Tyler Talk (and Jackson Talk!!)

I can't believe that Jackson is old enough now for me to be posting about his sayings too!

TYLER:

My Grandma and Grandpa Boucher are here visiting and the boys have been having lots of fun having them around. My mom got a Nerf gun and goggles for her birthday and the boys have been playing gun wars around the house. Yesterday Tyler and Grandpa were battling and Tyler yelled, "Come Get Me (DUM DET ME) Old Man!!" It was so funny- we all started cracking up. My grandpa is always teasing us like crazy, so it was great that Tyler got him a good one :)

For the past couple weeks at church, the older kids in Tyler's Nursery class have been visiting Primary so they can practice for the New Year, when they all move up. This week at church, near the end of Sacrament meeting, I told Tyler, "This is your last week in Nursery and then you get to be in Primary Forever!!" He said, "Forever? But I wanna go home!"

JACKSON:

Jackson has been talking so much lately! He repeats what we say and he is starting to figure things out. He loves watching movies and has a strong opinion about what is on t.v. He frequently walks to me and asks for Cars or Buzz or Ice Age, his favorites right now.

Today we were playing Ker Plunk (I found the game for .99 cents at GoodWill!) and Tyler said he wanted all the pink sticks. Jackson held up his pink stick and said, "Pink!" I asked him to name the other colors, and he couldn't, but he always got the pink ones right. I remember when Tyler's favorite color was purple, his first color to identify and name. It's fun to think that Jackson may be ready to start learning colors!

Then as I was counting the marbles he counted along with me repeating the numbers after me and saying "fourteen" over and over. I guess that's his favorite number!

I have Christmas posts coming soon! Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and have a Happy New Year! We are gearing up for Jackson's Birthday among the New Year's Celebrations. So fun!

Prayers for Baby Caleb!

My little nephew is having hernia surgery tomorrow. Isn't he just the cutest thing you've ever seen? Just wanted him to know we are thinking of him and will be praying for him all day. Love you Mel and T...

My most important *things*

Lately, I've been missing my stuff. Especially since it's Christmastime and I have some special Christmas decorations buried down deep somewhere in our storage unit. We are living with my parents while we are saving up for a house of our own in this hard economy/expensive Southern California. All my stuff fits in 2 bedrooms, and I've been realizing lately that the most important things I have are my people. I knew we'd be downgrading when we left our house in Texas, so I've been gearing up for letting go of a lot of my things. But now that I've been living with only our necessities, I've realized I need next to nothing to be happy. Don't get me wrong, my parents have everything, so it's not like we've been living hard. I just know that when we do empty our storage unit and move into a house of our own, I'll be ready to let go of the things I don't even remember we have anymore. Because I really like the feeling that I have all that I really need when I hug my boys. They are my most important things.

TyLah

Tyler has been so cute lately with all the things he's been learning and saying. He used to say his name "Ty'yer" but has learned if he sticks out his tongue, he gets the L sound. So he sticks out his tongue in the middle of his name and it's pretty cute!

He still loves animals and is so fascinated to learn about where they live, what they eat and all other details he can learn. I only have to teach him something once and it sticks. He has his dad's great sense of direction (thank goodness!) and already knows his right and left (he and Grandma have been practicing!) and tells us how to get home, which direction to turn and if the light is red or green.

The other day we watched Elf while Jackson took a nap and he liked it so much, he asked to watch it again when it ended! Later that day we were at a park and went to the bathroom and he yelled "these toilets are huge!" a line from the movie, and I had to laugh when I too noticed the big metal toilets were quite large.

Today he went to Primary at Church (for the kids turning 4 and up) to practice- he'll be in Sunbeams (the 4 ear old class) in January! One of the leaders told me he did a great job today especially during Singing Time and kept saying, "My name is TyLah!"

Grumpy Face!

Jackson is our little funny kid. He's always making the funniest facial expressions and sounds. If we say "Grumpy Face!" He makes this face:

and then he's right back to his smiley self when we say "Happy Face". It's pretty fun to watch.

I can't believe that Jackson will be 2 in a couple weeks! I remember the Christmas right before he was born. I was so anxious to have him, yet calm and ready. He is such a wonderful addition to our family!

Some of his favorite things:

Seeing a bus, airplane or truck

Playing doggie when Tyler is a tiger

Eating snacks and drinking milk

Going on a walk or to the park

Going to free play at Tyler's gymnastics

Seeing Daddy, Grandpa and Grandma at work

Getting a Jelly Bean for doing something good

Taking a bath

Going to Target and getting popcorn

He is always along for the ride and usually so easygoing about what we do and where we go. Although lately, he's started to show an opinion about certain things like what blanket he uses, where he sits at the table and if he's going to show off a trick/say a word or not. He must almost be two!!

