Happy Birthday Grandpa

Nolen Reading "Fat Cat"

Nolen Reading "Hot Dog"

Chillin' At the Hizzy

We have had a nice, relaxing weekend at home. We had no plans, no one over for dinner and went just about nowhere...unless you count trips to Lowe's. If we're counting trips to Lowe's, then Edward did a lot of traveling this weekend! He also got a lot accomplished on the house. He is making progress in the backyard with the leaves and the grading. Unfortunately until the grass grows in...the removal of the leaves and the moving of dirt means that the dogs are having a hay day and bringing the hay day right into my house. UGH! I had to wear slippers all weekend and I was literally vaccuming in circles yesterday. As soon as I would get half of the living room done, there were fresh, dirty paw prints on the other half. I SHOULD have taken a picture of THAT!


This isn't a good picture but it was all I could get of Max this morning. He came out wearing the Boonie hat and riding his stick horse (for the first time I might add) and yelling, "giddy-up". It was hilarious! But as soon as he realized I was trying to get a picture he ran away from me. I think it is the flash that bothers him.

This is Nolen's new Upward Basketball that he got at the awards ceremony last week. The whole program was very impressive. I'm really glad we signed Nolen up and he got to play. He didn't ever get the hang of shooting the ball, but he can play a mean defense!

This Week in Our House

I would have adorable bowling pictures to share with ya'll but when I got the camera out at the bowling alley today...there were no batteries in it. What's up with that??? Edward? Oh well. We will certainly go bowling again since it is Nolen's favorite thing to do. He doesn't seem to mind that it takes about a whole minute for his ball to make it down the lane. I finally bowled today (I usually just sneak some throws in while the boys are bowling) and threw a surprising number of gutter balls! Maybe I need the bumpers too! I also threw quite a few spares.

Anyway, I love reading other people's blog posts but I haven't been pulling my weight in the blogosphere lately so here is my contribution...

Nolen read his first two books this week! He read Fat Cat and Hot Dog from the "Now I'm Reading Starter Set". He even sounded a few words out on his own. They are excellent books for learning to read...Thank you Nana!!! Later that day Nolen and Edward had a heart to heart.

Nolen: How many books can you read?

Dad: I can read any book I want to.

Nolen: Nuh-uh, you can't read Chinese books.

He had him there!

Today in the car we had another good talk...Nolen is obsessed with the "Instrument Panel" in the van. He wants to know what the "E" and "F" are for and he tells me how fast we are going and so on.

Nolen: Mom, let's go a hundred!!!

Mom: No, that's too fast. If we go a hundred miles per hour, the police man will give us a ticket for speeding.

Nolen: Then you need to go so fast you're invisible.

Mom: Do I need to go as fast as a rocket?

Nolen: No, you can see a rocket. You have to go FASTER than a rocket.

Mom: I don't think the van goes faster than a rocket.

Nolen: You need to go as fast as a booster.

Then we had to discuss how a booster is part of a rocket, etc. He's so fun to talk to!

And on a side note...I don't know how he did it, but Max won the quiet game at school yesterday!

Happy Valentine's Day

Max is so sad that he can't give Valentine hugs to the people he loves, like Nana, Grammy, Grammy, Grandpa, Aunt Brittany, Aunt Dale, Aunt Laura, or Aunt Linda. The poor kid can't hold back the tears.

I made these Valentine's shirts for the boys. Nolen's turned out really good. Max's is good too except for the satin stitching around the heart. My machine wasn't cooperating this morning.

Valentines Vent

If you don't want to hear me complain then skip this post...
My wonderful, perfect children are driving me insane. I suspect that Max still has a bit of an ear infection since his cold WILL NOT go away. Nolen can get over a cold in a day but Max hangs onto them like they're family heirlooms! However, he says his ear doesn't hurt so I would feel like an idiot taking him to the doctor...I guess I'll just wait. Of course I may not make it if this whining doesn't STOP! Its unbearable! Everything is a battle. This morning I tried to take a simple picture of the boys in their Valentine's shirts and Max ended up CRYING for it. What? In all fairness, my patience level is lowered this week anyway...I love PMS. But come on! And lately, when we walk outside to get in the van its either too cold, too hot or too bright (sunny). I would like to point out to Max that he never complained about it being too cold in Alaska when it was -40!!! I mean c'mon kid. It is 70 degrees warmer than that. Buck up! Never mind that he couldn't talk then...

