Thanksgiving Visitors - LOTS of pictures!

We got special visitors for Thanksgiving this year. Laura and family came all the way from Wyoming to spend the holiday weekend with us!  I also invited her to my in-laws dinner.  We had a blast! 

Here's some of our fun:

*warning- lots of pictures*

a turkey with no feathers

he grew feathers

we made a "I'm thankful for..." chain

carl and cayden playing in the sand

Joseph trimming our willow for us

my handsome man playing with fire

adam retrieving the hand saw joseph dropped

the branches

tattling on carl

cute carl

the tables

cute decorations

preparing the last minute things

carl not wanting to play bingo anymore

playing with the plastic silverware instead

joseph playing 2 cards

daddy helping son

toni making faces

creighton and daniel playing

let the bouncy ball war begin!!

adam in action

creighton just walking around among the craziness
and didn't get hit once

creighton's shield and my ball stash!

the other side

carl was stashing balls in the corner
joseph was protecting them

creighton running around his stash haha
he was so happy!

adam and his shield

laying around

its all fun til someone gets hurt

 Adam and his sister Laura got hit RIGHT in the eye. Laura got it the worst.

Next year's addition - safety goggles!!

This year's addition was shields!! Cindy brought all these homemade cardboard shields! and we all decorated them (well not me- I decorated Creighton's).  these are everyone's shields. 

out of order - but adam's whip cream on the traditional rainbow jello
and his handsome face :)

 I didn't get many pictures of after. But we've had lots of fun playing games and just playing. :) 

Here's from today. Creighton and I saying bye to cute cute daniel! 

carl, cayden and joseph saying goodbye

the boys were so sad to say goodbye! Even through all the fights - they were the best of friends! 

I really enjoyed our visit. I loved being able to talk to my sister and catch up! I'm thankful that I have Family like I do. I'm also thankful that families are forever!

feelings and thoughts and worries.. Oh my!

I've been thinking a lot lately about how I'm doing as a mother.

It goes back to when Cayden was about 18 months old.  He wasn't talking. Barely making any sounds that were  encouraging. Few months after he was born I started working nights. Exhausted in the mornings, like I am now. I know I wasn't the best mother (still am not) I knew Cayden not talking was about 100% my fault. I didn't work with him. I swear I thought that just by talking with him and reading with him that he would pick up words. But obviously he didn't and he had to go through 2 years of speech therapy because of me and my laziness.

And here we are again. Creighton is almost 18 months.  He babbles - which Cayden never did until he started speech therapy at the age of 2. So that is a little progress. We're working with him a lot more than we ever did with Cayden, using tips we got from some of Cayden's speech therapists. but still no words. It makes me sad to see others' kids at earlier ages speaking words.

I'm so not doing this post as a pity me post or a fishing for anything or anything of that sort. Maybe its a way to get my thoughts down so I can get a kick in the pants to start being the mother I want to be even if I'm dog tired 4 days out of the week. So what if I'm tired? Lately the boys have been sleeping in til 8 which means if I go to bed by 2:15 then I get almost 6 hours of sleep. So I shouldn't be tired. That is a good amount of sleep. I just need to get over our habit of coming down stairs and watching TV til Lunch.. then naps then more TV til Dad gets home. Yep. Too much TV. I need to actually do something with my kids.

so my question.. what do you do with your kids? Do you have a schedule? Do you do "lessons" for each week? what are the blogs you look at for ideas? Any ideas would be great!!

And now I'm actually going to do a Thanksgiving Craft with the boys. I swear! I'll even document the progress ;)

"..and guess what having a sweet tooth means?

..it doesn't mean that you like candy it means that you WANT SOME!"
-Kid History episode 6

LOVE LOVE LOVE those episodes. Hilarious. That quote CRACKS us up!! haha. go watch if ya haven't.

Since I haven't blogged in 14 days.. this is quite a random Post. :) Enjoy.

got ring pops for halloween - cayden loved it

we saw a 3D movie on our Anniversary..
Adam wouldn't let me put on the flash! haha

ignore the mess that happens on a daily basis
the climbing and standing on stuff happens daily as well

he kept trying stand up under a low bush

"mom- take my picture!"
and yes.. he's wearing shorts and flip flops in wintery weather :)
he has a jacket on.......

He loves our front door.
but that step off right there... scares me.

 We've made some changes to the front of our house.

then....

1. we took out half of these bushes.
2. we took out these bushes with the focus. they were hard to get out without the help of our strong itty bitty car. we'll be putting in flowers... or something :)
3. can hardly tell but there was a REALLY dead tree back there. so dead that Adam just pushed it over - not that he's not strong cause he is. but it was really easy to push over- I could have. haha it is now a very small stump.
4. this tree was so hard to mow around! and it was INFECTED with bugs. and so therefore dying. So we cut it down. remember our Halloween "scary" tree.. yep that one. it is now a very small stump under  the dirt. we will be getting sod or grass seed to fill in that circle in the middle of our yard.

and now....

doesn't it look different? and so pretty? 

39 days til Christmas.  I'm making our stockings this year. And I'm super excited to start on 'em. I think I'm to  start cutting them out today. I am waiting for the lining.. and I need to get some batting but Joann's is pricey.. but I can start on the rest. So excited :) I'll post more later.

wordy wednesday - halloween edition

the newer decorations.

we decided we need more than just the lights and pumpkins

so we got spiderwebs.

front door

creepy spider in the webs

tree adam is cutting down and decided to leave it like this
so we decorated it

little spiders in the webs

this one was hanging off the webs

the costumes.

best pictures i could get. 

creighton hated his hat and wouldn't sit still or with cayden.

 creighton was a garden gnome. suspenders, plaid shirt, pointy hat.

cayden had a hard time choosing. finally saw a cowboy hat and said
he wanted to be a cowboy- yeehaw!

tried to get another picture. he squints his eyes on purpose. no flash on this one.

 so. I'm gonna do a little boasting.. the shirt's not perfectly perfect. but I did make it in one day. 

and without a pattern.

 couldn't make a collar. so this is what i did.

 and even though I learned my awesome sewing machine makes button holes

I decided not to try and then fail. 

so I did velcro.

now this is to show that creighton's suspenders caused some skin irritation that night. 

He wanted to be held a lot. 

especially near then the end of the night. 

Over all. I think Cayden had fun  

except all the candy he threw up that night. 

Yuck.