What is it worth?!?

Who? Me?!?

Coleson will only go potty for immediate rewards...what works?!
*Reese's peanut butter pieces ("the yummy M&Ms")
*Sitting on the bench with the girls for meal time, instead of in his booster seat across from the girls.

*Any kind of ice cream, especially chocolate, can do the trick
*Sleeping in his Big-boy-bed.
"Not my baby bed!!! I will go do potty right now, all bamaself."

Didn't work:
*sticker chart (once it was pretty full he took it down and put stickers all over himself and proclaimed he was done going potty, he was satisfied with the amount of stickers he already had earned)
*smarty candies and even normal M&Ms are no where near as effective as "yummy M&Ms"
*big boy Buzz underwear is not as cool as the diaper with a robot on it...diaper companies need to start putting lame things or nothing at all on their diapers.
*and the list goes on and on...
So, hopefully, with the threat of his baby bed and him not getting to sit by the girls at the table, we have the right leverage now and we will have a potty trained little man within the week. I would really rather not use junk food as a reward, probably not the best teaching tool or coping mechanism...

CraZy KiDs

They can have lots of fun together...when they want to.

They dress up to play ALL the TIME and Addellyn is constantly getting Coleson to do what she wants...this is her demanding to be dipped and kissed like a princess.

The fearless lion...

A great Crepe maker...

Addellyn loves to be "beautiful" for church. Curly hair and a crown is always a request...

Ders a SEED in Der...ARRRrrr

There are moments that you REALLY wish you had a camera, but I will try to describe them so that a picture can be made in your head and so that these memories of our funny "little buddy" will last forever...
So, Ty has worked lots of nights and to celebrate the end of a week of nights we had a "movie night." Ty popped some popcorn and divided it among bowls and then the kids made their movie selection and we all sat down together. About half way through the movie we noticed Coleson kept sticking his finger clear up his nose...
We told him he should probably get a kleenex if he had boogies in his nose, to which he replied: "but ders a seed in der."
And, there definitely was, but it came out after a few "nose blowing" practices.

A few days later at church, I had them all there a little early because I had some copies to make and we always like to be in our seats early so we can be ready for the meeting to start, but Coleson had gotten into his "quiet time" bag while I was making copies. (I was alone, like a lot of Sundays this past month, by the way...)
Normally, I try to make them wait until after the Sacrament to have their own bags, but Coleson had gotten into his and I was able to get him to clean up everything except one last piece of paper that was already covered in stickers from the week before. I decided one piece of paper wasn't worth a fight in church, so he kept it.
All throughout the beginning of the meeting they were sitting quietly but I kept hearing Coleson saying "ARRRrrr, mma pirate." I didn't think much of it becuase he is usually pretending to be a pirate, dinosaur, buzz lightyear, or something and at least his voice was quiet this time.
But, when the sacrament came to our row I lightly nudged him and told him to sit up big and be ready to take the sacrament. Well, to my surprise, he whipped his head around to look at me (and the poor boy passing the sacrament) and his left eye was pinned open by a bunch of stickers. He had stickers all around his eye, and on it, and the sight was slightly shocking because his eye was being pulled in a weird direction and was a little squinty because of the stickers. Coleson also had a very big cheesy grin on his face, because he knew he was funny.
The boy began to giggle, but tried to keep a straight face and be reverent, it was then that I realized the little girl behind us was already covering her mouth and trying not to giggle too loud because she had seen him at work, and Makinzie, who must have watched him the whole time, was covering her mouth too, trying not to laugh too much louder. I couldn't help but laugh...the "ARRRrrr, mma pirate" suddenly made a lot of sense. He had spent the entire first part of church creating an eye patch for himself out of stickers, so that he would look just like a pirate at church!

My dog ONLY "barfs" outside.

I walked into the playroom mid-imagination time...

Addellyn to Coleson: "Well, my dog only barfs outside."
Me: "Why does your dog need to barf?" (probably said with a scrunched nose and a bit of a disgusting look)
Addellyn: "MOM, you know, "barf-barf" (she says in a high yippy dog bark)
Me: "Oh, what a good dog you have!" (trying not to laugh too much out loud)
FUNNY!

VaLEnTine's

So many ways to say I love you...
These are the boxes we made for our preschool party. This was the Valentine Makinzie made for Ty and me.

These are the Valentine's for Makinzie's class.

Having a snow week before Valentine's Day was very beneficial to Makinzie's Valentine making...she got very creative. I had to take a side picture because so many needed the full 3-D effect... This is the set we sent to family and friends.

This is the Valentine we ate for breakfast...

