Book Done

I have been wanting to put this book together for a while now. I love looking at all the different pictures of Jesus Christ and am amazed at the talent all the different artists have. I also wanted to have a book for my boys to look at and read during sacrament meeting and learn more about the teachings, miracles, and life of our Savior.

I tried to put the book in order starting with: Creation of Earth, His mother Mary, Learning in wisdom, Christ being baptized, Good Samaritan, Blessing Jarius Daughter

Christ healing the blind, raising Lazarus, feeding 5000, Being fishers of men, Healing the lame, the Beatitudes, Jesus walks on water, the calming of the storm, The last supper, suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane

The resurrection of Christ, Why weepest thou?, Christ visited the Nephities, Good Shepperd, Jesus loves children, Christ blesses the Nephite children

Jesus cares about all our problems and Divine Redeemer.

I was happy how the laminating and binding turned out and hopefully my boys will take good care of this book that I want them to get good use out of!

No it isn't

Mom, I just got mad at my paper because it's not like Clay's. That's why I bited the marker.

Hayden didn't believe me that his face was all blue until I lifted him up to a mirror to see for himself! Classic Hayden!!

Boys love Superheros!!

My boys have always been into Superheros, but lately they have reached a new high thanks to Superheroes Squad Wii Game we can check out from our library for the week. They pick their favorite guy and go to Battle Mode to see who can beat who. Clay is really good at it and I have to try really hard to beat the kid in the game. Hayden seems to always pick Hulk and Clay liked Ironman and Wolverine. It's a game we should probably buy since they love it so much. They also get really excited when they UNLOCK a new character and can try out their moves and powers.So to I decided to suit them up with their own Superhero gear! Hayden wanted transformers since he already had a green Hulk shirt that we made.Clay has really been into drawing lately which is great!! These are pictures that he would draw all by himself. He would pick his favorite page out of a book we had using it as a guide and came up with these! He even put his own Talking Bubble words which usually is Spiderman taunting Green Goblin like "You'll never win" "I'll get you spiderman" "Not a chance" "AHHHHHHH"I told Clay to sign his name on his pictures and that sometimes artist like to hide little pictures in their drawings. To show him what I was talking about I showed him a drawing of the Idaho Falls Temple in my room. Hidden in the river of the drawing there are oxen just like those you would see at a font in the Temple. He thought that was really cool so he hid six spiders in his flying spiderman drawing. His trickiest one was the spider hidden on top of another spider. Genius ;)

4 Things Tag!!

4 things I like to watch:

1: Chuck
2: The Mentalist
3: All sorts of movies; action, comedy, chick flicks, I'm just not a horror film gal I see no purpose in those movies!
4: People, seriously people watching sometime is hilarious! the thought "What were they thinking?" comes to mind alot!

4 Things I am passionate about:

1: My family
2: The Gospel of Jesus Christ
3: Being in a state of continually learning something new or a refresh
4: Finding activities/trips / time to create good lasting memories

4 Words or phrases I say alot:

1: Seriously?
2: Really?
3: I'm good
4: No, not right now

4: Things I learned from the past:

1: It doesn't hurt to try
2: Find the things that really matter and focus on those
3: It is REALLY something to get your feathers all fluffed up about?
4: It is always about serving others around you

4 Places I like to go:

1: Home My own and family
2: Outdoors in nature where you can find that quiet silence (not too many of those here in Chicago)
3: Phoenix, Island Park, Louisiana, Idaho anywhere I can find family and have a party together
4: Temple

4: Things I did yesterday

1: Took Hayden to preschool open house day
2: Vacuumed and dusted, loads of laundry
3: pee diaper, poopy diaper, and repeat
4: Used McDonalds gift cards mom and dad sent for Valentines day

4 Things I am looking forward to:

1: Phoenix Trip in March
2: A hair cut
3: Sunny warm days
4: Nathan to be done with his MBA

4 Things I love about winter:

1: How everything looks frosted with diamonds when the sunlight hits the snow or icicles
2: Snowmen, forts, sledding in Island Park Snowmobiling
3: The, make me feel warm foods: Hot chocolate, steamy soups, fresh bread, hot cookies
4: family game nights together, or a good movie to snuggle down and watch

4 Things on my wish list:

1: Be a bit closer to family
2: Nathan done with school
3: perfect talents better
4: traveling, I will leave it at that I have too many places I want to see to list them ;)

4 people tag

1: Keli
2: Melissa
3: Kelley
4: Tina

or anyone else who would like to share!!!!

