Snow Day

Ike, barefoot, playing in the snow with his Hot Wheels color changing car.

I love Snow Days! I love them probably just as much now or maybe even more than I did as a kid. There is something that makes me giddy, early in the morning when I hear that school has been canceled due to the weather. I love it when Will can stay home and our life, once again slows down, routine flies out the door, and we can just enjoy each other and PLAY! Thursday morning Mike and I awoke skeptic that Will would have school and sure enough school was cancelled. Yea! The forecast said freezing drizzle, rain, and snow. People were speculating an Ice Storm comparable to the one we experienced two years ago. Sure enough, it started to drizzle and ice, and today it is snowing, beautiful, plump flakes, and happily no one has lost power yet. If you've never experienced a Mid-West ice storm, you are missing out. They can be wild, and Walmart is even wilder when one is in the forecast....But that should be a different post.

Today, however, I just want to celebrate the fact that there is no school, my yard is covered in beautiful snow, and they shut down the university too, so my favorite professor is home as well. It can't get better than that. This is bliss, having no where to go, no deadlines to meet, no homework to do, my family all around me, having a warm home, a pantry and fridge full of food, a cup of hot chocolate (and I don't even like hot chocolate) and snow falling down. boys watching old spider man cartoons on YouTube.

The boys wanted to build a log cabin. Here they are in the freezing drizzle yesterday working on it.

The boys moving logs in the rain. They convinced Mike to help. Love that I'm married to a man who plays with his kids. I'm convinced that every family of boys should have a large wood pile, stick pile, some sort of pile etc.. somewhere in their yard. The whole purpose of this pile is simply to have boys move it back and forth. They love it, and it will provide hours of entertainment.

....Now if we do loose power, all our logs are soaking wet, but that's ok.. I guess we can burn the furniture:)

So in the spirit of Snow Days here are a few fun things to do.

My Favorite Hot Chocolate Recipe Ever.

(I said, I don't like Hot chocolate, that is true, except Steven's French Vanilla and this baby below. I do believe they serve this in Heaven:)

French Chocolate, From Martha Gardner

2-1/2 quarts milk

1 cup heavy cream

1/2 cup chocolate syrup (Hershey)

1/3 cup pwd. sugar

Warm milk. Meanwhile, whip heavy cream, chocolate syrup and sugar until stiff. Can refrigerate up to 2 hours at this point. To serve, put a heaping tablespoon into each cup. Pour hot milk over it and enjoy. (just picture this in cute, little white tea cups with white saucers and it's perfect.)

My favorite Play Dough recipe.

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 cup salt

2 packages of unsweetened Kool-Aid (this is the color)

2 cups boiling water

3 tablespoons vegetable oil

Mix the salt, flour, and Kool-Aid packets. (Be sure you are using the small sachets of unsweetened mix.) Use one color per batch. Add the boiling water and oil and stir until blended. Let cool and then knead until the dough is consistent in color and texture.

stores for several months in a zippered plastic bag or airtight container.

Now go outside and play!

The Escape

This is a successful grin

and this is what Jake (thought and) did yesterday, right before he grinned.

Come on Mom. Please, Please, Please let me go outside and play with my brothers.

I need to sooooo BAD!

Hmmm. What do we have here?

Well then, If I pull... Just maybe.... YES!



Work It, Work It!

Free At Last!

Whoever said, "Necessity is the mother of invention" was right on.

V.I.P.

Prepare yourself for something AWESOME!

This isn't it, but this is an awesome hairline, Thank you Ike for the picture.

Here's another Ike specialty.

.... and here's his shoulder.

Oh, and here's his head. Thank you Isaac.

Sometimes it's amazing what we find when we download our camera pictures.

Awww here's a cute face and a lot of hair.

More cute faces.... and a kid that no longer has a camera.

On the floor.

"Superstars"

Cute boys!

Few things in life make you feel more like a "Superstah" than sitting on row 5 during an NBA game. And did we ever feel like superstars as we sat in our seats during the Oklahoma Thunder vs. San Antonio Spurs Basketball game last week. Our seats were the ones on row 5... yes folks that is five not fifty.

