Winter with Papa

My kids have been lucky enough to have their Papa come out multiple times to visit us.  Every time he comes they have so much fun together; this time did not disappoint.  Although he was only here for a few days, they built snowmen, went sledding, had a hot chocolate stand, cuddled, etc.  Thanks so much for all the time and attention you give to our children Papa......I know that they won't forget this.  XOXO

 Maddie is obsessed with food/drink stands where she earns money and is constantly come up with new ways to do this.  This winter she decided that she would do a hot chocolate stand to warm everyone up.  She made her sign, dragged the kid table to the corner by our house, pulled out a change jar, styrofoam cups, and lukewarm-semi watery hot chocolate.  Unfortunately there weren't too many customers lurking around to buy off of her, however she was excited that our neighbors the Dance's came outside and each bought a cup from her. 

 Eli was excited to get his own cup of cocoa and even sat out by Maddie for part of the time and helped "sell" with her

 Our poor pitiful snowman.  The crazy part is that this is literally the ONLY snowman that we made this year.  I guess we are officially Arizona wimps when it comes to the snow.  We have promised ourselves that next year there will be many more snowmen built.

 Papa was a trouper and slid down the hill over and over without any snow pants on.

February 12-18

I have somehow abandoned my blog this year and it makes me a little sad.  I love to record the little things about life, good or bad.  It somehow makes the bad feel more tolerable and I love being able to recognize my growth as an individual through those challenging times. I am going to attempt to catch up on February and then just move on with my life.

Sunday, February 12th: I taught Relief Society (a women's only meeting) at my church for the FIRST TIME EVER.  I was a little hesitant when they asked me to prepare a lesson because I had never done something like that before.  I am one hundred percent NOT a public speaker, never have been and never will be.  I'm also not one of those people that words come easily to with speeches or public events.  That is a talent that my husband has always had, not me.  But I put my faith in God that I would be able to speak the words that the sisters (and I) needed to hear.  Fortunately He delivers and was with me throughout my entire talk.  The topic I spoke about was "Loving Thy Neighbor as Thy Self".  I felt like I learned a lot more about what kind of Love I want in my life.  I want to have Agape (Godly) love in my life, I want that to be the kind of love that I give to others.  The kind of love that is non-partial, sacrificial, and unconditional, that expects nothing in return.  Not the natural man version that is weak in comparison, selfish and self-serving that is based on how other people behave toward us.  I hope that I can exercise more control over myself in the future and continually strive to develop the love that Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father continue to show me regardless of my own personal failures and shortcomings.  I want to be able to teach my children by example of the kind of love I want them to have in their own lives. 

Monday: February 13th: The boys and I headed over to our good friend's house for an afternoon of cookie decorating.  We had a great time frosting cookies and laughing while the kids ran wild and played together. Maddie was pretty jealous when she found out about all the fun we had, but luckily I had some extra frosting and cookies for her decorate that evening as well.  She also was really creative this year and handmade her Valentines for her school class.  She cut out heart shapes with construction paper and stapled them shut with a few hersheys kisses inside.  She constantly amazes me with her creative side.

Tuesday: February 14th: LOVE day! Maddie had a great time at her school party, passing out candy and getting lots of treats in return.  She had gymnastics after school so it was somewhat busy from about 2:30-5:30pm around our house.  I did homemade pizza that evening complete with heart shaped pepperoni's on top.  I have to admit there was no romance this year on V-Day with Jesse busy with school work, studying, group projects, etc.  But still a great day spent with my children showing them how much I love them.

Wednesday, February 15th: This particular night I worked at the hospital and it was one of our doctor's last shift at the hospital. Good thing we had some fun goggles to model in to celebrate the occassion.  Christina is a crack up and was so proud to say that she owns her very own pair.  Dr Johnston, we will sure miss you!!

