Remember|Her Favorite Doll

Christmas Recap

We had a fantastic Christmas this year. Hope you all did too! We spent Christmas Eve with our good friends the Richardsons. Good food, good friends, lots of fun. After they left the kids opened their Christmas jammies, put them on, tracked Santa online, found out he was getting closer, read the Christmas story in Luke 2, and headed off to bed. When the hottie and I went to bed at 2, Caveman was still awake. So excited. Hoping for a PS3. We told them they couldn't wake us up before 6. I heard kids on the stairs at 3:30. Sassypants came down to check things out, saw that Santa came and went down to Cavemans room to let him know. He told her to go back to bed. I don't know what time they got up. They sat on the couch and looked at the presents for a while before waking us up. Hottie woke up Cowboy and his feet barely touched the floor on the way to the living room.

We have all been really excited to get RockBand. Our PS2 broke a few months ago and I think Caveman was the only one that realized we needed a new console to play RockBand. Everyone opened all of their gifts and was happy and playing with their new stuff. Then Caveman says, "wait, I didn't get a PS3... I didn't even get a PS2." I tried to make him feel better reminding him that he got a lot of great stuff and he agreed. Then a few minutes later, I hear him mutter, "I can't believe I didn't get a PS3." He was trying to be positive but was in shock that he didn't get his Christmas wish.

Cowboy got a nerf gun that shoots 25 bullets really fast. Hottie started shooting, then told Cowboy to go get all the bullets. He ran behind the couch and was gathering up the bullets then stopped and said, "thews some mohw pwesents." All the kids stopped what they were doing and looked at us with wide eyes. Someone asked Cowboy how many. Cowboy was busy trying to pull the presents from behind the couch and says, "thews thwee mohw pwesents!!!" All the kids run behind the couch to get the presents out. They get them out and start to rip them open. "It's a PS3!!!" "We got Rock Band!!!" "This is the best Christmas EVER!!" Just some of the things we heard. Caveman ran over and hugged his dad. That hasn't happened in months. Then I notice that his eyes are a little moist. Not dads, Cavemans! He looks at me and says, "yes, I'm crying. I am SO happy!"

I got the whole thing on video but don't know how to get it on my computer or put it on my blog. But it was a great Christmas morning. We had biscuits and gravy for breakfast then spent the morning starting a band and rocking the world!

That afternoon we went up to Hottie's brothers house to have Christmas dinner with his family. It is really nice having family in the area. We had a yummy dinner and lots of dessert then the Hottie and I tried to figure out who was less tired and could drive us home safely. I won. Even when Hottie's not tired he was trouble staying awake behind the wheel. We made it home and I was sad that Christmas was over. I love seeing the sparkle in my kids eyes when they think about all of the magic of the season. I love all the traditions that go along with the holidays and all the time we spend with people we love. I love teaching my children about our Savior and the wonderful gift of his birth and of his life. I love teaching them about giving and sharing with others and how they respond when they really get it. We had a great Christmas...I agree with my kiddos, this was the best Christmas ever.

Making Ornaments

I mentioned before that we have started a tradition of making ornaments with the kids. We usually do something pretty basic that all the kids can do with a little direction from mom and dad. This year I waited until the kids were out of school to buy the stuff. So the kids and I headed to Micheals with a specific craft in mind. Well, I guess we waited too long. All of the Christmas stuff was totally picked over. Caveman found a six pack of plaster ornaments just waiting to painted. I wasn't totally on board with him initially but like I said, picked over. So he talked me in to it. And I'm glad he did. We had a lot of fun painting our ornaments. And while they aren't all perfect, they each totally relflect the kid (or parent) that painted them. The Hottie did the snowman. Rockstar painted Santa with some help from dad. The penguin is Cavemans. I did the bear. Sassypants made the angel and Cowboy painted the other Santa.

Now remember that little story about cowboy being "sick"? He didn't think he felt like painting ornaments so he picked out which one he wanted, put some black paint on his brush and made three or four random strokes across the surface of the ornament. Then headed back to the couch to fall asleep with his head in a bowl.

