A candy house and Temple Square

    I bought the traditional gingerbread house kit and let the kids have a go with it Sunday after church. They didn't get it completed but they enjoyed the attempt.

I need a better system with this tradition. Next time we'll put the house together in advance before the kids actually get to do any decorating. They just don't have the patience for the actual building.

     We got plenty of snow this week and of course the boys were outside playing as much as possible and apparently couldn't even be bothered to come in to make hot chocolate so they did it outside on Mark's portable camp stove.

I'm just glad they didn't come in and make a mess in my kitchen.

    Then we made a trip to Temple Square. We road Trax and ate at McDonalds at the City Creek mall. It was a little crazy but the kids had fun and miraculously no one complained of being cold. Charlie had an issue with her ears at the end of the night but with a little Tylenol she was fine.

Riding the train is so much fun!

Can you see the slight difference in the top two photos? (Hint, check out Isaac.)

Cute girls.

Ordering for 9 at McDonald's was a bit crazy and I forgot to order something for Carter but luckily there was enough to go around and while they waited for dinner they played a little cards.

This was on the way home when Charlie was having ear aches.

     It's hard to believe that a week from today all Christmas festivities will be done! Let's hope my kids make it to that point! None of them really deserve Christmas. Let's hope the Grinch doesn't ruin their dreams!!

The Elves are Excited!

    Here are a few photos from our weeks activities.

Carter was getting a retainer check at the Orthodontist and Charlie couldn't see the TV unless she was sitting on his lap.

The blessed moments when she's asleep and not being naughty!

     Today was McClane's preschool Christmas program and his part to say was "The elves are excited!" He said it loud and clear. He can be pretty stinkin' cute and fun.

His teacher is the lady in red helping put on a hat and she's awesome.

     I'm sure this won't be our last school Christmas program but it was our first for the season. Only 13 more sleeps until Santa comes, MAYBE!!

The rest of the trip and coming home

     We enjoyed the final two days of our trip to Oregon last weekend. We played some fun games, which I have video of that I could post but I wouldn't want to traumatize people or embarrass my parents :-) just know it was a good time and I think everyone was laughing to the point of tears.

In these photos we're playing "Four on the Couch". The more hilarious game we played was the balloon game, which I don't have photos of just video.

     We also had a fun time with extended family at the ranch enjoying homemade pizzas, soft serve ice cream, a little shooting, black jack and of course swinging on the swing.

These kids couldn't get enough of black jack.

Mom and Dad slaved over dinner and the ice cream and we all appreciated it!! We ate like royalty all week!!

Charlie loves swinging.

    When we arrived home Kayli had all our Christmas decorations put out and even had a plate of yummy sugar cookies waiting for us. She, however, was in Idaho with her aunt Melissa and didn't come home until Tuesday morning.

These cookies were delicious even two days after they were baked.

There were some fun 'new' decorations that Kayli found in the decorations Jackie left for me.

I've done a little rearranging since we've been home but over all Kayli did a pretty good job of putting everything together.

      Since we've been home we purchased a Christmas tree.

This year we bought from Costco and it took a day or two for the tree to relax and not shed so much so we couldn't actually decorate right away.

Here is the finished product. This was decorated 100% by the children.

This will end up being rearranged numerous times in the next few weeks thanks to Charlie who I know won't leave it alone, which is why I'm not even a little bit worried about how it looks.

     We also went to festival of trees this week and on the way home stopped at the "tree of life" in Draper.

We always find some cool things to photograph while we admire all the trees.

We ran into Aunt Kristin and Uncle Nathan while there and Charlie worked this candy cane away from Kristin much to my dismay. She was a MESS!

This is quite a sight to behold from near and far. I'm glad Greg went a little out of our way to see this before heading home.

     So that's my report for this week. There's still lots of fun things to look forward to before Christmas is actually here.

