Paw Patrol

This picture is obviously from a couple of months ago, but I still wanted to post it. The kids are playing on our neighbor's swing set...they may not have realized quite what they were committing themselves to when they invited our kids to play on it "whenever they want to" which turned out to be just about every single day. But I don't think their 14 and 16 year old boys really mind...

They are playing "Paw Patrol" here, which is a cute new show they've been loving to watch about these dogs that help their friends out of binds. They play "Paw Patrol" ALL THE TIME; Ali always pretends to be Ryder and Logan is always Chase. They will even refer to each other by those names sometimes randomly (Like Ali was telling me how she saw Chase at school, and I asked her if that was a friend, and she laughs and says, "No! Chase!" pointing to Logan). I thought it was funny that they never pretended to be the other dogs occasionally, like Eli does (he plays all the time too, but changes from Rubble, to Sky, to, Marshall, etc), but then I finally watched the show: Ryder is the one who is in charge, and Chase always has new cool gadgets to use. Suddenly their choices made a lot more sense:) There is also a character named Katie and they always want me to play her, and I can tell they think they are so cleaver at finding a legitimate reason to call me by my name!

A Grandma for Halloween

Did I mention Grandma was here for Halloween? Did I mention how much we love her and how fun she is? 

Armor

Logan took this box and made a helmet to go with his huge knife, and then decided he needed some more armor. He used paper, scissors, markers, and tape to make a sword, a shield, and a cape.

Falling

Eli fell out of his bed three times this particular night. This last time, it didn't even wake him up, poor thing!

In other sleep adventures...two mornings in a row I found him downstairs at 3:45am watching TV with a blanket, lovey, and a sippy of water. A few other mornings around that time I found him in bed with Ali. There is a reason his baby lock is back on the inside of his door...But that started him banging on the door all hours of the night. I wanted to be tough and just let him cry, but then I would see his light on and hear him playing with toys, or worse hear him saying he needed to go potty; and even though I was about 99% sure he didn't really need to go, I wouldn't put it past him to pee himself just to spite me. So, one day I got really tough: I took the light bulbs out of his light, I took all the toys out of his room, and I put a little potty in his room. With the lock on the door, it was a bit like a prison cell. I pointed out all the changes and told him I WAS NOT going to open his door FOR ANY REASON. I got out the big box fan to put in Logan's room and put ear plugs by mine and Jason's pillows expecting at least a night or two of door banging temper-tantrums....but none came. Not even a peep. Oh, how I love sleep.

School

Not surprisingly, Ali loves to play "school." On this particular day, she was Principle Eldredge, and I would bring misbehaving students to her office (ie the closet) for discipline. I made up infractions and found some of her solutions downright genius: one student was in trouble for stealing, and Principle Eldredge said, "Sweety, you know you shouldn't steal. I am going to give you this special eraser so you have something wonderful and don't feel like you need to take anything else." Love her.

Cousins

Conference

In hopes of inspiring reverence and enjoyment during General Conference I spent quite a while putting together binders for each of the kids with quite activities (hidden pictures, mazes, coloring, etc), and a conference bingo game. They were a hit, especially with Ali and Logan. In truth, I think them being used to sitting and working quietly at school had a lot to do with it, but they all were so reverent Jason and I felt like we got to hear most of all the sessions--a first in about 5.5 years:)

I only asked them to sit with us for one session each day, but they chose to stay by us during the other ones too. I think part of that was that I told them they could only have their folders if they were watching conference:) But I also really believe that part of it is that even though they don't really get most of what is being said, they do feel the good Spirit and want to be part of it. I love being a member of our church!