The Hottie is a little bit of a perfectionist. Especially when it comes to things like painting. So a Santa with streaks of black paint just wouldn't do. If you look closely you can still see the streaks of black under the red paint. He eventually dry brushed gold paint over the whole thing to cover the red. It actually looked pretty good. I should have gotten a picture of it then. When Cowboy woke up from his nap we showed him how daddy fixed his ornament. He growled. Yes, growled. He was very upset about the whole thing so we told him that tomorrow (all the paint was cleaned up) he could fix it how he wanted it. First thing the next morning he recruited his big brother to help him fix it.

He was so proud.

While we were at Micheals, the Caveman wanted me to get some pipe cleaners, felt squares and pom poms. He said he wanted to create things. I was skeptical. But he created.
Awesome job Caveman! I especially like his skis.

Christmas with the Family

We always celebrate Christmas with my family a week or two before Christmas. We draw names sometime in the fall and then get together to eat lots of good food and open presents. This year we did it the weekend before Christmas. I should probably thank my family for always being so accomadating to us. I'm the only one that lives far away and everyone makes themselves available when I'm there. So thanks family!

The past couple of years the Hottie has decided to gift a gag gift along his real gift. The first time he did it he had my sisters name. She had mentioned that she would like an accessory for her i-pod. So my husband decided to make her an "i-necklace." He made a pouch out of foam and covered it with denim then decorated it with beads. Then as a finishing touch he bought a long beaded necklace from the dollar store and hung the pouch from it. Voila! i-necklace! (I should also mention that it took him roughly four hours to create said necklace.) The next year he had my brother Wade's name. Wade has just about the longest toes on the planet. So the Hottie made him some socks by cutting the toes off a pair of socks and attaching gloves. He sewed them by hand while we were waiting for our flight in the airport. That's dedication. He'll go to great lengths for a good joke.

His hope with all this gag gifting has been that others will pick up on it and add some excitement to our Christmas celebration. Well this year his wish came true. My mother had his name and this is what she gave him.

It's a tea pot...shaped like a nurse. A nurse tea pot.

We all got a good laugh out of this. My mom laughed until she cried. And Hottie's wish came true. He got a gag gift of his own.

*IF any of you out in internet land have no idea why this is funny...the Hottie just finished his second semester of nursing school. He will be a nurse this time next year. And I'm sure he'll look just the nurse on the tea pot.

Sick

We have all had a pretty bad cough at our house. Like all month. It's getting old. The other night during dinner cowboy started coughing and coughed up some of his taco. He tells us all that he threw up then goes and gets a bowl (just in case) and lays down on the couch for the rest of the evening. We all start painting ornaments (more on that later) and I check on the cowboy and find this.Sound asleep. He is sitting on his knees. Poor guy. Thankfully he wasn't really sick. But totally tired.
Sadly, this is what Sassypants looked like Christmas night, and Caveman the night after that, and Rockstar the night after that. But for real sick. Yuck! But the Cowboy, he never really got sick.

Christmas Concert

The girls had their school Christmas concert on the 14th. I guess it's the fundraiser for the music department. They have three different performances. We got to go to the K-1st and the 4th-5th. It was really nice. It was at the performing arts center so I think the girls thought it was pretty cool to stand up on stage in the bright lights and sing.

Rockstars group sang Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer, the Chipmunks christmas song (they even sang in chipmunk voices and swayed from side to side) and Shalom with sign language. It was all very cute.And maybe its just me but I'm pretty sure that Rockstar is the cutest kid up there.

Sassypants concert was later in the afternoon. She is in the school chorus. They performed first.

She is the short one in the front row with white long sleeves to the left of the director. Did you find her? Yeah, I didn't think so. She's in there I promise.
See, told ya. She loves being in the chorus. She loves to sing and had a lot of fun. I was really impressed with this elementary school chorus. They also sang with the rest of the 4th and 5th grades. They sang a lot of the same songs that the younger ones did but also sang Mr. Grinch and had some recorder solos. The girls loved it and it was a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon before Christmas.

