Update

I know I say this all the time, but Anna is our festivity queen. She gets so into each and every holiday and is way better than me at making them special. She'll be such a good mom. Anyway, she and Abby basically single-handedly decorated for Christmas this last weekend. I refused to pull one Christmas decoration out until we did some serious cleaning, so Anna really pitched in and then carefully and lovingly went about the house decorating. She's also always on the hunt for things she can talk me into letting her have for her room. I love how child-like she is that way and hope she always will be. We love Anna.


Abigail went to the grocery store with me the other afternoon. When we walked out she noticed a man ringing a bell and asked me why he was doing that. "Well, he's trying to collect money for..." before I could finish she blurted out, "WHAT?! You mean he's wants people to give him money just for ringing a bell?" I quickly explained it wasn't for him, he was doing it for other people. Anna walked into Josh's room the other day to find Abby having a tea party with her dolls. She grabbed the camera and took the following pictures. We love Abigail.

Every day Nate asks me if I've bought him any presents yet. He is so excited for Christmas and all the parties and festivities. He was also so excited to decorate the tree. This time of year is truly so much more magical with children. The highlight of his life though is a Christmas chocolate advent calender I bought for each of them and our upcoming Christmas tree party when they get to sleep under the tree. We love Nathan.

My sister watched my little boys yesterday so I could do some shopping. Ben gave Eliza instructions on how to make a bottle for Joshy. He's just so dialed in and takes himself so seriously I can't get enough of it. A few nights Nate came in to tell us he was scared. Ben followed him in and after he heard Nate he looked at him and said, "Nate, Jesus is with us." Oh, so sweet. We love Ben.

Joshua is beyond words. Honestly, I feel so lucky to have him at this age this time of year. I got the big kids off to school, Ben was playing happily and I fed Joshy his baby food while we listened to one of my favorite Christmas albums. There's just nothing that makes me feel the Spirit more than an innocent smiling child and music. Heaven truly can exist in our homes, maybe for just seconds at a time (at least here) but I'll take it. Here's a sampling of the joy Joshua brings.

Joshua Laughing from Andrea W. on Vimeo.

We love Joshua.

Thanksgiving Weekend

First of all, if you haven't already, be sure to check out a new blog 3 of my brothers just launched. They're not good for much, but they're always good for a laugh :)

Wow, what a great Thanksgiving weekend we had. I kept meaning to post a grateful post, but never got to it. I am so grateful though, for so many things. It seems almost everyday I hear about someone, usually a friend or neighbor or family member who is going through something really hard. I then usually regret that I can't do something more than pray for them and then I realize that's the best thing I can do. I'm so grateful that I know about and believe in the power of prayer.

I'm also so grateful for my sweet family. To have 5 children can have its challenges, but it's far more rewarding than hard. I love my children and husband so very much. Having a baby around is a particular blessing, there's just something about babies that is irreplaceable.

three 3 year olds "helping" my saintly mother make muffins

We celebrated Thanksgiving with my Dad's family. It was a smaller group than usual, but so nice. It was festive and fun. After the big feast and some socializing we headed to my parents' home for some schmoozing with my parents and siblings and families (Christian, Rebecca, Oliver and Amelia were in town).

Friday we met my family at a forest park nearby for a fire and roasted hotdogs and s'mores. The guys and the kids played a fun football game and the rest of us sat around the fire. That night the adults went out to eat at a yummy Mexican restaurant.

Ryan's coon-skin cap that his wife loves so much

Brennan always looks unamused in photos, but he loved it, I promise

Saturday we got the house clean and hosted a football party to watch our local rivalry game with my family. It was a fantastic game and great company. Towards the end we girls got a little chattier than our husbands would have liked, and many a kid was told to get out from in front of the tv and lovingly invited to go downstairs. But all in all, definitely a great time.

Sunday I went to church early to rehearse with our choir who sang our Thanksgiving song for Sacrament meeting. It went really well, I'm so grateful for such good supportive choir members. It still is really hard and scary for me, but I also genuinely love being part of it too.

That evening we met at my sisters' neighborhood clubhouse for my niece, Belle's, 2nd birthday party. I love this quirky little imp of a girl. Eliza had some darling games for all the kids and lots of treats. The adults sat around chatting and laughing with Josh's family. We left happy and tired.

the birthday girl

More Update

Here's super baby! Joshua has discovered his voice and loves to squawk and squeal and we cannot get enough. He is ready with smiles and giggles except in the middle of the night when he wakes up hungry and I have the nerve to change his diaper first, he screams in pure fury and it cracks me up. We love Joshua.

Benny loves our neighbors, we all do, but Benny is obsessed with them. They have three kids named, Tyler, Diana and Will and Ben has sort of lumped them together and refers to them collectively as Tyana. Anyway, he always wants to play with them and the other day he asked if he could go see if they could play. I told him not right then because I had to go shower and then we needed to run some errands. He said, "Okay, I'm just going to go outside to look for bugs." "Okay, but stay in the back yard." The phone rang and after chatting for a few minutes I peeked out back to check on Ben who was no where to be seen. I got off the phone and then called my neighbor and sure enough Benny was there. What a little stink! Also, lately he will get Joshua in a headlock or some other less than gentle gesture and when I tell him to stop he says, "But Mom, he loves me" "Yes he does love you, but you still can't put him in a headlock." We're working on it. We love Benjamin.

