Albino CUPIDs

Pictured above you will see Collin (10 yrs. old), Camden (7 yrs. old) & Caleb (8 yrs. old).  A little OLD for diapers!  Looks like they all need a little sun to tan their vampireish skin.

Torture chair

I went upstairs to check on the kids because they'd been asking for duct tape and bread & I wondered what grand plan they'd come up with.  Luckily they never found the duct tape.  I guess they were going to shove bread in Keaton's mouth.  The other kid in the picture is Landon.  He's our new neighbor that moved into the old dumb neighbor's house.  We are so happy to have this fun new family move in.  That house looks like it has a big smile on its face!

Collecting things is fun...

Keaton is excited to share his collection with you.  It's a cup full of chewed up bubble gum and some carrots in a cup of water. 

Yancey Family in need of tech DETOXIFICATION!

We are all a bit addicted to our high tech gadgets.  Spring better get here soon so we can let these devices collect some dust on the shelf.  We do have some rules about them but the Yancey rules get broken when it's snowy & cold outside.

Garage Sneak Peek...

Jason is still in the process of creating his shop.  He's found lots and lots of the same tool!  He'll save lots of money with it all organized.  He just went to the store recently to buy electrical tape but since he's been organizing he's found lots of it in his buckets of tools.  I'm very impressed & can't wait to show it off when it's done.  The boys all had fun playing on it.  They better enjoy the space now because I'm about to clean out our storage unit. 

KEATON IS FIVE TODAY! yay!

You just can't help but love Keaton.  The second you meet him you'll be drawn to either his big eyes, cute voice, sweet personality, dance moves, or overall good looks & you'll instantly fall in love with him:)!  Just yesterday at church my neighbor asked me if he's my calm one.  Yep, he's pretty much different from the other boys in this family.  I can't quite put my finger on it but he's different from them.  He's still obsessed with the color blue, soft things, snuggling only his mom:), playing Super Mario, playing with friends (preferably girls), going to preschool, dancing & singing.  He's also still really clumsy but really tough about it.  He rarely cries when he gets hurt.  He falls off the kitchen bar stools, falls down the stairs & off his bike all the time.  It's a good thing he got a nice big blue helmet for his birthday to protect his head.  His brothers all seem to enjoy teasing him the most.  He's pretty good at laughing at it but occasionally whines for them to stop!  He got a blue bike, blue helmet, blue hula hoop, blue ball;), nerf gun & blue clothes for his birthday.  We love our favorite;) child, Keaton! 

FIGHT!

Uh oh... Caleb got beat up by a 6th grade girl on the way home from school yesterday.  I'm glad he stopped himself from going FULL BLAST on her.  He was shocked & embarrassed which in a way is good because I think it stopped his crazy temper getting out of control.  I'm certainly not against him defending himself, even if it's against girl, but he's still figuring out how to control himself once he gets started.  Poor Camden has been full blast attacked by Caleb and it's not pretty to watch!  Apparently Caleb, another 3rd grade boy & a kindergartner boy were throwing snowballs at a bunch of girls.  One of the girls turned around, grabbed Caleb by the ear, stuck her finger in his eye & then swung him by the ear down a hill & into a ditch!  I've never seen him so upset.  He got home & could hardly tell the story because he was crying so hard.  My friends cute little girl saw it all happened and showed up at our door with some chocolate pudding for Caleb because she felt so bad for him.  She'd even gone home crying about it because she said it was so scary!  A little later I had a group of girls at the door that had either seen it happen or heard about it and they all wanted to know if Caleb was o.k.  Then I got a message from a mom that heard about it & wanted to know if Caleb was o.k.  Her message said she knows how sweet Caleb is & that her daughter was also upset by what she'd seen.  Then I got a call from the mom of the girl that did the ear pull/ finger jab/ throw down move & she wanted to say sorry and that the girl was going to bring Caleb some cookies to apologize.  Sheesh, this thing was getting a bit out of control.  At this point we were all so over it!  Caleb didn't understand why she beat him up because he said she never told him to stop throwing the snowballs.  I again reiterated the fact that if he's teasing he should pay attention to the other persons body language & facial expressions to make sure he's not bugging them too much.  We've had this talk many times in our family because we do tend to play tease & sometimes it ends with hurt feelings.  I definitely think there are times when parents need to get involved but in this case I was just going to deal with it with Caleb.  I figured I'd just walk the kids to and from school for the next few days & it would be fine.  I was proud of Caleb because when the girl came to the door he was the first one to say something.  He immediately told her he was sorry for throwing snowballs at her.  I didn't coach him on what to say when they came over.  I was proud of him for saying sorry for his part in the "crime".  Only an hour before he'd been crying & saying some pretty mean things about her so it was great to see him so mature about it.  I think he definitely learned a good lesson about teasing!  No more drama!

