Sunday, November 21, 2010

Where's your cape?

Sometimes having a Dad that is a firefighter is hard... Having him gone for 24 hours at a time is kind of a hard concept to wrap your brain around when your a kid. There are days when you don't feel good or when you had a hard day and you just want your Dad. Plus there are times when Daddy has to miss important things like trick or treat night or when the Easter bunny comes. In a perfect world all Daddy's would come home EVERY night and tuck their babes into bed. But there are Daddies all over the world that are out keeping us safe all night, either in a dessert in Afghanistan, or in a firehouse 20 minutes away.
So we try to remind ourselves that having a Dad that's a firefighter does have it's perks. Like having a smoke detector in EVERY room of your house, getting to go "play" on all the fire trucks and ambulances when ever you go to the fire house and being able to get Santa Clause to come a night early on the Christmases that Dad has to work .... and bringing your Daddy to show and tell is kind of cool too!
Theo was asked to come in and talk to Ethan's preschool class about being a firefighter, It was So cute! They watched a music video about fire safety. (And I swear a 7 year old Lindsay Lohan was in it.) Then Theo asked them questions like ...what do you do if you see matches? and stop drop and roll type stuff... they are mostly 3 and 4 year olds... Here Theo is with his assistant, Ethan, (notice the arm on his hips?) He was cracking me up.... every time Theo would ask a question, the other kids would raise their hand and answer and Ethan would say "yeah so you know .... don't hide....yeah so you know, don't play with matches.... I love this picture cause you can see how the kids were just mesmerized by Theo putting on all his gear and Ethan is standing up in the middle of them all with this HUGE smile on his face... he was so proud! Here Theo is in all his gear, Darth Vader sounding, getting the kids to come up and touch him so they wouldn't be afraid if a firefighter had to come in their house. Just out of this shot there is a little girl loosing her SH*T.... she was crying and screaming.... and the crazy part... guess what her Dad does for a living.... he's a firefighter!!! Go figure! Ethan got to give all his friend their own plastic fire helmet and coloring books and was talking about his Dad coming to talk to his class all week long. I sometimes forget that Theo is a real life hero...I usually hear the hilarious stories about the stupid things he sees or the stupid things people say and do! It's easy to forget that he runs INTO burning buildings when everyone else is running out.... he can find a person without a pulse... and bring them back to life.... he's delivered babies and held a dying person's hand and comforted a nervous mother... he really does do amazing things! I'd forgotten that, but luckily through Ethan's eye's I've been reminded he's a REAL life superhero... with a cape and everything!

Sunday, November 7, 2010

I have a new obession!

I can't even tell you how much I love to sew! Who knew it could be so much fun! I love turning scraps into these usable/wearable works of art. I've decided to try and sew all of my Christmas presents this year! I've got 2 down...... how many weeks until Christmas??? Ahhhhhh

First I made this little "party" skirt for Leah... first time I've made anything like this! I followed a step-by step tutorial on U-create!!! She was loving modeling this skirt! It cracked me up! And this little beauty is a Nintendo DS case, complete with a place to store your games! (how to people come up with this stuff!) I'm making one for two of my nieces and probably one for Alex if I can find some more "manly" material!
I found this tutorial at http://madquilter.blogspot.com/2009/02/nintendo-ds-pouch-tutorial.html

Friday, October 29, 2010

Utah 2010.... Follow and drop it....

Leah, Ethan, & I just got back from a 4 day, 5 night stay in beautiful Provo Utah at the luxurious Gibbs Bed & breakfast...

