Snow Much Fun (part two)

Once upon a time, there was a darling little boy who had three things: a shiny new orange sled (courtesy of his school jog-a-thon back in October), a ridiculous amount of snow outside (courtesy of, you know, the weather system), and a lazy/weaksauce mom who prefers not to actually touch snow (probably courtesy of childhood whitewashing trauma at the hands of one of her brothers; I don't have any specific recollection but I think we can all agree it probably happened).

Luckily, that same boy also had a very, very nice daddy who took said boy and his brother out sledding! Twice! And took the camera! And used the camera! For pictures AND video!

There's a lovely park near our house that had the perfect hill for sledding (thanks to the Walkers for the tip!) and the boys had sooo much fun both times.

As I said, Chuck recorded lots of their runs down the hill, so I took the liberty of compiling my favorite clips into a video. I'll take this opportunity to address a few questions that will undoubtedly arise during the viewing:

1. Yes, the waistband of Clyde's jeans needed a slight adjustment, although I think he did pretty well keeping them up as he ran down the hill to chase Will.
2. Yes, Will narrating his imminent trip down with his daddy IS the cutest thing ever. Also, he talks that much basically all the time; it's hard to remember when he needed speech therapy!
3. Yes, we did check Clyde for whiplash after Will's helpful push-start...
4. Yes, the "Oh, he just got up by hisself" line is ACTUALLY the cutest thing ever. Disregard #2 above.
5. Yes, I have trained my children exceedingly well such that Will actually interrupted himself to say 'Smile' when he thought Chuck was trying to take a picture.
6. Yes, Chuck did ask a complete stranger to make the video of him taking Clyde down the hill.
7. Yes, Chuck and Will did almost take Clyde completely out when they went down the hill.

Okay, I think you're prepped. Here's the video:

So fun, right? Jack and I are even considering venturing out with them next year...

It was my birthday [month]... shout hooray!

My tagline for my birthday this year was 

"Because you only turn 28 once... unlike 29, which I plan on turning several times."

(Which is actually a straight up lie, but it served its purpose of allowing me multiple celebrations. Age really doesn't faze me. I think I'm in a much better place in every area of my life than I was in my late teens/early twenties and I feel pretty confident about continuing on that track. Also, I was 21 when Clyde was born so that doesn't leave me a lot of wiggle room to lie about my age without raising eyebrows...)

So my first order of business was to throw myself an early birthday party. I recruited some friends to come over late one night for hot chocolate and ice cream and just to mix things up a bit, I challenged everyone to wear as much orange as possible.

The [pretty sophisticated] decor: 

 exhibit A. 

My mother-in-law gave me a spool of this orange mesh ribbon and it's just been waiting to make its debut!

 exhibit B. 

Crepe paper streamers make everything more exciting, right?

Some party attendants. Things to note: the orange-ness of baby Jack and baby Clark, the fact that Holly and Madi steal other people's babies, Tami being so sweet and dropping by mid-date to say hi, and the fact that Nicole and Kristen were at all surprised that I was taking pictures, haha.

Jack was in a hilariously social mood that night, he snuggled right up to Holly and later wandered around the living room handing out shoes (mostly to Em K) and cuddling with Paulina. What a goof!

 He ended up crashing about an hour in, bless his little heart. My other boys were champs and slept through the entire shindig.

 

 Some group shots; I had to post them all since we didn't manage to get everyone looking and smiling in the same picture, haha. Thanks for coming and hanging out and sitting on my living room floor, love you all!

 OH, and a few people disregarded instructions and brought me presents (which awesomely provided me chocolate for days and days!). Maren was one such rebel and she gave the disclaimer that hers was a gag gift... so you can imagine my surprise when I opened it: an awesome wide orange belt.

It was immediately suggested that I wear it that Sunday to church, so I did :).

 

 Next up was a dinner out with Kara, Nicole, and Paulina to celebrate Kara's and my birthdays (three days apart!) and serve as our last outing before Kara's baby boy came.

 I'm not even sure there are words to describe this night; I haven't laughed that hard in a while... our dinner was (mostly) excellent, our server was adorable (hence the need to get a picture with her), our conversations were wildly inappropriate and therefore awesome, and the amount of food we left carrying was somewhat embarrassing :).

 Den meeting for Scouts fell the night before my birthday,

 so I made the boys sing to me (Noah sweetly led them) and sweet DeArley brought me a present!! Love her :).

And then it was my actual birthday:

And I woke up to three darling boys, lucky me! 

(Four if you count the cute guy taking the picture... and he's my favorite because he let me sleeeeep innnnnn!!)

The day was delightfully normal and low-key and wonderful.

Will purposefully picked his Packers shirt to wear since he knows it's my favorite team :). Also, he was sitting there singing primary songs which was ADORABLE.

 It was my turn (Chuck and I usually alternate weeks) to go help in Clyde's classroom, where I got to help the kiddos glue their [paper] hearts onto their little [paper] bodies. And then I stuck around while the kids went to music so I could chat with Mrs. Holman, whom I absolutely love. She probably had "teacher" things to "do" but whatev. It was my birthday.

