More phone pics.

 This was our gratitude tree.  The thought was that we would each add a leaf every day after dinner for something that we were grateful for and then by Thanksgiving it would be a huge tree full of all our blessings.  It was a little difficult for Josh because the rule was that you couldn't repeat anything that was up there.  It was fun but after just a few days I didn't feel well enough to continue.  I'm hoping next year our tree will be even bigger!  The Piglett coloring page in the corner is from Josh.  I was having a super rough day and he could tell, so he got Lynds to help color a picture and then hung it on the wall to help me feel better.  It was so sweet of him. 

Since I get to spend time with Huds, here are some pics of him too.  Here he is making a snowman out of marshmallows  I drew the outline with glue and then he stuck them on.  It cracked me up that he had to clap after EVERY marshmallow he put down.   

Here he is eating a mini muffin.  When I gave it to him I told him what it was and then said "Isn't that so cute?  It's just a little guy."  When he was done he asked for more by saying "little guy, little guy?"

Mike was so excited for it to finally snow enough for him to use his toy!  He was so funny because he ended up going in late to work and then coming home early all so that he could plow the driveway. 

This was the first year that Josh was in on the Santa secret.  I was worried that he wouldn't be as excited for the Christmas activities now that he knew, but that was not the case.  He took it upon himself to hide our elf, Sarah, for Huds and Lynds in the morning.  This was his first hiding place.  I thought it was so sweet that she was in the manager scene until Josh came and added a straw.  I asked him what it was for and he shrugged saying "I just wanted to put it there."  Ok...

Josh got a Beyblade stadium from Grandma and Grandpa Monsivais for Christmas.  He loves it.  It was so fun to see him 'battling' with Grandma :)

The upside to my surgery was that I got to pick my breakfast and it always had bacon.

Christmas was funny because Mike gave me a 'prank box' for bacon scented dryer sheets.  I totally believed it and only found out it was a trick when he pestered me into opening it up so that I could smell it.

Josh has been busy since last I blogged.  We'll start with random pics from my iphone. 

Josh has been busy with homework in 4th grade.  He's started doing book reports and they have been interesting. Here he is holding up a poster for Superfudge. 

And this is a pumpkin that he painted to look like the main character from the "Boxcar Children" book.

Perfect likeness!!  After it got graded we cut it open to get all the seeds out.  Huds and Lynds loved it. 

Josh had his first cavity this year!  We took him to our amazing dentist and he got it taken care of super quick.  Josh did a fantastic job.  He didn't cry or complain and he held still the whole time.  Great job!  This is a pic of him waiting to get his cavity filled.

And here are Huds and Lynds in the waiting room...so cute.

 In October Josh came home with a flier for school choir.  I asked if he wanted to do it and to my surprise he said yes.  He had to be to school at 8am (an hour early) three times a week for almost 3 months.  I was sure that after the first or second time I would have to fight him about it but it never came to that.  He did not complain once!  It was a miracle. He loved it and was so excited to perform for the school and then for the parents.  'Ria was able to come and he was so happy she was there.  If I can ever figure out how to post a video I'll post it on here because it's hilarious!  After every song he would take a deep breath and exhale like 'Whew, that was so tough."  He's a cutie.

Camping

When we go camping with Mike's family, Josh always BEGS to go on four wheeler/Ranger rides.  It's like his camping trip is not complete if he hasn't gone on at least one four wheeler ride a day.  After much soul searching and price checking and going back and forth a million and a half times, Mike finally decided to buy a four wheeler. Mike picked it out all by himself and although I had no say, he did a pretty good job.  We were excited to take it up camping over Labor Day weekend and I expected Josh to practically live on it while we were there.  I couldn't have been more wrong.  He didn't even ask to go for a ride and only went when we begged him to go.  What a bugger.  Despite that, Mike and I had a great time going for rides and checking out trails. 

Yep, we already made it an official cougar fan too!  Now lest you think Mike is getting soft with his money, the main purpose of this 'toy' is to push snow off all the expensive concrete that we put in last year.  See, protecting his investment :) Playing with it in the mountains is just a perk. 

Josh did have fun camping though and loved playing Beyblades with his cousins.  Luckily I brought a laundry basket for him to use as a stadium.  Silly me, I thought it was for our dirty clothes.

