whatever it takes...

Avery likes food, especially snack food. Almost every day he'll ask for a snack around lunch time and when I tell him I'm about to make lunch he gets sad and says "But Mom, I wanted a snack!"
We're snacky people.This week I decided to incorporate that particular love into teaching Avery. So we went to the store and picked out some candy (the best snack...) and he used them to "trace" letters. Then he counted them out and put the right number of candies on numbered cards. He's pretty good at the alphabet and hardly ever gets letters mixed up, so we're focusing on numbers lately.

I love his little hammy grin! :)

This candy thing may be the break through we needed! He sure loved it, and surprisingly he didn't eat very much at all. He wants to save it to use again. Whatever it takes to help him learn...! :)

Randomness and a funny picture

Sometimes I wonder where my kids learn the things they do.
Then I remember boys do some gross things, just because they're boys.
And they also learn some pretty random things from Andy.

Example #1 (NOT learned from Andy, fyi)
Jack licks shoes. Not just the tops, the soles. GROSS. I have to make sure they get put away where he can't get them. It doesn't help that he thinks it's hilarious when I catch him licking shoes. He'll run away with the shoe, then when I get it from him he runs as fast as he can to find another shoe to lick. Sick.

Thanks Josiah, for the pillow cases.

Example #2 (definitely learned from Andy, and I'm pretty sure he's proud of it!)
Last night Avery was being punky telling me to get out of his house (which happened to be behind the living room curtains). When I told him that wasn't a nice way to talk to me and he needed to say sorry he did. Then Andy told him to give me a hug, to which he responded "How about a force hug Mom?" That made us laugh. Then Andy asked Avery if he could have a force hug too. Great.

Snow Fun!

Last Saturday we got all bundled up and went out to play in the snow. I haven't been liking the cold and snow so much this year so my poor boys have been snow deprived.
We threw snow balls, built snow men, made snow angels, and then came in and had hot chocolate while we played Don't Break The Ice.

Jack had a little bit of a hard time moving around, but it was really cute watching him waddle around outside. He fell into the snow quite a bit!
Avery and the mini snow man we made. He didn't last long (the snowman), the sun was too much for it to handle.
Avery and Andy making snow angels. Avery struggled with it, simply because he didn't really know what we were talking about. It was cute watching him wiggle around in the snow.
The boys and the snowman. We all helped with it, but Avery said it wasn't frosty because we had the wrong kind of hat. He says next time we can try again with the right one.
We play Don't Break The Ice a lot. A LOT.

Church bag

This past Sunday I realized that with Avery in Primary and Jack in Nursery I don't really need to take a giant diaper bag to church every week. So I started thinking about what kind of bag I wanted to make myself to carry my church things in.

My mom must have been inspired because yesterday I got a birthday package from her in the mail with fabric and a pattern for a bag.

So here's my new Church bag, complete with a drawing of Avery's that I traced and embroidered on. I love it. Now I can't wait til Sunday.

Thanks Mom!!

Cricut love

I love my cricut, it's so fun. Here's something I did tonight with it.**More posts below**

Spoiled

Andy spoiled me this year for my birthday. He got me a game I'd been wanting, a cartridge for my cricut, the Glee soundtrack (both cd's) and a Subway gift card (I love Subway).And he made an awesome dinner, and delicious cake. It was a good birthday, and I'm excited to put all my presents from Andy to good use.

Buzz Lightyear Fest

One of the things we did this weekend was go to 3 different D.I.'s. it was a good D.I. day for us, we found some good kid books, some games, Andy found a Star Wars Transformer that he doesn't already have.At the first D.I. we found a Buzz Lightyear toy that was in pretty good shape, it was just missing the the wings on the back and the battery cover. But for $2 I figured I'd just cover up the battery compartment. The boys don't care that much.

Then...at the second store we found another one, still missing the wings but in way better shape. It was only $1, so we got it. We felt silly for buying a second one, but planned on tossing the more broken one.But...at the 3rd D.I. we found a completely intact Buzz Lightyear toy. Wings and all, and only $1. We'll take it. But now we have 3 Buzz Lightyears, 2 that work and are in pretty good condition for finding them at D.I.Jack loves Buzz. He walks around with "b". We think it's cute. That's probably why we bought 3. We're throwing one away, don't worry. We just thought it was pretty funny and odd to find the same thing, but better, at each of the stores.

Birthday weekend

Silas and Robyn came up to spend the weekend with us, and this is what we had waiting for them. The gift that keeps on giving. : )

We had a lot of fun this weekend. We shopped, and ate, and played games and ate some more, and stayed up way too late every night. It was so fun!

Compliments from a 3 year old

Tonight after I got dinner ready for the boys and Avery took his first bite he turned to me and said "Oh, Mom, this is actually good!"

Thanks son, I actually can cook.

