A Day in the Making

Last week Levi informed me that it was Big Al's (the ginormous alligator) birthday. His 1st if anyone was wondering. He told me we NEEDED to throw him and all the other animals, who happened to have their birthday on the same day, a party. On the list of things to prepare included a game, food, a card, presents and balloons.

We got some stuff done that day but couldn't finish with everything. Little by little we got all the bits and pieces together and had our day. Location: living room couch. The boys dragged out every stuffed animal we had and lined em up.
First order of business? Sing Happy Birthday. Or scream it.
Such enthusiasm!
For the gift we settled on heart stickers for all. Levi was EXTREMELY excited about the whole thing. Max took his cue pretty quickly.
Fishing seemed like an appropriate party game.
There were a lot of party animals in the crowd. The boys made sure everyone had some food that they made themselves. Mr. Chicken got pancakes. He loved em.Everyone even got a kiss. Every
last,
one. It was a fun afternoon. Levi's even been scheming for their 2nd b-day which he keeps telling me is soon. We're working the concept of years, weeks and months. He'll get the hang of it someday.

Larry 5-0

A couple weekends ago we took a trip to Washington to celebrate Jason's day's 50th (wow, your getting pretty old there Larry! Haha, jokes on me, so am I. Jason found three grey hairs on me the other day. It happens to the best of us I suppose).

It was a fun trip. The boys and I got to watch Richelle frost and decorate his 'Fifty Sucks' cake. The boys loved the lollypop idea. Cake AND candy? Yes please.
Fun huh?

Well Larry is crazy with a capital 'C' and decided to make a huge meal for all his friends and family. I mean, take-a-couple-days-off-work-so-I-can-work-my-butt-off-ON-MY-BIRTHDAY-cooking-for-everyone-FROM-SCRATCH crazy. It was a great spread though. Smoked salmon, turkey, chicken, beef, baked potatoes and chile from scratch, stir fry. Yeah, he's pretty loco. But it sure was tasty, so no complains here. This is how the boys like to party if your wondering.
Game day shirts on, rolling on the floor.

Here's a hug of Levi and grandpa 'Narry'. It's the best I got, my camera was being weird.
Apparently Larry was a root beer chugging champion back in the day so Richelle thought he needed to see if he was still #1.

Note, the guy next to him won, though was was at a slight disadvantage if you notice the size of everyone's bottles.
Max following suit. It's in his blood you know.

Guess who was the first one in line to the cake/sucker table??? He hovered around it during most of the party, biding his time. I guess it paid off because he was the first one to get a slice of cake.
Later that night the boys gave Larry his presents and cards. We tried to have the boys pick out cards in the 'grandparents birthday section' but that's pretty limited and they were of course drawn to others, so we let them choose whatever. Levi picked a transformer one that was made for someones's 7th birthday but we just changed the # and Max picked out something with a tractor I believe.
We had been asking them, especially Levi, for weeks what should we get grandpa. His reply was always "tractor tools and tractor parts". Since we don't have a lot of tractor parts or tractor tools stores around here we ended up getting screwdrivers. Levi got him a set of mini ones and Max got the larger ones. Levi was very excited about the whole thing.
Oh, and when I asked him how we should wrap it Levi insisted on wrapping them in foil. It was actually a great idea because they were able to do most of the wrapping themselves and we didn't have to use tape. I think he got the idea from Sesame Street......
Happy Birthday Larry!

Levi

I can't get over how much I love this boy.
Oh, here's the cute thing he said the other day (he says about 10 things a day that make me smile) but we had just gotten and watched the Living Scriptures DVD of Nephi and the Brass plates. Later he comes up to me and says "When I get to heaven and see Nephi I'm going to tell him, his is the best story EVER!"

FINE!!!!

This was from last week. I don't remember what I was doing but I was probably trying to get something done and it just wasn't working out. The boys were yelling at each other every two seconds, they were destroying the house and needless to say I was very frustrated. Wierdly my reply to it all was "FINE! Let's make some cookies!" I knew that would keep them from killing each other and would contain the mess to the kitchen.
And it did. We had a blast.

Some people have asked my favorite sugar cookie recipe I use so I'll share. I stalk this blog and got her recipe and use it. It is ah-mazing, I promise you'll love it. You know what makes the difference? Almond extract, I love it.

Party On

Levi is planning a party for his stuffed animals. He walked in and told me that today was their birthday and George (his curious George stuffed monkey) wanted a dinosaur party and Chickee (stuffed chicken) wanted a dragon one.

Animals are all set up on his bed and he is preparing some food from our play kitchen and has brought in their party game, the fishing one where you have poles and catch the fish. Now he's working on a card for them.

Max is kind of running around with food his his basket yelling party, party, party!

I'm surprised they haven't asked for balloons yet. It's only a matter of minutes. Better go find some. It's party time!

Tragic

Sometimes I can't help smiling at this crying face, it's just too adorable not too. Ok ask me if I still think it's cute 1/2 hour into screeching and I'll be singing a different tune. I guess things are a bit more pleasant when your not in the thick of it.

Safety First

Even for monkeys.

