The First Article of Faith

Michael has memorized this for a sharing time presentation his class is doing on Sunday. I thought I would tape it to prove he learned it because I'm not so sure he will do it in front of everyone on Sunday. :) He is so cute!!

Pathetic

I am pathetic. I don't even know how old I am. I was talking to a friend that I met at Christopher's school this morning. In conversation she said,, "Well, you're only like 28 aren't you?" I said, "No, I'm 34 and I'll be 35 in March." She was surprised, (it's always nice when people think you're younger than you are) :) When I got home, I was sitting there nursing Jacob and I thought, "Wait a minute...I'm not 34!!" I actually had to do the math quick in my head...2010-1976= 34. So, this year I will turn 34. Maybe I was thinking of Jeff, he is 35 right now. Anyway, that is really sad when you don't even know how old you are. I don't think I'll say anything to my friend though. I'd rather have her think I'm a year older than think I'm just dumb. :)

The second thing under the header pathetic, (although I don't think of it as pathetic, I prefer the word "frugal") is that we finally got a new computer, (hence the more frequent blog posting). For those of you that know, we've been without a real working computer for almost a year. You're probably saying, "Are you serious!!!" Yep. Jeff's old laptop that he had through college worked forever but finally the screen went dead on it. The computer still worked so if the lighting was just right and I put my face right up to the screen and squinted, I could see enough to do email. It's funny, I know. But we have a hard time making a decision on large purchases and we put them off as long as possible. But I finally did it and we got a new Dell laptop. Nothing fancy, but we don't do a lot of fancy things on the computer anyway. We also got a new printer since that died recently also. This one copies and scans. So, here are a few scans I was having fun with.

This is me as a baby. I guess we know where Jacob gets his chub from. :) (My sister is going to kill me for posting this picture of her)

This is me around Michael's age. I guess we know where my kids get their frowny serious face. Annie makes this exact same face. (Don't you love the 1970's family reunion, matching, seersucker outfits we are all wearing). :)

This is Jeff as a baby. I think this looks so much like all of our kids. Does that head look familiar? Actually, I thought our kids all had Sutherland heads, but if you look at my baby picture, my head is pretty big and round too. Haha

If I had a Super Power....

....what would it be???

Flying- no,

Invisibility- tempting, but no,

Super strength- also tempting,

No, the super strength I would want is Super Finding skills. All day long I get asked, "Mom, do you know where my bear is?", "Mom, where are my socks?", "Mommy, have you seen my flashlight?" If I was a Super Finder it would save me a LOT of time. :) I've started telling my kids that they are in charge of their toys and to put them away so they always know where they are. But I still inevitably end up looking for things all day long. Oh well. :)

The basement

Our basement is unfinished but we've done some things to make it more like a play room so the kids can run around down there. It's a little chilly, but not that bad. I put up some curtains and we put down a big piece of remnant carpet. My sister gave the kids a basketball hoop for Christmas and I got a table and stools for them to color on. They can still ride the bikes down there as well. It's a nice little get away for them where they can be as loud as they want....mostly. ;)Michael is getting good at making baskets, or "basket-scores" as he calls them. I think his record so far is 9 in a row.And now that we have more space I am doing better at storing up the "3 months of supplies" we would normally eat. We've always had the longer term supply like rice, beans, etc. but now I am enjoying stocking up on more every day items. I've got a long way to go though to have 3 months. I'm surprised how much food we go through in our house. I'm scared to think what it will be like when the boys are teenagers....they will eat us out of house and home. :)

So cute

I found Jacob sucking his thumb the other day. It was so cute!! I didn't have the heart to pull it out, but since then I have found him doing it a few more times and have replaced his thumb with the binki. Even though thumb sucking is quite adorable in babies, I know it's a habit that is harder to break than the binki. At least you can take the binki away at some point. :) Isn't this cubby little guy the cutest thing ever!!

First Tooth

On Tuesday Christopher lost his first tooth. We weren't even expecting it. A few weeks earlier I had checked his teeth because I told him that he was getting to the age where he might lose a tooth. On Tuesday morning Christopher and Jeff were just about to leave for school and Christopher was eating an apple. He asked me what the hard thing on the table was. I just said it was a piece of apple and picked it up. Then I realized it was his tooth and yelled, "Oh! It's your tooth!" That, of course, scared him and he started crying and the little bit of blood made him cry too. But after he settled down and I told him it was all okay, he thought it was cool. So, he was kind of late for school, but he had fun showing off his empty space to his friends.

That night we put his tooth in the cute little tooth fairy bag we have (thanks to our very creative friend Becca). Then Christopher got kind of concerned about the tooth fairy coming into his room through the window. He was really worried and I didn't want him to be so upset so I just told him that the tooth fairy was just pretend and that I just did it. But he said, "No mom, she is real!!!" So I said okay and that if it would make him feel better she would knock on the front door and I would let her in and come upstairs with her. That made it all better and he went to bed. At about 2 am he came into my room. I was kind of awake because Jacob has a cold and was in bed with me. He asked me if she had come yet and I said he could go check. He ran back in his room and was so excited that he got $1 and a few pieces of candy. I had the video camera ready upstairs so I got it on tape. He is so sweet and said that he would share his candy with Michael and Annie. It was a fun experience and I think we'll get to do it all over again soon because he has a few others that feel a little bit loose.

Annie gave him a funny look when he showed her the missing tooth.

5 Year Old with a Saw

Jeff cut up our Christmas tree again this year. Let me explain. Last year we didn't know what to do with our Christmas tree because we couldn't figure out when the city picked them up and the condo association frowned on any unsightly objects being placed outside where others can see them. So Jeff decided to cut it up and put it in a box for the garbage. He said they did it when he was younger a few times and used it for fire wood. (I wish we had a fireplace to do that). Anyway, I thought it was kind of sad to watch our pretty tree get cut up. Well, this year he wanted to do it again and again I protested, but I lost and the tree got cut up. I thought it would make the kids sad so they went to the basement to play (we've turned it into a fun playroom...I'll have to post pictures). But Christopher came up and actually thought it was so cool and wanted to help. Jeff is really good about letting the kids help him with anything. As a mother I was reluctant about letting my 5 year old use a saw, but turns out he was really good at it and didn't even saw off any fingers. :) Jeff supervised carefully, but Christopher has some real sawing skills and didn't need much help. Michael was actually asleep during it all or I'm sure he would have helped also. :)
And here is our New Years snowman. He's kind of dirty and leafy because it took all the snow in our little yard to make him...right down to the dirt and leaves. He's even got spiky hair and a carrot nose, if you can tell. We were going to do a Calvin and Hobbes and make him look like a crazy snowman trying to escape from the fence, but we decided to let the kids decorate him instead. ;) You can see Michael holding a little baby snowman he made. He later made our whole family in baby snowmen.