niner

9 glorious years ago Nate and I got married. Today we get to share our anniversary with Thanksgiving. My sister wondered how I felt about having a whole parade in honor of our anniversary. I should have thought to ask Macy's if they'd put in big balloon people of me and Nate. Maybe the next time our anniversary falls a Thursday I'll remember that...

Happy Anniversary, Natey! I love you!

Bait for Papa

When we were raking and cleaning up the yard a few days ago I discovered some incredibly large worms. I think they could technically be considered small snakes due to their size. The boys thought they would make great bait for fishing with Papa. The only problems with that are: a) Papa lives in Colorado b) we won't see Papa until December c) lakes are frozen in Colorado in December d) I don't know the life span of a giant worm in a jar but I'm guessing it's less than 1 month.

Grant was not discouraged. He found a jar, filled it with dirt and matter of factly said that Papa would just have to break away the ice so they could fish. Such a determined little fella.

Thanks... for helping

Today our No-School-Must-Have-Activities craft was making name place holders for Thanksgiving dinner with Nate's family. This required 17 turkeys (they are attached to clothes pins that will later hold the names). Here's the rundown of the creations:

Jack- 1 turkey
(his handprint was used for 3 but he actually only attached eyeballs and a beak to 1). He was then discovered sitting in the living room, watching Dora and cutting holes down the entire front of his shirt with scissors he snatched from the table. Nap followed.

Grant- 2 turkeys
He made 1 turkey, took a break of playing on lego.com and chasing after the mouse that Leo caught on the backporch. Max convinced him to help him make another which brought his total up to 2.

Max- 5 turkeys
We originally agreed to split the difference of the remaining turkeys when Jack and Grant stopped helping. He was a trooper through 3 turkeys but needed pleading to finish a couple more (one of which was pawned off on Grant as explained earlier)

Sarah- 9 turkeys.
I am already tired of turkeys and it's not even Thanksgiving yet!


HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

love letter

Tonight Grant came out of his room with a piece of construction paper he had written random letters all over. He asked me what it said. I read, "My mommy is the most amazing, beautiful mommy in the whole world and I love her very much." He looked at me with his eyes wide open, jaw dropped and said, "I didn't know I could write all that."

K-I-S-S-I-N-G

Friday night while hanging out with the Nelsons and the Loibners our multitudes of children were playing in the boys' rooms. Poor Emma and Brooklyn were seriously outnumbered but were holding their own by being the princesses amongst the warriors.

At one point Emma came running out to the living room to report that the "boy in the blue shirt" kissed her. I went to find my little Romeo and took Grant out in the hall to explain to him that he was not to be kissing girls.

Grant: But I can kiss you.
Me: Yes, you can. But I am your Mom.
Emma (listening from the doorway): It's OK. I like it when he kisses me.

Seriously? 4 year olds!?!

Priorities

Overheard by Grant's teacher at school on Friday while playing house:

"Yeah, I'll marry you but I won't be able to help with the kids because I'll be too busy out on adventures."

Indy Party

Max has chosen his birthday party theme since he was 3 years old... we've done motorcycles, a camping trip, crocodile hunter, army and now Indiana Jones. This year his parentals had a momentary lapse of sanity and even agreed to do a sleepover. Yes... we know.

Since Indiana Jones is an explorer the boys spent their evening on an adventure to locate the Arc of the Presents that the Nazis were trying to steal.

First was a Mummy wrap to find a clue hidden in a roll of TP. (The clue was actually just taped to the inside of one of the rolls because I couldn't figure out how to get it under the actual toilet paper).

The clue led them to the spider cave where they had to crawl through, collect a big, disgusting spider while looking for the clue.

Indiana Birthday Boy on the hunt.

Next they were directed to the snake forest where they had to capture 5 snakes and find the hidden clue.

They had a hard time locating this clue. Anyone see it?

On to Crocodile Creek where jewels were to be had for those willing to stick their hands in the cold, murky water.

Pankot Palace was the place to dig through eyeballs, monkey brains and gopher guts in search of the clue. You'd think boys would have liked this more than they did. Most of them were disgusted.

Max didn't mind the monkey brains.

Aftermath of the mine field. I got distracted by all the balloons popping and forgot to take a picture.

The adventurers with their big find... the Arc of the Presents.

The golden treasure.

Finally in pajamas watching a movie.

I went to bed around 10:45 pm. I woke up at midnight to Nate saying, "No, we're not going to put in another movie." One un-named party goer woke up at 6:00 am and started waking others up. Nate quickly put an end to that....7 & 8 year old boys have endless energy and vocal skills.

