Some things to journalize:

1) Emma has a temper tantrum (seriously) about once a year. She was labeled The Peacemaker in her blessing by her Dad, and wow has she lived up to it. That being said, yesterday she had her fit for 2010. After being told that it was time to get ready for bed, she looked at Hailey-Bop fake crying and decided she needed to join in. I just watched her kind of cry-almost like watching a show-and let her enjoy getting all of her pent-up emotions out of her tiny little body. At the end I went out into the garage to shut the door, turned around, and realized my sweet little Emma locked me out. grrr. There went the "cuteness" really quick. (FYI: This is the first time I have ever been locked out of the house by any child. Really? Emma? I never would have guessed...) The best thing is that she has apologized for it about 8 times today. So tender...
2) Tyler has been invited to play on the "traveling team" for basketball. 6 games throughout Utah in the next few months. Nate was also asked to be an assistant coach. Since Ty is on the regular Vernal basketball league as well, this means giving up my symphony for awhile while we juggle basketballs. We will see if Tyler loves it as much as he says. (Practises are 6 in the morning!!!)
3) Our water heater has kicked the bucket. :( Old homes surely do nickel and dime an owner. Dang.
4) Thanksgiving was wonderful! The Stucki sibs are the best. I think the older you get the more you enjoy the most boring of all holidays.
5) Hailey brought home her first semester report card. Straight A's. Not surprised: she is a model student. She also found her first pimple tonight. (Definilty document-worthy.) AND, I took her to see Tangled tonight. I bawled my eyeballs out. Lame me.

Since I have no news for Little Boy, I decided to throw in some goodies from the last month:

TRAINS, TRUCKS, LIFE SIZED (for a 2-year-old) NUTCRACKERS, MORE TRAINS, A COMFY CHAIR, and refusing to SWIM.

Insults

I love when my babies get old enough to start saying insults. This last week Mason has learned his first one. :) I have been called/heard "stinky poopyhead" oh, a zillion times or so. It's cute, but it's slowly not getting cute anymore. Pretty soon we will have to start cracking down on saying nice words.

Last night we had a fantastic FHE treat. Fantastic enough to blog about it at least. Hot cocoa with a scoop of peppermint ice cream eaten with PEPPERMINT SPOONS. Yummers.

Stinky poopyhead loved it:

Boys vs. Girls?

In the age old debate on whether boys or girls are harder to raise...I have no answers.

 Actually I do! It depends on the day. :)

 That being said, boys are just plain odd. And humorous. For example: Mason and I went to the library this morning. For a moment I "lost" myself in books, (as I tend to do in the library), and looked around-realizing Mason had disappeared. I walked up and down every aisle, until finally I heard, "I in the alligator! Mom, I in the alligator!".

He means the elevator. :) He couldn't reach the buttons so he was stuck in the elevator just waiting. Then we went outside and read his Thomas the Train book. The only one he wanted to check out.

 And I never thought I would have one of THESE kids. You know, the ones who insists on sleeping in their boots...(Then sticking their tongue out when I say smile.)

 But weirdness isn't only applicable to two year-olds. These are USED SOCKS. I call it Tyler's Jungle:

Mason's two legs stuck in one pant leg. Who needs comedy on t.v.? I have enough in my hall.

A bunch of goodness from October.

It's just silly how we live less than two miles away from the Vernal temple and it took us three years to get a picture. I blame it all on the devil. :)

 Halloween here we come! From oldest to youngest: Madd Hatter, Queen of Hearts, Pizza, Alice in Wonderland, Vampire, party-pooper Mason. (Notice I am holding his Thomas the Train costume).

 But he did have a new scary pet. I saw this rat at Wal-mart and bought it in honor of finding mice in my house. All I know is that Mason liked to drag it around for a few days. What a cool "toy". (roll eyes here)

 One of the best times last week was Grandma Linda coming out and sewing skirts with the girls...

 ...and making a Thomas the Train pillow with Mason...

 ...which he absolutely loves-except hates taking a picture right before bed with it. (Grumpy bug).

 Dress for Success Day. (What you want to be when you grow up). Emma=ballerina, Tyler=basketball player, Hailey=basketball player.

 Speaking of Tyler and Hailey, they are growing up. :( In this picture I told them I want to get them in their hats, but really they kind of shocked me with how old they are getting and I wanted to document the moment. :)

 Our bath toys are sometimes very homemade. Here are Emma and Mason's "babies". Mason's baby is named "Mom" and Emma's baby is named "Angela". :)

 We celebrated our 12th anniversary this month on the ninth. Every year, (minus the pregnant ones :), I try and get a picture similar to our wedding invitation picture. That way when we are celebrating our 70th anniversary we can have a whole wall of pictures of us growing old together.:) I'm so clever.
I. love. this. man.
I think I will keep him.

"Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest." Joshua 1:9 (Halloween FHE 2010)

What a great family night we had last night. First off: my spectacular dinner table. We started the night off with the lights dimmed, scary music on the radio, drank "blood" (red kool-aid) and human meat sandwiches (bbq beef). Emma actually got TOO scared and we had to turn the lights back on. :) (Goal accomplished!) After dinner we read the above scripture and talked about fear vs. faith followed by a talk by President Hinckley on what we should believe in. (Thank you online idea website a.k.a SugarDoodle.org).We then popped the orange balloons below with the "beliefs" written on them and did the accompanying challenges. Super fun! Fun enough to use some/all of this for Emma's Halloween school party, Hailey's Halloween school party, Tyler's Halloween school party AND Sharing Time on Sunday! 5 birds with one stone. Nice...

 The "yucky" Food Guess Game: (pigs feet and chicken liver and such)...

 Finding a "be not afraid" scripture in less than one minute. Had 4 seconds to spare...

 Eating cactus meat: (Not too bad actually!)

 Nice Tyler:

 Nice Hailey:

 Nice Emma:

 Scary freaky Mason:

Believing in yourself: Push-ups for 2 minutes:

Believing in prayer: (Hailey had to follow her Dad's voice around the kitchen to a bowl of apples, followed by a bob or two.)

Mason just got to pass out the prizes. He could NOT contain his excitement! :)

What have I done?!

Winter is coming. Which means kids are indoors quite a bit. Which means we can have a little cabin fever on occasion. :) So I am always on the lookout for inside activities. I found some Crayola Window Markers and thought I'd give them a try. Even saved them for Nathan to have when I go to school Monday night. This is what I saw the next morning:

  (And this is on almost EVERY WINDOW IN THE HOUSE.)

Aye yi yi...

The artist of our family...

I finally got Hailey to try the paint-by-number kit she got for Christmas LAST YEAR. Then I didn't see her for 4 hours straight...

 I think she loves it.

                                      

(Video of Hailey acting out a role from The Princess and the Frog. Wowzers. Girl has a growl!)


Other thoughts from my brain:
       After picking up my 1,357,328th piece of trash off the floor, I realized (lightbulb turns on) "KIDS CAN PICK UP THEIR OWN MESSES!" Duh. What have I been thinking? Sometimes I think my brain came out when I delivered Tyler 11 years ago.
       So we had a family council the other night and Nathan asked the kids what we can do to fix the problem. At school they have to "pull a card" for misbehavior, so they decided they want to do that. We bought a little book that holds index cards. I wrote a variety of "punishments" on them. (Dishes, vacumn, etc.) This afternoon little Emma threw a stinking banana peel on the floor. (What the?!) I'm not going to lie. I was totally going to let her get away with it. (Again. Where's my brain?) For me she is still a little girl, but she ran over to our book and had to take out all the trash from upstairs. I told her just the kitchen one, but she did every.single.garbage.can, (there is about ten!), AND put new sacks in them. By herself. Wow.
She also had to vacumn her room a few hours later. Not as exciting the second time pulling a card.
We also voted that this punishment doesn't apply to Mason. :)   (Even when he eats cookies IN MY DANG BED. Hmmm, I need another idea for 2 year-olds...)

Brothers

So Grandpa Stucki gave us a surprise visit, and THIS is how the boys room was. (Auuugh! Thank goodness my Dad loves me for me, not for my clean kids' rooms.)

 BUT, it did kick my bum into gear. Four hours later it is sparkling clean, and these boys LOVE it.

 I asked Mason to show me his toys. He is very proud of his "corner".

 Oh. My. Heavens. Could you not just cry with tears of love? (Ok that's lame. But you get it.)

 :)

Carrots

When we have carrots to pull from the garden, than make it an "activity" for FHE and it becomes super fun!

At least for a few minutes...

 Until Scrappy finds a dead deer behind our yard (great thanks Scrappy) and everyone sprints to see the gore.

 And guess who is left. :)

 And guess who is left to wash the carrots...

(This video is when Emma thought I was taking a picture rather than a video.hee hee)

Boondogals and such...

Thank goodness for Scouts. Otherwise, how would we have learned about such cool things like Boondogals?

They have taken over our household. The Scout store probably hates seeing my car pull up because I bring a ton of kids (most the neighborhood is doing them) and they make about $2. 25 with all our purchaces. The string is only 5 cents a strand. :)

Just a day in the life of my job as Mason's mother: trying to get him in the bath....

My question:"Where are you getting your flu shot?"
As usual, Slurpee's afterward for being brave.

Too bad I don't have a picture of last Sunday. Our family was asked to speak on The Proclamation on the Family. We TOTALLY enjoyed preparing for it. (And we learned a ton.) Hailey and Tyler spoke first, than Emma joined them and sang Families Can Be Together Forever. I spoke afterwards for a full 20 minutes (oops) which only left Nathan 12-15 minutes. He did awesome though. What a great experience. Grandma and Grandpa Eaton (and Aunt Kris) made the drive to come listen. It was a great day. :)