Josh playing with AJ and Mason Huff

We also spent some time as a family going fishing.  Mike taught Josh how to cast and he did pretty good.  Josh was the only one to catch a fish during this fishing trip and did the whole thing by himself...minus putting the worm on the hook....watching his bubble/line to know that he had a fish....oh and getting the hook out....and actually touching the fish....ok, so all he really did was cast the hook out and then reel the fish in but he did it amazingly.

Our trailer has 4 beds and Josh use to sleep on the bunk bed above Mike and I.  That was until Josh fell off his bed and landed on Mike one to many times.  Now Josh is banned from the bunk bed.  So he now sleeps on Gideon's bed.  They usually sleep good together and it makes Josh happy because he's always begging Gideon to sleep with him at home and he never will. One morning I woke up and couldn't find Gideon.  It took a minute to realize that he was stuck beneath Josh's legs.  Poor dog.

I was cleaning out the office the other day and came across a few quotes from Josh.

"I got some of that chewy, buggery spit."

"I think that the plant eating dinosaurs went to heaven and the meat eating dinosaurs went to hell."

Here are some from 2010.

"I told Gideon don't lick his 'propriate' stuff." Hahaha, classic.

Having just learned what RIP meant and then getting a vampire shaped whistle  for Halloween, Josh said  "I got a vampire whistle and he didn't sleep in peace."

"I'm glad I wasn't born a dog cause I didn't want 'cartlige' in my ear."
I responded "You do have cartilage in your ear."
"Yeah but I don't have to crank it."

Josh: "I forgot something but I can't remember what it is."
Me: "I don't know what it is you forgot but you still need to do your jobs."
Josh: "Oh yeah! That's what it is."

"My body's a little sloppy today cause I'm so tired."

Me: "That was a good somersault."
Josh: "A summer-sault?" Pause. "I wonder how you do a 'night-time-sault'?"

Happy Birthday!

Josh is officially 9.  Everyone keeps telling him that he's getting old and that it's so exciting that he's almost double digits.  When someone told him that yesterday, he pondered it for a moment and then said "Next year at my birthday I'll be double digits and then Tyler (Valgardson) will come home!"  Cute kid.
This year for his birthday we gave him a small bubble gum machine and the Smurf 2 game for the wii.  I had asked and asked if he wanted a pinata or a party or blah blah blah and he was always like "no, I'm fine."  Well, two weeks ago on Saturday night, he tells me that he does want a birthday party.  Really?  The night before we're leaving to go to Yuba for 5 days?  The next day at church he 'invites' his friends to this 'birthday party' he's supposedly having the following Saturday. Great.  Since there's not much I could do about it before we left, I choose to ignore it until we're driving home from Yuba.  I then talk to Josh about his party and much to his disappointment, he agrees to push it back to this Saturday instead.  He can't make up his mind on what he wants to do for the party so finally I say, all excitedly, "hey!  How about I do a surprise party for you?!  I'll plan everything.  What do you think?"  He thought it was a great idea.  He he he.
I settled on a lego's theme since that's one of the things he's sort of into right now. He didn't want cake and asked for snicker doodle cookies instead.  Then we bought those personal ice cream cups with the wooden spoons and he was happy.  I was stupid and said the party was from 11-2pm.  Way too long!  Josh had fun though and now it's over and I've already blogged about it so, it's ok. 

Max Roberts

Roman Moss, Ryder Moss, Wesley

Bode Roberts, Josh, Roman Moss

Catching Up

Wow, it has been  a long time since I've made a legit post on here.  Whenever anything happens I always think that it is so funny or unique that I'll never forget it.  Yeah, you'd think I would have learned better than that by now.  By the way, I needed something out of my brain book the other day, and guess what?  It was right where I thought it was....ha!

Weirdo:
Josh was hoping around the house a while ago with an empty crystal light container stuck on his foot. "This hurts!" he kept saying.  When I told him to just take it off he said "I have to leave this on for exactly one hour to prove that I'm a man."

Speedy Spaniard
Josh ran the mile run for the Speedy Spaniard and did great.  About 9:30 min mile. 

