Thanksgiving 2008- Highlights of our trip to Missoula

*BEING WITH THE COUSINS!* BEING WITH THE COUSINS!* BEING WITH THE COUSINS!*

*Brotherly love* LOONEY TUNES* "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World"* Birthday and Christmas presents* Goodie bags from Aunt Barb*

*Playing at Dragon Hollow in the freezing cold* Hot Chocolate at the Uptown Diner* Buying puzzles at the game store* Crazy homeless guy*

*Anna- the world's sweetest dog* Building with legos* Sleeping on air mattresses* Giggling until late in the night* Sleep deprivation* Rowan waking everyone up with his bad dreams*

*Riding the carousel at Dragon Hollow* Trying desperately for the gold ring* Rowan almost falling off the carousel*

*Gabe getting the gold ring* Elsie getting the gold ring* Grayson being mad he didn't get the gold ring*
*Fuller pulling the gold ring TWICE!*


*No snow to play in(bad)* No snow to drive in (good)*
*Uncle Jason borrowing the limo from work and chauffeuring us around town* Being able to cross ride in a limo off my life list of things to do*

*Pretending to be movie stars* Grayson acting like George W.*

*Attempting to climb to the Missoula "M" on Thanksgiving morning*

*Seeing Twilight(girls only)* Going swimming at the indoor water park (boys only)*

*The boys all making it to the top!"

*The fabulous view from the top of the "M"*

*Family game time* Paul and Elsie beating everyone at Scrabble*

* Early morning shopping with Barb* Starbucks peppermint hot chocolate*
*Dance contests*

*Elsie the DDR queen*

*Aunt Barbara's cooking*
* Playing "I Spy" while waiting for our food at Red Robbin*

*Dressing up like sumos* Mario Party 8* Rowan the video game addict*







*New Montana sweatshirts from Aunt Barb* Playing hide and seek and tag in the house*

*Visiting with Great-Grandma* Grayson filling his pockets with taffy from Great-Grandma's drawer*Putting more than 1200 miles on the car* Only being tempted to leave the kids by the side of the road once or twice* Throwing up in the McDonald's parking lot in Kellogg, Idaho* Wishing we could have stayed longer!*

One more thing before we go

I should have been packing.......

but packing isn't fun! So I spent last night making little chewing gum advent calendars instead.

I had posted about some I had seen online, and these are very similar. The main difference is that the tutorial I saw used 12 packs of gum, and I used 9 packs. I could only find 12 packs in flavors my kids don't like. So, we'll just have to start our Christmas countdown a few days earlier. I made some for some cousins too, since we'll be at their house the day we need to start counting down.

It may seem like a silly little thing, but it will really help with the continual asking about how much longer until Christmas.

And the kids are REALLY excited about the gum! Because you know I hate gum, and usually it's completely banned in our house. But in the name of Christmas we can bend a few rules.

Random Sampler- Life at our house this week

1. Rowan's first trophy

Rowan had a very fun first experience of playing on a sports team. He had a sweet and patient coach, and silly kids to run around with. Unfortunately his team opted to not do trophies. In general I kind of go back and forth about the whole trophy issue, but when it's your FIRST time playing on a team, and both your brothers are getting trophies, I really think it's a necessity. So last week I took Rowan trophy shopping, and let him pick out the one he wanted. Oddly enough, he picked out the smallest little trophy in the store. We left it there to be engraved and then picked it up this week. Rowan was just giddy about it, it was like his whole body was bursting. He loves that thing! He carries it around and makes sure it's next to his bed at night. Definitely the best $4.50 I spent this week!
2. Fuller's science homework-
This week Fuller had to track everything he ate or drank for 3 days. I generally cook pretty healthy food, but for some reason I really felt like I had to amp up his fruit and vegetable intake this week. Something about knowing a teacher was evaluating what I feed my kid felt weird. I'm sure glad that's over, so I can break the fruit snacks and Pringles back out!
3. Kids say the darndest things-
I've been helping in Grayson's class one afternoon a week. This week while I was there they were doing some writing. The teacher was having them pick a topic, and then fill out a brainstorming sheet to help them write. On their idea page they had the categories, see, smell, taste, hear, feel. I think their teacher must have used "family" as an example, because that's what about half of the kids were writing about. I don't think some of the parents are going to be too happy when they see what their kids wrote about their families. One for example had the words yelling and fighting under what she hears, and "Mom always sleeping" under what she sees. I started getting a little worried about what Grayson's page might have on it, so I wandered over to his desk to take a peek. He said "family" was a boring topic, so he was writing about basketball. I've never been so happy to be boring!
4. Preparations for Missoula- All snow clothes and boots have been located, snacks and treats are ready to go. We've decided to lets the kids miss school Tuesday so we can leave early. Can't wait!
4. Business is booming!
Well, not really. But I did make my first sale on ETSY this week. YEAH! and I also sold and apron through my friend Stacey. She is carrying some of my aprons in her shop.("The Garden Gate" over in Kalama, check it out if you're ever in Kalama.)

