This is the place...

For this guy to get into stuff...like this plant basket on the floor...

For sticky sucker faces and palying with cute cousins...

For Chuck E Cheese cheese-it grins...

For huggin your best pal on the rides on a week-day afternoon...

For big smiles...

For doggy piles on top of dad.... For friendships that picked up right where they left off....

For kids that are getting way too big....

For being with family we haven't seen forever...

We haven't done much of anything but play with cousins and family and it just doesn't get much better than that! Lovin our Utah spring break trip so far!

Our Superman

This man seriously is Superman!
He is just finishing up finals this week for OIT.
Let me tell you about this guys week so far-
Monday-Get to school at 10 to study for 2 finals-takes 2 finals-works at school until 9pm. Comes home grabs quick dinner. Calms wife down from dealing with screaming kids and unhelpful teenager problems. Changes clothes, kisses goodbye, family prayer and he is out the door by 9:45pm. Goes to work at Wal-Mart, (his least favorite place in the world) until 7am, Tuesday morning. Comes home, grabs breakfast. Changes his clothes, kisses goodbye, morning prayer and he is out the door by 7:45am. Final at 8am in trigonometry. Come home 9:30am, play with kids, take a shower, climb into bed-sleep. Which is what he is doing now, finally! But just for 4 hours, because he has to go back to work at the school tonight until 9 again, and again tomorrow!

I know that a lot of guys go to school and work on top of it too-but this man is going to school full time at OIT to get into the Nuclear medicine program (rough), and has been trying to finish up his bachelors at University of Phoenix in Business and Finance at the same time.
THEN he works at the school at the computer help desk-which is a great job, pays next to nothing, but a great job, because he can study, at least some while he is there.
THEN he works at Wal-Mart a few over-nights a week, which he hates because he just despises the place to even shop there, but to work there is torture for him.
Yet he still has a smile on his face, (most of the time) about it all.

Why on earth does he do all this?
Because he is a good dad.
A good dad who loves his kids more than he hates Wal-Mart, more than he needs sleep, more than anything else, (except maybe me:)).
The only way he can pay his child support is to work both jobs-
There might be other men out there who would say it's not worth it to work so hard and still not have any money at the end of it all-but not Chad.
He would go to the ends of the earth for those kids, and you don't need x-ray vision to see who their hero is-it's their dad. He does everything he can to make sure the kids have all they need and works extra hard to spoil them on special occasions with things they want, and most importantly showers his kids in love and gives them undivided attention when he talks to them.
He may not wear a cape or tights (in public), but he is still our Superman everyday. We love you Babe!

Almost a Stair Master

We have some trouble here!

This kid is now completely mobile-crawling everywhere, finding me wherever I may go. Pulling himself up to any furniture he can reach the top of, standing up in his crib and now he's starting to climb the stairs.

This is far as he's gotten, but he is on his way to becoming a true stair master.

Yes, I know I need a gate.

Soon.

And these are just some dang cute kids in their pajamas that grace me with their presence every night.

I am so in love with all of them!

Can we Party? Yes we Can!

