A Few of My Favorite Things

My boys are sooooooo good sometimes they shock me. People have asked me how I can get things done with my two crazy, full of energy boys. Many days I can't but also many times they just let me do my thing when I need to and sometimes they even help. It's just what we've always done. The other day for instance, I had pulled out my photography stuff to take some jewelry pictures and I just had it laying out for most of the day going back and forth between it and all the other stuff we did and they didn't even touch it even though parts were on the floor and well within reach. They know not to get into it and frankly have very little interest in most of it. I don't know if this will last but I'm enjoying it while I can.

The other day while I was taking jewelry pictures Levi insisted I take a couple shots for him.

Here is a pen he got out of their St. Patrick's day box of Lucky Charms.
And this is Skipper, one of Levi's 'kids'. That boy is so funny and has each of his animals named and plays dad with them. That or he's the general and they are his army. But mostly he's dad and they are his kids. Max just goes along with it.

Science Day: Plants

I've been trying to make sure I get in some good learning activities for the boys because they just love it and for some reason I feel like I have more time since Max has opted out of taking naps. Last week we did a Spanish day, craft day, science day, helping day and fun day. It's been a lot of fun focusing on different things besides doing the traditional reading and writing which we still do but just add some other things in the mix.

This is our science day, we did a couple of 'experiments' with plants. First we changed the color of celery. Levi kept wanting to know when they would change.
Then we started some seeds to see how they grow. Levi was quite excited about it.
Then he wanted to know when they were going to sprout. Patience anyone? Hey look a hangnail.
Better take care of that.
I'm waiting........
Then with the celery we made some pretty spring flowers.

Babysitting

After our big snow adventure we went off our cousin's Krista's house. She recently had her first and I try to get over once a week to help out for a couple of hours. The boys came with me this time and immediately snggled down to watch some Word World.

They were both very sweet with Abagail, or baby Abby as we call her. While I was giving her a bottle they kept wanting to help hold it and rock her. When she cried they tried cheering her up with some of the toys they'd brought. Max even keep checking on her while she was sleeping during the movie. I have a feeling they are going to be good buddies.
And there she is, all comfy. She looks so much like her daddy.

TGIF

I wish I kept a journal. The only time I was every really successful and consistent was during my mission. Before and after? Not so much. And now, this is pretty much all I have, so bare with me with the ramblings. It's more because of all the things swimming around in my head and need to get out.

-Right now Levi has his best friend in the whole world, Braden, over. He knows Braden from preschool and all the sudden several months back he they really clicked and he is forever talking about him. His mom had both boys over a couple weeks ago and as I was about to leave with the boys Braden beacons me over and says he needs to whisper a word to me. I lean down and he quietly says 'sleepover'. I couldn't help but invite him right then. So we have an extra over for the night. They play really well together and last time we had them over I seriously didn't have to break up one fight. They three (oh, Braden's also Max's best friend too, so he says) work so well together.

-Now normally I had said 'no sleepovers' but I don't think I'm opposed to sleepovers as much as I am to lots of kids sleepovers. One person, who we know well, is fine. Plus it's so much fun to have friends over longer than 2-3 hours.

-Right now they are playing Wild Kratts on the computer. They both (all three actually) love it. Soon it will be bedtime and we'll see how that goes.

-Yesterday I got to go to a RS activity which was really fun. Some days I feel all I do is talk to little kids with little tiny bursts of actual conversations with adults. Then when I get to being around adults I almost feel a little awkward at times because it's like I don't remember how to have a conversation with someone over the age of 4. Any hoo, it was great and it helped me remember what great people I have in my ward.

-Speaking of wards, I also kind of miss my old one. There were just much more people my age and with little kids. Now I am one of the 'younger' adults, which is weird. Most people here have older kids. I almost wish I could attend my old one just to hang with people my age but luckily I still do lots of stuff with them. Most are, after all, only five minutes away. But being in different wards makes it sometimes feels like hours. Luckily half of Levi's class is filled with their kids, I do babysitting swaps with them, and they let me go to their activities when I can.

