Snow and Pink Chairs and Other Things

We finally got some snow the other day!  We were all kind of excited about this since it had been so long since our last snow!  After naps the boys got all bundled up and went outside to play and build a snowman with Dad...

As it turned out, Dad did most of the "building a snowman" and the boys took care of the "eating the snow".  :)

It was perfect snowman-building snow and obviously tasted amazing, too.  :)

And here's the finished product!  Looks pretty good, I think!  The boys' snowsuits are way too small on them, but they still pretty much work and we are trying to make it through this winter without buying new ones.

After the snowman was done they all went out front to shovel the driveway (which turned into watching our neighbor kindly plow our driveway with his 4-wheeler and give Phil major ATV envy.  I don't think we will make it another winter without one! ).  :)  They had a ball rolling around in the snow in the front yard and stayed out for a while.  Emmett's cheeks are always SO rosy when he comes in from the cold... I love them!

Jackson's aren't quite as bad, but I love his cheeks, too...

And then the next day it rained and the snowman started to melt away.  He started leaning to the side as he melted and it looked like he was trying to peep in the house through the sliding glass door.  Kinda creepy... until his eyes fell out.  :)

Reid now has two teeth (both on the bottom.. and his nursing days are numbered if he continues to nip at me like he does every now and then!)  and he has taken several steps on his own!  I hope I can catch a video of that soon.  He is so cute when he does it... he starts giggling and gets so excited.  And he's learned now how to climb up onto the fireplace hearth and get down without falling. He looks so proud of himself when he gets up there...

Oh, I just want to eat him!  And we got a new coffee table and he's learned how to crawl up and down on that, too...

My friend and I went to Portland for one night last weekend.  We were on a very tight budget and tight schedule and boy... are we ever good at banging out all of our shopping and cramming in some good eats in a short amount of time.  We ate lunch at PF Chang's on our way up there, then shopped and shopped (staying within our budgets, amazingly... we deserved an award), stopped for a quick champagne drink, shopped some more, went back to our hotel (which was the Marriott right downtown that Michelle managed to get for $60 on priceline by naming her own price... amazing and Phil was very happy), changed quickly for dinner and ate an amazing meal at 10 P.M.  Then it was back to the hotel for lights out and early rising in the morning (but not too early... this was our day off for goodness sake) for our drive home.  Sheesh!  Portland is such a cool city... I love it there.

I had to take a pic of my dessert because I almost left Phil and ran away to marry this trio of creme brulee.  It was seriously one of the best desserts I've had in my life.

And back at home, the boys had smoothies...  :)

Okay, now I feel that I have to address the pink chairs that are in almost every picture I take lately.  One of my "resolutions" is to stop putting down and being unsatisfied with my house and just be thankful for it and enjoy it and be proud of it and love it for what it is.  And I'm going to try to be confident about the things I put in my house and not worry so much about what anyone else thinks.  If I/we like them (or don't mind them) then that's all that matters.  And I want to stop having ridiculous house envy (I have some friends here that have some a-mazing houses) and be thankful for what we've been totally blessed with.  Seriously, the devil sure knows my weaknesses and he really gets me with the envy and insecurity stuff.  Ugh!  But I recognize it now and am working on it.  Anyway... I digress...   I guess explaining the pink chairs kind of goes against my resolution, but I'm just going to quickly stand up for them.  :)

I've been wanting a pair of matching chairs to flank the fireplace for a while.  Chairs are very expensive and since we live on one income I have a really limited budget for buying things that I "want" but we don't "need".  So when I saw these guys on craigslist within my little price range I kind of loved them at first sight.  Especially because I could buy them using my "special-money-for-buying-kind-of-ridiculous-things-we-don't-need" and Phil wouldn't be mad.  :)  One is stationary and one swivels, which reminds me of the pair that my Mimi has and I love that.  And they hardly have any wear at all.  And someday I will have them recovered in a great fabric, but I have to save up for that and I really kind of love the pink velvet right now.  I mean, I'm the only girl in this household!  I'm allowed to have pink somewhere, right?  :)  And they are actually really comfortable and they are the perfect size for our small family room.  So there ya go.  They look better in instagram pictures, I've noticed...

And the boys love watching TV in them...

And Phil came home for lunch the other day and went right over and sat in one without even thinking!  Then got annoyed when I took his picture.  :)

He admitted that they are comfortable and said that he likes sitting in them because you can see out into the rest of the room.  I agree, that is nice.  But then he had to make a face to show that he really doesn't like them that much...  :)

If you know Phil well, he said this in his loud monotone voice, "Stop-taking-my-picture!"

Hahaha!  Those chairs make me laugh and I love them.  So if you hate them just be glad you don't live here and hope that I never make you sit in them if you ever come over.  Hahaha!  :)

Here are all of my boys in another more normal chair.  So cute!

Jackson and I went to the dentist the other morning and he was so brave!  The hygenist tried to get x-rays of his teeth but then decided to wait until his mouth is a little bigger.  The x-ray film wouldn't fit and made him gag and when she leaned him back to clean his teeth he starting leaking tears but never really cried out loud.  Then he totally let her clean and scrape his teeth and was so brave.  This is a big deal for J.

She could tell he was upset so she asked him if he wanted to wear some cool sunglasses while she finished cleaning.  That made him very happy.  :)

Here he is showing off his clean teeth...

Next dental cleaning I get to bring Emmett, too, which should be lots of fun!  :)  And speaking of Emmett, here's a parting shot for you...