Does it ever end?

We went out of town for the weekend so Wednesday afternoon I started the laundry. I think I did three loads. Thursday morning we had school parties (forgot my camera) and I started the laundry after lunch. The dryer ran until almost 11:00. But I got completely caught up. This picture is just the boys' clothes and some sheets and towels. By the time I was done There was a basket full of my clothes, the girls each had a basket full and the closet in the laundry room was packed. I took a picture but accidentally erased it. Oops! So we got back from our trip last night with a suitcase full of dirty clothes. Hopefully tomorrow I'll get all the wash done and won't have to think about it again until next week. We'll see.

Conversation with Cowboy

Totally out of the blue today Cowboy says, "mom, you should never pick your nose with a hanger...it is dangerous"

Thanks Cowboy. I'll try to remember that.

Remember|Baby Curled Up on Daddy's Chest

Sitting with Santa

We went to my cousin Ami's house on Saturday. She lives about an hour away but we don't see them nearly as often as we should. It's always lots of fun when we get together. You can read how my brother feels about her here. Here she is trying to win over my baby. It didn't take much effort. Everyone loves Ami. Especially babies.

We went to her son Aidan's Christmas performance. He is 8 years old and in this little singing and dancing group. It was really cute. Santa showed up at the end so our kids waited in line to sit on his lap. Mostly so they could get a candy cane.The Hottie only got a picture of Rockstar. Cowboy wouldn't sit on his lap but he did ask him for a candy cane. I tried to get him to tell Santa to bring his mom RockBand but he was just too shy.
So Santa, if you read my blog, PLEASE bring me RockBand. I've been good, I promise!

Superhero?

Cowboy ran into the room and said, "Look out Dad, I'm a super hero!" It's the first time I've seen a super hero with flashlights on his toolbelt. Do super heroes even have tool belts? He difinitely has BIG muscsles. And it looks like he traded in his tights for footie pajamas.
Go for it! Save the world Cowboy! And thanks for wearing eye protection!

Oh Christmas Tree

Maybe I just have a lousy camera but it was really hard to get a good picture of the tree. I finally unplugged the lights and took one. I figured I should get a picture before the baby wrecks the whole thing. We decorated the tree the day after Thanksgiving. I love getting out all the ornaments from years passed. I get the kids an ornament every year and it's really fun pulling all of them out and remembering what they were into from year to year. Here's some of my favorites.

Since Caveman is the oldest he has quite a collection of ornaments. This Batman one is from 2000. He was four. It's still a favorite.This little bear is Sassypants first Christmas.This is from 2005 when the Rockstar was into bilingual cartoon characters.

The Cowboy has been doing the cowboy thing for a while now. He was one when we got this one.

I try to get the Hottie a Santa ornament every year. (I actually usually buy them after Christmas on clearance.)

The last couple of years we've made some ornaments together. Something to keep the kids busy while they're out of school. We made these snowflakes. We've also made icicles, candy canes and Christmas trees.

I haven't gotten any new ones yet this year. I'm looking for a super cute first Christmas ornament for Baby, a skateboard for Caveman, a piano for Sassypants, a John Deere tractor for the Cowboy and something rockstar-ish for the rockstar.

Yeah, our tree may look a little crazy but I love it. And I look forward to presenting each of them with their own box of ornaments when they have a home of their own.

A Year of Birthdays

We have two cameras. One is kinda big and takes good pictures (most of the time), the other is much smaller. I can throw it in the diaper bag and it's a little more convenient for day to day use. Only problem...we didn't have a USB cable to download the photos. The Hottie picked up a memory card reader the other day and we were able to put the entire summers worth of pictures on the computer. So for my next few posts, I'll be playing catch up. We'll start with birthdays...

The girls both have summer birthdays. Three weeks apart. Rockstars is first. She had a ballerina birthday. She and her friends made pink tutus and danced and played like only little girls can do. They were so cute! She wanted pink cupcakes and helped me decorate them. I did the roses, she did the sprinkles. She blew out all the candles on her first try. And was quite proud.

