Demolisher of cheese sandwiches...

...lover of tomatoes.

I gave him the butt of a tomato we had with lunch to see what he would do with it and he ATE it.  Loved it, too!

He's really not making a face, I just took the picture as he was biting down...

He's talking to it in this one... lol

The aftermath.  He kept dropping it and whining at me to help him pick it back up, it was so slippery!

Eskimo cutie-pie

Last week, it snowed.  And snowed.  And snowed.  I think a lot of people got snow... we got a LOT of snow...

Matt's a healthy 6'1".  That's some deep snow.

The wind was blowy and made it all drifty and deeper in some places.  My flower bed had like an inch of snow, but the rest of the neighborhood got a little bit more than that:

(You can see the brick lining between where my beautiful flowers are going to be next spring and where my grass is...well, should be.)

Matt told me to bring out the camera - this is what I found:

She wanted me to see that it was big enough for her to lay down in:

So, yesterday, I was going to go pick up Natalie's friend, right? Well, Matt shoveled out his car, but understandably, didn't shovel out mine due to near exhaustion... so guess who got to do it yesterday?

Me.

First time, ever, shoveling snow.  I'm not that sore today, but my biceps are a little stiff. 

Good times.

Christmas morning - only five days late. ;)

We always do stockings first... (Our big tree's down in the family room where all the toys are and our small tree's upstairs in the living room.)

Quin's first stocking-filled goods:

Everything's been opened - now it's time to play!

Quin unwrapping - the paper's what he's after:

Daddy makes a good Care Bear:

And he's good at Legos:

Had to take one last picture of the tree after the madness:

Christmas was great, now bring on the new year!

Little girls...

Overheard today while Natalie was playing with her bossom buddy:  "Will you be my father?"  "No, because I have to be a german shepherd."

While opening pretend gifts under the tree:  "A bag of fish.  A bag of whale.  A bag of deer."  "Except I'm not married so I got a bag of rings." 

Her friend has aged from 20 years old to 37 years old in less than an hour.  My house will do that to a person. 

Future Missionaries

"I can't put my arms down!"

Yeah.  He was not happy.

And if you don't know what movie that's from, I suggest you complete your life and find out.  ;)

Quoting Christmas

Andur (while eating a mystery chocolate) - "What's that white stuff? Oh! It's coconut! At first I thought it was fish!"

Natalie - "I'm good at falling off mountains!"

Natalie (referring to Matt's crumbled piece of pie) - "It's going to be poop in a couple of days, anyway."

Andur - "What kind of Christmas music is this, ghetto music??"

Natalie - "I wanna play! My pirate's name is Jeff."

And the scariest quote of the day:  Natalie's doll saying to me "Grandma! Grandma!"  Nothing'll stop you dead in your tracks faster than that, I tell you what.

Hope your Christmas was as filled with silly as mine was! :)

Junie B. Jones, you have a new fan!

One thing Santa knew my kids would love is a book.  Natalie read hers in a couple hours.  118 pages! I'm so proud! (Junie B., First Grader:  Jingle Bells, Batman Smells  P.S. So does May! is one of the cutest books ever! I may have read it before Santa wrapped it - shhhh... don't tell!)

She got more than "meandering-ness" from her mother.  ;)

All Growed Up

Over the years, we've learned that buying our kids loads of mess-making junk for Christmas gets us just that - loads of mess-making junk.  They'd have so many toys, they quite literally wouldn't know what to do with them all.  We've learned to watch our kids as the big day gets closer for things they would truly enjoy and play with more than once before forgetting they even owned it.  I know there are those that buy their kids so many toys and just rotate them, which is a very cool idea, but we've never had room for extra storage until now, and they're too old for a lot of toys, anyway, so that idea might be put on hold for Quin... who knows. 

Anyway, on to my point (I meander a lot in my thinking - sorry): 

We went shopping this year, back in October, I think.  Now, first, I need to let it be known that my "meandering-ness" has been inherited to my poor daughter.  Her mind is as ever-changing as any true female's.  Over the past few months, I kept trying to find out what it was she really wanted for Christmas, as she's the type to see something and want it, then see something else and want that.  Andur, I wasn't worried about.  His interests have been the same for years:  legos, Star Wars, and trains. 

