FQA (Future Quilters of America)

At preschool today, we talked about the letter "Q."

For our craft, the kids glued fabric squares on a piece

of paper to make a "quilt."

Here's Maxwell's:

Try to ignore his poor eyes,
(he and Ruby have a cold or something in their eyes)
and check out his quilt. I cut all the fabric out,
but he chose the squares he wanted to use,
and where to put them.
He lined up the ducks on his own.
I think it would look cool in a real quilt!

He may be a natural. :)

Another Sledding Adventure

Winter blues?

Today during lunch, Bentley asked,
"Mom, when can we have a picnic in the backyard?"

"Um . . . when the snow melts."

"Oh." (looks outside at the backyard which is buried in snow)

It's going to be a long month or so till picnic weather.

I Like Pizza - 3

It's been nearly two years since this post about pizza.

Today, Ruby was the little one feeding herself pizza.

She made a BIG mess, and was evidently quite proud of it.

As soon as she saw the camera, she paused and grinned.
I'm not sure it's her best side . . . but what a cutie!

Cheerleaders!

We're in the middle of the church basketball season, and

John had a game this morning. The kids and I went to the

first game, two weeks ago. Last week, they were more

interested in playing at home and watching cartoons.

Today, when John left, the kids and I were still eating breakfast

and in our pajamas, so I didn't think we'd be going to watch.

However, as soon as John left, Bentley and Maxwell hurried

into their room to get dressed. They chose basketball shorts and

two shirts each - one blue and one white so they'd match Dad.

(Dad was wearing the reversible jersey on the white side, so

they removed the blue shirts when we got to the church.)

Jonah copied his older brothers, and Ruby didn't care.

On the way to the game, they practiced cheers.

Bentley was the cheer captain:

"If Dad's the 'Visitors' we'll yell, 'Go Visitors! Go Visitors!

If he's on the 'Home' team, we'll yell 'Go Home! Go Home!"

I told them that sounded like they were telling the players to leave

instead of cheering for them, so they switched to

"Go Dad!" or "Go 1st Ward!"

Occasionally mixing in:

"score a goal!"

"shoot the ball!"

"win!" or

"go white team!"

Here they are, cheering on their Dad:

They might be little, but they're very loud and persistent.
Unfortunately they were unable to distract the other team
enough for John's team to pull ahead, and our guys lost.

I'm just glad the other players and spectators didn't tell us to

GO HOME!

More. Snow.

I know that we NEED THE MOISTURE, but

honestly, it's like the snow. never. stops.

At least the kids like it. :)

Jonah went out this evening to play by himself.

Kind of. Mostly he threw snowballs at Maxwell,

who was standing on the inside of the sliding glass door.

Finally, Max got tired of that game, and went outside

to let his litte brother have it. After a few seconds

of snowball fighting, (and a lot of screaming from Jonah)

they teamed up to fight "bad guys."

As part of whatever war they were fighting,
Maxwell climbed into our planter, jumped out onto the snow,
and biffed it but survived.
Jonah quickly took Maxwell's place in the planter,
where he became stranded.
This is him yelling for help:

So funny.
I'm not sure how he finally got down.
I turned my back for a minute to put the camera away,
expecting to have to go outside to rescue him.
When I looked back out, he was safely on the ground.
Bentley eventually got bundled up and went
out to play just as his brothers came in. Poor kid.
Here he is with a spray bottle, trying to build a snowman. Again.

Meanwhile, Ruby did this:

Whoops.

Honest, I do keep an eye on her. She's just sooooo busy!
(First the tub, now the table. Great.)

Oh, and it's Kenna's first birthday! Happy Birthday Kenna!

Rub-a-dub Ruby

As we finished dinner last night, I asked Bentley if he wanted

to take a bath before his brothers. He didn't, but Ruby

immediately began undressing. She LOVES bath time.

Unfortunately, she kept standing up in the tub,

so we got her out, lotioned her up, and dressed her in her PJ's.

Maxwell and Jonah took their turn in the tub,

and a few minutes after finishing with Ruby,

I heard Maxwell say, "Mom, Ruby's in the tub!"

And she was. The stinker. :)

I'm not sure how she managed to get in there, and without
getting her hair wet. It's a mystery.

Anyway, I got her out (again) and started over.
Once she was ready for bed (again),
she decided to brush her hair.

Like it?

Ruby does. :)

A Brazilian Birthday

Today, my little brother, Mikey, is 20 years old!

I'm guessing he'll spend his birthday walking up and down
the beach looking for people to talk to about the church.
I hope he has a great day and knows we're thinking about him.

You can read about Mike's life in Brazil on his blog.

