Thankful

Thanksgiving has it's own special meaning to several different people.  In our home Thanksgiving means several things. First a little breakfast so we can stuff ourselves at my mom's house with roast, shrimp,lobster and turkey. Yummy!
It means that Mike gets to watch his favorite football team play on TV and still lose. But he's still a loyal Lions fan. (It's the only time when a Lions game is broadcast to the western United States)

It means I get to play with my girls. Mason and Hailey were gone this holiday. (custody thing) Which can be a catch 22 but these smiles were all for me and my silly mommy faces :-)

 It also meant taking a plate of  pumpkin chocolate chip cookies to our neighbors so wish them a Happy Thanksgiving and a tray of brownies our one of my visiting teaching families so show I was thinking of them.

It also meant Lily getting to open a belated birthday gift from my parents.

Thanksgiving can mean alot of different things to alot of different people. But in our house it means we're thankful for 2 things-our family and blogging. Just joking.

Happy Thanksgiving

We'll have dozens of jobs in our lifetime. We'll have several different addresses that we call home. We'll have gizmo and gadgets and some of the latest fads (pillow-pets :-)) but one thing that will always stay in my life is my family. My family is the one blessing that I will always be thankful for. I am truly thankful to have an amazing husband who loves me for all of who I am and want to be. I am thankful for 4 children who make me want to pull me hair out and then will console me with endless cuddles. I am so grateful to be a mother, wife, daughter, sister, and friend. We wish every family a Happy Thanksgiving.

Free Zoo Day

6 people in this family means that there is 6 admissions to places so we take advantage of Free Days. Today it was free admission to Hogle Zoo. We bundled up, wore 3 layers of clothes, packed a lunch and we were expecting a full zoo....but besides our 6 members there were about 20 people there.....So bonus for us!!

Why would we go to the zoo on a cold winter day? Well besides no people and no lines. The animals are so active.

     (These tigers above followed us and were just staring at us on top of this bridge. The giraffe was trying to take a lick at Mike...so I guess)

 A few zoo keepers said that in the summer the animals are so hot they just lay around being lazy. But in the winter the animals are cooler so they are more active and since there is less people the don't feel so overwhelmed by the crowds. That's OK by us :-)

Besides seeing and learning about the animals in the zoo. Mike and I learned something about one of our little animals....Cati likes monkeys. She learned to make a monkey sound. Now when someone makes the sound she copies it and tries too "out-monkey" you. It's so adorable.

We had so much fun at Hogle Zoo. But it is winter after all so after about 90 minutes our cheeks were frozen so that was our cue that it's time to go.

Lily's 2!

Our little Lily is now officially a terror....I mean a toddler. She's 2. And along with age will come those wonderful 2 year old moments.....like

huge smiles when she sees our house covered from floor to ceiling with owls for her birthday

being able to say "Whooo" while at Tracy Aviary and getting most the birds to respond to her

wanting to dress herself in her favorite shirt

learning to color without anyone helping

going down the piano slide that's at McDonald's like 100 times and no one being able to tell her no

or getting to spit on her Owl cake while she blows out the candles

Our little girl has grown up so fast. We look forward to learning all her new traits, talents, tantrums, and tricks. She's our special little girl. C'mon Whooo else would make your heart melt when she smiles like this...

Mike's Birthday

Mike is now 29 years old. If you ask him how he feels he would reply, "I feel old". So this birthday we brought him back to his younger years with a "Snow Party". These snowflakes hung all over our ceiling.

 Mike enjoying his snowflake pancakes (its just yogurt with powdered sugar on top) See his shirt-I made it....it says "Classic Model 1981"

After breakfast the entire family headed outside for a snowball fight. First it was Mike and Angie .vs. all the kids. But after a few minutes of losing the kids asked to change the teams up so it was then Boys .vs. Girls. Boys won! (Mike can't lose on his birthday)

Next was a snowman contest. And this too was rigged so Mike would win.

Mason's snow crocodile.....

