Thanksgiving Weekend

Our Thanksgiving Day weekend was very busy with football games, family, eating lots of good food, shopping, a birthday party and a baby blessing! We started off with the guys participating in our wards turkey bowl. It was great fun and my little guys and lady loved watching and playing with everyone during the game. We then went home and made some yummy food to add to the feast at my parents house. Mr. A seemed to get lost during this time and didn't show up until it was time to leave. We ended up late to dinner, oh well. Maybe next year! We still ate lots of food and visited with family. I went out with my SIL, sister and my mom to see New Moon, the second Twilight movie later that night. It was a lot more suspensful than the last movie. I was surprised at how many men where there! I'm not a big Twilight fan so I went as more of being with the girls than watching a love struck teenager in love with a vampire who lusts for her blood. I like historical fiction so Twilight is not really my thing.

Mr. A went out early Friday morning to participate in Black Friday! He's crazy!!! He gets a little wrapped up into it so I have to make sure he's not buying the whole store. He did end up buying a ping pong table for $150 for the Ping Pong Club but he's been looking for awhile and got a good deal! Mr. A spent the whole month of November working on an extra project for a local business and made some Christmas money so we don't have to wait until the week of Christmas to start our shopping. I guess I cannot give him too much trouble! The rest of Friday we just played around, ate leftovers and visited with the family at Grandma and Grandpa B's house. Early Saturday morning Tater threw up, we were supposed to take a huge family picture but several members of the family ended up sick with the flu so maybe sometime next year. Later Tater felt better so we decided it would be alright to go to my nephew's birthday party at Pirate Island Pizza. The kids loved it! We then traveled over to my parents house and watched BYU defeat the University of Utah in overtime. Bummer!

Sunday morning we went to Coral Canyon where my brother blessed his baby girl in their ward. Mr. A was able to get out of a few morning meetings so he could participate. It was a nice blessing. After that we went to our own ward and went back to our regular schedule for the week. Early Monday morning Jack-Jack woke up puking as well as Tater. Later in the day Rex added to the mess! I spent most the time doing laundry and tending to 4 little sick boys and a baby with a cold! It has been a busy day!

Matthew is 9 months old

Our sweet little man, Matthew is now 9 months old. He is super mobile: crawling all over the place. He likes to climb, crawl, stand up on furniture or anything he thinks is not moving and play with the other kids. He tries to eat about everything and likes about everything. He is super sweet! He has finally realized there are strangers in our midst and was quite upset when we took him to his doctor's appointment. He wouldn't go close to the doctor unless I was right there. Matthew is still our tall skinny baby at 30 1/4" and 19 lbs 5 oz. Matthew is at the age where church is a constant battle unless he falls asleep and then we'll make it all the way through without taking him out to the hall. He is a very busy body but still manages to be quite mellow. He is a people watcher and loves other kids. Our little neighbor Karissa absolutely adores him and he grins every time he sees her. Zack, Taylor, and Matthew look more alike everyday. I'm sure Zack looked just like Matthew as a baby. Matthew puts up with a lot from his older siblings and cousins. He has learned how to scream a very high pitched squeal and squeezes his arms straight out in front of him, a very curious fit throwing/tantrum! It removes the offender rather quickly though so he knows it works! He absolutely adores his dad and makes sure Zack always notices him. When Zack walks in the room Matthew just glows! It is a wonderful little bond those two seem to have. He is such a blessing to our family. We love him more everyday!

Helping Daddy Out!

The boys decided that Daddy needed help mowing the lawn since it's such a BIG job! It was fun to see them try to push the lawn mower around, they are still just so little Zack helped guide the mower around while they figured out the best way to push it. All too soon these little men won't be so little!

Activity Days: Sewing wonderful pigs

For Activity Days this week we read this little book, the Wonderful Pigs of Jillian Jiggs about a little girl named Jillian Jiggs and her amazing pigs that she makes from old stockings. We then followed the instructions at the back of the book making the wonderful pigs. There is a lot of learning for the girls to do and I thought it would be a great way for them to learn a little bit about sewing. It ended up taking about 1hour and 45 minutes rather than a regular hour long. The girls still seemed to enjoy themselves. They learned how to sew a button on, a running stitch, they either drew or stitched on a mouth and tied on little feet. A couple of the girls really got into it but some just wanted to have the finished pig handed to them. I think it ended up being a learning experience for all of us.

My plates are here!

I am so excited; I got my plates from Pampered Chef! These are very cute plates and each set is normally $21.50!

School Pictures

Well we finally got the kids school pictures back, I know it's November! They were both sick with the flu when the regular picture day came around so we had to wait for retakes. I am not a very patient person but I survived this time around. Since I cannot be there to make sure they're smiling, they don't have anything were it shouldn't be and looking at the camera; I think they turned out great for school pictures. I told Taylor and Katelyn both that they needed to show their teeth in their smile because of last years closed mouth picture by Katelyn. I thought it looked a little cheesier than it should. Since it sits on the wall in my enterway, I had to look at that smile all year long knowing she was embarrased that she had big teeth! How frustrating is that, they're my babies not teenagers yet!!! Oh, the joys of parenting! I think they do a great job on school photos, considering they send a couple photographers over to an Elementary school with little supervision from the teachers and still get all those students to at least look at the camera!

