Freebie Alert!!

Get a free Snapfish Custom Photobook here. It's worth $30, but YOU have to cover shipping costs. Totally worth it in IMO.

I think I may do an art book of Savannah's best pieces....or maybe a "year in pictures"...or a book full of pics of my kids as babies....oh, so many options!!

Offer only good until 11:59 pm TOMORROW NIGHT, Friday! They will give you until Sunday at 11:59 pm to complete your book though.

Gunnar's Hero

...is his Kindergarten teacher. Anyone who has had the misfortune to give my kids Play-Doh as a gift, or mention what a great toy it is, knows that I DETEST the stuff. Early on in the child rearing process, I too, was sucked in. Kids have to have Play-Doh, it's a classic toy! Until it became ground into my carpets and tracked across my floors. My friends would tell me, just buy a dollar store shower curtain and put that on the floor and they can go to town. Not so, my kids do not contain their play well....so about a year ago, I declared, "THERE WILL BE NO PLAY DOH IN MY HOUSE!"

Enter, Parent Teacher Conferences. Gunnar loves school. He is learning to write. He recognizes most of the letters but is having a hard time writing them the correct size, you know, between the dotted lines.

Mrs. H tells me that G can work on this by increasing his fine motor skills.

Me - Oh really? How could I help him to do that?

Mrs. H - Play-Doh.

Mrs. H - Have him roll a certain number of balls for you, that will also help with counting. Or have him roll it into snakes, etc. The more he does it the better his writing will become.

Me - Oh, is that all I need to do? (Screaming inside)

So, as we rolled back into town from our trip to Zion, I dutifully gathered my troops and took them to the local Wally's World to pick out 3 colors each at .62 a pop. Not bad, but I'm still dreading what lies ahead.

The rules were laid out. No leaving the table! Only plastic Ikea knives are to be used for cutting....only on plastic placemats! No mixing colors!

I was pleasantly surprised. The kids played for hours, happily, peacefully. They did not mix colors. The did not even drop much of it on the floors. They were content....and careful. They do not want Play-Doh rights stripped again. Let's see if it REALLY helps the handwriting. Stay tuned.

Gobble gobble!!

I'm going to go out and get my supplies for this cute craft tomorrow. What a fun idea to get your kids thinking about all they have been blessed with.
We have so much to be grateful for!

If you want to craft a cute gratitude turkey for your house too, see here.

Time in Zion

The kids had Parent Teacher Conferences last week. Which meant, no school Friday....and Chris had Tuesday off for Veteran's Day, being a government employee :)... So we took the opportunity as an excuse to cruise south to St George and Zion National Park. Chris and I have been, of course. The kids have not. Perfect opportunity. It was a fun weekend of hiking, picnicing, playing, eating dinner out (I'm sure this was the highlight for the kids, as much as they love an excuse to eat out) and being together.

They had a blast on the trails, and the backdrop was absolutely breathtaking. We took alot of scenic shots. It was also a great time of year to go! In the past we have been in May and July and the temps were very warm to say the least. This time we had a gorgeous day the 1st day, temps in the 60s and drizzle and 40-50s the next. But it was wonderful hiking and exploring weather. We're thinking when the kids are a bit older we'll brave the Narrows again. Chris and I did that PK (pre-kids) and it was incredible. Another hike that we'll have to wait on for LATER ON (when the kids aren't bound to run off an edge) is Angel's Landing. It's pretty strenuous and has a segment where there are steep cliffs on both sides of the trail. Folks have fallen and died from that trail in the past. I hear it's pretty amazing though. Maybe a few trips down the road!

Miss Chevious

I had a bad feeling as I was getting out of the shower this morning. Once a few weeks back, I had the same feeling and as I was drying off. I listened closely to what was happening in the house and I heard Sydney crying through what sounded like a closed door. So, I wrapped the towel around me and hurried downstairs to look for her. She was in the office, behind the closed door and looked like she had been crying for at least 10 minutes....she was pretty hysterical because she couldn't get the door opened from the inside and she was trapped with nobody coming to her rescue. So, thinking that maybe this happened again, I hurried down the stairs, in my towel.

