This and That

We have had so much snow this winter.  I feel like I am constantly shoveling.  We just keep piling it up on the side of the house.  This pictures doesn't do it justice, but you can see that the snow is a few inches higher than Wyatt.

Jonah came home from school yesterday and shoveled our walk.  My mom had surgery yesterday so Jonah wanted to go and shovel grandma and grandpa's driveway too.  Jonah does a great job and just keeps shoveling until it is all done.  Wyatt wanted to help too.

My mom sent me a few pictures that she took of the kids while she was watching them.  They had fun playing with the play dough that grandma made them.

The kids all love to play Just Dance.

I guess Cailtyn thought it was funny to stuff her pants with her stuffed animals.  She said, "you better not put that on the blog mom."  Sorry Cait!

Wyatt was reading to Hallee the other day, it was so cute!

Hallee had fun playing with her toys in here the other day.

I am constantly surprised and impressed with the things Wyatt says and does.  He started drawing people a little while ago, but his favorite thing to draw is Mr. Potato Head.  I think that is pretty good!

Cute Kids

I bought a dslr camera a few weeks ago so I can start learning more about photography.  I signed up for an online class so I can go at my own pace and work on it as I have time.  I was messing with the camera the other day and got some cute ones of Jonah.  I love when I can capture his real smile.  I can't remember what I said to make him laugh, but it probably involved potty words.  Whatever it takes!

He sure is a handsome boy!

I can't get over how grown up he looks lately.  He is such a big help to me.  He has been shoveling snow for me all week and he is great at playing with Hallee and Wyatt.

I love that Jonah wants to be just like his dad!

I love the look on Wyatt's face here.

We have had colds this week and Hallee has just been a little stuffy and had watery eyes.  I'm so glad that she hasn't had anything worse.  She was not in the mood for pictures the other day!

She just wanted to suck on her toys!

Two and a Half

I can't believe it has already been six months since Wyatt turned two.  It is so hard to describe what a fun kid Wyatt is.  He does and says the cutest things.  He seems to cover both ends of the spectrum in a lot of situations, he is shy and social, he is rough and so sweet, he is happy and moody, he is strong and sensitive.  He constantly makes me laugh.  He has started yelling "FINE" a lot (thanks to his two older siblings.) I don't know why, but it makes me laugh every time. He loves to be silly and make Caitlyn and Jonah laugh. When we do family scripture reading Keith will read a verse and Wyatt will repeat it back.  Sometimes when he wants a laugh he will say something weird at the end of each phrase.  Last time he added, "shut the door" onto every phrase.  Last night for prayer he said, "Please bless we don't have sleepy time."

He is a great sport when I take his picture.  He asks me to take his picture a lot.  He loves to sing.  It is amazing how much kids pick up on.  I always hear him singing along to the radio in the car.  He knows all of his letters (thank you Super Why!) He loves to play games.  He loves electronics.  He loves the kids mp3 players, dad's IPAD and mom's kindle.  He will sometimes sneak into our room and play the IPAD.  When he has been quiet I will ask him what he is doing and he will say, "uummm, nothing."  When I tell him he has to ask first he says, "Oh, Okay," like he didn't know and it is the first time he has heard it. He has started asking all of us, "will you be my friend?" He loves to call my mom and my sister to ask, "if they can come over my house."  The other day my dad came over to drop something off and in his sweetest voice he said, "grandpa, will you play with me?"  Grandpa couldn't say no to that.  Wyatt loves to wrestle all of the sudden.  He will go up behind Caitlyn or Jonah and just grab them and try to get them to the floor.  It is so funny to watch. Wyatt is a very positive kid.  He says he loves whatever we are doing.  The other day I was cutting potatoes and he was putting them on the pan and he said, "my love making potatoes."  He says that about whatever we are doing. He has started bringing in his fake keys and saying, "I got to go mom."  Today he said, "I got to go pick up mister potato head, don't follow me, okay mom." He is obsessed with Mr. Potato head.  He is always playing some form of Mr. Potato head.  He also draws him on his magna doodle all day.  He asks me to draw Mr. Potato head and when I try he says, "that's not Mr. Potato head mom."  He is not impressed with my drawing skills, luckily Keith can draw really well.

