Just trying to stay warm

I promise that my house isn't really that cold. I like to conserve energy and all, but I am not freezing my kids in the process... though Gavin might have you believe differently.

He seems to have acquired a sixth sense for being able to hear the heater kick on no matter where he is in the house or what he is doing. And then this is how you will find him... perched over a heater vent where ever he can find one.

All of these were taken in about a 12 hour time period. 3 different rooms- 3 different vents cranking out heat.

Brushing his teeth on the bathroom floor.

Pretending to be a dog in his bedroom.

Eating breakfast in the living room... this one is his favorite spot. He holes up next to the couch and watches tv waiting for me to turn up the heat.

No vent in this one, but I just really love these tiny old man pajamas. They are so cute, just like Gav.

Friday Night at Home

I know this shouldn't seem like a super exciting occasion, but for us, it seems to be. It has been a really long time since we were all home together on a Friday night. If I'm not working, then we are usually having a rotating date night, which I of course wouldn't ever give up. But this week, we had neither, and enjoyed some fun family time. Most of which consisted of Gavin making up things for all of us to play together. Their favorite game was calling something like "the race to jump on Dad," and there is nothing like a game that explains itself completely in the title.

Henry also spent some time practicing his snowboarding skills with the game that Gavin got for Christmas. He has some pretty impressive balance.

There is always plenty of climbing around and laughing. Not sure what we would do without these two guys to keep us entertained.

The Slide Inside

Well, we are officially tired of winter around here, and even though it has been warmer, it is still too cold to spend much time outside. In an attempt to keep the boys more entertained I brought the slide into the living room last week. It was all orderly and fun for a few days, and then Friday hit and they decided to step it up a notch.

We started the morning with create-your-own-climbing-harness. This involved my canvas belts over their pajamas which they then tried to use to help each other climb the slide... luckily this stopped after they realized that the belts would get tighter to harder they pulled on them.

The next super fun thing they came up with involved one of their favorite pass times- jumping off things. Gavin strategically placed the bean bag chair so that he could throw himself off the top of the slide onto it with a nice thud.

While this was not my favorite thing, I was glad that Henry seemed happy just to watch and laugh, but that didn't last long. At least he wasn't in his most daring mood and decided to jump from only the second step.

"Chocit! Chocit!"

That's what Henry was saying as he greatly enjoyed his bowl of ice cream last night.

"Who you callin' messy?"

Good thing his Mom is a stain-removing genius.

Jesus wants Me for a Sunbeam

Well, today was a big day for us. My little Gavin has now permanently left the nursery at church and moved on to older and more mature things... Sunbeams. This is the first class in Primary (the Sunday school for little kids) and the class that you start in the year that you are turning 4. What a big day it was. Gavin has been looking forward to this for months, and longing to be in Primary with his friend Lexi, who turned 4 last year. It was just yesterday that we told him that his new class would be called Sunbeams, and he was super excited to be able to sing the Sunbeam song, "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam." This song is a kid favorite because at some point long ago someone decided that it would be very rowdy and super fun to shout out "BEAM" and jump out of their chair every time that it comes up in the song. And while Gavin loves things that are both rowdy and fun, he is feeling quite at home in his new class.
My only concern today was that nursery has snacks and Sunbeams do not, and church overlaps lunch time. Luckily I gave him plenty of things to eat this morning and he seemed to make it through just fine.

So, I didn't take this picture today, but about a week before Christmas. I couldn't help posting it. Paili is one of Gavin's good friends and is also in his new Sunbeam class and preschool. I just love how cute they look and how happy they were to let me take a picture of them together.

New Floor

This week, to celebrate our new year, we ripped out the old nasty disgusting linoleum floor in the kitchen (that was so 2008) and finally replaced it with new tile. I bought this tile about 18 months ago when we were building on the laundry room, so that I would have matching tile in the new laundry room and the kitchen, since they are adjoining rooms. I never dreamed that the kitchen tile would sit in the basement for so long waiting for the right time to be put in. We finally decided we could wait no longer, and while I did plenty of complaining about most of the process... the end results seems to make all of the work worth it... or at least it makes it easier for me to forget all of the work. Now that my full body aches and pains from kneeling and crawling on the floor for two solid days have gone away, I am really enjoying the new floor.

Since my kitchen is quite small it is hard to get a picture of the whole thing (and the cupboards are still too hideous for online viewing) so these close-ups will have to do. This is my fourth tile job in our duplex and the first one that Caleb has helped me with. He was pretty nervous to start, but he quickly became my measuring and cutting guy and did a pretty great job of it. The whole thing might have been like a fun date if it wasn't messy and painful and involved our kids screaming the other room since they were locked out of the kitchen for three days.