"Hosanna, Hosanna! Oh let us gladly sing...."

I was sitting at my computer, trying my best to wax poetic and create something beautiful for a Christmas gift, when I hear a little voice singing. "O zana, O Za-ana, let us gadly sing" it took me a few seconds to realize what I was hearing and seeing. 

 What I was seeing was my little J standing next to his nativity. He had lined up all the little people (including the farmer and the pig from his little people farm) and he was leading them in song. He was singing a song that he learned for the children's choir he sang in last Sunday. "Hosanna, Hosanna! Oh let us gladly sing. How blessed that our Lord was born, let earth receive her King"

I believe in Christ. I know he lived, that he was born, in lowliness and that eventually he died for you and for me. I know that he rose again, on the third day and that He Lives. I like to think that I was part of a choir of angels heralding his birth, and as I watched my baby boy sing praises to his King, I got the feeling that he was definitely there singing his little heart out.

Craft Time!

I have a friend and former neighbor named Angee, she is very creative. So creative in fact that she was invited by a local TV show to share a craft idea. This is what she did- 

http://dressesandmesses.wordpress.com/2011/12/09/footprint-snowman-spotlight/

I thought is was easy enough that I could do it, and this morning I felt like J and I needed to get crafty! I realized that I had everything we needed to do our very own version of this craft, and so we got to it. I even let J do quite a bit of the work. He was SO HAPPY, it made me happy. (I watched Angee make these on the TV, and then I just did it from memory, I am really pleased with our final product!)

We used 12 x 12 card-stock- because that's what we had on hand. and I let J paint the entire paper blue, he used a sponge and he did an amazing job.

Then we painted a white hill (and with the help of a little glue- because we waited a little too long) we put some glitter on to make the snow POP!

I think this next part was J's favorite. We painted feet...............

And then we stepped on the painted paper.

I decided we would do this craft every year or so. This year I would decorate and as the boys get older they would start to decorate their snowmen on their own (when they can be trusted with sharpies.....not sure how many years that will take). So we made 2 foot print snowmen creations today. I am thinking I will give this one to my Mommy.

And you guessed it, This one will go to Daddy's office, and then I will keep it for future decorating purposes.  Do you like how the Baby Snowman has a San Francisco Giants fleece hat on? I do! Sometimes I AMAZE myself!

And truthfully this was so easy and fun that we might make some more tomorrow. J told me that he would like to make some Penguins too, we just might try it. It's way too much fun to get our craft on.....well, now I really need to clean and exercise and get dressed....., I just wanted to share, we had a fun day today.

Everybody Loves a Hayride!

One nice thing about being one of the Youngest Grandchildren is that you "Inherit" old toys. J got this tractor from his Grandma T's house earlier this year. He loves it, and he has created a new Christmas Hayride tradition for his nativity sets.

The Snowman Nativity gets to do the driving. I know because I asked if one of the Little People characters could drive. I was told no, Only Snowman Mary drives.  I'm glad that the Snowman Angel is there, because this set up really doesn't look too safe.

The Little People get to ride in the trailer, they all had tons of fun!

Baby Style

Someone has his Mother's sense of style!

My running outfit of choice lately has included knee high penguin socks.  So really it should not have been a surprise to discover that B enjoys fun knee high socks as well. The odd thing about B and his socks is this, if he is wearing pants he doesn't want to wear socks, but if he can manage to wiggle out of his pants, he is perfectly happy to keep his stylish socks on all day long. Thus today's outfit- I guess I should go figure out where he shed his pants.

Quiet Riot

The older brother was in his room by the time I took these pictures, but rest assured, he was very much involved in this mess.

So today, I was enjoying a few minutes of sitting down on the couch. Everyone had been fed, chores had been done, no one was screaming "Mine! Baby!" and no one was crying. It was perfect. I even said "Quiet time starts in 3 minutes" and no one complained...that should have been my 2nd warning. My first warning should have been the fact that no one was screaming and no one was crying and I was in the front room and the boys were in the kitchen......having a quiet riot.

I mentioned yesterday how much Baby B likes flour!

 Both boys were quickly put in their rooms for nap time/quiet time. And I decided that I probably should clean up. It felt like about 5 pounds of flour. I love my boys, I love my boys, I love my boys, I love my boys.......

 After sweeping the floor about 5 times, I decided to do something for me- continue decorating. I put up the Alpine trees and got out the Snowcouple. I also put snowberry in the secentsy warmer....I am feeling much better now.

I think I will now go watch "The Biggest Loser"

What happened to November?