Thanks to Sara, Mike's cousin, who hooked us up with the amazing tickets, we got to sit amongst Rolex wearing, diamond drooping, wine drinking, Hummer driving people. And we had a BLAST! Sara has a pretty nice connection, she is dating one of the San Antonio Spur coaches, and because the Spurs were coming to OKC to play, and she couldn't make it... we got to go instead. Thoughtful of her. Not only did we go watch the game, but Sarah went the extra mile and gave us V.I.P. passes to go on the court after the game and jive with the coaches, players, and staff. We've never done that before and knowing how to "jive" with such amazing, important people was a little beyond our abilities, I mean, what do you really say to Tim Duncan if you get the chance? Well we got to meet Sara's friend (Chad) who is very nice, easy to talk to, and very generous. Our boys got to run on the court and shoot hoops, and dream....dream of a time when this would be their reality. Did I mention that the boys are our retirement?

The game was a great one to be to. They went into overtime, (that always creates a pulsating atmosphere). With three seconds on the clock, the Spurs hit a shot that gave them a one point advantage! We didn't really know who to cheer for, our game beneficiary team, or the hometown guys, so we just cheered and clapped and blended in with the noise all around us and enjoyed being there, practically on the floor. The boys favorite part, was hands down Rumble the Thunder mascot. He repelled in with lights flashing, fire blazing from the hoops, smoke blasting, music playing etc...He also smashed a cake into some Spur fans face, who made the mistake of being a little too annoying, and you just can't ask for more than that. Watching a cake being smashed into some unsuspecting fans face is about as good as it gets. Unless your an avid sports fan and then the overtime is pretty cool. Half time was awesome. Peter Rabbit performed. Check him out if you get a chance, that man can play 5 gallon buckets like nobody's business. And Ike even got to take some cool pictures of unexpecting fans, so he enjoyed himself too. Thanks Sarah for the fun, memorable night.

GO Thunder, or Spurs, or Thunder, or Spurs.....

Weather Wonders

Funny how the weather can change on you here in the Mid-West. In a snap it can go from freezing your eyeballs to pleasant park playing weather. Yesterday my boys and I enjoyed our first picnic of 2010 outside on our sunny, warm patio. Exactly one week ago school was cancelled due to the negative degrees. Today, is overcast, but a light jacket will suffice. Maybe all this change in the barometer is the reason Jacob has had a runny nose since October.

Oh, To Be A BOY!

It's been cold here. Very Cold.
So cold in fact, that we have been stuck inside way too long.
That is hard, especially when your a little boy and Santa Claus left you a razor scooter. It gets harder when you have a beautiful, clean, razor scooter and your mom wont let you ride it up and down the hall. How rude!
It gets harder when you've promised to watch out for baby fingers, but Mom still says no.

Being the mother and not wanting to deflate my boys lives too much, I had a brilliant idea.
May be we could get all bundled up and ride the scooters in the church gym.
They were sold.
Then we realized Dad had the church keys with him.
The boys were bound and determined to still go to the church.
So we bundled up really good, loaded the scooters in the trunk, and drove to the church.
Yes, of course, the doors were locked.
But, the boys kept telling me it really wasn't that cold outside. And furthermore, look at all that parking lot space.
So they rode their scooters outside, and mom and the baby stayed in the car.

Then Mom looked in the rear view mirror and saw two little bums.
Yes, her darlings were relieving themselves outside.
Did I mention our church house is on the corner between two very busy streets.
Did I mention that these boys chose to stand on the tallest mound, far away from the shelter of a tree, or cover of a bush.
Is it too sacrilegious to mention here that a "Bum on a Hill cannot be Hid."
Should I also mention that we were the only car in the parking lot and I couldn't pretend, just for a tiny moment, that these children belonged to someone else.
Hmm, To relieve oneself (we call this shooting a rock) outside is one thing.
To do it on church property is another.

It took me right back to a memory of my eldest doing this exact same thing one Sunday. Yep, this happened right outside the Stake Center, right after Stake Conference. I think the only one to really see was the Stake President. He has since been released and has moved to another state so things are OK.

