New Glasses

Luke just got some totally sweet new glasses.  He loves them.

He's come a long way since that first little pair...

(and at this point he'd already been wearing glasses for about 9 months)!

Fun Weekend

I am such a bad blogger lately and an even worse picture taker.  I used to snap shots of my kids continually and now I rarely break the camera out.  Part of it is that I hate taking pictures indoors with bad light and a flash but that's not the best excuse.  We didn't have big plans for the long weekend (it wasn't even long for Jer), but we did have lots of fun anyway and everyone got along so well.  It's always nice to remember when your kids are being sweet and thankful and having fun!

We watched a lot of basketball this weekend.  Luke loves it, Seth is in it for the treats, and Ian can now be managed in bleachers.  Last year we went to almost every home MC game to see Troy play but haven't gone to any this year.  Luke went to one with a friend.  We finally hit the last one Friday night, and they won!  We doubled our fun by using Mandy and Craig's tickets (thanks!) to take the whole fam to the Aggie game Saturday night.  They did not win...not by a long shot, but it was still fun.  Jer and Luke also mixed in a day of skiing on Saturday.

This weekend we finally got some snow and it kind of looks like winter out there.  It has been such a strange winter with freakishly warm temps and virtually no snow!  We have hardly had opportunities to even break the snow clothes out at home.  Well, this weekend's storm finally put some snow on the ground.  We don't have the feet we usually have but at least there are now inches out there!  The kids enjoyed their day off of school today.  Luke ended up going sledding with a friend, and the little boys (notice how I throw Seth into either category--sorry middle child) and I made a snowman.  We also made a trip to a massive book sale, and the kids made a haul for dirt cheap.  I'm so glad my kids all love books.  I can't even keep my bookworm Luke in books, but this should last a few weeks.  He's already educated me about the Titanic which was the topic of a book he chose and read on the way home.  He's been making us laugh (including himself) all night because for some reason he cannot say that word right--he keeps saying Titantic.

Ian seemed convinced our snow man would soon be talking and walking like in the Frosty movie.  I really put a lot of effort into composing these shots so that I could be sure to get both the rain gutter and some mud in the background.

Cute boys!

Just What the Doctor Ordered

My last post was a bit on the negative side, and I decided I needed to do something about my attitude.  Jer and I have been discussing the fact that we are adding to our family and our kids really need some individual attention from each of us.  We spend lots of time together as a family and have daily moments with each kid, but we are really trying to set aside time and adjust our schedules to have a monthly activity with the older boys one-on-one.  Jer took each boy skiing just with him and Luke lucked out with an Aggie game as well in January.  I took February and had such a fun time spending some individual time with my big boys.  These pictures are from my cell phone and terrible but here's what we did...

 Luke and I went roller blading.  He has never been on any kind of roller skates/blades before.  When we got there for some reason he wanted to do the old school roller skates.  Although it was totally taking me back I tried to convince him that the blades would be more fun.  He didn't listen.  After being a total zoo for about 10 minutes and doing several sweet rock star splits he decided to take my advice.  After we switched to the blades he got the hang of it and had tons of fun.  I have honestly never roller bladed before either, but I liked it too.  We ended the night with a game of air hockey.  He just kept telling me how fun it was, and it was so great to just hang out and have fun with him.  Whenever I spend time with him alone like that I'm always amazed at how mature and grown up he's getting.  We are both looking forward to our next one-on-one.

Seth's original idea was bowling but after Luke and I did roller blading he wanted to do that.  I held him off for this month but maybe we'll give it a try next time.  Seth and I had lunch and hit the lanes and had such a fun time.  I am an awful bowler and so is Seth.  Our scores were one point different.  In my defense, he used the gutters and I didn't!

These activities were a refueling for me and were such a good reminder of what great, fun boys I have.  They were both so grateful and excited to get to go and do something fun just with me.  Love you!

Mental Snapshots

I haven't exactly been a blogger extraordinaire so far this year, but I do need to document some things.  My kids have nearly driven me crazy with their arguing lately...with each other...in response to my requests for them to do their chores, homework, etc. but on the other hand there have been a lot of good moments too, and I need to remember those.  In fact, after a particularly trying evening with Luke several days ago I told Jer I needed to go in and lay with him for a minute...just observe him in his sweet, sleepy state and remind myself about all of his wonderful qualities.  I did and it helped my state of mind a lot.  Sometimes I have to remind myself that my kids are just that...kids!  They are not going to be sweet, compliant angels all of the time.  They have minds and wills of their own, and it's not my job to bend or even break them down to what I see fit but instead to recognize and emphasize their God given good qualities and strengths and implement fair consequences for bad behavior.  I am so a work in progress.  With all that said there isn't anything that crazy going on around here.  It's just family life.  Parenting is hard and sometimes I feel like a slow learner!

Before I went on that big tangent I actually meant to blog about a fun night our family spent at The Beav.  We headed up a few weeks ago for an evening of night skiing with our ward.  I hadn't really intended to get Ian on skis but once we got there it was either chase the wild man around the lodge all night or get him out.  We decided to let him ski, and it ended up being a really fun night for the whole family.

I had a kid by the ticket office take a really cute picture of our whole family (rarity) including Ian on the tiniest skis, but before I could load it onto the computer one of my children, who shall remain nameless, was messing around with the camera and deleted it.  I was sad and then I got over it.

So here are a few mental pictures of a fun family night:
**Jer and I setting a new record for time spent getting kids into ski gear.
**Ian telling me and anyone else who would listen how it was "so fun to skateboard" all night.
**Ian wearing skis that were about 12 inches long.  The smallest ones I've ever seen.
**Luke stopping to wait and helping Seth up crash after crash.
**Seth getting off track and piling it up before we even made it from the patrol building over to the lift due to his missing edgy wedgy.  This was followed by Luke attempting to pull Seth (who now weighs more than him) back onto his feet and get him back into his skis.  This was then followed by me carrying/skate skiing with Seth until we were back on track and finding myself out of breath before we even got started.
**Riding the "big chair" up the hill with my boys on a freezing cold night.
**Watching Luke go off the jumps on the side of Little Beav, followed by Seth's version, followed by Ian's request to go off some "yittle jumps too."
**The healthy quad workout I got out snowplowing with Ian "skiing" between my legs.

We all made some good memories of Ian's first time on the slopes, and I'm going to recall these mental images next time I'm about to blow!