A Pretty Nice Birthday for Me!

After Damian saw that Gehrig had put a gift together for me, he ran to his room where he proceeded to rip out several pages from his notebook from school a year ago to give to me. This is what Gehrig put together for me. It was quite thoughtful. The two finger puppets are toys that he likes to play with. He hand crafted a couple of sticks for me, included a shell and the most thoughtful thing of all was a pencil (not just any pencil, one that was sharpened and had an eraser)! I'm always complaining that I can't find a pencil (b/c certain parties are always taking them and never putting them back.)

Lou brought this in after breakfast and sang to me with a little help from the children. He also bought a card and had all the kids write in it. Thanks to Jenavee, we were able to go out for lunch for an hour or so without the children. I enjoyed a little time alone with Lou.

This is a gift from a friend who really KNOWS what I need! Isn't this the cutest, most clever gift? THANK YOU so much!! I love it and I'll for sure be "pulling my hair out"! :) (In case you can't read it, it says "A Frazzled Mom Survival Kit: for you on your birthday. . .for those days when you are pulling your hair out. . .pull one of these instead!)

Just one of these gifts would have been exciting to me, but babysitting during the day, in the evening, a family dinner, a girl's night out, a manicure or pedicure, home help! Boy, do I feel loved and spoiled!

Isn't this beautiful??!! Another caring friend gave me these. I can't wait to wear them! They're even more beautiful in person! THANK YOU!!

I just had to add these cute gifts that my clever friend's kids gave my children. So cute!!

Happy Birthday Dear Emma!

She was really excited about her Pony Cake!

We celebrated a day early so that her best little buddy, Kimberly, could come to her party.

The kids made their own personal pan pizzas. Thanks to MaryLynn for helping out with that while I finished the salad and cake!

The party felt more like a party with our good friends joining us! Our families have both been so busy, that even though we live right across from each other, we hardly get to spend time together. It was fun to have an excuse to get together!

Emma was so excited with all of her gifts! I think she really felt like a princess!

She loves her alphabet puzzle from Mimi & Papa, Strawberry Shortcake from Kimberly, princess chair from Isaiah, princess game from Gehrig & Damian, princess drape, shirt, purse (with mirror, phone, chapstick, glasses in it), and pony from Mamma & Daddy. A truly fun day for all!

The next day, her real birthday, our family went to the Larry Miller Sing-A-Long at the Energy Solutions Arena where we enjoyed a short performance from Jon Schmitt and tickets for a future Jazz game, along with a few other coupons. It was so crowded, we were sitting almost at the top. I think the kids really enjoyed that. It was short and sweet--just right!

My December Babies. . .

Gehrig, age 9

Emma, age 4 (I know, I know--you've seen this picture before. Can I help posting it again?)

We have quite a busy December with Gehrig's birthday, then Emma's, then mine, then Christmas! It's always such a fun month for us. I try to get most of my shopping done throughout the year so that I can enjoy the month with my family. It's been a pretty fun month for us as we've celebrated these two awesome children of ours! I already posted about Gehrig, so I'd like to take just a moment to tell you how much we love our little Emma! She adds a feminine flair to our household that we have needed! It's so much fun to have a girl to dress up, fix hair, nails and buy purses and lipgloss, etc. for! She is a very happy, sweet, spunky, fun little girl! Every day is brighter with her in it! We love you little Miss Emma! Emma is 3 feet 2 inches tall and weighs 32 pounds.

Momentum-Rock Climbing with Elisabeth & Her Family

Yes, even I took the chance to face my fear of heights and climb. I always love the descent, once I get started. This was probably a kid's climb, really quite easy to get up, but I kept stopping to make sure Lou was able to catch me and not worry about what the kids were up to around him!

I was belaying Lou, so this is the best picture I could get Gehrig to take of him--wish I had one with him facing us--maybe he's afraid of heights too and didn't want to look down?! :)

Gehrig is perfectly fine with climbing trees to the top without any kind of safety system, but put a harness on him and stand there to catch him and he becomes afraid of heights. Go figure.

Damian was the same way. They climb much higher than this in trees, but at least they had a good time climbing partially up the wall.

Emma said she didn't want to climb, but every time I looked over, she was on the wall climbing. She actually probably would have gone at least as high as the boys if we had taken the time with her. She's quite the little daredevil most of the time.

Yep, Isaiah climbed about as high as the boys did too. He was a pretty cute climber!

