Christmas

We had a really nice Christmas day full of lots of fun, family and laughter. There were three highlights to my Christmas day.......

Watching the kids open their presents.

Josh got his new Fire Truck.

Joseph got his Transformer Helmet.

And after much searching and research Santa found a DS game called Animal Doctor that he brought for Emily. She was so happy.

The second was when Ryan's mom put on the Transformer Helmet and sang the Munchkin song from the Wizard of OZ. I didn't have my camera with me, but I wish I would have got it on video. The voice changer in the helmet makes your voice sound higher and multiplies it a little.

The Third Highlight off the day has a story behind it. In Ryan's Family there are two boys and one girl. Tracy is his sister and she is the youngest in the family. For as long as I have known them the brothers have always refereed to her as "The Princess" When Tracy was in kindergarten she made a glittery star with her picture in the middle of it out of paper. Ever since then that star has been at the top of their family Christmas tree. (This bothers the brothers). This year Ryan's parents put up two trees and just to tease the boys (who are both grown men.) They put a decoration with Tracy's picture on top of the second tree also. It worked. Ryan stopped by his parents house one night and saw the two trees with Tracy on top. He then came home and told me that his parents had two trees this year, and that Tracy was on both of them. I find this amusing because I know how much he is irritated by it.

Now back to Christmas day. Tracy gave Joseph a Nerf gun for Christmas this year. While we were all visiting and opening presents Joseph was trying to figure out how his gun worked. He suddenly shot a ball out and it went straight to the top of the tree and took Tracy's star right off the top. There was much applause and laughing that Joseph had dethroned the princess with a gift given to him by her. (Don't worry, the star was not hurt, and no Ryan did not tell Joseph to do it.)

I hope you all had a nice Christmas.

Christmas Activities

Visiting Santa at Grandma's office is always a fun way to start off the Christmas season. The kids were all willing to sit on his lap this year and tell him what they wanted. Josh wants a fire engine, Joe wants a Transformer helmet and Emily wants a Veterinarian Kit . Santa is not sure about Emily's request but she promised not to use the scalpel on her brothers. We will have to see if Santa comes through for her.




Last weekend our ward had breakfast with Santa for the ward party. Grandma and Grandpa Lay were in town for a visit so they were able to join us. The gift requests for Santa all stayed the same. I guess they know what they want this year

This week was started off with Joseph's preschool Holiday Concert. All of the songs had actions and Joseph was good at all of them. This is a clip of them singing. Sorry I was not very steady with the camera. (Josh was on my lap.)

I hope you are all having a fun Holiday season.

Happy 5th Birthday Joseph

5 things about Joseph

1. His favorite toys are Transformers and Dinosaurs

2. He loves books, and is excited to start learning how to read.

3. His favorite colors are blue and pink.

4. He wants to be a builder when he grows up.

5. He loves to make people laugh and usually can.

Reality Check

I have really been slacking off lately,but I have a good reason.

We are expecting child number 4 this July!

As many of you know that means I am useless for a couple of months and it is all I can do to make it through the daily routines of home. I am on medication now that makes it a little more bearable, and I thought I was starting to do better when Joe pointed something out to me.

Our conversation went like this..........

Joe: Mom do you always know where I am?

Me: Yes

Joe : I use to not always know where you were, but now I do. You are either driving us somewhere in the car, or you are in your bed.


I have been that bad, but today I was showered and out the door by 9:30am, and I only rested for a few minutes while Joe was at school. Hopefully the medicine will keep working and I can stop being a dead beat mom.

Thanks Ryan for all of your hard work picking up the slack!

The First Foot of Snow

This morning when we woke up the world was covered in snow. Joseph was so excited and kept saying, "Look outside, it's the Ice Age." It snowed and snowed all day. By the time Emily got home from school it finally stopped, and there was at least a foot on the ground. So the kids got on their gear and headed out to play.

I love little kids in their snow gear. There is so much padding so they can hardly move. Joseph started running in the snow.

Of course that meant that Josh had to run too.

But Josh couldn't because the snow came to his knees and he could not get his legs that high. Never the less if Joe could do it so could he....even if it was not fun.
After a couple of face plants I talked him into going where there were already foot prints. That was easier for him.

The kids love sledding
and they were excited to see the tree that fell over and made a fort for them. Emily spent most of the afternoon trying to improve the fort.
Emily and Joseph were happy the entire time in the snow. Josh decided he just liked sitting and eating it.
I am sure the snow will melt, but I am glad there was enough today for the kids to have a good time.

Trick-or-Treat

I just got this picture of us Trick-or-Treating at Tamra's work. The theme was Nightmare Before Christmas. I love that her office has events that you can bring the kids too. They are always so much fun. A big thanks to Grandma for inviting us, and a big thanks to the H.R. department for all the fun activities.

Happy Halloween

The Last two days have been filled with Halloween activities.......

Carving Pumpkins!

(Joseph's, mom's, dads, Emily's, and Josh's)

School parade

Class Party

Trick-or-Treating at Grandma's office.

