Stranded, Pretend, Field Trips, Games

Things have been running pretty low key lately and I am not complaining!  We had a bit of excitement last Thursday, though.  I had a few errands I needed to run and Aaron wanted to come with me so we loaded everyone up in the car and went.  The last stop of the night was at Old Navy because they were having a winter coat sale and I needed to pick up coats for Sarah and Josh since we didn't have any to fit them.  It really stinks that Josh and Matthew are the exact same size because I have to buy two of everything in their size instead of just one and handing things down as the older kid outgrows it like normal families do.  Anyway, I went in the store bought the coats and came back out.  Aaron and the kids just waited in the car--shopping is just easier that way instead of getting everyone out of the car, herding them all inside the store and keeping them all together and quiet just for a five minute transaction.  Anyway, I came back outside to get in the car, but it wouldn't start.  DOH!!  Now upon reflection I had been noticing the car having a hard time starting in the mornings, but I kept forgetting to tell Aaron about it.  Since Aaron hardly ever drives the Suburban he had no idea.  Well, he was not happy upon hearing that bit of information--too little too late I guess.  Anyway, that meant that all seven of us were stranded about 20 minutes away from home in the Old Navy parking lot at 6:30 pm with a bunch of frozen chicken among other frozen stuff in the back I had just purchased right before our stop at Old Navy.  The kids were also very tired of being out and wanted to go home.  Needless to say it was very bad timing to realize that we needed a new car battery....We had a few options: 1.We could call someone to come and pick us up and bring us home so Aaron could pick up tools, go back and change out the battery in the parking lot.  However, with having such a big family, no one usually has enough room for us all, and it would have been a big pain in the butt!  2.  We could call AAA to have them come help, but who knows how much help they could have been or when they could have come--I did have lots of frozen foods in the back of the car that I really didn't want to see defrosted.  3.  Aaron could walk the mile over to Pep boys to see if they had a battery charger/jump starter thing that was already charged to try and get the car started to bring us home and take care of things at home.  Since we are fiercely independent people and HATE asking for help we decided to try out option #3 and keep our fingers crossed that it would work.  Aaron set off with Matthew to walk to Pep boys.  Matthew does not do well just sitting and doing nothing.  That's when he starts causing problems like teasing or making annoying sounds so to make things easier for me Aaron took Matthew along with him.  Even with Matthew with Aaron the kids were still not happy to be in the car doing nothing in the parking lot.  It was not a fun wait!  Thankfully Aaron came back with a jump starter in hand that Pep Boys let Aaron borrow as long as he left his credit card and ID behind to make sure they would get the jump starter back.  We put it on the battery and prayed as I turned the key.  Thankfully it started.  We drove over to Pep Boys to hand back their jump starter and say our tremendous thank yous!!  Then we headed for home and made it without incident. 

 

Noah has really been into playing pretend lately.  He LOVES his pillow pet and pretends it's his baby.  The other day I happened to hear him playing in the bathroom.  As I was walking over to check it out I heard him say, "Baby, you need to go stinky in the potty."  I got to the bathroom about then and saw him holding his pillow inside the toilet bowl 'letting/helping' him go stinky in the potty.  I picked pillow up and poor pillow's bum was soaking wet from toilet water.  Ewwww!!  I then told Noah that pillow needed a bath and proceeded to put pillow on a sanitary cycle in the washer.  I am all for pretend, but putting pillow in the toilet to help him go stinky--that was over the line.  I'm just glad I caught it.  I don't even want to think about other incidents that have happened that I didn't catch.....Blech!  Here's the boy and his baby pillow.  It's very rare you see one without the other close by:

 Sarah is really honing her writing skills.  However, she doesn't want to be limited with just paper.  Here she got to practice on the mudroom bench.  I can't get too mad because she was practicing writing 'Mom', but still....Can I say I am thankful for Magic Eraser which seems to get most things off.  As for the other things that don't come off they just add character, right?!

