He Did It!

I can't believe my baby is old enough to roll over!! He's been working on it for a couple of weeks, and he's got it down now. Here come the wrestling matches during diaper changes!

More Christmas

I roasted a turkey for dinner on Christmas day, and I was really excited about how well it turned out.
Hannah made lots of presents for everone. She really had fun putting things under the tree. I think the best thing she came up with was the card that said she would play polly pockets with Nikki, do the dishes for dad, and hold the baby for mom after she opened her presents. Here she is giving dad his present.

Christmas morning

We had a nice, relaxed, simple Christmas. It was a wonderful day.

Here is our early bird coming excitedly down the stairs followed by our not-so-early bird grumpily making her way down. Even on Christmas.

It's great that they are still excited with little things and don't realize that other kids get way more than they do. Yes, that's a bunch of diapers coming out of Ryan's stockimg -- a very practical present, right? Hannah got some new scriptures with a carrying case. This morning she showed me a bookmark she had made and told me she put it where she had been reading in the scriptures. She is such a wonderful child.

Christmas Eve

We had a fun Christmas Eve at Mike & Sherrie's. They got home the night before from their trip, and then JW & Alli came up to their house for our family dinner. We had the kids act out the Christmas story, and just about everybody participated this year.

Here's Uncle Nate with a bunch of cute girls.

pre-Christmas vacation

We went to my brother's house for a few days before Christmas to watch their kids while he and his wife went on vacation. You can click here to see some pictures and highlights from that trip. I'm too lazy to post it again. I will say that being in charge of 6 kids ages 7 and under is tiring. And that is with them all being pretty well behaved. It's been nice to have the past few days to just be home and relax. Even Nikki hasn't complained about not having anything to do. :)

Gingerbread

I wasn't so much of a grinch when it came to making our gingerbread house. We had a lot of fun with it. I didn't realize when I bought the kit that the house was already pre-assembled, but that was fabulous! I didn't have to stick cans of green beans inside to keep it standing up this year! And I took a page out of Kellee's book, and the girls dug right in and enjoyed it two seconds after they finished decorating it. I think it always tastes so gross, but it's just fun to have that much sugar concentrated in such a small space.

What a terrible hiding place

The other day I had gone shopping just before getting the girls from school and hadn't put everything away yet. They were in the kitchen getting a snack and I noticed there was a bag right in front of them that had a couple little Christmas presents for them in it. I snatched it up really quickly and asked if they saw what was in the bag. They said they didn't, and I ran it upstairs and hid it in Nate's closet. When I came back down they kept asking what it was, so I told them it was a present for them. Hannah asked me where I hid it, and I gave her a surprised look and said, "I'm not telling you that." So she explained she wanted to know where I put it so she wouldn't accidentally come across it. If any other child had said that to me, I would have said --yeah, right! But the thing is, I really believe her. Then yesterday, I asked Hannah to gather up all the laundry and take it down to the washer. I completely forgot that we have ALL of the Christmas presents wrapped and hidden in Nate's closet. That small bag that I had thrown in there the other day was under the dirty clothes basket, so she almost HAD to have seen it. I asked her later if she had seen any presents in there, and she told me she knew there were some presents in there so she just looked at the clothes. She didn't look around. Hmm .... Maybe I'll just stuff those presents in her stocking and see what she has to say about Santa after that. I'm just about ready to be done with the jolly old man anyway. I want to give my children presents. Why should he get all the love and gratitude? Because you know that Nikki doesn't care about anything else except what Santa is bringing no matter how much we have talked about the Savior and doing things for other people this year.

Christmas Cookies

On Saturday I decided I was ready to make Christmas cookies, and the girls didn't want to have anything to do with it. I was a bit surprised, but I thought -- Fine. So I did it myself, and I enjoyed it so much I made 5 different kinds. My Grandma Bass used to make a bunch of different kinds of Christmas cookies, but it seems like I didn't care for her variety very much. I think just my dad liked them all. But I have her cookie tin, so I thought I would fill it up this year. I made sugar cookies all by myself (they aren't pictured), and it was the easiest and cleanest process I have ever had without little fingers dripping icing everywhere and messing up the shapes. I also made lemon bars, no bakes, apple-cinnamon oatmeal bars, and lady fingers (or Mexican wedding cookies, Russian tea cakes, sandies, or I like Hannah's name best -- powdered sugar cookies). I guess it was kind of a grinchy thing to do it by myself and exclude my kids from even icing the sugar cookies, but my afternoon went so smoothly! And they did enjoy the results.

