Give Thanks

Our computer was out sick with a nasty virus, so I'm a little late with all this. But this blog is like my journal, so here goes.

Dear Journal,

I am super thankful for crafts. Just Kidding, I'm no TAMN.

Okay on a serious note, I really am thankful for a bit of craftiness. I am no professional, but I do good enough to get by. I have a plate rack in my kitchen that rarely has a plate in it. After I took down my super cute BOO sign, I was sad that I didn't have anything Thanksgivingish to put up. However, I do have a plethora of cute paper, so I went to work on this:

I am really good at cutting rectangles and then pasting them in a line. Really good.

Speaking of really good, the desserts I made for our Thanksgiving dinner were REALLY GOOD!

I am not really a pie person, so I signed up for a pumpkin cheesecake and accompanied that with white chocolate-raspberry cheesecake bars. 5 packages of cream cheese. Yum. Plus they made super leftovers to eat while I watched The Biggest Loser. Not kidding about that.

Here are the recipes:

PUMPKIN CHEESECAKE

WHITE CHOCOLATE-RASPBERRY CHEESECAKE BARS

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!!!!

I went to see New Moon and all I got was.........

this super HOT beverage holder! Wasn't the movie just fantastic?!? Like a million times better than the first one! Can't wait for Eclipse in June!!!!!!!

The many (somewhat cranky) faces of Molly

This girl. Oh, this girl. She is lucky she is so cute, because we may have thrown her out. For as much as she makes us laugh and smile, there is just as much screaming and crying. Don't let the cuteness fool you!

Darn we make cute kids!

This year I choose not to participate in school pictures (AKA "the Chicken Man"). Josh did not agree, but who says he's in charge. He gave me a deadline to get the kids pictures taken, and I succeeded with the help of my little friend I call Torie. I call her Torie because, well that's her name. She took our family pictures last year and I knew she would do a great job. All I provided was these darn cute kids, and I succeeded in that regard as well!

Halloween '09

Carving Pumpkins

Trick~or~Treating

Owen

Gavin

Molly the Cat

Have I mentioned that Molly the Cat, was the crankiest cat in the history of cranky cats?

I decided she would be a cat when she started meowing. Yes, meowing. She would answer questions with a "meow". Pretty cute, right? Well after the thousandth meow, it's not so cute. But Grandma Billie bought her some cute cat ears, so how could we not dress her up for Halloween as a cat. The first party we went to she screamed when it was time to get dressed, never got her hand made tail pinned on, didn't wear her ears, and never even came close to getting her whiskers painted on. She had also decided she wanted to be a butterfly after she saw Josh's angel wings. (Still waiting for our family picture to get emailed to me. Becky if your reading this, email it to me, THANKS!!!) I did not have high hopes for Halloween night. But Molly the Cat surprised me. She willing got dressed, let me paint her face (which she was super proud of and kept saying "look at the three colors on my face!") and wore her ears and tail with out any fuss. Miracle beyond miracles! The pictures with her mouth skewampus is when she is meowing. It is really hard to get a cranky cat to look AT the camera.

The next morning she did tell me, "thanks for my cat costume, mom" so I guess that totally makes up for all the bad "cat"titude! Ha, I crack myself up!!!

Jason & Frankie

Favoritism

I had the kids pictures taken and then stole them off Torie's blog. This is now Josh's desktop background. Owen and Gavin cried.

Recent Accomplishments

On our fridge is a smattering of great things that have happened recently. Why post about each one individually, when I have a picture of all three together?!?In no particular order, may I present to you the following:
-Gavin received 10/10 on his last 2 spelling tests AND got all the bonus words correct! Way to go Gav!!!
-Owen was presented with a "CERTIFICATE OF OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE" on the Iowa Tests. He scored in the top ten percent nationally in Reading! Great job O!!!
-Josh successfully filled his deer tag! Now we have buck fever, which I hear is better than Swine Flu (or H1N1, if you prefer). Nice shot babe!!!

SWEET Deal of the Day!

Rather than re-post the entire thing, here is a link to the HIP2SAVE blog, where you can get a great deal on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Blu-ray/DVD combo Diamond Edition. How good of a deal is it you ask? $4.99 after promo code, shipping and rebate. That's a deal!

