My Grandma

My Grandma passed away a couple of weeks ago. Although I knew that death was in her very near future, I have had a very heavy heart about it. It is comforting to know that I will be reunited with her someday in Heaven and that she is with Jesus right now! She was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease a few years ago and it has been a very rough road since then. It is so hard to see someone that you love struggle with everyday tasks and eventually forget everything and everybody they love. I loved spending the night with my grandma and grandpa when I was a little girl because they spoiled me rotten. I got as much soda as I wanted (which was not the norm at my house) as well as fudgesicles and cheese and crackers. I remember when she picked me up from school when I was sick and I was able to go back to their house where she took great care of me! I knew that I was loved when I was around her! I will miss her, but I know that she is in a better place smiling down at me- and that makes me happy.

Cold!!!

It has been so darn cold here. Waking up in the morning and looking outside to all of the frost has been fun...until you have to go outside to drop kids off at school. Max doesn't seem to mind the cold weather at all. The other morning, it was around 8:30 am, he requested to go out and play in the back yard while I was cleaning up all of the breakfast mess inside. I thought he would come running back inside after a few minutes, but he was happy as a clam riding his bike around in the freezing cold. It was so cold that I had to go out and defrost his bicycle because it was so icy!! I just love this kid!!


can you see all of the frost on the grass?

Shopper

It is so nice to only have one kid to do errands with. Now that Sam is in school, I am able to do all my shopping in the morning with only ONE- yes count them- ONE kid!! And Max is such a good little shopper (as long as I have snacks!) Here is a sweet picture taken of him in his car seat on the way to the third store yesterday morning:

1st Big Boy Haircut!!

I have been wanting to cut Max's hair with clippers for so long now. I just haven't mustered up the courage to do for fear that he would look funny. Well, tonight I was tired of the scraggly hair that he had and he needed a haircut, so instead of using scissors and not really giving him much of a style, I used the clippers. It is really hard to cut the hair of a 2 yr. old. He is very wiggly, so we used a sucker to bribe him. He sat pretty still until I got to his neck. It was a bit tricky because he is ticklish on his neck, but I couldn't be happier with the results. Max either. He is very proud of his new style. And he looks so much older. He is my big guy now!!!


All the hair we cut off


I couldn't catch him. He was running around acting like a silly guy!

Thanksgiving...part 1

We have lots of Thanksgiving celebrations in my family. 3 to be exact. My sweet and generous parents do their dinner the Sunday before so all of us kids can go to the other side of the families' and not have to rush around on the big day. On Thursday, we always go up to Raymond in the morning to visit John's dad's side of the family and then we head back down late afternoon to celebrate with John's mom's side of the family. So we had our first of three dinners yesterday, and it was yummy. There was 14 adults and 8 kids total. My mom had the garage decorated so beautifully and we ate in there. It was so nice to not have to cram into the kitchen. We all had plenty of room to move around. It was kind of a zoo, but fun to watch all the kids play. Now if we could just get Max to play nicely, life would be good! Here are some pictures:


We always take a family picture at my parent's house. It's tradition!







Notice this scratch above John's eye. He missed his mouth when taking a drink of his soda and cut his eyebrow! What a nerd!

Movie Night-Mare!!!!

On Friday nights our family typically will eat dinner, take baths and make a giant bed on the floor and watch a movie. The kids have pop corn and candy and we just chill out and unwind from our busy week of activities every night. We usually wait until Max goes to bed because the boy NEVER watches t.v. He is much too busy for that!! Well, tonight we let him stay up. Big mistake!!! So we are in the middle of the movie when John says to me, "where is Max?" Hmmmm... I don't know. Just then, he rounds the corner with what seems like lipstick all over his face. After further examination we find that it is not lipstick, but BLOOD!!! Holy cow. What happened??? He decided to be like daddy and shave his face. Guess he was tired of that five o'clock shadow that was growing. We wiped him off and he just had a little cut, but that sucker really bled. For like an hour. Of course he had to do it right before we take pictures. It looks really ugly today- like a big blister. Hopefully it doesn't get infected. Maybe she could photoshop it out? Let's hope!



Here we are enjoying our movie



Poor baby- this is after putting pressure on the cut for what seemed like an hour. It looked like it really hurt, but he really didn't even cry.





he even cut his hand.

By the way, Max is quiet the noisy little boy. He loves to get into the toothpaste and my make-up. When ever it is quiet, that is the first place I go. Here are some more pictures of his escapades!!



after getting into my blush and wiping it all over his cheeks.

2 wheeler

Sam learned how to ride a bike with out training wheels a couple of months ago. He is just like his father, so of course he has to push the boundaries and make his mother crazy. He is only 3 yrs old and is already going off curbs, ramps and standing up while riding. What is this boy going to be like when he starts to drive a car??

Happy Birthday Max!!