Glow N Dark Bathroom

Honestly anything that is glow in the dark is fun to play with, but my boys think it is so fun to make their bath water glow all around them using glow sticks!! Clay told me one time it was like he made his own underwater pool lights for his bath tub.You can get the idea of how fun it would be to go fishing for these bright sticks.

Justin went nuts having his own bath time with all the crazy lights!! He had this routine: Pick up light, say OHHHHH, throw light, which he did over and over again!!

Happy Birthday Justin!!

My Baby is ONE!!! He is such a little man to me and is always so happy!! We made chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting for his cake which we shared with the YW in my ward since his Birthday was on Jan 26th the same day of our YW activity night.

He is a really fast crawler right now and wants to go everywhere his older brothers are! He laughs so hard with them its hilarious. He loves to be all too helpful with my dishwasher and like to pull himself up to alot of things. Justin is a great eater and burns through it all with all of his energy just like his brothers did. He just had a check up and weighed 17 lbs 9 oz and was 29 in long, his perfectly healthy and again my happy babe I couldn't ask for anything more! Justin's personality is all about what is funny. He blows raspberries and then laughs at himself and then blows more raspberries followed by more laughter. It is so funny to watch, not too funny in the middle of sacrament meeting, but he can't help it. He also likes to growl alot like he is ready to wrestle, again during church not so cool but no one can reset his sweet smile. I love seeing all the differences in each of my boys and how important they all are to our family.

Since Justin did just turn one I have been going through his room, checking on which clothes he could fit into soon and which he had completely grown out of . Here is Hayden refusing to believe me that he can't fit into these overall pants any more. And he didn't believe me until he put them on himself and was trying to pass them off as shorts just to prove his point. Seriously he looked so goofy especially after he gave me a few funny poses. That Hayden, he has to figure things out by himself or he will be in denial for a long time. I think he has a stubborn/determined part to his personality and like alot of things that can be both good and bad!!

Happy Birthday Hayden!!

My spunky Mr. Hayden is officially 4!! I tell ya this kid just makes me laugh and laugh. He is such a determined kid and wants to be independent with everything he does, which I have to reel him back in sometimes (Ok all the time) and say "No mommy HAS to help you with this!!" He wants to please people and make them happy. And that is why sometimes when eating I tell him to take three more Hulk Bites (meaning very big) and he does it and I say " I didn't see, show me again" and he happily will eat three more big Hulk bites after which he says, "All done" and I say, "I don't think that last bite was big enough you better do one more" which he does and I tell him, "Good job you can be all done thank you" and he smiles takes his all EMPTY plate off to the sink and goes to wash his hands!! I hope this can work for a while more at least ;) For his birthday we simply had a party with our own little family and the boys had a great time with it. I told Hayden to go find all the Spiderman toys and Spiderman cars and anything that he wanted to decorate the table with. He thought it was cool to decorate his chair.

His cake really was last minute. I barely had enough powdered sugar for my frosting recipe but ended up washing alot down the drain, who knows why that is I guess I didn't make as tall a cake this time. Hayden kept asking "What are you doing now? I don't know mom, that's not like Spiderman's head." Then when I outlined the eyes he said "Oh! There he is, yeah right there"
I tried to apply lines to the red frosting for his webby look and you can tell and little bit, but I really need to get better cake decorating tools I don't think 2 tips and zip lock baggies can work all the time.

While I was finishing the cake Clayton was being sneaking and drawing up this poster to surprise Hayden with. His top secret place for coloring was in my coat closet siting on the floor with a little desk to color on. What a nice big brother!

Nathan came home and surprised the boys with, what else a McDonald's Happy meal. Honestly both boys love Wendy's better mainly because the hamburger (Jr bacon cheeseburger) comes with a tomato on it and they take it off and eat it first then the rest of the hamburger and also Wendy's has frosty's. But McDonald's is special to them because they go there all the time with Grandpa Ron and they usually have pretty cool toys. My boys know we don't always get happy meals and my deal with them is, we get a Happy meal for something special or if the toy happens to be really cool that they love, I mean really love because usually it's not and the boys are good about waiting until there is something worth buying a Happy meal for.

Hayden had fun opening presents, eating cake along with his fries and playing with the ever supreme Happy meal toy. Hayden loved all the calls he got and had fun saying "I'm four" to everyone. Also now that he is four, Hayden truely thinks that he is stronger and wants to take on Nathan at a long wrestling match which he tells me he is going to win!! Love the kid like crazy and am so glad he had a great special day.

Christmas down south!

