Friday, December 20, 2013

Perfection


Doesn't this ball of play-doh look perfect to you?

My sister-in-law sent me this awesome article last week


I sure needed that reminder. 

I've tried really hard over the last week to not try to have everything be so perfect. 
It doesn't matter to my kids if we have a main dish AND side dishes for dinner.
It doesn't matter that my oldest spilled water all over the kitchen floor. I mean, it's just water, right?
It doesn't matter that my middle and his friend mashed 24 cans of play-doh together in an attempt to make plates and plates of cookies.
It doesn't matter that my baby stayed in her pajamas until noon the other day.

All of that would normally bother me. A LOT! But I'm trying really hard to be more loving, understanding, and patient with my kids because they are the ones who need it more than anyone else!

I have to tell myself several times a day to STOP! Stop before I say a condescending word. Stop before I punish for something trivial. Stop before I expect a perfect outfit, a perfect dinner, perfect homework, etc.

So, the blog can wait a few more days, or even weeks.

I'm creating happy memories with my fam!
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

Thursday, December 5, 2013

So Sad!

My uncle and his family woke up to their house engulfed in flames early this morning. He has 4 young kids and as we all know, Christmas is in 20 days. If you feel so compelled, here is a link for donations. 

https://www.giveforward.com/fundraiser/cbl3/moore-family-house-fire?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=fb_share_stream.share&utm_campaign=BA_FBshare&og_action=hug&t=3&fb_ref=1632125

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

The Week of Thanksgiving

After Gage's basketball game last Saturday the girls headed to Bauman Farms to pre-order our Thanksgiving pies while the boys headed home to start getting the Christmas decorations out. I was trying to take a picture of Miley on this stuffed horse and some awkward man came up to us and asked if we all wanted to be in the picture. Uh, not really, but I didn't want to make him feel bad. It turned out pretty cute!

This is what we came home from Bauman Farms to see. . . yes, that is my 4 year old on the roof. I'm surprised someone didn't call CPS on Shaun! Haha!

We had some friends over to watch the BYU vs. Notre Dame game. It was Gage's little friend's birthday so Gage picked out a little gift for him and made him some cupcakes!

During the football game, my friend and I discussed reupholstering my chair. It is so worn out and gross, so I figured I may as well attempt to reupholster it before we just get a new one. (more on this at the bottom!)

The debut of our house! It's just missing the inflatable Santa.

On the Monday before Thanksgiving Gage had school but Maisey didn't, so after we dropped him off we headed to Panera Bread for breakfast and to do a little shopping. Maisey picked out her teacher's Christmas gift and a little baby gift for her teacher (she's having a baby next month).

Maisey also picked out a couple of things for herself. She had her parent/teacher conference this night and was excited to wear this new shirt to it!

 On Tuesday I did something I swore to myself I would never do -- I wore brown with black. This has been a major pet peeve of mine for 20+ years, but I always see people wearing camel colored boots with black and it helps to lighten the outfit a bit, so I tried it out. I'm still not sure about it.

Also on Tuesday, we visited Grammy for lunch at her school! This is one of my kids' all time favorite thing to do!

After we got home from Grammy's school, Maisey had some friends over for a play date. They acted out the whole Cinderella story for me and it was so cute!

On Wednesday, we headed back to Bauman Farms to pick up our pies and it was a nice morning, so I let the kids play for a while.

Then in the afternoon we got ready for our family pictures. I was worried Gage was going to have a major meltdown when he saw what I wanted him to wear. He despises clothing with buttons: shirts, pants, jackets, anything! His jeans and his shirt had buttons. And he's also not a big fan of ties, but he got dressed like a champ and didn't put up a fight! Whew!

And the miracle continued during family pictures as well. They all did such a great job! I can't wait to see them!

I got up early Thanksgiving morning to get the turkey ready. After I got it in the oven, I headed to pick up a paper and a drink to get me through the day! :)

We ate at noon which was great timing. Lunch then naps? Sounds great to me!

Grammy joined us for the day, and even Scott stopped by for a bit.

We made leaf shaped sugar cookies because some of us don't like pie.

But some of us do like pie, and they were delicious!!!

Then we sent Daddy down to sit in line at Target for the evening to get us a new TV! He was successful and was back home by 9 pm. (Just enough time for my mom and I to go back out!)

Right after Shaun left, the kids were all in their rooms resting and my mom and I were enjoying the ads when we heard a loud explosion. We ran outside and saw our next-door neighbor's garage on fire. He grabbed his hose and yelled to me to call 911. Black smoke was billowing out and it was really scary. The neighbor managed to put most of it out with his hose before the firemen came. They pulled tons of charred possessions from the garage and found that it was a remote control car battery that exploded and started the fire. The police officer came over and talked to us for a few minutes. He said when the call came in he was sure it was a deep-fried turkey gone wrong. Haha!  It definitely made for an eventful afternoon.

