So Much to Be Thankful For

Ethan has been waiting for this week for almost a month. For 2 reasons really, 1 the pumpkin pie (he is head over heals in love with it and has been begging for some since pumpkins started arriving in stores back in September) and 2 because Taylor's cousins that he loves were coming to visit. He seriously was counting down the days like it was Christmas.
The week was filled with lots of family time and lots of good food and lots and lots of snow. Taylor's grandpa lives just down the street so we got to have dinner there several nights and all the kids enjoyed his stash of legos. Yep, even Miles enjoyed them- eating them of course.

And we decided to take advantage of the FOOT of snow we got and went sledding twice. Both times Taylor was at work so it was a good workout for me dragging kids and sleds up and down the hill. Ethan took to it immediately and had no fear of going by himself or with others. He tried out all the sled types and finally settled on a round disc that seemed to let him fly the farthest.

Isaac is a bit more of a scaredy cat. The first day he refused to ride down with anyone but me which was hard because that meant Miles also had to ride with us (since he's a total mommas boy- love it!) and then I had to drag them all up the hill again. So the second time we went I told Isaac that he could ride with the cousins or Ethan or Aunt Deanna but not with me- only Miles got to ride with me. After some complaints, he decided he didn't want to ride with ANYONE and would go ALONE.

He picked this long sled and insisted on laying down on his back and riding that way. Honestly we tried to convice him to sit up or use another sled but his mind was made up.

And so down the hill he went.. OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN!!! He LOVED it! It scared me to death each time since the snow was fairly packed down and bumpy and his sled would turn sideways and then hit bumps. It only flipped on him once and he was at the bottom by then so no harm done. Luckily the wonderful cousins helped him carry his sled back up again and he was in heaven.

Miles was not so excited about the snow. Poor thing got pretty cold in the snow and while he went down the hill with me several times without complaint, he also didn't even give me a smile or a clap afterwards so I think he was just being a good sport and putting up with the marshmallow snowsuit and hat and gloves. We didn't last long because stopped being a good sport after a while, but we're looking forward to the next snowfall for more sledding- this time with Daddy!

Unfortunately we were too rushed at the last minute getting out all the food to take any pictures but we had a wonderful meal with the whole family and we're grateful for the long weekend with time to spend together and time to appreciate all our wonderful blessings. Okay and to do some fabulous Black Friday shopping but it was nice to have so much time together.

Main Bathroom Makeover

I sadly realize now that I didn't take enough "before" pictures to show just how dramatic the difference we made. Our house was built in the 60's and still bears many of the original features of that. In our main floor bathroom that both our boys and guests use, that included lovely gold edging on everything, white tile, white shower tiles, white floor, white vanity, white toilet, and very old soap-scummy glass doors on the shower. A serious lack of color aside from all the gold and the pinky-peach marble countertop. This picture was taken after I'd already take down the yucky shower doors but before all the rest. We didn't really remodel since the only thing we removed was the shower doors, but we did a major makeover. And I LOVE IT!

Taylor came home one night in September and asked what it would take for me to let him go to the Utah/Iowa State away game that his dad had invited him to. I thought for a while and decided that I've really been wanting to do something with this bathroom and a weekend by myself to work might just be perfect- peace and quiet and a fun makeover. The week before my mom was in town and helped me plan everything out and then I scoured tons of stores until I found this shower curtain I love and it served as great inspiration for the room.

You saw the before (or what I have at least) and here's the after.

I had Home Depot match the color on the curtain to paint and then went to town on the walls. The ceiling and door got a new coat of white while I was at it and after much sanding and patching and then 2 coats of paint, it looks great. Okay so it needs a little artwork.

Sorry I don't have a before shot from this direction. But here's the vanity side of the room.

I don't actually love the wall-length mirror and weird mirror storage thingy but since it's been bolted in and the bolts were sealed over by tiles, and we'd have to rip out and replace wall board and all the tiles in the room if we messed with any... well I'm willing to live with it. What I wasn't willing to live with was the gold. So we found spray paint for metal fixtures and painted them a rusty brown copper color.

