Mark's Birthday

For Mark's birthday, we went out to lunch. We had a room all to ourselves and the food was great. It was a fancy restaurant (the kind that has heavy silverware).

That night we had some friends over for snacks and games. I'll upload some of the videos when I get over to Mark's side of the computer.

 

 

Domestic is my Middle Name

Before Christmas I took down my old plaid curtains and bought some greenish tweed and put them up for curtains. They looked terrible. I just folded and stapled them. The garland made them a little better but when that came down I went back to the fabric store.

Then I painted the kitchen and sewed these damask curtains yesterday. I actually bought a braid with tassels for the bottom but it didn't look as good on the bottom as I thought it would.

Here's our TV room before the paint.

Here's the same room today! (It's the same color as in the kitchen, but the lighting is different)
The kids are having school with their animals. It was a lot of fun. More fun than painting, even!

I realized I haven't put the photos of the floors up yet, or the other painted walls, so that's next.

And I made marmalade with my friend Danielle yesterday (it took 5 hrs for 7 pints. I recommend strawberry freezer jam instead).
Then I made orange rolls for breakfast.
The kids also just ate the banana pops we made last night.

Jaxon has a special day at school sometimes where they can bring in anything that has the word pop in it. For 'Pop Friday' Jaxon usually brings plain popcorn because the other alternatives are unhealthy. But this week we dipped a banana in chocolate and froze it. All the kids loved it!

Jaxon Says

• 
• Jaxon and Lyda put on a magic show for us. After it was over Jaxon scolded Lyda, "Why did you only say 'Abracadabra'? You were supposed to say, 'Abracadabra, Alamazoo!'" Poor Lyda.
  
  (Here are some other funny Jaxon quotes)
  
  
• "Bakugans are not kissable-proof! (Finn was kissing his Bakugan toys). Kissable-proof means they are not kissable!"
  
  
• One day I started to sing a lullaby Jaxon interrupts me and says, "That's going on my imbecile list."
  
  
• I told Jaxon I liked one of his drawings and he says, "Thank you for appreciating it."
  
  
• Jaxon says to his brother, "Can you get me a spoon, Asher? You are really handsome, Ash."
  
  
• During lunch Jaxon says to me, "Mom I need a phone to call a great detective. Someone took a bite out of my cheese crisp." (It turned out to be him)
  
  
• Jaxon says, "Picking up my stuff is part of our imbecile family!" (he used this word for a while)
  
  
• We drove by an older LDS church with a satellite dish in the back. Jaxon pointed at it and said, "That's how we communicate with God. It's a spaceship."

My Birthday!

Because it's already Asher's birthday (he's 5 today!) it's time for me to blog about mine!
We went to a great church party for New Year's Eve. Lots of good food, friends, games, dancing, kareoke, ping pong, etc. We had a great time. Thanks to my mom for watching the kids!

On the night of my birthday we went to The Melting Pot for the first time with some friends. It was a great experience. I loved that it was more than just a meal, it was a whole event. Delicious food and great friends!

I had to include this photo of the chocolate fondue en flambe!

How To Break Your Arm

In case you didn't know, Jaxon broke his arm the day after Thanksgiving. It was the day that our friends Nate and Darryl came to help Mark install the flooring. I took the Curtis boys and my boys out so the men could work on the floor.

(It's been over a month and I'm finally at a place where I can blog about this.)

So this happened on Black Friday (perhaps that should have been my clue) at a dog park near Ray and Greenfield.

Here he is climbing on this deadly device. What he's doing now he can do in his sleep, backwards.

Such grace and confidence!

Here he's finishing up and his friend Asher wants to try, but changes his mind.

Here are all the boys on these 4 foot high concrete steps (there were a dozen of them).
Looking at the photos now, I'm surprised I didn't have to take them all to the hospital.

There was also a lake, with dangerous edges, which the kids were drawn to.

In this photo, you can see Finn in the back, trying to touch the water and Luke headed straight toward the edge.

Here's another photo of Jaxon climbing. He really loves it.

So when we got back to this part of the park, Jaxon decided to try this climbing structure again but on the INSIDE this time. He was on the other side (inclined) about exactly where he is in this photo when he fell. I don't think there are many adults that could climb at that angle. Why this is a children's play structure is beyond me.

He fell on his arm and fractured it in 3 places. I was hoping it was just bruised. Nope.

