Food!

We've been having many sleepless nights at our house. Henry has been up about every 2 hours since we got home from our trip. In our hopes to get him to sleep more at night we decided to try some solid food. His first go at it he wasn't so sure!

But he is now a fan and so it Emma! She has decided she is the official Henry feeder.


Unfortunately it hasn't helped him sleep better. We may have a partial answer for that problem now-one sharp little point of a tooth poking through his bottom gum-a tooth!

Snow Day!

Last night when we got home from our trip it was snowing!

Not just little flurries, but a decent amount of snow. Before we even unloaded the van, N8 started on a snowman! Here he is in the process with the kids:




Unfortunately some unruly neighborhood teens kicked him over about 10 minutes later!!
Then this morning at 5:30am I got a call from the school district letting us know that school was canceled. N8 quickly looked outside and found it had snowed more!! He decided to take a snow day himself and he and the kids got to work checking out and playing in the snow.
This is in our backyard:



Here's the front:

The snowball fight in action!


N8 rebuilt the snowman:

Can you tell he LOVES the snow:


Tomorrow will be back school!

New Years 2011

2011 started out with a bang! We headed off to Phoenix to stay with my parents and started things out by going to dinner for my parents 47th wedding anniversary!

The next day a group headed off for a hike. It was Camelback mountain, which is in the middle of Phoenix.

On Wednesday it started out with a bit of rain and ended with even more rain! But in the middle of it all we headed over to my Aunt Julie's house. She, my Uncle Andy and cousin Courtney were gracious enough to allow us to come to their house and ride some of their horses! The kids loved it and didn't even care that it was cold and rainy.



On Thursday we went over to my brother's side of town and took the kids ice skating. Bud got the most improved award and everyone had a great time!

After ice skating we went to Joe's Farm Grill which has been featured on Diners Drive ins and Dives from Food Network. They had the best onion rings that both N8 and I had ever had!!

For New Years we headed up to my sisters house in Payson,AZ. Snow isn't totally unusual for them, but for a good amount to stay is. We lucked out and got 2 good days of sledding, playing and snowman making!



It was nice to have extra hands to hold Henry:

We came home last night to snow! Crazy, but true. This morning at 5:30am the phone rang. It was the school district letting us know school was canceled due to hazardous driving conditions. N8 decided to take a snow day himself! Now, this afternoon, the sun is shining and the snow is melting. The Christmas decorations are all still up, I'm mid-laundry and the house is a wreck! We had a great Christmas and a happy New Year. Now it time to get to work on 2011. Tonight for FHE we'll probably make our annual goals for the year. Let's see what we can accomplish!

Ho, Ho, Ho

Merry Christmas!
It's been a wonderful Christmas. We drilled the kids last night and they knew that they could not wake us up before 7am! Once we were up and going they grabbed their stockings:

They got some fun things (including a puppet for each). Bud got a shark!

Henry has a new bath poof!

Can you tell N8 is excited!

When we moved over to the tree the first things up were these guys:

It's a pillow, it's a pet, it's a pillow pet! They love their new pillow pets!
The next BIG item was a Wii:

We've procrastinated getting any type of video games, but are excited to now have the Wii. The kids had a blast playing Mario Kart and Lego Star Wars today!
Here's Henry getting into the action opening up the Little People Farm that Santa brought to him and Mo.

Emma has enjoyed her new Rapunzel as well as a new doll (a Madam Alexander 18" doll). Tonight her and her doll are wearing matching nightgowns!

My parents got us this print of the Mesa Temple, I love it!

Some other favorites were legos, trains, a magic bullet and the newest version of Emma.
We enjoyed Turkey, rolls and mashed potatoes for and early dinner and blueberry pie for dessert! Much of the mess is cleaned and put away, but some will have to wait for another day.
We had a wonderful Christmas and look forward to seeing family this coming week!

Santa needed some cookies...

Tonight we decorated cookies for Santa. I tried a new recipe. It's pretty good. It's not a soft and chewy cookie, but the flavor is good and it was easy to roll and cut out after the dough was chilled. I also decided to go with a royal icing to decorate. I then bought ketchup bottles at Walmart for easier icing. They kids had a great time and I liked that it was much less messy using the bottles rather than a knife!

Mo really liked putting on the sprinkles!!




Henry helped out N8:

This was my favorite that I made:

Tomorrow will be an exciting day. Bud and Emma are SUPER excited for Santa to come and open presents. Mo will be excited once he realizes that he finally gets to open what's been sitting under the tree.
Tonight I'm thinking of Mary being ready to deliver a baby. I'm thinking of the Shepherds beings visited by an angel letting them know the the Savior had been born. I'm thinking of the love I have for the Savior and all that he has done for us.
Merry Christmas

All lined up and ready to go...

Here are the kids all ready to go to church this past Sunday. Emma is wearing her new Christmas dress.
This first one we went with age order, oldest to youngest:

Here we tried something new.

They were a little confused at first, but we finally got one where they looked at the camera!!

Open House

Once a year China Lake Navel Base opens it's doors to the families of it's employees. The kids look forward to seeing where daddy works and eating pizza at his office. This year we got to go check out a new building on base and a friend that works there took our picture!

It's an infrared picture. Can you see all of us? Mo is a little hidden between Emma and Bud! The kids were a little nervous at first, but after Ellie offered them suckers, they were happy!