January

I'll start with a few Tyler stories.  One day he told me, "When it's Sponge Bob day, you have to wear yellow.  When it's Patrick's day, you have to wear pink, not green."

Another day he said, "We're sea stars like Patrick."  He also likes to say "Tartar sauce" when things don't go just right.  Apparently, he watches a lot of Sponge Bob.  I'm so sick of that show. 

One day he was talking about the Christus statue that we saw on our visit to Temple Square.  Then he said very sadly, "I really miss the ice cream man.  Andrew said he died." 

Andrew was over playing, and they were "cleaning" the walls and mirrors with some sponges.  They started in the bathroom.  Andrew asked Tyler if he needed more water.  Tyler said in his very "duh" voice, "I already got some from the toilet."  Not the response you ever want to hear.

We've had tons of snow this winter.  It definitely makes up for last winter.  It was almost creepy how little snow we got.  After seeing one of my friends post a picture of their sled hill off the roof of their shed, I created this sledding hill off of our deck.  Isaac never went down, but the other kids enjoyed it.


 

Isaac managed to find some lotion so he put some on.

 

We had a bunch of family in town for my older brother, Adam's, son, Justin's baptism up in Coalville where his wife grew up.

 

 

One night the boy cousins were watching tv and not wanting their picture taken.

 

And the girls, plus Eric, were snuggled up watching a movie on the computer.

 

We had 8 out of 9 of us there, plus my mom.  It amazes me that we're able to get together as much as we do.  One of these days, we'll get my brother Luke and his family closer to us so we can see them more too.

 

Tyler wasn't feeling well, so he and Lance spent most of the time out in the van watching a movie.  Since then, we've had at least one sick kid for the last month.  I'm getting quite sick of it.  Gabe had a little RSV which was a little scary, but he needed only one breathing treatment at the Doctor's office and has gotten better fortunately.   

 

A lot of us went to my mom's house to wait for Adam to say good-bye to them before they left for home.  We waited a long time and the kids had fun just playing.

 

The girls just love Daniel.  Lauren (above in the blue) told him he's a chick magnet.

 

We ended up with the place pretty full.



One day Isaac found one of the girls' baby dolls.  It's 16" long, which is how long Chloe was when she was born.  The doll also wears her preemie clothes.  It's crazy to think she was that little when she was born.  When she was still tiny, I was at the doctor's office for some reason.  I was carrrying Mia in the baby carrier and Chloe in my arm because it was easeir that way.  As a lady walked by, she kind of jumped when Chloe moved.  She stopped and said she thought I was carrying a doll until she moved.  Now, looking at the size of the doll, I can see how that would be startling.  Anyway, he had a diaper too and was putting the diaper on her.

 

He even put her in the swing.

 

Gabe's been getting cuter.  He still has hair and it's pretty long on top, but not very thick.  Isaac definitely got the hair in the family.  I think Gabe looks a lot like Chloe.  He's a mix between Isaac and Chloe.  Chloe's on the right at about 5 months old.

 

One day Isaac and Chloe were just hanging out watching TV. 

 

And one day, Tyler found a new spot to watch TV.  Doesn't everyone watch TV from the inside of the back of the chair cover? 

 

Tyler has been doing very well in preschool.  He can write all kinds of things.  He asks me how to spell things and just writes them.  One of his favorite things to write is letters to Santa.  Of course he's also had fun writing on doors.  I believe that says "Tyler Room Go In" 

 

 

So that he would learn his lesson, I had him try to clean it off with the Magic Eraser.  It didn't come off all of the way.

 

 

And he didn't learn his lesson.  Instead he put mustache's on all of the doors upstairs

 

and wrote on his wall.  This one says "Daddy, Bathroom, Mom, Chloe, Mia."  He's also learned to sound things out and spell them, hence the "bafrm."  He can read quite a few words too.  His favorite word to read is "but." 

 

 

My kids like to decorate the wall above our bed.  Tyler did the two on the right.  Chloe did the one on the left.  Tyler has added another one too.  Isaac thinks the picture of Santa is Santa getting into the bath tub.  He says, "Santa, tub?"  And I just say sure.

 

 

Chloe put this on our door too.  She's such a sweetheart.  She's always writing "I Love You" everywhere.

 

 

Gabe turned 4 months old.

 

 

 

He loves to play with his feet.  His eyes haven't fully turned yet.  It looks like he's going to have some brown around his pupils, but I don't think they'll be completely brown. 

 

Mia turned 7.  She was very specific about how she wanted her cake.  She wanted it a rainbow made of Oreos.  She was very happy with my creation.

 

Gabe keeps growing and growing.  He's four and a half months old in this picture and he's wearing an outfit that's labeled 9 months.  I don't remember my other kids being so far off in the sizes.  He may just be super long.

