puppy chow.

i have not made this in a while, but for some reason when i do...it makes me think of my mom and the holidays. funny the things that stick in our memories.

Amazing Christmas Story

While this is a sad story, it really warms my heart that so many people were willing to participate to make this little boys Christmas so special.
here is a warning that i cried all through it, so just be prepared.

christmas cookies.

last night after dinner we decided to decorate christmas cookies with the kids. we have not done this in a while because we usually just do ginger bread houses. however the kids had a lot of fun and we got to enjoy some yummy cute cookies!

 cullan with his tree!

 my cookies

 one of kael's cookies

 garran's cookies. he ate most of the ones he decorated right away ;0)

kael enjoying his creations.

i did not get any pictures of briea because she was just a huge mess and kept munching on cookies.

the bathroom.

(warning. this post is about the bathroom. just thought i would give warning)

this morning i had gotten up early with cullan. he is our early riser. he always wakes up before anyone else and then comes in and wakes us up. anyways, cullan and i had been awake for a little while and then kael got up. i decided to get up and go to the bathroom. here is where the story begins...and might i add this is pretty typical of anytime i have to use the restroom.

i go into the bathroom and close the door. with in minutes the following happens.

-kael knocking on the door, " mom i have to go to the bathroom!!!!" (i tell him to go to the bathroom upstairs, so he does)

-cullan knocks on the door "where are the sugar cookies from last night?" "can you see my toes under the door?" "what are you doing in there?" "have you seen my mario costume?"

i finally get cullan to move a way from the door only to hear kael upstairs in the bathroom. our bathrooms are directly on top of each other so i could hear his little feet run in. then all of the sudden i hear some shuffling. (because our bathrooms are right on top of each other, the vents serve as a sort of intercom)

so just when i think i have found some piece while cullan is looking for his mario costume i hear...

"mom...it's me Kael!!' "I am in the bathroom upstairs and i went potty!" so at this point i tell him good job and that he should go find some trains to play with or watch scooby doo with cullan. it is quiet for a minute and just when i think i might have won....nope. "mom, are you still there?". me begrudgingly, "YES". "Oh good, knock knock! (after a minute of silence) Mom your supposed to say who's there!"

ps. this is not even the worst because at least no one tried and succeeded to get the door open and join me in the bathroom. i guess i should count that as a small victory!

because it is AMY!

i got tagged by a friend to do this and because it is Amy, I am going to do it. She is a lot of fun, so i figure why not!

4 Shows I watch:

1. Sing Off

2. Parenthood

3. Duggars

4. Storm Chasers (not the best show might i add when you live in the midwest)

4 Things I am Passionate About:

1. My Family

2. photography (i had kind of fallen off the wagon but am really wanting to get back to it)

3. bettering my self

4. keeping in contact with close friends.

4 Phrases/Words I use a lot:

1. I love you

2. It's so loud in here I can not hear myself think.

3. You guys are crazy.

4. Don't touch that and get down!

4 Things I Have Learned From the Past:

1. Honesty is the best policy.

2. I NEED some "alone/quiet" time every day

3. No matter how well I plan out my future (whether months or years away) it never goes as expected. And that's not a bad thing.

4. Never be afraid to be yourself. It is always better than the pretend version of yourself.

4 Places I Would Like To Go:

1. Ireland

2. Brazil

3. England/France

4. Anywhere with a quite beach, sunny sky, beach chair and Garran!

4 Things I Did Yesterday:

1. Took all 4 kids to wal mart to get batteries, which i forgot.

2. Laundry...as always.

3. Read part of a book.

 

4. Talk to my sister in law.

4 Things I Am Looking Forward To:

1. Seeing the kids reaction on Christmas Morning. 

2. Garran's Christmas break!!!!!

3. Seeing Family and Friends

4. decorating christmas cookies with the kiddos.

4 Things I Love About Winter:

1. Christmas Trees - lights

2. Sledding!

3. Snuggling 

4. Hot Cocco and marshmellows 

4 Things on My Wish List:

1. a camera..im wishing on a star!! LOL

2. everything to go smoothly during the holidays.

