Dec 9, 2014 iphone

1.  Pie.  This year all I had to do for Thanksgiving was pie.  I'm kind of a pie freak.  Any excuse to make some I'll take it.  Kate and I worked all Saturday to make pies for two different Thanksgiving Dinners.  I think we ended up with ten or so of all different kinds.  She was super proud to be my helper.

2.  We had a Thanksgiving Dinner at my Grandma Elaine's on the Sunday before Thanksgiving.  Lots of cousins, siblings, parents, grandparents etc were all there and it was fun to see extended family we don't often see.  This picture is just of Amy and my kids- who were for the most part the only little kids at the dinner.

3. Marianne is such a joy.  Instead of complaining about being in her carseat as we run errands she puts her hands in the air and pretend she is on a roller coaster and goes up the hills and down the hills and says "Weeeeeee"   Sam taught her this.

4.  Sam and Kate participated in Reflections this year, and art contest at the school  Sam's picture won him a gold medal, a free pizza and a gift card to Wal-mart for ten dollars!  He was very pleased especially when his ten dollars bought him two lego sets at Wal-mart.  

5.  This puzzle was a gift from a sister in law years ago. It has mostly just been a cute decoration until this year when it is a serious competition in our family.  We often have somebody each day going for a new family record- which is currently Jake at 23 seconds- though Kate's personal record is not too far from that at 29.

6.  Not pictured, my sweet Beth had to get some blood work done and we constantly struggle to deal with all her GI issues.  I was dreading it as getting blood drawn from a toddler is usually horrific in my experience.  Especially during a super stressful busy week. But we went, I had to bring Marianne as well, and Beth sat in my lap and literally didn't even notice as they took large amounts of blood from her.  Not a peep, not and concern- nothing. It mad my week!

7. Thanksgiving Day was spent at my parents.  It was a nice day with half my siblings.  The kids are what I am most grateful for... but I think they were most grateful that I let them have four pieces of pie each.

8. Kate had a choir performance.  She has been practicing with her choir for a few months.  She was in a choir that was 2nd graders to 5th graders- but was actually only one of two 2nd graders in the group.  So she got to sing with a bunch of big kids.  On the day- though I had bought her a new Christmas Dress this year- she really wanted to wear this blue dress, and I totally let her, even though it is something I picked up at a garage sale years ago.  But it was fancy to her.  I took her to the dress rehearsal a few hours before than we watched the city tree lighting (which is what the performance was for) As her and I walked hand and hand to the tree lighting she told me that it was her favorite day of the whole year except for actual Christmas.  Santa came and lite the tree then they served cookies.   Then we watched the dancers perform.  When the choir was about to start Jake brought all the other kids, himself and Grandma and Grandpa to watch Kate too.  She did so well.  She was such a performer- super animated.  They sung a lot of really cute and comical songs.  Afterwards Santa came, and stood right next to Kate and told her she had done such a good job.  Then we waited our turn and the kids each got to tell Santa and Mrs. Claus their Christmas wish.  Kate wished for a Merida doll, Sam wished for more Lego's and Marianne wished for Ariel stuff (and their mom grinned from ear to ear when she heard because Santa is already storing all of these things in my closet :)    Sam was convinced it was the real Santa because he said in reply to Sam's wish " now you already have a bunch of Lego's right?"  Sam was sure Santa knew this because he was real.  Then we went out to ice cream all together.

9. The girls and I have been shopping around.  For holiday stuff, basement stuff and to do something when its cold in the morning.  There is often a stop in the toy section just for fun.

10. Jake did these lights for me when I was away at YW's.  They look so magical.  We've added a bunch of light trees and candles to the porch and windows now too.  Our culda sac has really done well this year- and we were slacking :)

11.  I scheduled Christmas pictures for our family this year.  Something I never do, but I figured if we just had them done then I wouldn't spend every Sunday morning from here until the New Year yelling at my kids to just sit still for five minutes so I can take a picture.  So as picture usual, I spent an entire afternoon perfectly ironing outfits, curling girls hair, and making sure everyone was perfectly napped and fed and we went.  And Beth cried literally the entire time except the first picture.  The pictures I got back were mostly laughable- but hours of photoshop editing and I was able to consolidate them into a very fake picture of our family all smiling at the camera, all we needed was just one for the Christmas card :)

12.  December here in Utah has been the warmest on record in 75 years or something like that.  I kind of am PRO- Global Warming :)  We don't have any snow on the ground and Marianne sometimes plays outside in short sleeves while we wait for Sam off the bus.

