My helper

Ada's standing job is to help me out in the mornings.  I'm not much of a morning person and my kids are arranged so that I'm okay with mornings so far.  Sam wakes up about 7:30-8 gets himself dressed and we go get him some breakfast.  I get Ada's breakfast ready while I'm there because she usually gets up about the time we're in the kitchen.  Then I get Evelyn's sippy cup ready and turn it over to Ada.  I eat and take a shower.  *If* Evelyn wakes up while I'm showering then Ada's job is to get her out of bed and give her the sippy cup and get her some cereal.  If she doesn't then I do it.  I love it when Ada does it though... it's so cute to hear them giggling and playing.  And fun to see that Ada has willingly helped.  Especially since Evelyn insists on giving anyone who gets her out of bed both her blankets and any toys that she'd slept with to carry around.  Ada will carry them all the way to wherever Evelyn wants and drop them there.  It's so fun to see those sisters work together.

Overheard

I was driving the kids home from our fencing class and this was their conversation...

Allen - "I'm taking karate lessons!  I'm already a blackbelt!" (He just started a couple weeks ago)
Me - "So what are the belt colors?"
Allen - "First you start with out one, then white, and then red and black."
Sammy - "I like red."
Allen - "Then you should come do karate too!"
Sammy - "No, I don't know karate. I'm just Sammy and I like red."

I love that kid.

Sledding with the Wilcox's

 We got to go sledding finally!  We've been sick and before that there wasn't enough snow.  We went with my parents and my sister Sharon.  Sam did a lot better this year.  He played in it, ate it, built in it, slid down the hill in it... still didn't like the sled very much but overall I think he had fun.  Last two years he just cried the whole time.  Ada was Miss Adventure, pretty much like always.  She figured out that if she went down backwards then she wouldn't get any snow in her face.  Sharon kept her in a supply of different sleds, and she even tried the very big hill a couple of times... wrecked twice, but just got back on and kept going.  She cried when it was time to go.  Evelyn went down with me twice... got a face full of snow once... and was ready to go sit in the car with Grandpa until we were done.  She was super excited to see a slide nearby.  She kept pointing and saying, "Look, slide!"

Silly Kids

Eating their Christmas candy

Cousin Anya turns 5!

Icicle on the back of the house... we took a picture before I knocked it down.

Puzzle with Joey.

Josh, Evelyn and Arwen... Evelyn's other baby.

The three girls playing with Anya's new toys.  (I made the Rapunzel hair)

"I'm not tired mom."

Dance time...

This is Rachel's Merida costume... Ada was in love and Rachel was a very good sport to let Ada wear it so long.

Chicken recipes

I love chicken.  It's probably my favorite of the meats.... and I especially love the homemade Teriyaki chicken that we've made before and..... someone shared a  yummy recipe for swiss cheese chicken on Allrecipes.com.  I did change a few things so here it is:

8 chicken breasts
8 slices of swiss cheese
1 can of cream of chicken soup
1/2 cup of bread crumbs
1 tsp Rosemary
1 TBLS minced garlic
1/4 cup water

layer in pan, cook 350 for (dang... I can't remember if it was 25 or 45 minutes.... that would make a difference.)

YUM!

Evelyn's first prayer

In an effort to teach our kids how to pray, we start by saying a prayer and having them repeat it.  Evelyn is a girl of very few words.  Even though I've heard her say a variety of words there are very few that she will use over and over.  Here was Evelyn's first prayer:

Me- "Evelyn say 'Heavenly Father'"
Evelyn- "Phone"
Me-"We thank thee for this day"
Evelyn-"Phone"
Me-"Thank thee for our friends"
Evelyn-"Phone"
Me-"Please bless the food"
Evelyn-"Food!"
Me-"And in the name of Jesus Christ"
Evelyn-"Phone"
Me-"Amen"
Evelyn-"Men"

Not quite the huge success in mimicking that I'd hoped, but at least we know what was on her mind... phones, food and Men. 

Salvation and Self Esteem

I've had several conversations about weight lately.  I want to put down my thoughts about it. 