3. To be able to see my husband more often

4. a date night!!!

I'm supposed to tag other people, so here you go!

 

Lisa N, Jean R, Stacy P, Amy B 

mini and micro

garran is always saying how much the girls look like me. he has this joke about calling B,
mini meg

And Ayla micro meg!

I always just laugh. I can't see it, but then again i always have a hard time seeing when my kids look like me. i can see when they look like garran but not me. i know its weird. however last night, we were looking at some old pictures and oh my...

i don't know if B should be called mini meg anymore.

i think from here on out she might be known as mini moe! she looks a lot like my mom. i could not believe it when i saw this picture. i thought, oh my gosh... it looks just like briea. so i showed garran and he agreed. he has always joked that when briea gets mad that there is a face that she makes that my mom makes too. he is always playing but when i was taking pictures of her she made this face and it made me laugh... i thought i would post it just for my mom!

enjoy MOM!!

A Christmas Story!

For as long as i can remember we have always watched "A Christmas Story" at Christmas time. Well it came on the other day and so the kids and I watched it. The boys loved it. ever since then, cullan has been pretending to be ralphy. 

Ralph, from the movie.

Cullan pretending to be Ralph.

 He even quotes the lines about black bart. When he takes his glasses off, he acts like he can't see. It is so funny. Although he does have one little thing wrong, however it is so cute, we don't correct him. Instead of asking for a red rider BB gun, he asks for a red rider hood baby gun!

This just made me laugh. In the spirit of the Christmas story, this reminded me of ralph's little brother. you know when he can't put his arms down. it just made me laugh!

my baby

my baby seems to have a listening problem. she will not listen when I ask her to stop getting bigger. it is happening to fast. but here we are.. I know she does not look all that happy to be with me but she really does love me a lot !!

this man

this man makes me laugh all the time. this may also be why are kids are so weird! ;0)

ps. i have a minute so there are a lot of blogs coming.

the future.

my mother in law sent me this picture while i was in the hospital with ayla. i just love it. it is like a glimpse into the future. when i look at this picture, i can just see her as a teenager. i just love it.
ps. briea just loves those play earrings that my mom brought up for her.

ginger bread houses 2010

this year we did gingerbread, well graham cracker houses as always. the kids love it and i enjoy it also. we always invite the missionaries from out church to come and make some as well. it is fun to see what everyone comes up with and to laugh at all the chaos that unfolds!

here we all are, starting out. looks pretty organized right...ya well that did not last. in true fashion for our family, things got a little messy. b had a peppermint patty go down the wrong tube and she threw up on the floor. Kael dumped two full bottles of sprinkles out on his house. Yes we were watching him, but you just can not catch everything. After making our houses garran gave B a bath and then put the boys in. When he came back down we heard the boys yell, yep, B had climbed in the bathtub fully dressed in her PJ's! LOVELY! However, Garran and I were laughing. Would we really have it any other way. NO. these are the things we look back on and laugh at and will be able to tell our kids. i don't think family activities are supposed to go perfect or mess free anyways....right?

so here are the finished projects....

Kael - 4 years

Garran's- to his defense, he was holding Ayla so his house suffered a little this year.

This is Briea's. basically she put a little candy on her house and then just moved around the table sampling all the treats that were out.

Cullan' house. He was disappointed that he did not have enough room to fit a pool.

I had Garran snap a picture of me with my house. I was pretty happy with it.

I did a close up because one of the girls that came brought shark gummies as kind of a joke, but I worked them in!! I have a well in front of my house with a shark coming out!

Carmack's house. she was the funny lady that brought the sharks. the right part of her house is an aquarium and has sharks swimming in it!

this is the other girl's house. she even built a garage with a bug in it. it was really cute.

we had a fun time and made a huge mess. that is how it is supposed to go though. fun memories usually come with sticky fingers and big messes!!

Hope everyone is getting into the holiday spirit. I know I am. I am off to address our Christmas cards while Ayla is napping!

giving it a try...

guess who decided they wanted to try to use the potty?

that's right..Miss B!

i am not getting to excited but hopefully this means we will be done with diapers before to long.

near miss

this was us, this year, March 2010.

we were in Tennessee, looking at Grad schools and having a great time. This was our last stop on our trip and so we were enjoying our stay and checking out the scenery.