She really wanted a gameboy. I don't know where she came up with that. She isn't usually interested in video games. But that was all she was talking about, having a birthday and getting a gameboy. So she got a gameboy and a Lizzy game. She was THRILLED. And has been wearing that thing out! She also got some webkins, some princess things and littlest pet shops. She had a great day!

Sassypants birthday was next. She wanted a girlie party. They made bead necklaces and bracelets, did mani/pedi's and had a fun make-up class. The girls loved it. They all looked fabulous!

Her purple cupcake cake. So much easier than decorating a cake!

Make a wish!

I was the make-up lady. With Cavemans help. You can imagine how great I looked when it was over. The girls laughed and laughed.These girls love their webkins! She decided she liked her sisters gameboy and requested a DS. She even offered to pay for more than half of it with her birthday money. So she got a DS. And lots of other great stuff from her friends.

Cowboy and Cavemans birthdays are just four days apart. Caveman wanted to have an airsoft war with a 007 theme. The Hottie helped him build some bunkers in the back yard and those boys played capture the flag for hours. Airsoft pellets EVERYWHERE! They had a great time and no one wanted to leave. We had to kick them all out at about ten so we could go to bed.

Those boys take this airsoft business very seriously. They crack me up!

Caveman turned 12 so his Nana and Poppy and Grampy came down the next weekend when he received the priesthood. That was a great day and we were so thankful that both of his grandfathers could be there to share it with him.

And now for the cowboy party. They did lots of cowboy things but BOTH of my cameras had dead batteries. The Hottie got the batteries changed out in time for the cake and presents. He wanted night vision goggles. What does a four year old know about night vision goggles? And more importantly, WHY does a four year old WANT night vision goggles? His exact words..."So I can sneak up on people!" Okee dokee Cowboy. He got lots great stuff, swords, transformers, planes, trains. You know, boy stuff. And of course, night vision goggles.Some very cute cowboys and cowgirls.

And my birthday post wouldn't be complete without including a picture of the actual BIRTH day that happened in our family this year. Here's our baby on his birth day.

Black Friday

The Hottie and I looked through the Black Friday adds and decided that this year, for the first time in the history of us, we would get up at the crack of dawn and brave the crowds to save a buck or two. We won't do it again.

Our first stop was Wal-Mart. Not one of my favorite places ever. We were able to get two of the three things we wanted but it was complete craziness. Someone got in a fist fight over the last Wii. When we got to the front of the store to check out I looked at the Hottie and said, "this is NOT what Christmas is about." It just made me feel icky. That's right, icky. The lines were SO long with people pushing and shoving with their carts piled high. We paid for our two items at the jewelry counter and took off to our next stop.

We went over to HHGregg. We drove in front of Target on the way there. They weren't open yet and the line wrapped around the back of the store. There were also people standing around in the parking lot waiting for the doors to open. We happened to be right in front of the store when they opened. Everyone ran for the door, then there was this roar, yes we heard it in the car with the windows closed. Hottie put the window down to hear everyone yelling things like, "ya'll get back", "you weren't in line", "get outta my way". We decided later we should have yelled out "Merry Christmas ya'll!" or "Happy Birthday Jesus!" Anyway we finally made it through the sea of people to HHGregg. They didn't have what we wanted.

We made a couple more stops and we got some good deals. But decided it would be our first and last crack of dawn Black Friday experience. I love a good deal but, to me, it just isn't what the season is all about. Oh and by the way, I went home and ordered what I wanted from HHGregg online. It came on Tuesday. Maybe next year I'll black Friday shop on-line.

