Happy Birthday Ender!

Yesterday was Ender's 2nd Birthday! YAY! I am very glad that it happened to fall on a Saturday, and also that it happened to fall on my Saturday with the children. This meant that I got to spend the entire day with the birthday boy. After I picked the babies up from Ian's house, my Mom and I took them to McDonalds for breakfast. Apparently, they now have breakfast kids meals where you get these little hotcake things (I believe they are called McGriddles or something of the sort). Ender loved them, but not quite as much as Katalina. I was HIGHLY surprised at the amount that little girl ate. She had two of them!





Ender had a lot of fun at mcd's, but, I believe he had a party at his Dad's house the night before...so...he wasn't in the mood to take pictures at ten in the morning...he was probably pictured right out.



After we ate, my Mom and I took all the kids to Toys R Us so that Ender could pick out his birthday present. This is a fun little tradition in the making. I must say that seeing Ender and Severian in Toys R Us was pretty funny. Severian knew that he was going to get a present too, because, that is what you do when you have a 4 and a 2 year old. Unless you want to just spend the day breaking up the fights. Cause you know. That is fun too. ANYWHO Severian walked into that store and I seriously thought his eyes would pop out. He was suddenly a manic child. He could not focus completely on anything and was running from place to place. The first toy he say he said "I want that toy!" then he saw another one and said "I want that one!" Finally, both the boys found a toy. Ender got this cute little Backyardigans circus thing...so I now have "YOUR BACKYARD FRIENDS THE BACKYARDIGANS" burned into my mind forever more. Severian got this really neat crayola painting thing. He paints this clear gel stuff on the "magic paper" and each gel turns a different color. They have it for markers too. It is very nice, and also non messy. What a wonderful invention.

After Toys R Us the kids came home and crashed for about an hour and half. I was pretty excited about this, because I got to clean and wrap all the presents I had gotten them. For about two seconds I was way excited because I thought that I would ALSO get a quick nap. I am pretty sure, however, that Severian has the best hearing ever because the second I lay down I hear the kids bedroom door open and the pitter patter of little feet. Ah well. Who needs naps?

We then got ready and went to Chuck E Cheese for a little party. My parents and brothers came, and also my friend Erin and her daughter Marilyn. Currently Marilyn and Severian are intended for each other. But..Marilyn runs circles around the little boy, and Ender keeps up with her better than Severian does. So...Erin and I may have to do some re-arranging with who is going to marry who. The kids had a very fun time at Chuck E Cheeses, and I got this little "family deal" where we got some pizza drinks AND tokens. It was great that my brothers were there because they like to play the games just as much as the kids do, so they took all the kids around to play.






After the kids were totally gamed out, we had cake. It was really cute because prior to lighting the candles Ender picked up one of the cars off the cake, looked at it for a minute, checked to make sure no one was watching him, then put the car back on the cake where it had been originally. All three kids were way excited about cake.




Then presents:






It was a really fun time



HAPPY BIRTHDAY ENDER!!!!

I am a teacher on sabbatical. And I have just won the lottery.

Well, Ender's Birthday is tomorrow, so there will be a blog post about that, I am sure. Unfortunately my camera DIED on me yesterday. That was sad. Thank goodness I still have my phone which takes decent pictures. So, joy for all of you, there will be good picture times coming up. For now, here are some fun videos to watch on a Saturday morning with your coffee/bloody mary/bowl of cereal. Depending on who you are.

Well my blogstalkers...I have something to tell you....



LAWLZ JUST KIDDING! Geesh! Here...let me express my real feelings:



Also...I am pretty sure that I have ebola. I hear it is deadly.

MUCHLUF!

ps the new James Bond movie was pretty good. I missed the last one, so I didn't follow the entire story. BUT I did stare at Daniel Craig alot. So that was fun.

Muchluf to old friends!

Yesterday I had the pleasure of getting to know an old friend again. Thanks to the wonderful invention of Facebook, I found my friend Jon Harmon, and his beautiful new wife Brittany.



For those of you who don't know the Harmon's...you should get to know them. They were much fun to be around. I met Jon years ago during a stake play of Muppet Treasure Island. Regrettably, I do not have any old pictures, or else I would SOOOO include them. I was Jim, and Jon was Long John Silver:



It was excellent times.

Anyways, they invited the kids and me over for dinner, and we had a grand old time. Brittany made the most amazing mac and cheese that ever was. Now, for those of you who are thinking of the blue box mac and cheese...STOP. This dinner that she made was amazingly delicious and gooey and full of real cheese and noodles. Not fake cheese and noodles!. Because they are newly married they live in a cute little apartment in Provo, so we had a fun picnic,which the babies highly enjoyed.