Well, it went by in a flash! My ankle has started healing- I can run again but there are times that it still swells a little. All is well though. More on that later. Here are some of the pictorial highlights of the month.

Little B discovered a love for flour- no gluten allergies here, just a great desire to stuff his mouth with handfuls of flour. He is so happy, when he is able to find time alone with the flour bucket, that I just can't be mad at him. Seriously, look at that smile.

I gave my boys haircuts in November- J's hair was getting pretty long. It had been a good 3 months or so since his last haircut.

While I was cutting his hair he started to cry "No, NO cut my hair, me want to be Handsome!", after some reassuring that he would still be handsome he settled down and got a pretty good haircut. I still have problems trimming around the ears, I cut too short.(can't see that here).Someday I am going to be pretty amazing at trimming around the ears, maybe when J is ready to leave for college.

Then there was Ken- the clippers started acting funny while I was cutting Ken's hair- and about half way through they DIED! I sent the half trimmed Ken door to door in our neighborhood looking for working trimmers, after a few minutes he came back. Only problem- I usually use a #1 on his hair- which was half cut, and the new clippers only had guards # 2 and 4. So we decided that Ken would get a pure no guard shave. (though not a Bic close shave). After finishing up Ken's hair we put Baby B on Ken's lap. This was his first official Haircut. I trimmed the baby mullet a month or two ago, but his hair took so long to grow in I was a little sad to actually cut it. I give Jared an allover shave with guard #8 and then I take a #4 to the back and sides. I was planning the same for B but when the only options became #4 and #2- that would still work......

Well, I did the all over shave, I thought to myself, "Wow, his hair is so light it disappears when it is cut this short, and then I went to change the guard and discovered that I had used the shortest guard all over his head! My baby- my baby was the perfect specimen of......of a Jar Head! We decided that since it was the day after Veterans Day, his new haircut was very appropriate.

What a sweet boy he is. I've heard many times that the difference between a bad haircut and a good haircut is about 2 weeks. Well, this must have been a really bad haircut, because it's been more than 2 weeks and it's still just a little odd. Someday my baby will have hair again. Someday.

We had a really fun Veterans Day, We went to visit our very own Veteran. Grandpa Turner! My Dad was a Chaplin in the Navy and I am very proud to have been raised as a "Navy Brat", but I am much more proud of my Dad. We went with my Mother and my sister Laurie and her 4 children to visit Dad at the Junior High School where he works as a counselor. We had lunch and then he took us on a tour of the school. It was lots of fun.

I started running again- 2 weeks after spraining my ankle I was given the Okay to run a mile, then 2, then 3. I was ready to run in the Utah Human Race 10k on Thanksgiving, I was WAS ready but about 6 hours before I was supposed to leave to run the race I started having HORRIBLE flu symptoms. I stayed home from the race. By afternoon (and thanksgiving dinner) I was feeling ready to eat. I lost 5 pounds on Thanksgiving day- not typical. Don't worry, I'm pretty sure I've gained most of it back. I ran my very own 10k on Saturday, I was still not feeling the best but I did okay time wise.

Ken did our Black Friday shopping, and he did a great job too!

And that- in a nutshell- was November

Christmastime is HERE!

We are feeling the spirit of Christmas around here! Joy is in the air. Yesterday Ken supported me while I put up Christmas lights! YAY!

J (in complete snow gear- for warmth) helped too- here is a picture of him making sidewalk angels. He is ready for snow!

After I finished with the lights and we had dinner and a very fun family home evening- the boys put on some of their new "black Friday" pajamas- we are proud to have two of the newest Space Ranger Cadets in our family. They are TOO CUTE!

And lastly- today J and I set up the Christmas tree. I decided just to put on the star and the red bead garland for now- we will decorate it the week before Christmas. While I was putting the garland on J came up and started singing a song about hugging the Christmas Tree. From his prospective his Mommy was hugging the tree and he thought it was fabulous- what was I really doing? Passing the garland from one hand to the other around the back of the tree. After we were done decorating I went to get the camera, as I came back in the room J sang out "Me LOVE the Christmas Tree!"

I love this time of year.

The Halloween Half Marathon

On Saturday October 29th I ran my 2nd Half Marathon. It was the Provo Halloween Half, costumes were encouraged and so Ken round me some $1 cat ears and I painted my face- those two things combined with my black running clothes made me a wonderful black cat.

My sister Laurie also ran, she was a skeleton. I finished my first half marathon in 2 hours 35 minutes or so, I finished this one in 2 hours 14 minutes! YEAH! Yes, the first 4 miles were ext ream downhill grades, and the rest of it was pretty much downhill as well, but I was told my my doctor on Monday that a 21 minute improvement shows that I was better trained and in better shape- the downhill helped, but not that much. The picture above is of Laurie and me before the race, below you will see me after the race. my nose and whiskers stayed on really well- how? I used water proof Mascara.

