Blenders, babies, and pinatas...all very fun things to play with...
Here is my new and very exciting and very awesome toy that I got for Christmas. I feel SO spoiled and was so surprised and excited! Isn't it so beautiful? I have used it every single day since I got it and most days at least twice and up to 4 or 5 times. Smoothies, experimented with rice and almond milk, banana ice cream, almond butter, lots of pancakes.
Here is the funnest toy in the family right now.
I told Kaden I was going to make a pinata for his birthday party. He said "Actually Mom, I think I just want to play with my friends and not have lots of games and stuff". I told him if you have 15 + friend over at once you HAVE to have some planned activities. He generously agreed that I could make a pinata. This turned out to be such a fun activity to do together. The boys had so much fun with me doing and planning every step. It was so exciting to see the day to day progress and everyone chipped in with their artistic talents and expertise. My expertise was in mixing flour and water and slopping it on, and they were all very opinionated in things like colors and shapes of ridges and wings, etc. It was a great project for the Christmas break.
Oh here is this fun little toy again...she is fun to dress up. It still boggles me daily that I have a little girl. A girl!
Ammon is constantly making and building things. This is a net made with paper and tape and a chopstick and maybe dental floss?
I could eat her up.
T looooves her brothers.
This was a self photo by Noah.
Another picture by Noah, because Travis balanced the broom and obviously it was a picture moment. You can't even tell it's standing by itself in the picture, though. What a talented husband I have. He can do all kinds of cool and crazy things.
Ammon's new obsession is wanting to sleep in weird places. He had built a fort in his room and take apart mattresses, etc, and asked if he could sleep in it. I gave in, and Noah came down later to ge the camera and said "Ammon is the deepest sleeper I have ever met. He is sounds asleep with a mattress on his head. He didn't even wake up when I picked the mattress up and dropped it again!" I went up and moved the mattress off his head.
This is my only picture from the pinewood derby, until I get copies from my nice friend who let me take her camera and go crazy (after my battery died). Kaden got second place! That was kind of fun and unexpected, especially since I let Trav go tdy before he put the wheels on the cars and I had to do it. Scary.
My birthday flower from my awesome childhood and lifelong friend, Val. Oh if I could be a better and more considerate birthday person. Trav was still in Florida on my birthday, and I was totally fine with the normal day that birthdays are anymore. But a friend surprised me with a birthday cake, 2 of my cute boys hid under the table making bday pictures for me to hang on my door until morning, and Noah got up early to make breakfast for me (but then felt like throwing up and had to go back to bed--he DIDN'T throw up, though, so yet another birthday blessing...), and 3 wonderful friend arranged a babysitter and took me out to lunch. It was a pleasantly wonderful day..
This was a less wonderful moment when I was cooking too many things at once and thought the timer went off for the soup, and an hour and a half later, wondered wear my batch of bread was. Oh yeah, it was still in the oven getting hard as a rock. My very smart and resourceful kids got the idea that the middle would still be edible though, so we scooped out the middles to eat with soup that night. That made me feel a little better.
The gingerbread houses we made for Kaden's class. Kind of strange that they were decorating them in January (actually Feb 3rd) but they still had a blast doing it. 
Taryn is so proud of him too.
They had to eat their Captain Crunch (who started that tradition anyway--SO not good for you), and then we headed in to find the stockings and Santa gifts.
