Thanksgiving in Arizona Part 3 (Sledding - Arizona Style)

My brother in law borrowed these great summer sleds from a friend. They are great if you live somewhere that doesn't snow. They have wheels on the bottom and they worked perfectly. Unfortunately they are hard to find because the company that makes them went out of business.

This is a picture of me racing my sisters. Pam had a little accident but notice that I am in the lead. I won! Ha, ha eat my dust Pam and Bonnie!

Thanksgiving in Arizona (Part 2 - Fun and Games)

The kids were in heaven at my sister's house. All they need is a back yard and a trampoline and they're good to go. They also had fun being silly with Grandpa.



All of the cousins laid down in a row on the grass and had Ryan drive his remote control truck over them. I have it all on video but I didn't get a good picture of the truck. They were laughing so hard and Ben said, "do it again a hundred times!" Unfortunately the battery died before we got to a hundred.

We had fun playing "Just Dance" on the Wii. This game is really fun - even if you're not so coordinated, like me. We even got Grandma to shake her bootie! (Sorry, don't have a picture of that either - but I do have it on video so if you need some leverage with Grandma, just give me a call;)

Thanksgiving in Arizona (Part 1 - The Dinner)

For thanksgiving this year we had the opportunity to go to Arizona to visit my sister. All of my siblings were there as well as my parents. We have a great time together. Dinner was amazing thanks to the culinary talents of my Mom, Dad, and brother. We also made turkeys out of oreos and candy.

Here's the finished product. They turned out cute. This is the only turkey that my kids were really interested in eating.

The F word

Sometimes people might say that I shelter my kids too much, but I think it's okay because I want them to stay innocent for as long as I can. The other day I realized how innocent they really are. Jimmy was in his room chanting "F word, F word, F word" over and over again. I was intrigued so I asked Jimmy if he knew what the F word was. He gave me a look like "come on Mom!" Then he said, "Of course I do Mom. F-A-R-T." I gave a sigh of relief and said, "yep, that's right," then went along with what I was doing saying a silent prayer of thanks that I wouldn't have to explain what the real F word is.

A few days later after that he educated me on the "S word." S-T-U-P-I-D. Ahh, I love the innocence of children:)

Luke's Preschool Thanksgiving Lesson

I had the opportunity to teach Luke's preschool class the week before Thanksgiving. We were learning about the letter G so we did a "gratitude" theme. To start off the day we enjoyed getting our hands messy with some gloppy goop. This stuff is so cool. You mix elmers glue, water and borax and it makes this slimy stuff that really doesn't stick to your hands so you can stretch it, cut it, roll it, whatever. It will, however, stick to clothes and it's not pretty when it does.

For snack we had cornucopias (waffle cones) filled with treats that start with the letter G - goldfish, grapes, and granola. It's funny - kids don't really like ice cream cones without the ice cream - go figure.

This was my favorite part. For our crafts we made a wreath with different ways to say thank you written on each leaf (hand) and a turkey. They learned how to say thank you in 8 different languages. The turkey was made with a coffee filter. The boys colored on the filter with marker then they sprayed it with water and watched the colors all bleed together. It made the feathers look pretty cool.

Halloween

I know it's like more than a month later but I am kind of behind with my blogging. This was what we had for dinner on Halloween, mummy hot dogs, bone breadsticks and scary apple teeth.

Carving pumpkins was fun. They always seem to go back to the 2 eyed alien look. They did that last year too. Jimmy's also has some sort of a growth on it's head. Not sure what's going on there:)

Couldn't get them to stand still for a picture so this is the best that we got. We were running late for our party or I would have taken the time to get a better picture. Oh well.

Luke's First Day of Preschool

After a week of sickness in the Ostler household, we were finally able to start Luke's preschool last week. We are doing it with two of his little friends, Johnny and Bhargav and us moms take turns teaching. The first day was at our house and we had a great time. We learned all about the letter A and did lots of fun activities with apples.

I made these mats for the boys to sit on when we do our circle time and story time. Well that's the idea. We all know that 3 year olds can only sit so long, but these 3 actually did pretty good once they realized that the mats were for sitting on and not playing with.

For a snack they made scary mouths with apples for the lips, marshmallows for the teeth, and peanut butter for the the gums. They really liked this.

We read the story "Ten Apples up on Top" by Theo LeSeig (aka Dr. Seuss). If you haven't read it you should. The kids loved it. It's about some animals who like to balance apples on their heads and do tricks. After we read the book the boys balanced these cute apple bean bags that I made on their heads. They got to 2 apples but any more than that was just too hard for these little guys. It was cute to watch them try.


We made these fun apple trees with the letter A for the trunk and the apples finger painted on with red paint. (Sorry it's sideways. I couldn't get it to rotate the right way in the upload.)

First Day of School

The boys started school last week! Hooray!! They both love their classes. Jimmy is in 2nd grade and he loves his teacher because she gives them "easy work". I don't think that will last very long. I think that she might be the only teacher at Clover Elementary that didn't give any homework the first week of school. That's just not Clover's style. He did, however, get homework this week, and LOTS of it! Let the fun begin :)
Ben started Kindergarten and he LOVES it! His teacher has a big bucket of legos in her class room and I think that Ben might be driving her a little bit crazy asking her if he can play with them. His class started out with 27 kids and they had to make a new kindergarten class because there were so many kids. So now he has only 22 kids in his class, which is much more manageable. Don't ask me how 22 5-year olds can be manageable, but those kindergarten teachers know how to work their magic. They are amazing that way!