Goldfish and Snails
 Josh decided a few months ago that he wanted to get another goldfish.  After his first two died early deaths, we figured that maybe it was a fluke and if we got them from a real pet store, than maybe they might last just a little bit longer.  I took him to Petsmart and he found a goldfish that he absolutely couldn't live without.  He then decided that it would quickly become lonely if there wasn't something else in there with it.  He found a golden mystery snail and after finding out that they can happily coexist, I let Josh buy them.  We had prepared  for this goldfish by making sure the water had been sitting out for a few days so that it was just perfect and we made sure to add it's original store water too so that it wouldn't be shocked.  Alas, the fish only survived 2 hours.  The snail on the other hand, somehow survived until just the other day.  I'm sad to admit that it probably died a very slow and painful death by starvation. At first it tried to eat the dead fish but Josh decided he wanted to flush the fish down the toilet instead.  He then feed the snail two roly poly bugs, but that was it.  The day it finally kicked the bucket, Josh came into my room and said "apparently snails float to the top when they're dead."  Great.  I try not to frequent that bathroom and just realized this morning that the dead snail was still floating around in there.  I told Josh to go and take care of it. 
"Can I keep the shell?" he asked.
"Eww doesn't that have a dead snail body in there?"
"Not anymore!  It's real easy to pull out when it's all dead.  Ugg!  That stinks.  Mom?  This dead snail really stinks bad!"
"Great, that's disgusting.  No, you can't keep the shell, it's all garbage."
"Ok.  It stinks anyway."

Yuba
We had a great time at Yuba.  The only downer was that Josh had hurt his toe a few days before we left and so we had to find some creative ways to keep it clean and sand free.  I went for the quadruple protection approach.  First I covered it with a band aid, then wrapped it with some cushioned waterproof tape and finally I covered it with a finger cover and made him wear water shoes.  It was a success!!  I was pretty proud of myself for being so amazing and Josh was able to enjoy the sand, mud and water without worrying about his toe. 
One morning while we were there Mike was giving Josh a hard time about something and Josh finally said "will you quit harassinating me!" Mike and I laughed so hard. 

Bike shows
This summer Josh teamed up with some of the kids in our neighborhood and they have been spending a lot of time riding bikes.  A few weeks ago they somehow came up with the brilliant idea of putting on a bike show...for money.  They went around and invited all the neighbors to this bike show and charged them $.50.  I even had to pay.  They started off by doing bike 'tricks' and then did a race down to the end of the street and back.  I finally had to put a stop to it when they continually went back and harassed the neighbors who never showed up. 

Back to School
Josh doesn't really NEED anything for back to school, not even new clothes.  But I asked him anyway and he said "Can we just go to Office Max so I can look and then I'll tell you what I need?"  Oh brother.  Every time that stupid Office Max commercial comes on his eyes light up and he finds another thing he thinks he needs for school. 

Huds
Here's a picture of Huds after waking up from a nap.  I think it's so funny that he sleeps with his hands behind his head and that he gets so sweaty that his hands get all wrinkly.  I promise my house is not THAT hot.

Josh's Toe

Blehh!  Turns out I get super squeamish around owies.  Josh was trying to get on his bike while holding his marshmallow gun and he accidentally dropped his bike on his big toe.  It broke half of his toenail off and it was disgusting.  This is a picture the day after it happened.  We just washed it and it still looks all gross.

  

Last night it was raining pretty good here.  Josh had been telling and retelling us that this was NOT a
May shower.  "A May shower is what we had at lunch time.  This is like a May storm!"
Mike then said "If April showers bring may flowers, then what do May showers bring?"
Josh replied "Water."

This morning for scriptures we started reading the book of Ether.  Josh got a kick out of all the 'genealogy' versus.  When he got to the last one that said 'son of Jared' he says "We know that one."
"We do?" I questioned.
"Yeah, I think he was in first Nephi."

We kept reading and got to verse 41 that says "Go to and gather together thy flocks, both male and female, of every kind; and also of the seed of the earth of every kind; and thy families..."  I asked Josh "What does this remind you of?" 
I was thinking of the story of Noah's ark and was surprised when Josh said "Nephi."
"Why Nephi?" I asked.
"Because they had to go and get women too."

He's so cute. 

PC Marathon.  This was Josh's 2nd year in a row running this marathon.  He had to run 25 miles prior to Saturday where he ran the last 1.2 miles on the race course.  He loved it.  I wish I would have timed him because he ran pretty fast.  After he finished he said "Mom, I finished strong!"  It was cute.  He's decided that he likes doing the races and wants to sign up for the mile run at the freedom festival.

