Does your Bath tub......

Look like this?

I took this after I told a certain son (Luke) that it was bath time and he told me "hold on I need to go find some toys to play with in the tub". Silly mom thinking the tub already had toys in it.

I have mentioned before that Lego's are HUGE right now at our house. One of them is always reading this book "Lego Ideas". I find it all over the house. Great book by the way I highly recommend it for Lego fans.


And how to know if a child really really likes Lego's.....

That's right that's Luke asleep with one of his Lego creations in his hand. The funny part about this is that he swore to both Dewey and I that he just wanted to sit it on his bed he would not touch it or play with it. Putting it away in the playroom was simply unthinkable. Since neither of us were born yesterday we knew the pull of the Lego would be mightier then the will of a 7 year old boy but figured what harm could it cause. We both laughed and I grabbed the camera when we checked on them and found Luke like this.

Electronics

Ok so everyone knows I have a love hate relationship with electronics, I love having them I hate using them. I'm pretty sure there is some part of my brain that is missing, I can at best minimally use most of them. I just this week figured out I can listen to music on my phone. My lap top crashed (I guess that's the word it doesn't work anymore) this is the same laptop we bought after returning from Kazakhstan 5 years ago. (My laptop got fried the first week we were there from one of them many power surges that happened all day and night.) So I realize that 5 years is like 95 in laptop years but I'm pretty basic in my use (see above) so I'm thinking its still fine. I asked (told) my brother Steve to fix it for me. I think the exact words I used was "make it be able to turn on and let me play with my photos, do whatever it takes it make that happen". Good thing hes my brother and is well aware of my um...personality :)

So in thinking about electronics I noticed how much we use them.

Dewey on his laptop sneaking in work before bed.

Who can resist a cute kitten in the picture?

Leapsters are BIG at our house. The boys kind of go through phases with them. They are on a constant use phase right now.


If I don't hear noise I go looking.... This was a morning last weekend after breakfast.

I walked past their room a few times before I did a double take and finally noticed the legs. (funny how piles of blankets, stuffed animals and a play tent work as camouflage)

Oh there he is..... some things I just don't ask. Hes playing, and happy I don't need to know :)

Kolby LOVES taking pictures. He has dropped a few of my cameras so this past Christmas Santa decided it was time he got his very own...very sturdy...camera. He loves it. It was a video record feature that he just loves to turn on ALL the time. Like when you are telling them to clean their room or pick up the playroom. Sheesh who knew my voice sounded so shrill.

It goes without saying that my very favorite electronic toy is my camera, which I love love. Its slow going finding time to learn how to use it. And I have not even started on the photo editing software I got. (see above laptop issues) Even so I'm happy as can be with every picture I take.

No snow and slightly above freezing temps...

What else is there to do but go for a bike ride??

Kolby is still a little unsteady so Dew decided to run along side him. (crazy I know, you didn't hear me offering)


There is a really nice bike/walking/running path in town, that we like to frequent. Of course the boys had to stop at the bridge. I swear bridges are like great big magnets to boys, irresistible.

Who says you can't have fun at a park in the winter?

I LOVE this picture. And my new camera that allowed me to take it.

Fun fun day getting some much needed fresh air.

On Saturday I got to take an Artisan cheese making class. And almost as good as me getting to take the class was the fact that my three boys stayed home, cleaning and doing laundry so I didn't have to.

The class was so fun, I had no idea it was that easy to make cheese. I can not even tell you how much cheese I ate, we got to sample everything we made. And people they were YUM!!! I will let you in on a little secret...... I LOVE cheese not like a little but L....O...V...E. I have not had meat or seafood of any kind in 20 years. (lets not worry about how old that makes me)I have had not one once of regret, no cravings, nothing. So you would think it would be an easy jump to go Vegan, and I would love to.....except......there is the cheese thing. So my plan is similar to the eggs I eat. The chickens we have I see happily playing out in the yard doing what chickens do all day eating good food. Thus happy healthy eggs for us. So if I can make my own cheeses, from oh lets say a cow happily playing and doing cow things in our yard. (we have 6 acres I promise there is plenty of room) Happy healthy cheese. Good plan right? So right now I'm in the research phase, we will see how it goes.

Happy Birthday Luke!!

My baby boy is 7!!

Oops I let it slip again. As of his birthday Luke said I could no longer call him "my baby boy". He informed me that now that he is 7 he is not a baby boy. He was very firm on this point. I countered back that even when he is old enough to be a grandpa he will still be my baby boy. However he could not be swayed by mere sappy mom emotions....... so I'm trying hard not to do it. (at least to his face :)

We decorated his door and the entryway so when he woke up this is what he saw.

I mean really how much fun is it to smack around balloons??
Just look at this face that I love so much.

The boys decided that instead of having separate friend parties they wanted to combine their Birthday party into a Ski day. Luke went skiing for the first time on his 5th birthday since Kolby is turning 5 next month it only seems right to carry on the tradition. We plan on going in a few weeks and can't wait. We also hope that by that time there will be snow for us to ski on. Notice I said Ski, Luke is apparently old enough to know that snowboarding is the much "cooler" option now-a-days. However we are Old school (old being the key word there) Dewey is a REALLY good skier, I mean double black diamond, jumps and all. I can get down the mountain, I'm not saying its pretty but I can get to the bottom in one piece. So skiing is what we will be teaching them. Hopefully once they have those skills down they can teach themselves how to snowboard :)

Since Lukes birthday was on a school day, Kolby and I drove into town and picked up a couple dozen doughnuts (per Lukes request) for his class treats. It was so cute when we dropped them off to his class. All the kids jumping up and down and hugging Luke.

