Disney's A Christmas Carol

We went to see Disney's A Christmas Carol on Sunday.  The boys got tickets to the movies from their dentist for taking good care of their teeth (I know why doesn't the grown up dentist do that???)

The picture is crappy, but it's hard to get a photo in a theatre without a flash...
The boys all had their popcorn and candy (left over from halloween).

So, here is my review: 
This movie is scary. 
It's not for little kids. 
The animation was amazing. 
I bet if you saw it in 3D you would be jumping out of your seat.
It stuck close to the original storyline, but was pretty dark.  The ghosts were scary and even gross in parts.  The Ghost of Chrismas present looked like Jesus, not sure what that was about. 
Overall, I liked the movie, but probably would have chosen something else had I known ahead of time that this was not your typical Disney movie.

The boys, however, loved it....

What Noah is learning lately

Noah has been learning some important lessons lately, here are the highlights:

1.  Don't eat all the icing off of your brothers birthday cake with your fingers. 
     Your mom is sure to notice.

2.  Don't leave the calculator that you were using to do your math homework in 
     your bed.
     Again, your mom is not blind or stupid.

3.  Sometimes you have make hard choices on how to spend your money.
     Like when there is a new 'Diary of a Wimpy Kid' out, but you are saving
     for a DSi. 
     It sucks when your mom says you can have the book, 
     but you have to pay for it with your own money.

4.  You must pay attention when waiting for the bus in the morning.
     You don't want to be the kid who gets left at the middle school,
      because you were playing on the field.
     And the bus left without you....you would have to call your dad
     ....and he would have to drive you.
     And that would be a long, no fun car ride to school.

5.  Working hard on a project for school is worth it.
     Like when you got a 4 (out of 5) on your book report in a bag.
     Way to go Noah!!!

Halloween 2009

I know, I'm a little slow, but here they are:

Noah and Ashton were Jedi's (Ashton was 'big' Annakin and Noah was Obi-Wan), Dillon was Yoda and Aliya was Princess Leah.  My Mom made Noah and Ashton's costumes, I helped marginally.  Aren't they awesome?  They were actually warm, and they won't disintegrate over the next year as they play dress up with them.  Fantastic!

We did our typical route, Safeway center first, then cross Donner Pass Rd and into Gateway- I need to take a picture of that at night, the police department has HUGE lights on either side of the road, cones for 1/4 mile and officers manning the crosswalk.  That is how many kids are there each year, its crazy. 

Here is a better picture of Aliya, some lady asked Darcie if she was a girl...

I don't know if she figured that after 3 boys, if I had another one, I might just dress him up as a girl.  Which is a definite possibility, but I will not be having another baby, boy or girl.  Cute as she is, seeing Darcie reminds me that my ovaries are no longer whispering to me, they are dead to me.  ;)

Dillon thought it was fun for the first half, and then he got 'tired of shopping'.  Ashton pooped out too, and wanted to be shuttled in the stroller between houses, where he would get up to get more candy.  That didn't go over well with me, get up and walk if you want candy buddy!

We found Walker and got to walk with him.  Noah and he have such a sweet connection, and Ashton and Dillon love him too.

We wrapped up the night at the deli, where Troy had been all night.  Handing out candy to the kids and coffee to the parents.  We close up when the bigger kids start showing up, its not as fun as all the little guys.  I told one teenager to go away, he had no costume and no bag.  Seriously, if you want to trick or treat and have me give you candy, you have to put a little effort into it.

We went home and the boys had some light saber fights, running around the house like little mad men.  Troy got in on it and ended up smacking Noah, and that ended the fight.  They all took baths and then went to bed.  And suprisingly, they all fell asleep.

Ashton's 'Fake' Party

Since we had to cancel Ashton's 'real' party, we rescheduled it for when I was covering for the afterschool kindergarten program up at Donner Trail.  He kept asking when his 'fake' party was, I'm not sure why he kept calling it that.  Although, my friend Jennifer that was also born in October assured me that was typical behavior for them.  They tend to have pity parties...great.
The day finally arrived last Friday and Mom, Darcie and I loaded up the car and headed up to the school.  Except I forgot all the kids aprons and Mom had to go back....oops.  Once we got there it was quickly apparent that they had something going on in the gym, where we were going to do our party.  I guess that there was some miscommunication about my being there to cover and so the K/1 teacher had planned this whole afternoon for the kids.  Michelle (Ashton's teacher) and I talked and decided that she could shorten it some and we could have about the last 45 minutes of the day to do the party.  Not really what I had planned, but it worked.  We skipped the pizza and apple salad making and just focused on the important things, like, italian sodas, ice cream in a bag, cake and presents.
It was actually fun to be there for their 'stations'.  One of the greatest things about this school, is that they are small.  The afternoon was really about math for the K/1 (they were measuring and estimating, guessing whether pumpkins float or sink...they float, doing qtip painting, etc), but they had the 4/5th graders in there being helpers and leaders of all the stations.  AND, they assigned all the older siblings to be the helpers of their younger siblings.  So, Noah helped Ashton all afternoon at the stations.  No other school would be able to do this kind of stuff.  It was great!
Once the stations were all done, Michelle took all the older kids out and we got busy with our party.  We made the italian sodas first.  I had 4 syrups, 3 of which were sugar free and 1 that wasn't.  How did they all know which one had sugar?  They were all so excited about making sodas, I will definitely have to remember that for future parties.  It's super easy.
Then we started making ice cream in a bag.  We only had a few mishaps, like Ashton, Cody and Braidon pouring their milk/sugar/vanilla mixture into the ice/salt bag.   They were supposed to put the milk/sugar/vanilla bag into the ice/salt bag and seal it, then start shaking.  We also had a few leaky bags, but overall it worked really well.  We sang:

In this picture: Ashton, Clara, Tatum, Callie, Ella, Daniel, Cody, and Braidon on the right.

