My Fox Crew

Friday, December 19, 2008

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Fun New Christmas Treat

My mom told me about this fun Christmas treat that is easy for the kids to do. My kids loved doing them and eating them.

All you need is:

Pretzels

Heresy Kisses (stripped are the cutest)

Plain M&M's

place the pretzels on a cookie sheet, then put a heresy kiss on top bake in over at 225 for 2 to 3 min. then pull out and put a M&M on the top. Then Cool.

They turned out quite cute and very yummy (we found peppermint stripped kisses very yummy). The boys loved watching the kisses melt.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Being from Utah snow days were few and far between. They usually happened because there was like 4 feet of snow or something like that. Poor Oregon no one can handle the snow so a few inches and a little ice and everything shuts down. I wouldn't mind usually, I would enjoy the free schedule and make what we can of it. Then days like today happen, if you ever think your having a bad day just reread this blog and you won't feel so bad. So it started out like any other day that we get to sleep in. We had a lazy morning reading scriptures, making beds, getting dressed normal morning stuff. I grabbed a stack of books to read to the boys, I didn't feel like doing much. After I got Simon down for a nap and got the boys heavily involved with a drawing and coloring project I decided it was time for a shower. They usually are fine when I get in the shower so I had no reason to suppose I should hurry and check on them. When I came out I noticed the sneaky suspicious look on one of their faces (honestly can't remember which one). I went in to Parker and Everett's room and they quickly told me that they made a potion. This is a usual occurrence and so I didn't feel the need to fear then I said "that is not something we do in our rooms could you please take it into the kitchen". See, I did keep my cool at one point in this and by the way I am editing most of my reactions in this. Then they told me that a little had spilled and they need help cleaning it up. I lift the blanket on the top bunk, which Mason was hiding under and trying to prop up with my flashlight, something I don't let them play with I might add because they waste the battery. Anyway, they had taken my vanilla extract, not the cheap imitation kind the large 8 dollar a bottle kind and mixed it with mouth wash and soft water crystals (little rocks that you can add colored water to and change their size and color). It was puddling in the middle of the bed and covered a good two foot or more space. I totally lost it and scream "what the heck is this!!" I could tell I was rapidly losing control so I stopped and went into the hallway got to my knees and said a prayer. (I got into the habit of this a couple of years ago and it has greatly increased the life span of my children) Thankfully all of my kids realized that this was not a really good choice and during my prayer time (basically timeout time) they all came and gave me hugs and kisses and said they were sorry. Replaying this made me realize that this wasn't as bad as somethings that they have done but it was still in the top five worse messes they have made. I was able to calm down enough to tell them they need to strip the bed and change their clothes ( yes they were covered as well) and put everything in the wash with out complaint or wasting any time, amazingly they did exactly what I said. We were able to somewhat recover from this matter minus the water incident in the bath room and the card mess in the bonus room and the beating each other up all day long. Thankfully I have a wonderful husband that didn't question me with frozen pizza's for dinner, and that I was leaving to grocery shop for "I DON'T KNOW HOW LONG". So now that it is 9:oo at night I am doing alright. Wow! a little venting makes you feel better doesn't it. I want to end with I do love my boys and I am thankful that they are creative and want to discover and explore things. Without them my life would be pointless and I wouldn't know what to do with my self. I love being a mom and I would not trade it for anything.

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Snow!! What in Portland.

I don't like snow... that means its to cold for rain. If you can name the book that the previous sentence is from give your self bonus points. I don't personally love to snow, though I do enjoy watching in from inside my warm house during Christmas time. Having spent 2 or 3 WINTERS in Spokane the novelty wore off very quickly when it is may and still snowing. Anyways I did enjoy waking up to snow this morning and it is hard to not get excited when your kids are. We quickly pulled out our boxed up snowsuits and luckily they all still fit. Church was canceled so the boys enjoyed a morning of playing in the snow. Then after a short family devotional (no church) we gathered our gear and headed to Stu and Tiff house. The boys loved sledding on a wakeboard down the hills and playing in the snow with their cousins. I stayed warm inside and made some cute Christmas decor crafts with Mckenna and Emma. No matter how long we stay at their house it is never long enough, but we eventually we got them away with no fight and we happy with our/their fun filled snow day to be repeated tomorrow.

