HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving Day.

Some of my internet friends have been doing daily gratitude posts. I thought of joining, but just never did, so this morning I thought I would do one post about what I am thankful for. I have ALOT to be thankful for this year.

1. I am thankful for my wonderful children and their good health.

2. I am thankful for my spectacular husband and all the sweet things he does for me.

3. I am thankful for my job. I am one of the lucky ones who really like their job and look forward to going to work.

4. I am thankful that most of my Christmas shopping is done!

5. I am thankful that I am not hosting or cooking Thanksgiving Dinner this year. I am so looking forward to going to my sil, Jana and her girlfriend, Ursula's house for dinner this year. I cannot wait to have a big ole helping of my mil's Dixie Salad.

6. I am also thankful that Jake is pretty well potty trained. I took my last package of pull ups up to my sister Chantel this weekend and I'm glad I'm done buying diapers and pull ups! Rob called me this morning (I am at work) and he told me that Jake went #2 in the potty this morning without any prompting.

7. I am thankful for all my extended family. You are all great and we love you!

8. I have to do a special shout out to my Aunt Jeanette. We unexpectedly went to Delta to visit Monday night and came home Wednesday afternoon and she let me and my family invade her house for 2 days. She rocks!!! Oh, and we also got some hand me downs from her, too. Gotta love free clothes for the boys, lol!!

Eat lots of good food and have fun with your family! I know I will.

Christmas shopping

I am proud to say that it is still November and we are pretty much done with our Christmas shopping! YAY!! You don't know how happy that makes me. 2 weekends ago Rob and I dropped the kids off at Jan's (Rob's mom) and we went and put all the kids' gifts on layaway.

It is a tradition that each child gets a movie every year and this year I got smart and went online and ordered their movies on the internet. It was ALOT cheaper than paying $20 bucks a pop at the store for each movie.

I only have a few more things to pick up. I still have to get stocking stuffers. I'm gonna hit the dollar store and Target's $1 spot for those. Tonight I remembered that it's also a tradition to get each kid a new ornament every year, so I have to pick those up. I'm also debating on getting the kids' pictures done at Sears again this year. I have the coupons, now just to find the time!

So, how is your Christmas shopping going?

Parent Teacher conferences

A post without pictures. Let see if I can do it.

About a week or 2 ago we had Jordyn and Max's parent teacher conferences. The school calls them SEP's, but they'll always be PTC to me.

Anyway, Max's was first and he went into his class with his teacher and she did some short tests with him and then called me in. She said he's doing really great and learning well. He is good and has lots of friends. I was a little worried about him because he is a very young kindergartner. He didn't turn 5 until about 2 weeks after school started. The only thing we need to work on with him is his handwriting skills, which are actually pretty good for his age. But, that comes with fine motor skills which are one of the last things for boys to develop, if I remember anything from my Child Development classes from college. Max's teacher isn't worried, but wants us to work with him a little bit more so he doesn't fall behind.

Next was Jordyn's turn. While we waited for her teacher to be ready for us we waited in the hallway and looked at Jordyn's book of memories (I think that's what it was called). It was fun to look at some of the things she had done through out the year so far. Jordyn is turning into a little artist and takes great pains in drawing and coloring pictures.

When we got into the meeting Jordyn got a glowing report from her teacher. The only issue Mrs. Pollock was concerned with in regards to Jordyn is her spelling and her handwriting skills. Which I noticed and was going to bring up, too. So, we need to work with her more on that at home along with Max's writing skills.

So, all in all, really great reports for Jordyn and Max.

Si is in a different school and his SEP should be coming up soon!!

Max and Jake being silly

Rob got some new socks a while back and decided to put the packaging on the boys. They thought it was pretty funny.

I couldn't drag the kids away from the play area!

After we saw all the animals we all loaded up in a big trailer pulled by a tractor and headed out to the pumpkin patch and the small corn maze. We went through the maze and then took the trailer ride back to the main area. All the kids got a chance to take a ride on the train. They loved that!


Heres Jake and Tray on the "train"


Jordyn on the "train"

I didn't get any good pics of Max and Si on the train.


After the train we headed to the play area. I bet we played there for close to an hour, if not more.

Heres Jake on the teeter totter.


Here's Max on the swings shaped like horses. This was popular!

Heres Tray on the regular swings. We couldn't get him off those. I'd take him off to find somethng else and he'd cry, so I left him there and he was happy!

Jordyn on the swings

Si helping with the swing ride. He did get to have a turn ON the ride, but I guess I didn't get any

pictures of him.

Queen of the hay pile!

Here's my favorite attraction. The Hillbilly Trampoline! LOL

The Pumpkin Patch

Most of these pictures were taken by Si. I don't think I could have done any better. It's a good thing he wanted to take pictures, cuz I was so busy with the little boys, I wouldn't have been able to.

A face only a mother could love. Wait, I'm a mom and I think he's pretty cute. I've always wanted a pet pig.

The Rooster

The horse's nose.

Another rooster. I think he's pretty good lookin'

The goose

Jake feeding the sheep

Hmmm, who are you?

Another rooster.

Sorry, didn't realize I had put so many rooster pics in. I don't know how to delete pictures once they are uploaded!

Look at these funny looking animals.

Oh, wait! They're mine!

I guess I'll take them home. Their dad will never forgive me if I leave them there.

Aaaack!! Maybe we should leave her at the farm, instead!

You'd think I'd learn

This is what you get when you try to take a group shot of 5 (mostly) young kids anxious to go to the farm/corn maze/pumpkin patch. Total chaos!