South as in Louisiana! Nathan's parents moved there this past year and we drove down to spend the holidays with them, Kristy,Scott, Shayna, Ben and Edlin. We missed Kacie Chris and Jordan but maybe next time we will be down there with them. It's about an 15 hour drive down and we left early in the morning Christmas eve, which happens to be Nathan's birthday. It rained the whole way down...the whole way down! There were a few times Nathan had to slow down because there was the risk of hydroplane from all the water on the roads, besides that the ride was fun and the boys were great, we were set with snacks, games, and movies to keep them busy and Justin didn't even cry one peep for the entire trip. He is such a good boy!Downtown New Orleans!! Clay was picked (by my push of hand) to be part of an music act on the streets of New Orleans. I thought he would have so much fun because lately he has been pretending to play guitar and be a rock star but I should have remembered that Clay and his personality is not a look at me, see what I am doing kind, but he was a good sport about it all, only admitting two hours later that it was "OK" and "Kind of fun ".

This guy was hilarious!! He was completely silver and making funny poses and moving at just the right time to spook people. There must have been a big group of them spread out throughout the streets because the golden guy was good too. The boys were mesmerized and got to say "Hi" to him. At Uncle Scott is enjoying his Cajun corn on the cob! I really loved the look of the Spanish railings all decorated with holiday decor. A Big thanks to Diana and Steve for their generosity and such a good time. Steve recently had surgery on his foot and was in crutches but still took us downtown and showed us the great flee market where I found a new hat, wallet, and watch! Nate thinks flee markets are filled with a bunch of junk, but I had a blast. It's like treaure hunting, and thanks to him I found some treasures!!

Diana took the girls to visit the DESTERHAN PLANTATION. I enjoyed our tour guide who was dressed to kill (literally) in the Union civil war uniform. The covered porch was amazing and I learned alot on the old southern days and am astonished on the things that were constructed by hand and made so beautifully. The grounds had huge 200 year old trees that were would be excellent swinging trees.

Everyone couldn't get enough of the beautiful pool, equipped with a diving board and all. It also had a jacuzzi connected to it. Steve was great and had it all heated for us and after a good dinner it was great to get in the hot tub and soak for awhile, and gear up for some mad catch phrase games that lasted until 1 and 2 in the morning.

These boats were huge and Hayden was sure it was not going to fit under the bridge. A good perspective lesson for him as he watched it go under with no problems.

Diana took us the Storyland Park where the kids had alot of fun going around figuring out what story belong to each display. Their favorite was the dragon Slide that was really fast, which is way it was their favorite.

Fireworks are really big in Louisiana and Diana and Steve had their own that we were able to do in the driveway. Fireworks are always fun I have a blast every time we have them.

So much more that we saw and had fun with. Good to be with family, The boys had so much fun with their cousin Shayna. Many thanks again to the Cottrell's for having us and making our Christmas in Louisiana so great. We love you tons and can't wait to see you again.

Happy Birthday Clayton!!1

This last Saturday was Clayton's 6th birthday!! He is such a good kid and a great helper to me. December is such a crazy month to try to do any type of birthday party with every ones busy schedules so Clay came up with this idea on his on, all he wanted was to see his friends to play and get a Happy meal. Awesome. This turned out well especially since one of our friends (Keli and her awesome family) will be moving away soon and Clay wanted to play with their really cute girls before they left. Being the ladies man that he is heheheheh. We did this mid-week since the weekend is always busy, and I get out of making a meal.

December 19th
Since Nathan just got done with his finals he had Saturday free and clear to celebrate Clay's day anyway he wanted. Clay picked to eat at Wendy's, he really loves the junior bacon cheeseburger, go bowling, and spend the ten dollars he great grandma Barbra sent him. Clayton has such a good personality. And if he feels like he has done something wrong it really bothers him and he tries hard to make it right. He is sensitive on things like saying sorry for being sick and will try really hard to keep things in his belly and not throw up. I told him he never has to say sorry for being sick, it is something that just happens sometimes. He aware of each person in our family and tries to do little things to make someones day. He is the perfect person to call when Justin is having a little fit and needs some cheering up, works every time!
I feel very blessed to have a great boy like Clayton as my son! Happy birthday Clay!!

Teacher Gifts?????

I have no idea what the whole teacher gift protocol is, especially here in the Midwest where there is a whole range of things given, but this is what I came up with. An empty can decked out with scrapbook paper and filled with holiday candy. Clayton helped with picking out the paper and gluing it all. He thought the "Sweet Teacher" part was cool. Oh, and the other cans, since Clayton only has one teacher, is for some of our neighbors.