Why were the kids out of school today???

In an effort to get a bargain and my kids out of the house, we ventured to Target. Torture, I know! On our way home, we noticed that Spirit Halloween (located in the old Sears/Kmart building) is NOW OPEN. I bet we could have wondered around for an hour or more, but someone had to go to the bathroom before the pee got scared out of him.
If you go, please note: no public bathroom.
My favorite thing there: Bubble Fogger Machine. It's SPOOKTACULAR!!!

Cascade Springs

We drove to Cascade Springs yesterday to enjoy the fall foliage. And we did just that.

$2.00

Go HERE to get a Taste of Home magazine subscription for $2/year. It is the weekly special and I don't know how long it will last, but that's a good deal!

#7

Happy Birthday Gavin!!!

Today we are going to Kangaroo Zoo with his friends, then back for cake and ice cream with the fam! Should be a great day!

1st's

Gavin has experienced a few firsts this last week. Some good, some bad. We will start with the good. He finally lost his first tooth. The thing has been wiggly for about 2 weeks and was just barely hanging on in the end. He was very excited to put it under his pillow and super excited to find a dollar in it's place the next morning. He also has enjoyed sticking his tongue out the hole where his tooth used to be.

On to the bad. We got out first visit to the ER for stitches. I am personally amazed that we haven't been there before with our boys, especially Gavin. We don't call him monkey just for fun. He is really is a climbing freak of nature. I remember him climbing up the shelves in the pantry and the toy closet. Lately he has moved on to any tree, pole, swing set, or monkey bars he can get to.

We went to the zoo on Labor Day with our great friends the Taylor's (of the Burke & Kristie variety) after about an hour we stopped for lunch. We were close to the primate (monkeys) building with the lion drinking fountain. The kids had finished lunch and were playing down there while we loaded everything up. As we were walking down the hill, I looked over by the drinking fountain and could see Gavin screaming and blood running down one side of his face. I started running toward him, telling myself that head wounds bleed more. It was a blur after that. Josh grabbed him and held his hand to his head, there were so many people around and Kristie just kept handing me wipes so we could try to clean him off. The zoo security was there trying to get the crowd away from us and my other kids were standing there in shock. Molly kept saying "Gavin has an owie". When we lifted off the wipes (they were probably stinging)to put on a piece of gauze, I just about died when I saw the gaping hole in his forehead. The security guy recommended stitches (well, duh!) and off to Primary Children's we went. Kristie and Burke willingly kept Owen and Molly with them at the zoo while we went to the hospital, THANK YOU!!!!

Josh was on photo duty at the hospital. The first picture was before the doctor even saw him, the second one is right before they sewed him up. The white part in the middle of the wound is his skull. There is nothing worse than seeing your child in pain and knowing there is nothing you can do. I am so grateful we only had to go to Primary Children's for stitches, and not every day or week because my child is sick.

9 stitches, many tears (from me as well), and 3 1/2 hours later, we were back at the zoo, Gavin's choice. We rode the carousel, saw the babies of the zoo: giraffe, snow leopard, tigers and some monkey (I can't remember the name), and went wherever Gavin wanted (including McDonald's on the way home!).

I think our little FrankenMonkey was excited to show off his stitches at school today, and hopefully he will stay off the monkey bars at recess!

How do I know my Baby loves me?

He brings me home a sack full of these:

CHEETOS Chile Limon flavor.

6 packages all to myself.

Mmmm Mmmmm good.

Thanks babe!

I still have yet to figure out why the packaging is different and mostly en Español, but some things are better left unknown.

QOTD

Gavin: Mom, do you know what the best thing about having a loose tooth is?
Me: No, what?
Gavin: When you're bored, you can wiggle, wiggle, wiggle.

(Someone is very excited to be wiggling his tooth!)

Off They Go!

4th and 1st graders this year.

One was super excited. The one that was not, was up
and dressed immediately after being woken up.

The excited one had to be woken up twice.Then would not hold still for the obligatory photo.

And their fuzzy because someone dropped my camera and broke it.

It wasn't these sweet kids. The perpetrator had already left for work.

Happy 1st Day of School!!!