Wrapping up December

Well, here goes, the last post of the year.  I guess you could say that I am cheating because it is actually halfway through January.  Last year I finally figured out that I could schedule my posts for a date and time in the past.  I do this so my posts will all make it into the right blog books.  In a way it is bad because it allows me to procrastinate.  But at least it is done right?

We had a good time during Christmas break.  The kids went a little crazy with their tablets, being glued to them  pretty much every waking moment.  At least they were trying to be.  I finally had to confiscate them and make them do something else like PLAY with something non-electronic for awhile.  It was good to get back to school for that reason. And for other reasons.  Like messes, and fighting.  Elise brought the Christmas song that goes, "and mom and dad can hardly wait for school to start again" to our attention several times.  If my kids didn't fight I'd sure love to have 'em home more.  I start to lose my mind when there is fighting and whining.  I am sure all parents know what I'm talkin' about.

It was really fun to have Amy come visit.   She couldn't stay too long because she had to get back home to work and to her cat "Kitty".  We played lots of Scrabble, since she is my official Scrabble opponent. Usually we are equally  matched and we take turns beating each other.  This time I must have been way off my game because she beat me 3 times!  (Oh the shame. I call for a triple re-match!).  At least we learned a new word: "za".  It's slang for pizza.  You should use next time you want to order pizza:  "Hey Dominoes, I'd like to order some ZA..."  It is good to know about words like za.  Especially when you keep getting stuck with all the bad letters and there is no where to go and then your friend keeps beating you...  Anyway, digression over....We saw Les Mis and went out to lunch sans kids.   While she was here Amy tried to break me of my scarf phobia.  I even bought a couple of scarves with her encouragement so now I own 3.  I am really gettin with the fashion now.  Thanks Amy K for travelling far and wide to spend Christmas with us!  We love ya!

Adios to 2012!

Christmas Day

Santa brought lots of stuff!  The kids had it divided out into piles before we even got out of bed.

The Dreamlite was by far the most beloved gift.  The tablets took a close second.

Christmas night we made gingerbread graham cracker houses.  We didn't have time to do them Christmas Eve.

Mmmm.  Brown teeth.  Somebody has been eating candy.

Cheese Party 2012 - Christmas Eve

Last year we had talked about doing a fondue for our cheese party but we ended up doing something else instead.   This year Kent wanted to do a fondue so he researched recipes and picked one he wanted to try.  We had to buy Gruyere and Emmental cheeses for the fondue. (Holy cow, it was like 20 bucks a pound!)

 Review:  The fondue was good but one of the cheeses (I think it was the Emmental) was a little overpowering and smelled like stinky feet. It was hard to eat the fondue without smelling the stinky-foot-cheese smell.  Once you got over that though it was good.

Kent the fondue master

My friend Jodi heard us talking about our cheese party and heard that we had wanted to try Wensleydale so she surprised us with some to add to the cheese fun. 

We really liked the flavor of the Wensleydale, and of course it was fun to put our fists by our faces and say "Wensleydale" like Wallace does from Wallace and Grommit.

Here are the kiddos enjoying some sparkling cider in their fancy glasses.  There was plenty of "clinking" going on . They love clinking glasses.

After the cheese party the kids got to open their gifts from Amy

Beautiful Girls

Who says less is more?

Adele's Hand Buddies

I have written before about Adele and her hand characters Uma and Vloppy.  Now she has named the hands of the other kids.  They play.  They have personalities of their own.  Here are their names:

Emilia's hands:  Spidey and Glonky
Elise's hands: Buggy and Dinkel
Ian's hands:   The creepy crawlies or Hammer and Chisel.

Important Research

This research project was inspired by having a plethora of Halloween candy in all the varieties at one time.

Purpose:  To find out which candy is the best and to see if frozen candy is better than room temperature candy.
Tester:  Emilia
Procedure:  Eat candy and document tastiness on a scale from 1 to 10.   Freeze candy.  Eat more candy and score according to tastiness.
Result: Reese's Peanut butter cups are the most tasty with the frozen candy being only slightly more tasty than the room temperature candy.  Heath Bars come in last and have the same score whether frozen or not.  All the other candies are slightly MORE tasty when frozen.

No More Monkeys Swinging in the Trees

 On Wednesday afternoon Ian had a friend over. They were having a great time playing spy ninjas and monkeys.  Not at the same time.  Not like cowboys and Indians. Spy ninjas and monkeys would make an interesting game.  Anyway, they came in to get something and then went back out and I asked them what they were doing.  They said they were playing monkeys.  I was just happy that they were playing outside.  I didn't see much of them until dinnertime when Ian was saying his arm hurt.  He didn't want to eat because he couldn't bend his arm to hold a fork.  I asked him what happened and he said that when they were playing monkeys he fell out of a tree.  We did the usual thing when you have a hurt kid-- asked him where it hurt, had him move it etc.  We didn't think it was broken but I was remembering the last time we had a broken bone (also Ian) and we didn't take him to the ER until the next day.  My intuition told me to just go in to instacare.  So I did.  And he had a supracondylar fracture of his humerus.

