We survived the week!

Last week was a rough one.  It was cold and we didn't get out much.  The more I stay home, the more I don't want to get out and the more depressed I get.  Luckily, Hallee and Wyatt have started playing pretty well together.  They run in and out of Hallee's room and they both laugh.  It is so cute to hear them laughing so hard together.  Thursday night Keith and the kids wanted to go swimming.  They talked me into it and when we got to the pool it was closed!  Caitlyn and Jonah were good sports, but Wyatt just doesn't get things like that.  He doesn't understand why he can't have something if he wants it!

I have had a hard time exercising since it is too cold to take the kids for a walk every day.  I try to do it at home, but I have to keep stopping to help the kids and it just doesn't work very well. On Friday I pushed myself to pull out of my winter blues.  I played with the kids all morning and then we went out for a walk.  I bundled them up good since it was so cold.  It was so nice to be outside in the sunshine!  When we came home I put both kids down for naps.  I can't tell you how free I feel when they both nap at the same time and the older two are at school!  The only nice thing about Wyatt not sleeping well at night is that he will take a nap once or twice a week because he is so tired.

That night Keith and I got to go see Hunger Games with his company.  It was such a fun night out and such a good movie!  Saturday night I was able to get out with Tiff and Audrey for some much needed girl time.  We sure missed Katie though!

Hallee got her first black eye on Saturday.  I was holding the IPAD and she turned around and hit her eye right on the corner of it.  It was so sad, she cried for a good five minutes.  It was swollen and purple immediately.  Luckily, the swelling went down quickly and now it is just purple.  Poor girl!

On Saturday I had the kids write a letter to Santa. Caitlyn is amazing.  Her letter is so sweet. She has always had such an amazing understanding of spiritual things, even when she was very young.

Jonah's letter said, "please give a rip stick to me and some magnetix."  I laughed and told Jonah that wasn't very nice to just say give me stuff and nothing else.  He added the last part after I said that.  I don't have a picture of Wyatt's, but he was really excited to tell Jonah what to write for him.  He wants a giant scooter!

On Sunday we had Keith's parents over for dinner.  The kids were so excited and talked their ears off.  It is so hard when people come over because our kids go nuts and all talk at once!

Caitlyn and Jonah found a Christmas program in the friend and worked on it all afternoon.  They added some of their own stories and thoughts and it was so cute.  They talked about being thankful for grandparents.  At one point Jonah said, "grandparents are there in case your parents die, then you can live with them."  Cute, but kind of sad.  They built a little stand for their program and had us sing songs.

Wyatt had to get in on it and give a "lesson" too.  He is so funny.  Last week he said, "mom if Jonah is bad, then Jesus will put him in time out, but Jesus will be mad, that is the problem!"  The other day Wyatt and I were working in a workbook together and we were sounding out words.  He knows most of the letter sounds, but the blending wasn't clicking with him.  We worked on it for a while and he loved it and was so proud when I would help him sound out a word.  When Caitlyn got home from school he wanted to show her how he could sound out a word.  I picked hat because it was pointing to a hat in the picture.  He did the sounds, h-a-t, when I asked him what that said he said, "bug."  I realized the hat had a picture of a bug so he thought that was what it was pointing to.  Caitlyn thought that was hilarious.  Hilarious is Wyatt's new favorite word.  He says it all the time.  It was a little embarrassing when we were waiting for the kids after school and Wyatt yelled out the window, "look at the guy with that red shirt, that is hilarious!"  Wyatt gets so mad if I nod my head or say, "uh-huh."  He yells, "no you have to talk."

Hallee was being so funny last night.  I love how she is looking at Keith here.  She kept running around in circles and falling on the ground and laughing.  Her cute, little personality keeps coming out more each day.

She also had fun on our exercise machine.  We got this from Katie and Ben when they moved.

We have started a little tradition the last couple of weeks.  On Monday when the kids get home from school we eat dinner in front of the TV while we watch a Christmas movie.  They kids love it.  I am so excited for Christmas this year.  It always gets here so fast and we don't have time to watch all the Christmas movies we love so I decided we better start early this year.  Wyatt is so excited about Santa this year.  He loves to watch anything about Santa.

While I was taking the picture of the kids Hallee kept saying, "cheese."  What a Ham!

That's a wrap!

Today was the last soccer game of the season. Caitlyn and Jonah both did great.  It was a little hard to watch their team because the whole team hesitated a lot.  Jonah loved it and doesn't want it to end.  Caitlyn had fun, but she was ready to be finished a few games ago.  That is typical Caitlyn, she is obsessed with something for a few weeks and then she has had enough.  I am happy to see it end.  I love watching them play, but I'm happy to have our Wednesdays and Saturdays back. 

Last night the kids were playing dress up.  When my grandpa died I took some of his ties. My kids like to dress up in them.  Jonah sure is a good looking kid!

