Holiday Fun

I love the Christmas season and taking the kids to various Christmas events.  Last Saturday we had three things going on.  First up was my favorite the ward Christmas party.

I love that the kids got to participate in a nativity play.

 Tucker narrated, he did great.  He didn't know the word Herod and whispered into the microphone, "whats that word," to the other narrators.  It was cute and funny to the audience.   Penelope, Scarlett, and Leon all got to be shepherds.  At first Penelope was upset that she didn't get to be an angel.  I convinced her that it was cool to be something different this year.

 In the past we have always had ward Christmas dinners but this was a pajama breakfast.  I decided to make macthing pajamas for us all.  I didn't even make Calista's and it took forever.  Why did I have so many kids again?

Bob had to work, but he managed to sneak out for an hour.  I'm glad he got to come, even if it was only for a little bit.

 The kids also made some cards and decorated pinecones.  It was a fun morning.

The next stop was the thrift store.  They were having a special event where children could go in without parents and pick out three different gifts to give.  They each got a helper and I filled out a sheet to help them have ideas.  They even wrapped them and everything inside.  They loved it!  And it was different for me to not be involved in knowing what every single present is.

After that we headed to the festival of trees.  Santa even came.

I never make a bid deal about Santa.  Our kids don't believe in him and Bob and I don't pretend he is real.  It is still fun to see him and participate and the tradition of taking a picture with him.

The festival is pretty much the gym filled with Christmas trees decorated by different groups.  We have fun checking them out and picking our favorites.  Last year we went at night and I think it was better.  Less crowded, and the trees looked prettier in the dark.

We had a super busy day.  After that I needed to go to the store and take Tucker to a birthday party.  It was so fun though!

Primary Parts

The kids did so well on their primary parts in sacrament meeting this year.  I uploaded videos for everyone because we live too far away for anyone to come see it in person.  Some of them were nervous but they all did a great job.  This will be Tucker's last year, and he had to write a mini talk for his.








And a random video of the girls twirling.  I am really proud of myself for making those dresses.  I'm also pretty mad at myself because I made Calista an equally cute one that has since been lost.  I tore the house apart looking for it.  How does that happen.


To learn more about our church or what we believe in go here :)

I love my kids!

Gethsemane

Bob and the kids sang church last Sunday while I played the piano.  I got a video of it before we went.  I just love the song by Jenny Phillips "Gethsemane."

Mother's Day

Just me and my five favorite little humans!  They are really amazing people and I love that I get to be their mom.  

I really wanted to get a picture of us all together before church for mother's day and I knew this was coming so I spent a good amount of time this week making matching dresses for the girls.  I also kind of made a huge mess in the house during my mad rush to make these giant bows before church.  I felt a little deflated when we lined up outside, late and in a rush, and it was so windy we had a hard time getting a decent shot.  These guys and Bob are so patient with me and I appreciate it.  I know that us looking all matching and perfect on mother's day is not reality and it isn't important.  Sometimes I just need a little reminder of that.  I think part of my desire to take a great picture with the kids stems from the fact that I love my family and I want to show the world how much I love them and how happy we are!  I want to advocate for motherhood, and big families, and the importance of staying home to raise children.

“Motherhood is not a hobby, it’s a calling. It’s not something to do if you can squeeze the time in, it’s what God gave you time FOR.” 

-Neil H. Anderson

I love my mom and am sad that I won't get to spend Mother's day with her this year or probably the next couple years.  I guess a phone call will have to suffice.

Happy Mother's Day to all the women out there. "Motherhood is more than just bearing children... it is the essence of who we are as women."

Conference And More

Watching general conference has a totally different feel now that we aren't living in America.  I knew we would watch it a week later because if we watched it live it would actually start Sunday morning at one a.m. and continue onto Monday, or something crazy like that.  But I didn't anticipate the feeling of knowing it is out there without having had watch it.  Especially this session with all the changes that were made.  People knew things and talking about and posting things all over facebook before it was time for us to watch.  We decided not to wait for the next weekend and instead just watched about 20 minutes with the kids each night before bed throughout the week.  Then I think we saved the Sunday morning session for Sunday morning and finished up that way.  We ate our traditional ice cream and waffles during that session. 