Thanksgiving 2015

    It's been a great week! We made it safely to Oregon and have enjoyed our time with family and celebrating Thanksgiving. Greg and the boys enjoyed spelunking at the Lava Beds in Northern California.

    Thanksgiving day was fun with lots of yummy food.

    There were also five dogs to add to the fun.

Mom/Grandma didn't know what to do with the dog attention. She's really not a dog person!

These are Tad and Megan's cute teacup poodles. Seriously, little Luna, (the black one) is so tiny!!

And Smalls got a nice haircut. Look at that cute face! I didn't photograph the fifth dog, it's a white version of Ann's dog and Ann was dog sitting her for the weekend. Plenty of dogs for all the kids to play with.

    We've also been treated to Grandma Baker's amazing hospitality.

This is just one example of a yummy meal at Grandma's house.

    And the kids have hung out playing devices as much as we'll allow.

Grandma pulled out the bag of stuffed animals. Some are pretty OLD! 

Modeling her cute new sweater and boots.

     It's been fun and we still have a couple more days to 'live it up' before we have to head back to our reality. We sure love these family gatherings/reunions!

Not again!!

    Could these two look anymore alike?! I could use Kayli's photos and pass them off for Charlie easily. Now to the reason for this comparison.  

Both at two years old. Why can't they stay cute and little!?

     When I had my first child I was so excited that she was a girl. I've always loved playing with hair and doing different hairstyles. Kayli was a great sport for the first couple of years and then tragedy struck and she cut her own hair. It wasn't too awful and I thought the worst was over and then she did it a second time. Again I was devastated. I went on to hide all cutting devices in hopes of avoiding another catastrophe only for her to find toenail scissors and wreak the worst havoc ever before. A THIRD time! I had had it!

Yes, she looks cute with short hair but I still preferred the long hair. (She had hid most the hair she'd cut off in the bag where she'd found the toenail scissors.)

     After the third time I actually packed up her bags and made her stand out in the front yard to wait for another family to come and pick her up because I just couldn't bear the thought of having a daughter who would cut her own hair. She was four at the time. Not my best parenting moment to say the least.

     I then had five boys, none of them ever cut their own hair. Kayli became older and more independent and hair was no longer a hobby for me. Then I was blessed with another girl and again I was excited for the opportunity to do hair again and Charlie was quite a good sport and a good little hair model and then it happened!

NO, NO, NO!!!

    Why!? 

    Now, you have to understand, this isn't comical at first to me, At. All. I feel more like crying and to take a photo immediately in the moment is not going to happen so these photos were taken a couple hours after the fact. When she first came to me her hair was in pigtails and she had big clumps of hair on her pants and when I pulled the pigtails out even more long clumps of hair came out. Utter disbelief and anger were coursing through my head. "Where did she get the scissors?! Why wasn't anybody watching her?! I just needed to close my eyes for a few minutes!" When I went to rest my eyes for 20 minutes she was in her bedroom attempting to take a nap but in that 20 minutes the boys had let her out of the bedroom, Brock had tried making a snowflake and left the scissors on the kitchen counter and Isaac had his back to her while she reeked havoc on her pigtails with the scissors. 

       Needless to say, I had to do a little shopping that evening because the only way to fix this haircut is to cover it up until it grows out. I bought three headbands and a beanie hat and luckily she doesn't mind wearing the beanie hat for the most part.

     It's a good thing she looks so cute in a hat and also that it's winter time and wearing a hat doesn't seem so odd.

      So that's my post for the week. I wish it was more pictures of her looking as cute as she did on Sunday in the top picture of this post but I guess my hair doing days aren't meant to be for the next several months. So much for family photos in the next month or two.

