366 Laughs- January 31st 2016

1/31/16

Cousins!  This was before they left to go home.  Christopher and Gregory are only a few months apart.  They will both be baptized this year.


Silly boys.


Girl cousins!  Ilyena is right between Liberty and Juliana.



And my baby girl will be 2 in one more day!  She's been saying "yay!" and maybe "cake!" to prepare.  She can show you 2 fingers, too.

366 Laughs- January 8th 2016

1/8/16

Emilie being "half Sith".  She's cute though, even when she's trying to scare her brothers.



Timothy bought these Magz with Christmas money.  They were well worth it.  Look at that!
Plus the accidentally photobombing Nathanael.



Christopher with most of his Superman collection.  He really and truly loves Superman.

Some of these new ones he got for Christmas or bought with Christmas money.  He also loves Polar bears.

366 Laughs- January 6th 2016

1/6/16

I love my family.
Here's Juliana, snuggled up with a crocodile from the zoo she bought with birthday money last spring, and a big crocodile from Amazon she bought this week with Christmas money, reading the Enormous Crocodile (by Roald Dahl) with Benjamin (Tom's favorite book.)

Love it.  Oh, their names are Chomper and Snappy.



Ginny figured out these little Klip Klop princesses on horses (Liberty has one from last Christmas) just days before Christmas.  They are fun, they ride down little ramps with a little clip clop noise and motion.  Santa found it at a VERY good price and when Ginny got the hang of it, I was thrilled. (Moms have insider info, you know.)  Here she is playing away.  Her big brothers and sisters ALSO have a blast with these.



And then just a lovely photogenic Christopher for you.  As you can see, those front teeth are FINALLY coming in.

366 Laughs- January 5th 2016

1/5/16

We had a fun surprise from my sister today!
A package!  With really cool CTR necklaces for the little girls.  (Jules is scared to get hers dirty... still can't get her to wear it.  We'll keep trying.)

And a family puzzle!

Emilie was taking pictures of me opening it.  I don't always look that thrilled at my kids holding a camera, but it's the only way anyone ever sees pictures of me.

Christopher wanted a picture, too.


Samuel has out grown his Cub Scout shirt but only has 2 weeks left before he turns 11 and moves on to Boy Scouts.  So... I sewed  his Webelos badge onto a Scout shirt and we can change it very easily in 2 weeks!


Doesn't he look grown up?  This is my first Texas baby, all grown up and ready for Boy Scouts!


Oh, and Liberty wearing her necklace.  :)  Crazy hair in braids but coming out... haha.

366 Laughs- January 2nd, 2016

1/2/16

Tonight our laughs came from decorating cookies that we've needed to make since Christmas when Tom got his ABC (already been chewed) cookie cutters.  Here's a recap:



So since our Kitchenaid is still out of commission, I picked up some clearance Christmas cookie icing (say that 3 times fast) at Target and one color was red... lots of bloody dismemberment, apparently.



But there was a lot of creativity, too.  It was fun.  Benjamin even did some after he got home from work and before heading to bed.  Which we are all doing early as we start 8 am church tomorrow!


BYU!  He made a "Y" out of white sprinkles.

I love the happy fish.  Those feet have problems.

Yay!  Cookies!  Yeah, she didn't understand decorating quite yet.

She was very careful with her decorating.

Samuel is having fun.

Timothy did a lot with gore...


Emilie's zombie... Tom was more meticulous.


Liberty decorating a butterfly.  The rest got scary.

That's where those feet came from.

Nathanael autographed his first few.  I guess they're collector's editions.

365 Joys- December 24th 2015

12/24/15

Christmas Eve!


We had the Sister missionaries over for dinner, so Benjamin was entertaining his little sisters as we got everything ready.

Just some cool kids.







Christmas Eve Pajamas!





Ginny REALLY loved her new Frozen princess nightgown.










Our manger was filled with straw, thanks to secret acts of service between members of our family.




Merry Christmas to you and yours!

365 Joys- December 22nd 2015

12/22/2015

Star Wars day for our family!

I brought some of the kids in the afternoon, and Tom took the older kids later in the evening (after Benjamin got off work.)

We loved it!

(our nearest theatre does $5 Tuesdays...)

Liberty is an awesome Jedi.  See, girls can use the Force, too!

My troop.

No, Juliana and Ginny didn't go.  They would have if we'd all been able to go together... but we gave Jules the choice and she chose staying at home and watching Wonder Pets.  Ginny took a nap.

Emilie being a Sith.

365 Joys- December 16th 2015

12/16/15

So we get free products (and toys) to offer honest reviews about the product.  Liberty received this Monster High (which I can't stand) Mega Bloks set which has lights and music and as it is a building set, I said ok.

A whole bag of pieces was missing.  Liberty was distraught.  This was her first big building experience and it was so frustrating to try and find the pieces only to realize they weren't even there.This never happens with Lego.  I contacted the company and after several emails were exchanged, they replaced the parts.  It was not a big deal and the shipped them super fast, free.  There's even a place on the site to do this.

So here she is, finally building the set.  And she really did build it herself.  With only small amounts of help.  Here's Samuel stepping in to do something she really had given up on.



The boys got involved even though this was clearly a "girl" set.






Kudos to Mega Bloks for a happy (reviewer) customer!





Here's a pose by Emilie.

365 Joys- December 14th 2015

12/14/15

For Family Home Evening, Emilie and some of her siblings gave us a surprise Nativity.

Emilie was the angel, the Narrator, and the planner/plotter.

Timothy was Joseph and Liberty was Mary, and there's baby Jesus.

Nathanael was the innkeeper.  "No room" he peeked around to say.  And he made sure we followed the Joseph Smith translation, where it says "inns".

Samuel and Juliana were very excited shepherds.  Or at least Juliana was the excited one.

This shepherd ran ahead to see Jesus before the angel even said anything.

The angel told the shepherds not to be afraid but to find the baby.

Here we go.  Right on time. 

No King Herod isn't the same guy as the shepherd.  How could you ask that?
Here come our wise men.  With gifts.  Looking for the baby Christ child.

This little wise person got frankincense or myrrh all over her.

Herod says to make sure to come back and let him know the good news.  Nah, think the wise men.

The wise men come bearing gifts.

The star the wise men followed.

Toothless wise man.

I think Nathanael is sad that it's over.