-What else have I been up to???? I've slowed down a little bit on the jewelry side of things. But it's good for me, I was bound to slow down at some point. Also Jason took a look at taxes and because of what I made last year, despite paying a ridiculous amount of taxes, we still owe over a thousand, which is disheartening especially when we've never ever had to pay and usually got a good refund. Ugh. Dumb taxes. But we're still planning on making a fort for the boys, which is what we were going to do with part of our refund. So I'm working on getting the dinero together for it. It's going to happen, it's going to happen. Well, only if the sun would stay out.

First Week of Spring

So in the first week of spring us Oregonians got more snow than we've seen all winter, at least in these parts. Apparently it was record breaking. I should say so, snow in the middle of march!?!? Crazy Oregon.
Levi could barely contain himself enough to get some oatmeal down him and run outside.

First order of business? Sledding. All around the neighborhood.
Next? A snow man of course. We've been waiting to do this all winter and Levi even picked out the perfect hat. It was left over from St. Patricks day.
Once there was a snowman, snowman, snowman. Once there was a snowman tall, tall, tall.
In the sun he melted, melted, melted. In the sun he melted small, small, small.
And last but not least......time for me to run.


Hours later. Everything but the snow man melted and sun shining. What a crazy day.

Not a Creature Was Stirring

Bedtime is a chore, I'll be honest about it. After being with my boys all day long, cleaning up after them (or what's even harder and more tiring is letting them help), making breakfast lunch and dinner with snacks in between, playing role of teacher making sure 'homework' is done, playing with them, answering a zillion questions, by bedtime I'm ready to be done and have a moment of silence. Because man, those boys keep going and going and going and going. So. much. energy.

Lately for bed Max INSISTS on sleeping on the top bunk with Levi and even if we tell him no, he'll climb up regardless if the ladder is there or not (it is removable). It's a losing battle. So since they sleep together, for an hour to sometimes two, I hear screeching, fighting, giggling coming out of that room until at some point they give in and finally go to sleep. It's bliss. Ahhhhh. And that is one of my favorite times of the day. Time to be by myself, to think about the day ahead, get some work done and to just take a deep breath. At least until it's time for me to go to bed and do it all over again. Don't get me wrong, I love being with them. They crack me up every single day and I get to see them grow up in to sweet, kind, fun, full of life boys. I love that. It's just nice to have some quiet for a moment.

And every night I can't help myself in taking a peek at them, even if Jason's already done it. They are just too sweet not to.

Levi's new best friend who goes with him everywhere. It's an angry bird now named 'bomber'.
And Max surrounded with his friends.

Making Friends

We are at Burger King for part of our 'Friday Adventure' and I'm working on some work things while they play but I can't helping writing about my little guys.

I used to have to talk to Levi a lot about saying hi to people, asking their names, how their doing, things like that. But now in the play place he is (at least in my opinion) attacking all the kids, getting in their faces and asking their names and saying "I'm Levi!!!". Some just ignore is immense enthusiasm but he keeps going , chasing them around and chatting up a storm. Max isn't quite big enough to climb up but follows the best he can.

He found one boy whose about his age. It's so funny to hear him talking to them. "'Is this your second time here? This place is kind of like McDonalds, have you ever been there?"

Now he's acting as the welcoming committee to all, "Hi, I'm Levi. You need to take off your shoes. Is this your first time? This place is fun."

Only a Mother Could Love

This week we babysat our friend Aiden. He was in our old ward and I remember him as one of the funniest kids when I was doing singing time. Basically he made me laugh every week. He's a bit older than Levi but I'm pretty sure Levi loves it because older kids are usually much more knowledgeable when it comes to anything awesome in his world, video games, superheros, legos......you name it.

I took these fantastic shots while we were having snacks. Those boys were making the funniest faces. Man, I thought they were pretty hilarious when I was taking them but looking back at them, they are even better than I remember. Even at their most twisted and goofy, I still love those little faces.
Now everybody!
And since I haven't pulled out the boys craft stuff in a while and Levi begged to make a spider, we did along with some caterpillars. Levi always gets really excited when we 'recycle'.

Fort Fit for the Goodrich Boys

We've been dreaming and scheming of building a fort for the boys for quite some time. We talked about it last year but it wasn't quite time. Jason leveled off part of the yard and made an awesome sandbox instead.

