Big Baby!

     I'd like to introduce Charlie's new baby, Big Baby! She's a little bit creepy and a little bit smart. No one really knows what to make of her but we keep finding her in some pretty interesting situations.

Blowing up whoopee cushions, in the hallway with a note and drawing that reads, "Me and Dad" and there's two stick figures drawn with the note. And then playing Jenga with McClane's new teddy bear and Charlie's teddy bear.

Here she is trying to get a hostess cupcake out of my closet, brushing her teeth, drinking from my water bottle while watching TV and playing with Brock's R/C car.

And here she is on the kitchen counter watching more TV and drinking the rest of someone's soda.

     Aside from having a new 'baby' in the house we also had some fun celebrating Christmas and New Year's this week. We attended a fun Kmetzsch family gathering Sunday evening.

The white elephant gift exchange was a little large but fun.

McClane got a box full of t-shirts and Charlie got a tin full of snacks. Mark got a nice woman's watch and with a helpful suggestion from his Uncle Blaine, he went the next day to the store the watch came from and exchanged it for a cool man's watch worth over $100 dollars! Now that's a total score from a white elephant gift exchange. Isaac got a bag full of bubble gum, a couple kitchen towels and some jolly ranchers. Carter ended up with a small brass fox that he sold for $5 bucks to his Uncle Blaine. Brock got a Harry Potter coloring book, soap and a trophy and Kayli got a tin full of fancy pretzels.

     We also had a little car trouble Sunday after church. Thankfully we were only out a vehicle for about 24 hours and due to having two other drivers in the house with their own cars we still had transportation.

First time we've actually used our AAA!

      We also are doing a little home improvement project. I'm finally getting my bedroom repainted and new flooring installed.

From green to grey! And the wood cabinets are now white. Hopefully we'll have our bedroom back together by tomorrow night.

I'm really a fan of this laminate floor!

     And to finish off 2015 Greg took the boys on the front runner train round-trip from American Fork to Ogden, which they enjoyed.

Not a bad way to spend a cold winter afternoon.

     We also celebrated the New Year with several neighbors and had a great time.

Yummy food, good friends, fun games and fireworks!

     We also had an addition to our extended family with the birth of our niece/cousin Halle Claire Atkinson being born on December 29 in Australia! We only wish we could be there to see her in person but we're so excited that her Baker grandparents are there with her and the rest of her family. Welcome to the world Halle!

      Now here's to the New Year and whatever it may bring!

Christmas 2015

     It's OVER!! Christmas always comes and goes so quickly. We're currently preparing a yummy turkey dinner to top the day off. Here's some Christmas celebration photos....

We did Christmas Eve PJ's in two sessions. Here's session #1.

So cute and sweet. I love when they're happy and getting along. (It's RARE!)

Second wave! These three stayed longer at G&G's to watch Claymation Christmas.

Fun!

Christmas morning! The waiting is nearly over!!

Here's one of her gifts. She was pretty excited to open her presents and DID NOT want any help.

This boy has been asking for a green teddy bear for the better part of a month and it had to be ALL green!! I think he's satisfied.

Brock gets pretty excited and this wasn't even something he'd asked for.

Carter was stoked to get a new xbox controller, too bad the xbox has been confiscated for the rest of the year.

The coolest remote control toy of the year, OLLIE!

Mark's theme would have to be skulls this year. Skull pjs, skull candy headphones and a skull gearshift knob.

Surprise, Kayli gets the same thing as Mark.

Sisters bonding over clothes, so sweet.

And Greg's got me covered, this ought to help me survive the winter.

I had to throw in a little joke with Greg's gift. I wrapped a basket full of old hot wheels cars to throw him off because his actual gift was a tiny, but powerful flashlight. No one thinks it's as funny as I do though!

She set up camp in the hallway with her new baby and teddy bear.

And I would say she's pretty happy with her baby doll and buggy. I pretty much stopped taking photos after this but there's been plenty of fun and chaos for all the kids playing with all their new stuff.

    This is just a small portion of photos from the morning festivities. It snowed at least a foot through the night and into this morning so Greg was out early plowing and was able to come home around 8 AM and stay long enough for us to do the gift opening part of our day. Luckily it stopped snowing later and Greg has been home part of the day and able to help the kids with their toys. It's harder for some kids than others to wait for their dad. Thankfully the smallest kids slept through the waiting. And we need all this snow so no one is really complaining.

      Now let's clean this place up!!

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.