Our Christmas Tree

Here is the final product. The 2007 Tams family Christmas tree. Complete with plastic ornaments, plastic snow flakes, and a indestructible tree. We will see how long the lights last on the bottom of the tree. Ryan really likes to pull on them.

We need a little Christmas!

So Thanksgiving, black Friday, and cyber Monday have come and gone and we still haven't blogged anything about our adventures. We spent Thanksgiving with Amy's parents in West Jordan. It was a lot of fun for Matthew and Ryan to play with their cousins Makenna, Dillon, and Mylie. It was great to see them all. Matthew enjoyed the olives...who doesn't? Ryan really got into the post turkey tryptophan-induced lounging. The real challenge came in preventing our two little boys from destroying their grandparents' home.

It seems that our boys have this "ability" to get into trouble.
And like all superheros when the two get together there is no human possible way to stop them. I'm not quite sure if I want to classify them as superheros or diabolical masterminds. Ryan, believe it or not, tends to be the initiator. If Matthew gets put into timeout Ryan is right behind trying to get him out and into more trouble.

As the boys were putting up the Christmas tree we were reminded why we only decorate the bottom half. But we also came upon a new discovery: a three-year-old has the same tendency to pull things off the tree as his one-year-old brother. Matthew also has the firm belief that ornaments can only hang on the lights.

Ryan is starting to say more words (of course we are the only ones who can understand what he is saying). He now says, Wow, Thank you, (Day Do) Mom, Milk (Mah), Matthew (Ma Ma), Dad (Da), Good night (Oo ni), woof (boof), hot dog (ha da), and moo (boo).

Matthew is also fun as ever. This is part of his prayer from FHE last night, "Grateful to have Family Home Evening and bless that we will have a REALLY BIG treat." I guess that demonstrates Matthew's motivation for attendance. He also told us that when he gets big he will go to school on the bus and Ryan will be sad, but he will come back from school to do his homework and Ryan will be happy again. Dreaming about homework? I'm sure that comes from Amy.

Tagged...Again!

I was tagged by my good pal Jenette, and seeing as how this is the third time I’ve been tagged, I had better respond. So here goes the list of 6 random things about myself.

1. I’m really good at reading something but not very good at responding (as evident by this post.) I have good intentions, believe me. But these days I get distracted pretty easily and forget to go back and finish. New Year’s Resolution: write things down!

2. I love nuts. Peanuts, almonds, cashews, pecans, you name it. Even better when paired with chocolate (ie. Peanut M&M’s or Reese’s) Yummy!

3. I’ve only been in one car accident in my life, and it wasn’t even with another car. I hadn’t been driving very long when my mom asked me to move our car from one spot of the driveway to another spot. I backed up, turned the steering wheel, and gently pushed on the gas, but nothing happened. Somehow my back wheels got stuck on the curb. I gave it a little more gas to get the back of the car up and over the curb. Bad idea. I ended up gunning it instead, crashing into our portable basketball hoop which tipped over and pulled down the chain link fence in our front yard. My parents have still not replaced it.

4. Someday I want to go back to school to become a librarian.

5. I’m not a very good housekeeper. Now I keep everything clean as far as scrubbing, washing, etc., but it’s the clutter that I can’t seem to keep up with. And it tends to migrate – I get one room de-cluttered only to find the next room in worse shape. Someday my house will be totally clean all at once.

6. Call me crazy, but I hate it when people don’t use their blinkers when they drive. Can it really be that hard to turn on? I don’t think so.

Way too smart

These are some of the adventures I've had with Matthew over the past couple of days.

About two days ago, I had planned on doing some things for Primary while Matthew was taking his nap. As always happens when I have things to do, Matthew decided not to take a nap that day. I had postponed my responsibilities long enough, so when he asked if I would play cars with him I had to tell him that he needed to play on his own for a while. He did so peacefully for five minutes and then the "Mom, are you done yet?" started about every two minutes. Each time I had to tell him that it would be longer. He finally gave me a time limit of three more minutes to which I smiled and hoped he would forget. The phone rang about five minutes later and after I came back Matthew told me that I was all done with Primary. I told him that I would be in about ten minutes (I was being very accurate) when I noticed that my binder had disappeared from the table. I asked Matthew if he had seen my binder, wondering if I had moved it with the phone call. He smiled and said yes. The next question: "Did you take Mommy's binder?" Matthew again said yes (at least he told the truth) and showed me where he had stashed it in his toy box. I decided that I wasn't going to get anywhere and it would be best to go and play with my son.

Today we were again playing cars while Ryan was asleep and it was getting close to lunch time. I told Matthew I was getting hungry and it was time to start thinking about lunch. He told me he still wanted to play cars, so we did so for a few more minutes. I then said, "Matthew, my tummy is growling. It is saying 'FEED ME'." And what was Matthew's response? "My tummy is growling too. It says 'I WANT TO PLAY WITH CARS'." Checkmate.

Halloween

Okay, so I am really late on the Halloween pictures. I tried to think of an excuse, but I don't have one (except that I couldn't find the camera for a couple of days.) Matthew was super excited this year and asked for almost a week when we were going trick-or-treating. We went to our ward Trunk or Treat that night and when we came home we ran into our friends the Vigues. Matthew was able to go to a few houses with his friend Jack, I mean Peter Pan. Ryan liked being outside, but wasn't really sure why he was dressed like a monkey (as evident by the blank look on his face in all of the pictures.) He did enjoy eating the candy afterward though.

Here are the boys at the Trunk or Treat. It looks like our little monkey might fall over. :)


Happy Matthew running for candy with Jack.













Here are the boys after their busy night. Matthew is trying to hold Ryan still, but it looks more like boys from the 'hood. (Or maybe boys with hoods? Bad joke, but I couldn't resist.)