Live Nativity

Last night Caleb, Hayley and I took the kids to the Live Nativity in Alpine. It was a very cold night but we had a great time and the kids loved seeing the story of Baby Jesus in real life.

I have to admit, I wasn't really prepared for the cold. Luckily Caleb grabbed hats for the kids at the last second so they could stay warm. And yes, Liev has a pink and brown hat on - it didn't seem to bother him! Hayley and I left straight from work and I still had my scrubs on. I found out they are not the warmest set of clothes that I have. By the end of the night I was pretty much frozen.

We rode in a horse trailer to get up to the nativity. The kids thought that was very fun.

Baby Liev was the warmest one of the bunch. He was wrapped in this blanket and held the whole time. Best seat in the house buddy!

There were real camels and they were very cool to see. We also saw sheep, donkeys, swans and goats. Roman soldiers were keeping the peace.

But what we really wanted to see was Baby Jesus. He was in this stable with the big star pointing the way.

Overall it was a great night and a fun experience for the kids. Next year - dress warmer!

Sleepy

Yesterday we were at Costco and Liev was obviously super tired.

Out. Just like that.

O Christmas Tree

For the last couple of years we have had a real Christmas tree. It's actually been fun to go pick out a tree every year (just at a tree lot, nothing fancy) and the kids have fun choosing their favorite. We went the day after Thanksgiving this year to the lot just in Draper. It had a good selection of trees to choose from (though we did find out it was a little expensive!)

Rhen chose this big, round tree as her favorite one.
Rease like this skinny one.

Liev was just happy to be there with dad.

We settled on a tall skinny tree this year and the tree man went to work getting it all trimmed and ready for us.

We got it home and it was the perfect height for the front room - just about 2 inches from the ceiling. This is the finished product after the girls helped us decorate!

Merry Christmas to all!

Letters to Santa

The girls wrote letters to Santa this year with help from Aunt Hayley.

Rhen asked for a new baby doll.

And Rease wrote this all herself - see if you can understand what she asked for.

(A dress up box)

We mailed them off to the North Pole so we'll see if Santa thinks the girls have been nice or naughty this year!

Stuck in her nose

I have been picking up a few days of work at the office lately and my mother-in-law has been so great to help us out with the kids when I work. One day I got a call from her around lunchtime and she said she had been through a little incident with Rhen. They were in the car after picking Rease up from school and Jeanie heard from the backseat "Grammie I can't get this little thingy out of my nose." Turns out Rhen has stuck a tiny marble up her nose and it was stuck. So I called Josh and he was able to leave work for a short break and take Rhen to the pediatrician while the other kids napped at home with Grammie.

This is Rhen at the doctor's office - she wasn't in pain but she did keep sneezing a lot.

The Dr. on call was really great with her and was able to get the ball out without too much hassle. The first time he tried, he made her sneeze and then she cried a little bit. So Josh and the nurse helped hold her while Dr. Marriott poked it out.

After it was all over. Happy to be done with that!

I talked to Rhen on the phone after they left the Dr. and asked her how it went. She said, "Mommy the Dr. just popped it right out!" She was glad to have it over and I think she learned her lesson about putting things in her nose!

Sound asleep

I checked on Liev one night after he had been asleep for a while. I found him all relaxed in his crib.

Cute little feet on my cute little man!

The Flu Bug

My kids all got sick this week. Josh was in Chicage for a long trip and me and the kids were staying at mom's house one night. Rease woke up around midnight and threw up. She threw up every half hour for the next six hours. Poor girl. By the end, she had nothing left in her stomach but couldn't stop herself from throwing up. She kept crying and saying "mommy it just hurts to throw up!" The next day, I kept her on water and gatorade only and that seemed to be okay on her stomach. I told her she had a "flu bug" and I was hopeful that it didn't last too long. It didn't. 24 hours later she was back to normal.

I took this picture of her the night she was sick. I made a bed in the bathroom for her so she wouldn't throw up on the carpet and so she was close to the toilet.

I was hoping that the other kids didn't get it, but Wednesday night Rhen woke up in the middle of the night with the same thing - throwing up every half hour. Unfortunately it was the day before Thanksgiving and we were supposed to be going to Preston with Josh's family for the day. We ended up staying home so we didn't pass the flu along to all the other kids. Rhen told me one time after she threw up, "mommy, the flu bug hurts!"

