Tree hunting

The Friday after Thanksgiving is our annual tree hunting extravaganza. We always trek up to the forest, light a fire, roast hot dogs and marshmallows, build snowmen, and ride the four-wheeler. It was a blast! It was definitely cold, but mostly sunny and absolutely beautiful. My kids were snow bunnies. They LOVED playing in the snow, especially Carter. I think he got in a snowball fight with pretty much everyone there.

GramZee made a snowman with the grandkids:

Jefferson took the kids on a ride on the four-wheeler:

And we took a spin ourselves:We roasted mallows and dogs and ate lots of yummy food:Taytum stayed warm in her little snowsuit and spent a lot of her time up there sleeping in the back of our car: My parents got themselves a great looking Christmas tree for the basement:

Surprise Shower!

My sister and sister-in-law are both pregnant and due in March. We can't wait to have a new niece and a new nephew! We really wanted to throw a shower for Nikki since it's her first baby, but we wanted to surprise her. So over the weekend my mom casually suggested that we go out to dinner on Monday since we would be cooking all week and for the big Thanksgiving feast (this was all part of the plan, and everyone was in on it except Nikki). We nonchalantly grumbled about taking all the kids to a restaurant without our husbands there yet, so my Dad offered to watch our kids. Hooray, a girls night out! Monday night my mom had a rehearsal so she picked up my little sister afterwards and called to have the rest of us girls meet her. We loaded up and headed down to the restaurant. We had a whole dining section to ourself and when we walked in my mom and Alli had all our gifts and balloons set out. "Surprise!" and Nikki was surprised. We ate a delicious meal, had an 'activity', and opened presents. Super fun.

Then, we all headed up to the house where my dad and BIL, Nic, were "watching" the kids (read: playing pool while the kids slept). Well, while we were gone they got out dessert, cheese cake and chocolate torte, set out our gifts and balloons for Summer, and when we walked in, "Surprise!" and Summer was surprised. It was a great surprise shower evening. Pulling off two surprise showers in one evening was quite amazing. Nice work Mom, Sharon, and Alli! We rock! It was really fun and both babies got some super cute goodies. We all helped tie quilts for both baby boy Stewart and baby girl Andrus.

At Summer's shower. You can't tell but Summer and I are laughing really, really, really, hard in this picture.

.rAnDoM.

Here's what we've been up to.This is a typical morning in our kitchen. My kids LOVE dancing (as do Jefferson and I, but you'll notice there is no video of us up. You can thank me later). Carter was a little subdued the morning we took this, but here is a glimpse at our future "So You Think You Can Dance"ers.

Carter still loves his teepee. This is how we found him after naps one day. I cannot keep clothes on this boy. Every time I turn my head he is stripping down to his undies. I know this is normal (or at least I hope it is), but it drives me crazy some days. His clothes are always strewn about the house, he comes to the door in his underwear, and his nose is always running because he's cold from going almost naked! Plus, he has no fat on him to keep him warm. Also note that his underwear are on backwards, and there still is plenty of room for his bum, or lack thereof, in there. Skinny boy!

Andi helping mom make brownies. She is not a mess at all! I feel like her 'bangs' (which aren't bangs. i have never cut them, that's just the length her hair is) are stuck at this length. They need to get a little bit longer so they don't just hang directly in her face. That, or she could just leave her clips in her hair that I put in every morning to keep her hair from doing this exact thing. :)

Carter is totally into learning letters and saying what things start with. Today we started a preschool in our ward that meets once a week and rotates houses. There is a letter of the week, so this is right up Carter's ally. We thought we would mix things up and I let the kids color on our sliding glass door with dry erase markers. Carter asked me to write his name, so I did, and then he started to copy the letters. See the 'c' and 'A' in black?

Taytum and Carter have a little special bond. Carter spends much of his day hovering over Tay talking and singing to her. He is the one who gets the biggest smiles out of her, as you can see.

Just hanging out.

And whose little girl is this?! It certainly isn't my baby Tay. She is looking so old. I love this little lady; crying, fussing, spitting up, and all.

Tonight...

We got home from dinner at a friend's house a little past bedtime. We were up reading scriptures, saying prayers, singing songs, the routine when Carter asked, "Is it getting late?"

I said, "Yes, it's almost an hour past your bedtime."

Carter then replied, "It's too late to take a nap."

