Valentine's Day

I helped with Gavin's class party and it was so much fun for the adults and the kids. There were four different stations set up.

Gavin made a Valentine's Day Card at the first one,

 Decorated sugar cookies with way too many sprinkles at the second one,

 Played "Pin the Lips on Mrs. Valentine" at my station and got the lips exactly where they were suppose to be both times and I made sure he couldn't see

 The last station was Valentine Bingo with his teacher

 Gavin picked out Hot Wheels Valentine's for the boys and then Barbie one's for the girls because he figured the girls would like those better. He's such a thoughtful kid sometimes.

This is what my Valentine got me. The sign next to it says, "I love you BIG time!" I didn't get it at first and Cody had to point it out to me "BIG time, BIG clock". Ha ha I can't believe he had to point that out. I was just overwhelmed by the size of the clock. It's literally 2 inches shy of being 3 feet in diameter. In fact, it didn't fit in our living room where our other clock is so the hung it up in his Man Cave downstairs. All I could think was that he must really love me if he hung "chic decor" up in his man cave.

I was boring and just bought him a cheesy heart shaped box of chocolates and a new hunting and fishing license but there's a funny story to go with it. 

I was at CAL Ranch at he gun counter. It was me, three old men and the 20 something year old clerk. I pulled my wallet out of my purse to pay and out of the corner of my eye I see one of the old men bend over to pick something up. Then I got a tap on the shoulder and I turn to see this old man examining something in his hand. He has it held up to his face and his says, while turning it around and examining it more, "Ma'am, I don't know what this is and it's none of my business, but you dropped this." I thank him and put it back into my purse and look back at the cashier who is smirking and turning a little red, apparently he had realized that it was a pantyliner too. 

So even though he had a boring gift I made him laugh with the story of how I got his gift. 

Happy Valentine's Day

Life of Fry

 Twinners!

 I watched my nieces and nephew on Tuesday and I had 7 kids ages 1 mo to 4 years at my house pretty much all day. We played in the tents, drew on the "big paper", went on a treasure hunt and just played and played and played. After everyone left and it calmed down this is how I found Mason and Chloe and it wasn't even dinner time yet. 

I hosted a little shindig at my house the other day and had some yummy treats lined up, but no one came...literally no one. I even showered and bribed them with chocolate. I'm going to blame it on the short notice so I don't have to cry myself to sleep at night. This is why I don't do parties at my house, I don't know how I keep getting roped into these things. Okay I'll stop being dramatic now. 

 Anyway, it was OK because I got to sit and enjoy all these super yummy chocolate dipped strawberries, bananas, marshmallows and pretzels with my kids and watch their faces get covered in chocolate and smiles.

 Meanwhile in Manville:

 Cabelas is coming to Idaho Falls and Cody is sooo excited, can you tell?

 We were getting Valentines for Gavin's class and Chloe found this unicorn and fell in love with it. (It's so fluffy I could die!- Despicable Me)

"Mom, can I get this corn (unicorn)?" 

She cracks me up all the time with funny stuff she says. She has been quite the storyteller at dinner lately telling us about how her and her "best friends Madisen and Madi (Madilyn) went on a field trip"

Fireball

 We went to the DI with my parents on Saturday and Gavin disappeared. I found him sitting on one of the display beds reading a book in a hat (hopefully lice free) he found that is just like his daddy's hat except a different color. What a kid.

 Looking through pictures at Grandma's

 Eating popcorn with grandma

Zach and Ashley, Cody and I, Oliver and Liz, Steve and Beth

 Last night we went to Blast Off and played PhaserTag with some of our friends. It's exactly like paintball except with rubber balls instead of paint balls. I made the mistake of not wearing a long sleeved shirt so I got hit on bare skin a couple of times which hurt pretty bad but I survived. It was a blast. We played boys against girls and despite Beth shooting me accidentally us girls still won 76-60!! Take that guys!! That was the best part and it was funny listening to them make up excuses as to why they lost. For example "I was leaning against the wall so it was setting of my sensors" "My gun wasn't working right" etc etc. Face it boys, you got beat by us girls!!

Afterwards we went to Pachangas to eat some delicious Mexican food, YUMMY : )

 Mason pulled out Gavin's skateboard today and started doing tricks on it. I didn't even know that he knew how and I've never seen him on it before so he must have just been watching his big brother.

 Look at that smile!!

 Chloe was even trying it out

 Mason loves his dump truck. I'm so glad that we Santa got it for him

This little dude has been fighting a yucky cough and off and on fevers for about a week. I kept him home from church today so that he didn't spread it around to all the other kids. During breakfast I asked him, "Mason, what are we going to do while every one else goes to church? Should we go find you a woman?" I was just joking around and mostly just trying to get a reaction out of Cody and make Mason laugh and didn't think anything more about it. Later when everyone else was leaving for church Mason was putting his coat on and I told him he was staying here with me. He threw his coat down and said, "I WANT TO GO FIND ME A WOMAN!" LOL!  I guess I'd better be careful about what I say. 

He snuggled with me on my lap (which RARELY happens because he is always on the move) and we watched Planes and then started watching 101 Dalmations when he fell asleep.

Stuck in the House

This winter has been a cold winter and even though there is snow outside it is just to cold and frozen to play outside. The kids are getting restless so I have been trying to do more active activities and games with them so they don't go stir crazy. These are a few of them that we play. 