Thursday, February 16th:  Jesse picked up the boys early from the sitters and we happened to get a bit of snow in the meantime.  So needless to say they all had a good time goofing around together.  I am seriosly dying at how cute Mr E is with mis-matched pajamas, ski goggles, and his hat backwards.  I sure love that little boy:)

Robby had to take his turn wearing the cool ski goggles.  He thinks they belong to him now and wants to wear them whenever he goes outside to play in the snow.

Friday: February 17th: CHILI DAY. Jesse and I worked together to make some yummy Chili for Tuck's annual competition. It was fun to do this together in the morning, although I was quite tired because I had worked the night before. By that evening I was worn out and just wanted to relax at home, so Jesse took Maddie on a daddy-daughter date to the event. She had a great time running around with the other kids while Jesse manned the chili station. Unfortunately we did not win, but we still had a great time making it.

Saturday, February 18th:  Last minute Date night/girls night!! I ended up going to a girls night movie of "Breaking Dawn: Part 1" with a group of girls that live in my neighborhood: Michelle, Maren, Andrea, Liz, and Emily.  We had a great time laughing, talking and watching a total chick flick without any male gagging during the movie.  After I got back from the movie Jesse and I ended up going to the Tuck "Hoe Down" for a few hours.  It was pretty fun, even though we didn't dress up at all to suit the occassion.  I love the chances I get to get out of the house for something non-work related without children and spend time with adult contacts.  I had fun dancing with Lauren, Jen, and Natalia: I sure love my "fellow groupies" on the dance floor :) while listening to the T13 band rock out to some good old fashioned country music.

Five

A certain someone has been counting down the days until his birthday since beginning of January. 

He has also been planning his "airplane/jetplane" themed birthday party

And has been making a list of all of the 'totally awesome' toys he wants for this said birthday.

And been practicing the new way to show everyone how old he is.

Who is this cute little boy you may ask.....

Robby, of course :)  {not to be confused with Robert per the Birthday boy}

Some fun things we did to celebrate his birthday include:

*lunch at McDonald's

*birthday dinner of Spaghetti and homemade meatballs

*Yummy giant "Cupcake" cake with Spumoni ice cream

*BJ's to pick out a few extra DS games with money from GGma and Nona & Papa

*family party/lots of happy birthdays from family

Robby always dreams big when it comes to presents and this year he did not disappoint.  He announced weeks before his birthday that all he wanted for his birthday was a remote control airplane and batteries for his remote control monster truck.  I started researching remote control airplanes and coudn't find one that flew that cost less than $100---that didn't look like it would fall apart the moment we tried it out.  Luckily my friend at work contacted me and said that her daughter had two DS game systems that she never played with and offered to give me one of them for FREE.  We picked it up a few days later and it was perfect condition.  The result= Robby loved it and has really enjoyed his new "Mario Kart" game as well as his Amusement Park & Diego DS games.

We kept his actual birthday sort of low key this year with the plan that we would have a big party for him the next day, Saturday.  He didn't seem to mind in the least bit and we did have a lovely time together opening presents and enjoying time with one another.  In fact, we had so much fun that the kids stayed up WAY too late.  I glanced at the clock at some point and realized with dismay that it was 9pm and all three were still up playing.  Oh my goodness, it's embarassing to admit that this happens way too often at my house.

Five Fun Things about Robby include:

1. His favorite color is hands down RED.  He must have red plates, cups, spoons, and bowls in the kitchen.  This cracks me up because for years my favorite color was also red.  We just bought him one of my favorite books as a child called "Red is Best" that my mother also bought me because I loved that color so zealously :)

2. He is seriously so smart, he amazes me at times what he naturally learns (not from my wonderful parenting).  He has learned simple addition and subtraction from the older (not bigger) sister.  The other day I heard them practicing together while driving.  He knows 2+2, 3+2, 4+3, 2+0, etc.  He also can do very simple subtraction with using his fingers.  He has also really improved on his phonics and loves to tell me what words rhyme, what letter different words start with, can simple spell words based on the phonetical way they sound.  In fact, one of our favorite games we play is "Tell me what words start with the letter "T" or "R" or "S"..... This game can keep my older two entertained for a good 10 minute car ride and they get progressively louder as they grow more excited about what words they can come up with.

