My cubbies are at it again....

My Cub Scouts met this evening at my house for our den meeting. I wanted them to concentrate on being thankful for everything this Thanksgiving. So here they are with the craft that we made tonight. I call him "Thankful Tom" and what I had the boys do after they finished this craft was take their turkey home and hang it up and everyone in their family had to write a couple of things that they were thankful for. Hopefully, they will remember that we are all so blessed!

I put my "Thankful Tom" up right under some pictures of the Savior in my family room so that I will remember to be thankful and to remember from whence all blessings flow!

p.s. we had a good laugh with Cassidy tonight who always loves to come to Scouts because it is at our house and she loves to be involved in all the stuff the boys are doing. She decided not to finish her "Thankful Tom" and even drew tears under his eyes, so we dubbed her turkey "Pathetic Patrick" and you can see her proudly holding it in the front row of the pictures. (She is not a "back row" type of personality!) He!He! We love our Cass and we love our Pathetic Patrick!

Terrible Two's at their best, (or worst), it just depends how you look at it..

O.K. so here is a poem I wrote in about five seconds while the pictures were uploading for this entry. I know it is a corny poem, but it kind of describes his life right now. And the crazy thing is, I actually do watch him, so how does he do these things????? If you are a wise, experienced mom with answers, go ahead and take a stab at that one...

O.K. so what do you do

when your son is covered in blue?

when he finds the flour

and decides to make a shower?

oh, what do you do...

so, what do you do

when he shows a knife to you

and he sure looks just like

that scary guy named Mike?

Oh, what do you do???

Oh, I know what you should do

Blame it one the fact that he is two!!!

p.s. there has to be a scary guy named Mike in one of those crazy horror shows...

This is Colter, Will's little partner in crime...

Um, do you think your a dog??!!!!

o.k. so we have this wonderful African Sulcutta tortiose as you probably all know by now. But did you know that she thinks she is a dog, and that she thinks she should be an "inside dog"... I bet you didn't! They probably don't have too much of a problem with this in Africa where Dot is from originally. But then again, those tortoises weren't raised by my younger sister who loves to spoil her pets and even let the tortiose come in the dog door! He!He!

We actually don't really mind when Dot comes in, she just walks around the house for a couple of hours (usually shutting herself in one of the rooms accidently), and then she will find a nice place to go to sleep for about 20 hours. Oh, the life of a turtle......

here is Dot walking around like she owns the place....

here is Dot asleep in our bedroom. Sarah felt that she needed a blanket. "Wait a second, you didn't really mean to put me outside did you???" This is Dot trying to get back in the house by pushing on the door.

A Scoutin' Outin'

This past Thursday for our Den Activity, I took my Cub Scouts to the local park. We listened to the story of the pecan trees that surround our beautiful park.
They were planted 15-years-ago by our Bishop that passed away about four years ago. He planted the 10 or so pecan trees and hand watered them until they could make it on their own. The trees put forth many pecans each year and many people benefit from it. (Especially our family that has a tradition of picking them each year which will be included on my next entry...)
Anyways, the boys learned about this act of kindness that keeps on giving even after the giver has passed away. I made them sign their name committing them to a special radom act of kindess for November. Then the fun began.... Morgan yielded his citrus picker and started smacking the various branches of the pecan trees. The boys would stand under the trees braving both life and limb as they gathered their treasure... pecans to take home with them in huge 2-gallon bags. They loved getting hit with falling pecans and running around. And I am pretty sure that Morgan enjoyed hitting all the small scouts with the pecans as well. A Bishop has to get his frustrations out somewhere!!! He! He!
Then we proceeded to clean the park and eat a snack and then for the Grand Finale.... It was getting dark so we armed each boy with a glow stick and played glow stick tag, Red Rover, and of course Hide and Seek...
It was truly a night to remember and I hope the boys remember to spread seeds of kindness this month. I really love my Cubbies!!!!

Why mom's need naps!!!

O.K. everything that transpires in these pictures took place in less than a two hour span of time. This is a little look into the life of a 2 1/2-year-old boy! This isn't for the weak of heart, or those that are afraid of poop!

This story begins at 12:30pm Arizona time on Thursday, November 6th. The characters are the mom played by Christa Johnson and the "Terrible Two Monster" played by himself, Will Johnson. The scene opens with Mom and son at the table making cookies for Cub Scout activity that evening. The recipe is very messy and calls for rolling dough into a ball and then rolling it into powdered sugar and sticking it on a pan. Two-year-olds love mess so Will is in his element.

o.k. I have to switch to first person because it is too hard to tell the story in third person, I am too close to the situation. You could say that I am "personally vested" in this story.