 

Tyler continues to make lots of messes.  He's sad because I'm making him clean it up.  He and his cousin threw those little beads that you put you together then melt with an iron all over.

 

For the record, I didn't buy these.  My girls had a "girl party" on Mia's birthday over at one of our neighbor's house.  She was very thoughtful and sent home the extra stuff so we could make more at home.  The girls love it, but it makes a mess when little boys throw it all over.

 

 

 

Isaac decided he was done with the crib and wanted to sleep in the bunk bed.  I wasn't ready for it, but Lance made me let him.  He's done really well and doesn't get out of bed too much when he's supposed to be sleeping.  Most of the time he just cries when he wakes up until I go get him out of bed.  He's such a happy boy, but he doesn't wake up very happy most of the time unless I wake him up.  If I have to wake him up to go pick up Tyler from preschool, he's usually happy as can be.  It's weird.  He usually likes to sit with the kids on the stools, but lately he likes to sit in the highchair once in a while.

 

Tyler and Colin put together a very creative Limbo apparatus.

 

 

They wanted it high enough so they could walk under it. 

 

Tyler decided he wanted to sleep in the closet for a few nights.  One night he kept hitting his head so many times, Lance moved him out onto the floor.  When he woke up, he told me, "Mom, I woke up on the floor."  After I told him his dad moved him because he kept hitting his head he said, "I don't want him to move me."

 

So we let him sleep in there for a few more nights.  I've started putting Gabe in the crib in Tyler's room and one night he cried for a few minutes which woke Tyler up.  After that Tyler didn't want to sleep in there so Gabe didn't wake him up.  I convinced Brady to let him sleep on the top bunk in his room.  I had to promise that he wouldn't move or snore in his sleep.  The next morning, Brady said I lied.  Apparently, he did both.  He was so proud of himself he had to show everyone where he slept. 

 

And maybe in a few months you'll get to find out how many nights he made it in Brady's room before he kicked him out. 

December

I realize it's February, but I've been a little busy, so bear with me.  In December we decorated the tree.

 

We found a few of our favorite ornaments.  Tyler has a trumpet that he "played" more than it was on the tree.

 

Isaac had a great time undecorating the tree all month.  Not only did he undecorate it, he enjoyed taking apart some of the ornaments as well.  We made some beaded candy canes a few years ago.  Those were his favorite to take apart.  I'm still finding beads all over.  I was so happy to take the tree down.  Other than the tree, the decorations were quite slim.  Some years I love to put everything out, and some years it's a huge chore.  This year it was a chore.  My free time seems to be severely limited so I chose to use it to do fun things like sweep the floor and clean bathrooms.

 

We went up to Woods Cross to celebrate Ethan's birthday.  It was freezing cold and windy up at the cemetary and threatening to rain.  On the way home we stopped at Temple Square with Lance's sisters Lisa and Collette and their boys to see the lights.  It was cold and still looking like it was going to rain, but it didn't.  Lance thought the hat he grabbed was black.  It wasn't.  It's purple.  Gabe was good most of the time once he got a little snuggling from Lance.  At first he wasn't too impressed with being in the cold stroller. 

 

After this picture, Lance and I spent most of the time with Tyler trying to find an open building with a bathroom.  It was Sunday night so almost everything was closed.

 

 

 In case you're wondering, the only bathrooms are in the visitors center.  I wasn't sure we were going to find one, but we finally did.  This is inside one of the visitor centers.  We're in front of a scale model of the Salt Lake Temple.  On the other side it is cutaway so you can see what it looks like on the inside.

 

Chloe's riding on her cousin's, Christopher, shoulders.  They sure love him, as you can see.

 

Gabe is growing like crazy.  In this picture he's wearing an outfit Lance wore as a baby.  I have a picture of all of my kids except Mia in it.  I've used it to compare the resemblance of our kids to Lance.  Of course I feel horribly guilty that I don't have a picture of Mia in it.  When she and Chloe were babies, I was just impressed I got some pictures at all.  It was a very crazy time to say the least.
 

 

This is Isaac.  He looks a lot like Isaac.

 

Tyler's on the left and Chloe's on the right.

 

Gabe's been a really good sleeper.  He still gets up once or twice, but he has slept through the night a few times.  He got so difficult to nurse, that I switched him to bottles.  Now I spend way too much time pumping and warming and washing bottles.  Now that I've breast fed, formula fed and pumped, I can definitely say pumping is the most time consuming.  It's difficult to stay motivated.  My supply hasn't kept up with his demand either so I have to supplement with formula.  I think lack of sleep, stress and lack of a good consistent diet is to blame.  Not stress in that I'm freaking out all the time, but sometimes it's hard to relax when all of the things I need to do get overwhelming.

