January, is it over yet?

January sure has seemed like a really long month! The children really enjoyed their time off from school. Last year Tucker wanted to go back to school the day after Christmas and I had to convince him that we were going to do fun things. This year Tucker didn't even want to think about school during his break :)

The children spent many days or most of any given day in their pajamas

Connor got to have his first taste of baby food. We started him on bananas because that is what we had around the house. He has since tasted rice cereal and squash. After those I came back to bananas again and he now can't seem to get enough of them! This video is for those that want to see his first tastes. There is no real obligation to watch it ;)

I wanted to get a picture of tucker missing three teeth but it is amazingly hard to do

Of course Gunnar needed in on the action, not understanding what was going on he held on to his chin too!

And Brylee too of course, except you get to see her tongue

We only ever received snow on Christmas and the day after around here this season. It has been very strange. My children still remember the fantastic snow hill we had in our circle 2 seasons ago. Tucker took it upon himself to start building one this year. He asked me for help and since I like shoveling snow I opted to help him build his own snow hill instead of shovel around the entire circle. Thankfully Bro. Craig our neighbor has also been desiring lots of snow this season and he gladly helped build the hill after coming out with his daughter and their sled. The hill was small but perfect and satisfying for our children. They were able to enjoy it for a couple of days before it got too worn out and eventually destroyed.

Here is Tucker taking a turn down the hill

Here is one of Brylee's attempts

And here is Hunter :)

Connor is almost always sporting a bib these days because he is a slobber monster! He generally has a bib on top of his shirt which is worn over his onsie and he loses his layers as they soak up all his drool so that by the end of the day he is only wearing his onsie which is generally soaked and he is ready for his pajamas at night!

Connor also learned how to sit up this month. He loves having this new position to explore the world around him and has led to much more happy time on the floor and less time in my arms :) Gunnar was very excited about the camera being out and really wanted a video of his Zebra so when your view is blocked by something black and white know that is Gunnar :) I sure do love my children!

Here is Hunter with the blanket that I made him for Christmas, the picture doesn't really do it justice. His was the most frustrating one to sew out of all of them and I also expected him to be the biggest critic. Thankfully, he was super happy with what I made for him!

And in case you were wondering he can still fit in a hampwe

We skyped with Bryant's parents so they could watch all the children open the gifts that they sent. It was fun to be able to share the moment with them (and with some of the kid's cousins since Grandma and Grandpa were babysitting) Gunar was super excited to receive his own bike and when I asked him, "what do you say?" expecting him to say thank you he looked at his bike, pointed, and excited exclaimed "MY BIKE!!!" the following morning his first question to me was "build my bike?" Thankfully, it was super easy to put together. The tires were already inflated and put on the wheels!

Here is a video of Gunnar on HIS bike 

Hunter also received money to put toward the purchase of a "big boy" bike, one with a kickstand. the smallest bike with a kickstand is 20 in which is a little too big for him. Personally, I didn't want him to outgrow another bike so quickly but I also didn't want to to regress because the bike was too big so I let him decide what to do. He opted for the 20 in so he could have a kickstand. He insisted that we go to Toys R Us first believing them to have the bike he wanted and not trusting me that they would be above his price range. He ultimately got one from Wal-Mart, which came already assembled! It took him a few times of falling to learn how to catch himself, since he can't touch the ground while on the bike and it took some practice to learn how to get it started on his own but he figured it all out in only 2 days!

Here is a video of an afternoon in the sun with Brylee and Hunter riding their bikes. The camera is wobbly because I am holding Connor and trying to do things with this new camera. I like how I can zoom while recording with this camera, that is a feature I didn't have with my last one :)

Here is Gunnar hanging out in Connor's exersaucer

Not the best lighting for a picture but you can kind of see how Connor is almost as big as Brylee!

Connor began scooting backward this month which has led to some interesting problems for him :)

This is a picture taken by Brylee (along with about 50 more of random things around the house) while I was pretending I wasn't a mom for about a half hour. It's good to know it only took 6 shots to capture this beautiful face :)

Connor got his first tooth last week! It sure did make him happy and helped him sleep better for two nights to have it through. He is now working on his second bottom tooth. Hopefully, we will get another couple days of reprieve before his top teeth start cutting their way through.

