Valentine's day

Even though I am not a big fan of Valentine’s Day I do try to make it a little special. This was my first real busy valentine’s though. Julia had to write 25 cards to her friends from kindergarten and Josh had 8 cards to write as well.  The kids also made some cards for grandma, grandpa and mommy and daddy.

Julia has mastered the pencil now and really enjoys writing. Josh just barely got how to write his entire name and he did a pretty good job on his friend’s cards. But those cute little friend’s cards took us an entire afternoon to prep, I was exhausted.

Joshua actually got to have a party from preschool and got a bag loaded with candy. Julia just had a regular day at school and got 0 candy but a lot of pencils and crayons.

Julia actually let me try a valentine’s hair –do on her that day; she had a big smile on her face so I guess she liked it. Let’s just say that I usually succeed 1 out of the 10 times that I try to do her hair cute, I was just glad that it was for this occasion.

For lunch that day I took the kids to McDonalds. I usually let them play for 15 or 20 minutes, but this day we played for an entire hour. The kids loved it and they like getting their toys at the end of their meal.

That night the kids and I made Spencer’s favorite food: spaghetti and meatballs with a side salad and French bread and of course daddy’s favorite drink root beer.

I was so tired at the end of the day I felt sleep at 7:00 on josh’s bed after I read him a story. Spencer came and got me out of his room by 11 o’clock. We had and evening planned which included snacks and seasons 1, 2 and 3 of Psych.

The main thing about that day was to make everyone feel special and loved and I think that with all the hugs and kisses that we received from we did just that.

Julia's second field trip

Julia had her second field trip. This time it was to the Ogden’s nature center; Julia liked to call it the nature fun center.


She was so excited, she kept telling me all about that she was going to have a long bus ride to the fun center and see animal prints and walk on the snow.

Unfortunately there was no snow to walk on that day but they indeed had a great time and learned a lot. She came home loaded with information about animals and their habitats. The first thing that she told me was mommy you put too many cloths on me, I was hot. That will teach me to listen to the weather man next time.

She was fascinated by beavers. She asked me if I knew what they ate and proceeded to tell me that they loved sweet trees; she shared this information with such enthusiasm and pride that I still remember. She loved everything about her field trip; especially that she got to hold hands the entire time with her best friend Brooklyn.

Train Show

A couple of weeks ago looking in the newspaper I saw that a train show was coming to sandy. I made sure I marked that in my calendar.

The entire Exhibit was great. There was nothing over whelming or a lot of walking to do; things were set up so nicely that it was fun to move from one exhibit to the next.  

And of course this wouldn’t be a good show if it didn’t have a Thomas the Train display. This particular table was the delight of my kids. They could name each and every engine’s name on that display. That gray one on the left is Spencer. Oh yeah! They love finding an Engine with their daddy’s name.

Some of the exhibits were so amazing.  I mean they made you feel like they were real trains going around.  I had to keep an eye on Grandpa and Josh who seemed to be in Heaven looking at all those trains.

They even had a big Thomas the Tank Engine ride for the kids to ride on. Grandma Smith kindly volunteered to make the line to ride on Thomas while we looked at the displays. She had to stand in line for 30 minutes!. All the kids appreciated her sacrifice.

I would just like to mention on this picture you can tell Andrew has no idea what’s going on, Julia is obviously not in her element (girly stuff) and Josh well his dorky smile says it all. He had the best time of his life.

After the show we brought Jacob to our house. Jacob wanted to hang out with Josh and Andrew wanted Jacob all to himself it was pretty funny.

At the end of the day all the boys had a bubble bath together and Julia and Josh went to bed while A.D. was left to roam free with his new found best friend.

They tumbled together, climbed on blocks together and gave each other plenty of hi-5s and knuckles until 11 that night. Andrew really loved having someone his size to play with him, we’re going to have to do it again.

There were Lego trains, yes! LEGO trains, with cities made out of Lego surrounding them; there were miniature trains that you had to look in really close to catch them going this of course required miniature backgrounds. Here are a couple of pictures of my favorite ones.

This post is way over due; I mean he turned 18 months back in December. Oh well, someday when life gets a little bit less crazy I’ll be able to post these things faster.

