Mr Perfect and an object lesson

Today a friend at church gave my boys a Rubik's cube to play with during Sacrament Meeting. (Just as a side note, I love the girl that loaned it to us so much, I wouldn't dream of offending her by telling her we didn't want it for the hour.) However it was quiet and once it was in my boys hands it wasn't going back until the meeting was over.
At one point Mr. Perfect was playing with it and he leaned over to me and said, "You know Mom, this is just like life. We mess up our lives and twist it in all kinds of ways. But then if you give your life to Jesus, he can fix it."
Thanks for the reminder Mr. Perfect. I love you.

Mother to Son

Mother to Son by Langston Hughes
Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor--
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And somtimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.
So boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps
'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
Don't you fall now--
For I'se still goin' honey,
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.

Today Mr. Music had to read this poem as part of his homework. He had to discuss the symbolism and such. It was a neat assignment to do with him. The last question of the assignment I couldn't wait to hear the answer to. The question was: Is this poem true or not true as a metaphor for your life? Mr Music wrote: Not true, I love my life.
Now that is music to this mothers' ears.

Fun in weird ice-snow-stuff

I wanted to give a little glimpse of some of the fun we had today in the stuff that fell from the sky last night. It wasn't snow, it wasn't rain, it wasn't sleet, it wasn't hail. Maybe it was slush. That sounds right about right. We didn't go out into it until it was slush anyway. We were all sopping wet by the time we came in. But it was fun. (And the boys did like getting an extra day off school for it.)
Here is Mr. Perfect trying to do a snow board type thing on the sled. Nice wipe-out. But he sure loved the adventure of doing it.

Mr. Right and Mr. Prince walking back up the hill. That's the hard part of sledding. But I didn't hear one word of complaint. YEA!

Mr. Perfect. One happy camper.

Mr Music even joined us outside. WITHOUT being asked to come . That's almost a miracle! Mr Right, on the other hand, was one of the first ones out and the last ones in.

Mr Right was also so helpful with all of the other boys. They all would ask him to push them, and he obliged them quite a bit. I was really glad to see how much he was willing to do. Mr. Prince is such a cutie.
Mr. Super kept telling me where to go. I wasn't ever in the right place. Mr. Right got the snowboarding thing down pretty well.

Mr Right keeps asking for a snowboard. After watchin him today I am starting to think it's probably a good idea. One of the neighbor boys came to play for a while. He just hopped on with a couple of the boys. Our neighborhood is full of boys. It's great!

And my sweet Mr D.A. is so adorable. Look at that face. Who could possibly resist it?

New Blog for the New Year

With the New Year comes new nick-names. I actually quite look forward to this each year. So, to fill you in on the names for the new year here is some help.

This is Mr. Perfect, he will be 10 this summer. He says his favorite thing is drawing. (I thought for sure he would say Pokemon...but what do I know.) My Mr. Perfect is a perfectionist. He is sensitive to the feelings of others, and always tries to help when someone is in crisis. This is Mr. Prince, he will be turning 8 this year (YEA we have a baptism to look forward to.) and his favorite thing is maps, especially maps of the States, but world maps are almost as cool. This kid is royalty. He is a perfect gentleman and wonderful when everything is going his way, and if it isn't...well let's just say he likes to get his way. This is Mr. D.A. he will be turning 6 this year. His favorite thing is Baby Dog. But really anything soft will do just fine. We have been through a few Baby Dogs, as long as it feels soft to the touch chances are he will love it. We're not sure if the D is for Destroying or Delightful but the A is certainly for Angel. My D.A. is my best helper, and has a larger than life personality.

This is Mr. Music. He will turn 12 years old this year. (Oh my goodness, is that possible?!) His favorite thing....MUSIC! He spends any spare time he has browsing Pandora, ITunes, or Amazon.com's music department. Music is this boys whole life. If he isn't designing his latest CD cover he is listening to, singing, playing, or in some other way performing his music.This is Mr. Super, he will be 4 years old in a few days. His favorite thing is Super-Heroes. But he also loves to jump, loves to play, loves to sing, loves to dance, and loves to laugh. Mr Super is my own personal Super-hero! He loves Super-Heroes and even when he isn't dressed up like one he is a Super Great Kid. This is Mr. Right, he will be 13 in a couple of months. (AAAHHHH I am going to officially have a teenager!! He already eats like one.) He says his favorite thing is video-games. See he's acting like a teenager already. I would rather have him focus on video-games than girls though. This guy is not only my right arm, he is also (very much like his Dad) always right. He loves to make people laugh and is a great example! Me and Dad are part of the family too, but we're not nearly as cute.

So here is your official welcome to 2011

Christmas 2010

We decided to drive out and surprise my family this year for Christmas. It was so much fun. I took more pics than this but can't find them. Sorry.

