Happy Thanksgiving

I am feeling a little lazy after our big lunch so no pictures for right now but wanted to post some happenings this morning. I was sleeping in and Jeff had turned on the Macy's parade for the kids to watch. when the energizer bunny float came on Hannah says: "You sure don't see that everyday!" Sure don't kiddo. Where do they hear this stuff? I don't talk like that! Do I? It makes me think of an old geezer with suspenders.

We brought down the little christmas trees for the kids' rooms and let them decorate them this morning (well, Jacob's is little but Hannah's is actually a scrawny 5 footer). Jacob put about two ornaments on his and Hannah's was so decked out it toppled and she had to remove some. Oh yeah, I just remembered a funny one. Hannah is such a girly girl and her two favorite book characters are Angelina ballerina and Fancy Nancy (a little girl who likes to make everything fancy). Hannah will dress up and accessorize and say "Fancy Nancy would like this outfit," etc. etc. The other day Hannah got home from school and said
"I need to Fancy-Nancy-up!" Didn't think that could be made into a verb.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

My new favorite thing: Ta-da lists

This is not my list featured above. Mine is way cooler. I found this site that lets you make lists for free and I am in OCD heaven. I love that you can make seperate lists and it has little boxes on the side for you to check them off which then moves them to the bottom of your list without a box and in a smaller font. I love that I can use the laptop on the counter and look at it throughout the day. I love that I will never again have scraps of paper with scrawled to do lists hidden throughout my house and purse. I love that it is called Ta Da and not To Do. I love that with one click I can see what I wanted to change in my bedroom, or what the next thing we need to do to for house maintainance is, or what my next step for emergency preparedness is.

The joy I get out of this has confirmed for Jeff that I am crazy. What is even funnier is the site http://cdo.tadalist.com/lists is called cdo.tadalist. CDO is OCD only in alaphabetical order, as it should be. (Jeff really loved that joke as he thought it applied to me)

Something may very well be wrong with me but I am not alone!

More on the balloon animals

Doesn't he just look so excited!

Doesn't she look fascinated!

I think it goes without saying that Jeff is the more fun one in our house. My role was made more apparent two sundays ago when Hannah was sick and Jeff was going to stay home from church with her. We don't watch t.v. or movies on Sunday but when the kids are sick we make an exception. Jeff told Hannah that she could watch a movie but Hannah kept saying: "But what will Mom say, shouldn't we ask Mom first, etc. etc." Which makes Jeff fume especially since we show a united front with the kids - i.e. Your dad and I both give the same answers. She finally relaxes a little and chills out on the sofa with Jeff and some movies.
Three hours later she hears me pull into the driveway and jumps up to look out the door, then darts back to the t.v. and turns it off

Jeff: Hannah, what are you doing?

Hannah: I am just done! Frantically opens the dvd player and pulls out the dvd

Jeff again: Hannah, why are you taking out the dvd?

Hannah: I am just done watching! Quickly puts the dvd back in the case and puts it away in the drawer. -a little side note, they never do that when they are done.

Oh what a tangled web we weave.

And apparently I am THE BOSS. Or maybe just the mean one. hmmm.

Friends

Here is a not very great picture of Katy, my great friend, who works a lot, talks to me about being a more responsible consumer and to be more green, causes me to reseach what the heck she is blogging about ( Friedrich Neitzshe and P. G. Wodehouse lunching in the after life, come again?), gives me hope (Iran has a "if we decide to make nice" plan for tourism on the backburner- cool), makes me laugh, is a great mom, and is now living very close to me! Unfortunately for the second attribute of working a lot we don't get to hang out as much as I would like but this day we made it to the zoo with our boys.

Jacob likes Reuben and is sharing his Banana nut cheerios with him as we are riding the tram. The weather was beautiful and it was such a fun day.

Jeff is 29!!!

Really weird picture. I don't know why he decided to bite the balloon but that is one of the reasons I love him so much is because he makes me laugh. when you are married, and have children that is a very very beautiful skill.