 He loves when we go shopping at Walmart because we will usually stop at McDonald's and he will get a hamburger.  He loves to sit in a booth and we enjoy a little lunch date.  We have started going to story time at the library and he loves that.  He is always asking to go to the library now.  I am so grateful for this sweet boy.  I love him and I love spending time with him.

Finally!

I had this great idea to give the kid's their blog books for Christmas.  Every year I print mine up and about a year and a half ago I started doing blogs for each of the kids instead of scrapbooks.  I love pictures, but I am not creative and my scrapbooks were very plain and I really didn't enjoy doing them.  Blogging is what works for me.  I was so excited to get them for the kids because they love looking through their scrapbooks.  I ordered them in plenty of time for Christmas and to make a long story short I just got them yesterday.  At first they only sent Wyatt's book, then they sent the books without all of the pictures in them.  It was a long frustrating process, but I finally have them!

It was probably better that they didn't get them on Christmas because they were totally focused on them and they loved them.  They spent a while looking through them.  I love taking pictures and blogging, but it is also a little bit stressful to keep up on it.  Watching them enjoy the books made it worth it.  I had a hard time putting ours down yesterday too.

This winter has been so cold.  We really haven't been outside in the past month.  The kids are getting really good at finding new things to play inside.  They had fun in this bed they made while I was mopping. 

Caitlyn is usually the instigator of what they play and how they play it.  Sometimes Jonah has strong opinions, but for the most part the boys just go along with her games. 

Hallee loves to watch the kids play and she loves it when they play with her.

Sunday was a crazy day.  We have church at 9 AM this year.  It is really hard to get out the door that early, but I love being home at noon.  This week we left early to go to my niece's blessing.  It was so fun and she looked beautiful!  Tessa and Hallee are exactly four months apart.  I'm so glad Hallee will have a playmate.  Shortly after we got home Keith had to leave for a fireside so I laid around with the kids and we watched a Veggie Tale movie.  We were all ready for some down time!

I love getting Hallee dressed on Sundays.  She has so many cute dresses and she always looks so cute!

Wyatt loves to run in Hallee's room when he hears that she is awake.  I will never get tired of hearing him talk in his sweet, baby talk voice to her.

Jonah loves Hallee.  I am still surprised at how much he loves babies and how good he is with them.  He has always been good with kids, but he loves to make babies smile.  Hallee loves all the attention he gives her.

Hallee is getting really wiggly and doesn't want to be held as much.  She is to the point where she wants to be entertained all the time. Luckily we have a lot of toys and three little helpers to keep her entertained.

Wyatt and Jonah love to play in the bubble bath.  They stayed in so long today that they were freezing when they got out and had to put on their robes and slippers.  I told them to smile and Wyatt said, "we are friends."  Love my boys.

Anniversary Inn

My parents gave Keith a gift card for Anniversary Inn for his graduation.  We were both so excited.  We were able to go last Thursday.  My mom was great and came to our house and stayed with the kids.  It was so nice that they could be home in their own beds and that I didn't have to pack up all of their stuff.  The kids were so excited.  They had a great time with grandma and they were excited that grandpa came over to play for a while too. 

We stayed in the Kahn Mansion.  It wasn't a themed room, just elegant, I guess that would be the best word.  I was really happy with the room. It was a good sized room.  We have been there once before and our room was pretty small.  It was nice to have the extra space.

It is the only room with a fire place, which we made good use of.

I loved the big jetted tub.  We were able to go to the temple and to dinner before we went to the Inn.  It was so nice to enjoy a dinner without wrestling kids or telling them to eat their food over and over.

We had a great time talking, laughing, playing games and watching a movie.  It was so nice to have uninterrupted conversations.  They brought us a yummy breakfast in the morning.  We relaxed a little more in the morning and then I was ready to get home and see the kids.  It was hard to leave Hallee.  Of course I missed all of my kids, but I'm not used to leaving my babies. Thanks again mom and dad!  It was the perfect gift and we appreciate it so much!

6 Months

I can't believe this sweet girl will be six months on Saturday.  She is still the happiest, sweetest, most adorable baby.  She is always smiling and making cute sounds.  She is starting to make different sounds where it looks like she is really trying to talk. I wish I could read her mind.  I would love to know what she is thinking.  Probably, this house is so loud!

I love that sweet face! 

She is rolling over all of the time.  She isn't sitting up yet, probably because she is held too much.  She likes to be on the floor and play and she loves her jump-a-roo, but for the most part she likes to be held and we all like to hold her.

