December

 Our December was a fun one!

Just some random pics of the kids...

Bentley was so exhausted one day that she fell asleep sitting in our room watching a movie. 

 

  

Dress as your favorite winter character to school day; Carter was Jack Frost and Andi was Cindy Lou.  

 Tummy Time:

Our friends hosted an ugly sweater/pajama Christmas party. Jefferson won "best (or worst) dressed." 

 Jingles was back this year and we caught him doing all sorts of silly stuff. We found him bathing, making hot chocolate, having a snowball fight with Spiderman, drinking a juice box in the fridge, wrapped under the tree.... The kids loved finding him every morning in December.

 Crazy hairs out of the bath:

 Our ward Christmas party was really fun, a little long, but fun. We're in the Spanish branch so we had lots of delicious authentic Mexican food!! Santa even made a visit at the end. And the best feeling is when you know your kids are going to get what they asked for when sitting on Santa's lap. Nailed it!  We tried to get Bentley to sit on Santa's lap. She was so excited when she saw him and kept yelling, "Santa!  Santa!" But when I went to put her on his lap she started screaming and bawling. Maybe next year.

We've had some great snow this year and we've taken advantage of it with lots of play time outside.

 

 

 The kids had their Christmas program at school. Our music teacher, Mrs. Hay, does such a phenomenal job with these kids!! All of their songs were adorable and they sang them so well. My parents and Aunt Alli came to watch as well. The show was during school and after the performance we all headed out to lunch/ice cream.

 Grandpa was kind enough to take the kids on four wheeler rides. Never gets old.

 

I told you it was a fun December!

Snow Day @ the Harmons

One day during Christmas break we hosted a snow day at our house so the kids could get out and play in the snow and release some wiggles.

 

They made a slide down our stairs... short, but sweet.

 Their snowman:

Christmas 2012.

We were so fortunate to spend Christmas with all of my siblings and their beautiful children this year. Everyone was able to be here for the whole week of Christmas and we made sure it was full of fun things. We hosted a waffle bar and snow day at my house, spent a morning playing and picnicking at the church gym, Polar Express night, movie nights on the projector, girls' night out, boys night in (the men stayed at my house playing video games sans children), lots of yummy food, Calvin and Nic's birthday celebrations, oh yeah, and Christmas!

I wish we had a picture of everyone in their Sunday best. All the kids in their Christmas dress was pretty cute.

 

Christmas Eve day was so fun. My parents rented the movie theater and invited a bunch of friends to come and enjoy Monsters Inc and popcorn and drinks to help pass the long day. All the good daddy's took the kids on another "train ride."

 Finally time for some present opening. Cousin gift exchange:

After our delicious ham and prime rib dinner was the nativity with Grandpa Paul as narrator:

Christmas Jammies:

Finally the day wound down and it was time for the kiddies to hit the hay. After the kids went to sleep the adults enjoyed dessert, our gift exchange, and just hanging out. When the kids woke up, Santa did not disappoint.

 

 And one last surprise on Christmas morn was reindeer for each of the kids from my parents, waiting at their breakfast plate.

We were all spoiled and kind of sad when the day was over. We all just lounged around and let the kids play with their new toys while we munched on left overs. It was a delightful Christmas and so fun to be all together.

Reader

It is so much fun to have a reader in our household! (almost two readers: Andi is good at sounding out words, but not great at reading long sentences). It has opened up the door for more communication, and more fun communication. Carter and I like to play hangman; this is especially fun at church. It's easy for me to point at letters while still listening to a speaker. I can leave Carter notes in his room, especially encouraging ones. Just the other day I left a sticky note on his dresser telling him thanks for folding his clothes so nicely (we've been working on that). He in turn left me a note in the kitchen. He can also read a book to a younger sibling while I am fixing dinner. He is amazing at reading scriptures at night and sounding out those hard biblical terms. It seriously brings a tear to my eye to listen to him. I also like to leave an occasional note or joke in his lunchbox. I found cute jokes you can print out here. I love my little reader!