Brylee got to have her 4th birthday party with friends yesterday, I'm throwing a bridal shower for my neighbor this coming Saturday, the following weekend is Tucker's birthday and then we get to go on vacation a week later. All this mingled with volunteering in Tucker's class and Hunter's class once each every week, watching someone else's child twice a week, worrying (and likely over stressing) about the measles 'outbreak' that happened just up the road this month, and everything else that just comes with normal life has kept this month feeling super full and there is still 1 week left! I eagerly look forward to being done with the bridal shower and am grateful that Tucker is not having a friend birthday party this year!

New Years Eve

This is the first year that my children have had any desire to stay up for the new year. I consider myself lucky to have made it 6 years with children and not had them want to stay awake so I gave in this year, mostly. I did not want to deal with RIDICULOUSLY over tired children and I remember my mother setting the clocks ahead for the "little" kids so I gave in slightly. I successfully set the clocks forward two hours throughout the day without being noticed. changing our large kitchen clock was always the trickiest!

We have some friends with children that asked if we had any new years plans so they came over to enjoy the East Coast new year with us.

I also purchased a new camera from best buy because not having a real camera (and only pictures from Bryant's or my phone) was very frustrating, plus Best Buy had them on sale. Now I have an even better camera than the one I lost (it was 5+ years old) for under $100. I now have 10x zoom instead of 4x and I have HD video capabilities :P

Here are some pictures of the evening

Malisa with Connor, he even smiled for the camera.

Around "11" (really 9pm) Tucker went and got his blanket and pillow and started relaxing on the couch, he passed out by 9:30 and eventually took himself to his room to sleep.

Here are our friends. I enjoy this family because our children generally get along and we as a adults can just sit and chat or relax or play games and have fun doing it.

After ringing in the new year it was melt down central as tired children were told to get ready for bed without getting any additional sugar. I realized how grateful I am that Tucker was able to recognize that his body was tired and put himself to bed rather than try to stay up all night long. I was also glad to have all the children in bed by 10:30 pm! Bryant and I soon followed, although I think we were still awake talking in bed at midnight and were able to bring in the new year. I think this is probably the first time we have stayed up for the new year since being married. It is funny how things change when you get married and then have kids. Without kids, I'd probably be some old lazy person who rarely did anything fun or exciting, or maybe not, who knows.

Sledding

We borrowed our neighbor's sled again this year and went sledding the Saturday after Christmas. We even met up with one of our friends :)

Here are a couple of our sledding excursions. Everyone had a great time and was sad when Connor woke up and started making pooping sounds that had to end our fun because I forgot the wet wipes expecting him to sleep for 1.5 hours at least. Silly me

Christmas Morning

Amazingly, I was able to wrap Christmas presents throughout the month of December so I didn't have to wrap everything Christmas eve! I was amazed. We were up late Christmas eve because I was finishing sewing some of the presents because I did not want to sew in the evenings generally because that was my Bryant time.

All of our children got a spin toothbrush in their stocking this year. They were all so excited that everyone brushed their teeth before breakfast without being asked just because they want to try them out. This toothbrush has made it SO much easier to brush Gunnar's teeth. He is a very independent child and wants to do everything himself and despises it when Bryant or I 'check' his teeth after he has brushed. Now he can hold the toothbrush and we can help guide it around after he has finished brushing himself. 

Here is Tucker going through his stocking

Connor was super excited for the holiday

Brylee going through her stocking

Hunter is checking out his lunar nightlight

Gunnar is ready to open all the presents.

We knew that it was really Christmas when we woke up because we had SNOW!!! As a side note you can see that the children had lots of fun rearranging our nativity on our window throughout the month. They thought it was funny that people were 'flying in the sky'

setting out the presents so we can have some form of organization. This year I purchased a webcam for our computer so we can skype. I did not put it under the tree. Instead I set it up and invited my mother to join us for the present opening shenanigans. It was fun to share the morning with her!