I had just found out I was expecting Ayla right before we left for the trip so I was in that wonderful phase of being super tired and nausea.

It was a long drive home when we finally left Tennessee and by the time we got home, we were all exhausted. It was freezing in Iowa and so we were missing the comfortable weather that we had had in Tennessee. We did not even unpack our suitcases when we got home. We set them by the door, relaxed for a little while, put the kids to bed and then went to bed ourselves.

Around 1:00 am we heard a beeping noise. We had heard this before. It was an alarm that we had that often went through the battery to quickly and would beep until we replaced it. Seeing as we were both exhausted, Garran and I laid there discussing whether or not to get up and make sure it was the battery or wait till morning to change it. We both were so tired, that we figured we would just sleep through the annoying beep. After a few minutes of discussing it, Garran said that he was going to get up to check the alarm just to make sure it was the battery. He came back a minute later and told me that it said that we had carbon monoxide in our apartment. We both were not exactly sure what to do next, but Garran said that he was going to call 911 and try and talk to someone at the fire department.

A few minutes later the fire department arrived. We could hear this weird beeping noise as they were coming in the building and getting closer to our door. Finally we heard a knock and opened it. (I should mention that as soon as we got up and saw the alarm we turned the furnace off. It was 5-10 minutes after that, that the fire department showed up). They said that the beeping noise that we heard as they were entering was a detector they used for Carbon Monoxide. It was clear out in our hallway. All of a sudden I felt panicked. If they could detect it out in the hallway, how much was in our apartment?

when they did the initial readings, after the furnace had been off for 10-15 minutes, the fireman said that the levels at that moment were borderline of us needing to go to the hospital. my heart sank. i instantly thought of the boys. they had a bunk bed. that night they had both wanted to sleep on top, not 2 feet from their little heads was a vent just pumping out this gas. i had already checked on them when I first got up, but i went and checked again while the firemen were running more test. at this point they asked us to turn the furnace back on. when we did, their detector went nuts instantly. i could not believe it. there was no sign of any gas. no smell, no cloud or fog, nothing! their reading said that the level was well over 100 ppm. The paper they gave us had this description next to the column that said...

"over 100 ppm" - "We have detected a lethal level of CO in the building. Leave the building immediately! It is not safe to return until the source is found, repairs are made, and the building ventilated. Have all possible sources of CO examined and repaired if necessary by a qualified technician. Replace or reset your CO detector according to manufacturer's specification."

the fireman then told garran and i that we were very lucky to have had that carbon monoxide detector. it was one that we had purchased on our own. our actual apartment did not have one. he said that had we not got up to check the alarm or had we slept through it, the levels in our apartment would have been lethal within 1-2 hours. My heart sank again. Not only could I not imagine losing one of my children, but I felt sick at the thought off all of us passing away. I have to admit that both Garran and I got emotional. The fireman said that we should get the boys out first, due to their proximity to the vent. We quickly wrapped them up in coats and blankets and put them in the van. B was next. They told us that we could not stay there that night. Especially me being pregnant. So even though we were absolutely exhausted, we called Garran's parents, let them know we were on our way, and made the 30 minute drive to their house to stay the night.

The reason this came back into my mind and I decided to post is because now that it is getting colder outside we have our furnace on. Every time it kicks on, I have to admit that that night pops in my mind. Now I am super cautious. We have a Carbon monoxide detector upstairs and down. I will NEVER take that chance again. Things could have ended up so differently that night. I am thankful every day for my friend that encouraged me to buy that detector and that I was diligent about replacing those dumb batteries, even though it seemed so annoying.

