the NEW iPad

I'm a total lame-o for admitting this but I had only had my iPad a little while when Apple announced the NEW iPad so I promptly returned my iPad and waited a week for the new one to come out (go ahead and judge my morals).  Then my sweet handsome husband waited in line at Wal-Mart for the 12:01 release.  He was first in line (that's dedication).

 Then when they started selling them he bought not one but two, hoping I would let him keep the other one, but alas the money hemorrhaging can only be ignored to a certain extent so I told him we'd share mine and we sold the other one to a friend.

 My ONLY reason for wanting the new iPad was the improved camera.  And it really is much better but I don't know if it's really worth the extra cash seeing as I have a camera that works real well and I don't actually think taking pics on the iPad is very convenient. 

 Also only one of the cameras is better.  The front facing camera is still the same.  I'm not sure if you can tell or not, but the following picture of me and Ender (as well as the next two pictures of Ender) is taken with the front facing camera and the last picture of me is also taken with the same camera.  They are much more grainy.  And I think the poor camera quality is why I look so dorky (I'm not sure how Ender managed to escape the dork filter).

 All these pictures are as is.  I didn't edit them at all.  With the old version I had to put old timey filters on all my pictures to make them tolerable. 

 Long story short I do love the iPad it's so addictively convenient but also so so so pricy.  If only Apple quality came cheep.

I could always return it and go back to the old version...

Guess who tried to trick the tooth fairy

It was Maya, bet you didn't guess that.  She had a wiggly tooth the other day and she asked Casey if he would pull it and he told her it was a long way from ready.  She, being the determined little gal she is, started wiggling in non stop and had it ready to pull in less than 24 hours.  She kept coming up to me saying "Feel it now, I popped another string."  So we yanked it out of her head and she cried, not because it hurt but because it tasted like blood.  I guess she's not a vampire.  She really wanted to keep the tooth but she also really wanted money so she secretly came up with a plan to trick the tooth fairy.  When the tooth fairy entered her room and replaced the tooth with cash he noticed that the tooth didn't seem quite right and upon further inspection discovered she had replaced her tooth with a segment of Cheerio and left that for the tooth fairy.  The tooth fairy realized the deception and replaced her money with a hand drawn fake dollar with a note saying "Cheerios are not teeth!  Nice try Maya. -The Tooth Fairy".  She woke up this morning to discover her fake dollar and was thrilled.  Silly girl.

Outside again!!!

The weather has been so great here I decided to take the kids outside and snap some pictures of them horsing around.  I was adventurous and flipped my camera to manual mode in order to try to recover some of my skills.  Lucky for me my subjects are adorable and it was a great day for shooting in manual...

 Miles uses this as his go to pose

 Bennett wanted a set of ninjas ($5 from the dollar store) so bad for Christmas.  We bought him a higher quality ninja from Walmart (thinking it would last longer) but he kept talking about getting the dollar store ninjas so we returned the Walmart one and got him the dollar set.  Pretty much the best Christmas present ever!  He loves those ninjas so much.  He always has at least one with him.

 Ender spent his park time in the stroller and loved it.  He is such a great baby.  We all love him so much.  He's starting to realize he want's to be like the big guys.  I don't think he'll be content to sit in the stroller much longer.  sigh...

 This picture of Bennett gets my vote for best picture of the day.  It's just so Bennett.

 Miles fell and got a little scrape on his knee so he wanted to show that off.  He is such a bruiser.  He's always covered in bruises, scrapes, scratches, etc.  Just an all around tough guy.

 Maya was a little cheesy about getting her picture taken, but shes a looker!

 Can you see the sweetness oozing from her?  If only I could have such a lovely spattering of freckles across my face.

Are they best friends?  It sometimes hard to tell but at this particular moment they were getting along pretty well.  I love the faces they make when posing for pics.

 Speaking of priceless faces, Bennett is always a challenge to get pictures of (today I grabbed my iPad and chased him and Ender around trying to take pictures and he told me "No pictures right now.  Who does he think he is?). He allowed me to take pictures of him this day, he just refused to conform when it came to the "smile and say cheese" part of it.  I can't complain too much I love these pictures and think they are much better that they would have been if he'd just complied. 

Porter's 9th Birthday

Porter's 9th birthday was awesome.  I overheard one of the party guest tell Porter "This is the best party ever!".  My mom planned to come for the party and we loved having her and all of her ideas available.  Porter wanted to do a sports themed party and she had a great idea of doing a hot dog bar for dinner.  It was totally awesome!  I don't know if you can tell from the picture but there were different recipes of hot dogs to try.  There was the Philly Cheese Dog, the Detroit Dog, the Plain Jame Dog, the Nacho Dog, the Atlanta Dog and the Kansas City Dog.  In all actuality it was probably wasted on the kids but I LOVED IT!