Ryan's 3 month picture

 

Live Nativity

We had a neat experience tonight that we may never have again. Our stake puts on a live nativity every year, and Nate and I volunteered to be a part of it with Baby Ryan. Of course that made us Mary and Joseph and the Baby Jesus. I think I've only ever played the part of an angel in any rendition of the nativity. I'm sure Mary wasn't wearing glasses and the Baby Jesus probably didn't need a pacifier, but even with those deviations from what the real scene may have really been like, I felt very blessed to be a part of this reenactment. What must it have been like for Mary to have people come to worship her son? How humbling an experience that must have been. How filled with awe she must have felt. I know the love that I feel for Ryan is incredible, and I'm sure that is something of the same kind of love that filled her heart for her Child. Ryan is so pure and innocent, and it is amazing to think that the Savior never lost those qualities. How wonderful it must have been to just be around Him. I am so grateful for the perfect life He lived and the infinite atonement he performed.

If I were a better mother ...

I would have run for a tissue instead of the camera.

Little Cutie

Holidays

I have been trying to get a good picture of the kids together for a Chrismas card picture, but I'm about ready to give up. How can a family with 5 or 6 kids ever make this work? The thing is, I still like the pictures even with Ryan fussing or Nikki looking the wrong way or Hannah moving out of the right spot. They're all cute to this mama.

And, it may be a little late for a Thanksgiving post, but we enjoyed the holiday. On our way down to Jay & Alli's we each took a turn telling what we were thankful for. We kept it going for just about half of the ride there (which is a little over an hour). I thought the girls came up with some good blessings. Our list included: the world, baby Ryan, trees, scriptures, the Savior, family, turkey, toothpaste, a warm home, Dad's job, glasses, that our cars run well, ability to read, disposable diapers, school, the prophet, temples, and many more that I can't remember after more than a week has gone by. The point was that we have been blessed with so many things. I think even Hannah and Nikki caught that. What a wonderful holiday to be able to celebrate gratitude.

I think Thanksgiving leads very well into Christmas, which is celebrating the greatest gift we have been given. I feel a lot of gratitude for the gift of the Savior, and I really hope we can convey that feeling to our children this year. I'm not going to ask them any more about what they want for Christmas. The rest of the season is going to be about what they want to give to others around them. The Friend this month has a page with a scripture to read every day about the Savior's life up until Christmas. We're reading those each morning before they leave for school, and I hope it will help them understand Christmas a little better this year.

And finally, I really loved the quote President Monson shared in this month's Ensign from President David O. McKay: "“True happiness comes only by making others happy—the practical application of the Savior’s doctrine of losing one’s life to gain it. In short, the Christmas spirit is the Christ spirit, that makes our hearts glow in brotherly love and friendship and prompts us to kind deeds of service. It is the spirit of the gospel of Jesus Christ, obedience to which will bring ‘peace on earth,’ because it means—good will toward all men.”

K9 Web Protection

We have a great internet filter that I thought I would share. It's free, so I didn't know how good it would be when we first got it, but we have had it for over a year now and it really works well. It doesn't slow down our internet like I thought a free filter would. I was thinking about it this morning because I was trying to see a video that a friend had posted on her blog, but it was blocked from my computer because it was on Youtube. Of course you can change the settings to be whatever you want them to be. Occasionally I will adjust the settings to look at something someone suggests on Youtube, but I really like that my kids can't just get on there and look at what they want (they don't surf the internet by themselves yet, but they will someday).

It's called Blue Coat K9 web protection. There is a version for sale for businesses, but they offer a free version to families for home use. They even have a new beta version available for Mac users. The internet is wonderful, but we definitely need to protect our families. Anyway, thought I would share something that we found that is working for us.

Customer NO Service

67:59 minutes

What a ridiculous amount of time to be on the phone with customer service. After being placed on hold for the FOURTH time I finally hung up because I was not feeling like a nice person, and the next person to speak to me would not deserve the treatment I would be giving them. I can't tell you how frustrated I have become with AT&T. I just might have to write a letter next time because I can't stand the thought of ever calling them again.