House Full of Boys!

I have gotten around to posting pictures of our Arizona trip. Not that today isn't a busy day.....I was up a lot last night with a puking boy and husband, cleaned and disinfected the house and did my grocery shopping (which I don't recommend to do 2 days before Christmas). But the house is quiet (for now) so I'll see what I can post. We were in AZ for Thanksgiving and took a side trip to San Diego. My brother Steve and his family, my sister Andrea and her family and my parents and grandma came with us. We had a blast. First we went to Legoland (I think Jared was the most excited) and then to Sea World. The kids loved the Shamu show and so did I, it still amazes me that people can have such a unique relationship with the whales. Our kids traveled great! We were a little nervous, with this being the first time we have ever flown or traveled 6hrs in the car with all 4 kids. We were trying to boycott the airlines and their baggage fees so we bought two new carry on piec...

That's how much snow fell at our house on Friday. That is the most I have seen since I lived in Idaho 22 years ago. I left for work around 6:30am on Friday with no snow on the ground and some sleet coming down. It really started snowing around 9am and it kept coming down. I had packed a bag to stay at work in case the weather was just too bad to get home. The snow had mostly stopped by 7pm, but there was no way our Accord was going to get anywhere in 12 inches of snow. Thankfully Jared's dad and brother came and got me and I was home by about 8pm. The kids have loved playing in the snow. All of the neighbor kids were out too. We don't have any snow gear really except for hats, gloves, scarfs and 1 pair of boots. We did the best we could with what we had. We shoveled the driveway late yesterday along with the rest of our neighbors, now we are just patiently (or not so patiently) waiting for the state to come and clear the roads. I called this morning and they sai...

While in AZ we took some family pictures. I posted a couple on the right but they are kind of hard to see, so here are a few from the bunch. Our family picture turned out pretty good except Liam has a funny look on his face but I guess 5 of 6 people looking is pretty good. On a side note: **Today the boys have been making me crazy. Our first incident was of Adley hitting his eye on the table - he did it to himself, not being aware of his postion to the table when bending over. Then Adley and Aidan were play fighting (never a good thing) and Aidan ended up falling off the couch and smacking his heat on the metal air intake - pretty good size bump with a few drops of blood. Later, Jared and I were in the kitchen when we heard the boys say, "Let's be ninjas", simultaneously Jared and I both yelled, "NO!". Then of course somehow Adley had his fingers bent backwards by Aidan and then they wanted to play dodge ball. All of this in my tiny tiny living room!!! I ...

Eli running on the beach in San Diego! Jared took this picture and I think it is amazing! If you click on the picture and look close enough you will see that Eli is actually in the air - his feet are not touching the ground. This is just a peak of our trip and I will post more later. I know I have been terrible about posting but with getting back from AZ, working, and Christmas stuff I haven't had the time or energy. Also I updated our family picture on the right to include Liam - it's about time seeing as he is 9.5 mos. More later I promise!

Last Saturday we celebrated the boys birthday. We had most of Jared's family over and the kids had a wonderful time. We crammed an extra 15 people in our tiny house. We didn't do much but let the kids play. I had put together a quick treasure hunt for the kids. We had dinner, opened presents and then ate cake. Here are the pictures: Looking for treasure Following the clues Eli found the treasure Aidan's castle cake Blowing out candles Below are a few pictures of some play dates we went on the last few weeks - one to a goat pasture and the other to hands on and then ice cream. Visiting the goats Adley The kids and their friends After ice cream Eating ice cream - Yum!

Have I ever told you how much I love my boys!!! Well I do, as much as they make me crazy sometimes (all the time), I love them. I love all the funny faces they make, the things they say, they dance and they sing (especially Adley). I can't get enough of "I love you mommy", or "will you tuck me in mommy", or "scratch my back mommy" or "play with me mommy". They make me smile and laugh and sometimes they make me want to pull my hair out and cry (but we won't go there now). For the most part they are all wonderful. With the energy these boys have we will definitely have to be in a bigger house soon (pray please that this happens), we are just running out of space and the noise can be a lot at times. This past week the older boys had birthdays - Aidan turned 7 and Adley 5. Wow, time sure does fly by. Things I love about Aidan: He loves to read and learn about new things, especially science stuff He is a good helper with the baby He wants...

A couple weeks back I took this video of Eli from my phone to send to Uncle Greg. Just thought I would share because I think it is so cute! Sorry its sideways - thats the way I took it with my phone and there isn't a way that I'm aware of to rotate it.

We had a great Halloween this year! Early in the week we carved pumpkins. The boys designed the faces and Jared carved the faces (or used power tools). Then on Friday night I had to work and met the boys at church for the halloween party. Aidan was a Knight, Adley a Ghost, Eli a dinosaur (or an alligator, depends on which mood he was in) and Liam an Elephant (only got one pic of him in his costume and it wasn't a good one, I may cheat and put him back in his costume today for a pic). Jared did a fantastic job on Aidan and Adley's costumes. Aidan's is made from cereal boxes. Then we went trick or treating on Halloween with some friends from work with their kids. This was the first time we took any of the kids trick or treating that wasn't at the church. The kids had a lot of fun despite the light mist of rain which turned into a downpour. They were all very good sports! We had Alien pumpkins this year! Daddy using the power tools - made it so much faster! The...