future plans.

Sophie: "Mommy, when I grow up and get married, can I live in a pink house with a purple garage and a yellow car?"

Lawson: "Mommy, when I det big and married, I wan' a orange house with a roof you can eat and candy on it."

Lawson will apparently be living in a gingerbread house.

lion, duck and bear.

Lawson has had these 3 stuffed animals in his room forever.
I think they were all 3 in the room when Sophie was a baby.
When we moved the crib out I did a little rearranging with his shelves and he apparently noticed these animals for the first time.
He will not go to sleep if they are in his room.
I've tried to sneak them back in a few times and before he turns his light out, he runs around grabbing them and tosses them all out in the hall.



See how scary they are?


And since Sophie already has a million stuffed animals in her room and these are not currently any of her favorites... these three are just living in the hallway outside Lawson's room.

thanks, mom !

My mom came down Friday night to baby-sit so that Corey and I could go on a date night.
The best part?
She spent the night so that we could both sleep late on Saturday!

Thanks, Mom!

J is for jellyfish.

The letter of the week this week at pre-school was J.
How cool is this jellyfish?!

His body is a zip-loc bag filled with gel, sequins and sparkles.

"Don't poke it with your fingernails, Mommy!"

garage.

Corey spent some of his time Saturday organizing the garage.
A workbench will be built along the back wall at some point... cabinets... lots of storage...



Dad's big butcher block table that always seemed so huge...
look how tiny it looks in this giant garage.

How can you not love a man who organizes like this?

random

Spent most of Saturday morning cleaning.
To get started, that meant walking around the house with a bag and picking up all the random pieces of paper, Kleenex, candy wrappers, granola bars, napkins and junk mail.


I'm telling myself that lots of other mothers have to start out their cleaning this way, too. So if you've never walked around your house and filled up an empty Wal-Mart bag with nothing but trash... please keep those comments to yourself. No bad mommy remarks allowed!

And don't tell my friendly neighborhood trash men, but there is a lot of paper in here that probably should have made it's way to the handy blue recycling bin. But sorting out the plain paper from all the paper with Scotch tape, staples and stickers on it was too much work.


This is where all the stray Kleenex came from.
Notice that this box is fulled of wadded up Kleenex that have been stuffed back in the box. They were never used, just strewn around the room. Apparently our living room was full of sharks and if you are sitting on a folded up blanket boat with TinkerToy oars, you can scare away sharks by throwing Kleenex at them. Good to know.



"I not making a mess, Mommy."
Sure you're not... I've heard that before.




Practicing his cutting/tearing skills with napkins.


Thank goodness for washable markers.


Speaking of washable markers... these are my new favorites!
They are about 4 inches and have cute names like teensy teal, dinky pink and raspberry squirt. Firefly red, toy poodle black, little boy blue.
Everything little.

But my favorite thing about them is that they fit so well in my cute little cups.

That is what it's all about right? Making organization cute...

early morning.

These are my sleepy little people early in the morning.
Corey gets the kids up before he leaves for work.
Usually around 6:30.
He gets to snuggle with them on the couch and watch Arthur or Dora for 10-15 minutes.



Then I get to come downstairs and force them to get out from their cozy blankets, take off their warm footy jammies, get dressed, hair combed, shoes on, coats, hats, gloves and outside into the cold.

I think he's getting a better deal.


We were running late one morning this week and I was trying to put on Lawson's fast and easy velcro shoes. He wanted to wear his tennis shoes with laces. We have no time for laces, I explained ever-so-calmly... I'm putting them on, he's trying to take them off... Guess who got to drag him to the car, crying, "I want Daddy!"

daddy's eyes.

I'm not sure where this picture came from, but there's no doubt about where Lawson (and Sophie!) get their blue, blue eyes from. (They look more gray here, but they are actually a deep, pretty blue.)



Can you tell which one of these boys spends their days working outside in the sun?!

crazy week.

This was such a long week.
No school (with kids, anyway) on Monday. Just meetings all day.
Why is it that the 4 day weeks always seem the longest?

This picture was taken Monday night.
I already look exhausted.
That didn't change much during the week.

Look at those bright red cheeks on Lawson.
This cold weather is rough on his little cheeks and hands.
(Do all red-heads have senstive skin?)


Time to play catch-up with my blogging!
(Because our life is so exciting and I know you are all dying to hear what we did all week!)

family night.

Lawson's first time at a movie theater.
Sophie's 2nd movie. (Shrek III was her first, this summer)

Lawson: "Wow. Dat's a big tv."



Sophie's favorite? The little one. (Theodore)
Lawson's favorite? The red one and the blue one and the green one.

