December 2013 in a Nutshell

December was a busy month filled with (mostly) holiday things. Besides going to school: 

 Aren't the sweetest?

There was visiting Santa at the Home Depot. We didn't go there to visit Santa, but since he was there while we were there, it worked out nicely.

We decorated our tree with stars and lights and all sorts of fun items.

Finn got bored with the tree decorating festivities rather quickly, so we handed him the iPad and let him chill.

 Pele photo-bombing my kids as they decorate.

For some reason we had cupcakes one day. Probably with some hot chocolate after they came in from playing in the snow.

Santa drove around post on a firetruck again, handing out stuffed animals to the kids on post. This is one of our favorite holiday traditions here.

The Saturday before Christmas was my family's big gathering. This pretty much sums up how we all feel at the end of the day: 

Which brings us to the big day - Christmas!

Like most years, we all made out like a bunch of bandits. My dad and stepmom came around lunch time to have Christmas with us. After they left, my mom, stepdad and sisters came for dinner. The following day Josh's parents came up. It's nice that we're close and everyone can come here so we don't have to pack up the boys and make them travel around on Christmas Day. Something we'll miss whenever we move.

And that's about it for the month. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all!

Let's Talk About It Being the Last Day of November

Wow guys.  Where did this month go? I seriously have NO idea. We started decorating the house for Christmas today and I'm like, where did this year go? HOW are we almost back to Christmas again? I don't know, it's just crazy.

Anyhoo, we had a really nice Thanksgiving down at Josh's parent's house. Josh's sister Linda, and her son, Sam, were there, as well as Josh's Uncle Ray and Aunt Lorrie, and his cousin, Holly, and her husband, Jordan.  It was really good to see them all again, even if once we were finished eating my kids spent the rest of the evening on iPads.

I must say, though, I was rather impressed with Zeke's ability to carry on a conversation with Holly while playing on the iPad. Only a few times he got too wrapped up to answer her immediately. It was also very sweet watching Deacon and Aunt Lorrie play music together on her iPad.

We all had a great time and oh, my, goodness was there ever SO much food! And of course, all of it was delicious.  I think I gained 11 pounds, but I did so happily. 

I'm so thankful for so much.  For my Savior and His love, grace, and mercy. For my husband who loves me and provides so much for me. For 3 beautiful and wonderful boys who make me laugh (and stress me out - let's be honest) every day. I'm thankful for my family, and my friends; for a home, food, and clothes. God is so good and I'm so thankful.

I guess I'm also thankful for Legos (when they aren't causing fights). And on that note, I'm linking here to Josh's Lego page where he wrote a little Thanksgiving post with the Thanksgiving things he built.  Check it out, it's pretty sweet.  JOSH'S PAGE.

Enjoy the rest of your long weekend (assuming you have one)! I'll see y'all in December (but not tomorrow, I don't like to blog on Sundays)!

Let's Talk About Sleeping With Books

Besides being the name of my new band, sleeping with books is a fairly regular occurrence in our house. I give you examples 1, 2, AND 3, ALL taken on the same night:

The worst "offender" is the wee one. I cannot tell you the number of times we've gone in at night to check on him before we go to bed ourselves and found him squished in the top corner of his bed like this:

because all of this:

was all over his bed.

Now, I love reading as much as the next girl, but I think this might be a little bit out of control. Although, I guess there are worse "problems" than my kids fall asleep with so many books in their beds there's usually not enough room for them.

Sorry for not blogging ALL of last week.  I got a killer cold that wiped me out pretty good most of the week. It didn't stop me from going to a concert or leading Bible study, but it probably should have. I'm feeling mostly better now though, so hopefully I'll get back to blogging a couple times a week again!

Let's Talk About My Youngest Child

My sweet boy, Finn, loves the iPad. He's on that thing for at least 10 minutes every day. If I'm being honest, most days it's more like an hour or so. In the morning. And again in the afternoon. Some days it bothers me, some days I tell myself he mostly plays learning games, so he's just figuring out how to spell and add and what's it.  Like most 3-year-olds, right?

Finn loves superheroes. His current favorite is Batman - as you can see by his pajamas, socks, and sneakers. He also has a Batman blanket on his bed.

His best friend is Chase. I was going to write a whole post about these 2 with lots of pictures, but what else can I really say? They ask for each other, get super excited when they see each other, then fight with each other over every toy when they are actually together. That's not entirely true.  They really do play very well together. But 3-year-olds can only behave so much of the time, not ALL of the time, and we love them for it.

Finn wants a puppy. He loves dogs and doesn't usually shy away from them like the other two always did.  I almost caved the other day and bought him one when him and the puppy played with each other through the glass (excuse my finger - like I've never taken a picture before or something - geez).

Mr. Finntastic LOVES being outside. Well, he loves being outside when he's not allowed on "his" iPad. He's getting pretty fast too. He was also super pumped to go to the "pumpkin farm to go Halloween picking."

