A Thanksgiving Feast

Today, we were invited to attend Max's Thanksgiving Feast at school.  I love that I'm home, and able to attend things like this!  Ivy and I headed over there to catch Maxer in action.

They had a huge long table set with all the feast necessities.

 The parents all waited  for the kids to walk out in their costumes they had made.  They were able to choose if they wanted to be a pilgrim, or an indian (they made both)  Max was the first one out, beaming with pride at his costume.  

 He sat down at the head of the table, and hollered over at Ivy to come give him a hug.

 This is the back of his darling Indian vest.  He loves to draw and color...

Let the Feast Begin!

 Mrs. Anderson's Class Picture

It was so cute, and I look forward to many more little activities like this!

Max' last football game and TROPHY!

 Max did so good at his last football game!

What a tough guy...I told him I'd pay him 50 cents for each flag he pulled and a dollar for a touchdown.

I owe him $2

He really had fun playing football, and I think it made him feel like a big kid.  

 Hot shot drinking his water bottle:

 All those little guys with their mouth-guards in crack me up.  

and miss Ivy is such a good little fan.  She says: go saints, go saints in her little mini voice.  ps...i love jeggin's on her little body.  hee hee

 After the game Daddy met us in time for the trophy shindig at this really yummy hot dog/hamburger place called PeeWees...YUM!

 Max was thrilled to get another trophy!

Football was fun, but when's t-ball!?!

it's a...!

I had my ultrasound on Tuesday!

Jeff wasn't able to come, which was just fine because they gave us a DVD of it, and we were able to do a little 'gender reveal' party with a bunch of our friends!

So, when it came time to tell what flavor of baby I've been cooking up, the ultrasound tech turned the screen, took her necessary pictures, and put the results in a little envelope I'd brought, and sealed it.  

My friend Tara gave me this fun idea to have a bakery dye a cake either blue or pink, and then frost it so that you couldn't tell what color it was.  Then, when you cut into the cake, you were able to find out what kind of baby you were having...either pink or blue!

So, I handed off the envelope to my friend Jillonnie who offered to be our 'bakery' and we had to wait a few more days to find out what we were having.

So, after church on Sunday, Jeff and I hung up this little banner on our front window:

 We set up a little tally vote, and waited for our friends to come over!

we were both so excited...and the kids could hardly wait to cut the cake today!

 When everyone was there, I couldn't stand it any longer!

 The final tally was in favor of a boy:

 The first cut:

 drum roll, please.....

 ...

 ta-daaaah!

 it's pInK!

 We passed out pink lollipops (no, I didn't have a stash of blue, I had these hoarded away since Valentines day for another project!  (ha, perfect day to get rid of them!)

 and we popped all the blue balloons!

The tie is broken, Girls win, 3 to 2!  WOO HOO!

Thankful!

So we're pretty much all settled in our new apartment, except for a few stray frames and such that still need man-power to hang.  We are so far loving having 3 bedrooms, being close enough to walk Ivy to all of her playgroup homes, and having fun kids to play with outside EVERYday after school...not to mention moving in right across from one of my favorite friends ever!  Life is good, and I'm so thankful!

So, while I was thinking about how thankful I was to be where we are, despite the lack of W/D, we got a knock on the door.  We opened it up to find 2 cute little girlies from Ivy's nursery class and Syd's fun daddy, who all just happen to live here, too. They came over to see if Ivy wanted to go on a ride with them in the coolest wagon I've ever seen.  Ivy was thrilled!  Thanks for the ride, Jeff, Ruby and Sydney!  We're so excited and thankful to have such fun neighbors!

Gosh, we're lucky!

Halloween!

I decided to sew my kids Halloween costumes this year.  I've never done that before, I'm not a pro at following patterns, and it's always just been too much of an ordeal for me...plus, Pottery Barn and Baby Style had such cute costumes all the time...how can you stand to pass them up!?

