My stupidity!

Ok, so last night I was going to grill up some steaks and chicken for dinner. Normally this doesn't prove to be of any difficulty for me, so I am not really sure what happened last night. I went out to light the grill and when I pushed the button, nothing happened. So, like an idiot, I leaned over the grill (I was looking for something, still not sure what!) waited a second or two and pushed the button again. Up flew the flames! Before you get too concerned... I am fine...my hair and eyebrow are not!! As soon as it happened I could smell the burnt hair so of course I started screaming like a mad woman, running into the house to find a mirror to look in. Sean at this point is having a really hard time keeping his amusement to himself. I have a small patch at the front of my head where the hair is about 1 inch long. Honestly, unless you are looking for it, you probalby couldn't find it. But, it was still truamatic!! Note to self for next time: There is nothing worth seeing at the bottom of my grill, except maybe the ashes from my singed hair!
:(

Too Funny!!

A few days ago we were out to lunch as a family. Jason was looking at his beloved Pokemon cards and he came across this one...

He looked at it, turned to his father and said.....

"Hey Dad, this one is just like you, always headbutting and telling people what to do!"

We all got a good laugh out of that one!

After all the laughter, I think Jason felt bad and kept trying to clarify that he meant when dad was at work but it didn't matter - we all know him and love him. Maybe Cranidos will be his new nickname!

Numbers

Be warned, this entire blog will be about how amazing one of my kids is. So, if blogs like this make your stomach turn....stop reading now. For the rest of you, here is what happened.

On Tuesday Jackson was speaking to his grandpa on the phone. He was insistent that he needed to talk to Grandma. (His birthday is coming and he wants to make sure she knows EVERYTHING that is on his ever growing list!) She wasn't home so Grandpa gave him the number which Jackson wrote down all by himself. Truthfully, this was enough to impress me considering we haven't worked on numbers together. I was much more on top of that sort of stuff with Jason, oh well. For the next 2 days Jackson called Grandma whenever he had a chance. I think he felt a sence of independence being able to call all on his own! Then today he comes up to me, having typed a number into the phone and asked me if he had gotten grandma's number right. I was dumbfounded, I knew that the paper with the written numbers had been with me so I didn't see how he had known the number. I asked him and he told me, "I remember it mom" I still was unsure so I cleared the number and made him show me, then I made him recite it. He really did memorize it, all 10 digits! Pretty good for a 4 year old with no help if you ask his mom!

Picture time!

So for a long time now I have been wanting to get my photography going again but I have found every excuse in the book not to. However, for my friend Farrah's birthday I did a photo shoot of her kids. It was so good for me - I was able to remember how much I love taking pictures of kids! So, it motivated me to get going with things. I set up a blog where you can see my favorite pictures from the shoot and I will continue to post pictures from future shoots as well. It is at the bottom of my link list - personality portraits is the name! :) Here are just a couple, let me know what you think!

Jackson's Preschool Program

Last week Jackson finished his second session of Apples to Zebra's preschool program. Here they are singing the theme song! I am still tying to load his ABC Rock song but it is too large. It was adorable! He is in the front row and his friend Brylee is the blond with the pink shirt on the right. I tried to get them both in most of the video.

Building Adventures at Home Depot

Last Saturday I took the boys to thier Dad's store to do the monthly kids project. It was race cars - what could be cooler to 3 boys! They were so proud of their building abilities (Jason did his all by himself, Jack needed help holding the nails in place and Tyler...well....I built his!) and had a ton of fun. I got a bunch of great pictures of it all taking place. Enjoy!

Here is Dad helping Jason with the toolbox

Jason helping his brother out was pretty cute!
He studied the directions so intently!
My only advise to Home Depot is that a few chairs for the parents would go a long way!! I would have been thrilled with just a 5 gallon bucket to sit on! Good thing the guy in charge likes me! :)

Hiking South Mountain

Yesterday we went on a hike with all the boys and our brother Vaughn. It was a beautiful day and everything was so green because of all the rain we have gotten lately. The kids had a blast but it was really fun to watch how each one reacted to the challenge of getting to the top.

Jason - It was all an adventure to him. The hike was all about finding the perfect stick to be his gun or sword and he would run ahead only to give himself time to dig up a great rock before we caught up to him. He was also the independent one for the first half of the hike, wanting to always be a ways ahead of us with just Jackson so that they could feel like true explorers. He was pretty sick of the hiking part at about the halfway point but really kicked it into high gear when his younger brother passed him up - he couldn't let that happen. So he reached the top and the bottom ahead of all of us.

Jackson - It was all about the goal. He thought of nothing but reaching the top. About halfway up we stoped to rest. It was then that we considedered going back down because the hardest climb was coming and we didn't know if the kids were up to it, it was also approaching sunset and we didn't want to get caught in the dark. Jackson just kept saying NO! We have to get to the top! His older brother was all for going back down but as we were making the decision, Jackson made it for us by taking off up the trail! Vaughn had to go catch up to him because at this point, nothing was going to stop him and he was getting way ahead of us! When we did reach the top he was devestated to learn that there was a new trail that went up even higher - in his mind we needed to continue but we convinced him to save that hike for another day!

Tyler - At the top of the mountain there were 6 paragliders enjoying a ride in the sky. Tyler became obsessed with them. He just couldn't get past it and all we heard from him on the way up were the words....parachute.....go high......parachute....fall down.....parachute....up mountain! We kept reasuring him that no, they were not going to fall down. At one point we even started counting how many times he said the word parachute, but gave up when it reached around 25, he was relentless!
While it was parachutes on the way up, it was jumping on the way down. He loved holding our hands and jumping off of every rock step or boulder. Over and over we heard....I jump high.....I jump far....that's FUN!!! He was cute as always and may have enjoyed the hike more than anyone...especially the part where he got to ride on Dad and Uncle Vaughn's shoulders!

Now, get ready for a huge amount of pictures! There were too many cute ones to choose from so I am posting a bunch of them!









Here he is pointing at the paragliders!


Look Mom! We climbed a Mountain!

We reached the top as the sun was beginning to go down...perfect timing!

These last few pictures are a family tradition for us. It all began when we lived in Germany....
No matter what little town, large city or Castle at the top of a hill we were visiting, it never failed that by the end of the day the kids were exhaused and didn't want to walk anymore. Strollers nevers worked all that well on the coble stone streets of Europe, so Sean would dutifully carry both of the boys laying across his shoulders. The Europeans would laugh and smile at us and the Asian tourists would point and take pictures! So, the boys still expect it and Sean does his best to accomadate even though the load has gotten substantially bigger!