At 18 months:
He can say mame, daddy, osh(josh) Ula(Julia), ud(food), play, go, more, milk, ippy(zippy), car, ball, chu chu (yet another train aficionado), bye, hi, anma(grandma, cold, nose, pupu, iaper(diaper), teeth( when is time to brush his teeth) and prayer.

He also loves to reprehend the cat. I been meaning to take a picture of this for the longest time but it happens so fast that by the time I have to get the camera he is done with his speech and finger pointing to poor Dasher.

Andrew Loves trains, you give him a stack of toys to play with and he will automatically go for the trains. These are the objects of contention between Josh and Andrew. Those two boys love their trains.

His favorite foods are noodles and rice and unlike Josh he will rather eat candy rather than his green vegetables.

He wears a size 5 1/2 although his left foot seems unable to keep any shoes on.

He loves having his hair done in the mornings, especially for church. I always have to fight with Julia and Josh to let me do their hairs but Andrew willingly comes to me. He loves looking at himself in the mirror when I am done and he really loves for me to compliment him on his hair style, so vane!

He is already wearing size 24 months to 2t.

He is figuring out how to climb out of his crib, because have I mention that he is a climber. He is my first climber actually. Julia did Ok on climbing on things and Josh never dared, but Andrew is another story. He loves to climb on anything he can; He is a little dare devil.

He is finally going full time into nursery. Oh what a blessing that was. He loves to color and sing. I have caught him humming some tunes for the Wise man song and Twinkle little star song at home.

I snick by his classroom every so often and I just feel my heart melt when I see him sitting on a little chair with his arms folded just listening to the teacher. Now if he would just learn to do that at home we'll be all set.

I do believe his favorite thing to do in nursery is snack time, because when we take him over to his classroom the first he says is ud (food).

His only bad habit right now is the fact that he loves to stick things inside his left ear. Anything that he can find will go straight to his ear. Just the other day I looked at him and he had pen markings all over his ear hole.

His favorite time of the day is Bath time. He can stay in that tub the whole day if it was up to him but only if Josh is in there to play with him. They both usually come out with wrinkly toes and fingers.

His favorite thing to play with after trains is the fisher prize doll house in Julia’s room which makes Julia so mad because she is left with a big mess at the end of the day. He loves to grab the dad and the kids and just play with them for hours. He must have quite an imagination already.

He loves the camera, he will actually pose for me if I asked him too. I love it!

Now that our basement is finished he loves to go downstairs and turn or keyboard on and just dance to the pre-recorded songs in it. Yeap! He is a dancer.

That’s all about my boy; he is growing fast, way too fast. I can’t believe he is not the little baby who used to fit so nicely between my arms. I can barely hold him anymore.

Christmas in January

If only the days were a little bit longer then I might be able to keep up with my blog. Instead here I am posting my Christmas pictures before January ends. Oh well.

We had a blast this year building our gingerbread house. Julia and Josh were so into building it and making it look just like the display picture. All I had to do was put the frosting down this year and the kids did the rest. I felt great not having to build the darn thing all by myself for once.

While two of my kids were working hard on decorating the gingerbread house my other “two” kids were eating the candy, that will be Andrew and Spencer.

 We also wrote our letters to Santa. Julia wrote her entire list by herself. She included her Rapunzel tower and a toy minivan for her doll family.

Josh got frustrated that he couldn’t write. He even tried drawing the toy he wanted but got mad again and upset that wasn’t going to be able to tell what he wanted. We told him that Santa already knew what he wanted. #1 on his list was a fire truck, #2 what else but trains.
Andrew was excited about bugging his siblings while they were at work.

 

 On December 8th we had Josh’s Christmas program. He didn’t want to go until I mentioned that there were going to be treats. When I asked him why he didn’t want to go he said,: “well we are singing today and don’t like that, I don’t want to sing”.

He kept true to his word. While all the other kids were excited to sing the songs he was standing still with one hand on his pocket and a straight face looking at the other kids as if they had given into their mom’s wishes.
Every now and then he grabbed a prop and attempted to move his hands but that was it. Funny thing was that after the program he sang all of the program songs just for me.

The kids sang songs, read stories, made some gingerbread houses. Julia was helping him make his and I love that picture of both of them looking at each other and conspiring on eating some of the candy.