And the vanity got painted. My mother is gasping right now as she reads this because she assured me I could NOT paint it brown but that it needed to stay white. She may have been right and it may make the room look small but I love it. It makes it really stand out from the floor and I'm in love with that chocolate color right now.

And with a fresh coat of paint and some new contact paper to cover stains from the last 40 years, I can finally really use the cabinet. And perfect timing too to store all the freebies I've been getting.

We didn't do anything with the floor (even though there's cracks in the tile and it's outdated) since we have 3 little boys who frequently (ALWAYS) splash in the bath and soad the floor. We'll wait on that until someone can do it professionally.

The amazing thing was all the little things that somehow miraculously worked out. I didn't want to go to the expense of changing out the counter top but I didn't really love it either since it's pinky-peach. But amazingly with the brown surrounding it instead of all white, it looks much less pink. Also the natural brown lines in the stone stand out more and I like that.

Most of the lower part of the room is tiled in white which is good for a bathroom, but then randomly around the room are these kind of brown fleur de lis'. I didn't have any idea how to remove them or hide them so I decided just to ignore them. They actually amazingly kind of match now with the curtain I picked. Several people have commented how neat it is everything in the room ties in. Honestly that's just a miracle cause I'm definitely not that good at interior design.

The light fixture stayed too even though it's not my favorite, but it looks much better with a little spray paint and a good washing.

The transformation has truly been amazing and I'm happy to say I don't cringe when guests ask where the bathroom is. I still have to apologize that it might not be fully clean since 2 little boys with bad aim use it, but at least it looks updated.

Sorry it took me so long to post. It really was all done (except the parts I left for Taylor :) in just that one weekend. And it was nice to do it all in peace and not worry about little hands touching wet paint or breathing fumes.

Ethan's Fall Art

Yesterday Ethan emerged from Kindergarten with a backpack brimming with art projects he had done. I assume it was the teachers way of cleaning out the fall projects to make room for all the Christmas ones but it was fun for us to finally see all the great projects he's gotten to do.

Can I just say again that I love his teacher and his school? In DC, where I taught for 3 years, we had too many students (37 my first year) and too little funding, the teachers had to be everything to everyone. Here in Utah, the funding isn't great since taxes aren't high and people have a LOT of kids, but there's so many parents willing to volunteer and give generously that it somehow makes the difference.
Ethan's school has computer lab teachers, p.e. teachers, music teachers, art teachers, lunch aids, even recess aids. This gives his teacher so much more time to plan and be prepared and it lets Ethan have really good teachers for all of these subjects instead of just 1 frazzled teacher winging it on subjects she isn't an expert in.
This is my favorite art project. I love this torn bag tree with the fall leaves on it. But I also love that he gets to paint and cut and glue and color and do paper machet and so many other fun things.
The beginning of November his teacher sent home a sheet with some goals she wanted us to set for the kids to help them become more independent. The prize for reaching a goal was a feather on your turkey hat that they made right before Thanksgiving. I cannot tell you how motivating this was for Ethan. He has grown in leaps and bounds and just for some silly paper feathers. But not silly to him. He memorized both Taylor's and my phone numbers, memorized our home address, learned how to write correctly his first and last name, learned to write all his numbers through 30, and learned to zip his coat on his own. We're still working on him tieing his own shoes but since he has velcro, it wasn't as pressing.

And now that he's brough his projects home, we have a few more decorations to complement our fall decor.

Christmas Picture Attempt #1

I have to say attempt #1 because there will definitely need to be another attempt. Oh, if I only had 2 kids..... this would be the PERFECT shot. Seriously how cute are they???

But alas there are 3 and so someone is always not looking... or all 3 are not looking.

And one has decided he's done after just 1 shot and since he can crawl he's gonna SHOW us just how DONE he is!

Or else one will be closing his eyes and one will have weird white splotches from the sun.

