Malia

Malia turned 11 months in December. She got 4 teeth, two on top and two on bottom during that time as well. She finally started to crawl too toward the end of the month. Though not very well, she was finally getting around a bit. That made things a little crazy with the Christmas tree. She was an expert roller, she'd roll to where ever she wanted to go then sit up. She'd lay back down and roll to where she wanted to go next. Nothing in the house is safe from her. The big kids have forgotten all about having a little baby in the house who puts everything in their mouth. I am constantly on them to pick up their little pieces of garbage, coins, legos...It's a never ending battle!

She has the sweetest little smile, I snapped this picture as we were headed up to the bus stop to get Andrew. It's my favorite!!

Here are a few pictures that we took of Malia this month:

These pictures were taken at about the exact same time; happy as can be one second, and screaming the next. It's how she rolls. I don't know what I've done, but I have the grumpiest babies and she is no exception! Good thing she so cute!

Christmas

I suppose that since Trent has finally gotten the Christmas lights taken down, it's been too cold and snowy to do it since January,  it's about time I wrap up 2018 blog posts and post about Christmas so I can get on with 2019 posts.

We spent Christmas Eve with our good friends the Torgesens. We weren't sure we were going to be able to go over to their house because the day before Andrew had a fever and wasn't feeling too good. But by Christmas Eve he was feeling better with no fever, just a little cold.

We ate dinner, chatted, and did a nativity reenactment. That was a first for us. It is tradition in their house to act out the nativity and Nya has bins and bins of costumes for it. There was sheep, shepherds, angels, wise men, Mary, Joseph, and even a little cradle for the baby.

Hanna chose to be the angel, Andrew made an adorable little lamb, Carter was a shepherd, Trent a wise man, and I can't remember what I dressed up as...but I was something. Hunter, well, he decided he didn't want to have anything to do with it and sat on the couch and watched.

We face timed with Grandma and Grandpa Hunter before we went over to the Torgesens. The kids opened their gifts so they could watch them. We knew that it might be a little late by the time we left our friends house and we wanted kids to just go straight to bed.

I love the peace that comes with Christmas all done, kids in bed waiting for Santa, the lights on the tree on and the lights in the room off. Thankfully most of the gifts were all wrapped so all we needed to do was get them under the tree.

We told the kids that they weren't to come get us or make any noise until Malia woke up, usually around 7 or 7:30. We could hear them up just after 6. We made them wait till 7 then we woke Malia up. They were all so excited! Carter and Hanna may have fought over who got to hold Malia...Carter won.

I love seeing their faces as they make their way down the stairs to see the gifts under the tree!

We always start with stockings first. Everyone opens their stockings at the same time. The big kids had to help Malia with hers, they were more than happy to do so.

Malia had more trouble opening her gifts, she just wasn't too interested in them at all. Once again the big kids were happy to help her out. She got some toys, clothes, and a pair of shoes.

Andrew got a big bag of waffle blocks, clothes, boots, and a magazine subscription to a Nick Jr magazine with all his favorite characters in it.

Hunter scored big with a remote control car, clothes, boots, and a National Geographic Jr subscription. He was pretty happy with his gifts!

Hanna got a digital camera, clothes, and a Young Riders magazine subscription. She was pretty stoked by the horse calendar as well.

Carter was thrilled with his new bait caster rod and reel. That boy thinks of fishing 24/7. It's all he wants to do and we live in the most amazing place where he can walk out our door and be down at the lake in less than 10 minutes to start fishing. So he was super excited to get the rod he's been eyeing for a very long time. He also got clothes...they all needed some new clothes....as well as a subscription to Sports Illustrated Jr. He's pretty excited to get those each month.

Trent got a pressure washer...it's quite possible that I wanted that more than him, though he used it for the first time on Saturday and loved it. It' so satisfying to clean dirty things...He also got a Fitbit smart watch. Not only does it track fitness and sleep he can receive and reply to texts on it.

I got a pretty necklace, a stock pot, and a rotating cake decorating plate.

We got a few new games and movies for the family to enjoy as well.

We enjoyed a relaxing Christmas day lounging in our pajamas and eating yummy food!

A couple days after Christmas we loaded up the suburban and went to UT for a week. We didn't really do much in UT other than visit with family. Trent took the three oldest kids to Brighton for a day, they had a blast with that! We brought a nasty cold bug with us and Hanna got sick as did Malia and I. It was pretty miserable. We ended up leaving two days earlier than planned because of that darn cold. It is always fun to visit, but I felt bad for bringing a cold with us.

Santa's Workshop

One of the things I love about living in such a small town is the small community. There are so many fun little community events here. Every year the building supply store puts on a little Santa's Workshop. It is free, Santa and Mrs Clause was there, and there were cookies.

This year they built a little bench. Andrew and Hunter had so much fun building it! After Hanna's basketball practice she went and built one too. Once they got them home Hanna and Hunter painted theirs.

Basketball

November and December brought basketball season for Carter. The day after football ended basketball practices started. I was hoping for a few weeks break between the two...nope, didn't happen.

The middle school has two teams, A team and B team. A team being the better of the two teams. Carter made the A team. Only 7th and 8th graders can play and A team is usually made up of 8th graders so he was pretty excited to have made A team as a 7th grader.

