Holiday Fun

We have had a lot of fun getting ready for Christmas this year. It all started the Monday after Thanksgiving. We put our Christmas tree up for family home evening and the kids loved it! Reagan and Kairi were a TON of help and Camden and Tahlia had fun just watching and touching anything they could. I was so caught up in the moment that I didn't think to take pictures though. The following Monday we made a ginger bread house for family home evening. This is something we started doing last year and the girls love it! Last year Alan didn't help the "right" way so the girls didn't want him to help this year. He finally got a chance to help and guess what he did... he messed up! He dropped a tree, icing down, on the table. The girls have said he can't help next year at all. I think it's funny... and secretly I think Alan's ok with it because then he doesn't have to deal with the mess the fighting etc. Last night we invited Michael over to help decorate sugar cookies to leave out for Santa. The girls and I had made the cookies during nap time so that we could decorate them after dinner. They had a great time and have chosen favorites to leave out for Santa along with his chocolate milk. For some reason our girls think Santa likes chocolate milk, I think that has something to do with there dad! I forgot to take pictures of them frosting cookies. So I will take a picture of the cookies we set out for Santa tonight. We are all very excited about tomorrow. The kids can't wait to see what they get from Santa and Alan and I can't wait to see there faces!


Tahlia opened her stocking from my mom over Thanksgiving.


Tahlia looked a little crazy the night we made the ginger bread house. She loves her tongue.


They wanted to do things just right!


The girls waiting for me to put on more icing so they could attach more candy. (Notice Kairi's halloween shirt... she just had to wear it!)


The finished product.

First Hair Cute

Babies born into our family are not blessed with hair until they are between 18 months and 2 years. Camden's hair has been looking like it needed a hair cute for few weeks. It looked like he mostly needed it off of the top. So, while we were in Idaho for Thanksgiving my mom cut his hair. I was surprised by how much hair came off of his head! His hair is almost blonde and he has pretty pale skin so his haired blended well with his scalp. Mom cute it short in the back and on the sides and left it a little longer on the top. His hair seems to be wavy right now so it won't do any kind of a spike. He loved have it cut! He sat so still and seemed to really enjoy it. He looks so much better now! Now I just have to maintain it. He is going to need his hair cut more frequently than the girls do. That will be different for me, but I love little boy hair cuts!

Thanksgiving

I know Thanksgiving we several days ago now, but I'm just finding time to post about it. We went to Idaho this year to celebrate Thanksgiving with my side of the family. We left Wednesday after I finished teaching school. We had packed the night before so we were ready to go. We gave the girls Dramamine so that we wouldn't have any accidents on the way home (Our girls have a history of getting car sick!) and we were gone around 3:30. We decided to stop and eat on the way. We have stopped before but never in Malad! We thought that was a good goal to make it that far, but we will never do it again. What is in Malad? Nothing! I new this be we tried anyway. There were two places Burger King or Sub Way. We chose Sub Way but it wasn't the best food we have ever had. In the future we will stop earlier or push on to Pocatello. We arrived at my parents around 7:30 or 8:00 ( I can't remember now). We helped mom get ready for Thanksgiving the next day and went to bed. We woke up and were doing different tasks before we ate Thanksgiving dinner. I was mostly enjoying spending time with my family. The day started off cold but buy the early afternoon it was a really nice day. Bryce used my dad's riding lawn mower and gathered a pile of leaves for the kids to play in. What kids can resist a pile of leaves? They played for what seemed like hours. They buried themselves, they ran and jumped in the leaves and used rakes to keep the pile in tact. Reagan tried to play with the few leaves that had fallen from our one tree in front of our house, so this really made her day. Soon after that family started to arrive. We had a great dinner and enjoyed spending time with family that we see only a few times a year now. It is good to go home!

On Black Friday Mom, Megan, Leslie and I went shopping! We didn't brave the early crowds though, we left around 10:30. I was the only one with any kind of real list so they let me drag them to most of the stores. I didn't have much shopping left to do, but after Friday I was mostly done. It was fun to just be out with girls. I wish we could do more of these types of things together. Living away from family can be hard at time.

Saturday morning Bryce and Mary went to breakfast with Alan and I. It was fun to spend time with them. We went to a family diner and had some great food! Then we went to get some ingredients so that Mary could make a salad for dinner that night. Mom had made Lasagna before we got there so that we could have it during the holidays. After dinner we played a new game "Would you Rather..." Leslie has already posted info and pictures about this game on her blog. It was a fun game. Good thing we played with family. You have to perform challenges to win and some of them are INTERESTING! Mom had to hold a pickle as if it were a mustache, Megan had to perform a dance while humming a tune, Alan chose to wear my bra for a turn (not my best moment!), etc. I would only feel comfortable playing this game with family I think!

All in all we had a great trip. It was hard coming back Sunday to normal life. Now we are on to finalizing Christmas!




Kairi and Dane were burying Reagan in the pile of leaves.


This is what Camden was using to play in the leaves!

Tahlia is growing up!