FREEZER MEAL JOY

I made Shepard Pie today.  Someone made it for me after I had Camden & we fell in love with it.  I love to freeze this one because I don't have to add a side or anything.  It's loaded with a little of everything.  I'm planning on making more freezer meals tomorrow.  My kitchen is a disaster but it's so worth it!  I praise my name on the days when these come in handy!  Good Job Me.  You are amazing:)!

I love Valentine's Day!

As a teen I had a few good Valentine's Days but there were also those years where I didn't have a Valentine & how dumb is Valentine's if you don't have a special person to give chocolates too?!  I really love this holiday!!!  I need to remember to put my heart apron on tomorrow with my cut out hearts in the pocket so I can hand out hearts when I see the boys showing love & kindness towards each other!  I put these together while Jason finished up their Valentine boxes.  I put them to bed early because some days I'm just DONE, plus I wanted to get everything ready for the big day full of LOVE.

This weekend I saw Just Go With It with Marci & my mom.  We all loved it!  Caleb & Camden were blessed beyond belief to sleep at the Leishman house on Friday.  Seriously better than Disneyland for them!  Camden even stayed two nights because they were busy digging a big fort thing in the yard.  It was very cool!  My cool parents took all of us to Chin Wah on Saturday night.  The Leishman boys were kind enough to watch all the kids so we could enjoy dinner.  Crew got to come to dinner & on the way home Jason seriously said "Crew just needs to get over me.  I know he wants me to be his Dad".  Jason watched him one night while me, Justin, Caleb & Halle went to the Jazz game & they bonded.  Jason loves him!  We also met Grammy at Toys R Us so the boys could all spend their gift cards that Grammy & Grandpa gave them for Christmas.  I LOST one of the gift cards when we were in the store, but luckily they were able to look up my mom's card info. & give us a new card!  YAY!  It was a little chaotic at the store because Kody was not feeling all that great so he was whining like crazy.  Luckily he got a little nap on the way home & woke up happier.  Poor Grammy was probably exhausted from the insanity that we usually bring with us where ever we go!

Jason was given my Dad's 1974 jeep to get running again.  Oh my!  He is freaking excited!  WOW. It's all he talks about.  He can't wait to get working on it.  I told him he can't start until my garage shelves are up & the garage is organized to perfection.  At least he got started on the garage shelves.  He's building some sort of loft in the single car garage.  I can't wait to take pics and show it off.  It's also my Valentines Day present.

NERD!

Jason has been out working today & was dressed all scroungy so I told him to go get dressed nice because my parents are taking us to dinner.  I meant jeans without holes and grease spots & a nicer shirt.  He seriously game down wearing a suit.  I had to take a picture.  He'd be a bit out of place at Chin Wah tonight with his suit on.  O.K so maybe this was only funny to me but I had to blog it to make fun of him.

marshmallows for breakfast & a special birthday wish for ME!

I never knew Keaton really understood what blogging was all about but this morning he was telling me a story about how Collin puts marshmallows in a bowl, microwaves it & serves it for breakfast.  After he told me his awesome story he said "now go blog that".  I grabbed my dumb kodak camera & had him repeat the story in his CUTE voice, but the dumb camera didn't work.  I want a flip video so I can start vlogging instead of blogging.  I would have way too much fun with a flip video.  It's about that time of year where I start telling you what I want for my birthday, so I'll start out by letting you know I want a flip camera with a tripod!  If you don't think you want to spend that much on me for my birthday, please feel free to get a few of your friends together to pitch in some money.  It's o.k if your friends don't know me.  It's a good cause.  Thanks.  So I tried to take a picture of a CUTE picture Keaton drew for me of him handing me a valentine.  My kids always draw me smaller then them with big crazy hair.  I wonder what this means.  Check out the the awesome color I just pained my office (behind Keaton in the picture). I love how it turned out.  Now it's time to get Jason out of bed so he can do his favorite thing and start hanging things on the wall for me;)!  Friends & family you must buy me a flip video so I can present you with awesome entertainment like Jason whining like a little baby about hating to hang things on the walls for me.  Our walls are seriously somewhat empty right now because I'm so scared to ask him to do this for me;).

