Winter with Papa

My kids have been lucky enough to have their Papa come out multiple times to visit us.  Every time he comes they have so much fun together; this time did not disappoint.  Although he was only here for a few days, they built snowmen, went sledding, had a hot chocolate stand, cuddled, etc.  Thanks so much for all the time and attention you give to our children Papa......I know that they won't forget this.  XOXO

 Maddie is obsessed with food/drink stands where she earns money and is constantly come up with new ways to do this.  This winter she decided that she would do a hot chocolate stand to warm everyone up.  She made her sign, dragged the kid table to the corner by our house, pulled out a change jar, styrofoam cups, and lukewarm-semi watery hot chocolate.  Unfortunately there weren't too many customers lurking around to buy off of her, however she was excited that our neighbors the Dance's came outside and each bought a cup from her. 

 Eli was excited to get his own cup of cocoa and even sat out by Maddie for part of the time and helped "sell" with her

 Our poor pitiful snowman.  The crazy part is that this is literally the ONLY snowman that we made this year.  I guess we are officially Arizona wimps when it comes to the snow.  We have promised ourselves that next year there will be many more snowmen built.

 Papa was a trouper and slid down the hill over and over without any snow pants on.

February 12-18

I have somehow abandoned my blog this year and it makes me a little sad.  I love to record the little things about life, good or bad.  It somehow makes the bad feel more tolerable and I love being able to recognize my growth as an individual through those challenging times. I am going to attempt to catch up on February and then just move on with my life.

Sunday, February 12th: I taught Relief Society (a women's only meeting) at my church for the FIRST TIME EVER.  I was a little hesitant when they asked me to prepare a lesson because I had never done something like that before.  I am one hundred percent NOT a public speaker, never have been and never will be.  I'm also not one of those people that words come easily to with speeches or public events.  That is a talent that my husband has always had, not me.  But I put my faith in God that I would be able to speak the words that the sisters (and I) needed to hear.  Fortunately He delivers and was with me throughout my entire talk.  The topic I spoke about was "Loving Thy Neighbor as Thy Self".  I felt like I learned a lot more about what kind of Love I want in my life.  I want to have Agape (Godly) love in my life, I want that to be the kind of love that I give to others.  The kind of love that is non-partial, sacrificial, and unconditional, that expects nothing in return.  Not the natural man version that is weak in comparison, selfish and self-serving that is based on how other people behave toward us.  I hope that I can exercise more control over myself in the future and continually strive to develop the love that Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father continue to show me regardless of my own personal failures and shortcomings.  I want to be able to teach my children by example of the kind of love I want them to have in their own lives. 

Monday: February 13th: The boys and I headed over to our good friend's house for an afternoon of cookie decorating.  We had a great time frosting cookies and laughing while the kids ran wild and played together. Maddie was pretty jealous when she found out about all the fun we had, but luckily I had some extra frosting and cookies for her decorate that evening as well.  She also was really creative this year and handmade her Valentines for her school class.  She cut out heart shapes with construction paper and stapled them shut with a few hersheys kisses inside.  She constantly amazes me with her creative side.

Tuesday: February 14th: LOVE day! Maddie had a great time at her school party, passing out candy and getting lots of treats in return.  She had gymnastics after school so it was somewhat busy from about 2:30-5:30pm around our house.  I did homemade pizza that evening complete with heart shaped pepperoni's on top.  I have to admit there was no romance this year on V-Day with Jesse busy with school work, studying, group projects, etc.  But still a great day spent with my children showing them how much I love them.

Wednesday, February 15th: This particular night I worked at the hospital and it was one of our doctor's last shift at the hospital. Good thing we had some fun goggles to model in to celebrate the occassion.  Christina is a crack up and was so proud to say that she owns her very own pair.  Dr Johnston, we will sure miss you!!

Thursday, February 16th:  Jesse picked up the boys early from the sitters and we happened to get a bit of snow in the meantime.  So needless to say they all had a good time goofing around together.  I am seriosly dying at how cute Mr E is with mis-matched pajamas, ski goggles, and his hat backwards.  I sure love that little boy:)

Robby had to take his turn wearing the cool ski goggles.  He thinks they belong to him now and wants to wear them whenever he goes outside to play in the snow.

Friday: February 17th: CHILI DAY. Jesse and I worked together to make some yummy Chili for Tuck's annual competition. It was fun to do this together in the morning, although I was quite tired because I had worked the night before. By that evening I was worn out and just wanted to relax at home, so Jesse took Maddie on a daddy-daughter date to the event. She had a great time running around with the other kids while Jesse manned the chili station. Unfortunately we did not win, but we still had a great time making it.

