Chixos, Pixos and Bendaroos

Christmas day was quite enjoyable this year. Santa delivered only one video game. The rest of the presents were designed to keep the kids busy without having to fight over the Xbox or the Wii. The girls were each given a craft bin full of all things crafty. Hannah’s list was not long this year, but she did ask for Chixos, Pixos and Bendaroos. So that is what she got. These items were great and kept her busy most of the day, but, one should not count on them to last longer than one day only. She has not even looked at them since Christmas day. Yesterday when she was telling me that she had nothing to do, I said go play with your Chixos, Pixos and Bendaroos (because you can’t name one without naming them all) – and she said, “They’re not fun anymore.”

My mom gave all of the big kids Lego sets. We love Legos at our house, but I would like to be the mom that keeps them all organized. I think it would also be a good idea to laminate the directions so that my kids will be able to build their things over and over again. Since I am not that kind of mom, though, these things will never happen. So now we just have to hear cries of “Where is that one piece?”, or “I can’t build anything I don’t have the pictures”. No Imagination in this house! However, they kept the kids happy for the whole day.

Jack was quite content to sit in Steve’s lap for a couple of hours and play with the first toy that he opened. This is a good thing, because someone forgot about Jack this Christmas and Steve had to make a last minute run to get something for him to open.  Henry on the other hand, was anxious to open any gift that he could get his hands on. He was amazed that there were so many toys just for him.

I find it hard to take pictures on Christmas morning, so I don’t have any good ones. I did get some of the graham cracker houses that we made on Christmas Eve – this is one of our yearly traditions and I think that the houses look the same each year – it’s more about eating the candy than it is about making a nice house.

 

 

We got hit with a nice bit of snow a couple of weeks before Christmas and so the kids went out and made a snowman.

Hannah’s 2nd grade program was also in December
The theme was A Cowboy Christmas.

 

Henry got a new shirt and tie – now he’s like the big boys.

 

The girls got new dresses too, but  Jonathon and
Thomas didn’t get any new clothes at all this Christmas.

Hannah biffed it while she was sledding and scraped up her
upper lip and so all of her holiday pictures are blemished.

I have enjoyed this Christmas break – the kids have gotten along pretty well and I like having the older kids home to entertain Henry and Jack. We even took a trip to the pool today and Jonathon and Thomas were brave enough to jump off the high dive. I even decided to try it too – I have to admit that it was just a little bit scary for me.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

WOW! Time just flew by.

My plans were to decorate my blog for Christmas and then post something so that my time spent decorating would not have been in vain. However, that is not what happened. I have been non-stop busy since Thanksgiving and never found the time to post anything. So . . .

 

We hope you all had a Wonderful Christmas – We have had such a nice day. I would have to say this has been one of the best Christmases yet. I plan on posting more pics and such later. Hopefully!

9 months – Already?

Jack will be 9 months old on Monday. I took this picture of him today. Of course, he seems to be growing so much faster than the others. I’m sure it’s just because I want him to stay little and cuddly. Now he only cuddles when he is sleepy. I guess that’s one thing to be glad about. The other kids would never fall asleep in my arms at this age.

He is a very happy little boy who rarely fusses. Although, he does get angry if you take his toys away. I’m sure you are wondering who could possibly want to take toys away from my darling little Jack – I will give you one guess.

I have seen Jack crawl a couple of times, but he is much more inclined to just G.I. Joe around. He will probably start walking soon, because he climbs to a standing position whenever possible. Right now I am watching him climb up onto the outside his walker and go in the seat head first. I am a little afraid of what’s going to happen when Jack and Henry get together to plot against me.

I love having two little pals to keep me company during the day while the others are at school. I don’t know what I will do when they are old enough to go to school.

Holy Bursting Bags of Candy, Batman!

What do you get when you send 5 kids out to Trick-or-Treat?
Well, 5 giant bags full of candy – that’s what.