October is a very busy month in the Mansfield household. We have my birthday as well as Little John and Max. Max turned two years old the day before halloween. We woke him up that morning so john could see him before he went to work. Not such a great idea!! He was very grumpy, but made his way to the table as he saw that I made him pancakes (kay-cakes). We began to sing "happy birthday" to him and he became very embarrassed and he threw his fork at me while saying stop. He didn't like all of the attention on him! After I did the morning drops at school, we came home and played. Then we went to taco bell for lunch. It is his favorite fast food resturant. He asks every day if we can stop for a taco while we are on our way to get Sam from school. So that is where we went. After enjoying a nice lunch and naps, we walked to get John from school. When we got home, we baked halloween sugar cookies and carved our pumpkins. Then Gigi came over for dinner and we sang to him and frosted our cookies for dessert. It was a fun day celebrating my littlest guy. Through out the day I kept thinking that this will be the very last time we celebrate a 2nd birthday. It kind of made me sad. Here are some things I love about Max:

- He wakes up happy and ready to start his day
- He is a wonderful eater. He will try anything you put in front of him. Broccoli
is one of his favorite foods.
- I love his front teeth. They poke out a bit and are sooooo cute.
- He loves anything musical. Especially a guitar.
- He goes everywhere with me and hardly ever throws a fit in a store. He is easy to
take places
- He holds my hand the entire way to where ever we are going if he is out of his
stroller
- He loves to play at the park
- He wants to do everything his brothers do
- He goes to bed easily
- He reminds me so much of little John as a baby. They look so similar.
- He loves motorcycles and dirtbikes
- When he is sick he just wants to cuddle with me all day. It is so sweet.
- I can leave him at our church nursery or with a babysitter with out him freaking
out and making me feel terrible.
- He absoultly loves to be outside and is so happy when he is.

Happy birthday Maxie Moo- We love you so much!!

Happy Birthday Mikey Bear!

So my big guy turned 8 last week!! We celebrated his birthday that day at school when I brought in fudgesicles. He was so cute because he also happened to be the star of the week in his class, so he had a special chair that he was sitting in and a crown that he was wearing when I got there. They also announced his name over the loud speaker (which made him feel so special) and his class sang to him. It is so great to see how many friends he has at school and you can tell that he is well liked by his classmates. That night Gigi and Papa came over for his birthday dinner. He always asks for breakfast for his special dinner so that is what we had. He opened some gifts and we ate brownies. The next day we had a "friend party" for him. It was star-wars themed, of course! We played games, drank "yoda soda" ate cake and opened gifts. I was so ready for the party to be over- I think we had 9 boys that came. It was a little wild with all those boys!! This past Sunday we had our family party. I love getting both sides of our family together. It is so much fun to see all the kids playing and having fun. Here are some things that I love about John:

- He has such a sweet nature and is incredibly easy going
- He is so good to his little brothers (he has his moments) and shares so nicely with
them
- He loves to hunt and fish with his dad. He has been big John's fishing partner
since he was 3 years old
- He is a rule follower and a great example to others
- His teachers love him because he is such a sweet boy and such a joy to be around
- He has a great laugh and it is contagious
- He loves to goof around and smile
- He loves to eat healthy foods and will eat almost anything I serve him
- He is a gentleman and holds the door open for me
- He is a good helper and when I tell him to do something, he almost never complains
- He is a great reader
- He gets along great with others

We just love this boy and couldn't imagine our lives with out him. We are blessed to call him our son and couldn't be more proud of the young man that he is becoming. I can't believe that we are half way to when he will get his driver's license. That is scary to think about!

mickey-ride-o

That is how Sam pronounces motorcycles. Sam is really into dirt bike riding. Little John, not so much. So while l. John was at the beach this weekend we thought it would be a perfect time to take Sam and Max down the street to this big field to go riding. Max seems to be following in Sam's footsteps because he gets so excited when John puts him on with him and they ride around. You would never know that he is having fun though because his face is very serious. As soon as it is time to get off he gets really upset and throws a very big fit. It is quite the process to get there with all of the loading and unloading of bikes and kids when it is just down the street and we could all just ride there. One day all the kids will be able to and it will go much quicker. Every time the boys go, they have to stop at the "bloody tree". It is this crazy tree that oozes out a red sap when you poke it with a stick. They come home talking about it and it was not until today that I was able to witness the red goo. Pretty cool if you are a kid, but I must say I was not impressed. It was a fun morning to be able to see where they ride and we are so lucky to have this little place so close.

Dove Hunting

If you are not aware, it is currently dove hunting season. The season only lasts for about 2 weeks, but my family loves it. John has been trying to get in as much hunting as possible. Last Friday night, my sister-in-law, Katie, came over and watched Max while John, myself, little John, Sam, our friend Jeff and John's dad Johnny all went out for an evening hunt in Raymond. We took Sammy last year. He was so little then, but did really well as he stayed with me the whole time, never really complaining that he was scared of the very loud gun shots. Little John just loves hunting. It is probably his favorite activity other than fishing. He would rather do that over soccer or baseball. Typically when we go, little John will go off with Papa while Sam stays with me and daddy. It is so much fun to watch Mikey try to shoot the birds with his BB gun. This time Sam was not too happy when the guns started to go off and he had to stay by me. He would have liked to explore. And I had promised him a fruit snack and forgot to take it out of the truck to our spot with us, so he was disappointed that he had to wait. But for a 3 yr. old he did really well. Here are some pictures:




Mikey was sick from the car ride. He gets car sick so easily. I'm sure it is all in his head though.












I thought this picture was kind of cool. It is little John trying to shoot some bats. It was pretty neat. I have never seen so many bats at one time in real life.


This is a perfect shot of John. Do you see the bird he is aiming at??








Can they just take a normal picture?




These are all the birds they got. Quite impressive I must say!

If I were a bird

So after we went dove hunting, we were getting ready to leave and little John was acting REALLY silly! Because he was in such a funny mood I asked him to show me what he would look like if he were a bird and he saw a gun that was getting ready to shoot him. These many faces followed:














It's scary...I know!!