Kate's 12 Days of Christmas

First a random picture. The "pocket shirt" was one of Susie's favorite shirts about a decade ago. When she outgrew it, she didn't want to just get rid of it, so she gave it to the girls (only Megan and Kylie at the time) to use as a nightshirt. It's a classic 80's/early 90's t-shirt, made to look like the person is wearing a tie-dye tank top over a white t-shirt. The bottom seam of the two is sewn together, unintentionally creating a huge pocket. Kylie discovered this treasure and wore it every chance she got for years. Eva has now discovered it as well.

Also off topic, Laura is shaping up to be the earliest crawler we've ever had. At three months old, she is raring to go and is very frustrated that she can't seem to figure out how to catch up to her sisters and brother. She started rolling from front to back at about 8 weeks old and rolled from back to front shortly after that, although she can't figure out how to go in that direction on our bed because it's too soft. It's so cute to watch her try though! She is currently doing her darnedest to figure out how to crawl. We tried to get a video of it ~

And now back to the main topic :)

Last week we got a package from Aunt Kate. Usually we put Christmas packages under the tree and wait until Christmas to open them (we've found this decreases the number of presents opened early by small children when they are not being watched), but Kate had told me to open it when we got it. Inside were twelve presents, clearly marked for each of the twelve days of Christmas!

Since we are going youngest to oldest with the virtual advent calendar that my grandmother, Gigi, sent us (Thank you again Gigi! We love it!), we went oldest to youngest with Kate's presents.

Megan opened day 1. It was twelve blueberry candy canes! Two for each child and one each for Rob and I :) We opened it before school, but I made the kids wait until after school to eat them.

Day two, opened by Kylie, was eleven Christmas crafts - five little bags for the kids to decorate, 4 packages of Christmas beads and string to make bracelets and necklaces, and two packages of glitter glue! We waited until after school to do those too.

We started out by decorating the bags ~

Jack got three lollipops instead of just one because the night before he was the only one to stay in his room when the kids first went to bed (they get 30 mins to read or play in their rooms before we turn out their lights) AND when I said it was time to turn the lights out, he cleaned up his toys without me even having to ask!

Laura was there too, contemplating breaking out of her swing ~

Love Jack's look in this one!

The finished bags, clockwise from the top: Kylie's (pink), Beth's (purple), Jack's (blue), Megan's (pink), and Eva's (purple) ~

Then we strung bracelets and necklaces ~

Kylie made a bracelet ~

Jack made a very long necklace ~

Laura watched from my lap ~

Megan made two matching bracelets for herself and her best friend, Paula ~

The look I got when I asked Eva if I could take a picture of her bracelet ~

Jack made his necklace even longer ~

Beth made matching necklaces for her and her best friend, Maiya ~

Jack with his finished necklace ~

Eva decided to show off her bracelet after all ~

The next day we opened 10 Christmas toys (five tops and five little mazes), then 9 Christmas straws with plastic peppermint candies on them, followed by 8 cool cups (Star Wars, the Avengers, fairies, Belle, Ariel, Dora, Cinderella, and princesses). We can't wait to see what's next!!! :)

Frosting Cookie Ornaments

Kiki texted Tuesday afternoon and asked if she could bring over a kit she bought with Christmas cookies shaped like ornaments. I wasn't sure they would make it to the tree (they didn't), but we were happy to have her over for dinner and excited about frosting them! One of our missionaries, Elder Speer, is getting transferred to another area tomorrow, so the elders stopped by to say good bye. We discovered that his companion (whose name I can't spell) had never frosted a Christmas cookie! He's from a tiny island near the Marshall Islands. Apparently they don't do Christmas cookies there. Of course we had to remedy that, so we had them stay and frost a cookie ornament.

Kylie's finished cookie ~

Jack started eating his cookie before I got a photo of it ~

First ever frosted Christmas cookie!!!

Elder Speer with his cookie :) ~

Megs made sure every last inch of frosting was covered in sprinkles ~

Eva had a bit of help from Kiki with the frosting, but put on the sprinkles by herself ~

Elder Speer got his handshake! He is the first elder to analyze it afterwards, stating that the amount of pressure was perfect, it was firm, but not too firm, and that Rob's hand was neither cold and clammy nor hot and sweaty :)

Kiki and Beth with Beth's cookie ~

Laura and Daddy hung out by the computer ~

Kiki's cookie and half of Beth's ~

Meg gets in on the action ~

There might have been just a bit of red frosting on Eva's cookie . . . 

Meg's decorated a second cookie ~

Beth and Kiki sung Christmas carols together after we were done decorating cookies. I taped it, but Kiki noticed and commented "you aren't going to post that online anywhere, are you???" Beth responded by looking at me accusingly and informing me that if I did, that would constitute cyberbullying. Kiki agreed with her, so no videos of their caroling :)  

Laura talked and talked to Kiki :) I believe she's only done that to me before!

Kiki told Eva she would give her flying lessons. It's a good thing I snapped this photo as soon as Eva got up in the air because she only lasted about 30 seconds before deciding she didn't like it. 

