choose to calm down or be nice, if you don't want to. When you don't want to do something, you won't. I am trying to teach you that having a good attitude can make all the difference. Hopefully you will learn that soon. I feel bad because I know that you should probably be in school of some sort. You love to play with Gracie, but sometimes she is happy to play with her little figurines all by herself and you get frustrated. You need to be able to PLAY with kids your age and I wish you were in something. I did not put you in anything because I thought we would be moved by now. Oh well, hopefully you will be in something soon.

Five year old favorites:

Color - "orange is my still favorite color."

Animal - Cow, tiger, and jaguar

Song - "My special song" (I will by the Beatles)

Movie - Little Einsteins (this changes weekly)

Food - Macaroni and cheese

Toy - Star Wars action figures

Sounds good to me

I am planning on getting our family pictures taken this month, it is that time of year again:) I love family pictures...a lot. I am not sure why. Probably because I love my family so much and I like to look at pictures. So there you go, pictures of things I love. Anyway the girl I have asked to do our pictures just posted this on her blog:And not just school age kids! I am so glad my kids will be going to school when I will have options like this. I hate school pictures.

Click on this to go to her blog

Anyway, it sounds like a good idea to me.

Picnic Party in the Park

For Williams party this year I decided not to go overboard as I have done in the past. A simple picnic in the park. Because kids really just want to play. The only thing I did was make a cake (my friend Samantha made the cupcakes for me:) the picnic lunches and the insulated, monogrammed lunch bags for all the kids.
Different ones for boys and girls. All the fabric was purchased at a second hand store for a dollar a pound which means it was realllllly cheap.They did take time, but I could do it all pre-party and then I was not stressed at the party. It would have also been less time if Will didn't have so many cousins and friends, but we love all his cousins and friends so it was worth it.
Enjoying the picnic
They played for a long time.

Gracie decided that should could go down the slides and that she liked it.

William pushing his buddy CharlieThen we had cake, cup cakes, and ice cream

William requested a cake with sprinklers and sugar on it. No problem.ReadyBlow!He did it!

Here my kids show you what they think the most important part of a cupcake is. In fact I don't think either of them actually ate the cupcake.

Now time for presents. When we asked him what he wanted for his birthday he said...."presents!" He did eventually tell us he wanted a lot of star wars action figures. Here he is after he opened a set my mom got him. It had everything he wanted, except it had an old OB WAN instead of the young one, but he didn't mind.

He got some moon sand, pretty neat stuffA basket ball to go with his new basketball hoop (not pictured) Unfortunately we left the ball outside and it is gone so we need to replace it.And what could this present be?A cow! When William saw what it was he said, "what?" He was pretty surprised.Then after he was done opening all the presents my dad pulled a little toy calf out of his pocket. They went perfectly together.Here is my mom doing what she does best, holding my friends baby.

And here is Gracie playing with my brother Ryan. She sure likes him.
She also likes buckling car seats and strollers. She never leaves one undone if she can help it.

What a cute little rag-a-muffin

It was a beautiful day and I was glad to see all that came to celebrate our little boy turning five. Not so little anymore;)