That same night we went over to Julia’s school for her kindergarten program. She is amongst the tallest in her class so was clear in the back. I was lucky to have taken this picture because most of the time I couldn’t see her. She was thrilled about her program though. They sang 2 songs in Spanish and 2 songs in English. One of the Spanish songs happened to be one of my favorite when I was little: El burrito sabanero.

On December 9^th we had our traditional Christmas party. The kids love to have all of their cousins over to play.  We had such a great time playing and opening presents and just enjoying each other’s company that evening.  I also changed a couple of my recipes, the best change was to add ready whip on top of my hot chocolate recipe. Oh my goodness that was amazing.

 With both of the kids out of school I really struggle getting anything done. It was a good thing that my shopping was all done with otherwise we would have been in trouble. I felt so behind that it was the 21st when I finally realized that I had not made my Christmas cards yet. I got all the kids ready that afternoon and spent a couple of hours trying to take a decent picture of all three of them. Do you know how hard it is to get a good picture of three kids? It was a nightmare. Andrew just wanted to sit on my lap and Josh was done smiling after 5 minutes, my poor Julia had to keep a smiling face for her mom, oh well.

These are some of the shots I took that I really liked

 

 

This was our Christmas card after I put it all together! Turned out pretty cute I think and all it took me was one entire day, I remember now why I procrastinated

That same week we managed to go to Temple Square to see the lights. We took the train down to Salt Lake City because it is Josh’s favorite thing to do. We looked like snowmen at the train station waiting for connecting train. I don’t think we’ll be doing that again. Besides the freezing temperatures it was a gorgeous night. 

 The Night Before Christmas.
For some lucky reason Spencer had Christmas Eve off this year. I can’t say how helpful that was. I made us a big fancy dinner with holiday mash potatoes and oven backed chicken and green beans casserole. The kids thought it was fancy that we were using goblets to drink our sparkling cider.
Our tradition is to watch the movie about Jesus’ birth on Christmas Eve, after which we can open 1 present from under the tree. The idea of opening a present was stronger than the desire of watching a movie for some reason.
After getting ready for bed they stormed into the front room and ready themselves to pick one present each.

Andrew went first. He loves dogs; “goggy” was the second word he learned after “mamy”, so Julia got him a little pull dog which he felt in love with………… until Joshua opened his present.
Joshua got another Thomas friend for his collection. Julia got a doctor set from Josh. She says she wants to be a doctor when she grows up so she better practice.
After they traded toys and played doctor for an hour they got sent to bed

Julia woke up a couple of times to go to the bathroom “supposedly”. After a couple of hours of sleep josh finally woke us up at 6:30. He was upset that Julia nor Andrew were awake yet so he took it upon himself to wake the others.

I was on video and camera duty that morning so I didn’t quite managed to take as many pictures, but as far as I could tell Santa managed to bring everything in the list and then some.
Unfortunately Santa forgot to put the candy canes up high in the tree but the time I realized what was going on Andrew had already devour half a dozen, wrapper included.

For breakfast I made this cute little cinnamon roll tree. I was going to dye the icing green but everyone was too hungry to wait.

As you can see Andrew really enjoyed it.

Well that was our December, wonderful and full of magic like always

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is such a beautiful holiday to be thankful for all the things that make your life so special.  I am grateful to be in this great country surrounded by the people who I love the most.

This day was so beautiful, good food, good company, just a good day.

We went to Spencer’s parents for dinner and the kids got to play and have fun with their cousins. 

November

 I have to post this picture it was taken one random night but this was the first time that all three of them were wearing similar pajamas at the same time. The big smiles are because all three of them were sliding up and down our hardwood floor on those pjs. Who needs ice skates right?

11/11/11

This was the year, my birthday landed on the most perfect day 11/11/11. I turned 29 and if you add those two together you get another 11. Spencer had big plans for the both of us we were actually going to go to N.Y as it was kind of our anniversary too, but I guess I decided to finish my basement instead so N.Y is going to have to wait for me a little bit longer. This will give us some time to plan. We are already discussing all the places where we want to go eat and see.

