March's Recap

Here we are with the last monthly recap, then I can get back to regular posts!

Every so often Jonah requests updates in picture form on how his ear is healing since he can't see it. This was on March 1. It is looking so much better now! (...and so is his scraggly hair! Luckily haircuts happened on Saturday!)

After Ellie and the boys dressed up as animals for Dr. Seuss's birthday week, Nathan requested another day of animal face painting. I couldn't turn him down!

"Dress Like an Old Person" Day at school.

I snapped this picture during Nathan's nap because I thought it was funny how he had his hands clasped. He and Jonah have to be separated at nap time if I ever want them to actually sleep, so Nathan sleeps on my bedroom floor and thinks it is quite the privilege.

Grandpa came to town, and this is the only picture I took of the whole weekend. Bummer. But we had a great time! We took the kids to open gym, played at the park, ate way too much, and generally had a good time.

Thomas tried out the stroller bike for the first time and he wasn't quite sure what to think of it! He liked playing outside for one of the first times since last fall, but I think the moving handlebars scared him. It was pretty cute to watch!

Ellie proudly told me, "Mom, come look what I did!"

She had measured her dolls on our growth chart and written their names next to their heights.

I just couldn't bring myself to be mad with how excited she was!

I originally planned to take the magic eraser to the board when she had forgotten about it, but decided not to since I actually think it's kind of cute and I'm sure I will like looking back on my doll-loving little girl once she has outgrown that phase. I asked her to tell me what the names of her dolls were (she changes them daily) and they are: Nan (nan), Smelly (selme) and Bella (bele). As a side note, Sam sometimes jokingly calls Ellie "Smelly" since it rhymes with her name, so I'm sure that's where she got that one!

Nathan dressed himself for preschool and I loved the socks with sandals combination so much and he was so proud of himself that I had to take a picture and just let him go like that.

Picture day at school. It was quite the feat to get her not to wear her fancy church dress and snow boots!

I love this little note that Ellie brought home from school so much! It's on the fridge.

On Sunday Ellie requested to have her hair curled, and she kept looking in the mirror and smiling at herself.

She couldn't stop twirling and saying how beautiful she looked. I hope she can always keep that same self-confidence!

And I am so grateful that the weather has been warming up! (It's 50 degrees on the warm days)

 I love watching my kids play together outside. Bring on summer!

February's Recap

In the winter months when it's too cold to go outside our family has a Saturday tradition of going to the BYU-Idaho Center. The kids love to run on the track and play basketball there, but I think my favorite part is when we walk past all of the pictures by Carl Bloch that are on display in the hall. The pictures are in order of Christ's life, and the kids have learned quite a bit about the Savior's life from those pictures alone.

I love to hear Tommy say, "Jesus" when he looks at each painting. And I love the above picture because it gives a small glimpse into what an attentive, caring big sister Ellie is. She is always making sure her little brothers are safe and following the rules.

Jonah cracks me up in this ^ picture with his head tilted back so far. 

The boys are so funny admiring this painting with their hands behind their backs!

Jonah was quite interested that this is a painting of the apostle Thomas. He couldn't quite wrap his head around the apostle's name being Thomas and his brother's name being Thomas. He kept saying, "There's two Thomas's?!"

For months Nathan has told me about this duck toy at preschool that says "Aflac." One day when I went to pick him up he asked me to take a picture of it to show to Ellie and Jonah, and his teacher said, "He sure loves that toy. He can keep it." Wow, was he ever excited! This is him explaining to me how it works.

At Ellie's school they are rewarded for good behavior with "Hawk Bucks" that they get to spend on Fridays. She bought these glasses awhile ago, and Tommy kept asking me to put them on him, then he would walk away proudly to show Ellie.

Poor little Jonah had a mishap with his ear. He was walking into his room to get dressed as I walked into the room next to it to grab diapers, and as soon as I opened the closet I heard a crash and then Jonah crying his real, hurt cry. He is usually extremely tough (seriously... he hardly ever cries when he gets hurt), so I could tell by his cry that he was really hurt. I ran into his room and he was laying on the ground in a heap. By the way he was laying I thought he had broken his arm or something, and when I picked him up there was blood on his back. I asked him where it hurt and he pointed to his ear, which I hadn't seen yet since I was looking at his arms, and these pictures don't do the injury justice. Apparently he had tripped and hit his ear on the metal bed frame, and it had kind of taken a chunk out of his ear. Yuck. The spot behind his ear had also been hit super hard - it was a giant goose egg that you can't see very well in the pictures.

I tried to get him to rest by laying on his bed, by snuggling with me and putting ice on it, by reading stories on my lap, etc., but he wouldn't have any of it. He wanted to keep playing! So I guess he recovered pretty quickly! Poor little guy. I am so glad it wasn't any worse!