Anyhow, I showed him how to roll the dough in the powdered sugar all the while saying "roll it, roll it, roll it" and then showed him how to place said dough on pan. He really got into it and kept repeating over and over "roll it, roll it, roll it," which sounded more like "row it! row it!" This goes on for a while and we are getting happily messy and I begin to take pictures. Pretty soon, Will sees his shovel on the ground and leaps from the chair, grabs his shovel and heads out the back door yelling "I dig rocks!"

I turn to put pans in oven and wash a few dishes. Pretty soon Will comes in to show me a rock he has found. I tell him to put it back outside and get back to dishes. Pretty soon I hear "row it, row it, row it" I turn to see him rolling more dough in the powdered sugar. "Will we are done, no more rolling." I come over to see what he is up to and low and behold, he is rolling a rock in the powdered sugar and looking content as ever. I expain the difference between rocks and dough and take the rock away to the backyard. He is very messy, so we opt for a bath.

Will takes a bath and washes up and plays with his Hot Wheels in the tub. I get him out to dry him off and say, "let's get a diaper on." and turn to grab one. But Will is nowhere to be found, he heard the word "diaper" and is off like a shot eager for his freedom. He runs straight out into the backyard and hides behind a tree. Can you see his cute little legs poking out? What a silly kiddo! I try chasing him, but he hides again and again and runs away. I give up chasing him, leave the door open and tell him that when he gets cold, he can come inside. (this shouldn't take long considering the weather today). I head back in to take cookies out of the oven. I set the diaper down, pull out a pan of cookies and hear Will coming up behind me running with something in his hand. "Will, what are you doing?" Will quickly responds "Put in toilet" and starts to run down the hall. "Will, put what in the toilet? I hope you don't have another rock!" His quick responce is "poopy in toilet." Now I am running over to see what he has in his hand and when I catch him, he has a nice size deposit of poop in his hand and was going to go flush it down the toilet. He had pooped outside and knew that poop needed to be in the toilet, hence the mad dash. Oh boy!!!! "Back in the tub Will!"

Will gets out of the tub again and this time I am much better at wrangling the Diaper Ditcher. I pull another batch of cookies out of the oven and go to remove an odd shaped cookie in the middle of the pan amist the other cookies. Oh look, a powdered sugar covered rock! How delightful, and fully cooked might I add. Yummy! Maybe the Cub Scouts wouldn't even notice! He! He!

Soon, Will marches in with just his diaper on and carries three different sized stools with him, one at a time. I watch wondering what will come of this. He lines them up in a row and carefully goes from one to the next until he reaches his desired destination; watching the canaries in their cage. (At least he didn't let them out today like he did two days ago, they aren't easy to catch you know, well, at least I know...)


I make him a sandwich and chips for a late lunch. He eats two chips and gets down and takes off. I catch him a few minutes later and take him to his bed and lock him in his room. (I know it is mean, but if he doesn't see me lock the door at nap time, he just leaves).

Now he is a perfect angel, blonde and beautiful with long eyelashes and a perfect expression of happiness on his pale face.... Me on the other hand, I think my hair is going in all different directions, I have chocolate all over my clothes, (at least that is what I hope it is...) and I still need to get ready for Cub Scouts tonight and oh no, it is time to pick up Sarah from Kindergarten..... What happened to MY naptime??????

Random Halloween Memories

Here are some random halloween memories that are fun to share..
Cassidy is pretending to be afraid of the scary guy...

Will was our cowboy one day and Batman another day

No comment needed....

My younger sister as Sarah Palin, her husband as Barak Obama and their baby as a spider..

My parents as a witch and Harley Riding dude! We always knew dad had a Harley side hidden deep..

Charlie Brown may have the Great Pumpkin, but we have "The Magic Pumpkin"

It is tradition in our home every fall to carve pumpkins for Family Night. And every year we have lucked out and had at least one "Magic pumpkin" in the lot...

Now, you are probably wondering why your pumpkins have never been lucky... well, are you shaking them, maybe you should.

So the idea with the magic pumpkin is that some of the pumpkins we carve each year have candy in them and sometimes even money. Our kids are never afraid to get their hands dirty during carving time because they are bound to find a treat among the goo. And those of you who don't like pumpkin gut covered candy, well you might not enjoy our tradition as much as our kids do.... aren't those M&Ms tempting you???

These are great memories for our family and we even had one Magic Pumpkin from our own garden this year. That is what we get for dropping candy right next to the seeds.......

Anticipation....

Dig in.....

Yummy M&Ms