It was cute.
And Corey and I were amazed that Dave was the same guy who plays Earl.
Amazing what a haircut and a shave can do.

grandma & grandpa.

Grandma and Grandpa came for a quick visit last night.
We love guests that come and take us out to eat! :)


Reading about Limu, the Blue Turtle and the scary sharks.
(It's his favorite book right now, Aunt Heather and Uncle Brian!)



Making a Sophie sandwich...


and Lawson didn't want to be left out!



We hope you enjoyed your quiet and peaceful drive home!

jealous.

This is what Corey has done the last couple nights while I've been trying out my new meal planner...

He does do all the clean-up after supper, though, so I guess we're pretty even.

more funny.

This wasn't my five-year old, but it still makes me laugh.
I think all kindergarten and 1st grade teachers will know just how true this is:

A Frickin' Elephant

Jake is 5 and learning to read. He points at a picture in a zoo book and says,
'Look Mama! It's a frickin' Elephant!'
Deep breath ... 'What did you call it?'
'It's a frickin' Elephant, Mama! It says so on the picture!'

and so it does ...' A f r i c a n Elephant '

funny.

Sophie: What's for supper tonight?

Mommy: Enchilada casserole.

Sophie: Does it have worms in it?

ouch.

So I'm blogging just now and our cat, Chloe is doing this...



Very snuggly and warm.


Then she got startled by our other cat, Zoe...






Ouch.

loving this.

I read about this on another blog and put it on my Christmas list.
I've only used it for a week, but I really think I am going to like it!



I've always thought... "If someone would just tell me what to cook... this would be so much easier." My calendar has a section for planning meals, and I try... but I don't do very well.
But now...

4 meals planned each week. Always 1 crock pot meal.
1 meat, 1 bread, 2 fruits/vegeatables at every meal.
Vitamin C daily and Vitamin A at least twice a week.
(Honestly, I don't know what Vitamin A does or where you find it, but it sounds good.)

And these are real meals... things we would actually eat. No crazy ingredients.
This week we had Taco Soup, Chicken Soft Tacos, Meatloaf and Chili.

Recipes.


My favorite... a shopping list!


You can find out more about it here: http://www.myfamilymealplanner.com/

good times.

My friend from college, Kim, came to visit yesterday with her little boy, Hayden.
Sophie and Hayden always take a little while to warm up to each other, but then have so much fun together! This time Lawson was old enough to join in on the fun, too!

They all 3 had a great time!
Even though Lawson kept referring to Hayden as "the girl in the green shirt."



Trying to get all 3 kids to look at the camera...




Thanks, Kim, for being the kind of friend that I can see once or twice a year and just pick up right where we left off! You're the best!

skating.

Lawson was "ice skating" on the kitchen floor the other day.
At least he had the good sense to put on his helmet and gloves.

Love this kid. :)

outside!

It's January.
56* last weekend.
Crazy Kansas weather.

he sleeps.

Almost 2 hours now...

big boy bed, part 2.

Lawson's still fine with his new bed... but I'm not too sure about this.
He figured out during "naptime" yesterday that it is much more fun to get out of bed and play in his room than to actually nap.
For 3 hours.
I went in several times and tucked him back in.
He did follow directions after my second time in and stay in bed, but there were several things within reach that he could still play with in bed.

No early bedtime last night and up and around early for church this morning.
No bad side effects yet, but 2 days without a nap will not make for a fun Monday morning.

Hoping that naptime today will actually include a nap.

i love this.

I read this quote on another blog today... such a good reminder.


"The goal in teaching and disciplining our children is not so they can behave in the checkout line, but so they can become so accustomed to obeying us while they're under our wing, they'll have no problem obeying God when they're out on their own.

Truth is, you're teaching your children something every minute you're around them. Make sure the things you're doing are lining up with the things you're saying."

big boy bed.

My baby isn't a baby anymore.
We officially moved Lawson to his "big boy bed" Tuesday night.
One of the bunk beds that Corey slept on growing up.
Lawson was so excited!

The crib came down... for the first time in 5 1/2 years.
And we haven't decided if we'll ever put it up again.
Sad.


Thanks John and Aunt Kristin for the construction quilt!
We love it!


It was about this point Corey walked in and said, "I thought you said you were making progress?!"
I really was.
It takes a big mess to really get organized.


Most of our board books... they have been very loved.
Read again and again.
And chewed on by teething babies.




Still waiting on some final touches...
new blinds (old ones are pretty mangled)
new pictures for the walls
and a high shelf near the ceiling that will hold all the tractors and construction toys that Daddy buys but won't let Lawson play with.

The room had stayed the same for over 5 years.
It seems so different now...