life size christmas

the other day brody came home with this christmas decoration:

yup, a life sized caroling brody. we've had it up for almost a week now and i still have a hard time stifling a laugh while looking at it.

wake up

i swear i put full jammies on the twins each night before bed, but when we open the door in the morning we sometimes get this:

sleeves and pants are way too overrated anyway.

decor-recor-ration

for some reason brody calls decorations "decor-recor-rations." but i can't really blame him because it is fun to say. so here's how brody decor-recor-rates a christmas tree.

He likes to put his legos together and throw his masterpiece into the tree and say, "I decorated!"

science and history museum

we recently got some passes to the science and history museum, which would rightly baffle most people. i should probably mention that it also has a dino exhibit and children's museum. there's some really cool energy and light rooms, but we spent most of our time in the children play part. here's some pics from our first visit:

our boys LOVE blocks, so here's crew starting his tower.

they have a really fun outdoor water area, which the boys really enjoyed, despite the chilly weather. note to self : i need to teach kade that he really shouldn't drink just any old pool of water he comes across.

good thing this is an ambulance, since someone's probably going to need to help the kid splattered across the front of the vehicle. note to self again: delay the date of brody's drivers license.

more outdoor fun with soft blocks.

a pic of me and brody at the entrance of the childrens museum part. he only wanted to run through the dragon's mouth, he thought if he stopped for a picture the dragon would close his mouth and eat him, we luckily made it out ok.

babyproof

recently we've had almost all our visitors comment on our unique style of baby-proofing our house. sure the big baby stores out there have lots of solutions to common baby proof problems, but, of course, our boys are not the norm. so these are the creative solutions we've invented to try to limit the trouble these boys get into:

first off baby gates, a classic staple. however, the boys can scale and climb everything in existence, so we had to go with mesh gates that don't allow any scaling, imagine that, a gate that keeps kids out. no more coming into the room and finding a toddler on top of the kitchen counter, emptying the cabinets by blindly tossing things over their shoulders (yes, this included things like salt canisters and glasses.)

this twine attached to an old stroller buckle finally keeps our chairs pushed in, and the boys off the table. the rope goes around three sides of the table. it's a great conversation starter.

the fourth side of the table is our bench which has to put down sideways and is tied back with a lower rope so the boys don't slide the bench out to climb on.

the tv, my favorite and most creative solution to date. we bought this little entertainment that someone here said would "definitely keep the boys away from the tv." um, it totally doesn't. they push all the buttons on the side changing channels or the input while watching a show (so irritating), so i used cleaned milk carton tops to go over the buttons and used duct tape to keep them in place. i can finally watch a whole show now! (oh, and side note, i wasn't the one thought the tv unit would work, i don't want to name names, but his name rhymes with mustin and he's a dentist, i hope that doesn't point a finger.)

the fireplace, justin's genius solution. particle board attached by magnets to the fireplace. insanely genius solution. the boys no longer try to climb in the fireplace and rock the grate.

and finally, the simple cost effective solution of limited decorating. and for those who visit here, yes, i know that table's empty. i've simply had too many crushed decorating dreams, not to mention and 16x20 picture tossed off the wall to shatter into pieces. i didn't think they could climb on the table, foolish, i know.

so there you have it, i guess i should probably submit my portfolio to babies r us for a career in baby proofing, but really, how can one really creatively market (and mark the cost up) on some milk carton tops and duct tape? maybe i'll keep my day job.

straight into my hopper

remember this post about brody's trash trucks? well it's not just brody. it turns out that while brody's gone the twins will make them on their own, multiple times a day. anyway, justin finally had a saturday off so we spent the day playing in the trash truck.

Oh, and if you've ever read the book, or seen the video of I Stink by Kate and Jim McMullan, you'll understand the trash truck craze that permanently resides in our home.

yup, that's the one.

halloween night

somehow halloween kind of crept up on us this year. before we knew it we needed costumes! i came across an R2D2 costume and justin went from there! he explained to me that R2D2 and C3PO are robot friends, perfect for the twins, and that they were built by luke skywalker, perfect for brody. it's not that i've never seen the movies, but they didn't really "take off" in our house full of girls. thank goodness for husbands! *on a side note, justin read this post and later told me that the robots are actually called droids and C3PO was built by anakin, not luke. yup, that's my husband, nerdy but lovable!