I tried very hard to stretch sufficiently but I was pretty sore on Sunday. Monday, Halloween, I was still quite sore but I was getting better. I was excited about how well I had done and I signed up for another half marathon in June and a 10k on Thanksgiving. I was all dressed up in my Halloween Half shirt and I was wearing my medal- I figured Halloween was a day you could wear medals and not have anyone look at you funny. I was on my way downstairs to see if the baby had woken up from his nap, hoping that he was so that I could take the boys to Ken's office and show off their costumed cuteness. I was taken by surprise when I reached the landing at the bottom of the stairs and I heard a POP and felt a horrible, horrible pain. I think I remember looking down and seeing my ankle turned at an odd angle. I do remember that I really felt like I needed to call 911, it hurt THAT BAD! J was on the potty, of course, and he came running when he heard me screaming. I talked him into putting underpants and pants back on, then he brought me the phone and eventually he went to get a neighbor for me. I was able to move myself around and lay on the landing with my leg elevated on the stairs. My neighbor checked on baby B, who had slept through all my screaming, and she brought me pillows and frozen green-beans, to ice my ankle. Ken got home and took me to the insta-care where they took X-Rays and told me that I hadn't broken my ankle, but had sprained it.

Like a true addict I asked the doctor if I was going to be able to run again- especially since I had just registered for a race on Thanksgiving. I was told that I needed to stay off the ankle for 3 days, then I could walk if there was no pain, and then 2 weeks after the injury occurred I could start running again. I was really worried that something was really wrong, I was doing what I was told to do, I was using crutches and elevating my ankle and icing it and keeping it wrapped, yet it was still swelling, weird swelling. I broke down at bedtime on Wednesday, Poor Ken. Thursday was the day that I was supposed to be able to walk, and I just didn't see that happening. But it did! I could walk, with no pain! And so I kind of over did it. So I tried to make sure I still took it easy on Friday and Saturday and Sunday.

On Monday I had my annual physical with our Family Practice Doctor. I am the healthiest I have EVER BEEN, my cholesterol is perfect, in face all my lab tests were great. My blood pressure and heart and lungs were great. I am doing great with my weight loss and I have a firm final goal for my weight- set with my doctor. AND he said that I had torn a ligament (he said which one but I don't remember) and that I shouldn't be worried about it, it will heal. I asked how long it would take to heal and he said about 4 weeks and I said "so does that mean I can't run my race on Thanksgiving?" He smiled. Did I tell you he is a runner- he ran in the Half Marathon I did in August. He told me that I could start jogging next Monday if I promised to take it slow and stop if it hurt and as long as I wasn't suffering too much pain I could run the 10k on Thanksgiving. I have ankle strengthening exercises I have to do. But I am feeling much better today than I was a week ago.

So that is the story of the My Halloween Half and my SCARY Halloween Sprain.

October (as I remember it)

October is a wonderful month, this year it was full of summer temperatures and fall colors. We went out to a pumpkin patch in Erda, with Steve, Melissa and Cousin A, and we had Tons of Fun!

Yep, We're Cute- believe me, even J is cute, distracted, but cute.

Little B really liked the straw, really. (this is how I remember it after all)

J's Preschool went on a field trip to Corn Belly's. J enjoyed driving a tractor....

and Jumping on the GIANT PILLOW, seriously it was HUGE!

and B enjoyed being carried around in the sling.

I tried to get crafty- and also discovered that I can ALMOST take a self portrait- I was trying to set the timer- to my surprise I took a picture.

There- that's better- I got this shirt a couple of years ago, and this year I added some fabric flowers...what do you think?

I discovered that B LOVES to read, in fact I find him quietly studying books and magazines quite often.

I also discovered that B loves to wear hats- and is darn cute in them too.

Halloween got closer and costumes were mulled over. 

They are handsome little devils

Yep- that was October. It was a good month. November's flying by. 

Thankful!

So we made some Turkeys- and I just realized I put them up in the window a little backwards- I shall fix that- I have a little sign that says "Thankful for...." and then we have Daddy Turkey, Mommy Turkey, J Turkey, B Turkey and Cousin Q's Turkey which was our inspiration. 

Q's Turkey is the one there on the far left- he has an eye patch, an ammo belt with plenty of grenades and a gun! Love that Turkey.

Here's a close up. 

I'm thankful for so many things, but Q's turkey makes me happy that I am the Mom of Little Boys!

