Christmas...

Christmas was awesome this year. Plain and simple. I was so, so glad the world didn't end. Whew! haha...

Ok, so we started out our celebration on Christmas Eve at Devin and Candace's house (Justin's bro).

Candace has got some serious hostessing skills and I wish I had a picture of the beeeautiful tablescape and gorgeous prime rib roast dinner. It was amazing.

We also went through the story of the birth of Jesus in the Bible and sang the songs that went with each section of scripture. It was fun doing it with the extended family, we will have to go all out and dress the kids up next year.

We came home and got the kids to bed and then Justin and I blissfully went to bed early while Santa came and did all the work. ;) So easy, let me tell ya.

And on Christmas morning, we woke up to this! Wow! Thanks, Santa!

Makenzie and Jarom decided Santa could use a break from all those cookies.

Had to include a glow-y tree shot.

And let the fun commence!

It is so, so fun having kids this age on Christmas morning!

Not the greatest picture, but Kyle was so excited about getting play-doh. He is really into it right now.

Micah was really into it, as you can tell.

Jarom got his toy bow and arrow, what he had been asking Santa for.

Makenzie got her big, beautiful toy horse with the doll to go with.

Justin got a frying pan. No joke. After he got me the stainless steel set I had been wanting a few years ago and realized how bad it is cooking eggs in a stainless steel frying pan, he decided it was time he asked for his own cookware for Christmas. :)

Helicopter.

Toys and wrapping paper everywhere, good times.

Justin giving me that Oh-you-shouldn't-have-been-the-coolest-wife-ever-who-got-me-this-AppleTV kind of look.

And wow, I guess this was the year of electronics. Jarom just stood there with the Wii forever waiting for me to take a picture, haha! I finally caved and let them get a video game system. So far they have impressed me and haven't been addictive like we were with the Nintendo growing up!

After presents, my sister Tiffany and her hubby Joey came over for Christmas brunch (no pics! Wah!). Then Justin's mom and dad came over and we went to grab some lunch (horrible people who went out to eat on Christmas, I know). Later Justin and I bundled up the kids, dropped off a gift to Grandpa Garrison and took him along with us to see the lights at Temple Square. Hello, gorgeous!!

I liked going there on Christmas Day, after the presents, to keep Christ in our minds. 

Hope you all had a very Merry Christmas. Thank you to all who sent cards and gifts. We received over 30 cards this year (we're not huge Christmas carders so that was a lot for us) and it was so fun hearing from everyone. We love you all!

Emotional week

The past few days have been rough emotionally. I remember when the shooting in Columbine happened. It hit me so hard because I was in high school at the time. But this time, being a mom and seeing this happen to such little children just like mine... a first grader just like Makenzie, it has just been very, very hard to even think about.

As soon as I heard about it, I just wanted to grab all of my kids and never let them go.

Thank goodness Fridays are short days for Makenzie because I couldn't wait to have her home. Not that I was worried about her safety or anything, I just, you know... wanted to have her home.

We were already out and about when school was about to end so I drove to the school and picked her up. The kids were lined up outside behind a sign with their bus number, and I quickly waved to Kenz who excitedly ran to me and bounced away with me to the car. I don't know if I've ever appreciated her presence in my life more than I did at that very moment. And I felt so horrible for the parents who also went to their first grader's school that day, watched all the kids line up, and realized their baby wasn't there. That moment... I can't even imagine the horror. 

I am so grateful for my kids. They are my whole world. This experience has been a strong reminder that life is fragile. It has been a reminder to just be happy and enjoy each other. Sometimes I think I worry too much about teaching them the rules of life, manners, respect, etc. The last few days I've just been enjoying them. Things that might normally get on my nerves have seemed to matter less, and their feelings and their knowledge of my love for them have seemed to matter more.

I finally got the courage to watch some of the stories about the children who died. There was a little girl who was wearing her brand new pink dress/ Christmas outfit that day. She had begged her mom to let her wear it. And I just burst into tears because I bet her mom was SO glad she let her wear that dress. It was a reminder to me that every single day is special. Every day.

I love these 4 kiddos so much and am so grateful for every day I get to be their mom!

So my kids had some birthdays...

I have some major blog catch up to do.

I've just been a wee bit on the busy side lately.

Having four kids is not for the weary, let me tell you!

But I wanted to post about Jarom and Makenzie's birthdays.

As you may know, I love throwing birthday parties for my kids.

It may be partly because I was never allowed to have parties growing up.

Apparently my mom threw a party for my oldest sister one time and somebody got their feelings hurt because their kid wasn't invited and my mom decided she was never doing "friends" parties again. So we just always had cake with our family and that was it. Not cool, Mom, not cool. haha just kidding... she was also a single mom with five kids so... yeah, who can blame her?

But anyway, my love for birthday parties usually involves a lot of time and maybe a little money, and Justin asked if we could just do friends parties every other year. So I agreed. I admit, I felt a little sad, like I was letting them down somehow, but they still had really fun birthdays even without the traditional "party."

Jarom turned FIVE on October 25th. FIVE! Let me tell you... when your first kid turns five, you feel kind of of old. At least I did. But when your second kid turns five... man. It's all over. haha...

For Jarom's birthday, he went to the movies with Justin and saw Frankenweenie. Then we went to Chuck E Cheese, his choice for dinner (smart kid). We let him invite his friend who lives next door and he had a really good time. Justin's mom and dad came, too, and we had a birthday cake for him there. Jarom looooves arcades. He was in heaven. It turned out to be a really fun birthday.

Little Miss Makenzie turned seven on November 28th. 

All she wanted was a hamster.

This is slightly messed up because when we gave away the cat we got them for Christmas last year, we told them we'd get them a hamster instead.

