Peek a Boo!

Hello hello!  I think the biggest news for this week was mentioned last week, and that's that Grayson transitioned from a crib to a bed.  He's been doing an amazing job with it too.  He's stayed in his room every time until we come get him, though he does open his door sometimes.  It's usually just to throw out a toy, and then he closes it back up.  He's transitioning nicely, and after skipping his nap the first 2 days, I'm pretty sure he's napped every day since.  He's also really enjoyed getting into Jelly's cat tower, and loves to climb through it.  Poor Jelly, with nowhere to sleep!

On Monday Monica took Grayson and Winry to story time at the library.  As you can see, Grayson may have been a bit tired from skipping his nap the 2 days before.  He's not usually so subdued for these types of events.

Here's Jelly, enjoying one of the few moments of respite that she could on her cat tower this past week.

On Thursday Monica headed off for a weekend with her writers group.  I haven't actually heard much about it yet, but she had a great time.  They stayed pretty close by at one of the girls in-law's house, so the party came to us.  Here's a picture of them all at breakfast one morning.

On Friday I headed to the grocery store with Winry and Buc-ee... I mean Grayson!  I decided to switch up dinner and I needed to get a few things to make homemade pizza.  The kids wanted to trick or treat things, so Winry carried our grocery bag, and I'd hand everything to Grayson who'd put it in after she asked for it.  We had a GREAT trip.

I think this is my favorite monitor picture from the past week.  This is Grayson in his bed reading books.  The first few days when we'd put him in he'd wander around his room.  We got a video monitor that you can move remotely so that we could follow him and keep an eye on him.  Now he mostly just climbs into his bed and lays there.

Saturday Winry had basketball, and I had all the kids.  Grayson actually stayed in the gym and let me watch for about the first half.  We spent the next 20ish minutes walking up and down the hall, then a little while playing with the drinking fountain, and the final 10 minutes me holding him in the corner of the gym getting screamed at because he wanted to play with the drinking fountain (or rather, because he was really tired).  I was able to catch some of what Winry did during the second half through the doorway, but I missed her making a basket, and my attempt to record her scrimmage is filled with screaming from Grayson...

And that afternoon? Right back into his home!  He just loves it in there.  What a crazy kid!

Nothing else too crazy happened this past week.  No electric box or car fires in the middle of the night or anything.  I'm not complaining though, I'd rather things be smooth, especially when I've got all the kids by myself!

Bed Upgrade

Oh boy, this looks like trouble!  Grayson upgraded to a bed yesterday.  Grayson had been waking up a lot at night recently (and I mean a LOT), and we were trying to figure out things we could do to help him sleep better.  One thought was to put him in a bed he can just get out of... that makes sense, right?  Seems like it worked last night as he slept all night long.  It probably didn't hurt that he took advantage of being able to get out to NOT take a nap yesterday, and instead just played around in his room.  He was good for both his nap and bedtime though, so hopefully this helps him sleep better.

Monica uses this app called one second every day.  The idea behind it is you fill in every day with a picture or one second video clip, and then you get a month video each month.  She's been making them for quite a while, and when I saw the one for December today I wanted to share it, so here it is!

Grayson loves to climb all over me when he gets the chance.  I think one of his favorite games to play is I just lay on the floor.  He loves a good leg hole to slip through as well.  Just calming down for bed.

Sunday night my sisters were still here, and we were up playing games.  We were trying to make the most of their last night here, and while we were playing I commented that I could see some flashing lights off a neighbors window, and thought maybe someone got pulled over or something.  We heard some booms and figured it was random fireworks, cause that does happen in our neighborhood, and then about a half hour later, right after a loud boom, the power went out...  Upon further investigation it turns out a car coming down the main road went off into the power box.  Our neighbor said they actually took out a power line too, and a few cars got caught in the power line.  Oh, and then the car and power box caught fire.  All in all, a big mess.  Fortunately for us, since it was all on the other side of the street our power was just out while they figured out what all to turn off so they could put out the fire.  There's a tent over the box now and they've been working on it all week, so I'm guessing the fire really messed things up in the end.

My sisters left on Monday afternoon, and fortunately that was a no school day.  The kids had a wonderful time playing in the morning.  My sisters brought stuff out to do foot soaks, and all the kids loved that.  I really like Grayson in his footies using a stool.  The important thing is that he's having fun with his sisters and aunts.

On Tuesday my mom had surgery to replace the battery in her pacemaker.  Well, when they got in, they looked up the serial number and it turns out her pacemaker was recalled... so they ended up replacing the whole thing!  I'm glad that her pacemaker never had issues, or that she never had an issue where it was needed!  She's doing well and recovering great.