I love when the three older kids find something they all have fun playing together.

Wyatt loves when the big kids include him.

Love this cute boy!

Hallee was busy playing hide-and-seek with dad.  She is so funny.  She runs from him and hides behind the couch.  It is really cute.  She is constantly saying, "ma ma."  I have to say, "what" and then she will jabber and smile when I acknowledge what she has said.  She has to be heard!

Hallee was all smiles in the bath last night.  This girl is so busy.  She never holds still.  She is constantly moving and doing something.

Her hair is getting really thick.  It has some curl on the bottom that is really cute.  I will be surprised if one of our kids doesn't end up with curly hair.

Home Bodies

We have been home all week.  Our biggest outing was going to Walmart.  I am a home body, but I'm starting to go a little stir crazy.  Mornings get a little crazy around here.  All of my kids are so grouchy in the morning and I am grouchy in the morning so it is a bad mix.  Snacks and a movie always help with grouchy kids.

Wyatt has a cold so we haven't been getting out like we normally do.  We have spent lots of time playing downstairs in the toy room.  I did the laundry today and it pretty much consisted of mostly pajamas.  I love having the toy room.  We decided to put the boys together so we could have this room.  Even though half the time Jonah ends up sleeping in Caitlyn's room, it is totally worth it.

I'm trying to give Hallee an outlet for her aggression!  The more we see of her personality the more I realize how similar she is to Jonah.  She is a born tease with a nasty stubborn streak.  She is constantly taking Wyatt's toys and snacks.  She will take his toy and get a smile on her face and run off while Wyatt screams.  After a minute or two she brings it back to him with a big smile and gives it back to him while saying, "thank you." I know she doesn't want the toy because if she wants what Wyatt has she will scream, when she is teasing she just laughs and runs.

Wyatt has a very similar personality to Caitlyn.  He is more sensitive and hates it if anyone is mad at him.  He has the hardest time obeying, so by the time I have asked him ten times to do something I am frustrated and he knows it.  He will get this sweet voice and say, "don't be mad at me mom."  He is very animated when he talks.  He uses a lot of expression in his voice and usually keeps his mouth open wide at the end for extra emphasis.  He loves to pretend.  If he is pretending to be something he will not answer to anything other than what he is at the moment.  He always asks me what radio station is on in the car and loves to say, "told ya."

Hallee is the queen of dirty looks. I am constantly getting comments from people on this.  I think everyone is surprised when this sweet little face turns to a scowl when they talk to her.  You always know where you stand with Hallee.  Lately when people talk to her instead of scowling she will play with her fingers.  She keeps her eyes totally focused on her fingers and won't look at the person.  I guess that is her nervous, shy habit.

Wyatt also gets obsessed with things like Caitlyn does.  He picks a book and we have to read it over and over for weeks.  Right now it is, "The Gingerbread Boy."  I love that my kids fall asleep reading.  We have always let the kids read at bedtime and they all love it.  Caitlyn and Jonah read for an hour or two before falling asleep every night. 

This girl loves to be naked!  She took all her clothes off yesterday and had the biggest smile as she ran around the house.  I love how she just goes about her business and plays like everything is normal.  It is a challenge to keep her dressed, but it totally cracks me up how happy she is to be naked.

The pictures never end!

Last week after I spent what felt like forever catching up on pictures I told Keith I was never taking a picture again.  I think I went a whole day, but I can't be sure!  Hallee loves riding around on her horse lately.  She says, "wee."  Today I let her sit in the back of the shopping cart and she yelled, "wee" the whole time it was so cute.

Hallee helps herself to everything around the house.  Here she is trying to curl her eyelashes.

Jonah is so cute!  Here he is playing on the ground with Hallee.  He loves to make her laugh.   The other day he told me that if I died he would be really sad.  I don't know why, but he has been really sentimental lately. 

Caitlyn has a heart of gold.  We were getting her tithing ready and she had over double what Jonah had.  I knew she hadn't earned that much money.  She told me that she has been putting extra in.  I told her she could take some out because she didn't need to pay that much.  She said, "people are more important than money mom, I want to help."  Seriously, this girl would do anything for anyone.  She donated a couple of dollars to fast offering and a couple of dollars to the missionary fund.  That is a lot of money to her.

Caitlyn and Jonah both have signs on their door.  I have been meaning to take pictures of them for a while.  They fit their personalities so well.  The bottom one says, "I am the ruler and queen of this room.  You have to be nice to me and every one else to enter this room."  Caitlyn is very sensitive to other peoples feelings, so when other people are rude to her it is really hard for her.  One of her best friends has been rude to her lately because Caitlyn wanted to play something different at recess with some other kids.  Caitlyn has talked to me about it, but I thought it was getting better.  Caitlyn spent the night at grandma's with all of her girl cousins on Friday.  My mom said Caitlyn started crying at bedtime and told them that she was sad because her friend was being mean to her and calling her names.  My mom said it was so sweet because they all were comforting Caitlyn and telling her how sweet and nice she is.  I love that she has wonderful family to make her feel good. 

