Daniel Turns 5!

Daniel turned 5yrs. old yesterday! The years have gone by way to fast in my humble opinion. We had my mom and brother Joshua come over for his birthday dinner. I love when they pick something easy for dinner, like tacos!

 He requested a caterpillar cake again this year (I think this is his 3rd caterpillar cake). He had so much fun decorating it.

 He got some Legos from my mom. He could make 3 different things with it and as of this morning he has made all 3 things! Daniel LOVES Legos and spends a lot of time making different things.

We also got him a box of crafts. Daniel loves to do crafts and this was just perfect for him cause he can do most of these crafts without my help. Now he has something to do while I am doing school work with the older kids.

Sorry no pictures for this post. We lost the charger for our camera so I haven't been taking any pictures over the past month. We've been doing really well. Two big things that have happened are.....Jacob is now potty trained!! Happy day! He still has his moments when there are accidents but for the most part he's pretty good. There were a few days where I just wanted to throw in the towel and put him back in diapers, but I stayed strong and kept at it. He was definitely my hardest one to potty train. So we are diaper free for a few months! The next biggest news is we found out that we are having a GIRL!!!!!!!! We are so super excited! Emma will finally have a sister! So little Jane Elizabeth will be joining our family some time around June 13th! So that makes me 24 weeks along and I'm feeling really good, but so huge! Other that bit of news not much new happening here. Life is good!

Noah turns 11 yrs old!

Noah turned 11yrs old in January! He has a friend, Emmery, who turned 10 the day after him so they decided to have a party together on the weekend since most of their friends are the same. They both love going shooting with their dads so Kendall and Erik, Emmery's dad, took them and some friends up into the mountains and they got to shoot at different targets for a few hours. They came home all excited with lots of stories to tell.

 Karen, Emmery's mom, made the boys a cake that looked like a big target! It was awesome!

 As you can imagine, a house full of boys was quite loud and exciting!

 On Noah's birthday we had a dinner and invited my mom and brother Joshua over. Noah was super excited to get some new pants with tons of pockets in them.

 Noah also got his own BB gun so he and Emma can go out and shoot together.

Noah wanted apple pie for his birthday. The headlamp is one of his gifts also.

Noah is a night person. He has been staying up late at night in his bed reading by the light of his alarm clock. So we got him a head lamp so he has better light to read by. I remember staying up late at night when I was his age reading Nancy Drew books. He made a goal to read 12 books by the end of the year and so far he's read 6 books in the last month and a half. He's discovered the joys of reading and that makes me so excited! He loves everything he reads and is learning so much!

He earned his Weblos badge in cub scouts and is now in Boy Scouts. He loves it so far and is super excited for his 1st camp out with his troop.



Christmas Day

Christmas day was really nice this year. My mom and Joshua came over in the morning and watched the kids open presents and have breakfast.

 Jacob loved the stuffed animals from his aunt Lydia and uncle Mark!

 Emma has been asking for her own pocket knife for a long time! Kendall got her a little Leatherman Micra pocket knife....and it's PINK!

 Noah has wanted a Newton's Cradle for a long time too and he was pretty excited about getting one!

 Noah also got an RC quad copter. He's gotten quiet good at flying it around the house. But it does hurt pretty bad if you get in its way or it falls from the air and you happen to be under it. As I was sitting here blogging it flew into my forehead, ouch! Emma and Daniel won't come in the room where it's being flown and if they are in the room they cower in the corner and complain that it's flying. It sounds like a couple of hornets flying around.

 Daniel got a lego set and spent most of Christmas Day putting it together. He loves it!!

 Kendall got the kids an air hockey table and they love it! You should see Emma and Noah play a game, they are quite competitive!!

 As you can see Jacob LOVES this game!! He spent most of the day asking the kids to come play with him. He would yell out and laugh every time someone made a goal. He didn't care who scored.

 We went to my mom's house to open her gifts and have dinner later in the evening. She got the boys the dreaded pop guns! What are Grandparents for?!

Emma also got a PINK BB gun. Oh how she loves this BB gun! I bet you can't guess what her favorite color is!!



Mary and Joseph Dinner

 Every year we have a tradition that everyone in the family looks forward to. I think it's my favorite tradition that we have. We call it the Mary and Joseph dinner. On Christmas Eve we lay out a blanket and Kendall reads the story of Christ's birth from the Bible. Then we have a dinner of roasted lamb, goat cheese, figs, dates, olives and bread. We eat with our hands and sop our bread in olive oil. We talk about what it must have been like traveling to Bethlehem the night before the Savior's birth. It's a wonderful time to remember the true meaning of Christmas.

Ginger Bread Houses and Sledding

 We decorate ginger bread houses every year right before Christmas. Jacob started eating his before we could even get it fully put together! He quite enjoyed this tradition!

 My mom had a day off and said she wanted to go sledding up in the mountains. We all got ready and headed up into the mountains. But we soon discovered that there wasn't much snow and it was raining which made what little snow that was on the ground terrible for sledding.

 But Kendall found this dirt road and we headed up it only to find a tree across the road. We turned around and parked in the road and let the kids sled down the ruts from our tires. We spent about 2 hours sledding, it was great fun. The only scary part was when Daniel went down for the 1st time and got out of the rut and headed rather quickly for the 15+ foot drop off the side. Luckily Kendall was faster then I was and made a dive for his sled and caught it just at the edge of the drop off. Daniel was mad at us for stopping him and getting snow in his gloves.

 Every son-in-law's dream: pushing their mother-in-law down an icy slope! Heehee!

Daniel loved to throw snow balls at everyone, but didn't like it so much when we threw them back at him. It was a really fun day to just get out and play with the family.

The Bug the wouldn't leave!

I know it's been a while since I last posted. (Seems most of my post start that way lately.)

Well since I last posted Emma caught a little bug and then past it on to everyone else in the family except Kendall. It was a nasty horrible bug that would not respond to any treatment I tried.

 We spent a lot of time sleeping for over a month.

After several trips to the doctor the kids started to get better. I took a bit longer to get well but I did conquer this bug and am happy to say it's gone for good! Poor Kendall was stuck nursing us all back to health, cooking, cleaning and basically keeping the house running, and doing it all while working full time! He did it quite well too! Oh, and he did almost all of the Christmas shopping for presents for everyone cause I was not able to leave the house for most of the month. Yep, he's that awesome of a man! Now that I'm well and also over the whole morning/afternoon/evening sickness it feels so good to feel alive and well! I started to feel better just in time for Christmas and we did do some of our family traditions, but that's for another post.