I was so worried that what Natalie wanted wasn't what we got her.  She made list, after list, after list, literally covering our fridge with them...and then came home from school with yet another list to Santa.  All with different things on them, mind you.  Very random, there's-no-way-you're-getting-a-real-dog-or-a-real-cat sorts of lists.  Anyway, as I was worrying, I kept going over in my head what I liked at that age.  My Little Pony and Cabbage Patch Kids.  Well, Natalie's never liked CPKs and she has 41 (no joke) MLPs, so that was out of the question.  I told Matt, our kids are growing up, they're interests are changing, we have to stop getting them the same things every year.  He agreed.  I was so panicked she would be sad, I almost went back out Christmas Eve night for more gifts.

Christmas morning came.  She absolutely loved the doll we (erm, Santa) got her, which was her main big present.  (We do one big, several small, keeping things simple so as not to totally distract from the reason we celebrate in the first place.)  She was so happy she had "nice brown hair" like her.  She toted her all over all day and is napping her as we speak.  ;) 

All that worrying for nothing.  I had two gifts under the tree this year, which in years past would've made me a little sad (I am only human), but this year, it didn't.  I was really more concerned that our kids would like what we got them, Natalie, especially.  Guess that means I'm the one who did some growing up. 

It's over already??

I think as I get older, the Christmas season goes by faster...

I've been keeping a piece of paper in my pocket for two days, randomly writing down stuff that's said or things I want to share... I didn't want to get on the computer yesterday, so it's been all saved up.  :)  My kids and husband are out bashing around in the snow (which I'll have pictures of in the next post or two), so I thought I'd take this opportunity to share some of my randomly written down thoughts. 

One thing I wanted to make note of, for myself, mostly, was a promise I'm making for next year.

Next year, I vow not to threaten to take away presents.  I did that a few times this year and I'm not going to next year for these reasons:

#1 We're never actually going to take them away, which makes it an empty threat, which is just not cool.
#2 Why do we give gifts anyway? Because that's what Christmas symbolizes - a gift given from a parent to His children.
#3 Did H.F. ever threaten to take away His greatest gift to us if we ever screwed up? No.  He gave us this gift because he knew we would screw up, because He loves us.

So, next year, instead of threatening to take away presents when my kids act like kids, I'm going to encourage better behavior because that's what H.F. wants us to do and remind them of why we get gifts in the first place and what they symbolize.

Christmas Eve at our house

Quotes of the day:

"That pig's butt smells good!" -Andur  (my ham in the oven - yum!)

"I conversate you to a staring contest." - Natalie - challenge, I think, is the word she was looking for... lol

Daddy:  You lost.
Andur:  But it's not Tuesday.
(Spongebob quote?)


Pictures of the day:

Andur, placing the last piece without it falling....

....aaaand Natalie making it fall.

The Natalator burrito.  Oh, wait.... she was a noodle.  Either way. 

And, last, but certainly not least:

]

Nothing like a dose of some good old fashion Christmas Spirit. 

Merry Christmas!!!

Been Busy

Stuff I've made.

My proof won't load.

So, Quin is now completely clapping his hands, dances to music, and now does SO BIG.  He also, as of tonight, says YAY, which could be my imagination, but he kept repeating it after we were saying it.  And he says dada and yaya and all that baby jabber, but back to my point...

... My point is... I've taken video of all of this but the stupid blogger thing won't load them.  WHY?? Can I do it with the new editor or do I still have to do it with the old editor? And, if I still have to do it with the old editor, does anyone know how on earth to get the dumb thing to load?? Does my spankin' brand new swell camera take too good'a video and the pixels are too big or something? And if so, how does one fix that? I hate to admit that I'm technically challenged at times but this is one of those frustrating times of defeat.  Problem is, I'm not easily defeated, and I know when to ask for help.  So.... help!

Can't say that I blame him...

