Christmas Weekend

We had a GREAT Christmas. Christmas Eve we went to my parents house. Marisa came with her kids. Mark and Joseph diapered into his room and worked on his bike. They were having a great time.

We ate dinner and just hung out. Then we did the Christmas story in Luke and I let my family do their Christmas Eve presents. Everyone else had already done theirs. I made Mark and BBQ apron that said I (picture of a hamburger) cows. He loved it. The kids got pj's. Lydia got a pink batman shirt (cause batman is her husband you know) Arissa got a pink shirt that said Jigga cause that is what we call her, And Danton got a motorcycle shirt. I also made them pj pants. And when Danton opened his jammies I said "What is it Danton?" Expecting him to see the motorcycle on his shirt and get excited. But instead he said (excitedly) "CURTAINS!" I used the same fabric on his curtains that I made his pants out of. It was so funny.

Christmas morning Daddy usually gets up with the kids and then they Christmas carol me awake. It's fun. This year I heard Danton wake up, so it woke me up, and I went in Lydia's room just as they were starting to sing. The only person left was Arissa, so we all caroled her awake. Then Daddy sent them running in. They both were attracted to the bike cause it was not wrapped.

Then I showed Danton his presents. L got a bike, a blanket fort kit, Batman, and a big mirror from D. D got his big motorcycle, a big woody,

the movie Cars, and a cool race car from L (which the doors broke that day, so we returned it and got him a blue angel plane. No moving parts) A got board books,
a little penguin hat, and a super soft elephant with a blankie.
Mostly she liked the paper.


Mark and I decided not to do Christmas for each other....but I can't resist. Bedsides, we decided that in Sep...I had his gift since July. :) I got him a nice watch, and had Dad engrave it for me. Then I wrote him a letter explain exactly what I meant by it. I wasn't sure how he would like it, but he loves it.

As we were getting the kids ready for church I finished brushing L's hair as she was holding her new batman. She said in a low voice "Your hair looks pretty" Then in her regular voice (with a little giggle) "Thanks Batman!"

We did see my parents for a bit. We stopped by their house before church so Dad could size Mark's watch band.

We went to church and it was AWESOME. I always love the music on Christmas. We sat infront of the Schweigart family. Danton LOVES them. He always wants to go sit with them. So he spent the meeting going back and forth between us and them. It was funny though, I discovered that he can't say their name. He kept saying "I want to go to Sister Garden!"

Then we went home and enjoyed a quiet morning/afternoon. At church we discovered that D had pink eye. So we called some siblings, and turns out that Marks sister had some eye drops for it, and Christmas dinner was at HER house. I think we caught it early cause it's pretty much gone now.

On our way to his sisters we heard D in the back. He was playing Church. Talking quietly pretending we were at church. "Guys we have to be quiet. I'm going to go sit with Sister garden" He said a few other things, but now I don't remember what they were.

Dinner with the Rones was fun. Kids played, we joked and chatted. The food was great. Then after dinner everyone opened presents from Granny and Papa. Kids got some nice new clothes, Mark got a fly reel, and I got a rockin sander! YES!

Mark had Monday off too, so we just stayed home and chilled out. I actually had to put a few finishing touches on L's tent kit, and make a few repairs on D's motorcycle. I spent all day sewing, and Mark was great to take care of the kids while I was working.

It was such an awesome weekend. I love my family. The kids did and said few other things that made me laugh, but I can't remember what they are now. I'll edit and post them later if I remember.

EDIT::I remember the other thing. I got Sweedish Fish for the kids stockings this year. When Danton pulled them out of his stocking he said "Wook! It's baby crappie and they are SLEEPING!" And they have called them crappie ever since.

LAST years Halloween

Last year my camera was broken on Halloween, so I had a friend take my pictures for me. She does professional photography and offered to take pictures of my kids any time. We did Peter Pan. Mark was Mr. Smee but he didn't come with us when we did pictures so I didn't get a picture of him. Basically I found a blue and white striped polo shirt at a thrift store that looked like Mr Smee, and I already had a red pointy stocking cap, and he wore his jeans. Easy, but it was awesome with the 4 of us together.
She just took some real quick snap shots, but I LOVE them so much.

"I got you now HOOK!"

And in True Danton fashion he has an awesome expression

Halloween Costumes

ok, So I took a TON of pictures of Lydia, a Lot of pictures of Arissa....and like 3 of Danton. But he didn't really want to do pictures, Lydia LOVES doing pictures. so these are my favorite ones of Lydia:

I found the Pascal print out on line from Disney for free,
it was a fun addition to the costume.

This is my FAVORITE. I told her to be a princess.

Danton, I learned, does not really like costumes. Well actually he doesn't like the extra stuff. First was was going to be lightening Mcqueen. I though EASY! He has a lightening mcqueen hat that has his eyes on it. So I bought him a red hoodie and put a yellow lightening bolt across teh front. He can wear his hat and jacket, BOOM, costume done. But he wont wear his hat for more then a few mins. He wore that costume to the bon fire last week, at grandmas, but he didnt' even take his hat out of the van.
Then he wanted to be buzz lightyear, since I don't like spending $20 or more on cheaply made costumes, I usually make them...wasn't going to make a buzz lightyear costume that late in the game, I talked him into woody. Went to a thrift store to find a yellow shirt, NOTHING. But we found a batman costume for $5. But he didnt' like it cause it was too big.....so for the ward trunk or treat he wore his woody pj shirt, and jeans and a cow boy hat, only he didn't wear the hat. And yesterday we put on his superman pj's. Best costume so far. Should have done that in the first place!

