A word of explanation...

You may or may not have noticed I have added the song "Baby Mine" to my playlist at the bottom of this blog. And yes, you are right, that song doesn't really fit with the rest of my music on there. Let my tell you it's story, and you will get it.

When Jakey was a baby, Baby Mine was the only song I could consisitantly sing that would instantly relieve his stress and make him stop crying. I have no clue why this is. To this day, Jake just has to hear the first two words of Baby mine to get him to stop crying when he's hurt and smile when he's sad. He sings this song to his stuffed animals, his friends, and his brother. I have to say, he is way cuter when he sings it that Alison Kraus is, but I don't have the technology to get Jake's voice on here. So this song has become a regular in our household, sung at least 4-5 times a week. It only seems right that it go on the blog that is the record of our family's life.

Pumpkin Pickers!

We went to get our pumpkins yesterday at Maybe's pumpkin patch! We love, LOVE this place! It's owned by a family that lives right off the field and every year they set up the cutest places to take pictures. This year we didn't actually get too many posed pictures because it was about 49 degrees and windy. We didn't dress well for the weather, so it was a quick trip! Jake fell asleep in the car on the way there, so I got to have a little heater attatched to me for the first few minutes while I carried sleepy Jake around.

Those of you who know what kind of pumpkins are usually sitting on our porch will know that something is a little different this year! Instead of "the great pumpkin" Brian always wanders the patch looking for we have a cluster of little pumpkins. The rule in our family is, when you find the pumpkin you want, no matter what the size, if you can pick it up, you can have it. Need I say more about the picture of Brian and his pumpkin this year?!

This is how strong my Tyler is getting! He pulled me and our pumpkins in a wagon all the way down the road! We were about to hit a pumpkin so I told him to watch out and not hit the pumpkin. Jake, who had already gotten a ride from Tyler said, "Don't bother mommy, he's not very good at watching out for those!"

This was Jake's pick of a pumpkin. I love this picture! It's such a Jake face! This look pops up frequently when Jake is getting ready to say something profound!

This was Tyler's love at first sight pumpkin! He wandered the whole patch after seeing this one trying to find one he liked better. He couldn't, so we came back for the can-you-pick-it-up test. I had to give a 4 fingered assistance but he did it!

Then it took two of us to get it in the wagon! That was one big pumpkin! I think we're going to have to draw straws to figure who has to gut and carve this one!

Victory! We all found pumpkins! This little one was Brian's! We'll just have to look forward to next year for him to lift a big one for himself!

Mommy and Jakey with the pumpkins.
Yep, we still like each other!

Can anyone guess who's pumpkin this is? Doesn't it just look like something I would fall in love with?! You should see how "Kelly" this pumpkin is! If I could find a way I would preserve it and decorate all year with it! And no, I'm not going to carve it!

Here's one of the few posed pictures in the "cute" area we got.

My cuties! Jake was in the process of telling us how cold he was. It's really too bad it wasn't warmer, they have the cutest spots to take pictures!

5 things you may not know about me...

This was a tag from Christie and I love it!

5 Things I was doing 10 years ago

• Attending college at Western Washington University
• Planning a wedding to someone I hated (obviously not Brian!)
• Starting an addiction to coffee that was murder to break
• Eating 6 bowls of Rice Krispies for every meal, 8 if I was really hungry
• Buying a Golden Retriever puppy named Emily
  

5 Things on my to do list

• Go to the grocery store
• Take Jake to Preschool
• Go Visiting teaching
• Find my warming bag made with corn, my toes are freezing at night!
• Make Dinner, something with Chicken maybe...

5 Things I would do if I was a millionaire

• Pay off house
• Buy a 2008 black mustang, with leather seats, seat warmers and color changing cup holders
• Donate to the heifer fund
• Invest half of it
• Go to Buckle and buy everything I want!!

5 Places I've lived

• Bellevue Washington
• Bellingham Washington
• Midvale Utah
• West Jordan Utah
• Still here....hmm, maybe I should move!!

