Excuses, excuses!

Ok, long time no blog! I do have some worthy and unworthy excuses. Unworthy excuses are those such as ebay, facebook and just plain laziness! Here are my much more worthy excuses: Stomach flu nastiness, new January activities, and daily parenting/child issues!! You know, life happens and blogs suffer. What can you do? So I promise to get back to it soon. I actually had great intentions today for a cute post but my little man Paxton had other ideas of how I should spend my time (i.e. disciplining, etc.). So alas, I will start back again soon, promise. In the meantime you can enjoy these two cute blog posts about two special things that have happened to two of my great friends. The FIRST BLOG is about my friend Christie, but the blog is Ashely's. The next blog is my friend Emily's. Enjoy!

One New Year's Resolution Down . . .

. . . and many more to go! Actually we don't really make New Year's Resolutions in our family. Sure we like to reflect on the previous year and look ahead to the year to come but in terms of actual resolutions, not so much. Anyway, so what's this post about then? Well on New Year's Day, Paxton's Aunt Jessica asked him what his New Year's Resolution was and he said in his four year old silliness "To go to the Cheesecake Factory!" (As if we actually go there more than once a year!) He has asked about it a couple of times and so last night on a cold yucky night we trekked down to the Cheesecake Factory for a yummy meal. I mean hey, you don't have to ask me twice to go there!! We really had a lot of fun and we figured anytime was a great time to fill our skinny kids up with some fattening cheesecake!

So back to the whole New Year's Resolution topic. I think while it is good to make resolutions, they are just so hard to stick to! I prefer, actually Josh and I prefer, to work on ourselves each and every day. Making one or two big resolutions or promises to yourself seems to be like tying a big boulder around your ankle and dragging it around until you have done that resolution! And seriously, to ask my dear sweet little Paxton to make a resolution for the year is another shot in the foot. I mean the kid was worried all through December about January because there are no big holidays this month! So, you could see where we wouldn't want to add any stress to a child who already holds us till our death to keep any promises or words we might have said!

Around here we just work on one day at a time-trying to make it better than the day before. And besides, when we make all these promises to ourselves about what we are or are not going to do, it makes it difficult to let God lead our lives and help us make daily choices according to His good and perfect will! And I must be honest in saying that I am a planner and a perfectionist and maybe adding one more "thing" to my list would send me over the top! So, not to bash any of you who made resolutions this year, they are in fact a good way to get going on the right track! But I think for this busy mom, taking it one day at a time is all I can hang on to right now!

All dressed up and ready to go out! How cute are they!??

Josh made endless fun of me for taking this picture! He said I looked like a big hillbilly from the mountains that didn't get out much! Man, the ridicule I suffer for my blog readers!

Oh heaven, oh bliss . . .

YUMMY!!!

Boys on one side, Girls on the other! We ALWAYS sit like this whenever we go out!

My Little Gymnast!

Ok, so we're not like an Olympic gymnast or anything but hey we like to have fun! Lorelei has been taking gymnastics for the past 6 months and she loves it! We go every week to a Mommy and me class. It has really helped Lorelei with some of her physical skills that she has been behind it. It's really an extension of her physical therapy. Anyway, I finally took my camera today for it to die halfway through the class. So you will get to see the pictures from the first half of class only. I will try to take it back sometime for the last part of class too.

We begin each week with stretching and songs. I think this is Lorelei's favorite part. She likes to "direct" the teacher and others as well during this time. The teacher told me one time that if she was ever sick, would Lorelei teach the class for her? Hmmm. . . I just don't know where she gets it from! Honestly, though Lorelei loves it and all her little friends in there too. They are all mostly younger than she is but skill wise and size wise, she fits well into the class.

After songs, we get on the tumble trek, which is like a very long trampoline. The kids jump down the trek into the pit. Ok, well Lorelei doesn't exactly jump, more like runs down it (we are still working on that part!) Then we move over to the preschool equipment. The kids do stuff like the balance beam, forward and backward rolls, hanging from the bars and mini trampoline jumps. Lorelei enjoys the activities where she is on the floor (hanging upside down and somersaults are not her thing) and that she can control.

At the end of class we do some parachute activities and then the kids get stamps. At the end, Lorelei goes around and hugs the teacher but also each parent too. What a hoot! She is just too cute with her lovin'! So here are the pictures. I am not too good at action shots, which of course most of gymnastics is, but here are some that I got before the good ole camera battery died. The video is of one the songs- I think she gets her shaking dance moves from her daddy!

Running around the parachute, smiling at everyone as she goes!

Doing the "candlestick"
Dancing to the music
Wagging her little doggie tale
Doing "Jack in the Box"
Running, oh, I mean jumping down the tumble trek
Chillin' in the pit!
Here I come through the obstacle course!

A Medieval New Years

On New Year's Eve we got to go to Medieval Times! What a blast! We have been wanting to go for a while now but just have never made it over there. So this year we decided, since they were having a great deal, we would take the kids and go. Josh got there early to get us some good seats and the kids and I joined him later. There was so much to do even before the actual show began. First, we got Paxton "knighted". They have this knighting ceremony and the person kneels before the king and wears a robe and they knight him. Oh man did he eat that up! He was way cute too! We also got to see a bird demonstration and other medieval festivities. Lorelei got a princess crown and of course Paxton got a yellow flag to cheer for our knight.

The show itself was very good as well as the food (if you don't mind eating with your fingers!). It was really great for our kids because they were entertained, they could eat and they could cheer and be as loud as they wanted! They did great for the whole two hour show. Paxton of course got really into it and loved all the jousting and sword fights. Lorelei enjoyed the princess in the show and the dancing horses. It really was a great time and well worth it! We think this might become our new tradition on New Year's Eve. We were home by 8:00 and the kids were in bed by 8:15- perfect New Year's! They have a show there for the late night partiers on New Year's Eve too, I think it lasts till like 2:00 in the morning-not something we're up for yet!

I wish I had more space on my camera to take more pictures but here are the cute ones we got!

The picture that he got from Medieval Times and below is the certificate. (Please excuse my poor scanning skills!)

Our Little Prince and Princess!

Paxton standing with the guard of the dungeon. You could pay extra to go down to the dungeon but when Paxton asked what a dungeon was, we figured what he doesn't know won't hurt him!

We ran into our good friends at Medieval Times. Here is Lorelei and Knight Wade!

Not a great inside picture of the show but you get the point.