Final verdict: Naughty

Actually the boys have been pretty good this year. Aside from the occasional fights. But we have found that when they are limited on their electronic time that they get along better. Go figure. They are both anxiously awaiting Christmas break they think that they will be playing that wii from morning till night. Unfortunately that isn't the case. We will probably give them a little extra time though after all it is christmas.

We are getting ready to send Craig out of town for his last trip of the year. Then we will have him home for a few weeks straight. Yeah. We had wanted to have family pictures taken before christmas to go in the cards. It is looking less and less like either of those things are going to happen. I did get the coordinating sweaters bought. Does that count? We will definately have to get them taken right after the first of the year.

Zach is excited that the only christmas program he has at school is a singing thing with the whole school. He is also counting down the days until he is out for the rest of the year. He has just had strep throat and is still finishing up his medicine, but feeling good. We did finish the second book in the peter and the starcatchers series and have started the third. He has read the Lightning thief series on his own and is very excited for the first movie coming out in February.

Jacob is excited that his class is performing the Nutcracker he is a pennywhistle and happy that he doesn't have a speaking part. His teacher talked with them before the did parts and told them about stage fright and he is pretty sure that he already has it so he is happy to not speak. His class went and saw the Ballet West performance this week and he enjoyed it Craig is jealous since he has never seen it.

The boys are both looking forward to making gingerbread houses at grandmas this weekend. Jacob has asked everynight this week to go over and start but they have been in Tennessee all week.

The ornament at the top is Craig's from a few years ago. When I was a kid every year at christmas everyone got a new ornament and then when we moved out all of our ornaments were ours to take with. This insured that no one had an empty tree. We have continued the tradition in our family. In fact Grandma and Grandpa Schroder still give everyone (grandkids included) a new ornament every year. So the kids actually get two. The ones that we buy usually have something to do with a trip that we have taken throughout the year. This year however the boys both wanted Jazz ornaments. I couldn't get a good picture of them and will have to try again later. But the Jessica Rabbit ornament is Craig's.

Paige's Birthday

We celebrated Paige's birthday this weekend at Grandma and Grandpa's.



Notice her cute Tinkerbell PJ's I was waiting for her to get dressed so I could steal them but she was on to me (I wasn't the only one that wanted them either) and she wouldn't change out of them.

The week of thanksgiving we rearranged the basement so that we could get the Christmas tree up. We completely moved everything around. This is the rearrangement before the tree.



Then the day after thanksgiving we got the tree up and decorated. We only put up the one tree this year. Just the one for the family room, usually this is all disney ornaments but since we aren't doing the other upstairs I did leave some of the disney off so that we could put some of our favorite non disney ornaments on. It was still hard to decide which ones to use and which to leave off.



Of course there was no question as to which topper had to be used. It isn't Christmas till Tink is on the top of one of our trees. This topper was bought the first trip that we took to Disneyworld. To celebrate our first anniversary. We have been back several times since but that was the only trip for just the two of us with no kids;)




Hope that everyone is having a great holiday season.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!

The kids have been making Candy Canes. They are making them with pipe cleaners Jacob especially loves making them and then we are hanging them on the little pine tree that we have up in the living room so it can be decorated for christmas to. We took the stuff to grandmas last week when we went for dinner and all of the grandkids made them however Jacob was the only one that wanted to pose for a picture. He will always pose for any camara available. Hope that everyone had a great thanksgiving and holiday weekend. Hopefully no one was stampeded at any of the black friday events.:)

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!



We want to wish everyone a happy thanksgiving. This picture was actually taken a week and a half ago. We were on our way up to park city two saturdays ago. In the snow. It was very pretty. No snow today so far. Not sure if it is going to snow haven't seen the weather forecast yet. The kids had a fun week of celebration at school and are enjoying being home now.