So they put a splint on it and put him in a sling.  He is having way too much fun with this.

The next day we went to the Orthopedic Dr. and got a cast.

And now he has this awesome thing to wear for the next 4ish weeks.  Showering is FUN with a cast.

Remedial Haircut

Remember when Adele cut her hair about 3 months ago?  After she did it I just decided to leave it uneven since it was so short on that one side. I figured cutting it would make things look worse.  I just tried to put it in little pig tails or disguise it the best I could.

Three months and 1.5 inches of growth later I finally took her to get a haircut to even it out.  It's still pretty short but it looks cute and it is EVEN at last!

Ian gets baptized!

Ian was baptized by his dad on December 1, 2012.  

The picture just can't capture the awesome textured polyesterness of this sweet white Elvis jumpsuit. (That's what ya get if you are the last one there when they are giving out clothes.)

We were so happy and thankful that both sets of grandparents were able to make it to the baptism.  It meant a lot to us to have family here.

November Recap

I have gotten to be quite the slacker with my updates. It seems like I am so busy that I don't make the time to write anything but I also feel like there isn't that much to say.  I am just going to type and see where this goes.

• Adele is up to her usual mischief.  When we returned from our Thanksgiving trip to Idaho I found that she had drawn on her wall and closet doors with marker.  Yesterday I noticed that she cut two holes in one of her sweaters with scissors.  Her hair is finally growing back from her last hair cutting adventure and I think that it may finally be time to go get a haircut and get it evened out.  It was too short before and I would have had to get here a boy haircut in order to get it straight.
  
• Elise is having a much better year this year.  Last year she had a lot of drama with friends and this year things have been going much better for her.  She seems to have stable friend-relationships.  Her one drama inducing friend is in a different class this year so that seems to really help a lot.  This friend was an on-again off-again friend and kind of moody.  This year there are a lot fewer tears and frustrations so that is good.
  
• Emilia is having a good year in 7th grade but it is a lot different than her 6th grade experience. In 6th grade she was in classes with a lot of good kids who didn't get into a lot of trouble.  This year she has some troublemakers in some of her classes and that gets frustrating for her.  She hates it when the class loses privileges because some kids are being bad.  Emilia is getting really tall and she is only 2 inches shorter than me.  She loves to come over and stand by me and see if anyone will comment that she is getting so tall and will almost be taller than me. I think it makes her feel pretty grown up.  She finally meets the weight requirement to not officially have to sit in a booster seat.  Ian will probably be the same way. I always let my kids graduate from the booster when they are 8 though. 
  
• Ian.  My crazy boy.  I love this kid but let me tell you, boys are different than girls!  In many ways his temperament is easier than the moodiness of girls but he has SO much more energy than the girls. People tell me that he's just a boy and that is how boys are.  I was starting to think he was ultra hyper but his teacher reassured me that he was just a boy and just fine.  He kids of reminds me of my brother Brian when he was a kid:  very energetic and one who gets a certain amount of pleasure from provoking his sisters.  I can't blame Ian.  He has to stick up for himself since he is outnumbered.  He is a good kid though and he is very sweet.  He has an awesome laugh that makes me smile every time I hear him. 
  
•  Kent got called a couple of months ago to be a counselor in the Elder's Quorum.  We were a little bit surprised that he got that calling just because our family is so busy with the other callings and responsibilities that we have (especially my calling in the YW).  We are trying to juggle it all and have a good attitude about the new responsibilities.  Sometimes it is hard to do all the things that are asked of us.  I will admit that I sometimes struggle with all the responsibilities that we are expected to do.  More about that later... we are talking about Kent here....  Kent has been having some abdominal pain and symptoms of gall bladder problems. He has been having some tests to see if he needs to get it removed.  The tests all came back normal but the dr. left it up to him whether he wants to get it out.  He has a family history of gall bladder problems and adhesions on the gall bladder which don't show up on the tests and scans.  Right now Kent is trying to decide whether to get it out or give it more time.
  
• As for me, sometimes I am just trying to stay afloat. I won't lie to you. I am busy and I don't always have a good attitude about it.  There are things that I have to do that take precedence over the things I want to do.  Even good things, things like being a better friend, sister and visiting teacher.  I find that I still like to volunteer for things but sometimes I overestimate the time I have or I underestimate the time it will take to do things.  It is frustrating for me when I would like to do better at things and I just don't feel like I have the time.  Or when I see a friend who is struggling and I wish I had more time to help and support them.  Sometimes my calling seems really time consuming and it frustrates me that I have to spend so much time away from my family.  And I don't have time to do some of the things I want to do.  (Welcome to reality right?)  Anyway, I have been feeling this way a lot this month because we have been really busy.  We are wrapping up the year and gearing up for the curriculum change they are doing with the youth. I have had lots of extra meetings and just the overall pressure of being the one in charge of things.  And of course it takes mental energy to worry about the yw and the ones who are struggling.  There are a couple who struggle with unstable families and who aren't making the best choices.   I don't know what to do for them.   Anyway, I just wanted to be real and honest and say that I love working with the young women and I appreciate the opportunity but as with all things there are ups and downs, good things and bad things.  I am just glad that in 2 months we will be coming up on our 1 year anniversary and I sure hope that we will be better at doing things the second year than we were our first!  We had a lot to learn and a lot of changes to figure out this year.   I think we will be on a better track when we start our second year. At least I hope we will.
  