Now we have a busy weekend of basketball games, van cleaning out, laundry and more packing.

Counting the hours

In less than one week, we will be in Missoula. Cousins will be laughing. Snow will be falling (hopefully). Delicious food will be cooking. And I will be sitting on a very comfy couch, petting one of my favorite dogs and visiting with people I love. To say that the kids are excited is an understatement. Grayson has been packing and repacking pretty much every day. Now if someone would just come and do my laundry and the rest of my packing, life would be perfect!

Only 37 more days

I finally got to work on some Christmas projects!

****UPDATE****
If you're looking for a super cute project to get your craft mojo flowing- go check out the advent calendar on http://mylittlemochi.typepad.com. I think I might be going gum shopping!

Extra Credit

A few weeks ago we had parent-teacher conferences. One thing that I heard from a couple of Fuller's teachers is that they would like to see him challenge himself more. Even though he had A's in their classes they wanted him to be doing some of the extra credit assignments, for the educational experience of it. This past week Fuller has been diligently working on some science extra credit. The assignment was to make a representation of the skeletal system. Their teacher told them to be creative in what they made it out of, suggesting Q tips and noodles as two possibilities. Fuller decided to use perler beads.

He spent many afternoons trying out ways to get the beads to look like certain bones. The skull and pelvis proved most challenging. With a little ironing assistance from me he had all of his pieces completed by Saturday.

Then all he had to do was glue them on a piece of tag board and label the bones.

I think he did a great job, and I'm really proud of him for doing the extra work, even though he really didn't have to. He didn't even grumble once.

This and that

I've got the "crafting bug" and I've got it bad! I've been staying up way too late at night stitching away. I've made some fun little fabric leaf garlands. I wish the picture was better, it looks super cute strung along the mantle.

And I've been giving knit hats a try. This little hat is off in the mail tomorrow to a good friends daughter.


I've also been swapping. I signed up awhile ago for a "thankful things swap". I can't show you what I made for that since I want it to be a surprise, but here's part of what I received. It's a lovely letter writing wrap complete with homemade stationary. Just wonderful! Thanks again Adrienne!



If you're in need of a little crafting inspiration one of my favorite crafty blogs,
www.melissagoodsell.typepad.com(sorry I couldn't get this to work as a link) is having 25 days of Christmas craft starting on the 15th. Her archives have lots of fun crafty ideas as well. Happy Crafting!

On his way to the NBA

This is my superstar! Grayson had his first basketball game on Saturday. I knew we were going to be in for some good entertainment, after seeing their practice on Wednesday. Only Grayson and one other boy had ever played before, and they only get one 45 minute practice before they play their first game. And, believe it or not, my little Grayson is one of the tallest kids on his team. This was definitely an opportunity for him to shine. He remembered to dribble, made some great steals and passes, and lots of shots (although none of them actually went in). I can really tell how much improved he is from last year. The rest of his team was almost too comical. The coach and refs were laughing pretty good.


