Thanksgiving

I hope that everyone had a fun Thanksgiving. We enjoyed the day even though it was a little weird not spending it with family. We went over to the Rubich home and spent the day with them. She teaches at the same school as Abram. Reagan loves playing with their little boy Michael. After diner we took some family photos. Reagan didn't understand why he was supposed to sit still or why I didn't want him playing in the pile of dirt. He didn't cooperate very well. We ended up getting a few photos that worked. The last photo has the Rubich family in it also.

Something to make you laugh

One afternoon, I put Lauren down for a nap and decided to do the dishes. Claire was playing in the family room while I was cleaning. After a while I noticed it was completely silent. I am sure you all know the feeling. when I couldn't hear Claire anymore I knew she was up to something. she was being sneaky. The first thought that came to my mind was " she better not be upstairs waking Lauren up!" I ran upstairs, opened my door and what I walked in on... well, lets just say I had to turn around and grab my camera. This is what I found.

Hard working girl

With the economy the way it is claire thought she would start working a day job to help out with our finances.

well, actually claire is always getting snacks or treats when she does something good, so for our craft last week we decided to make a money jar. Now when she does something like a chore or something good i just give her some of the change that i never use. i think this is good because it will save on future dentist bills and it teaching her to earn, and save money. when she cleaned her room i used it as a teaching opportunity. i told her how daddy goes to work everyday and he works very hard, and even if its not fun, he does it so that he can buy her special things and so we can live in our house. when cory got home from work that night, she ran up to him and gave him a big hug and said, "thank you for working daddy."

Will you play with me?

Eagles Play Poorly in Lines' Coaching Debut

Last night was my high school basketball coaching debut. April wanted me to point out that her and Reagan were the only white spectators in the gymnasium. Growing up in Arizona and Oregon, I used to think that would mean that you had a phenomenal team. Okay, enough about the diversity of my team and on to our game.... We lost 48-52. It was a great game up and down but my team just turned that ball over and missed too many wide open lay-ups. We played poorly and only lost by 4 so that is a good sign for things to come. My whole approach has been to emphasize the positive with them. They already know what they did wrong so I am approaching it with what they did well and am building our practices around improving in the areas that we did poorly in. With 2:30 left in the game we were down 10 points. I subbed in 5 guards and went to a full-court trap. We went on a 6-0 run but that is as close as we would get. I should have gone to it earlier, but you live and learn. It felt good to be coaching again. Although I must say my legs are a little sore from squatting down on the sideline to go with my pacing back and forth.

Hopefully the 0-1 start is a good sign. My senior year when I coached Caleb's sixth grade basketball team we won our first game and then never won again, hopefully this time it will be reversed.

After Thanksgiving Day Sales

I thought that I would share this website in case anyone was interested. The site has the 2008 Black Friday Sales listed. If you already had some ideas for Christmas but thought you would wait till after Thanksgiving to buy it to see if it would go on sale this site may help you out.

www.TheBlackFriday.com

Mommy's Little Helper

Reagan loves to be his mommy's little helper. Which isn't always helpful. When I do dishes he wants to help. Reagan only knows how to unload the dishwasher. So anytime I am at the dishwasher Reagan is right there helping me unload it. Even if I am trying to load it. On Friday I decided to make pumpkin cake rolls. Reagan decided he needed to be right there helping me. He actually did an ok job. There was a bigger mess than normal but they still turned out good.

Toilet Training Injury

I made a post awhile ago stating that we had begun the toilet training process. Abram said that I made it sound like he was already toilet trained. He was not. We had just begun. We had bought him a toilet but we still had to get Reagan used to the toilet. It took several tries to get him to want to sit on the toilet without a diaper on. When we finally got him used to the idea nothing would end up in the toilet. Occasionally we would get a mess on the floor but nothing in Reagan's special chair. We decided not to push him and let him tell us when he was ready to toilet train. He still loved to sit on his toilet though.
Then a week came where Reagan had a little problem. He had a little pain in his belly which moved to him bum. He knew what he had to do but couldn't get it out. He was in pain. He came to me crying and grabbing his bum. I figured his diaper was dirty and it needed to be changed. That wasn't the problem. He needed help getting it out. I decided to sit him on his toilet to see if that would help. Soon enough Reagan looked down and saw that he had made something magically appear in his toilet. This happened a few more times. I thought that maybe this meant that Reagan was finally ready to be potty trained. I was wrong. For a couple more weeks nothing happened again. We decided to give up on the idea again.
Then on Friday night before bed Reagan came up to me pulled on his diaper and said "Pee Pee." He then said "hand" letting me know he wanted to hold my hand so he could show me what he wanted. He brought me to the bathroom. So I decided to let him try using his toilet. In just a minute or two something appeared in his toilet. He knew he put it there. He was so happy and proud. Since then he has used the toilet several times. He has only asked to use it once or twice. Most of the time I have to ask to get him to go. I am sure we still have a long way to go before he is toilet trained. It does seem like he is on the right track this time though.
Now to the toilet training injury. It probably isn't what you are thinking. To help Reagan get excited about toilet training we have been giving him a treat after he goes in the toilet. I didn't have too many treats on hand. The only thing I could think of giving him was fruit snacks. While Reagan ate his fruit snack I put a load of laundry in the washer. Reagan soon came to me crying. He was pulling his hair. When I got a closer look I noticed that he had placed one of the fruit snacks that he had already had in his mouth on top of his head. It was really stuck in his hair. I tried pulling on it to get it out. The hair was too wrapped around the fruit snack. I thought it was it was funny and was laughing. This frustrated Reagan even more. He tried to pull it out too. He realized that it hurt when you pull your hair but he wanted it out. I was eventually able to get the fruit snack out of his hair without pulling too much hair out. As soon as I got it out Reagan grabbed another fruit snack and tried to do the same thing again. I guess no more fruit snacks for him for awhile.