Friday was an off day for me, and I took Winry to the museum in the morning.  I don't remember why, but I know we talked about it way back in like December and picked this day.  We had a good time, and with it just being the two of us we got to do basically everything.  In the picture below there was a thing were you collected "fuel" balls and then you filled the tank, pushed a button and a fire turned on.  Winry enjoyed it so we did it a few times.

Brooke really wanted to go play in the snow, so as soon as she got home from school we headed into the backyard.  We just sledded and snow skated, but we all had a great time till we headed in for dinner.

Both the girls really like the snow skate, and Brooke told me that she wants her own or a snowboard for her birthday.  Hopefully we remember that far out.

Saturday morning we went to a new-ish pastry shop in town called Poulette.  Brooke has really been wanting to go.  We got probably more stuff than we should have, and then devoured it all.  It was all very good.

As mentioned, Grayson got a new bed on Saturday.  We took out the crib and put in the house bed I made for Brooke all those years back.  This is the first time in almost 8 years that we haven't had a crib set up in this room.  That's pretty crazy.

Winry had team pictures at basketball.  She continues to love it.  This past week they worked on defense for the first time, plus all the things they've worked on in the past.  During the scrimmage Winry even got the ball and took a shot!

Here's Grayson after he fell asleep last night.  He basically chose to sleep so that he might fall out of his bed at any moment...  Everything still worked out.

That's everything for now.  Have a wonderful week.

Happy Birthday Winry!

Happy Birthday Winry!  This little girl is already 5!  She's such a delight to have around.  She's full of crazy energy and loves to be silly, dance, and have fun.  We had a great week celebrating with her, and I'm so glad she's part of our family!

Last week at ward choir Winry got to hold the Packer's new kitten!  She was very soft and gentle and loved holding and petting him.  I bet Jelly was super jealous when she smelled another cat on her hands!

Monday was the final day of Christmas break... that's just weird, three weeks after Christmas.  Anyway, Monica took all the kids out to a park to play, but I guess they forgot Grayson's coat.  Fear not, Brooke had a second jacket in the car, and Grayson loved wearing it.

Winry got a book of things to cut out for Christmas and has really enjoyed it.  One page was full of mustaches to cut out, and once they were cut out the kids taped them on so they could have mustaches.  This happened when I was at work, but fortunately Monica at least caught Grayson with his on.

Wednesday was Winry's birthday.  We of course opened presents in the morning.  She got an extra special present from Brooke.  To go on her present, Brooke made Winry a card and two stuffed animals.  A sea lion and a cat.

Here are the stuffed animals.  Brooke made these all by herself.  She asked for the craft bin, got the stuff out she wanted, and next thing I knew she was walking in to my office to show me what she made for Winry.  Winry loves them, but we generally have to keep them up high so Grayson doesn't get them.

On Wednesday night I finally took Winry to that cooking class I gave her for her birthday last year.  One of the things we made was chicken noodle soup, and here's Winry chopping up the vegetables to put in.

We also made biscuits, and Winry measured out the flour for the dough.  She did a great job with all her kitchen tasks, and we didn't make any big messes or get kicked out early!

The soup and biscuits were delicious, and we very much enjoyed them.  We also shook some cream into butter to put on the biscuits.

We made chocolate lava cake for dessert, and when it was ready I asked if they had any candles.  They gave Winry a big pink one, and everyone there sang Happy Birthday to her.  We had a lot of fun at our cooking class, and it's definitely something I would do again with our kids.

When we got home it was time for cake and ice cream with the family!  Yay, double dessert day!  Monica made her a  Frozen themed cake per her request. All in all Winry had a great birthday, and had a lot of fun all day long.

And here's Winry with Monica at bed time, holding her new owl purse.

On Thursday, Niki and Jerusha came out to visit.  They both came out to help after Monica's back surgery, and Niki's trip happened to fall on Grayson's birthday.  So while she was out, Winry asked if Niki was going to come to her birthday as well.  The details of the trip let them make it the next day, but still in time for her birthday party.  The kids have been having a lot of fun with their aunts ever since.  Here they're all doing yoga together.

And of course all suitcases double as transportation when your aunts are around.

I've had my share of fun as well.  On Friday night Monica went to a party, but we had a party of our own.  We pulled out 13 Dead End Drive and had a great time playing it.

Saturday was Winry's birthday party, and we had it combined with Clara as her birthday is this upcoming week.  The party was at the Cammack's home, which was nice because we left our house in quite the disarray with our morning of preparations.

The kids played pin the nose on Olaf, and Winry totally nailed it!

