Pay it forward update.

Just a reminder to check out my "Pay it Forward" post for a free homemade gift. It doesn't matter who you are, or if you live in another country, just comment on it and I'll send you a free home made gift soon. But hurry, there are not many spaces left!

Happy Thanksgiving

We had a full Thanksgiving weekend. Kelly drove down to visit and stay for the weekend. On Thursday night we were invited over to Jake and Vanessa Skinners house for dinner. We brought the Turkey, some stuffing, the potato's, and the gravy. Everything turned out pretty decent. Vanessa made Yorkshire Puddings, a beautiful salad, dressing/stuffing, and green been casserole, which was actually made with asparagus, it was very tasty. We had Mormon Champagne (that would be fancy pop for all you whine drinkers out there...), and delicious pie. It was a beautiful dinner!

After dinner, we played Imagine If, which was lots of fun. Kelly won. I stole and modified most of these pictures from the Skinners blog.

Thank you Vanessa and Jake for an awesome time!

Shiner/Transformers/Laundry Monster

This is the up-date on Ezra's "ouch" from the other day. The black eye didn't show up until a couple days later, so here it is the day it showed up as an actual black eye.

Now it's a nice yellowy orange color, but healing fast. It will be gone in a couple of days, hopefully.

We're hoping it will be gone before we do our Christmas pictures.

On the same night as this picture Liam was wearing some pj's with semi trucks on them. For anyone who hasn't seen Transformers, or doesn't have little boys, Optimus Prime is the leader of the good Transformers, and he is also a Semi Truck. Liam thinks that his pj's are from Transformers, and calls them his "Octamus Crime" pajamas. Too cute!

The boys asked for "Love You Forever" tonight (see past post for details on this story) and I had to turn them down. I don't think I'll read that book for at least another year. One of my Mom's friends says that she only reads that book once a year, on Mother's Day, I think I'll copy her tradition!

I walked into Ezra's room the other day and saw this cute little package, and had to take a picture. When I asked him why he was curled up inside his laundry basked he answered very seriously "I'm a monster Mommy." Oh.... of coarse, I should have known.

Pay It Forward

I saw this on one of my friend's blogs and I thought it sounded so fun, especially because I am totally into handmade gifts right now.....so, here goes.....I will send a homemade gift to the first 5 people who comment on my blog and ask to join the PIF (Pay It Forward) exchange. You may not receive it tomorrow or next week, but you will receive it!!! The only thing you have to do in return is "pay it forward" by making the same promise on your blog. (If you don't have a blog, just promise somehow). I can't wait to see who I will be giving to. To join, just cut and paste this to your blog, and comment away! So get posting! I'll even ship to Canada if you want!
By the way, if you don't have a blog you can still comment on my posts. Just write your name at the end so it doesn't say "anonymous".

OUCH!

The boys were a little bit rowdy last night and they bonked heads. Liam didn't even feel it, but Ezra got a little bump under his right eye. In one of the pictures it is reversed because we're looking at it in the mirror. In the last picture Ezra didn't want a picture of it, he just wanted to be held. We thought he would have a black eye today, but he's just got a tiny bruise now.

Wild Cats vs. Dragons 6-0

Rudy the Goalie.







Rudy takes the ball...





Below: Rudy throwing the ball back in after it went out of bounds.

Above: Soccer Mom Vanessa and her Soccer Star Rudy.



We got invited to go watch Rudy's last game so we went and had a blast. We brought a bowl of oranges with us. Afterwards we went to McDonalds with the Skinners and
Grandma. It was a fun day.

Bill with our nephew Mickey.

Love You Forever

The other night I was having one of those nights, where no matter how sweet your kids are, they are driving you crazy. I was just really irritable and the poor boys could do nothing right, but I was smart enough to know that it was my fault, and not the boys. At seven o'clock I was so sick of everyone that I wanted to put them to bed early, but I decided that wasn't fair and took them to have a bath instead. It just got worse, so we wrapped up bath time and got ready for bead. I put Mo in his crib (he was tired and needed bed time desperately), but he was not happy about it. He stood up and cried and cried. I figured I'd get back to him as soon as the boys were in bed, so I left him crying. I got the boys ready for bed, and they were a little bit hyper, so getting their pj's on was not easy. Finally I was almost at boiling point and Ezra said "Mommy, a book!" I was like "NOOOOOO!!!" And Ezra's eyes got huge, so I took a deep breath, grabbed the first book on the shelf, and said "Ooooooookaaaaaaay, but just one."