This year we decided we're going to make it happen, at least to some extent. We might have to finish some of in next year, we'll see how things go.

Jason's been working up plans and we've been talking about what we want in a fort, like where it's going to be, how big, what features......it's really fun to plan things out together, at least most of the time.

This week it was actually sunny for a good part of it, so we got to work cleaning the area out a bit and Jason started digging some areas to eventually level things since we are on a nice hill. The boys were outside most of the time and even stood still long enough for me to take some pictures. This is the spot we've chosen, next to 'The Wall' and hopefully within the next 3-4 months we'll have something standing there. They are very excited to say the least. We love a good project.
I love this picture because of the way Max is looking at his brother. I love that sweet smile.
Then Max didn't want any more of it and Levi tried his best to keep it together and prevent Max from leaving and freaking out too much. I love that kid.
Time to dig!!!
So this is the first step of what we have planned (without the 'house' part). It's changed already so there won't be a cut out section on the deck area, but the ladder and slide will be on one side. Also this thing is going to be BIG, wouldn't want it any other way. The way I figure, if your going to do it might as well make it the way you want. I wanted it tall (7 feet from ground to top) so adults, like my 6"2 husband and my even taller brothers can go underneath and there is no head bumping. Also so far dimensions are 10x10 (or maybe we changed it to 10x12.....I forgot). But I wanted the inside 'house' to be big enough for not only the two boys, who are growing by the day, if they wanted to sleep there, but if we had more or wanted to have friends over there would be enough space.

Fred

This is Fred, he's our frog. Jason still has his big tank up and during the holidays he used it more as a terrarium and he grew some beautiful plants, but I insisted we get this little guy. The boys were thrilled despite that in the big tank he was able to hide pretty well most of the time. But in preparation for the tank being sold (or something....) we got a little one for the living room. Now we can always find him, the boys love it.

Hilarious Levi

- "When I grow up I'm going to be a writer. The first book I will write will be called 'Curious George frees all the other animals that don't belong' like in the zoos and animal rescues. It is going to be the best book ever!" He's all about equal rights for animals.

-Me: Levi you were SO good today!
Levi: I know. I just couldn't stop myself.

- I had some dollar bills out I was putting away and decided to teach Levi a little about money values (like 5 $1 equals a $5 bill, things like that). He then began talking about the presidents on the bills so I was showing him who was on what. Then, "Is President Monson on one of them?"

- Max had just confessed to breaking a train. Levi: "I guess Max is in a breaking mood today".

- I've hid a sword we had a while back in our back bathroom, I'm pretty sure because they were fighting over it, per usual. But Max is clever and found said sword to which fighting ensued. "I'm Ammon!" "No I Ammon!" I guess I can't complain TOO much.....

- For some reason Levi has been talking about farting a lot, he does it all the time and many times announces it. Ahhhh, living with boys. After he had farted on me while I was reading a story I told him it's not a very nice thing to do. Reply: "Tooting stinky secret weapon".

-Levi came out of bed after an epic long battle of him sleeping on the bottom bunk, getting rolled on by Max, going back to the top, giggling and fighting. After Max had crashed for the night, he came into my room, simply stated, "Superman can catch bullets". And went back to bed (for a few minutes that is but then he cutely came back in and signed 'I love you'. How can I get too mad at that? He knows just how to handle mom....)

Sunday Haps

Today we went to church without Max (sick) and Jason and I have to admit it was pretty nice. I think I got more out of today's meeting than I have in a long time. It's just putting those two boys together that doesn't make for a quiet meeting. Levi and I sat together and he was so good and reverent, I was extremely impressed. He even asked some really good questions so we got to talk a lot about the sacrament and what it means.

Also today was nice for me because I wasn't conducting or doing sharing time, just helping. I ended up leading a couple songs on the fly but that's nothing big, kind of made me miss doing singing time.