All Hallows Eve (eve, eve)

Tonight is our neighborhood Trunk or Treat and Chili Cook Off. Tomorrow I am running in the Provo Halloween Half Marathon. I don't think I will be eating much Chili- rather I will be having some spaghetti before we head over to the party.

Last year after Halloween we bought an Elmo Costume- sure that J would jump at the chance to be Elmo. We were wrong- about two things, the costume is 3t-4t and J is actually a little too big for it AND J wants to be a dinosaur. Good thing some friends gave us a dinosaur costume this past summer. I buckled down and searched for the costume this morning and I FOUND IT! J is over the moon, he is most proud of his tail.

I had the hardest time figuring out a costume for B. Yesterday I asked some friends if they had any Ideas and one of them loaned us this little costume/jacket, B is going to be my Lion King! So if you see me standing outside my house (or on the street corner or on top of a mountain) hoisting this cute little boy aloft- make sure to chime "Simmmmmbaaaaaaa" right along with me. There is absolutely no way you can't love this kid! he is just way too amazing.

So, I haven't blogged in a while, part of the problem is that I haven't had any time! AMAZING! And the next part of the problem is that I have pictures to share and stories to tell and I want to share them chronologically, BUT that is just a little overwhelming, so I decided to start from today and every once and a while I will go back in time and share some fun from the past month or two. Wish me good luck!

Kate Update

Fall is HERE! I made a Pumpkin! J is really proud of me, he said I should make 3- three is his favorite number.

So, I've had lots on my mind recently, and it ALL went away when I sat down to write this post! WOW. So....let me think....I can only think of one main update about me- so I will share that.

I have made some changes in my daily schedule this past week. I think it worked pretty well, but it is going to take some time to get used to- i.e. I hope I can talk myself into going to bed on time so that I am not so tired.

I decided that I wanted to make sure I had my priorities straight. The most important part of my day, in my opinion, is taking care of my boys, spending time with them, teaching them and LOVING them. But I felt like I wasn't doing so well at that. Between cleaning, exercising and being social (on the network) there just wasn't a ton of time to color and read and play with blocks. At our stake conference this last weekend one of the speakers told of her sisters experience with changing around her daily priorities. She was like me and wanted to make more time in her day- and what was the biggest time sucker? The Internet of course. If she was like me then she would probably go to the computer to check one thing, then check something else, then remember something she wanted to look up, and so on and so forth. So her Sister kept her computer turned off, she kept a list of the things she needed to look at and search for on the web and for an hour a day- during nap-time or something like that- she would do her searches.

I wrote that idea down, and on Sunday afternoon I thought about the things I wanted to accomplish everyday. I wanted to spend good quality time with my boys, get my cleaning done, I wanted to exercise and I wanted to have a specific time I would work my business. I realized that I was going to have to wake up early to do the cleaning and exercising, and that would free up the time during the boys waking hours for me to spend specifically with them.

So I have tried to wake up at 5:20, when Ken wakes up. On Monday, Wednesday and Friday I exercise first thing in the morning for an hour. Then I clean the room I've picked for that day. They boys will probably wake up during that cleaning hour. Then Breakfast, 30 minutes of computer time, Preschool, reading with B, Nap-time for B and Premier Designs time for me. J comes back from Preschool and we have lunch then coloring, puzzles, games, then Nap-time for J and B and 30 more minutes of computer time for me (sometimes the computer comes out earlier, when I have a specific purpose- like writing a blog post, or while I am working on Premier Designs stuff) I have found that I am quite tired by nap time and I often fall asleep myself. Then Ken comes home and I make dinner and we enjoy family time. Tuesdays and Thursdays are a little different because I don't have enough time to run before Ken leaves in the morning- so I clean starting at 5:20 and then the boys and I go running at 7 or so, sadly I had to wake B up to do this, but it worked really well. I have even managed to get dressed by 9 AM on most days! (psst, that getting dressed by 9 thing, pretty amazing feat if you ask me!)

I can say that Monday- Thursday this week worked pretty well. I couldn't get up this morning though. I was just too tired. Probably because instead of going to bed at 10 PM like my schedule told me too, I got to bed between 10:30 and 11. I know I need 7 1/2 hours of sleep at night and I am going to have to force myself to bed so that I don't have to force myself out of bed when I am too sleepy.

I am sure it is going to take a few weeks to really get into the grove and figure out what works best, I might need to change my cleaning schedule around, for example, J woke up really early on Tuesday, when I was cleaning the living room, which happens to be right outside his bedroom door- I'm thinking of switching and cleaning the basement family room on Tuesday and the Living Room on Wednesday, in the hopes that J will sleep at least until 7. A mom can hope!