Jonah's signs fit him well.  My favorite is the one that says, "This is my hand, if you do not follow the rules this hand will grab you and punch you in the face."  There is quite a difference between their signs!  Jonah and Wyatt are sharing a room, but Wyatt doesn't sleep which means Jonah wasn't sleeping.  I don't know what Wyatt's problem is, but he wakes up almost every night.  Once in a while we will have a week or so where he sleeps every night, but that isn't normal.  It is killing me.  I am a wimp when it comes to sleep.  I need my sleep!  I can usually get him back to bed pretty quick, but then I can't fall asleep.  Jonah has been sleeping in Caitlyn's room so he isn't woken up every night. 

If Wyatt wasn't so cute, I might be mad at him every morning when I can barely get out of bed.  Wyatt gets pretty grouchy when he is tired.  He gets really upset over little things, like the other day when I told him to get in the car and he was screaming and saying, "it's not a car, it's a van!" 

Hallee's teeth are finally breaking through.  Poor girl is getting a ton of teeth right now.  The top two are finally in and one more on the bottom for a grand total of five teeth!  She is working on all of her molars and three other teeth right now. 

This is how I found Hallee this morning.  I need to start putting her in onsies every night so she can't get to her diaper.

Hallee's hair is getting so long.  I always pull it up or else it is in her face. 

We had a nice week last week.  Keith took Thursday off of work because he had to work on Saturday.  We dropped the older two off at school and then dropped the younger two off at Tiff's and went to breakfast.  It was so nice.  Keith has been really stressed at work so I tried to make it a nice, relaxing day for him.  It was so nice to get out that we decided to go out again on Saturday night.  We took all the kids to Keith's parents and went to dinner.  Two dates in a week is unheard off for us!

The scouts put a flag in our yard today for Veterans day.  Wyatt loves when we get flags.  I really am so grateful for our wonderful military.  It makes me sick that the government would stop paying them when they shut down.  All of the crazy things going on in the world sure makes me nervous.  I'm still baffled as to why anyone would support Obama.  It is scary how much damage he can cause our country.  We never watch the news because I really don't want to hear about it, it just stresses me out!  I am grateful to live in a free country and hope that it will continue to stay free!

The First Snow

This morning we woke up to snow.  It is always fun to see the kid's excitement with the first snow of the season.  Hallee wasn't sure what to make of it from the window this morning. 

Hallee looked really cute for church today and thought my sandals would complete her outfit! Oh this girl and church. I don't even know why we take her.  I think we took her out of Sacrament meeting for screaming at least five times today.  Wyatt was on one too, so it was a rough day.  Daylight Savings is not good for kids!

The kids couldn't wait to get outside after church. 

It took a while to find all the snow clothes, but we found enough to keep them warm.

Caitlyn was a little excited to play in the snow!

They whipped up a snow man pretty quick.  This is the kind of snow I like, enough for the kids to play in, but no snow to shovel!

Murray Park

We went to Murray Park to play with our cousins and I took some pictures of the kids before every one got there. 

I can't believe how much Caitlyn has grown up.  She is such a beautiful girl and she is so sweet.  She would never say anything rude about anyone and goes out of her way to make people feel good.

She is such a big help to me.  She helps with Hallee and Wyatt all the time.  She loves to play with them and she always helps me get everyone in the car.

I only have one picture of Jonah because he hates getting his picture taken and wanted nothing to do with it today.

Wyatt was so excited to see all the leaves and sticks. He immediately picked up a stick to fight the bad guys!

He is such a cutie!  He is my little buddy.  We have fun hanging out together every day. 

He is always making us laugh.  He listens to Jonah speak French and he is picking up on it.  He can ask to go to the bathroom in French and do most of the ABC's. 

Hallee is a handful.  She is constantly on the move and usually leaves a trail of destruction.

She wanted to wear her hat today because Caitlyn was wearing one.

She loved all of the leaves and sticks.  She gets so excited and makes the cutest sounds. 

She still screams the second she doesn't get her way, but oh my can she be sweet!  Tonight Jonah was really upset and she kept giving him kisses.  In the car she was sharing her food with Wyatt.  She gets so excited when I have been gone or she hasn't seen me for a few minutes. She will yell, "ma ma" and come and hug my leg. 

I love all of the changing colors.  I have officially turned into my mother. I think everything is pretty and I have to point it out to my kids.  The other day the clouds looked so pretty and Wyatt heard an earful about it.

I love the changing seasons.  Each one brings something new and exciting.