The kids have mostly had inside recess because of the FREAKING COLD, but they got to go out for a couple of minutes so I went out too and got a picture with my favorite Clyde Monster.

 OH, after school we ran some errands that included two of my favorite destinations: Costco and Savers, within the latter of which I found these PERFECT shoes! (And, luckily, their respective mates). I've been looking for dark silver flats forever... well, a month, but it felt like forever. And these were five bucks and almost identical to some I'd been coveting at Target and fit perfectly, wooo!

Then we came home and ate some dinner with this cute little elfin baby.

 

 And the boys played some Kinect!

 And hugged adorably.

Oh, and then Chuck challenged me to a dance battle and beat me soundly. Here's the photographic proof:

 It wasn't even close. So embarrassing... possibly for both of us :).

 Post-dance picture to prove we're still friends.

 And then we put the boys to bed and Chuck sweetly stayed up and watched a girl-y movie with me. It was seriously such a lovely day spent with my boys. I also was amazed at all the sweet birthday greetings people sent via facebook and email and text - so fun to receive them all!

And my final birthday celebration was with the incredibly wonderful woman who went to the edge of death (aka had a c-section) to give me life: my mama!!

 The Sunday after my birthday we gathered at Grandma Pam's for delicious dinner and cake and SET, which I dominated. Naturally.

And now I'm 28 and life is so so so good!

Random 'January's Almost Over, Hooray!' Post

Quick rundown of some of our January activities:

1. Watching NFL playoffs and dressing the part.

The Green Bay Packers (my fave team) played against the San Francisco 49ers (Chuck's and Quinn's fave team) a couple of weeks ago so we busted out the jerseys and forced the boys to align with one parent and against the other:

I made a point to be the one who got Jack dressed that morning to ensure that our little tiebreaker child would tip the scales in Green Bay's favor :). Also, I attended a baptism that afternoon; I don't usually dress up that much for a Saturday of football watching!

For a while we had two games of catch going simultaneously (Chuck and Will, Clyde and me) while we watched the first half. Then the little boys went to bed and I watched the rest of the game in horror as my team lost :(.

 Buuuut luckily the Niners are my second favorite team, so I carefully put this outfit together the next Sunday for church to support them in their NFC championship game against the Falcons. And it worked, they won!  

[Spoiler alert: I will be cheering for the Ravens in this weekend's Super Bowl, though, because a) I don't have enough red and gold and tan clothes to put together a second outfit and b) it's always fun to root against the team your husband is cheering for every once in a while :).]

 2.  Celebrating the HEAT WAVE (two-digit temperatures, woooo!) by going for an Ice Day walk.

School was canceled again last week after a night of freezing rain left the roads in dreadful condition. The day was surprisingly warm, though, so I corralled the boys for a walk along the path by our house, which was randomly not at all slick; it was SO nice to be outside without our lungs freeeezing in protest.

3. A little early Valentine's Day lovin'...

There's a possibility that January makes me grumpy in general and my poor family has had to put up with that, SO I put together a little activity to help all of us me be nice and loving and all of that good stuff!

 We busted out the construction paper and glue to make little Valentine's Day bags! I couldn't believe how into it the boys got... oh wait, yes I could: they're MY [cheesy little] children! For the next few days, we all found time to write each other little notes and put them into the appropriate people's bags...

 

 ... and then tonight for Family Home Evening, we opened and read them! The original plan was to wait until Valentine's Day, but we quickly realized they would be overflowing by then, and also it turns out little kids do better with more immediate gratification. So now those notes have been set aside, and there's a new stack of paper for this week!

4. Wishing Great-Grandma Thomas a VERY happy birthday!

Chuck's grandma has published several wonderful children's books, so I thought it would be fun to make a video of our boys reading one of them and send it to her for her birthday last Saturday.

Chuck picked "Stand Back," Said the Elephant, "I'm Going to Sneeze!" which worked out, since we have three copies of it. We lined the boys up on the couch and started recording and four hours of editing later (I'm slow and not an adept Windows Movie Maker user) we had this masterpiece:

 

 Which Grandma loved, hooray! 

And that's a bit of what we've been up to this month; the rest (basketball! my birthday! swimming! learning to whistle! learning to 'high five'!) will find its way to the blog sooner or later...

Snow Much Fun (part one)

Well, as anyone who lives in the Treasure Valley or has a facebook friend who lives in the Treasure Valley knows, it has been a pretty snowy January around these parts which has delighted the little boys!

Clyde and Will were quite keen on helping Chuck with the shoveling and they impressively made it pretty far.

Once the sidewalks were mostly clear, it was time for the fun aspect of a snowy yard: building snowmen! And if there's anything more attractive than my husband tackling (figuratively and literally) that bonding experience with the boys by himself while I stayed inside and warm, I certainly couldn't think of it at that moment.

I did venture out towards the end to provide some accessories - although the light sabers were all Chuck, Clyde and Will. We were pretty psyched to have two snow Jedi as guardians of peace and justice in our galaxy!

