Gratitude

Starting November 1st until Thanksgiving I had the boys say something they were grateful for and they either helped me write it on a leaf or drew a picture and we put it up around our house.  I took them down today so we can start getting our Christmas decor up, but I wanted to share what the boys said they were grateful for each day.  Sometimes they repeated themselves and once or twice Tanner just copied Vance.  It was a fun activity for them. 

Vance's Gratitude List:

1. popcorn (yum)
2. jellybeans (this is when I realized he was just naming the foods they eat in Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving)
3. friends (even if he can't remember their names)
4. grandmas and grandpas (of course)
5. brothers (love/hate relationship)
6. Mom and Dad (I didn't even have to prompt him to say that)
7. Porter (Porter LOVES Vance)
8. Mario (his dad has corrupted him)
9. smoothies (I have corrupted him)
10.  cars (I imagine he meant toy cars)
11. pencils (random)
12. jerky (extra random)
13. new toys (was his birthday on his brain?)
14. Porter (repeat, it's sweet)
15. Tanner (love/hate thing again)
16. computers (he will spend as much time on the computer as I let him)
17. blankets (it got cold here)
18. boxes (I don't know...random)
19. flowers (missing the flowers perhaps)
20. cars (another repeat)
21. Mom (oh, my favorite child...)
22. Grandma Porter (I have no doubt he is grateful for Grandma Jeppson too)
23. snow (not me)
24. meat (?)
25. bathtubs (he loves to play in the bathtub)

Tanner's Gratitude List
1. grandparents (I am grateful for them too)
2. Mom and Dad (sweet boy)
3. brothers (I am pretty sure I prompted this response...)
4. legs to run around with (he was running around when I asked him too)
5. Donkey Kong (corrupted by his dad)
6. the letter "T" (T is for Tanner!)
7. dinosaurs (the kid loves dinosaurs)
8. nursery (he loves nursery too)
9. Dad (what? Not Mom?)
10. cars (copying Vance)
11. Aladdin (I believe we'd just watched that movie)
12. nursery teachers (bless them)
13. Vance (he looks up to Vance)
14. Porter (he enjoys playing with Porter)
15. computers (he will spend as much time as I let him on the computer just like Vance)
16. trains (I think he meant the toy trains we have)
17. balls (he is a boy, what can I say?)
18. boxes (copying Vance)
19.  Roary (he is a family member)
20. Dad (wait a minutes, I'm sure seeing an awful lot of Dad...)
21. Mom (that's better)
22. turkey (funny, he wanted nothing to do with it on Thanksgiving day)
23. snow (can you guess what day it snowed at our house?)
24. the letter "Y" (he loves the alphabet)
25. Grandma's House (we went to Grandma's house, it's so fun.  He always cries when we have to go home)

Snow Day

It started snowing last night and we were surprised to see how much snow we actually had when we got up this morning.  It snowed all afternoon too.  We've gotten more snow today than we did the entire season last year.  (I admit, it was a nice change from South Eastern Idaho).  When Vance got up and looked out the window he declared, "It's Christmas!"  I guess Christmas and snow go hand in hand.  Both Vance and Tanner were hyper until I took them out to play.  They played and played until I made them come in.  Tanner was freezing and pretty much ready, plus I bribed them with hot cocoa.  Although, the marshmallows I told them I'd put in their hot cocoa was what did the trick.

Porter napped through most of our playing outside, but Stephen brought him down when he woke up to watch out the window.

Pictures from this week

I just thought I'd share some pictures that I have taken this past week.  Life is going on as usual, but pictures are more exciting than long rambling posts anyway.

 Three cute boys in a basket!

 Some huge leaves blew into our yard and the boys had fun playing with them.

 Vance was insisted that we get all the leaves out of our garden.  I don't know why he cared...

 I had to take a picture of Tanner trying this apple because it's never happened before and I don't think it's likely to happen again, at least not in the near future.

 Here's the proof.  Once he got it in his mouth he tried to spit it out, but  the mean mom I am, I made him swallow it.

 I was playing with my camera.  Porter is my best model.  He doesn't move fast and all I have to do is smile and talk to him to get him to smile at me. 

 Having said that about Porter, recently Vance will randomly ask me ot take his picture and he will even smile nicely like he is in this picture.  My, he is growing up.

 Tanner on other hand pretty much refuses to have his picture taken.  When he sees the camera in my hand he runs or hides or both.

 I couldn't pass up the opportunity to take some pictures of my studly boys ready for church.

 Cheese Ball!

 Not wanting a picture taken.... Lately I will ask him to do "Baby Tanner" eyes for me and he'll make his eyes go big kind of like this because he always had his eyes wide open when he was a baby.

 Sunday nap.  Comfy?

Zonked out!

I guess I did end up rambling a little...  If you are ever interested in what we are doing with our days I record our Preschool Adventures on Mommy's Little Helper.

Rose's Play

Yesterday we spent the day at my parents.  We celebrated Rose's 18th (gasp!) birthday.  The boys had a blas helping Rose blow out her candles and eating cake and ice cream.  (By the way, she has stage make-up on)

Then Stephen and I went to see Rose in her 7th play.  They did A Midsummer Night's Dream.  (I did that as a sophomore.)  Rose played the part of Puck.  She is the cutest Puck I've ever seen.  She did a wonderful job.  She has two more performances this weekend.

 Rose likes to call me her "little" sister because although she is 9 1/2 years younger than me she is a couple of inches taller and even more so with this rocking head piece.  :)

And because this humors me... if you donate your prom dresses to the school drama department they show up in random places on random people.

 Hermia was sporting my old dress at the end of the play.  Rose had told me she wore it ahead of time and I'm glad she did otherwise I may have made a spectacle of myself laughing or pointing out to Stephen that she was wearing my dress!  My first thought when I saw her was, "Was I really that skinny once?"

We had a great time!  The boys had a great time with Grandma and Grandpa Porter while Stephen and I went to the play.  Good times.

What's Down Here?

Porter was making us laugh.  He is so funny and cute!

Hats

Porter is a good sport.  Hehad fun letting Vance, Tanner and I put different hats on him.

 And here's a picture of my pirate.

 And one of my Cowboy/Hook.

This might be a bit far fetched

This might be a bit far fetched, but I saw something with Elijah Wood in it last night and thought, "Hey, he kind of reminds me of Tanner."  It is all about the big beautiful eyes, no doubt.  Maybe I'm just crazy though.  What do you think?  Do you see any resemblence or am I reaching for something that isn't there?

This picture probably isn't the best in proving my point, but you get the idea.

31 days in November?

On Monday we flipped our calendar over to November only to find this

 31 days in November!?  What??  Since when?  The first 26 years of my life there have only been 30 days in November, but this calendar seems to think that there is 31 days.  What kind of calendar is this you might ask?

A video game calendar!  See what video gaming does to your mind.  You can bet I gave Stephen a hard time about this one.  :) 

Oh, and I peeked at December to see if it was off an entire day.  It's not.  Apparently that Wednesday is not only November 31st, but it's also December 1st.