Not so Lazy Days

I've been looking forward to nice relaxing mornings and lazy days since school got out last Thursday. So far one has yet to materialize. . . until today. The girls and Luke are still asleep and Nate is out watching cartoons with me. I've totally revamped my plans for the day realizing that I really need some nice quiet down time. I'm not even. . . get this. . . going to the gym. GASP! Shock! The HORROR (name the book)!

Monday night we had some extra kids so we had pizza for dinner, played, made/decorated sugar cookies and watched a Christmas movie. The girls treated Sadie like their very own, real life Barbie doll.
Nate and Daven -- played Legos pretty much the whole time
Watching the movie. Finally calm and quiet.

Tuesday Dustin took the afternoon off and took Ellie and Nate to the Nutcracker.
Ellie has gone every year since she was 4, but this was Nate's first year. His favorite part was the Nutcracker. I thought for sure he would say the Rat King. Ellie's favorite were the Candy Cane dancers.

Last night we went out for a hay ride at the Haymond's. Her dad has horses and drives everyone around the neighborhood to look at the lights and sing Christmas carols.
Not the best picture of everyone, but we'll take it!

So now to go be lazy. And probably do some laundry. But that's it. I swear! Tomorrow we've got 27 people coming for dinner.

Feeling Not So Christmasy

In stark contrast to yesterday's post, there is one thing that makes me feel a little less than "joyful." There is nothing like trying to take pictures of the kids to make one lose the Christmas Spirit.

Rest assured there were threats and bribes involved in this lack-luster attempt to record this year's Christmas ensembles. It just proves that you don't always get what you pay for. And I paid nothing for these pictures. Nothing if you don't count a few gray hairs and lost brain cells.

Nate

Already off to a bad start. He would rather stare at the blank TV than take a picture.

Proof that Nate can be really sarcastic even at a young age.

Smiling is painful.

Nate lays down in protest and refuses to get up off of the floor. I know everyone wants to see our carpet.

We'll call that one good. Here are your skittles.

Ellie

I must have been shouting, "Don't look at the camera."

Really. DO NOT LOOK AT THE CAMERA! Also, roll your eyes at me. It will only prepare me for the teen age years.

Ellie has this weird fake smile thing which kind of bugs me because she has the BEST real smile.

Thanks gorgeous.

Sadie
Sadie will one day wonder why she is sucking her thumb in every picture. I will tell her it is not my fault. And then explain that her college tuition and inheritance went towards braces.
Don't force it or anything.Tell you what, just go eat your orange.

Group shotOh crud, we have 4 now. Let's wait until Luke wakes up. Nate and Sadie are ecstatic at the idea of more pictures.
Luke is not happy to be forced into a picture approximately 3 minutes after being woken up.
Still really unhappy and Ellie is morphing back to crazy smile.

Luke
A little to the left
OK, now back to the right.
Now we just need a smile.
Almost there. . .
And I think we all know how this ends. With Luke being my favorite child. Ever.

PS I hope you all know that I really do love and cherish ALL my children.

Feeling Christmasy

Phew! There was delivering of neighbor/friend gifts, teacher gifts (one 2nd grade teacher, two preschool teachers, one speech teacher, 4 church teachers), Visiting/Home Teaching gifts, Secret Santa gift (which involved 4 kids and a mall on the Friday before Christmas -- I'm CRAZY), birthday parties (why so many kids in December dear friends?), school parties, Christmas caroling and then I threw in a neighborhood party here.

We couldn't find a day that worked for everyone, but I'm glad we decided to do it on the last day of school because I was WIPED when it was done.

I don't have many pictures because I gave up half way through and decided to just talk and enjoy myself instead, so I'll have to steal some of Casey's (if she ever blogs it).

We made ice cream cone Christmas trees, foam ornaments, skyp-ed with Jill & kids in Virginia Beach, and wrapped it all up with a gift exchange. Learned a lesson for next year: less activities, they just want to play. And a candy exchange instead of a gift exchange because it was impossible buying something to cover the age ranges.

After mostly everyone had cleared out, we left Cade and Sadie with the kids and Dustin & I ran out for a nice adult dinner with Casey and Janel.Grant -- I appreciate you eating the extra candies because otherwise Sadie would have and then she never would have gone to sleep that night. Oh wait. . . she never goes to sleep.

