Hello, Santa!

Last night, as is normal, it was terribly hard for the children of the house to get to sleep. There were no visions of sugar plums dancing around in any one's heads; there was more of things like checking NORAD to see where Santa was on his long trip, pleading with Grandma to let little boys sleep strategically hidden around the front room to 'catch Santa in the act' with a camera, and giggling into fits while they tried to figure out just how Santa knows if you're asleep or not.

I had put the three older boys (Spencer, Garrett and Owen) to bed downstairs at Grandma's house and stayed with them for 30 minutes or so to calm them down and then headed upstairs to put Emmett to sleep while the adults finished playing board games. Scott came in to take my place putting Emmy to sleep so I could get everything else organized for Santa's arrival.

While he was laying down with an Emmy who was refusing to give in to his tiredness, Grandpa walked down the hallway towards the bedroom where Grandma and I were. I opened the door just about the time that he was about to open it himself and he jokingly said, "well hello, Santa."

Emmy, in the room across the hall, heard this and immediately sat up in bed with Scott and looked at him and whispered, "Ohh, Grandpa's talking to Santa!!!"

Scott quickly said, "Uh oh, you're not asleep! You better hurry and go to sleep so Santa can leave your present for you."

So Emmy quickly laid his head down on the pillow and in less than 60 seconds was out cold!

It was a thing of beauty!

What Was I Thinking?

It's three days before the movers come to pack us up, and somehow (I must have been drunk on egg nog or candy canes or something) I agreed to let Garrett have a belated birthday party for a couple of hours and once that was done, Teagan gets to have a going away party with her friends.

As I type, there is a house filled to the brim with 9-10 year olds dancing to Weird Al polka music, Teagan is writing a random story that popped into her head, there are Tron disks lying around the house from a Tron battle that just erupted, and the night can only get better from there.

Does anyone else see the crazy in that?

Pictures will come later!

*****UPDATE*****Garrett's party is still going and the game has now changed to a modern version of cops and robbers. I just heard the 'warden' announce: "Okay guys, I'm the warden and I can taze you with my fingers, and I'm a wizard and I can control you with my mind. Did you guys in the torture chamber hear that?" So I walked past her and told her that I was sure glad that she chose a life of crime fighting since she had those awesome powers and she repsonded, "yeah, well, when I am a bad guy I lose those powers and I am just a regular person then."

Talk about losing your gifts if you abuse them!

yummmm - stuffed crust pizza! How great of a birthday party is that?!

Some of Garrett's party guests enjoying the pizza and pop before the presents

Group hug! Thanks for the awesome gifts!!

Teagan singing Taylor Swift at her Girl's Night Going Away Party

The girls did their own version of America's Got Talent in the fromt room. This was more like, Lakewood's Got Talent! There was dancing, singing, paprazzi, break dancing, and tons of giggling and laughter!

Snow Days

So far this winter, we have had a serious lack of snow.

So we decided to make some of our own and decorate our house with it since we aren't unpacking our Christmas decorations.

 We found a website that taught how to make the perfect paper snowflake and after watching that, we found some other sites with templates for different designs and we were off.

 After trying those, we were confident enough to create our own snowflakes!

 My favorite snowflake is this middle one that looks like a Celtic knot pattern - it's one we made up. The one on the right is one Teagan made up and lovingly named it the Cow Utter Flake!

(Some of our personal designs didn't turn out quite as we imagined!)

This picture was taken by Owen. I loved how his view of our flakes was much steeper than mine was!

 The three older kids have made about 50 snow flakes, Emmett has played with the scraps of those 50 flakes, and Duncan has just marvelled at the new floating white things!

He thinks they are awesome!

Freudian Slip

Apparently I have been a little stressed lately. Enough so that even Scottie was able to see it. I think there are a couple of factors.

One factor stems from things surrounding the move; like getting ready to move our family of seven, not wanting to leave friends, facing an upcoming move in two weeks yet not being able to pack and am having to place my trust in someone else to pack our lives up, fretting about all the pre-cleaning I want to do before I have my in-laws come over to help me clean the house before we leave, not being able to have our typical Christmas traditions and decorations this year because of the move, and about a hundred other pre-, during, and post-move related things I worry about.

