A great Christmas!

Heidi didn't get much for Christmas this year, but she did get some earrings! Aren't they adorable?? That is kind of my gift to myself as well. Jared is a little mad at me for this...


Christian and Ethan got incredible hulk hands and masks. Christian was really scared of the masks at first, but he got used to it!



Megan got a cool gymnastics DS game. Her favorite gift this year is the dry erase board and markers.


My mom brought gifts in huge sacks and I stood Christian in one. He is so cute!


Ethan got a batman costume, he loves it! I asked him what his favorite present was and he said EVERYTHING!


Megan got a spa factory, it is pretty cute, she made some lip gloss and perfume.


Heidi liked to watch the kids open presents and look at the lights on the tree. I think next year will be a little more fun for her!

We also had a great Christmas with my Nanny and Papa and we didn't get out the camera! darn it! The kids love what they got, but I think the winner was the remote control car Ethan got. My mom also got Christian a trike for his birthday and he is on that all the time, I don't have pics of that yet. And worst of all... Christmas morning I slept in until 10:00 am (that part was pretty nice) but I missed the kids seeing the Santa stuff and of course no pictures were taken. Next year I will have to be awake. I was grateful for the rest, I must have needed it. And thanks to Heidi for that wonderful gift, the best thing she could have gotten me :)

new glasses

Megan has been telling me she needs glasses for a couple of months and I didn't believe her. She has WANTED glasses for a long time. Well, the school sent home a paper saying she failed a vision screening at school. I took her to the eye dr today and he said she is a little near-sighted and she could use some glasses. She was so excited. These are the frames she picked out. They are kinda bold and they have a leapord print on the inside. They do really look cute on her. It was hard for her to take them off and leave them at the store. The real glasses won't be in for a couple weeks. She can't wait to get them!

Santa and Heidi

We took Heidi to see Santa last week. He was so cute with her and I love the picture. Christian wouldn't go near him. Santa got out a candy cane to try to get him to come over and I finally pulled him to Santa. No picture, though.

Christian's birthday

Today at playgroup we met at my house and had a little party for Christian. He loved getting ready for it. I let him help me with the cupcakes and we talked about the kids coming over for his birthday. He was so excited and kept talking about it all morning. The cupcakes turned out so cute. I wanted to make snowmen out of large marshmallows to put on the cupcakes and I got all the stuff for that. This morning I checked my mail and I got a Taste of Home mag from my mom and on the cover were the cutest snowmen cupcakes so I copied those with what I had. I love them! We had a great time, thanks to all who came! Christian keeps coloring his nose to look like Rudolph. It might be Ethan doing it, I am not sure. :)

5 is Great Christmas Edition Tag

Favorite Christmas Movies:
Home Alone
Elf
Mickey's Christmas Carol
Charlie Brown Christmas
National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation



5 Things that happened yesterday:
Made my Christmas cards
Addressed my envelopes
got the kids to school
got megan to and from gymnastics
saw my husband briefly


5 Things to look forward to:
Christmas
my aunt coming to stay for a week
my mom coming
Heidi smiling
Jared going on days off tomorrow



5 Things on my wish list:
sleep through the night
a cleaning book by kim and aggie
a fondue cookbook
a nap
get all my projects done and shipped/wrapped



5 Things I love about winter/ Christmas:
cooler weather!
a fire in the fireplace
giving gifts
getting gifts
all of our traditions


5 People to Tag:
Lorren, Karalee, Cindy, Amy, Michelle

What the?!!???!!

My friend pointed out to me that they misspelled "stretch" on Megan's picture! Oh my gosh! I can't believe I didn't notice that! I guess they will be making me some more!

Our sweet kids...

I saw this idea on the internet and I wanted to do it with Heidi and I can't believe how well it worked. She posed so sweetly. I love her little hand under her chin and the cute little fat rolls on her ankles. The best part... she didn't pee or poop on me :)


At Megan's gymnastics, they always have a photographer come to the gym and photograph the gymnasts. He is horribly expensive and it is always chaotic. This year I decided to try JC Penney's and see if they could give me good pictures for less cost and they did! The guy did a great job. He even caught Megan in the air in the splits. I will post that pic when they are available online. Here she is with a lot of her medals from the year. We got this idea from another girl at the gym. We saw her picture up at the pottery place we go to and I thought it was so cool. The next picture is her doing a bridge. Last year we got this pose from the expensive guy at the gym, but she was all the way to the side, so you couldn't see her face. My papa liked the picture a lot so I wanted to get one for him and this one turned out SO good.



