Halloween 2012

I am a little slow in posting this, but hey, at least I am posting about Halloween before Thanksgiving arrives.  

Jack made this pumpkin at preschool.  He is absolutely loving preschool.

Jack and I made these paper pumpkins that we put on the mantle.  I am a bit of a perfectionist so it was hard for me to just let Jack draw his pumpkins freehand rather than using stencils, but I let him do it.  And I ended up loving his a lot.  They made me smile and laugh.  And it especially made me laugh when Jack looked at mine and said, "mom, yours look weird."  Ha! Ha!  

I bought some awesome LED tea lights that change colors to put in the paper pumpkins. A couple of nights we would just sit and look at these pumpkins.  Yep, we know how to have fun.

The boys and I made a bunch of these skeleton cookies for a neighborhood party. 

Carving pumpkins was a little more fun this year that in years past because Ben did it all by himself.  He did an awesome job carving his pumpkin.

This is what Ben's pumpkin looked like

I saw this costume on Pinterest and wanted to have Ben do it.  He wore this costume to school for the parade.  It was awesome.  

 Jack was Spyro from the game Skylanders.

 I didn't want Ben to wear the headless man costume trick or treating (which he was mad about) so he dressed up as a ninja.

 For the local grocery store trunk or treat, Luke was a monkey.

And for Halloween I was Little Red Riding Hood and Luke was the big bad wolf.

Mother's Day 2011

This year for Mother's Day my sister, Jennifer, and I arranged a Mother's Day brunch on Saturday with the women in my extended family.

We ate outside in the beautiful spring weather at a fun little restaurant. The restaurant is about a mile and a half away from my house. Chad had both the older boys with him doing soccer practice and cleaning the church, so I decided to walk to the restaurant.

I love my boys, but Ben and Jack can be very intense at times. Although I need a break from them sometimes, I often feel guilty when I am away from them. I miss them. On my walk to the restaurant I was able to convince myself not to feel guilty and just enjoy the break to recharge my batteries. On the way to the restaurant I had an amazing peaceful feeling that I haven't had for a long time. It probably help a lot that I was staring at this cute little guy.

For Mother's Day I made my favorite dinner, Lasagna, and invited my mom, dad, brother, sister, and her family. Ben and Jack gave me flowers and candy. And Chad was more than sweet to me and spoiled me more than he should.

And now my thoughts this Mother's Day on being a mother-

I wish Mother's Day meant that my kids didn't fight all day long, they were perfectly obedient, the house cleaned itself, breakfast, lunch, and dinner magically appeared, and I could do whatever I wanted all day long. In the past I dreamed that's the way it should be and I would be bitter that it wasn't that way.

I know there are many women who wish they were mothers and they aren't. I fiercely love my children and I wouldn't trade them for the world, but sometimes being a mom simply sucks. Wait, not sometimes, a lot of the time. It's not that there is something else I would really rather be doing (well anything that's practical), it's just I wish that being a mom wasn't so intensely difficult most of the time. Yep, I am dreaming again.

There is never a day goes by that I don' think to myself, "oh my goodness, this is why my mom was the way she was." The longer I am a mother the more I realize that my mom did the best she could. She was ornery and she was mean sometimes, but she didn't want to be that way. I am ornery and I am mean some point every single day. Even if I am not trying to be mean my kids think I am because I won't let them eat candy for breakfast, watch television all day long, play in the street, beat each other up, stay up as late as they want, draw on the walls, buy them whatever they wanted, etc... You get the point.

The other day Ben told me I was a mean mom. Both the boys tell me that often. I know kids just do that, but it always stings a little. I ended up saying to Ben, "You know what Ben? I am a nice person. People like me."

One time at a family party I was reprimanding Ben for something and my aunt Teresa came up to me and said, "I know it's hard, but thank you for discipling your children." She works at an elementary school and explained to me that she sees a lot of children who have parents who don't discipline.

I don't like coming across as a mean person, I hate repeating myself over and over and over again to my children, but I love my children and because I love them I expect a lot out of them and I discipline them. And it's amazing to me how forgiving they are. Like they know I love them because I have expectations of them. Almost every day my children tell me they love me, unsolicited. And everyday I am more and more grateful for all the women I know who are mothers, especially my own mother.

Easter 2011

Easter this year was strange. Most of the time we go camping, with the Phillips Family. And if we don't go camping, we at least get together with them. Well, we didn't do either of those things. It just felt weird. We didn't even get the opportunity to decorate cookies with my extended family. At the last minute, on the day before Easter, my sister and I decided we should do something Eastery, so we put together a quick little party for the kids.

Look at this awesome cookie my sister decorated.

It's me!

And I then I made one that looked like her-

Valentine's Day 2011

Chad and the boys spoiled me way too much for Valentine's Day. They gave me flowers, cards, and lots of candy. Chad and the boys bought me some candy and then I got a package in the mail with more candy that Chad forgot he had ordered. I am not exactly a chocolate lover, I like some chocolate things (and the older I get the more I like chocolate), but I am quite particular when it comes to chocolate things. I love good candy that's not chocolate. Chad ordered me candy from a place called Avenue Sweets. Look how pretty they package it-you know there is something good inside. Caramels and almond nougat. Mmmmm!

(Obviously this is a picture from their website, but my box of candy looked just like this, minus the rose petals.)

I think I will have to remind the boys to scale things back next year. But I love that Chad teaches the boys to smother me with love. Makes me feel like a princess. I didn't do the best at spoiling the boys, especially Chad, but we all got spoiled by extended family. Chad was amazed at how much my family likes Valentine's Day. Yep, we love each other.

The Friday night before Valentine's we went to dinner with a group of awesome friends at a quaint little restaurant called Sego Lily Cafe. Mmmm, it was delicious.

Saturday the boys decorated cakes at the neighborhood grocery store. This is Ben's third year doing it and Jack's first. Ben is becoming quite the pro and Jack decorated it just the way I like it, with lots of frosting. We told the boys that one of them would need to give away their cake because we didn't need two. Ben ended up giving his to his cousins, but there were some tears. We didn't even eat all of the one we kept.

Sunday I was making layered heart shaped Jello for dinner on Monday. After I finished I said to Chad, "okay we have Jello, but what are we going to have for the main course? I love lasagna and if I wasn't so tired and sore from being pregnant I would make it and then on each piece of lasagna I would put a heart shaped slice of mozzarella." A little over an hour later, my aunt Gail shows up at our house with this-

Yep, homemade lasagna (my favorite) complete with a heart shaped slice of mozzarella. How cool is that?! We used it for our candlelight dinner. I guess a lot of families do a candlelight dinner for Valentine's Day. This was our first time and it won't be our last. The boys loved it.

(Despite the look on Jack's face, he loved it.)