Which is why it served as a good reminder to be ever vigilant when we woke up one morning  a couple of weeks later to discover this tragic scene:

Our Snow Jedi had been destroyed in the dark of the night. We tried to heed Master Yoda's wise counsel from Episode III: "Death is a natural part of life. Rejoice for those who transform into the Force. Mourn them do not."

So rejoice the boys did, by using the snow piles to climb and play on!

Poor Will was quite unsure about how to get down once he got up, so Clyde very sweetly helped him :).

Stay tuned for part two of some of our snowy adventures, this time when Chuck took the older boys sledding and once again Jack and I opted for our warm, dry house...

Crazy cooped up boys

January is kind of a wretched month - minus the wonderful birthdays there are to celebrate, of course. But in general it's fairly dreadful, and this year is no exception as it has been RIDICULOUSLY COLD OUTSIDE. So, so cold. And snowy. And icy. But mostly cold.

Which means that we each consume more hot chocolate on a daily basis than is probably safe and my crazily rambunctious boys are tasked with continuously coming up with new ways to utilize the sugar rush.

Like running around the living room using your beloved teddy bear and teddy dog as weapons to hit one another (while wearing super cute new shirts that Daddy found for them last week at D.I.!).

 While their attentive mom relaxes on the couch and takes pictures ...

And video:

My favorite part is when Clyde starts to whimper after Will skips the 'pretend' part and straight up punches him, but then makes eye contact with me and realizes that I make them stop fighting when an actual injury occurs, so he is suddenly healed and ready to fight again :).

And of course, how darling is Jack as he busily wanders around the living room dodging older brothers and carrying various people's shoes and boots?

Now let's all pray for warmer temperatures and SPRING to come soon!!

Unky Cody's back!

 My favorite oldest brother Cody is back in town, hooray! While I was growing up in a sad, sad house of all brothers and no sisters my mom would often tell me that eventually those horrible brothers would be some of my best friends and I never believed her... but she was right! I have the three best brothers in the world, and I'm so excited to have Cody around again.

 After I picked Coders up, we headed over to my dad's house for a fun reunion that may or may not have included chocolate milk, hanging curtains, lots of laughing, my dad attempting to overhaul my wardrobe with twelve new blazer/jacket things, some sibling pondering, and definitely some more laughing :).

The older boys were already fast asleep when we got to my house, but Jack sensed Cody's presence and woke right up to officially meet his uncle for the first time.

Clyde and Will were delighted to wake up and find Unky Cody there to play with - and I was delighted to have help with Jack during Will's swimming lesson that morning. We were bummed to have to see him safely returned to his house in Boise later that day, but he's getting settled in really well there and we're so so excited to have such easy access to him. Love you Coders, see you tomorrow!

(P.S. HAPPY birthday today to my wonderful dad!!)

Jack is ONE!

Yess, it's true: my baby boy has gone from a tiny wee lad with loads of dark hair to a big grown up ONE-year-old!

Jack, on his birthday, exploring the intrigue that is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Bless his heart, he [obviously] had no real comprehension of the importance of the day, but his brothers sure did. Every so often in the midst of playing or jumping on the couch or such, Will would put his little face in front of Jack and excitedly proclaim: "Jack! You are one! It your birthday!" and then continue merrily on his way.

Clyde and Will were very intent upon being hands-on in the birthday preparations. They trailed me around as I hung up crepe paper and then provided vital aid in the cake-making process.

The cake frosting and decorating was all me though; here's the finished product:

I want to make sure that I get full credit, as I anticipate calls from the Food Network at any time wanting to feature my talent and skill on some sort of new cake decorating show.

We opted for a dinosaur themed soiree because a) I had some dinosaur party supplies and b) Jackers had a dinosaur t-shirt he could wear (as did Will, the rest of us opted for plain green) and c) until just recently, Jack has been a biter - we've all felt the repercussions of having one's hand/arm/knee/ankle/leg/neck/etc too close to Jack's mouth. He's doing much better lately, but I figured this would be a good tribute to his inner T-Rex.

After dinner/cake/ice cream we utilized the self-timer on the camera to get a quick family shot. 

Jack is such a happy boy... most of the time. But when he's not happy, he has no qualms about letting everyone know. His latest thing involves a delightful top-of-his-lungs shriek and then toppling to the ground in the saddest/most hilarious display I've ever seen.

 He was kind enough to give a demonstration that night after I very gently admonished him not to touch the XBOX :).

 He usually gets over it pretty quickly, though :). 

And finally, here's a video of Jack's progression into the world of toddler-dom, aka learning to walk! The first couple clips are from December 6th, and then the next two clips are December 24th and December 31st (in case my helpful commentary doesn't make that clear....) and the last one is from his birthday.

 

We sure love this boy. We weren't sure that a third baby was going to happen for us (despite our, ahem, best efforts it took us almost two years to get pregnant with him) but we're so, so glad we were blessed with Jack in our family. Clyde and Will dote on him (as evidenced in the video: "Let me hug you!") and Jack watches their every movement with complete adoration. He's such a good snuggler and his toothy grins are the cutest thing ever, even in the middle of the night :). 

Happy happy birthday Jack!