Lunchtime already?

My kids eat a peanut butter sandwich for lunch nearly every day. It's a favorite here around our house - peanut butter with jelly, or honey or banana - it varies sometimes, but we go through a lot of peanut butter! I did some math while I was making three peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch yesterday. I took an average of 5 days per week I give the kids peanut butter sandwiches (sometimes more, sometimes less). Well, if each child started eating these sandwiches at around two years old (again, average), and consider each of their ages (7, 5, 3)... I've made approximately 2,470 peanut butter sandwiches in my almost seven years of being a mom. Wow, I'm tired! It will be 2,473 by tomorrow!

Park City moms' morning out!!!

My husband is great to me during the week to arrange a periodic workday at home, when he can get things done and manage the troops while I get out for a morning of skiing. This week my friend Christa and I planned on skiing from 9 to 12 on Wednesday, but little did we know it would be the best powder day we've had for a long time! We did lots of blue and black runs, some of the terrain was untouched and we got to ski shin deep through the powder. I would say that "Newport" (see black diamond run to the left) was our favorite run of the day because we chose to do it twice. The powder (and burning thighs!) definitely took us to our butts a couple of times, but it was fun and we laughed a lot. In the end, Christa lost a ski once and I lost a pole once, but we had a great time and I'm thankful for a good friend to "powder around" with!

Me on Newport

Christa taking on the black diamond!

At the top of our last run - still smiling!

Naughty boys and creative discipline

Sauce and Rufus play well together, but occasionally they fight (as all siblings do). Well, instead of yelling at them, I took the advice of my friend who suggested a time-out that took some effort. So whenever I hear them arguing, I call them into the kitchen calmly and hand them each a penny. They need to hold the penny between their nose and the wall for the duration of their time-out (anywhere from 3 to 5 minutes) and if I hear the penny drop, their time starts over. Unfortunately, it backfired on me a little bit and Hunter came into the room and asked if he could try too. I handed him a penny and he joined his giggly brothers in the new contest. My job now is to find an amount of time that actually feels like a consequence to them. At the very least, they are distracted from whatever they were fighting about!!!

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Snow anyone???

We had quite a storm this past week with about 36 inches of snow over the course of two days. Our roof gets quite a bit of build up and Kenyon periodically shovels it off. The boys went out to play this week and had lots of fun climbing on and around the mountains of snow that were shoveled off the roof. It got a little scary when Hunter suddenly got on top of the roof and said, "Hey Mom, look at me!" We had to set some ground rules for where they were allowed to be from now on! They had a blast though and it got them nice and tired - which is always a good thing.

Rufus on top of one of the tallest piles of snow. I kept the porch in the picture just for perspective!

My cool little dude!

I think we're seeing a trend here!

Tonight at the dinner table, Rufus went from "60 to 0" in 2.5 seconds. We were reminding him to finish his salad when we looked over and he was sound asleep in his chair despite all the other noises and shananagans going on at the table. So cute!

Here's the video of us waking him up. He was embarassed that he fell asleep!

Little fish

The three older boys are in swimming lessons right now and they love it. It is two nights a week of chaos for me, as Kenyon is in school on both lesson nights and the lessons are at 5 and 5:30 p.m., so it is rush hour, "witching hour" with the boys (you moms know what I mean), but it still feels good to get out and give them some exercise on our long winter days!

This is what I'm doing when Cameron is in his lesson - feeding Squirt and Rufus hanging on me!


Sauce swimming


Hunter swimming

7 months old!!!

My baby is seven months old today!!! Squirt is such a joy to our family. He loves to laugh and be loud with squeals that hurt our ears. Often when I pick him up he grabs my cheeks with both of his hands and puts his open mouth up against my mouth to give me a big wet kiss. He still loves his nursing time, but eats about six jars of baby food per day in addition to some baby cereal. He probably weighs in at around 18-19 pounds and his big Sweeney melon-head is probably half of that weight! He has always been a good sleeper and patient when awake in his bed, just playing and talking when he's waiting for us to come and get him. Lately he has been waking up at 5 a.m., not hungry but ready to start his day - just like Sauce used to. Hopefully he'll get the message soon that when he's just laying there alone and it's still dark out, that no one else is ready to wake up! We love our "wittle wuke" as Rufus calls him and look forward to each day with him.

Dancin' Drew

Lastnight was "store night" at AWANAS, and this being my first year, I didn't know we were in for part two of Christmas! The boys came home with many purchases with their AWANA bucks, which they earn for memorizing Bible verses (sounds like bribery to me!). Rufus came home with a new toy cell phone that even has a blue tooth headset like daddy's and this is him this morning dancing to the music it plays! I think he has his mom's rhythm!

The Jones Family!

My dear friend Jenny Jones had her first baby yesterday! We had her baby shower at my house a couple of weeks ago and the majority of us were convinced that she was having a girl. My guess was mostly due to the fact that all the couples in our Park City small group have boys. Not one girl in 9 kids!!! Someone had to have a girl! Well, I think that the water in our town is killing off all the girl sperm because Jenny gave birth to a beautiful baby boy! Parker Eugene Jones entered the world weighing 7 lb. 2 oz. and 21 inches long. Jenny endured about 14 hours of natural labor - that's right, no drugs - and that included TWO HOURS of pushing. She is a champ! I got to go to the hospital yesterday and congratulate the newest member of my exclusive "Moms of Boys Club". Jenny has her own blog, "Keeping up with the Jonses" and the link is on the right hand side of my blog (if you want to watch Parker grow).

Jenny and me with sweet Parker Jones!!!

Our boys belt it out at K2

Our church (called K2 The Church) had a one-time childrens' choir last Sunday. The boys loved participating, but it was a big commitment - one evening practice and on Sunday, we had to be at church at 6:45 a.m. and stayed for all THREE services, getting us home at 2:15 in the afternoon. They followed through on their promise though and sang their little hearts out all day! Here's a couple samples.

"On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand"

This next video was taken during their early morning practice, and to me, the boys look very sleepy!

"As I Wait"

Grandma Jellybean and new carpet

We were thrilled to have my mom, Grandma Jellybean, come visit for a long weekend. She hasn't seen the kids since Lucas was born, so she soaked up every minute with my boys.

Grandma Jellybean with her grandsons

Me and my 7 month old boy!!!

Grandma doing "pony boy" with Squirt

Here's Squirt doing his new favorite activity - EATING!!! He's huge!
One of the down-sides of the weekend was that we were supposed to get new carpet installed and the installation kept getting delayed... so much of our time was spent sitting around the house waiting. We had all the living room furniture crammed in the kitchen, so we didn't really have a comfortable place to hang out, and the boys were ready to climb the walls. Luckily, we kept them distracted with lots of new library books. Mom was such a help.

Here's Rufus laying on one little scrap of old carpet to watch Dora

Reading and nursing - big parts of my days are spent in this position!

Here's a glimpse of the new carpet - hopefully we can get some new furniture in there soon!

Sleepyheads

We had two hilarious sleep episodes here in one day. Squirt has learned to bounce pretty well in his Johnny Jumper and bounced himself to sleep. This is an adorable video of him fighting the sleep bug!

Now here's Rufus with a terrible cold and cough, sitting at the breakfast bar, waiting for lunch and he just couldn't stay awake long enough for his sandwich to arrive. The second we mention going up to his bed, he perks up!