Another factor is the health of our household. In the past week I have learned that Emmy is a secret food hoarder in the side of his cheek and now is in need of a crown because of a cavity I didn't know he had, dealt with Emmett and Garrett both getting croup - Emmy getting a very hard case of it, watching Emmy's croup develop into pneumonia and seeing him spit up blood and drop weight, and now I have Owen and the baby both starting in on yucky coughs and Emmett fighting dehydration from running a 104 fever all week long and feeling so yucky that he hasn't been eating or drinking. When a mama bear's cub aren't feeling good, she stresses out a bit staying up at nights with little ones and trying to make them better.

Between these two things, I guess my stress level is code red. I'm not snapping at people or anything, but Scott is learning to recognize some of the signs - not eating, quieter than normal, daily headaches, stomach ulcers acting up. (Plus the dark circles under my eyes seem to be a big visual indicator!)

So tonight Scott encouraged me to take a break from re-organizing the house and to head to the temple. Gratefully I went. It was so calming and relaxing there inside the temple. I took special note of how happy I was to take my watch off - it was like disconnecting myself from all the worries and constraints that usually follow me wherever I go. I did my five family names and headed out.

The sun had set while I was inside, so the valley outside the Provo temple was all dark and there were houses lit up in Christmas lights here there. The fountain outside the front door was glowing brightly as the water danced in a silent rhythm. I was so relaxed and comfortable just standing there, despite the chill in the air.
When I decide that I finally needed to head home, I said a simple, audible prayer of gratitude: "Oh Heavenly Father, it feels so good to be home."  I don't know why those words chose to come out, and at first I felt a little silly about what I said, and the fact that I had said it out loud.

But then I thought about it. Being in the temple does give me that feeling of being home. A place where I belong and where I am so deeply loved. Without thinking about how to phrase the feelings of my heart, I got the prayer right. It does feel good to be home. And one day, I will truly be home in my Heavenly Father's presence with my own little eternal family, and we will all get to feel that reassuring peace forever!

I hope at that day that my naive innocence will blurt out once again without thinking, "Oh Heavenly Father, it feels so good to be home."

Our (soon-to-be) new house

The week before Thanksgiving, the family and I drove out to California to drop the kids off to stay with Scott's little sister Katie while Scott, Duncan and I flew up to Washington to go house hunting. For four days straight we spent eight or more hours in the car driving from house to house to house narrowing down our preliminary list of 30+ houses. The very last house we went to see was one that we had actually already kicked off our prelim list because it was more expensive than we were looking for. But once we went inside, we were sold!

I  thought we would find a place with a nice big yard, a fixer-upper with lots of room for our family of boys. What we found was a huge house with a smaller yard in a teeny tiny city. It is a newly built house that was the last of the subdivision and the builder wanted to get it off his books before the end of the year.

 Right now we have a contract on it, and should be able to move in to it in the middle of January.

 

That little patch of grass of the right side is seriously ALL the grass in the front yard. The house to the right is a funny little flag lot, so there is only a sliver of barked area between our house and their driveway. I told Scott that one of the kids' new punishments could be to go mow the front lawn with a pair of scissors!

And this is my kitchen that I absolutely love! Granite counter tops. A cupboard microwave and counter top gas stove. Deep double sinks and oil polished bronze fixtures. A bar area and a double oven!! Stainless steel dishwasher and hardwood floors. Tile back splash areas and decorative lighting. A large pantry and TONS of cabinet space! We need to get a fridge, but everything else is ready to go in it! Isn't it beautiful?

And this might look a bit boring, but this is the master walk-in closet! I have missed having a walk-in! We don't have dressers for our clothes, and one regular sized closet has been really hard to juggle with two grown adults' wardrobes!

 And this is going to be our new school room. Teagan isn't going to have to share her room with four desks and three bookcases anymore! This is a really large bonus room, and I am so excited to have a dedicated school room!

This is the master bath. It has a soaker tub, a tiles shower, a separate 'water closet' in the bathroom itself, and a double vanity. I like how they put the 'relax' sign up next to the window as you look into the neighbor's window! Because that is just what you want to see as you are completely naked and getting into a tub! First thing to buy once we get in: blinds for the bathroom!

