highlights of christmas

 Brian was very determined this year to make a gingerbread house, so he did!! It took almost 2 weeks, but this is the final project, finished christmas eve. brian wouldn't let the kids eat it till the day after christmas. But I thought the kids (and brian) did great!

 Alli helping me make chocolate carmel popcorn, YUM!!! she is turning out to be quite the little helper. And she loves it, bonus. And the popcorn was delish.

 Last year, living in downey, on chirstmas eve, it was raining/snowing, and when the kids looked outside there was a bottle of sparkling apple juice on the railling, so the little kids were certain that it rained down their christmas drink. Well this year, it happened again, only it wasn't raining, we got a knock on the door, and this was sitting there!

 Here are all the kids toasting to christmas with their apple juice! so cute. Then they each got to open a christmas eve present....

 This year they got fuzzy socks, They look so cute in their fuzzies.

And just a small highlight of christmas morning, The kids were all so happy, and so fun. Hope everybody had a great christmas.

christmas party games, and oh baby, 32 weeks

 I totally forgot to put this pic in with my last post, so here is what I got for my 1 person baby shower!! pretty handsome stuff, I can't hardly wait to get some of these clothes on my baby! Thanks again mom and dad love ya tons!

 And yes here is the belly! And just so you all know, I do realize that I am not HUGE, but this is the biggest I have ever gotten with a pregnancy, so for me this is huge!! I'm feeling like I can't get bigger, but I am sure I will. I have started going to my dr. appts every week, and every week I get a non stress test, and an ultrasound just to make sure this little peanut is doing ok. so far so good, its just mama that is tired, with a backache, headaches, you know the usual. but also anxious to get through the holidays and meet this kid!

 ok, so my family won't appreciate that I posted these pics, but they are so cute, and funny. At our christmas party, we played games I have not seen before. this one was a team effort, each member of the team had to blow up 5 balloons, and stuff them in pantyhose, then get them on one of their heads to look like antlers. It was so funny, and I thought these guys  looked pretty good!

Another game I have not seen yet, they had the head of each family stand still while their kids and grandkids decorated them like trees! It was a blast to watch, that is my cute daddy on the right, All the kids decorated so cute,and had so much fun, lots of laughs that night..... can't hardly wait for christmas.

first lost tooth, christmas cooking, and my mini baby shower

 Jason has been patiently waiting to lose his first tooth, during kindergarten most of his friends started losing teeth, but not jason. (abby either) The first of the summer abby had to get 4 teeth pulled, so she lost a bunch at the same time, but still jason waited, finally.....here we are in december of first grade he finally lost his first tooth. He was eating a piece of toast, and couldn't bite it, I checked his teeth, and it was practically falling out. so one little yank, and he was eating toast again. He was pretty happy.

 And the tooth fairy came, that made him even happier :)

 ok so my darling hubby decided to make a homemade gingerbread house. Here are the kiddos rolling and cutting out, its not put together quite yet, but will be soon, and I will have to show you all how it turned out.

 And of course the clean up, these two little monkeys wanted to help clean up, so I put them on dishes duty. They loved it, they had so much fun, it was crazy, I made sure to tell them they could do dishes any time they wanted to!

 baking marathon, here are my cookie balls that I turned into meliting snowmen.

 The 3 older kids wrapping up the carmels, and eating a few.

 The table filled with all the things we made, ready to take to neighbors, ( we only know like 3 or 4 so we may have leftovers, lol)

 My darling mother threw me a surprise baby shower, well, a mini baby shower, everything was from her. I am so grateful for my mom and dad, they are the best parents ever! Me and the kids had so much fun opening things for our little baby, who only has 8 more weeks till he is due!

 Such cute clothes.

And of course coming to our family, I found this shirt quite fitting, it says 'wild child' He should fit right in. we are all getting excited to meet our little one.

First christmas party of the season :)

 The kids watching grandma barbara open her gift, we gave them a frosty the snowman book that the kids recorded themselves reading, while recording the book I have to say we have never laughed so hard in our lives!!! crazy fun. my kids are all such goofballs.

 mmmm, zach is so happy, he loves dingdongs! (and gift cards)

 joey looks pretty happy himself!

 and our cousin Sean opening his present, he is so cute! But he was a little shy around my wild monkeys, the motorcycles that him and jason both got helped get him up and playing though!

 Alli's cute shirt! she loves it, of course she is a girl, she loves clothes :)

 Abby got a new coat, which I have to say, is perfect timing, she was starting to outgrow her old one!

 Jason even though he has a funny look on his face, was so hyper,and so crazy, he had a blast, he cannot wait till the next christmas party. He is a total party animal.

 Tommy, Andrew, and Sean hanging out, watching all the crazieness. We had a blast at this christmas party! It really put us in the christmas mood.