Thanksgiving and Now Christmas...

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving- tons of family time, just how I like it! Since Tommy and Melonie were blessing Caleb the Sunday after Thanksgiving, we flew up to celebrate!

Thanks for the cheesy smiles everyone :)

The kids had a BLAST... and I mean blast. Tyler keeps telling me he misses his cousins.

We had quite a bit of snow which was a nice treat! Jeff even got to take Tyler sledding which they had a blast--maybe I'll add a video later.

And Melonie made these darling Turkey Shirts for all the kids!!

We had an endless supply of laughs... especially the one time I pulled out my camera

and had to get one of the "originals"

And one of my very favorite parts of the trip was holding this little cutie pie. Look at those eyes!!

After our Thanksgiving celebrations, we moved right on to Christmas with Lily's dance performance and a visit to Santa's Workshop. Monday night they got their Christmas Tree and Tuesday the lights went up, we did some shopping and got right into the holiday spirit! (somehow since I've gotten home and have a few too many to-do's on my list I'm feeling a little more like the Grinch.)

Jackson asked for a Choo Choo Train and Tyler asked for "a rhino. But not the soft kind, the hard kind" Although today he told me he changed his mind and wants a black helicopter. I told him he'll have to write him a letter and how nice of you to give Santa so many details, I bet he loves that :)

Thankful Hats

For FHE this week we talked about being Thankful- we told about Jesus and the 10 Lepers and a little activity about things we should be thankful for. I want my boys to understand that everything we have is from our Heavenly Father and Jesus. And we can tell them we are thankful when we say our prayers Tyler said an awesome prayer!

Then we made Indian hats (accompanied by Indian noises) and wrote on the feathers what we are Thankful for.

Jackson is thankful for:

Bus/Buzz (he loves both and says them the same way)

Airplanes

Grandpa

Milk & Cats

Toy Balls

Tyler is Thankful for:

My Animals

My Friends

My Family

Mountains

My Toys

They make cute decoration too!

Pilgrim Place

My mom took the boys to the Pilgrim Festival a couple weeks ago. They had a blast and came back looking a little different!

They did a train ride through the Festival,

built a castle and airplane at the glue-in (I remember doing this as a kid!!), they walked around for awhile and then waited in line for face painting- Tyler really wanted his face painted. While waiting in line, they stood by the cotton candy, snow cones and popcorn and of course my Mom treated them to 2 of the 3!

Jackson became Captain Jack Sparrow!

Tyler asked to be a Tiger (surprised?) The lady who did Tyler's face was an expert and had written 3 books on body and face painting!

Tyler made angry Tiger faces in the mirror all day and cried when we had to take his painting off to go to bed. I said, "It's ok little Tiger" And he sadly said, "I'm not a Tiger anymore, I'm just Tyler now." so sad!!

50 Free Holiday Cards- Shutterfly Blogging Promo

So, if you know me, you know I'm a sucker for good deals and especially freebies! I love Shutterfly- I've ordered a few Photo Books, Calendars, and Photo Cards in my time and I'm always getting emails for coupons and promotions. This year, they are giving 50 free holiday cards to bloggers who do a write up!

This week we are headed to Idaho to spend Thanksgiving with my brother Tommy and his family, who just had an adorable baby named Caleb. Since we'll all be together we will be taking pictures and I plan on taking full advantage of the opportunity. It's not every day/month/year we get the Jeff Clark Family looking all pretty/handsome and holding still (wish us luck).

So, imagine my family on one of these cards:

These are the ones I love with one picture, but if for some reason the stars align and we are able to get more than one picture with every family member's eyes open, smiling and looking in the general direction of the camera, I love these:

There seriously are so many to choose from, they are all so cute- will you please help me decide?! If you want to get 50 FREE holiday cards, go HERE! It doesn't matter what size blog you have or how many readers you have. And I heard back from them in about 3 days.

Thanksgiving Turkey Tradition

My mom pulled out the Thanksgiving file for me today, and I have great memories of doing this each year!

As a family, we would fill in the turkey feathers with something we would like to do for each family member to serve them. We would have a lesson on gratitude and that we show we are thankful for each other by do nice things for one another. Then throughout the month, when we finished that nice thing, we could color it in.