Garage & Laundry Room Delight...

We rented a storage unit last fall when we were thinking about moving.  I haven't missed anything that's over there.  I've loved having less clutter!  The plan for this weekend is to bring it all back. AHHHHH.  Makes me crazy thinking about it all.  It's a good thing I have a plan.  A lot of it is our camping and Christmas boxes so I'll need to keep those but the other crap is going bye bye!  Jason is going to build shelves in the garage & I figured that since he's already going to be building that I'd add another project for him.  I found this idea online & decided I must have it in my laundry room.  In my future I see everyone coming home from school, grabbing their basket and putting away all of their clothes.  I want to fold them right when they come out of the dryer and put them in the baskets.  I think it's an amazing plan, don't you?!  O.K so I can't get the picture to copy over so click here  to see my grand plan!  Simple but wonderful. 

Boy stuff..

 Caleb loves archery!  He was shooting balloons in the backyard.

This is a balloon covered by a towel on my toilet.  You just never know what you are going to find at our house.  Camden said he did it to hide Keaton's blue balloon.  Only Camden would think to do it this way.  I might stick it in a closet and close the door, but a toilet???  He's weird:)!

boys sleepover & stuff

Last night the boys decided to have sleepovers in each others rooms. They decided Caleb & Kody should sleep by each other since they look the most alike & Camden & Keaton should since they look the most alike. Camden made a bed for Keaton on the floor. Kody was too hyper & didn't last long in Caleb's room.

Another Jason Birthday post...

Caleb set the alarm for 7am on a Saturday so he could get up and get this party started.  He made the cake, blew up tons of balloons (badaloons is how Keaton says it) & decorated like crazy!  Camden helped with breakfast.  It was a group effort & now it's over.  Jason went to get his brother so they can work on his truck in the garage for the rest of the day!  I'm going to order Jason his favorite chicken fried steak & biscuits & gravy from Sill's Cafe & that's it.  I'm way more needy than Jason on my birthday. 

HAPPY 34TH BIRTHDAY TO JASON

A special shout out goes to Keaton for being the only child to fully cooperate and answer all the questions.

Caleb's Answers...
How old is dad? 34
What's his favorite thing? camping
What's his favorite chore to do at home? watch TV
What makes him happy? seeing me

 Camden's Answers...
How old is dad? 30
What's his favorite thing? his truck
What's his favorite chore to do at home? work on his truck
What makes him happy? Shady

Keaton's Answers...
How old is dad?  I don't know
What's his favorite thing? fixing his truck
What's his favorite chore to do at home? fix his truck
What makes him happy? his birthday cake
How does he make you laugh? tickles me & fights me
What does he do when you are not around? makes chocolate chip cookies
What is he really good at? fighting
How does he earn money?  he goes cha ching ya know
How are you and dad alike? We like wrestling
How are you guys different?  When we were young we were different
How do you know he loves you? when he makes me chocolate chip cookies
What does dad like most about mom?  When you bring him presents
What does dad dislike most about mom?  When you guys fight each other

 Kody's Answers...
How old is dad? Dad's free (three)
What's his favorite thing? TV
What makes him happy? TV
How does he make you laugh? He doooos this... whaaaa
What is he really good at? When he laughs at me
How does he earn money?  at the preschool
How are you and dad alike?  TV
How do you know he loves you? Um Dad's my best friend

I looked through the Yancey photo archives & found all of these pictures of Jason.  Some old & some new, in no specific order.  We love you!

While looking through the pictures I found this picture & it made me laugh because it was taken a few days after I got my tummy tuck.  I was all drugged up on pain medication & couldn't stand up straight yet.  It actually took me about 2 months to be able to stand up straight.