Oh, yeah. If you were wondering, the little guy who doesn't belong to me is my cousins son, Tray, who I was babysitting that week. He was by far the most well behaved child I had that day. We won't talk about how we lost Jake. Shhhhh!! Don't tell Rob!

Can't have a post full of pictures and not have some of the kids!

Ooops! Sorry, guys. I'm a mom, I have to! Here are some pictures of the kids from that ATV ride we took in September

Heres Max

Here's Jake and Jordyn

Heres Si

ATV ride

The last time we took an ATV ride was clear back in September. Wow!! I can't believe it's been that long. Shows you how hectic our life is getting and our kids aren't even in any extracurricular activities.

Anyway, it was still warm when we went and we all had a good time. We were on a dirt rode and drove around a bend and there was this old house sitting next to a pond or a lake. It was really unexpected, but I love old houses and we had to stop to read the plaque and take pictures.

Here is a picture of the house

Here is a tree house next to the pond, which is next to the house




There was a circular driveway in front of the house and this old wagon was situated in the middle, so I had to take a picture. I'm fascinated by old wagons. I'm fascinated by lots of old things, tractors, barns, lots of stuff.




This barn was up the road a bit from the house. It's not that old, but I thought it had an interesting shape.



These next 3 pictures are just some pretty views from that ride.

Church

Ok, ok, I admit it! I haven't been to church since, oh, January or February. I know, I know (hanging head in shame!) Anyway, I have been thinking about going back for a while now and Jordyn started asking me this morning if we could go and if we all couldn't go if she could go with her friend, Emily. At first I was just going to send her with Emily, but then I decided we should all go. I hurriedly got everyone ready and we made it on time! Yay!!

Anyway, sacrament meeting went well, I was quite surprised. I dropped off the kids in their classes, then I went to mine. Jake went to nursery really well and I left him with no problems. Towards the end of my first class the nursery leader brought Jake in to me. He looked so sad and had tears in his eyes. I put him on my lap and we waited for class to be over. The warning bell rang and Jake said, quietly, Yay! Time to go home! I said no, not yet. Then the last bell rang and the teacher was still speaking and Jake let out a big grumbly sigh and said in an exasperated tone, It's time to go home!! I said nope, we have one more class to go to. I took him to the bathroom and then we had a talk. I told him he could go to class with me, but he had to sit quietly on my lap and listen or he could go back to his class with the other kids and all the toys. He choose to go to his class and stayed there the whole time with no problems.

When I picked up the olde kids from their classes I was told that they were practicing for the Primary Program. All the kids except Jake have a part and the program is next Sunday, so we will definitely be going to church next Sunday. I am really excited to see my kids in the program!

He's gonna be a heartbreaker, that one!

The other night Max and Jake were out riding their bikes in the driveway. Pretty soon 3 little girls wandered up and started talking to my boys. Max wasn't too interested, said a quick hi and continued on with his riding. Jake, on the other hand, was very animated and talked those cute little girls' ears off. They were so cute to watch!


This is were the blondie noticed I was snapping pictures in the background...

And here she is asking me to take some more! Aren't they cute?

Just don't go breakin' my boys heart!!

A Maxism

That kid is so darn funny.

Today we made a quick stop at Costco for fish sticks and milk. The kids really like their fish sticks and we were out of milk and I hadn't had time to make something for their dinner before work, so I figured fish sticks it was!

Since I was already there I picked up some big canisters of Cinnamon, Lemon Pepper and Taco Seasoning. I had all our stuff on the conveyor belt and Max was looking at the spices. He looked at me and said "Mom, why are we buying 3 boxes of different sand?"

Late Halloween Post

It's only 2 weeks after Halloween!!

All in all, I think we had a pretty good Halloween. It was on a Friday this year, which is a day I normally work, but I took it off and I'm glad I did. Last year I worked and I didn't want to miss 2 Halloween's in a row. Plus, Jake was really fun this year with figuring out what Trick or Treating is all about!! He was so cute walking up to the doors and knocking and saying trick or treat and then thank you after he got his candy.

I do have to say that we got a TON of candy and we only went around the block. I guess when you have 4 kids it adds up fast, right?

Here are some pictures of the kids in their costumes. Si was the scary Scream guy, Jordyn is a princess, Max is a Ninja Turtle and Jake is (of course!) Buzz Lightyear!!

Birthdays

I have really been ignoring the ol' blog lately. I know, I know, I say that alot. In the past few weeks we have had 2 birthdays at our house. Si turned 12 (I know, 12! How can I have a 12 year old!!) on the 29th of October. My birthday was on Monday and I turned 31. Wow, how did that happen??

We had a really low key party for Si the Sunday after his birthday. He picked out a yellow cake with chocolate frosting and Neopolatin ice cream. He had been wanting a hoody for several months so we got him one and a Star Wars baseball cap. Grandma Jan got him an electronic Sudoku game.

My birthday was a really hectic day, but it turned out good. I was gonna make myself a lemon pudding cake that I made several years ago, but didn't get a chance to. Instead Rob surprised me with a cookies and cream cake from the store. I'm not normally a fan of store bought cake, but this one was pretty good. The kids liked it and they all fought over the oreo's on top!

So there's our Oct/Nov birthdays. No more in the immediate family until Jakes in Feb.

It was too cute

Saturday Rob's grandparents came to town to visit and take us to lunch. They made it to the restaurant before us and were sitting on a bench, waiting for us and visiting with another couple across from them. All 4 kids converged on them for hugs and kisses. There wasn't enough room for Jake to squeeze in, so he turned around and saw the other couple sitting there and went right up to them to get hugs from that other set of grandparents. They were a little startled at first, but rolled with it. After he gave out his hugs he started talking with them, asking their names. I think they enjoyed the hugs and attention from a cute 3 year old!