Me likes!

I think I might have to make some of these for my house!

Mr. Popper's Penguins

We just finished this book last night. It was cute, but the kids didn't seem as into it as some of the other books (maybe I just wasn't into it. You know me and animal books or movies. Not a fan.) Either way, when we finished, Ashlynn said she really like it. Have any of you read this?
I'm so excited about our next book, Little House in the Big Woods! It was one of my favorites as a child. What are some books you remember treasuring as a child? I'm always looking for more books to read to the kids!

"Wah, Wah, Wah"

Oh dear. I just asked Ty to throw his trash away. He looked at me and said, mockingly, "Wah, Wah, Wah," just like Charlie Browns teacher! I kept urging and prompting and got nothing more than, "Wah, Wah, Wah."
What do i do?????!!!!!

Humbug Witch

Ashlynn was just enchanted by this book. She read it to me today. The illustrations are so cute and the story is so charming. I highly recommend checking it out!

Happy Birthday Briggs!

Well, I don't blog very often, but I thought I'd put a post out there after a real fun past 24 hours. We have a friend up in the bay area that has access to A's baseball tickets. The A's were playing Seattle this weekend. Briggs has been asking to go to a game, so I thought I would take him to a game for his birthday. Birthday for him, Seattle for me. The plan was to take him on Saturday. Very last minute, the Friday game became available as well, so Ashlynn was able to get in on the action as well. 2 games, in 12 hours.

These were not ordinary seats. Face value was $225 a piece. The section was called the Diamond Club. 4 rows up, right behind home plate, all the free food you want. It's tough to describe how cool these tickets and seats really were. We parked right next to the Seattle buses, 1 minute walk to your seat, through a private entrance, past the Seattle locker room, and about 5 checkpoints. No sneaking down to these seats. The way the stadium is set up, and where these seats are located, you end up walking and seeing these players face to face. After Friday's game the A's were walking back to their locker room, handing out high 5's to Briggs, Ashlynn and Brock. The smile on there faces told the story enough, but Ashlynn's squel of, "I will treasure this hand forever and never wash it agian!", pretty muched summed it up. After the Friday game, we went on the field for a fireworks show. They were pretty stoked. I kind of was as well.

The food was all you can eat and all free. We went through 3 pizzas, 2 tri-tips, 1 shrimp, 2 cracker jacks, 3 bags of peantus, 3 sprites, 1 diet pepsi, 2 Haagan Daz ice cream bars, 2 Tollhouse ice cream sandwiches, and 2 liccorice ropes. Easily over $100 in stadium food.

Tickets to the games: $1,125 (free)
Food for the games: $100 (free)
Seeing inside the Seattle locker room: Free
Walking out, post game, should to shoulder, to Seattle's bus with their catcherJojima: Free
Having your son wrap his arms around you and thanking you for the "best birthday ever": Priceless

Thanks Will and Leslie for a great 2 days.

One the Field for the Fireworks.

Ichiro on Deck.

View from our seats.

Briggs on Saturday eating Peanuts.

Ondeck circle was 15 feet away.

Harry and Friends

Here's some more cute art.
p.s. I think we may get Ashlynn's ears pierced tomorrow! What do you think?

Freckle Juice

Tonight the kids and I read Freckle Juice. They seemed to enjoy it, but I had the urge to let them go down to the kitchen and make their own freckle juice - just experiment with whatever was in the kitchen and make up their own recipes. I think that would be fun! While I'm reading these books to the kids, I think of lots of fun activities to do with them. However I don't know when on Earth we would find time to do MORE activities then they already have. Between homework, piano, soccer, dinner, and playtime outside (which they need otherwise they would go crazy) we don't really have any more time. As it is we barely get them bathed, scriptures read, prayers, reading time and in bed by no later than 8:00. Any later and they can barely wake up on the morning.
Oh Bla Dee!
Mr. Popper's Penguins is next!