Luke was going through some serious separation anxiety that first week that Jimmy and Ben were gone all day. So we decided to make them special welcome home cards for their first day of school. It is so cute to see him give his brother's a hug when we pick them up from school!

Three Years Later...

Early this morning, at about 5am I awoke to a sound that I never want to hear - the sound of my baby having a hard time breathing. It brought back a flood of anxiety - filled memories. When Luke was 3 months old he had his first of 12 surgeries because he had a hemangioma (a vascular growth) under his vocal cords. It finally stopped growing at 15 months but all of the surgeries left a little scar tissue behind in his airway. So whenever he gets a little cold virus his airway sometimes swells and that causes him to have difficulty breathing. It usually is not a cause to worry but this morning he was struggling so I took him for a little walk because usually cool air opens up the airway. Luckily it did the trick and he fell fast asleep shortly after that. He has been fine all day but I just keep having flashbacks of those horrible nights spent at the hospital.

Three Years Ago...

...Today

Thank goodness that God's miracles and modern medicine allowed this sweet little guy to live. I feel so blessed to have Luke as a son. He is an absolute joy to have around! Luke gives the world's best hugs and is so happy and friendly. He loves to share and make people feel better when they are sad. He adores his brothers and wants to do everything that they do (with the exception of going potty on the toilet). This morning when he woke up scared and sick the first people that he asked for were Jimmy and Ben. I love it that my boys are best buddies!

Here's a funny story about Luke that really illustrates just how much he follows his brothers. The other day he started spontaneously telling me the story of the 3 little pigs. This came from no prompting on my part at all. When he got to the part where the wolf began to huff and puff and blow the house down I asked him what happened next. And guess what he said?! He said that the Clone Trooper came and shot the wolf because he blew the house down. He is a Star Wars fan through and through just like his older brothers. But just for the record I really try not to let my 3 year old watch Star Wars if I can help it. Usually they are just pretending with legos and stuff but I guess that is what comes with the territory when you have older brothers.

I thank Heavenly Father every day for blessing me with the sweetest little boys! Some days I am just in awe of how blessed I am to have such a wonderful family! Their hugs, kisses, and running tackles make me realize that being a mom is the best thing ever!!

Luke's Birthday

I can't believe my baby is 3 years old!!! He is growing up so fast. It seems like not that long ago that we were taking him in for all of his surgeries. It has been such a blessing that he hasn't had any problems at all in the last year and a half. That all seems like it was a life time ago. He is a healthy happy little boy who loves to laugh and play and loves life. He loved this cake because he is absolutely crazy about dinosaurs. I had fun making it too!

Happy Birthday Me

I have the sweetest husband! He made me these brownies for my birthday. Unfortunately, he ran out of room and wrote Happy Birthday Me. He scraped it off and started over.

In the end it said Happy Birthday Meg. The kids thought that this was so funny - I thought they would never stop laughing!

Legoland

After 2 years of living in Los Angeles we finally made it to one of the many amusement parks that the area has to offer. Jim is kind of anti-amusement park so this is a big accomplishment for us. The kids had so much fun at Legoland - Jim even had fun! There was really no whining or misbehaving and even the kids did good;) I loved it when Ben would get off the rides he would ask all of the workers if they were magic. It was so cute. Just another reminder that I never want my kids to grow up. I love how they are so innocent and easy to please! This airplane ride was one of Luke's favorite. He couldn't stop smiling and laughing while he was on this ride.

Jimmy was even brave enough to go on a big roller coaster with Jim. It's kind of hard to see the look of terror in his face when he was going down that hill. I felt so bad watching him go down that hill. He's not exactly a thrill seeker. Jim was being such a good dad and holding his hand to give him a little bit of security. At least when he came off the ride he was smiling. But he was clear that he didn't want to go again.


We spent tons of time in the build and test room where they were able to build their own lego cars and then race them down ramps. They loved this! Jimmy and Luke spent most of their time at the ramps racing their cars while Ben only raced his car a couple of times. He spent most of his time at the table perfecting his design. They are following after their dad's footsteps - little engineers in training! Here are some pics of their cars. They went through a lot of revisions. I didn't get a great shot of the racing because it was pretty crowded, but they all did a good job and learned a little about aerodynamics in the process.






After this ride, I have resolved that it will be a LONG time before I let this kid get behind the wheel of any vehicle! Yikes!

Disclaimer: Whatever you do don't wear white to an amusement park! I learned this the hard way.

This picture made me laugh. I'm just glad that this wasn't a real woman that Ben was grabbing onto to help him get out of the car!




Miniland was really cool! It was my favorite part of the whole park. They have replicas of different world landmarks all made out of hundreds of thousands of legos! Amazing!


It took Luke about 30 seconds to assume this position in the car. He was wiped out after a very exciting and very long day!

Jimmy and Ben on the other hand were wide awake and ready for more. But after a few minutes they followed Luke's footsteps and fell fast asleep.