Anyways, I did it...and I showed them over on iCandy, but I thought I may as well post about our Halloween a little bit, since our month of October and Halloween decorations and festivities were drastically cut short by moving.  But, Davy, Davy Crocket was thrilled to be in his buckskins for Halloween:

and Ivy loved getting to dress up as a princess, get her hair done by Jillonnie (nope, her mama can't french braid like that...my sister wouldn't let me touch her hair when I was younger...or even now for that matter! wink wink, erin!)

It was really fun that they LOVED something that I made them!  they both LOVED them!
sigh
I guess that means I have my work cut out for me next year!
Anyways, we did have a fun Halloween...Daddy went to Hawaii for work (poor guy) but Grandma cam over from AZ to help us celebrate.  The only together picture of the two crazies I got on Halloween was this goofy one...{max, what are you doing?!?)  We always head over to the Albertson's shopping center to trick or treat.  This year, we also hit up Cafe Rio in our costumes took a trip down a scary fairy tale village and trick or treated in my Great Aunt's neighborhood.
HOLY Candy, and a super happy halloween!

The Purple People-Eater

Ivy is getting very opinionated on how things need to go.  Especially as far as what she will wear, and how I am to do her hair.  

Wow.

it's a new experience for me, and I'm barely muddling my way through.  Some days, she looks like an absolute ragamuffin!

Anyways, a couple of Sundays ago, she was insisting on wearing this purple dress.  It's a summer dress, mind you with teeny little spaghetti straps.  She did NOT want to wear the stinkin' purple cardigan that I was insisting that she wear (it's not summer anymore...) and it was a happy morning.  Anyways, I finally roped her into wearing the cardigan just through Sacrament Meeting on the condition that she was allowed to take it off for Nursery.  Her hair wasn't an issue this particular morning since the Trunk or Treat was the night before, and Jillonnie's remnants of awesome french braids were still evident.  She also got to wear her pretty purple necklace she got for her birthday that she LOVES and her sparkly purple Jasmine shoes...who wouldn't feel pretty?!

Anyway, she looked cute, despite the negotiations, so we took a picture.  She was more that happy to pose.

Don't be alarmed if I cut her hair into a bob, soon...I can't stand scraggly hair on little girls!  ahhhhh!

classic ives

suckin' her thumb and twirlin' her hair. 

 classic.

the grocery store

We've been busy lately.  busy.  I don't know with what specifically, but playgroup, taking max to school, picking him up, his 100 mile club, volunteering in his classroom, sewing, packing...everything.  The days just fly by and I don't know where they go!

So, today, I took a break...I needed to get some stuff from the store, so on the way out the door to take Max to his morning run, I grabbed Ivy's toy shopping cart that her sweet cousin gave her a while back.  She loves the thing around the house...but nothing compared to taking it to the store for reals today!

 She did EVERYTHING today.  

I told her what we needed and where it was, and she grabbed it off the shelf.

 If it was a little too high, I picked her up to get it.  She chose the bananas, the cucumbers and chose what cantaloupe to get.  She was very particular as to where to put things.  She didn't like the stacking idea, the bananas HAD to go under the cart, and the meat was not her favorite thing to have in her cart.  (hilarious)

 She battled her way around end caps and mid-aisle displays, and around old ladies who were just too slow for her patience ( I totally know that feeling!)

 She was so proud of herself!

 Then she unloaded all of her goods onto the conveyor belt, by herself.

 She swiped my card, pushed the buttons on the debit machine...and then she got a pink balloon for all of her efforts.  

and she was sooo happy!

Max is famous!

There's a new Pediatric Clinic in Gilbert, AZ...who just happens to be my awesome Peds Doc Brother-in-law...and thank goodness he is, because we call him constantly for advise on what shots we should give, how much medicine to give, and if we really should go to the Dr...or just have someone to ease our minds.  He's awesome...and here's his newest flyer starring...our favorite: Max! (upper left)..isn't he YuM!?!

So if you're in the market for a new Pediatrician, and you live in AZ...seriously...Steve's the best!

