Oh, the weather outside is frightful....

First I have to start out by saying "I'm sorry that I've been neglecting you!" I really have quite a few things to blog about, pictures to show, stories to tell but today I have to tell you about the day we had yesterday.

It all started on Wednesday mid-morning. I went to Costco and it was just starting to snow, when I came out of Costco it was actually starting to pile up a little so I came home. All the news channels were saying around 5 inches. Well, in just a little over 24 hours we had 2 feet and more in some places!! We broke records is Spokane. It was crazy....all the schools closed (Jacob got out for Christmas break 2 days early!), lots of businesses closed and they were saying stay home unless you absolutely had to go somewhere. Ben went in to work for just a little bit since we only live a couple miles away but he didn't stay long, the place was empty. I took pictures while Ben was out shoveling and the kids were playing. The thing to remember is that I took these pictures in the morning and it snow hard all day long!!

It has slowed down quite a bit now but it is still snowing a little bit. They say that we are going to have a break but then on Sunday we are supposed to be hit with another storm. We'll see what that brings our way. Hopefully the break will give everyone to catch up before it hits again.

I'm just trying to stay dry and warm in my house while my kids want to play out in the fluffy white all day.

Becky and her family are heading up here tomorrow so please pray that they make it safely. My kids can't wait to play with their cousins!! It's all they can't talk about so I hope they bring there snow cloths with them...

Thanksgiving Day

This year we had the privilege of hosting Thanksgiving at out house. It was so much fun and right up my alley. We were hoping to have all of the Abshire clan but Becky and her family weren't able to make it up. We missed them very much and it wasn't the same without them but we knew they were being well taken care of by Daiquiri. Here's a few pictures of our day....
Ben brought home these beautiful flowers for me on Wednesday night. This is my attempt at being a photographer. Not quiet like her stuff but I thought this was a pretty picture.

Here's my turkey going in the oven

And here it is out of the oven. It was so good...I love turkey!

Grandma and the boys making the fruit salad. They loved helping her and they were very good at "cutting" the fruit.
All of us working hard in the kitchen. I felt like I was in there most of the morning but it sure was worth it.

I was going to make two different kinds of pies but we all LOVE pumpkin pie so I decided to just do two pumpkins.
Zac got tired of waiting for dinner to be ready I guess. I have to say that it was nice not having him in the kitchen with us right at the end when it's all crazy.
I just had to throw one in of Sarah saying "cheeeeeeesssse". Every time that I get the camera out she looks at me and says it.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving day. Sally, my friend Jill and I all got up way too early (3:15) on Friday morning and did the whole black Friday shopping. It was a blast and we got a few really great deals. After shopping we headed to Omak for the rest of the weekend and I was able to see the rest of my family. I am very tired and not feeling like I'm ready to start the week (and the month of Dec.) tomorrow but I had a great weekend. I have an awesome family and I am very very thankful for each and every one of you. Love you!

Thanksgiving Eve family night

The last couple of family night we haven't really done anything big...I know I've been slackin'. Last Wednesday I baked sugar cookies and they needed to be frosted so what better way then to have the family help out. The kids love frosting cookies too so I didn't have to do any convincing. I have leaf shaped cookie cutters that I only use once a year and then I try really hard to get the "right" colors for fall. It turns out different every year but I thought they turned out good this year.
The boys, hard at work. I noticed Jacob was a lot better frosting them this year. He could do about 3 cookies to Luke and Zac's one.

Luke is starting to be quite a perfectionist. He kept tell me "I want to do it like yours mommy. Does this look as good as yours?"

Zac was a different story. He was cute though....he just kept working and working on the same cookie. At the end I noticed him lean over like he was going to smell the cookie and before I could catch him he stuck his tongue out. I said "Zac! You can't lick the cookie!" then he look up at me and said "But mom, it's good!" Like he didn't already know it was going to be good. All I could do was laugh and tell him that he could be done and eat that cookie.

Sarah couldn't really help much, but she did enjoy eating them. How can you turn this face down...are we in trouble or what?

Here's a few of the finished product. In the morning we put together a few plates for our neighbors and Jacob made cards that said "We are thankful for our neighbors". The kids loved handing them out. It was like trick or treating except for we gave stuff away instead of getting candy. It was fun!

As I've told you before....

..it always seems to be my Lukey that gets hurt. This happened last night.