Before:

During:

Ahh, so cute huh?  Thanks Zazoosh.com ;)

After:

Why it looks like he and his cousin are praying, I don't know.  I'm pretty sure they weren't. 

Things

Josh has been pretty random lately.  I wish I would have taken the time to write everything down, but, I didn't.  Yesterday while he was eating his Sunday morning cereal he said "I need more milk to get all the crunchy out.  It doesn't taste so good when it's all crunchy, does it?"

This morning we had eggs, pears, toast and pastrami for breakfast.  Josh took one bite of his pear and yelled "Ow!"
"What's the matter?" Mike asked.  "Did you bite your tongue?"
"Ow, no. My jaw hurts really bad. Like it's twisted."
"I'm sorry.  I hate it when that happens to me. Do you want mom to put all your food into the blender and blend it up so you can just drink it?"
I then jumped into the conversation and said "Do you want to eat your breakfast or do you want me to make you a smoothie instead?"
"A smoothie" Josh said.
So I made him a smoothie and he drank the whole thing pretty quickly.  Meanwhile I had made me some toast with butter on it and walked by Josh while I was eating it.
"Ugg.  I wish I could eat NORMAL food" he groaned.  I just chuckled.  Poor kid.

I'm a mean mom and only let him have school lunch once a month.  He usually asks to have it the very first day of a new month which is fine with me, because then we get it over with.  Today when he was suppose to be packing his lunch he asked if he could have school lunch.  I told him no and he got all bummed.  He then asked how much it cost. I looked it up and it's $2.  $2 for a school lunch?!  What a rip off.  Anyway, he then asked if he could have school lunch if he paid me $2.  I agreed.  So he took his last $2 and gave it to me.  I hope he enjoys it.

Yesterday we went to Grandma Monsivais' house after dinner just to chat.  Josh was being goofy and somehow the topic of wedgies came up.  Joshua then told Dave that Josh wanted a wedgie.  Josh confirmed his request so Dave grabbed his underwear and pulled.  Josh laughed.  He then asked for another one.  Oh brother.  Later that night I was recounting the story at the Valgardsons and Kyle said "why don't you ever let ME give you a wedgie?"
"Because, I only like it when Dave does it."

Funny Stuff

-Josh: "It is pretty obvious that I might or might not get the flu."

-Josh had baseball tryouts on Wednesday.  It went from 5pm until 7pm.  They're in 3rd grade for Pete's sake!!  He said he did good.  His favorite part was the sliding.  Now we have to wait for the coach to call and tell us what team he's on.

-Josh came home with this self-confidence activity sheet that he filled out at school:

1. Three things I do well....homework, triotus, good boy (I think it's suppose to be tryouts)
2. Three positive characteristics I have....brave, fredly, fun
3. Something I have done recently that I am proud of....play, help, make my bed (I said "play?!" and he just grinned at me)

-Love Notes Activity Sheet:

Dear Self,
     ill chri to help have fun to play with my coson collen and help out my mom after shool.
                                  Love,  me

-Collin came up for a visit and Josh continues to call him colon.

-When I told Josh that Joshua Monsivais was going to Mexico on his mission he said "yeah, that makes sense."
"Why?" I asked.
"Well, because you guys are like kind of from there" he replied with a 'duh mom' kind of attitude.

Grapes

Josh came home from school yesterday wearing this hat.

He was so excited that he was able to 'work' in the kitchen at lunch and that he got FREE school lunch!  He talked about how crazy it was that no one recognized him when he was wearing that hat.  I was about to argue but then I remembered that Gideon had even barked at him when he saw him coming up the walk so...  He said that he got to hand out the roll that came with the chicken nuggets and that he got to have 9 nuggets instead of just 4 because they had extra.  He chattered for a good 10 minutes about how wonderful it was.
He then asked me for something to eat saying "even though I ate school lunch, I'm still hungry."  Ok.  So I told him to get some grapes and to eat those while he worked on his homework.  He informed me that he couldn't do both of those things at the same time because he was going to do something special with his grapes.  Great.  He put his grapes in a bowl, then filled it with water and proceeded to squish and rip all the grapes.  He ate the outside and left the very middle floating in the bowl.

During this process he said "I'm ripping all its guts out because it's so satisfying.  No one can say no to this!"

