Debate

Do I let Max go to church with underwear on or not...

He's been doing really well. I love potty trained kids! I have noticed a huge difference this last few weeks in diapers and wipes I buy!! But I guess they are traded up for M & M's! I thought this day would never come!!! Yeah Max!!

And if you get a chance to see "How to Train Your Dragon", you totally should. It was a really cute movie, we saw it yesterday. We saw it in 3-D and the kids loved it, and so did we.

Temple #4

We hit the Mt. Timpanogos temple today. It was a beautiful day, and the kids were really excited to spend some time with their cousins while we were gone. We were short on time (again) so we only did initiatory work. But they were even really busy in that department. Come to find out the temple is always a busy place. But that is a good thing. Rich ended up leaving his names at the temple, and they had to mail them back to us.
Today also happened to be a super fun day because we had free passes to see How to Train your Dragon, in 3D. The kids all loved it!! We left Gavin at Kim's for a nap and took Sam with us. We had to drive down to Provo, after the temple, but it was worth it, and it was such a fun day:)

Unders

Max is wearing Unders for the first time today... Wish us luck!
He was dry all last week except for 2 accidents. I think we are ready :)

Fun Day

-It was Saturday and we got to sleep in!!
-We started swimming lessons today!! The kids have been looking forward to this for weeks. We are all in, Sophie in level 2, Peter in level 1, and Rich and me with Max and Gavin in the parent tot class. We had so much fun and can't wait to keep going week after week.
-Rich made a fab lunch, perfect for the yucky weather. Tomato soup with french bread open face cheese sandwiches, we couldn't get enough!
-We got to ride the train!!!
-We rode the train to see Disney on Ice! We love going! This is the 4th one we've been to. Even from the nose bleed section we had such a fun time! Pictures to come!
-We got to go out to dinner. A treat for all of us, and no dishes to do!
-The kids were so worn out that they went to bed SOOOO easy... Ahh...
-and we are now in the middle of making, and waiting for cinnabon cinnamon rolls :) Yum yum!
-We can now sit back and relax to a netflix movie and spring the clocks forward an hour...
-What a happy day :)

Clone of a Cinnabon
Ingredients
1 cup warm milk (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
2 eggs, room temperature
1/3 cup margarine, melted
4 1/2 cups bread flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup white sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons bread machine yeast

1 cup brown sugar, packed
2 1/2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
1/3 cup butter, softened

1 (3 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon salt
Directions
Place ingredients in the pan of the bread machine in the order recommended by the manufacturer. Select dough cycle; press Start.
After the dough has doubled in size turn it out onto a lightly floured surface, cover and let rest for 10 minutes. In a small bowl, combine brown sugar and cinnamon.
Roll dough into a 16x21 inch rectangle. Spread dough with 1/3 cup butter and sprinkle evenly with sugar/cinnamon mixture. Roll up dough and cut into 12 rolls. Place rolls in a lightly greased 9x13 inch baking pan. Cover and let rise until nearly doubled, about 30 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
Bake rolls in preheated oven until golden brown, about 15 minutes. While rolls are baking, beat together cream cheese, 1/4 cup butter, confectioners' sugar, vanilla extract and salt. Spread frosting on warm rolls before serving.

Funny Quirks

Ever wonder where the funny quirks your kids have come from? I do all the time. My kids always make me laugh and I wonder where they get it from. For example, Max loves to act out his sentences instead of just saying it straight out. I always thought it came from the fact that he had such a hard time learning how to speak. And although I still think that is a big part of it, I caught myself doing it the other day in a conversation with a friend. I totally felt silly in the middle of it when the realization came to me... Was I acting like Max, or is Max acting like me? I was not nearly as dramatic as Max, but all in all, I had to laugh at myself.
This was what Max acted out yesterday.
We were in the garage getting ready to walk over and pick Peter up from Kindergarten. I was getting Gavin in the stroller as Max was wandering on the driveway. He came running back to me and said "Mom, baby spider do that..." as he proceeded to make his hand look like a spider and then he calmly layed on the garage floor and kicked his hands and feet up in the air and got up and said "...do that..." and he ran back and pointed to the spider. It was dead and on his back and crumpled up with his legs in the air. It was so funny!
And last night eating cookies he said out of the blue, "me cookie monster..." and started eating a cookie like cookie monster, with wild hands, crumbs, and a lot of 'yum, yum's.
Seriously, words don't do that kid justice. Gotta love him.

