Thursday, December 11, 2008

And The Stockings Were Hung...


Now if you're thinking those are the craziest Christmas stockings I have ever seen you would probably be right! I bought a couple of stockings from the Dollar Store to let Samuel and Bella decorate themselves. I found a snowman pattern that I thought would be really cute, but this isn't exactly how I pictured they would turn out! But, who says snowmen have to be white, or that eyes need to be on the top, or buttons in a nice row. I really have fun doing crafts with the kids and just letting them decide how they want it to look. Although at times I really have to try hard not to make a comment like, "are you sure you really want to put that there, it sure would look a lot cuter if the eyes were closer together"!

The Stockins proudly displayed.






They really were excited about their creations!

Saturday, December 6, 2008

First Sentence

Bella has been saying a lot more words lately, but she is really hard to understand and usually only puts a couple of words together. I have been a little worried about her speech since Samuel by this time was talking in complete sentences and was very easy to understand. But today she spoke her first complete sentence! We were in the car and here's how the conversation went:
Chuck: Bella get in your car seat please (he had already told her several times before this)
Bella: (Very clear and easy to understand) "No daddy, I won't!"
Not exactly what you want to hear, but I was really excited and just couldn't help laughing.

A Mom's Week


Last night was our ward Christmas party and I decided I would actually wear my hair down and curl the bottom. The funny thing is that I had it separated and a portion clipped to the top of my head when I got interrupted by the kids needing something - the whole reason my hair is always in a ponytail or a clip on the top of my head, no time for doing anything with myself - so when I came out and Samuel saw my hair he said, "Oh mom, your hair is so beautiful!" That's when you know maybe you should do something with your hair a little more often!

My new exciting purchase - a carpet cleaner! I'm always worrying about getting our new carpet dirty, so for my own sanity I finally had to get the little carpet cleaner. The last few straws broke when Samuel got sick last weekend and threw up all over the family room carpet. He had thrown up once before and got a little spot on the carpet, but most had gone on the couch which was great because the leather is an easy clean. But the next time he didn't hit his bowl or the couch. He sadly lamented after that the throw up had come out too fast for him to get to the concrete. And I sadly lamented that I really needed a carpet cleaner. Then the next two days I didn't put Bella in her pajamas for nap because both days she had already pooped before nap and both times she pooped again in her room on the carpet! So now there's no way she goes to nap without the pajamas on inside out! That's why I now have the lovely carpet cleaner!


It's hard to see in the picture, but Samuel is locked inside the car strapped in his car seat. I was going to the post office and so while I was getting the other kids ready I told Samuel to go get in his car seat. He thinks it's funny to get in the car and then lock the doors. Unfortunately I had taken my purse with the keys inside and the big stack of Christmas cards and put them in the car. So when Samuel climbed inside and locked the doors my keys were also inside. I was in the house snapping Big Buddy in his car seat and heard the locks click so I quickly ran to the car and told Samuel he needed to let me in. At this point he started laughing and climbed in the backseat to get in his carseat. I was pounding on the window telling him not to buckle himself in the seat but to let me in. He just kept laughing despite my increased desperation that he was not listening. Then it was to late! He had strapped himself in and the car was locked with my keys inside. The bad thing is that he is in the middle so he can't reach the locks and he can't unstrap his bottom buckle to get out of the seat. I called Chuck to come home with his keys, but he had carpooled to a meeting and couldn't leave until the meeting was over! So poor Samuel was locked in the car for quite awhile and was just beside himself. The other kids then had to play in the driveway because Samuel, who was very sad the entire time, would start screaming everytime I got out of his sight. I kept asking him how he was doing and he would reply, "Not so good". I tried to get him to wiggle out of the seat, but he just couldn't do it. Now if it would have been Bella she could have wormed her way out, but Samuel is not so resourceful. The good thing about this whole experience is that he no longer locks the car doors and I tried to stress how important it is to listen to mommy!

Painting Ornaments or Our Faces!


I bought these cheap wooden photo ornaments for the kids to decorate. So I got out the paint, changed the kids into their "paint" clothes, layed down some garbage bags to try and control the mess a little, let them pick their own colors and away they went.

Samuel kept telling me he was a great artist.


Bella was so funny to watch because she loves to test boundaries - what little kids doesn't! First she started painting her leg.

Then she put one little dab of paint on her face and looked to see what I'd say. I knew the paint would come off so I didn't say anything. So then she started to paint her chin. At this point Samuel was just rolling with laughter and so was Bella.