Kate & Claire

I love how boys love to stick out their tongues while they're working

Ann and Mollie & Casey and Beau

Today we were lucky enough to spend time with some of our best friends from college -- The Gustavesons! I was pregnant with Nate and she was pregnant with Maisy the last time we were together, but thanks to e-mail/Christmas cards, blogs and facebook we're still great friends. Brett is hilarious and Kasia is possibly the sweetest person I've ever met. She entertained Sadie all through Sacrament for us. All except for the part where Sadie went up and sang with the Primary kids. I guess since she's been going in to prepare for Sunbeams, she thinks she's in Primary now. I said, "Sadie, you don't know the songs." "I do," she said as she walked out of the pew and starting singing, "I am a child of God. . ."

Dustin made his famous baked French Toast to celebrate and I made fresh squeezed lemonade from our lemon tree (please let me know if you ever want lemons or oranges -- our trees are bursting).
Sadie got tattoos as her gift at the neighborhood party and I CANNOT get them off. So please note her tats for Christmas Sunday.
And Luke says, "Merry Christmas." Hopefully I'll update before then!

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

Or at least feel like it. Brrrr! It's been cold. I guess I should say, it's been cold for Arizona.

wreath from Costco

Welcome to our home and all of our Christmas festivities. I know a lot of people like to make fun of me and how I start getting ready for Christmas in July, but I find the more prepared I am, the more I can enjoy doing stuff with the family and I relax all December.

So yes, the cards are done, the packages are sent, the presents are bought, wrapped, labeled and hidden. . . just fun from here on out. Heck, even our lights are up!

Right before Thanksgiving I got some Christmas crafting done with my girlfriends. We made the wall plaques and the barn stars. JOY blocks from Bonnie

And Grandma Rogers brought Luke's new stocking at Thanksgiving. I love all the kids' cute stockings.

Snowflakes from Tenderheart and the Angel was a gift from Kerry

We have all of our advent traditions. One for everyone. Countdown blocks (made last month) and our matchboxes (made with Tasha and Molly one year).
They're filled with candy and something Christmas-y to do each day. This magnetic cookie sheet was a birthday gift from Susan one year. A friend (I won't name names) knocked it down 3 or 4 times when she was over one day. My kids have yet to knock it down. We also have a pocket Santa by the kids rooms and we read one Christmas book each night, plus my friend Lisa sent me a scripture countdown. I think I'm going to put them in something like this for next year. I really like advent calendars if you can't tell.

The first Monday of December we always put up our Nativity and tell the story of Christ's birth as a family. Gift from my Aunt Kristine with a few "extras" Ellie picked up from Primary last year.

We also have a Little People one, but I cannot find the baby Jesus anywhere. Sadie has decided a stable isn't posh enough and brought out some doll house furniture to accessorize. The 2nd Monday we always deliver our goodies. I hope it's warmer by Monday night!

Buddy, our Elf is also back. Our neighbors Jill and Casey each have their own Elf too

The kids race out every morning to be the first to find him. So far there was only one morning he didn't move (and a few close calls where Mom jumped out of bed and shoved Nate back into his room because "it was too early to be up").

Ellie shows you our Christmas tree. I'll have to do a post sometime about some of my favorite ornaments. And also figure out how to turn the flash off of my camera so I can take some night shots. I'd probably have to read the manual for that and what fun would that be?

Going to the mailbox every day. Probably the only time of year I enjoy getting the mail.We love getting your Christmas cards, so keep 'em coming. The more the merrier.

Breakfast with Santa. Ellie had a sleep over with a friend so we had an extra. I can't believe we almost took up a whole table just for our family.


The kids were very good and didn't ask Santa for anything ridiculous, or anything he wasn't already bringing them (phew)! Also, Nate's looking a little Italian in this picture -- don't you think?

Making cookies. It was a mess. I was a wreck trying to *enjoy* the mess and let go, but the kids had a BLAST! We sent them off in our Christmas packages, so I'm not quite sure what they looked like when everyone got them.

We've got lots of fun stuff coming up too. Can't wait!! So are you ready for Christmas??

How I Spent My Thanksgiving Vacation

I feel like I'm still unpacking/doing laundry/recovering from our 8 day vacation to. . . sunny Arizona. Oh wait, we live here. Dustin's brother decided to bless his twins over Thanksgiving if the whole family would get together for it. We were just lucky it ended up being here. With 5 brothers and 23 people, we opted to rent a larger house with a heated swimming pool for the week.