She was in the office, all right. But she was far from hysterical, she was happy as a clam. She was standing on the desk, and this is what was next to her...

She had plucked quite a few keys from her Daddy's laptop, and I'm sure she would've continued to do so until they were all taken off. She had no idea that this was a bad thing, I think she thought it was some kind of puzzle. I gave her a swat on her bottom and told her it was naughty and she needed to say sorry. She got really sad once she figured it out, she doesn't like when Mommy is disappointed with her. She kisses me and says the sweetest little sorry you can imagine.

She is really getting to the age where she is making all kinds of trouble though. Last week she shampooed my carpets and the couch with sunblock, before that she took a red marker to the downstairs loveseat (it was washable, thank goodness!). I think I may have to start a regular thread called "The Adventures of Miss Chevious".

Leaves, glorious leaves!

The last week or two the kids have been spending the majority of their free time in the yard....raking leaves.

It seemed insane to me, but then I started spying on them. They would rake them into a pile and then jump in them, roll in them, toss them over their heads and then start over again! It's been nice and warm, so it's been the perfect past time.

This weekend we raked all the leaves that were on the grass, the trees were only half way done dropping them and we knew we would have to do it again in a few weeks. We bagged up about 10 jumbo sized leaf bags, so there were no more leaves to jump in. Lo and behold, a nice big front moved in that very night preceeded by monster winds that split one of our neighbor's beautiful pear trees down the middle. (Sorry, Liz!)

Whaaaa-laaa, more leaves to rake, except now they're under rain and snow...maybe they'll get some more play in after a few days once things dry out a little.

I never guessed that something I used to look at as a necessary annual chore day would become weeks of much anticipated play! Always a silver lining, I tell ya!

Hope your's was SpOoKy Too!

Sydney as Fifi. She LOVES doggies, so this was perfect for her. When we went trick-or-treating she would say, "I'm Fifi!" to the person at the door. Sometimes she would say trick or treat too, but it kind of sounded the same to everyone but me! She loved it, and was so excited about all the candy. She has a serious sweet tooth.

All dressed up for the school parade and Halloween parties at school. Gunnar was a little bummed he couldn't bring his daggers and ninja sword, but he got over it.

Sydney's first year carving, she got in some good jabs. We finally got wise this year and carved our pumpkins on Halloween EVE, that way we're not totally stressed trying to get it done before or after dinner and doing the mad costume rush before the trick-or-treating starts.. Good plan. I'm surprised it took me so long to figure that out. Gosh.

The pumpkins were extra fun this year!
Cyclops (Gunnar), Egyptian (Me and Sydney), Scarecrow (Savi), and scariest of all - DOW 5000 (guess who)!!
Chris wanted to dress up as a Naked Short Seller this year. Sadly we didn't have anything flesh colored on hand, and we didn't want to totally freak out our neighbors, so it was just the kids who ended up in costume.

Halloween night. Dinner, check. Costumes, check. Rain??? Well, at least it's warm.

It was 65 degrees, but drizzling. We decided we would brave it, and it wasn't too bad at all. The kids went door to door, RUNNING. Dad tried to keep up with them. Mom and Sydney were doing almost every other door, the big kids we so quick and we were hardly keeping up. We are so lucky to live in such a great area. There were tons of kids and families out in force. We never got trick-or-treaters at our last place....so we know how rare it can be these days. We lasted about an hour, and then Gunnar said his bag was too heavy and he was ready to go home. Never thought I'd hear that from him! When we got back it was only 8 pm so we let the kids hand out candy to all the door knockers, and I made popcorn so that they would have something to mix with all the sugar they were ingesting!

We had a wonderful time and built some good memories. Hope your Halloween was as happy as ours.