Snowball fight!

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Gotta do at least one jibjab at Christmas time!
Besides, can't you see my boys doing this in real life?

Jacob tries his hand at hairstyling

Sweet Jacob must have been duly impressed with his last haircutting experience, because he decided to try his hand at the haircutting profession. Thankfully (this is the month to be thankful, right?), he practiced his skills on himself. I'm also thankful to have a boy, because what would I do if a daughter did this to herself???

Jacob's handiwork:

Mom trying to "even it out":


Jacob was actually happy with the end result:

Levi wanted to shave his head, too, at first:

But then decided that he was happy with having hair after all:

Halloween pictures

I just thought I'd post these while the sugar rush keeps me going...
We had a fun Halloween! We waited until Halloween to carve the pumpkins (yeh, we meant to do that... it was the plan all along...) Jordan used the natural scarring on his pumpkin to make it look as though his pumpkin had a scar through his eye. Zachary made his pumpkin's eyes a little lopsided to make it look as though it was a little "mentally unstable." And, yes, the pumpkin is intentionally "drooling." Caeden wanted to be a little creative, so he tried to follow a pattern of a skull. It turned out really neat - especially with the light on inside!
Aaron took the kids out trick or treating while I stuck around here and handed out candy.
Jordan was a body builder,
Zach a zombie surgeon,
Caeden was a dark ghoul (sorry, you've got to look up top to see him - he was too fast getting out the door for his individual portrait),
Jacob a dinosaur,
and Levi an elephant.
Aaron commented that Levi got his mom's sugar loving genes...
We picked up lollipop sticks all night long!

After all was said and done, everyone brought in a pretty good haul of candy; and after such a busy day, ending with a good tooth brushing, the boys slept really well last night! Hope you had a great day, too!

Happy Halloween!

I hope everyone is having a great day! We started out the day with pumpkin pancakes. They were so yummy, I wanted to post the recipe online ~ just in case I lost my copy, and also to share it with everyone who likes us enough to check out our blog every now and then...
Our (new) traditional Halloween breakfast
Pumpkin Pancakes
2 cups all purpose flour
3 TB brown sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. allspice
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ginger
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 cup milk
1 cup pumpkin
1 egg
2 TB vegetable oil
2 TB vinegar
Mix all the dry ingredients in one bowl; all the wet ingredients in a second bowl. (Use a blender to mix the wet ingredients.) Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, and cook on a medium hot griddle. The batter is a little thick, but the recipe cautioned against trying to thin it out using extra milk, saying that it would dilute the pumpkin flavor. Just spread it around a little on the griddle. Another hint given in the recipe was to let the batter set for about 5 minutes before cooking in order to let the vinegar fully react with the baking soda so that the pancakes would be nice and fluffy. I did, and they were! I like them better than IHOP's pumpkin pancakes.
Hope you try these out! If you do, let me know what you think!
Now I'm off to prepare for the sugar rush...

Is it really that time of the year?

This is what we discovered when it was time to send the boys out the door to school Tuesday morning:


We knew it was coming. Even mowed the lawn on Monday for the last time. Picked up the soccer cones and sand toys, pulled the last surviving plants from the garden. But it still throws me a little to look out and see this.
Jacob, however, couldn't be more excited!He got all his winter gear on and ran in circles for 20 minutes, just loving "my new season!" He gets a little frustrated with me when I try to explain that it is still fall, so now I just concede that this is "winter weather."

After the boys all were home from school, the snowman building began.We didn't get a ton of snow, but just enough to make a few of these frosty fellows for our yard. I love that they love to play in the snow. I just hope it lasts...

Levi's idea of entertaining himself

Guess he was hungry for some oatmeal...

I followed the sounds of a giggling boy, knowing that sounds like that coming from the kitchen wouldn't be good. He was throwing oatmeal up into the air and laughing as it hit his head. As soon as I said his name, he knew he was in trouble. Smile was gone, and he sat still as if thinking "maybe she won't see me if I don't move."

Do you know how hard it is to take a picture of something like this without laughing at your child?

I guess the swine flu has everyone scared...

Why haven't I posted for a month?

disclaimer: Please know that I love my boys... I'm just doing some theraputic venting, because I know one day I will be able to look back and laugh... but right now, it's just not funny!

