Count Your Blessings

I'm calling a timeout right now.  A timeout from the holiday prep, the daily cleaning, the political junk that fills our inboxes and facebook pages.  A timeout from life. A "just hold it" on everything.  And I want to count my greatest blessings.  Yes of course there's my home, my husband's job, education, freedoms, yada yada.  But I just read a series of blogposts from a girl that I went to highschool with who is facing an astronomical heart defect in her newborn baby, and it got me to thinking about all the "fluff" that surrounds us, and then what really matters: 

James

AND

Jackman

I choose messy pictures on purpose, to show my reality pretty much each day.

They are healthy (though on the smaller side), they keep me on my toes (that is a picture of James who decided that he wanted some "white cheese", aka cream cheese, and without telling me opened it and began munching. And of course Jack being a messy boy), they sometimes drive me crazy (like James having three potty accidents today, and not all of them pee...), or won't stop screeching (Jack, in church, every Sunday, or any other time, and it's awesome when right in your ear), but they are healthy and growing and learning everyday.

They are my greatest blessings.

(Besides their handsome daddy :) )

What are your blessings?

Okay, time-in.

We Voted!

I wanted my kids to see us vote.  I remember going to the polling place when I was little with my parents to watch, back when the little booth had a curtain.  The polling people always told my dad not to let me push any buttons.  Well, he always let me push the buttons.

When we voted this year, I waited for Nathan to come from work, we headed over to our polling place which was the elementary school by our house, and we got in line....a long line of twenty-thirty minutes, with two small kids...this plan wasn't thought through!

So Nathan went outside to the playground (good thing it wasn't snowy yet) and when I got to the part where we showed ID's, I called him and he came back in.  Then when we got to the voter machine, I took James, Nathan took Jack, and we quickly filled out our ballots.  We had gone over the ballot before, so knew exactly how we were going to vote and didn't have to read all amendments and such.  I was explaining what I was doing and that it was important to vote.  Then we all got an "I Voted" sticker!  That was of course important :)

I grateful that we live a country where we can vote for who we want to represent us, even if our candidate of choice doesn't always win.

Howbe, Howbe, it's Me James!

Here is random pictures from October of Jamers. He informed me this morning that "my name is Jamers and James".  He is a cutie, and he is talking better and better.  He goes through stages though of saying the same word a lot sometimes.  During the summer it was "yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah".  Then he just one day stopped that.  Now he'll say "howbe, howbe" and then whatever he was going to say.  My favorite is "howbe, mommy, I love you".  It is great.  

 My favorite three year old

 "Look mommy, this beetle is great"

Lots of things are great now. 

He'll add the adjective "great" to describe things.

 

James likes to play baseball.  Doesn't matter if it's inside or out, and he's getting more power in his swing now! Don't stand too close!

 "Hi chickens, eat your food"

James will makes sure each animal needs to eat their food.

James and Daddy looking at the giant flock of sheep that were grazing right by our house...

eating their food :)

 

 James likes to "go hiding", like under Jack's blankie...

 ...or under the couch pillows.  That is a daily occurrence.

 James working on his computer, like Daddy

 Daddy made a giant daddy snowman, a little boy snowman, and a puppy snowman.

James then wanted to ride the snow-puppy.

So today I tried to be good mommy and go play in the snow, but 15min of preparation to go outside with both boys resulted in 4min of playing time before both were cold and wanted to go back in, followed by 15min of cleanup because of the snow tracked in that had to then be mopped up and getting everyone undressed and everything put back away.

And I'll probably try again tomorrow:)

 What a great activity, marbleworks!

 We did races!

 James being a "football person".  Each sport is a different type of person.

Like mommy and daddy are "running persons" when we go on a run :)

Enjoying his bathtime.  Also this shows his hair that it is flat.

I try to do his hair, but most of the time he pats it down and says "NOOO, it needs to be flat!"

That is one battle I don't usually fight, unless we are going to a family function :)

 And he is finally potty trained! 

This is the digger that he choose to get if he would go in the potty.

Funny is that he had to fill up a sticker chart with 25 stickers before he could get it.

Well, that concept was a little lost on him.

He would go, and then say "where's my digger".  I'd explain that he needed to go a few more times and never again have diapers, then we could get it.

It was two full days of crying, sitting on the toilet, multiple times in a few minutes to get a sticker, which wouldn't count because he didn't actually go, and I gave in.

We got the digger, but away went all diapers, and if he had an accident I told him I'd take it away.

And he still needed to fill up the sticker chart, with interest of about 10 stickers.

He did it, and we taught him to say "I bought my digger on credit"

He is still doing great, and he's in "Cars" underwear all the time now.

Now he's asking Santa for the dump truck that goes with this digger, of course.

Flying

Last Saturday evening our friend and neighbor Steve offered to take us flying in his small 100 horsepower, Cessna 140.  The plane was built in 1946.  

 

The Morgan airport is about one mile from our house, and we see planes go by on a daily basis.

I've wanted to go up in a small plane for a long time now, 

so this was a bucket list item, and awesome!

It was so nice of him to take us up.  I went first.

  Steve laughed at me because of how nervous I was.  Good thing it wasn't a bumpy ride.  I held onto the bottom of my seat pretty much the whole time.  I did take the controls once, but, once again, was nervous.  I think I could do it again and not be so nervous. I liked that he explained everything to me that he was doing while doing it. Overall though I really did like it.

Next up was James.

So after I took off, James I guess talked, and talked, and talked about flying with Daddy while on the ground.  When it was his turn, he was so excited.  Didn't seem scared at all.

Steve is also one of his nursery leaders at church so James likes him too.