13. I caught this funny picture of Kate devouring every crumb of cornbread out of the pan after dinner on night.  I don't get as many pictures of her she is already so busy with school and piano and tumbling. Thankfully choir is over now so she won't be running around So much.


14.  Beth is extra cuddly lately.  It is so sweet.  Her favorite place to be is with her blanket in my bed. It is kind of my favorite place to be too.  I love getting the big kids off to school and then relaxing with my girls all cuddled up watching cartoons and reading books together.

15.Amy  and her family are off to Portland for a few months.  What a fun adventure.  They stopped by for dinner the night before the left to hang out with us.  We will miss them.  Isn't it crazy that all those kids just belong to my twin sister and I?

16. More early morning cuddling with Marianne and Beth.

17. At the beginning of the year I started really noticing that Sam has a few sounds he still doesn't say correctly.  An Articulation Disorder I believe is what is is technically called- he just sounds a little younger because he doesn't say all his sounds right.  And as he has been learning to read I notice it more because I am following him along with words trying to figure out if he is reading correctly- and his few incorrect sounds became apparent.  So he has been working occasionally with a speech therapist in Kindergarten as well as with me at home.  We practice in the mirror and it is the only way he can say an "l" right.  Until this afternoon.  When we practiced some L words, and he was able to do them without looking in the mirror.  Way to go Sam.

November 21, 2014

1. My two baby girls cuddling long mornings.

2.  One day both Kate and Sam stayed home from school.  They were kind of both sick, but not so sick, so we got to work remaking some furniture for their new rooms.   I let them paint the majority of their items.  Kate painted a nightstand teal and Sam painted a bookshelf grey.  It was great to spend time with just my older two doing something we all liked.

3.  Bethany gets her first hair cut ever.  Her sweet red hair was forming a mullet in back and I thought it would look better in a little bob while we wait for the front to grow a bit, so I cut off the back a bit. It looked adorable, and enjoyed what we were doing sitting on my counter looking in my mirror and brushing her hair.

4. Sam is now in a wrestling league.  His team practices once a week and then has tournaments on Saturday morning.  I was really nervous about Sam doing wrestling because he is so small and sensitive.  Being small has been advantageous because even though he is 5 he usually gets paired with 4 year olds who are not as strong or don't understand how to wrestle as much because they are younger- but they are always Sam's size or even bigger.  They get paired up by size.  And he hasn't been sensitive at all- except when they move mats and made him wrestle on a different mat- that rocked his world.  He has been amazing.  He doesn't cry because kids are fighting him.  Maybe because he usually dominates.  They don't announce a winner because everyone wins, but really my bias opinion is he is winning all the time.  Which is even better when his opponent is a kid in a colored singlet with his Dad and obvious previous wrestler screaming mat side, and Sam goes out in soccer clothes and tennis shoes with us- who know nothing- cheering him on, and he really does amazing.

5.  Beth eats a cookie in the car at dark for dinner.  I tried to feed her real dinner real quick while we were home shortly but she didn't want it.  We run kids everywhere Monday and Tuesday are our busy day and Beth and Mari are sports hoping along side us.

6.Beth has been sick lately.  Actually each kid has had their bought with a few things.  Bethany, then Sam, then Marianne were throwing up spanning 12 days.  Kate has had a cough since we went to Disneyland and we just had her checked for pneumonia it was so bad which was negative, and Beth and Marianne are coughing and snot nosed.  It has been a long sick month with lots of cartoons and cuddling, missed school days and cleaning.  One night Sam woke up and needed to puke but was confused or something and just ran around leaving piles of puke all over the house.  It was awesome as you can imagine for four in the morning.  A week or so later my Mom and I and the two baby girls were headed to the big ski swap they have here right before Thanksgiving.  And Marianne puked all over the car and herself.  Needless to say we headed home and cleaned her  and the car up but Mom and I both almost threw up ourselves just riding home in the car and listening to her.  Poor girl.
Bethany has been up at night all night many times and seems to always be happy when I bring her into my bed, then she will fall asleep beside me, which is really sweet at first until she starts kicking and head ramming me all night.  She has fallen asleep on the couch before too and let me carry her around asleep to her bed.