He walked around the house all morning the other day with these on.  We were cracking up.  Oh, Emmett!  He always keeps us on our toes and laughing at the same time!  :)

New Developments

First off, I just wanted to share some cute pictures of Reid that I've been meaning to post.  He is just cutting his first tooth (and working on others, I imagine) and has been really rough to deal with lately.  For the past week and a half if I'm not holding him he pretty much follows me around the house screaming at me every day.  I hold him as much as I can, but sometimes I just have to put him down to do some things!  It's really frustrating.  He's also been waking at night again.  I feel bad for him because I know his mouth hurts, but it's still rough to deal with.  Neither J nor E teethed like this... I  usually never even knew they were teething until I saw teeth in their mouth!  We have had a few days where Reid has been his usual happy, content self, though.  But we are seriously regressing at church... he won't spend more than 15 minutes in the nursery before he's absolutely screaming bloody murder.  And he doesn't want to sit in the dark nursing room with me so we end up standing and rocking back and forth in the lobby of the church during the sermon... watching the pastor through the window. (And I don't want to leave early because J and E really love their Sunday school classes.  E cried when I first dropped him off this week saying, "I want to go home!" but after about a minute he calmed down.  He has the same teacher every week - Miss Robin - and she is wonderful.  She told me when I picked E up how well he did and how sweet he is.  Apparently, while they were eating plain old Cheerios for a snack (that he doesn't really love at home) he said, "MMMMM!  Miss Wobin, this snack is so goooood!"  Haha!)  I know this stage with Reid will pass, though.  We are just pushing through.  

Here he is after eating a cereal bar...

And he loves to sit in his high chair without the tray.  I guess he likes being up high like the rest of us.  He loves to pull his bib and socks off.

He also loves to ride on Daddy's shoulders...

And he loooooves the shower.  So much so that I have to keep the bathroom door closed so he doesn't open the shower door and climb in there and get all soaked like this...  :)

Even though he's been difficult lately, he is still so very precious to me.  He is very snuggly and yummy and I just want to eat him up when I look at pics like this....

I just love those big brown eyes.  He used to be really bad about scratching his nose... I keep the boys' nails really short but the edges of Reid's nails get to be like little razors even if they're not that long.

Here he is in the shower again... this time with the nice warm water on...

Ahhhhh... nice!

I have a newfound love for Instagram on my iPhone.  I never really used to understand why people liked it so much because I thought the pictures always looked a little grainy and blurry-ish.  But now that I have it and have used it myself I am kinda obsessed with it!  It's so easy to take pics on my phone and all of the different filters are so fun!

It's so hard to get pictures of the older boys because they don't like to sit still and smile at the camera.  But they do like to see themselves on my phone screen so sometimes I can bribe them with that.  And I pretty much always have my phone handy so it's much easier to snap pics with that than run to the cabinet and get the camera.

Emmett is growing up so fast....

Here he is at toddler gymnastics.  He absolutely loves this.  Jackson was never that keen on it, but Emmett is all into it and usually tries everything and follows directions.  Here he is doing all of the warm-up movements by himself.  With J I used to have to do everything and even move his body into position myself, but Emmett just goes off on his own!

And please notice in this picture... NO DIAPER!!  Yes, Emmett is potty-trained!!  It was like a miracle from above.  We were totally dreading potty-training E because he is our little stinker and really digs his heels in with most things we ask him to do, so we thought for sure that making him go potty would be a huge battle.  Not so!  He really surprised us and was pretty much completely potty-trained (including #2) in a week.  It was unbelieveably easy.  He still has a potty accident every once in a while, but is so good about telling us he has to go.  As soon as he gets up in the morning he asks to go.  It is totally amazing.  Who knew??  I am so very thankful.  I really think that seeing Jackson go all the time helped a lot.  And so did Hershey's kisses and marshmallows.  :)

He keeps us laughing all the time with the things he says.  After Christmas he would say totally out of the blue,  "You better be good, o-wise no pesents!"  We don't remember saying that to him, but maybe we did and it obviously stuck with him.  Then last night at Fred Meyer he wanted to hold the receipt and said that he was going to read it to me.  So I asked what it said and he said, "It says be a good boy!"  Haha!  I know we do tell him that a lot.  :)

He loves to line things up in rows...

Here he hooked Lightning up to Mater and was so proud...

Next up with E is getting rid of the pacifier.  Ugh... I don't think that's going to be as easy as potty training was.  He is obsessed with his "bink".  And I don't mean to make him sound like he is all stinker.  He is all about Mommy lately and can be very sweet and loving.  He is really good about using his manners and is an excellent helper.

We went to the park yesterday even though it was freezing outside because we were all stir crazy and just needed to get out.  It was nice and sunny, though, and the boys had fun.

E didn't want to wear his hat (of course!) but I asked him to put it back on and this is the best he could do.  :)

I just had to post this video of Reid.  He really loves chocolate Cheerios and just cracks us up with the way he totally dives into them as soon as we put them on his tray.  Slams his hands into the pile and shoves handfuls into his mouth... so funny!

And then there's this one of Jackson reading Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! to Emmett.  We have three of these pigeon books (which Phil and I think are kind of the dumbest books ever - haha) and the boys are obsessed with them.  They both have all three of them memorized.  Jackson is reading the part of the pigeon, who keeps asking to drive the bus, and Emmett keeps telling him, "No!"   They love the saying "no" part.  :)