The breakdown of my birthday

Yeah, that is correct.  I am old. 40 years to be exact.  I have always looked forward to my birthday.  Birthdays are fun, not to be bragging about myself, but just to have fun and celebrate life.  But this birthday, the anticipation was different. Less excitement and more, ugh.  But my kids helped make it a great day.  Thank you family.

The day started off with Haley and Peter getting along quite nicely!!!!!  They were making silly maps together and following each other around the house.

Haley made a sweet note for me and Peter made the heart and brought it to me together.

The sweetness continued when William brought me another handwritten note, wrapped up in a box.

I had a little/slightly challenging basket weaving project for us all to work on together.  It proved to be too much for Peter and he did not even participate.  Caleb became quite frustrated at one point and had to take a breather.  But in the end the baskets turned out so cute and it was all worth it.

 The birthday food was great!  Carmel corn, YUM!  But see that clean counter, did not last for long.  And see those bowls of popcorn, oh buddy.  Not big enough by any means.  But oh it was tasty!  Plus the hash browns for breakfast were perfectly crispy and yummy.  And the homemade taquitos for dinner were a great choice.

 I gave each of the kids a little treasure and they gave me a gift of playing together happily for a while.  I love the innocent play of happy children.  Here Peter is demonstrating the scream his mine craft guy would constantly make during the game, it was quite comical.

 The craziness kept building after dinner.  It think it had to do with all that carmel corn.  We got out some games and had a lot of fun.  Peter and Haley got bored after a bit and went in the other room to build with blocks.  Here Haley is showing me her grapes and Peter is doing what he does best.

Before it became too crazy... Rob and Peter were going at it and William was winning big time, but not without some good efforts on our part.  William had put hotels on Baltic Ave. and Mediterranean Ave.  The rent on those babies were $250 and $450, he was really excited about that.
It was a fun birthday.  Sometimes crazy, sometimes trying to fight off the boredom of bickering kids....but it was successful.  At least for me, 40 might not be so bad.  Thank you family, for making me feel loved and helping me have fun.

Adding to the gratitude

 I am thankful that I still had some fresh fruit for a fun breakfast this morning.  I am also thankful that my kids still let me be silly and somehow like my play on food.  They may not always like the food I make, but usually when it is special occasions like this, they go with it.

Haley is so thankful for Grandpa Terry and his Thanksgiving dinner.   I am thankful for my dad who is so good with my kids.  He always makes extra rolls for dinner, because he knows the Gray boys will eat a lot.  My dad made 6 dozen rolls for dinner tonight!  He also brought over extra ham, yams and frog eye salad for Haley because she said she loved it and wished she had gotten more.  My dad is also amazing because he was able to get Peter and William to come into the house for dinner, when they refused to do so for me.  Pretty thankful for patient people who care and love.

Thankful for many things

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!!

 Last night gave me an early chance to be thankful for a few things.  SNOW!  Love it.  And so do my kids.  We were all thankful that the windy, blustery weather brought a little snow to play in.

 Haley had a lot of fun making this snowman.  She is so cute!  I was thankful that the rest of the boys came out to play in the snow.  It was perfect packing snow.  A little too perfect.  The boys started making a bunch of snowballs to have all at once in their snowball fight.  But boy those babies hurt if you got hit in close range.  So, I was VERY THANKFUL when a rather hard snowball got me square in the glasses and face that my glasses did not break.  My nose hurt a little, but my glasses were fine! Thankful I still have glasses today.

I am thankful that even though we get grumpy, we can still forgive and be happy again.  Yesterday morning pretty much everyone got a taste of someone else's temper, and it was not pretty.  But we forgave and still had fun.  Then last night, same hard snow made a couple of boys grumpy when they got hit too hard.  Yet, somehow through talk, hugs, some snow ice cream (yum) and making a snowman, things were forgiven and people were happy.
I am thankful for a warm house that provided us shelter from the cold.  I am thankful that Peter told me about his prayers last night and he has such a good heart, just sometimes he gets misunderstood.  And I am thankful for a family that is trying to make the best of everyday.

The Piano Guys

I am simply putting this hear for the sake of remembering.  No, we have not been to their concert, although that would be awesome.  I just want to remember that my kids have become real fans of the Piano Guys.  They love looking up the videos and watching these amazing musicians play beautiful music.  It has especially helped Caleb get through nights of homework.  When he does not want to do it, put some of this music on and he can get it done. Thank you beautiful music that inspires us to be better.

November flew by....

So, it is the end of November, almost.  We have been busy.  We have been working on things.  Like another fundraiser for the Gray Soccer Club.  Or working out the fine details of Caleb's Eagle, it is getting so close, I hope it all works out.  Taking Haley to dance and William and Peter to scouts.  Of course there is always homework. The few things we have documented in this month are as follows.....not to say that November is not exciting, just that the camera is less important.

Soccer is of course on the schedule.  Right now we have Peter and Caleb doing indoor.  William will start after the first of the year.  Peter's team is of course rocking it!  Caleb's team has had some really great games lately, they have actually won their last three!  The fun part is that Caleb plays keeper first half and then coach has him on field second half.  I love the change up!  Caleb has had some great saves as keeper, and great plays as field.  HE EVEN SCORED A GOAL!!!!  So cool.

Haley has been keeping herself entertained at home while we do this and that.  She made mini fruit kabobs the other day.

 Took the liberty of decorating the house for Thanksgiving.  She scattered filberts, apples, mini oranges, carrots and dried pasta on the table to give it the first Thanksgiving feel.  She also taped filberts and pasta on the walls of the house to spread the holiday cheer.  She tried to tape up oranges but realized that was not happening.   But A Happy Thanksgiving cheer was felt!

 We did our pinecone turkey family.  Rob went for awesome, as usual.  Peter went for simple.  Caleb turned on his creative juices.  Haley went for colorful, cute and soft.  And William just went for everything.  Diedre, I went for pretty.

 I pulled out the old creative juices this morning and gave the kids small bags of different things for lunch.  With this photo included to say, "build your own turkey lunch."  Hopefully it gives them a smile today.

 Last but not least, I had to document Haley's pink personality.  Yesterday would have been a better picture, but today works just as well.  Yesterday, when the class lined up I noticed the kids had this color scheme going on.  Blue, black, blue, black, black, PINK, blue, black, blue, blue........  Guess who was the pink kid?  Yup, Princess Pink Haley.  Today she does not stand out as much, but she is still there, in all her pink glory.  Pretty awesome sometimes.