7. We have started the basement- rather we hired a contractor to finish the basement.  Which has been amazing.  We are super excited too.  We planned our house with the entire thing finished in mind so we are excited to see the home as we had intended for it to be.  We had a portion of the basement finished when the home was built, where a wall and door were placed so we could block off the unfinished part, so we had to tear the wall down.  Sam and I enjoyed taking a few hits at the wall and then Jake took it down.  We have hired the framing, electric, HVAC, insulation and drywall to texture.  They have also handled the proper permits and inspections.  We will have to do all the finish work- tile, vanity, lighting, flooring, trim, and paint, closets and shelving and doors.  We have got a great quick start because the workers have been working everyday all day and got all that done in two weeks, but by the end of next week they will have completed the drywall and it will be turned over to us.  Three rooms, the hallway, the bathroom, the kids den,  and new theater area, along with closets for storage are starting to feel like a lot of finish work for us to handle on our own.

8. Beth's preferred meal is still spagetios eaten all by herself.  She looked a lot like Sam this day to me.

9.Marianne is ready for skiing.  We have been collecting ski equipment for the kids.  Sam and I made it back to the ski swap and got almost everything else we were missing.  It was fun to shop around with him and also see him excited to be a ski racer!

10.  I finally got around to blogging tonight because the kids were being hilarious today and I wanted to remember it.  I was sad I didn't have my camera to document.  But we had a great day today.  Kate and I spent the day making pies together for the Thanksgiving Dinner we are having tomorrow at my Grandma Elaines home.  She was helpful and happy and interesting the whole time.  Sam and Jake played nintendo games together.  Marianne and Kate played happily together barbies and crafts.  Marianne and Sam happily played race car and coloring together.  Beth was sweet like always.  Then we went out to dinner.  At dinner we were sitting at a table for 8.  Next to us was an empty table for two.  kate went over to it and said "this is like where Dad and Mom would sit if they were on a date." "Hi how are you?" "Good, thank you" "This is the best date ever" she pretends to be Jake and I as she moves seats to accommodate each character.  Then Sam volunteers to play Jake so Kate doesn't have to switch seats to play.  they are mocking us kind of.  "This is the best date ever" "I love you"... then Marianne wants a turn and replays the same thing.  We play "what are you thinking about" while we wait for food.  Marianne can't not include the name of the thing you are suppose to guess as one of her clues.  Kate begins with something in her mind, but if you guess it you can see her quickly evaluate the clues she has given come up with another option and make you keep guessing.  And when you do think again what would fit the already given clues and changes secretly her thing until what you are guessing is "tropical island coconut" because she started with coconut pie but when you guessed that she gave new clues to get to keep playing it.  Then we headed to the Rec Center.  We played basketball, soccer, football, and gymnastics and had a great time all together.  It was snowing finally really hard when we came out of the Rec center and we all hurried to the car together.

iPhone Oct 29, 2014

1.  Halloween food. We had a lot of fun this year.  Here you can see our Blackbird pie, our mummy chicken pot pie and some witch finger cupcakes.

2.  The fall was good to us as always.  The weather was beautiful and we played outside as often as possible.  I put this shirt on Beth one day.  Right before Halloween.  It was Kate's favorite at this age. At Beth's age she would get it out of the dresser every day.  She would fit if I picked something else and go get it out of the dresser.  Beth isn't obsessed- but she sure liked it and kept "meowing" at her shirt.

3.  Kate spent some time with Cola.  Trying to get her to do new tricks and being an adorable spunky seven year old.  Suddenly Kate is so old.  She is in a choir that is for kids 8 - 12.  But the lady let us put Kate in it.  She seems to have risen in maturity to the occasion.


4.  The kids decide to draw Halloween pictures to put on the windows for Halloween.  They try to draw scary things.  Sam starts.  He draws a Haunted House and a vampire.  Marianne draws Olaf the snowman in summer.  Because that is the scariest thing my sweet adorable three year old can think of.  Sam continues with a ninja turtle.  Then Marianne draws a flower.  Then Kate draws a witch.  The kids are always doing art, but lately Marianne is obsessed with making cards.  Often we find little colored folded up papers with pictures of faces and letters M A R folded up and stuffed under our pillows and in our bathroom sink, slid under our bedroom door or office.  Its the best.