Taylor 1st Grade 2009

Katelyn 3rd Grade 2009

Katelyn's Veteran's Day Program

The whole third grade at Katelyn's school put on a Veteran's Day program in honor of all the men and women who have valiantly served our great nation. Family and friends were invited to attend. They handed out these cute invitations that the kids had made and decorated. My grandpa Belt, my mom, Stephanie, Jaerick, TJ, Matthew and I were all there to root Katie on. The program went rather smoothly as each child did great on their parts and sang their little hearts out! Katelyn did a great job! During a part of the presentation they sang the military songs and had members of the audience stand if they had served in that area of the armed forces. I loved watching my grandfather stand up when the navy song was sung. He's such a wonderful man and has done so much for his family even in preserving our freedoms. He is a WWII veteran. I remember after getting to know Zack better I thought his personality reminded me of my grandfather and so I knew he was a good man to marry. Just a little side note.

After the presentation Katelyn showed us all the pieces of art work she decorated around the gym. I am always impressed by how much effort this little miss puts into the things she is given. She sure is a hard worker! Lately she has been asked to do many new things and just blows me away by how well she does and the effort she puts into it.

Preschool: Number 3

Today was again my turn for preschool. This time I decided to let the kids start by playing outside since it was such a nice day and I was in the middle of nursing when preschool was to begin. The only mistake in that was they really had a blast outside and were a little hesitant to come back in! We started out singing songs that related to 3: three little kittens, three blind mice, rub-a-dub-dub, etc. I had the kids act it out, which really made them pay more attention! Then we all headed over to the table to learn a little. I drew threes on their papers and then they traced over them with crayons and eventually we glued yarn to the paper in the shape of a three. I also had them wrap three crayons together with a rubber band and they added a little more pizazz to their pictures. We used toothpicks and made triangles and I showed each of them how a triangle has three sides. I handed out a snack of ants on a long in which there were three ants on each log (celery, peanut butter and raisins). We counted items of three around the room and on our fingers. I then told them the story of Goldilocks and the three bears with all the actions and sound effects. I didn't have the book and just told my own version but boy did they enjoy that! Joshua recited the story later with all the details! It was great I didn't have to make sure everyone saw the pictures or anything and they were all excited and laughing throughout. I then handed them all three large circles, three small circles, three small squares and three small triangles and told them to make a snowman. They all were very creative and turned out so unique to each child. It seemed to make them all happy and they learned a little bit too. Now I get three weeks off until it's my turn again! This type of oreschool works out great for me.

Preschool: Letter C

Today was my turn for preschool. A few of the ladies in the neighborhood have started doing preschool/a play date. We aren't too structured but the kids love it! There are a total of five kids so it is pretty easy. I was responsible for the letter C. This is what we did: I drew a C on construction paper for each child, traced it in glue and then the kids put cotton balls on the C, I read them the story of the Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle, we counted all the food the caterpillar ate and then made caterpillars out of an egg carton for the body, google eyes, a fuzzy ball for the nose and pipe cleaners for the legs. I have to admit that I have never realized it was a caterpillar not a catepillar! We went outside and raced little matchbox cars on the back porch (the boys really loved that!) and played Crocodile Can't get me: where one child is it and the rest have to try to get across the lawn before the crocodile gets them. I let each of them have a chance being it which was a life saver! Then we had a "snack", they ate a twix bar cause chocolate starts with C. We then played pin the nose on the clown which everyone wanted to do twice. I had lots more ideas but not enough time. I will do more preschool on Thursday but will focus on the number 3. It should be fun and I have plenty more ideas to work on for the next time.

Anyone that is interested in preschool websites for activities for their kids, here's a list:
dltk-teach.com
kidzone.ws
everythingpreschool.com
preschoolrainbow.org
preschoolexpress.com
mommynature.com

Let me know if you have any good websites in addition, I always want more ideas! Thanks.

Staheli Farm's Corn Maze

We finally made it out to the Staheli Farm's Corn Maze! It took awhile to get us all out there but everyone enjoyed themselves. Monday nights are only $5/per person so I highly recommend going then. They have many activities for everyone: corn maze, petting zoo, playground, rope swing, dancing, and of course a farmer's market. Next year we'll go before Halloween and buy our pumpkins for our jack-o-lanterns there. Oh, I almost forgot, we also made caramel apples when we got home but I didn't realize they have to sit for an hour in the fridge so we'll be enjoying them when the kiddos get home from school today!

Happy Halloween

Our kids had a wonderful Halloween. We were very busy throughout the day: a football game (Taylor sacked three boys), Monica's baptism, Jasten's birthday party, dinner at Grandpa & Grandma Belt's house, trick-or-treating (for four hours!!! Yuck!) and a visit to Brian & Kelsey's house to see our newest addition to the family, little baby Hadley (she was born Wednesday- October 28th 5am. She is 7 lbs 6 oz and 20" long.


The kids got way too much candy but had a blast running around and playing late into the night. I'm using Joshua's candy as motivation to potty train so far so good!