3. He is a total stuffed animal lover.  He has two different puppies on his bed "Raja" and "Maggie" that he loves to drag nearly everywhere he goes.  I have to admit, it makes my heart melt a little bit when I see him stroking them while he watches tv or as he falls asleep at night. 

4. Robby loves anything that includes races.  He will spend hours a day setting up and practicing having his monster trucks, cars, trains, planes, etc race each other.  He is very specific on who is going to win and who will crash during the said race.  He also likes to personally participate in races with his siblings, particularly when he wins.  He still isn't the greatest at good sportsmanship when he loses but loves to help others develop this attribute by trying to calm them down when they're not the winners. This is hilarious to watch!

5. Loves to play "Connect Four: Launchers". He makes up his own rules depending on who he's playing with and frequently ends up with way more turns than me----or maybe I am just a sore loser about always losing to Rubba's :)

A semi-ugly picture of part of the Bday dinner---I was mostly proud of myself for finding a recipe and making the homemade meatballs on the right of the plate.  This was a brand new recipe for me :)

Robby was so excited when it was finally time to open presents that evening on his Birthday!

I absolutely love how Maddie made him this picture for his birthday.  I loved how much time Maddie spend on this project, and how excited she was to give it to him.

Rubba in his brand new Fox Hat (that has now become E's because he is in love with that thing and Robby's semi-indifferent about it)

January Happenings

After ALL the complaining and whining I put into my last post, mother nature delivered.  Last Thursday (one week ago), Maddie's school was cancelled and we played and played and played while we received about one foot of snow.  It was heavenly to see my children expend so much energy outdoors digging, sledding, making forts, throwing snowballs, playing monsters trucks, etc.  We finally ventured back indoors for awhile until Daddy came home and then we headed back out for more fun.  Eli was the only one not quite so enthused and flat out REFUSED to come back outside.  He wouldn't put snow pants and had an emphatic shake of his head even when we begged and pleaded.  "Too cold" was his response.  He enjoyed a movie indoors while we joined all of our neighbors outside and eventually our cute neighbor girl went inside and joined him.  

Another fun thing we started up this month is ski lessons for Maddie and Robby.  Every Wednesday we load up all of M's gear, pick her up from school, and head to Whaleback Mountain.  She has loved all of her lessons thus far.  I always enjoy her huge grin on her face after finishing lessons and she has been very enthusiastic.  This excitement makes the two hours of pure torture with the boys during the lessons completely worth it.  I have found out the hard way that there is NOTHING for two little boys to do at a ski resort lodge other than movies and running around like crazy.  The longest we have lasted is about 45 minutes, and then I give up and sit in the car the rest of the time with them.  Robby also started skiing and has his lessons on Saturday mornings at 9am.  It was a little shock for him that he actually had to learn how to put on his skis and figure out how to walk sideways up the hill, before they would let him "fly down the mountain".  I have been so proud of his positive attitude while learning something that isn't easy at first.  I know he is going to love it once he learns how to ski a little better and can go down "speedy fast".  Last Saturday I came to his lessons kid-less and was able to capture a few photos of him.

We have also had Natalia (our next door neighbor) over quite a few times and she is obsessed with Maddie.  She is so cute and comes running into our house whenever we leave the front door open calling out for Maddie.  The other day Maddie put on her Sundevil shirt and J was trying to get a picture of her.  Natalia immediately ran over and wanted in on the photo shoot :)

 {never mind the rag-muffin hair on Miss M. At the moment she insists on brushing her own hair and doing it "all by myself" most days.  Don't worry, if we are headed out, I nearly always do her hair before we leave}