Gaming

Last night Andy gave me one of my birthdays presents early, to kick off my birthday week. Yes, I still love my birthday. Maybe I'm greedy. Someday I'll grow up, but for now I enjoy feeling like a giddy 12 year old.

Last year (and probably the year before) I convinced Andy to open his birthday presents early. I can't keep a secret very well, so it drives me crazy that he can, so I usually convince him to let me open a present (or two?) early as well.
He's gotten used to it, so this year he said I can decide when I open my presents. So I opened one last night, and I'm hoping I can make myself wait til my actual birthday(Sunday) to open the others.Anyway, last night he gave me "The Farming Game". We had that game when I was younger, and I remember really liking it, so I was very excited to get it! We played last night, and I lost. But that's no surprise, Andy wins almost all games. He's lucky I guess.But we're totally playing again tonight, and I plan on winning!

The crazy never stops

Last week sometime when Avery and I were upstairs he said something like "Look Mom someone cut the toilet paper", It just looked ripped to me so I didn't think about it.

Then a few days later I noticed he'd been in the bathroom for a long time so I went to check on him and found him with a pair of hair cutting scissors he'd found up there. He cut the elastic band of his underwear, the shower curtain, the curtain I have under the sink, the toilet paper, and we found later he'd cut a bar of kid soap. We're lucky he didn't lose any body parts!I could tell he knew he did something wrong because as soon as I opened the door I heard the scissors drop. We had a talk about the proper use of scissors and making bad choices. After our talk he said "I promise I won't never do that again" and since he doesn't know about double negatives I'll take that as a promise of it never happening again. :)

When I told Andy about it he said that the other day Avery told him he cut his underwear. That explains why his undies are fraying. Apparently we need to do a better job of listening to Avery!

The scissors have since been relocated.

Jack's crazy in other ways. Though I will not be surprised to find him someday with scissors cutting stuff up. Though with him he'd likely climb to a shelf and dig them out of a box. He's insane sometimes.

He loves climbing on the table. It's a constant battle to keep him off.

attempting to jump from the ottoman to the couch, thanks to Avery for teaching him that skill...

I hope he doesn't break his neck one day!

The boys

Our boys are getting so big. It's exciting, but also sad. Where are my babies?!

Avery went to his first week of Sunbeams today, he loved being in Primary and hangin' with the big kids. He was excited to tell us they talked and sang about Jesus. He loved it. Here's a picture of him his morning, all ready for church and looking like such a big kid!Jack will start Nursery next week. Maybe. If he and I can handle it! :) He's talking more and more, and loves to follow Avery around and attempt all the crazy things Avery does.

Avery was (and sometimes still is) our OCD baby. Jack is our bi-polar baby. Not fun. He can be laughing and acting goofy and the next second throwing a (sometimes massive) tantrum because of some unknown reason. And we never know what will set him off. Here are pictures to illustrate. He's mostly goofy, but his moods can change at the drop of a hat. He definitely keeps us on our toes!

Goofy boy, he loves Buzz and Woody! (or in Jack speak "Bu" and "Yaya")

Upset by some random unknown event, Woody's down.

And suddenly everything is better. All within 5 seconds.

Why do I bother?

By nap time this is what our living room looks like each day.

Even if I try to tidy up during the day they just walk behind me and undo it all. Maybe I need to get rid of more toys.

Boys.

Pants and Spidey

Today I made Jack a pair of pants out of a t-shirt of mine. It shrunk in the wash so I haven't worn it in quite a while. And reading Amelia's post made me want to make some, now. So I did. It only took about 15 minutes and they're quite adorable on him!(even cuter now that he's wearing a regular t-shirt, not just a onesie.) I'm going to make Avery some as soon as I figure out which t-shirt of Andy's I can cut up. :)

Also, Avery found a scarf the other day and asked me to wrap it around him so he could be Spider Man. He was pretty funny webbing us all.

Happy New Year!

Is it to late for a New Year post? Hope not, after all it is only the 4th! Why does it seem that New Year's Eve/Day was so long ago then?!
On New Year's Eve we gathered with a couple of Andy's brothers and their families for dinner and games. It was nice and relaxing, and the food was good. What more could we ask for?!
We came home around 9:30 so the boys could go to bed. Then we watched HGTV until about 10:30 and went to sleep. Lame, huh? I don't regret it though! It was nice to get sleep! And hey, the New Year still arrived! :)

We're excited for the New Year. It will (hopefully!) bring lots of change for our family. Andy graduates with his Master's Degree in Social Work in April (And, yes, he fully expects people to call him 'Master Westover', 'Master Andy', or just 'Master'. He's happy with whichever option you choose!), We'll be looking for a job (outside of Utah, no offense Utah), and along with a new job in a new state that means a big move for our family! All in the next 6 months. (I'll add another big hopefully, now!)

So here's to the new year and new adventures!! I can't wait to see what happens! (Literally, all this waiting and wondering is killing me!!)