catch up

This season is flying by far too quickly, as happens when there are enjoyable events happening! Besides Christmas concerts and parties, my sister Katie got married on the 12th of December! (They wanted to be married on 12-12-12:) We left Kami and Caden with Shawn's parents- because we were concerned about how much school they would be missing- and took the four younger kids with us to the wedding.  It was a three day trip because Shawn needed to work on the way over -and on the way back- in Boise. We showed up in time for the wedding and left again about an hour after it was over.  I am so excited for Katie- she and Steve look so happy-and Katie looked beautiful! She has found a great guy who loves her AND her eight children, and the kids all love him.  It's such a happy- ever- after story after everything that she has been through. I took some very poor quality pictures from my cell phone:

Thought I'd also include this picture since it also includes her son Isaac(15) far left

L-R: Ila (almost 16), Emmie (12), and Gracie (10) Anne, a niece took the place of 18 yr. old daughter Abby who had to miss coming because she was in the middle of college finals:(

The happy couple

The day after we returned the Knowles family (my cousins) came to stay with us because of the happy event of my cousin Steven getting married. So lots of weddings!! It was SO fun to have the Knowles here with their four kids! Have I mentioned that I love it when people come to visit us?  It makes me feel so loved:) We are trying to talk their daughter Maddie into coming up here for college so that we can see even more of all of them!!

We moved Abby out of her apartment on Saturday as she is finished with her semester and has plans to go on a mission. She got to stay here until Wednesday and we are missing knowing that she is not here in town! It has been so fun to have her close, get to know her roommates, and be able to see her at least on every Sunday.

(Abby, second from top left with her roommates and family home evening brothers when they came over for FHE)

In other news, Abram has been having some serious anxiety any time Shawn or I go anywhere without him - he cries and asks us not to go. He tries to come along as he screams hysterically and one of us- or one of the kids- has to restrain him. It doesn't seem to matter if one of us stays here with him, he is distressed about the one that is leaving! For awhile he kept telling me, "mom, be careful!!" Recently I asked him why he was worried when we left and he said that it was because he thought one of us would be put in jail:)

The decision is... which one makes me laugh the hardest?

I have been sitting here at the computer trying to decide which, of our new family pictures, I want to have made into THE family picture this year.

Honestly I haven't been too crazy about any of them...but there are some entertaining ones as Abram succeeds in distracting us:

Ones where I am just sure that my family must be celestial they have such a glow about them...

...until I notice that some of us look like we drank a quart of pickle juice or are looking M-i-g-h-t-y suspicious!!

In the end, I think this picture below may be best. I was going to up-load one more, but i guess my blog is out of storage space.  So...until Caden figures that one out for me, this is it. (although I would have welcomed some opinions!!) Getting a good family picture always seems like such a trick!

so complimentary

Nolan's been working hard to endear himself to his grandparents lately. This Thanksgiving while we were getting ready to take some pictures:

Marilyn suddenly said, "Nolan, look!" And she and Jim kissed each other.  I was wondering what that was all about and she said that on Monday night when we had a family FHE Nolan had come to her and asked, "Grandma, does grandpa kiss you on the lips still?" Marilyn answered with an enthusiastic, "Yes he does!!"  Not long after, she heard Nolan tell another cousin that "grandpa still kisses grandma on the lips even when they're old!!!"

Last night Jim was wrestling with Abram and Nolan and Suzette said, "Be careful with grandpa - he's an old man!" Abram said, "No he's not!" To which Nolan replied, "Yes he is! What does he look like?!"

I remember him also making some comments like that to my dad last time that he visited...

Our baby is three!

a little uncomfortable

Amidst all of the decorating for Christmas yesterday, we celebrated Abram's birthday.  He is such a fun, entertaining little fellow, and we are glad that he is part of our family!  We let him open up his presents first thing and he was as happy as a clam all day playing with them and was so good about letting Nolan play with everything as well!  We got some pictures taken lately, and I love this sequence of Abram (beginning with the one above)- it shows his personality so well!! He tries to be funny and has such a happy disposition most all of the time.

goofy

laughing at himself

ending with his trade-mark huge smile!!

When he got up from his nap yesterday, he requested a hamburger, and since it was his birthday and all, Shawn took him out to get one!!  When he had finished up, Shawn said, "Well, are you ready to go?"  Abram said, "Let's just visit for a few minutes." Shawn said, "Do you want to visit in the car?" No. He wanted to visit IN the restaurant, so Shawn sat and "visited" with him until he was ready to go!