Saturday, February 18th:  Last minute Date night/girls night!! I ended up going to a girls night movie of "Breaking Dawn: Part 1" with a group of girls that live in my neighborhood: Michelle, Maren, Andrea, Liz, and Emily.  We had a great time laughing, talking and watching a total chick flick without any male gagging during the movie.  After I got back from the movie Jesse and I ended up going to the Tuck "Hoe Down" for a few hours.  It was pretty fun, even though we didn't dress up at all to suit the occassion.  I love the chances I get to get out of the house for something non-work related without children and spend time with adult contacts.  I had fun dancing with Lauren, Jen, and Natalia: I sure love my "fellow groupies" on the dance floor :) while listening to the T13 band rock out to some good old fashioned country music.

Five

A certain someone has been counting down the days until his birthday since beginning of January. 

He has also been planning his "airplane/jetplane" themed birthday party

And has been making a list of all of the 'totally awesome' toys he wants for this said birthday.

And been practicing the new way to show everyone how old he is.

Who is this cute little boy you may ask.....

Robby, of course :)  {not to be confused with Robert per the Birthday boy}

Some fun things we did to celebrate his birthday include:

*lunch at McDonald's

*birthday dinner of Spaghetti and homemade meatballs

*Yummy giant "Cupcake" cake with Spumoni ice cream

*BJ's to pick out a few extra DS games with money from GGma and Nona & Papa

*family party/lots of happy birthdays from family

Robby always dreams big when it comes to presents and this year he did not disappoint.  He announced weeks before his birthday that all he wanted for his birthday was a remote control airplane and batteries for his remote control monster truck.  I started researching remote control airplanes and coudn't find one that flew that cost less than $100---that didn't look like it would fall apart the moment we tried it out.  Luckily my friend at work contacted me and said that her daughter had two DS game systems that she never played with and offered to give me one of them for FREE.  We picked it up a few days later and it was perfect condition.  The result= Robby loved it and has really enjoyed his new "Mario Kart" game as well as his Amusement Park & Diego DS games.

We kept his actual birthday sort of low key this year with the plan that we would have a big party for him the next day, Saturday.  He didn't seem to mind in the least bit and we did have a lovely time together opening presents and enjoying time with one another.  In fact, we had so much fun that the kids stayed up WAY too late.  I glanced at the clock at some point and realized with dismay that it was 9pm and all three were still up playing.  Oh my goodness, it's embarassing to admit that this happens way too often at my house.

Five Fun Things about Robby include:

1. His favorite color is hands down RED.  He must have red plates, cups, spoons, and bowls in the kitchen.  This cracks me up because for years my favorite color was also red.  We just bought him one of my favorite books as a child called "Red is Best" that my mother also bought me because I loved that color so zealously :)

2. He is seriously so smart, he amazes me at times what he naturally learns (not from my wonderful parenting).  He has learned simple addition and subtraction from the older (not bigger) sister.  The other day I heard them practicing together while driving.  He knows 2+2, 3+2, 4+3, 2+0, etc.  He also can do very simple subtraction with using his fingers.  He has also really improved on his phonics and loves to tell me what words rhyme, what letter different words start with, can simple spell words based on the phonetical way they sound.  In fact, one of our favorite games we play is "Tell me what words start with the letter "T" or "R" or "S"..... This game can keep my older two entertained for a good 10 minute car ride and they get progressively louder as they grow more excited about what words they can come up with.

3. He is a total stuffed animal lover.  He has two different puppies on his bed "Raja" and "Maggie" that he loves to drag nearly everywhere he goes.  I have to admit, it makes my heart melt a little bit when I see him stroking them while he watches tv or as he falls asleep at night. 

4. Robby loves anything that includes races.  He will spend hours a day setting up and practicing having his monster trucks, cars, trains, planes, etc race each other.  He is very specific on who is going to win and who will crash during the said race.  He also likes to personally participate in races with his siblings, particularly when he wins.  He still isn't the greatest at good sportsmanship when he loses but loves to help others develop this attribute by trying to calm them down when they're not the winners. This is hilarious to watch!

5. Loves to play "Connect Four: Launchers". He makes up his own rules depending on who he's playing with and frequently ends up with way more turns than me----or maybe I am just a sore loser about always losing to Rubba's :)

A semi-ugly picture of part of the Bday dinner---I was mostly proud of myself for finding a recipe and making the homemade meatballs on the right of the plate.  This was a brand new recipe for me :)

Robby was so excited when it was finally time to open presents that evening on his Birthday!

I absolutely love how Maddie made him this picture for his birthday.  I loved how much time Maddie spend on this project, and how excited she was to give it to him.

Rubba in his brand new Fox Hat (that has now become E's because he is in love with that thing and Robby's semi-indifferent about it)