SPIDER IN THE KITCHEN

I made this one up a few years ago with Gavin and it's still a favorite and we still have the same spider although the paper is getting pretty worn out. I printed a big cartoon spider onto a piece of paper and cut it out into a circle. I put tape on the back of it and then I would stick it to something in the kitchen, dramatically scream "there's a spider in the kitchen" and run into the living room where Gavin was and say "will you go smash it for me?" and he would run into the kitchen laughing hysterically, find the spider and "smash" it with his hand and then I would say something like "Phew! Thank you, that was so scary!" Then it would start all over again each time putting the spider in a different spot for him to find.

SHAPES AND ANIMALS SEARCH

I tear off about a 12 foot section of my roll end and draw shapes, animals, letters, numbers, etc. all over it. When I'm done I say to the kids "find the frog" and they go stand on it and then I ask them "what color is it?" etc. etc.

The kids love it because they think it's a fun game and I love it because it's getting their wiggles out AND they are learning!!

TREASURE HUNTS

We have been doing A LOT of these lately. I get index cards or paper and write clues/instructions on them that lead them all over the house, preferably up and down the stairs a few times and in the end there is a treasure like a bag of freshly popped popcorn, pretzels, cutie oranges and sometimes even candy. Although I wouldn't recommend hiding the freshly popped popcorn in your dryer, the smell lingers....trust me, I know from experience.

HIDE AND SEEK

I'm sure everyone knows how to play this game but sometimes instead of counting to 10 or 20 I have them say the alphabet just to help them learn it better. 

On a side note this is how Chloe says her ABC's:

A B C D E F G H I J K  L L L L P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

RUN CHICKEN RUN

Cody invented this one last fall. The kids were running from the living room into the toy room and back. Cody was sitting on the couch and started throwing pillows at them as they would run by. Then they started being "chickens" and didn't dare run past Cody so he said "Run, Chicken, Run" and thus the game was born. Now it's another favorite at our house. We just have to make sure that they stay away from the entertainment center so if they do fall down they don't hit it. 

TICKLE WARS

We do these all the time and it's just what you think it is. We tickle each other until the other once gives up. Pretty simple but the kids love it and it wears them out : )

Life of Fry

I took Chloe out on her date night this month. I suggested all kinds of different things we could go do but all she cared about was "pink ice cweam". She then added mini chocolate chips, gummy bears, gummy worms and sprinkles.

Then she ate every.single.drop!!

This is how Gavin RSVP'ed!!

I spy with my little eye, TWO HEADS IN ONE BED!!

Mason is suddenly all over the place. He is not sleeping very well and wakes up in the middle of the night, sometimes multiple times a night. Cody and I wake up to him running all over the house and put him back in bed, but sometimes he's quiet about it and we don't know he's up until he is waking Gavin and Chloe up. I quit napping him in hopes that it would help, but it really hasn't. Gavin's teacher even noticed that Gavin wasn't getting enough sleep so Mason now has a bed in the toy room with a baby gate in the hall so he can get to the bathroom if he needs to, but he can't wake the other two up. I'm open for suggestions if anyone has one or two.

 This picture shows so much!

-Gavin still has the wristband on from a party that he went to earlier that day (the one he RSVP'ed too) that he didn't want me to cut off

-His holy pants that were obviously already fixed once, or more, that need fixed again because he is all boy and that's what boys do, they put holes in EVERY pair of pants they own

-His concentration he has when he is building with his legos. I bought these for him two Chirstmas's ago and he barely touched them, but all of the sudden they are one of his favorite toys. I love to see what he comes up with.

-Legos all over his bedroom floor. He has Lego Fever now

Everyone has caught Lego Fever at my house

His space ship

He wanted me to get the front view too

(and the back and other side view)

Gavin watched Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 on Super Bowl weekend and it inspired part of this drawing. Those are meatballs next to the smoke flying out of the volcano. On the left of the volcano is a tornado with a house and more meatballs in it as well as another house about to be either sucked up into the tornado or taken over by hot lava. 

P.S. Did you notice how much tape he used on the right side to tape it to his door? I think his plan was to do that all the way around but I convinced him that he had plenty and I was pretty sure it wasn't going anywhere

I found Chloe sleeping sideways on her bed and it looks like her hippo rubbed her back until she fell asleep! I can't get over how big she looks in this picture. My baby isn't a baby anymore!

I bet you can't tell that we watched the movie Planes at our house. I found this on the back of one of Gavin's school papers. He gets done before everyone else and draws all kinds of creations on the back of his work.

Last week I had Chloe lay on the paper and was tracing her. This week she is laying her baby on the paper and tracing her baby. She is my little mini me copy cat! (unless she swears, I do not claim that, it is all her daddy! Seriously, I'm not kidding)

The kids love this huge paper and ask me to get it out every time they come over. (It's a roll end from the local newspaper) Bailee will say to me, "Tewi, color paper" It's so cute.

I love this picture of these two

Then after they get bored with it this happens. I was going to stop them, but they were laughing, squealing and having a great time and just couldn't do it.

Mason and Chloe were "hiding"

Gavin is always taking his Beyblades apart and washing them so I had to document it but please pay no attention to the messy counter and the gross hard water stains around my faucet (unless you know how to get it off, then please tell me!)

I introduced Brigham and Bailee to Aunt Teri's snack tray, they LOVED it and luckily even with all four kids no one fought over anything : )