Santa Who?

I interviewed Jack and Henry the other morning to find out what they know about Santa. I decided to do this because while we were shopping at Target last week Jack voiced a desire for a certain toy and I said, "Maybe Santa will bring it to you...". His response, "Who's Santa?"

The following is our interview I asked the questions, Henry and Jack responded:

What color is Santa's hat? Red

What color is Santa's Hair? White

What color are Santa's shoes? Red no wait... black

What color is Santa's jacket? Red

What color is Santa's beard? White

What color is Santa's belt? Red

What color is Santa's sleigh? Red

What is Santa's favorite song? Happy Thanksgiving!! I mean, Jingle Bells Jingle Bells...

What is Santa's favorite food? Pizza

What is Santa's favorite drink? Apple Juice

What is Santa's favorite treat? Chocolate chip cookies, in the blue bag.

What does Santa do when it's not Christmas? Goes home and plays video games.

What does Santa like to do? Surfing, his favorite rad move is the triple whip.

What does Santa do? He brings us presents if we are nice and don't fight.

What does Santa look like? Is he a kid? No, he looks like daddy! Like a daddy.

What does Santa give Mrs. Clause for Christmas? A Guitar

What does Mrs. Clause give Santa for Christmas? A Guitar, they are like rockstars like Super Rhino.

What does Mrs. Clause do all day? She bakes cookies and blueberry muffins.

What does Mrs. Clause look like? Like Santa but a girl.

Random Facts about all things Christmas...

Elves make presents for everyone except for naughty kids.

Good kids get scooters and bikes and balls.

Reindeer like to eat carrots (said Henry). No bunnies eat carrots (said Jack).

Reindeers are magic, Santa is magic too.

Santa is nice, he says Ho! Ho! Ho!

Santa is a 'Buckeye', wait no he is not.

One more question...

Does Santa like sports? No he DOES Christmas!

One More ok maybe 2 or 3 or 5

Gratitude Tree

For family night last night we made a gratitude tree. I drew a fall tree without leaves and then we put things we are grateful for on the leaves and stuck them to the tree. We had a great time.

Here are some of the things we are thankful for (in no particular order)

Family

Friends

Carpools

School

Jesus Christ

Babysitters

Our Minivan

Lars' Job (hopefully we can be thankful for that for a long time...)

Health

Home

Neighborhood

Photographers

Nursery

Church

Recess

Kisses

Kohl's

Baking lessons from Mom
Missions
Holidays

Good Movies

The Brady Bunch

The Park

Playgroup

Storytime at the Library

Kayla

Henry

Jack

Brinley

Lars

Cristi

Heater (in the winter)

Air Conditioner (in the summer)

Mountains
Camping

Shoes

Sports

Stroller

Money

Sunshine

Sunsets

The list goes on and on and on...

We had some pictures of the kids taken (By Tiffany Lewis) this past Saturday. I'm totally bias but I think they are so stinkin' CUTE!! I'm so grateful to be a mom and to be blessed with these great kids!

Birthday Festivities

Lars took Jack's birthday off work and so we stayed up until 1 AM making the surf board cake. It turned out really cute.

Kayla, Henry and Brinley gave Jack a t-ball set and a watch and a Transformer shirt. He was very excited about it.We made the traditional pancakes in the shape of your age and decorated the house with '3's everywhere. Jack had a few friends come over to play and we had cake and ice cream.

Tonya Kalina brought sunglasses for all the kids to go along with the surfing theme.

Red Robin for dinner - Jack was afraid when the waitress and her possee came and sang to him although he did enjoy the ice cream sundae.

Annalee and Conrad are in Africa so they left a present for Jack at their house. Love the Legos and then we played the Wii for a bit before we took some very happy tired kids home to bed.

Jack's Family Party

Sunday night before Jack's actually birthday we had Lars' family over for cake and ice cream. Jack has been saying for months he wants a "Rad Moves" birthday which means that he wants a surfing party like on the Backyardigans TV show. So I tried to make a surf board cake - it looks like an Easter egg. So after some modifications to the original design we came up with a better shape and added graham cracker 'sand' to the platter for the Monday morning birthday party.

Jack Turns 3 Part DEUX

The week after Jack had his surgery my Grandma Flinders died so we headed for cold country and then the following month my Grandma Reynolds died so we headed to the snow again. Those grave side dedications were so cold but Jack was bundled up in his carseat and many blankets and he was toasty warm.Snug as a bug in a rug. Jack always wore a bib as a baby because he spit up more than any child I've ever seen! The doctor said it was a laundry problem and not a medical problem. Thank goodness!!

Matching hairdos with Grandpa Flinders. Jack was born with a little bit of hair on top and some on the sides - as my dad says "Grass doesn't grow on a busy street" Jack must have been really "busy" in the womb!

He could (and still can) fall asleep anywhere.He didn't miss many meals... I could really sit here all day and look at these old pictures but the birthday festivities are still going on. More later...

Jack Turns 3

I can' believe Jack is 3 today. Lars and I were just saying last week that it seems like it has taken forever for him to turn 3. We did a little computing and remembered that when Henry was born Kayla turned 3 yrs old 4 months later, when Jack was born Henry turned 3 yrs old 3 months later and it's been almost 17 months since Brinley was born so... you do the math. When Jack was born the nurse brought him to us and said that he was breathing a little fast and we should just watch him for a while. As I sat and held him I could tell something wasn't quite right so we called the nurse and they took him to the nursery for some testing. It was determined that he had tachepnia which just means that he was breathing too fast. He was on oxygen and slept under a hood for 5 days and then his breathing went back to normal and he was fine.

After we had him home for 4 weeks he was crying alot and acting like he was in alot of pain. We rushed him to the ER and they diagnosed him with an inguinal hernia. So he had a surgery to repair his hernia when he was 6 weeks old - 2 days after Christmas. He gave us quite a scare for those first couple of months. We sure love him and are grateful he is in our family. Here are some pictures from the last 3 years.

Kayla and Henry visiting Jack in the NICU. He seemed so small to us but at 7 lbs 8 oz he was one of the biggest babies there.

When he first went in the NICU they told us we probably wouldn't get to hold him for a few days because he needed the oxygen hood but the nurse told us that sometimes holding the baby can do a lot of good too.

Finally coming home the day before Thanksgiving 2006.

Kayla sure loved that baby! He was home when she got home from school - she was thrilled!

I'm trying to add more pictures but the 'Blog Nazi' won't let me. I'll start another post...

Springs Preserve

Since the kids were out of school today we decided to do something fun! Lars had to work and so did most of the other dads we know so we went to the Springs Preserve. There are some really fun walking trails and this amazing play area for kids.Kayla just chillin' in this little cave."All Aboard!" Brinley loved that train. She was very offended when other kids thougt they wanted to play with the steering wheel too.There were so many rocks to climb on. The kids were like little mountain goats all over these boulders. Jack was climbing down as fast as he could because he didn't want to be in the picutre.

Jack and Brinley in the train.

These giant turtle shells were so fun.

2 Jacks and a Brinley

Kayla was a little big for the shell but she tried.

Brinley loves this bark mulch. She plays in it like some kids play in a sandbox.

Joey, Kayla and Henry climbing on the rocks.

Brinley being cute - her favorite pastime.

Jack - he's pretty cute too.
Peek a Boo! Can we find you? Henry, Kayla and Jack.