We are crazy about this little guy- he keeps us laughing at what he does and says, and he is so grateful and loving! I love how thankful he is for everything - he's always the first to say thank you and notices the little things that people do for him. It's not uncommon for him to come up to one of us, and out of the blue say something like, "thank you for helping me find my other shoe yesterday".

Last night Grandma and grandpa and Aunt Linda and Aunt Kristi and her kids came over to have some batman birthday cake, made for Abram by Caden because Abram REALLY likes batman right now:)

We had this bat costume from when Cade was little, and Abe told everyone he was batman in it this Halloween

15

We celebrated Kami's birthday yesterday- I can hardly believe that we have a 15 year old now!! We are so glad that she's part of our family.  She is such a good, fun, talented and kind person - an example to all of us!

Her age was brought home to us when a boy from a different school found out that they had the same birthday and texted her to ask if they could be each others first date next year.  Only 365 days to wait for that one hahaha!!

We've got moose

Night before last, Jack began barking ferociously and it was pretty evident that there was a creature close around that was worrying him.  Shawn looked out the window, and said that there was a moose.  Almost as soon as he said that, he gave a yell as the moose charged Jack! Jack is kept tied up during the night, and he jerked to the side so hard and so fast that his chain broke.  Shawn grabbed Caden's bb gun and shot the moose a few times to send it on its way.

The next morning there Mr. Moose was, standing and eating contentedly on the other side of our pond.  We have moose around A LOT but this was the largest one that we have ever seen.  Not a very large rack, but a HUGE frame.  After church he turned up again - I got a picture of everyone gawking at him:)

We were hoping that Abby, who has never seen a moose before, could get a good look at him, but he wasn't moving.  Then we had the idea to send Jack over to flush him out more into the open. Pretty soon our show became pretty EXCITING -

love this pic of Maddie -it wasn't put on - I think we all did some shrieking whenever the moose charged

 The moose wasn't putting up with any nonsense and was charging Jack whenever he got up close to him. When the moose chased Jack over into our front yard we decided to tie Jack up again and get in the house!!

western themed lunch

Sometimes I have to pack different things for different kids for their lunches.  (Caden and Isabelle can't stomach a banana, for instance, but Kami and Madeline love them.  Right now Caden is only eating sugar once a week for a scout merit badge that he's doing.)

When the lunches are different, I have to label the bags.  Isabelle helped out this morning with a big star on her bag, a huge heart on Madeline's and nothing much extra on Kami's (except for her middle name).  For some reason Caden got the fanciest bag with a hat, boot and horse. I'm sure he will be so proud to sport this lunch bag at lunch time! Heehee

living in a snow globe

Thursday morning we woke up to 11 inches of snow! Although it was awfully early, it was very beautiful and we couldn't help getting excited about it.

Caden shoveling a path to the bus -a picture i took on my phone to show Shawn, who was gone, what our snowfall looked like! (yes, it's still working on getting light outside when the older kids get on the bus after 8:00!)

Abram was rearing to go outside and play in it, and since he had no siblings that he could tag along with, I got to go play in the snow for a couple of hours.  Before we went out I got him all excited about building a snowman, so when we got out and discovered that it wasn't good packing snow there was no turning back.  We had to build a snowman with a spray bottle in hand!

Abe didn't like riding- here he is pulling me in the sled-good arm work-out for me:)

Suddenly fall decor didn't look like it fit anymore

After the snow melted quite a bit it became great packing snow, and the kids spent a couple of nights working until after dark building a snow fort.

This fort got up over Caden's head and looked like a castle with turrets by the time they were done

They day after they completed it, everything warmed up and the snow melted. I think we are back to fall just in time for Halloween.

Re-cap of cross-country

When cross country started this year, Caden surprised us by saying that he wanted to go out for it, too! So he and Kami have BOTH been running their legs off for the last couple of months.  It's been fun to watch!

homecoming, so he had red face and hair!

Cross country isn't something that Caden loved, by any means...in fact, after most meets he was usually down right grouchy!...Even though he was a front of the middle of the pack runner, if you know what I mean, and that didn't seem like anything to be ashamed of, he would be unhappy with the race.  I therefore wondered what had made him decide to run, and he said he was tired of people asking him what sports he played and having to tell them that he didn't play any! Plus he said that he liked to be in shape.  Sports really aren't something that he cares about, and he excels so much in everything else that he does that I think it offended his perfectionist spirit that he didn't also do a perfect job in this. I like him and think he is a neat kid without sports, but I was very proud of him for trying something new, and I think the whole experience was good for him.

What a handsome kid!