Simple Joy

Can I just say I love watching my boys play?

Hero Vision

Levi: Mom can we watch Spiderman? (it's the vintage 67' collection, super cheezy and the only superhero thing somewhat age appropriate)
Me: Sure.
Levi: I LOVE Spiderman. He's so strong, just like dad!

I love this age so much, where to them dads are superheros, mom's their best friend, and grandparents are the coolest people ever.

FYE

Typical of most kids (I think) the boys take FOREVER to finish a meal. Levi is pretty good about eating most of what we serve with a bit of prompting on a couple of things but he eats it. Little bite by little bite. Max just doesn't want to eat anything we serve him. Unless it's anything breakfast, hot dogs, rolls, fruit, and some times broccoli. He'll usually eat whatever grandma serves up downstairs, even it's the same thing. It's a phase, this is just a phase. Right?

So lets just say dinners are slow going. Jason and I usually finish up before they've finished 3-4 bites and then we try to not pass out sleeping watching them eat. Many times they end up getting a little silly toward the end, especially Max who opts to eat very little but we stay to be with Levi while he finishes.

What a crazy kid.
"Doing karate."
I couldn't help but put this one in, he looks so happy!!!!

Bored to Death

Everyone is excited about the fall and I kind of am, but at the same time I really miss my nice/semi-nice-and-not-so-rainy summerish weather and being to play outside. I think the boys miss going to the back yard too. Now we're stuck inside (or going to an indoor play place), which is fine, I guess part of what you sign up for when you live in Oregon.

But all that indoor time means we can do more of what my boys love most, crafts!!!
These are definitely my boys.

Spookyness

I know that some people might have visions of me crafting all day laboring on holiday decorations and such, and while I would love to do it, I know that for practicality's sake, priorities and my own sanity, it's just not going to happen. In reality I only do one or two holiday crafts and accumulate a little at a time. This year I only have a couple for Halloween. I did a wreath (I have been working on my interchangeable one and finally just got around to switching out the summer one)
Then I found this idea online, magnetic spiders. SOOOOOOO awesome.
The boys love to play with them, though it took a little bit to convince Max they weren't real.
We put them outside and inside just so we didn't have to stand in the rain while the boys played.
Oh, and I HAD to take a picture of this guy. I had him last year and Max was pretty much oblivious to everything, he was only one after all. This time when the gigantic spider was put up by the stairs he completely freaked out and refused to come down at all. For the first couple of times I had to carry him past to safety until Levi and I had convinced him it was just a toy. SOOOOO funny. I know, I'm horrible but I've got to get my kicks where I can.

FHE

Family Home Evening has always been something I wanted to make sure I did with my kids. We didn't do it much in my family, for a bit when we were little but after my parents got divorced it didn't really happen due to the insanity that comes with a divorce, my mom going to school full time and working full time. But has always been my goal to be consistent about Family Home Evenings.

We've been doing a FHE group this year which has helped tremendously. It's crazy getting things ready but when it comes to getting an activity/lesson/song ready the day of all I have to do is pull it out. There's always something fun, I even use them for other random times throughout the day.

It used to be that Jason and I did the lesson or activity but a couple of months ago Levi started getting in on the action and now we rotate lesson, activity and treat between the three of us with Max as the designated 'helper'. Levi loves it and looks forward to it every week. He loves picking what to do and being able to participate.

This week Jason had the lesson and did a felt story of the first vision. I'm always suprised how much Levi remembers, I don't think I knew that much when I was his age. Max usually just throws random parts on the felt board.
For the activity (mine) we went to the store and got Grandpa his birthday present, the boys were very excited about it. And Levi got to pick the treat. His choice, the ice cream shop of course. It's a great gelato shop close to us. Smart pick buddy. I'm sure am loving our Monday nights.

Strike!

Last week the boys were invited to a friends birthday party and since they are way into bowling, it was at a bowling ally, how cool is that? The boys were thrilled. It was a family affair so Jason and I tagged along. It's been quite a while since we went but the boys caught on pretty quick.
Max, you still look adorable even in a bowling ally. He wanted all the balls and put his face next to where they are spit back out. So I found something to distract him.
Success. Dad showed Levi some techniques that didn't involve thowing the ball but more rolling it. SLOWLY. He still jumped and down nearly every time.
Mr. Max too. He used the ramp thing but didn't seem to mind and was quite thrilled with the idea of shoving it down as hard as he could and then doing a bunch of jumping/dancing moves afterwards as well.
I'm pretty sure they lost, but they had a great time and afterwards even got some amazing cupcakes. Holy cow they looked like they took forever to make. If you notice there are crowns around each one and when we first approached the table Levi's seat had a pink crown. You should have seen is face, he stayed standing back almost two feet before he even got close. I guess even a chocolate cupcake with lots of frosting wasn't tempting enough to have him get anywhere near one with a pink crown. He made me switch it to a green one immediately. Max could have cared less, frosting is frosting to him regardless of color. On THAT he is not picky. Once Levi sat down he quickly noticed a pink star wand was set in front of his table setting. Yeah, that was shoved down towards his brother as quick possible. My funny boy.