The Moore You Know

One of the kiddos took this picture. I just don't have many pics of myself. : )

I’m not sure what happened to me.  I used to be the cute little college girl, then the mom of cute little kids.  Now I’m just getting old.  : ) I actually don’t obsess about my age too much.  But every once in a while I think about it and wonder where all the years went.  This birthday was sooo much better than last years because no one has the flu!  Woohoo!!  But I had a great day yesterday thanks to my awesome family and friends.  My mom made a fantastic pumpkin cake, my friend Kristy took me out to lunch (it was delish!) Lance made me breakfast and took the day off work and stayed up and watched a movie with me.  And the kids had great behavior for most of day.

It was a fabulous day!

This year instead of doing gingerbread houses we decided to downsize and decorate cookies.  Which was nice because then the boys could pretty much do it all by themselves.  But I loved the recipe I found.  The kids and I aren’t huge gingerbread cookie lovers so I found a recipe that uses a butterscotch pudding mix and I thought it really offset the ginger for me.  They were a huge hit with everyone. So I thought I’d share the recipe.

We traveled to Phoenix this year for Christmas.  I can’t say that I love the 12-13 hour car ride (with a million potty stops!) But I think the kids did really well.

Time spent in Phoenix is always family time.  It’s fun to catch up with family members we don’t get to see day to day.  Every time we go back I feel like our nephews have shot up and grew a few inches and somehow they’re driving and thinking about college.  When I entered the family almost 12 years ago they were my boys’ ages.  Where does the time go?????

Phoenix is also Mexican food time!  Mexican food outside of Phoenix is just not as good to us.  So when we go, we probably eat out everyday hitting all our favorite places.  My mom today was talking about making cheese crisps and my first thought was, “but we don’t have Carolina’s tortilla!”  So good.

Christmas was fun!  All of the boys said that they got exactly what they wanted.  Yay!  Go me…I mean Santa.  Christmas breakfast and dinner was great with a lot of the family.  It’s fun for kids to be able to get to know they’re older cousins a little better.

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We have known for a really long time now that we baby Rory.  We can’t help it, she’s our baby girl!  I think all the time, the boys wouldn’t be doing this or the boys would be doing that.  The boys were very familiar with timeout and Rory’s been there just a few times.  The boys, by necessity, walked themselves into stores.  I still carry Rory most of time.  It’s just easier!  So for my Rory-centric post here’s some pics of Rory being Rory!  : )

Rory in my clean clothes.

Rory is pretending to be a dog a lot lately. Kisses quickly turn into licks.

Rory being carried by Lance (of course) at Megan's wedding. They're posing next to a cut out of Jake.

Rory fell asleep while getting off a chair. She must of been really tired that day!

In August I signed the boys up for Karate.  In the past it wasn’t something that I wanted to do.  Why would I arm my already fighting boys with actual moves???  But I heard about this Karate place by a couple different people who have loved the teachers and it really taught their kids discipline and self control.  Which I need for both twins in different ways.  So we tried it for a couple of weeks and I loved, loved, loved the instructors and the instruction.  They work on being in control of your body, they are very positive, and extremely patient.  Every month they work on different qualities a Karate person should have, like last month was an “attitude of gratitude.”  They have three rules: 1. listen to your parents, 2. have a clean room, and 3. don’t do karate on anyone else.  The boys love it and Chiler now wants to be an instructor when he grows up.  : )  Last Wednesday they had their first belt promotion and they are officially yellow belts!

I’ve never really understood when people say that their kids taught themselves to read.  But now I do.  Over the past few years I’ve been working with the twins on reading.  So it started off in kindergarden when they were learning their sounds, they putting together letters and so on. Dax just wants to do what his brothers are doing and he has essentially taught himself to read.  I helped to provide the background but he pulled it together on his own.  A few weeks ago he brought a book over to me and just started sounding out the words.  And doing a really good job at it.

Most of my dad’s side of the family made the trek out to Farmington to enjoy some turkey!  I always think that I’m going to get my camera out and snap pictures but I never do.  It gets so busy and I’m usually helping cooking or watching over kids.  The boys were really excited to play with some of their second cousins and eat some chocolate pie.  That side of the family, we always ate our Thanksgiving on Saturdays so that we could all be together and it’s worked out pretty well, though we had two missing this year.  It was a fun weekend.  They got the four wheelers out, a few rode horses, we went to see Temple Square, ate lots of food, visited with everyone, and went Black Friday Shopping.

I think it’s actually kind of fun to Black Friday shop.  But this year the stores were a little out of control with their hours and I was literally up all night long.  I started 10pm at Walmart and ended 9am at Gregory’s Wheat Shop where I got my Bosch (so worth it!)  It wasn’t as cold as year’s past so it wasn’t quite so miserable.  I’m excited because I think the kids are going to love their Christmas presents and I got them at a great price.  : )