I was taking pictures of her the other day and she was starting to get fussy so I got her undressed to put her in the bath and she looked so adorable that I had to snap a few in her diaper.  Love my chunky baby!

Every mom thinks their kids are the cutest things ever and I am no exception, I just love that adorable face!

Hallee is starting to laugh more and more.  Jonah is the best at getting her to laugh, but she will usually do it for me too. 

I have loved these past six months with Hallee.  Keith and I feel pretty confident that our family is complete and I think that helps me treasure this time with my kids a little bit more.  They are all growing up so fast and I want to make sure I enjoy every stage.  I have had my sleepless nights, feeling completely overwhelmed with four children, not knowing what to do when Hallee cried every night for a month and wouldn't sleep anywhere but my arms, but I am realizing more and more that everything is a phase and it will pass.  My house is a little messy, my meals are less than impressive, but I am enjoying time with my kids. 

Happenings

Jonah keeps looking and acting more grown up every day.  He was the star student of the month at school.  He was so excited to tell me after school.  They give him a tag for his dog tag necklace and his picture is hanging up in the hall.  He told me he was chosen because he is nice and always follows directions.  I am so happy with how this school year is going for him.  I was able to go into his class last week and I just love his teacher.  Jonah loves school and is learning knew things and developing good study habits.  Jonah is such a sweet boy when he wants to be.  Today he has been asking me what he can do to help all day and doing a lot of extra jobs for me.  Tonight he said, "mom, you know how you have done a lot of things for me, I think it is time for me to do that many things for you."  I told him that might take a while, so just keep being a great helper and we will call it even!

We have had so much snow this week. Jonah has been helping with the shoveling.  He is either so sweet to everyone or teasing Caitlyn and Wyatt mercilessly.  He does have a little problem with lying lately.  The other day I was asking him why it didn't seem to bother him when he told a lie and Caitlyn said, "Oh, I remember when I didn't used to worry about things, that was the life."  That gave me a good laugh.

Caitlyn had fun outside in the snow until she hit her face on the side of the house.  I'm not even sure how you would do that.  She had a little bump, but of course she milked it as long as she could.  She came in very dramatic and asked if she could please have some hot chocolate and relax.  We didn't have anything going on today and it was so nice.  We got some cleaning done and had a lot of time to relax and play.  That is exactly what I wanted to do on a snowy day.

Wyatt fell asleep looking through our blog book.  I thought that was so cute.

Caitlyn has been playing with Hallee all of the time lately.  She is getting a little too comfortable and trying to carry her all over the house. 

Wyatt and Hallee were so cute together the other morning.  I love how the kids can always get Hallee to smile.

Hallee loves to play with dad.

Yesterday I took the kids to an activity at the library.  They learned about Egypt and made these Egyptian hats (well I made the hats because they were way too complicated for kids). We met up with our good friends and the kids loved it.  We should have known that they would talk us into a play date after.  We took Grace home and Jonah went home with Max and we all met up for dinner at Cafe Rio.  It was a lot of fun.  Keith and I were able to visit with Allison and Adam and the kids had a great time.  It was nice to get out and have fun.

Tub Time

Hallee is still a big fan of the bath.  I'm sure I don't give them to her as often as she would like, but when I do she sure loves it.  I love how she is covering up in this one.

I love how she smiles with her eyes.  Someone asked me how old she was last week and I said she was almost five months, but then I realized she is almost six months.  That is a little sad to me.  These six months have gone by so fast, but I am happy to say that I wouldn't change anything.  I have enjoyed her, loved her and played with her and heaven knows I have taken plenty of pictures!

I think I say, "oh, you are just so cute" about twenty times a day.

Hallee always wants to be sucking on something.  She isn't interested in a binky though.  I give her one when we are out and I have to get her to sleep in my arms, but other than that, she doesn't use one.  She is our first child to not use one.

I had to buy Hallee this shirt.  It says, "Daddy answers to me."  Let's be honest we all answer to her!

Hallee is rolling over all of the time now.  As soon as we put her on her back, she rolls right over onto her stomach.  We haven't tried solid foods much.  She seemed to like the cereal the first time and after that she hasn't been interested.  She scoots backwards on her back, which brings back fun memories of Wyatt.  He scooted around on his back instead of crawling for a while.  She is still our happy, easy going, adorable baby!