Sundays

Sunday a special day right?  As a family we decided not to shop, eat out, pay for things, play computer games, etc... but we've been having a harder time trying to figure out good things to do.  We play board games together, read together, Jer bakes with the kids, etc... but one favorite lately has been watching movies off the lds.org Friend website.  Their favorite is....

http://www.lds.org/friend/online-activities/videos/other?lang=eng#the-coat

They watch it over and over again.  Every time with a pure look of delight.  Ada even said, "Look!  This is the most sweetest part."  Thanks Brasher cousins for cluing us in to the existence of the Friend website.

Portraits

Kids portraits are a fun thing to do.  They are so full of fun and most of the time they are happy little people.  Other times, not so much.  In my opinion, my favorite kids portraits are ones that are done on the spur of the moment.  The kids get less anxious and less "picked on" by the adults.  A couple times a year I just pull out my camera and tell my kids that we're taking some pictures.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't... but I get their best smiles that way.  Here's my most recent one.  Not much by way of a portfolio piece (I didn't even do their hair or have them wear their shoes), but it sure shows how genuinely they enjoy each other and how often our photo sessions end in a wrestling match.

It started out as a way to show Sammy's cute new (second hand) suit.  It's his first full suit.  Very, very handsome.

Then Ada wanted to take some pictures.  So cute.

Then they wanted some pictures together.

Which turned into this....

and then this.... 

and then this....

That's how I got this.

Joke

We went to the Shops at the Riverwoods as a family the other day.  We saw Santa (no line!), went to the toy store, enjoyed the lights.... and listened to live music.  My favorite part, the banjo player told a joke during the lull between songs.

"What's the difference between an onion and a banjo?"
"No one cries when you cut up a banjo."

Yum

Check out this yummy Christmas cake here...

Frontrunner South line

Today was free ride day for the Frontrunner South line.  The new fast train that goes up all the way through SLC and into Ogden.  It officially opens on Monday, but if you brought a can a food today they would let you ride it for free.  We had the idea that it would be fun to do with the kids and see the Christmas lights at Temple Square.  It was fun.  While it was ultra busy and a little hard on the kids to be so crowded they told us that the train was their favorite part.  I love seeing the lights at Temple Square, to me it's always worth being out in the cold for that part.  We also got to have hot chocolate, free chick fil a sandwiches, a tour of the Disney Store, snow, and cuddling with my tired babies on the train trip home.  It was a busy, cold, fun day.

I think this one is my favorite.  I rarely have a picture with all my kiddos that we are all smiling and semi presentable.  Yes, it's in the corner of the train... but look! 

My mom had her birthday

Did you know that I have an amazing mother?  It doesn't matter what she goes through, she loves me and she's always happy and excited about life.  This year we didn't do a party for her because she had to go get a stint out on her birthday... but the day after... Mom, Janelle, Jer and I all went to the Messiah Sing-In at the Alpine Tabernacle.  LOVED IT!  We try to go every year but it's been harder to find one since the Provo Tabernacle burned down a couple of years ago.  This one was amazing.  While the Soprano was kind of old (she was starting to lose control over her vibrato), the Alto was spectacular as was the trumpet soloist.  And the whole time during his solo I kept thinking about my awesome cousin, Conrad, who played the same piece for us years ago at a Christmas party.  It was so fun, and Sharon watched our kids. (Our kids love being watched by their Aunts.  They always ask if they can "go play".)

"Hate"

Ada's conversation with the NAET Doctor:

-"Ada seems to be allergic to something inside her.  It looks like her Fallopian tubes."
- Ada's response:  "I HATE Fallopian tubes."

Jer thinks that we should make spaghetti for dinner and tell her that we're eating fallopian tubes. 