The other day Nate walked into my room where I was making Joshua laugh. The baby got giggling so hard and it was so cute. Nate stood there with the biggest grin on his face and then said, "We are sooo lucky." "Why are we lucky?" "Because we have Joshua". I love that my 6 year old gets the magic of our baby. Then again, the other morning he came into the kitchen carrying Joshy and said, "Here Mom, Patches woke up." "Uh, Patches?" (Patches is our guinea pig) "Oh, I mean Joshua!". We love Nate.

For Abby's parent teacher conference the other day I had to bring Joshua with us. When Abby became aware of that she reassured me that she had already talked to her teacher about the fact that even though parents were supposed to try to leave siblings home, there was a possibility her 4 month old baby brother would have to come. I had never mentioned anything about any of this, but found it so funny and so like Abby to have thought it all out and discussed the possibilities with her teacher. "Don't worry, Mom, Mrs. Sutton said it would be okay to bring a baby if we needed to." In so many ways she's about 5 steps ahead of me. If I need to be sure I don't forget something I ask Abby to remind me and can count on it. She's a huge help. We love Abigail.

Anna and Chloe are in full swing of their latest creative venture. They managed to get a good group to sign up for their play. They've scheduled 2 hours each week in our basement for play practice. (When I say "they've scheduled" that's exactly what I mean, I asked to look at the flier right before they went to pass them out). I told them I just couldn't be involved this year, even to answer the door because there's a good chance I'll be feeding the baby. They agreed and so far have kept their word. The first week they did auditions which took about 10 minutes, but they somehow managed to keep their wards entertained for the rest of their 2 hours. They're desperate for boys, but Nate isn't interested so they had to settle for Benny He was willing, but got uninvited after the first hour when he kept trying to sword fight with pool sticks. They are basing this play off a barbie movie of The Princess and the Pauper. In the script they put together based on that movie one of the characters was "Mrs. Madamecarp." They're very cute and very serious about this and I can't wait to see the play. We love Anna.

Update

Last weekend Brennan took the girls down South so they could hang out with Grandma Jamie and Grandpa John while he played in a golf tournament. They left around 4 am Friday morning so they could get there in time for his 10:00 am tournament start time. Around 8:00 Brennan called me to report that they had been in an accident. Thankfully they were all fine, a little shaken up (Anna thought it was pretty exciting, Brennan and Abby were traumatized.) They hit some rough weather and started sliding off the road. Brennan corrected and they slid sideways off the other side of the road which was a big ditch in between the freeways. Miraculously they didn't roll and they and our car, except for two tires, were fine. Also miraculously a passerby happened to have a winch which he managed to pull them out with and an air compressor to get their tires to make it to the nearest town to buy new ones. I am unbelievably grateful that my family was spared. They managed to get to their destination 20 minutes after Brennan's two day golf tournament started. The girls had a great time with their grandparents and Brennan managed to golf, catch up with old friends, and enjoy the girls and John and Jamie.

The boys and I met Macy, (my SIL) and kids at the zoo to freeze to death and see some adorable baby animals. There's a baby elephant and monkey and tigers. I think our favorite was the baby monkey, so tiny and so cute! On the way home Benny was in an exhaustion induced coma, Joshy slept so Nate and I chatted. It was so much fun to get a real look into his life. He told me all about his friends at school and what he does at recess and all those things that I'm always trying to get him to tell me about. We stopped for dinner and grabbed a movie to watch at home. It was so great to be with my boys.

Saturday Nate got to go to a football game and sit in a box with my Did with yummy food. He LOVED it.

Sunday we were happily all reunited and topped off the weekend with dinner and my parents. Life is good.

Just Some Stuff

This post has no rhyme or reason to it, it's just some things I've been thinking about and wanting to record.

First of all, last week I got to have my nephew and two nieces, Rex, Lucy and Molly over for not long enough. I barely saw Rex and Lucy as they disappeared with my big kids soaking up every second they get together. My 2 year old niece Molly however, was all mine. We did puzzles and took care of her doll and just chatted and sang songs. She's amazingly verbal for a barely 2 year old and she knows about 14,000 more song lyrics than I ever will. She talks perfectly, but has a slightly nasal tone that I can't get enough of. She's totally dialed in to everything and everyone around her. It was pure heaven, I LOVE 2 year olds.

Yesterday Eliza and her two littles came over, Abe (3) and Belle (almost 2). Joshy was sleeping so we played a few games with Ben, Abe and Belle and ate lunch and they played in the leaves. It made me so happy. Abe and Ben are so cute together, sometimes they butt heads, but they love each other SO much and most of the time get along so well. Belle is so funny and quirky I could watch her all day long, did I mention I love 2 year olds? I was always so excited to be a mom that I sort of forgot how much fun it would be to be an aunt. I love all my nieces and nephews so much and one of my greatest joys is how much my kids adore their cousins.