5 Jobs I've had

• Mommy (by far the best and hardest!)
• Proud Chili's waitress (second favorite)
• Trader Joe's
• Nanny (Worst job in the world!!! I bet that kid is a delinquent teenager now)
• Bellingham Grocery Outlet

5 People tagged

• Kecia
• Carrie Coleman
• Tanya
• Casey Vreeken
• Ashley Jameson
  

Halloween cookies

Tonight for Family Home Evening the boys and I made and decorated Pumpkin sugar cookies. This also doubled as a birthday treat for grandpa!

Jake was into the 3-D frosting effect as shown. That glob there was about 1 inch high. Yummy!
I just love watching little hands try to pick up individual sprinkles and place them on cookies. Like every one has a certain place to be.
Tyler was mister speedy froster tonight. Hence the fast knife on the left of the picture!
Tyler wanted his cookies to be Halloween sneaky, so he hid the sprinkles, so as to provide a surprise for the eater!

Airing my dirty laundry....

Actually the laundry featured in this post is clean, but whatever. This morning a lot of strange things have occurred to me, which prompt me to show you all pictures of my dirty house. This morning as I was reading through blogs I noticed some thoughts running around in my head. I started thinking, "Wow! their house is a lot cleaner than mine!" and "Oh look, they co-ordinate their kid's clothes" Until I realized, wait a minute, these are BLOG PICTURES... Of course they look good!
Then I read a blog of an old college friend, Bridgette, who recently had her youngest son pass away. She mentioned how grateful she was for how she treated him. She talks about the night before his death, how she and her husband were able to spend extra time with their son, without worrying about sending him to bed. I was so grateful for these tender insights into their life. It reminded me that it really doesn't matter what my house looks like. The reason it looks like this is because I have a sick child right now, and to me holding him while he feels terrible is more important than seeing my living room floor. Life really is so short and in the end of it all, when my children are gone, I will have a clean house, folded clothes, updated blogs, and a weeded garden. Right now, I'm going to enjoy the moments I have with these precious little boys. They are growing so fast!
This doesn't give me permission to live in a pig stye, but I think it gives me ample permission to let it go. I would rather have happy, loved children then a show house. So to the moms everywhere, let's let it go a little more. Just choose to put down the cleaner and build a lego house, watch scooby doo, play barbies (okay that was excessive, I wouldn't play barbies if my life depended on it), we can clean tomorrow, the mess is kind enough to wait for us.

The tigers

It's soccer season again!! Tyler is spending this season in heaven. He made it on the same team as his best friend in the whole world, Tyler Mauchley. And to his great surprise, the love of his life, meagan also is on the team. This is the two Tyler's kicking it around before a game.
Tyler played defender this last game. He was AWESOME!! He saved the ball 5 times with his amazing shoelace kicks! We were so proud of him and how hard he worked to protect that goal!
Running hard! This team is predominantly girls, so I think sometimes the boys feel like there's something to prove. Nothing gets a boy running faster than a girl trying to beat him!
Although he does have some scruples in that he doesn't like to kick the ball away from a girl. Especially when he thinks he might kick her in the shins. We keep trying to tell him, they signed up for soccer, they expect to get kicked!
And it wouldn't be complete without mentioning Tom. Who is the best soccer coach I've ever seen. He has done wonders with these kids and always remembers the point of the game while still helping motivate them to do their best.

Jake's First Day of School

Okay, This one actually happened a couple of weeks ago, but I'm a blog slacker. Jake started his second year of preschool! Instead of Sunshine square, he is going to a friend's house, whom he just LOVES! Miss Beckie is his new teacher and she is doing an incredible job! We are shocked at how much Jake is retaining this year in regards to letters and sounding out words. He is loving his new friends and his new school. In the picture are blue bunny and puppy. He loves those two things. On the first day they got to bring a little bag with three things that mean the most to them. Jake brought a picture of his family and these two animals.