Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving day in our home always starts with watching the Thanksgiving day parade in our pj's and looking at the ads for the next day's shopping. This year was no different, except that I spent the day cooking!

I made a turkey, of course, homemade cranberry sauce, homemade rolls, stuffing, candied yams, mashed potatoes and gravy, and turtle pumpkin pie, and Marlene brought pink stuff and green bean casserole and a pie. Ok, so my mother in law made the gravy! The whole meal was delicious and we were all appropriately stuffed.

Cooking with a baby on myhip!

The crowing glory of the Thanksgiving table, Tom Turkey.


We had Jason's mom and brother over. Michaela helped me with the whole meal, what a good helper!

And it just isn't Thanksgiving if your children don't do this!

Then we are planning to go see a movie later. A tiring, but fun day.

What daddies are good for......

Years ago, Jason started putting the fruit snack wrappers and empty snack baggies from Sacrement meeting snacks in his shirt pockets. This tradition has been passed down from child to child and is currently being practiced by Ava. Take this Sunday. Jason had gotten up to walk with a hungry Corrine I was putting off because I was shortly going to sing with the ward choir. Ava had finished her snack, and this is what happened:
Ava: "Where is daddy?"
Me: "He is walking with Corrine"
Ava: a few minutes later, "Where is daddy?"
Me: "He is still walking with Corrine."
Ava: "Oh, yeah."
Me: "What do you need?"
Ava: (holding her empty snack baggie, earnestly says:) "I need to put this in his pocket!"
Apparently, I am no good for disposing of empty snack things in Sacrement meeting, and the only place they belong is in Daddy's pocket. My children have even picked up other peoples trash off the floor on Sunday and promptly put it in Jason's shirt pocket. We just look at each other and grin; we love our kids cute quirks! Love you, hon.

Do you ever.......

Forget what you are doing in the shower? Maybe not everyone does this, but I do the same thing in the same order every day in the shower; it gives me one less thing to think about. ( I am very much a creature of habit and routine.) This works well unless something throws my routine, like showering at a different time, being interupted or just concentrating way too hard on something else......like this morning. I am standing in the shower, and realize that I had just washed my face after shampooing, and I usually wash my face last. So I stand there, momentarily confused as to what I had already washed and still needed to wash. Am I really the only one who does this? What caused my lapse in recall? I was thinking about a very cute cake my friend Cami made for her daughter. You really have to visit her blog, listed in my blogs I read, the soccer mom one, to see this cake. It looks like a giant cupcake, very cute. So I was standing in the shower trying to think how she made it( two batters cooked in bowls and placed tops together?) when I realized I had befuddled myself and had to apply thought to my showering process. Oh, and why am I blogging at whatever time it is on a Monday morning when I have loads of housework to do? Corrine is fussy and won't let me do anything, thats why!

Its my party.....

Today was the much awaited party day to celebrate Ava turning 4 years old. To start things off, we had family over for breakfast. And yes, we had cake and ice cream after! It was a yummy breakfast and Ava enjoyed herself.

Then that afternoon, Ava had her friends over for a party. A tea party, to be exact. We decorated the house, and played tea party games like pin the top on the teapot and tea cup coin toss.

The girls got to drink out of real tea cups, and take theirs home with them.


This is out of order, this was in the morning. Ava was a little excited about getting Walle.

A proper tea party, with the girls in their pretty dresses.


In this picture, notice the cute girls, not my rear end. It just goes to show you can't trust your husband with the camera! We had to sing "I'm a little tea pot"!

They played tea party with the stuffed friends they brought.


Is there a kid in that pile of gifts?

I really did a lot for this party, and it was all lost on the little 4 year olds. But it was fun for me, and years later when Ava looks at these pictures, I hope she can see that all I did was because I love her so much!


Martha's got nothing on me. I made the invitations, sewed the purses for the take home gifts, and made a lollipop flower center piece for the table. (the girls did like that). I also got real china cups(DI) and painted their names on them. I made a teapot cupcake for Ava, and tea cup cupcakes for the others. Take note, I did not include a picture of the tea cup cupcakes. They looked less like what I had hoped they would and more like a child had done them! But I got no complaints from the guests. I guess they tasted ok.

