Friday = Pizza

There's something about the end of the week that makes my family crave PIZZA!!! We love to have pizza Friday night for dinner... Anyone else?

Disciplining is a funny thing...

When working with my kids, I've found that there is no clear path or black and white with disciplining. Instead it's picking and choosing your battles, choosing when to harp on them or when to congratulate them. For instance, yesterday at bedtime Grayson was in trouble. Go figure, Gray + bedtime = trouble. He's tired, not a lot of self-control and I don't blame him. But, he had pushed Addie a little too much so was sent to bed.

After tucking him in, turning the lights off and going downstairs to finish running I heard a loud "MOOOOMMMMMMM!!!!!" over and over again. At first I decided it would be better to ignore it. Not to give in and give him the satisfaction of getting a result from yelling. After 15 minutes of it, however, I could stand it no more. I went up there to find him in his room playing with the light back on. And somehow, mysteriously, the fingernail clippers on the floor of his room.

When I asked him how they had gotten there, he immediately fessed up.

"I did it. I brought them in here." Fingernail clipppers are like weapons of destruction in Gray's hands, he can do some damage. So as I proceeded to calmly, be proud of me for that, talk to him about how he shouldn't have them in there, he said,

"Well....., at least I didn't lie!!" And there it is. So, I needed to in the same moment, give props and support the honesty but somehow reprimand ALL of the other things he had chosen to do. Like I said, picking and choosing your battles. So, I congratulated him for being honest and focused on that. Told him we'd have a better day tomorrow that it was amazing he chose to be honest while in trouble, that choice is a hard one to make.

I am CONVINCED that we need to be noticed when we make good choices, even if we only make one good one in the middle of 10 bad ones. I mean, who really wants attention brought to all of their flaws when in the midst of those flaws there is a shining star?? That's how I want it to be with me. So at the end of the conversation - Gray and I just remember that he was honest and celebrated the good choice he had made... So when parenting, I have decided to bring attention to the GOOD choices. I will discuss the bad ones, but put the Good ones on the front burner to show my kids that those Good choices are noticed, right???

Updated Pix of Emma

Feeling oddly cynical and blah today - not a lot to say, life is same as always around here! - but here are some pics of Emma! She is growing so fast - loved giving her our food at dinner and seeing her go to town on it.

Pix as Promised

Here are the pix of our basketball hall of fame night. Bill Hoops' little boy Trey is on the far right. See his peace sign? Charles and Jimmer were fantastic and very sweet to come see our fam. Hope you like! New news at our house? Chaos and craziness. We feel a little overscheduled right now. Next week should be somewhat calmer I hope.

I was able to organize a fun night for my tenants this last Friday and had a full house - I loved it. Matt came with me and was able to appreciate my crazy other hundreds of kids. We held a competition night and Matt was the ref for the 3-3 water basketball which was hilarious. I have officially passed my trial/temp period with the Village and am officially permanent there and loving it. Emma has taken a few steps and is about to take off- seriously. Addie is the best helper as always and has straight A's. Jax is working on the balance between his love of sports and the necessity of reading and schoolwork. Working on that. Gray just told me I'm the best mom he's ever had because I game him peanut butter and fluff for lunch. Awesome.

The BEST night of my whole life

We are so lucky. My little family is lucky because we have an outgoing networking fiend for a Dad/Husband. He is friends with anyone and everyone and that really has come to bring some awesome opportunities as a result. Let me explain. My husband has a friend he plays softball with that works in the Sports Marketing Department at BYU, or something like that. Anyway, he is the nicest friend and anytime has extra tickets to an event, passes them on to my husband.

Over the last few weeks, my husband has gotten to know Charles Abouo who plays basketball for BYU. For dinner last Sunday night, we invited Matt's softball friend and his family over, and a few days before Matt came to me and said - I invited a few BYU basketball players and roommates over too! I didn't hold my breath, wasn't sure if that would really happen, but was hopeful that they would come for my cute boys who love them. Well, sure enough at dinner time, not only did Charles show up, but so did Jimmer Fredette and his roommate Justin.

I tried to prep my kids to not be shy around them, and to also not overdo their excitement but to just treat them like normal regular people. Addie said, shocked, "Mom, they are not regular people! They are famous, and since they are coming to our house, we are famous!" Nice Addie.

If you've met Jackson - you know that he talks about Jimmer on a first name basis and has a shrine to him in his room including one of his shoes from last season. Can you even imagine my son's face and emotions through that night? Needless to say, it was amazing. They played basketball together and ate and talked for over 3 hours. Those players were kind and humble and simply amazing. I have a new respect for them after Sunday night. I believe that they will be coming every now and then for a good (um, not sure about the good part) cooked dinner on Sundays...since they don't have host families like they do in CDA! When they left I asked Jax, with a 10 being the best ever, and a 1 being boring, how he would rate his night.

He thought about, slowly smiled, and said, "This was the best night of my whole life." Perfect. A mother's dream. Thanks to Charles and Jimmer for taking time out of their day, the day right after a win over Utah, to spend with my little boys. Simply amazing. I took some pictures but they are on my camera at home... I will post them later!

Nights at UVU

So our lives have become crazy busy right? Matt has taken on a second job working for the Alumni Department at UVU. One of his responsibilities is to attend the UVU basketball game to man an alumni table/booth. So... we all come with him - if you know my boys, you know that is totally up their alley. We go to the games and sit right in front of Matt. Now, the basketball court games are played on are in the center of the building with two courts on either side unused during the game. They keep up some hoops and let the kids play on them during the game. So... when we get there each night, Jax takes off to play basketball, Addie sits down to watch the dancers and cheerleaders, Matt heads to his table and Gray goofs off with me. Last time we were there Gray and I got silly with the camera. No laughing at my faces - I HAD to post these pics because the faces Gray made display his silly personality perfectly. I took a picture of Matt and his table too.

During that last game, I realized I hadn't seen Jax in a while. I knew where he was, but he usually comes to check in with me every couple of minutes. Usually he is playing by himself or just shooting around with a few other kids...This time I wandered over and found him in a full-on 4 on 4 game with kids twice his size. Not fazed at all, he was having the time of his life. Notice in the still picture the size of the kid he is guarding. Sorry there are no pics of Addie, she was at the concession stand buying candy, of course.

This picture is of Matt... Can you see him? We were at the Flash game on Friday night and he was picked for a time-out competition. He won us $10!!! Yea Matt!

On a side note- we measured the kids today... Jax who is 5 1/2 is as tall as Addie was when she was almost 7 and Gray, who is 4 1/2ish is as tall as Jax was at 5 1/2, and Emma is 8 mos old and in 18-24 mo. clothes. Hmm.....

I'm not having a good day...

I have lost count of how many times I hear Gray say those words. The best of them all was RIGHT when he woke up one morning. He walked down the stairs and sleepily said to Matt and I, "I think we need to call the police." Why Gray? "Cause I'm not having a good day and I need the police to fix it. Let's call the police." Seems like an appropriate reason to call the police I guess...

So we have a relatively new ottoman that is leather in our living room. Apparantly our kids like to wrestle with the cat on it. I came home from work one day to see a nice BIG scratch on it. So, I called RC Willey to come have them repair it. I was hoping to avoid mentioning how I thought the scratch had gotten there, they would repair it and leave. So would the cat in my dream world. Anyway, the repair man came, and first off asked, "How did the scratch happen?" Gray just so happened to walk into the room at JUST that moment and said, IT WAS MY CAT! as loud as he could. Thanks Gray.