 Hailey's melted snowman face....

 Here's Mike really getting into the contest...He wants to win! (said in a Nacho Libra voice)

 Here's my snowman....It's so tall!

 And here is Mike's snowman. He knocked off an inch or two so he would still be taller than his snowman.

 Mike won himself a pumpkin cheesecake. The rest of the family got pumpkin pie pop-tarts and hot chocolate. After warming up some and we went to our next snow-activity. SLEDDING!!!

Here's our many sledding highlights from Murray Park:

 (that's me,Angie,wrecking)

 Cati did not like sledding!

 Mike and our kids had alot of fun.

But the reason behind this Snow-Pow party was his cake.

When Mike was a kid his mom would make him this cake every year. So this year we brought it back. (with a few modifications). He really enjoyed his cake. So thank you snow for coming right on time. Thank you old photos that inspired me. Thank you Sue and Brent for having him so I can have such an amazing husband.

PS Mike did get a few presents. He was able to extend his birthday from being just 1 day to about 22 days. Between UPS bringing gifts early, our kids not being able to keep a secret, and some things we needed a sitter for he was able to enjoy about 3 weeks of love and spoiling. A few of his gifts that I remember are some wood working tools and an intro book on how to make wood projects. Movie tickets to see Harry Potter, a new outfit, a watch, $1 tree tools (from the kids) and a homemade DVD. Which Mike says was his favorite gift. (I recorded each kid giving Mike a special birthday wish so just in case someone was acting up he could remember that we all love him)

Happy Birthday Mike!

Planetarium

Today was a great day for a nice field trip. I can't say it enough...I love homeschooling!
With Mason learning about planets, the moon phases, eclipses, etc what better place to have a hands on experience than the Clark Planetarium.

Here's Cati moon crawling... Like it's hard?!#

                    (Strike a moon pose)

Here's the moment when Mike became fascinated with pendulums. He's figuring on making one himself.

So after 3 hours of science talk we checked off 6 science lessons, 2 literature assignments, some p.e. and 1 new subject to conquer for Mike. It was a great field trip.

Super Saturday

This wasn't on our agenda on how we were going to spend our Saturday. But like always our agenda never stays according to our plan. Instead of crafting at a church activity I was the audience to my girls singing in the tub. I'm not sure what song they were singing but it was so awesome to hear them.

And instead of a fancy date out with Mike. We had a greasy garage date. I learned so much like how to remove bolts from a transmission, the difference in some tools and how to heighten a car on jacks. And this was by far the most amazing date I have had with Mike. We talked about everything, we learned something new together (how to change a transmission) and we spent 1-on-1 time with eachother. If dates were meant to maintain the bond that 2 spouses hold then I couldn't ask for anything more. (Maybe some coveralls so I wouldn't get my jeans oily.)

Art/Ice

I love homeschooling. It was a hard and scary decision to make but since we have been with this online school I absolutely love it! (and Mason loves it too!) Besides having wonderful lesson plans and a great support system we also go on the school outings. This week there was 2 in 1 week. Score!

First we went to the Utah Museum of Fine Arts.

I love art. I love looking at art. I love going to art galleries. I love making art so I was pretty excited when I seen this on the school calendar. Lily and Hailey were having a hard time appreciating the art work.

But Mason showed his appreciation the best way he knew how.

The next day we went ice skating.

Since we have never been ice skating as a family the kids were brave and gave it a try. Mason and Hailey did such a great job.

After awhile of holding the rail Mike took each one out onto the ice. That only lasted a few seconds but I am still so proud of them.

 Mike of course is an amazing ice skater. (see above he's holding both the babies)vAfter taking the little ones to the penalty box for a break he went out and show us his ice skills. He's so awesome!

Lily gave up on skating after a few minutes. But she still did a pretty awesome job especially since she allowed us to put the skates on her feet.

But after skating we went inside for a nice cup of hot cocoa with marshmallows and did some coloring.

 This was a nice break from school work. Now to hit the books before Thanksgiving break.