Cute buddies

I know I've posted about these cute buddies before.  It's just so fun to see how their relationship is developing as they get older.  Evelyn is so outspoken and Josh is so smiley that they do make a good team but I am afraid that Evelyn will scare Josh off one of these days.  Until then I will continue to watch them play.  Not ten minutes before I took these they were wrestling because they were playing with a ball.  Josh thought it was a fun time to tackle her and wrestle, Evelyn thought he was trying to take the ball so she kept getting mad at him for tackling her... he never even tried for the ball funny enough.  They eventually lost interest in the ball and climbed up to get drinks of water from the table. 

Adam's baptism

Saturday, my sweet growing nephew was baptized.  He's the kindest 8 year old boy that I've ever known.  He gives me hugs, enthusiastically says, "Hey Rosanne, look at this!"  And all my kids really like him. 

Diane asked if each of the families would help with a musical number.  Ruth, Kate, Rachel, Anya, Ada Robertson with Grace Clary is how it ended up being printed on the program, the guy conducting automatically assumed that Grace was playing the piano... it was pretty funny.  It's just what happens when you have cousins with different last names.  Ada and Sammy have been practicing the song for a week and it was so cute to hear.  I even practiced with her with the piano twice... including the introduction... and as soon as I started the song at the performance Ada started singing nice and loud, every word right into the microphone... drowning out all her cousins and forgetting to wait until after the intro to start singing.  It was so cute that I didn't want to get after her afterwards.  She told me when we sat down, "I sang nice and loud so that everyone could hear me."  Yes, yes she did, and I loved it.

After the baptism we went to John and Diane's for spaghetti and games.  We also decided after we got there that we'd go see City Creek Santa with the kids.  It was fun, I'm sorry that Becca couldn't make it though... her photoshoot did turn out really well though. 

Yeah, we really did have three more in this picture, but the two one year olds wouldn't stand for it and Kate helped get them off before they got hurt.

Jer's such a good uncle... he "babysits" his nieces and nephews really well.  He's sitting on Adam, Kate, and Johnny.

Ada liked "helping" Evelyn.  It was really cute.  Rachel followed her around and "helped" her for a while too. 

 

 

I did feel like I missing something though... we took a break for little kids and adult naps before the mall... this is what I saw most of the time.  You can definitely say that it was quiet time.  I felt like I needed to whip a laptop out of my pocket or something... haha...

Mommies helper?

Evelyn likes to help... all my kids like to "help" actually, but Evelyn is the current shadow and so helps with everything.  Her favorites are sweeping (she takes the broom from me while I'm sweeping and scatters my pile), laundry (she takes all the clean and dry clothes and puts them in the dryer while I'm putting the wet clothes in... or she takes folded clothes out of their piles and hands them to me.), dishes (she puts all the clean utensils from the dishwasher into a big messy pile in the drawer), and now it's also dinner monitor.  I don't make my kids eat everything on their plate, but I do make them eat at least half of it depending on how much they'd eaten during the day.  Evelyn has noticed that I tell them to keep eating.  A couple days ago she was sitting in her booster chair and authoritatively waging her finger at Sam and Ada yelling, "Not eating, no, no!"

Evelyn moments

Can I just say how much I absolutely love this little girl?  She makes me laugh every day... I'm always amazed at how big my baby has gotten.  She can communicate without speaking, she can climb higher and get into more things then ever.  She loves to cuddle and loves to jabber at you.  She loves bunnies and her most used words are: Bibi (binkie), Biki (blankie), shoes, phone, no, and ma(mom). She loves to help me sweep, clean up, and if she sees something laying where she doesn't think it should be she brings it to me and tells me where to put it.

 

We were up visiting John and Diane's family and I guess their neighbors own several rabbits.  I took Evelyn out to the car to get a diaper and there was a bunny on the lawn.  Evelyn got so excited that she got down and ran towards it.  She was saying, "Oh, oh, oh..." the whole time.  The bunny ran away and she just put her head back in despair and just cried.  Then we saw more... she started hopping around like the bunnies.  When they all ran away she started to cry again.  When I strapped her into her car seat she tearfully said, "Hop, hop, hop..."  I about died laughing.