Late halloween pictures

I am a little slow at posting these, but I fugured I should show a photo of his coustume without him barfing.




A couple weeks ago Jonah started to legitimately crawl. He is now an expert. The last 2 days he has followed me down the hall when I left for work and then climbed up the door after I left. I think he likes his dad.

Laurens blessing day

Today was Laurens blessing day. It was also her first Sunday at church. I was a little stressed as the day started, I was worried that she cry while Cory was blessing her, and i was also afraid she would barf all over her beautiful dress. She seems to do a big throw up(and i mean like projectile vomiting) every morning. Well, after we got up i fed her and burped her really good. No barf yet and time was running out so then Cory and Lauren took a bath together. I was hoping that maybe the bath would help, maybe relax her tummy. We arrived to church and everything was going good until Lauren started to cry during the opening prayer. About 10 seconds after the prayer ended they called Cory up to give the blessing. She was still crying. Cory was especially worried because he was afraid he would lose concentration and stumble over his words. As he began blessing her she stopped crying. Me and Jill would say it was the spirit that calmed her, Grandpa Ben would say it was because he was cuddling her and Uncle John would explain that she stopped crying because he put the Binky in her mouth. I still think it was the spirit. All and all no barf and not much crying. Woohoo! After the blessing Lauren did amazing. She was such a happy baby. Today was probably the best she has been. Grandma Vickie says it is because she knew it was her special day.

Some of the things she was blessed with:

Grow and develop without major illnesses or problems

Identify her unique talents and skills that help her find joy

Her curiosity will lead her to seek out secular knowledge and the mysteries of God

Bless her in these times with optimism and happiness

She will find joy in her friends and family

She will have a special relationship with her sister and mother.

bibs

I still have all of Reagan's Bibs in a basket on his changing table. He never uses them anymore but I never bothered packing them up. A couple night ago Reagan brought me the basket and wanted to wear one of his bibs. He was so happy when he had the bib on. So he brought me another one and wanted that one on too. Soon Reagan had 13 bibs on. He thought he was pretty cool. So I took a picture of it. There was was also a baby hat in there that he was also determined to wear. I don't quite understand why he wanted the bibs on but it made him happy.

Beds

The last few weeks Reagan has decided that beds are the coolest place to play. He loves playing in his bed and any other bed he can find. Last Monday we had Family Home Evening at a friends house. After the lesson all the children were running around wild as the parents were visiting. Abe and I noticed that we hadn't seen Reagan in awhile so maybe we should check on him. Abe found Reagan hiding in his friend's toddler bed. Reagan was under the covers giggling wondering if anyone would find him. Who knows how long he had been hiding? All the other children were playing with toys in the other room. They were not aware that they were supposed to be playing hide and go seek. Reagan didn't mind he was having a blast.

Then on Tuesday last week I had gone to a children's thrift store just to check it out. It didn't plan on being in there long so I decided I didn't need the stroller. I figured he could walk around with me. After being in the store for just a couple minutes Reagan disappeared. I was quite frustrated. I don't really enjoy searching for Reagan in stores. I looked in the racks of clothes. I looked in the dressing room. I didn't know where else to look for him. Then I noticed a bed. Reagan was lying in the as happy as can be. He didn't understand why his mother didn't want him trying out the new bed he found. It was the perfect size for him. He was quite upset when I pulled him off the bed and we left the store.

Yesterday I was washing dishes. I didn't really want Reagan's help so I turned the TV. I knew this would keep him busy while I got the things done I needed to get done. When I finished the dishes and cleaning up the kitchen I went back into the living room to see Reagan. He wasn't in there. I checked the office, the bathroom and even his bedroom. Where was he? He was in my bed reading and singing his new favorite book "The Wheels on the Bus."