Jon and Brittany also made this really delicious pie tart which I do not have a picture of because I gobbled it up so fast that I didn't have time to take a picture of it. Hey. I have children that steal food from my mouth. I had to hurry with something so good!

After dinner we all caught up while the boys played the keyboard. I was very pleased because the kids warmed up to Brittany and Jon very quickly.

Brittany held Katalina



And they had this floam stuff that the boys played with:



And Ender got to fly, which he always enjoys:



At the end of the night Severian decided he wanted to take pictures all by himself. These are some of the pictures he got:






Also, because they live on Moon River Dr.



It really was a lot of fun, and I highly enjoyed myself. It has been quite a while since I last saw Jon, and it was great to get to know him and Brittany again. I look forward to more fun times with the Harmons!

MUCHLUF!

There is no charge for awesomeness. Or attractiveness.

It was my weekend without my children, and I never know quite what to do with myself. Since I only get an entire day off without any responsibility two times a month, I tend to want to pack it full of housework, fun, going out, hanging out, and sleep. Generally, although my intentions to get my house entirely clean are pure, it never happens. My dishes have been sitting in my sink all weekend now. And guess what? They will probably sit there until tonight when I watch Desperate Housewives and clean them. Snap.

This weekend was pretty good though. Friday night I went out with Ryley and my new fabulous friend Angela from work. We went to Lumpy's for some dancing, and then Ryley and I went to a little dive to do some Karaoke. She knows the Karaoke DJ there, so I was able to get in real quick to sing my songs. I sang a song for Ry, it is our song that I dedicated to her:



And here is our Mandatory pictures of the night:




It was pretty fun. I do love me some Karaoke! And now I am going to go get my children! Yay for weekends!

Cookie Night!

Well friends, it is Wednesday, therefore, it was cookie night! Cookie night is one of my favorite nights. I have not been able to have it too much lately. I used to do it once a week, but then the weather got too hot. Since my apartment was regularly hovering in temperatures near 90 degrees, I canceled cookies for the summer. However, I have started them up again, and all is well.

Last cookie night I made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. Well. They did not turn out the way that I wanted them to, so, I tried again. I think they turned out slightly better this time. I made them a little bigger, and they were excellent. Early in the evening my friend Erin and her little girl, Marilyn, came over for dinner. The kids all sat at the table and ate grilled cheese and soup. Life could not have gotten much better in that moment



Shortly after dinner my friend Kaari came over with her two kids. Severian, at this point, was in Severian Heaven. He had THREE friends to play with! This brought the grand total of children in my house to six. Severian, Ender and Kat. Marilyn. Ethan and Joshua. They all six of them went in Sev's room and played while we three girls sat around and talked. We, all three of us, me, Erin, and Kaari, are beautiful single mothers of beautiful children. We have a lot in common, and even though it was Erin and Kaari's first time meeting each other, it was nice to sit down for a little bit for a chat.

After about ten minutes Ryley and Phil showed up. They brought me hot chocolate. Cheers to Ryley and Phil! YAY! At this point I think I had made one batch of cookies, so I put the dozen cookies on a plate and sat them on the coffee table for the kids to raid. Well raid they did. Within three minutes every cookie on the plate was gone. Katalina even got a cookie!



She ate the entire thing too! It was so funny. She played with the big kids all night, and she kept up with them! That little girl is so freaking tough. It is awesome. I tried to get a picture of all the kids that were at my house. It was a bit hard because kids on cookies do not want to sit still. Anyway, here is the best one I got:



The kids had a lot of fun, and later we were joined by Erica, Ben, and Zank. The kids started being chased around by all the boys that came over. So, being on a sugar high, they went into Severian's room (all but Kat anyways) and BARRICADED the door. I mean every single toy and piece of furniture kids under 5 could move was up against the door. They only left just enough of a gap so that they could slide through when they wanted to get out. I was a bit miffed, but, I could not really get angry at them, cause it was really cute. Luckily, I am teeny, so I was able to get inHere are some more pics of the night:

Ben, Erica, and Zank



Ryley and Phil



My friend Ben is very tall. He is 6'5, so the kids had a lot of fun making him help them walk on the ceiling





I also have some videos! The first one is what happens when you put six kids in a small apartment, give them a dozen cookies, and fake swords



This one is just cookie night, I was trying to get a shot of the huge barricade that was built in Sev's room, but alas, I didn't get a good shot of it. So, Ben and I started talking about High School Musical. Apparently you can see us pretty well in it! Yep. I am famous.



