Just a good Thursday

Today was just a good ol'day. I wasn't expecting anything outstanding to happen.  Which is good because nothing outstanding did happen.  But what really made this day different was just a series of wonderful little things.

First of all, we saw the Dr. today a lot.  He had a short day!  So he surprised us by unexpectedly walking in our front door.

His being home early resulted in the kids getting to make a snowman and then sledding down the hill behind our house! I wish I had pictures, but they did this while I was seeing the eye doctor.  He also took on the project of painting the bathroom and because he had such good help--he didn't miss a spot!

lego car Jace made while I was at the gym

Jace got "fired" from home school today.  That is what he told his Dad when he got home. But the real story is that I fired myself from being his teacher for the day! I felt that maybe I needed to step back a little bit and let Jace take some ownership of his education.  Which resulted in a boy who was asking to do his lessons!  

So this evening as I went to the gym, (which was actually fun!), the two of them started on the math lesson we hadn't done.

While the boys were finishing up Gracie and I shared lots and lots of salad and

 

Spaghetti alla carbonara which I had just made for the first time with my new cook book.  It was so incredibly delicious, and probably incredibly fattening. But I could care less--for now!

 

So as you can see, it was nothing spectacular, just an unexpected treat to be all together.

glimpses of last week

 

This is one of Christopher Robin's Lego creations.  He made it last week late one night while I stayed up to read my new cookbook and Ryan worked on building our new computer. I decided to post them because I think they are cool!!  Whenever he steals the camera and photographs his toys, he takes a long time photographing them. So here are a few of his shots.

 

 

 

I thought they were pretty artistic!!

And here is my other artist!!  She paints and works with play dough EVERYDAY. This was Monday--pink underwear.

This was Tuesday.....purple underwear....Thursday it was yellow!! On any given day it is a huge mess, with Gracie Rue stripped down to her underwear having a great time. 

 

It is also my favorite part of the day- tripping over it all- and stepping in all the play dough while I make dinner!!  Good times!! 

 

 

 

Behold the contrast--which I love.  I snapped the above pictures of Gracie (purple underwear) and then snapped this picture of Jace at the dinning room table. He has just finished arranging his cars.  They are very carefully arranged with a Lego figure driver by each one.  I love them both like crazy and I so enjoy seeing each of them express their creativity,  just one is much easier to clean up after!!

So I mentioned we are getting a new computer. Our old one was 10 years old, I guess it was time.  Just the timing wasn't great.  It crashed and burned just as I was supposed to be writing a talk to give in Sacrament meeting on Sunday. 

But I think the Dr was OK with having a little project to work on.  He built our last computer and I think he had fun getting to build another one

especially with such great help!!

 

And now this post is getting long, but I didn't get a chance last week to put this up, so now I will.

Here you see some brotherly love.  Jace is giving Grace a full commentary on each of his cars!!

In full detail.

 

They had also been wanting to build a car wash, which they did.  Pretty nifty invention.

It came fully equipped with a "sprayer." 

Which squirted real water!!! Fantastic!!

 

All in all it was a nice slow week with a snow storm on Thursday night which dropped about 7 inches of snow.  Public school was cancelled (so were our homeschool enrichment classes in Kalona) and Ryan ended up free all morning because all his patients cancelled. So he stayed home and harassed us all morning and then went in at 1:00p.m.  It was an unexpected treat to have him home.

 

Now it is Monday morning and I am off to see what this week brings!  Hope you have a good week too!

Love is in the air

Valentine's Day at our house was wonderful.  I hope yours was too.  On Wednesday I pulled out our boxes of Valentines and put Christopher Robin to work writing a Valentine to each of his grandparents and some of his cousins.  It kept him busy most of the morning. 

Wednesday night the Dr and I stayed up late together making the 5 dozen cookies you see here.  The Dr has hidden talents in the kitchen.  He is excellent at rolling out cookie dough.  I always get them to thick or thin and he makes them perfect everytime.  He says it's because in his line of work-- everything has to be cut just right.

 

 

Miss Gracie Rue has been excited for weeks, and I mean literally weeks, to make pink heart cookies.  I was worried that when she woke up on Valentines morning and saw them already made she would freak out.  But Christopher Robin handled that situation for me beautifully.  He told her the cookie fairy made them--and she was just fine with that. 

 

Of course her Daddy saved her a ball of dough to have all to herself.

 

And yummmm......her cookies turned out great!

CR thinking--"hum..it sure is nice to eat cookies for breakfast and lunch..but I still  wish mine were blue."

 

 

When I grew up, it was the tradition in Southern Utah to doorbell ditch Valentine cards to all my friends.  I also remember my Mom making dozens of heart shaped-frosted sugar cookies for us to ditch on our friends and neighbors doorsteps as well. Was this just a Utah thing?  Nobody outside of Utah seems to have done this as a kid.  It was a fun tradition, and now Robin and Rue love it too.  This year we made it to 9 families in our ward--our record to date. 

 

By our second delivery Gracie had crashed and burned in the mud, but she didn't seem to mind.  She LOVES to RUN..and this was the perfect venue for her. 

Here you see us getting caught at our last stop for the night-- Bishop Parkers house. You can't win 'em all!

 

It was a very fridged night!

 

But so fun.

Hope you all had a very Happy Valentine's Day.  Sending our love to you from Iowa.

Super Mom

"Ahhh, it's good to be back"

I want you all to know that this past week Jace awarded me the very coveted title of Super Mom!!  What does it take to become a Super Mom you ask? Well in my case it was very easy.  All it required was taking Christopher Robin and his side kick Rue to his old home away from home --our local Children's Museum.

We haven't been there for almost 2.5 years. I had forgotten what a fun place it is.  This is where Jace and I went everyday for the first four long weeks we spent in Iowa City.  We were homeless then. Grace was an infant with colic and we were waiting for our house to close in Mid-July.  I still kind-of cringe -and almost shed a tear -when I think of that hard summer, so that is probably why I haven't been back since then. But I will say this--that summer alone earned me the title of Super Mom......!!!!

It was so fun to take Gracie there for the first time!!  She loved shopping at the supermarket and Jace had a great time showing her around.

 

 

We then went and made pine wood derby cars so Jace could give them a spin down the race track.

Watching his cars race to the end.

It is an awesome long track. 

 

 

This is the plane room.   It has several planes that the kids can pedal to make the propellers turn. 

 

 

 

 And a real plane.

 

This handsome pilot is going to be a heart breaker someday! 

 

He has a cute co-pilot. 

 

They are flying off to "Utah City" to visit their Grandparents! 

 

 

And here is Miss Amelia Earhart back from her trip. 

 

It is so nice to have a place where they can do all the paining they want and it is not at my house!! 

 

They have a train room, a reading room, a Lego room, you name it- it's there.  It really is so fun.   I was surprised to run into Daisey the cow here-- she is new.

 

 

 You squeeze her utter and guess what---"milk"  comes out.  Can you tell by the look on Christopher Robin's face that that was very unexpected??

 

Well, this concludes our little tour of our local Children's Museum for now. I hope you have enjoyed it.  Now, I am off to be "Super!"