Topher's birthday came and we had ourself a great little construction party with 3 of his little pals. I made this banner with chipboard, paper and wire-it turned out even better than I planned-it's super heavy duty, so it should last for a few more boy birthday's! If anyone wants me to custom make one for their kid's birthday let me know, I think I'll start selling them, it was lots of fun, (although pretty time consuming)!The table was pretty simple-along with the cake, almost embarassingly simple-but it went with the construction theme, and the boys loved it which is what really matters right? The cake was just one of Topher's dump trucks, I cleaned out the bed, laid down some parchment paper and baked a couple boxes of brownie mixes. I cut them into little squares and piled them in the back to look like dirt. I hid some gummy worms inside for the boys to find-they ate it up figuratively and literally!For the party favors, we did in several stages-when the boys came in they each got a nail belt that I sewed a piece of elastic on for a hammer to hang and then they each picked out a measuring tape to put in their belt.
Then we had a construction workers brown bag lunch-sandwiches, ding dongs, cheeto's and a juice box. They played with the train table that we had set up and just hung out.
Then we had them all build their own toolboxes. Chad cut out all the pieces and sanded them down and then they got to glue and hammer them. I was impressed at how well this activity held their attention! They loved it, even the youngest who doesn't have much of an attention span yet, sat and hammered it, until it was all done with his daddy. They all got to keep the hammer and put it in their box or their belt.
The finished project-so proud of his handiwork!Then we hit the wrecking ball piniata that I made out of paper mache, I know embarassing simple again right? Well the kids loved it-what kid doesn't like to hit something with a stick and when it breaks candy comes pouring out? Who needs anything fancier than a paper mache wrecking ball, for that purpose?Then we had present time, and he got spoiled, and loved every minute of it! He got some space books, a rubber frog, a steamroller, some sponge grow capsules, some glow sticks and an awesome erupting volcano. He was very polite and said thank you to everyone and then he gave everyone their thank you gift.They had thank you cards attached, I tried to help him write them, but he wanted to do them him self after the first one, so one is somewhat readable and then the other two are more abstract-but to me so cute! He is a pretty good little writer for a 3 year old if you ask his biast mama!This is what came in the gift bags-some tractor fruit snacks, a wrapped candybar and a screwdriver to add to their toolbox or belt. I think the boys really liked them. They felt pretty cool and not babyish at all to get their own real tools!This is the party-Paxton is mad because he wants another piniata-way too much to ask for them all to look at me and smile-classic!He had a blast with his first real birthday party-and that my friends is what I call a success!

Three is too big for me!

My little boy, my pal, my little man, my toot toot, my tough dude, my sweetie peetie and my silly little monkey bum just turned 3.

Slow down time!

These three years have flown by and he has gone from my little, yet chunky 9.5 lb helpless newborn to this little person, who has opinions and attitude-makes up stories, sings songs, goes potty, gets himself dressed, has friends and wants to do things all by himself because he's "not a baby anymore mom", thank you very much.

He had a great birthday...he woke up to decorations and his favorite breakfast-panacake a pederos,(pancakes). He had his party...and then got to open presents from the family, had lots of phone calls with birthday wishes from all of his grandma's and gave lots of hugs and thank you's-he was very polite and grateful for everything. I am so happy to be this little man's mommy.

Then we went over to the Appah's for dinner-is that a perfect day or what?

Monster Surprise

After all the excitement of a party, opening presents and being perfectly spoiled all day, he still had the surprise of his little 3 year old life coming.

An F150 Power Wheels with "monster traction" so he can ride it all over the grass, and gravel that we have an over abundance of. It even has an radio that works better than Chad's!

We really wanted to get him this, because we knew he would react just the way he did!

Grandma Julie helped us out so we could get it, thanks mom!

That is one excited kid!

This was the look he had on his face pretty much the whole time he was driving-we didn't have to ask him to smile at all!

He was very willing to share in his joy and gave his sister and brother rides all over the backyard much to their delight.

He was even willing to let Bekah drive for a bit...

What every boy looks like when he lets a girl drive his truck...

It was well worth the money! Don't ya think? Look at that face!

Bird Brains & Giveaway

Since we were all home on Saturday (for once-it's been crazy lately!) we decided we better get out and do something rather than waste the day away! We went out to the wildlife refuge and looked at birds. Chad brought binoculars and a field guide.
Bekah loved looking at all the birds and then finding them in the book. I loved playing with my zoom lens I hadn't played with yet-I've had it since I got my camera and hadn't done anything with it.
I forgot to take pictures of the birds though....

...oh well!

On to the details of the giveaway...

The first THREE people to respond to this post will get something made by me!

My choice.

For you.

This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:

1- I make no guarantees that you will like what I make!

2- What I create will be just for you.

3- It'll be done this year. (might be a little while)
4- You have no clue what it's going to be.It may be a story. It may be a joke book, autographed picture of myself, handmade bag, or a little invention of my own! I may bake you something and mail it to you. Who knows?

5- I reserve the right to do something extremely strange. Believe me... it may blow your mind.

The catch? Oh, the catch is that you must re post this on your blog and offer the same to the first 3 people who do the same on your blog.

The first 3 people to do so and leave a comment telling me they did, win a FAB-U-LOUS homemade gift by me! Oh, and be sure to post a picture of what you win when you get it!

Sounds like fun, right? So, let's play!

EDIT!!!

If you want to play these are the fun and creative people who are doing it from my blog-they still might have some spots left!

April

Toshya

Jason