Nice try.

UT

The kids and I made our way down to Utah last week, leaving Jefferson behind to start up his business. A brave move, I know. Me + three kids + a six hour drive = danger. My cousin and her cute little family (not so little now that they added twin boys in July to their already family of four) was going up for her husband's conference and I haven't seen her in years. We were roommates in college our sophomore year, both dated and then married boys that were in our singles ward, got married just a couple of months apart, and have added seven children between us since then. Not to mention the years of wonderful memories before then as we swapped back and forth every summer between our homes in Arizona and Oregon. We were also born just two weeks apart. We are good friends, to say the least, so we were well over due for a visit.

The drive went surprisingly well. The kids were super happy the whole way. When we pulled into Provo (insert wave of memories here) we met up at a park and let all the kids run around, minus Jett, Tyce, and Taytum who were pretty content to lay there on the blanket. Our seven kids weren't all though, my sister and her daughter Reece came and met us there as well.

After a few hours of playing we went and had pizza at Sam and Nikki's house (thanks for opening up your place to our herd of little ones).

The next day we went walking along the Provo River for a couple of hours. The kids kept themselves entertained in these leaves for a good 20-30 minutes:

Then we hit up the mall for lunch and played at the play place in the mall for another couple of hours. I was shocked at how entertained the kids were. Carter and Kaleb were great at paling around together... a little too great. We were wrapped up in the other six kids when we noticed that Carter and Kaleb were missing. After a quick sweep of the play place we started walking down the mall corridor, only to find them three doors down in the toy store. Carter was behind the counter on the phone and Kaleb (and Evan too actually) was just tearing up the toy shop playing with all the toys.

All of us cousins in the area met up for dinner at Five Guys, burger and fries for dinner. Delicious burgers, PS.

Then to finish off the evening we headed up to the Beane Museum of Science up on BYU campus. After all my years of school there I never made it into the museum. It was a great find. It had tons and tons of stuffed animals (actual animals that were stuffed) and lots of bugs and they were actually doing a live presentation and the boys got to pet a snake. After a couple hours there we were ready to hit the hay. (NOTE: I don't have a whole lot of pictures. It was hard to get the camera out when it was just me and Deedee and seven kids all age four and under)

The next morning we met up at the park again for a delicious bagel breakfast, played a little bit more, and said our goodbyes. Hopefully it won't be another three years before I see this cute little Bell family.

HaPpY HaLlOwEeN!

We had a great Halloween with lots of festivities the day of and leading up into it.

We had our pumpkin carving night. We bought the kids this "carving kit" that requires no carving and is just basically Mr Potato head pieces meant for pumpkins so they just get to push them into their pumpkins. It was great. The kids thought they were so funny.

Of course there were sugar cookies to be had. We made ghosts and pumpkins and decorated with sprinkles, colored sugar, and candy corn. After decorating one cookie the kids were done because they wanted to consume the one they decorated. So while they ate, Jefferson and I frosted and decorated.

We did some Halloween crafts. Carter loved poking holes in the paper with his toothpick. (he did that all by himself! I was amazed at how well he followed the lines)

Lunch was halloween shaped macaroni and cheese and spiders.

Then after naps we prepped for the big evening out. Andi loved getting curlers in her hair. She thought she was pretty grown up.

And finally it was time to get all decked out and go trick-or-treating! My ninja and Pinkalicious Princess:

Carter literally hopped to every door and then hopped in place while waiting for someone to open the door. We aren't really about all the candy and more about the experience so we decided to just go up and down our street. There were quite a few houses, but not too many. Little did we know that EVERYONE on the block would hand out more than one piece of candy. In some cases the kids would get a whole handful. We're talking five or six pieces a door! Yikes.

After we got home the kids had to dump out their candy and assess the damage.

Kacey and Casey came over for chili and scones.

Jefferson and I cooking:

Andi, Me, and Kasey:

Kacey reading the kids their Halloween books awaiting dinner (yeah right, after all that candy!)

Then us grownups stayed up playing guitar hero. (Sorry, I don't have any pictures of Casey boy.) It was a grand Halloween and so fun that both Carter and Andi really got into the spirit.

Oh yeah, Taytum? A complete crab the whole time we were trick-or-treating. She literally screamed for the whole hour. This is the only picture we have of her in her costume. I might have to try to snap some more later when she's a little happier.