Kami runs because she loves it, and she had a great season that ended in a very frustrating way:(    Her fastest 5K time was 21:08 and we can see that she still has potential to get even faster because she was improving by at least fifteen seconds every race.

awards ceremony at one of the meets she placed in- I believe she got 6th place in this one. (The first ten runners that come in place, and if the meet is REALLY huge, it's the first twenty runners)

during a race - she passed this girl!

serious runners have seriously gross feet!

The frustration came for her because her goal for the whole season was to run the race in 21:00, and she was so close to it and we felt like she could even exceed it, but then one week before districts Shawn took her to run hill intervals on Monday because the coach was planning to do some track intervals on Wednesday. The coach changed his mind and ended up doing the intervals on Tuesday.  Kami did those two hard workouts back- to- back, over- trained, and her legs got heavy feeling and wouldn't do anything.  She didn't have enough recovery before the last race and ended up getting one of her worst times ever. She was SO disappointed that she couldn't do her best and didn't reach her goal. She was over it by the next morning, and is making plans for next year, but it is disappointing.  She IS, however, glad to be able to call more of her time her own! 

fall

One of our favorite fall activities is picking apples.  There is just something about an orchard, in the fall, with the crisp autumnal air, and apples so delicious- so much better flavored than anything you'd find in a store- that you can't stop eating them!  Now I just need to get busy with making apple sauce before they're all devoured...

gaps

Isabelle came up with a new way to lose teeth this summer. While trying to get onto a hammock at my parent's house, she was flipped over and she fell off flat on her face and loosened her two front teeth.  That night, she had a sleepover with her cousin, Anne, and one of Anne's little brothers bumped one of the loose teeth from her mouth. (Luckily, she was at my sister, Heidi's house, because a much more attentive and wonderful and generous tooth fairy found where she was that night:) A day or so after allowing the other tooth to dangle grotesquely, she finally asked Shawn to pull the other one out.

What darling results, I must say!!

""Decades day" for Jr. High, "dork" day for Middle school

going as a hippy

dressing like one of our dads:)

The best part of the morning:

Maddie was thrilled that to dress like a "dork" all she had to do was comb through her naturally curly hair.  You've got to admit, the girl's got hair!! She may get more attention about it than she bargained for at school today...

Abe's progress

I know that I have loved ones out there that find themselves, almost without being able to help it, thinking about Abram and his potty training progress during their fleeting moments of repose throughout the day. And so I ought to share with you how it is going......or not going as the case happens to be.

My mom asked me how it was going one day and she started laughing when I told her that we had attempted it for one WHOLE morning.  "Oh... I SEE!!", she said. I'd gone through six pairs of wet underwear, with Abram never getting any idea to even attempt making it to the toilet so I threw in the towel (so to speak- a very wet one) when one of my friends called and invited me to lunch.

Maybe he's not ready yet- or maybe it's just that things in our family have evolved so much since those first kids were potty trained! Gone are the days where I could stay home all day long working on this project until it was completed. There is no urgency to complete the project because of an up-coming new baby on the way. And, I admit with some element of shame, gone are the days where he can have accidents in an apartment that I won't live in forever!!  I told Shawn that  I wasn't very excited to break our house in this way....Perhaps  I will summon up some more gumption when the kids are all home for spud harvest vacation and  I don't have to drop everything to run them all over creation:)

Progress in other areas is coming right along - one reason being that Maddie chose to use Abram as an experiment for her science class on how quickly a two -year old can catch on to letters and letter sounds.  With both of us working on it whenever we think of it, he is making some very great progress there!!

I walked into what we term our "scripture room" the other day and there was Abe, pretending away, with one of the girls headbands around his forehead.  "I'm Nephi!!", he said.

I had this inspiration last year to put up a white board with the scriptures that we are memorizing on it, and then I put frames all around it that I put pictures from the gospel art kit into.  As we read through different sections of the scriptures I change out the pictures so that there are always pictures in them about what we're currently reading.  This has been so great for the little boys, because we stop our reading periodically, point to the picture, and tell them the story.  They catch on to the stories so much faster this way - and I think especially since the pictures are always in front of them, as opposed to a book. From time to time they ask questions as I catch them looking at them during the day.

This summer, while we were visiting my family, and not too long after reading the book of Mosiah, in the Book of Mormon, Abram met his cousin Benjamin.  He called him "King Benjamin" the whole visit - it was pretty cute. I am excited that these things are beginning to stick in his head:)

Abby and her roommates

My niece, Abby,  is up here for college - it's so fun to have some more family here!  She comes for Sunday dinners, and Wednesday she turned 19 so we had a birthday party for her here at our house.  She has fun roommates and is going to have a great year!

Anyways, mom and Katie - I thought you'd enjoy seeing her and her roommates:) The gal she shares a room with is in the BYU-I t-shirt.