Family Photos 2011

Some of my favorites out of the 210 pictures we took:

6 Months

Sweet Caroline turned 6 months old today. I am so grateful for this amazing, beautiful, healthy, sweet baby, but I am so sad that it's going by so fast. She is truly such an angel baby, I feel beyond blessed. She's rolling around like crazy, eating baby food (she actually prefers green beans to bananas!), sleeping through the night, and even says "mama". Ok, I know it's just a sound to her, but I'm counting it! Her older brothers and sisters are AMAZING with her and we're all so happy to be around her, I think that's why she is such a happy baby.

Halloween

Another fun Halloween this year! The kids had lots of opportunities to wear their costumes from the Pumpkin Festival, to our friends, the Bairds party, to Trunk-or-Treat, to class parties, and the actual night.
Jake veered from his and Jonah's standard Star-Wars theme and opted for a skeleton. I have a $20 limit on costumes and Jonah wanted this Clone Trooper costume so bad he chipped in his own money. Elle and Mae were butterfly fairy princesses (?). The kids PE teacher at school taught all the kids a version of the Thriller dance which they performed after their costume parade. It was so cute, like a little kid flash-mob.
Pumpkin carving took on a central theme this year - vomit. The kids saw their cousin, Emmas, pumpkin and wanted to have "pumpkin throwup" too. Caroline's pumpkin made the most sense since she spits up ALL the time. I even put long eyelashes on hers.
We also cheated with trick-or-treating rolling in Jen and Mark's golf cart, but felt a little like those buses in India with 9 kids and 3 adults hanging off a four-seater cart. We had both sets of parents, Traci and Samantha, and the Tingeys over for our annual potato bar dinner. It's such a nice way to have the grandparents see the kids in their costumes. We are so lucky to have them all here with us!

Catch Up

Nothing too eventful happening lately, but life in general has been pretty busy! We're getting into the swing of things with school, piano, scouts, baseball, etc., but everyone's happy and healthy and life's good.

Bud celebrated his 36th birthday earlier in Sept. We had a little family party and he got the same cake I think he's had every year with the exception of the two years he was on his mission. Baskin Robbins Mint Chip with Chocolate cake. Right before his birthday he was put on the high council at church and that has kept him really busy speaking and teaching. We got to go to Beatty last week and attend their branch together as a family. It was a great experience and the nicest people!

I've been working really hard on losing the baby weight (+ 20lbs). I actually joined Weight Watchers online and have been exercising 5-7 times a week with Insanity workouts, running, and volleyball. I've lost 30lbs since the baby was born (I only lost 10 from delivering her) and have another 20 to go. I don't know how I'm going to do though with Halloween and the holidays coming. I love sweets!

Jake and Jo have been able to keep up with school really well in addition to their other activities. Elle took the picture below of Jonah doing homework and it's one of my all time favorites! Baseball is a little painful to watch since they have a very beginner team, but they enjoy it. Nana even got them some private lessons at the batting cages to help out. They've put Jake in as a pitcher a few games and that kid is working really hard at getting the ball to the plate. : )

Elle and Mae are loving school and playing with friends all the time. I've decided to have the boys in something in the fall, and the girls can do something in the spring. It makes life a little easier. The other day I noticed that the girls had taken almost 100 pictures of themselves. Here are a couple of them.

Miss Caroline is now 5 months old and just keeps getting cuter and cuter. I had some pics taken of her about a month ago which are beautiful, but her candid ones are so fun too. She started rolling over a few weeks ago and she just started rice cereal this week. She kept it down really well and got fussy when I stopped feeding her. That's a good sign. We're still working on sleeping through the night, but she's given me a few promising nights, I just need to sleep train her to be more consistent. It's just so much easier to feed her though when I'm so tired. : )

Stay tuned for Halloween and Thanksgiving posts! We've got a cow, two butterfly fairies, a skeleton, and a Clone Tropper coming. Guess who's what. We've also decided to head to Houston for Thanksgiving to visit the Fontanos! They've only lived there for 5 years, it's about time we come visit. : )

A Peculiar People

There are two Mormons running for president in our country right now. As always, our religion is being dissected, ridiculed, questioned, researched. No other candidates religion is being spoken of, but ours is. I'm always baffled to hear of people that speak out against us. We do no harm to anyone else. Why should any person mock any religion that teaches peace, hard-work, sacrifice, and love?

I know as a strong member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, I am a "peculiar person". I understand that my religion is unlike any other in the world. I understand that there are many things that are difficult to comprehend about its history and its teachings. However, it is the only religion on the earth today that is organized just as Jesus Christ's gospel was when he lived on the earth 2000 years ago. Because Jesus Christ is not on the earth today, we have a living prophet that receives revelation to guide us, just as prophets of old did. Because the priesthood has been restored, ours is the only religion that provides a way to be married and connected to our family not only in this life, but in the eternities as well. There were people in other areas of the earth in ancient times and they recorded their history, were visited by Christ after his death, and received his teachings as well, because Christ does not forget His people. This is the Book of Mormon.

Why would we make up that a 14-year old boy was visited by God the Father and His son, Jesus Christ, upon asking for sincere help in discovering which religion was true? We know it sounds hard to believe, but it happened. Joseph Smith was pure in heart and humble. He asked a divine question and received a divine answer, which is what I have done and what anyone can do.