 Andrew is always so generous with our family, and we love all he does for us!

daddy opening our present, looks like the girls are curious. Even though there is no snow, having christmas parties sure helps with the christmas mood.
I think everyone who reads my blog anyway, knows what an extremely hard year this has been, it has not gotten easier, but we are sure working on it. first finding out we are expecting a surprise baby, it took a while to get use to that idea, in fact I am not sure I am still use to it.But we only have 9 more weeks! then having to move back to utah, and leaving our beautiful home, and all of our friends, that was hard, but having brian home everynight has made such a difference in our lives, the kids have changed so much they are maturing and happy! Not that they are perfect, close, but they are awesome! Zach is changing so much 9th grade is a major leap for my little boy. Not only is he more social than I have ever seen him, he is doing better in school, and just plain happy.I am sure starting to get facial hair has helped him with his happiness and my stress.  Joey who has never really had a problem being  social, has taken it over the top. He is so happy, school we will not talk about, but I will say he is one happy kid! Alli is loving 6th grade, she has a great teacher, and is making some really great friends, she is so helpful to me, and can't wait for this baby to get here. Abby is doing so great in first grade, she loves school, and is doing great in it. We have discovered with abby that party of her sleeping problem (most of you know about it) is linked to sugar. we have taken most of the sugar out of  her diet, and she is finally sleeping!! she is so much happier. Jason is doing awesome. kindergarten was so hard for him, but he  is LOVING first grade, and his teacher is the best ever. I couldn't ask for a better teacher for jj. He is growing taller every day, he just may catch up with big brother joey! As for me and brian, we are doing pretty good, he loves it here, and is loving acutally being a daddy! I am still homesick for my downey, and I miss being surrounded by my friends, pregnancy  and settling in a new house is hard without any friends, but I still talk to most of them, and the computer is so helpful keeping me up to date on what is going on back home! Like I said before, we only have 9 weeks for this little one to get here, I now have to take it "easy" and I am trying, but with 5 kids already, taking it easy is a little hard. And I am hoping that with the holidays the time will fly by! I wanted to say thanks to all my family and friends who read my blog, and comment, love you all!! And merry chirstmas :)

Allis science fair, and my little love bug

 So, life is so different here! I am still getting use to it, among regular life! But allis 6th grade class was required to participate in the science fair, so alli and her cute friend baylee teamed up, and got started, here she is by her project.

 Alli and Baylee showing how proud they are of their project, I was so proud of them too!

 Waiting, trying to be patient while waiting to hear the results of the science fair.

 They each got a participation award, alli was a little bummed, but I explained to her that although her project was great, there were over 110 entries in the 6th grade! But the girls were happy with their extra large pixie sticks nothing like sugar to make a girl feel better :)

 In fact good enough to strike a pose, Love that girl!!!

And yes, I had to add this in, the family was playing wii last night, and I was sitting by jason, the sweet little guy reached over and held my had for the longest time!! melted my heart. He has been so clingy lately, I am not sure why, but clinging to both me and brian. We have been loving it, taking full advantage of the extra lovings. but hopefully the little guy is just tired the last few days. But I'll take it as long as I can.
I have also sat the family down and made our christmas bucket list of all the things we want to do during this christmas season. so look for more exciting posts about some of our adventures!

turkey and trees.

 We were lucky enough to be asked to do desserts for turkey day this year! we had so much fun. Here is jason holding the cake balls getting ready to put them in the freezer, he had so much fun helping to make them.

 Here is alli helping out! Abby and the boys were playing wii, so they were too busy to help!

 My and my sis on thanksgiving, LOVE HER!!! and of course my daddy in the background.

 Zach sneaking a roll, (thats my grandma in the back there)

 getting ready to eat!

 mmm, everything is soooooo good.

 joey ready to dig in.

 Ok, now this has a story behind it, kind of a crazy one, it started with the boys bringing up my totes up from the basement, joey stepped on one of those stupid glue traps to catch mice, (no more mice here btw) it turned upside down, got all over the carpet, and made a mess, then jason went downstairs to see what all the commotion was, then stepped in the glue with his church pants which happen to be too long. so we stripped him down to his undies, and he just went like that the rest of the day, so I apologize all our tree decorating pics are with jason in his undies!!! Here he his showing off his new "socks".

 Alli and underwear boy putting ornaments on.

 Abby and underwear boy finding just the right place for the ornaments.

 My babies, someday I will get a pic where noone is pulling a face, lol.

 Then we snuck into the kitchen for some hot cocoa, the perfect ending.

Zach loves hot cocoa!

mmm, mmm, good :)

Ok, so I have my darling sister to blame for this one. She sent me a pic of this that she made, and of course it looked delish, then alli told me she was having a party at school the next day and she needed to bring a treat, so this of course came to mind, since it never left, and fyi, the original recipe called for regular popcorn, but I had these pops so I used them.

 mmm, mmm good, so you take your popcorn add whatever carmal sauce you usually make, (if anyone wants my recipe just let me know) then you add 1 c. of chopped up halloween candy chocolate bars, bake it for 10 min. then add another cup of chopped up candy bars, then enjoy, way too good.

 And then I made these, caramel cheesecake snickerdoodle sandwiches. ooooh yea.

and thats how this happened, lol,, I finally have a belly ;) Well I have made it to 28 weeks, some days it seems to go by soooo slow, then I look back and think wow, that was fast, and even crazier the end of this pregnancy is coming faster. And I'm not ready, we are clueless about a name, need lots of things for him still, and yet the time just keeps going by. I officially have 12 more weeks, but as we all know my other babies all came a month early, so I need to get ready. The fun part is I start going in to the dr every 2 weeks now. He is keeping a real close eye on baby, the migraine meds I am taking have a tendency to make a baby smaller, so not only do I get an ultrasound every appt with my dr. he is ordering an ultrasound with his tech every 2-3 weeks to check on the babys growth. so I am getting to see my little ones personality a lot. Today he must be either frustrated, or ready to meet his brothers, both his hands were tight in fists, lol. He wouldn't show me his face today, but everything else still looks great! (and still a boy) so I will keep you updated!!!