Here is Tucker with the blanket I made for him. It has cozy fabric on the bottom side so it is always warm, which is important in this house since I keep the heat down at 65, except first thing in the morning it warms up to 67 to make it easier to get out of bed :)

Here is Brylee opening her blanket. She is the reason I decided to make the blankets. She has been sleeping with a baby blanket for awhile now because it is so cozy and warm, even though it does not cover her completely. I knew that if I made one for her, Hunter would want one because he is always trying to take my cozy Tinkerbell blanket to bed and then I knew that if I made one for Hunter and Brylee, Tucker would want one too. I hoped that Gunnar would not feel left out because I had just made him a dog blanket for his birthday this summer and thankfully he didn't even notice :)

I do not have a picture of Hunter with his blanket yet so I will work on that so you can see what it looks like :)

Gunnar and Connor got sleeping bags for Christmas so they will be set for all of our camping adventures this summer!

Here is Hunter opening his Batman jacket. 

The jacket has a mesh mask as part of it that he is able to see through when wearing it

Here I am opening up the scriptures that Bryant got me. I lost my scriptures that I got from my grandparents at my baptism this year. I was super sad about it because I loved those scriptures. There have been many times I have considered getting new ones but I never wanted to part with the old ones. Well I have no idea what happened to mine and after missing them for a couple of months it is great to have new ones! Bryant is just glad that it says Malisa Whiting instead of Malisa King now ;)

I have decided that our new Christmas morning breakfast tradition will be cinnamon roll french toast! It was so delicious and super easy! I used my normal bread recipe but rolled each dough loaf out spread butter, than brown sugar, and sprinkled with cinnamon, then rolled it up super tight and baked the loaf. It takes A LOT longer for the loaf to cook and Bryant has to keep me out of the kitchen otherwise I try to remove them too soon and they are still doughy in the center but they turned out beautifully!

After breakfast we went out to make a snowman only to find the snow was a perfect powder so we had a marvelous snowball fight instead. I was amazed that no one got upset or 'injured' while we played and we all had a wonderful time! After the fighting, I got to do my favorite winter activity "shovel snow!"

More Ramblings but with pictures and videos :)

To start I just want to say that I love Google Fiber! We had it installed on Tuesday this week and it has made this blog post possible. All the pictures and videos were uploaded in just a few short minutes instead of hour :) Google fiber has come to Provo and they offered free internet for 5 years at their "slow speed" with a one time installation fee of $30. We signed up last February and it has felt like we have been waiting forever but I'm glad to finally have it. 

Here is Brylee holding Connor. He is such a chunk!

Hunter decided to make a scarecrow out of paper and a paper plate 

More Chunky Connor

Bryant was awarded Employee of the month at work for all of his outstanding work at Young Living during their super crazy shipping months

Here is a picture of us after putting up the Christmas tree. Aren't we such a cute family

Here we are setting the tree up. Everyone was excited to help

Brylee is hoping the star doesn't fall on her while she is not looking (I think)

The purpose of the picture was to capture the branch with around 10 ornament bulbs hanging on its end. Every time Gunnar was given an ornament to hang he hung it in the same spot. I thought it was pretty silly and I didn't rearrange any of them.

I love Brylee in this picture!

Hunter solo :)

Sometime in November the maintenance workers trimmed all the trees in our circle. For some reason the branches trimmed off our trees (front and back) were not hauled away with everyone else's. At first, I found this frustrating and annoying because they were being drug all over my yards and walk ways. Then Bryant came up with the idea to build a snow fort with them. The fort turned out pretty awesome but we never got any snow!! After about two weeks of no one in the circle touching it (which was amazing) it finally got attacked by a neighbor so Hunter decided to tear it all down. I then called and requested the branches to be picked up and they were the next day. 

While walking home from a friend's house one week I noticed all of these lovely leaves by a town home community we live next to. So I picked the boys up from the bus stop and we brought the rake and came to play in the leaves. There were so many!! Brylee and Gunnar had lots of fun being burried and then popping up. Hunter even got in on the fun and startled some passing by people because the people did not expect a child in the third pile of leave :)

Can you see Brylee?

There she is!

Brylee thought it was pretty awesome that her doll and dog were able to sit together on the back of the couch. "The baby is giving the dog a hug!"

Bryant's mother sent us this window nativity. Gunnar was very proud of it when finished and loved that he got to help build it!

Here is Brylee just being silly