Please don't tell me that I am not a Christian. I know with my whole heart that Jesus Christ died for my sins and because of that amazing sacrifice I can repent and live with Him again. Mormons are a "peculiar people", but we are a good people. I have been mocked for my beliefs, but I have never waivered in them. I believe in this religion because of the reasons stated above and so many more. I love this religion for its promises, strength, and structure and know that because of it I am a better woman, wife, and mother.

Tidbit

Just had to jot down this quick story before I forget it. After detailing the car myself yesterday, I caught the kids playing "who can leave their hands on the hot window the longest", which left fingerprints all over the windows. Losing it a bit, I said, "You guys are mess after mess after mess!" Jonah quickly replied, "That's just a part of kids lives, mom." And so it is...

First Day of School

Four of my five started school this past week. Jacob and Jonah headed into 4th grade, Elle started Kindergarten, and Mae went to pre-K (she is very particular about this. It isn't preschool, it's "pre-K"). For the first time I felt like the boys didn't even want or need me there, they knew right where to go and I noticed a lot of other parents weren't with their kids. Then in the afternoon we took Elle to kindergarten. She's had an extremely tough time the past year going anywhere without me. I can't figure out why, but I was terrified of what kindergarten would bring. She did amazingly well though. There were a couple tears shed right before we left her room, but she just wiped them away really quickly and was so brave. I quickly put my sunglasses on as we left the school to hide my tears too. When I picked her up she was all smiles and talked a mile a minute about what they did. She even said she made two friends already although she didn't know their names. : ) Mae was a little tentative in her class when she went on Wednesday, but by the next day, she said I could just drop her off.
This year's schedule is very hectic with five pick-up and drop-offs just for school, but we'll make it work, I just hope I don't forget anyone!

Mae's 4th Birthday

Mae turned four a couple weeks ago while we were in San Diego. She is such a delight. She has one of the greatest personalities I've ever seen. She makes the funniest faces and loves to make up songs. More than anything right now though, she loves being a big sister! We're so happy she's in our family!

6 months old:

Summer Vacay

Disclaimer: Super long post ahead!

Finally our summer vacation came! We were so excited to get the heck out of LV, we took off Friday night around 6 and drove to Rancho Cucamonga to get a head start on our vacation. We didn't realize the hotel we were staying at the following couple nights was only about 40 minutes away. : )
We went to the beach the next day and had such a great time. Caroline slept for almost 3 hours lulled by the sound of the waves. When she woke up, guess she wasn't to impressed (see pic below). The kids love the water, but Jake is obsessed. We cannot get that kid off the boogie board. He hangs with Bud and I just fine. That night we went to an ice-cream parlor called Farrells that serves great treats in an extremely loud (and annoying) atmosphere, but we enjoyed our "Pigs Troph" just fine.
The next day, Sunday, we headed up to our old stomping grounds in LA after checking out the Newport temple. We stopped by my absolute favorite, Randy's Donuts, then on to our old neighborhood where the kids played at the park we used to go to all the time. I took a picture of the kids on that tire swing because Jake and Jo used to spin on it a lot until one day Jonah threw up right in the middle of it. : ) Then with Tito's Tacos in hand, we headed up to South Pas to see our good friends, the Nielson's. Our kids get along great and we have some arranged marriages in the works... Paige and Mae are so cute together and even Caroline has a great friend with their new baby, Rees.
Monday we headed down to San Diego. We took it easy getting unpacked, doing some laundry and grocery shopping. That night we drove around downtown and walked down around the aircraft carriers.
Tuesday was Mae's 4th birthday. We went to Sea World to celebrate. It was a hot day and very crowded, but we had a great time. Elle rode her first roller coaster, which she was not impressed with. The boys went a second time, but she wanted nothing to do with that. When we asked her later what her favorite part of Sea World was she said, "the roller coaster." Go figure. The kids loved the shows and feeding the sea lions, and especially getting their little Shamu stuffed animals at the end of the day. We had tried to ride the tower earlier in the day, but weren't allowed to because all the boys were wet from one of the rides, so we waited until the very end of the day to go and there was a bit of a line. Mae ended up being a different kind of "wet" by the time we got to ride it, poor thing. They should've let us on the first time. : )
Wednesday we hit the beach again and had a great time. When we headed home around 5pm, Bud kept talking about how hungry he was and how he wanted to hurry home, shower, and be back in the car in 30 minutes. This is not like him at all (much more like me), and I couldn't figure out why he was in such a hurry. We headed to Islands for dinner. Jonah was in front and I saw him run over to a bench and start hugging some random person. I couldn't see because of a tree blocking my view, and after saying, "Jonah!", saw that it was my parents! I was so surprised! It was so much fun to see them and they spent the next couple of days with us.
We headed to Old Town the next day. This has been a tradition to get some good Mexican food (even though the restaurant's name changes every time we go), and some salt water taffy. I cannot get enough of that stuff! We headed to the Mormon Battalion visitors center afterwards. It's been redone and is so cool! My parents watched the kids that night and Bud and I got to go out to dinner. We had so much fun and I highly recommend Rappongi if you're ever in La Jolla. Friday we hit the beach for one last time. My parents ended up taking Jonah, Elle, and Mae to their hotel to swim at the pool since it was pretty cold and windy that day (thanks Tingeys for the wetsuits!). Bud, Jake, Caroline and I hung out for another 4 hours and honestly could've stayed longer. It was so nice. We were very sad to leave the next day, but so grateful to the Fullers for letting us stay at their condo. A weeks vacation with 7 people wouldn't have been possible without their generosity!