Helping for stickers

I started another chart with the kids to reward kind, helpful and obedient behavior. It's a sticker maze and the boys have been really motivated, at times.

One morning I woke up to both Alec and Charlie already dressed and telling me they have a surprise for me. Charlie picked up all the toys downstairs and Alec unloaded the dishwasher! I didn't even know he knew where anything went! (to be honest I think he asked chris about some things)

Also this morning I got up at 4:30 to drive my sister Tiffany to the airport. She's been with us for a week and helped out with Chris' most recent chemo round. It was soooooo great to have her here and I'll put more pictures up soon of all the many fun things we did (including my new short haircut!). But as I was saying about getting up early today, I was a bit grumpy with the kids before and during breakfast and instead if crying over my snappishness Alec quietly deals with me and then says;

Mom I have a surprise for you. I'm going to try and be so nice today. So I can get lots of stickers and finish the maze.

What a helpful little boy. It was just what I needed to hear. I told him that he's a good example to me and that I would try to be so nice today too.... And that he could have 5 stickers.

Thanks to Alec, today was a good day even despite little sleep and no morning run.

Happy Thanksgiving

Alec is thankful for his new bunkbed, turkey, Jesus, healthy food, paper to draw with, leaves to jump in, toys and being thankful.

Charlie is thankful for a clean blanket, new house, his best friends Ally and Lukey, muffins, church, bananas, Mommy and Daddy, and snow.

Gweny is (I'm sure) thankful for her lovey and blanket, necklaces, trains to drive "choo choo", Mommy's and Daddy's laps, grapes, raisins, milk, her entertaining brothers, and markers.

Chris is thankful for neupogen, blankets, our nice van, life cereal, doctors, and me and the kids.

I am thankful for music, Chris, Charlie, Alec and Gwen, holidays, Jesus Christ, books, a dishwasher, visits from family and friends and dark chocolate.

Chris' boss is also American and he and his wife and 2 sons invited everyone in his research group over to his house for Thanksgiving dinner at 6:00pm. Knowing the place/time and the number of kid-less people there, we opted to find a babysitter for our kids and enjoy a night of adult interaction and yummy food. But we couldn't leave our kids ThanksgivingDinner-less so we had a lunch with all the fixings as a family.

It was fun. Besides Chris' help with the mashed potatoes and the jello, I made everything else by myself taking a few shortcuts for sanity's sake: boxed stuffing and canned cranberries and sherbet with sprite instead of the traditional homemade slush drink. We tried to ease up on the stress of the day so I prepared well the days ahead making the rolls, pies and jello earlier in the week.

Cars and rugs

The boys do this all the time and while I'm glad they are playing nicely (for the moment) it drives me crazy that they do this with the carpet. I'm not even sure why it bugs me so much. Maybe it's because they leave it like this and it makes the rug wrinkled traps little toys under it to be stepped on.

Anyway this reminds me of a conversation I overheard and wrote down last week:

Alec-"do you love Lightning Anne McQueen?"

Charlie-"yea, he's my best friend betause he can win."

Alec-"yea, but be careful because Lightning Anne McQueen, sometimes he is bad to some people. There are police."

Hahaha I love the way they think. Charlie has been talking a lot about his best friends (ally and luky) recently. I'm not even sure where he picked up that phrase. Alec doesn't really say or and neither do Chris or I.

Snow!

It snowed over this past weekend! The first snow. The boys (and even myself if I'm honest enough) are so excited! Before breakfast...so this is saying a lot with my hungry boys... they put on all their new-to-them snow gear and headed outside to play. Gwen, of course, wanted to follow but on her first walk about, she fell, got snow on her face and started crying.

I thought this would be the end of it for her. But she's a tough cookie and continued to play along side the boys for much longer.


Alec was actually a bit of a help shoveling the driveway. Charlie also likes to "noe plow" the snow with his Daddy. For some reason he has a hard time saying the "s" in "snow" so it usually comes out "noe." In this picture Alec is shoveling and Charlie is laying down int he middle of the driveway. He LOVED to lay down in the snow.

Alec asked if it was going to snow every day and I said " No, like tomorrow, it won't snow but it will happen more... I think next Thursday." Later that night, Alec had a hard time going to bed. He was crying pretty loud and told us he didn't want to go to bed because there wouldn't be snow tomorrow.

I'm pretty sure many Edmontonians would be laughing at us, crying for more snow and playing like crazy people in the measly 1.5 inches we got.

Family nap

I went to bed after midnight got up with kids at least three different times and had to wake up at 6:10 to go running. I am so tired. So when Charlie kept having meltdown after meltdown over the silliest things I decided he needed a nap (he hasn't taken regular naps for a month or two now). The only way to get him to lay down is to lay down with him and the only way to get him to be still is to read books. Two chapters into The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe Charlie was fast asleep and Alec was close. 5 min more of resting and they were both out.

Although the sad thing is this probably means they will both be difficult to put to bed tonight. At least they look so precious sleeping next to each other, next to me. I know the day will come when I can't cuddle them like this. In fact Alec is already giving me instructions on what not to say when I drop him off at primary. "Ok, I love you, Alec, Be good" is on the "don't say that to me" list. Pretty soon he might not ever want to hug me or hold my hand.

Family Home Evening

We've been reading about King Benjamin in the Book of Mormon as a family and so for FHE on Monday when we suggested building some scripture stories out of Duplos the boys thought of the big tower and all the tents. We had fun building it all and even took turns being the King and announcing stuff to the people. We were trying to focus on the whole, "When ye are in the service of your fellow beings, ye are only in the service of your God" spiel but when it was their turn to be Benjamin, somehow both boys only remembered to say that Mosiah would be the next King. I guess that is more exciting. I took my moment in the spotlight to talk about how we should all be kind to everyone, all the time. Wouldn't we all be happier? One of these times at least some of it has got to start sinking in, right?

The funny thing is Gwen starting doing it too! She'd walk up behind the duplo tower and say gibberish in a commanding and loud voice. We all laughed so hard at that. It was such a fun moment I wanted to take a picture and, of course / as usual, it took only the few moments while I got the phone out to have it all break down into utter chaos. The pictures are still funny though.

First Hall of Baldness inductee!

And so it begins! Our first member of the Hall of Baldness is Chris' cousin and roommate: Steve. Welcome! See Chris' blog for more info and later inductees.