School Birthday Party

We celebrated Evan's 8th birthday at school with cupcakes.  I dumped 1/3 of the cupcakes on the driveway on my way to the school but I made more than enough for his class!  

Between his birthday and Christmas Evan had quite the bounty of gifts! 

This is so far his favorite! 

Lookin Good

I'm not sure if he was trying to make a fashion statement or send himself to the ER again. 

After taking the picture I was sure to discourage him from putting things in his ears. 

Isla Says Momma and Does Other Stuff Too

Bruises Happen

When your preschoolers build a tower of pillows on top of a chair and you walk in the room just in time to see your 2 year old jump from it onto the couch, bounce and face plant into the side of the coffee table.  

The blue market above his eye doesn't due it justice, its a 3 inch goose egg.
Why?!!  

Homemade Gifts Are The Best

Thank you Jed!  

Christmas Treats

Yet another event on the advent calendar, cookie and treat making!  

Toffee is one of my favorite to make!  It's so yummy! 

This year I made one with peppermint and one with sea salt!  Soooo good! 

The boys enjoy helping, here they are "cleaning up my double boiler", its a tough job but I love how they're willing to dive in and get dirty to get it done! 

Here we are working on chocolate crinkle cookies.  After much begging I finally let them each have a taste of the powdered sugar, my way though.  I tossed a pinch at each of their mouths.  It's how I deal with stress. 

And last but in no way least, we may have gotten carried away with the sugar cookies... 

More Christmas Crafts

Grandma

We went to Target the other day, after I made Ford try on this hat and sit for a picture we went to the women's section.  I was browsing clearance items when Seth called to me and said, "Mom, look at this grandma shirt!"  

 I guess to Seth my mom is glitzier than me. 

Speaking of my mom, I was in the kitchen glazing a turkey when Kane came in, sat down and started a odd conversation,

Kane: "Mom, can you tell me your secret ingredient now?"

Me: "What are you talking about?"

Kane: "You know the secret ingredient in your recipe."

After peppering him with questions to try to figure out what he might be thinking of and getting nowhere I decided to roll with it. 

Me: "You know Kane if I tell you the secret ingredient then it wont be a secret anymore."

Kane: "Ohhh, I get it! (I thought we were done but then he throws this out there.)  You don't want grandma to know so she can't cook like you!"  

 Me: "Why would you think that?" 

Kane: "Hahaha, nevermind." (Said like I was an idiot that never gets anything.)

Christmas Parade 2012

One of our advent activities was going to our city's Christmas parade!  

One of the highlights of the parade is getting there early and letting the kids do something they're only allowed to do a couple times a year, play in the street!  

We found a bran new popcorn store.  I bought cinnamon apple popcorn, yum!  

It was Isla's first parade and this is pretty much how she spent it, screaming her shrill scream.  

I eventually gave up watching and took her for a walk.  We perused markets and cafes together while the boys watched motorcycles and trucks drive past.

Advent

After whining on facebook (I apologize for being so annoying, I was having a rough day) about how I was too busy to make my own, a very sweet friend made this calendar for me!  

Isn't it awesome?!  Jed framed it!  I'm so thankful!  Not only did I not have to do anything, it has been so helpful in keeping Jed and me accountable to do things during this busy month!  

Things like, having a family movie night, reading the story of Jesus' birth together, driving around our town to look at Christmas lights, taking Christmas photos (that didn't turn out) and, 

painting ornaments. 

It definitely takes some outside motivation to get me to allow this mayhem! 

  Around our house crafts have always been the boys throwing as much glue, glitter, paint, ect. as possible on a given object and once fully covered calling it good.  However, this year it was a pleasant surprise to watch, Evan, as he thought out what he wanted to do and worked hard on making it happen.  I was very proud of him!  

I think watching his older brother inspired Seth too!  Although not as focused he was aware of appropriate color usage and attempted to keep things neat!  

Kane and Ford had fun! 

And didn't get paint everywhere!  

Seriously all four boys went above and beyond my expectations this year! Yay! 