Ashton was very specific about what his cake was to look like.  We decided on a rainbow cake, since a Costco cake would have been too huge for this many kids.  Then I had to put a 'cooker' guy on the cake, in icing so they could eat him.  Um, okay.  This is what he ended up with:

You can see the top on the other pictures, but this is the inside of the rainbow cake.  They kids were in love when I cut in up and they saw the colors.  We even had our 5th grade helpers checking it out!  We dished up the cake and by that time, everyone's ice cream was done, so we put that on their plates and they all gobbled it up. 

Then they went to open presents:

Ashton had a great time (phew, cancelling his party was a huge issue and you never know how he will react when things don't go like he planned!) and the kids all had fun too.  They loved their aprons and were so excited that they got to keep them.  I forgot to give them their potholders, with the wooden spoons and brownie mix tucked inside.  So, I'll have to take those up when I go help in their class tomorrow.

This is how he looks out for his brother

Last Thursday, Troy called me at work to ask where the bus stops after the hospital. 
I kind of chuckled, immediately thinking that he missed getting the boys from the bus.  I told him that it goes to the rec center next, then asked why.  He told me how Noah had gotten off the bus, but Ashton had not.  He tried chasing the bus, but the driver did not stop.  He asked Noah (while they were driving to the next bus stop), WHY he had gotten off the bus without his brother. 
He replied, "I saw him talking to someone when I walked by him." Isn't that super helpful? And caring?
Troy of course instructed him on how to look out for your brother, and #1 on that list would be:
NOT ditching him on the bus.

Troy made it to the rec center in time, and Ashton told Troy how he had asked the bus driver, "Phil, why didn't you stop at the hospital?" when he realized they were past his stop.  Phil replied, "I did Ashton, why didn't you get off?"

The funny part is, only last year I had to follow Noah to the campground in Tahoe Donner when he didn't get off the bus at the deli.  You think that he might have had a little sympathy for someone not paying attention, but no.

Totally Random Stuff

I got the CD of all our family pictures in the mail this weekend and it has inspired me to redo our walls over the gas stove.  I uploaded all the pictures and am deciding which ones to print and hang, and there ended up being a space that needed a little something.  I went on etsy and this is what I love:

I love etsy - I would never find these wonderful things anywhere else.  And most of these things are made by stay at home moms, who are just looking to make some extra money.  Definitely something I want to support.  So now, I just need to decide which one to get!

Catching up with our family, lately we have still just been sticking close to home.  Ashton keeps developing a fever....not fun.  I took him to the doctor last Friday, because I have seen several secondary infections due to swine flu and it scared me.  But, he was fine, just running a low grade fever.  He spent the evening on the couch, then slept all night on the floor next to our bed.  He also slept a good part of Saturday.  This flu seriously wipes you out.  I think that if I could I would have slept most of the weekend along with him!

Dillon is still potty training and seems to have finally gotten the hang of it.  He has gone several days with no accidents and is consistently going to the bathroom.  He is able to hold it longer, but he still needs to be reminded to go to the bathroom and frequently tells you he doesn't have to go.  Of course, he does once he gets there!  The funniest thing he does is, almost everytime we go to the bathroom he makes me read this book:

I found this in a box of books that my Dad gave me.  I think it was mine, but he loves it. 

It asks at the beginning of the book, "Do you wear diapers?"

And he always says, "I wear diapers at ni-night."

And it talks about 'loads of diapers' and saying 'bye bye pins and tape'.  He recites most of it, although it really has nothing to do with how we diaper him.  :)

At the end it says, "I'm getting bigger everyday.  Are you getting bigger?"

He always says, "Noah is getting bigger."  I asked him one time if he was getting bigger too and he said, "No, just Noah."

He is so funny.

Lately the boys think that it is fun to argue over who is the boss of who. 

I frequently hear someone yelling, "You're not the boss of me."

On Saturday, Dillon told me that. 

I informed him that yes, I was the boss of him.

He looked me straight in the eye and said, "You are?  Oh my gosh!"

Seriously, I don't think he could get any funnier (or cuter)!

Noah has been working on reports, reports and more reports.

Every week he either has a book report or a current event report.

This week he has to do a book report in a paper bag.  They write the title and everything on the outside and draw illustrations on the front of their favorite scene, and a character map on the back.  Then they have to put 5 objects that relate to the story (an object the main character would use, an object that relates to the problem, an object that relates to the scene, an object that relates to the solution). It's really a cool idea, but a LOT more work than just writing a book report.  He is working faithfully on it every night after he finishes his regular homework.  We just have to keep Dillon from 'coloring' on it....

Family Pictures

Eden made this slideshow for us, and it nearly brought me to tears.  She captured our boys to a 'T'.
You can see each of their little personalities (or big as the case is!)
These are absolutely gorgeous, I cannot imagine anyone doing a better job...

Press play, then pause and wait for it to load (it takes a while, walk away...) and pause the music at the bottom.  You can make it full screen, click on the little star looking thing:


Blair Family from Eden Thome on Vimeo.