Stuck

Liev loves to climb.  It's just that today he didn't know how to get down once he was up.  Poor kid.  I only left him up there long enough to get this picture then I helped him down!

Snow Day

Christmas day we got a few inches of new snow on the ground.  The kids were so excited!  The next day they got all bundled in their snow clothes and headed outside to play.  I didn't think Keen would last too long in the cold but he actually made it longer than I thought.  Long enough to take a trip down the slide at least.  Rease Rhen and Liev stayed out and played for a while though and had a blast in the new snow!

Christmas 2014

Christmas is already here!  We love Christmas at our house and the kids have been waiting for this day all year!  The kids have loves having the elves on the shelf at our house.  The first thing they do every morning is try and find out where they are and if there was a note left for them.  Both the girls have been really curious about them and have written notes back and forth all Christmas season.  It has been so fun!

 When Christmas Day finally arrived Rease had a plan for the day.

 We hosted this year and had a fun group.  Josh's parents, my parents, Garrett, Andy and a friend of Josh's from work and her daughter.  We had a yummy dinner of French Dip sandwiches (Josh's family's tradition) and lots of desserts!  Then we went caroling around the neighborhood.  It was a perfect Christmas Eve night with a light snow falling.  It was beautiful!

After all the Christmas Eve traditions, the kids were ready for bed and ready for Santa to come!

On Christmas Eve all the kids sleep together in the same room.  I think they actually did get a little sleep!

Lined up Christmas morning at the top of the stairs!

Santa did make it to our house this year!  

This year we tried to have one person open a present at a time so everyone could watch.  It actually turned out good and was super fun to see the reactions of each of the kids with every gift.  

This was Rease's Christmas list to Santa.  Turns out he read her letter!  She got Pokemon cards and also got a ski pass to Park City to ski with her dad!

We had such a fun, happy Christmas this year!  Most of all we loved being with family and friends to celebrate the birth of our Savior.  It was a day to remember!

Cousins

This is a favorite spot at Grammie's house for the cousins to gather.  There's a little tv in the toy room and at the end of a long day, the kids love to watch movies together and squeeze onto this little couch (and the window seal.)  Such a fun time for all these kids to grow up together!

Just underwear

My Liev would wear nothing but underwear all day every day if I let him.  When it's naptime he takes everything off except his underwear and when I put the blanket over him he says, "That feels nice!"  Such a funny kid.  Anyway, this is a perfect example of what I'm talking about.  Obviously not a good day to go without clothes, but why not?  At least he put his boots on to go outside!  He was so excited to play in the snow that he didn't care that he didn't have anything else on.  

Rice Cereal

Beck's 4 months old and you know what that means!  Rice cereal baby!  He's not sure what to think, then excited, then back to not sure what to think.  Me either buddy - it doesn't look that good!  Don't worry.  There's much better stuff to come!

Great Grandma Losee

My sweet grandma Losee had a stroke this week and has been in the hospital.  She hasn't been doing well so I wanted to take my kids down to see her.  We loaded up in the van after school and headed down to Delta.  The kids all drew a picture for her and were excited to be able to give them to her at the hospital.  Grandma has been so healthy and has always had tons of energy to do whatever she wanted to do so it was so unordinary to see her down and in bed.  The boys were pretty concerned about her and all the tubes that she was hooked up to.  But we had a special, sweet time while visiting her.  The kids all sang songs to her and each had a moment to give her a hug and kiss.  We sure love our great grandma Losee and are so glad to have had time to see her.  We hope she gets well soon!

2 little teeth

Oh they're comin I know it!  We've seen the drool, the runny  nose and the crabbiness - they're all signs that these little teeth are going to make their appearance very soon!  If you look close you can see them just poking through.  Thank heavens!

Beck and the Trips

We get the have Hayley's kids over here once in a while.  The kids love having them over to play - except Beck is sometime a little skeptical having 3 babies his size crawling all over him.  I usually try and keep him in the bouncer since he can't crawl around and the girls can.  Even then, he gets bombarded by babies.  He's exactly 6 months younger than the triplets but he holds his own in the size department.  I took this picture of him and Millie and he looks so big compared to her - especially his head!  These 4 babies will have so much fun growing up together!

