In honor of my boys being off track.......



The Mom Song from Northland Video on Vimeo.


Man I love being MOM!!!

Jaxon funny

I got the following email from Jaxon's teacher tonight. Normally parents would be afraid of an email from your 8 year old's teacher. Not this time!

Carrie,

I had to share the tall tale Jaxon told me today.

He shared how he and his dad were Hawaiian and living in Hawaii when they went into a restaurant and met you for the first time. They didn't understand the language you spoke because they were from Hawaii. Then you met them a second time (in the restaurant) and you taught his dad how to speak your language by giving him lots of tests. Then you decided to move to Utah and now you no longer do the Hawaiian traditions, you just do the Utah ones.

He almost had me believing it at first, but the more details he added, the more humorous it became. I told him he had a good imagination and he should write it as a story.

Enjoy,
SB

He takes after his dad SO MUCH!!!

I NEVER THOUGHT

I would be THAT MOM!!!
Tonight I found myself so completely embarrassed at the grocery store. I never thought I would be that mom that walked out of the grocery store with 2 CARTS FULL OF GROCERIES! Oh my goodness, I am so completely embarrassed. I do have to realize I have 4 very hungry and growing boys at home and that is what it is probably going to be like but maybe I should start grocery shopping weekly. That was humiliating! And to make things worse....you know when you get to the cashier and she smiles and says, 'did you find everything you needed?'. Nope, not tonight! She smiled and said 'well I guess you found all you needed, right?'
Oh what joys to come. I know it is only going to get worse when they are teenagers!!! YIKES!

We are thankful

We are thankful this year for so many things. We both were so bothered with the fact Christmas music started the day after Halloween, be decided to make sure we didn't miss making sure to count our blessings and let each other know what and whom we are thankful.

It worked out really good. I liked to pass by in the hall and glance at the cute things the boys thought of to be thankful for here are a few(we tried to do one every day in November):

Jaxon - food, dentists/doctors (he didn't have a cavity at his visit or I am sure he would not have put that one down!), cousins, house, community, indians, police, dad, mom, clothes, transportation, roads, pilgrims, firemen.....

Kaden - trees, bible, windows, school, trucks, mom, books, songs, computers, Tyson, Zeke, Dad, Jaxon, cups, cousins, school, thanksgiving, indians, Book of Mormon...

BLACK FRIDAY!!

Woo Hoo! What fun! Really, I don't know why it is fun other than the fact I get to spend the whole morning with ALL my sisters this year. Mandy was in town this year and she is always so much fun to shop with. Usually because she is the one spending so much money! (love you Mandy!) This year it was pretty even. We were not in as big of a hurry as we have been in the past (we have been doing this for at least 10-11 years) and because of that I lost out on a few deals I was hoping for, but it was still a blast and we ended up scoring on Amazon anyway.
For those of you who don't brave the Black Friday mayhem let me just tell you it takes a lot of planning.....

But after the meticulous planning where, what and who it pays off in the end! We saved $290 this year! It is worth waking up at 4:00 am for that! - am I cheap!?

A scary sight - And it is not even Halloween!

Gregg was a good boy and put the lights up on the house. I wanted everyone to see how stressful it is for me to sit at the bottom and watch this horrifying sight, I swear he was going to fall.

It looks beautiful, even though I know you did it for the boys and not for me!! Thanks!

Wow How the time flies!!!

I can't believe it is already December. I only blogged two little things in November. I guess that is how it goes when you are preoccupied with things. I have been spending almost every spare minute getting our Christmas village up and ready with Gregg. I am pretty pleased with how it turned out. We still need to add a few finishing touches (it hasn't even snowed yet in the North Pole or in the City). So after that I am hoping we are done and can enjoy the work.
Gregg and I started this fetish last year. Gregg has always wanted a train under the Christmas tree. So last year when he mentioned it AGAIN for the upteenth time, I said okay get one BUT it has to be a Lionel. My dear old Grampa whom I miss dearly (but honestly believe he is still watching over me)had a whole bunch of Lionel trains. I think when he passed they ended up with my sister (lucky girl)! So anyway, Gregg and I decided on the Polar Express train. But then naturally we needed a North Pole village to go along with it. So it started from there. Gregg being the man he is doesn't do anything little. So he found and bought and found and bought. We went from one little house to a whopping 39 pieces to our village in 1 YEAR!!! No that was not cheap! Luckily he was a really good shopper and found deals. But it still hurt the pocket book a little.
So first we had to get the basics. I found this lady in CA that builds platforms for Dept 56 villages and fell in love with them. I wanted so badly to purchase one from her, but it would have cost $600! Me being the do-it-yourself er that I am I thought we can do it our self. We still have not found how to do resin (that was my favorite part of her platforms). If anyone knows and can give us a hint I would be so happy! It really makes the whole scene so much prettier.

I cut each block out separately then glued them to make it look like ice block walls.

We actually ended up taking this one out and building it again. The blocks were not stacked just right. It looked a little uneven.

The whole house has been completely a mess while we have been working on this! It drives me crazy!!!

Please notice the hard work Gregg specifically did. The shelf in the back has his favorite thing on it. The houses sit on top of a large tunnel for the train. And those houses spell out NORTH POLE! It is hard to see, but it was one of Gregg's favorite things.

Notice the large bare spot, left open for my beautiful resin pond one day. We actually attempted to do one on a scrap and it was not so good (twice I might add).

Our very busy city.