With all the cold weather we have had this month (including several days where it was below zero--11 degrees below to be completely accurate--for a good chunk of the day) I have really tried to encourage a joint play time activity with all three kids.  Luckily the boys love to play all the same things {sometimes a good thing, sometimes not so good} and Maddie is extremely laid back when it comes to playing.  She is not a toy kid and so she doesn't own very many girly toys, but she is always willing to sit down with her brothers and play what they want to, even trains.  I took this upcoming picture last Saturday when I was cooking dinner.  At that point I realized that we had had very little fighting all day long.  I walked into the front room to check on the children and my heart melted when I saw them all playing trains together.  This was exactly what I envisioned when I found out I would have three kids in three years.  I thought about the strong bond and friendship they would all share together.

One of the things I am constantly reminding my children of is that they are all "built in best friends for life".  As hard as it has been to move all the way across the country and start a new chapter in our lives, I know one thing that has grown stronger is our friendships within our family.  Maddie doesn't have the same friend structure she had in AZ, so when she is home from school she spends a good deal of her time playing with her brothers.  Robby went from having a whole street full of boys to play with to literally no friends out here, but has really learned to play more with Eli during the day.  Those two boys fight a lot, but they also play a lot.  Even through all the frustrations of having a pesky brother, Robby sure likes having a play mate that wants to race cars, drive trains, play pretend, etc.  I feel so lucky that my children can experience such a completeness in our home.  I rarely have my children telling me they are bored or begging for friends to come over and play.  Number one, they know that really isn't too many options of friends near us, and most importantly number two, they fell fulfilled with their friendships in our house.  On the day of the above picture, they all played with the trains for about 2.5 hours without any fighting or tears....yeahhhh!!

Last but not least, a cute picture of Mr E in the kitchen "helping Mommy" cook dinner.  He is a sweetie that's for sure!

In Memory of a Snow-less Winter

Since New Hampshire has decided she doesn't want to provide us with snow this winter, I figured that I would instead remember the "good old days" back in November when Mother Nature decided to send snow our way.  We had a good time out there sledding....seriously a great time even though Maddie sledded snow-pantless (we hadn't purchased this necessity item at that point).  We spent tons of time on the hill next to our house, sledding, throwing snowballs {Robby}, and shoveling.  It has sure been nice to have a mild Winter, but really how much longer must we suffer through winter in New England without snow on the ground and temperatures in the 30-40's?  Just saying.

Maddie's cute little tush....yes that's right tush.

 Robby with our neighbor buddy, Damon.  They spent much time hurling snowballs back and forth, Damon even went as far as throwing the snow glove-less

Truth be told Maddie wanted NO part in the snowball fights and was perfectly content "posing" for me.

Post Xmas at our House

This week has been so much more fun for me than last week.  As much as I look forward to Christmas every year and try to savor the whole experience, I ALWAYS look forward to the week following the holiday. It seems like building up to the actual day is filled with busy schedules, WAY too much to do, frantic wrapping, late nights, wildly excited children that won't go to bed at night and in general a frenzy in our lives. As soon as we get through to Christmas and the presents are unwrapped, the lazy days begin. This involves sleeping in every morning, laying around on the couch, watching movies, lots of toy playing, and in general just a lot of mom and children time together. The other bonus this year was the ten day off work stretch I scored.  By working the beginning of last week and the end of this week I managed to get a whole chunk of time off which has been glorious. I have really enjoyed going to several girls night outs to the movies, ice skating with the kids, multiple cookie making/decorating days, wrestling with the kids on our bed, learning how to play our new Xbox games, and lots of puzzle doing and game playing with M and R after E is in bed.  Just this evening Maddie told me that she has loved how much fun we have every night before bedtime.  I am trying to soak it all up as best as I can for when our real life begins again next week.  On Tuesday morning Jesse and Maddie head back to school and once again our frenzied life begins.  But until then I think I will enjoy another relaxing evening and late morning tomorrow :)