I'm not real sure how it happened. I was standing at the kitchen counter, he was sitting on the bar stool and the next thing I knew he was not on the bar stool anymore. I even saw the whole thing happen and I still don't know how he did it. I was afraid that we were headed to the urgent care....again, this time with a busted nose or a missing tooth. All we got was a very fat lip. Poor kid, that' all I can say!

Kids say/do the darndest....

I realized that it's been a bit since my last post but honestly I haven't had much to blog about. Something did come up with Jacob the other day and it reminded me of something Luke related that happened a couple of months ago.

First, Jacob - I've been thinking a lot about Jacob being in first grade at a public school, being there more then at home and being around friends, that I don't know, all day long. I've been wondering when he will start "learning" things from his friends. Well, it finally happened. The other day Ben was downstairs playing around with the kids and Jacob said something about the "F word" (that's exactly what he said "F word"). I thought to myself oh man, already? He's too young to hear that word. So, Ben started talking to him about it. Telling him that some people say things that we aren't supposed to say. Jacob was saying stuff like "I don't know why they call it that" "I don't understand why it's called the F word". That kind of got Ben (and me) wondering what the word really was that he had heard. It's kind-of funny now that I think back on it but we were asking him like "what does it sound like?" "what are some of the letters in it". We started to get very confused because there was an "M" and a "Q" and he saying the first word starts with and the second word has. We just got the feeling that it really wasn't the actual "F word" that we were thinking of. Finally Ben took Jacob away from his brother and told him that he wanted to know what the word was. At this point we were pretty sure it wasn't what we were thinking it would be and we wanted to make sure that he didn't think something was a bad word that really wasn't. So Jacob got really serious, a little afraid that he was going to get in trouble even though Ben assured him he wouldn't, and said, very slowly "Oh Queen Mother!" and then just looked at Ben. I was around the corner but I could just feel the tension as Ben was trying not to laugh. The poor kid thought he had said something horrible. We explained that it was not the "F Word" and it was an ok thing to say. We've had a few laughs about that.

Now Luke - In our neighborhood we have a lot of kids and as you know kids teach each other things. Well, within the first couple of weeks at our new place the two older boys heard that the middle finger, when put up by itself, was not a good thing. I don't exactly how it all happened but Jacob used to point a lot with his middle finger so maybe they saw that and said something about that not being good. They asked us about it and of course we told them that it was a very bad thing to do and we didn't ever want to see them doing it. Well, one day we were shopping at Costco. We were done and walking out. Ben was pushing the cart with the two younger kids and I was holding Luke's hand walking behind Ben. I looked down at Luke just in time to see him look up a guy we were walking by and flash the middle finger. I was horrified when I saw it happen. It was like in slow motion. My mind was saying "No don't do that! Don't flip him the bird!!" We stopped and I told Ben. He took Luke back to the guy and had him apologize then took him to the car. He will likely not be doing that again. I actually saw the guy walk out just a little after we did, he was with a friend and they were cracking up about it. I'm glad he wasn't mad. That would have made it worse. We've also laughed about that one more then once. Still are to tell the truth.

I wonder how many more things like this are going to happen to us in the next few years. I'm sure many. I will do my best to pass the memories along so you can get a laugh along with us.

I'm safe!!!

If you worried about little ol' me being safe from the "bad guys", don't worry. I'm safe with a house full of Super Hero's. How could I be so lucky to have 4 in my house??!!? Watch this video and you will see their skills and they may even tell you their names so you can call for them when you are in trouble. I haven't learned the secret weapons yet but I'm sure they are amazing whatever they may be.

And just so you know, I had nothing to do with any of them getting their gear on. I just looked up and there they were to rescue me.

I can sleep easy now :)

Ben's Birthday Dinner

Ben's birthday was on Monday night. Even though we had the party for him on Saturday night we still went out to dinner on Monday. We decided to take the whole family....a little risky sometimes but we thought we would try. Ben knew we were going out and he chose Red Lobster but what he didn't know was that the kids and I got all dressed up to go out. The boys LOVE, LOVE, LOVE to wear their ties and get all dressed nice and looking handsome. Our kids did great at dinner. People were looking at us, smiling and we even had a lady come up and say we had "lovely children". My heart just swells with pride when people complement my kids. I thought this video was pretty cute, the kids really enjoy singing "Happy Birthday". This is also the only picture that I got of Sarah...I know, I know, pretty lame but at least she's in the video.

The boys got the pet a real live lobster....that was pretty cool. In this picture you can see Zac feeding it a piece of candy. Go figure, it would be him to do that.

Well that was our fun evening. I think that we will have to find more reasons to "dress up", I think that's why the kids were so well behaved :)