Calista got really good at her magnet creations, she put all her shapes she made under the tv so we could enjoy them during conference.

The other kids all played conference bingo.  We used to just give the kids a treat each time a specific word was said.  But it was a bit distracting with everyone getting up and down and arguing over who heard what.  This worked a bit better.  Each chart was different, and they had many words to listen for so it kept them pretty busy.  No one got to eat anything until they got a bingo so they were pretty motivated.  Our home teachers brought these sheets over to us and even brought candy with them.  The picture is of white chocolate chips that we used once the candy was gone (Bob and I might have eaten some of the original m&ms and sour patch candies).  I thought it was really thoughtful of them.

Now for the and more part of the post.  These are just a few random things not related to conference.  I asked Tucker to make lunch one day and he had this set up for each of the kids.  I thought it was cute with the napkin and all.  And I'm just now realizing that the picture is upside down, he did have the spoon the correct way.

Penelope checked out this pinkalicious cook book from the library and was begging to make things in it.  I told her to pick one thing and we would give it a try.  Of course she picked the impossible pinkalicious cake pop shaped like an actual person.  It didn't quite turn out like the picture, but it was just for us and we had fun making it.  Penelope thought it looked great in the end.  I kind of felt like I was on the netflix show "Nailed it"

This next picture was just on my phone because I was trying to figure out if Calista was awake or not.  I couldn't see her face but I had my phone so I kept holding it in the air and snapping pictures then looking at them to see if she was awake or not.

Scarlett set up a little seat for Calista.  Scarlett looks so grown up in this picture to me.

Easter and April Fools

A couple days before Easter I set up my letterboard in preparation for the big holiday.

It was so fun having Easter and April fools day wrapped up all in one this year.  There were just so many prank options!  I started out with some yummy orange juice made out of water and a macaroni and cheese packet.

I thought it looked pretty good, just like OJ.  Unfortunately the kids were ready for me to pull some pranks and they already knew not to trust anything I gave them to eat or drink.  Leon was brave enough to try it for everyone.  He took a couple of drinks and announced "It's ok guys, its just milk!"  haha I thought it was hilarious.  It looked so good I think I'll try this again another day when they aren't expecting it.

The kids, all dressed and ready for church.

We didn't have time to take our picture in the mirror before church so we did it outside afterwards with the timer.

When I tried to go into my room later the door handle was off.  I think Bob was helping the kids attempt to prank me.  I didn't get a picture of it, but Penelope also drew spiders on the toilet paper and offered me a drink of "water" aka straight vinegar that I had to drink to pretend to be fooled.  She loved it and was so happy with her tricks.

We made resurrection rolls, that weren't a trick.  For those not familiar they are rolls that you put a marshmallow in the center of, then after backing the marshmallow is gone leaving an empty roll symbolizing the empty tomb.  If you are really good you make them three days ahead of time, but I forgot about that part until the morning of.

I think our best pranks came during the Easter egg hunt.  We threatened all the eggs were going to be empty but that would be way too easy.  Instead we hid a couple eggs out front and told them to start searching.

After a few minutes when they were really begging for hints I told them that the eggs were really inside!  APRIL FOOLS!

And off they ran in the house looking for eggs.

We gave them each a color to look for and told them to leave the other colors alone, but there were two very special eggs one gold and one silver.  We only had two of those so whoever found them got more than the other kids.  They really wanted these eggs.  After a while Scarlett and Tucker found them and Penelope was devastated.  I let Scarlett open her special egg up to lessen the blow for Penelope.

Carrots!  A rabbit's favorite!

Scarlett was so happy to get these sour patch candies as well, until they were opened.

Rocks.  Yep, bob sliced them open, filled them with rocks and taped them back up.

Don't worry, we gave the kids plenty of real candy to go with the tricks.  I think that helped them not be too mad at all the fake outs.

These grape candies worked pretty well also.  They looked like chocolates but I had bob unwrap the chocolates and put grapes inside then rewrap them up.  The kids were like, "huh??? I thought this was chocolate.  Oh well, a grape!"

Talitha made a yummy Easter dessert with the kids.

I hope you all had a great Easter!