Task #2

Catching up with documenting my children's lives through pictures - speed version.

Since I have got so many pictures to go through and so many fun things to remember I am taking the easy road and going month to month. I have a friend who takes her photos from each week and catalogs them for her family. A quick snap-shot into their life for the week. Very cool idea. But since I have over a years worth of photos to go through and I really do want to remember it all, I am going month to month, and hopefully getting caught up. So, here is my first go at it. Forgive the poor photo quality, it is late and this is not my only task at hand.

I will hopefully be able to do a sheet for each of my four children for each month. They already love looking at the picture books I have done for them in the past so my hope is this will help them enjoy their childhood, even if it is only a month at a time.

Accomplishments this weekend

For a three day weekend we were able to do some fun stuff. The big three include:

Haley played in the snow on Sunday and LOVED the whole experience. Wait, let me back up. She loved playing in the snow once we took off her shoes. That girl HATES shoes so much. The boys wanted to go play and so did she. I tried to put the shoes on her and put her down on the ground to show her that she could go and play. But she sat there and screamed! It is like putting a boot on a car's tire. She will not move when there are shoes on her feet. Well, I figured she had double socks on, she could still play. So, I took her shoes off and she was gone.

At first she stuck to the sidewalks only. But soon there was no holding her back. She followed the boys into the back yard and investigated Caleb's small snowman.

At least she will keep a hat and gloves on. She loved it all, except the shoe part.

Second task, I finally finished the Easter pillowcases for my kids. This weekend I hunkered down and did the last things I needed to have them ready for Easter time.

I think my boys will like them. In case you cannot tell, the pillow cases with bunnies are supposed to look like they have grass on them and eggs "hidden" here and there in the grass. I made the eggs out of scraps of material I had lying around, things my boys would like or are interested in. So, there are robot eggs, eggs with flames, an egg with bambi on it; random but fun stuff. If you look closely enough there are small imperfections but it was fun to make them, design them out in my head and to finally have them finished. Now I need to take a break from sewing (even though I have other projects in my head being designed) and work on a different task.

Last but not least, we built a fort/castle yesterday for the boys to play on. Do not get me wrong, we have plenty of other stuff to play with at our house. Legos, the Bat Cave, a king's castle.... but what boy does not need a cardboard fortress added to his collection?

Peter also had me make a Dersley's house (from Harry Potter) for him to play on. That is all Peter will think about, Harry Potter. The boys enjoyed playing with the boxes while I glued stuff together. Caleb even made himself a robot body out of one of the boxes. Good times were had by all.

Lego Awesomeness

So, as the boys were playing legos I set out to put together all of the people - again. They always seem to change outfits and move heads around. I decided to round them all up and call attendance. It is amazing and incredible!

The final count is 108! It would be 110 but we are missing one Hagrid and Princess Leah. Amazing! Plus the boys have at least 7 more they can earn for doing good things. Whoa. I so wish Peter's class had done a 100 day project where they had to collect 100 of something to show how far they had come in school. We totally would have done 100 lego mini-figs and it would have been the coolest!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Only a certain two of our children cooperated in this Valentine wish, but all of us want to wish you a happy day!

They wear their love proudly.

Peter was only interested in eating his Valentine candy.

Haley was not interested at all. But the message is still the same, we love you!

The birthday recap

It was a great day for Peter. I think he loved almost every moment. Except for that time when it was time to open presents and instead of looking on the table to see his wrapped presents he went upstairs and partially ruined his Valentines surprise. Oops!

In the morning his best friend from school came over to play. At the end of the day Peter said that playing with Payton was his favorite part of the birthday.

They played legos, ran around chasing each other and had Peter's birthday treat. Since Peter does not like cake he always gets a rice krispy treat cake. We tried to make them look like little snow globes because Peter collects snow globes.

They did not turn out exactly how I wanted but the boys liked them. Peter also got to eat his favorite chips (Pringles) and angel noodles for lunch. And per his request for his birthday breakfast he wanted a banana and for his dinner he wanted country fried steak. He was so full after dinner that he did not even want his birthday ice cream.

I think he was very happy with his presents. You never can tell with Peter. He received thomas the train stuff,

a stitched snow globe from me, and Peter's favorite (I think) was the Harry Potter legos he received. Oh, he also received a lego helicopter from Payton.He loves Harry Potter right now (it is almost the only thing he plays) and he asked for a Harry Potter game and the Knight Bus. Granny and Grandpa Gray gave him the game and Grandpa and Grandma Rachiele gave him the Knight Bus. One happy kid. Plus his brother profit too.