Well, lets just say I think two little bums were a little cold. But then again maybe they weren't because they kept right on riding like nothing out of the ordinary just occurred
And then we we had that little chat (because you always have a little chat after things like this).
They promised they would try hard to remember not to do what they did again.
Then we loaded ourselves into the marked vehicle, and the boys were happily reminiscing to each other about all the cool moves they did.
And then they said, "Thanks Mom, this was awesome!"
And then my heart smiled real big, and I was once again so grateful these hoodlums were mine.

Oh Christmas Tree!

(Our favorite gift under the tree this year, was the scarf Mitch Poulson (8) crocheted and gave to us. The kid spent 4 months on this scarf of many colors and then let us have it. We love it Mitchel! You are awesome. Thank you so much and go Utah State!)

(Jake's first tree)

Today I took down the Christmas tree. This day is always a little emotional for me. Growing up my sister and I used to laugh at Michael McLean's song, "I Cry The Day I Take The Tree Down," somehow whenever I hear that song, I picture some lounge singer with a silky red dress and blue eye shadow, relaxed over a piano singing her little heart out to all the truckers that stopped for their weekly shower, but honestly that song has struck a cord as of late and I'm crying today too.

I hate to see the season end, and although it's fun to anticipate the new year and get excited about fresh beginnings, it still tugs at my heart strings. I love Christmas and the whole holiday season. This year's ending seems particularly bittersweet to me.

As I sat and rocked Jake before his nap, I just looked at our tree. It probably wouldn't be considered beautiful by any one, other than myself. Glamorous is definitely out of the picture. It will never be displayed in Better Homes and Gardens, but I love it and it warms my heart. We have slowly graduated as a family from Charlie Brown Christmas trees to a twinkling smorgasbord of yearly memories hung haphazardly on dried out branches. There is no rhyme nor reason to the decorating of our tree, but each ornament has a story to tell and memories galore to reminisce.

As I looked at our tree today I saw the blue ball ornaments that Mike and I decorated together before we were married, even engaged. We painted Utah State A's, Big Blue and Go Aggies all over them. I didn't know then that Christmas 9 years later we would still be enjoying them together. I looked again and saw the dried out oranges that we hung on our first tree 8 years ago when we lived at USU Married Student Trailer Court # 58. Our married student trailer was 10'x50' and to drag a live Christmas tree inside to some might seem impossible. We weren't skeptical though, we were just in love, married for two months and excited to spend our first Christmas together. So we made our way to Tony's Grove with $10 in hand to see what we could find. We found the ultimate Snoopy Tree. It was $10 and we thought we got a bargain. We didn't have any ornaments except the blue balls that came with me into the marriage. We didn't have any money either, but we did have a few oranges. We didn't realize that there is a method to drying oranges so they retain their beautiful color. Our oranges turned out black, and they get blacker with the years. In fact, a few have had to be retired, but it wouldn't seem like Christmas unless at least one of those black oranges, with a ribbon through the top, hung on our tree. That year we also tried our hand at spice and applesauce ornaments. They haven't retained their festive smell, and most of them have cracked, but I had to chuckle as I looked at the one Ike tried to take a bite of while hanging up ornaments this year. He hasn't tried that again.

I looked at the tree again and saw Will's first ornament. I was so excited to find a cute ornament kit that you could press your babies hand print in and keep it forever on your tree. Will was a 1 1/2 month old that Christmas, and no matter how we tried we couldn't pry his little hand open enough and keep it open long enough to get a good imprint. Everytime we tried, he would end up with a fist full of plaster. We eventually resorted to his footprint, and not a very good one at that. Many times I picture things turning out differently in my mind than they really do. This was one of those times, but each year we get out the foot ornament and I smile. And then this year I cried as I compared his little foot ornament to the cute bigger 6 year old hand print glazed ornament he brought home from school. He was so proud and excited to give it to Mike and me. I eventually got that hand print of Will's just 6 years later than I thought.