Miracles, birthdays and random

     Well my phone tragedy was cured as of Saturday afternoon. I thought I was going to have to wait for a phone to be delivered to me Monday or Tuesday but there was a mistake in the order and the shipment was canceled and they recommended I just go to the Apple Store to get a replacement phone. It did take several hours out of mine and Greg's Saturday but it only cost me time and I walked out with a brand-new phone and the most miraculous part was almost all of my information had been backed up so I only lost a very small amount of information. All my notes were there, as well as most of my reminders and photos. There's only a small amount of information that I'm aware of losing and it wasn't anything vital. Anyway, aside from most of our day being spent at the mall with our three smallest monsters it all turned out better than expected.

       During our week we've enjoyed celebrating Veterans Day and of course Greg's birthday. Carter is in fifth grade and every year the fifth grade puts on a very nice Veterans Day program at the kids elementary school and this year was no exception. I did have to go with just Charlie, which is always a bit of a nightmare but we made it through the hour-long program without having to step out. 

Charlie was thrilled to see her brother right as she walked in the door.

Of course Carter was on the bottom step so I couldn't see him once I found a seat in the audience.

This was a rare glimpse of Carter during the program.

     We also had a little snowstorm this week and of course Charlie and McClane could not wait to put on snow gear and get outside to play in it. We probably spent a good 30 minutes finding the right snow gear for them and they spent all of about 10 minutes outside before it was too wet and cold for them. (I think that has to be my biggest pet peeve of this time of year. Snow gear will be the death of me!!)

Smalls even enjoyed a little snow time.

One of the last times on the tramp for Charlie before it comes down for the winter.

     This was where Charlie napped yesterday. I can't believe she didn't roll off.

This is the small bench at the foot of my bed.

    Yesterday was also Greg's 43rd birthday. He took the day off work and we enjoyed lunch together at the Olive Garden while Kayli was home with the little kids. Kayli also gifted Greg a gift card to Olive Garden so lunch was a on her as well as the babysitting. (There are one or two perks to having older kids.) We also did a little shopping and enjoyed a little apple pie and ice cream after dinner. It was a simple day but nice.

Greg spent most of his day on the phone and he actually enjoyed napping on the couch with the puppy.

Thanks to mom and dad-in-law Baker for a card and cash!

Yummy apple pie from Costco.

All but Isaac ready to devour this pie. (Isaac was at a friends birthday party.)

     This weekend the goal is to get all the fall stuff put away and bring out a little of the Christmas stuff. Mainly Greg is hoping to get the lights on the house before the weather changes and before we leave for Thanksgiving. I'm still not comprehending that it is holiday season.

Slip, fall DEAD!

      I've experienced a small tragedy today. My cell phone slipped out of my hand and hit my hard laminate floor and died! There is no visible damage to the phone but it won't do anything. It immediately shut off and won't turn back on and we can't even get it to restore while plugged into the computer. Of course this ended up taking over a good portion of mine and mostly Greg's day trying to figure things out. (He always comes to my rescue!) I have insurance on the phone but of course without visible damage it's not covered by my insurance policy but thankfully it is covered under my warranty through my cell phone company and I should be getting a replacement phone Monday no charge to me, which is actually a blessing because I'm pretty sure my deductible through the insurance would've been well over $100. Unfortunately, I have lost a lot of photos and some very valuable notes and reminders. I guess backing up my phone more often would have been a valuable endeavor. Thankfully most of my photos have been downloaded here on my blog and miraculously I did print out one of my more valuable notes not too long ago so I didn't completely lose all of my vital information. I also have an old cell phone that Greg was able to reactivate in the meantime so I'm not completely out of touch from the outside world. It's incredible how dependent I personally have become to these handheld devices.

      So as for my week activities I don't have much in way of photos. I don't think I took too many this week anyways, because we didn't do much this week but of course I can't post on my blog without at least one or two photos so here's a photo of Charlie from my iPad as well as a photo earlier this week that Isaac took with my iPad of his Sunday activities.

She loves her pockets!

We can still use these paper cups, right?! (It was a quiet activity if not completely sabbath day appropriate.)

      So that's my update for the week, lets hope it's a little more photo heavy next week.