Crazy sick

We are the most sick that we have ever been in our house. It started on Sunday with Taytum. She seemed perfectly fine when we got to church, but by the time we got half way through primary, she looked terrible. Her eyes were red and puffy and she was shivering and complaining about being cold. I took the kids home after our first block of church and opted to skip the Spanish branch. Luckily on Monday morning I already had a Drs appointment for Beckett. He had been sounding a little cruddy and coughing quite a bit so I had them check for RSV and take a look at Tay while we were there. Taytum had a temp of 105, an ear infection, and pink eye in both eyes. And Beckett tested positive for RSV. Awesome. Taytum looked so terrible Monday night that it had me in tears and we had Jefferson give her a priesthood blessing. So grateful to have the priesthood in my home! We have been at home since then, just trying to avoid spreading our sickos and trying to get everyone better. Every time I think we're turning a corner somebody seems to nose dive again. Bentley has had a runny nose and fever all week, and yesterday her eyes were getting the pink eye look, goopy and pink. Tay is on an antibiotic, we got natural over the counter eye drops for Bentley and we've been doing saline with the bulb syringe on Beckett around the clock. I have been doing laundry like crazy, spraying sanitizer on pillows and couches, boiling toothbrushes and binkies daily, making Tay sleep in her own room, cloroxing every surface at least twice a day, vacuuming, hand washing like crazy, taking temperatures, handing out ibuprofen every four hours, and wiping noses every five minutes. I feel like I am going crazy! Luckily Jefferson and my mom have been taking good care of me. Jefferson has brought me lunch, flowers, and multiple diet cokes. My mom has been taking Carter and Andi to and from school so I didn't have to take the sick ward out. She's brought over snacks for the kids, diet cokes, and magazines. On the up side, I've got a lot of things done around the house, lots of cleaning, caught up on laundry, and cut out and laminated a bunch of FHE lessons and flannel board stories. I am praying that we can avoid Carter and Andi catching all our yuckies. I know that the chances of that are slim to none, but a girl can hope! Send healthy vibes our way!

4 months

Beckett is four months old! Still smitten. Still divine. Still can't believe how fast he's growing. He is such a happy, alert, social baby. He talks quite a bit in his low growly voice, but remains hard to get giggling. It's super cute when he does though! He is, however, the easiest baby to get to smile. He does what we call "channeling" where he will just watch and stare at someone, channel them, until they look at him and then he'll break out into a huge, full body smile. He doesn't mind tummy time for short amounts of time. He loves sitting in the bumbo. He tolerates baths. He is starting to grab onto toys. He loves watching his siblings play around him and likes to be around everyone; he's social, remember? He is still waking up to eat once a night, which is not bad, but we're going to start working on all night sleeping soon. He likes to be swaddled when he sleeps and we put another fuzzy blanket up by his face that he nuzzles into and just knocks himself out. He is so good at going to sleep by himself! I kind of really like this round little man.

Polar Express

 We kicked off our Christmas festivities with our first annual Polar Express night. My parents went all out for it and the kids loved it! It started out a few weeks before with an invitation sent in the mail to each of the grandkids with instructions on how the kids could earn tickets for the Polar Express store and an explanation of how the evening would run. When we arrived at their house that evening all the kids got into their stockings to find their ticket to ride the Polar Express as well as their tickets they earned to spend at the "store." Then the conductor (Grandpa Paul) came in, blew his train whistle and punched their tickets before loading the "train" (a flatbed trailer decorated and hitched to a four wheeler). The kids then proceeded on the train ride around my parents property. They pulled up to the back door of my parents garage with trees lit up in Christmas lights and then entered to find benches and blankets set up, as well as a projector for the movie, and the store. Each of the kids received a bell on a necklace and watched the Polar Express on the projector. Hot chocolate and sugar cookies were served at the appropriate time during the movie. The kids all got to "buy" a bag full of goodies from the store, and at the end of the movie the kids received the first gift of Christmas; tablets. Yes, my not even two year old has a tablet and I don't even have one! The night was a huge success. The kids had an amazing time and I hope it becomes a tradition!

 

 

 (Bentley didn't think the train ride sounded all that great so I got to accompany her on the ride. It was adorable listening to all of the excited chatter on the "train." "This is so fun!" "This is the best Christmas ever!" "Look, caribou!")