December

Isaac and I had a conversation about Big Foot.  He started it with, "Big Foot was here.  He was making the trees go wiggle wiggle.  He doesn't have big hands.  He has big foot, big feet."  So I asked, "Did he go home?"  And he replied, "Yeah.  He doesn't have a bed.  Big Foot goes "Roar" like a dinosaur.  I'm going to catch dinosaurs.  I'm going to catch T-Rex.  I'm going to catch a little T-Rex."  I love conversations with three year olds.

Tyler has been learning the sounds of blends at school.  He was learning the "ch" blend so I asked him to say some while we were in the car.  As we went over the railroad tracks, he said, "chain."  It clicked in my head that he meant "chain" for "train."  He also says plause for pause.  I think the girls have been trying to fix that.  I guess I have a bad habit of just letting my kids mispronounce things for far too long.  For the longest time he called the Legacy Center the "Legaly" Center.  Saying things all the right way means they're growing up.  Sometimes that just happens too fast.

 

We set up our glorious Christmas tree.  

 

I only set up the tree this year.  I was an absolute slacker.

 

Fortunately, these guys didn't seem to mind.  Gabe had fun undecorating it of course.

 

 

 

 

Brady's almost bigger than our tree.

 

 

 

Brady wanted me to take this picture to compare it to the pictures I have of him climbing up to the top of his old closet to see how much he's grown since he can no longer get up onto the top shelf.  Unfortunately, I don't have those pictures on this computer, so you'll just have to use your imagination.

 

We made it to the Christmas sing at the school. 

 

That was fun as always.  I had to crop out a crazy looking lady from this picture.  Unfortunately there isn't an unblurr photo fix yet, at least that I know of.  If you know of one, I could use it.

 

 

 Chloe's in the front with the purple scarf.  The tallest kids had to kneel in front of everyone else.  Everybody sang very well and my brother let me use his phone to video the songs since my camera batteries died.  It goes through batteries like crazy.

 

Tyler has been obsessed with Minecraft.  At first Brady got the game on his Kindle.  He let Tyler play it a few times and he was hooked.  He was constantly sneaking Brady's Kindle.  He'd even get up at 6:30 am or earlier and sneak into his room to get the Kindle.  Then he'd go hide behind the couch and play it until Brady got up and found him.  It was crazy.  Eventually, we got it on the Xbox so he'd leave Brady's Kindle alone.  He could play that game all day long if we let him.  For Christmas he really wanted some Minecraft swords.  The only swords I found were incredibly overpriced and made out of hard foam. That would never work, so I made my own after a little inspiration from Pinterest.  I cut up a bunch of squares, then sewed them all together, then stuffed them with batting so they wouldn't be quite so dangerous.  I think Isaac plays with them more than Tyler though.  So far nobody has gotten hurt and I've only had to repair them twice.

 

He was pretty excited to get them.

 

Gabe really enjoyed eating all of the stuff from the stockings the other kids had all over the floor.  He got a little ride on four wheeler which he loves.  He knows it's his too.  Whenever somebody else gets on it he's squawking at them and trying to pull them off of it.

 

 

 

Mia and Chloe got dolls and doll clothes.

 

I made the girls fleece pajama bottoms then made their dolls some matching pajamas.  They thought that was pretty cool.

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Isaac got a blanket and a Dusty Crophopper shirt. 

 

 

And Brady got a GoPro camera.  Although I think Lance wanted it more than Brady did!

 

The most exciting present was the puzzle Lance created for the kids to put together.  He wrote a poem about our upcoming trip to Disneyland.  I only have video of it though.  I think he has a picture of it somewhere, which means, you'll probably never see it.  He did a good job though and they were all very excited.

 

I had my ultrasound and found out we're having a boy!  There were some tears shed at the office.  Mia and Chloe were of course hoping for a baby sister.  Brady changed his mind to wanting a sister at the last minute because he realized he might end up sharing a room with one of his little brothers and that does not appeal to him at all.  He didn't even come to the ultrasound.  He didn't want to miss school.  Weird, I know.  Chloe came around pretty quick and she's excited for a baby brother.

 

 

Mia, on the other hand, is still not excited even though she says Gabe's her best friend.  I keep telling the girls that at least they have each other.  They have lots of friends who are the only girl in their family.  Mia still wants to know why I only make boy babies.

 I really didn't care either way, but I was pretty sure it was a girl.  Plus, it would be nice to use all of the girl clothes I've been saving for the last eight years! 

Here I am at 22 weeks.

Gabe has been learning all sorts of tricks.  He loves to put his hands in his diaper as soon as we open it to change it.  If he doesn't have his hands in it, he's trying to pull the new diaper out from under him.  He loves to get my little hand mixer out of the drawer and plug it in.  He also pulls out my curling irons and tries to plug those in.  He's more of a climber than Isaac was, but he's not too crazy. 



Tyler continues to keep us entertained.  It was cold outside, so Tyler decided to wear 2 pairs of socks and underwear.  The next day it was cold again, so he put on three pairs of socks, underwear and shirts.  The next day he put on five pairs of socks and underwear, three shirts and a pair of shorts and pants. 

 

He wasn't happy with how some of the other kids were treating him so he wrote out a "nodty liset."  He had Andrew, Isaac, and Colin.  On the nice list he had Mia and Chloe.  After Isaac and Andrew said they'd be nice to him, he switched them to the nice list.

 

We went up to Lance's sister's house on a Sunday afternoon to talk about our upcoming Disneyland trip.  When we got there, Tyler said, "Finally, I can button my pants."

 

Isaac has a personality all his own.  He managed to have a flashlight with him on that same trip.  He kept shining it behind him at the girls just to torture them.  He thought he was pretty funny.  We were having a hard time not laughing as well since he couldn't even tell where he was shining it.  He'd just shine it behind him and they would freak out.  Brothers learn how to push their sister's buttons pretty quick.

 

He got a cold so he would cough a little here and there.  Every time he did, he'd say, in the most pathetic voice with the saddest look on his face, "I have a cough."  I had to chuckle every time.