Games

Pie face has been played a few times. It was really funny to watch all the silly faces everyone made in anticipation of being hit with the cream.

Fibber was fun. Gideon loved getting to put more noses on, even though the rules say that's how one loses the game. In his mind, the more noses the better.

Playing in the snow

11 months

He is walking on furniture, standing on everything, crawling in a normal way, and eating everything he can off the floor. He loves snuggles, naps, and eating. He is such a good baby and happy with anyone who will talk to him. He has the brightest smile for everyone.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas in Idaho was so fun! We all enjoyed opening presents with Grandma, Grandpa, and Kalina.

Kalina made a scavenger hunt for the kids to find their last present. They had to look on the tv, nativity, boots, outside Christmas decorations, and in the playhouse to find their presents. Santa left them a walker toy, Snow White house with all the dwarfs, r/c firetruck, Star Wars Nerf bow, and a zombie Nerf gun. Ammon has wanted to do a present hunt for a few years, so it was fun for his dream to finally come true. Later in the day they played in the snow with uncle Kahel's snow machine. In the evening we went to Donna's house for a Jerusalem dinner. It was so nice to talk with everyone and watch the kids have a great time with their cousins. I have really missed spending time with our Idaho family, and I am so happy this Christmas we finally got to have at my parents house...something I have wanted to do for years.

Tooth

He has a TOOTH!!! He is almost 11 months and his first one finally broke through today. It's just barely above the surface, not big enough to take a photo and show you....but it's there!!!

Family photos in Utah during Gabi's baptism.

Mt. Timpanogas Temple.

We saw another Utah temple today. It's hard to see from the freeway, but not far from Brady's brother's house. One more temple is checked off our list.

They begged and begged to hold Rydon...then proceeded to fight over who's turn it was.

I am such a dork sometimes. I LOVE dressing my kids in the same things. Gideon thought it was pretty cool that Rydon had the same kind of monsters on his jammies as he did. Ammon and Zenock don't think matching is fun anymore, so I am glad the little kids still do! Ayla has discovered she likes to match what I am wearing sometimes. I made her an octopus shirt, just like mine, and she loves it when we wear them on the same days.

Fun ornaments and an unusual tree

 The big kids painted their ornaments so fast I didn't get a picture of them doing it. These two were pretty precise about making sure all the wood got covered with paint. I am sure if I wouldn't have supervised them they would have both ended up pink and blue from head to toe.

This year I wanted the kids to make their own ornaments. I wanted to find a cheap, easy way to have them make something they like to represent their interests over the last year. I found these unpainted wood ornaments at Michaels a month ago. We finally painted them yesterday and put the pictures on today. These are seriously the easiest cheapest, cutest ornaments we have done so far. I love that the older boys are into some fun characters this year...but they are impossible to find in the stores. So making them was a win all the way around. Ayla is into Elsa more than ever this year so that's what she chose. Gideon picked Superman and I let him pick out his own design on the computer. Zenock LOVES Antman, so he found a good photo of him, and Ammon is loving the game Clash of Clans so that's what he chose. It was fun to sit with each child at the computer and look at photos so they could pick which one they liked the best. I saved the photo on the computer, printed it out on cardstock, cut them out, and glued them onto the painted ornaments. When Gideon saw his all done he was so excited. It was really cute. Ayla kept telling me she wanted to hold her purse...meaning she thought her ornament was a small purse and wanted to play with it. Rydon's ornament is a resin blue stocking with a puppy coming out the top. There was an empty space on the top so I wrote his name and first Christmas on it with marker. I love that I can find fun ornaments to personalize for the kids like that. It is kind of hard to see in the photo below. It is to the left of Gideon's Superman ornament.

This piece of 2'x4' mdf is our Christmas tree this year. We have too many family members that need a place to sit this year, so we can't put a chair out in the garage this year to make room for the Christmas tree. I found this huge tree sticker in my box of leftover stuff so I glued it on the board. Brady drilled 100 holes in this board for a string of lights to fit through. I tied a green garland around the edge, and we hung some of the non-breakable ornaments we had on the lights. It's definitely not the fanciest thing out there, but it fits in our house, Rydon and Ayla can't play with and eat the ornaments, and we still have enough room for our family to sit and watch Christmas movies together. I am really hoping that next year we have a house big enough for an 8 foot tall tree. Because we have given each child an ornament every year since they were born (and I buy at least one for me every year as well), we certainly have enough ornaments to decorate a tree that big!

10 months

This little guy is getting adventurous. He is crawling normally now and pulling himself up on furniture. He loves to play under the table and put EVERYTHING in his mouth. He loves to go into the bathrooms and check out all the fun action in there....since it seems someone is always in one bathroom or another at our house. He has been observed crawling out the front door because siblings have trouble remembering to shut the door behind them. He loves to smile and laugh at his goofy brothers and sister....whom often fight over getting the most of his attention. They all love to hold him and play with him when it is their idea ;). Feeding Rydon baby food is still tough. He has great difficulty moving food to the back of his throat due to the open palate. I am looking forward to being able to let him feed himself soft food like peas, mashed potatoes, fruit, and crackers. I think he will quite enjoy the "big boy food" when his mouth is fixed. We all love this little roamer of ours!

Happy baby

Lots of home time

November has been full of teacher inservice days...which means my boys are home way more than I am used to. Our days are full of house cleaning, laundry, homework, and cleaning the floor of everything bigger than a kernel of rice so Rydon doesn't choke on it. The kid loves to put the tiniest piece of something in there and then proceed to gag and barf until it either comes out by itself or I sweep it out.

 She was giving me "Elsa hair"

 His shirt says, "If I don't scare you, my diaper will."

 The best play area in the whole house. He just loves and loves to crawl under the table and see what he can find....hence the constant choking problem.

 Eating is exhausting work for everyone involved.

 Ammon's school project visual. It's a topographical map of Alaska...made out of pizza dough, cheese, Halloween candy, and an egg carton.

 Cool panorama of Brady's day at work.

 Soccer is finally over!!!

 We went to Parhump to watch some dirt track racing last Saturday. All five kids had a pretty good time. It was really windy, so it felt significantly colder than it was. Even after hot chocolate and using blankets we were cold. All five kids zonked out in the van on the ride home.

This little trouble maker was playing with ice cream cones while I was putting Rydon down for a nap. Here is a rundown of the text conversation I was having with Brady while the laughing was going on. He said: My kids are adorably crazy. Exhibit A:

Exhibit B: "Two sleeves of crushed ice cream cones. Nothing a little vacuuming won't fix....but I just laid Rydon down for nap." Followed by the photo of Ayla above. I never did get mad this time around. I highly encouraged them to help me clean it up after Rydon woke up two hours later. They weren't that fond of helping me use the vacuum.

Birthday boy

Another year is past and this boy is 11. He had a fun day at school in his Harry Potter costume, playing outside after school, no homework, hotdogs with Doritos and cottage cheese for dinner, soccer practice, and waffle cones at Thrifty. He got some money in the mail, a skateboard, helmet, pads, book, and a boy scout shirt. He is so excited to ride the skateboard all day tomorrow since there is no school. We are so glad this cute boy is in our family.