For our family party Luke wanted to go bowling with Grandma and Grandpa. So Fri night we all met at the local bowling alley for dinner and bowling.

We all had such a good time.

And I'm not saying that having the kid bumpers up didn't improve the adults scores. A few of us even broke 100 :) But Grandpa pulled it out the win in the end.

Then it was back to our house for cake and presents. Luke picked out a sprinkle cake mix that he wanted "stacked". I think it turned out pretty cute.

I love this picture.

Yes the boys are sitting on the counter again. I swear I don't know how it happens, the little monkeys scamper up there and before I notice we are well into our way of some activity

Kolby was so sweet getting as close as he could while still letting Luke have his moments.

Lukes class put together a Birthday book for him. All his classmates had written him a Birthday letter. SO STINKIN CUTE! I personally think Luke is a HILARIOUS kid, but apparently so do a lot of his friends. There were quite a few "luke you are so funny, you make me laugh" type comments. Such a cute idea for his teacher to do.

Luke amazes me everyday. He is one of the more stubborn people I have ever met (next to my sister) he is a little to good a being the boss, its a role he really likes. We spend a lot of time reminding him hes not. He is fiercely protective of Kolby. Once they are both home they are never apart they do everything together, play,laugh, fight. He loves to make us laugh, he made a little dance the other day that he loves to do because he said he "likes to see us laugh". His reading is really coming along and he is a wizz at math. And don't get me started on legos. I think every room in the house has one of his creations in various states of being done. He loves creating ships, and everything else you can think of.

The love I have for this boy is simply boundless.

Happy Birthday Luke,

We love you!!

Happy 2012!!!

We had an amazing Christmas, and hope you did too!! We are so very blessed, we were surrounded by love, family, friends and good food.

The boys were a bit spoiled as usual :) And I got my dream camera from the very bestest husband in the world. WOOT-WOOT now its on to the learning how to use it part.

Luke and Kolby got matching "big boy" bikes from Grandma and grandpa. Even snow and cold did not stop them from trying them out.

Notice grandma and grandpas cutie-pootie new puppy peaking out from behind grandpas leg.

Kolby needed a little help from dad but as you can tell from the smile loved every minute.
Once we were home and they had their helmets on they practiced some more on our road. Yes Luke is wearing snow boots..... if there is snow on the ground we can't keep him out of them.

After a few practice runs Kolby had it down. Dad ran along side, you know just to be on the safe side :)

Yesterday we went on our first hike of the year. We headed down to Zions National Park where it was a balmy 70 degrees. The boys got new backpacks that allow them to carry their own water with a tube to drink it. So of course we had to try them out.

We ended up hiking 6 miles total with a stop for lunch in the middle. The boys did so well!! I think this is the first long hike we have gone on that they walked their very own selves the whole way.

So hopefully we are well on our way to keeping our resolutions to....

Get in shape &

Eat better

Lets make 2012 the best year ever!!

Oh have we been baking!!

5 Pounds of hand-dipped Chocolate Cinnamon Bears

2 Pounds of hand-dipped Chocolate Pretzels

5 dozen sugar cookies

2 batches of Divinity

and..... 1 Gingerbread house...

(feel free to read the above while humming the 12 days of Christmas in your head)

And lets just not put a number on how much of the above I personally ate. Lets just say come Jan 1st I will need to start doing some serious get back in shape work.

My little baker helpers generally lose interest fairly fast in the whole cooking process. I was able to in list Kolbys help for the "fun" part to mix the sugar cookies, Before he was off to play/fight with Luke.

We put together 15 baskets to take to our business partners and 15 plates to take to our friends and neighbors.
I have to say I think they turned out pretty cute.

Here's the thing about being the only female in the house, when it comes to the Gingerbread house I'm not going to get "pretty pink , cottage style". What we have instead is a truck wrecked into the side of a very boys house. I'll give you a hint of which boys idea it was for the wrecked truck........ the over 40 one :)

Last night the three of the got down to the serious business of decorating.

Your right in that one child is sitting on the table. That's why in the first picture you can see the Clorox bleach cleaning spray.....we use a LOT of it.

TA......DA the finished product.....

And I have to say it is just perfect!! I LOVE it!!

Being able to watch the "building" process was my favorite part. My 3 favorites boys in the world working together can't help but bring a smile to my heart.

Elf on the Shelf

So I started seeing posts about "Elf on a shelf" on a bunch of different blogs for months now. You all know I am a sucker for super cute clever ideas that I can copycat :) so this year we have our very own Elf.

He showed up a few days after Thanksgiving, in grand fashion, with his very own Elf breakfast.

He brought Hot chocolate with little snowball marshmallows. And white snowball doughnuts.

The boys were THRILLED (not the least bit because they got doughnuts and coco for breakfast)
The elf came with a book explaining his story. With a place for the boys to give him a name. After much discussion they picked the name "Jolly". In the the book it explains that Jolly is there to help Santa keep an eye on them. Every night he uses his Elf magic to go back to the North Pole to give Santa a report for the day. Then he comes right back to play at our house.

Every morning the boys wake up to run around and find the Elf. He is a busy little guy so you never know where he will be.

One morning he turned the boys into reindeer.

Another morning we woke to find some of their unders hanging all over the tree.

And that naughty elf even TP'ed our tree one night. (keep in mind the the boys are 4 and 6 so underwear and TP are HILARIOUS)

One morning he was using our ceiling fan as his own personal carnival ride.

Can you see him hiding in the "jungle" ?

He has also been found playing with his Star Wars character "friends". Sometimes he brings little treats sometimes like this morning a little art project for the boys to do.

It really has been so much fun having Jolly visit us we will all miss him when he goes back to Santa on Christmas eve for the last time......until next year that is :)