Today I decided I wanted to catch some news before lunch. I go downstairs to the basement family room and watch the weather, and soon Jacob comes down to hit a ball around with this plastic hockey stick thingy. After 10 or 15 minutes, I think out loud, "I wonder what Levi is doing?" I could hear his little feet pitter-patter across the floor above me, so I wasn't too worried about him. Jake casually mentions "He is feeding our Thunder-fish."
"HE'S WHAT????!!!!!!"
Now, you have to know, our fish, named Thunder (don't ask me why he's named Thunder ~ the boys named him) was a door prize that the boys got to bring home from a pack meeting back in February 2007. I was told by a scout leader, "Don't worry, it'll only live a few days...", so we took him home, named him, fed him (I'm told this was my mistake), and loved him. That was over 2 1/2 years ago. He gets excited at his mealtime, and even comes to the glass and wags his tail-fin whenever we go look at him. Ask my dad - this fish has personality! And we've grown somewhat attached to him.
So I run upstairs, and discover the whole bottle of fish food has been dumped in the tank. Thunder is barely visable in all the disgusting gooey mess, and I start racing to get the punch bowl filled with clean water and treated so I can get Thunder into a place where he can breathe, and where he can chill out while I scrub out his tank. (yes, he's grown big enough to need the punch bowl as his temporary home.) Meanwhile, I go ballistic on my boys and put them in their room while I scrub plastic plants and castles. About an hour later, after the filter is de-gunked and finally reassembled, I go to the boys' room to check on them. They've taken all the folded, sorted, clean laundry out of the room next to theirs, dumped it on their bedroom floor,

emptied out their dresser, and every thing off the top of it, un-made Jacob's bed,

and to top it all off, they've gotten a little neck-pillow-thingy that has all of those itsy-bitsy-teeny-tiny foam beads in it out of my "to be repaired" pile (of course, it needed to be repaired because there's a HOLE IN IT that causes those afformentioned beads to fly all over whatever room they may be in and stick to everything with that lovely static cling that they have)... Ugh!!! So then I put Jacob and Levi in corners where I can keep an eye on them, and try to do some damage control. I find the neck pillow stuffed in the vent in their room (I guess Jacob started to realize that he might be in deep doo doo when those beads started flowing out of the pillow), so I pull it out and mention that "WE DON'T EVER TAKE THE COVERS OFF OF OUR VENTS!!!! STOP DOING THIS!!!"

"But mom," he says, "my little ball went down there and I needed to get it."

"IT WOULDN'T HAVE GONE DOWN THERE IF YOU WOULD HAVE KEPT THE COVER ON!!!" Yeh, I've kind of lost it at that point.

Now here we are, 3 hours later, it's time to pick Jordan up from the bus stop, my kitchen is a mess, I need to vacuum out the vents - the same vents where Jacob said his ball is, but I've found no ball, just kleenexes and granola bar wrappers -the few batches of laundry that have been done have now been voided out, since I have to shake the foam beads out of them and re-fold them, Levi has another poopy diaper (we can get him to pee in the toilet, but not poop), and they have the gall to ask me when they get lunch!!! Really? Are you Serious? Did I mention I just went to the bathroom and sat down on a seat covered with PEE?!!


So if you ever wonder what Christie is up to and why she hasn't posted recently, just remember, I'm the mother of 5 boys. Let your imagination run wild.

Jacob made it one more year!

Oh how I love my Jacob! He's a beautiful, active, wonderful child, and the only one that causes me to wake in the middle of the night terrified that he might do something to really hurt himself... He's a cuddler, and will tell me how much he loves me, and that I'm his most favorite mom ever. Good to know... He loves to have me near, and will meet me at the door when I run errands with a big, "Oh mom, I'm so glad you're home! I missed you!" - even if I've only been gone 15 minutes. This year, we only had one broken bone, and even though we lost him hourly while we were on vacation, we always found him (usually in the bathroom... long story...).

For his birthday, Jacob got to take treats to his preschool class. Oh that made him so happy! After school, we made his cake, and when his brothers got home, we went to "Jumpin' Jacks" to play.
Here's Jake with his new dragon castle - with his imagination, this thing can keep him busy for quite a while.
Then we came home, opened presents, had dinner, and played.
Wishing for another great year!
I think he had a happy day!

