Taxing

We are all done with our taxes! I'm so glad that J is on top of them and gets it all taken care of right when we have all our paperwork in, he rocks! Taxes make me nervous, I don't have the patience for numbers and taxes are intimidating. Along with doing my student aid too! J is pretty good with numbers and I just hope the boys take after him and not me in that area!

The Prophet, President Gordon B. Hinckley

A truly great religious leader has passed away this evening. President Gordon B. Hinckley lived to be 97 years old. He will be greatly missed by so many world wide. There are over 12 million members of our church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who will be mourning his passing. He was not only the prophet who taught us and lead us, but he was also a man of exemplary faith and wisdom with a wonderful sense of humor.
He will be greatly missed.

You can read more about President Hinckley's death at Deseret News.

Friday Favorites

Another week has gone by, how did that happen?!?!?!
So here is my favorites from the past week:

1. Wow Wow Wubbzy. This is L's favorite show, he just loves it, and so do I!



2. Garfield. We got a big Garfield book to read, and it just cracks me up, here was one that really made me giggle!



3. Books on CD. We have not been listening to music lately in the Jeep, just books! We have heard: Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo, A Bug's Life, Toy Story, There Was An Old Women Who Swallowed a Fly, The Cat In The Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, Curious George goes Camping, and Yurtle the Turtle. Monsters Inc has been the most favorite!



4. Daylight light Bulbs. Found them at Walmart, they are energy efficient, and last for 5 years! No more winter blues here, we get daylight anytime of the day now, So "In your Face" cloudy WA!


5. The Online Library request website. Our library is very little here, so to actually get any of the books you want you usually have to request them. So R and I used our cards online and we each requested a bunch of new books, some Geronimo Stilton on CD, Cricket in Timesquare on CD, War of Gifts by Orson Scott Card, Inkspell, and Froggy plays Soccer on CD.

My Momba

I have the most wonderful Mother (Momba)! She is loving, beautiful, a best friend, the best grandmother, sacrificing, caring, amazing, strong...
She is my hero, she has taught me how to be a Mother. She has taught me to love, have fun, laugh, and enjoy life. I am extremely blessed to be her daughter. She has taken care of me, raised me, cared for my children, loved my family, and she is always there for me. She is a safe place I can turn to, a shoulder to cry on, a person to share with, have fun with. She amazes me... I love my Momba with all my heart

The Race is On!

Tonight we had the scouts Pine Wood Derby! We all had lots of fun! R's best friend placed 1st, R was in 5th place. His car was green with red #89 (because he's 8 and in Valiant 9 class). He had lots of fun making it with Dad. Here is one video of his races (there's no sound).

Censure

There are times I wonder if I should censure my kids...But I know I really can't, they are these funny individuals and I love to see how they think and process life. Even if it makes me wonder if I'm teaching them what I should.

Ice Age 2 in the beginning says the word Dam, then they use it in a comedic way and use it a lot. R was watching this at a friends house, and the Mom says, "What did that just say?!" R turns to her and says, "That's why it's rated PG!" He later explained, "It was Dam without the B so it wasn't a swear word" I asked him, "You know how to spell a swear word?" R- "Huh, yeah..."

L heard J say this-"In your face!" And so every once in a while (and he seems to have perfect timing) he pipes up with- In Your Face!

I used to tease J when he was grumpy and I'd tell him to stop being to "Pissy". One day R was so grumpy and I asked him "What is wrong?!" He replied, "I'm just pissy OK?!" I just said, "Oh" and then walked away so I wouldn't laugh right in front of him.

There are times we ask the boys things and they won't answer, it drives me nuts so they get in trouble for it. I make them say-yes, no, or I don't know. L has made me aware that I have taught them this bad habit of not answering. He will ask me something and if I shake my head or mumble "hmm, uh-uh" or something to that effect he says, "Mom, say yes or no!" Don't you just love it when you get your own words thrown in your face?!

I asked L if he liked his new primary teacher. He said, "She's new, she's different than the Old one with the grey hair" To him she didn't have a name, she was just the "Old One".

(On Sunday I asked L's primary Prez. if L was doing better, I told her he is more excited to come on Sunday's now that he is in the CTR 5 class. She just looked at me and said, "He is getting older" Hmmm, not especially comforting, I wonder what he says in primary when I'm not around...)

L and I used a public bathroom that had a certain odor to it, he said "What is that stinky smell?" Then later when reading a Curious George book, George gets sprayed by a skunk and is really smelly. Then L says, "Hey, it was a skunk in that bathroom Mom!"

R is 8, I think he would have manners, well, I like to think I teach him manners. I asked him what he thought of dinner not to long ago, his answer- "It was disgusting, don't make it again, please!"

Favorite Friday

It's already Friday! I love it when that happens, just blink and the week is just about over! Here are my Friday Favorites from this week:

The Family Gym on Base - A cool new place for me to work out in, its all free, and L loves the play area that he gets to use!

Pine Wood Derby - R and J have been working on R's 1st pine wood derby car, the race is on Tuesday!

Reading Time - I just love reading time, for myself, at Library school, with the kids, but I especially love it when J and the boys are enjoying reading time!

Date Night - Our friend G took the boys so we could have a date night, I Live for date nights!