When he was done he had a bowl of water with little bits of floating grape.  He then asked "Mom, do you want to try some?  It's really good."
"Mmmm, thanks, but no."
"Why not mom?  You like grapes."
"Yeah, but I don't want any right now."
"Well, don't you want to try it?"
"Honestly?  No."
"Why wont you even try it?"
"First off, I'm pretty sure you didn't wash your hands after you got home from school."
"Ohhh.  So if I wash my hands, you'll try it?"
"Mmmm, nope.  Second off, it doesn't look good at all and I don't think it's going to taste all that great either."
He kept trying to convince me and I wouldn't give in.  Finally, he gave up and drank a little bit and then said "Mom, I think you're always right."
"Why?" (Not that he got it wrong, I just like to hear why I'm right)
"Because it doesn't taste that great.  I think I'm done." He then went and dumped the rest down the sink. 

Updates

Wow, it's been a long time since I posted anything.  I'm sorry to announce that "Doomsday" never did happen.  It was a communication error between Mike and I (but mostly Mike) that lead to a spur of the moment discussion about Santa on the way home one Sunday night.  I know I just told it at dessert Sunday 4 days ago but I no longer remember the details.  If you want an accurate account, you'll have to ask Mike.  If you want a mostly accurate account, ask Jake, he was the first person I told.  If you just want the gist of it, then ask anyone that was at Mom's on Sunday.  Suffice it to say, he handled it very well and is ok with it all.  I told him today, jokingly, "I hope the Easter Bunny brings you something good in your basket this year."
He gets a silly grin on his face and says "I can't believe that you STILL believe in him even after you told me that he wasn't real!"  Yeah, I'm kind of fickle like that.

Josh decided that he wanted to do baseball this year so he and Mike have been practicing throwing, catching and batting almost every day.  Josh loves to bat.  He's not a big fan of throwing and catching but he's getting better at it.

 I love his right hand in this one.

He caught all of those balls!  Gideon loves playing too, even though it's mostly a monkey in the middle game for him.  Poor guy.  He does get to see some action though when Mike hits it into the field behind our house.  There is a barb wire fence there so we just let Gideon fetch those balls for us.  It works out pretty good.  One night Josh asked me if I was going to go out with them while he hit.  He was almost begging me to go out.  I started to feel pretty good that he wanted me to go and play with them so badly until he said "Please Mom?  We need someone to get the balls when I miss them."  Great, thanks. 

There was a gem and rock show in our town this past weekend and Josh really wanted to go.  We went last year and he had some of his own money and was able to buy a grab bag of rocks and also this huge red "diamond" which is not real, but he thinks it is.  Anyway, when he asked if we could go, I said yes, but then asked him if he had any money.  He said no and I told him that he wouldn't be able to buy anything then.  He quickly agreed and said that it was ok and that he still wanted to go.  I had my doubts to how he would really feel once he saw all the gems and rocks but I made up my mind that I was not going to buy him anything or 'spot' him any money.  I feel strongly that he needs to only buy what he has the money to afford at the time.  Good practice for when he grows up.
So we get to the rock show and as we're walking in, I remind him that I'm not buying him anything.  That's when the water works started.  "But mom! Last year you bought me the grab bag and I thought you were going to do it again this year."
"No, last year you had your own money and bought the bag yourself."
He didn't believe it and tried to keep arguing about it but I wouldn't budge.  "I'm not going to buy you anything" I told him, "but if you want to earn some money, I'd be more than happy to give you some chores and then bring you back tomorrow when you have money to spend."  He whined and cried about it for a while before he let me talk him into walking around to see how much things cost so he could figure out how much money he needed to earn.  The grab bag was $1 and it was so hard not to just buy it for him and have him pay me back later.  He finally decided on a shark tooth and a grab bag and something else.  The total was $6.  We went home and I gave him a list of options.  One of the options was to run around the block for a quarter.  He asked if a friend could do it with him and I said that was fine.  He ran next door and got his friend Wes and they started going around the block.  During that time they figured out they would need to go around the block 24 times.
After the first block, Josh asked if I could make them a snow cone after they've gone around 10 times.  I said that would be fine.  By the time they came around the second time, Josh asked if I could make them the snow cones right now, because it was so hot.  Brother.  He made it around a total of 4 times before he decided that he wanted to finish earning his money the next morning because he really wanted to play the Wii right then instead.  He never did finish earning anymore money and didn't bring the rock show up again.