Bear Crawling

The baby is trying so hard to get those little legs moving under him. He's doing pretty well with army crawling. Here he is just a moment ago. The other kids love this new little trick. He's pretty proud of himself too!

Baby's 1st Christmas Gift

Christmas photos-finally

I'm finally unloading my camera and posting a bunch of photos of what we've been up to lately. The first are of Chrismtas morning. Warning...lot's of photos! Enjoy

Sunday Best

SH's last day of Nursery

This Sunday was SH's last day of Nursery at church. He will no longer be in the "playroom" with the littler kids but now in the primary with the bigger kids as a Sunbeam. I just don't see how this is going to work and I'll apologize now to his teacher! I can't believe my little boy is getting so big!

Christmas eve dinner

We got an amazing price on lobster (4 for $20) so to make Christmas eve dinner special/memorable we splurged. It was a lot of fun and the kids thought it was great they each got their own little guy. SH was scared at first at those beady little eyes looking back at him, but soon joined right in on the feast.

Gingerbread house building

The kids I babysit brought a gingerbread house kit with them the last time they came over. We learned our lesson to obey the warning on the box to let the frosting set at least 15 minutes before decorating. The candies were on for 6 minutes then the kids dove right in eating away. Then the roof and sides collapsed and they commenced with the licking off of the frosting.

The butter cream gang...


The girls






The boys








About to devour the whole thing.

OK, these are blurry and just plain bad pictures but SLC had a free bowling pass so for something fun to do we hit the lanes. We had a good time. Don't ask me why I basically only have pictures of SH but we were all there.


Does the look on Scott's face let you know at all how he just bowled?!



The lightest ball was still heavy for SH. By the middle of the game he was just running up to the line and almost dropping it on his toes. It would take a good couple of minutes for the ball to get down to the pins. Waiting for the other players to go was the hardest part for SH.

Babys 1st Biscuit

The baby had is very 1st messy biscuit and loved it.

Benda-who?! Bendaroos!

Bendaroo Spider-man web shooter (use your imagination!)




Bendaroo beard




Bendaroo jewelry

Photo Treasure Hunt Tuesday

Today is the day, oh hum, what should the theme for this weeks photo treasure hunt be? The weather is cold outside and I hear the wind blowing our trash cans across the yard. So, do I want to make this an outside assignment?? I think I want to see some shots with Stacey's new Nikon D60 that she got for Christmas (so jealous) so the theme this week of Abstract will leave it open to your own creativity. Whatever picture is neat to you, share it with me!
The rules are: over this next week look at the world around you and snap a picture of something that fulfills this weeks assignment and share is with me! I will be looking for my photo treasure over this next week too!

If you have kids, you need this!

I want this! The Elephant Ear Wash System. With my boys they get yucky ear wax build up which causes pain, discomfort and hearing loss. When SH was younger we figured out why he was behind in his language acquisition, he had cerumen (wax) build up on his ear drum. Once it was removed by the Dr. his language skills just took off. Today the baby went in to the Doctors and we figured out why he was so grumpy. He has the same problem as his brother. After the Dr. used The Elephant Ear Washer I grabbed the bottle to try to find a phone-number so I could buy one it worked so well.
I also wish right next to the thermometer in the medicine cabinet I had an otoscope and knew what I was looking for. Babies seem to get ear infections so easily, it would be nice to just be able to look right in and check it our for myself! If only I had an extra couple hundred bucks just lying around.

Santa has come to town

Well, Santa has come and gone, enjoying our milk and cookies and leaving behind exciting presents and stocking stuffers. The kids woke up at 7 am (not too bad) and couldn't believe their little eyes all the goodies that lined the couches for them. They were good about coming and getting us up before ripping into everything which I was thankful for. The kids spend until 10:30 playing just with the stuff that Santa left. He amazingly fulfilled their wish lists. I think it's because we didn't bother with Santa's mail box to sent off their letters, we took them straight to the man himself in the mall who told them that he would keep it safe and take it to the North Pole that very night! Some of the big hits have been: SH's wooden Thomas train track and battery operated trains (they are STILL playing with it this very moment), SLC's webkinz(she got the pink horse), the stuffed animals, Bendaroos, SH's superhero capes, and SLC's camera which she is also still wearing around her neck. Everything they got was a hit and they loved it all. The baby got an assortment of baby rings and rattles but my favorite has been his Johnny Jump (pictures still to come).