One tradition I love is I get the boys an ornament each year that reminds me of them and something that they did that year. I wrap them up and give them to the boys the night we decorate the tree. This started the first year Mike and I were married, I mentioned earlier that we didn't have any money and that was true, so spending the $5.99 on the Harley Davidson motorcycle ornament made me choke. It seemed perfect at the time though, a perfect gift for the boy who sold his beloved motorcycle so he could buy cement tools and start a business to get him through school. And so I excitedly purchased the ornament and presented it to Mike on that first night we decorated our tree, with the blue Utah State balls, black oranges and spice ornaments. Mike liked it, better yet it made him laugh, and he triumphantly hung it on the tree. Our Snoopy Tree couldn't take the weight, however, and less than 20 seconds after receiving the ornament the Harley fell and broke. We were horrified and glued it back together. That year it had to hang from the top of the tree on the thickest branch, the only place that would hold the ornament's weight. Who really needs a star or an angel really, if you have a Harley?

The boys have received an ornament every year and I glanced at the ones that hold some significance to us. One like Ikies blue bird. As a little baby he loved birds, he would get so excited whenever he saw them fly in the sky, his first word was bird and whenever he would see them he would say bird over and over again just like Bambi. It was so cute, and so that year he received a bird to hang on the tree. There are a few Santa cowboys, for Will, and a wheelbarrow ornament filled with seeds and shovels for Mike. He got that the first year we tried our hand at gardening. We were serious about eating the fruits of our labors that year, and a garden we thought was a great way to teach our boys to work (did I mention they were 3 and 1=). Well we rented a community garden plot and with excitement went to Westside Market to pick our seeds. The preparation part of gardening I think, is where we went wrong. There were a few weeds before we started, so we tilled and thought we'd be extra safe and spray some heavy duty Preen on it. Well the Preen did its' job and them some. It killed all the weeds, however, it also prevented any thing else from growing too. Not one green thing came up on our plot that year, no weeds or vegetables. Our plot looked like Mars compared to the flourishing plots around it. Our dreams of fresh salsa died as we harvested character and a little more garden savvyness.

I looked again at the tree and saw the many post Christmas tree trunk ornaments that we hang up. Our second year in Kansas we found a Christmas Tree Farm that we could actually afford somewhere out by Saint George. I grew up cutting down our family tree and I loved that experience. Nothing quite beats finding the perfect tree out in the field and laying claim to it. So we were pretty excited to be able to continue this tradition with our boys. Once cut we always cut another inch off the bottom of the trunk, write the year on it, (with the intention of decorating it), and keep it as an ornament. As I looked at those tree trunk ornaments hanging on the tree, I remembered all the fun times out in the field with the boys...... and the nasty farm cat Will was certain wanted us to be his family.
Our second to last year in Kansas the tree farm stopped selling trees. We were pretty sad, and Home Depot didn't quite have the same magical feel to it. (It did have a tree bagging machine that was pretty intriguing to watch though). This same year we also broke tradition in the fact that we ate somewhere other than Vista the night we brought our tree home. We were tired and Arby's happened to be across the street from Home Depot. It was getting late, the boys were in the car and the tree wouldn't appreciate us opening and closing all the doors, so we decided to go through the drive through. Mike was a little hesitant to do that though with a tree on top of his vehicle, but food is fuel sometimes and we were running on low. I had to laugh when the kid in the drive through window said, "Hey Mister do you know you have a tree on the top of your car?" Mike replied "WHAT THE??!" and leaned out his window to inspect the top of the car. We were all laughing by that time, and decided that going through a drive through with a tree on the top of your car was pretty fun after all.

I looked at our tree and noticed ornaments we've picked up on fun vacations, like the Nauvoo Temple, the Bear Lake ski boat, the lighthouses from Oregon, and the Canoe from Signal Mountain. I saw the ornaments students gave me the year I taught school in Brigham City, the snowflake from colorful Donna Capaso, and the ornament Sister Hawkins gave the boys from the institute.

Mike loves to hang Candy Canes on the Christmas Tree. When kids come over to our house during December, they usually get to choose a candy cane from the tree to take home. Our boys are often found sucking one from the tree themselves. As I looked at the tree one last time, I noticed three Candy canes, that had escaped their doom, left at the tip top. I thought the boys will enjoy these this afternoon..

As I looked at the tree again, I thought of Will's statement to me earlier today, "Mom this is the best year for trees ever."
"Why?" I asked
"Well it's the first year our tree hasn't fallen over."
He was right. We must be growing up or it might have something to do with the new tree stand we had to buy this year. Anyway I look at it, though it has been a good year for trees.