Next is a picture of the entry way from the front door. There is hardwood floor in the entry way, kitchen, and hallways downstairs.

This is a picture of the formal dining room. I don't like that there is carpet in it, and we are planning on leaving it there for a little while, but we will eventually hardwood that area as well. Light colored carpet and kids in the dining room are just not going to be a good match!

Downstairs there are two sitting rooms. This is the one with the gas fireplace that will be our sitting room with the piano in it, and the other one has glass doors and will become the tv room with the entrainment center a couch.

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Not pictured are the three kids bedrooms upstairs and the master bedroom, and the laundry room upstairs - no more laundry closet in the dining room for us! And it is upstairs...how intelligent is that! I love the idea of not having to drag baskets up and down the stairs to do laundry! Teagan will have her own room and the two older boys will share a room and the two little boys will have their own room.

It is a HUGE house, and a small lot, but the back is a decent size and is fully fenced in already and ready for a trampoline and lots of kids! We decided that since it is so often rainy up there, that a larger house and smaller yard would still allow the kids wiggle room without having to be out in the rain. It is large enough for us to have 4 teenage boys living in it a few years down the road!

There are also a lot of other kids in the neighborhood that are our kids ages. We scoped it out a few times and there were always kids out and about and having fun. And the house is on the neck of a cul-de-sac, so the traffic is minimal.

It seems like it is going to be a great house for us, and we are excited to move in next month. Emmy already calls it his new house when he sees pictures of it!

Christmas is here at our house!

Even though we are moving in a couple of weeks, we just couldn't keep from setting up a Christmas tree. I mean, we have a house full of kids... they love Christmas time and trees and decorations and presents. And as their parents, we will go to the ends of the world for their happiness, right? Here is our tree:

 

 Isn't it lovely?! It isn't quite the same as our normal angel tree, but we love it! The kids love the 'kid ornaments' that are on it. Drums, reindeer, bells, etc. As soon as we set it up yesterday, Owen and Emmett could barely keep their hands off of it!

 Yeah, the first picture doesn't necessarily show it's actual size!! But it shows the real size for how much we love it! And on the good side, having a tree this little makes it really easy to show off our lovely tree skirt - this year's hands are on the far left by the couch; see Duncan's little teeny tiny one?! (Emmy is in a fever cycle this week, so that is why he looks like he is so groggy! The poor dude is burning up, but he's seizure free, so we're a happy house!)

Another good thing about having a tree this small is that it is just right proportionately to our manger scene!

Too much Phineas and Ferb around here!

This story will probably only amuse those of you who have ever seen an episode of the Disney cartoon Phineas and Ferb; and if you have never seen one, I highly recommend that you do. It is a great cartoon with wonderful ideas, quipy lines, and great songs :-) My kids love it, and both Scott and I enjoy it as well. And for Scott to like it, that tells you that it must be good!

The other day, while Owen and I were running some errands together, he had me cracking up in the front seat with what was pouring from his imagination. Daddy had left his bag of grapefruit gummies on the dash and I had already passed two back to Owen for him to enjoy. He asked for another and I told him, no, that we needed to save the last couple for Daddy.

His reply was, "this is going to be a back story some day, Mom."

I thought about that for a minute trying to figure out what in the world he was talking about.

Me: "A what?"

Him: "A back story. You know, like, 'it all started when I was only seven years old and I asked for a third grapefruit gummy and my mom told me no. I so desperately wanted one last one, and that is why I created this candy attractinator. With one press of this button, all the candy will come flying to me. It will take the candy from clowns; and from children;...and from clown children. "

He kept on going for a solid 5 minutes, playing his own episode of Phineas and Ferb, with him being Professor Duffinshmirtz.

I love that funny little boy!

Gratitudes 17-20 - slow it down, Charlie Brown!

Yikes, who pushed the fast forward button without warning me? Life has sped up to an unnatural speed and I want to find the slow down button!
It seems like I was just looking at the calendar not too long ago and the end of November was just lots of little boxes that I was filling in with way too many plans and was still forever away. But now here I am in all those little boxes looking back and wondering where the time went.