Shower Time

Our kids love to shower in the shower in our room.  It's big enough to fit all of them and there are 3 shower heads, so it's like a party!  They're still young enough that we figure it's still ok to put them all in together.  Most of the time they just play in there until the water turns cold and it's time to get out.  Fun times!

Family Pictures

We haven't had a family picture since Beck was born so we decided to take a few.  These are our favorites of everyone.

Candy Day

Candy day is always a packed, busy day for us - but always fun too!  This year we had lots of help - Hayley and family, Justin and family, Garrett, Mom and Dad, Uncle Greg, Uncle Andy, The Hammers and Jeanie and Alma all came to help.  It was a long day that didn't end until almost midnight - but we got it all done and ended up with LOTS of homemade delicious candy!

Christmas Tree

We love finding the perfect Christmas Tree after Thanksgiving is over.  We don't do anything fancy like go chop it down ourselves, but we do have fun hunting through the tree lot for the perfect tree.  This is the one we picked.

And this is how it turned out decorated and lit up!

 We can't wait for Christmas at our house!

Thanksgiving Day 2014

We had Thanksgiving at my parents' house this year.  We decided that since there are so many little kids we would have the kids eat first on their own special table with their own special food.  Then we could eat in peace while they took a nap =)

It was a perfect plan.  The kids had yummy food: chicken nuggets, olives, grapes, pickles and salad.  They especially loved the olives.  And they had fun on their own table that was decorated just for them!

And we had a great time as adults enjoying our own dinner without the kids!  It was a win win for everyone!  The food was delicious (with gobs of leftovers surprise surprise) and we had a great group to hang out with! 

Rhen brought this home from school and I love that the thing she is most thankful for is her family!

And Rease made Thanksgiving decorations to hang around the house - aren't these the cutest thing you've ever seen?

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Beck's Rash

The night before Thanksgiving, Beck started getting a rash on his tummy and back.  He has been on antibiotics for an ear infection and I had a sneaky suspicion that the rash could be an indication of an allergy to the medication.  Sure enough he woke up Thanksgiving morning looking like this.  Poor guy looked terrible but didn't act like it bothered him much.  We took him to the instacare just to be sure that's what it was and the doctor said yes.  So Beck is allergic to amoxicillin - bummer!

Rhen and Jax

This is Rhen and her cute little friend Jaxton who lives across the street from us.  They are in the same class at school and love playing together.  I went to their Thanksgiving Feast at school and snapped this cute picture of these two little friends.

The train of chairs

Liev and Keen love putting all our stools in a line and playing "train" on them.  Mostly they just love to run and jump off the end of the train onto the couch.  These boys are so fun!

Rhen's artwork

Rhen loves to draw and color.  She has gotten especially good at making cards for people now that she can write.  She is the sweetest girl and always talks about how much she loves her family.  Love this girl of ours!

Big Brother

Liev is such a sweet boy and has been so great with Beck.  He asked me today if he could help feed him so I thought he could give it a try.  He did awesome and was so excited to be able to help!  What a good big brother!

Rhen's report card

Rhen's teacher says she is doing so well in school.  She is very social and gets along with everyone and works hard.  She has been working hard on learning to read and loves to learn new words.  We are so proud of Rhen and her hard work!

Rease's Report Card

Rease got such a good report card from her first term and Mr. Woolf says she is a great student.  He told us that she is excellent at reading but her real strength is math.  She is the top in her class at math.  So proud of this girl and how hard she works in school.

Tinfoil Dinners

Josh left on a scout camp tonight and I made him a tinfoil dinner before he left.  I figured we might as well have the same thing for dinner so I made a bunch of them for the kids and me.  We had a fun night "camping" inside the warm house!

Guys and Dolls

My cousin Lydia was the lead in the school play in Delta so we decided to go and watch her on opening night.  We don't make it to Delta too often so it was fun to go back and see my family and also take a tour of the new high school.  It is beautiful!

 And Lydia totally stole the show that night!  She was amazing and really cute!  We all had a fun time and the kids loved being part of the road trip!

Sleepy

I love this picture of Keen!  He fell asleep in the car and I pulled him out and set him on the counter to take his shoes off.  He literally fell asleep again sitting up!  What a cute sleepy boy!

Big Head

Josh and I have always joked that Beck has a huge head.  No joke about it though - and these pics prove it! 

Rolling Over

So Beck has been rolling onto his side and trying to get all the way over these last couple weeks.  I figured he would eventually roll all the way over but didn't know when.