New Websites - on http://entertainment.msn.com/video/playerN?pid=1T7Qhe8FfCtKy2ZFuUUKeESAqHCO59ic and http://dynamic.abc.go.com/streaming/landing I get to watch full episodes of shows, I have to admit, my free time has been spent catching up my watching on these sites!

What's in a name?

The other day L points out the window and asked me what kind of bird was out there. I said, "It's a Black Bird, or you could call it a Crow, or a Raven. I usually call it a Crow."

He said, "Well, I'll call it Beautiful Bird"

So now when I see a crow, I think Beautiful Bird.

Favorite Friday

I love Fridays! I'm making it my Favorite Five Friday day...here's a list of some of my favorite things from this week:




Water Colors - L got them from R for Christmas and loves painting with them!







The Billy Blanks Amped Fat Burner 52 min DVD - It kicked trash, and I felt so good upon completion!









Being a stay at home Mom - This is what L and I talked about last night. L-Mom, I don't want you to go to work, Dad goes to work, and R goes to school all day and if you left then I'd be all alone! ME-I'm not going to work, do I have a work L? L-No... ME-If I don't have one, I can't go to one! Then I told him that I will stay and stay and stay home with him and I won't go to work.
He smiled and I could just see him relax. I don't know where he got the idea, from our neighbor, or the TV, but he was so glad that I don't have to go to work, and I am too!









Movies - Tonight is our movie night, Tonights pick is Meet The Robinsons, hooray!

Clearance Sales - I scored big time on a few games, school products, girls camp beads, makeup, perfume, nail polish, and books this week!

New Hair & Winter Fun!

We have been having some wonderful winter weather this year! So much more snow than last year, and we are just loving it...It is perfect for snowmen and snowballs. The boys bundle up and get "poofy" as L says and play it up. The mud room always looks like this when they come in all red cheeked and hungry!

I colored my hair black. J and R liked it right away, but L was a bit put out since he didn't pick the color. He wanted me to dye it blond and when I didn't he said, "I'm NOT going to touch your hair Mom!" It was so funny!

A Fowl Day!

Saturday was a super fun and looong day. My friend G came over and we canned turkey! I have never pressure cooked anything, so it was so awesome to learn something new. We started the day at 9:30am and finished the day at 11:30pm! We cooked, deboned, packed, made broth, pressure cooked, exercised, died my hair, and laughed it up for 14 hours! The kitchen went from clean to dirty-and back again multiple times during the day. My 2 boys and her 4 kids played so well all day, what great kids!

The 1st 2 pics are of the Turkey day. The kitchen got sooo messy, then the meat is all canned and wonderful!
The last 2 pics is of our Apple day in November, we canned applesauce and apple pie filling. There was over 40lbs of Fuji's peeled and cut up!

A Cool Site

I saw someone comment about this site and I decided to check it out. It is http://www.readthescriptures.com/

I signed up and now am scheduled to read the complete standard works in 365 days. I read 3 days worth today since its the 3rd. I'm pretty excited about this. It actually sends you your reading to your email address and keeps track for you. I'm thinking on setting up a schedule for the Book of Mormon to read to the kids, I can actually have it read to us, the email even has audio! Amazing!

A Brand New Year!

I can't believe its already 2008! It sure crept up fast! J actually had Sat&Sun off so we took the boys bowling (it's an all time favorite!) completely changed their rooms around, played more CandyLand, all 3 boys hit the X-Box hard, and watched movies. On New Years Eve J got home early and we went and saw "Water Horse" ate pizza and more X-Box and movies. I even made a New Years Resolution, here it is:

2008 New Year’s Resolutions

Wake up by 6 AM daily
Read 5 min. from scriptures every AM and PM to the boys
Read 20 min. to Luke every day
Work on Homework for 2hrs. every Mon-Fri. during the day
Family prayer daily
10 min. personal scripture study daily
Lose 15 pounds by April 12th

Workout Mon/Tue/Fri @ aerobics
Workout Wed-Thurs-Sat on own
No eating after 7 PM
Eat healthier-WW

I didn't make one last year, we'll see how I do on this one this year!

Happy New Year!

Christmas!

Christmas came!

J had to work on 7am Christmas Eve and got home at 9am Christmas Day, so the boys and I got the house ready for Santa.

We did some last minute shopping, and our "fancy" holiday lunch and dinner was the ever-so-popular Lunchables, and a frozen pizza! I have to say they were so easy to please and they thought it was just great! (They liked this better than any holiday meal!)

We hung out, talked about Santa and the gifts we would get, played CandyLand and watched Christmas movies. R fell asleep early so L and I put out the milk and cookies. L went to bed and I heard him singing Christmas carols to himself until he fell asleep, So cute!

Then... Santa came!

We opened up our stalkings, ate candy and watched "The Goonies" that Santa gave R while we waited for J to get home to rip open all the presents.

We thought for sure that Santa was bringing a Wii, but he helped another family out instead that J works with and he brought R a Red Rider B.B. Gun, Sling shot, and Pokemon DS game. L got a remote control truck, one cool Dragon, and a dragon DS game. They were the perfect gifts! So maybe some other Christmas Santa will bring the Wii!

Off to a family reunion at 1pm to see the relatives and eat, eat, eat!

It was a great Christmas, it even snowed! (My very own Christmas miracle)