Here is Jeff making balloon animals for our family home evening activity that he was in charge of.

He heard Hannah coming down the stairs and decided to scare her. (How cool is it that there happens to be a UFO on the tv right then)! These are random pictures because his actual birthday was not quite as peachy as I had hoped. I had volunteered to help with a taster's table for a Relief Society night that ended up being scheduled that night so I was trying to do his birthday dinner, wake up the kids from their naps so they would go to bed nicely for Jeff since I would be leaving for the afore mentioned meeting, (they were screaming like banshees), and then make soup for the now twice afore mentioned meeting. Not fabulous and did not need any pictures to remember that evening. We are planning on going to dinner together without kids sometime this week and I am very excited for that.

I love you Jeff.

The Halloween Candy personality profile

Here is the official report on what the kids did with their candy:

Hannah promptly gave some to Mimi, Baba, and Jacob. Made a baggie of candy for Nana and Baba, and then made a treasure hunt for Jeff for when he got home. She used all her candy bars to make a trail from the front door up to his pillow.

Jacob opened up M&Ms and tootsie rolls to use as tender in his trains, then made a pile out of the rest of the stash for Percy to plow through.

More spookiness

My parents and Nat, Brian, and Henry came over for dinner and trick-or-treating.
Does my lipstick look weird to anyone else? Why didn't anyone say something!

Nat and spooky Henry, before Brian arrived. Check out my new table in the background!

Happy Halloween

Determined to be more thrifty I had resolved not to spend over $10 on each costume. Jacob was in luck that I found his at a thrift store for $6 bucks. He seriously is getting a new bucket for next year. (Yes, it is a hot pink pumpkin).

Hannah wanted to be wonder woman which I thought would be AWESOME except that she meant a pink superhero with a W on the front. Pink and Silver fabric: $6. Finding out that I could actually make a decent costume: priceless.

Halloween cinnamin rolls for breakfast. Mmmm. What's up with always looking somewhere else big guy?

More on the fair

Jacob won a horn and discovered that if he just kept it in his mouth he could inhale and exhale, thus making a continuous noise while breathing.
Jeff and Jacob are on the blue slide and Baba and Hannah are on the pink one.
Mimi was at the fair also but we have discovered that the women are the photographers in this family.

Hannah decided that riding a pony was worth shelling out five of her own bucks. Jeff and I went on the ferris wheel and I discovered that I freak out real easy since I have had kids. Jeff found this hilarious but those things go crazy high. After a couple times around I calmed down and told Jeff we had to kiss at the top. It was more like a quick peck, Jeff confessed he was fearful I might upchuck and didn't want to kill the magic. Loved the fair food. I had my funnel cake with chocolate on top and was very happy.

Tardy fair photos

Went to the fair two weeks ago and had loads of fun. This is my favorite photo.
This is my least favorite photo because I look like such a weirdo but it is good for one's sense of humility to have a really awful photo every now and then.

The kids were rather daring, which was fun.

Jacob decided not to get too crazy and rode the bench on the carousel

Hannah rode a carousel horse that went up and down (I am telling you, she was fearless)!

The Good Life

We finally moved Hannah back into her own room. Jacob had been tormenting her at bedtime for weeks, licking her, getting in bed with her, pretty much anything to make her scream. We would come in, try to restore order, sometimes move Jacob to our bed so that he could fall asleep before transplanting him back to his own bed. We kept saying that it was probably time for her to have her own room again but she would cry and say: "please let's give him one more chance."

Eventually I had enough and bribed her with glow in the dark stars on her ceiling if she would move back to her old room. Bribe accepted. After moving her furniture to the other room (Jeff was very kind to understand that Yes we need to move her dresser with the full fish tank this very evening even though you just got home from work) she was settled in. The next afternoon I came upstairs and found her looking at a book while lounging on her bed. She had Snow White and the Seven Dwarves playing on her CD player. She looked at me and said:

It never gets better than this.