What Max has been eating lately...

he's gotten one of the legs in his mouth already, just he tip...oh man...I wonder if he'll continue to eat it!

I got this lollipop for him when he turned 4...so, over a year ago, and he wouldn't' touch it then.  no way, no how.  So I showed it to him again the other day, and he was so excited!  I guess Kindergarten does something to a kid!  I'll show you progress as he goes...Nasty!

I got a brand new pair of roller skates

I sent Jeff to Wal mart to see if he could find a new tire for Ivy's little hand-me-down bike that our friends gave us.  He came back with a brand new bike...I guess it was cheaper than buying to new tires!

Anyways, Ivy was thrilled to have a big-girl bike, especially because she hasn't been able to reach the pedals on her little trike.  Anyway, she can ride this one!  woo hoo! so fun!

 Her friend Jaxon came over to ride bikes one morning, and they were out there for almost 2 hours.  (nice, I can just sit on my extremely lazy bum in the driveway and watch!)

Conference

Normally, the FHE before conference, we learn about King Benjamin and how he built a tower so that he could speak to all the members of the church.  All the people gathered around that tower and set up their tents to listen to their prophet.  Then he wrote down what he had said, and sent it around to all the members so they could re-read it and remember his counsel...hmm, sounds familiar, and I think it's so appropriate for my kids to learn about why we have conference, and how important it is to listen to our Prophet today!
So, we normally break out the little kiddie tent, call it a reverence tent, and give the kids a few conference activities to do in their while we're listening.  We usually only make them listen to the Prophet speak on the morning session on Sunday...one talk is MORE than they can handle normally.  I talked about it here.   BUT this time, Jeff was gone at work, I was too lazy to walk out to the garage and get out the tent, let alone set it up by myself, so we make-shifted a tent and called it good.  

 We made it through 5 talks...they were so enthralled with their activity books this year...I was so impressed.  

anyway, i love this tradition that we have an just thought I'd share it...again!

Playgroup Strikes Again!

I loved doing play group a couple of years ago with Max...It was just Max and another cute little boy his age, it was easy to plan stuff for two, fun to make stuff for just 2, and I actually LOVED doing it every week.

Last year, we attempted a playgroup with Ivy, and in hopes of giving ourselves more free time, we did it for 2 weeks straight...well, 5 girls (or boys, for that matter) for two weeks straight makes me want to stab out my eyes...I might be the only one!

Anyways, so with not feeling 100% with our little rookie on the way, the thought of doing a big group again made me cringe.  So, we kept it small again this year, with 3 girls (the other two went two are older and went to "real preschool" and we chose to do take on one week at a time!  It's waaaay better!  way!

So, 2 weeks ago, I was in charge of the letters C and D...and my lens on my camera was giving me fits, so I didn't take many pictures, especially on C day...but I still thought I should record what we did!

C was for caterpillar...we learned about them, did a flannel board story, did some color matching with caterpillars, 

 worked on numbers and counting (which also starts with a C..)

and then for snack, we read the very hungry caterpillar, and wandered around our yard snacking on the same foods the very hungry caterpillar ate...apples, pears, plums, strawberries, oranges, a sucker...and lastly, a leaf (a piece of lettuce)...the girls were hilarious with the fruit.  ha!

anyways, that was C...

 D is for Desert

learned about deserts from a couple of books, learned where the desert was in the US, and what kind of animals and plans live there...and why other animals don't!

We explored a desert scene chock full of desert creatures, eek!

We learned about the plant life in the desert...

...and then created our own using green salt dough and broken spaghetti noodles

 and we talked about the scary animals that live in the desert...ok, mostly just this one that Grandma brought us.  yikes!

 Then we worked on the letter D with Dots, of course...they loved this activity...those dot-a-dot paints from Lakeshore are awesome!

Little Turkeys

They sleep with the hall light on and the door open "big" per Ivy's request.  How on earth did this happen without us hearing them? 

What a bunch of turkeys!

...and really, how did they fall asleep right next to each other?  that never happens!