Jacob's first day of school

Is he really big enough to do this??? He's been talking about wanting to go to school like his brothers, and Aaron and I have realized that a year of preschool would be essential in his "social conditioning" so that he survives kindergarten, but sending the little man off for the first time just seems like such a big step. He is so excited, though! I couldn't find him for a few minutes this morning... He was in the van, impatiently waiting to go. We've been practicing "following directions" and coloring and tracing.

I hope he likes his teacher. I hope she's a patient woman who won't get too frustrated with Jacob's activity level. I hope they don't lose him. I hope he will stay out of the bathroom.

I hope he will want to go back for his second day on Monday. I hope he is just as excited after school as he was before. I hope he doesn't get frustrated and call everyone in his class a "stupid head." (We've been working on eliminating that from his vocabulary - but haven't been fully successful.) I hope he follows directions. I hope he makes friends. I hope he blends in. I hope he loves it.
I love my Jacob!

Minnetonka Caves

Before we left Bear Lake, we traveled up St. Charles Canyon (northwest of Bear Lake) to visit the Minnetonka Caves. It was fun to go through the caves - even if we did have to traverse something like 780 stairs (I'm not exaggerating!) I considered it my workout for the day...
We bought the boys head lamps for the camping trip (it's easier to find the bathroom and "do your business" in the middle of the night if your hands are free...don't ask, I guess it's a boy thing) and when they heard they were going to some caves they all decided they needed to wear them. My boys make me smile. Here's Caeden with his head lamp:
Zach thought this formation was pretty cool. (I think it's called the 3 sisters, but don't quote me on it!)
Here's Jordan. The caves were cool (about 40 degrees), but all the stair climbing kept me warm. Jordan, however, got a little cool. But it was all fun, none the less!
Here are my young explorers:
After the cave trip we headed on home to unpack, wash, pack back up, and head to Nauvoo, Illinios for our Rigtrup family reunion. More on the reunion later!

Paris Tabernacle

Bear Lake weekend, part 2: On Sunday, we attended church at the local wardhouse, and found it to be absolutely packed. On holiday weekends, this small ward holds three sacrament meetings to accomodate all of the lake loving mormons on vacation. We were 10 minutes early and still had to sit on the stage in the cultural hall. It was actually quite fun to know we were a part of hundreds of vacationing mormons who still believe in keeping the Sabbath day holy. After church, we went to Paris, Idaho to tour the Paris tabernacle - a fun building over 100 years old, still standing as a testament to hard working saints settling the area.
Zach hanging out before the tour started
Noelle and Caeden playing "peek-a-boo" in front of the tabernacle
Cute boys hanging out on the steps


I am so blessed to have these sweet boys in my life

More July Fun!

So the last day of school was July 2nd. My boys are getting so big! Caeden completed 1st grade, Zachary (above) completed 4th grade (both earning their Mustang Pride and Reading Awards - go boys!), and Jordan is moving on to middle school- 7th grade! I was surprised that there was no "6th grade graduation," - it seems that so many schools do that these days! - but he moves on nonetheless! After the obligatory last day of school ice cream, Aaron and I both did a shift at the Oquirrh Mountain Temple open house, then we hurriedly packed up and headed to Bear Lake for the 4th of July weekend. So Much Fun! We went with the Wilkins family, and had a blast. The first night it rained - poured, actually - and we discovered that our new (used) tent was a great buy! We all emerged the next morning nice and dry, and enjoyed another day on the beach. The boys worked on sand castles a huge part of the day! (Jacob corrects me "They're not sand castles, mom, they're mud castles!")
The water was a little chilly, so we spent a lot of time in the sand:
Working on the castles:



Jacob helped too!
Final Products:

While the older boys built "mud castles," Levi loved being pulled around in the boat. (This is a raft that Aaron and I bought for our first anniversary... It's had a good life!)
Break Time!
Jacob got worn out (maybe it was from his constant wandering up and down the shore...)
Cute Sam (the Wilkins newest family member!)
Levi enjoying the lake:
Jordan leaves his mark:

We'll continue with our fun weekend later - I've got to go clean peanut butter out of the carpet... But I still love my boys!