Christmas

I found some Christmas crafts to work on while Brad was home to keep us all busy and happy. We made these super cool "stained glass" things. All you need is clear contact paper and tissue paper cut into small pieces. The kids stuck their tissues all over the contact paper and then we stuck it onto the glass door. They were very artsy and pretty once the sun was shining through. We also made personalized placements for Christmas dinner with holiday stickers, markers and contact paper.

Claire loved trying to grab ornaments off of the tree.

Unwrapping presents 

Ruth got lots of dress up, she was particularly excited about her wedding dress and veil (thank you used kids store).

We didn't have a white Christmas...but the day AFTER it dumped 6 inches on us and has been snowing off and on for a week now! Will LOVES the snow. I'll get him all bundled up and he'll play by himself for 30 minutes out there in the 20 degree weather.

Funnies

Being a mom has lots of funny moments. Today Ruth asked when her "five birthday" was going to be. I told her November 18th, to which she replied, "Again! How about January 15?"

Last night Claire was laughing in her sleep, so adorable!

The other night when Will saw a play sword he was in awe. He spoke in reverential tones and said, "Me want fight with it." Can't wait for Christmas, he's gonna love his sword! Ever since then he's been using my spatulas as swords. He's such a boy!

Fully Mobile Baby and Secret Santa

Claire has become a fully operational baby! She (usually) eats food well, can sit up and can go and get whatever she wants. I wouldn't say that she's crawling, it's more of a combination of rolling and squirming, but it's definitely time to re-baby proof the house. Dang she's cute! 

We have been secret Santa'd. Someone has been doing a 12 days of Christmas thing for us. It's been super fun. Last nights gift was a mini Mr. Potato Head which the kids love! We can't wait to do this for someone else next year.

Bad Day, Happy Ending

Today just started out rough for us. The kids were just driving me crazy! By my breaking point I looked up at the clock and almost cried because it was only 11:30! I texted Brad and he suggested getting a friend to watch the kids. Everyone was busy and babysitters are all still in school. So I took a deep breath and instead of thinking of packing all the kids in and out of the car as a chore I decided to be grateful that I have that as an option! That really helped. 

So then we ran to Smith's and got: prunes for Claire so she'll hopefully poop today and quit being cranky; bubble bath to keep the big kids busy while I'm trying to feed Claire said prunes; a frozen pepperoni pizza to provide sustenance for the rest of us; cookie dough, shredded coconut, and m&m's to make cookie pizzas; super sparkly nail polish to make me feel pretty.

 Frozen pizza was fine, but the cookie pizzas were awesome! We used red raspberry jam as the "sauce" and chocolate sprinkles for seasoning and they were DELICIOUS. I love how much the coconut actually looks like mozzarella. I found this idea somewhere on the internet because I am constantly looking for activities to keep us busy, hooray!

In other recent events I made this beauties stuffed with peppermint marshmallow cream for the ward Christmas party. The recipe is from Food Network, they're called hot chocolate cookies. yum.

 Here the kids are helping me bash up the candy canes to put in the marshmallow cream.

And it finally snowed half an inch here, so of course the kids were desperate to get bundled up and play

Pics

I've been trying to come up with lots of cheap indoor activities to keep the kids busy and me sane. We fell back on the good old fruit loops on a string trick and they loved it. It was also really good for Will to get the practice using fine motor skills.

We have also been watching a decent amount of Christmas shows, particularly Charlie Brown Christmas and How The Grinch stole Christmas.

And I was going through old pictures and found this amazing picture of my adorable husband in England. Yowza! Ruth asked me who this was and then told me this picture kinda looks like her daddy.

Thanksgiving and Ruth's B-day

Ruth's kitty cupcakes, as requested. They turned out pretty well.

Megan was also born on November 18th! It was a big party at my parents house

 We were so happy to spend tons of time at Meg and Joe's house, we haven't seen them in years. The kids had lots of fun together.

 turkey marshmallow craft

 These are our adobe style graham cracker houses. It was lots of fun to make and the kids loved eating all that candy!

Here is myself and dad at Claim Jumper with the largest "slice" of cake you'll ever see. It was way bigger than my hand and fed all 7 adults.

Multnomah Falls

And here are family pics by my dad:

Fall Activities and Halloween

This year has been the best Halloween by far. The kids were so into it and we all had lots of fun doing Halloween crafts and activities. 

Ruth's Halloween nails: spiderweb, jack-o-lantern, ghost, monster and spider

pumpkin patch had a kid maze and old tractor

Long sleeves and sunsets

We took a weekend trip to Boise to see the temple they are rededicating. We also got to watch the Idaho Vandal marching band on the basque street downtown.

Playing in the vast amount of leaves we have

I just had to dress up for the ward party, so I wore all my jewelry, Brad's belt, stripey socks and got a dollar store hat and sword. It was fun!

 Halloween story time at the library, Ruth wanted to use my pirate stuff, everyone kept calling her a boy!

Little Buzz Lightyear. He won the best homemade costume at the ward party.

                               Ladybug Girl (check out the books if you haven't read them yet)

Out trick-or-treating. 

We went with the Chandler's (Ruth and Alice are besties) and walked around the ritzy part of town. They got so much good candy! We were all exhausted by the end but it was a blast. The best part was that it was strangely warm so no one was cold!

October Activities

Family pictures in the backyard, GO BYU!

Conference weekend brought homemade cinnamon rolls...

 and lounging

FHE brought more baking

 and messy decorating