Bookworms

I got these cute shots of Grant and Collin reading some books. All my boys love books. Hopefully that love will continue for the rest of their life.

This is a common view for me as I change Collin's diaper. He loves books the most. I spend a lot of time during the day with him on my lap reading books. I love it!! He always takes a book to bed with him and when he's upset he wants to get a book to help him feel better.

Owies!

Poor Collin has a couple big owies right now. He was outside playing yesterday and I heard him crying. I went out and he was coming over with a mouth full of blood and he had smeared it up all over his face. Mouth injuries are scary because of the amount of blood and you can't tell what has happened. It was so sad. Scotty said that he had fallen off of our retaining wall.

Whatever happened it scraped him all the way up to his nose.

He has a nice, impressive fat lip.

His other owie started with a scrape at Grandma Geri's on her raspberry bush. It was covered by his diaper so I put a band aid on it so it wouldn't rub it. All we had was a big band aid. He mentioned a few times that it hurt him but I just thought it was annoying him. Then when I took the band aid off it looked like this- the scrape is better but now he has a big band aid shaped irritation!

I felt horrible! I'm not sure why the band aid irritated him so much. Poor, poor little Collin!!

Scotty's birthday party

We decided to be brave and let Scotty have a birthday party with his friends. I've been intimidated to do this, but decided that 6yrs old is a good age to give it a try- they're not too young and not too old! We waited until last Saturday so that there would be a better chance of good weather so we can have the party outside. We lucked out with a beautiful, non rainy day. We had 8 kids show up and it was a lot of fun.

We started the party by telling them that they were going to become Jedi knights. A very important part of being a Jedi was having good teamwork. So they had to cross the hot lava (grass) as a team without touching the lava. They did an excellent job.

They had to get to Yoda's cave (the clubhouse) and they would find their reward.

In the cave they found lightsabers (made from pool noodles) and then they had to get back across the lava.

They did a great job!

They took some time to do some lightsaber fighting and they had a great time!

Next we went out to the driveway where Miles had drawn two Death Stars with chalk and we had bins of water balloons. (Filling 100 water balloons is NOT fun!!!) The girls had to destroy the boy's Death Star and the boys had to destroy the girl's.

They had so much fun doing this game and Scotty said it was his favorite. It was a close call as to which team won, but I think the girls did! :-)

Miles made a lightsaber cake.

We sang and ate cake and ice cream. I was so glad I read somewhere to scoop the ice cream into little cups ahead of time and store them in the freezer. It was so nice to just put a cup on each plate and not have to mess with scooping the ice cream. The kids all went up into the clubhouse to eat their cake- it was cute but I, unfortunately, didn't get a picture of them.

Scotty's friends gave him fun presents and they were all so cute and fun. For the last few minutes they played Sith tag, which was a version of freeze tag. We also wrapped candy in tin foil and put them around the yard. We gave them their goodie bag and told them to each find 8 asteroid rocks. They really enjoyed that and were done in about 30 seconds!

It ended up being a successful party and everyone had a lot of fun. Scotty loved having his friends here and I'm sure he'll want to do it again next year. Now I know it's not that bad!

While Mom is away...

...Dad sends the boys out in the snow wearing their pajamas to play!

Isn't this cute??

Collin fell down and didn't want to put his hands in the snow to get up, so his brothers came to his rescue. These boys are the best!

Handsome boys

Don't they look adorable??? When I was in St George I bought them these shirts and ties and I think they look so cute wearing them! They weren't too thrilled to wear them but after everyone had them on they admired each other and decided that ties are pretty cool. I love these boys!!!

Muffin Tin Snack

I haven't done a muffin tin meal in awhile so I decided to do a snack tin today. Scotty had a friend coming over after school and I thought this would be a fun snack for them. And hopefully less messy than the popcorn they had last time that somehow ended up all over the basement!

We have bananas, Goldfish crackers, cucumbers and apples. I gave them a sword pick to eat the stuff with. They were super excited about using the swords. It's the simple things I tell ya!

Be sure to check out Muffin Tin Mom to see more fun MTMs.

Sweet Emma

I was so excited about a month ago (I can't believe it's been a month!!) when my friend Sharon's darling baby girl was born. She was born on Collin's birthday, March 12th. So fun!! She's so sweet and she's a true miracle baby. She has such great parents and an awesome big brother. It's so fun to be around a baby girl again. The last one for me was my 9yr old niece Kennedi! Emma just *might* be making me baby hungry!!

Emma with her big brother Miles. Miles has always been so sweet with babies. He loved Grant and Collin and would stop playing to come over and ask if he could give them a "lovey"! He's going to be such a great big brother.

Conversation with a 2yr old

While driving home today right before nap time:

Collin: Mommy, I tired

Me: You're tired?

Collin: Yeah

Me: Ok. We'll go home and go to bed and take a nap.

Collin: No. No. I awake. I awake Mommy!

When I went in to check on Collin one night I saw this. It made me laugh! I guess Collin fell sleep while Cookie was reading him a story!

Rest Time

Today was a big day for Grant. He had his first official "rest time". When Scotty was outgrowing his afternoon nap I had him do an afternoon rest time. He needed some down time and I still needed the afternoon break. He would go downstairs and watch a movie and/or play quietly by himself. It has worked out great and he still wants to have his rest time when he has a day off of school. We have been noticing lately that Grant is still laying in his bed awake an hour to an hour and a half after we put him to bed. He isn't getting up or bothering Scotty- he just lays there quietly. We made sure to take notice of how he goes to sleep when he didn't have a nap and he would be right out. So today I decided to give it a try. It's a hard decision because he still sleeps for two to two and a half, and sometimes even close to 3, hours every afternoon. But I feel bad for him laying there awake for so long at night. He was super excited to be able to watch a movie instead of taking a nap! Everything went fine until about 4:45pm and then he had a huge meltdown. He calmed down enough to rejoin us but he just wasn't the same. I, of course, start doubting the dropped nap, but I have to remind myself that transitions like this take some time and I have to be patient. We'll have to watch him the next few days and if we have a daily meltdown then we might have to go back to napping. If that happens, it will not be a fun day for Grant or for me!