Christmastime

I know Christmas is a favorite time of year for most people, and I'm no exception.  I LOVE Christmas!  It's so magical and full of anticipation.  I think it's even more fun now with kids of my own, especially MY kids because they're so excitable and a little high-strung.  It makes for really low lows, but also really high highs.  Our house literally vibrates with excitement this time of year.

Last year we didn't do ANY lights because we were so overwhelmed with our house and having a new baby.  Unless we hire the job done it's way too dangerous to string lights along our roof line, and there's no way I'm spending the money to hire someone to put up lights.  Brandon whipped up a star and put lights around our pillars this year.  I though it looked pretty good, the kids loved it, and now we feel like we're at least contributing to the Christmas spirit in the neighborhood.  Good job, Honey!



 Gumballs.com shorted us 72 gumballs on our order.  I needed every one of those 850 gumballs for neighbor gifts.  So I called and complained.  Unfortunately they don't just send out 72 gumballs, so instead they sent us 850 MORE for FREE!  Now THAT'S a lot of gumballs.  My kids think they've gone to heaven.  We'll be eating gumballs for a LONG time.  If I were a little more organized I'd set aside red and white ones for Valentines.  Oh well.  Chew up, kids!

We took a trip to see the lights at Temple Square.  Poor Nathan got put in a PINK hat and gloves.  Its all the hand-me-downs I had left.  We didn't get many pictures because it was SO cold and the crowds were a little overwhelming for Jonah.

 Sarah's 1st grade class did a darling Christmas program.  Her teacher is wonderful!  All the kids had little elf costumes!  So cute!

 Take kids to see Santa?  Check!  Santa's got to know what they want!

 And last, but not least, the family nativity!  Jonah was Joseph this year with Annie who was Mary.  Aren't they precious?

 Sarah & Naomi were the excited angels!

 Eli & Jacob were the happy shepherds with some pretty cute . . . ummm . . . maybe they're sheep, or squirrels, or maybe even dogs.  I'm sure all kinds of animals were happy that Baby Jesus was born.

 Ruth, Bethany & Emma were the wise women, I mean men.  Bethany pulled her long hair in front for a beard.  It was pretty funny and creative!

 And here's the whole group minus a couple of older cousins who have outgrown acting out the nativity.

I couldn't resist this picture of Nathan.  He was NOT happy to be a stable animal.

Sigh.  I just LOVE Christmas!  Why does it have to be over?

Thanksgiving!

We hosted Thanksgiving again this year at our house!  We were supposed to be with my family, but my darling sister Kristen was in the Thanksgiving Day Parade.  They all went off to New York to join in the hub bub of the parade!  We missed you this year!  So we picked up the family members that were without Thanksgiving plans:  my brother and his family, Brandon's parents since it was their off year, and Shauna's family since her in-law's were on a trip for their Thanksgiving year.  It's always nice to have extra helping hands to make food and clean up.  It was a fun, relaxing day full of visiting, eating, playing games, eating, looking through the newspaper for Black Friday deals, oh, and more eating of course!

 Here's Jonah all ready for dinner to start!

 Sarah getting a little snuggle time with cousin Caleb and Uncle Justin.

 Daddy & Jonah patiently waiting for everyone to sit down!

I'm not very crafty or good at decorating the perfect Thanksgiving table, but making these little turkeys were my attempt at name cards for place settings.  Jacob wrote and decorated the names for me.  While they weren't perfect, I thought they were pretty cute and the kids loved eating them!

I should have taken more pictures, but you know, I was too busy eating!  Happy VERY late Thanksgiving!!!

More Reunions

I never got around to blogging about MY family's reunion . . . our first one ever!  We copied Brandon's family and went to Heber.  Justin, my brother, had a great connection for an AMAZING cabin.  We had so much fun!  Thanks, Mom and Dad for giving us the opportunity for creating such great memories!

 Brittany's family stayed with us before and after the reunion.  The kids had fun playing with cousins.  Here's Jacob with Aaron and Anson.

 Right before our reunion Justin & Amy blessed their new little Caleb.  While we were waiting for them to change clothes the natives got a little restless and piled on Ashley and Aunt Kristen!

 There was barely room for Kristen in the car with all of the stuff Mom hauled for everyone!

 Ashley did several fun crafts with the kids!  Thanks, Ash!

 We love being with our cousins, especially when we don't get to see these cousins very often.  Here's Maddie, Megan, Sarah, Jacob, Aaron & Anson.

 Mom, of course, took advantage of everyone being together to get a family photo!  Grandma single handedly keeps Gymboree in business so that all her grandchildren can match.  Just don't show Grandpa the receipt!

 And here's just my family.  Some of my favorite people in the world!  How blessed I am!

Oh, and Kristen wanted a picture with just her nieces!  Cute, huh?

Early Morning Run In With the Law

On my way home from the gym early this morning I got pulled over by the police!  Can you guess what my very evil and naughty offense was?  That's exactly what I was wondering as I pulled over and waited for the officer to come to my window.  What did I do?  Did I not stop long enough at a red light before I turned right?  Was I unknowingly speeding?  Did I forget to signal before I changed lanes?  Nope!  It was none of those things.  I got pulled over because one of my front headlights was burned out.  Now I can see that the police might see the need to inform citizens about the fact that their headlights are burned out because it's sometimes hard to tell when you don't often see the front of your car.  The information would be helpful and keep everyone safe on the road.  But not Officer I Haven't Met My Coda For My Shift, or Officer I'm Miserable Working So Early In The Morning And Everyone Else Should Be Miserable Too, or Officer I'm Really Bored And Have Nothing Else To Do.  That's right.  He took my license, registration and proof of insurance and issued me a citation!  Can you believe that?  I've been pulled over speeding and gotten off with a warning.  I've been pulled over for rolling through a stop sign and been given a warning.  But getting written up over a headlight?  What gives?  And what do the police do in their cars once you give them all your documents?  Run a full background check on you?  Do I look dangerous (granted, I probably looked pretty scary without make up and after a workout)?  I sat there waiting for TEN MINUTES watching my plans for my carefully planned out morning go down the drain.  That's right.  I planned my morning to the minute so that I didn't have to wake up one minute earlier than I absolutely needed to and still get everything done.  It took me until almost 2:00 p.m. to recover that precious 10 minutes.