Just two more months until our next party. I'm praying it's not at our house.

7

Max turned 7 today.

I'm a little bit in shock that my first baby is suddenly such a big kid. He got to choose where we ate dinner tonight and he didn't choose McDonald's. He chose AQ instead. If that's not old age for you, I don't know what is...

Happy Birthday, big boy.

Sweet Dreams

After 30 (yes 30) years our mattress has finally been replaced. My parents got a new mattress right before Nate and I got married so they offered us their old one until we could afford a new one. Little did we know it would be 9 years (and even now it was with significant help from my parents as our Christmas present)! It served us well but is long past due a trip to the dump. Here is our new and very tall mattress that doesn't cave in the middle.

During a little mattress shopping one of the salesmen asked me how long we'd been married and if our mattress could stand on it's own. He assumed when I told him we'd been married right under 9 years that that's how old our mattress was. I didn't have the heart to correct him and risk him having a heart attack but I did tell him that most assuredly our mattress could not stand on it's own. I stopped short of telling him that I was pretty sure I could fold our mattress in half like a taco. Apparently, if your mattress can't stand up on it's own it's "dead". Ours probably needed a funeral before it came to us...

(For the record, I think with some help I might have been able to roll the mattress up like a burrito. The box springs even folded a little which I'm pretty sure explains some of the lower back pain I've been having.)

The boys think having the old mattress and box springs propped up on the back porch is the greatest thing ever. If I'd only known I'd have waited and given it to them as a Christmas present. They run up it as if they are mountain climbing and when it falls they jump on it like a trampoline. This is recycling at it's best.

Halloween

Friday was CRAZY around here. I had tons to do, lots of places to be plus some neighborhood craziness I don't even have the time or energy to get into right now. All that to preface my horrible mom award for day because I only got pictures of Max and Grant in their costumes- none of Jack, none of the boys together and none of Nate who, of course, dressed up too (to my credit the camera battery died but still, I should have made sure someone took pictures!)

The little guys dressed up as 3 ninjas:

Max, the camo ninja.

Grant, the red cobra ninja.

Jack, the blue ninja who called himself a power ranger and roared like a lion. Very confusing. (It's a good thing I took this picture of him a month ago so he can be represented.)

Don't worry. I'll make Nate put his costume back on for a pic because I know you don't want to miss him as a desert prince (or as Grant called him: Jesus).

The Coolest

Nate has been reading Max the Indiana Jones books before bed. So, this year for the character parade at school Max opted to be Indy. Max hasn't seen any of the Indiana Jones movies (because of his mean parents who think they say too many bad words and are a little too scary given the melting faces and such) but he absolutely LOVES him. His party in a couple weeks will carry the same theme.

They literally walk up and down the hallways in their costumes carrying their books. They get handed one piece of candy and are judged as they walk by the "secret" judges (which are very obvious since they are the only staff members holding clipboards and writing things down as the kids walk by).

He came home with the trophy for COOLEST costume K-2 grade. Such a cute little adventurer.

Festive Treats

My mom always made holidays special starting with breakfast. I've tried to continue the tradition with my own swing on things. For example, Mom used to make us cream-of-wheat for breakfast with orange food coloring in it. I, of course, opted for sugary donuts with orange sprinkles.

The boys were not impressed. Max tried wiping off all the sprinkles and Grant complained that the donuts were wet. (I also cut Max's PBJ in his lunch out with a bat cookie cutter which I'm sure mortified him but I thought it was clever)

YEARS ago Whitney and I used to make some rockin' caramel apples. This year I tried bringing them back. I forgot how much I enjoyed a good caramel apple. (FYI-the very best caramel apples are sold at a little shop in Greendale, Wisconsin. I don't remember the name of the shop but those apples were enormous and wonderful. My aunt and uncle sent one to Nate when he graduated from college and I just might have shed a tear when it was gone.)

A week in review

Last Friday:


We went to the Fall Carnival at Max's school (the sock hop at Grant's school was the same night but he opted to go to Max's instead which was a great scheduling relief to me). The boys waited for at least 35 minutes to get their faces painted only to come home and wash it off for bed.


Thursday through Monday:

Nana came for a visit. The boys (along with Nate and me) are always excited to see Nana. She read lots of books, pushed lots of swings and did lots of laundry.

Nana and Max.

Nana and trouble... I mean, Grant.

Jack was not in a cooperative mood during our picture taking time. He didn't even want to sit by Nana. I said, "Jack, just grab her neck" (meaning, wrap your arms around her neck). He did exactly what I asked.