Christmas

Here are the pics. . . Gray got his infamous, not famous turtle van. . . Jax really wanted to get a new Wii football game. . .

Christmas morning!!!! Trying so hard to get around us to get downstairs. .. Addie first woke up at 4 am but we made her go back to bed. . . This is around 6:30 am.

This is the highly anticipated American Girl doll...

The marble race that Jax wanted. Sammy LOVES it. . .

Sorry it's blurry - Addie and Grandma B were trying to figure out her new camera.

The footbal pads work! The boys were playing full-on tackle football for a while. ..

He's ready. The funny part about this picture is that he was not posing. I turned and took it with him standing like that. . .

Wordless Wednesday

Sledding. . . Just a couple of notes. Blue coat = Addie. Orange Coat = Gray. Small person in black coat = Jax. Large person in black coat = Matt. Green coat = Katie.

Sorry - this one is here twice - Matt and the boys. . .

Jax. . .

Grayson the Angel

Sorry I don't have a picture of this. I WISH that I did. . . Just don't happen to take a camera with me to Primary. Maybe with Gray becoming a sunbeam I should. Anyway. . . For the whole month of December the Primary brings in the incoming sunbeams to singing and sharing time. This means Grayson (of course). So today we were doing the nativity scene and Grayson was picked to be one of the 3 angels in the story. The Primary president made halos out of tinfoil and put one on each angel's head. I think it was maybe 30 seconds tops before Gray figured out that the halo could be removed from his head, taken apart and made into a sword. Anyone surprised? I looked up and saw him trying to sword the fight the innocent and non-fighting angel next to him. A few minutes later he had put it back together and was trying to use it as a basketball hoop. He told me it was a net and showed me how he could make a basket with his arm. He was SOOO proud of himself. Here's to the upcoming year of Grayson the sunbeam. . . Props to the patient sunbeams teachers!!!!

Late over Part Two

So the late-over didn't exactly end well. . . Malia and Addie had a head-on-head collision that will probably change Malia's life for ever. . . Addie walked away without a scratch - Malia ended up with a fat lip (see picture of spitting out blood) and a tooth knocked back half-way into her mouth. Perfect. Apparantly the Brousseau house is a walking injury trap. Abby said she's going to call the dentist . . . immediately. I'm not sure what will happen with that. Right after the incident, I drove Malia home. After dropping her off, I turned left onto State street and immediately after crossing 800 north witnessed a pedestrian crossing in a NON-crosswalk get hit and flown to the side of the road. So, in my Relief Society apron, still on from making chocolate covered pretzels at home before all of this began, I pulled to the side of the road, called 911 and waited for the police to come and take my statement. . . Now all is said and done, I am sitting still and just trying to take a deep breath. Here's to an uneventful tomorrow!

Addie's Time

See comments at the end. . . Sorry did things out of order today.

This picture has nothing to do with snow or a lateover. . . I just thought it was adorable. We didn't have a lot on our agenda last night and the boys REALLY wanted to do play-doh. Now, I have serious issues and a hard time letting go enough to really have fun with that stuff. The color mixing, the mess it makes, yuck. But, last night was the perfect time because the kitchen floor needed both vacuuming (According to Line that is how you spell that word) and mopping. So I let them have at it. It was actually really fun. The best part was a tie between Daddy getting involved and making his own elaborate Christmas tree and the boys discovering that one of their toy things made the brown play-doh look like poop. Perfect.

So - Addie is home from school for Christmas break . . . we started her time here with a bang- wrestling in the snow with her brothers and having a late-over with her oldest 2 Maile cousins. . . She is loving life. The girls were adorable to have over here. I can't remember the last time someone asked me - can we do a project? It's usually - will you throw the football? Can you raise the basketball hoop? or something like that. So great to have some girls around for a while. . . .The time in the snow was hilarious. The boys just assumed that Addie would play like they do - blocks in the back, tackling and white washes. Just what a girl likes to do in the snow right? They did manage to jump all of the snow off of the tramp which was on my to-do list. Thanks guys!

Snowfight

Well - we finally got a ton of snow and my boys couldn't be more thrilled. Yesterday they pulled out their snowsuits and boots, suited up and played hard outside- for about 10 minutes. . . Guess they can only take it for so long. It was a full on football/snowball/wrestling match out there. It was a riot to watch from inside. Not to mention that I haven't gotten new snowsuits after last year - so both of my boys were wearing severe high-water snowpants. Rock on. After playing outside they decided to lay by the fireplace to get warm for a while. It was adorable. We LOVE having that fireplace in our house. . . .

Christmas Lights

Every year we take a trip to Temple Square to see the Christmas Lights. Although it is FREEZING!!!! I love it. We were lucky enough to have the Javiers with us this year . . . Here's a couple of pictures. Merry Christmas!

Need vs. Want

Matt and I decided that Addie and Jax were old enough to understand and be included in a discussion about budget. So, we sat all three kids down and discussed what a budget is, living within your means, and most importantly need vs. want. I told them that when I was younger my mom taught me this principle. We gave them some examples like food vs. toy at the store.

