Thankful Posts

These photos are from Jess' birthday. We were so busy enjoying his day, that I never mentioned anything about it here. For his 39th birthday, he got a monster late sleep in, a breakfast date, a new bike, a scavenger hunt (planned by T Jay) and a birthday party (pirate theme) planned by the kiddos! It was really fun.

Jess is the genius of crazy games to get the kids to do what we want. This is some sort of bedtime train. I asked him to write all of his game ideas down. I'm smelling a book deal? Maybe not, but for posterity's sake!

In other news, I am trying something new this Thanksgiving season. We will still be making our annual Thanksgiving tree while we are in Colorado. In the mean time, I am interviewing each of the members of our family on things they are thankful for, and then I will be posting them here. Some of the days will be combined into one post. Five kids, remember?! Here's what we've got so far:

November 6th:

Jess: The ability to improve

Kelli: bedtime

T Jay: food

Summer: a body

Matthew: (he wouldn't cooperate)

Lexi: baby dolls

Simon: milk

November 7th:

Jess:

Shallow: Upgrades on Delta Airlines.

Deep: A wife who makes my life infinitely better. (I didn't pay him to say that, at least not that I'm admitting!)
Kelli: Washer, dryer and Dishwasher! All three were used profusely today. I couldn't imagine my day with out them!

T.Jay: Clean water

Summer: Mrs. Ballard (her 2nd grade teacher)

Matthew: The bed that I sleep on.

Lexi: Simon

Simon: pacifier

Simply Simon!

This post is all about our little Simon! He had his two month check up last week. Here are his stats: weight- 13.2 lbs. Length- 24" He is in the 80 something percentile and growing like crazy. He has begun to smile at us and is staying awake for longer periods of time. He started sleeping through the night at six weeks, which has won him extra brownie points with me! All six of us are utterly in love with him!

Handsome after Church.

Simon smile unveiled!

Simon: "I like Mom to try really hard to get me to smile. It's entertaining to watch her make crazy faces." At least that's what I think he'd say!

Ha! Ha! Ha!

Hooray! Mom gives me everything I want!

lovin' the swing!

Bring your family to work day

Last week, we took the opportunity to go tour one of the wind sites that Jess' company has been working on in our own backyard. We stopped into the local office, picked up hard hats (pink for the girls, of course!), safety vests and a tour guide and set off for the site.
The kids are in front of the old turbines in this photo.

First off, Holy windy, Batman! Duh, right?! It was so windy that we had to hold onto our hats, literally! It seemed like enough wind to power the whole East Bay area without breaking a sweat! (new turbines)

Family photo op (except for Simon, he was snug in the car.)

Operation retrieve Lexi's run away hat.

Matthew's plan for riding out the wind.

The kiddos posing on the platform to the turbine.

Four little angels looking down on us.

Jess' job is actually finding and preparing the sites for construction, not the actual construction. It was fun to see this side of the process. At this site, they were replacing old turbines with larger more efficient turbines. They took down about 25 old ones and replaced them with one new one!

Halloween 2011

Trick-or-Treating with our neighbors!

Robot, Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and our little strawberry Fairy!

Checking the fit! (and added muscle strength)

Me and my little honey bee!

and one more 'cause this little bee is so cute!

Me and my Hubs!

Shining Light

Matthew's preschool is named Shining Light Preschool. I have it's location saved into my GPS and usually use the navigate function so that I can track the arrival time. You know, am I going to make it on time or not?! As the route guidance comes to an end, the navigator says, "arriving at Shining light on left." Each time this happens, so 3 times per week, Matthew and I have the following conversation: "Mom, it's not shining light, it's shiny light." I tried for the first few weeks to correct him, but it was utterly futile! This week, he expounded on why it is shiny light. I'm sure he was fed up with my ongoing mistake and that darned GPS because in an exasperated voice, he said, "Mom it's shiny light because we keep it shiny and clean." My response was of course, "I guess we should call our house shiny house. Maybe then it will stay shiny and clean?" So far it hasn't caught on, except in my dreams.

Phew!

We got a little lucky this week. America's paranoia with unclaimed backpacks totally worked in our favor this past weekend! On Friday, We stopped at the playground to play before heading home. We had a great time. Fast forward to Monday morning when I was looking for T Jay's lunchbox. I realized that T Jay had left his backpack at the park. I remember looking at it laying on the ground, surrounded by a bunch of other backpacks and thinking it wasn't a very good place to put it. Then I further realized that not only were his backpack and lunchbox gone, but his jacket and library books were also in there. This was going to be a pricey mistake. Instead of getting mad about the irresponsibility, I just informed T Jay that he would have to help pay to replace everything. He just nodded. As we walked to school, we discussed the possibility that it might still be at the park. Poor T Jay was nervous the whole time, hoping his backpack would turn up. It wasn't at the park. I told him to check the lost and found, but I was not optimistic. If I'm being honest, my guess was that some obnoxious older kids found it, stole what they wanted and then kicked the rest around until it was destroyed. After school, he came racing out with his backpack on and a huge grin. Apparently someone saw a lone backpack sitting at the park and called the police, who determined it was not a bomb and returned it to T Jay's teacher! Yay for cautiousness!

Hungry.

So, Matthew frequently walks up to me and says, "hungry" when he wants a snack. If I'm busy, I will try to put him off. When I do that, he takes matters into his own hands. Sometimes Lexi goes along for the ride. Who eats a cucumber like a pickle? This is not the first time either. Just thought you might like a peak into the eating habits of this utterly adorable 5 year old and his protege'.