I think one of my favorite moments of Christmas was when SH opened up a stuffed monkey from my mom that had an "outtie" bellybutton. He pointed at it and said, "Look mommy, he has a pee-pee!" I quickly corrected with a smile, "no, it's a belly button!"

My least favorite moment was when the dinner was all ready to plate and I took the ham out of the oven and realized I never turned the oven on! Oops! Well, luckily it was already cooked. I quickly fried it up and it went great. The kids didn't know the difference. Aw, all the little things that can go wrong: not turning the oven on, pulling the Jell-o out and finding a little finger hole in it, and on Christmas eve sitting down to eat our Crab and Lobster dinner and SH has lost the cracker to eat everything. Memories.

Ice skating rink...oh, I mean, Our drive-way

Now the snow has ceased we are left with ice everywhere. I warned SLC on her way out the door this morning on the way to school to walk slowly on the driveway because it's all ice. She took off out the door without a second thought to my warning and ended up falling after her first step on our ice rink. If only we had ice skates, the kids would have a blast!

Snowed in

If I lived in a big indoor amusement park with large areas to run and frolic for the kids, maybe being snowed in wouldn't be so bad. The kids probably would still choose to jump off the couch and play "doggie" within the same 3 feet I'm in though. It's funny, we have a basement and 3 other floors to this house (including the kids' own bedroom and a playroom) but they only want to play and tumble right under my feet in the living room. It's fun for them for a few hours but then cabin fever sets in (for them and me) and then we all start to go a little batty. So far, there is no end in sight to this snow storm. Church was canceled (well, they still held sacrament but the call we got from the bishopric said to use your own discretion). Our discretion told us to stay put with the roads they way they are.
So, the snow fall measurement is at 11".

The forgotten toy

Snow count

So far we are at 7" in 5 hours. The cars are buried, the driveway has been successfully blocked off by the city snow plow and all the snow clothes are being hung by the fire to dry (OK, no real fire).

The kids waited until there was 4" on the ground to determine that was the right amount to go out and play in. We have a small hill next to the house they rode their sleds down. SH had more wishful thinking and pulled out his bike.

Snow storm

Today the whole state has shut down. We are anticipating a major snow storm. SLC's school is closed for the day but so far, not a single drop of snow. It's coming though. Yesterday we went to the store and stocked up on batteries, bottled water and little Debbie snack cakes...just the essentials! I am babysitting today too. SLC is learning about measurement in school so we made up our own snow measuring tools and made some snow fall predictions. SLC says there will be 9" by 10 pm and SH said 42" (I think wishful thinking on his part, dread on mine). We'll keep you up-to-date on the storm.

Nights Lights

These are our next door neighbors lights. Thankfully I was only caught by a 7 year old! I'm still searching for the perfect treasures to take a picture of this week but here are a couple if anything has giving me a little practice with the "night shot" mode on the camera and my tripod. More practice is what I've determined!

Preschool Holiday Party

Yesterday was SH's preschool "Pancakes with Santa" Holiday party. The kids were all seated on the ground when Santa walked in. One little terrified boy screamed in horror as jolly old St. Nick made his appearance causing a chain reaction to others and just confusion in the rest. After the drama quieted down, Santa sat for a quick group picture then was outta there. I thought he was going to stay so I didn't snap the group photo myself. SH had fun eating, making ornaments, riding the "Polar Express" (their chairs all lined up) and making reindeer food. The little guy I watch enjoyed the party too.



Two peas in a pod. Everywhere I go with these two I get lots of remarks about how busy I must be and "wow, you've got a lot of kids." He just looks like part of the family I guess.