The little stinker emailed us a couple of weeks ago to say he'd been
transferred, but said we'd have to wait for a regular letter
to find out WHERE he was transferred to!
12 long days later,
my parents learned that Mikey's on the beach in Tubaroa.
(pretty exciting for me because a friend of mine lives there!)
Mikey's amazing and I miss him a ton.

You can read a little more about him here.

AWOL

It bugs me to go this long without posting,* so here are a few

pictures from last Friday. Maxwell had gymnastics, and while

he was in class Ruby and Jonah fought over, oops,

I mean played with their cars.

(they both wanted the little red one)

*I'm going to blame my lack of posting on a
"Primary-induced headache."
(a headache both literally and figuratively)
This "headache" has made it hard to think about (or to notice)
cute or fun things my sweet kids are doing. Sorry.

Coloring Pages by Bentley

The boys are still really into coloring pages.

They love to Google their favorite super hero

to find pictures to color, cut out, and play with.

So far, they've colored:

Batman

Superman

Batgirl

Teen Titans

Robin

Power Rangers

Spiderman

Cars

Shrek

Hannah Montana
Scooby Doo

Knights

and

He-Man (and maybe a few more).

They other day, Bentley Googled

"Bionicles coloring page,"

and didn't find any coloring pages!

He kept asking for different search options,

all to no avail. Finally, he asked

WHY there weren't any coloring pages.

I explained that someone had to draw them,

and the put them on the internet for Google to find.

The next thing I knew, he had pencil and paper

in hand and was drawing a Bionicle.

When he was finished, he asked me to put

it on the internet so Google could find it,

we could print it, and he could color it.

Cute, huh?

So we scanned it in and saved it on our computer.

Today, while Bentley was at school, Maxwell asked

for a Bionicles coloring page. We printed it out,

Maxwell colored it, and here it is:

I've yet to put this or the other four Bionicles Bentley has drawn
on the internet, but he and I are thinking of ways to do it soon.
Maybe a coloring pages blog?
For now, we'll create a coloring pages
folder on our computer so he'll have easy access.

:)

Three Posts in One

Post #1: Bentley is the "Citizen of the Week" at his school.

(Honestly, I don't know what that means or how many of them there

are each week, but we decided to make it a big deal for him.)

He went to the office this morning, where the secretary

took his picture and gave him a bunch of gift certificates to

area businesses. One of those caught my eye amid the

Del Taco, Hogi Yogi, Burger King assortment:

a free kids meal at Mimi's Cafe.

So tonight, we celebrated Bentley's achievement

(as well as posts 2 and 3) by taking the entire family to dinner at Mimi's!

Way to go Bentley!

(Bentley and Max - eating cookies, hence the chocolate face on Max)

Post #2: Ruby is now 13 months old
and a confirmed "walker." A few days ago,
she decided to walk everywhere,
(instead of just walking for attention or applause).
Way to go Ruby!

(our sweet, big girl, Ruby)

Post #3: Today is the 8th Anniversary of the first date
John and I went on together.
Instead of our traditional apple pie, I tried an
apple strudel (same basic idea, right?) from a cookbook
that John got me for Christmas.

Unfortunately, I didn't take pictures of our dinner
with the kids, or our yummy dessert.
Instead, I'll post a picture of our Jonah
with one of the puppies.
We said goodbye to the puppies on Sunday.
They had a great time chasing Jonah around,
eating his shoelaces, and climbing on his back
because he's just their size!

In the Snow He Melted

Our snowman's demise was less innocent than
simply melting away.
Bentley, Maxwell, and Jonah kicked, pushed,
and shoveled the snowman away.

Poor Snowman.

He only lasted one day.

Once There Was a Snowman

Bentley has been wanting to build a snowman for weeks.
Today, we saw him outside, with a snow shovel, trying to
push the snow into a pile because it wasn't
wet enough to roll into a ball. His brothers
had long since given up and come inside to warm up.
John braved the cold and went outside to help Bentley.
They had to use buckets of water to get the snow to stick
together, but they managed a respectable snowman.

(and in case you can't make out the little guy,
here's a close-up:)

Hurray for awesome Dads!

He-Max!

Lately, they boys have developed an interest in He-Man.

And why not? He has a sword and a secret identity.

What more could you want in a hero?

Anyway, for those of you who are "He-Man challenged,"

when Prince Adam holds aloft his magic sword, and says,

"By the power of Grayskull, I have the power!"

he becomes He-Man, the most powerful man in the universe.
Pretty cool, huh?

Today, while I was in the kitchen, I heard the boys running
around in the basement shouting about "having the power!"
One of them, and I believe it was this guy -

shouted, "I HAVE THE POWER . . .
OF THE LATTER-DAY SAINTS!"

I don't know what that means,
but I thought it was pretty funny.

Noon or Night?

It was my turn to teach preschool today, and

we talked about the letter "N."

Maxwell's favorite part was a game called

Noon or Night?