A pretty cute self-portrait from the photographer. He was having way too much fun with the camera--something I RARELY let him use.Thanks so much to my cousin Elisabeth and her husband Nate for providing this fun activity for our family. It was so fun to see them and their cute kids, although we discovered this wasn't the most conducive environment for visiting--always having to help and watch the kiddos.

Neighbor Gift

I'm realling posting this for my records more than anything. We sure appreciated all the fun neighbor gifts we received this year. It's nice to be surrounded by so many friends!

Thanks again to my great friend, Annette, I was able to put together this cute card with the season magnets to give to my neighbors and friends here. Isn't it cute?

Christmas Parties & Visiting with Santa

I didn't get to hear Gehrig's conversation with Santa, but I can guess that he asked for a gun or a knife--neither of which he'll get (poor little guy). Don't worry, Santa will take good care of him--he just won't let him "shoot his eye out."

I wish I could say what Damian would have asked for. Probably a lot of candy to help rot his teeth out (did I tell you he had an abscess tooth and had to have it yanked about a month ago?). Again, I know that Santa will take care of this cute little stinker too!

I'm pretty sure Emma asked for something "princessy." She really loves the Disney princesses.

When asked what he wanted for Christmas, Isaiah said, "Presents." Don't ask me what he's doing in this picture--probably just sharing his cute little personality with us (what a sense of humor he has). I'm just glad he and Emma were willing to sit on Santa's lap this year. They were scared of him last year.

It's always fun to make it to December and all the parties that happen. Lou and I enjoyed a great evening with a recently found 2nd cousin, Wendell, and his wife, Amberlee (who have adopted a couple of mixed babies and have instigated a couple of great opportunities to get to know each other better--they're the ones that invited us to LaCaille). We got a babysitter for the evening and drove to Alpine to their beautiful home and enjoyed good food, good company and a fun gift exchange where Lou got some NuSkin shaving products and I got some homemade syrup and a pampered chef stoneware.

Lou and I were able to enjoy another date, not even a week later, when we joined his office staff and their spouses for dinner at a Sushi (yes, I said Sushi--okay, I [and all but Lou and 2 others] ordered teriyaki chicken or something else non-sushi) restaurant, Matsu (I think). Then, we went to The Desert Star (a musical dinner/theater that does a lot of spoofs, etc.) to see The Nutcracker, Men in Tights. The script was very cleverly written with a lot of current and local events/jokes written into it which kept us entertained really well. Even Lou enjoyed himself! His staff gave him a $30 Megaplex coupon and a $50 Walmart gift card--a perfect gift for us. I'm excited to have the date money for a movie with him, so that we can afford the babysitter so we can go out! :)

Gehrig & Damian's First Basketball Season & Emma's First Clogging Performance

So, I put the boys on separate teams, thinking that they would do better that way. The first four weeks were great. The last two weeks, Gehrig's team needed another player and Damian's team had too many, so Damian played on Gehrig's team. They actually played very well together--looking for each other, passing and even making a couple of baskets! My favorite part was watching them walk off the court with their arms over each other's shoulder, talking animatedly about the game. It was so fun to see them running up and down the court with big smiles on their faces. They improved a lot in the 6 weeks they played. So. . .I think we've entered the "sports arena." Gehrig was so excited about taking Hip-Hop, but after trying that for a couple of weeks and then going to basketball, he's chosen to play basketball. Personally, I'm excited about his choice. I love to watch my guys play ball!

The lighting was terrible for pictures (maybe if I knew how to use the settings on my camera, I could have fixed that problem), so sorry about the pictures. Emma had her first clogging performance at the Mall this past Saturday. I love this picture of her (front and center) waiting behind the stage for her turn. She had fun watching all the more advanced dancers.
Here she is with her class dancing. I didn't try to get good pictures b/c of the lighting and b/c I was taking video of it. I was very pleased that she kept her thumb out of her mouth (something she does a lot during her classes for some reason) and did her best to follow along. It was so fun to see her having such a great time up there!

I Could Stare at These Pictures All Day!

Thanks Kimberly! What a photographer! I just got these 3 photos today. I LOVE THEM!!

Highlights--December 2009

Being the obedient little sister that she is, Emma did exactly as her big brothers prompted her to do--she pulled on Santa's beard to see if it was real. Can you tell she's pulling on his beard?

Funny. . .just this week, Isaiah saw a man at the Fitness Center with longer "Jesus" hair and said, with much excitement in his voice, "Look Mama, it's Jesus!" The man was pretty cute about it. Says he gets that periodically. He told me to tell Isaiah that there is a little Jesus in everybody! :)

Many times when Isaiah tells us something, he says it with his eyes open big and he shakes his head to confirm what he has just said. (I know that probably doesn't make sense written out like this, but it's so darling how he does it--I'm hoping that by trying to describe it, I'll be able to remember it. It's so cute!).

This next highlight is probably worth it's own entry, but it's more interesting to me than it will be to you. I have been waiting to officially be able to say that Isaiah is POTTY TRAINED and I think I can say it now without jinxing myself. Potty training is seriously one of my least favorite parenting responsibilities, but for the time being--I'm basically DONE!! Hip, Hip, HURRAY! He's great through the day and he gets up almost every night to go, so he's nearly always dry through the night too. I put him in underwear in March, so it's about stinkin' time that I can say he's done!! To his credit, (and mine), he's my earliest potty trained. The other three didn't officially potty train until they turned 3. Ugghh! Isaiah's only 2 1/2 and he's been in underwear since he was 21 months. I'm not sure that was the best way to do it--certainly hard on me, but cost less in diapers and ultimately had him potty trained at least 6 months earlier than the rest of them.

Our Christmas Tree

We were the recipients of a Christmas service yesterday! When I was at my good friend Annette's house, I commented on how much I liked how she decorated her tree and she volunteered to help me decorate mine! She took me to Tai Pan to get ideas and "made" me buy a 50 yard roll of ribbon to help decorate my tree. :) (I said I'd buy it if she'd help me decorate my tree with it!) We saw that some of the trees were decorated with sayings in them. She is my friend that makes vinyl and her husband makes the wooden frames, etc. So. . .the next day, I joined her to help design and make some saying for my tree. Her VERY kind husband froze his fingers to the bone that night making the wooden boards for the sayings. The next day she and her children came over and helped me put it all together. She also donated some beautiful complimentary ribbons to add! We were all pretty excited with how nice it turned out--definitely the best decorated tree I've ever had!

Isn't it cute? I wish I had taken a before picture. . .the tree had a lot of potential but started out rough (even being so unstable at first that it fell over on top of poor Isaiah). After Lou stabilized it again and Dad trimmed it, put the angel on top and stabilized it even more with a clever arrangement of string and weights, it looked much better. This tree should feel loved--it sure had a lot of help getting pretty! (I mentioned in an earlier blog, but I should mention here that Dad cut this tree for us at Sellar Creek and we hooked it on top of our van and brought it back to Utah!)

To top off a fun morning of Christmas spirit, she bought us a pizza lunch and we watched the Mr. Bean Christmas episode. What a fun morning we had with Annette and her family! Thank you so much for spreading the Christmas cheer to our family! :)

Happy Birthday My Big 9 Year Old--GEHRIG!!

It's amazing to realize 9 years have passed since our first child was born! He's been such a source of joy in our lives. We're so excited to have him in our family. One of the reasons we decided to home school him was because of his love of learning. Having him home gives him so much more time to read and research on the many various interests he has. He loves his history, science, art and Spanish classes the most. We find him reading the scriptures, biographies, human anatomy books, you name it--he loves to read just about anything. He often asks to research on the Internet about all kinds of subjects (especially rocks and coins right now). He takes his journal almost everywhere with him and adds a couple of lines at a time. He has been kind to let us read it. What an entertaining and fun experience to get a glimpse into his mind! He is learning how to play the piano, basketball and hip-hop. He's a very happy, ENERGETIC, boy! Happy Birthday! We love you Gehrig!

It was a special treat to have Mimi & Papa with us to celebrate with him. He started his day out with them going to Music & the Spoken Word on Temple Square. They watched the Joseph Smith movie and wandered around Temple Square for a couple of hours. He had a blast!

I thought this was a fun picture of Damian giving Gehrig part of his gift (the army set--Damian earned it and gave him half of it so they could play together with their army guys).

GIFTS (an awesome quilt from Mimi & Papa, a book from Emma & Isaiah, a Sudoku game & a rock tumbler from his parents). He gave such great reactions to every gift. He's such a cute gift receiver! :)
HUGS!

You gotta love this guy!!! (Oh, I thought I'd add that he's 4 feet 6 3/4 inches tall and weighs 63 pounds)