And if by some miracle we actually do get all 3 to look at the camera at exactly the same time, what you'll see in their faces is that even though their bodies say okay let's take this picture, their eyes will really tell you, yep we're totally over and done with this.

Oh well, here's to attempt #2. Maybe with snowballs???

All the Randomness

The last month has been very busy which is why it took me so long to post back to Halloween. Here's just some of the randomness we've had going on.
Taylor discovered a new train game on his iphone. Quite the hit with him and the kids. I don't mind- I can do the dishes in peach without kids running through the kitchen or ball hurtling into my sink.

And we had a full week of sickies. Ethan has had a lingering cough (which apparently is viral induced asthma which Miles also has) so after a trip to the doctor we got that resolved only to realize that one of them had picked up a nastly flu bug at the doctors office and both Ethan and Miles were sick for 3 days straight. Luckily Ethan is old enough to make it to the toilet or a bucket at least (hallelujah) and Miles only ever threw up in his crib (yeah again since sheets are easy to wash). Unfortunately they both had other yucky projectile symptoms that I will spare you the details of but let's just say a whole new experience for me and very gross. I"m grateful for disposable diapers though! Don't know how my mother did it.

It was cute to see the 2 sickies hanging out together. Anywhere Ethan would lay down Miles would crawl over and climb up next to him. Of course then he'd lean back and use Ethan as his personal recliner which Ethan didn't much appreciate but you know it was cute while it lasted.

And I taught Joyschool twice. So cute to see them all get along and luckily we had enough train tracks to spread out and enough trains so everyone got some. One of the lessons was on manners and using kind words like please, thank you, etc. So playing with trains with this many boys was a good way for them to practice. "please can I have that train" "thank you for moving your train out of my way" Okay so they weren't that polite, but it was easy for me to remind them to use these words while they were playing and they seemed to catch on a little.

And now that winters in full swing (we had our first blizzard last night) we've been trying to take advantage of any nice weather we get. Isaac's joyschool ends at 12:00 and Ethan's spanish school starts at 12:30 so we have time to drive from one to the other and usually have a little time to spare. When it's nice we try to stop and feed ducks. Okay so it's more like throw birds and ducks and then chase them around, but you know they're getting the bread either way. They're just getting pestered by little boys too.

Poor Miles doesn't really appreciate this schedule we keep. He often misses his morning nap because I'd rather shop with just him while Isaac and Ethan are at school and then there's all the pickup and dropoff in the middle of the day. This picture was taken on one of those days. His poor eyes are just begging to be laid down in his crib. Luckily he loves watching the ducks get chased around and he enjoys snagging the bread out of my hands to eat it himself.

At BYU with my boys

One of the perks of Taylor's work is that because the company and his family members financially support several universities in the area, they also have tickets to all the games. We love taking our boys and usually it works out so we can pick the games we'd like and his other family members do the same and it all seems to work out that someone uses the tickets and everyone is happy. At least it did work out that way until Utah got ranked 5th and was playing TCU ranked 3rd at it was being played at home, oh and did I mention College Game Day was coming to show the whole thing live to the nation. Yeah so I bit of excitement ensued and EVERYONE in Taylor's family decided that they wanted to go to the Utah/TCU game and not the BYU game that was playing almost at the same time. I mean literally NO ONE wanted the BYU tickets. NO ONE. So Taylor's boss's secretary walked into his office Friday at 3pm and handed him all 12 tickets since I had said I'd go to the BYU game. Of course I didn't have 12 people to take so they ended up giving some tickets to business partners in Provo and I got to take along our good friends Zach and Alicia and we even had enough seats for their 2 year old Henry and Miles.
The game was fun to watch and the kids enjoyed gourging themselves and playing in the room. Ethan and Henry watched most of the first half and even learned the last part of the BYU fight song.

And then Ethan started in with my camera. Which was nice because then I got a picture of me and Miles.
And a lovely close up shot of popcorn on a chair.

