And The Winners Are...

We switch babysitting with a couple of families that we are friends with, so that we can all have date nights - it works great. But you have to get creative when trying to keep 8 kids under the age of 7 occupied for a few hours. Tonight the activity was a coloring contest. I told the kids that they had to really take their time and do their best job - they spent almost 45 minutes coloring... victory! Then we had a ceremony and gave each kid an award and a prize (their snack for the evening). It worked out just as planned - taking up over an hour altogether - and the kids LOVED it!

 

 

 

 

Water Baby...

Sophie LOVES her baths... she lays in about 2 inches of water and kicks her little heart out, then she coughs and sputters when the water hits her face, then she smiles and does it all over again. Ana calls it her "kick bath" - It's hilarious...

 

 

Indiana Jones and the Rogue Fence...

Indiana Jones braves the hostility of the backyard fence to rescue the Princess and save the day... a daily occurrence at our house.

How Do You Keep a Little Piggy Happy?

Give her food... and she gobbles it right up. Sophie's newest encounter: carrots. And the verdict is: she loves it! Hooray... victory for vegetables!

 

She hasn't quite gotten the keeping it in your mouth part yet...

 

Doctor Dad...

This is Ana's favorite activity - to get Dad to "doctor" her. I don't know if I'd be begging him to be my doctor, I think I heard him say that he was removing her knee caps because she didn't really need them anyways...

 

 

We Are a Happy Family...

Our church schedule finally switched from afternoon (with sacrament meeting LAST - Ahhhh!) to morning (sacrament meeting FIRST). We went from no naps and crazy kids, to naps and happy children. And this is what our family looks like on Sunday afternoon now...

 

Onward and "Upwords"

Rob and I got a new game for Christmas - Scrabble Upwords. And lets just say, we're slightly addicted. We can get the kids in bed and the game set up simultaneously - I know... we are talented. So this is what the game looks like.

So tonight, the game went pretty long (and late) and we were both not thinking so well toward the end. Notice the word "MIMES" in the top, right corner. Rob put an "R" on top of the first "M" to make it "RIMES"
Kari: "Rimes is not a word."
Rob: "Yes, it is."
Kari: "What does it mean?"
Rob: "You know, like top 'rimes' with mop."
Kari: Laughing so hard she can hardly speak, "Are you serious?"
Rob: Laughing now too, "How is it spelled then?"
Kari: I think we better go to bed now.

PS - Rob only consented to letting me post this if... I mentioned that he smashed me by 40 points. Good game honey.

Christmas Happenings...

We had a ton of fun over Christmas with family. These are some of the highlights...

Sewin' Up a Storm...

For another Christmas gift, I decided to sew my sister-in-law a nursing cover. It was my first time since 7th grade Home Ec. that I have sewn anything - and it turned out awesome! I had to take a picture...

 

 

 

 

It turned out so well that I sewed 3 pairs of baby legs for my niece and then an apron for my nephew. So I've decided that I really love sewing! Watch out kids!

Dr. Clark...

Ana has developed quite a passion for being a doctor. She practices on everyone... especially Sophie, she's a pretty easy patient. Funny story: Ana also has a super sensitive gag reflex to the sight of poop. So we literally can't change diapers in front of her, the reflex is instant. The other day Rob was changing Sophie and didn't realized that Ana was in the room, he starts to hear dry heaving.
Rob: "Ana, go in the kitchen quick!" Ana runs into the kitchen and watches from a distance.
Rob: "Ana, you're never going to be able to be a doctor if you puke everytime you see poop."
Ana, redfaced: "YES I WILL... I'm growing up EVERY day!"

 

Homemade Christmas...

My family's Christmas tradition is to make the gifts for the family that we have that year. This year we had my sister Kris's family (she has four boys) - we made them a Popcorn bowl set for movie watching. It turned out so cute that I had to snap a picture of it before I wrapped it and shipped it to them...

 

My sister Amy had our family for Christmas - she made this awesome puppet theatre for the kids. Thanks so much Amy, the kids love it as you can see...

And my Mom made this felt doll set for Ana, it has literally hundreds of outfits and accessories that she cut out by hand. Mom, you are awesome, thanks so much for taking the time to do that for Ana, she loves it!

Rob's Gingerbread Creation...

The young men made gingerbread houses for mutual one night, and as you can see, Rob got a little carried away. Rob is totally excited to be serving in the Deacons quorum now, he's been waiting forever to be able to go on scouting trips. He's more excited than the scouts are...

 

 

 

First snow...

We had such wonderfully mild weather this fall that we had to wait until half way through December for our first real snow. The kids wasted no time in getting out to play in it - such fun! And of course, every snow day deserves hot chocolate - playing in the snow is hard work...

 

 

 

 

Super Nona (and sidekicks) Save Lunch...

Every time we travel back home from Utah, Rob's mom makes us a super fabulous picnic lunch to eat on the way- she rocks! On our way home from our Thanksgiving trip, we forgot the lunch in our rush to get going. About 2 minutes down the road, she called us and we turned around to go pick it up. Half way there we met this racing to meet us...

 

Super Nona and her sidekicks Callie, Maggie and Becca, jumped in the Rhino and chased us down to make sure that we didn't miss out on our awesome lunch... as always, thanks sooooo much Wendy, for always making us lunch!

Building Batman and Bella...

Hayden and Ana's Nona and Papa (grandma and grandpa) took them on a special outing to the Build-A-Bear Workshop. They had a wonderful time building their bears and dressing them up, with underwear and all. Sophie came along for the ride and observed the chaos with Papa. Thanks Nona and Papa for a super fun time! Hayden named his bear Batman, of course, and Ana named her ballerina bear Bella Dancerella...