Another highlight of the day was that dad let the boys watch the non-scary parts of the first Harry Potter movie. They loved the quidditch match, when Duddly fell in the snake's cage, and Diagon Alley. They were so happy that night.

Now for mom's exciting moments. While I was helping Peter build the Knight Bus he looked at me with a huge smile and said, "This is fun, Mom!" Such a sweet kid. When we asked him to help clean up at the end of his birthday he hopped right to it, no fights or anything. He is a good kid. Finally, what I hope to be the birth of a new tradition, the balloon launch. I read in the newspaper about a school in Utah that set off a balloon with a note attached to the finder of said balloon to write back and tell of the balloons final destination. I thought that would be so fun to send off a balloon on the boys' birthday in the same fashion. So, we took one of Peter's birthday balloons, attached a note to it for the person who (hopefully) finds it, and sent it off.

We learned a couple of things from this maiden voyage. First, get the balloons with high float, so that it soars better. Second, make the note smaller so it does not weigh the balloon down at all. Our first attempt the note was way too heavy and big. So, I made a new note and we did it again. I think it is kind of exciting, and so does Peter. At bed that night we were talking about the balloon and Peter said he thinks it popped on the peak of a mountain. I said, "how is a mountain goat going to write back to us to let us know?" Peter thought for a moment then commented, "a hiker will find it." So smart. Happy Birthday, Peter! We love you!

Valentine's Preparations - check!

We have successfully finished making all the valentines we need for school parties. Yea! Now we do not have to worry about that this weekend and it will be all Peter for his birthday. Good thing, I did not want to make the boys glue any hearts on Peter's birthday, it should just be his day. There were so many cute ideas out there this year for Valentines, we could not decide. For their boxes the boys chose owls and puppies, Willy did one of each because he loved them both so much. Then for our Valentines we did the pirates with the heart eye-patch, lions, elephants, penguins, caterpillars, and my personal favorite - the robots.
The robots were so fun to make because we could chose whatever shape we wanted for the body and then the boys loved putting on the gems and glitter. It was awesome. Caleb wrote down cute sayings on each of his Valentines and they are excited to hand them out Tuesday. Willy even made some for his primary class on Sunday and he is so excited to give them away. What fun! Now for Peter. I hope his day is wonderful.

So many things to say

There have been so many random things happen the last couple of weeks that I want to remember. For example, Haley:

Haley LOVES these sunglasses. Cutest thing ever!

Haley is getting pretty good at feeding herself, when she chooses to eat.

Haley still HATES shoes! She loves to be outside but will not walk around in her shoes.

Funny girl.

Cute moment of the three of them playing their angry birds game. Haley loves to put the bird in the catapult and watch it fly.

Then there is Peter, he is such a cool little kid. We have been counting down to his birthday this week, 4 days and counting. He is excited. He also had another special countdown and school, he recently celebrated his 100th day of school. Pretty big stuff.

So, for dinner I made him his favorite sausage with pancakes. If you cannot see my cleverness I spelled out 100 for him. He kept grabbing more sausage and remaking 100. It was very cute.

Peter and Caleb also celebrated something special together at school. They were both recognized as Student of the Month. They were so excited and happy to be up on the board together. Peter was recognized for caring and Caleb for self-discipline. Also on the same day that Caleb received Student of the Month he also rocked a literacy test at school. He came home with the results of his SRI (reading test done by computer) and they were phenomenal. Not to brag but he improved from his old test by almost 200 points and he had the highest score in his class! He was so happy.

One other mentionable thing about Caleb is he finally has a permanent teacher for the remainder of the school year. Oh what a roller coaster this third grade year has been! To make a long story shorter; his first teacher quit right before Christmas break. Then they hired a new teacher to start after Christmas break. She taught them for one day then she quit too! (I won't even post the picture we took with her.) ARGH! For the next 2 weeks these kids had a substitute until the teacher pictured above could begin teaching. Her name is Senora Call and she seems really good. She is a native so the students will hear the real deal accent in Spanish and they are back on track to learning.

Finally my sweet William. Oh this boy is a wonderful kid. In this picture he is holding a boat that his primary teachers made for each of the kids from their lesson on Sunday. He was so excited about it. He is one of the best sunbeams in Primary which makes things a little easier on his teachers. But what is even more important than the boat in this picture is that this Big Boy is wearing underwear! You heard that right, he is on his way to no diapers! Yahoo! We are so proud of him and his progress. It has not been all perfection but he is doing great. He is learning to go on his own every now and then and is gaining control of the whole idea. He tells me every now and then that, "potty training is hard," but he is doing fabulous. What a great achievement!