I made her a bed in our bathroom that night so she could be close to the toilet.
Liev didn't get by without his share of the flu. Saturday night we were leaving mom and dad's house after making candy all day and found out the Liev had thrown up in the crib and it was all over him. We gave him a quick bath and then headed home. One more throw up in the car and a couple times at home for him. So again, we made a bed in our bathroom for him to sleep in so we could hear him. Luckily with all 3 kids it was a 24 hour flu and didn't last any longer than that. But it was a crazy week of the flu at our house!

New car seats

We just recently rearranged the kids in the car and got Rhen a new car seat. Both girls now sit in the back seat together and it is very fun for them. Rease is a good helper with Rhen's seatbelt so mommy doesn't have to crawl back there to put it on her. Liev was outgrowing his carrier so that's what prompted the change. He moved up to Rhen's old carseat while she got a new booster seat. Liev is backward facing and loves it because he can see the girls and all their shenanigans.

Our family is growing up!

Candy Day

This year we moved our candy making day to mom's new house since there is much more room there than our tiny house has. So the Saturday after Thanksgiving we unloaded all our supplies and got to work. Here is a before picture of our candy making supplies. We made 8 batches of caramel before so it was all ready to go for turtles and pretzels. Grammie and Rease making peanut butter cups. Grandma Wisniewski was the hardest worker of the night. She worked with us the whole time up until the very end (which ended up being about midnight.)

The girls were very helpful and wanted to be a part of the day.

I wish we had an after picture because we made so much candy this year! We used 65 lbs of chocolate and made turtles, caramel/chocolate covered pretzels, peanut butter cups, peanut clusters, toffee and oreo cookies. We made up 85 different plates to give out to neighbors and friends - it was a very successful day!

Black Friday

I love Black Friday. Even though it is craziness and madness everywhere, I love it. Hayley and dad and I are usually the ones who brave the crowds and join into the madness. This year Grandma Wisniewski, Garrett and Justin joined us for a few hours.

We went to Walmart first since it opened first. We all split up and waited at different parts of the store to get what we wanted. Hayley and Caleb went for the movies, dad waited for a printer and a Blu-ray player, Grandma stood by the sheets (they were only $6.88 for a set of sheets!), and I waited by the toys. I took this picture right before they opened up the packages of toys for everyone to tear into.

After Walmart we went to Target, Old Navy, Kohls and Sports Authority. We had a fun night together and got most everything we wanted.
Mostly it was just fun to be together, even if it was the middle of the night!

Thanksgiving

This year we were supposed to go to Preston to Betsy's house for Thanksgiving with all Josh's family. But...the night before Rhen got the flu so our plans changed. We decided to stay home so we didn't get all the other kids sick. Mom and dad were having a small dinner with just them, Garrett and Grandma and Grandpa Wisniewski so they invited us to join them - sick kids and all. It was nice to have somewhere to go since we hadn't planned on being home. We had a great Thanksgiving day and we even all got a nap in after dinner!

Undressed

Liev is a master at getting out of his clothes while he sleeps. I don't know why or how he does it but this is a common sight in the mornings.

Buddy, if you're not happy about it then why do you do it?

Stuck

Liev is suddenly all over the place and climbing in and out of everything- not sure I'm ready for this stage yet! Anyway, he was so proud of himself when he got inside the chair all by himself.

Then he tried getting out and he was a little stuck.

Out. And Happy!

Love this little monkey man!

Not too big for the sink

Grammie's new house has awesome big sinks in the kitchen. Big enough for this boy to bathe in still!

Rease's Art Book

Rease loves to color and draw. She just recently told us that she wants to be an artist when she grows up - I believe it. She made this book of all the artwork she had been working on - she stapled it together and everything by herself. I sat down with her and she showed me all her pictures and told me what everything was. Enjoy!

Twilight Premiere

Us girls at the office are crazy about Twilight. Every time a new movie comes out, we seem to get free tickets from somewhere to see the movie together. This year a pediatric office rented a theatre and invited our office to the premiere showing of Breaking Dawn Part I. We made a night out of it and had dinner together before the movie. We had a fun time being together - thanks Dr. Peterson for the tickets!

Daddy's fingers

So Rease has inherited a few things from her daddy.

1) Her height - she is very very tall for her age just like Josh.

2) Her chubby fingers. Josh has pretty short but stocky fingers and I'm afraid Rease is stuck with the same fingers. I found her one day after she'd been in my room for a while and she was busily trying to get something off her finger. When I asked her what she was doing she held up her hand...

Yep. My wedding ring stuck on her middle finger.

I never realized that my 4 year old has the same size fingers as I do - that definitely comes from Josh's side of the family!