This picture was taken two days after Halloween. So the candy has already been picked through, and still - this is what’s left.

Guess who can’t stay out of it? I’ll give you a clue: She has full access to the candy that is unguarded while the kids are at school.

Does anyone have any Will Power I can borrow?

Our Halloween started out with a lovely breakfast made by Jonathon and Steve. Jonathon learned how to make German Pancakes at school and now we are addicted to them. Again – must   obtain   Will   Power.

Pumpkin carving this year was actually enjoyable. There was not so much arguing this year – not like we will be able to figure out why so we can duplicate it for next year. Then we had Chinese food – I think this might become a Halloween tradition for us.

Trunk-or-Treat at the church parking lot started off the festivities for the day. It was a beautiful day, and I think I had more fun than the kids did. After I picked up my Hot Chocolate, I headed over to the fire pit to make S’mores. As I made the rounds with Henry, it was great to visit with everyone and see who got creative with the costumes and decorations. If we do it again next year, I’m going to kick it up a notch and do something besides candy – I have a whole year to think of something amazing. (Please don’t bring this post up next year when you make a special visit to my trunk, only to find an undecorated trunk and a bowl full of candy.)

 

This year, I was on the ball and bought costumes early – Usually I am trying to scrounge up costumes the day of – making my poor kids go out as Toilet Paper Mummies or Bed Sheet Ghosts. Amazingly they were all happy with the costumes they were given – since I didn’t consult with any kids when I picked them out.

  JONATHON – THE SAD PUPPY DOG NIGHT STALKER
Originally just a Night Stalker costume, but so much
better with the added artistic face paintings of Steve.

 

THOMAS – FRANKENSTEIN
Thomas cut out early so he didn’t get his face painted, but I think a puppy dog nose really would have finished off the costume.

 

HANNAH – THE SPIDER WITCH
However, her official title changed more often than Henry
changes his clothes each day – which is often.

 

LIBBY – TRYING TO BE AN EVIL PRINCESS
What can I say – is it even possible for Libby to be evil?

 

  HENRY – THE SCARY BLUE RUNNY NOSE MONSTER
I couldn’t resist buying this costume.
I thought it was so cute, and was glad that it kept him warm.

 

JACK – MR. PUMPKIN PANTS and STEVE – OFFICIAL YANKEES FAN
They stayed home to watch the Yankees beat the
Phillies in game 3 of the world series.

So as much as I complain about Halloween, when all is said and done, we always have a great time. So next year, I am going to try and embrace the holiday and maybe put up a few decorations.

So, What Have You Been Up To?

Other than Birthdays, which seem to be abundant during the summer, we really did not do anything too exciting over the summer. Since school started, things have been pretty slow around here. But I would like to at least document a few things. That sounds so exciting, right? So here are a few things we did this summer. Hope it’s not too long.

 

Our 4th of July celebration was pretty low key.
It gets pretty chaotic if we try to take the whole bunch anywhere, so we just stay home and do a few fireworks in the driveway.  It’s safer that way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The weather was very nice – it didn’t even get very cold when the sun went down. Jack was probably over heated by the end of the night.

 

I wanted to be a fun mom this summer – I wish I had more patience to take all of the kids out to fun places. We did make it on two picnics. We even got pictures of one of them. I took the kids to Bridal Veil Falls the first week of August. I think they had fun?

I don’t know if you can see them, but those are my kids climbing up the falls – I made them come back down because they were wearing flip flops. I pictured a not so fun slide down the falls for one of them.

Henry would not get out of the stroller to play in the water. It’s ok, because it was quite cold, and I don’t think he would have liked it.

 

Every summer I tell myself that I am going to spend more time with my family up at Bear Lake. This year we were able to fit one whole trip in the week before school started.