And this is what Simon did. He didn't touch this on his head I don't think he even knew it was there. Isn't he a sweety.

Friday, December 12, 2008

Life Changes

As if I need more changes in life here is another one. We have officially taken Parker out of school to homeschool him. We attempted this last year, but me being very pregnant and planning a move to Portland it didn't work out. I kept getting an unsettling feeling with Parker being in school, we held him back a year and that seemed to help a lot but it was still a struggle for me. I didn't feel he was getting his education in a way that was going to help him to love to learn. Finally after a lot of prayer and talking with Phil I made the decision. I know it is going to be hard and frustrating at times but I find myself being excited about it. I still plan on sending my other children to school and if the need arises I will take them out as well, but for now it is only Parker. We have had a lot of fun this week, I am trying to have him direct his learning so he will throughly enjoy it. I am mainly focusing on reading with him, this is the area he needs to gain the most confidence in. I am amazed at how excited he get about learning when he gets to take control and not have to go at a certain pace. One day this week we started with reading some science books (he loves art and science over anything) on molecules and changing states of matter. Parker thought that was fun so we did an experiment on melting ice cubes(solids) to water (liquids) to boiling it (gas). Parker was so excited he wanted to read about molecules then he wanted to draw pictures of it and label everything. It was so much fun and I found my self completely enjoying it anxious to do more. I am excited about this new change and I know that it will help my son with his love of learning. I pray that I can keep this excitement and work through the hard times.

Thursday, December 4, 2008

What do You Get When You Put Three LDS Stay at Home Mom Sisters and Put Them in VEGAS!!

TOTAL CRAZYNESS!!

I don't love this picture but it works, little Jonas is in the hip pack on Danci

I am serious, who says you need to drink, gamble or go to a show in vegas to have fun. A few of the highlights are probably more silly to us three than to anyone else. First of all our elavator to our hotel had a lot of force and everytime we got in it Danci (sister in picture with me above) would fake like she was going to throw up whether there were other people in there or not after a couple of time she wasn't faking anymore. Then after we got back late from seeing Freemont street we were so tired our reactions were a little slow and we weren't sure what level we needed to get off the elevator to get to our hotel. Sheila got off and looked around and me and Danci just stared at her while the elevator doors closed leaving Sheila alone. The funny part was that Danci and I could hear Sheila banging on the doors calling our names and then when the doors opened all three of us were bent over stamping our feet on the ground in hysterical laughter in the exact same position (since childhood we have nick named this as the Bethel Indian Dance). As I said before these things are probably more funny to us than to anyone else. Then to top off the night of hysterical delirious laughter the next morning we realized we didn't remember where we parked. After going to two different levels and not finding our car we send Danci on foot up the stairs to find our car while we waited with the luggage. This alone was funny but what made it more hysterical was while we were waiting for Danci to come back a worker over heard our conversation and started to ask us some questions like "Do you remember getting on an elevator" or "Do you remember parking next to a post" or something like that. I know she thought we were drunk the night before and that was how she was trying to help us. I made it funny because our responses were slow like were hung over but we weren't just exhausted. We had a wonderful time talking, who knew that you don't need the radio or tv on at all over a three day period. We talked solid from Salt Lake to Vegas and back again. Having been to Vegas a lot during high school we didn't feel like we needed to do a lot of things so we were content with only going to Coca Cola facorty and M&M world. Our only regret was that we couldn't see Stomp, the only showing was at 7:00 and that was when my Mona Vie meeting was (that was the reason for the trip). I love my sister and this trip was over due, we are already planning our second sisters weekend, who knows what town we will reek havoc on next time. As a side note Jonas (Danci's baby) came with us and was an angle he slept good and enjoyed being toted around with Danci so she was able to enjoy herself as well.

Here are some of our attempted crazy pictures and other photos of our trip.