Jonah's Joke

Here's a joke that Jonah picked up at school. I thought it was so cute, mainly because he cracks himself up!

Why did the chickens cross the playground?
To get to the other SLIDE!

Followed by a series of Chicken jokes that make no sense, gotta love this age!

Snippits of Life

Here are a few random things going on right now;

• I'm staining cabinets and painting walls in our master bath. Can't wait til it's done!
• On colder mornings I ride the exercise bike inside. Sam loves to snuggle in a blanket and lay on the floor so he can feel the air on his face that comes from the bike.
• The boys are getting into Star Wars and love to play with "life savors" and talk about "Dark Vader".
• The kids are not in school today, we had a little ice last night. Good day to make treats maybe?
• The neighborhood cat has been sleeping in our house the last few nights. It's just too pitiful to see her outside and cold. We are total softies! Our dog is so old he can't see or hear her. He can smell her though and knows she's there, he doesn't like it but she moves too fast for him to catch.
• I went to see Twilight with some friends on Friday night after a really fun cookie exchange and ornament party.
• Jonah has eaten toast with peanut butter on it for breakfast for the last month and a half.
• I can't believe Christmas is next week. I'm excited to wrap presents and get everything ready!

Guess How Much!

I found a new thrift store! They have lots of housewares and furniture which is what I need. The other thrift stores are heavy on the clothing and book side. Guess how much I paid for all of this. $7.84!!!! What a steal! I know exactly where the two big frames will go and what will go in them(some awesome pics Alan took). The leafy candle holder will go right above my bathtub. The smaller candle holder will be by the bathtub as well. The DVD is a stocking stuffer(don't tell the boys!). The oval frames I have no idea, but they were just cool! I hope it's not expensive to cut glass into ovals. I guess I'll find out. I love good deals!!!

The Thanksgiving Turkey

Here is my Dad carving the Turkey. The boys were really paying attention to this activity this year, especially Jonah. Jonah has been fascinated by what is inside our bodies, or animals bodies. So here he is getting an anatomy lesson.
We had a really relaxing Thanksgiving this year.

REMINDER

Silent Auction starts tomorrow Dec. 1-5. My two entries are listed below and there are a lot more on Sally's site. There are already some listings on her site and she's adding more tonight so go see what's there!

Remember, this is to benefit a family who has just lost their Husband and Father to cancer. This is a great chance to help a family.

Silent Auction-Scrapbook

Here is my other auction item. This is an 8x8 inch scrapbook. There are nine 2-page layouts and two 1-page layouts. The cover is chocolate brown with hot pink highlights and detail stitching. I've used paper designed by AMY BUTLER for all of the pages. To see all pages click HERE.

Silent Auction-Handmade Cards

Two of each design, all say Thank You. Includes white envelopes.

The inside of the card has a white piece of paper mounted on it to write your message.

They will come in a handy case that is very suitable for giving as a gift.

This silent auction is to raise money for a family at our church. They just recently lost their beloved Father/Husband to cancer. There are seven children in the family. To see complete list of auction items, please visit Sally's blog. The silent auction will run December 1-3.

I Shouldn't Have Even Thought It!

While cleaning and packing before our Thanksgiving trip I just thought to myself, "I'm sure glad no one is sick right now for Thanksgiving". It seems like the stomach bug hits us a lot around this time of year. Well, after school today I was outside enjoying the beautiful day (Temp-71)with Jonah and Bekah comes out looking pale, "I just threw up". Better pack a bucket!

Coming Soon-Silent Auction

In our church here, there is a special family that I barely know since we are so new to the area. They have seven kids and just lost their beloved Husband and Father to cancer. You can read their story on their blog. I have been so touched by this story and all the efforts here to help this wonderful family through this difficult time. There will be a silent auction to help them out. This will be December 1-3, and all the items will be listed on Sally's blog. I will have two items to be auctioned and they will be listed here on my blog starting Saturday. Please spread the word and come check out all the cool stuff being auctioned off!

Jonah's Drawings

Jonah has been interested in skeletons and what is inside the body. We have a book that shows what's inside our bodies and he has been drawing skeletons ever since. The bottom one is about the first one he did. The blue one is more advanced showing the person doing the x-ray. I think they are really impressive for a 5 year old kid! But maybe that's just because I'm his Mom!

A Funny

This morning. Sam eating applesause at the counter. Me making a salad for later. Sam looks up from his applesauce and asks me,

"Can I crash my trains in this?"

Me: "In your applesauce?"

Sam: "Yah"

Me pretending to think hard: "Um, No, but thanks for asking!"