Details and pictures will come in a few days, but here are my gratitudes for the past couple of days:

Gratitude 17 - I love, Love, LOVE having dear friends. Maybe I am still 6 years old at heart, but having best friends is so important to me. People who can see me at my worst and laugh at me and I know they still love me. People who make me want to be happier and nicer and who bring out my inner kid. I have been blessed to have a few of these people in my life; some are older, some are younger, but all are wonderful!

Gratitude 18 - I have an amazing hubby. He can do things that I could never dream of! Things like being able to move large objects safely (like ovens) ~ fixing practically anything with simple household items (just like his hero, MacGyver!) ~ or driving for 14 hours straight after being awake and at work all day long. (I am a terrible travelling buddy, always have been and will probably always will be.) I wonder what it's like to have superhuman skills like that!

Gratitude 19 - I am grateful for my competitive nature. Growing up, sometimes it seemed like it might have been a downfall of mine. It made me a perfectionist and a tough competitor at almost everything I did. I wanted to push myself to be better than just me...to be the best me. Today it came out again. While visiting family today, we got to participate in one of their monthly activities of doing a timed mile run as a family. The last time I did a timed run I was still a teenager and was more than 30 pounds lighter - I had a pretty fast mile too; 6 minutes and 46 seconds. Today I ran a mile even though I haven't run anything near that in years. It wasn't fast (just over 13 minutes) and involved a good deal of walking time, but I did it to encourage my kids. Owen was the daily winner running his very first timed mile in 9 minutes! And Teagan beat me by less than 20 seconds; she admitted to having a personal goal of beating me... and so my competitive nature continues to live on in the next generation!

Gratitude 20 - I am grateful for the comfort that can only come from heavenly intervention. Right now I am doing something that should be super tough for me - being away from four of my babies, making life changing decisions for our family - and I am not having as tough of a time as I could be without having a comforting Heavenly Father who loves me so much and looks out for me in all I do.

More details will come later, and some wonderful pictures...but for now, and for a few days, it will be just words. But look forward to seeing cucumber eyes, more trophies, and beautiful sites.

Gratitude 16: one eighth of the way there!

Today's gratitude is for my motivated children. My kids are pretty much the most awesome people I know. I love deeply, they play intently, and they (can) work hard.

Tonight Teagan was was awarded her first ribbon in Young Women's and she was so proud of herself! I think she was more proud of this little ribbon than of all the 4-H awards she has won this year! This little ribbon represents her completing 6 requirements, some of which took up to a month to complete, and then one major project that needed at least 10 hours of work put into it.

This was her Knowledge ribbon and for her project she chose to spend two weeks being as healthy as she could be. She chose only healthy foods, exercised for an hour a day, and learned all she could about being healthy. She went three weeks without having any sugar - no white refined sugar, no brown sugar, not even high fructose corn syrup! Do you realize how many foods have sugar and corn syrup in them? EVERYTHING!!! Bread? Yes. Yogurt? Yes. Cereal? Heavens yes! She even went to a birthday party and two Halloween parties and still stayed sugar free! She really worked hard on this project and was so proud tonight to finally earn her first of eight ribbons. They put their ribbos on a beautiful bookmark and, even though she is still missing 7 parts of it, she has already put the bookmark in her scriptures.

She and two other friends even played a song for the program. She played the violin even though it has been at least 6 months since she has practiced or played anything on it. Two days of practicing and she was right back to being an accomplished violinist!

I am so grateful to have her in my life. She's a great example to me in so many ways!

Gratitude 14: Leaves leaving

I love every season of the year; I don't think I could narrow down a favorite if I had to.

This time of year I love to watch the trees changing colors - lots of beautiful earth-toned shades.

 I love the smell of autumn in the air and the cool, crisp breeze that  makes the fallen leaves swirl like miniature tornadoes on the ground.

The sound the leaves make as you walk through them and hearing the laughter of the kids as they play in raked up leaf piles.