OK, I think that is about enough for now. Let my three hours sans kids begin! I'm off to Jazzercise in my new red top from Togs! I love it. I was born to wear red...now if only I had a tan to go with it...maybe that is what I'll get myself for V-Day...10 minutes of silence in a tanning bed!!! Mmmmm.....

Happy Valentines Day to all!

Bag No. 3

Bag Number 3 is the best one yet! I think I have finally figured out the best way to put them together. Yay! I can't wait to start on bag number 4. Do you think Ed will care if I wait one more day to vacuum, do laundry and clean the kitchen???

Getting ready for Love Day

One of my favorite things about holidays is doing arts and crafts with the boys. The other day we made "Love Bugs" together.




On Saturday I decided to make sugar cookies...I am NOT a baker, but I like the decorating part and the eating part so we gave it a try. I even made my own butter cream icing. FOUR hours later I was done. The boys had a good time eating tons o sugar. Max did an awesome post sugar dance for us! Also, I LOVE my pampered chef decorating tubes that Lisa got me. Thanks Lisa!!!! I finally used them! They are awesome. The boys weren't quite coordinated enough to use them but I had fun!

OK, Tara, how did I do?

What MOM has been up to...

This post may seem out of place, but I really just wanted to share what I've been up to lately. It seems weird to post without a picture of the boys...but here goes!

I have become addicted to Etsy.com. Some of my bloggy friends had talked about it so I finally checked it out. Warning:do not click until you have some real time to commit to this thing. It will suck you in. Its like ebay for handmade crafts! There are sooo many cute things on it and so many ideas to copy...sorry. I know you're suppossed to SHOP at etsy and maybe one day I will, but while I have the time to craft...I'll mostly be copying. I started out looking around for handmade bags to see what was out there and I got completely off track...oh well.

I'm still teaching Jazzercise too and we've been doing a little better lately. We had a class of 10 girls one day last week...woo-hoo! I have suspended the evening classes for now and the break in the schedule has been awesome for family time. Yesterday, however, I received a phone call from a lady who says she has 4 or 5 girls who would like a evening class so I may be revisiting it soon. I told her we could try it a few times and see how it works out. People have really good intentions about coming to classes but it seems like die hard Jazzercisers are hard to come by. I love my die hards in class by the way! Hi Katie, Kim, Barbara, Kathy and some new faces too!!!

Lets see, what else is going on? I think those two are pretty good for now. I still spend an inordinate amount of time picking up socks and underwear, cleaning up dirt the dogs have tracked in, washing dishes, making snacks and juice and changing wii games. Yesterday they boys and I made Lovebugs! They had fun doing it and they REALLY enjoyed using letters to write "lovebug" on their bugs. Their new favorite thing to do though is spell nonsense words and make me read them. They CRACK UP! Max had the worse case of the hiccups by the time we were done. Also, if you ever want to make the boys laugh...all you have to do is say, "fbox". We were practicing rhyming words and spelling words one day when this became the funniest thing since "the sit on the couch" game.

Edward still lives here too! He has started school again. This degree is definitely for him! I pick on him because he likes to think about how to solve a problem for about an hour before he dives in (I'm kind of the opposite and work it out as I go along). But that is exactly what this field, Operations Research, is all about - finding the most efficient way to produce goods or services, creating a plan and executing it. He was in the middle of setting up his workshop and organizing the garage when school started so sadly that has been put on hold for now. And he has joined a bowling league on base.

Speaking of bowling, Nolen likes to wii bowl and we've been bowling on base with Dad a few times lately. So when I told Nolen that we were going to a SuperBowl party he had a hard time understanding that we weren't going to get to bowl. Finally he realized we weren't going to bowl but he wanted to know when someone else was going to bowl. So funny!

Foam Party