Here is the image we used, you are welcome to save it and use it, even add some feathers if you have a bigger family :)

We always added "We are Thankful for our Family" at the bottom and signed our names. It's fun looking at the Turkeys created in the past when the kids were really young. When Katie was a baby, she "agreed" to give Mom a full night's sleep, big brother Tommy would wake me up for morning cartoons, and Daddy would play on the swing set with me.

We always talk about how the first year we did this Tommy said he would get a Camaro for Daddy. He still hasn't colored that one in yet :)

Here's a closeup of our signatures-- I love how I wrote my i's :)

This is definitely a tradition I would like to continue in our family, starting with this year!

Successful surgery

This is mostly for journaling purposes and a little bit for birth control too since this recovery is reminding me a bit of my c-section pain :)

This is right after I woke up when it's still hard to open your eyes and if you look close you can see the ring I drew on my hand since I couldn't have my real one on :)

I am alive and well just a bit achy and sore. Yesterday was a long day. Jeff and I got to the hospital at about 10:30 for my 12:30 scheduled surgery time. Right after They got me hooked up around 11 they informed me that my surgery was really 2:30 so I got to sit there and watch daytime tv for another 3 and a half hours, which I hate unless it's tlc :) but somehow with the help of my comical husband and his droid x time flew by pretty quickly and soon enough I was being wheeled back on a gourney.
Everything went well during surgery, they repaired the hernia, placed some mesh and soon enough I woke up. I loved my discharge nurse who brought in my husband and hurried me out the door. I remember the first time I stood up to walk to the bathroom a rush of emotion came and I felt like I needed to cry. Not for any reason at all, just to cry. I didn't though, and she told me it was all from the anesthesia. I also have had this strange shoulder pain that she said only some people get that and its kinda a phenominon. Its actually trapped gas and i definitely remember having that with jackson, although back then i thought it was from hard labor before the c-section. She told me she could tell that I'm very sensitive to the anesthesia for two reasons. That I'm a light weight and also that I don't abuse drugs. Yes and yes :)
I slept pretty well the first night, although I hate being able to only sleep on my bavk. I'm a stomach and side girl so I wasn't seer comfortable. But when I woke up in the middle of the night for more pain killers, I was happy to not have to feed a baby ;) how did I do that every 2 hours every night. I guess just cuz we have to. Once again I'm being reminded of my last surgery and how much easier this has already been. No baby to care for and no blood transfusion to completely wipe me out!
The boys are doing so well! It helps that my Mom is so wonderful and I smile every time I hear them call for gamma instead of mommy! They have been so soft around me and so good with all the others who have played with them today. Jackson keeps lifting up my shirt and saying booboo and kissing it better for me.
I am so thankful to my family and my husband for taking care of me and letting me watch Friday Night Lights all day. I definitely feel like saying y'all and tackling somebody... Not really ;)
Oh and p.s. Sorry about the typos I'll fix them later. I'm on the iPad!!

I is for Insects, Ice cream and Instruments!

I is another fun letter!

Today we did preschool again at our house. Monday we played I-Spy at the park, and today we talked about both I sounds.

1. Read my i sound box- great book for I words

2. Wrote letter Ii on paper and magna-doodle. I have to stick in little tricks to get Tyler to participate. He was more than happy to write Ii on the magnadoodle!

3. Drew our own insects and decorated with insect stickers.

4. Ice experiment! Yesterday Tyler and I made ice cubes with an insect (fly) toy inside. We went outside and watched them melt in the sun and added warm water to get them to melt faster. We talked about water+cold= ice and ice+warm= water...

(pics coming soon)

5. I got some insect bath sponges and they got to start dissolving during playtime outside.

6. snacktime!

7. Ice cream cone coloring for the abc book... We are making a spiral bound book at the end of the year. With every letter we make a 41/4X51/2 piece (1/4th of a paper) with the letter on it.

8. ate ice cream dibs :)

9. Made musical Instruments from paper bowls and beans!

Then Miss. Julie came and did a fun rhythm exercise with them. They loved this!

Even Jackson sat and followed along...

...or danced along:

We had a great day!

Now I am gearing up for hernia repair surgery in the morning. Wish me luck!!

...actually, wish my mom luck who's gonna be in charge of my kids for a couple weeks! :0

H is for Hippos, Helpers and HALLOWEEN!!

It seems like forever ago that we did H day #1, I should've posted about it last week! Then on day #2 Tyler had a croupy cough so we decided to stay away from all other children for a couple of days. He missed nursery on Sunday, preschool on Monday and gymnastics on Tuesday. Needless to say, we were very happy the boys were well enough to make the preschool Halloween party on Wednesday!!

