thankful

today i am thankful.

i am thankful that i have so many things to be thankful for.

i have

~ the ability to trust and put my faith in God

~ 3 crazy boys who love me

and like to have fun

~ a husband who loves me,

is my best friend,

AND helps me parent those previously mentioned 3 crazy boys

(thankfully, he's a little crazy too)

~ a place to call home

~ a family that loves me

~ great restaurants to make dinner when we don't feel like it

which is probably more often than it should be ;)

~ friends that make me laugh and keep me grounded

~ a steady income

~ at least 5 months of "warm" weather

although 12 would still my ideal

~ great neighbors

~ the ability to have fun things

~ AND ... time.

i am thankful for the time i get to do the things i love

and more importantly,

for the time that i get to spend with the people i love.

it's WAY too easy to take that for granted

SO ...

i want to take today to say ...

i'm thankful for each and every one of you that are a part of my life

i am thankful for the time i get to spend with you

and for the difference that you have made in my life.

you give me a lot to be thankful for ...

and for that i am thankful.

x vs y

i can't even tell you the number of times i have answered this one question ...

'so are you gonna try for that girl?'

having 3 boys leads people to believe that after 1 boy we tried for a girl,

got a boy,

tried for a girl,

got ANOTHER boy,

and are still trying for that girl.

for the record ...

we're not.

you see,

every now and then we get a glimpse into what our life COULD be like

complete with:

drama

emotion

lack of rational thinking

and

tears

lots of them

for no reason at all

well ... ok there is a reason

but not one that counts as a reason

i give you tonight as an example

we decided to have chili's for dinner

now every time we go we get chips, salsa, and a cup of ranch

and every time we put it in the middle so that each of the boys can reach.

and every time they are COMPLETELY fine with it.

tonight, however,

IN THE MIDDLE of chili's

one of our logical, rational, 'always well behaved' boys

(feel free to stop laughing and then continue)

actually broke down crying

because the ranch was a little too far and he had to straighten his arm to reach it.

now ... it wasn't that he couldn't reach it ...

it was that he had to STRAIGHTEN his arm ALL the way.

i mean.

how horrible are we.

the things we expect.

(insert appropriate eye roll here)

seriously ...

i'm glad bedtime has come and gone

AND ...

when we wake up tomorrow

i'm hoping for some wrestling,

running,

and screaming.

enough with this girl stuff,

seriously.

could have

i could have written a few blog posts in the past few days.

alex says things that surprise me on a daily basis ...

drew has been SUCH a nice big brother ...

and ben ...
well ...
the story about him telling the neighbor that chewy got shot in the head ..
yah ... that would have been a good blog post ...

but you see ... i'm just too busy ...

busy taking pictures.

of really important things ...

like ...

you know ...

playing cards ...



and antibacterial foaming soap.

yah,
taking time to tell stories would just take way too long.

could it ... maybe ...

stay this way outside for ...
i dunno ...
maybe just like 5 more months.



is that asking too much??

and i was worried why??

although the school boards decision is 99% final -

we haven't REALLY told the boys about the changes for next year.

it came up in conversation the other day between ben and his friends at eagle's nest -

but when told he had to switch he said ... 'oh, ok.'

so ... at the time i figured he didn't really understand what was going on.

so, tonight we were sitting at dinner.

ben says 'wouldn't it be so cool if i had mr. rodman (drew's teacher from last year) next year!'

i looked at stacey and knew there was no better time.

i said ... 'well actually ... you can't.'

he said 'why?'

i said 'because you won't be at johnsville next year.'

ben said 'why?'

drew said 'where will we be?'

stacey said 'you have to guess.'

so they guessed the school closest to our house

(yes that's right there will now be TWO elementary schools in between where we live and where our kids go to school. i know. TOTALLY makes sense, right?!)

'NOPE. guess again'

they were stumped.

so we played the card we knew would hook them.

'which school has the playground that you think is SO cool?!'

AND they guessed it immediately.

ben said
'i knew it. SWEET!' (he was sold on the playground alone)

drew ... well ...

his FIRST response 'OH COOL did you know that they share an evacuation plan with {where he went to school his first 2 years}?

his SECOND response 'man i'm really going to miss johnsville's motto.'

unreal.

although i knew in my heart
they would be fine come next september -

my emotions have been all over the place for the past month.

i was worried that they were going to be sad about leaving friends again ...

i was unsure of how they were going to respond ...

i was mad at the whole situation in general ...

yet when it was all said and done,

the thing that concerned drew most was leaving the school's motto

;)

nice.

... to have faith like a child would be SO nice ...

busy fun

2 new toys in one week ...



how in the world am i supposed to get anything done ?!!!

takin a break

on monday and tuesday the boys had off of school
again.
seriously they have more days off!

thankfully we ended up with BEAUTIFUL weather for november!

on monday we were able to meet some friends at the 'new beach park' by our house ...



THEN ...
on tuesday we spent the entire afternoon at eagle's nest -
we nearly had the place to ourselves and it was SWEET!

alex loved it ...



drew brought our neighbor, jack ...
so they kept very busy
i know .. nice picture, huh ;)

ben brought his friend wyatt
and
we met up with deby and crew so that alex wasn't left out either :)



aren't they cute?!

NOW...
if our district could just keep scheduling days off when other districts aren't
i would REALLY appreciate it.
it makes outings SO much more fun!

they do owe us, afterall.

jerks.

all about perspective

perhaps someone should let ben know
that when working on block letter B's on the driveway -
he should maybe finish the letters that he starts ...

i'm starting to think it won't be long before
the neighbors begin to question what kind of artist we are raising

football wisdom

for his last 2 games drew thought it was very important that he wear strips under his eyes.
i asked him why.

'to look cool' of course.

---------------------------

we were in the car and out of nowhere drew said
'do you know why i like football in the winter?'

'no drew, i have no idea.'

'water vapor.'

'oh ya?'
(knowing full well he was going to explain this deeper whether i asked or not)

'ya. in the summer the heat evaporates all of the water out of the air so i get really thirsty.
but in the winter it isn't warm enough so the water vapor stays in the air and i don't need to drink as much.'

------------------------------------
YEP ...
he is in 3rd grade.
and yes,
he is already smarter than i am.

happy halloween!!

i love having halloween on a weekend.
it means we get to spend all day together.
it means we can make the day more than just rushing out after stacey gets home to trick or treat.

we got ready to head out after lunch
(ben decided VERY last minute he didn't want to be a ninja anymore -
he wanted to be what he was last year.
go figure)



he headed over to a neighborhood halloween party
where we had a lot of fun with most of our neighborhood kids
and froze ;)



it's there that we also realized that our boys and the koste boys unknowingly had gone with the same themes
too funny!

from there we headed out to go trick or treating
and
poor spiderman didn't make it too far

so ... we changed plans slightly and decided to let he and king peter nap in the car for a bit,
while we drove around -
THEN we headed out to collect some goods.

of course we got more than we will ever eat -
but the fun is REALLY in the collecting
right?!

pumpkin carving time

this year we got 3 pumpkins -
and let each of the boys make whatever kind of face they wanted

drew and ben drew theirs on first-
and to make alex's simple we just asked him shapes for each feature.

we helped with the guts and carving -



but the pumpkins themselves are completely the boys creations -

drew's ...



ben's ...

and alex's ...

stacey even took the time to carve their names into the back!

nice job, boys!