December & Christmastime!

As with the month of November, this blog is going to be mainly pictures.

Steven was sharing his ring pop with Sofia while we were shopping at Costco. So cute! :)

We were at Hobby Lobby getting stuff for Christmas presents. Sofia was trying on these hats; I couldn't get a picture of her with the hat on, but I love her smile in this one!

Sofia & Steven getting out the Christmas ornaments while we were decorating the tree.

Steven decorating the tree

Josh helping Steven put on an ornament

Josh helping Sofia with an ornament

Josh with Steven & Sofia. They made those cute reindeer hats at daycare

"Perry" the Elf. I'm sure most of you have heard about the "Elf on the Shelf" by now. For those of you who haven't, it's basically an elf you put around your house at Christmas time that is supposed to be a reminder to the kids to be good. The elf flies back to Santa every night and reports on how the kids were that day. Here he's holding their letters to Santa.

My niece, Mandy, has her birthday in December. She turned 4 this year and they had a party at McDonald's. Steven put this hat on backwards all by himself ;) Love it!

Steven shouting "SMILE!" for the camera

Sofia's Christmas dress. She's such a good little poser for the camera already!

Every year for Christmas, my family draws names to see who we each will buy presents for. (We have 9 kids in our family plus spouses! We definitely have to do it that way.) Each year a different person is in charge of drawing the names and assigning a theme (if they choose). I was in charge this year and I decided, in an effort to save money and have Christmas be a little more personal, that we would all make each other presents.  Below are some of the gifts I made.

Magnetic message board

My niece is big into coloring and art stuff so I personalized some coloring pads for her.

One of my sisters is working on becoming a Life Coach. She heard this quote and kind of made it her motto, especially in regards to Life Coaching, so I made her this tile.

I made two of these, one for each of my sister-in-law's, with their respective years of marriage on it.

Steven and Sofia on Christmas Eve opening their pajamas

Steven helping Sofia open hers

Steven and Sofia in their new pajamas

Three of my favorite people in the world :)

Opening their Christmas book

Josh reading them their Christmas book

Because Christmas was on a Sunday last year, and our church started at 9, we only opened stockings before going to church. Sofia checking out her stocking

Steven opening his stocking

Steven was really excited about getting ring pops in his stocking

Gotta love her morning hair...

Steven playing with some of the new cars he got in his stocking

What a cheeseball! ;) But she really did love the new chair she got for Christmas

After church when we were opening the rest of the presents. These were from my sister, Sammy

Showing off their ornaments from Sammy

Steven was really excited about something...I think this was a movie he really wanted

Sofia, in the middle of opening presents, coloring. As soon as she opened this one, she was set and didn't want to open anything else for a while.

 Josh with his ornament from Sammy

 Me with my ornament from Sammy. (Can you tell I'm 7 months pregnant in this picture?? ;) )

 Josh helping Steven set up his train tracks

Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving with Josh's family again this year. I only have one sister in Utah now so we usually spend the Holidays with Josh's family & then do something with my sister on a different day. As per tradition, we had our Thanksgiving meal at the Grand America. It's seriously so great! I really look forward to it every year. They also have a great table for just kids with all sorts of yummy food. It's also lower so kids can actually reach stuff themselves! We weren't able to get a family picture this year but here are some cute pictures of the kids. :)

Steven grabbing himself some corn dog bites. He LOVED being able to get his own food! 

Steven & Sofia

 We were there for quite a while and the kids were really actually pretty good. Steven got bored and started to play with his gummy bears on his chair.

 They also had coloring books and crayons for the kids. Genius! It really helped entertain them.

Sofia LOVES to color! She was really excited about these coloring books.

Steven & Sofia enjoying my left-over popcorn from our annual after Thanksgiving girls' movie.

It's been a long time...

It's been such a long time since I've posted anything, on here, I know! If anyone is following this or cares, I'm sorry! I had planned on posting a TON all at once, but I've only been able to get two done so far, so I figured I'd post the ones that I have. I will REALLY try to do better about keeping this one updated, so hopefully there will be plenty of new posts on here soon!

November

Here's a quick run-down of November via pictures.

We got a new TV! Josh is usually pretty frugal and likes to stick to a budget, which I am totally okay with (he keeps me on track, too!). Sometimes, though, he'll really surprise me by wanting to buy something out of the blue. He came to me and said he thought we should get a Blu-ray player as our family Christmas present, and not get anything else for each other (Josh & myself). He said he knew I wanted one so he thought we should get one. I told him that I thought it was kind of silly to get a Blu-ray player when we didn't have an HD TV and our DVD player works fine. Then he said, "Well, let's get a TV, too, then." I was very surprised by this but after talking about it, we decided to research what we wanted. We set a budget and found the one we liked. Josh wanted one that had "apps" already installed and one that had good quality resolution because we aren't planning on buying another one any time soon. Black Friday was coming up so we thought we'd get one during those sales. We couldn't find one that was going to be on sale that fit our qualifications, though. We decided to go to Costco to look at them, find one we would be willing to pay full-price for, and then go on Black Friday and hope it was on sale. We found one we liked for a good price but since there were only 2 in the whole store, decided to get it then. Josh took myself and the kids home because we hadn't thought to bring the truck, and went back to get it. He ended up buying a different one for the same price than we had originally planned on, but I don't remember why he switched it. While at Costco we picked out one that looked about the size we wanted. When Josh mounted it on our wall, though, we realized that we definitely could've gone with the smaller size because it looks HUGE on our wall. It was really nice having the cash to pay for it that wasn't earmarked already for something else. I love being financially responsible (most of the time)! :)  We never did end up buying a Blu-ray player, though...