So I guess I'm off to get my headlight changed and then to hunt down a police officer to verify that it has indeed been changed and sign my citation so that I don't have a fine.  It's not a huge deal, but right now it's just one more thing to do and more importantly one more thing to REMEMBER to do.  I wonder when I find an officer to sign my citation if he'll just laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation, which was what I wanted to do this morning to the officer that pulled me over.  But I'll be honest, I'm scared of policemen.  I didn't want additional citations for being rude or disrespectful.  What would you have done?

Jonah Is FINALLY In A Big Bed!

After we got home from our trip in September, we decided that Jonah was sleeping a little better with his meds and that we should finally move him into a big bed.  After all, he is THREE AND A HALF!  My other kids were in beds a year before that!  And poor little Nathan wasn't sleeping very well in the pack 'n play anymore.  So Brandon took apart the bunk beds.  The original plan was for Jacob and Jonah to share a room, but Jonah's still not sleeping quite well enough for that yet.  To be honest, I don't know if Jonah will ever be able to share a room.  We'll have to see how he does in the distant future because he's suppose to share with Nathan eventually so Jacob, being the oldest, can have his own room.

For now we lock Jonah in his room (aren't we cruel?) really for his own safety and the sanity of everyone else in the family (he'd wake everyone up).  We're still experimenting with meds.  We have found some that help a little, but nothing that keeps him asleep all night.  Brandon also installed an amazing night camera in Jonah's room that records his sleep right on our computer.  We can watch the night in fast forward.  We have noticed now that Jonah's not sleeping quite as well as we thought he was on his meds.  But we're experimenting with the meds and charting the results, a very time consuming process.  Hopefully we can find something to help him.  The camera has been very informative for us.  Bless his heart, he tries SO hard to sleep!  We are trying hard to find answers for our little guy.  We're grateful that he's so high functioning, but at the same time it's making it very difficult to get answers or help.  We're proud of you, Jonah, for trying so hard to sleep and be a good boy.  We love you!

Jacob, the Cub Scout

We now have our first Cub Scout!  Jacob turned 8 and entered the world of scouting.  Scouting is everything he loves so I think he'll do well with it.  He was grounded one week so I took advantage of the time with him and knocked out his Bobcat award.  I'm sure that'll be the easiest merit badge he ever earns.  This is all a new world to me.  I have no idea what I'm doing or what order all these things like Wolf, Webelos, etc. go in.  I guess I'll be learning because we have (gulp) THREE boys coming up to do Scouts!

 Here is Jacob pinning me with my mother's pin.  The back of the pin dropped down my shirt (whoops!) so I just told him that was good enough and waited for a more opportune moment to dig it out.

The Scout leader tells the boys they have to kiss their mothers or kiss the church plunger (gross!).  Can you see how red Jacob's face is?  Here's to lots more scouting!

Halloween Fun

We had a fun October doing our favorite Halloween and fall traditions!

 We always love going to the pumpkin patch with our cousins.  The kids love the hay maze, running around the pumpkin patch looking for beautiful pumpkins that we won't buy (they're so expensive at these places), climbing on the displays set out for photo opportunities like this tractor, and then home for hot chocolate and donuts.  At least we didn't really lose anyone this year!

 Everyone chooses their favorite pumpkin to sit on for a picture, and then tight-wad mom buys them an itty bitty $1 pumpkin.  Hey, they still love it so why not!

 Nathan's so cute I couldn't resist just adding one more picture!

 We also love going to Gardner Village with our neighbors to see the witches and do the scavenger hunt for a cookie from the bakery.  My neighbor has 3 boys, making 6 boys between the two of us.  Sarah is our only girl, but she's use to being with boys and is a good sport!  Why we always go on UEA is beyond me.  I must love to torture myself.  It just seems like the best time to go.  The problem is that 10,000 other people think so too!

 Our daddy is the master pumpkin carver. The kids draw their designs and Daddy makes them come to life.  That's one job I'm glad he's willing to take on because I hate carving pumpkins!

 Here are the kids with their cute jack-o-lanterns!  Poor Nathan just gets a baby pumpkin this year!

 Jacob wanted to be a hunter/frontiersman/Daniel Boone/Davy Crockett or whatever else you can come up with for this costume.

 Sarah wanted to be a southern belle.  Isn't she sweet?  I told her to say, "Hey, y'all!" to everyone.  I always wanted to be a southern belle since I grew up in the south and saw them dressed up on the big plantations you could visit.

 Jonah was Buzz Lightyear, since Jacob was when he was 3.  I made it sound super exciting and Jonah couldn't wait to put the costume on.  I dread the day he has his own opinions and doesn't want his brother's hand-me-down's any longer.

 Nathan was a darling duck, but would only do an occasional "quack, quack."  Oh well, we'll keep working on it.

And here's all 17 grandchildren on Nanny's and Papa's porch.  Our oldest nephew doesn't dress up anymore, but he's a good sport to participate and "oh and aw" over the little one's costumes.  (Sigh)  They're growing up too fast!