Gratitude 13: Priesthood Blessings

With Scott's parents having such poor health and not being able to travel much, this weekend we spent down at their house so we could do Duncan's Name Blessing with Grandpa and Uncle Stuart there with us. This was the first time that we haven't had a lot of family with us for a special occasion like this and it was sort of a sad thing for me. My mom has been able to make it out to the other four blessings, but wasn't able to come to Duncan's . (You were there with us in  thought though, Mom.) Even though it wasn't celebrated as big as the other four kids' blessings days were, it was still a beautiful day for Duncan and he now officially has his name on the records of the church.

(Like Scottie's tie, Mom? It's one of his favorite and is one you gave him!) 

Duncan was such a good boy during the blessing and smiled at the men around him through the whole thing. Scott gave the blessing and Uncle Stuart, Grandpa, and Grandpa's bishop (Bishop LeFevre) were the others in the circle around him.

His blessing was very beautiful. It spoke of him being able to learn much in this life and of his faith and knowledge of the gospel. It spoke of how he would follow the example of Christ and then others would follow his good example and know where his example came from. That he would be a representative of Christ in all he does.

It spoke of him having special skills that would display his love of Christ.And it spoke of him one day finding a special young woman and marrying her in the temple for time and eternity.

It closed blessing him that he would have a sure knowledge of his Heavenly Father and the love He has for him and reminding him that that knowledge would be a constant guide directing him through all his life.

 (Don't you love all those expressions?! It will be fun to look back in 10 years and see how many of these expressions he still uses. )

Afterwards, Scott's mom made a big dinner for us all and we played games and ate delicious food. It was a fun afternoon. I took lots of pictures of him and he played along for a little while before it grew old and he fell asleep mid-shoot.

 Emmy was at his side for most of it; like usual! But that was welcomed after the morning he had making adventures on his own. First Emmett had gotten into Grandpa's medicine cabinet and eaten some of his pills. A quick phone call to poison control let us know that it would be okay - he had gotten a hold of a stomach acid reducer, so it wouldn't hurt him. Then he had found the hair trimmer and wanted to give himself a hair buzz - luckily the batteries were mostly dead, so the clippers didn't work! So having him constantly in my sight was a good thing!

(we tried to keep Emmy's mouth occupied the rest of the morning to keep him from returning to his pill buffet)

 Now we are back home and getting ready for a big week. The kids have two award ceremonies - one tomorrow night for 4-H and one on Friday for Reflections. We will also be packing for a family trip to California this weekend and a trip for Scott and I and Duncan up to Washington to go house hunting. Big stuff coming up for us...just more to be grateful for!

Gratitude 12: long distance phone calls

I find it so easy to find things around me to be grateful for each day, that sometimes it is hard for me to narrow it down to just one a day; but today this one stands out for me. Today's gratitude is the first one so far this month that has actually brought tears to my eyes.

I'm grateful for long distance phone calls, namely ones to my sister. I got to talk to her for a nice long time today as we travelled in the car, and it was heavenly:-) Anyone who knows my sister knows what an amazing person she is...literally a Superwoman - only she doesn't prance around in a blue leotard with a red cape :-)

Growing up she and I weren't close...we were five years apart and I was the stereotypical annoying little sister and she was the typical teenage girl. I remember one day having to call her home from work because I had gotten into her room while she was gone and was playing with her things - trying to be like her as I usually did - and not knowing how to use her curling iron brush the right way, I had gotten it hopelessly tangled in my hair. I even had a friend come over to try her hand at it, but being my same age and capabilities, she couldn't do much. So I sheepishly called Jen to come rescue me. She came and, with no finesse, pried my hair out of her iron!  I was constantly sneaking in her room to try her things on in the hopes that I could somehow mimic her beauty and poise; almost always getting caught when she would come home and notice things out of place.

I finally became a real worthwhile person to her once she moved out and that's when our friendship really started to grow. It took being away from the crazy little sister to make her see how cool I really was! (Just kidding, Jen!) She started her family and I was still taking notes on everything she did just as I had all growing up; learning from her every move. And now here we are, both of us with our own families, supposedly all grown up and adultish (yeah, I just made up that word), but I still am watching her every move and trying to be like her...I am just having to  learn from a much larger distance than before.