And lots of candy!Emily has a candy meter on her bag and every year she tries to get it to the Jackpot level. She came really close this year.

Trick-or-treating was an experience for us this year. Josh is two so that means he is the boss. (at least that's what he thinks.) When we started out Emily and Joseph ran ahead and Josh could not keep up. We asked them to slow down and let Josh keep up with them. They were still going a little too fast so I suggested that they let Josh be the leader and stay behind him. This was a bad Idea, because if anyone went even a step in front of him, Josh would scream "No I'm the leader."

After a few houses of Josh being the leader he decided that meant he always got to ring the doorbell even though he could not reach it most of the time. He would get on the porch and try to reach the bell. Joseph would come behind him and ring it. Then Josh would start crying and the person would open the door, and feel bad for the poor crying boy who's parents made go trick or treating, and they would give him lots of candy.

The most exciting part of the night was when the headless horseman came riding through our neighborhood on a real horse. He only came through once then it started to rain, but it was really fun to see.

I hope you all had a fun Halloween!

Halloween Carnival

When Josh turned 2 last January I was worried that he was having hearing problems because he was not talking well. Most of his words were just grunts and the few words he did have for things were not the English words for them. He would say Boo Boo for train and Waha for Grandpa, and Joseph was Go Go. Everything else sounded like hehahe or eerg. So the doctor referred me to Early Intervention to have his hearing tested. After testing I was told he could hear just fine, but they did recommend I put him in their speech program.

Since then, Janene has come to our house twice a month to work with Josh on his speech. He loves it when she comes to play and he is always excited to see her big yellow bag of toys. He has improved a lot and is talking better all the time.

We have also been able to enjoy a few activities at the school with the other children in the program. Last night they had their Halloween Carnival. So the kids got into their costumes.

Notice that they are all wearing something different than what they wore to Red Butte. I wonder what they will wear on Halloween. Emily is going to be a Vampires She is trying a wig this time instead of the spray and we did a little more with the make up. This made Joseph scared of her and when Emily walked towards him he ran away crying. I eventually talked him into standing next to her for a picture, but he was still crying. He also cried when he realized he had to sit next to her in the car, but by the time we got there he was OK. He told Emily that he wouldn't cry anymore, but he wasn't going to hold her hand.

The Carnival was lots of fun and everything was free. We had a yummy dinner of hot dogs, Cheetos, root beer and doughnuts.

There were two big rooms with lots of carnival games in them.

After the kids tried the game they got a prize weather they won or not. The games were geared toward young kids, but Emily was a good sport and did them all right along with her brothers. (the prizes were worth it)

When we got to pin the tail on the donkey all Josh saw was a big blown up donkey with a target on it's bum so Josh ran up to it and attacked it.

The boys loved the pumpkin bowling.

and the basketball.

My favorite game was trying to catch a bug with a spider.
(I didn't play but I thought the game was really cute.)

After we had done everything I announced that it was time to go home.

Josh was not happy about leaving, but when I told him we got to go home and look at the candy and prizes he won, he grumpily stomped out to the car.

Vampires

Ryan's mom made Emily this great costume for Halloween. She had a Halloween party on Monday for Activity Days and it was the first time she was able to wear it. She loved it and really got into pictures. Thanks Grandma!

Fall Fun

Garden After Dark

Going to the Red Bute Garden After Dark with Grandpa is one of the Halloween highlights for my kids.

We arrived a little early so we could get good parking and I was excited to see the fall leaves still on the trees. I tortured my kids and made them pose for pictures.

Once inside the fun began. The kids started out by painting their own faces.

Joe wanted spiders bats and witches on his face.

Emily drew a tiger face on herself,
and Josh just wanted to color on his own face with the crayons.

(I am going to have to keep the markers hidden for a while.) Each station had different things for the kids to do. There were a couple of crafts and a few stories. My favorite station had a Native American who told a story and as he told it he drew a picture in white sand using colored sand. This was all done by him pinching sand in his fingers and dropping it onto the sand. He was so good at it, you would think he was drawing with a pen. The story he told was the story of corn and how we grow in many of the same ways the corn does.




The picture is not not complete here, but I am glad I took a picture when I did. When he was finished he took his stick and wiped the picture away.

The highlight of the night was the Kareoke booth.


Joe and Josh sang the Ensy wensy spider together.




After they were done there were no other volenteers to sing, so the Dj asked the kids to volenteer their parents. Emily Imediatly rose her hand and volenteered Ryan. No one else rose their hand so Ryan was up for a solo. He didn't try to get out of it, but he did make Emily go up with him. Ryan did not want this posted on my blog, but that wouldn't be fair to Emily. Ryan says he didn't like this, but I have my doubts, and when you see the smile on his face you will have your doubts too. Emily loved singing with her dad and I think she will remember it forever.

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At the end of the night we turned in our map with all of our stamps on it and as a prize we were given a cherry tree. I am not sure where we are going to plant it yet, but if you have any suggestions (including your yard) I will be happy to hear them.