This week was Levi's week to do the scripture and prayer in primary and we had been preparing all week. He had it memorized and only needed prompting with one word but got the rest completely on his own "Oh, remember my sons and learn wisdom in thy youth. Yea, learn in thy youth to keep the commandments of God". Alma 37:35 It was fun working with him on it all week because we had it posted up all around the house, even downstairs with gram so she and my mom could work on it with him. We got to talk about it's meaning a number of times and it was so sweet to see him making connections between our lives and the gospel.

He then did a great prayer and was way more eloquent than he usually is at home, which is usually the same 2-3 lines. My big boy! I was so proud.

And to top it all off he got the golden ticket! One kid a week gets the 'golden ticket' for being the most reverent then gets to go see the bishop, who adores the kids, and get a treat. He was awestruck. Usually kids just smile and take it but he got into a big conversation with the person handing it out, "I tried SO hard today, and before I was so close every time but I kept trying and trying and I finally got it, I'm so excited!!!" He was all smiles.

It was an awesome primary day and at the end of it all Levi and I got to go see the bishop and get his treat. The bishop was even wearing suspenders just like him. Levi was thrilled because he thinks bishop Hayden is one of the coolest, most silliest guys ever. "Silly bishop!" he's always saying.

Then we came home to sweetie Max (who had been sick, not horrible, just bad enough to not be able to go to nursery and infect the ward) and Jason who had been busy and cleaned the house, cleaned off the trampoline and Jason had even started rolls and getting meat ready to BBQ. My awesome boys. And then Max pulled out the cooking spray and told me he wanted to makes something so per the boys request we made brownies from scratch. It was nice. I'm not usually not the best at letting the boys help me cook during the week because I've got so much going on but Sundays are a bit calmer and so I like to cook with them more then. It was fun and they turned out great.

It was a good day.

Birthday at the Beach

It always seems we take a trip for Jason's b-day in January, weather it's just Jason and I or the whole family. Prices are lower and it's less crowded, which is, in my opinion always better.

This time we had a two room condo right on the beach and it was a fun trip. It's actually been quite a while since we did a trip with only us four that wasn't visiting family. Not that family isn't a ton of fun to visit, it's just nice to be us four every once an a while.

Since we were going to Seaside we decided to stop off at the cheese factory, because......ummmm cheese is good. And ice cream.
It had been a while since we went to the cheese factory and the boys were in heaven with the array of ice cream flavors they saw behind the counters. But they ended up with the same favorite favs, strawberry for Levi and chocolate for Max.

Once we got to where we were staying we just hung out, did bath time and snuggled in for a movie.

The Saturday we were there was actually sunny, which is pretty rare in Oregon, let alone Oregon in January. Our first stop was the Seaside aquarium, which is always a hit. The boys loved feeding the seals,
looking at the octopus,
the other fishes
making crayon rubbings,
and touching starfish and sea anemones.
Then off we went to the beach.
Free!!!!!
Not quite so cheery.....But he cheered up and they ended up doing a lot of drawing in the sand.
So did dad.Later we decided to get one of those rent by the hour buggies, which is actually pretty hard to drive, especially with two big boys in the front. Sad to say, we didn't even last the full hour, but I think the boys had fun while Jason and I were huffing and puffing around town.
It was a very fun day, we went to the carousel mall got to ride the carousel, look at the fun toy shop, even picked up a fun flying tree squirrel puppet (they have our favorite kind of puppets which we LOVE), his name is Simon.

And we couldn't go to the beach without going to one of their awesome candy shops to pick out a treat and having an elephant ear. All and all a good time.

Since it was Jason's birthday the boys and I headed off to get some supplies for his big surprise. I explained to both of them that we were going to trick him and give him 2 surprises, a fake one that night with some of his favorite root beer as a gift and a oreo shake, which we did. Then the next morning we got up early, blew up lots of balloons to hang from the ceiling, had some of his favorite breakfast foods, cards written up and even a gift card for one of his favorite stores (home depot). I think we fooled him. The boys were actually able to keep the double secret, secret. They still aren't the best at keeping a secret, it's usually doesn't last longer than a couple minutes before they're spilling the beans.

All and all a good day, but by the next morning the sun was gone and it was back to the good ole' Oregon we know and love, though it was a little too windy for the boys liking. Happy Birthday Jason!