My most recent favorite thing!

But first a few pix -

neal has been most entertaining lately -esp. when he forgets he's almost 3 [he turned 3 10 months ago]

Some quality boy time - i believe they are playing Monkey Island Three

a few months ago i invested in a DVD set called "Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage" -sounded fun to me! And, Boy, did they deliver -i first saw a clip on you tube about the "Tale of Two Brains." Well, on w/ today's story in the DVD series they spoke about a flag page -the flag page is a way of measuring what you love most about life -in a way others can see it & respect it. THEN, they said there was a kids' version. So, after much thought & deliberation (& making the older kids do the "game" a couple times to check for some consistency-guess which country i'm from :) - we have flag pages for all the boys!!! Brian & I did the big kid version -however, these are waaaay cuter.

It's no secret what Grant loves -being from Perfect Country & Adopted into Control-but i did learn a few things as we went through the activity-b/c i thought G was the President of Control Country -when i was reading the parent guide & it's said "the world's strongest willed-kids" my brilliant response was, "DUH!" But here's what we didn't know. Grant's TOP FAVORITESTS:

SINCERE, Organized, Thrives on Encouragement, Quick to Action, Strong Willed & Persistent. All i have to say is, "Amen, to that!"

Jared -From Perfect Country, Adopted Country Peace informed us-his favorites were:

MUSIC, Organized-he quickly justified he LIKED for things to ALWAYS be organized since that is rarely evidenced by how he chooses to keep his room, Artistic, Great Sense of Humor & Competent

Neal from Control Country-Adopted Country Peace chose

Strong Willed, Competent, Great Sense of Humor,

Self-Sufficient, Sympathetic & Patient

as some of the things he LOVES most about LIFE!

Betchya Never Thought You'd See This!!!

Ha, ha! Fooled all of ya! :)

Well, we went biking this weekend & I missed tons of good pix -by having left my phone & camera at home -my favorite would have been Jared cruising on his favorite Big Wheel while guzzling from his giant water bottle -i'm so grateful he didn't run into to anyone! & that SPRING has SPRUNG!!! YAY!!! So here are a few pix from our last trip:

Tree Monkeys :)

Bounceville USA

Ok, so I am a bum-but I have really good friends :) so just click the title and you'll see where we went for a recent adventure. THANK YOU, AMARON!!

Trunk or Treat

So, here is the ONE picture Grant gave me permission to take-He only had time for one-he was on his way to the cupcake walk & in a hurry to get there. I did try to get a second shot in, but he reminded he said-one.













Should we tell her he bites?!?!




















Here is Grant trying to devour his 1st cupcake before he can win a second one . . . .

Our friends in their AWESOME costumes-really CHECK them OUT!!!

Yesterday

Yesterday, I asked Jared if the baby in my tummy was a girl or a boy. He responded, "a guwl." I proceeded to ask him what he thought we should name the baby-his answer, "Daddy." Never saw that one coming! :) Got love it.

Disney World!!!

Yes it’s been almost a month since we’ve been to Disney World and we’re just now posting about it, sorry!

Maggi planned for what seemed like weeks for this trip and I remember getting concerned about the amount of time she was spending on it. Well I can say the planning paid of as we had a wonderful time. It was great to get away and spend time together as a family and have fun.

Some things we learned on the trip:

· Jared can go the distance! We did not take strollers, nor did we rent them in the parks. Yes it may sound cruel but we made the boys walk the whole time and they did much better than we expected. We were so glad that we didn’t have to lug around a bunch of extra gear as we traveled between parks! They usually lasted until about dusk and then we’d start giving them piggy-back rides which was fine unless they fell asleep! The crazy thing is that we saw 8 and 9 year old kids being pushed around by their parents!

· Grant is a baby in a big boy body. We went to one of those shows with the 3D glasses and about 15 seconds into the show Grant started screaming at the top of his lungs. He was totally freaked out by the stuff flying out of the screen and he never forgot it. Anytime we started to walk into a theater (or any dark place) he would start running in the other direction screaming about stuff jumping out at him. We usually had to haul him in potato sack style and hug him tight as the show started so that he wouldn’t get too scared. Even the fireworks (which we’ve seen plenty of time before) we too scary for him on this trip!

· I’ll never grow a beard. I forgot my electric shaver so I went without shaving during the trip and I looked like one of those kids in high school that wanted to grow a beard but couldn’t. Oh well.

· We can’t eat as much as we thought. We got the fancy meal plan and we loved having it! We quickly learned however that there was no way that we could eat every meal on the plan. We started using all our meal points that we started accumulating after a few days to eat at the fancy restaurants where 2 meal points equaled 1 of their meals. This was great as we got to enjoy some Disney fine dining. My personal favorites were the Tusker House in the Animal Kingdom (side item sampler heaven!) the German restaurant in Epcot and Ohana in the Polynesian Resort. (Grant loved that one because the waitress kept refilling his juice and he finished 5 cups of that stuff!)

We also got a chance to visit the Orlando Temple while we were there which was great because the boys had never been to one before.

Christmas in July

IT REALLY WORKED-we even had unseasonally cool weather! It was lots of fun.

This morning when Grant woke up the first thing he said-after asking for food of course was-"That Christmas was great. . . fun. I really like throw marshmallows at Dad - then I eat them."

We read the story of the "first Charlie Brown Christmas Tree"

Decorated one!

Had a SNOWBALL fight -in July, mind you . . .

The critics gave it a "thumbs-up"!!!! HURRAY!!!!!!!!

As we departed everyone got to take home some "M&M ornaments" & a special envelope for each family-with a very small Christmas gift enclosed. Needless to say it was fun, fun, fun!