Thanks for Rocking my World Hubby!

Truly, my husband rocks my world. Sometimes I seriously feel bad that I got so much goodness in just one man. Don't get me wrong, he has his faults. But really, I couldn't be happier with anyone else.

1. He expects to help me put the kids to bed, even when he is busy studying. If he hears us start the bedtime routine he comes right upstairs. He helps bath, dress, sing, snuggle, you name it.

2. He puts the kids to bed for me occasionally if I need to get out.

3. He helps to clean the house. (He almost exclusively cleans the bathtub because I hate it.)

4. When he is home while I'm making dinner he takes the kids downstairs so that I can have peace and quiet and thoroughly enjoy the process.

5. He doesn't really complain when he has to dig his g's out of the dryer for a week. He's just grateful that they are clean

6. He tells me I'm hot when he comes home at six and I have clearly not made it into the shower yet.

7. He gives me the support that I need to make up for the confidence that I so frequently lack in myself.

8. He makes it very clear that although he has a lot of studying that he could be/should be/needs to be doing, that our family absolutely comes first.

9. He's freaking hot. Seriously. mmmm.....

10. He brings me home flowers about once every month or two. (They may be the cheap grocery store flowers but I love them.) I love that he thinks, hmm, I'm going to stop at the store on the way home from work and pick up some flowers.
11. He supports my habits. I have major crafting addictions and he is very supportive. He rarely gives me crap about a new project I want to do. He often helps me develop ideas that I may be working on. The only thing he gives me crap about is the Cricut Expressions that I NEED ok, fine, want desperately. And mostly that crap is in jest.
As a matter of fact a week or so ago he brought these come from the hospital. They are about 4" tall pieces of PVC pipe. He informed me that they were from the empty rolls of prescription paper that they use. He saw them and thought that I might have a vision of something crafty that I could do with them. I love this about him. He is ALWAYS thinking about me, even if it means that he is bringing home pieces of pvc piping.

Wonder who taught him that?

If only I could show you the picture that Jason took of himself that pops up on my cell phone whenever he calls. It looks eerily similar to this one. I guess he just had to get this one in for good measure. What a silly kid. I think I'll keep him.

Great Lengths

This girl has crazy long eyelashes. I am so jealous. Just thought I would share.

Sleep Tight, Sandman's a comin'

Tab and Benton really are the best of friends and the worst of enemies. Benton is a real sport. He will follow along with whatever crazy make believe game that Tab comes up with. This particular game Tab was pretending that Benton was his baby. He was doing such a good job taking care of him. He got him a pillow and swaddled him up for his nap. He even got him a stuffed animal to snuggle.And what a sweet boy, he snuggled with him and sang him songs.

Bathtime

Paisley makes the funniest faces. Our favorite face that she makes is when we flick water at her face in the bathtub. We were trying to get a picture of the puckered up face she makes, but we were unsuccessful. However, we did get a few other good ones.

This one was about as close as we could catch of her pucker. Alas.Not too happy when her brother decided to try and help us out by dumping an entire cup full of water on her head all at once. Opps...Now, she is just lapping up the water like a little puppy.For reals, are you still trying to get it out of me?

Ahoy!

Tab regularly likes to pile things up around the edges of the train table and pretend that he is on a boat. On this particular day he made his Pirate Ship and started yelling, "mom, mom, come here". So I came to see what all of the ruckus was about. He was standing like this and wanted me to come take a picture of him looking like a pirate.The facial expressions are my favorite. I love how he thinks that this is how a pirate stands. Where do kids get these things?

Ever wonder what....

15 sticks of chewed up gum looks like? Benton loves gum and got into my purse to get some. I had a brand new pack in there. I had only eaten one piece and there were only two pieces left when I caught him hiding and drooling as he chewed. Sigh...