This is going to be a long post, so grab a sprite and have a seat :)

The first thing we did on H day #1 is review all the letters. So I taped our alphabet pictures in various places in the living room and read Dr. Suess's ABC's. We stopped after each letter for the kids to Hunt for that letter.

H is for Happy Helpers:

I talked about all the ways we can use our Hands: to wave hi, to share, or even to Hit {Can you imagine me saying, "Is that a nice way to use our hands? No, it isn't."} We should make good choices and be good Helpers, that will make us Happy!

So we learned the song, When we're helping we're happy... words and pictures here. I added in a few simple pictures like a happy face (we're happy), a family with an arrow pointing at the mommy (for we like to help mommy), and a heart (for we all love her so). It was fun!

Next we go to the table to learn how to write the letter H. Tyler still scribbles all over the page (please tell me this is normal for 3 1/2... ) and sometimes will draw the letter. We like to use a page protector and let them use dry erase markers, they love this! And then I let them pull it out and put on happy face and heart stickers. H writing printables here.

I always include Do-A-Dot painting because it's Tyler's favorite- shout out to this mommy teacher who made them cute alphabet printables here!

Then we had a break for some physical activity!! Hippo Hopscotch,

Hippo floor number printables here. This is still on the floor and Tyler does it everyday!

Hula Hoop, Hokey Pokey, and even Hungry Hungry Hippos. We didn't have time for all of these, but just puttin' them out there for ya!

Our snack consisted of hotdogs, grapes and cheese chunks and I gave them a toothpick to stick them on. No real reason for that, just thought it would be fun... and motor activity, I guess :)

For the craft, they made Hoot Hoot Owl Handprints, idea found here. (we used brown paper bags instead of construction paper)

It was fun, but Tyler had had it by the time we got to the craft. Some days I'm lucky to get 20 minutes of structured activity with him (once again, please tell me this is normal!) The other kids seem to do fine, but Tyler has always been my spirited child. He does what he wants when he wants (and reminds me of me) so really I do embrace that. I know he is learning, so I just have to remind myself he goes at his own pace.

Here is a great H is for Halloween Packet by Oopsey Daisy, full of fun Halloween games, activities and printables. We would have done this on H day #2, but it would be fun to do just as a family, too!

Alright, moving on to the Halloween Party! This was a blast and the kids were great!

The mom who hosted the party lives next to an old folks' home, so we trick or treated there. The kids enjoyed it and I know they did too!

They played fun games like eating doughnuts on a string

and bobbing for apples (jackson got in on this one!)

bowling for ghosts and pin the nose on the witch...

We all brought a snack to share

And they had so much fun eating it

my boys are still talking about the jello bats and pumpkins

Then they blew balloons and put tissue paper around them to make ghosts

I love making goody bags, so we put together a fun playdoh bag with halloween cookie cutters for the kids to take home. Happy Halloween label printable here. Tyler picked out which friend got which colors and cutters, and he had a reason for each one. He is a very thoughtful friend!

Soooo, with that looooong post, I will conclude by saying that I love having a blog to document what we do and it really is my everyday journal. I really should print it out- if I lost this record somehow I would truly be devastated!

And, I hope that my collection of ideas helps someone. I love browsing ideas online and there are so many creative people who share ideas and printables which sparks my creativity too. I may do this again next year and then Tyler will still have one more year before kindergarten, and then I'm sure I'll do Mommy school with Jackson, so maybe I will eventually plan and teach a lesson on every letter in the alphabet!!

Why I am the MOM

I couldn't figure out what Jackson wanted to eat for breakfast. Everything I offered him, he "uh-uh"ed and everything I handed him he threw down. So I told Tyler to figure it out...
Tyler, "You want a cheese stick?"
Jack, "Uh-uh." -that means no :)
Tyler, "You want a hot dog?"
Jack, "Uh-uh."
Tyler, "You want a cookie?"
Jack, "Uh-uh."
Tyler, "You want a candy?"
Jack, "Yes."
Tyler, "He wants a candy."

p.s. he did NOT get a candy for breakfast... but I am yet to find out what he wants to eat. Wish me luck!

Village Venture

I met up with some friends for the annual Village Venture Festival! They close down streets in the village for booths and shops and food...

The boys got their faces painted:

a shark and

a pumpkin...

I had a $20 budget and the bill was burning a hole in my pocket but I knew I had to find something awesome, so I held out until the last street...

Then I found a booth full of wooden toys- rubber band guns, daggers, swords and I knew it was meant to be :)

Tyler decided on a $8 sword called "white knight". I knew it would be child abuse if we only bought one... Jackson needs something to defend himself with, so we got two... a couple minutes later their friend Olivia had to join the fun: