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!