Me and My Boys

My boys are very challenging sometimes, ok regularly. But it's the moments like these that make my little mommy heart sigh. Jason had taken the boys downstairs while I made dinner and when they came up they brought me these flowers made from pipe cleaners and my scrapbook paper. Of course daddy helped.So, we've not been having good nights around these parts lately and so one morning as it was spring break and I didn't have to worry about the bus, I decided to go back to sleep on the couch while the boys were eating breakfast. Benton came to join me. Though he more likely decided to join me as I was snuggled up with his beloved blankie than any other reason.

My First "Quilt"

I made my first "quilt". I put quilt in quotes because the top isn't pieced together and that is what I generally think of when I think of a quilt. Anyway. This was my first. I made it for Jason's mom for her birthday/mother's day. It was a crazy amount of work. The trunk it made up of all of our footprints and the top of the tree is obviously all of our hand prints. I used freezer paper stencils to do the lettering. And for the record a did all of the quilting of it on my machine. That was the most time consuming part and it took well over a spool of thread!

I am really happy with how it turned out. I'm proud of myself despite all of the flaws in it. So if you actually quilt just don't look closely. I learned A LOT while making this. I have to give many thanks to my mom for her help over the phone. Thank you for listening to me cry when I messed up and just needed to whine about it. Thanks for all of the tips and tricks. I only wish I lived closer so that you could teach me in person how to for real quilt.I love the fabric that I used for the back, it worked perfect with the colors on the front.And an up close shot of the top. We did Pais's hand prints in pink with Jason's yellow thumb print as centers like little blossoms. (Jason's idea!)

Finally, As promised....

Easter pictures of the kids. Need I say more ...

Envy and Reward

So, my sister Alissa, is the freaking rockingest knitter ever. (so what if rockingest isn't really a word, it is very much in my regular vocabulary). I have commented on her posts about projects that she has completed many times regarding my dire need to learn how to knit so that my babes can have awesome stuff that I have knit for them. And because as we all know, I am always dying for a new "crafty" skill. I very much envy her skill.

To the point. I guess that all of my envious comments paid off because Alissa recently sent me the rockingest pair of Capri longies ever. And they are purple, which we just love on Pais. They fit perfect. See... This is the don't you dare let go look that she was giving me.They make me want to just eat her up, they are so cute. (This is the, "Can I help you with something?" look.)
It even is cute on her bum.Gotta get a shot of her bracelet that she wears always.Thanks Alissa! I can't wait until it is consistently warm enough for her to wear them regularly.

Hmm....who could it have been this time?

Dear Tab,
If you are going to insist on playing with my camera, you really should learn how to delete the evidence.

Love,
Mom

All the Single Ladies.

I recently took the boys to see Alvin and the Chipmunks the Squeakquel. From this they learned of the Beyonce song, All the Single Ladies. So Jason downloaded it from iTunes for them. It has been hilarious. Tab and Benton can be found playing with their transformers and singing, "all the single ladies, all the single ladies..." Paisley has even gotten really into the song. It is hilarious.



In this video Tab was enjoying being videoed too much to dance as much as they usually do, but they are hilarious.

Why not!

The kids were taking a bath as usual one evening. Jason was standing in front of the tub and Benton accidentally flung a cup full of water all over him. Rather than yell, as likely would normally be the case, I scooped up some water with my hand and threw it at Jason. So how does Jason respond? By climbing in the already crowded bathtub fully clothed and sitting down. I hope the kids can appreciate what an awesome and funny dad they have. He is such a sport. (Good job covering your parts for the picture Tab...at least I hope that's what your doing)

And the Rain Came Tumbling Down!

We had a long heavy cardboard roll from a rug that we purchased and the boys had been begging me for it. I finally figured out something that we could do with it that didn't involve them beating each other....hopefully. We made some rain sticks. We just cut the cardboard tube to the desired length. You could also use a paper towel or wrapping paper roll. I like how thick ours were though. Then along the spiral seam that runs the length of the tube we put 1" wire nails every 1/2" the entire length of the tube. Then we taped up one end and put tape down the spiral covering the nails. Poured in some rice and then taped up the other end. We let out some stickers and markers and TA DA! They have some rocking rain sticks.