Your salvation is not hinged upon how much you weigh or what you look like.  Having said that, your ability to be active does help you in assisting in your Heavenly Father's work and looking nice can portray who you are on the inside.  But again.... your SALVATION is not hinged upon your weight or your looks.  The entire purpose of this life is to gain a body.... check, earn salvation..... check (given through Christ's death and resurrection, earn (or learn) Eternal Life.... in progress, and help others to earn their Eternal Life.... also in progress.  In my experience, you don't have to weigh less or look gorgeous for any of these.  In my experience, as you learn your Eternal life you automatically have a better self esteem.  It's all about where your focus lies.

Do you think that Joseph Smith Jr will not gain Eternal life because he had a pot belly?  What about Brigham Young?  Why do we look down on ourselves when we are only doing what we were sent to do?  We gained a body.  Some bodies are thinner, some not.  Some bodies require more self control.  Some spirits require more self control.  Some bodies are broken or deformed.  But we gained one... check.  Now on to the Eternal Life bit. 

If you'd like to learn more about the Eternal Life bit.... I'd recommend listening and applying this talk.

Jer's Christmas and New Years vacation

Since we all had that yucky flu that's going around... Jer's week off between Christmas and New Years was timely but less eventful than we had planned.  It looked a lot like this (pretty much 17 out of the 20 grandkids that we visited with were sick during vactions):

We visited both my parents and Jer's because we were ALL sick anyways.  It also looked a lot like this:

With just a little of this thrown in (We bought this Toy Story train last year but had meat to get the Duplo one for Sam for Christmas... made a mistake and got the lego one instead.  Instead of giving it to Sam... we kept it for Jer. It is a cool train):

New Years Eve was games, chocolate, and gabbing.  While it doesn't rival the dance party of last year I think everyone was glad to laze around a little.  Maybe next year we'll avoid the sick part of it, but we still had fun.

Sickness

Sickness amendment...  So I updated on Christmas saying how we're all doing... here we are now.

Ada still has a low grade fever but it hasn't been over 101 since Christmas Day.  She has a croupy cough.  (Been sick for 8 days)

Sam just started getting sick yesterday.  Has a fever of 103 and a dry cough.  (Sick for 2 days)

Evelyn just finished her antibiotics for a sinus infection in time to get this flu stuff.  She had a two day fever but has a really nasty phlegmy cough.  (Sick for about 5 days)

Jeremy had a fever, chills, and dry cough.  (Sick for about 7 days)

Me, I have a sinus infection... one that I've had for at least 3 weeks... just got on antibiotics for it.  Now I've had a three day fever and am starting in on the cough.  (Sick for about 3 days)

Family is all about sharing right?   My sister-in-law got her kids to the doctor and they said that it's Influenza A... about 10 days of fever and 3 weeks of coughing.  Now we know what to expect. 

I don't mind being sick, I don't even mind being sick with the kids... what I do mind is the whole cabin fever feeling.  I usually have to get out of the house about once a day... after having Evelyn it turned into every couple of days and out in the neighborhood once a day... a week home with sick kids and not wanting to spread it... I'm glad that we sick cousins and family that we can go visit. 

trying out someone else's camera

Trying other's cameras is fun and challenging.  I've gotten used to how my camera's light and color metering works.  I tried my friend's Nikon D5000 the other day.  The light meter runs a little darker than mine and the colors come out a little more yellow than mine does.  But here are the cute faces that come out the same no matter what else comes out!

Yeah, she posed herself for this one... isn't she adorable?

I think this one's my favorite one of all of them.

 This was the closest I got to all three cooperating at the same time and in the same place.

Cutie!

 

 

Christmas pictures

Look what I can do mom!

Daddy helping sick Ada with her Santa stuff.

Finally happy to be opening presents.

Look what I got!

Picture of contentment.

Ada happy to get "real" pink running shoes to run with Daddy.

Kids and their FurReals.  This is what they all wanted to give each other.

Window into our Christmas morning.

Chocolate heaven.

Playing with Sam's Kinex Angry birds set.