Our first day out there, we just happened to know a BYU professor who scored us tickets to the game versus Wyoming. It was actually Leah & Ethan's first college football game. Leah loved the cheerleaders, Ethan loved the band, and we did our best to learn the fight song.... rah rah.rah..... GO Cougars.... It was VERY cold so we bundled together and got some Hot Chocolate from the vendors in the stand. (I thought it was VERY funny to hear them hollering ... "get your Hot Coco here or Red Vines.. get your red vines... instead of " Get your Ice Cold Bud Light") Sunday we of course joined them at church where it just happened to be the children's turn to speak & sing. Abbey got to stand up and say "she could set the WHOLE table by herself" and Leah loved the singing and we heard her singing later in the day "follow and drop it... follow and drop it" (it's suppose to be "Follow the Prophet"... but what can I say her Daddy's a fire fighter and stop drop and roll is ingrained in her head) we got a good chuckle out of that. I also love seeing the kids all dressed up! On Monday we found ourselves at Kangaroo Zoo.... if you visit Utah, you have to check this place out! It's a Warehouse full of bounce houses and slides and decorated with ALL IKEA stuff! It was so fun! As you can imagine the kids worked up quite a sweat playing and bouncing so we threw them all in the tub together. I thought a bubble bath would be so fun, and then they found the button that turns on the whirlpool bath.... notice in the first picture how low the water & bubbles are.... well it didn't take long for there to be TONS of bubbles... up to their ears....they had so much fun! Even if that meant there was water & bubbles all over the bathroom! You can see Ethan showing off his bubble muscles! One Tuesday we celebrated Abbey's 5th birthday (Leah & I have been at Abbey's birthday party EVERY year! The theme was based on Abbey's favorite book "The Berenstain bears Old Hat/New Hat. First Danielle read the book, then they made NEW hats. The kids even had a chance to pin the flower on the hat. (is that cute or what?) It was a great party and we got to meet a bunch of Abbey's new friends! Can't believe Abbey & Leah are both 5 years old!!! I also had made the all 5 kids matching pajamas, here they are fresh out of the bathtub ready for bed on our last night! I love these kids SOOOOOO much! And this is of the newest members of the Gibbs family, Little Mariann. She was sick when we first got there so she slept alot the first few days. This was the first day she was feeling better and I get to see more of her little personality. She's a sweetheart, but a bit of a Momma's girl! She is going through the "I only want my Mom" stage. but as long as Mommy wasn't in sight she was quite happy with me!

We had the BEST time and are so thankful that we were able to come visit them! The kids played together non-stop and it was like it had been only days not months or actually more than a year since they'd been together last. We had some great talks after the kids went to bed and I'm relieved that when we all die we'll still get to sit together in the cafeteria (Ben's analogy for the Celestial kingdom)

I still wish they lived down the street, but.... I'm so glad that they are finally enjoying living in Utah and making friends! I was trying to put my friendship to Danielle into words, and ended up borrowing a line from the TV show Grey's anatomy If you watch the show you know about Christina & Meridith's friendship and in a recent episode one said to the other .... "Yes we have husbands that we love, but you and me, we're soul mates"

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

How is it the middle of October already?

I seriously can't believe it's October 19th already, this month is flying by! We've been busy with camping trips, visits from My Dad & Connie, a trip to Circle S to get pumpkins, and..... we leave Friday for our trip to visit the Gibbs! I guess that's partly why I'm surprised this month has gone by so fast, usually when your waiting for something your excited about it seems like forever while your waiting.


Up first our camping trip.

We somehow convinced My Mom and her husband, My sister and her husband to join the kids and I on a camping trip in Old Man's cave in Hocking Hills. This area of Ohio is absolutely BEAUTIFUL! when we went this past summer i thought that it would be twice as gorgeous in the fall with all the leaves turning colors. We were a bit early for the best fall foliage, and it didn't help that it rained ALL night long. It was cold and the grownups were kinda grouchy and just wanted to get warm and out of the rain so it wasn't exactly the camping trip I had hoped for, but the kids had a great time. Up next my Dad and his wife Connie and her daughter Hannah made a quick trip from Illinois. They have had a CRAZY busy fall so we were so glad they could squeeze in a quick trip. We took them to the Italian festival Saturday night. We were able to grab this quick group shot before they leftAnd my Dad loves profile shots, but I laughed when i saw this because we all look like..... well to steal a line from the movie up.....