He liked to fly around like Super man.

Arissa was easy. I made a monkey costume for Lydia's first Halloween, And It fit Danton, and I pulled it out again for Arissa. Fit her great too!

Isn't she so freaking cute!

This one cracked me up cause of the little blue underwear and bare legs in the background.

This is like the only one where you can see her eyes very good

This is my favorite:
She has BECOME the monkey.

catching up

(this picture is about a month old)


Lets see if I can catch you up on what I've been doing lately. The biggest thing has been our Adventures in Potty Land. Now I always thought that an ADVENTURE was supposed to be FUN....That my friends, is SORELY incorrect. I put D in unders the first week of Oct, only diapers for sleeping at night till he gets the hang of it.
For the most part he has done pretty good, but unfortunately he pee's most of the time, so when I say "for the most part" I'm refering to going pee....and that's all. Poop is a whole nother story. So really for about 3 weeks he would poop in the potty about 1/2 the time and in his unders the other 1/2. And let me tell you, this boy is a POOPING MACHINE! I had a total of 3 days in the first 3 weeks that I was not cleaning poop out of unders.
Then I bought him a huge hot wheel car. This car is like 2 1/2 times the size of a typical hot wheels. To get his car he had to go an entire day with no poops in his unders. He did it the FIRST day. (he wasn't in the same pair all day, but he still earned his car cause I didn't have to clean ANY poop) so then if he wanted to keep his car he had to put all his poops in the toilet. next thing I knew it was 5 DAYS LATER, and STILL no poops in the unders! YAY something that actually worked. Then he pooped in unders while playing at grandmas. Now he has to stay in the same unders all day to have the car.
The deal is after 7 days of no poops in unders (I'll let a few pee accidents slide if they are minor) then he gets a trip to Bass Pro by his self with Daddy in Daddy's TRUCK. AND he gets his potty party. We will have cake and invite cousins and I'll buy him new unders with lightening mcqueen and the motorcycle with buttons.
We are so close. We went from 3 clean days in 3 weeks, to only 3 times pooping in unders ALL week. Not bad!

This picture is about 2 months old I think. but I love it. I got the kids all dressed for church and then realized I put them all in green. :)

Lydia was Rapunzel for Halloween. I haven't taken pictures yet, but they are going to go trick or treating today and I"ll take their pictures then. Anyway if you saw on FB I made Lydia a Rapunzel wig. I thought it was cute but I didn't think it was much of a big deal, just a necessary part of the costume. But apparently, when I showed people, it IS a big deal, everyone has been so impressed with it. So I opened an Etsy shop and ended up selling 7 for $45, and then the last one, since it was so close to Halloween, I sold for $50. I seriously sold 8?!?! for almost $50 a piece! They cost like not even $5 to make. Everyone at the ward trunk or treat was also impressed, asking me where I got the idead how to make it. ....ummmm....I don't know. So it was fun to have everyone so impressed.
Lydia of course LOVES it. I wish she would let me make her a new one. It was the first one I did and I can make them a LOT nice now. Anyway I'll post costume pictures soon. She is so funny. Her whole persona changes when she puts on something beautiful. You can see how beautiful she feels.

A couple weeks ago Lydia did a magic show with me for the Activity Day talent show. I'm one of the leaders and I wanted to do something fun in the talent show for the girls.

Trick 1) Lydia takes a drink of water, and makes it come out of my mouth
Trick 2) Lydia blows up the balloon through my ear
Trick 3) Lydia's head gets stuck to my arm
Trick 4) Lydia makes me levitate

We only decided to do it the day before. Lydia LOVES to learn. She always says, "Lets talk about..." And when she says that, she wants to know all the details you can tell her about it. Well the day before the talent show she said "Mom, lets talk about plays" She saw her Uncle Hyrum in a play this spring. So I told her all about auditions, casting, rehearsals, and performances. She loved it. She wanted to do a play, so that's when I got the idea to ask HER to help with the magic show. ...but we called it our play. She is such a HAM, she LOVED being on stage infront of everyone. It was so fun.


Arissa is getting so big she is a week shy of 6 months, I can't believe it. She has the biggest cheeks, and the fuzziest hair ever. She is working on crawling and we are betting she will have it down by the end of the week.
She is much more calm then the other two, but she LOVES watching them. And Lydia is the funniest person Arissa knows. Lydia can get her cracking up better then anyone else.

Can you guess what she is looking at?
...FOOTBALL. She is such a tv bug. Daddy thinks it's great that his little baby will sit and watch football with him.

