Little Big Man

It seems like Lincoln has grown in leaps and bounds over the last 6 weeks.  With Lincoln being our last baby it makes me a bit sad when he hits each milestone.  He's now crawling, pulling himself up, and getting into everything!  At Thanksgiving he got really sick and stopped nursing altogether.  He's now starting to eat some finger foods.  He's 10 months old with his first birthday just around the corner.  The whole family just adores our little guy! 

Christmas Festivities 2015

Every year the kids school does a Christmas program with all the grades at the same time in the High School Gym.  As you can imagine it's quite the production with all those kids, parents, and grandparents.  This year Carson auditioned for one of the speaking parts and got it.  He did awesome!    

This year we stayed home for Christmas and that meant getting our own tree again.  The kids of course loved decorating the tree and Lincoln loved pulling the lights and ornaments off the tree.

 Our ward had a Christmas breakfast again this year with a visit from Santa Clause.  I keep waiting for Carson and now Alaina to ask the big question about Santa.  I even  carefully approached the subject with Carson.  Making sure he knew that he would still get presents regardless of what he believed.  He was still adamant that Santa is real and made sure that Alaina knew that too.  Next year I may have to spill the beans if he doesn't come to the conclusion himself.

 On Christmas Eve we had a breakfast dinner and then acted out the nativity while Tony read.  It's a little hard to do the nativity justice with three active participates.  Earlier in the week we had dinner with some friends and did the nativity with them.  It was a comical rendition of their 3 year old daughter had a meltdown because she wanted to be Mary and stole the manger for her baby Jesus.  Lincoln didn't like the idea of laying quietly while playing the part as baby Jesus.  Ultimately we did a summery of the story and finished the evening with watching Star Wars episode 4.  Anyway after our own nativity we all opened our new pajamas and watched The Polar Express.  Next year we may watch the Muppet or Mickey's Christmas Carol instead.

 Once our little ones were all nestled all snug in their beds Santa came.  The three older kids all got new bikes this year.  Carson also got a new video game, a case for his Ipod, Legos, and a model jet.  Alaina also got new art supplies, lip gloss & nail polish, a couple cross stitches, and some new shirts.  Charlie also got a remote control car, Legos, some puzzles, and a Lego Truck.  Lincoln got a walking toy, a dump truck, a plane, a bath toy, and some books.  The kids were all thrilled!  It is a bummer though that we've had snow and ice since Christmas so the kids haven't been able to ride their bikes yet.

We traveled to Boise the day after Christmas to spend the rest of the break with our Families.  The week was packed with family visits, playing with cousins. seeing the new Star Wars movie, yummy meals, going out to dinner, and the kids going to Jump Time.  We got home Sunday night after some pretty sketchy roads because of the snow.  As fun as all the Christmas festivities are I'm glad that things are settling down and I can catch up on some stuff.

Robos

As many of you know Carson has been part of a Robotics club for the last 9 months.  In December his team competed against other teams from all of Eastern Washington.  We traveled to Spokane to watch him compete.  It was nice for me to see what he had been working so hard on.  Basically his team had to program their robot to preform certain tasks on a coarse.  (YouTube FLL Robotics for an idea of what they do)  Unfortunately everything that could go wrong did for his team and they didn't qualify for state.  But they still had a great time and now Alaina wants to join the girls team and Charlie the junior team.

Carson's 11th Birthday

This year Carson was pretty specific about the cake he wanted.  I made a cake from scratch.  Once it was cooled I went to take it out of the prepared pan and it all fell apart!  So I put it back in the pan and just decorated it in the pan.  Thankfully Carson's theme was very forgiving and it still looked pretty cool!

 Carson's "Hot Wheels cake in the desert"

This year Tony and I got Carson his own IPod.  As you can tell by the picture Carson was beside himself with excitement.  It was a little difficult for me to get something like this for him, but Carson has always taken good care of his things and has never given us a reason not to trust him.  He's been given some ground rules of when, where, and how he can use the IPod.  He's been on it a little more than I'd like, but it is still new and an exciting thing to have.

I say it with every birthday and milestone my kids make, but I can hardly believe how grown up they are becoming!  Carson is such a great kid and I am very blessed to be his mom.  He's a very affectionate kid and so helpful with his siblings, especially Lincoln.  So here is to the last year of being a kid and then onto the tween stage...eeek!