R2D2- kade, jedi luke skywalker- brody, and C3PO- crew

some pics from the ward trunk-or-treat:

R2D2 and C3PO

the jedi luke skywalker

me and kade

here's some pics from halloween night:

brody

crew

kade

the two buds concocting an escape plan (foiled by mom)

we had a fun halloween, rob, jana and baby jacob came down for the night. jacob made a perfect young obe wan kenobi! i think jacob sat the best for the pictures! dinner, a little trick-or-treating and some candy eating made for a great halloween!

halloween parade

brody's preschool had quite the halloween festivities! first there was a halloween parade in the morning and then a class party in the afternoon. the parade was a little comical. brody was second in the line, but you know brody, he's easily distracted, so other things would catch his eye and soon enough there'd be a 20 ft gap between him and the line leader. classic brody. despite the distractions he's probably my favorite jedi ever!
"leading" the pack. obviously the girl way ahead isn't in the picture.

the jedi master himself

of course these guys were on hand for the parade, in matching monster shirts, appropriate no?

i was able to come for the halloween party, which was fun. first they decorated pumpkins. don't you like the up close detail he's showing me?

decorating halloween sugar cookies.

lining up to play halloween games

we made a wall in the house dedicated to brody's spooky art work, he's very proud of his wall!

the spider web design (top right) is his absolute favorite. when asked if he wanted to fold it up to put in his backpack, he said he'll just "carefully carry it home." he's super protective of his masterpiece!

halloween hunt

the past few weeks we've had our halloween decorations up and brody loves going on halloween hunts to see what spooky things he can spy in the house. here's some things he likes to find:

a lantern of skulls

haunting ghosts

eyeballs on a wreath.

So, what would we find at your house?

pumpkin patch

while the ashton's were visiting we went to a pumpkin patch to get into the spirit of halloween. we went to a really cute pumpkin patch close to rob and jana's. there was tons to do, like:

haystacks to jump off of

a little jail to play in (he looks like he looking for the quickest escape route!)

rows and rows of pumpkins to be chased through

and of course lots of those heavy orange things to pick up.

we took some family pictures:

i know what you're thinking: wow, what a nice, calm, fun, little family! um, that's what a good photo can do for you. in reality our photo attempts are like this:

lost one

squirmy little guys

eyes closed, heads turned other directions

oops! lost one again!

Oh well, at least we had fun and got a single decent picture!

byu game

well some ashton cougar fans came to visit for the byu/tcu game last weekend. it was a boys only activity (thankfully) but i did keep the twins with me. clarke, rob, justin, mike and brody kicked the festivities off with the byu tailgate party and then hit the game at tcu, which happens to be pretty close by. afterwards, they all came back to have pizza and watch more football. sometimes i'm amazed at the pure dedication men can have to not only sit in the stadium through a three hour plus game, but to then want to come home and watch hours more on tv. seriously, pure dedication.

daddy and brody

brody and grandpa

brody and mike just taking it easy away from the crowds

i love this pic of brody. he loves athletic events!! he was so pumped when he found out he was going to a football game. he was a little bummed it wasn't a usc game, but loved that he got to go to a byu game with all the big boys!

the little things

kids can be chaotic work- at least that's totally how it is at our house! but somewhere during the loss of sanity, my boys do things that quite literally brings tears to my eyes because i feel so overwhelmingly grateful that these three boys are mine. this is why i choose to be a stay at home mom, for the little things that make the all the poopy diapers, whining and temper tantrums worth it. here's pics of some of the things that make me sigh with happiness:

i love this face brody makes when he tells me all about his school day.

i love that the twins have to have their hair styled whenever brody does.

i love going in to wake up the twins and seeing a little face so peaceful like this.

i love how brody is so excited to make a tower taller than he is.

i love when crew lays on the ground to play cars because brody is too.

i love how brody's such an sc fan, he asks to listen to the usc fight song when we go on drives.

i love when these guys are buddies, sitting together, playing together and giving hugs.

i love, love the rare times we drive home from visiting family, the boys are worn out from playing non-stop, baths have already been given and they actually fall asleep on the way home. i simply love it!

and those are some of the little reasons i love my boys!