My plan was to get the beach out of the way first off and then head to my mom’s house. I found a nice quiet spot and let the kids loose. Not 10 minutes later a big green suburban pulled in next to us, and as I watched all of the little girls pile out of it, I wondered why they had decided to park next to me. The next thing I know, my kids are yelling, “It’s Katie and Fallon.” Sure enough it was some of my cousins come to the beach for a summer party. They didn’t even know that I was coming up – what a coincidence! We had such a great time, I felt bad that we had not come up more often.

 

I never would have thought that Libby would like to be buried under the sand – she’s quite claustrophobic – but that is the first thing she asked for when we hit the beach.

 

I wonder if we can re-create this look for Crazy Hair Day.

This was Henry’s first time in the lake. He had tons of fun filling up a bucket of water and dumping it in the sand.

Jonathon was very proud of the sand castle that he built.

We had so much fun, that we even went back the next day. I love it that my kids can enjoy the beach just like I did when I was a kid.

 

Lastly, once the kids were finally back in school, I decided to try my hand at canning. I have only ever made jam before, but this year I bottled tomatoes and peaches.

Lots of tomatoes and peaches.

It was a messy job. (Thanks Heather)

But I’m so glad that I made the effort.

 

Well that’s about all, I just want to post a picture of Jack, because he’s getting so big. He is almost 8 months old now. Time is flying by so fast.

We call him fatty fat pants.

 

One final note - because we just got done watching them win game 2 GO YANKEES!

Hannah’s Magical #8

Hannah turned Eight on Wednesday. She was lucky that her birthday fell before the first Saturday of the month so that she could be baptized today.

It seemed like August was going to last forever to her. She was very excited and couldn’t wait for September to get here. I promised her that we would go shopping for a white dress towards the end of August, and she would not stop asking me when we would go.

When we finally did go shopping, we had a little trouble finding a frilly white dress – there were quite a few in the spring when I was out shopping, but not so many at the end of the summer.

Finally, at the fifth store that we visited we found a wall full of pretty white dresses. We looked and discussed and decided on a few to try on. She knew right away which one she wanted – but of course, it was too big and they didn’t have one in her size. So we tried on a few more – nope, she wanted the first one.

I had a bit of a flash forward to us trying to pick
out a wedding dress, and I’m not sure if I’ll
be able to cope when the time comes.

After trying on every dress – some even twice, she finally picked out a different one. Whew!

Wednesday the 2nd was her Birthday – she got a new outfit to wear to school and I made rice crispy treats to take to her class at school. When school was out, we decided to go to the Kamas pool and swim for a couple of hours and then come home for dinner and cake. So we loaded everyone in the car and made the 30 min drive - just to find out that the pool was closed for maintenance.

(I did check online before we went, but silly me, I was looking on the POOL HOURS page, not the Rec Center front page with the small red print at the bottom that said the pool was closed.)

So we were all bummed and drove home in sulking silence.

However, when we got home there were presents to be opened and we forgot all about the pool.

Along with her new dress, she got her own set of scriptures, some art/craft project books and new clothes and shoes for school.

She asked for a lemon cake with strawberry frosting. I was not sure of the combo, but I tried my friends recipe for strawberry frosting and it was quite a tasty cake.

Luckily Thursday and Friday went by quickly and today we all got dressed up and headed to the Baptism. It is so fun to see all of the kids dressed in white on the front bench. Hannah was a little worried, but she did great.

Tonight we continued our Baptism Tradition, and took her to The Roof down at Temple Square – Just Steve, Me, and Hannah. We all enjoyed dinner very much, and then we walked around Temple Square.

Tomorrow she will be confirmed, and that will be her last special day for a while. I hope that her memories of this weekend will keep her smiling for a while.

Hannah is a very high maintenance girl. She knows what she wants and won’t stop until she gets it. This is both good and bad. We battle a lot of the time, but I think it’s because we are very similar – neither of us like it when things don’t go our way. She is very good to help me with Jack and Henry. I am very proud of her today.