And an interesting self portrait by Ethan.

And then I took the camera back. Isaac joined Taylor and everyone else at the Utah/TCU game where they got totally anhilated sadly. But the BYU game was great- a shut out in fact and lots of fun to watch and hang out with our friends.

Of course it didn't start until noon anyways and Miles usually gets both a morning and afternoon nap so by the 3rd quarter he was starting to look and sound a little annoyed.

Love this closeup of Henry taken by Ethan.

Ethan apparently got ahold of the camera again but I can't complain since I was having so much fun chating with the Derr's.

And then 4th quarter came and Miles was definitely feeling very unhappy.

And Henry was very subtly requesting a nap too...

So we headed back home. But we had a great time. Taylor- not so much. And I'll gladly take BYU tickets anytime the rest of his family decides that Utah is the better team to watch. Go Cougars!

A Miles Update

Miles is officially on the move. He's been crawling for months now, but just a few weeks ago decided that standing on his own was a fun thing. Of course the little stinker only has one sock and shoe on because he's a compulsive shoe/sock taker-offer. He can even get the Robees shoes off that mother other two never could figure out. And of course it's winter so this drives me crazy, but he does it so oh well.
I don't particularly love the shoe removing but I LOVE that he's a blanky boy. Neither Ethan or Isaac even carted blankets around. Ethan attached himself to a stuffed monkey. Isaac attached himself to 8 or 10 binkies (he's still attached too). And Miles has chosen blankets. Not any one in particular yet although I'm sure that will come, but for now he just loves blankets. He holds onto one every morning when I get him out of his crib and then carries it around with him all morning. He'd rather have a blanket to snuggle than a toy to play with at church. It's absolutely adorable.

He's also laid at least a little claim on his birthday present. He's smart enough to not try to take it outright from Isaac (who thinks it's his own and is willing to defend that claim with force- yes I know, lovely, he's 2 what can I say?) so instead he likes to push Isaac around on the little car. Yep you got that right- Miles enjoys pushing Isaac around. I know. I know. There's something slightly wrong with a barely 1 year old pushing the almost 3 year old but what can I say- Isaac steers and Miles pushes and they seem to get along great.

See they're both pretty happy so there's no way I'm getting in the middle of it.

Still attached to his blanket even if he's got a bottle and pancakes.

And since pictures never quite capture the moment here are a few videos for you. Miles' first few attempts at walking. It's taken me almost a month to do this post so now he's fully walking and is getting fast- still wobbly and falls a lot but fast.

And the second is Miles shaking his booty. It cracks me up. Every time I turn on music on the computer (pandora mostly) he pushes the chair out of the way so he can hang on the desk and do this little bum shake. It's even funnier if he's not holding on to something but I haven't caught that on film yet. Hilarious!

The end of Soccer (for the fall at least)

With the end of October, came the end of Ethan's fall soccer league as well. We have LOVED being a part of this group. 7 of the 8 players go to his same kindergarten, 5 in the same exact class so I get to see their mom's every day and it's been great to make friends.

This last game turned out to be the perfect last game for them. They have 2 kids on the team who are really good and do most of the scoring. Ethan scored once on during the 3rd game but then nothing after that. This final game, all but 1 of the kids scored goals including Ethan. And most of them were miracle goals so it was just funny to watch them all score and be so excited for each other. They truly have become a team over these 2 months and it's fun to see that they're good friends just like the parents are.

I tried to get all their lasts- huddle, game, cheer, etc.

And of course the obligatory dogpile afterwards since 5 year olds can't simply give 5 and say goodbye, they must jump and tackle and tickle.

So here they all are L to R: Joseph, Sarah, Jonah, Clait, Kari (their amazingly sweet and dedicated coach- she's 7 months pregnant with her 4th and her husband's in med school resident so I saw him at games maybe twice and never at practices. What a good mom!) Bottom: Sam, William, Ethan, and Thomas.

Tragically we didn't capture any of Ethan's goals, but here's some of the game anyways.