This is the first time I found out that he could make it all the way.  Poor thing was asleep like this and I didn't notice until I went to get him up from his nap!  

 So I grabbed the camera and caught him in the act of rolling over.  Such a good big boy!

Tonsils

Yes I admit.  I have had my fair share of hospital stays this year.  This time it was by choice.  I've wanted to get my tonsils out for over 10 years.  Why put it off for so long you ask?  Well first I've heard that the surgery and recovery is awful.  So that's the main reason.  I've just been a big enough wuss all these years.  Second, I haven't been able to justify the cost of a surgery just for something that bothers me.  Third, honestly I've been trying to figure out what I can do with myself and the kids for the 2 weeks they say it takes to recover.  I can barely handle being in bed for 2 weeks but how to pawn my kids off for 2 weeks while I am in bed?  Now that's a lot to ask of someone or a few someones.  

Well, this year I finally figured out how to take care of all 3 of those reasons.  Having a baby and gallbladder surgery takes care of the money issue - I've met my out of pocket max for the year so having my tonsils out will cost me $0.  Okay.  Luckily I have lots of family and great friends who said they would be willing to help with the kids while I recover.  For two weeks?  Really?  We really do have some great people around us if they're willing to take 5 kids on for that long!  My mom, Josh's mom, Hayley, Melissa - just to name a few of the wonderful ladies who have offered to love and care for my kids!  And as for the pain part - I figured I would just have to drop the wussiness and get it over with.  That took a lot.  I went back and forth for weeks trying to decide.  Finally I just called and made the appointment.  After that I felt like there was no going back.  Don't get me wrong I was still really scared even the day of.  But I did it anyway.  This is me right before the surgery.  The smile?  Just a nervous smile.  

 And this is me just a short hour later.  I look like I might be about to die?  Well I felt like it too.  Everyone, including my doctor, warned me that the recovery is rough for adults.  I admit, the first couple of days I was doing ok.  My mom let me stay at her house while Josh was home with the kids for the weekend.  I had a nice place all to myself upstairs - the bed was all set up with a table and lamp next to it, tv, computer, jell-o, water, gatorade, extra blankets and pillows, you name it, my mom had it ready for me.  Even at 33 I'm not too old to be taken care of by my mom!  It was a perfect place to stay for those first few days.

 The kids were with Josh and came to visit me every day.  And the girls brought me little notes and pictures to let me know they love me.

 These sat on the table right by my bed and brightened my day!

 I came home Sunday night 3 days after my surgery.  The next few days I still had people helping out and taking my kids so that I could stay home and rest.  I have to say, I am so glad they did because starting on day 5 I started to feel worse.  My throat started to hurt much more than those first days, I started getting nauseated from all the medication I was taking, then throwing up made my throat hurt worse, then I didn't want to take my medication because it made me sick so then I was in more pain.  Vicious cycle.  I finally called the doctor and asked if all that is normal.  The nurse assured me that it is and that normally around day 5 or 6 is the worst for most people because the scabs that have formed start to slough off and the flesh is raw in the back of your throat.  Great.  It made sense but I felt like I wasn't warned properly for that.  Maybe I was.  Maybe I just pushed it aside.  Anyway, that's what I was dealing with.   

I found this list of things that Rease wanted to help out with while I was gone.  Isn't it cute that she is such a little me with list and all?  She is so sweet and always wants to help.  I will say, most of these things did get done and the house looked great when I got home.

So now here I am Day 8.  Still having a lot of pain but medication is still working.  I haven't been able to eat much of anything since last Wednesday.  Mostly Jell-o and yogurt.  Juice stings my throat and ice cream for some reason makes my stomach upset.  When I need something salty I drink chicken broth.  I have figured out what I need to have in my stomach when I take my pills so I don't get sick.  So I think I'm going to live.  It has been kind of awful.  And it has been hard feeling like I'm asking a lot of my family and friends to take my kids.  But they have been great and very willing.  I love them for that.  And as for Josh - my sweet husband who has to take on everything while I'm down.  All I can say is, he's the man.  He has stayed home from work when I need help, taken the kids wherever and whenever, taken care of meals, gotten the kids off to school, tried to keep the house clean as much as possible, and still tries to squeeze in his things that he needs to do.  He's the man.