Thanksgiving in Idaho

 We have had Thanksgiving at home for the last 3 years.  One was by choice, one was because we were planning to go visit Kent's parents and couldn't go because of snow.  And last year we stayed home was because both our parents were not home and we decided to stay home since we didn't really have anywhere to go.  We had a fun time doing it with just our little family but this year we really wanted to go somewhere and not spend Thanksgiving at home alone.   Since it was the "on" year with most of Kent's siblings at his parent's house we decided to go there.  After a busy first half of November it was so nice to go on a trip and leave our crazy world home for a few days.  I brought my camera with me but I didn't use it much. I was too lazy.  My sister-in-law Sally is a photographer and she took lots of pictures so I am hoping I can get her to send me a couple of the wonderful chaos of Thanksgiving dinner.  There were 12 adults and 22 kids.  My kids had such a fun time visiting with their grandparents and their cousins.  We don't get to see our Idaho cousins very often so when we do it is a big deal.  Also, our Wii has been broken for almost a year and the fact that grandma and grandpa have a Wii was a big hit too.  Ian went over to my sister Carol's house to have a sleepover with the boys and Hailey, the kids' 12 year old cousin came over to my in-law's house to have a sleepover with the girls.  We also invited another cousin, Jocelyn to sleep over.  The girls had an awesome cousin sleep-over party.

 

Kelly, Carl and Kent

It has been a long and trying year for Carl and his wife Julie since was diagnosed with leukemia in January and spent a good part of the year in the hospital.  He is in remission now and regaining strength and it was really good for Kent to be able to spend time with him, and 3 of his other 4 brothers.  We haven't had a get together like that in a really long time.  We had such a good time.  There is just something about being together with family for Thanksgiving.  We like having Christmas with our little family because our kids are big and we like to do our own traditions, but Thanksgiving just isn't the same without getting together with a big group of family. I am thankful for my own family and for the family I married into.

Eight!

Happy Birthday to my big dude Ian. Ian decided to follow in Adele's footsteps and have a holiday themed cake.  He wanted turkey cupcakes in honor of Thanksgiving.  I gave it my best shot.

 

 

We love this big guy!  The kids are growing up so fast.  Just a couple of facts about Ian at age 8:
He loves Phineas and Ferb.  His favorite food is cheese.  His favorite colors are blue, red and black and he has a contagious belly laugh that makes me laugh too.

Misc. Crafting

So I have kind of been on a sewing and crafting spree but I haven't posted anything (until today when I posted the jammie pants).  So, here's just a bunch of photos of stuff I have made recently.

I also made a skirt for Emilia but I guess I don't have any pix of it.

Mom of the Year

Yeah, that's me.

How could I be anything BUT mom of the year after making custom dolly clothes for this little naked baby (who used to be naked but now isn't)?  AND to score even more points, I made Adele matching pajama pants.   Never mind the fact that I bought pj pant fabric for all my kids in JULY and have just NOW gotten to sewing the pants.  That is what happens when your internet goes down for 3 days.  You get stuff done.

She even has undies and booties!

The line-up with their jams.

I love the dog pile.

The Partying Continues

How fun is this? I even dressed up for the party!  Can't let the opportunity to wear stripey tights pass without taking advantage of it!  Not to mention the awesome hair.

Here is Supergirl trying to convince Spiderman to come join us in the photo.  He was being shy and didn't want to be in the photo.  The bubbling brew was much more interesting.

Shrunken Heads

This year on Adele's birthday for a fun birthday activity she wanted to carve apples and make shrunken heads.  I showed her pictures on the internet of the  shriveled apples and ever since then she really wanted to make some.

 This might have to become an annual tradition.

My baby is 5.

I took the kids swimming today and I had one of those moments where you suddenly feel like your life is flashing before your eyes and your kiddos are growing up too fast.  My littlest baby is 5.  It is kind of weird.  Next year she will be in kindergarten.  I am happy that we have moved on from the difficult baby years but I'd sure love to go back and cuddle these guys as newborns again.

Happy 5th birthday to Adele!

 Happy 5th birthday to my crazy 5 year old!  

Adele:

Loves makeup, dress up, shoes and sparkles

Names her hands and feet and also the feet and hands of others.  And pretends her feet are dogs and cats.

Is very sneaky

Loves to draw and color (sometimes on walls still) and always wants to be with her friends.

Loves to chew gum

The breakfast candle in the strawberry

She asked for an orange skeleton cake.  I made the bones out of white chocolate

Modelling the tutu and new scooter