The finished body art work. I finally did stop her when she started painting the teeth!

Samuel's funny because he likes to encourage Bella in her mischief, hoping she'll get in trouble, but also loves attention. I had taken Bella upstairs to get in the bathtub and when I returned Samuel was laughing and painting his own face. We had a bit of a mess to clean up, I love the easy to clean concrete floors, but the kids had so much fun. I think they actually enjoyed painting themselves more than painting the ornaments!

Friday, December 5, 2008

Christmas Decorating


The Big Tree!
I was so excited because for the first time in 3 years we were finally able to get all of our Christmas decorations out of storage and put up our big tree. We spent two days decorating. It's not like I have that much stuff, but with the new house and the kids it just took extra long to figure out where to put everything. And now I finally get to have my 2 trees. The small tree is in the piano room and is decorated "fancy" while the big tree is in the family room and gets the lower half of the decorations ripped off several times a day. I don't really mind the kids taking the decorations off because I have fond memories of being a kid and loving to take the decorations off the tree and then put them back on again. That was before we got older and mom got the "blue" tree!

The kids favorite part of decorating is putting together the gingerbread house Chuck's sister Paula gave us several years ago. Each year the kids think the candy is real and they have to bite several pieces just to make sure. They love to look at this house and pull the candy off the little tree and then put it back on again. I have it up on the countertop and they pull chairs over at least once a day to play with it.

Bella loves to help especially if it involves climbing the ladder. I love nativity sets and have been collecting them for a few years now. I think I have 16 displayed throughout the house this year. I especially love the ones we picked up from the days when we used to travel and Chuck's mom brought me back a beautiful nativity from their mission in Ghana.


Big buddy getting in on the action. I usually find him sucking on a Christmas ornament at least once a day. He rolls over by the tree and likes to feel the branches, but can't actually take anything off. But not to worry, the other kids get the decorations for him to eat.

Hiking


We went for a hike over the Thanksgiving weekend. We actually ended up hiking over a couple of miles and the kids did amazingly well walking by themselves. We don't really go that far anymore, but Grandpa Paul was forging ahead and the rest of us were just trying to drag the kids along and keep up!

The kids had their walking sticks and were whacking every bush or tree in sight. At one point Paul told Samuel he could only hit each bush once because all of his whacking was just slowing us down too much.


Bella is our little independant soul. She doesn't want you to help her do anything and while I think this is great, it can be a little annoying at times. Her hat was bugging her and she kept taking it off and then stopping and sitting down to fix it. She wouldn't let any of us touch it and if we did she would yank it away and scream at us. So we had several stops for her to fix the hat and eat her peanuts.

Poor big buddy was just having too much fun!

Yes we were taking the little ones on some difficult terrain.

It was really quite cold and so despite the fact that I looked quite silly in the jazz stocking hat, I was thankful it was in the trunk of the car!

Thanksgiving


Chuck and I have hosted a Thanksgiving dinner at our home for the past 7 years - always with my mom and dad and usually Trina and Wes, but this year mom and dad went to Arkansas so we had Chuck's mom and dad, Danny, Michelle and kids at our home. Despite the fact that Chuck laughs at my planning, I really do have a good system worked out for making the whole Thanksgiving meal. (I have a word document that I pull up each year with what preparations to do each day before Thanksgiving, a shopping list, what time to begin cooking everything so it's all done at the same time - a little nerdy I know, but I love to plan - no wonder I loved my SLOC job so much!) We had a great time with Chuck's family and our kids loved playing with their cousins. The grandparents even watched the kids one evening so we could see a movie - we couldn't even remember the last time we went to the show! We don't get out much these days!

The kids eating their Thanksgiving feast. Bella actually likes turkey!


The weather had been beautiful here until the family rolled into town and then it turned cold. Despite the cold and rain on Thanksgiving day, the kids still enjoyed playing with Grandma Luann outside.


Chuck put the guys to work that morning on the playhouse. I really wanted to have it done for Christmas, but we've decided now may be the time to get a good deal on a new vehicle so we're going to spent the next few weekends shopping around. The kids will just be excited whenever it gets done.

I really love my entry way and have enjoyed decorating it for each of the holidays. These are the Thanksgiving decorations on display and amazingly enough the kids actually are good about not touching the stuff. We'll see what happens when Isaac gets old enough to walk!