In love...

From the moment that we finally got Grey his very own skateboard, he has been in love.  The other night, I turned on the shower for the boys and went to call them to get in.  When I got back, I found Grey, soaking wet, with the skateboard, so pleased that he was in the shower as I had asked.  He was so upset when I made him give me the skateboard.  He even tried to take it to bed with him the other night.  Boy did he have a complete meltdown when I told him no.  We think it is adorable how much he loves it.

 At Toys R Us the day he got it.

 In the shower, fully clothed, skateboard and all!

 On his way upstairs for bed.

Down Time

Ever since Cohen started potty training, he was never in a big rush to get off the potty.  Often times, I come in and find him looking through magazines, and just taking a moment to himself.  Landon has always been the complete opposite, and hates having to disrupt his play time to use the bathroom.  Soon, Cohen will be too old to think this is cute, and so while I still often get a good giggle from him, I though I would write down how funny I find this. 

The Elf on the Shelf

The elf on the shelf was a fun addition to our Christmas traditions this year.  I had looked at the book and heard about the idea several times, but when Steve encouraged me to get it, I did.  Every night this elf "returned to report to Santa" then came back and was in a new hiding spot.  Early each morning the boys would get up and hunt for him.  Grey loved this and often he would go bursting out of a room, skipping, and shouting, "a welf, a welf" because he would remember one of the places he was hiding.  Often times when I carried him upstairs to put him down for naps he would point to 4 or 5 places and say "a welf, a welf".  He could remember just about every spot he'd been over the last month.  

I can't say that he was much for behavior modification, but it was a fun game.  I look forward to Welf, which he will be called from here on out, appearing each Christmas season.

Christmas 2010

Christmas has come and gone.  I wanted to remember just a few things before this wonderful day turns into a blur of a memory with a move just 2 days away.  

We started with our Christmas Eve tradition and had our nice family dinner and then opened our Christmas jammies.  We went to enjoy dessert and wonderful stories of our Savior and the spirit of Christmas with our dear friends the Hargadons.  It was a wonderful day.

 Christmas morning the kids actually slept in.  It helped keeping them up til 10.  Yikes!  Three hours past bedtime is a big NO NO for me, but they were all amazing.  The older boys peeked at the gift left by Santa and then we called them in to snuggle for a painful 45 minutes and wait for the baby to wake up and enjoy it with them.  They are so patient and amazing.  This is just before we let the caged animals out.

Their first look at what Santa brought.  We are so blessed.  It seems every year that we are able to do more than we should for our children.  Steve loves to spoil them and I know it is overkill sometimes, but when I look at the gifts, all I think about is how powerful the hand of the Lord is in our lives.  The abundance we have comes from Him.  And I will never forget that.

After we enjoyed looking and playing with the Santa gifts and looked through our stockings, we had a wonderful breakfast of crepes and bacon.  It is our tradition to fill our tummies first, so we can enjoy taking our time opening gifts.  

Some of the favorite gifts this year were scooters and football gear.  They were all adorable in their uniforms.  They all love football so much.  

 I was ready for bed and it struck me that I needed to write down the memories of these three sweet boys on this amazing day.  They all showed such gratitude for each gift opened.  Even Grey told me "So much.  Thanks Mom.  So much"  He was repeating after his brothers.  I love that they don't take what they have for granted.
 I love this time of year and am always slow to take down my decorations.  But tomorrow they all come down and I start the task of trying to be organized enough to have an army of strange people in my home, opening my cabinets and packing my belongings into boxes.
I am so grateful that we got to pretend all was normal today and enjoy things without feeling like our life is in disarray.  We are saving that for tomorrow.

Stuck

I feel like I am stuck...frozen maybe is a better word.  Frozen in time.  Things are whirling around me at record pace, but I am just frozen.  I should be doing so many things to get ready.  Get ready for Christmas, get ready for moving, get ready for whatever I need to do next.  But instead, I find myself just sitting, often times wasting my time, because I feel like all things thing that need preparing for are just so far away.  Christmas...2 weeks away....huh?!? Really?  Moving....17 days away?  It just seems unreal.  I keep counting down the days we have left to the kids.  Trying to prepare them because I know that this is going to be hard, but it hasn't sunk in for me.  Oh, and I'm having a baby in 3 months?  Interesting!  And its a GIRL!  And I have nothing, and I mean nothing ready.  Wow.  Panic mode will set in shortly.  I just keep waiting for it to set in, but in the meantime, I am just frozen.  Waiting for the sky to fall.  Steve may feel differently, since it seems that every weekend I have some sort of emotional breakdown for him.  Comes out of the blue.  Seems just about anything sets me off.  But during the week, when he is out of town, I am Wonderwoman, and nothing seems to faze me.  Not sure I'm ready to face reality.

Cal Bears game

A few weeks ago, Steve had tickets to a Cal vs. Oregon State football game.  Since he is able to get as many tickets as he wants through work, he decided we should make an event of it and invite some friends.  We headed to Berkley right after a soccer game.  Steve was so fun and got us all, even our friends, Cal Bears team jersey's and shirts.  He loves to go over the top whenever he does anything.  I love him dearly for that.  It made it so exciting for the kids.  We made a quick pit stop at Chick-fil-a, and then loaded all the kids in our car and made the drive.  

Grey was a monster at the game and Steve was ready to leave after the first half.  It didn't help that I left to use the restroom and get a snack for the kids and was gone an entire quarter.  It turned out to be quite an event to get cash, since I was unprepared and didn't have any.  The first ATM was broken.  I stood in that line at least 10 minutes.  Then the next one had a dozen people waiting to use it since there wasn't another one anywhere close.  Then while I waited in line, a kid who was inebriated on who knows what, would not leave his hands off me.  He was trying to hug me and hit on me.  It was so disgusting.  I have to say, I felt old.  I yelled at him and told him to keep his hands off me.  He pestered me the entire wait.  Miserable.  I will say, I am no longer flattered, or unaware of the massive attention I seemed to be attracting at the event. College guys are pigs!  

All in all, we had a fun adventure.  I am glad we chose the friends we did.  They are so fun to be with.  We stayed the night in Walnut creek and then looked at a house the next day.  It was a huge success, because that was the house we ended up picking to move to.  What a great weekend. 

A Grand Finale

Landon has been playing soccer for 3 years now.  His first season, he was timid and young.  He was an amazing defender and he liked to be with kids he knew.  For his second year, we bumped him up to U8 even though he wasn't old enough.  He spent 90% of the season in goalie or on defense.  He made huge improvements, but still struggled to understand offense.  For his third season, we began by practicing a lot in the backyard before the season even started.  His first practice, he was amazing in goalie.  He never played defense, but he was wanting to try offense.  He usually got 1 quarter a game in offense and any other times he played, he was in goalie.  Needless to say, with his slow offensive development, he had never scored a goal in all 3 seasons.  

The emotions for him toward the end of the season seemed high.  There were tears at several games.  He was getting so close to scoring, but he could never bring out the aggressive side he has in the backyard.  On the very last game of the season, everything came together for him.  As you can see from the pictures, it was an extremely wet and muddy game.  He was so excited, but it was freezing outside.  I think it was in the 2nd quarter, he scored not only one, but two goals.  Back to back.  It was so amazing.  We would have been proud of his season no matter what, but not only being the only undefeated team, but being able to finally score a goal, was so fun to watch.  He really will miss this soccer team when we move.   

GO EARTHQUAKES!