The best part of this night was when Severian came into my room. Ender and Katalina had just fallen asleep, and he wanted to come say goodnight to me. This is our conversation:

Sev: "Thank you thank you Mom for the cookies"
Me: "Your welcome Severian!"
Sev: "Mom, do you know who I love"
Me: "Who?"
Sev: "I love YOU Mom!"

So. Freaking. Cute.

Sev-isms and Ender-isms

Sometimes Severian will say things that make me laugh pretty hard. He is a funny kid. Yesterday he found a picture of the dog we used to have, Daisy. Daisy died the Summer of 2007. He looked at her picture for a while, then came over to me to show me. This is our conversation

Sev: "Mom, I really miss Daisy"
Me: "I know sweet heart"
Sev: "But I miss her"
Me: "I know but we will get a new dog one day"
Sev: "But I loved Daisy, she was so cute and curious! I am sad she died"

At this point I was sort of giggling because it was so funny that he said that she was so cute and curious. I just wrapped him up in a hug and then he went to go play.

I also asked him to help clean his room tonight. He looked at me and replied "Um. Hmm. No thank you, I don't really feel like it right now, I want to watch cartoons". I didn't quite know how to respond because he was so polite about it!

Ender has also started to become very verbal. He will talk to me for a good two minutes. I am not sure what he is saying...but he seems to know what he is talking about so that is what matters. Recently he has started to say "please" but it comes out "kwease", just like Severian says.

Even Katalina is talking! That little girl ate TWO chicken nuggets today at McDonald's and ten fries. At one point I asked her if she wanted some more. She looked at me and, clear as day, said "Yeah, yeah!" and nodded her head. I about died.

I am seriously the luckiest person in the world.

THRILLER!

HALLOWEEN 2008 WEWT WEWT WEWT! I love me some Halloween! This year was really fun, but really sad for me at the same time. Since Halloween fell on a Friday this year, the kids are usually with Ian. He offered to let me have them Halloween, but, unfortunately, I worked until 7pm so I was not really able to take the kids out trick-or-treating. So, they went with Ian. There has maybe been one year, when I was prego with Severian, that I have NOT been trick-or-treating, so it was really hard for me not to have my kids this year.

However, I was able to have them come to my work to trick-or-treat! This was great because I got to dress up for work, AND I got to see my kids dressed up for Halloween! The kids went as Ninja Jedi's (only the best costume ever) and Katalina went as a Strawberry Fairy. This is very fitting because my dad calls her a little strawberry! Here are some pictures:

Severian is rocking it with his MAD NINJA SKILLZ!

More mad skillz

Ender is just waiting for some candy.



The above pic is all of us, but Ender was deciding to be shy about pictures. Below is Mommy and Kat.



Since Ian had the kids for Halloween, I had the opportunity to do something that I have never really done before. I went to a Halloween party. This was very fun. I got to be all dressed up and sang Karaoke, played some rock band, and decorated some cookies. Since my new schedule is such that I have Saturdays off rather than Sunday, I didn't even have to worry about what time I had to leave, cause I could sleep in! All in all, it was very amazing. Here are some pictures:

This is my hair how it was SUPPOSED to look the whole night. It didn't stay like that though :(

We are doing some 80's work outs baby!

Jodi and I. We are cute. I know.

It never fails that a party at Jacob's house ends in Karaoke and Rock Band. I DO love me some karaoke. This is me and Becca rockin it out.

This is my full costume that I wore to work. I changed the shirt obviously. It is cold at work...

And then there is the back of my costume below



I was pretty much in love with my costume. That tutu is amazing you say? Yeah, well cause I made it all by myself. It was really hard for me to concentrate at my jobs yesterday because I just kept fussing with it. I loved it so much that I have decided to make festive tutus for every holiday. They will be similar to the festive sweaters that people wear around the holidays, except they will be cooler because they will be tutus! My next one will be a Thanksgiving Tutu. I am thinking it will be orange and brown with fake food tied to it. I am not even joking.

All in all it was a great night. I got the kids this morning and they showed their haul off to me. Then, we had a really fun day today! We were able to go "Trick-or-Treat" at my Grandparents house with my Mom and then she took us to Chick-Fil-A. After that, we came home for a quick nap, and then we went with Kim to the park and to Hires. This was great times.

Although we went out to eat today, the kids mostly ate candy. That is what you DO the day after Halloween! At one point today Ender had a sucker in his mouth, his candy bag in one hand, and he was running around and around in the circle between the kitchen and the living room. He was also singing as he was doing this. Yay for sugar highs! But, that is part of the fun, so who am I to deny a diet of candy the day after Halloween?

That is it for now, more to come!