I decided to introduce my kids to the wonder that is fort-building. They weren't as impressed or excited as I thought they would be, but they still had fun. Maybe they need to be a bit older...

Steven coloring in the fort

Steven showing off his turkey he colored in honor of Thanksgiving

Trying on my boots...

The Sunday before Thanksgiving, we were coming inside from church. Sofia was throwing a bit of a fit, and Josh didn't want to wait, so he took her upstairs just holding on to one arm. By the time they got up the stairs, she was crying quite a bit. She started holding her arm and never really stopped crying. We finally got her settled down a bit and put her down for her nap. I started getting worried and decided that if her arm still seemed to be bothering her by the time she woke up, that I would take her into InstaCare. Her arm still seemed to bother her when she got up so I took her in. I explained what happened and the doctor said that she probably had what's called "nurse-maid's elbow" or one of the bones in her lower arm was dislocted from the elbow joint. The doctor tried to put it back into place but it would budge. She ended up having 2 different x-rays done, but nothing was broken (thank goodness!). At that point, all they could do was splint it. They told me to take her into her normal pediatrician in the morning and see if he could pop it back into place. Even though it didn't look swollen, sometimes the muscles and ligaments around the joints get too swollen to let it go back in to place. She seemed a lot better after they put the splint on and her arm couldn't move any more. The next morning, I took her in to see her pediatrician and he popped it back in pretty easily. I could actually hear the pop as it went back in. (Gross!) By the end of the day, she was acting as if nothing had happened. I'm so glad it ended up okay!

In the car on the way home from InstaCare 

Oh, and that was the night we were having a combined birthday party for Josh & I at his parents. She felt a lot better at this point, though, thank goodness.

Josh & I turned a combined age of 55 this year. I LOVE this cake that my mother-in-law makes! :)

Halloween

I really love the Holiday Season, and for me, Halloween marks the beginning of it. I start decorating with fall/Halloween/Thanksgiving decorations (most of these are the same) at the end of September or the beginning of October and I try to plan a fair amount of fun activities to do with the kids and family. Last year my brother, Dave, & sister-in-law, Mary, bought a season pass to Thanksgiving Point's corn maze. They told me how much fun they had and they used it several times, so it was really worth it. To make it even better, they had bought it through a online deal site so it was really cheap! I wanted to buy one for 2011 because I thought the kids would really enjoy it, but when I went to go buy it through Groupon, it was already sold out! I was really bummed! Hopefully I can buy them in 2012. Here are some pictures of some of the things we were able to do.

Steven was a tiger for Halloween this year. This costume was made by my awesome husband when he was in high school for his younger brother. A few of the grandkids in Josh's family have worn it now. Here's Steven holding the pumpkin he picked out at a pumpkin patch we went to.

Steven showing off his tiger "roar"

Josh with his very large pumpkin

Josh, Sofia, & Steven

We went over to Josh's parents' house before trick-or-treating so they could see the kids in their costumes. Sofia was a lady bug

Papa with Sofia

Steven & Steven :)

Steven & Sofia at Grandma & Papa's

I didn't get any pictures while the kids were out trick-or-treating, unfortunately. It was a really nice night, though, and the kids had lots of fun! Steven understood what Halloween was this year and was really looking forward to it for quite a while. Sofia wanted to walk the entire time, hold her pumpkin pail (which got pretty heavy towards the end), and also wanted to keep up with the older kids. It was fun to see them both so enthusiastic about it! :)

Steven with the vampire teeth he got while trick-or-treating. He loved those! 

Sofia didn't quite get how to wear these properly but really enjoyed trying :)

Baby Basics

I have some friends that are expecting their first child in February.  We were talking & the soon-to-be-mom was saying that they had recently completed their baby registry & how she felt a little overwhelmed at all the stuff there is to buy.  I told her that you don't really need all of the stuff that they try to sell you in those stores.  She said that she had been told that before but no one had ever actually said what you do need.  They are the first in both of their families to have any children & also one of the first of their friends to start having kids, so they haven't been around babies a ton.  I thought it would be nice to make a list of tips, tricks & things you actually do need for them.  I'd love to hear ideas from any one who is willing to share!  :)