My boys... what can I say, they are SO handsome. They posed so well for the guy, I was impressed. Especially for Christian. He is hard to deal with sometimes, but he was so easy going that night. The next morning is when he woke up with pneumonia. Considering that, I think it is even more amazing we got such good pictures.



Another set of the older kids. So cute...


We also got a family photo, but I am sending them out in my Christmas cards so you have to wait to see those...

Christmas Countdown Ribbon

I have been telling a lot of friends about this candy countdown so here is a picture. My friend Prudy showed us how to make these at an Enrichment night once and Karalee helped me remember how...(thanks!) They are so fun and easy to use every year, just glue on more candy! Click on the picture to see it bigger.

It's a miracle!

Heidi FINALLY took a pacifier! I can't believe it! I have been trying to get her to take one since she was a couple days old and she just wouldn't do it. All my other kids are thumb suckers and I bet she will be one, too, but I really want her to take a binkie. I am going to keep working on her to try to keep it going....

Holiday Decorating

We put up our tree and other Christmas decorations on Thanksgiving. I finished Heidi's stocking before Christmas, it is a miracle LOL! Here are the kids after we decorated... (Ethan is always dressed up like darth vader, ALWAYS lol)


Here are all my stockings, I am so proud of them. I think they look great!


Christian putting on the ornaments. He likes to walk by the tree and "accidentally" make an ornament fall off so he can put it back on. Sometimes when I look at the tree, there will be a ton of ornaments on one branch... Someone was redecorating again!


Megan and Ethan were great at decorating the tree.


Christian got to help put on the star.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a great Thanksgiving day. I got to sleep in a bit (Heidi was up from 2:30-5:30am!) and then I got up and started cooking. We were going to have fondue for dinner, but I got to thinking about it and I wanted the kids to have a regular Thanksgiving dinner. Jared helped the kids make a Turkey craft while I was cooking. Thanks to Jennifer for giving us the craft stuff!


We had chicken and stuffing, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes and gravy, rolls, a yummy punch, chocolate and key lime pie (Jennifer gave us the lime pie, she is awesome!) It was all really yummy!


Christian woke up from his nap and he was feeling a little sick so I was trying to cher him up. It didn't work LOL! He is doing much better today. I guess the antibiotics are working well.



I am so thankful for my family and friends and church. It is a great time of year to really think about our blessings and I sure have a lot of them.

Heidi's Plate

I took Heidi to get her foot prints preserved on a ceramic plate when she was a few days old. I love how it turned out. I really like painting at those ceramic shops. I wish I would have done it for my first two kids. I got the idea when I was pregnant with Christian and so he and Heidi have a plate. Her little feet are so darn cute!

And here are some pics of Heidi sleeping on the couch today. I was trying to get her used to laying -not sleeping- on her tummy but she went to sleep pretty much immediately. She is so sweet :)

poor Christian!

My poor little boy has pneumonia! He had a cough yesterday but didn't seem too bad and this morning he didn't get up until 9:45 am and for a kid who normally gets up at 7 am, I was concerned. Then I touched him and he was burning up! I took his temp and it was 102. His cough sounded worse so I had Jared take him to the doctor. I am glad we took him! I sometimes try to not go to the dr because it never is anything and they send me home with nothing. Since we have a newborn, I have been taking the kids for everything. I don't want her to get anything. I made a bed for Christian on the couch and he is watching tv. He got a shot in each leg which the dr said would be very painful. He can't stand up without crying. I hope he gets better quick!

YUM!

We got a fondue pot! It is so fun to dip things in the chocolate. We are going to have a fondue dinner for Thanksgiving this year. I am not into turkey... yuck! So we had to try it out for Family Night tonight. It was a big hit. I think Heidi was jealous because as soon as the chocolate was melted, she woke up and started crying. I got to eat cold fondue lol! Christian liked to stab things with the fork and dip it, but he didn't want to eat any of it. Maybe next time...

First bath

This is probably the most BEAUTIFUL picture I have ever seen! I may be a little biased since she is my sweet baby, but seriously I can't believe I got this good of a picture from a 10 day old baby!


Heidi liked her bath ok, she seemed a bit nervous at first. No crying until I took her out. She is just so cute!!!

Iceskating at Mistletoe and Magic

Megan got to iceskate with her gymnastics team at Mistletoe and Magic this year. She had so much fun! I was worried she wouldn't be able to do it, but she managed to stay on her feet most of the time. It was really weird, it wasn't real ice, you can see the floor in some of the pictures. It was made from puzzle pieces and I guess they were wet. Whatever it was, it worked!