Other than that, nothing horribly exciting has been happening, but we've been keeping very busy. Laura is as cute as ever :) Here are a few photos we've taken recently of her ~

Rob got to watch her for the first extended period of time ever last night as I went back to PDI for the first time since June. I've missed being able to serve in that way; it was nice to be back! It was super hard to leave Laura for so long, but I knew Rob would take good care of her. She had no problem drinking pumped milk from a bottle, but wanted to be held, so Rob walked her for three hours straight just to keep her happy :) He said she made it all worth it with a look of love she gave him towards the end of the night :)

I assessed my first heroin addict last night. I had to look up the DSM code as the only ones I'm used to using are for crack or alcohol addiction. Even though I actually left at the end of my shift for the first time ever (I usually stay until the end) I still was able to work with four women and all four agreed to go to treatment! I don't know if the ones assigned to outpatient treatment will show up today, but at least they all said they would! :)

Eva is talking more and more each day. She is supposed to have between 40-50 words right now; I think she has hundreds. My very favorite is "I love you", which she pronounces "I lovey". It's so cute to hear her say it that I have a hard time leaving or putting her in bed as I keep telling her I love her just to hear her say "I lovey" back to me :) She has also started informing me when she likes something. The "y" sound is big with her, so it comes out "I likey". She uses this for everything from tv shows to food to Laura. It makes me laugh when she climbs up on the counter to help me make dinner and sticks her finger in all the ingredients, tasting each one and announcing that she likes it :) At least they get cooked to kill any germs afterwards ;)

Jack is doing well in school, but is struggling a bit at home. He isn't horribly interested in the things the older girls are, but is a bit old for the things Eva likes doing. Rob has been spending some extra one-on-one time with him, which Jack loves! He loves to help me with things that I do too and he loves helping to take care of Laura :)

Beth is having a bit of a hard time right now as her very best friend Maia is moving in a few weeks. We're letting Beth do her birthday lunch/movie a month early so she can take Maia with her. She's loving that we've gotten to see more of Kiki lately. She is a bit obsessed with Kiki. She apprehended the copy of Kiki's senior picture that I had and even tried to sleep with it one night. I had to pull it out of bed and tell her she couldn't sleep with things that had hard pointy metal frames or that had glass in them. She has put together everything she has ever gotten from Kiki (like cups from when Kiki bought her a drink at a QT gas station) and compiled it into a shrine she calls her "Kiki Collection".

Kylie just wrapped up her last season of soccer for a while. She liked it, but didn't love it, and we were spending 4-5 days a week at soccer. If she had LOVED it, we would have figured out how to make it work, but it was getting more competitive and she didn't want to practice at home at all, so we decided it was time to stop for now. That was a hard decision, but Kylie was the one who made the call. We were honestly a bit relieved by it as it frees up a ton of time! I have no idea how we fit it in to our schedule!

Megan is doing well. She and Kylie are practicing to be babysitters as Megs will be able to babysit for our kids next summer and for other people's kids in 18 months. Megan has started cooking dinner completely on her own one night every two weeks. The first night it was hard for me to walk out of the kitchen and let her at it, but I know she needs to learn :) When I walked back in to check at the end, we discovered two ingredients that hadn't been used and had to figure out how to work them in, but dinner turned out well!

'12 Christmas Photo Shoot

Almost every year I pick out gorgeous Christmas dresses for the girls to wear and the girls HATE them. To them, it is much more important that the dresses don't have "itchies" than that they look beautiful. In order to avoid that this year, we took all the kids shopping with us. It was fun - for them anyway :) I prefer shopping with just a few kids instead of 6. I think Rob felt like a ranch hand having to wrangle the 5 that weren't with me picking out their outfit. At least Laura isn't mobile yet!

We decided to stick with a color scheme instead of worrying about matching dresses. This year we chose black and white with red highlights. Beth and Megan ended up picking out matching dresses (they both wanted the butterfly necklace that came with the dress). Eva wanted Laura's dress to match hers and since Laura couldn't care less at the moment, we complied. Kylie picked out a cute dress that she ended up hating as soon as she put it on for pictures. *sigh* At least only one child complained this year! Usually I have to bribe a large percentage of them to smile for pictures. Jack already had an outfit that would work, so we let him pick a dress shirt that didn't match to wear another time. He picked one with cuff links, a silk handkerchief, and a tie pin thingy. Fancy!

We made sure to wait until after Eva's nap this year, so she is actually smiling in the photos! :) I didn't love any of the group shots, but we got some fairly good ones, which isn't bad considering how many young kids are in them!

After the group shots, I let the kids do individual photos if they wanted to. Eva picked her own pose. Lovely, isn't it? :)

I think this one turned out really well though!

Jack carefully picked his props, deciding on his stocking in the background and guns fashioned out of broken transformer toys.

Megan wanted more serious shots. She looks so grown up!

Our attempt at a ballerina pose ~

Beth wanted to start with a nice photo ~

And finish with a goofy one ~

Kylie didn't want to take individual photos. She just wanted to get out of her dress.

Eva wanted another picture with the lollipops I used to reward the kids for doing pictures. You can never have too many lollipops you know!

We decided to get some photos of Laura too. Eva decided she needed to be in them. I love how close the two of them are! They are already such good friends!

We even managed to get a couple of Laura smiling ~