So Jaxon got a trip to the ER (instead of a movie with the Curtises) and X-rays and a cast.

He was pretty excited to get his friends to sign his cast.

The boys and their gingerbread train.

Christmas!

We had a lovely Christmas holiday.

It started with Christmas Eve visiting the temple lights with the kids. We heard Jordan Bluth sing (he just moved in our ward). He has an amazing voice. Mark is thinking of taking voice lessons with him.

Here's us at the temple lights.

When we got in the car, Jaxon had the camera and snapped a photo of Mark and me.

When we got home and bathed the kids, we gave them one gift on Christmas Eve.

A nutcracker! It was because we saw the ballet this year (thanks to Asher's school!). Mark's family had the tradition of seeing Nutcracker every year as a family so we enjoyed doing it with our family. All of our kids loved the ballet and they were excited to get their own small nutcracker to sleep with on Christmas Eve.

After the kids were in bed we opened the "gift receptacle" and realized we had a lot of work ahead of us. We were up till midnight wrapping.

f

But the finished product was worth it! (You can also see our new floor in this photo.)

Here are the stockings. Santa brought the kids Pillow Pets because mom thinks they are a waste of money.

This year's best Christmas gifts:

Finn- helicopter, horse, transformer, and his brother's airplane (the one Finn picked for Asher at the store)

Asher- Thomas, Pillow Pet, Lightning McQueen, and the airplane his brother likes.

Jaxon- RC helicopter (but we can't get it to fly high), Pillow Pet, and art set.

Jess- PHOTOSHOP! (and cute pajamas)

Mark- NEW TV and blu-ray player (thank heaven's Walgreens was open so we could get the hdmi cord)

Milo (the cat)- Loved his ball in a round track.

Apparently I didn't get a family photo on Christmas, just a bunch of snapshots.

Here are a few.

We opened presents (including one for the cat). Then we had my family over for dinner. After dinner we played soccer in a little field near our house.

After a while, Asher fell in the mud and I walked him home. Poor guy. At least he got a bubble bath!

A few other Christmas pics.

Hope you had a Merry Christmas as well!

Eavesdropping on Playtime

After reading some adorable things on my friend Annie's blog, I came out of the office to find all my boys without their pants on holding couch pillows threateningly.

Jaxon says it's part of the rules and I just move to the kitchen to get lunch.

I overhear him:

"Guys, let's go over the rules again. Number 1- No pants. Number 2- Only hitting with a pillow. Number 3- No falling down. Number 4- Fight only. Number 5- Don't hit bodies. Number 7- You grab the side of the pillow like this, then spin around like this (he explains some move for 30 seconds).

Okay, that's it! Those are the rules. Okay Asher, you get it? 10, 9, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0! Go!

Wait! Stop! I forgot one.

Rule number 7, You can fall down if you trip.

Asher: Yeah!

Jaxon: Also, the oldest person in the kids column (that's me) gets to count down from 10.

Asher, you are not the oldest person in the kids column.

There's still a lot of screaming (and somebody just hollered from the bathroom to tell me what exactly he's doing in there).

Ah, good times.

Home Improvement Project

The day after Thanksgiving we started a flooring project. It was my idea and prodding, I will totally admit. But Mark recognized that our tile and carpet were terrible. The carpet was not quite 5 years old but it was really light colored and had terrible stains from regular wear and tear and 2 babies that spit up a ton, constantly. Also, the tile was poorly installed by the previous owners. But what we didn't know was that they had installed it right on top of the vinyl! It was so yucky. We essentially had to remove two floors in the kitchen and the vinyl was the worst.

Here are photos from that day. Our bishop and his two sons came over to help. They were awesome. My dad came over as well (he's in the overalls).

Thanks everyone!

Here's us eating dinner on our concrete floor. It was take-out spaghetti on a white table cloth. What was I thinking?

Next post: installation!

No more seasons

So, I can't keep updating my headers even TWICE year so now my header is just generic. But, it's fine.

My friend Leslie took some pics of us at Mesa Arts Center last Saturday. She was so humble, but I think she did a great job! (better than I did of her family and I have some practice)

Here's the link to some of the pics on my webalbum.

Also, the title of this post reminds me that we really don't have seasons here. Not fall or spring at least. Just hot or not hot.

I love that it's not hot right now!

Sorry to those of you who are freezing your arses off right now.

Wish you could join us in sunny Arizona!