We were so excited to all get a pair of ice skates for Christmas from my in-laws and were able to use them on Tuesday at the local ice rink next to our neighborhood.  M was literally in heaven and went around three extra times after we were all off the ice because she "just wanted to go around ONE more time...please?!" She did surprisingly well and was able to hold her balance for the most part and actually look like she was skating verses walking around on the ice. She is super excited to bring her ice skates to school and skate on the frozen pond at recess in January/February.  Robby also did fairly well and liked it...for the most part. He actually went around by himself mostly, but would kind of get frustrated when he started falling a lot. He was also pretty sad that he wasn't the fastest one skating.  He told us the other people kept "beating him".  But he was a trooper and stayed on the ice for the most part with a smile on his face. E was completely unsteady on his feet and practically did the splits in between my legs  as we went around.  But he was in heaven and begged to stay on the ice the entire time we were there.  Every time we passed the entrance/exit I would ask him if he wanted a break and he shook his head emphatically and declared he wanted to keep ice skating.  I can't wait to see the improvement in all my kids over the next few months! {Note the skirt Maddie has on over hover her pants....not there by mistake. She wanted to be dressed like all the "dancing girls" in the middle of the ice practicing their spins}

 Tonight we decorated sugar cookies for the second time in the past week.  Maddie has been in heaven decorating them all kinds of crazy, frosting and topping caked ways and has loved picking out the colors for the frosting.  She always makes me laugh because as she's decorating she will tell me exactly which cookie is for which person..."this candy cane one is for you Mom, and the snowman is for Dad, and this wreath is for Robby...."  One of my favorite parts in her winter break has been all the kitchen time I have shared with all my children, but specifically my daughter.  I cannot wait until she is just a bit older and can help me prepare more baked goods!

Eli, pant-less as usual and sporting his cute little underwear.  He got this fun Cookie Monster toy from Uncle Adam for Christmas and thinks it is the most hilarious toy ever.  He loves how the cookies go straight into the backpack and that Cookie Monster counts as you put the cookies in his mouth. One of the funniest parts about his toy though is all the "time-outs" that he has placed Cookie Monster in for biting.  He will play with toy and put the cookies in the mouth and then send him to our time out chair because Cookie Monster is biting his fingers "agaaaaain". I laughed out loud multiple times today when I saw him doing this.  He even goes over to our microwave and insists I set a timer for two minutes and then will come get his toy when the timer beeps.  Apparently my kids are quite the pros with how time out works at our house....for better or worse :)

Robby sporting a slightly painful looking smile.  The look of pain is because I tried to have him pause his XBox game long enough for me to snap a picture and he just wasn't having it. R has LOVED all the fun new games we got for Christmas for our game box and has spent a good chunk of time trying them all out.  His all time favorite continues to be the Sonic Kinect game where he rides a snowboard throughout the course....thank you Aunt Esther!

I love how Eli is concentrating so hard at frosting his cookie that he is sticking his tongue out. So cute!

Christmas Day

If I could describe our Christmas Day this year in one word it would probably be......relaxing.  This is one of the only years in my life that I haven't been to my parents or my in-laws house for Christmas.  In fact the only other time I can remember not going would have to be the year I had Eli and then we had everyone come to us.  Although I missed family like crazy, it was sort of nice to just relax at our house and allow the children to spend the day enjoying their new toys/crafts/candy/games/etc.  

After Christmas magic has happened, but before children have awoke {annual tradition for me to taken pics like this because otherwise I will definitely forget during the morning chaos}. I have to admit that although I get tired staying up late on Christmas Eve, I actually really enjoy arranging and presenting all the gifts for the Holiday.    