And Another One – Libby Turns 6

Libby had her 6th birthday on July 18th. We started off her Magical Birthday Weekend with a trip to the Kamas pool on Friday. It was Jack’s first visit, and he loved it. Steve even took the day off to come with us. We all enjoyed the morning swimming and then headed to the pizza and ice cream place to have lunch. We had never eaten there before, and it was surprisingly tasty.

 

On Saturday Grammy dropped by with presents for everyone. The weather was beautiful and so we decided to have an impromptu water party. We invited a few friends over and they ran through the sprinklers, threw water balloons, and ate tons of popsicles.

 

She got a razor scooter, a pet shop doggy and some hair accessories. She asked for chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and chocolate sprinkles. She didn’t even eat it. I had a feeling that she wouldn’t like it. I don’t think she has ever really liked any of the birthday cakes that we have had. Steve liked it though, because I used chocolate mousse instead of frosting. I didn’t like it, so this is the first birthday cake that I didn’t eat – all in all it turned out well for all of us.

Libby is just getting used to the fact that she is not the baby anymore – it only took her 2 whole years to figure it out. She loves to play with her friends – she is not happy to just stay home. She always lets us know when she is being good. She always wants to give and get hugs. We can always make her laugh even when she is on the verge of tears. We love her happy smile.

Rewind – Thomas Turns Ten

Thomas turned 10 on May 19th, but since my camera was missing, I didn’t get any pictures on his birthday. It has taken this long for me to get the pictures from my mom’s camera.

There is a reason why you should write things down when they happen, because I don’t really remember what we did for his birthday. I was hoping that the pics from my moms camera would jog my memory but I have just looked, and there are a total of 5 pictures of Thomas with his cake – that’s it.

So here is what I do remember. . .

Even though it was

against my motherly instincts,

I let Steve buy Thomas a Pellet/BB Gun. We laid down the rules and set him loose in the backyard to shoot at paper targets taped to a piece of plywood propped up against the fence. He was very good at following the rules, though it wasn’t long before he was out shooting soda cans and army guys.

My mom and dad came for a visit and they brought their dogs. Thomas loves them and he spent most of his time outside playing with them.

We had chocolate cake with strawberries and ice cream. It was too good and I couldn’t stay out of it. It’s really not a good thing that we have a birthday to celebrate 8 months out of the year – I will forever be snacking on cake.

Even though his birthday was on a Tuesday, we celebrated it on Monday because we had a special Enrichment activity/challenge on Tuesday that I  absolutely  couldn’t miss.           

 

Thomas is pretty easy going.
He tries very hard not to laugh when you tickle him, but we know his weak spots. He hates it when you pretend that he is a girl, but he acts like it doesn’t bother him.
His nickname is Lou because one day I was calling him Tommy Loulou to tease him and it just stuck. He has always been cuddly and loves to curl up in a blanket even in the summertime. He has a hard time keeping his showers short and could stay in there for hours if we let him.

Hopefully your Birthday wasn’t too boring Thomas – we will have to have a fun one next year.

Henry Turns Two

 

Henry’s birthday was on June 30th. It was not the most fun birthday for him, because he was sick. He woke up with a fever, and slept most of the day. Steve came home with presents and that made him a little happier, but he was in no mood for cake.

Since Hannah and Jack had both been diagnosed with Strep Throat, Henry didn’t have to go to the doctor on his Birthday. They just called in a prescription for him.

He did not want to blow out the candles, and he did not want to eat his cupcake. I wish I could say the same for me, I ate enough cake for the both of us.

He felt better the next day, and decided to take his new bike for a spin. He also got a new baseball bat and ball, but I didn’t get a picture of him playing with them. We are also going to take the money that Grandma sent and buy him some new pants, because he has obviously grown out of this pair.

This picture was only taken 2 months ago, but now with his haircut he looks so much older to me. I wish I would not have had it cut so short. Henry is a handful, but I have no idea what I would do with out him. He makes us all laugh. I don’t want him to grow up. I do want him to stay out of the sugar bin though.