 

Tyler thinks thinks the pump sounds like it says "robin" so that's what he and Isaac call it.  We were at Target one day in the baby section and Isaac saw the pumps.  He pointed to one and said, "robin!" 

 

Gabe turned three months.  After dealing with his rashy neck for almost a month, I took him back in to the doctor.  He decided it was excema this time.  I'm not sure it was ever a yeast infection.  It started from a rash from excema in the first place.  He prescribed a steroid for it and after using that for about a week it finally cleared up.

 

Isaac has been so fun.  He's talking so much and says some of the cutest things.  He's very polite and says "pank you" when you do something for him.  He calls my brother Jacob, "Pica."  I have no idea why, but it's adorable.  And when he says "So awesome" it's just cute as can be. 

 

Of course he's still a two year old so he's independent and makes lots of messes, but it's hard to be upset with him for too long. He's such a happy easy-going kid. 

 

 

I've been making photo calendars for my mom, Lance's mom and my granny the past few years.  On each child's birthday on the calendar, you can add a picture.  Since Tyler and Brady share a birthday, I was trying to get a picture of them together so I could finish it.  Tyler wanted just a picture of himself, so I told Brady to sneak in it as I took it to get them together.  Tyler wasn't so happy with that idea and here's the picture I got.  If you can't tell, Tyler's in mid-swing as he hits Brady.

 

After I took one of just Tyler, he let me take a picture of them together.  This one is much better.  These two boys look so much alike.  If you want to know what Brady looked like at four, just look at Tyler. 

 

Gabe's been smiling and laughing, so it's been a really fun time with him.  Tyler loves little Gabe and wanted his picture with him.  I tried to place Gabe in front of the dirty spot on the chair, but it didn't work out so well.  Tyler likes to eat yogurt in the chair, with no spoon, and use the chair as his napkin.  It's disgusting.  Good thing he's so cute.

 

We made sugar cookies for Santa.

 

We ended up with quite the creations.  They all tasted delicious.

 

Here's a cute little picture of Gabe sleeping in his carseat.  His right arm is sticking straight out.  It's not resting on the blanket. 

 

One day before church I managed to get all my kids to hold still for a few seconds while I attempted to get a picture of them all looking at the camera.  I've pretty much given up trying to get them to all smile at the same time.  Apparently that's just asking too much of them.  I like this picture except I wish I had switched Tyler and Mia so all of the boys were in the middle.  She obviously wasn't in the mood to cooperate anyway, so I guess it's just as well.

 

Eventually, they all smiled.

I had to put Gabe in this little reindeer outfit so I could compare him to his brothers.

 



 

He had fun smiling at me. 

 

Tyler's on the right at about 6 months and Isaac's on the right at about 5 months.  He definitely looks more like Isaac than Tyler.

 

 

Christmas morning finally came.

We're lucky enough to have my mom close by, so she came over to watch us open presents.  We don't let them open presents until 8 am.  Usually it works out ok, but this year they were all excited and up early.  Brady hardly slept.   

 



 

Mia, Chloe, Tyler and Isaac all wanted Dream Lights.  Fotunately, Santa came through.  They still use them every night so I think it was a good investment.  They take AAA batteries though, so a couple of them couldn't use them the first night since we were unprepared in that department.

 

Brady really wanted an ipod touch and an Xbox 360 since our Wii has quit working.  He got a Kindle Fire and has been happy with that except for the fact that I put parental controls on it.  He gets irritated when I don't ok a game for him.  We got an Xbox as a family so he was pretty excited about that.  We put it in a really big box that was marked to me so they didn't open it and so he didn't know we got one.  Inside that box was another box marked to the family with the xbox inside.  Lance also got him Halo 3 which I fought for a while, then gave in.  I don't like that game or any other shooter games at all.  The girls got Just Dance Disney, but there's really only a couple of good songs on it.  One day they were playing it while they were arguing about something.  It was so funny to watch them do the moves as they were arguing at the same time!  I need to get a Dance Central game for them.

 

Tyler got a Jake and the Neverland Pirates "computer".  He hasn't played with it too much though.  Isaac got a Nerf basketball hoop that I just put together a couple of days ago.  I actually got it for his birthday, but didn't give it to him.  Since he's two, he didn't mind.  He loves the hoop though.  He's been wearing one of Brady's old basketball jerseys all over the place and taking the hoop everywhere.  I may have to invest in a sturdier one since the one he has is so well loved it's already falling apart.

 

They all got lots more stuff, probably way too much.  I tend to go overboard at the last minute.  It's fun watching them open all of the presents though.  Gabe slept in that day so he slept through the whole thing.  They were all very happy though.