Needed a Little Break.

I felt the urge to play with the blog again today after a long break. I kind of missed my journal and documenting the funny things my kids say and do. so today's entry is dedicated to

Grant.

If you know Grant you have enjoyed his silly humor and his quick thinking. He loves to talk and tell stories. The other day in the car he tells us this story...

Grant: "my friend cheats off me everyday in math. I tell him not to but he just keeps doing it. So I wrote the wrong answer down just to see if he would copy me and he did. Then I changed my answer. I got it right and he got it wrong and then he was mad at me, and I said Dude, stop cheating off me."

Matt and I laughed for the rest of the night. The kids is only in first grade. What first grader thinks like that? After I was done laughing I was proud of Grant for sticking up for himself and for knowing that cheating is wrong. What a kid.

Big Kid now...

Yes it's true, James is fully trained! Even at night, the kid is doing awesome! Out of all three boys, James got the potty thing the fastest and the youngest. He is a smarty pants in every way. We made James a potty chart and every time he went, he put a sticker on the chart. He filled up his chart and got his awesome prize,(color changing lightening mcqueen car). Now he wants another chart. Im pretty sure he thinks if he fills up another chart there will be another prize... Im telling ya, smarty pants!
We just love our Jamers!

Running Fool

From age 15 to about age 21 I was a running fool. I would run anywhere from 5- 13 miles a day. Running was my happiness, my outlet, my enjoyment, and where I based my self esteem. I was good at it. The reason I was good at it was because I figured out the trick to running. Running has nothing to do with your fitness, leg strength or even your shoes, running is all about mind. You have to be focused, determined, and for me able to block out the world, including my own thought. I learned this skill so well that I almost became numb. An old boyfriend of mine would often ask what I was thinking, and I truthfully told him nothing... which was frustrating for him and probably one of the reasons we ended.
Today I would give anything to be thinking nothing. My brain is always full of thoughts. Thoughts about my kids, money, relationships, family, church calling, my kids, business, my hubby, and on and on and on. I would give anything to block out the thoughts for even just and hour a day so that I could be that running fool again...

Some of Ella's Firsts

Ella is 6 Months old now and I just can't believe how fast it came. She is eating solids. She loves rice cereal, bananas, and sweet potatoes. The only thing that she wont eat so far is applesauce.

This is Ella's first swim in mom's big bath tub. She loves to kick and splash in the water.

Ella has already been to the beauty salon. We went to the hair school and Brooke curled her hair with perm rods. She was the talk of the school. All the ladies just couldn't believe how darn cute she is.

I was tempted to have her hair permed for real. The curls were just darling.

Ella can sit up all by her self. She loves to sit and play with her toys, and watch everyone around her.

Today I gave Ella her first Hair cut. It made me sad to see that long hair go, but it really needed to be trimmed so it will grow in better and the same length. I think this little bob looks just darling. I had to laugh because what 6 month old has a bob hair cut. She is a styling little girl.

We are having so much fun with our little girl.

Attention: Moms of little boys...

Being a mom of little boys has brought challenges that I never realized existed. Bathrooms seem to always be stinky, dirt is everywhere, even in the winter, but the biggest frustration for me is never having a pair of jeans without holes in the knee, and always the right knee for some strange reason...
But I have found it... The solution for the never ending hole in the knee.
It's the Kid Tough program at Shopko... of all places.

I heard about it this summer when I was shopping for school clothes. Buy a pair of jeans at shopko and they will guarantee those jeans as long as your child is in that same size. Which means when Grant comes home from school with the hole in his right knee, I can take them right off and get him another pair of size 6 jeans for free, no receipt needed. How cool is that. I did my first jean swap yesterday and let me tell you it felt amazing.

Our Disney Christmas

For Christmas this year we couldn't decide what to do for the kids, nothing looked that fun and all we needed was more toys...
We decided to do something a little different,
We took the kids to
DISNEYLAND!

Our first day there it was poring rain. We weren't really sure what to do, but we had paid for the day and so we had to try and have fun. We walked into the park and the first thing we did was buy us all rain ponchos. The rain ponchos saved the day, along with some pink umbrellas that aunt Jessie let us take.

I carried Ella around in a front pack that we also borrowed from Aunt Jessie. Ella stayed the warmest and the driest there under the poncho.

The boys were good sports, but the rain was kind of a bummer.

James had finally had enough and fell asleep in the stroller. It amazed me that he could sleep with all that water all around him.

To get out of the weather we decided to do some of the shows and things inside that we usually don't think about doing. We saw the turtle talk show in California Adventure which was super fun, and as we were walking out we got to meet a few funny characters.

We also found our favorite ride.. Toy Story Mania! It made us all laugh and we road it three times in a row. The best part about this day at Disneyland was we didn't have to wait in any lines. There were hardly any people there and we got to do what ever we wanted. The rain finally stopped and we were happy to take off our rain ponchos and run around until the park closed.

The next day was beautiful and we were able to take more pictures outside.

There still was hardly anyone there, and the longest we waited for a ride was 10 minutes.

We had a ball doing what ever these four kids wanted to do.

There were lots of fun Christmas decorations and festive things going on.

The boys were thrilled to see Santa's reindeer at Disneyland.

Matt was such a good sport. Disneyland isn't he favorite place, but he enjoyed being togehter as a family and even had the most fun on some of the rides.

We enjoyed the stroller exchange on a few of the rides. This is me with the littles while the boys were on the materhorn.

We saw the pixar parade that evening. James was thrilled to see Buzz, and Woody, and all his favorite characters. It was really magical for him this year.

One of our last things was the Bugs Life show in California Adventure. It was super fun and funny. Grant is really afraid of bugs so this freaked him out a little and we laughed so hard. It is a fun family memory I hope to never forget.

One of the best parts for me was finally buying a princess bling. She defiantly is our little princess.

We all had so much fun together, but we were all so tired on the way home. It was a lot of work to get four kids to Disneyland, but it was well worth the effort. We enjoyed every minute and would do it again in a heartbeat.

Not a Festival tree, But...

This year both Matt and I wanted to get a new tree, one that was taller for our tall ceilings with more lights and no musty storage smell. We really just couldn't this year and it was a little discouraging and depressing. But it was our boys who taught us a good lesson this year about the joy in memories and tradition. Grant was just torn apart with the idea of getting a new tree. He thought it wouldn't be Christmas without our old little tree, So we put the tree up and tried to like it. Then we got out the old box of Christmas ornaments. For 9 years now Matt and I have collected Christmas ornaments every where we have gone as our souvenir. Last year I tried to buy all new ornaments and make our tree look like one of "the festival of trees" tree. It just didn't feel the same. And this year when I started unwrapping memories and hanging them on our little tree, it just felt like Christmas with my sweet family. I love the four first Christmas ornaments, the cute ones the boys have made at school, and sweet memories I have with my cute hubby.
Our tree isn't a festival tree, it's a memory tree and It makes me so Happy.