Even daddy did one! 

Perfect! 

Oh and we had a family first 

building and decorating ginger bread houses!  

Not too shabby for our first go!  

Monitoring Lunch

A little glimpse into a week of us on lunch duty. 

Her stroller is the perfect location to monitor from. 

Best part of mom being the lunch monitor, she brings Happy Meals! 

Isla finally gets in some girl time! 

And those girls know how to make a mean fort. 

Ford successfully made his way up the ladder on the playground equipment!  Scary yet proud moment for this mama! 

Two days in, with insufficient naps.  I asked them to put socks on...  

Status quo attitudes for the rest of the week. 

Kane's favorite spot, the tire swing.  He always managed to sucker someone into pushing him! 

Ford's new favorite place!

Isla making me laugh with silly faces! 

Not to be out done by his sister! 

Seth showing off what he earned from prize box!  

And Evan, with his football playing buddy.  These two played football all week long, whether with a group or just the two of them.  They could not be deterred.  Jed, it might be time to sign this kid up for a league or something. :) 

Friday at 6:30, out for the night.  

Although hanging out with the kids for a week was fun, for Kane, Ford and Isla's sake I'm glad I don't have to do this again for a few months!  

Too Much Shopping

Isla almost never falls asleep in the bjorn but this weekend we shopped until she dropped! 

Future Entrepreneurs

Jay bought a new lawn mower and thoughtfully saved the box for us!  

I suggested to Kane and Ford that they might want to get in their "train" and go for a ride and they just stared at me.   

Then I jumped in with them and tried to jump start some pirate action, which lasted all of 5 minutes (apparently Kane is deathly afraid of sharks and can't even pretend to be on a boat without obsessing over being eaten by one.  Some therapist is going to make a fortune off this kid in 20 years!) 

I finally gave up and that's when they opened shop.

Welcome to Kane and Ford's grocery store.  You can have a can of beans for 20 bucks or an empty container of animal crackers for 100!  

Their prices are outrageous but who could say no to these two cuties! 

Ornaments

We put up our Christmas stuff over Thanksgiving weekend.  

The boys surprised me when they oohed and aaahed over all the ornaments and decorations as they came out of their boxes.  I was expecting, "I'm bored."  And, "Can we watch tv while you do that?"  

This year we have a second tree (I got it on sale after Christmas a couple years ago) for the "kiddie ornaments".  I let them decorate that tree themselves!  So fun!  

The finished project! 

We also went out shopping and let each of the boys pick one new ornament for the kid's tree.  

Evan picked out a humming bird.  The kid loves birds!  

Seth was ecstatic when he found ice cream!  Yum! 

"Mom look I found the key to the tower of power!" 

A Backyardigans inspired ornament. 

Ford is not a fan of posing for the camera so I wasn't able to get a picture of him and the ornament I may or may not have made him pick, a globe.  However I was able to get a picture of this, 

Ford loves this picture frame ornament with a photo of our sponsored child in it.  He carried it around with him for a couple days until I finally had him put it back on the tree and leave it there.

Update: Said ornament is MIA.  I think he must have snagged it off the tree and stashed it somewhere.  

Showing me, Soraida! 

So this year I went out with Joy and Devan Black Friday shopping, which actually started off as Thanksgiving evening shopping.  Anyway, I wasn't very impressed with the sales this year, not even close to being worth the hours of sleep missed and lines that I waited in but I did get a few things I was excited about.  

This being one of them.  Like I said, Evan loves birds and Cardinals happen to be his favorite bird!  Plus all the boys really love snow globes.  Well, I bought this on Friday at 1am, got home at 4am, put it on one of our end tables and while Jed was waking me up at 7:30am one of the boys smashed it.  That's gotta be a new record!

I also picked this ornament up for my traitorous children. Why couldn't they have accidentally smashed this?  Go Blue! 

Anyway, being the softy that I am I took Evan out and got him this.  Now that I've spent a small fortune on cardinal items, I'm sure next Christmas he'll be over them.  Just a hunch.