Tonight, after sitting down to dinner (my rockin' awesome stromboli), Quin started fussing.  I was thinking he was tired, so I started feeding him quickly to avoid a possible (and rare) meltdown.  ***Side note:  He's pretty much on all people food now, except for the ever rare occasion when baby food is the only thing handy to feed him.  Anyway, so thinking stromboli was a bit too grown up for him, I started spooning him baby food.  Not cool.  So, I tried giving him a piece of bread.  The screaming ensued.  Milk in his sippy (which he's a pro at), no go.  Finally, not wanting to hear him scream throughout the whole meal, I just took him out of his high chair and held him on my lap.  That's when he started reaching for my plate of food.  Fed up, I thought why not and forked him a smallish bite.  Loved it. He probably ate his very own little slice, after all I had given him, the stink.

He could've just asked.

I'm only 10 days late in posting these

Our Christmas party was December 12th.  I did take pictures.  So what if I'm just now posting them?  ;)

You always wanted to see an enlarged version of my son's most obnoxious face, didn't you? ;)

She's not a Daddy's girl.  Nope.  Not her.

Young love?  (lol) This cutie boy lives down the street from us, and they're in the same church class, and they've been in kindergarten and 1st grade together.

 

Compare this to our first Christmas party here:

How big is too big to sit on Santa's lap?

Waiting for his green beans...

Sitting on Santa's lap for the first time:

Santa doesn't look too sure... Quin's just trying to see his face.

Ooooh... a treat!

It was a fun party... can't say it's the best I've been to, but it was fun to visit with friends.  I'd say the food was good, which I'm sure it was, but by the time our table was allowed to get in line, the veges were all gone and there were three rolls left.  SO, we got turkey and potatoes and gravy and a few of the lucky got a roll.  Nice.  The rockin' awesome luau my husband helped plan had a better turn-out, better (and more) food, and very cool entertainment (we have a Hawaiian family that cooked AND danced for us - very cool!).  Did I get pictures of that? Ha.  Nope.  I'm sure someone did, though.  ;)

That's one shiny cow

This year, my in-laws sent us (via email) a poem with a corresponding piece of the Nativity every day for 10 days.  We didn't do it every day because I wanted to save it all for our Family Home Evening once we had all the pieces.  My kids were a-scribblin' like crazy so as not to be all night about it, as you'll plainly see by their master coloring efforts.  Also notice their cutting expertise.

I wanted to share the final product on my blog and publicly thank my wonderful in-laws for putting this together for us - we enjoyed it! :) Thank you!!!

This one is Andur's.  He insisted on coloring his animals silver so they'd be more valuable.  The cow produced quite a glare.  And, now that I'm looking at it, so does the lamb.  I finally had to put my foot down on the sharpening the silver yet again.  (lol)

For some extremely lame reason, blogger won't upload Natalie's picture correctly, so if you lean your head to the left, you can see the picture better.  ;)

We all enjoyed some ice cream for our FHE treat.  All but Quin, who for most of the lesson sat in the marker drawer on top of the table, reorganizing my highly organized markers. 

She wasn't even posing for this one.  That's my girl.  :)

It was a fun FHE to prepare us more for Friday's specialness.  Thanks, again, Grandma and Papa! We love you guys!

Bruising my assets

Within the past week, I have fallen down the stairs twice.  Well, I take that back... I fell (more like slipped) down the stairs once and tripped up them once. 

I blame my socks.

These socks rock, for three reasons:
1.  They were on sale for $1 per pair.
2.  They're Pirates of the Caribbean socks.
3.  They're ultra thin, so it's like not wearing socks at all.

For all the above said reasons, I wear them a lot.  So much, in fact, that they've become quite slippery on the bottoms, making my kitchen a fun place to be, but not the stairs. 

The first time I fell (slipped), I was on the phone with someone from church.  I'm so suave and graceful (HA) that I don't think (I sincerely hope) she couldn't tell I had just fallen, besides the fact that my kids were very loud in asking if I was ok and I was doing my ultimate best to stifle my laughs.