That promise went unfulfilled until Makenzie was adamant that all she wanted for her birthday was a hamster. Hahaha, parents of the year, right?!

But after her birthday dinner, we went to the pet store and picked up a black bear hamster she lovingly named Whiskers.

Here they are:

Jarom and Kyle love Whiskers, too, and Makenzie is such a sweet big sister and told them that even though she got him for her birthday, that he could be their hamster, too. 

After we picked up Whiskers, we came home and had grandparents/aunts & uncles/cousins over for cake and ice cream so we actually had way more people there than we normally would for a party... just without the hoopla of games, decorations, etc. Well, I take that back, Justin did stop on the way home and get her a big bouquet of birthday balloons (super sweet), so it was a little decorated. :)

So yeah, she had a really fun birthday as well. 

I guess it turns out you can have a fun birthday without your mom going crazy on Pinterest and inviting all your friends over.

(Although that will definitely be happening next year.)  ;)

Happy 5th birthday to Jarom and happy 7th to Makenzie!

The good, the bad and the ugly...

Today's post pays tribute to that old Clint Eastwood film. Who, by the way, looked exactly like Hugh Jackman when he was younger.
See?

If you're not seeing it there, check this out:

I think Clint Eastwood was slightly better looking, if I do say so myself.

Anyway... As I was uploading pictures off our camera this week, that movie title came to mind.
We've had some good moments, some bad moments and even some plain ugly ones.
So here goes.

The Good

Sweet bonding moments between brothers. These cute moments make me so grateful I can be a stay at home mom. I'm so glad I don't have to miss them. They are rare and come at the cost of lots of other frustrating moments, but they make all the hard stuff I do so worth it.

 An adorable 1 month old baby.

 Secret handshakes.
(I admit I don't always watch people's videos, so I get it if you don't... but this one will probably make you smile. Just sayin'.)

 An organized pantry.

A cute six-year-old earning her white belt.

And a 5 year old boy playing catch with his dad.

The Bad

This picture encompasses two bad things.
1. I have a lot of baby weight to lose.
2. I have to clean all the time. Kenz wanted to take a picture of me while I was picking up Kyle's room.

And the ugly

I won't go into a lot of detail, but Kyle fell out of the cart at Sam's Club. He was in the back with Makenzie and I turned around for 2 seconds when he decided to reach for a button on a toy display and slammed his head straight onto the concrete floor. It was terrifying, but luckily he was just fine except for the enormous goose egg on his forehead. My poor baby.

Well, I'm happy to say after putting this post together that it looks like there has been a lot more good than bad or ugly around here. This is a good reminder that even though there will always be some bad or ugly, for the most part, life is good.

Halloweeeeen!

Halloween is starting to be a busy day around here! 

With my kids getting older (Kenz is almost 7!?!), Halloween has a lot more going on. 

We had Makenzie's costume parade at school, Jarom's preschool Halloween party, and bringing stuff to Makenzie's class party in the morning.

In the afternoon, I did a little cleaning and the boys relaxed and watched their current fave movie, Meet the Robinsons. They loooove that movie.

Makenzie had a Halloween party/birthday party after school, so while she was there and Justin was at our rental house showing it to people, Jarom, Kyle and I got started on our yummy potato soup and cleaning out the pumpkins.

Jarom did most of the work. As you can see in this picture, he loved it. Kyle did not. This was his first time dipping his hand in. He said, "gwoss" and was done, haha.

He did really like holding the pumpkins on the outside, though. :)

Justin got home and I walked over to the party and grabbed my little vampire so she could choose her pumpkin design. She drew this bat on it and I carved it out. She did a pretty good job!

Justin carved Jarom's into a scary face (at first Jarom wanted a mummy but we couldn't produce that in our limited time... or ever?... so we settled on "scary.") I carved Kyle's into a happy classic Jack-o-lantern. He approved.

We had cream cheese potato soup and garlic bread. My Halloween fave dinner. Kenz is getting in trouble in this pic, haha... gotta be nice to your brother!

Here's Dad and his cute little giraffe. You had to see Kyle walking around in this to get the full effect. His chubby bum with with the little giraffe tail was soooo cute!

Mom and her vampire, skeleton?, and happy giraffe. :)

So... Jarom had 4 costumes to choose from. After Halloween last year, I bought some costumes on clearance for him since he loves to dress up. I got a mummy, frankenstein, Bumblebee (transformer), and Thor. They were all dirt cheap and not the nicest costumes, so when he really wanted to be Batman for Halloween, I found one on clearance last week, too, and got it for him. So he was Batman for the two trunk-or-treats we went to, but then on Halloween night he decided he now wanted to wear this- the mummy shirt and this freaky skeleton helmet thing we've had forever. I will tell myself I didn't totally waste money since I have two more boys that will fit all those costumes. I'm sure we'll use them sooner or later. And if not, we are fully stocked on boys' dress ups.

We had record-breaking heat this Halloween, it was so nice! The kids didn't need coats for once, it was awesome. So I brought little Micah out for a pumpkin pic, but I had just finished feeding him and he was all burpy/gassy so he's not looking too happy. Oh well!

Trick or treat...

I brought him inside, and after a couple of good burps and a poopy diaper, he was feeling happy again.

This was the first time the kids trick-or-treated in our new neighborhood. They had so much fun running from house to house with their neighbor friends. Micah and I stayed back to hand out candy. We didn't get as many trick or treaters as I thought we would, but we still almost emptied out our big bowl of candy. Halloween is such a fun night, I seriously love it. When we said our family prayer before bed, Makenzie thanked her Heavenly Father for giving us Halloween... gave Justin and I a good chuckle. But it was cute, the kids were sooo happy. Hope you all had a Happy Halloween!