Happy Birthday Ava!

My darling little girl turned 4 today! I am a little sad, she can't really be called a baby anymore. Ava is turning out to be a wonderful little person; she brings joy and laughter to our home daily. She often gives the baby a smooch, then leans over and kisses me as well. So precious.

In light of the fact that we are having Ava's birthday parties on Saturday, I decided to get up a little earlier today and make her pancakes. Chocolate chip with banana slices and whipped topping. This is how that went:
Me: Happy birthday Ava! I made you pancakes for breakfast!

Ava: (frowning at the pancakes) I want my cake! (this after I had gotten up early for this culinary feat; for those of you who know how little sleep I am getting, this really was a sacrifice.)

Me: We will have your cake on Saturday, remember? ( I really thought I had explained this in a way she could understand it; apparently not.) Today is your birthday, but we will have your parties on Saturday. How about we sing Happy Birthday to you? (Me and the older girls start singing)

Ava: NO NO NO! I don't want that song until I have my cake!

Me: We can sing to you now AND when you have your cake.

Ava: NO!

Ava didn't let me sing to her until this afternoon. I had taken her to McDonalds for lunch (she told her dad we went to Old Macdonalds!) and she was in a pretty good mood, so I tried again. I was finally able to sing to my girl! I really don't know what the problem was. She wouldn't let my mom sing to her either.




My mom sent Ava a balloon bouquet today as well. Ava was so cute; when the doorbell rang she asked me if she could get it(we have been working on that, she did good) and I told her yes, I think its for you. She heads toward the door, and can see the balloons through the window and says, OOOH, birthday balloons! It was adorable.

Ava is almost always in her dress up dresses at home, if you haven't figured that out yet!
All in all, it was a good day for her. I am excited for her parties on Saturday. She is too!

The end results.......

So I have been doing some really cute things to Ava's hair because of a blog I found that gives step by step instructions on how to do girls hair. I have never been very good at doing anything other than braids and piggys, so this is fun for me. What I didn't count on though, was the aftermath of the cute do's. Here is Ava after Jason took out her twisty worms hair do. Jason took the pictures, I was at work. Apparently, he wasn't gentle enough in taking them out and it made her cry.

Whoa, what a do!

This is acutually kind of cute, I may do twisties at night so I will look like this in the morning!

Here is Ava after I took out some messy buns; she is smiling. I am much more gentle at taking out her hair!

Who needs boys?

So people often ask us "are you going to try for a boy?" and we always tell them that we are fine with our girls, we like having girls. What they probably don't know is that on many levels we sometimes feel like our girls give us a taste of what it might be like to live with boys(for those of you with only boys in the house, girls are not all sweet and smelling like roses all the time!)....case in point, today in Relief Society. I am sitting there, enjoying the lesson. Corrine had been sleeping in my arms for most of it, but had recently woken up and was sitting there smiling and being happy. The room was mostly quiet, except for the lady giving the lesson. It was then that my sweet baby GIRL had what can only be described as an explosion. I am not kidding, it was so loud that most in the room turned and looked at me and giggled. She is at the age where she blows out her diapers frequently, and by the sound of it I knew I needed to get to the mothers room quick before she ruined her outfit and mine. (Which did happen a few Sundays ago.) I know she is a baby and that everyone knows that babies to that sometimes, but somehow it is still slightly embarrasing. I made my escape, and luckily it was almost time to go so I didn't have to make the decision to go back in or not. My luck, Corrine wouldn't have been finished! Another example of our boyish girls was what Ava did the other day. Flatulence seems to be uproariously funny in our house, and not a day goes by (it seems) that someone makes a joke about it, so it isn't surprising that Ava has picked up on this. We have a substance called "Flarp" that one of the girls got somewhere; its existence is to make a farting sound. It looks like play doh, but when you stick your finger in it, well, you get the picture. Ava had been playing with some, got down from the table, put it near her bottom, and was making the aforementioned sounds to make it seem like she was doing it. She thought this was very clever and had a huge grin on her face while doing it. My older girls also get in on the action, but as they are of the age to be easily emarrassed I won't elaborate. Suffice to say, refer to the title of this post.........Who needs boys?

Ava and her flarp, making "music", in a princess skirt no less!