Granny Day

This little munchkin had a granny day at school this week. She got to dress up as a "granny". 

She loved it. However, she did want me to take her picture and show "everyone".

Cause' apparently, "that's embarrassing!"

Silly girl. 

Puppy Store

We've got a Puppy Store that just opened in our area. I had heard that kids could "play" with puppies for free. My 2 older kids were out with the friends and it was just the 3 younger kids and myself. I decided we'd stop by and see what all the hype was about. 

You would have thought it was Christmas morning again for these 3. There were so many puppies to choose from. Each kid was able to pick one puppy and then go to an enclosed area by themselves with their puppy and play. 

Emily and Kylie were able to be in the same cubicle.

One of the puppies was so playful! If I had had the $5,000 they were asking for that puppy(who was on sale) she may have come home with us. Good thing I didn't have that in my back pocket!

So much fun, seeing my kids playing. They all want a dog now. However, my plate is beyond full! No pets until the house is done and we've got a backyard to keep our animals safe. 

It's going to be a while.....

Bowling on New Years Day

When we feel like we've been cooped up in the house for too long we go bowling!

Maddie trying to give some tips to her little sister. 

Hunter bowled a STRIKE!

It hard to take pictures while bowling. All I get is everyone's back sides!

Dad bowled a few strikes himself.

Miss Emily, got a kick out of the way she crossed her legs every time. 

Her first STRIKE!

Go Madddie...

Although I tried, I never did a get a strike this round. Next time!

Emily said it was the best day!

Love my family.

Christmas Day 2018

The kiddo's went to be about 9:30pm on Christmas Eve. They wanted to go to bed early to make sure Santa would come. A little after 11pm I was woken up to the worse sounds ever! Kylie was throwing up. Ughhhh..... After a quick bath, change of clothes, change of sheets she climbed back into bed ready for Santa to come. She puked 3 more times in that hour. I finally had just sat at the end of the bed waiting for that next moment. Being already awake I kept checking my phones for texts. My sister in law Miranda had been admitted to the hospital the previous day (23rd) due to complications in her pregnancy. Baby didn't come on the 23rd and they were hoping to have her on Christmas Eve. A little bit before midnight I got a text saying the doctor had been called and Miranda was about ready to start to push. So exciting! And then nothing until almost after 3am. I new something had gone wrong!

Baby Jayne was born at 12:53 am on Christmas Morning. But she wasn't breathing and remained unresponsive for about 45 minutes. For several minutes she did not have a heart beat and the nurses were performing cpr on her. How scary! With the help of amazing doctors, nurses and many many prayers Baby Jayne began breathing again. Baby will probably remain in the NICU for the next week or two but we are all praying and hoping that she will recover quickly from the lack of oxygen and be a normal baby girl!

7am came awfully early for me!

So excited for a battery operated toothbrush. 

All this girl wanted was a mini skateboard. 

 Maddie's been sewing lately and wanted her own tools. 

Poor baby girl! 

Hunter was pretty stoked about the Alexa Santa brought him. 

With a sick little girl our family stuck to ourselves and had a quiet and relaxing Christmas Day!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve with Grandma and Grandpa 2018

Christmas Eve early afternoon we decided to take the kids to the "cheap" theater and see Small Foot. The boys refused to let me take their picture! 

When we got home I started making our pizza dough that we would need later. I puposely made extra so the we could have a cinnamon roll wreath for breakfast morning. 

This cutie pie was a great help. We keep teasing her that all she wants for Christmas this year is her 2 front teeth!

 It's going to be yummy!

Last year we invited Grandpa and Grandma Heaton to spend Christmas Eve with us. The kids had so much fun last year with them that we did it again.

 Everyone was able to make their very own mini pizza. 

After dinner someone knocked on our door. 

This has never happened to us before... It was Santa!

Apparently Santa is a close friend to Grandma Heaton. 

The little kids could hard believe that Santa had come to our house. 

After Santa left we made our Graham Cracker Natitvity scenes. Uncle Kirk was visiting Grandma and Grandpa so he came along too. 

Maddie's final project. 

Emily's 

Hunter's 

Brayden's

The toothpicks started out representing the arrows that were shot at Samuel the Lamanite. Then it quickly turned into a porqupine on the roof there to protect baby Jesus from the soliders sent to kill every baby. 

Kylie's

We had Grandma and Grandpa open our gifts to them. We gave Grandma a plaque that said "I choose Joy". Grandpa got a box of shotgun shells and .22 bullets. 

We sure enjoy our one on one time with Grandma and Grandpa. It's nice having them living in Cedar City. Just a little bit closer to us. 

