Green eggs & ham

I can only tackle one birthday at a time, so we celebrated Dr Seuss' birthday today. We had a visit from the Cat in the Hat (my husband is such a good sport ;) and we read the book and ate Green Eggs & Ham for breakfast (the food coloring came out a little too fast so the ham was almost black- but they ate it nonetheless...) Yum yum! 

Birthday Boys!

Anthony's birthday was on Tuesday and Joshua's was Wednesday, so we have been in party mode! I can't believe my Joshua is already three! He is growing up so fast. He is becoming Mr. Independent and whenever I try to help him with something says "I can do it myself!" in his high pitched little boy voice. He constantly makes us laugh with the silly things he does. We love you Joshua!

Joshua wanted an M&M cake for his birthday and since my cake decorating skills are practially nil, it was perfect. Ethan helped put the m&ms on and probably made his lines straighter than I did. It was a white confetti cake with yummy buttercream frosting- get the recipe here!

 

Ah, the presents. This is probably the first time I have not pre ordered a birthday gift. I could not figure out what to get this child. He loves to build things but he already has 4 building sets, loves trains but already has a huge train set, I seriously could not think of a single thing he needed or was terribly interested in. I dragged all three kids to probably 5 stores last week looking for ideas and I cannot believe how many dumb mindless toys there are! There are lots of great things for babies, but not much for the inbetween stage. I finally took him- on his birthday- as a desparate last minute attempt to find something. We went to Target (should have gone there first- they have the best selection of quality toys) and let him choose from 4 things and he chose a little people zoo set. Then we went to their favorite place- Barnes & Noble and got him a few books. Who knew shopping for a 3 year old could be so hard???

Baby Grant providing the party entertainment- pulling up his shirt and saying "belly button!"

Ethan providing the after party show! I got him some earplugs because he's had earaches the last few times after swimming lessons and I got the adult size rather than child size...but that didn't stop him from trying them on... This better be the only time in your life that you look this ridiculous!

And last, a video to share- Joshua loves to identify the apostles- I laminate the conference Ensign edition and he carries it around the house saying their names. It only took him 3 or 4 times of hearing their names before he remembered them all- you just have to speak "toddler" to understand him ;)

The Osborne's

Celestial University and silly boys...

In our Relief Society this year we're doing the Celestial University program. So one of my goals was to learn to knit/crochet. I found these adorable sock monkey patterns on etsy and have been having so much fun with them! I've also made a ton of adorable baby hats to use for my photography. In March I'm taking the challenge to take a photo a day and share it- so be prepared for some strange and random posts...

In other randomness... Ethan declared himself an artist with this drawing...

Grant loves to push his fat little finger through the middle of bread and spin it around...

 and...Joshua likes to entertain us during breakfast by sticking cheerio's to his face...

hope your mealtimes are as equally entertaining...

The Osborne's

a Perfect day...

Yesterday was a perfect day. The weather was absolutely beautiful compared to all the yucky cold we've been having.

It actually felt like spring! I need to live in a place that feels like this every day...

Anthony had the day off work so we drove to Iroquois Park in Louisville and rode bikes.

They have a 5 mile paved path and a trail to an overlook of the city and the airport.


It was awesome.

The boys were so happy to finally be able to run and play outside!





Climb trees...

Stuff acorns into their pockets and snack bowl...

Slide!

  

Climb...

And  yes, even work in a little science...that tree was 150 years old!

 Back in the car, Starfall and Teach Me on the iphones... Olive Garden for dinner, and...

 These yummy homemade cupcakes for dessert. What a perfect day...

Back to normal life...

We had a wonderful visit from Grandma & Grandpa Osborne, the boys were so excited to see them again. Unfortunately I got pathetically sick the last few days of their visit and could barely get out of bed. I was grateful they were here to help with the boys though and even more grateful that I was the only one afflicted with the nasty virus. Before I got sick we took a trip to the Zappos shoe outlet- it was amazing! All shoes were 90% off. It was the most fun shopping I've had in a long time.