I don't quite understand why Reagan loves beds so much. I guess that it isn't too bad of thing. I don't think he can get into too much trouble playing in a bed.

Ian Lost a Tooth

Ian Lost his third tooth. The toothfairy brought him a dollar. And we're also pretty sure he will dress up as Gene Simmons from Kiss next year for halloween.

While the other families were all busy with Halloween I started a new project. This quilt is called "the Ohio Star". When I first looked at
pattern online I thought it might be too easy, I was wrong it was not so easy at all. I am going to make 20 blocks out of twenty different fabrics. No two blocks are suppose to end up the same. There will strips of all the different fabric in between each of the blocks. I am thinking that it will turn out so nice that I am going to keep it for myself. There are 17 different pieces in each of the blocks and with the border pieces there will be over 700 pieces of fabric. Sounds like a lot of fun to me!



Somebody needs to teach me how to write around the pictures. Because I am not very good at it.!

Almost done with projects

Ben is almost finished with his projects in the yard. He finished painting the shed (aka the castle) and then started to put a protective coating on the fence to help it last longer. It was suppose to spray on and he figured it would take a couple of hours. He got the wrong kind and it was so thick that you had to roll it on with a paint roller and then go over it with a paint brush. It took almost a week to do the fence. Some of us would have returned the wrong type, but the other one us chose not to. After the first day I chose not to help anymore! Now only the biggest, hardest job is left, clean the garage so we can park our cars in there for the cold wintery morning ahead.

Three Days of Halloween Fun.

Our family celebrated Halloween three nights in a row. Our Halloween festivities started on Thursday Night with our ward Fall Festival. This party was a big production. It went from 6-9. There was a carnival for all the children. The kids won tickets for how well they did at each booth. Reagan only cheated a few times. He wouldn't stand behind the lines like he was supposed to. He knew the best ways to get the rings or balls where they were supposed to go. He was smart enough to know if he stood where the YM/YW told him to stand he wouldn't win any tickets. Reagan won enough tickets to buy a puzzle. After the carnival there was a chili cook off. My chili was the winner! When everyone had enough food we all moved outside and started the Trunk or Treat. There was a great turn out for this party. I would guess there was about 300 people.

On Halloween Night we had our second party. One family in our ward invited about 6 families over to their house. We all took the children trick or treating together. We only took the kids to about 10 houses since they had all done the trunk or treat the night before. One of the men at the party owns a pizza restaurant. He makes some of the best pizza I have ever had. The guy won the Iron chef for Texas. Anyways we ate pizza, played games and visited while the children made lots of messes. We had tons of fun at the party.

Tonight was the last night we had Halloween plans. I take Reagan to the Library every week for story time. He loves it! The last few weeks they have been advertising the Halloween party they put on at the community center. We watched another little boy today. So we took Reagan and the other little boy to the party. The party was a huge carnival. After participating at each booth you got a little toy. They also had some rooms where they told scary stories. The boys were a little too young for the carnival but they had fun anyways.

I made a little video of the pictures I took that last few days. I hope that you enjoy it. I had a difficult time finding a song that I own that sounds like Halloween. This was the best one I could find.

Trick or treat, smell my feet.....

"Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat, if you dont, I dont care I'll pull your panties off." I taught Claire this rhyme, but she didn't get it quite right. I dont know why I would teach my child this, but I guess I am obnoxious by nature. We had a great halloween. Our ward did a Trunk or Treat and a dinner. Chili and corn bread. Nothing is better than free food. Lauren went as a baby bunny and Claire went as a peakcock. I first saw this costume 2 years ago on ebay and when I saw it I just died. I had to have it, but when I saw the price of $40.00 before shipping and handling, I just couldnt bring myself to buy it. Then last year we went to my sister Karries house in Yakima and lo and behold out she pulled the peakcock costume! Being the amazing person that she is, she said that claire could have it for halloween this year. Well, I knew I loved the costume but when she put it on it was that much cuter. At the dinner last night they had a contest for the cutest costume..... do you even need to ask? Of course she won. The prize was a jamba juice gift card. Claire had a great time running around in the gym with all the princesses and minnie mouse. Lauren had fun being held by mom and dad while we attempted to socialize. Afterward we went to grandma vickies and then off to uncle johns to play the best game ever, settlers of catan cities and knights. If you havent played settlers I highly suggest it. We had a great halloween and look forward to the many halloweens we have ahead.

We went and took Lauren to get some pictures at JC Pennies. Here is a cute picture I took of her before we left. she was so happy. Then when we got in the car and were several miles down the road she barfed all over her clothes. Luckily Grandma came to the mall and helped us a ton! By the time we figured out the outfit problem Lauren was no longer happy but atleaste I captured this big beautiful smile on my camera.

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