We ended our night opening our new matching p.j's (a request by Maddie) 

and wathcing the 4th Wise Man together.

Before going to bed the kids made sure to leave treats our for Santa and his reindeer with a little note.

This Christmas Season has been so less hectic than years past. I think we've all enjoyed the season a little bit better. I have learned this year that less is more, especially during the December month.

 Merry Christmas!

Decemeber 2018 Shenanigans

Seems like I blinked and December was over.  We've taken a bit of a break from working on the house and it has been so nice! I just wanted to enjoy the Christmas Season. Last year was such a fiasco I did NOT want a repeat of that. And so I didn't overplan, didn't commit ourselves to every party invite and didn't worry about the house being perfect! I just enjoyed being "us". 

Last year during the Spring the girls and I were at JC Penny when we saw these sweatshirts on clearance. They were both under $4 a piece. I knew Kylies would fit her this winter but I warned Maddie the size 12 would be to small afterall you are 14 and wear some14/16 and womens small. Emily wasn't interested in it and Maddie didn't care. She said she'd wear it anyways. It would just be a 3/4 sleeve sweater and so it was! Anyways they were so excited when the temperatures finally dropped and they could wear their matching sweaters. 

Uncle Rich has been sending us a Christmas Book every year since we lived in Arizona. It's a package the kids anxiously await for. It's something they know they can open that night and read as a family. I love our little Christmas Book tradition. All of our Christmas Books are wrapped and placed in a wire basket near the tree. Each night starting about the night we decorate the tree till Christmas the kiddo's get to pick one to open and we read it as a family. 

I helped in Kylies Christmas Party at school. We got to decorate a gingerbread house. 

Every month since school started Brayden has brought home a bag of groceries about once a month.  After asking several questions and calling the school I discovered that these bags are from the Food Bank. The Food Bank comes once a month and the kids are given the opportunity to fill a bag full of food they like to bring home. Kory and I both have explained to him that this food is for kids who don't have food at home. Kids that don't have a mom or dad at home at night to fix them meals. It's for the kids that go without. Most of the food he brings home is stuff we don't eat anyways. It's canned ravioli, spagehettio's, chicken noodle soup, hamburger helper. Sometimes he's brought a box of cereal or two or a box of apple sauce squeezes. Last month was the 3rd bag he brought home. I got after him and told him to stop, no more! He's opened those cans of "nastiness" to eat them and doesn't like it. So it's fed to the chickens. Our family just isn't use to eating those kinds of things. So essentially he's wasting food that could have gone to another little boy or girl that may have gone without becuase he brought it home. After a long talk he said he wouldn't bring it home anymore. To my astonishment he got off the bus carrying another bag of food this month. What the heck? The second he got into the van he said, "Mom, don't get mad! I can explain!" And so he proceeds to tell me that the "man" giving away the food told everyone at school that he had lots and so he wanted one kid from every family to come get a bag. Brayden says, " So it's o.k that we aren't poor. We still get one." And so I start to repeat our conversation we've had several times now about how we don't eat that kind of food. It's still wasting it. Brayden pipes up and says, "You know....I'm just trying to help with the 2nd coming!". I'm like what???? He then tells me this food is for our food storage when it's the 2nd coming. It's for when I can't go buy fresh fruit and vegetables and feed our family. It's for when we have to eat out of our cans that we have downstairs. He's just helping supply those cans we'll need when the grocery stores are empty. "I'm just trying to help you Mom!" How the heck am I suppose to respond to that?  

The youth in our ward was asked to help with the city's 1st Nativity this year. Not very many kids from the ward wanted to participate and so I forced my kids to do it. It will be good for them right? 

Emily was an angel.

Maddie played Mary. Anthony Ballard from our ward was Joseph. 

Hunter, reluctantly was a shepard. 

They all did great, it was only one night. No one had to speak. They just followed the narrative that was playing in the background. 

One tradition that the girls look forward to each year is helping with Kony Coins for Kids. In the past the boys have come along too. However, Hunter's church group had planned to go shooting that night. Kory had been invited to come along and was able to take Brayden. And so the girls went shopping and the boys went shooting. 

The next morning the Maddie and Emily skipped school to help me wrap some of those gifts that had been purchased the night before.

They usually have their sign out front that say's Kony Coins for Kids but we couldn't find this year to take our picture in front of it. 

We were still plenty busy this month even though we cut back and didn't attend every single function we were invited to. Hunter and Emily both had a orchestra concert on different nights and Maddie had a Jazz Band and her regular Band Christmas concerts on 2 different nights too. We also attended our Wards Christmas Party. All these events kept us plenty busy but we also had some awesome relaxing nights at home with just our little family. It's been a great month so far!