So Totally Busted!

So, last week Jason had some time off and we had really been enjoying the time hanging out with the family. One afternoon we were roughhousing and wrestling with the boys. Jason loves to pin me down and tickle me and make the boys try to "save" me, meaning I can't thrash to try to get loose or I'll hurt the kids. Well, apparently I was paying too much attention to him tickling me to miss the other thing he was doing. Do you see it?Now do you see it? What a freaking turd. And did he bother to tell me it was there before we went to a meeting in Tab's classroom at school so that I could try to cover it up? No! He told me when we got home. He is so busted.

Emergency Room Visit

It has now been nearly two weeks since Tab's little visit to the ER. Sigh....

To make a fairly short story even shorter: We were at church and for one reason or another a little girl in Tab's class had a pair of scissors and somehow ended up cutting his lip open with them. Joy of joys. Tab was a real sport. He wasn't even crying when I went out to learn of what had happened. We looked at his lip and we weren't sure if he needed stitches or not. The cut itself wasn't too bad. An ER doc in our ward came out and looked at it and said that it did indeed need stitches as the cut crossed the from the pink part of his lip over the ridge into the "flesh colored" part. Apparently, when you cross that ridge, it doesn't heal up too pretty without stitches. So we headed to the ER.

We didn't have our camera with us, so Jason took a few pictures with his iphone. Lucky for you the blood had stopped by this point.
Tab tried so hard to be a big boy but it is hard when someone approaches your face with a needle. Between Jason and the nurse (I was holding Pais) they were able to hold him down. I was worried they would have to strap him down (I was remember the last time he needed to get immunizations) which would have been even more traumatic for him. Anyway, one stitch later we were on our way home. Lucky for us, we didn't have to pay an ER copay since Jason is a student there!

It ha

Easter

Sorry, this is late as usual. My card reader on my computer doesn't work and I'm kinda too attached to my computer to let go of it long enough to get it fixed. Jason's parents kindly got us a card reader but as luck would have it, it seems that the slot to read the card for my camera doesn't work. Freaking LAME. Anyway so it takes me effort to get pictures off of my memory card to blog. So please forgive me.

I will start by telling you, there are no pictures of the kids in their Easter Outfits. As life would have it, rather than taking pictures after church with the kids in their Easter outfits as planned, we spent the afternoon in the Emergency Room with Tab, which is another post for another day. I'll try to get pictures of them next Sunday.

The neighborhood we live in held a little Easter egg hunt. The boys had a blast. Paisley, well, she enjoyed playing with her one plastic egg and her bucket.
Sorry about the blur, you can't control what you get when some random person takes the picture for you.We, meaning mostly Jason, enjoyed dying eggs with the boys. To be honest, this is the first year that we actually got around to dying the eggs before Easter. Wahoo!
We bought a "marbling" kit which was a mistake because you have to swirl the egg in the dye. That was just asking for trouble. But the boys enjoyed it and we just did our best to regulate.Jason's family has a tradition that the Easter Bunny leaves a trail of Jelly Beans to where their Easter Baskets are hidden, so we have continued the tradition. Jason decided to be the goober that he is and pretend like they were rabbit droppings. Lucky for me I had the camera already in my hand!The boys thought that that was rockin'!They were ecstatic about the water guns. Can you tell that they already have a mouthful of jelly beans.Unfortunately our hunt had to be inside as it had rained all night.But they didn't care.
Tab was very proud to have found the last egg.

Spring Has Sprung!

I think that we may truly be into Spring! We have had some super nice weather intermixed with some rainy days. Sounds like Spring to me. So we have been taking every opportunity to get out and enjoy the sunshine. We kicked Jason out of the garage so that we could bring all of the "outside" toys out of the basement. Benton jumped on the trike for the first time this year and is figuring out the pedaling thing pretty quickly. The steering thing is another story.Pais has enjoyed the sunshine too. She however does NOT enjoy the breeze that we get.So we occasionally spend some of our time sitting on the garage steps.
Isn't she a doll?