For several weeks leading up to Thanksgiving, Tahlia would cry as the rest of the family sat down for dinner each night. She just wanted to be at the table with us. So Alan or I would usually end up holding her. It was so cute to watch her interact with us. Just before we went to Idaho for Thanksgiving, we decided to sit Tahlia in a booster seat at the table. She LOVED it! We laughed and had fun as we ate. It was so fun I had to take some pictures. She is still our little girl in so many ways... but she is getting bigger every day. She can now sit up and scoot anywhere that she wants to.




Reagan says we can't have anymore kids because we won't have anywhere for them to sit at the table.


Camden tries to sneak Tahlia food and sometimes he just takes hers (Cheerios).

Tooth Fairy Time!!

Well it finally happened.... Reagan lost her FIRST tooth! Almost 5 years ago she got her first tooth and now it's gone. Her tooth has been loose for a few weeks now and her new one was even coming in behind it, but she wouldn't let me pull it out. I tried once and a corner broke loose and it scared her. After that I wasn't allowed to touch it. Yesterday, while I was doing her hair, I told her that she needed to either pull her tooth out herself or let me do it. She told me she would. Has I was doing her hair she put her pointer finger nail at the base of her tooth and just kinda pushed up and the tooth popped out. She yelled out, "Mom mom my tooth! My tooth came out! I did it!". She was so proud of herself. I immediatley ran to grab the camera because of course I was thinking I needed to record this milestone and put it on the blog! It is really hard to take pictures when you loose a bottom tooth. I did the best I could. Reagan really wanted to put the tooth under her pillow, but I new it would get lost, so I convinced her to put it on the counter on a plate. I woke up this morning, remember it was day lights savings this morning, around 6:45 to "Mom I got a dollar!" After the morning progressed she showed me that her other bottom front tooth is coming in and she hasn't lost the baby one yet! I told her to start wiggling it so she can get more money. She is very driven by money right now. I'm glad we have the first tooth behind us.


Don't mind my hand.




I tried several times to get a decent picture, but this is all I could get so early in the morning.

HaLoWeEn

Well another year of Trick-or-Treating has passed. The girls counted down the days until it was time to Trick-or-Treat! It's fun to look forward to holidays with little children. They get so excited that you can't help but be excited too. I couldn't wait for them to get all dressed up and take them around the neighborhood! We started our day at Reagan's school with a Halloween Parade. I had a teacher work day, so Alan and I got up like normal and got the kids up and I did their hair. Alan was going to go to the parade too so he stayed with the kids while I went to work. I met Alan and the kids at Monte Vista Elementary around 8:30 and we watched the parade at about 9:00. Then I had to go back to work and Alan took the kids to Wells Fargo were they got to go Trick-or-Treating to the different peoples desks. Reagan said she got a little sick riding the elevator to the 13th floor and Alan said Camden was a little afraid of the elevator when it started to move. They had a great time though and got more candy than I thought they would! Alan then took the kids back to Aimee's, our babysitter, for the rest of the day. We have started going Trick-or-Treating, because our kids are pretty young, between 5:30 and 6:00. I made french toast for dinner and then we got our costumes on and were ready to go around 6:00. Alan's brother Michael is staying with us while his parents are on a trip, so he went with us. Reagan and Michael were SO ready to go. They wanted to run from door to door, but poor little Kairi doesn't move that fast. We finally got them slowed down and they all had a great time. Camden started off being pulled in our wagon, but then Alan gave him M&M's and other candy and soon he was crawling out of the wagon and running high on sugar all over the neighborhood! He was hilarious to watch. At one point we saw a cat and he wanted to chase the cat as long as the cat didn't turn around and look at him. If the cat turned to face him he turned and ran squealing back to Alan. We laughed so hard. We made it all around our little neighborhood and were back home a little after 7:00. It was perfect timing because just as we were opening the garage it really started to rain. It had sprinkled on us a little while were out, but it got worse after we got home. Needless to say there weren't too many Trick-or-Treaters this year. When we came in the house Reagan said, "Well... Trick-or-Treating is over". It was just so matter of fact. Then the kids got their pajamas on and Reagan passed out candy when kids came to our door. Another Halloween is behind us and we had a great time!


Reagan said she was a princess witch. Her hat came off before she got to us during the parade.


Kairi was a princess... go figure!


Our little super man! He LOVES this costume!


Reagan in her full costume.


Cute little Bee. This was Reagan's first Halloween costume too.


Just before we went Trick-or-Treating.


Along for the ride.


The beginning of the crazy sugar high!

Tahlia Update

Tahlia had her 6 month well baby check up on Wednesday. The doctor said developmentally Tahlia is doing great, she is just small. She weighs almost 13 lbs (they put 12.99 lbs on her chart - weird!) which is the 4th percentile. She is 25 inches tall which is in the 21st percentile and her head is 14 inches which is in the 77th percentile. She has a big head, but that's not any different from the rest of the our kids. He asked what she eats and I told him and he thought she was getting enough calories.... so for right now it just looks like she is going to truly be our little girl! We are just happy that she is healthy and doing great!