Joshua has been falling asleep in strange places lately, like on my hat boxes. How on earth can he sleep like that?

And Grant is getting all 4 molars plus two other teeth in and it's been taking weeks for them to push through. He wakes Joshua up at night and so now Joshua likes to sleep in strange places. The couch isn't so strange, but he tried sleeping in the garage once and the other night we found him with all his blankets and bears in our shower. Strange, and kind of gross. 

Anthony has taken the boys camping twice this month. They love camping any time of year and wish they could do it every night. I was happy to stay home in my nice warm bed.

And last, but not least, we've been eating lots of cupcakes. Martha Stewart magazine had some yummy recipes I saved a few months ago and am finally getting around to trying. I'll be slowly posting the recipes on my food blog.

Goodbye sunshine!

We took our annual trip to Florida last week. Last January was miserably cold but this year was absolutely gorgeous. The week started out mid seventies and ended high sixties. It was so nice to be able to swim, run and simply exist in the wonderful warm sunshine.

We took the boys to Disney World for the 4th year in a row. It's so fun to see the excitement grow each time. They team tackled the characters (Grant sucked on their noses) walked for miles upon miles and rode rides with stomachs of steel.

They love all the rides at Magic Kingdom especially the race cars, love seeing Lightning McQueen and the playhouse disney show, test track, the extreme action stunt show was awesome as was the Indiana Jones stunt show, they always love the safari and of course their favorite thing is hugging all the characters.

Anthony's sister Laura along with Scott & Jackson joined us mid week. It was so much fun to have them with us down there again. The boys adore them and couldn't get enough hugging and cuddling.

The kids did their 100 & 200 meter races and fortunately it wasn't freezing cold or rainy this year so they had a ton of fun. Anthony and I ran the half marathon together and despite my intentions to "train" for this one, I only ran more than 4 miles two or three times, and still finished at 2:56 (which is slow compared to people like my husband) but 20 minutes faster than my last one so I was quite happy. The highlight was definitely running under Cinderella's castle. My slightly insane husband decided to do the Goofy Challenge so he ran the half marathon with me and the next day ran the full marathon alone finishing it at 4:08 which I have to say is pretty amazing especially considering the races were back to back (although it does make me feel pretty slow and weak).

   

   

Our last day we relaxed (or I should say I relaxed, Anthony ran a marathon that morning) and swam in the evening. The boys were all asleep and we decided to check the weather since we'd heard rumors of snow in Atlanta. Last year we narrowly escaped the ice storm that hit Atlanta by driving all night long. When we saw they were supposed to get 5 inches and it was going to be snowing all the way up through Nashville we decided we better not take our chances and head out right then (after I begged and pleaded for him to catch a plane home and pick me up the next week, to no avail).

I drove the first shift hitting 50 miles south of Atlanta by 2:30am and the sleet started to fall. By the time we reached Atlanta it was really coming down. The roads were snowy and icy and I kid you not, there was not ONE single snow plow from Atlanta to 40 miles south of Nashville going Northbound. There was one tiny pass before Nashville that had been plowed and iced but it only lasted about 5-10 miles and the rest of the time it looked like the images below. Can you believe that is an interstate??? I have never driven on roads like this before even with all the snow in New Hampshire and Utah. I have two words for the deep south SNOW PLOWS!!!

                                I-75 downtown Atlanta 3:00am        I-75 50 miles South of Nashville 7:00am

Aneeewaaay... We made it home safely thanks to our mad snow driving skills and many, many silent prayers. Fortunately the storm only dropped about a half an inch here (but of course school closed for 2 days). Now we get to enjoy lovely 20 degree weather. But oh how I miss the sun!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Well we're finally starting to get settled! I now have one room of the house box free! Since all our decorations were ruined last year we had to get all new ones... Still need a tree skirt and some wrapped presents would be nice...still waiting for amazon to deliver on those... It's finally starting to feel a bit like Christmas though!