Cinnamon Truck

Lydia: Mom, Israel is in the front yard
Danton: Yeah, and we can wide his trucktor
Lydia: It's called a FOURteen wheeler Danton. Mom can we play with Israel and he can give me a ride on his FOURteen wheeler?
Mom: You can only play with him if he is in the back yard, you can't go to the front. And it's called a four wheeler, not a fourteen wheeler. There is a big truck called an 18 wheeler. It's a Semi truck.
Danton: A Cin-men Truck!! I wanna wide on a CIN-MEN TRUCK!

Show me how to be reverent!

Danton LOVES to say prayers. But that boy does NOT know how to hold still. We have to remind both kids before every prayer how to be reverent. Keep your eyes closed, fold your arms, put your toys down, ect. A couple weeks ago it was Lydia's turn to say the prayer. Danton was given STRICT instructions to keep his eyes shut, his head down, and his arms folded during the prayer. (that is hard to teach by example. In order for us to know if they keep their eyes shut and hands to them selves we have to keep our eyes open, and often unfold our arms to correct them during the prayer.)
ANYWAY. I was watching Danton during the prayer to see that he was being reverent, and he WAS, the ENTIRE prayer. He kept his head bowed, his eyes closed and his arms folded. But his LEGS, well he was kneeling down with his bum on the floor and his feet to his side, you know how little kids kneel, and he wiggled his knees in and out so fast during the prayer that he scooted all around the living room doing that. It was SO funny.

Quiet Church Bag

Today was possiably the first time EVER that we did not have to take the kids out durring sacrament meeting. It. Was. AMAZING.

About a month ago, we had one of the worst sacrement meetings in a long time, and I had had enough. I looked up ideas for keeping kids quiet at church. I found some good ideas that gave me a great start. I molded it to my family and this is what I have come up with:

The Quiet Church Bag:

We have a bag designated ONLY for the quiet church bag. I have several activities and toys that I rotate each week so it's always new. Each activity is kept in it's own zip lock bag with everything you need to use it. Like coloring books and crayons all in a bag. Each week when I get the Quiet bag ready I just grab a few all inclusive zip lock bags out of the box, and we are good to go.

Up till now, each week I've added something new. Now that I have a good selection I'll add something new about every 3 or 4 weeks. This is what I have so far:
A picture book with pictures of our family, and a couple temples in that one, a board book, the friend, dry erase boards (that are magnetized) magnet numbers, magnet robot parts, kinda like build a robot. Dry erase letter books, to practice writing letters, sewing/lacing shapes with shoe laces for lacing, pipe cleaners (endless possiabilities) cool hot wheels, coloring books and crayons.

To show you the sewing thingIt's a plastic grid that I cut shapes out of. I had to cut the holes a little bigger though so the shoe laces would fit. I had 6 squares so they could make a cube, a circle and a duck shape. I'll be making more of those. They were a big hit. I think I'll do small shapes that can be put together to make something bigger, like a house or a bike or...whatever.

I found this online:
So I printed it on card stalk, cut out the pieces, put a little adhesive magnet on the back and then laminated all of it with clear contact paper. (I did it that way cause I have a Danton that would other wise pull the magnets off the back)Here is what I have learned after a couple weeks. DO NOT let the kids have toys before the sacrament. They are excited about the new toys and they want to see everything at one, and the quiet goes right out the window. Our rule is you can read the friend (or another book) till after the sacrament, THEN we will pull out the toys.

The cool stuff, like the white boards the kids each have their own. And Markers and 2 year olds in white shirts are not a good combo. I found dry erase CRAYONS. They easily mark on clothing, but they also come out just as easy. No worries.

Also, no matter how new or cool the stuff is, if your kid ONLY likes cars, trucks and motorcycles, the other stuff will only interest him SO long before all he wants is a car, truck or motor cycle. So I got some VERY cool hot wheels for Danton that STAY in the box. He gets only one each week but it's a different one.

He does however really REALLY like the picture book with family pictures. Because of that most of the pictures in there are of him. He will look at that one book for 10 or 15 mins. I'm going to do more of those.

Things I will eventually add to the box:
A prophet picture book
A temple picture book (perhaps with the temples aunts and uncles were sealed in along with their pictures)
An extended family picture book, to get to know faces of aunts and uncles and cousins that dont live here.
I spy bag (hopefully I'm doing this with my sister and my cousin so I don't have to come up with as many little things, just several of the same thing to share with them for their bags too)
A magnet bag (same concept as the I spy bag, only with metal things, and a magnet is attached to move the metal things around inside the bag)
Flannel board pictures
Felt make a monster faces (like the robots only out of felt with different facial features to choose from)
magnifying glass
crayola color wonder
Living Scripture activity books. (you can print them ALL for free on their web site. You have to have a member log in, which is free, and then you can down load and print any of their activity books, and they have one for all their movies, and they have mazes and dot to dots and other stuff too. I'll probably coordinate with FHE. If we do a scripture store I'll print up a few pages from that activity book for them to color the next week.
Magnet alphabet letters

Toys will be aloud till they are 5 or 6, then only the Friend till they are 8, and then they need to learn to sit quietly. That was some body else's rule, and I think I'll adopt it.

I hope someone else can benefit from this idea like I did.