Opposition in all things

Yesterday we had one of "those days." It had all the makings of a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. We had an ice storm, school cancellations, diarrhea, a bloody nose, a leaky roof, temper tantrums, spilled milk, a broken printer, missed naps, fighting children, a malfunctioning blue tooth, and more... at the end of the day I felt like I'd been hit by a truck, and incidentally it looked like a truck had driven right through our living room. After cleaning up the house and getting a good nights sleep, I was feeling a little better about things this morning. As I was scraping the half inch of ice off my car, this scripture came to mind, "for it must needs be that there be an opposition in all things." That's it. This is my opposition.

Although at times I feel sorry for myself and think I should be the poster child for "trials and tribulations," I really don't have it that bad. I have electricity (which many Iowans are without today), a healthy family (other than the diarrhea), and three cute little smiling faces to brighten my days. And when life gets back to "normal," I know I will appreciate it so much more than I usually do.

This picture doesn't do it justice, but this is some serious ice!

Just like Grandma Frost, this is why I had kids.

I have much to be grateful for and tomorrow is a new day (hopefully one without ice storms). What more could I ask for?

Fun Food

My kids are not the best eaters, or maybe I should say they are very selective about what they will eat. Ammon will eat large quantities of yogurt, or just about any kind of fruit. Carter loves peanut butter and can eat a plate full of cooked carrots. And Abbi will eat just about anything, as long as it is on my plate and she is feeding it to herself. But take your run-of-the-mill dinner item and they generally aren't interested in it. Every night it is a fight to get my kids to eat their dinner, and from the minute they sit down they ask me, "how many bites do I have to take?" How many bites?? Well it would be nice if you'd eat the whole darn thing, or at least eat until you are full. This dinner time predicament has proved to be even more of a problem the last five months as I've been trying to do it by myself. Picture me holding Abbi on my lap while she eats my food and I spoon feed vegetables to Ammon (which he immediately gags on and runs to spit them out in the garbage can) meanwhile, I tell Carter he needs to eat his chicken and he replies, "no thanks, Mom" and I have to explain to him that this isn't really a "no thanks" kind of situation. After we survive dinner and I manage to get the dishes done one-handed and the kitchen is finally clean, Carter comes back into the kitchen and says, "mom, I'm hungry" to which I reply, "well, you should have eaten your dinner." I spend the rest of the night hearing about how hungry he is because there is NO WAY I am giving him anything else to eat. Then we repeat it all the next night. Needless to say, I am getting tired of preparing meals that NO ONE eats. Lately, I have decided to try a new strategy. First, I am making more "kid friendly" meals (even if it means that I have to eat Mac and Cheese for dinner) and second, I am trying to disguise the food as something fun. You know what? It is working. Tonight the boys ate my "hot dog men" without even complaining and Carter even told me, "yow the best mom evow." I hope he still thinks that when Colby gets home in a couple of weeks and I start making him eat brocolli again. Until then, I think I'm going to stick with the FUN FOOD.

Hot dog men with cheese heads, ketchup hair and what is supposed to be a pasta tree.

It's amazing that when I tell the boys we're having sloppy joes I hear, "I hate sloppy joes." But tell them we are having "lion face sandwiches" and I got two thumbs up.

Sea creatures. These were such a hit we've had them a couple of times.

Pig cookies. Not that my kids needed any persuasion to eat their cookies, but I made these a while back for a ward party and thought they were fun enough to include in my fun food post.

I am still working on ways to convince my kids to eat vegetables. I checked out deceptively delicious, thinking it would revolutionize the way my kids ate dinner, but I ended up just throwing out frozen bags of pureed cauliflower a couple of weeks later. Any suggestions?

Karate Kids

Ammon and Carter recently earned their first belts in Tae Kwon Do. I was very proud of them for working so hard toward this achievement. When Carter was presented with his white belt/yellow stripe he got to show everyone his favorite move, the double motion. Ammon earned his yellow belt and got to give a speech. I was beaming when his sweet little speech started with, "I'd like to thank my mom..." The boys were so excited to wear their belts for the first time and they are already talking about earning the next ones.

Ammon must really like this pose, he did it every time I asked him to show me his "moves."

You don't want to mess with this one, he may look sweet but he has some serious ninja moves.

Abbi had to get in on the action. When I was taking pictures of the boys I told them to stand by the wall and say "cheese." After I finished taking Carter's picture, Abbi went and stood where he had been standing, looked at me and said, "cheese."

You know it's cold outside when...

There is ice on the inside of your windows..

Abbi is still getting her groove on despite the cold weather. I guess this little native Iowan was born for subzero temps.

A Holly, Jolly Christmas

This year, for the first time, we stayed home for Christmas. Although we missed seeing our families, it was amazing how nice it was for ALL of us to just be home together. We had so much fun doing simple, day to day things like having dinner together, reading stories, putting kids to bed, playing X-box, watching TV, and renting movies. After spending months apart, it was so nice to finally have our WHOLE family together. We enjoyed every minute of our TEN DAYS of Christmas vacation and made the most of our time together.

The kids were so excited to open their one present on Christmas Eve, and loved their new, comfy jammies.

On Christmas Eve, our friends the Taylor's invited us over for a wonderful dinner. The kids had a great time playing shepards in the nativity.

Abbi's costume lasted about 30 seconds, just long enough to snap this picture...

and make her hair look crazy.

We were all smiles on Christmas morning. Santa, Grandma Stewart and Grandma Frost all sent us LOTS of presents to open.

We spent a lot of time just hanging out at home. It's a good thing the boys had lots of "buddies" to join them.

We checked out the new Incredible Pizza company, and ALL of my boys had a blast.

The glow in the dark mini-golf course was especially fun.

Abbi even got her own golf club!

I guess all good things must come to an end. Tonight we had to take Colby back to the airport, again. There wasn't a dry eye in the car when we dropped him off. The good news is this is the LAST month that he will be gone. We are all looking forward to February!