Oh Glory what a day!

You can tell I love reading, because not only did we finish both of these books today, but we got 2 and a half hours of homework done (we are really struggling with 2nd grade math) AND piano practice AND i managed to wrangle the kids into cleaning up their very own tornado in our house. It was a very trying day. Brian was home at 6:10 and out again by 6:45. Ty decided he wanted to be told to stop doing something naughty and questioned about whether or not he wanted a time-out about every 37 seconds. Thank-you Amanda for taking him on a date tomorrow morning! I was about to pick up the phone and call for reinforcements!
Ashlynn has decided our next book isFreckle Juice!

Pippi Longstocking

We just finished reading Pippi Longstocking. The kids enjoyed this fun and quirky, albeit Swedish, children's classic. They were a little less enamored with the ending however. The image of Pippi standing on the porch in her father's nightshirt waving a pistol around in the air was a little disarming. I found the bottom illustration of Pippi and loved the styling of it. It was painted by an artist named Sarah Mensinga. Check our some of her characters and illustrations here. I think the next book we read will be a short one, Molly's Pilgrim, also from the Battle of the Books reading list.

I love fabric!

I've finally given in to my love of fabric and I'm trying to teach myself how to quilt. I've picked up a few tips or two from here and there (my older sister is a beautiful quilter and is a wealth of knowledge) so i'm just experimenting. I got a jellyroll of some Moda fabric that I fell in love with and couldn't wait to get going. Here is my messy sewing room/guest room and what I have so far.

Ashlynn practicing her finger positioning.

Briggs with his team, the TIGERS! They didn't have a whole lot of enthusiasm during the first game.

Here is another project that I finished for a friend's new baby ( the quilt. not the brown eyed baby). But that makes me think of a quote I recently saw. "I love to give handmade gifts. Which one of my children would you like."

Ty 1 and Ty 2

While the kids are at school, we may encounter Ty 1. . .

. . . or Ty 2. The power struggles are really becoming ugly, but I'm working through them and finding things that work. It's really bad when you're standing in line at the pharmecy waiting to get "happy pills" and your child throws such a tantrum you have to physically remove him from the store. "But how am I going to get my pills?!" He eventually calmed down and we went back in.

Briggs started soccer (yes. He's the only one wearing a baseball cap.) And Ashlynn started piano lessons. I was upstairs bathing the boys last night while she was downstairs practicing. All of the sudden her music drifted upstairs and sounded so beautiful in our home. I hope she grows to love music.
We also finished the next book on our list, "James and the Giant Peach". It makes me so happy to hear Ashlynn begging to read any time there is a spare moment, or looking through the stack of books to pick out the next book we can read. Briggs asked last night, "If we finish "James" tonight, can we start the new book tomorrow?" We started Pippi Longstockings this morning! I'm creating little book worms! I love it!

Fun weekend

We had a great weekend with Brian's family. We all went to Knotts Berry Farm together, which was great. It wasn't crowded and the rides were really fun. About every two minutes now, Ty says, "I want to go to da berry farm and ride the rolla' coasta'".
The next say we had a tea party/ baby shower for our cousin. The family all watched the BYU-Washington game - the living room was divided as far as their loyalties. The swimming with the cousins and later a Galaxy game.
We, of course forgot our camera. Ours stinks anyway. We need a new one, we are just waiting for the right time in the budget.

My Father's Dragon

Ooh! I forgot to say that when we finished the book Ashlynn said, "That was the bestest, happiest book ever!"

The kids and I just finished reading this book together and we LOVED it! We also read "Elmer and the Dragon" and "The Dragons of Blueland". The kids begged to read it every night until we got through it. They were so captivated and excited by the story. I just love reading to them. Up next is "James and the Giant Peach" I figure we will read books from the 3rd grade Battle of the Books reading list until they lose interest (hopefully they won't!) Then Ash will be ahead of the game next year! Here's to happy reading!