Smile!

Max loves to make his silly face. I love how he insists on using all fingers to help.

Helpers

The boys enjoy helping in the kitchen when they can. This time they are making bread crumbs for me. It let the get out some of that energy and who doesn't love to hit things with a hammer?

Reading

Found this the other day...

Miss Sophie

A while back our cousin Sophie came for a visit. Sadly I didn't take many pictures but we had a lot of fun and even had her over for the night. It was great and she is such a fun girl to be around, the boys love her and were very sweet with her. We took a walk to the school to pick up Levi and surprise him with our little guest, he was thrilled.

Hiding

Max is pretty good at hiding.

Builder Boy

Max is way into tools and helping daddy. So many times when he sees dad working he gets his stuff and starts to 'help'. I am very excited to see what this tool-loving-lego-creator-builder-boy comes up with when dad can teach him how to really use all those tools out there.

Walking Home

On occasion our next door neighbor needs us to walk her daughter home from school (or drive depending on what method I've chosen for the day). It was either rainy or I wasn't feeling well enough to walk so we drove. Despite that, the kids wanted to walk home, but I had the car. Our solution was they would walk by themselves while I, all stalker like, drove behind them. They were very cute and insisted on holding hands the whole way.

Lego Lovers

I remember our PL days (that's pre-lego days) and remember not wanting to get into them, probably in partial fear of the never ending foot pain from stepping all over them, picking up little pieces and trying to keep them corralled in our living room/play room.

Oh, but I am so glad we decided to do it. Lego's are the all time #1 favorite toy in this house and they could play for hours just using a big bucket of Legos. And unlike tv or video games I feel much better letting them do something that lets them use their imaginations and creativity while helping their little hands strengthen their fine motor skills.

They get quite creative and into building these elaborate structures and scenes, some of which they work on for weeks. And while they fight over certain favorite pieces (like that silly skateboard which caused a major scream fest yesterday) they usually get along fairly well and will play for hours on end. So, thank you Lego's, this mother sure loves you.

Oh, random fact. I have my own collection of Lego mini-figures. As we were getting looking into and buying Lego's for the boys I found I absolutely love them and think working for Lego would be one of the coolest jobs ever. To see the creativity they put into making these little Lego guys, which are essential the same but yet so different just astounds me. So I had to get some of my own. Which, in all fairness, I do allow the boys to use on special occasions if they promise to take care of and return them. 

Hace Frio

In the beginning of February it was quite chilly outside but still semi sunny so I made the boys go outside and play, probably cause they were driving me crazy inside, which happens a lot in the winter months. I sunk a peek and this is what Levi was up to:

 

 And I got out the soccer goals for Max which he loved. I think he's going to love soccer this year.

 

Writing

Levi has been working hard on his writing and drawing. He used to be so intimidated and shy away from pretty much anything involving a writing council but now he is pretty confident and draws the funnest pictures. I'm so proud of him!

Bubbles

This was from when we went to Seaside for Jason's b-day. Jason put in a bit too much bubbles......the boys were quite surprised with the results.

Not My Kid

This is pretty much what all our dinners are like. Pure insanity. I'm usually just happy to get everyone sat down to care much about the rest.

Knights and Picking Battles

 This was from a while back but I thought it was too hilarious to pass up. We had our friend Sam with us for the day and Max for some reason decided that he wanted to be a knight in shining armor which he was for the the whole morning. When it came time to pick up Levi from school he refused to take it off. I was tired and didn't want to fight that battle so I rolled with it. He loved strutting his stuff in the school and having everyone look at him and his costume. He ran around the playground and loved every minute, still talks about that day but we haven't done it since.

Abby

We went to go see Seth get his mission call and ended up hanging out with Miss Abby while all the congratulations were going on. She's getting so big and the boys love playing with her. They are quite sweet.

I Love Thursdays

For so many reasons. It's only noon and so far it has been great.

Thursdays are great for us because we don't have anywhere to be (usually) until we drop Levi off at the bus stop at 11:30. Also Thursday is very close to Friday, with is the awesomest day of them all.

There is no preschool for Max in the mornings (only on Monday and Wednesday). I taught this week and it always leaves me kind of drained and my house looking like a tornado has gone through it. But I got to clean it up last night and know it might stay a little clean, at least for a little bit. 

I love that today I got to sleep in a bit more than usual, I was exhausted beyond measure and am starting to get a cold. Jason fed the boys and they did Legos for a good hour and a half so I could sleep. Afterwards they then crawled into bed with me while I read some of our current book, #3 in the Boxcar Children series. Levi loves it. Follow that with laughing hysterically recounting the past antics of my brothers cats and taking turns telling rediculious kid jokes over and over and pretending to be moles in the bed. All and all it was a pretty silly morning. I love those guys.

Max has been working on getting dressed all by himself and he did it for the second day in a row, though both shirt and pants were backwards and he was wearing two pairs of underwear. He was quite angry when I made him take the old pair off.

Their bedroom was quite the mess as they had stripped their beds completely and thrown every single thing on the floor making it impossible to see anything but a sea of stuffed animals and blankets. But they picked it all up fast as they could without any problems (ok, one little one but they got over it without fuss).

We then had a lesson on how to fold towels, hand towels, and wash cloths. While it took a couple minutes to get them into it they ended up doing a great job for a 3 and 5 year old and were quite happy with what they accomplished.

I finally got around to doing a menu for the rest of the month along with a grocery list. I always feel better when I have meals planned and food bought. It just makes life a lot easier when you know what you're going to do come 4 o'clock and while it takes a lot of time to do it is worth it, at least for me.

Anyways, that's my Thursday, so far at least. Mmmm. Love em'. Oh, the sunshine helps too. Nothing beats that. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like living in California, Arizona or Texas with warm weather all around........I'm pretty sure I could handle it.

Jason's weekend project

Jason. I enjoy doing a little woodworking some times. This weekend I was playing around with some new tools to make some wooden toy cars for Levi and Max. They turned out pretty good. I wonder how many successful project it will take to convince Kendra to let me have some more space in the garage for more tools?

Max's boy party

A few weeks back Levi had gone off with my dad and stepmom to take a long ski trip. He got to take ski lessons, hang out with cousins and be spoiled by aunts and grandparents. Unfortunately I wasn't able to go and Max was not quite old enough yet, maybe next year. He was a bit bummed until we came up with the idea of having a boy party.

So we schemed about what food we would have, who to invite and what movie to show. He got to invite some friends from his class that he normally doesn't get to play with outside of church. Usually when we have our 'boy parties' it is more Levi's friends but this time it was all Max.

His food of choice? Pizza of course. And while we waited for the movie trains. They all loved those trains.
                

All and all a pretty fun night with some silly boys.

Seth Mission call

After much anticipation Seth finally got his mission call and we got to be there. (sorry, the pictures are kind of red for some reason....)

And guess where he's going? Colorado Denver North! It is the same mission his dad went to and in this picture he is looking and pointing at his padre. Pure awesomeness.

Congrats, I can think of a better missionary!

Also while we were hanging I shot a quick picture of the gift I helped Krista with for her mom and dad (and I did for all the grandparents in our family). It looks awesome all set up.