SQUIRREL!!!! And I love this picture of my Dad with the kids! I wish we lived closer and he could swing by on his way home from somewhere and pop in a read the kids a book or help Alex with his homework. I miss him the most right after we get to see them. I just love my Dad! And then as is our fall family tradition, we took the kids to Circle S Farms to pick out the perfect pumpkins and eat the best donuts in the whole world!!! The kids get to go down slides into huge piles of straw, wander through bales of hay made into a maze go on a hay ride out to the field to pick their own pumpkins and then finish it off with the best pumpkin donuts. This is one of my favorite traditions! It amazing for me to see the pictures from just 2 years ago when Ethan was just a little baby! I asked Theo if he thought we'll be able to drag them to
Circle S farm in 10 years... he says no... but.... I hope we can!

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Who's your woobie?

Remember that movie Mr. Mom? I loved that movie. When I was a kid I loved the parts that involved the wobbie... like when the vaccum cleaner "jaws" attacked or when his dad was trying to wash the little guys wobbie. The other night I realized that My kids had "Wobbies" of their own and wanted to document the name & faces of these special little creatures!
Leah has Gus-Gus the Elephant (he came before Gus our dog)
and a little puppy she's named Shiney Rose Ethan has the Pup... "Oh-No" Alex has this little snoopy dog that his pal Rick got for him a long time ago and it seems to be the only stuffed animal that's stayed around... even though he "doesnt use it" it somehow remains in the general vicinity of his bed.
At this 'ol guy was MY woobie as a kid. Funny that Alex and I both have a snoopy. This poor guy has survived about 100 moves and and about as many "surgeries" to reattach his nose. This was a well loved stuffed animal and after seeing the movie Toy Story 3 (and crying) I was so happy that I still have this guy around. Even if he's in the linen closet most of the time. I hope that I'm able to hang onto the kids special woobies until they get older too!

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Life lessons... from Kohls???

So Leah had been asking for weeks and weeks if she could have a pair of Twinkle Toes shoes. They are a pair of ridiculously be-jeweled, glittery tennis shoes made by sketcher. She HAD to have them! They were SOOO pretty!!!

Luckily for her, she got a pair for her birthday from Grandma & Grandpa! She was so excited and kept saying she was going to wear them on her first day of school! So she wore her sparkly shoes with her sparkly skirt & sparkly shirt on her first day of school and when I went to pick her up, the first words out of her mouth were "MY FEET HURT"

She took the shoes off as soon as we got home and she refused to wear them again. So here we had what I would call ,"expensive" for a child, tennis shoes sitting UN-worn in the mud room. I just couldn't take it so I took the shoes back to Kohl's were Grandma had gotten them.
The lady behind the counter was so nice and as she was handing me the gift card she looked at Leah and said "Just because something looks cool on TV doesn't mean it's going to be cool for you! You have to do whats best for you Little Lady"
I thought that was pretty poetic for a pair of shoes..... so we went and tried on several pairs of shoes and found a comfy pair that were also quite "cool looking" and as were were walking out Leah says "I guess I found what was best for ME!"
I wish I could bottle that up!!!

Thursday, September 2, 2010

What are you thankful for?

So I realized today, that I was complaining ALOT!!! Theo has been out of work for 4 weeks because of an ankle injury. So he's been home... resting his ankle.. which looks alot like loafing in his recliner... and I've been running around like a crazy woman all week... so I realized i was getting a little ...uh....snotty... yeah lets go with that word.... snotty with him. I was down at my neighbors house when their next door neighbor pulled in wearing name tags for Children's hospital.. their 2 week old baby is at Children's hospital... heart problems.... but they were so happy and hopeful.... and I realized on my short walk home that I was in DESPERATE need of and attitude adjustment.

So today I'm thankful for
Doctors, nurses and physical therapists to speed Theo in his recovery
Great schools for my kids to go to
smart, funny, & healthy kids
dirty dishes because that means we didn't go hungry
a big slobbery dog that loves me unconditionally
a computer to stay in touch with people that are far, far away
my corny, story telling, dancing & singing father
a husband that forgives my bad moods and messy ways
friends that tell me their secrets and listen to mine
have I mentioned Chocolate
bed sheets that are soft and smooth like butter
calculators
the flowers that surround my front porch swing
I'm able to be myself and still have so many people that love me!
What could I possibly complain about now??? How about you? What are YOU thankful for?