James listening to instructions from Steve

Steve took him just in one big loop, but did a few "rollercoasters" where the plane goes up and down.

I was even too scared to do that, but James liked it!

When he got back down we asked him how it was and he said his belly went up and down. 

Then we asked if he was scared, and he started to say "I was, no, I'm not scared".

Steve would ask him "how you doing?" And after everything James would reply "alright".  

S:"Want to do a rollercoaster?" 

J: "Alright"

S: "Was that fun?"

J: "Alright"

S: "Want to do that again?"

J: "Alright"

He loved it!  He loved it so much that the next day he said we needed to fly to church, not drive.

We might have a future pilot on our hands:)

Nathan went last, and of course liked it, and of course wasn't nervous.

He went up last year with an ex-Navy pilot that is in our ward, did barrel rolls, loops (the upside down kind), and a take off that goes straight up.  

He said he has never really been motion sick until that ride, so this one was more enjoyable.

Thank you Steve!  And thank you Holly for letting us borrow your husband on a Saturday!

We live in a pretty cool place to have this small airport just down the hill from us.

Family Fall Pictures

So this one is late, but these pictures are great!

A fall day in September Kirstin came up to Mountain Green, and we all piled in and drove the ten minutes to Snow Basin to find a great place before all the leaves were gone.

It turns out it was a lot harder to get both kids looking, and smiling at the same time than we thought, but we did it!  And I loved how they turned out.

Mommy and her two boys

 

Daddy, James, and Jack-Jack

And my favorite face of Jack's

 :)>

Thanks Kirst!

Happy Halloween!!

 Happy Halloween!!!

James was a football player.

And not just any football player, but a Broncos football player!!

Mommy matched James with her Broncos jersey as well

Daddy was a safari man taming a wild monkey, aka Jackman :)

 Double handed suckers at the ward Trunk-or-Treat

That day was our first snow (the Wednesday before Halloween), and luckily it had all melted for that night, only to start up again in the middle of the night.

Jackman Trick-or-Treating

James was really good about sharing, and it was working out better for Jack to be in the stroller while James would go and get a piece of candy for both of them. 

 Getting ready to go out.
Lucy is the friend in the background who photo bombed us :)

 Getting the loot

 Holding onto the helmet

 Check out how we would get around in the stroller built for two but with three!
I love that you can only see one arm of James.
Hope that everyone had a very Happy Halloween!

Carrot-cars

One of James' discovery books,

(which by the way happened to be from Kirstin's and my childhood)

is about Vegetables.

There is a picture of a carrot carved into a car.

James has talked about these for awhile.

On Halloween we were invited to our friends, the Woods, for dinner, so I decided to bring a "carrot-car" for everyone.  It took a little practice but I was able to figure out the pieces and the best ways to put tires on, carve out little drivers, etc.

They actually took a long time to make, but all of the kids liked them.

My kids played while I worked on them, doing:

 Blocks...

 James made a milk truck out of blocks

 Being cute

 "Cheese :)"

And then I got the first one done!

 James raced my "proto-type" around the couch while it took me another hour to carve out twelve more.  I don't think it will take me as long the next time because I don't have to experiment to keep the wheels from falling off.

 Carrot-cars!  Complete with little man driver, and carrot hubcaps to keep the wheels on.

Add with ranch, and kids like to say "carrot-car" while eating their veggies :)

 Everyone was eating the carrot-cars! 

Happy Halloween!!!

Halloween Harvest Half

On October 27th, I got to run with my friend Erin at the Halloween Harvest Half.  This was only 6 weeks after the marathon, and I'm confident to say that I did it, and I kept my current time up.  I didn't get faster though, and I was a little bummed about that.  But really, keeping up the current pace is pretty good.  Kristie once said that every race can't be a PR.  I'm happy that I felt good afterwards too.  Erin did awesome.  And we actually haven't been running very much lately, so we were great to go out and race.  I thought that is was going to be really cold, but it turned out to be perfect running weather, and the race entry got in my whole family to Black Island Farms. So after the race we got to do slides, a corn maze, see animals, and even ride in a trailer pulled by a tractor out to the pumpkin fields to pick out a pumpkin.  

One of the best parts was James did the Kids K.  He has wanted to be a "running person" as he's seen Mommy and Daddy be one.  He ran it with Mommy, but he ran it the whole way (except when a shoe fell off and I helped him get it back on, I think it was close to a mile).

Mommy and James the "Running Person"!

After this race though, I think I'm done for the year, going to take a break, let my body heal.

I know I can do hard things now, so in the coming years I've got some more goals to attempt.

Grandma's from Colorado

Grandma Kitty and Grammies stayed in Utah for three days after Tyler's talk!  So what do you do with all that time?

 Read books together

 

Try to fly a kite in thirty mile per hour winds

(fyi, that doesn't really work! But it was mighty funny trying) 

Watch a storm roll in

Bring Lady inside because she was scared of the wind

Bake banana bread as it starts to rain

Jack-Jack and Mommy after bath time

We all went to Tanner's choir concert

James was seriously perfect the whole time.  Sat on Kira's lap.

Jack, well, he liked one song then was a bit done.

We made zucchini bread

 Nathan and I had made a bet that I wouldn't use the giant zucchini and the too ripe bananas before the grandma's left, and thus I had to make two types of bread while they were here.

Everyone helped!

And we made bread because one day the clouds were moving in, and the next day we woke up to...

...SNOW!

James and Lady went out to explore it.

And we played together!

Thank you so much for coming out to visit us Grandma Kitty and Grammies!

We loved having you, always welcome.