The party guests.  We kind of buckled down this year and allowed him to invite only a few friends.  He invited two from church and two from school.  Luckily everyone showed up.  Porter was thrilled.

We had several sport related games planned, the most popular game was defiantly table top football.  Casey makes one studly ref.

Bennett was much more into the soda than the games (whats new).

Porter was a total cheese ball during the singing of the happy birthday song. 

Happy Birthday P-Town.  We are so happy to have you in our family and we are grateful that you are such a wonderful example to you little brothers and sisters.  It's so fun to see your personality continue to develop.  As an 8 year old some of the things you enjoyed were - Scouts, Football, Breakfast Casserole,  Sing Off, Spending Time with siblings, Americas Funniest Home Videos, Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream From ZESTOS, Drawing Football Players, Playing Basketball, Playing with your friends in the neighborhood, Poppy Pancakes, Sport Jerseys, Sideways Stories from Wayside School (book), Math, Cinnamon Toast Crunch Cereal, Columbus Blue Jacket Hockey Games, and spending time with family (mostly cousins and grand parents). 

Funny guy

 A few days ago I had just finished making enchiladas for dinner when Bennett came in and asked me if he could help me cook.  I said yes and we began making brownies for dessert he must have though we were still working on the enchiladas because Casey walked into the kitchen and said Bennett looked like he was doing such a great job cooking and asked what he was making.  Bennett told him he was making "Tarantulatas".

Catch up

Miles is a disaster!  I can't even tell you how many times I've had to scrub Vaseline off his chubby little hands and cheeks.  He is doggone adorable but so so so mischievous.  We have started potty training and he's doing really well.  I was not ready to take the plunge into potty training again but as we were walking through Sam's Club he spotted an enormous bag of Swedish fish and that made the decision for me.  I just wish it was a less messy process.

Ender is getting so big.  He's still having trouble with his ears but he has learned to drink from a straw (he got it down on his first attempt), he is attempting to walk, and is eating much more big kid food.  I think he's decided to grow up on me.  Maybe I'll take a stand and refuse to cut his sweet little baby hair until people start mistaking him for a girl (Oh wait, I always do that). 

Basketball season is over.  Porter loved participating and had a great season.  They only won one game but he had a blast and lucky for us he is not uber competitive.  He got a medal after his last game and they had a big pizza party for the kids.  Bennett was so upset that he didn't get a medal so I guess we'll have to sign him up to participate in something so he can earn his own award.  Porter also bought his first iPod touch this week.  He's been wanting one for a while now, but Casey and I had kind of said "NO!".  But this week his friend decided he wanted to sell his old touch so he could buy a new one and Porter gathered up his money and now he has his very own iPod that he uses only for playing games.  He couldn't be happier.  

Casey and Maya went to a Blue Jackets hockey game for Valentines day.  They had a great time and the Blue Jackets actually won.  Maya won an award at school for compassion (typical Maya).  She doesn't know why she won it but she says that she was probably nice to someone.  She is also working on breaking her thumb sucking habit.  It's a doosey but we hope that with the right motivation she'll be able to kick it (we've told her she can get a dog if she stops). 

Miles and Bennett agree that watching movies on the iPad is great.  Miles is especially clever about it.  I'll catch him under the table watching Curious George.  He is getting better about not touching it without asking.  He just doesn't understand that "no" doesn't mean "Yes but don't let me see".

To go along with Porters iPod story I have an iPod story to share about Casey.  Several (like before Thanksgiving) months ago Casey's iPod went missing (not the first time - once he stuck in in his sport shorts (claimed the children had taken it) and I accidentally washed it.  Luckily we got it dried out and it was fine).  We kept thinking it would turn up but it didn't so eventually I started to worry that it might be really lost this time (like accidentally thrown in the trash or something) so I started to pray about it.  I kept searching and searching to no avail but I got the feeling that it was in the bed.  I checked and nope.  Then I mentioned it to Casey so we took the bed apart and looked, nope.  Then I relayed this story to my sister and she said "Maybe it not in your bed.  Did you check the kids beds?"  I cleaned their rooms super well and checked under mattresses and sheets and in pillow cases but no iPod.  I was super frustrated so I started praying that if it was really lost and finding it was out of my control I would forget about it.  I didn't forget but also didn't find it.  Then as we were sitting in Sacrament meeting today I looked over at Casey and he held up his iPod for me to see.  Miles had fished it out of the church bag and asked if he could play it.   I was giddy with the relief of finding it.  As for my under the bed prompting...I'm chalking it up to the Lord thinking I needed to get my house cleaned real well.  He probably knew the longer it was missing the happier I would be upon finding it. 

Ender, please stay little a bit longer...

 

Ender is almost one year old and he just got his first pair of church clothes.  Every Sunday he wears footy p.j.s to church (I know, but he's only a baby) and a few weeks ago while my mom was visiting she bought him the cutest little plaid shirts and two pairs of church pants.  Now he's styling!