Thanksgiving 2008

So, I'm way behind with this post. It's been a busy week. The Christmas season is in full swing so the blog has been neglected. But my Christmas shopping is almost done! But anyway, Thanksgiving. We had a great day. We spent it with two of the Hotties brothers and had a Yankee Thanksgiving right here in the south. No cornbread stuffing here. Go figure. We had so much food and it was all DELICIOUS. I, of course, forgot my camera and didn't get a shot of the spread but it was all so yummy. We fried two turkeys, had a ham, mashed potatoes and gravy, green bean casserole, carrots, squash casserole, special potatoes, corn, spinach souffle, stuffing(which was really yummy by the way), cornbread and rolls. And the best part...we had almost as much dessert.

We have always lived pretty far from the Hotties family and haven't spent a lot of holidays with them. Now two of his brothers and their families are close and it was great to spend the day with them. The guys fried up the bird, the kids played and played and the moms mapped out their black Friday shopping plans. It was a great day!!! Hope yours was too!

Happy Birthday Grandma!!!

The Hottie and I both forgot his mom's birthday Thursday. Oops! So to make it up to her...

This post is dedicated to Grandma!!!

I love this picture! She looks so young and cute.

And carefree.

Must have been taken before she had SEVEN babies!
Here's a shot of her and the Hottie having dinner (long before he was the Hottie but he was pretty cute even back then). She's a great cook. We love her boiled dinner and carrot cake from scratch. She lives far away so we don't get her cooking very often.

Here she is with her four oldest children. She's a great mom. She loves each of her kids completely and unconditionally. Even if they have made choices she may disagree with she loves them just the same. I hope I can be that kind of mom. She is a fantastic grandma. She has 23 grandchildren! We don't get to see her very often but she comes to visit whenever she can. My kids love it. She will play games and do puzzles and read books for hours. She even taught Sassypants how to use the pedals on her tricycle. HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDMA!!!

WE LOVE YOU!!!

Mini Me and Mini He

I showed this picture to the Cowboy and asked him who it was. "It's me Mommy!" he says like I just asked him the most ridiculous question he's ever been asked. So I told him it is not him and asked him to guess again. His reply in a very serious tone (I think he thought I'd lost my mind) "Dat is me mommy." So I told him that no, it's not him, it's daddy. So he smiles really big and says,"ebwee one says dat I look like him." Yes indeed Cowboy, you do.











So that's the Mini He, (by the way, that's the Hottie in first or second grade. Now you know what Cowboy will look like in a couple years) now here's the Mini Me. I'm sure you all know who it is before seeing the pictures but this is me in second grade.

Everyone has always said that she looks just like me. I guess I didn't realize how much she did until her second grade pictures came back. Kinda creeped me out a little bit.

Caveman Walking on Water

This is the post where I'm going to brag on my Caveman for minute. No, he can't actually walk on water, but he's a great kid! As our first born he has been our guinea pig in a lot of ways. He didn't sleep through the night until he was 15 months old but that was totally my fault, not his. The poor kid has had to endure his parents inexperience in lots of ways but he seems to be turning out all right. So far.

The Caveman is really smart. Especially when it comes to math. We're not sure where that gene came from, but it's definitely there and has been most of his life. He was adding and subtracting m&m's and hot wheels long before he went to school. The first week of kindergarten his teacher told the class they were going to split into three groups. So the Caveman says, "there's 18 kids so thats 6 in each group." Fast forward to sixth grade, he brought home his progress report the other day. Math grade...101.25. I don't even know how that's possible. That's how bad I am at math.

He has really great taste in music. So good that I usually let him choose what we listen to in the car. His most recent picks in the suburban are Anberlin, Cartel, Rocket Summer, Dashboard Confessional, Jimmy Eat World, and Reliant K. I owe my brothers Reed and Kirk a shout out for influencing him in the music department. And in lots of other ways too.

Caveman LOVES to draw. This is a talent he got from his dad for sure. Right now he is on an Ironman drawing spree. He loves to draw superheroes, especially spiderman. And he likes drawing charactures of his dad. I should post some of those some time....

He's funny! He makes me laugh all the time! He's just fun to be around. So Caveman, I love you son. You're a great kid. And I'd love you even if you couldn't add, couldn't draw and listened to the Jonas Brothers. I'm glad your my son! I love you!

Mom