The book happened to be "Love You Forever" by Robert Munsch. Robert Munsch happens to be my favorite children's book author, and I didn't realize that this book was by him, so that kind of brightened my day.... but just a little. I've listened to him narrate a couple of his books, so I decided to read like he does, very animated, just to lighten the mood. Anyways, I started reading this book, (for those of you who haven't read it, you need to, it is super cute) and the boys really liked it. It's about this Mommy and her little boy, who grows up throughout the book, but no matter how big he gets, or how bad he is the Mommy sneaks into his room at night and rocks him back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, and while she rocks him she sings "I'll love you forever,

I'll like you for always,

As long as I'm living

My baby you'll be."

So it's really cute, and the boys are really into it, but then it gets to the point where the Mommy is getting older, and the boy is a man now, and the Mommy calls to tell him that she's sick, so he goes to visit her and she is asleep so he sneaks into her room, and picks her up, and rocks her back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, and sings

"I'll love you forever,

I'll like you for always,

As long as I'm living

My Mommy you'll be."

And, it gets to this part, and I get all choked up, and I can't even breathe, never mind read, but I don't want the boys to be worried that I'm crying, so I try to read anyways, and it comes out sounding like Alvin and the Chipmunks. So Liam is all concerned, and I'm trying to convince him that "Don't worry sweety, these are happy tears..." but he isn't sure. Finally I get through the book, and the boys and I run to the living room to check on something. I glance into Mo's room, and he's still standing up in his bed, staring (or so I thought) off into the corner, so we are very sneaky so we don't disturb him and make him realize that he is all alone. On the way back to the room I glance in again, and he is standing in the same position, so I take a step closer and realize that the little cutie is sound asleep, so I ran and grabbed the camera, which unfortunately still does not have a flash, and I take a picture. Then I laid him down so he didn't fall.

As I was putting Liam to bed he says, "Mommy, are you going to sneak into my room and rock me back and forth, back and forth, back and forth?" I say "I just might Liam." He says "Will you laugh Mommy." I mumble "I might just cry..." Liam's eyes get huge and he says "Happy tears???" I'm like, of coarse, happy tears." He stops and thinks, then says, "I don't like happy tears Mommy."

What a cute kid.

Mommy and Mo and Playing House

This is Mo and I hanging out on the trampoline while the boys were playing "house" and sword fighting with their sticks.


Liam in the play house.
Below: Ezra looking out the window in the play house

In The Yard

This is Ezra underneath the trampoline. I took one of Liam too, but it didn't turn out. I don't know if you can see it very well, but I thought it was a fun picture.

Here is Mo looking at the boys underneath the trampoline. He was fascinated.

Ezra and Liam love to sword fight, here they found some sticks and had some fun.

Trampoline Time

It's just to beautiful outside to not go out and spend some time . When we got our carpets cleaned, the carpet guy also cleaned our little throw rugs, so we put them out on the trampoline to dry. The boys thought that was the coolest thing in the world, and took advantage. They spent an hour or so just thinking of fun things to do with little carpet rugs.

One of their favorite toys is my measuring tape for sewing, and they often will run around with it trailing behind them. On this particular day Mo saw it trailing behind Liam and chased him like a cat and tried to catch it. It was so cute!

Later Ezra found the shovel that Papa found at the beach and him and Liam fought over it forever until I somehow convinced Liam that it really wasn't that cool. Ezra is still packing that thing around 2 days later. Silly boys!

A lot of Cinnamon and a little Murr

While I was outside with the boys Murr (the black cat) and Cinnamon (the calico cat) were watching us, so we snapped a couple of shots of them.