Some of their examples were great. A new doll? want. Heat? want. They totally got it. I was so proud. Anyway, we then talked about why we wanted to be careful with our money to start saving for Emerson, etc., etc., etc. Again, they were totally on board and didn't seem to be upset when we told them we were going to put the responsibility on them when it came time to decide things like that. We had the perfect opportunity to put our plan into action. That night we were headed to the BYU mens basketball game, and they pretty much ALWAYS want to go to the concession stand. Somehow, we made it the whole night without the kids asking for anything. But my favorite part was the conversation Jax and I had on the way home. Without prompting, Jax said, "Hey mom, when we were at the game, I thought that I wanted popcorn, but I know that I wanted it, I didn't need it, so I didn't ask for it." I was so proud of my little 4 year old that night. Here's to staying strong and keeping this principle going in our house. . .

Dunking

Jax has been working on dunking on his indoor hoop. Tonight he figured it out. . . He is SOOOO proud. The picture of Gray, is just, well, Gray. Enjoy -

Gray's Storytelling

So . . . for those of you who have spent some quality time with Gray, you probably have learned that he is a master storyteller. . .. He loves to make up and tell stories, which are usually so far from truth and are so far fetched that when he tells them with a serious face it is a riot. Here's the story from dinner tonight -
They always start like this - Mom/Dad, guess what. . . One time. . . then the story follows. Anyway. . . One time- I tried to eat a bird but it was so big that it hurt my throat. It was the biggest bird I ever saw, and then I tried to get wings to fly and eat the bird (like this and showed us his airplane arm/wings, flapping them in the air to show him flying), and I started to fly but I fell down . . . it hurt. . . followed by a sad face like his dog died. . . What is that and where did it come from? Love it.

The Santa Dilemma

Okay - for those of you who live down here in Utah - I've probably told you this story. . . Sorry!

Anyway - My dear sweet 7 year old daughter has wanted the SAME thing for Christmas for 3 years now. The first year we were able to talk her out of it, the second year (last year) we found a cheaper version and thought the problem was solved. But, here comes Christmas this year, and without a word Addie wrote her christmas list and at the very top was the same thing, again. What does she want? An American Girl doll. . . . She has not complained about the cheaper version last year, in fact, she didn't even say a word. Instead, she simply put it on her christmas list and circled each one she liked in the catalog.

So, when I saw it on the list, I discussed with her that maybe she should have a backup plan because what she wanted was so expensive ($100 just for the doll . . . ). She heard what I had to say and didn't mention it again until last week . . . when we went to see Santa. As we were walking in she said to me, "I've decided to ask Santa for the American Girl doll so that you don't have to pay for it!" So . . . here's the dilemma (well, not really since I gave in and ordered it), when things like this happen - you can't possibly ruin Santa for your kids so somehow your brilliant 7-year old has backed you into a corner. Well done Addie, well done. Kids are smarter than we give them credit for!

So - the softie that I am - I ordered the doll with earrings, a cell phone, and 2 dance outfits. And, oddly enough, I am SOOO excited to see her face on Christmas morning. Santa lives on for one more year!!! Merry Christmas . . ..

It's been a while. . .

It's been a while and Matt and Candy told me it's TIME to update the blog! So - here are a few things that have been going on around here. . . Grandpa Davis, with Uncle Matt (I'll get some pictures of him later) have come to visit for a couple of days. My kids LOVE it. We have brought (according to Grayson) Super Grandpa over to the Wii side of things. . . We've been playing a lot of virtual Golf. . . something tells me he'll be buying Tiger Woods Golf for the Wii when he gets home. He's also really good at helping Gray drive his cart for Mario Cart. . . We love having him here!

Addie has found a new hobby - dressing Tori. The Javier's come over for dinner each sunday and last sunday we were privy to a fashion show. Here's one of the works of art with the designer and just the model . . .

Decorating the christmas tree- I LOVE this time of year. Christmas time is my all-time favorite. Each year we decorate our tree with candy canes and we let the kids do the decorating . . . Jax took over this year - can you tell? We turned away for a second and this is what we found. Adorable. . .

This is actually on Thanksgiving day. I got the treadmill out to run but got sidetracked talking to Aunt Candy, who came over to borrow the oven. Next thing I knew - Addie appeared out of her room with running clothes and shoes on. She is used to seeing me do this at naptime and I guess wants to get in on the fun. . . Yes, stop laughing at me - I think it is fun. Anyway - she ran nonstop for a good mile and half. I was really proud of her!!! She really did love it and asked to run again the next time it was out. . . .

Here is one of the nights with the Javiers. The boys split from the girls and decided to watch a movie upstairs. Sammy fits right in!

Matt's already prepping for having a little girl around here again. He tries to hold either Ane or Annie when they are here. I captured this moment when he was having some quiet time - so cute. . .

That's it! I'm sure I'll have more to post later. . .