For the week of Dr. Seuss's birthday Ellie's school celebrated by having each day be a different dress up day. She chose to be a leopard for animal dress up day, (don't mind my lack of artistic skills with the eyeliner!) and of course her brothers couldn't be left out!

Roar!

This is probably boring for everyone else, but it is one of those things I like to look back on and remember. I took this on February 28 because I was so excited that it was going to get up to the 40's! Once the snow starts melting it always makes me excited because I know Spring is coming.

Okay, one more month of updates and I can get back to regular posts! Hooray!

January's Recap

I didn't take very many pictures in January or February because this is basically what I was doing during those two months:

Sitting on the couch trying not to throw up. (I think in this picture I was eating? Or just making a weird face? Who knows.) But it is all worth it because we have a new baby on its way to our family!

We are all so excited! I love that Sam captured each of the kids' reactions to seeing the ultrasound picture.

Our little Tommy celebrated his first birthday! This isn't him with cake, but it was that same day... So that counts, right?

Our neighbor's house across the street burned down. Luckily the family got out safely, but the firefighters were unable to put the fire out completely because of the -20 degree weather, and it burned for a few days. 

The house completely burned to the ground, and they have since torn it down and are starting to rebuild. I am so glad they are all safe!

 Whenever Ellie requests a certain hairstyle she asks me to take a picture so she can see it. This is one of those. (Ignore the mess in the background... Yikes. When I look back on January it is tough because I was just so sick I did only what absolutely couldn't be done without, simply surviving from nap time to bed time - and often cleaning the house was last on the list.)

But hey, my boys wrestling sure are cute! Thomas loves to rough house with the older boys. I often find myself telling the big boys to be gentle with him only to realize Tommy is laughing... I guess he's surviving being number four just fine!

December's Recap

I have hardly any good pictures from December, which I am super bummed about, but I also think it was because I was fully engaged in enjoying the holidays that I didn't think to take very many pictures. So that's a good thing, I guess!

Whenever the kids get hurt somewhere they can't see on themselves, they ask me to take a picture... so that's what this is. Nathan had me take a picture of a scrape/bump on his back for him to see.

Just messing around on the couch.

The way Siri interprets what my kids say is hilarious sometimes.

A business in town had a community Christmas party, and Ellie was really excited to get to meet Buddy the Elf.

That day was also my birthday, so of course we had to celebrate with cake. I love these pictures because they so accurately captured the crazy moment!

After this Sam and I went to the Christmas concert at BYU-Idaho with Nathan Pacheco and David Archuleta, and I have to say - it was probably the most phenomenal concert I have ever been to. I still can't believe how amazing it was!

Random selfie while getting his hair cut.

And then he flipped the camera around and took a picture of Ellie.

Ta-da! (Ellie climbing on the couch in the back ground cracks me up... Even though I have told her a million times not to climb on the couch... hmmm.)

Stories with Daddy.

I met up with my friend Heather and her darling little girl who were in town for Christmas, and this is the only picture I got. Bummer.

We went to Arizona for Christmas, and while we were there I went and watched my mom teach one of her classes. It was fun to see her interacting with the students before class.

And these are the only two pictures I got from Christmas Day... That must have been because it was such a wonderful day!

Next up, January!

November's Recap - Part 2

My parents were in Pakistan for a wedding over Thanksgiving, but my siblings made the drive up from Arizona to spend Thanksgiving with us and we had a blast!

Unfortunately I couldn't figure out a way to get the pictures from Sam's phone onto the blog without plugging his phone into the computer (he's at work) so I will have to post those pictures separate sometime because he got much better pictures than I did!

We all piled around the computer and watched funny videos on youtube. 

Eve and Hyrum couldn't get enough of the card games! Whenever I put my kids down for a nap they begged me to play uno or war.

And the bigger kids played lots of games too! Cover Your Assets is a fun one.

Lily bribed Jonah for snuggles with games on her phone.

Nathan's birthday was the day before Thanksgiving, so as we were driving home from one of our adventures in two separate cars, Sam had me stop with the younger kids so he and the older kids could run to the dollar store and pick up some streamers and balloons to decorate for Nathan's birthday. We had him walk in after it was all decorated and everyone yelled, "Surprise!" He was so excited! Then of course we had to have cake and presents!

...And quesadillas for everyone.

Ben randomly decided that it would be fun to try on Nathan's knight helmet? ...I don't know.

And the night before they left Hyrum and Eve each wrote notes to leave for the kids since they would leave before anyone woke up in the morning:

And Eve's cute note.

This was such a fun trip! We really appreciated Ben being willing to make such a long drive to get here and back - it's definitely no easy feat! Maybe someday we will have to do this again!