The second time, my foot slipped off the stair while going up, and I about killed myself.  Not really, but I was carrying Quin and about gave Matt a heart attack.  Quin didn't even flinch, nor did he (thanks to my lightning-fast reflexes) even touch the ground. 

So, from now on, I wear my ultra-grippy Hanes in the house, and my POTC socks when I need thin ones for my shoes.  Or at least take them off when I approach the stairs.

Put your hands together!

Quin can clap now, with his HANDS, as of this morning...lol!

And he can give five.... after five, after five, after five... but he's got the hand slapping thing down when you say "Gimme five!" and hold your hand out. 

I love these little learned talents... too cute!

Now if I could just get him on his tummy long enough to crawl.........................

Make sure you have a tissue...

I found this on one of the blogs I read... click here for some happy feelings.  :)

Cuh-lose Enough!

I've been trying to teach Quin how to clap lately.

He'll watch my hands and start shaking his, not quite making contact, usually hitting the tips of his fingers together.  If he has toys in his hands, he'll clack them together, no problem...lol 

Well, yesterday, while I was changing his diaper, and this morning for my kids, he started playing pat-a-cake with his cute little piggies! It was so funny! He claps them together perfectly (by holding on to his ankles) and when he gets to the "roll it and pat it" part, he even attempts that!

So he's not clapping with his hands, big deal. He can clap with his feet!! lol!!

Lefty

Earlier today, Quin and I were playing his very first game of "catch".  He threw the ball once, and I threw it back and he seemed to get it pretty quickly, which I thought was cool.  We played for about 5-10 minutes, until he became fascinated with hitting my entertainment center with his "ball" (it's actually a small wooden ball-shaped topper to a stacker toy).  Anyway, baseball's a big thing on my side of the family, so I thought I'd let it be known that Quin's a lefty when it comes to throwing.  I thought he'd be a righty, but, come to think of it, he even eats left-handed.  He would even pick up the ball with is right hand and pass it to his left hand before throwing, if he couldn't reach it with his left hand.  My mom's left-handed, so she'd be proud.  :)

So Proud

My boy was baptized today.  The Spirit was strong and we had many friends and even family there to share with us this wonderful occasion.  I got a whopping four pictures.  I'm so good at this.  ;)

My awesome parents came and my dad sang "When I Am Baptized" on his guitar.  Awesome.  It was so good to see them... living apart is not so easy at times.  Hopefully we'll get to see them more than twice next year. 

I can't believe I'm old enough to have a child get baptized, let alone have a child that's old enough to be baptized.  What a wonderful day it's been! 

Our ward Christmas party is tonight, so the fun's not over, yet.  And, who knows, maybe I'll even get more than a few pictures! :)

Done and done.

When Matt was baptized, he got a new set of scriptures, so we thought we'd keep that tradtion and do the same for our kids.  I wanted Andur to have a new scripture bag for his brand new sticks, and since I've made myself one before, I thought I'd try my hand at it again.  Didn't do too shabby, if I do say so, myself.  ;)

After a few hours of failure, I decided to go this route with the lettering I wanted:

It's denim knee patches stenciled, cut out, ironed on, then hand-stitched.  I wish I would've thought of that in the first place! I had a shield sewn on with my machine in a different material, but it was crooked.  I can't have crooked.  So, I undid it.  That stunk.  Anyway, I like the patch letters better without the shield.

I did one pocket bigger on purpose, so to fit his scriptures in one side, and smaller things in the other side without making it lopsided.

See:

(My husband gets my kids an old year day planner from work to scribble in during sacrament meeting.)

And I just had to add a pic of the cover of the programs for his baptism.  I didn't save the pic when I was done, so I took a picture of it, instead.  Clicking on it makes it easier to see, I think.  Haven't tried it yet...

I'm loving the results and wanted to share my program-making expertise.  (lol)

And, if you're wondering what the scripture bag I made for myself looks like, click here.

My folks are coming into town tomorrow (YAY!!!) and Andur will be baptized on Saturday. 

*sniff* 

It shall be a happy tear-filled weekend, me thinks. :)