30 Days of Thanks!

The craze on Facebook is to write something you are thankful for each day.  I know that I would forget to do this daily so I though one big post on here listing 30 things we are grateful for would be the best way to go so here they are in no particular order!

#30-  We are thankful for the roof over our head.  Even though our house isn't perfect and there are so many things that need improvement, it is our home and it is a special place.

#29-  We are thankful for the food on our table.  We never worry about going to bed hungry and we always have enough.

#28-  We are thankful for the clothes on our back regardless of how they became ours...through gifts, hand me downs or new purchases.  We always have what we need to keep us warm.

#27-  We are thankful for laughter.  There is nothing sweeter than hearing your children laugh and giggle.

#26-  We are thankful for the moon and stars.  The kids love to look at the moon and make wishes on the stars.

#25-  We are thankful for our health.  With all the things that could have gone wrong with a multiple pregnancy and premature birth, the foursome defied all odds!

#24-  We are thankful for another year cancer-free.  Ben's latest results were fabulous!

#23-  We are thankful for Callie.  The kids are happy to have a four legged friend.

#22-  We are thankful for our friends.  If I named them all individually, from aquaintances to tried and true friends, I'd have the rest of our list right there.  While we don't have a large number of close friends anymore, we do have a lot of good people, near and far, who we can count on and care about us.  We value our friends and never can have too many.

#21-  We are thankful for our families.  They are always here for us and willing to help out whenever we are in need. Whether we see each other once a week or once a month they are a huge part of our lives and we cherish the fact that we have such a great family.

#20-  We are thankful for our jobs.  They enable us to provide for our family and give us the flexibility to have time off when we need or want it.

#19-  We are thankful for hugs.  What is better than getting a hug from someone you love.

#18-  We are thankful for kisses.  Those last kisses before bedtime always put a smile on my face.

#17-  We are thankful for Scentsy.  Without the income Scentsy provides for our family we would never have been able to pay for a family vacation to Disney...and with any luck another next year!

#16-  We are thankful for the season.  We are so fortunate to be able to experience all four seasons and enjoy the best part of each season.  Ask me in about 6 weeks how much I am loving winter...LOL! Seriously though, the kids are getting what seasons mean now and it is awesome. 

#15-  We are thankful for having this blog to go back and reminisce all the days past.  There are so many things that we would have totally forgotten about infancy and toddlerhood had we not had it all documented on here.

#14-  We are thankful for having DVD's of all our best memories of the past four years.  It is nice to put on the videos and see them grow right in front of our eyes.

#13-  We are thankful for things to look forward to.  We count down the days to our many adventures, both big and small, by counting down sleeps.  We love to see how much they look forward to things and how everything in life is a big deal to them.

#12-  We are thankful for hiking trails.  The kids love to take little adventure on the trails.  We cannot wait to bring them on longer ones this summer.

#11-  We are thankful for living in a small town.  It is nice to be able to feel safe in our little community and to have had all the support from our community that we had when we needed it.

#10-  We are thankful for photographs.  Just looking around our living room and bedroom at all the pictures of the kids brings a smile to my face and makes me realize just how fortunate we are.

#9-  We are thankful for quality time.  In the hustle and bustle of life, the days sometimes go by far too quickly.  Having even just a few moments of quality time each day can make all the difference in the world.  Days when we are lucky enough to spend the day just as the six of us are very dear.

#8-  We are thankful for dance parties.  The kids love music and love to dance...we love to see them dance!  It is a fun family activity for nights where we just hang out in our jammies.

#7-  We are thankful for imaginations.  Seeing the kids play pretend and use their imagination makes me so happy.  There are so many kids out there who don't know how to use that talent.  As crazy as some of their stories are it is so nice to hear them told.

#6-  We are thankful for communication.  In this day and age we have so many ways to keep us in touch with those we love.

#5-  We are thankful for a big backyard for the kids to explore and play in.  It gets them moving, playing, and imagining all sorts of things.

#4-  We are thankful for holidays.  They bring families and friends together, provide us with many memories and allow us to show those closest to us how much we love them.

#3- We are thankful for the past.  Life's challenges have put us where we are today and have lead us onto the road for a fabulous future.

#2-  We are thankful for today.  Tomorrow is never a guarantee so we always need to remind ourselves to live for today and enjoy every moment.

#1-  We are thankful for each other.  For quite some time we thought we were destined to be a family of two then we were blessed with our fabulous foursome.  As hectic as life is sometimes and as stressed as we can be, life wouldn't be the same without them.  We are so thankful we were chosen as their parents.

A Day at the Museum

I have been gone several nights and weekends lately working my Scentsy business so last weekend I took a break from it all for a little fun with the kids!  I had been wanting to take them to the Fairbanks museum for some time now so when I looked online for prices and hours I discovered that it was Nature's Classroom day and decided that our plan would be to go on Saturday.

