Mom sent a fun box along with Cameron. He delivered it a week or so ago. One of the items was a little cake. Well actually it was a mix for cupcakes but mom sent along a small pan so we could have a half cake. We were hoping it would fit in our little oven. Nope. Our oven is tiny! Luckily the Spencers told us we could use their oven.
We picked up some frosting at the store - the boys picked out the pink Valentine's Day sprinkle frosting, of course. Sunday after church we whipped it up and took it upstairs to bake in the Spencer's oven.
When we got up there we found that "Grandpa Mark" had been busy baking cookies already. Anyway, we popped it in the oven and ran downstairs to time it. When the timer went off I ran upstairs to discover the oven had been turned off. I guess Mark thought he'd left it on. Oh well, we turned it back on and hoped it hadn't been off for long.
The hardest part for the boys was waiting for it to cool off so we could frost it. Torture! Although when we ran up to get the cake, "Grandpa Mark" gave the boys a plate of cookies which helped ease their pain :)
We got it frosted and then more torture - the boys had to eat split pea soup in order to eat it :)
I was finally feeling on top of things and so I decided it was a good day to make a little "thank you" movie for G&G Earl. I got the boys dressed cute, hair combed, teeth brushed. We were all a little dried out with the heater on overtime due to the freeze so both boys needed a little chapstick. I don't know if it was the chapstick or what - but something happened to the talkative boys with so much to say. I guess they've been hanging around too many deer droppings.
Luckily BabyCakes knew how to save the show ;) Love that little boy.
And I love that we are finally getting some use out of these cute little sweaters.
I guess I can't bee too surprised about the video. I can't get them to look at the same place and smile normal either.
Poor Stephen, his lips really did hurt and the chapstick made them all the more weird feeling.
This one is probably the best - not great but at least they are all looking at the camera and no one is crying
Thanks for the fun surprises Grandma and Grandpa. We sure miss you!!!!
I have a few big fears that sometimes keep me up at night. I'm not going to go into them here, except for one: somehow Mr. Destruction, aka Alexander, will get loose in the house unsupervised and unchecked and I have no way of getting to him in order to stop the impending disaster. Scary, eh?
Well that fear came true today. Fortunately, and thanks to the power of prayer, our guardian angels? and the upstairs neighbor, we came out of it without any known casualties.
Dan was attending meetings downtown and Alexander was sleeping. Stephen and Lincoln really wanted to play in the snow and they had earned the privilege to do so. I thought if I took the baby monitor out with us, I could tell when babycakes woke up and could run down and get him. It sounded like a good plan so the boys and I got into our snow gear. The boys had a hard time opening the back door and I thought it was because the door handle was locked so I unlocked it (or so I thought) we went out and I closed the door. The boys ran into the snow. They were excited to discover "a hole!" or what seems to be the fire pit.
A minute or two later I thought I'd grab a book so I tried the handle and panic ran through me. It was locked! What?!!! How could this be? My mind raced. No one was home. The Spencers were out of town for a week. The upstairs neighbors weren't home. What was I going to do? How would we get back in? What if the baby woke up?
I ran around and tried every door and every window. Nope, the house was locked up tight. The only hope we had was that Dan would come home and let us in. Luckily I had my phone! Unfortunately Dan's phone was shut off. Meetings! To make matters worse, the battery in the baby monitor was dead. I knew that before we came out so I brought the charger. I then ran around the house looking for an outlet. There was nothing I could see or get to except for right next to the front door - the opposite end of the property from where the boys were playing. Ach!
I figured that Alexander had at least another 30 minutes of a nap so I plugged it in and hoped. I tramped through the snow until I got to the windows of our apartment and peeked in - everything was quiet. Whew!
The boys played and I tried to make a good situation out of it all by taking movies of the sledding.
After 30 minutes I ran to the front and grabbed the monitor. Still quiet. Dan's phone still off. We played. I tried to act normal and pretend there wasn't a problem. The boys discovered icicles for the first time ever which of course meant another movie.
After what seemed like only a few minutes the monitor died again. Darn that battery. Then I noticed an outlet up high on the eaves right by the back door. I got the charger and a chair and climbed up to plug it in. Right when I got the monitor back on the charger and turned it on - I heard a far away noise . . . it sounded like a voice. Oh no!!!!
I ran around the house to our windows. And this is what I saw:
My heart sank. What in the world were we going to do?!!!
I prayed and I called Dan over and over again. At this point the boys were tired and cold and wanted to go inside so I had to explain the problem. We decided to pray together. I felt better and decided that the only thing that was going to keep Alexander from banging on the computers or ripping books or playing in the toilet is if we got his attention and talked to him.
He was so cute. When he finally noticed me he showed me his airplane and talked to me about it.
Then he kept asking me to hold him. I felt terrible. He got on the couch right under the window and talked to me. We sang some songs. Then he climbed onto the window ledge and we sang more songs. The boys thought it was hilarious - I was a little too stressed to be that amused.
I was running out of songs to keep him entertained. Bless his heart he tried over and over to open the window. The little boys lost interest and went back to playing in the snow. I called Dan some more.
Then Stephen came running back. "Mom - I just met a nice girl called Alexa and she said it would be her pleasure to let us in!" YEAH!!!! The upstairs neighbor, who just moved in and who we had yet to meet had come home! We wouldn't have known it unless the boys had gone back to playing. She let us in and we ran downstairs. Babycakes was still in the window - bless him.
And then who should walk in the door not 5 minutes later with his phone still turned off? Yep. Oh and that window that the baby kept trying to unlock? It actually was unlocked. I could have removed the screen and slid it open! Oh well.
All in all we were locked out for a total of 90 minutes but luckily the only casualty that I'm aware of at this point is that Alexander now knows how to climb into the window.
Of course, knowing what he is capable of when he's right under our noses, it could have been a lot worse!
The boys worked hard to earn tokens so they could have the privilege of playing outside in the snow. They were so cute, when we explained the concept they said, "it's just like earning swimming in Arizona!" Exactly. They had been itching to play in the snow since the moment they saw it in the parking lot in Cedar City. They wanted to touch and walk in all the snow they could see for nearly 2 weeks now. Of course, all the snow in parking lots is like the dirtiest snow there is so we had tried hard to keep them out of it. Finally they could run and play in it to their hearts content.
The Spencer's back yard is awesome!!!! It backs up to the golf course and so it seems like it goes on for miles.
They have a cute little play structure with a barn and slide.
And the have a couple tree swings too.
Deer and rabbits come at night and leave little presents as well as showing themselves sometimes in the afternoons. The boys are in heaven.
We had a talk about yellow snow and deer droppings first thing. Gotta make sure they are aware of the pitfalls for all desert rats. Within about 2 minutes Lincoln was crying because his hands were cold. Dollar Store one-size-fits all gloves are not the best for playing in the snow. Grandma Beverly had him come into her bathroom and hold his hands under the water to warm them up. I found him two pairs of dry gloves to wear and he was off again. I gotta get these boys some real snow gloves! ***UPDATE: Grandma Beverly dropped two pairs of little snow gloves off at our door the next morning - she is so sweet! Their favorite thing was the swing. Hilarious! That's gotta be one of the last things I'd want to do in the cold.
