Happy 36th

Happy 36th to the most amazing, wonderful man EVER!!!! This guy can do anything. He builds, cleans, changes diapers, serves others, puts kids to bed, works hard and I've learned could hold the motto, "a job is ONLY worth doing well." He. really. is. AMAZING. And I somehow lucked out to get him all to me. He is a better MOM than I have ever been but also holds the best DAD title as well. He is happy and friendly and everyone loves him. I love when I see traits in my children that I know come from him. He makes me laugh and laugh and laugh. I am very grateful to have him.

This is Benjamin. He is Spencer and Kristi's 3rd child. Somehow in the last few minutes as they were getting ready to leave our home, Aaron painted him with Emily's fingernail polish. We sent them home with cottonballs and polish remover. Hope it worked.

We invited my family and all of John's family to come for cake on his birthday. For the fun of cake and to visit and say good bye to Spencer and Kristi who were heading home the next day.

This is sweet Sam with strep and sickness that lasted way too long. The first picture shows his sad little eyes and the second picture shows his adorable smile. The kid is ALWAYS smiling. "HI Mom" "Hi Dad". What a friendly, sweet little boy. And my guess is he tried licking the beaters and the bowl from one of the several cakes made for John's birthday.

Christmas Fun

We enjoyed a visit and building legos with Grandma and Grandpa the day after Christmas and John has enjoyed his new little toy, on lend from Leslie. Aaron had a tractor that needed a place to stay so John was happy to oblige. He paid to get it running and is found outside at every little drop of snow. He takes the kids on rides around the block and is totally loving this little tractor. THanks Leslie.

We thought it was kind of neat to see others Christmas lights across the field behind us, so we put some up for them. :)

Christmas Memories

Grandma and all her grandkids. John, Emily, Zachary, Thomas, Anna, Jack, Katie, Samuel, Caleb, and Kailee.

Then she brought a gifts over for all the kids on Christmas Eve.

Sam got strep for Christmas and he was miserable for over a week. The kids and I tried to have a candy making day. We made chocolate dipped oreos that turned out pink and stayed at our house. Rolos melted on pretzels that burnt. Yes....I burnt the easy task of melting rolos on pretzels. They ended up in the garbage. Yummy Yummy fudge. I made two huge pans and one ended up in the garbage but the other was fabulous!! And gooey chex mix which turned out just right....I think. It was a little frustrating to have so many things go wrong but we still had fun and hope it becomes tradition.

Christmas Morning

Well, it looks like Santa or someone made it to our house. John and Emily got up at 1:30 to check out all the presents. We sent them back to bed and got up again around 8, I think. I put the Christmas morning omelette in the oven and we got started. We always open stockings first.
Thanks to grandma H., we all have beautiful stockings.

We spent the rest of the day playing some Wii games and building legos.

The boys all got remote control trucks from grandma C. They love them!!

And the best present of all:

There was a beautiful wrapped gift with a white bow with no name so we waited until the end to open it. Oh the excitement!! I bought that outfit years ago when I was pregnant with one of the boys because it's blue and the sweetest little dress ever. I couldn't pass it up when I saw it. And it's finally going to get good use.

Emily cried and cried. We filmed her and everyone who has watched it has cried along. It is so sweet. They will be 11 years apart but the joy of having a sister was overwhelming. Little John said "This is the best gift we got." It has been very exciting.

We had a great Christmas. It didn't fly by. We were relaxed and completely enjoyed the season with each other. We watched Christmas movies, listened to music (in fact, John and little John would try to listen to regular radio and I told them otherwise. There would be nothing but Christmas music.) :) We drove around to see Christmas lights, went out to Christmas street, enjoyed Christmas parties, played games, did puzzles, remodeled bedrooms, and just enjoyed each other. It is so wonderful to not feel stress during the Christmas season. JOhn and I didn't even do any shopping until the week before Christmas but we kept it low key and it was wonderful. We didn't have the dreaded feeling of there being 'too much'. Big John and Emily were in the ward Christmas program and it was beautiful.

School Choir Christmas Concert

John, Emily, and Thomas were in the school choir. They did a great job. At Legacy, anyone did the choir, at this school there is a little more of that "too cool" to be in the choir feeling going on. But John did it anyway and enjoyed it. They performed one evening and then again for the student body during school. Thomas looked miserable through the entire evening performance. Later I found out that it was because he was wearing a sweater. HE HATES SWEATERS. I didn't make him where it the next performance.

"Plugged in the Snowman"

Every morning all month we hear Sam announce, "Plugged in the Snowman". We woke up to this at times and many times had to come down to watch him go up. Ryan gave us this snowman years ago and we've loved it. Hopefully he'll last forever.

Sam took this picture. He saw the camera so he headed out with it and let me know he took a picture. Silly kid.

Family Christmas Party

Cleaning up after the party.

Playing ball and the boys waiting to play ball.

Thomas in front of the tree with all the quilts wrapped under neath. Emily and all the girls singing.

Our family singing John Denver and the Muppets "The Christmas Wish"

The Nativity. Emily as a wise man. Sam pleased as punch to be a shephard boy.

Jack as a wise man....very fitting. Thomas as a shephard.

We had a great family party this year. We were all assigned a committee and took care of different parts of the evening. The tables were set up beautiful with lights around the room and a tree in the middle. There were cards for everyone to write a message to Nathan, our family missionary. We had a great meal, a few different people/families performed, we did the Nativity. Grandma made all the costumes and since we had no bible, Grandpa recited Luke II from memory as the kids came in. We sang Christmas songs, some played a little basketball, lots helped clean, and we had a great evening together.

Quilts from Grandma and Grandpa

Grandma and Grandpa with all the grandkids, minus Nathan who is on a mission. 39 Grandkids. 39 quilts.

What a treasure. Thank you Grandma and Grandpa.

Caroling

Caroling. Mom said at the end "Thank you. Why don't you all come in for hot chocolate?!" When we got in, Jack kept asking when we were having hot chocolate. I finally realized he took grandma seriously and finally calmed him down with the idea of having hot chocolate at our house when we got home.

Sam entertaining himself at grandma and grandpa's.

As a big family, we did the 12 days of Christmas to John's parents. We had fun with it. This is a picture of everyone who could come on Christmas Eve to give the last gift.....caroling. We all then went in for traditional oyster stew and for the wimps....chicken noodle soup and zupa toscana. We watched Luke II then went to my mom's to exchange gifts with the grandkids. Then we went home and opened Christmas Jammies and had a nice evening together.