For $18 we got admission for me, kids under 5 are free admission to the museum, family passes to the Nature's Classroom activities and family passes to the preschool planetarium show.  You can't beat that!  We started out the day exploring the bottom floor of the museum where they were interested in every single thing they saw!  Then we went down to the basement for Turkey crafts and lessons, after we finished there we went up and explored the top floor of the museum....there were DINOSAURS!!!  We took a little break to have lunch I packed then went in to play with some of the hands on activities before finishing the day learning about the stars.

We were there 5 hours and no one asked once to leave.  I call that a MAJOR success!  We can't wait to go back and explore on another Nature's Classroom day!

Me and my favorite foursome at the museum!

They loved the statues outside almost as much as they liked the exhibits inside!

They were so interested in all the different animals.

The globe you could change to see different planets, moons and views of the Earth kept them busy for quite some time!

DINOSAURS!  They are big right now!

Learning through play...Nature's Classroom and hands on activities!

Fun at the waterpark!

To my dismay, there are no pictures of this fun event because I was nervous to take my Nikon and certain that I had my pocket Kodak in my purse...I did not!

For their birthday the St Cyrs and the Cantons gave the kids passes to Kahuna Laguna in North Conway.  Ben is getting ready to be on call 24/7 anytime now so we thought this past weekend was a great time to use them up.  The kids counted down the sleeps for a whole week until it was finally time to go and they were not disappointed!

We arrived shortly after noon and stayed until after 4:30...playing in the wave pool, playing some water basket ball, sliding down the kiddie slides, and splashing around!  Brady was the only one tall enough to go on the big water slides and that ticked Matthew off but he soon forgot about that and went on playing again. They loved that Colin, Parker, Lauryn, Auntie Sam and Uncle Chris came to play with us!

A big thank you goes out to the St Cyrs and the Cantons for a fabulous day!

50 months...

and each month getting a decent group picture gets harder and harder!

Take it or Leave it!

Just the other day Matthew asked me what the writing on the wall behind the table says and I told him it says "Kitchen Dinner Choices:  Take it or Leave it!"  He must have remembered because at dinner tonight Ben told him to eat and he said "See that sign Daddy?  It says take it or leave it...and I am LEAVING IT!"  I am not a good role model when it comes to stuff like this because I nearly choked on my food!

Late in the game...

but I just found the pictures I took on Halloween so I wanted to post a little something here!  They carved pumpkins...and Matthew carved a squash because we were short one...with the day care and had a blast!

They got me to dress as the Wicked Witch for their theme costumes! 

Trick or Treat! 

Getting out of the rain for a second!

I love this one of Dorothy walking her doggie!

Mr. Mom

The past couple months I have been extremely busy with my Scentsy business...working hard to earn the incentive trip, earning money for the return trip to Disney the kids are begging for and growing my team.  Because of this Ben has had to take over parenting duties solo a couple nights a week and at least one day on the weekend.  The kids are liking all the extra time with just dad but not liking all the times that I am gone.  I remind them of course that we need to have me do Scentsy to pay for Disney and that usually helps.

I am sure after the holidays it will slow back down a little and I will be able to enjoy a little more family time and they will be begging me to go find some more shows!

Time Change

Every time we experience the time change I wonder how the kids will deal with it and every time the amaze me at how well they handle it.  They rarely need more than a day to get adjusted...I wish I could say the same for mom and dad!  They were up on Sunday morning at 5:15 asking when their light will be green and why it was taking so long!  Sunday night they were hot messes by 6:45 but they slept in until 6am on Monday morning and from there on they were back on schedule.  They never cease to amaze me at how easily adaptable they are!

Cameron's been bitten by the Scaredy Cat

Cameron has all of a sudden become afraid of everything!  He won't go upstairs alone, you can't step out of the car to grab something in the house or even go outside the house without him going into hysterics.  He will cry and cry until you are back in his site.

At night when he wakes up he complains he is afraid. When asked what he is afraid of he never knows but he is genuinely afraid of being alone.  How he can feel alone in a room of four is beyond me.  Hopefully this is a short phase.

Trick or Treating

This year Trick or Treating was done in the rain!  I don't know who was less impressed...the parents or the kids...but they toughed it out for one street then decided they were done.  That didn't disappoint us.  Less candy for them to eat and less to throw away.  We went up to Grammie Diana's, put on warm clothes and passed out candy to the die hard trick or treaters.

After trick or treating was over we headed to the high school for the annual costume contest.  This year they were going to be in the age four and up group...which meant they could no longer compete as a group...so we had warned them ahead of time that they may not win any prizes or that some of them may and some may not but they couldn't get upset because they had won at the Legion the week before.

To all of our surprise they all won a prize for something!  They were thrilled!  I was thrilled that I was able to get one last year of picking their costumes because they are all talking about what they are going to be next year and it definitely isn't a theme!