Jacob's class studied the pilgrims all month everyday they had an activity following the pilgrims journey. It all ended on Tuesday when the parents showed up with food to share for the final feast. He learned a lot of new things and so did I. Unfortunately I walked out the door without my camera. I got some pictures with the iphone and while it has a lot of cool apps pictures are definately not a strong suit. They were so blurry I decided not to bother with sharing any. We did have fun though.

Craig and I went and saw Blind Side last night with friends. No kids how is that for lucky. The movie was very good at the top of my list for movies this year. Craig is trying to claim that it is a chick flick. But I say it was a sports movie. No matter what it was very good and that whole family was very amazing and very blessed.

I am grateful today for all of my many blessings. Most importantly though FAMILY. I have two great boys who make me proud to be their mother every day. I have a wonderful husband who makes me laugh everyday... and sometimes it is at him, but more often then not it is with him. I also have a great extended family. Parent's who love me and have always supported me and a brother and sisters who are always there also. I am truly blessed and very thankful for all of my blessings.

I am also very thankful to all of the many military members who have served and are still serving to protect mine and my families freedoms. I am also grateful to their families who sacrifice so much for all of us.

Hope that everyone has a great day today and that you are able to spend it with those who matter most.

Oh we also hope that you are able to see Santa Claus in the parade:)

Happy thanksgiving we love you all.

Jackson's Birthday

Sunday everyone got together at grandma and papa's to celebrate Jackson's birthday.




It looks like he has Grandma's hidden talent and I got a picture of it.



We all had a lot of fun and are looking forward to Thanksgiving on Thursday. Craig and I just went and saw New Moon and it was good. I told him he is spoiled since that is the first Chick flick that we have seen in the theatres all year. Last year we also saw only one and it was Twilight. Although most of what we see is kids movies I believe.

In book club this month we are reading The Guernsey literary and potato peel pie society. I think that I am going to add this to my list of top ten books. It was very good. The boys and I are just pages away from being finished with the second Peter and the Starcatchers book and are enjoying it also. Those of you who have already read it please don't spoil the ending;)

Kids are off for the rest of the week for Thanksgiving yeah. We are almost completely done with Christmas shopping. Friday we are decorating and if all goes as planned next week I am planning to get everything wrapped. This is all being done in prep for my surgery but I am really thinking that I need to remember how nice it is to be so prepared so that maybe I can make this a yearly habit. How cool would that be.

We hope that everyone is enjoying this wonderful wonderful time of year. Hope that everyone has a great thanksgiving.

We took the kids to see the disney version of A Christmas Carol over the weekend. We went with the whole family it was a little hard on the younger kids. They didn't find it as interesting. But everyone got plenty of popcorn and drinks so what more can you ask for right?



Paige also wanted to pose with the chipmunks but her younger brothers weren't interested.



We all had a lot of fun and are looking forward to it again sometime. Maybe next time we can go and see the new Alvin and the Chipmunks.

Peter and the Starcatchers

I hope that everyone had a fun halloween. We had a great one. The boys and I just finished reading Peter and the Starcatchers the beginning of this week. We are now started on the second book in the series Peter and the Shadow theives. Everyone is really enjoying these and we highly recommend them.

We are looking forward to a three day weekend. It was SEP conferences this week (parent teacher) and I am proud to report that the boys are both doing fabulous in school. Zach had to set some long term goals for his and one of them was that he wants to be an NBA player. She was great and told him that it is important to have an education to fall back on since you never know when you might be injured but that she thinks that it is good to have dreams. She then told us about a sixth grader that she had a few years back who always told her that he was going to be a famous football player when he grows up. His name is Brian Keel and he has just gone pro this year.

I am teaching the art literacy in Zach's class every month this year and in Jacob's every other month. Last month we studied primitive art. This month we are studying Michaelangelo. This month I have been told that the art projects are fairly difficult and it also happens to be the month that I have the first graders also. Yeah. It should still be fun though. I know that it will be fun. I really enjoyed it last month.

Hope that everyone is planning and able to have a great weekend.