For some reason Grayson kept getting paired up with this huge kid. I don't know if you can tell in the picture, but the boy is at least 8-10 inches taller than Grayson and outweighed him by about 40 pounds. But Grayson really held his own, and didn't back down, even when the big guy was trying to muscle the ball away from him.

I was just happy Grayson didn't get hurt. At this age they can sometimes get too rough, not intentionally, but just because they don't really understand how to guard and steal without getting too physical. Hopefully it will be a great season, and Grayson will have fun.

Trying something new

A few weeks ago I decided to give selling on ETSY a try. There is a link to my storefront on the right hand side of my blog or you can go directly there at www.3brothersmother.etsy.com. Go check it out. No sales yet, so we'll see how this works out. If nothing sells I'll a have pretty good gift stash.

Knitting

If the tendonitis flare up I woke up with this morning is any indication, I've been knitting WAY too much. I just can't help myself. When the weather turns cold, wet and gloomy, I just want to curl up with some nice soft yarn and make something. I found a very easy new baby sweater pattern online and am now pretty much addicted to it.


And I am so tickled that I finally figured out how to knit flowers. I think I just finally found a simple enough pattern.



But, as fun as these have been to make they really aren't helping me cross any Christmas projects off my list. I guess I'll have to get back on track and quit being so easily distracted.

Civics lesson

This morning Rowan and I went down to City Hall so I could turn in Paul's and my ballots. I put off voting until the last minute of course. As we were driving there I was thinking about the importance of voting, and thinking of how to explain it to Rowan in a way he would understand. Then I drove by our little town square, and instantly forgot about voting. We started talking about the movie "Halloweentown", (which the boys and I just watched together recently for the first time) and was filmed in our little downtown. I was thinking how movie like and quaint the little area around the courthouse is. Rowan was excitedly telling me where different things were in the movie. As we walked into city hall I tried to refocus and explain a little bit about voting to Rowan, but he was just interested in the candy bowl that the lady at the front desk had. As we left she asked him if he would like a piece, and he walked out of the building happy and content, with an orange tootsie pop in his mouth. Driving home Rowan proclaimed "I like voting!" I guess maybe that's a good enough lesson for a five year old.

Feels like Monday

If ever a morning felt like a "Monday morning", it was today. First the time change thing. Can I just say that I hate daylight savings. In fact I would gladly rip open my ballot and change my vote to support ANY candidate who would promise to do away with the whole thing. I spent yesterday morning disoriented by the whole thing. I had woken up at 6:30, looked at the clock, heard Paul in the shower, and rolled over for a few more minutes of sleep. After sleeping for awhile, (I know it was awhile because I dreamed), I again looked at the clock- 6:26. What?! How could I have gone back 4 minutes in time? While I was back asleep Paul had corrected the time on the clock in our bedroom. That left me feeling totally weird. Fast forward to this morning. The kids got up way too early, and had lots of time to mess with each other, and make each other really mad. Fuller had MAJOR attitude about being told to wear pants to school (even though I've been warning him Nov.1 was the cut off date). Both he and Grayson had issues with not being able to load up their lunch boxes with lots of Halloween candy, and with being asked to eat a healthy breakfast. And then, the cherry on top, I walked out to take Fuller to school and stepped on a gigantic worm. Ewwww.

Wanna see something scary?

Is it just me, or is Grayson channeling his inner Rambo a little TOO well? Oh how I miss the days when my kids wanted to be cute things like dinosaurs or pirates. Now they want to be "guy" things- whatever that means. Fuller really had a hard time with the whole Halloween costume selection this year, which almost made his mean mom ban him from celebrating the holiday altogether. In the end he was a cartoon-ish prisoner, like from looney tunes I guess. I never did really understand his inspiration, I just know he was disappointed at not having a ball and chain. Grayson and Rowan were so ridiculously easy, they just wanted to wear some of Paul's old military clothes. Free costumes are the best! Rowan insisted his soldier also needed a light saber- I guess our government should really think about giving those to our military.
Here they are in all their dramatic glory:








They obviously got way too much loot!




And a good time was had by all!