They are Marion's cats, but the boys love them, and Cinnamon seems to love us. She's so funny. She's very skittish, but loves to be petted. She has some inner turmoil though, whenever she's trying to decide if she wants to risk being petted. I don't know what she's afraid of, no one has ever hurt her, but, non the less, she is still scared to death. Every once in a while she'll run inside the house, realize what a horrid mistake she has made and bolt for her life. When she finally does decide, that yes, she will risk her life for a little lovin' she loves it so much that she drools puddles and puddles of cat saliva all over her petter. She also can't just sit and enjoy being petted, she has to tell you how much she loves it, so not only are you getting slobber all over your outfit and skin, but you are also being assaulted by long, horrible, LOUD, whiny meeeeeeooooooooooowwwws. So, when you've just about had enough, and you stand up, she bolts as if she thinks that you were about to sick a dog on her or something and you don't see her again (or hear her) until the next time she happens to see you walking through the yard, the next day, or whenever. Anyways, it may sound like it's a burden to pet Cinnamon, but it's certainly never a dull moment with her, and I enjoy the attention as much as she does.

Everytime I tried to take a picture of Cinnamon she moved, or she opened her mouth to meow at me. She also got her spit all over the camera lense once, and I have a tonne of blurry shots of her, because she doesn't sit still while you are petting her, maybe it's her nervousness. Finally, when she didn't know I was looking at her she settled down and I got the last shot. Murr was easy to photograph, because she wasn't interested in being petted, at all, so she kept her distance. I only had to take one shot of her.

Playgroup

Every Friday a group of Moms and their kidlets get together at one of the parks here. Vanessa was the one to coordinate it, and finally families are showing up. Last Friday was the biggest group since our new start up, so we were pretty excited. I've met lots of cool Moms at this playgroup, and Liam is making all sorts of (girl) friends.

Mo stayed in the swing for pretty much the whole time, and actually fell asleep in it. I think he was a little under the weather, but he still had a good time. He was so cute!

For quite a while Ezra played with a group of kids, which was great to watch. Of course Andy was in that group, Ezra loves Andy. I think Andy is the only "Friend"/cousin that he can actually remember the name of. He got a little grouchy towards the end, until I showed him how to bury his hands in the rocks. Another little boy saw us doing it so he came and joined Ez, but Ezra was more interested in getting his own hands in as deep as possible than playing with someone else. Ezra has always been the type of kid that goes off and plays on his own while every other kid is playing tag or something, but I don't mind, at least he's not complaining about being bored when there are no other kids around.

Liam was off playing with girls the whole time. Going to the park as often as we did a couple of months ago has kind of burned the kids out on the play equipment, but if there are kids Liam still has fun. The swings usually occupy a lot of our time as well. Anyways, today, for Liam, it was all about the girls, and eventually the cute little girl at the water fountain. They did this last play group too, and got soaked, but had a blast. I told myself, and another mom, that as soon as my kids re-discovered the water fountain we were leaving. I lied. I totally let Liam play in the water again, and get soaking wet, but I did it mostly because I was having so much fun watching all these little kids, just absolutely fascinated by this fountain! Then Liam started spitting the water out all over the place, and I was done.

The boys were so exhausted when they got home, that they all fell asleep in the car, and Liam napped soaking wet (bad Mommy). He woke up dry though, and luckily he still didn't catch a cold.

Party at the Peavoys

I was supposed to have a Stampin' Up party last night, but my demonstrator/friend had a sick family to tend to, so I decided to have a regular party, but invite a bunch of demonstrators for different things instead. I called everyone and told them to come. Seventeen people showed up, including 4 demonstrators. Angie was there for Salt City Candles, Marijo for Home Interiors, Selina showed her "If Walls Could Talk" sayings, and Lavonne was there for The Body Shop. I had so much fun, and I baked SO MUCH food. I still have tonnes left over.

Thanks everyone for coming, and thanks to the demonstrators for their awesome contribution. Thanks Marijo for the snowman (I got this really cool snowman for doing a party, it sings and dances). Thanks Lavonne for the door prizes. Thanks Vanessa G for the door prizes. Thank you Cambria for the yummy pie (hers was homemade, unfortunately I'm not much of a baker, and a lot of my stuff came from boxes. Cambria inspires me.) And thanks Vanessa S, my sister, for helping me decide to throw the party, and listening to me ramble about how excited I was. I Love Parties!!!

Brotherly Love

We recently had our carpets cleaned and had all the dining room furniture outside, leaving lots of room for the boys to play. They were being so cute one afternoon that I grabbed the camera and took these shots.

There's a good shot of Liams chin cut. It's healing quite well. It looks like he just had a normal, everyday, four year old accident.