We hit a couple of church history sites on the way there and back. We learned a lot and my hubby and I loved it. But by the last day of our journey our boys were pretty much done with church sites though. Of course we spent the entire day going from site to site to site. It was a good day, but very tiring.

One of our stops was at the Kirtland Temple. We didn't get to see as much of it as we wanted, but we did enjoy our time in Kirtland. We learned a lot there and really gained an appreciating for all that happened during the time the saints were there.We also stopped at Winter Quarters in Nebraska. What a place it was for the early saints, we learned a lot and found ourselves counting our blessings constantly. And our boys enjoyed dressing up as pioneers. In the basement of the visitors center they had a Christmas display of gingerbread houses. All sorts of submissions were there. It was so neat to see all of the creations. We arrived at my Mom and Dad's house at about five in the morning. They didn't know we were coming. I called my Mom and told her I had just been told that her Christmas present was left on their porch and she needed to go outside and get it because it couldn't stay out in the cold. She opened the door to us on her doorstep. It was fun. We did do plenty of damage while we were there. (Sorry Mom and Dad.) But we LOVED being with Nana and Papa and our family out there.One morning we did our Christmas tradition of building a gingerbread house. It was a very SWEET way to start the day. We also got to spend time with the Crimsons who had gone out for Cinnamon's graduation.(Congratulations!) And on our last day we kidnapped our Angel and spent one one last outing with her. We will miss her terribly and we enjoyed every last minute with her. We also got to see K, J, and College Girl. We love them so much and miss having them here at home. We're trying to convince them to come back to where they belong. We only got to see them for a few minutes as we went to get ice-cream. But at least we got that. We spent New Years Eve in a hotel. The room we had was awesome. It had an XBOX for the boys, and they had their own little suite with bunk beds and stuff. YEA! We then drove home and were forced back into regular life. Oh well. It was fun while it lasted.

Happy 2010, looking forward to 2011.

Dates with an Angel

I am sure my boys have no idea how lucky they are. Our wonderful Angel decided before she went back to school she would take them each out on a date. HOW FUN!
The boys were all really excited and looked forward to "their day" with much enthusiasm. In fact at the end of the week there were a couple who asked to go again. It's just fun to spend time with our Angel. I would have liked some time with her too. (I did get an hour or so the day before she left, so I guess I can't complain.)
She took one of the boys out each day for six days. What a fun week for my boys. The best part was the fact that she really took into consideration what each of the boys would like, and really made the dates special for them. She is so cool!
So Monday night she took out Star. It really was a nice thing for him. The demands on his time lately have been really stressful. With school, scouts, the play, church, lessons, etc...it was so great for him to go out and just have fun for a while. They went bowling, had some dinner there at the alley and had a great time. I think it was a much needed night for our Star.
Tuesday she took Puppy. They went to paint. (The nice part about that was that I got a present out of the date. A new Gravy Boat! Whahoo. Thanks Puppy.) He still is talking about how he got to go painting with our Angel. He also got to go over to her house for some dinner . (Just him... A HUGE-LY COOL event in his mind.)

Wednesday Sage doesn't have school, so they went during the day to a museum just for kids. HE LOVED IT. He got to play, and dress up, and play some more. I think he must have been in heaven. This kid doesn't nap often, but he napped all the way home and then slept like a baby that night as well. He had SO much fun!

A lot of thought had to go into EZ's date. He is one tough customer. If he doesn't like something he will tell you straight to your face he wants to go home now! I knew he needed a new winter scarf and suggested they go find one he liked and then Angel had a plan. They went to the mall and ended up spending quite a lot of time there. Angel was great, instead of trying to lead him she followed. He went in a ton of stores, not only stores that would have scarfs but a ton of others as well, and some he just walked in simply to walk in and then out again. He stopped at the play area a couple of times and finally the last store they were going to go to they found a scarf. YEA! THEN...EZ loves their convertible... So, (even though it is the dead of winter) they drove with the top down through the County's Christmas light display. HE LOVED IT! And even insisted they drive with the top down on the way home. Needless to say they were all Popsicles, but he sure had fun.

It wasn't hard to decide what to do with Spike. CD shopping!!! I think in his mind that is the best thing in the world. Angel took him to the book store and they had some goodies there, then she bought him 2 CD's. And then they went to another store and found another one (from Grandma and Grandpa Crimson). He bought these three CD's. He is one happy guy.

Last...but definitely not least...Blue Tiger. One of our local fire departments has a seasonal display of model train towns. They went to see the trains. (He was thinking he was going to have to ride a train and kept asking Angel to make sure they didn't do anything that would go too fast. ~so cute~) They also went to the store and bought a Pokemon toy (the greatest thing in the world) and went back to her house for a little Pokemon game. Whahoo!

So, that was my boys week with an Angel. My how we do miss her when she is gone. Fortunately she knows how to make great memories. Thanks Angel! We love you!