This is the one Addellyn made...And I didn't get a picture of the one Coleson made before he cut it into teeny-tiny shreds. (He really likes to cut.)

The reason time stood still...

What happens when it snows like this? No school for a week...but for some reason the hospital still stayed open and Ty had to work all week?!?

We loved having Kinzie home for the week and playing in the snow!

January in all of its randomness...

Look who is ready for church early. (just don't look too closely)

The kids went to a very fun Bollywood party and were very excited about their new costumes. (I love this mother "rooster" pic of Nea, so appropriate.) Makinzie had art displayed at the local college art museum.

Ty had time off during New Year's week and worked hard in the garage. Now we have a beautiful window bench AND a bench for our table plus some newly painted red chairs...Once all 4 chairs are painted and the cushion for our bench is finished, I will take some pictures of the finished projects. Ty is awesome!

One night we splurged and let everyone pick their "favorite" ice cream topping and then bought a giant bucket of ice cream for our Family Home Evening treat! They were VERY happy!

Our NEW YEAR's eve PaRaDe!

Master-mind-Makinzie came up with the GREAT idea to have a very lOUd parade New Year's EVE, shouting HAPPY NEW YEAR and blowing pretend trumpets as they marched around and around our circle in the "falling snow"...

Dark, right? Just don't tell them that is was only 6:45...

Christmas Day, 2009

The craziest thing about our morning was that we had to WAKE UP the kids so they could see their daddy and peek at what Santa had brought before daddy left for work...I don't think they were too upset about it once they saw the glow coming from downstairs and smelt the cinnamon pull-aparts cooking in the oven.

And then we waited, and waited, and waited for Daddy to come home so that we could start on the gifts under the tree.

But, the waiting was well worth it.

The gift wrapping was the BEST, as usual!

The boxes to our necklaces made perfect crowns...

The Dinosaurs were a crowd favorite...

And a Christmas Feast! The traditional crab, asparagus, sweet potatoe wedges, homemade foccacia bread, and strawberry pretzle jello (that didn't quite work out, next time I may need to leave a new recipe for another time, oh well!)

The following Monday we had a special FHE about the "Greatest Gift of All," the last gift under our tree and we read about the Christmas Animals so that we could each remeber the reason Christ came to this earth and recognize that we have each been given our own special gifts and talents which we need to use to help others while we live our lives here...

We had another yummy feast: pesto linguine with shrimp, grape tomatoes, green onion, sweet peppers, spinach, pine nuts and portabellomushrooms, with our leftover foccacia bread and more yummy clementines. I wish I had gotten my camera out and taken a picture of the pasta, it was so pretty and full of Christmas color...It was another special night for our little family. We are so grateful for the Joy and Love that illuminated our lives during this Christmas time!

Christmas Eve.

All dressed up for Christmas Eve. And yes, the one in the middle who looks least dressed up (because his button up shirt turned out to be a few sizes too small) is also the one who could not stop laughing and making hilarious faces...the little ham!

So we got a good picture of the other two alone...

We went to be with friends from church for dinner, it was very yummy and so great to be surrounded by good people...We left a little early to come home and spend some time remembering why we celebrate Christmas in the first place.

We read our favorite Christmas book (created by our favorite Nana). We acted out the nativity as we read the story and sang several Christmas carols together.

We sang and blew out candles on the yummy angel food cake with fresh strawberries on top. Then they each opened one present...guess what it was?!?

I have to admit, these little ones made our Christmas Eve WONDERFUL this year! They were so happy and sweet and excited to sing and celebrate the birth of Jesus. It was nice to be together, just the 5 of us for a few hours of remembering why life is so important and why our Savior was born and gave us our greatest gift, the chance for eternal life...We know He lives and is our Brother, Friend and Redeemer.

A few FUN December activities

So I have this dream of being caught up to Christmas on our blog by Valentine's Day...I have no idea how some people accomplish this daily or even weekly, but apparently I could use a few tips and pointers.

Here are a few fun pictures of:

the Children's Museum (at the Clifford exhibit),

visiting with Santa in the mall (after an hour long line...),

watching Daddy perform in the "Back to Bethlehem" play at church, we loved hearing him sing,

our angels (except that you can't see Kinzie...)

(yes, he has a beard...thanks to Linnea he was a huge HIT at the party, and I am pretty sure he loved it more than anyone else. He loves being a shepherd, even still.)

creating gingerbread houses at the preschool PJ party,

......................... (and a snowman)

and playing in the snow that fell the day school let out for Christmas break. Enjoy!

I love that Addelyn and Coleson didn't even sink into the snow, Phoebe and Kinzie didn't sink too far either...it was pretty crunchy snow.