I'd aske the kids when a specific thing was done,

and they would show me the "noon" or the "night" picture.

He loved it.

I loved that (for the most part) there were six attentive

and obedient little ones at preschool today.

Oh, and Ruby. So I guess that makes seven
attentive and obedient little ones.
I'm so glad she was happy this morning.
Lately, she's been a little demanding.

Ruby? Demanding?
Sad but true. :)

Ruby and her sweet friend, Elise.

Happy Birthday Brianna!

(Brianna and Spencer)

Brianna,

We hope you have a wonderful day!
Love, us

Brianna is married to my cute little brother, Spencer.

You can read more about them here.

Check out Brianna and Spencer's adorable samoyed puppy!

Brianna and Spencer have seven more just as cute!

They also have a blog where you can see all eight puppies

in pictures for the first 8 eight weeks.

We are really going to miss the little guys and gals

when they start going to new homes next week.

There are still puppies available,

so if you're looking for a pet . . .

{funny}

This morning, Maxwell was wearing his spiderman costume.

Jonah was in the process of getting dressed,

so he wasn't wearing anything.

This is the conversation that I heard-

Maxwell: I'm Spiderman!

Jonah: I'm not.

Maxwell: Are you Peter Parker, then?

Jonah: No. I'm naked.

Maxwell: Oh.

Goodbye Sunbeams!

Can you see that sparkly ring on his finger?

Today, Maxwell left the Sunbeam class and started the CTR 5 class!
The lucky guy got a shiny new ring to remind him to always
Choose the Right.

In other church news:

Jonah is now the oldest kid in nursery!
Bentley is in the CTR 7 class.
Ruby is still my "helper" in Primary.
Only 5 1/2 months till she gets to go to nursery with her big brother.
The best news of all is that we moved to a new time,
and don't have to worry about nap time!

Ok, so I told John I wasn't planning to post this picture,
but he looks so handsome in his new suit that I decided
I had to share it with everyone.

(sorry honey)

Book Reports - Christmas Edition

Maxwell's "Christmas book" was

A Genuine and Moste Authentic Guide:
Knight: A Noble Guide for Young Squires
The boys have enjoyed reading a little from it each night,

and have only broken one of the flaps in it so far. :)

It's about a Knight who is being held captive and is unable

to pay his ransom. So, he writes this book to his young son

so that when the son is older he can become a knight and

will be able to rescue his father. Pretty cool.

John got Freakonomics for Christmas. He thought it

was interesting, and now I get to read it. :)

Thanks, Mindy.

Ruby's book is Usborne Sparkly Touchy-Feely Fairies.

Her favorite page is one with a white, fuzzy, dandy lion on it,

which is odd because she's usually afraid of fuzzy things.

(For example, her cute pink boots scared her at first.)

I really like Usborne books, and this one is particularly

exciting for me because it's our first "girly" book.

Bentley got a Paper Airplane making book.

It has instructions for making 12 different planes,

and came with some really cool paper to make them.

It was a book fair book and I can't find it to link it. Sorry.

He has been busy making airplanes,

and is toying with the idea of selling them

to friends and family for between $1 and $5.

Get your orders in early. (Just kidding.)

The other night, Bentley was kind enough to read
Jonah a bedtime story,
There's an Alligator under My Bed, by Mercer Mayer.
The kids and I have a lot of fun
reading Mercer Mayer's books.
Especially the ones where little boys are
able to conquer monsters, nightmares, and alligators.

Fun and Games

Jonah got this toy house for his first birthday.
He and his brothers have loved it, and played with it a ton.

Sadly, about 6 months ago the batteries wore out.

(Jonah on his 1st birthday, checking out his gift.)

Which means that Ruby has always known the toy

as a big, silent house.
Until last night, when we finally replaced the batteries.

She's delighted with the music and spent a good part
of the morning bopping away to the "Alphabet Radio."

Her brothers "helped" her play with the house for a little while.
Then, they left her alone, and started a game of Monopoly.

Bentley got Monopoly for Christmas, and since then,
he and his brothers have STARTED many, many games.
I don't think they've finished any (at least together),
but they love counting the money and buying places.

Tomorrow, Bentley will actually have to get dressed as school starts again.
In my opinion, that break was way too short. :)

Cousins and Snow! (what more could you ask for?)

This afternoon, our family was able to see

Ginger, Elliott, and their family.

We bundled the kids up and then put them to work.

They shoveled snow in the driveway,

and made a path to the side of the house.

(Ok, someone had already done the driveway,
and Ginger and John made most of the path,
but the kids had fun even if they weren't slaving away.)
Once they'd finished working, we let them do a little sledding.

Sophie and Ruby spent a little time getting reacquainted.

We had a great time, and only wish we were
able to see them all more often.