Grandpa Paul

My Grandpa (Grandpa Paul as Sophie calls him) passed away in October this year. He was 98. He was ready to go and it was much more of a celebration than a funeral. My Grandma passed away about 10 years ago and he really missed her. This is my dad's dad and the only grandparents I knew growing up since my mom's mom died way before I was born and her dad died when I was 6 months old. I do have a step grandma who we were close to as well, but my dad's parents lived in the same town and we were with them a lot. Here are a few memories I have of my Grandparents, Paul and Alice;

• We would go over to their house for sleepovers and play in the basement. My Grandpa had set up a play store for us with a cash register and empty cereal boxes and cans so we could "shop" in the basement. He made forts and a stage for us to play on. I remember dressing up and putting on my Grandma's old jewelry for a fashion show. He was forever changing things around in the basement so we would always be excited to see how it would be the next time we visited.
• My Grandpa would pretend to be a cab driver when we went somewhere and we would all sit in the back (including Grandma) and tell "James" where we would like to go.
• Both of my grandparents are of Swedish decent and spoke Swedish in their homes. So when they didn't want us to know what they were saying, they spoke Swedish. My Grandma spoke Swedish better than my Grandpa and sometimes had to help him on certain words.
• They took us to the zoo quite a lot. The best part was riding the train and when we went throught the tunnel, my Grandma would scream like a little kid!
• We were always excited to see their big yellow car come up our street, it meant fun was on the way!
  

Pics of the Patch

Evan (my brother), Stephanie and Sophie choosing a pumpkin.

Sam and Grandma, sorry about the messy face!

On the hay bale, the boy's favorite part!

Sophie and Sam playing in the bus. Sam is one year older than Sophie and they didn't always get along, in fact they fought quite a bit over the weekend. But they love each other and had a lot of fun at the patch together.

This was our fall break from school and we had planned to go home to visit family. We didn't expect that my Grandpa would die that week and we would be there for a funeral. The great thing was that we got to see my brother and his family and have a good time at the pumpkin patch, carving pumpkins, playing games and just hanging out together. I'm sure my Grandpa was happy for that!

Carving Pumpkins

Here are the boys carving pumkins at Grandma and Grandpa's house. They got the pumpkins from the pumpkin patch the day before. Sam just had fun drawing on his, by the time I carved it he was long gone!

Here is Jonah's creation. He did actually carve his (or tried his best!). The paper clip necklace was made by Bekah and Jonah was very attached to it all weekend long. Bekah made one for everyone.

I Voted Today!

Well, Friday actually. I voted by absentee ballot and it was great! I've never done that before, but decided to this time since last time I voted for the presidential election I had to stand in line with a squirmy Jonah (that feels like soooo long ago!). I didn't want to repeat that with Sam and I think the lines may be long. It feels so good to have had it out of the way! The only thing I didn't like about voting this way is that I don't get a sticker!

At the Zoo

We went to the zoo on Saturday, we had beautiful weather this weekend!

On the train, Sam's favorite thing!

On the carousel. Jonah chose the giraffe, even though it doesn't go up and down.

Here is Sam on the zebra, he loved it. He hasn't wanted to go on a carousel, he seemed afraid of them before now. He had fun this time though!

Here is the entrance to the zoo, still decorated for Halloween. Jonah loved going through the Giant Pumpkin!

We went through the rainforest at the zoo and inside they had a "hut" with benches and a table inside of it. I went in with Jonah and asked him if he thought he would like to live in a "hut" like this. He said he wouldn't because it was a pizza "hut". "It's a pizza hut?", I said. And he said yeah, "there's a table for the pizza!". I guess his only association with the word "hut" is from Pizza Hut!

Halloween '08

All ready to go out Trick 0r Treating. Our neighborhood was FULL of kids out having fun, it was great. I stayed home and handed out candy on our front porch, it was really beautiful weather! Our church had a Trunk of Treating/haunted house/carnival activities event on Wednesday and they had fun at that too! Oh yeah, Bekah is Cleopatra if you couldn't tell and Alan is Gandolf from The Lord of the Rings. I think Sam and Jonah are pretty much obvious!

Look at those muscles! Jonah was kind of hidden in the other picture so I thought I'd add this one too.

The Cat

This is the neighborhood cat who seems to spend all of her leisure time on our front porch or in the garage in incliment weather. She is definitely a mouser, but also successfully hunts small birds. This week has been a very successful week for her. Two mice in the backyard, one in the front, and a baby mouse dropped on the front porch right outside the door (Bekah found that one and it was still wiggling in the cat's mouth!). She has killed mice before and brought them over, but never this many in one week. I don't mind her doing this, it rids the neighborhood of pests, but we have to watch where we step! Sometimes she brings them over alive and plays with them. I came home from a walk one morning with Sam and we found her on the front porch eating a little sparrow that she just caught. I've never spent a lot of time around cats, being allergic and all. Do all cats do this?