Even better than pumpkin picking was the tractor ride to the pumpkin patch. We rode the tractor to the pumpkin patch and back not once, but twice. We got our pumpkins, paid for them, put them in the car, then went back around for a second ride, much to his utter delight.

Finn also had his first dental check up last month where he didn't cry and freak out. I'm telling y'all, we have a new favorite dentist. This guy was amazing. Finn didn't even ask me to sit in the chair with him like I usually have to do.  *sniff, sniff*

Look who got a new seat! Just looking at him in this seat makes me a wee bit sad.  My boy is no longer a baby (even though he'll always be my baby).

Finn also LOVES the beach.  I'm not sure we'll ever be able to visit Josh's parents again without making a quick trip to the ocean. We had a hard enough time convincing him it wasn't going to be warm enough two weeks ago to go in the water.

The little man has also been helping out a bit more around the house. We've started a chore/allowance system with the older two and I guess it's influencing Finn a bit. One of the chores is to set the table. A couple of nights this past week when I've yelled, "Whose turn is it to set the table?" Finn usually runs into the kitchen and says, "My turn!" He then proceeds to help me set the table. Finn also "cleaned his room" the other day.

So close!

My sweet boy also loves to books. He loves to read books, he loves to have books read to him, he loves the library - both for story time there and for getting more books. His favorite author is Mo Willems.  Right now his favorite Mo Willems books are the Elephant and Piggie books. And to tell the truth, I rather enjoy all of them too.

Finn also loves music and puzzles. Car and firetrucks. Football and all other things that little boys love. And don't tell Josh, but I'm totally Finn's favorite parent.

Oh, Finn. You make things so much more interesting and fun, and we wouldn't want it any other way. 

Let's Talk About "Melty Beads"

I'm sitting at the table with the older 2 boys while they make some "melty beads". Ezekiel is making a cross and Deacon is making Jesus walking on the water.

As they were working this little conversation happened:

Ezekiel: I'm making this for Jesus.

Deacon: I'm making this for Jesus too.

E: Jesus is going to love this.

D: Jesus is going to love this too.

E: I'm going to bring this to Heaven with me and give it to Jesus there.

D: I'm going to bring mine to Heaven too for Jesus.

*five second pause*

D: Welllll, I'm probably going to forget mine when I go to Heaven.

I don't know why that tickles me so much. It's like Deacon knows himself well enough to know he'll intend to bring Jesus his gift, but he'll definitely not bring it when it comes time to. I also love that they're making melty bead pictures of Jesus (well, one's of Jesus and one is of His cross) FOR Jesus. Such sweet boys.

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Let's Talk About Halloween!

Well, I'm glad I didn't promise to be here every day as I've already let 2 days go by without blogging.  Oh well.

Anyhoo, Halloween was last week and I think it's safe to say we ALL had a really good day. The older boys wore their costumes to school and in the afternoon had a costume parade.  Usually they march the kids around the school, but since it had rained a little in the morning, they marched them around the one parking lot 3 times.  I was able to go because my mom was wonderful and came up to stay with Finn.  There were a bunch of cute costumes, and the parade was fun to watch.

Except for when he was posing for the above picture, 

Ezekiel took this parade thing WAY seriously.

After the parade the kids went back inside for their classroom parties.  I volunteered to be a classroom mom for Ezekiel's class this year (since I was nominally one last year for Deacon's class). For this party I was put in charge of the craft and I think the kids enjoyed it.  They all did a great job. We made little lanterns I guess you'd call them. Basically they glued tissue paper over a baby food jar, added some googly eyes and put in an LED tea light. Here's Ezekiel's:

You can see my example watching from the shadows.

After school was over we went home, tried to get Finn into his costume (with no success), and went to the bus stop on the end of our street for the little parade they do on base. All of the kids looked really sweet as they walked down our street then up to the community center where there was hot dogs and cookies and pictures to color. A bunch of our friends were there so we hung around for a little bit.  Then we went home and watched "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" until it was time to trick-or-treat. Or, until it was time to release...the ninjas!

My mom and I took the boys around to the houses on our street while Josh handed out candy, then we switched. Josh and my mom took the boys over to another part of base for more trick-or-treating while I stayed home and handed out candy.  Since it was a warm night, I invited my neighbor over with her candy and we sat outside my house chatting while handing out candy.  It certainly made the evening more enjoyable for me.

The boys (all 4 of them) had a great time trick-or-treating and got so. much. candy. Once they were finished it was time for bed and for my mom to head home.  All in all, a pretty great day, if I do say so myself.  And I do!