The ENTIRE fam:

Casey and Sarah from Utah Doug (Kathy missing) live in Maricopa

Darian and Jen DROVE from Tennessee with their 3 kids. They may be crazy.

Chris and Shauna and Zoe (missing Isaac) drove from California

What we did:
1. Ran -- Dustin's whole family is really big into running, so every day there were lots of running partners. 6 of them even ran the Turkey Trot that morning where Jen was 6 seconds away from being the fastest woman. Oh how I will never let her live it down for not throwing up to win!

2. Played games.
I think the boys were up until 2:30 most mornings. We also had the Xbox & Wii hooked up, plus the cousins' DSs

3. Swam.
I finally got in the pool the last day and it was 102!! No wonder the kids were in there so much.

4. Went to the park

5. Crafted. Grandma Rogers brought a little scrapbook-y craft to hold Christmas gifts for the girl's teachers. And Luke's new stocking!!

6. Gingerbread houses and trees.
So many gingerbread options. The kids ate the big one, so we only came home with the gigantic tree and mini-houses.

7. Held babies.
Luke is officially spoiled now. He may never just sit again.

8. ATE! A lot. Especially Trader Joe cookies, expensive english muffins and pergois (thanks Doug and Kathy)!

9. Exchanged gifts. It was so cute to see how excited the kids were and how perfect each of the gifts they picked out were. Lego Star Wars for the Wii for Nate, a bracelet making kit and earrings for Ellie (which Jake spent quite a bit of time picking out the best set) and Ponyville for Sadie.

Just that night we had been on a walk and Sadie was especially quiet. I asked her what she was thinking about and she said, "Ponyville for Christmas. I really really want it." So that worked out great!

10. Played pool. Sadie had a special affinity for the blue cue powder, which you'll notice on her lips in several pictures.

11. Ignored the kids, who did a great job of entertaining themselves. Nate had Wyatt(blankies and thumbs for the both of them), Ellie had Alex Anne
and Sadie had the big boys who loved all over her and spoiled her like crazy.

Things we didn't do:
1. Sleep

Luke with the twins -- or the triplets as I like to term them!
In their cute outfits from Casey and Sarah


So there you have it -- way too many pictures. Loved every minute of it.

Having Fun

With Thanksgiving around the corner, we are loving having so many people in town!

1. Having fun with Grandparents. Dustin's parents came in on Saturday so they helped us put up the Christmas tree. Luke loves the lights.





2. Having fun with cousins. Swimming, video games, pass-the-baby, crafting, not-really-sleeping sleep overs, movies. . . can't wait for everyone to get here.





3. Having fun with old friends. The Stohls, our friends from college, are in town so we met up with them for dinner last night. I love seeing old friends, and I love that between blogs and facebook it's like you never really left off. The kids loved each other and can't wait to be reunited this summer.

More details to follow and all my birthday fun when we're done having fun.

Oh Sadie

Chances are if you have a secret crush on just one of my children, it's Sadie. It must be the dimples, but she seems to have the world wrapped around her little finger -- and she knows it. I hate to burst your bubble people, but she can be a real stinker. She's really clever and so grown up that sometimes I can't believe she's only 2!! I already dread the teen age years.

One night she wouldn't go to bed and Dustin walked in to tell her to go to sleep. Her response? "Blah blah blah." Before "Blah blah blah" became her patent sassy reply, it was "La la la." When that got her in trouble it quickly turned into, "La la la looooooove you." Currently it's "AHHHH! Stop bugging me Dad."

Last week she found a leftover Halloween rat which she then decided was her pet named Mambi. She sang to Mambi and fed him and loved him. . . she even taught him tricks.

And she thinks the pantry is her own personal playground. One day while I was feeding Luke I heard her calling my name. She was hanging from a pantry shelf that she had climbed trying to reach marshmallows.

Another time I was feeding Luke (yes, she's figured out the best time for pantry raids is while I'm feeding Luke) I hear her little strained voice: "I'm not tall enough." Tall enough for what? I ask. "For reaching." Reaching WHAT?? "I need to reach some chocolate chips." Well she definitely wasn't tall enough that day, but she must have figured something about because a few days later I found her running around the house with two handfuls of chocolate chips.

Sadie, I love you. Please stop growing up.