We sang happy birthday and had cupcakes.

In the morning before the party I got the idea to make Grayson a Brozen shirt, since the party was Frozen themed.  I was able to pull together a design and have time to run to Walmart to get a shirt and iron-ons, and was able to make my vision a reality just in time.  Niki's modeling the shirt because 1) Grayson wouldn't ever hold still so I could take a picture, and 2) We took Grayson's shirt off while he ate his cupcake.

There was of course present opening, and both kids opened their gifts at the same time.

And here's a picture of everyone together at the end.  The kids ran around and played a lot of the time too, and I was also part of the "Brozen" who trekked out to pick up the pizza, so I feel like the whole thing just flew by!

And here are the birthday girls together.

We had to hurry home to let Winry change before we all headed to the rec center for basketball.  They did more dribbling, but they also worked on shooting, passing and even played a scrimmage at the end of practice.  Winry had a ton of fun again, and was all smiles and dancing around out on the court.

Last night when I was getting ready to head to bed I started trying to look for Jelly.  I hadn't seen her since the morning before we went to the Cammack's for the birthday party.  I searched the WHOLE house and couldn't find her anywhere.  I was even walking around shaking her treats and calling to her, but nothing, no meows or anything.  No one really knew of a time when she  could have gotten out of the house, but we also didn't know where she was.  Well, the search went on for 30 or so minutes, including going outside and calling for her.  One of my sisters went in the garage, and when she came back in Jelly heard the door close and come down the stairs to see who was home.  I think she must have been sleeping in the girls closet, but honestly, I have no clue where she was as both Monica and I looked through their closet.  We're just glad she was safe.

I think that covers at least most of the highlights from this past week.  Have a wonderful week ahead.

Game Face!

Winry started basketball yesterday!  She had a TON of fun and is really excited to go back again next week.  At one point they played a monster and hero game.  Most everyone was dribbling a basketball, and you had to dribble it as you moved around.  Winry got to be the monster, and if she tagged someone they were frozen.  The hero would tag you so you could move again.  Winry LOVED being the monster!  Though she did spend a lot of her time tagging her coaches... :)

We leant out our Grinch costume for a Christmas party, and it came back with a mask!  The girls really enjoyed being the Grinch, though they had to hold it up as it was a little too big to fit them.

We sang "Jesus wants me for a sunbeam" for our song for family home evening at Grayson's request.  It was a very popular song!

Monica was doing her back exercises this week and Grayson thought it looked like great fun, so he joined her.  You can tell that's a baby who isn't going to herniate a disc!

I had Friday off, and school doesn't start until next Tuesday, so we went to the children's museum on Friday.  We had a lot of fun there all morning.  We started off in the ball room.  There are a bunch of vacuum tubes that suck the balls up into the top of different plinko type machines.  There were also these ramps, which Grayson built a fort in and hunkered down.

There was a rocket area, where you could make a paper rocket and then launch it with an air launcher.  I helped both Winry and Brooke make a rocket, and we all had fun launching them.

We went out into the winter area and Grayson had a great time playing with the dogs again.  He even took a ride on one for a bit!  I took the girls over to go sledding while Monica and Grayson took care of the dogs.

There was a also a mini Christmas tree maze, which everyone enjoyed wandering through.  Grayson really loved it, which makes me think he'd love a corn maze.  We'd have to be really careful though, because if he ran out of sight... it might take a LONG time to find him again.

Next to the maze there was also a fun car that the kids loved to pretend to drive.  I think we did a good job seeing most of the things we missed the last time we went, and it was a really fun morning.  There was a fair deal of dismay when it was time to leave.

That evening Grayson was showing off his sommersault skills on our bed.  The problem is that he doesn't check if he's by the edge, and I did catch him once when he put his head right on the edge and would have flipped himself off.  He also tries to do sommersaults on the recliner in his room.  These usually turn into headstands against the backrest, but I did catch him once when he flipped over the arm rest... This kid is in a dangerous phase.

And back to Saturday and Winry at basketball.  From my observation it looks like Winry's probably the only kid who's brand new to basketball.  Everyone else seemed to be able to "drivle" a little, but Winry did a really good job working on it and improved a lot by the end.  The most important thing, she had a TON of fun the whole time!  I was a little worried she'd get frustrated trying to learn to dribble, but she had a big smile and was running and dancing the whole hour!  I'm really excited to watch her keep learning.

And I believe that's a wrap for this week.  I'll try to get Monica to read the blog more frequently than monthly in the future so these stop going out in batches.  I'm hopeful we'll get all 3 of the ones I have written out today!