The State Fair

This "big guy" was just outside the fair entrance. I think the boys would have been happy playing on the "big" guy's shoes all day.
There was a cake decorating section at the fair. There were some demonstrations and some awesome cakes there on display that had been entered in the fair. Some serious cake decorating! They had people helping kids to decorate rice krispy bars and the kids loved that! You did have to pay $1 to do it, but that's about the cheapest snack at the fair! And that frosting was to die for! I think I may have to give cake decorating a second chance. I took a class when I was in High School, but never worked with fondant, that was so fun! So Colleen, I may have to ask you where you took your classes and learned how to do this!
That's Bekah waving from the Ferris wheel. This was Jonah's first ride on the Ferris wheel, he's just too short so you can't see him in this picture. My parents were here for the weekend and My dad is up there with them, in case you were worried! Jonah loved it! I was afraid he would get up there and freak out, but he didn't.
Of course you have to visit all the animals at the fair! They had mother pigs waiting there to give birth as people watched and student vets worked. Kinda reminded me of when I had Bekah and they kept asking if more residents and student nurses could come in and watch! I had quite a crowd in there watching me almost bleed to death! Anyway, They also had a booth set up so you could watch them perform surgery on animals, so Alan was entertained for a while.

I got to have my cheese on a stick for the year. We didn't know where all the good food was like we do at our "old" state fair, but we will learn! I like that they have it later in the year, it's not so stinkin' hot!

Alan entered four pictures and won a third place ribbon on one of them! They even had hadmade cards and scrapbook pages entered so I may have to do that nex year.

Golf

Bekah started golf lessons last week. She is so tall that she can use shorter mens or womens clubs!
She is a lefty, but found that it felt more natural to swing like a right handed person. Alan is so proud that someone in our family is learning how to golf. He's tried to teach me, I've been to the driving range, but that's about it for me!

Sam's Birthday

Here is Sam celebrating his birthday. He wanted Thomas on his cake. He was so excited that he blew out his candles before we sang happy birthday and we had to re-light them. After he got a piece of cake with some "tracks" on it he drove Thomas all over his cake!

Playing with Thomas the Train

We posted Sam's picture to the Thomas the Train website (just click on Thomas the Train here). Sam and I go to this website almost everyday to play games and look at the pictures. I accidentally posted it twice, since it took so long to appear on the site, I thought I messed it up. So if you want to post a picture, just know that it takes about a week to appear there!

Happy Birthday Sam!

We celebrated Sam's birthday last night while Alan's parents were here visiting. We were around the table and I asked Jonah how old Sam would be tomorrow. He looked over at Sam who was sitting right next to him, studied him for a second and said, "looks like Sam's going to be three". Then Sam said, "I'm not Three, I'm a NUT!!!" We'll give him that, he keeps life interesting!

Crafting

I haven't crafted since we moved to our new place (or for several months before). I have been getting my craft stuff organized and am planning to start again this week (hopefully!). I just posted some cards that I made last year here, partsandpieces. Enjoy!

Mickey Mouse Clubhouse

Since we moved, we now have cable and with that the Disney channel. So, Jonah has a new favorite show that he watches every morning and is fascinated with. Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. He has recreated the clubhouse out of legos and acts out various parts of the show.
Pretty good with no help from anyone. He also builds Wall-e, Mr. Incredible, and Sponge Bob.

Bekah's Room

BEFORE.......
AFTER.....

THE BIG REVEAL......
This was a lot of fun, Bekah chose the color. We have added some details not in the picture that I'll have to add later. We want different curtains, these were quick curtains we hung because there was nothing on the windows. Now I'm working on the Boys' room which I will post later.

Jonah's First Day of Kindergarten

Jonah started school on August 15. He started later that Bekah because they had to do a kindergarten assessment. It was ok, I don't think I would have made it having to worry about both of them going to new schools on the same day. Jonah also gets to ride the bus.
The new lunch box, very exciting!
Sam had to hold his lunch box too and pretend he was going to school. All day he asked, "where's Jonah?". I guess they do like each other after all!

Bekah's First Day of School

Bekah started school on August 13! She is in Middle School now and is bussed to school, lucky me!

Zoo Train

Sam is sitting with me at the computer and wanted to see the zoo train again. He LOVES trains! Here at our new zoo they have this train. We've ridden it twice now. He calls it James from Thomas and Friends. Oh yeah and he's still wearing his Thomas the train shirt (going on 3 weeks now) it's looking a little worn. I'll have to go shopping for some new ones!

Cousins

Cousin Emily came to visit with her new baby sister, Kaitlin. We had a short, but good visit from their family.
Just try to get that baby away from Bekah!
We went to the zoo together and had a great time. The weather was perfect!
Here is Sam, making sure we know where that baby's nose is!

More Aquarium Friends

We watched them feed the beavers, what healthy eaters they are! In the same room they also were feeding the otters goldfish. They were hilarious as they played with their food! These racoons were so energetic!
And of course the Nemo cast of characters that my kids love, Bubbles,
Dory,
and of course Nemo.