On Friday (with my Black Friday hangover from shopping all night with my mom) we headed out to get our Christmas tree. The kids love riding on the tree cart.

Us in front of our tree! 
(the lighting is really weird, sorry.)

Miley has become very possessive of everything and kept thinking she was the only one who could pull the tree cart. Luckily the tree wasn't on it yet.

Once the tree was cut, we let Gage do the honors of pulling it all the way back up to the front. He definitely used his muscles!

After the tree was all loaded up, we went for a "train" ride around the farm. And by train ride, I mean we were pulled by a 1930's tractor that kept stalling and lurching. It wasn't the greatest, but the kids had fun, and that's what counts right?


On Saturday I decided to reupholster the chair. I just wanted to get it done and thought I could have it done by nap time if I worked all morning. Haha, that was a mistake. I worked on the darn thing for more than 10 hours and it still isn't all the way finished. And, I'm the world's worst sewer (like my mom had to come thread the machine for me!!), so next time I ever mention to any of you that I am considering a project, please talk me out of it and remind me about my chair. Thanks!
 This is the top! That's right, can you see FOUR lines in it? And it still doesn't fit right! 

 I ended up putting some velcro under the head rest thing, to make it look more defined. Well, that shortened up the cover by like 4 inches! So I ended up having to sew more fabric on to the bottom, which was a headache since it is a very particular pattern and I had to get it to match up just right. 

My mom is coming over tomorrow night to help me finish it, but this pic gives you an idea of the finished product. I can probably live with it for another year or two, as long as nobody sits in it! :)

I hope you all had a nice week of Thanksgiving!

Monday, December 2, 2013

Gage's Last Basketball Game

Gage's last basketball game was the Saturday before Thanksgiving. I broke out my DLSR to take decent pictures at the game and left it on the counter. When I downloaded the pics to the computer I found these gems. Apparently Gage and Maisey had a little photo shoot before the game!



Back to basketball! :)
 Gage played really hard the first half of the game, but was discouraged he still hadn't made a basket. It was his last game and he just had to make one!

 This video seriously makes me tear up every time I watch it. I love his little victory dance at the end and he tells everyone about his basket that he scored! He also scored another one before the game was over!
(Excuse my excited "mom" scream!)

 Grammy was there for his last game! He was so excited to have a fan!

 Coach Shaun and his elephants!

 The Elephants!

 He loved the snacks!

 And so did this sassy girl!

I sure do love my boys and I love that they both had a great time this basketball season!

Friday, November 22, 2013

Student of the Quarter, Harvest Party, and Randoms

Maisey was student of the first quarter again this year! We are so proud of how hard she works and how well she behaves at school. Her school had a celebration at a restaurant in town for her and her fellow students of the quarter.

 This is Maisey's teacher, Mrs. Watts. She is seriously AMAZING! Maisey loves her because Mrs. Watts talks fashion with her. I love her because she is so positive with all of the students and really knows how to make learning fun!
Mrs. Watts talked about Maisey for a few minutes at the dinner. She told every one how Maisey can read 200 words per minute! She said the next fastest student reads 129 wpm. And the goal for the end of first grade is 120 wpm. She also talked about how she can pair Maisey up with any student in the class and how Maisey can help her partner stay on task. 

We stopped for ice cream sundaes on our way home from the dinner!  We seriously love this girl so much! 

 Today was Gage's Harvest Party at school. 
They were short volunteers, so I said I could come in as long as I could bring Miley with me (usually they don't like you to bring in other kids). They gladly accepted my help.


 Miley loved being able to tag along with big brother. She sat right behind him for circle time. It was so cute!

 Gage during play time!

 Gage made a beautiful tree (this was the station I was in charge of).

 I have 104 Miley selfies on my phone. 

And after the Harvest Party was over I stopped for some treats to regain my sanity!!! 20 preschoolers and a strong-willed toddler is a lot of work! :)

Other randoms from the week:

 I taught art in Maisey's class this week. This time I left Miley with a friend and it was wonderful!

 I was trying to clean out my closet and let Miley sit in my sink and play. Apparently if you play with bronzer like it is symbols this will happen. And apparently, if you don't wash it out of your sink for a few hours it will stain it. Oops!

 My week is not complete with out a Panera stop. This time it was for a asiago breakfast sandwich. YUM!!

Our week would also not be complete without Gage ruining something. Luckily this week it was a $3 paci and some silly putty from a birthday party goodie bag. It's amazing how dang sticky silly putty can be. We only have two paci's left, and when they are gone, THEY ARE GONE!!