Games started just before Thanksgiving and went until just before Christmas break. We went to all his home games and the away games that were close enough, some of the games were 3 hours away.

As I was sitting at the first game I realized that I was the only one making a lot of noise. No other parents were cheering as loudly as I was...then I decided I didn't care. Those kids would know that someone was in the stand rooting for them, even if they weren't my kid. I thought at one time that maybe I was embarrassing Carter. That my being so loud was annoying to him. So I asked him. He loves it! He says his teammates love it. So I carried on. One night I was chatting with a friend next to me and I see Carter from across the court signaling to me that I'm not being loud enough, he wanted me to cheer more. Other parents eventually caught on too and we all enjoyed watching our boys and cheering for their successes.

 A team won only 1 game. B team won all their games, some by a landslide.

On the night of the last game Carter called me at 3:45 to let me know they wanted him to play both A & B team that night. B team plays before A team. The game starts at 4. Oh my, we rushed to get everyone ready and out the door. Hanna was still at afters over at the elementary school and Hunter would have basketball practice as soon as Hanna was done at afters.

We got to the middle school before the game started and I ran back and forth between the elementary school and the middle school getting Hanna from afters and leaving Hunter for basketball, then going back for Hunter an hour later.

I didn't take any pictures during other games, so I made sure to bring my nice camera so I could get some good shots. Guess what wasn't charged...I had a dead battery in my camera. I didn't even think to check it before we left. So I had to settle for cell phone pictures, and I don't even have a very good cell phone.

Lucky for me my friend, who's son plays on B team, was there taking pictures with her nice camera and she got a few awesome shots of Carter. So glad for good friends who save my bacon more times than I can count!

Over all I think Carter had a great time playing, even if they lost. His coach was awesome! He did a great job giving all kids playing time. He had endless amounts of patience with the boys.

Tubby Time!

Malia LOVES taking baths. She gets so excited when we tell her it's tubby time. Once in the tub the screeching and squeals come. She laughs as she splashes and dunks her head in the water. I realized the other day that I had exactly 0 pictures of her playing in the tub and loads of the other kids and babies playing in the tub. So I pulled out my phone and snapped a few pictures of her enjoying her tub. Babies in the tub are just the cutest!

Andrew's 5!

Andrew celebrated his 5th birthday in December. He is such a fun little guy! He loves to build things; train tracks, forts, magnet blocks...He spends hours each day building train tracks. His favorite foods are mac & cheese, pasta, most fruits, green beans, pho, and cereal. While he's not exactly a picky eater, he just doesn't choose to eat many things even though he likes them. He goes to preschool 4 days a week at the elementary school and LOVES it! He's a good helper with Malia, though Malia doesn't always love the help he is giving. He is kind and thoughtful, always helping when he can even without being asked to. He loves to buy things with his own money. He is goofy and silly. He loves to sit with Laurie and Ginger during church on Sunday. I think they like it just as much as he does. He still loves to snuggle when he's tired. We sure love this little guy and are so blessed to watch him grow up!

Drewy doesn't sit still long enough to take very good pictures...

He requested Pho for his birthday dinner. No surprises there, all the kids love Pho. It seems to be the most requested meal in our house. He used his birthday money to buy a sweet paw patrol boat. He was so excited to pay for it himself.

He really wanted to have a friend birthday party this year, but we had a tummy bug a week or so before his birthday and I didn't know if it was going to go through all the kids or just two of them so I opted not to invite kids over for that fun. The Sunday after his birthday we were in charge of family dinner, so we celebrated with our Washington family with loads of cake and ice cream. He chose his cake from Costco but had been eyeing the paw patrol cupcake kit at Walmart for months. He asked for strawberry cupcakes...which I don't actually think he liked very much.

And then there was November...

Well, we've survived the first two weeks with a new puppy. Tucker adjusted so well to being with us. I thought for sure we'd have a few rough nights as he adjusted to being away from his litter. Then I thought for sure we'd have a few weeks of getting up with him in the night to take him potty. He did so well! We only had him sleep in our room, in his crate, two nights. He only needed to go out one of those two nights. He's not allowed much freedom yet in the house, he's usually tied to the door knob in the kitchen, but he is a smart puppy who is learning fast.

November brought the fall colors that I love so much! This picture just doesn't do justice to the beauty that I see out my windows. The mountain sides are just all different colors of red, yellow, and orange as the leaves change. I love it!

Malia has perfected the game 'Where's Malia?' She also thinks it's hilarious and will quickly cover her eyes if you say 'where's Malia.' Such a fun age!

We got to have family here with us for Thanksgiving. It was so fun hosting!! I really love cooking for people who enjoy food, sometimes my kids don't really enjoy food...Trent's dad and step-mom came. They brought Kimberlee and Avery, Trent's step-sister and her daughter. Then Josh and Todd flew in from Orlando. Todd recently got a job working for Universal down there.

We stayed up much too late each night playing games. Josh played games with the kids all day long. They all stayed over at Wapato Point so we went swimming one afternoon.

One evening Josh gave the boys hair cuts. It was desperately needed.

They all came in Wednesday evening and left Saturday morning. We loved having them visit!!