Well, B is up from his first nap, and it is time for lunch then building towers with blocks! YES!

Too Busy

Earlier this week J was helping Ken take out the trash and the recycling. They took the long walk up to the recycling dumpster and then came back for the regular trash. Ken couldn't get J to come inside the house. In fact J laid down on the front grass at this point. Ken told him he needed to come inside and help him gather up all the trash from the different rooms. J said "Me Too Busy", now that's my kind of busy.

What a boy- busy watching the clouds go by- that is exactly the kind of childhood I want him to remember. We love this boy!

Bear Lake

When J was about 3 months old he and I went to Bear Lake with 15 or so members of my family. We rented a really nice cabin. J didn't care how nice it was, he only cared that there were 9 kids there and it was LOUD and he hated it. I spent a lot of time in the bed room or outside where it wasn't so loud. Fast forward 3 years and we all went up to Bear Lake again. This time Ken came with us. There are a few more kids in the family now- It was just as loud but this time J loved it, B thought it was pretty fun too.  Here are some snapshot moments form our trip.

B enjoying some home made pizza for lunch, I am 99% sure that this is the oldest highchair he will ever sit it.

The most beautiful pizza I have ever made. It was a vegetable and chicken pizza. ( I made and froze the crusts at home a week or two before the trip, then we just topped them, cooked them and ENJOYED them)

We drove up to Paris! That's right I've been to Paris! Paris Idaho! A few miles outside of Paris (20 min driving 15 mph on really rocky bumpy roads) there is something called an Ice Cave. Basically it is a cave/giant chasm in the ground that is positioned just right- snow falls into the chasm during the winter and then sun never reaches parts of the cave/hole during the spring, summer and fall, so there is constantly a little mound of snowy ice. When we got there J immediately too off running, in the wrong direction- can you blame him, I mean his cool cousins were out there standing on the edge of a big chasm, it had to be safe right? They would never do anything dangerous!

We collected J and found the actual cave entrance. It was very cold in there, you could see your breath. I am glad I brought the sling for B, he was pretty glad too. I didn't do any spelunking, I just stayed on the path and didn't go too far into the cave. Can you see the ghost in the picture? I have watched enough ghost hunter shows to know that that little round blob in the picture is a ghost! FUN! 

As soon as we got into the cave and found the ice, J immediately ran onto the little mini glacier.

good thing we have the ability to zoom the camera- here is J- having WAY to much fun standing on the ice, he is also way too cute not to share the picture.

J actually slipped on the ice not too long after we took those first pictures, Ken had to go save him. But J, being a typical 3 year old, got over it pretty fast and continued to have fun exploring.

It was pretty cold in there and when I saw one of my nephews walk into the cave with a blanket, I didn't waste a moment and asked for it. B was happy to have it. I really should have thought to bring a hat!

I eventually left the cave. J on the other hand made Ken follow him around and take pictures of him standing next too or on every rock possible.

Yep, the Ice Cave was pretty fun and FREE!

Sliding on dirty snow ice can really make your bum dirty!

We are very smart people and since we had a fully equipped cabin we figured we would save some money and so a lot of eating in. But on the night we arrived (which was a Thursday) we decided that we would go out for dinner, after-all, there are LOTS of little hamburger places and we could get SHAKES- Raspberry Shakes to be exact. Well, Ken and I drove through Evanston on our way to Bear Lake- which meant that we drove through Garden City before we got to the Cabin, and we discovered that, even though it was only 6pm, there were only 3 restaurants open! No Hamburger places! A Mexican Restaurant, A Pizza Shop and a Steakhouse. Ha! Well the Pizza Place served shakes so we went there, even though we were going to have pizza again on Friday and Saturday.

We noticed, while driving through Garden City again on Friday as we were headed to Paris, that the place I lovingly refer to as "the shake shop" was open. (I just googled it- it's called "Quick n' Tasty") so after we finished up at the cave we drove as fast as legally possible back to the shake shop and enjoyed WAY TOO MANY SHAKES. B proved himself to be the perfect little bird- he discovered that if you look cute, open your mouth and grunt a little, EVERYONE will put spoons full of ice cream into your mouth. 

J's favorite part of the cabin- The Sand Box! 

We had lots of fun. It was loud, and they boys slept in our room- which isn't all that relaxing- but I have an idea for the next time we rent the cabin- All the kids sleep in the basement! We put them down there after dinner and lock the door- then we unlock the door in the morning! It's the perfect plan really. We had a great time.