  

--FYI: never mind the tree that looks half decorated. Somehow we only ended up decorating 2/3 of the tree with pretty white lights paired with green wire.  It took three trips to Walmart just to obtain enough lights for this much of the tree and that point I gave up. Also Robby managed to program half the lights on the tree to be constantly blinking and the other half to be permanently on. Thus the tree looks like it hardly has any lights on in the picture.  The kids had a blast this year going all out and deciding where every ornament was going to hang.  They were being so cute about it that I totally gave up in my efforts to make our tree "perfect and pretty". There is always next year for that :)

This year my kids did AMAZINGLY well and Maddie didn't wake up until 7:30-7:45am-ish.  She was so excited that it was Christmas Morning and was nearly bouncing off the walls when she came running into our room.  We tiredly told her to go back to bed because the brother's are sleeping.  Next thing I knew it was 8am and three little sets of eyes were staring at me in the face telling me it was Christmas and time to see what Santa brought us.  We tried to get our annual picture of all three children before they headed downstairs, didn't quite turn out as good as last year....booo.  Silly Eli has his eyes closed, Robby didn't want anything to do with smiling and would only give me this partial grin and then M was so happy that she couldn't keep still. 

Maddie makes me laugh...of all the new toys that she has received, one of her faves was this $6 stuffed animal puppy that she picked out from Walmart with her piggy bank money and tooth fairy money (more on that later).  She is obsessed with this thing and loves to dress him in her personal clothing and insists that he sit at the table for meal time.

Robby LOVES the Little Critter series of books and so he was thrilled to receive a new one from the Hamelwrights.

I love how much Eli wanted and still wants these cowboy boots.  He spotted them at Famous Footwear a few weeks before Christmas and immediately added that to the beloved Santa list. He is such an easy kid to please and just wanted Cowboy boots, a flashlight and Legos. Needless to say, he was a very happy boy on Christmas Morning to see that all his wishes came true :)

Isn't she lovely?  This is seriously the only picture that I took in Sunday Christmas Day apparel. Maddie LOVES her new butterfly craft set from Grandma and spent lots of time painting her face with her new makeup from Robby. She wore her face like this for hours on Sunday :)

Below: proof of exactly how messy a small house like ours can get on Christmas Day.  I am semi-embarrassed to admit that we had quite a few of these messes in the next few days following the Holiday as well.  Apparently not embarrassed enough to refrain from posting about it however.  

Awe, much better organization, yes?!  This was after hours at the Toronto house and the living room immediately went to chaos once the kid-lets awoke the next morning.

Oh and proof that we did indeed sent a very late, very last minute Christmas card out to the masses.  And if you normally get a card from me and haven't yet then just FYI it may be still coming.  I just found another pile of cards that I thought I had already mailed.....yikes

One thing I was incredibly nervous about this year was the wish lists my kids came up with.  First M and R came up with Santa lists that were way too long and intricate.  I was concerned about this and talked with both of them. We decided to have each of them come up with their top three wishes and write them down.  Unfortunately this is what they came up with:

{I especially love the P.S. note where she reminds Santa that we have moved to NH}

He seriously cracks me up: "I'm trying my best to be good, but sometimes I'm bad". At least Robby is honest in his Santa letter right?! 

So Eli's list was obviously completely doable but then I stressed and stressed about the other two lists. They really ended up not asking for much, but the thing they asked for was a doozy. Number one, those Nintendo game systems are incredibly expensive and number two, why should I feel like I should by my child such a large present when they are 4 and 6 years old. I kept telling them that DS game systems are very expensive and that Santa might not be able to bring them such a large gift.  M and R kept the faith and reminded me that they were trying super hard to be good.  I went back and forth on what to do until J and I finally talked things out and opted against getting the game systems for them.  Luckily Santa came to the rescue and wrote them a note that they read Christmas morning.  He told them that he knew they weren't perfect but that he was proud of how hard they tried to be good.  Then the golden ticket was when he told them that he knew they would LOVE their presents even if they weren't exactly what they had wished for.  And you know what, there was no need for all the worrying I had done.  At first Maddie thought for sure the wrapped present by her stocking was a DS, but once she opened it up and found a kid camera she was perfectly content. And Robby was quite pleased with the remote control Monster Truck he scored from the big man.  Thanks so much kiddos for you gratitude for all the wonderful presents you received on Christmas this year.