Garran and I were both talking the other night about this and we both agreed that when we had told people about our experience, that a lot of people brushed it off like it was not that serious or that it was not big deal. it was!! carbon monoxide is nothing to play with. if you do not have a detector you should get one. it will be well worth the 25-30 dollars you will spend on it.

i am grateful that we were all ok. that we got up when we did and that everyone walked away without any serious injury.

friendly foto fun!

the other day we met up with a friend of mine to take some family pictures so that we would have something to put on our Christmas card that I would actually be in. Usually i snap the picture, but am never in it. so this year, i get to be part of the family picture. it was so cold the day we went out and so the kids were not always excited about being there. but we got a cute picture for our card.. it think it shows us just as we are! i am excited to send it out!

these are some of the out takes. 

ENJOY!

i can not believe i have 4 kids. i can not believe how big they are all getting. but i am glad we have moments like this to capture them so i can remember them at each stage!

thanksgiving 2010

this was our first time having thanksgiving with just our family. we were a little worried. we had always spent thanksgiving with either my parents or garrans parents. we spent all morning cooking and getting stuff ready. i was worried. we made a lot of stuff from scratch, which for me is always scary for me. however everything turned out great!

 garran did an awesome job with the turkey. it was so yummy. i was really impressed. (not that i doubted him)

 for dessert i made mini apple pies. we are trying to eat healthier and have better portion control, so i thought this was a fun idea. they turned out so yummy. mini apple pies.
one of my favorite quotes from the day came from cullan. when he came down stairs, he looked at the table and said "wow mom this is fancy, now this is what i am talking about!"

the whole day was great, and now we know that we can handle a thanksgiving dinner. hope everyone had an amazing thanksgiving and got to enjoy time with their loved ones!

we wish we could have seen more of our family, but we had an enjoyable time together!

getting started.

the tree is up...with all three of our kids help..ayla sat in the bouncy seat and gave moral support. ;0)

the house is all decorated. the stockings are hung! i love this time of year. i only wish we had family around to share this time with. but we will see them soon enough ;0)

family.

so today we spent the whole day as a family. it was wonderful. were the kids perfect. no. was the weather perfect. no. what was perfect? we were all together with no schedule, no one having to be back for appointments, work or school!

today was PERFECT!

so we took advantage of our perfect day. i have a tradition that i started for the kids and i guess with garran and i when we first got married.

the first year garran and i were married, we were dirt poor. that year we made dough ornaments and that was part of our gift to each other. we still have those. ;0)

after that year we would give each other an ornament every year. when we had kids we just added them in. i like the idea of giving them a big box of ornaments when they grow up and get married that have all these memories from their childhood. this year was different too, in the fact that we took the kids to the store and let them pick their own ornaments. in the past garran and i had picked them and surprised the kids with them. i thought this was fun too. i liked to see what the kids would pick. so, i thought i would share our finds for this years ornaments.

briea saw this white bear and instantly said "pretty baby".

this was mine. i just thought it was cute. i usually try to pick something to signify something from the year, but this time i just went with cute.

miss ayla. i thought it was kind of different and cute for a first year ornament.

cullans- santa on a dirt bike....big surprise! he is such a fun boy.

this is garrans. as many of you know, he has had this image in a lot of his work called "party pig". when he saw this, he instantly grabbed it. he said he needs to make a party hat for it.

here is kael's. also very appropriate. the kid is a gum junky!!

i know i already picked one, but this just made me smile. a little ginger bread family!! so this one was for all of us.

have i mentioned how much i love Christmas and all that goes along with it. we decided to put up the tree the day before thanksgiving instead of the day after, so that we could enjoy it while we eat..

i can't wait to finish decorating the house and enjoy this time of year!!

next big project...Christmas cards!!

hope everyone has an amazing thanksgiving!!

bigger.

she's bigger. already. i keep asking her to stop getting big so quickly or at least slow down a little. we went to the doctor today for her 1 month checkup and here are her stats. 

weight: 10.1 lbs

height: 21 inches

head: 38 inches

do you see what i mean...bigger...all the time!!

the girls!

today we had family pictures taken. this is just a sneak peak, but i absolutely love this picture of just us girls!! I know ayla is upset but I still love it. I am rarely in pictures and this one just came out very sweet. I am excited about the other pictures and am trying to make that tough decision of what will end  up on our Christmas card!! i can't believe it is almost that time of year already!! however, i love Christmas cards, so i am ready!