American Girls

I am so proud of Sophie. She and I have been reading the American Girl books for the past 15 months. We have only gotten through the first 3 series, not being as faithful at reading as we have been recently. We have read Samantha, Felicity, and as of tonight we have also finished Rebecca. Sophie actually finished the last 2 chapters on her own tonight because I had school, and she ran down when I got home to tell me the good news that she finished the book! I was a little jealous that she did it without me, so I guess I'll have to read the ending on my own. I have told Sophie that after we have finished reading all 6 books for all 10 American girls that she can get her own American Girl doll. We will be starting Addy tomorrow. I try to have Sophie read the first few pages and then I finish the rest of the chapter. She does really well and only gets stuck on the biggest words. I love reading with her every night we get the chance. She is such an amazing girl. Our reading time turns into talking time, and she and I are so alike. She is the best daughter I could ask for, and I know that we'll always be mother and daughter, but I also feel like she and I will be the best of friends.

Stuffies

This all happened a few months ago, before Christmas, but I thought I would blog it front and center...

We have been collecting stuffies for the past seven years. We have bought some, inherited some, made some and have been given some. This is what it all adds up to...
I was cleaning up the kids room and was grumbling under my breath at all the stuffies...

I thought 'I bet they would never even notice if I packed up a garbage bag of stuffies and shipped them off to DI.' So I packed a bag, but wasn't satisfied. I thought 'what will they learn?'

So I combed through the house to locate every big and small stuffie I could find. I organized them all out and counted each one.

The whole family needed to SEE exactly why I was always complaining about picking up the stuffies, and having too many stuffies.

And I told the kids for each one they wanted to keep, they had to get rid of one.

Of course there were a few off limits for getting rid of. So right off there were several they had to get rid of.

The process started out painful, but got easier and I was pleasantly surprised at how many the kids were actually willing to get rid of. It turned into a game.

I didn't get an after picture, but I think the before pictures speak pretty loudly themselves. And so do these numbers...

12 webkinz

22 dollies

101 beanie type babies

6 carebears

5 monkeys

32 random stuffies

58 disney characters

22 bears

31 I bagged up before the games began

-----

289 STUFFIES in my house

we narrowed it all down to...

(drum roll please...)

122 stuffed animals

Still may seem like a lot, but it is less than half, and it is much more manageable now...

But we have definitely learned our lesson...

Never again.

Max the Chef

I was almost finished folding a load of laundry when Max comes stumbling up the stairs with the bag of 30 tortillas in one hand, and the 2lb pound of cheese in the other. He made his way up to me and said 'ta-teee-ya cheeeeese'. It wasn't lunch time and I knew he wasn't starving. All I needed was 5 minutes to finish the load. Just 5 minutes... So I said 'not yet Max. Please wait 5 minutes for me to finish folding the laundry... He was surprisingly calm about the whole thing and turned around and went downstairs. It was the reaction I wanted, but didn't expect. I took it as it was and finished the laundry. And all seemed well when I was finished folding so I took the liberty to put the folded laundry away. Just 5 minutes more... That is when Max came back upstairs... Empty handed... And looking confused... He said 'my ta-teee-ya all gone?!!!' I was so confused at the statement, but it isn't the first time I've been confused by Max. So I went down with him and fully expected to make him his tortilla with cheese in the microwave for 30 seconds and roll it up so he could eat it after blowing on each bite so it wouldn't be hot.
That's when my nose started working, half way down the stairs. I smelled smoke and my brain added things together pretty quick. He ran ahead to the microwave where the bar stool had been pulled up to and said 'see mommy, my ta-teee-ya all gone!!!' Sure enough you couldn't see it in the microwave because all you could see was black smoke billowing out of the microwave and spilling into the kitchen and leaking through to the rest of the house. When the smoke finally cleared, you could see it all. Max made himself a tortilla because he apparantly couldn't wait for me. There was cheese sprinkled all over the counter sitting beside the opened bags. In the microwave was a black lump in the center of the turntable. No plate. He missed that step I guess. The turn table was so hot I had to use a hot pad to take it out and dump it in the sink. I scraped and wiped and cleaned the microwave and turn table and it still stunk and had black marks. I tried so hard to get all the tortilla cheese mess off of the turn table. It was stuck hard. How long did he cook that thing????? He was so worried about what he had done. It was kinda cute to watch, if he hadn't just ruined the microwave!!!

The good news is that it is just a temporary microwave we have been using on the counter until we could replace our over the range microwave. The bad news is that I don't think we will be using this microwave again, it was pretty bad. The picture doesn't do it justice, and you can't smell it... So we are microwaveless for a little while. We can get by without it, right?