Subway art

I love all the Subway art that's trendy right now. I liked having a St Patty's Day one on our mantle (yes - I know its not a real mantle but that's what I call it!) I knew there would be spring ones coming out but I wanted one that focused on the Savior and not on the Easter bunny and egg hunts. I tried making one last night and they are WAY harder to make then they look! Here is what I came up with!

It's the small things...

...that make the difference!

For example: We bought these re-freezable ice cubes while at Disneyland. We thought they would enjoy them with A&W (they have insisted A&W become part of our movie and pizza night!)

But their best use has come in this form:

They love to eat hot cereal but its always a fight because its "TOOOOOO HOT!" Now each morning I throw a couple of Mickeys in their bowls and they eat willingly and without complaint!

And without complaint makes ALL the difference!

Chore Charts

Now that our house is all organized I am determined to keep it clean! While I was in CA Caleb went to the Hicken's each day and he was so excited when they put him on their chore chart - go figure!?! When I got back I decided it was time to have the boys start doing chores around our house too.

It has been the best thing that has ever happened to our house! Our mirrors, counters, and windows are clean ALL OF THE TIME! Its awesome! They do such a good job and they love to do them. Here is the chart I made for them to check off each day.

We also put the token system into play and the boys can earn marbles by doing their work with a good attitude, being kind, sharing, and doing things without be asked twice. On Thursday's if they have done all of their chores for the week that earns them enough marbles to play Club Penguin. In order to "buy" the other rewards they have to earn the marbles in other ways. This is the rewards chart I made.And because I knew I didn't want to fall behind on the house either I decided to make myself a chore chart too! I laminated and posted it on the fridge and each day I use a dry erase marker to cross them off and then erase it when the week is done. It works really well! Not only do I feel like I can keep up on the house but I also don't feel overwhelmed on any given day.

Potty Training Progress

Becks is doing AWESOME with potty training. People say boys are harder than girls but I think it might be because they wait to long. He now goes all by himself without me having to ask him as long as he only has undies on. We put pants on him last night after he had gone all day without an accident and whoops!

He is also 0-2 on going number 2 but I expected that. For some reason that always takes a lot longer to catch onto - maybe its because there are less opportunities. Either way I am really proud of him and we have had a lot of fun the last few days! Our new favorite song (to the tune of the Tiki room) In the pee-pee pee-pee pee-pee pee-room pee-pee room, in the pee-pee pee-pee pee-pee pee-room pee-pee room...I will save you the rest of the song full of very creative and potty filled language :)

He has also rocked his big boy bed. Last night was the first night he got out of bed but he went right back to sleep. The night before I actually heard him get up for a minute right after Caleb had been up to go the bathroom. I heard Caleb help him back to bed and tuck him in and then they both went straight to bed.

Those kind of moments make my Mommy heart melt!

Bye Bye Diapers!

I keep coming up with reasons why I'm going to potty train Beckham "next week" and have been saying "next week" for about a month now. I'm seeing his interest wane a little and so last night he and I went and let him choose big boy undies - Yo Gabba Gabba, Cars, and Thomas the Train. Today we are doing laundry and I thought I might as well multitask it with the potty training laundry.

Now if you will excuse me its time to go sing our song....

"Pee Pee in the Po-tty! Pee Pee in the Po-tty!"

He looks SO big!
Wish us luck!

Bye Bye crib!

While I was in CA John found a toddler bed for free! Its such a great little sleigh bed! It was white and had scribbles all over it - nothing 3 cans of spray paint couldn't fix!




He did pretty good last night. It took a little reminding from Mom not to get out of bed but overall it was pretty easy! For the first time in 7 years we don't have a crib up! Its a little bit sad but also very exciting! In about a week I think I'm going to tackle making our home diaper free! Yikes!

Spring Break

We had a very full and fun Spring Break in CA!

• Disneyland (which was way to busy to do rides) but since Davis has been into getting autographs we went on the Toy Story Ride first thing in CA Adventures and spent the rest of the time on Main Street getting autographs and riding the Double Decker bus around. It was a fun change from our normal routine.
  
• Tony's Pizza - YUM YUM YUM!
  
• Sea World with Grandpa which was really great! We got to see the New Horizons show which was amazing and all of the animals seemed to perform right in front of us this trip. We saw the new baby Beluga whale (ohhhhh so cute!) and played hard in the Elmo's Playground area.
• Dinner with Grandpa and Grandma Henderson - always a treat! The boys love to golf on their little green in the backyard!
• Lots and lots of swimming!
• Daddy caught a ride and showed up Thursday!
  
• Boat races with Grandpa

And....


We did get to watch some surfing....




Some of the surfers were awesome...




And others entertaining....



The boys got to chase the birds....




... we also ate gelato, browsed the art vendors, and hung out!

We LOVE the beach!

Luck O' the Irish

This year I wore green in the form of my Moms ring and necklace and it made me feel lucky! I think it will grace my finger and neck each year on St Patty's.

Caleb made us a treasure map this year to find the hidden leprechauns in the backyard....

In the end we found the pot of gold....

...and the treasure to go with it!

It took a lot of time to make rainbow Jell-O for our treat and the boys were SO excited about it! I mean SO excited! It was hard to get a decent picture of it but it was really pretty.

It was yummy too!

Stair Spanking

We are in CA this week. Ive been going through my Moms closet and bathroom stuff. Its been full of all sorts of emotions and memories.

This morning I decided to take the boys on a true So Cal adventure to a special store that we don't have in St George (or at least that I have never seen). We went to a donut shop! Happy memories of my seminary days. My boys looooove donuts and so a whole store dedicated to donuts was sure to be a pleaser.

As we were going upstairs to get our shoes on I swatted Caleb on the bum and he protested loudly. I just cant help myself there is something about our stairs and bum swatting - especially if my brother Mark is anywhere around! I told Caleb that its just tough luck - if you don't want to get spanked you better run faster than me and especially Uncle Mark.

At this Davis exclaimed - "Uncle Marky! Uncle Marky! When I was at Uncle Marky's house he hit my bum when I goed up the stairs! But, but, he told me that it was their doggie! Really Mom, really!"

I laughed so hard! If anything sums up many of my memories of my brother Mark it might be that right there. Spanking my bum on the way up my stairs and him jokingly blaming things on something ridiculous. I'm so glad my boys wont miss out on that part of Uncle Marky. I wouldn't want us all to grow up too much!

6 dollar Bathroom Makeover

$3 Shower curtain - $3 Picture for the wall

Much better!