A tip for a frantic mom

Every day in my home is an adventure. I am confronted daily with something new from my adventurous (aka naughty) boys. Recently things have gotten worse... if anyone has any ideas of how to stop it, enlighten me! More recent happenings have been: scratching the hood of our car with a shovel, cutting their bed sheets in half with sissors, and sawing a kitchen chair with a knife. That was just last week. I keep everything above their reach, but a couple days ago the boys got smarter. They saw a pen above the entertainment center, got a kitchen chair and reached it. It took them the 2 minutes I was in the kitchen setting up a doctor appointment to draw with the pen all over the couch and T.V. screen (did I tell you it was PERMANENT!). I freaked out. If you came over today you wouldn't see any pen markings... how did I do it? Well, I just scrubbed our couch raw. The big secret is the T.V. screen. If your child ever decides to do something like this you can get it off in 1 minute. Draw over the markings with a dry erase marker and wipe off, it is that easy!!! I was amazed, and soooooooooo happy it worked. The pictures look like a computer screen because our computer is hooked up to it. While I already have you thinking my kids are wierd let me share another thing I encountered this week. The boys were playing near the Christmas tree when I overheard Grant saying "yummmm, these are good" (which sent me into panic) He was chewing something very crunchy. When I asked what he was eating he said "the lights" THE CHRISTMAS LIGHTS!!!????!!!!???? My child was eating our christmas lights! I don't even know what to thinmk about it. Should I even tell others? Well, thankfully he wasn't electricuted or cut. Our christmas tree is going to be very boring next year with NO lights and NO ornaments.

Gingerbread boys

Shawn really showed his artistic side with the frosting, and the boys went to town with the candy. The gingerbread house lasted a total of about 13 hours (12 hours of which were sleeping). The boy's Uncle Ian bought them these SuperHero pajamas early this year and they still love them. They want to wear them EVERY night, and they do, even if they have to dig them out of the hamper. I don't know what we are going to do when they grow out of them.

Rusty Santa

We had our ward Christmas party last Friday. We ate, visited, watched some performances, then we had a special visitor. Santa, who has been away since last December, came to visited the children of Beaver Creek ward and seemed to be a little rusty. I say this because he completely DROPPED Reagan. I had envisioned a scrapbook page with my children and their first pictures with santa, it was going to be so cute. But things didn't go as planned. Reagan was dropped and these were the only pictures I got of her on her FIRST Christmas! You can tell I'm still a little upset (okay, I'll admit, I cried!). Shawn had to remind me that she will survive and live a normal life without a picture of her with Santa. But these things really mean a lot to me.... Deep breath! Here is Reagan in mid-air.Okay, I will take some responsibility for the dropping. As you can tell, I thought it would be cute to have a picture of EVERYONE on Santa's lap. It seems Santa couldn't hold them all. Grant was speachless, but Jefferson was able to get in that he wants "a race car track with Lightning Mcqueen, Lightning Mcqueen soap, and transformers."

Let it snow!

Yeah, it snowed! We woke up Sunday to snow everywhere. I get a little excited when I see snow, so we didn't waste a minute getting outside to play in it. We didn't even bother to brush our teeth or take off our pajamas. We just put on our snow clothes and went out. It snowed all day, so there ended up being a lot more snow that in these pictures (which were taken really early in the morning). Church was canceled, which I found funny because the entire ward lived within a 2 mile radius and the building is just down the street. Both Jefferson's and Shawn's schools were closed today.
Reagan wasn't a big fan of the weather. It was too windy for her, so Shawn took her inside. The boys and I headed off to the park. By the way, slides are totally fun in the snow. The boys slid down so fast they flew off the bottom, they loved it!

Not everything about the snow was fun. A couple days before the storm, Shawn called his old work and asked them to order a set of tire chains for him. We need chains to be safe on our trip back to California this Wednesday night. So, he went in to pick them up and they hadn't gotten there yet. He said he would come back to get them and asked them to hold them for him. So, he calls today to see if they are there and guess what... they've sold them! Not only that, but EVERY SINGLE auto parts store in the area and surrounding has sold their chains. We could order them from a store further away, but that could take 1-2 weeks (we need to get to California sooner than that!). Napa was getting another shipment today. Shawn calls when they said they were coming in and sure enough, they have ONE set. They don't hold items, so Shawn drives 15 minutes and in the meantime they have sold it. So, we were left with only one thing to do.... My mom bought a set in Placerville and sent it UPS 2 day delivery. So, as soon as our chains get here, we'll be on our way home.

We love to dance!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Sew much fun!

So, we decided to join in an ornament exchange that was hosted by The Crafty Crow (a really awesome site with craft ideas for kids, I get so many ideas from them!). We had to make 7 ornaments and send them out. We LOVE crafts, and we LOVE getting things in the mail, so I couldn't resist. Coming up with the idea of what to make was easy. But actually making them was pretty time consuming. I wanted the boys to be involved as much as they could, so it took a while. This was Jefferson's first time using a needle and thread, he loved it. Grant did all the glittering and choosing of colors. With my help, Jefferson sewed each button. Then the boys helped me stuff them. I did the stitching around the edges of course. I think they turned out pretty good. It would have been easier to make them all the same, but we kept thinking of new ideas. It was so much fun to spend this time with the boys. They felt like such big shots to be using Mommy's tools. They took us about a week to finish, so I'm glad we're done. We shipped them out yesterday. We've already gotten 1 in the mail, which the boys quickly hung on our tree. Jefferson was inspecting it and asking me questions like "how did they do this... and that?" I think it's great that he enjoys art. The most memorable part of doing this was when I had to go upstairs to get something. I came back to find Reagan was completely covered with glitter, head to toe (I couldn't find my camera, a shame!). The boys told me they were just trying to make her fly because you need fairy dust to fly.

Our ornamentsThe boys showing off their favorites. I really DO need a new camera, my pictures stink!!!