So I came home from work on Thursday to find Thomas hard at work building snowmen (with what snow hadn't melted yet).  After 2 hours work he was up to 6 snowmen and Catherine and her friend Lily came out and added one of their own- 'Olaf'.  He took time to show me his method of using a 'starter' snowball and rolling it, collecting snow as he went.  

Thomas later added carrot noses and tennis ball hearts.

Mustache man-- kind of reminds me of a muppet

That evening I went out with Brandon to the store and saw that the front yard was completely leveled.  What!  I was pretty steamed about the mean neighborhood kids that knocked down all of Thomas' work.  Brandon was like, don't tell Thomas tonight, he'll be too upset.  'We'll talk about it when he sees the massacre tomorrow'. 

Well, kept my mouth shut for about 10 minutes and then secretly asked Catherine if she saw what happened to all the snowman.  She was like, 'oh that.  Thomas went out and demolished them all with his swords after he finished building them'.  Really!!  Brandon said, 'How Buddhist of him'.


So the next morning, I asked Thomas to show me HOW he demolished them.  He demonstrated on my storage buckets.  We had a great video, but after 8 tries at downloading it to no avail, I have settled on these pictures.  

You get the idea:)

 

 

My fixer/finder

So I've always been pretty in love with Thomas.  His sweet hugs, coy smile, bug eye silly face.  We've always been buddies.  But recently this gem of a kid has come up with a new way to please me.  He's become my fixer/finder.  When I get to my whits end in frustration over one thing or another he'll say, 'What's wrong mom?'

'The password list is missing and has been for a week!' - that I have one copy of and is always in the desk and would be an absolute pain to recreate. 5 minutes later I have it in my hand.

'I cannot for the life of me get my bike lock open, why didn't I write down the combination!'.  Literally 2 minutes later Thomas has the combo figured out and the lock open.

'Rin's glasses have been missing for 2 weeks.  We've searched the house, the cars and the church over and under and they are no where to be found.  Time for more serious prayer!  If we don't find them this weekend, I've going to have to give in and get new ones.'  Next day Thomas is the one to uncover them.

And this is just what comes to mind right now.  Over and over this year he has saved me.  Thank you Thomas!

In response to Priceless

So according to one of my sweet, slightly younger than me sisters, I am slacking a little in the blog department.  It's true.

I am not a natural blogger, but I do value sharing a bit of me and my life with my family, so I will continue to try.  Thank you Lys, for your encouragement.

Like Alyssa, we just got family pictures taken.  at JC Penney's (I recognized her backgrounds!).  Only for us it is not a biennial event.  More like triennial, if that's a word.  Or whenever Sean has grown another 8 inches.  Whichever comes first.  I did set an 11:40 appointment...a little wiser than Lys here.  Although considering we also waited an hour to ACTUALLY get in to have our pics taken, maybe a 10:30 would have been best after all.  And then just show up an hour late.

Anyhow, we saw many an unhappy child at the studio, but not us!  One of the joys of having all children over 8.  In our hour wait we went back out into the 10 degree temps and headed over to Sports Authority to get Sean a winter coat.  Apparently I am the kind of parent that only does that every 3 years as well.  Or whenever Sean has grown another 8 inches.  Whichever comes first.

Then back at JC Penney's we still had some time to peruse the holiday section for ornaments white and ornaments sparkly and nutcracker frogs and cows and such (whose mouths, Thomas noted, were not aligned with the opening of the nutcracker.  A great disappointment.)

Finally our time came, and I actually thought the kids were fairly cooperative.  Even giggly at times.  Then we got to preview the pictures.  Sean!!!  He had a near death stare in almost every pic.  ("That's my smile!" He said in defense).  Ah well.  Luckily he's just a good lookin' kid in general.   I will say that Brandon and I looked pretty awesome in every shot ;)

Only have the little emailed order form with really low resolution pics so far, but it will give you an idea of what you'll be getting in your mailbox come Christmas.

    

My favorite moment in the day was getting our purchase summary:

Purchase Summary

(1)  16x20 Gallery Wrap

Free

regular

$174.99

savings

$174.99

(2)  8x10

$11.98

regular

$19.98

savings

$8.00

(6)  Sitting Fee

Free

regular

$59.94

savings

$59.94

(1)  6 free cards

Free

Regular Price Total

$254.91

Savings

$242.93

*Grand Total

$11.98

*excludes tax and merchandise The 'free' things were actually a $30 groupon, so Grand Total was actually a little more.  But still, not bad, eh?