I've mentioned before how my oldest brother and his family live in TN so we rarely see them. They were able to come to Grandma's funeral and one of my favorite things about their visit was when their two oldest boys, David (almost 16) and Spencer (14) came over to watch football with Brennan. It made me so grateful for Brennan and how great he is to have invited them over and have so much fun with them. He'll be such a good teenager dad. David and Spencer are both such sweet, good boys it made me excited for teenagers.

Eliza forwarded all of us siblings something my mom saved. It was a family home evening we had back in 1994 where we all said why our other siblings were lucky and my Mom wrote them down and saved it. It was hilarious to see what we envied about each other. My very favorite was for my brother Davis it said "Prestigious job" he worked at DownEast Outfitters. The thing is, it kind of was one of those jobs where cool people worked. So funny. Anyway, the thing that amazes me is that my mom not only wrote them down, she actually saved and was able to find it all these years later. She always did such cute things like that. We have the cutest audio tapes of her asking us questions and our funny answers and cute little voices all throughout our childhoods. Thank goodness for blogs, because if we had to depend of me typing something up, printing it and filing it, we'd be up a serious creek.

For an event at school the kids were encouraged to wear a t-shirt, preferably one they decorated. I think it was for red ribbon week so it was probably supposed to have an anti-drug message, but Anna jumped at the chance to decorate a shirt. She gathered leaves and used them as stamps. I just love her creativity. For some stupid reason the picture keeps showing up upside down no matter what I do.


At Joshua's 4 month appt. my doctor said they've changed their feeding recommendations pretty dramatically. Now we're supposed to start them on solids at 4 mos. This was his first meal with his wheat cereal, he wasn't loving it.

I love this little guy so much, he's so full of smiles and laughter. We're very blessed.

Update

Wow, I can't even tell you how much I have missed having a computer and thereby a connection to my friends and family! Our computer was very, very sick so we bought a new one and I'm so grateful to be connected after a VERY long week.


Joshua turned 4 months old this week! He's chunking right up and as adorable as ever. We love Joshua!


Ben is in that really tricky phase transitioning out of naps. He still kind of needs them, but whenever he does it takes forever for him to fall asleep at night. My sweet, happy boy has been pretty grumpy especially late afternoons and often falls asleep in the car or on the couch which kind of breaks my heart. Why is it so sad to me when little kids are so tired they fall asleep wherever they are? He wanted Nate to help him do something the other day and Nate didn't want to comply. Ben quickly said, "Nate, member we're best buds?" We love Benjamin.


The other day we went to be vaccinated for H1N1 and they were running low on the shots so they wanted to give us the mist. Abby has asthema though and can't have the mist. She started melting down that she had to be the only one to get a shot. Nate quietly said, "Mom, I'll get a shot too so Abby won't be the only one." Oh, he can be so sweet! Brennan and I were able to get shots with Abby and Nate didn't have to. We love Nate.


Abigail loves a boy in her class, well several to be completely. However, one in particular plays with her almost every recess. She gets a sloppy grin on her face whenever she talks about him. The other day she said, "Yeah, it was fafe's dart that found my Cam." She'd heard that phrase only it was "fate's dart" on a tv show and felt it applied perfectly to her. She's a nut. She's also just compiled a book of poetry. Here are a few of my favorites:

#2 - Winter is Fun

Winter is Fun.
Winter is cold.
There is a mess where ever it blowd.

#7 - Hollidays

I love Hollidays, who wouldn't? Special dinners and games with winners!

#12 - Golf

Every day my dad comes home late because he's been golfing neer the lake.

We love Abigail.


Anna has officially gotten to the stage where she really cares about what she looks like. I remember a friend of mine got grounded from hairspray in like 10th grade for a week. Anna doesn't use hairspray or I would seriously consider that. Brennan has threatened we're going to cut off her hair if she doesn't start hurrying in the mornings. He's planning to cut off some blond doll hair and scatter it on her bed so that when she wakes up she'll think he made good on his threat. I'm all for it. I'll let you know how it goes. Instead of their annual dance class/recital for the neighborhood girls this year they're trying to do a theatre class. It's called ACPP (Anna, Chloe Play Production) and they're going to put on a play of Princess and the Pauper. Wow, am I re-living my childhood, this is such my life with my older brother, Braden, who went on to get his Phd at NYU in Children's Theatre. I love that they love this. We love Anna.

Halloween

Our laptop is dying a slow and painful death. I'm kind of dying being cut off. Currently, I'm at my sister's house using hers and getting my fix. Hopefully, we'll get ours fixed or replaced soon. While I have access I wanted to post our Halloween pics. I've also loved seeing everyone else's who's posted.

First we have Joshy the lion patiently putting up with his mother fussing over him.

Here we have Benny, the Storm Trooper or technically I think he's a Clone Trooper, but we prefer the characters and terms from the older
Star Wars movies. Here he is showing his face

Here he is in full fab-leous costume

Nate, the Crocodile Wrestler

Abigail the snowman or snow woman.

Anna as Elvis

Here are my neice and nephew or Man in the Yellow Hat and Curious George, isn't that darling?`