Halloween 2015

This year for Halloween we went to a trunk or treat at our church.  Came home for dinner.  Tony took the older kids trick or treating around the Neighborhood and I stayed home with Lincoln to hand out candy.  We actually got a decent amount of kids come to our door this year and we gave away all our candy.  The kids all came home with a ton of candy and each got a full sized candy bar!

 The night before Halloween we carved pumpkins.  An Avenger pumpkin, a witch's hat (hid behind Alaina's knees), a transformer pumpkin, and a cute little Jack-o-lantern.  Tony and I didn't get our own pumpkins this year.  We figured that we spend so much time helping the kids with their pumpkins we didn't need to.  Which turned out to be the case.  I carved both Charlie and Lincoln's pumpkins.

This year I talked Alaina into being Dorthy from the Wizard of Oz because she already had sparkly red shoes and I had blue gingham fabric to make a costume for her.  Charlie got to pick a costume from the costume box and decided on Optimus Prime after much debate.  Carson wanted to be Captain America and Tony made his shield out of Foam Board and paint.  It cost probably $4 to make.  Much better than the $20 Party City wanted for their plastic shields.  Lincoln modeled the Lion costume all three of the boys have worn their first Halloween.  I have come to the conclusion that Halloween doesn't have to be elaborate to have a good time, and look our kids are happy and cute as ever!    

Family Fun at the Corn Maze

To my delight we were able to find a real corn maze near us this year.  Last year we found a maze made out of old pallets (kind of weird) and in Rexburg people didn't grow corn so all the mazes were made from straw bails.  On our way out to the maze Tony and I realized the last time our kids had been to a real corn maze was when Carson was in preschool and we still lived in Nampa!  Oh our poor deprived children!  This place was a pretty neat setup complete with a country store, train rides, corn pit, straw mountain, petting zoo, and a hay ride out to the pumpkin patch.  We all had lots of fun despite it being a little cold and windy.

 Charlie making a "corn angel".

 Carson and Alaina laying around.

 All four of the kids enjoyed a train ride.  

 Carson, Alaina, and Charlie 

 Getting ready for a ride out to the pumpkin patch.

 Showing off their pumpkins.  (Alaina is in the make silly/funny expressions for pictures phase)

Lincoln trying to decide what he thinks about the corn.

Moving

Man, it feels like the last 2 months have been a roller coaster ride!  We've had so much going on I feel like I can hardly keep up.  So here is the reader's digest version of what's been going on.  Tony and I closed on our house right before we went out of town for a family reunion in Idaho.  It was nice to see our family, but I spent the whole weekend thinking about all the work that needed to be done on the house to get it ready for us to move in and all the packing we needed to do on the townhouse.  We got home Monday afternoon and went straight to pick up the keys and to get the water turned on.  We spent that Monday and Tuesday cleaning the house and carpets.  Wednesday and Thursday was spend packing.  Friday we moved all the small stuff.  Saturday all the big stuff was moved into the house with some help from the brothers in our ward.  Monday I spent cleaning the townhouse and Tony (with some help from his co-workers) got the Camaro towed over to the house.  It was an exhausting week!  The next week we spent ripping out our "clean" carpet downstairs because the smell just wouldn't go away.  Sealed the floor and had new carpet installed.  School also started for the kids.  The following week soccer started for Alaina, which she loves and has improved immensely!  She has a really awesome coach this season.  Then her 8th birthday and baptism celebrations.  We had my parents, Tony's dad, and brother's family come visit for that.  Preschool started for Charlie, which he loves!  We are mostly unpacked and doing little projects on the house when we can find the time.  We have lots of plans and really love our house and all the space it provides for our family.  Right now we're hanging all our pictures and noticing that they all need updating badly.  We're hoping to rectify that shortly.  

 Exhausted Alaina asleep on the floor of the new house.

 Exhausted Charlie asleep on the couch.

 We bought a new refrigerator!  I know it's silly to get excited over a new appliance.

 All of our furniture was in the kitchen/dining room while we ripped out the carpet and sealed it.

The previous owners let their animals do their business on the carpet.  It smelled so bad that I could hardly stand to be in the front room.  It's much better now.

 Carson and Alaina's first day of school.  Carson 5th and Alaina 2nd.

Charlie's first day of preschool.

Alaina's baptism.  She was so excited!  (disclosure: I was absolutely mortified when I saw these pictures of me.  I swear my top didn't look that tight in the mirror when I put it on!  I'm so embarrassed.)

Carson also earned his arrow of light award in Cub Scouts last week!