Yesterday Josh had a field trip to an IMAX movie and then to the Air Force museum.  They sent out flyers two weeks ago and Josh begged and begged for me to sign up as a chaperon.  I did, however, they had so many parent volunteers sign up they had to do a drawing to choose which parent volunteers actually got to go.  My name was one of the names picked so I got to go.  In talking with Josh, he realized that I had gone with him on his last field trip.  He likes to have Aaron and I take turns with going on field trips with him.  Since it was my turn last time, Josh decided he wanted Aaron to come along with him.  Aaron was able to get off of work and spend time with Josh.  Josh loved it.  However, when Aaron got back he said his ears just hurt.  He had to spend over two hours on the bus full of VERY LOUD rambunctious 5th graders (a few of which hadn't discovered deodorant yet) that never stopped talking/screaming/laughing/making weird noises.  That morning the teachers had broken the kids down into groups so Aaron was in charge of three kids--Josh and two friends.  They must have had a ton of parent volunteers if they could have an adult for every three kids for four different 5th grade classes and still have to turn some away.  Anyway, in Aaron's group one kid kept doing a disappearing act and would sneak away whenever.  It drove Aaron CRAZY trying to keep track of him.  Aaron was glad he could go with Josh, but he was glad when he could come back home where it was somewhat quieter.  That is saying a lot about how loud the bus must have been if our house was a quieter place to be.  Their next field trip is in the spring so we will see what happens then....

 

Last Friday was Grandparents Day at Josh, Daniel and Sarah's school.  Luckily G&G T came up for that.  They were able to have donuts and chocolate milk and read stories.  They also were able to see the kids classrooms and their various art projects.  The kids were so excited.  When the bell rang for school to start Grandma T stayed with Daniel because Daniel was having a walking field trip to the fire station and city council.  Daniel wanted Grandma T to come along with his class on the field trip.  Grandpa T came back to the house since he has a harder time walking with his arthritis.  It was also raining/snowing, too.  Not very fun conditions for a walking field trip, but they still went anyway.  It was nice to visit with my dad for a few hours while my mom was on the field trip with Daniel.  It was a nice morning for everyone.  However, Matthew was sad that G&G T were gone by the time he got home from school.  He only got to see them a few minutes before his bus came to pick him up that morning.  Daniel had fun because they had a mock city council meeting and Daniel was picked to sit up on the board.  He thought that was pretty exciting.

 

It snowed Saturday morning.  Josh and Daniel were ecstatic.  They went out and made a snowman.  Matthew saw our neighbor who is a train engineer outside so he went over to chit chat with him.  That's when Matthew came bounding back inside a few minutes later to show us his new 2014 train calendar the nice neighbor had given him.  He really is a nice neighbor to give Matthew so much train paraphernalia. 

Anyway here's Josh working hard on the snowman.  Daniel had gotten cold and had come back inside at this point.

Since the snowman had to have a face, Josh grabbed what he could find which happened to be two huge onions I was storing out in the garage for the eyes.  He grabbed a baby carrot for the nose and some landscape bark for the mouth. 

Since it was raining/snowing and the snowman was already tilted, it ended up tipping over a few hours later.  Josh was little upset by that, but I am sure we will get some more snow soon so he can make another one.

Later that day Aaron had 4 BYU football tickets he wanted to use with the boys.  It was really cold, but they all layered up and headed out for the game.

Aaron was curious to see how Matthew would do at the football game in the cold, but he did great.

Josh and Daniel did well, too.  I think the hand warmers helped a bunch, too.

They lasted until the fourth quarter until it just got too cold, snowy and rainy for them and they decided to come home.  BYU was really ahead so they weren't going to miss out on too much of they left a few minutes early.

Since Aaron had taken the Suburban with all the car seats in it, that meant Noah, Sarah and I were stuck at home.  Hey I guess there are worse places to be stuck--namely an Old Navy parking lot 20 minutes away from home..... We made the most of it, though.  I turned on the fire and let the kids veg in their jammies and watch movies while I read a book.  It was nice.  They both loved getting warm by the fire:

They were excited when the boys came back home, though.  Mom can be kind of boring I guess. When they got home Matthew made sure I knew how cold he was and that he NEEDED hot chocolate.  He is funny.  They had fun despite the freezing cold rain and snow, though.

 

For family home evening the most wanted job is picking the song and leading the music.  However, it doesn't matter to Noah whose turn it is, he always gets up and leads the music anyway.  This past Monday it was Sarah's turn, but Noah got up to 'help' her, too.  He's a funny boy.

I must say that I whole heartily agree with the saying that FHE is the only family fight that starts and ends with a prayer....Things can get pretty lively during that time.  Sometimes I wonder if they even get anything out of FHE....:P.