When Spencer asked me what I wanted for my birthday I told him I wanted to go and have a sleep over somewhere. Apparently a lot of people wanted to do this because all the hotels were booked in Salt Lake and the ones available were 400 a night. You’ll catch me dead before you see me spending $400 for a room.

Instead Spencer mom took the kids for the night and we went on a date to Rodizio Brazilian grill. They had pan the yucca which is something typical from Ecuador that nobody else bakes in Utah.  Then there was this Limeade, Oh my gosh it was extremely tasty!

When we came home we watch my favorite show on the TV and went to bed.
Oh Silent Night! It was perfect, No Joshua’s complaining or Julia’s asking to turn on her fan in the middle of winter or Andrew’s terrorizing the house.

The best part was the next morning when we saw our clocks and it was 8:30 and we were still on bed.

This was the best night ever! The perfect present for the perfect birthday.

 The next day Spencer and the kids baked me a cake and we had some ice cream. Andrew enjoyed it the most.

November 14Th

Spencer had a great idea for Family Home Evening. We mad Rice Krispy turkeys with the kids that night. Spencer took over the cooking part and I just took pictures and helped the kids make their turkeys

November 15 Th

After bath the kids were all settling down and when I saw that Andrew had climbed on one of our chairs. When I asked him what he was doing he hid behind the chair and came back looking at me with his squinty eyes. I am just glad I had a picture of this. We laugh the entire night.

November 18^th

Spencer mom was sick and she had tickets to go see a ballet production of the Nut Cracker. Spencer stayed with the boys and had a boy’s night in and the girls had a night out.

That day Julia had gotten her first report card ever. Her report card was full of A’s.  

That night, before we went to the show, as her reward she got to pick her favorite place to eat at.  Subway it was.

The show was lovely.  Except it was a bit too long for a 5 year old girl who is used to going to bed at 8:00. She grew really grumpy at the end Specially when the Snow Queen and the Nut Cracker dance 5 solo acts each in a row. Julia turns to me after their 3^rd solo and said: “Mommy, they already dance” They need to go.

She fell asleep the second we got to the car. 

The boys had a great night too, Josh told me they had watch the bad guys fight, so I assumed they watched Star Wars. 

November 19^th

The kids were so good

 this year that they received 

a special invitation from Santa 

to have breakfast with him. 

We had to be at the mall by 8:00

in the morning so it was kind of

 tricky with 3 kids 

to get there on time.

The kids felt so special the entire day. We even had our pictures taken with the big guy.

Julia told Santa she wanted a Rapunzel tower and a mini van for her loving family

It was great to see Josh with the Big guy.

 Before Santa could even ask him any questions

 he was reciting his list to him already.

 #1 on his list a fire truck, 

#2 a Thomas train, he is still a train lover. 

But that was it.

 Their list consisted of 2 toys each, not bad!.

When Santa finally got a chance

 to ask him if he had been good or bad 

he looked at me with a very concern face,

 as if pleading me silently not to tell 

him how many times

 he had bug his baby brother this year.

Andrew, oh my Andrew is just like Julia. He was terrified of Santa. If you look closely at Santa I think he is laughing at my poor boy's horror. 

Oh well this will be a picture to remember

My kids found this spot at the mall and made up for a cute picture, just have to blog it.

After that we headed to Barns and Novel where Julia had her first Choir performance.

Grandpa Smith came to see Julia sing and boy was I glad to have him help me with the boys while I tried to take some pictures and record the show for Spencer. He played with the boys at the train table.

After her performance they announced the winner of an art contest that her school had. They have to submit a picture of something that they were thankful for.

 Julia drew a lovely picture and got 2^nd place. They displayed her picture at Barns&Novel that day.

November 21^st

This was the choir’s second performance. This time they had it at the Layton Jr. High gym. The auditorium was full. There were 4 different schools performing that night. Julia was kind of nervous but she had fun and kept a big smile during the entire performance. 

Grandma Smith came to the show to support Julia and help me manage the boys.

After that we walked across the street to the park where we saw the Christmas lights turn on.

November 26^th

Andrew had to do some cleaning. This picture is so going to be on his wedding video. He was Shirtless, dorky pants on, vacuuming and had his goofy smile on, just the perfect combination, don’t you think?