I don't get to talk to her nearly enough to fill me, and I see her even less. But these long distance phone calls mean the world to me. Even from across a country I can hear her laugh, imagine her mannerisms, grill her for her wisdom, and learn from her example.

Thanks for filling my gratitude day 12, Jen. I know we don't say it nearly enough, but I love you! And thanks for being a faithful reader of this blog. Even though we aren't physically close anymore, it helps me feel like we are still keeping in touch and that you will know my kids and be part of their lives - like you will always be no matter where we are.

Gratitude 11 - 11 seconds

Duncan is changing day to day. Little things that you really can't notice. A few extra ounces of fluff, hair slightly a bit longer or fuller. Something. Today I noticed another fun trick he has mastered. He now can stand on his own two legs for a whole 11 seconds before they start to melt away and he sinks down to a sitting position again!

I love watching all these new milestones and seeing him change. I know I will miss them soon enough when he gets a little older and all these things that seem so big right now become things that he does without thinking. So for today, I am grateful for those short 11 seconds!

*****UPDATE!***** I need to make a clarification :-) Duncan can only stand when I am holding on to him - he's not free standing or anything! My sister thought he was an athletic savant for being only 2 1/2 months old and already standing on his own for 11 seconds. Sorry, Jen! He only does assisted standing for now :-)

Gratitude 10: Unexpected Answered Prayers aka: The Faith of my Children

For the past three years the kids have been trying to save their money, save their school Mommy Bucks, and do whatever they could to buy themselves a Wii. I'm not a big video gamer, so I haven't been all too helpful to them on that front. When Scott bought me (for my birthday, mind you) a PS3 to be a gaming system for 'us' and to play DVDs and bluerays as well, we thought their drive for a Wii would end. It didn't.

They kids continued on their quest to save enough money for a Wii because the only PS3 games we see at the stores are mostly shoot-em-up, blood and gore type games, and the two or three games we do have are pretty much the only kid appropriate ones out there. The Wii, on the other hand, has a lot of kid friendly, cartoon type, or exercise wanna-be games. So, between this years' birthdays and prize monies, they finally have enough for their beloved Wii!

This week they asked their daddy if they could finally get their longed after Wii, and he told them in no uncertain terms, NO. They shouldn't waste their money on something like that. They were so bummed! They've worked, they've saved, their mommy was no help, and now all they were left with was a smashed dream....until the got a phone call from a local dentist.

The place they 'sold' their Halloween candy back to this year called today to let us know that one of Teagan's tickets  had been the lucky one chosen to be the winner of a new Wii bundle pack! Each of the kids had 5 tickets they could enter in to drawings for different toys that had been donated for this cause. She had only entered 3 tickets in to the Wii bag, and it was filled with probably close to 400 other tickets, 5 of which were Garrett's! I had spread Emmett and Duncan's out on other 'just in case' gifts - the ones that had fewer tickets in their bags which would make our odds a little better of winning something. That's what I did last year too when the older kids put all their tickets into that Wii bag as well. We won a Twister extreme game for the kids and a free teeth whitening kit for me, so my theory seemed to work! But this year was their lucky year I guess.

Their prayers were answered in quite an unexpected way! And to make it even sweeter, they get to use their hard earned money on something else now! Sweet!

Apparently God was on their side in this Wii debate. They've prayed for one for so long, done all the work they could do to get one, and just when they thought they had reached a dead end, a mini miracle happened for them! Their prayers were answered.

Gratitude 9: Mmmmm... yummy

If I knew how to add smell to a blog post, I would have a little scratch and sniff spot right here----->

Then you could agree with me that the smell of a baby head is the most wonderful thing ever! I love smelling Duncan's little noggin, with his little bit of blow-me-away-cause-it's-so-blonde hair he has tickling my nose. The smell is intoxicating and is such a natural relaxer to me Who could ever be upset or sad or hassled when they have that smell in their arms?!

Gratitude 8: Brotherly love

My kids have their fights like any siblings do, but they sure do love each other a lot as well! Garrett takes pictures of Duncan on almost a daily basis and loves to cuddle him and make him smile. It is always fun to check my camera to see what new pictures I find on it that the kids take of each other. Here are some of today's pictures that Garrett took of our newest little man.