Let's Talk About Hats

Another reason I haven't been blogging much is because I've been busy making hats.  Hats for Christmas, hats for Kirsten's coworkers, a hat for a birthday, all kinds of hats.  Linda, don't let Sam see this post, I'd hate to ruin his Christmas surprise. *giggle*

For Christmas I made my nephew, Sam, a sweet looking minion hat. (The link is to the pattern because it's a wonderfully written pattern and that lady deserves mad props for it.) Shortly after I finished it my sister, Kirsten, came over and was saying how her boss had decided to dress up as Gru for Halloween and wanted everyone else to dress up his minions.  She was saying how they weren't sure how they were going to do it. I was still excited about Sam's hat so I got it out and showed it to her.  Wouldn't you know it, her coworkers all loved it and I was asked to make 6 of them for Halloween (about 2 weeks before). Plus 2 or 3 extra ones, but those can be done whenever she says. Well, I worked hard and I got them all finished in just under 2 weeks.  I must say, they came out really cute, and apparently everyone was pretty well pleased with them:

At the same time I was making those, I was working secretly on Josh's birthday hat.  Well, it was originally going to be a Christmas gift, but I was too excited to wait until then. I would bring it with me to soccer practices if I knew for certain Josh wasn't going to show up. I mainly worked on it Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays after school. Soccer was Tuesdays and Thursdays, so the other days we would hang out at the school playground and the boys would run around and work off some energy before we'd head home to do homework and dinner and what's it. So, while the boys played I knit:

It's a TARDIS hat! This past summer Josh and I blew through all 7 seasons of the "new" Doctor Who and LOVED almost every single minute of it.  It is a brilliant show and a lot of fun. As I was writing this I realized I don't have picture of Josh in his hat, so I used one of the two of me in the hat.

Besides all of these hats, as if they weren't enough, I've also been working on other knitted Christmas presents and have been keeping my self quite happily busy. Since they are Christmas presents for people who read this I won't write any more about them...for now. And that is it for now.  Tomorrow (or Monday, I don't know if I'll blog on Sundays yet or not) we will talk about our Halloween!

Let's Talk About NaBloPoMeh

November is National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo) and every November (except for 2011 apparently) I take on this challenge and blog every day for the month. I'd like to say I'm going to do it again this year, but I'm not entire sure I'll be able to get to it every day, and I don't want to make an empty promise.

It's kind of crazy, isn't it? Here I was, thinking that with both Ezekiel and Deacon in school all day long, I'd have PLENTY of time for blogging and sitting at my computer messing with pictures on flickr and what's it. I think I've blogged...well, let's see...I've blogged exactly ONE time since school started. I can't even tell you what all Finn and I have been doing, but apparently we have been busy.

What I really think it is, is that we usually are busy running errands and going to Bible study and what's it in the mornings while it is just the 2 of us (which is easier than when I have the older 2 or even the older 2 and Josh with Finn and me), that by the time I get Finn down for his nap I'm too "tired" to do much of anything but play games on the computer and/or watch TV. It's my downtime too y'all.

So then I think, "Why don't I blog instead of (or before) playing games? I don't know.  I guess because sometimes the blog feels like work. Some days it doesn't occur to me. Sometimes it seems not as necessary since we're around family right now, even if we don't see them all the time. Sometimes it's because blogging reminds me of how far behind I am on organizing my pictures and taking them off my phone/camera, and that IS a chore, so I blow off blogging so I can continue to blow off my pictures.

Well no more! Here's hoping I get to blogging every day this month.  Here's hoping I get my pictures organized both on my computer and on flickr. Here's hoping I also keep up with the household stuff, even as the holiday season begins and accelerates. Pray for me y'all. It's going to be a long month. Hehehe. Now, enjoy this picture of the boys from September, and I'll see you guys tomorrow!

Dumps Like a Truck, Truck, Truck

Apparently it's been a month or so since I've posted here - where does the time go? In attempt to answer that question, here is a photo/post dump, snapshots of what we've been doing since the end of August. My apologies for any blurry photos or for being brief on things that could probably have their own post. We have been crazy busy so it's sort of a feat to get this much done.  So, let's see what we've been up to (in some sense of chronological order):

 

Every Friday we went to the library for the summer reading program they had:

This could probably go without being said, but there was MUCH Lego'ing:

 

There was also much gardening of the tomato variety (still hoping my peppers won't let me down):

There was as 2nd mud run with more family and friends participating:

The first day of school (2nd grade for Ezekiel, 1st grade for Deacon):

 

My women's Bible study group (of which I am president this year) started meeting Wednesday mornings and Tuesday evenings:

Soccer started for the older two:

And Josh got a new "toy" for hunting season, which opens Saturday. Venison anyone?:

There have also been quite a few trips to the water park until it closed, some play dates, a trip to West Point, a trip to camp, as well a day here and there with no where to go and nothing to do. Now we're into the swing of things with school and Bible studies and soccer, and Josh started his new job and maybe we'll get to slow down again around Thanksgiving?

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