Friday morning miracles

This morning was full of miracles and fun surprises. First, I woke up late at 6:15, meaning Milla was 20 min late to seminary.  The miracle was that I went to bed at 8:45 pm and slept the whole night through.  I've been exhausted all week and have had headache after headache.  Finally a day with a clear head!

2nd little miracle was our owl egg.  Not really a miracle, I guess, but we thought it was cool enough to take a picture of.  The pan wasn't quite heated through when I cracked 2 eggs in one after another.  We thought it looked cooler when the whites were still clear, but the camera was upstairs and I'm not in that great of shape. ;)

Look closely, what do you see?

After harvesting some broccoli from the garden a few days ago, I discovered a soft green caterpillar climbing up one of the stems.  So cute!  I trimmed off the part he was on and put it in a jar, added some sticks and closed it off with some cheese cloth.  Expecting the worst when I checked it a day or two later (I've seen many dead bugs in jars in my days), I was thrilled to see that the caterpillar had instead climbed onto one of the sticks and made himself a little chrysalis.  Miracle #3!  I felt like a little kid again, wanting to tell everyone I saw today about my little caterpillar.  Ahh, life.  Amazing.

Can you guess the theme?

About a month ago, someone asked Sean how old he was and he said, '14'.  And I said 'no you're not'.  And he said, 'yes I am'.  And I said 'no you're not'. And he said 'How would you know?'.  Really?

Well, now he really IS 14.  Happy Birthday to my sweet Sean.

Birthday morning...as exciting as Christmas.

The walk into birthday

Sean trying to figure out what this present might be.  

"Sean, why do you think (insert anything here)?"  "Because I'm Batman"

Rockin' the new cap from Nana and Gpa

It's just not a birthday in our house without a 'pin the something to the something'

The build

So I decided to try out something new and join a Habitat for Humanity crew for a day.  It was a 9:00-4:30 work day, but luckily we got a beautiful overcast day in the 60's that made you want to stay outside.

I was feeling fairly uncomfortable when I first showed up on site as the majority of the worker were from a handful of businesses that will give their employees a paid day to go do service.  I was one of the few individuals that went in without knowing anyone.  But once the work began, it was all okay.

On the right was my buddy, another 'individual' that I found to pair up with.  We pretty much worked side-by-side the whole day.  Hidden in the doorway is the lady who is from the 'partner family' who will live in this home when it is completed.  They are required to put a certain number of hours into their build.

I worked primarily on homes 3 and 4 in this row of townhomes in the 2nd floor and on the roof. No pics from up there, though.  I started with a group, setting roof trusses into place and holding while they were being nailed in, the end pieces of which you can see on top of the far right home.  I must have proved myself, because after that they started handing out power tools.

As I was to lazy to put a new name on my hat, I went by 'John' all day. ;)

 My second job was them handing me a saw-z-all (ok actually they held it up and said 'Who wants to..' and I immediately volunteered.  I love me a saw-z-all, even though I don't know how to spell it).  I sat on a truss on the open roof with my foot supporting me on a beam on a wall that separated two units.  My job was to evenly cut the firewall material and the aluminum bars holding it in place all the way across the length of the home (it stuck up about 2 feet too high) so that roofing material could then be laid flat across the units.  After I did that I felt I could do anything.  Not easy, and a little scary when the saw kicks and my buddy's hands and my legs were not far away.  Not too mention the floor was 10 feet below us.  So much fun.  After lunch, the rest of the time was primarily spent cutting plywood to size and hammering it down on the roof.

What the finished homes will look like.  These are next door and already moved into.

Pooka

My sweet Pooka turned 10 on Aug 27th.  She is strong and stubborn and bright and clever and hard working and still needs me hold her when life gets hard.  The song I wrote for Catherine when she was a baby starts:

 'Oh you are my baby 

who maybe 

will love to...'

Well I have since learned that she loves to try about anything.  I think she is amazing.

Woken up and ready for present time

Her theme: Pink fluffy unicorns dancing on rainbows

Milla took quite some time the evening before spinning cotton candy for this cake.  Two hours later we discovered that if you put cotton candy on a chocolate pie, it will absorb moisture from said pie and turn into jolly rancher syrup.  Try two we placed plastic wrap in between.  That did the trick.

Gifts: doll clothes for her american girl doll, my little ponies, books, headbands, and a scooter

A couple of months ago, Milla found this lady on line that made life like mystical creatures from clay, wire and fur.  She has figured out how to do her own and gifted her second attempt to Rin. Pretty cool.

I took Thomas to party city for some streamers and somehow came out with a unicorn piñata.

My beautiful girl the next week all done up after getting home from a from a friend's 'makeover party' at a salon.