January Misc

Some random January happenings.

While the boys were at school Lydia somehow found a pair of scissors.  She decided to use them to cut holes into her shirt.  There was a lot of sadness when she got in trouble.

Unfortunetly a few of her brothers (Alex and Henry) thought it looked like a neat idea.  In the following weeks they followed her lead.  Cue unhappy mom.


Alex is a sweetheart and decided to make a trail mix for everyone to share.  He did the whole thing on his own without any assistance.  I love having 9:00 church!

Henry got a shark blanket for Christmas.  He loves acting like he got eaten by a shark!

Lydia loves "doing the dishes."

Alex is very creative in the way he empties the dishwasher.

Lydia learned that she can get pretty much anything she wants if she puts her mind to it.  She managed to grab her blanket and pacifier that were hidden in the top drawer!

Lydia still loves dressing up.  And when she dressed up she has to wear it ALL.

We made cookies and put them on the counter to cool.  Everyone went upstairs to watch a movie.  When I realized that Lydia was missing I came downstairs to discover that she had reached up and helped herself to several cookies!  She will do anything for a treat!

Lydia is my favorite little hairdresser.

The cub scout pack meeting was about disabilities.  Henry and Alex loved using their mouths to paint!

Snow Day

Having mountains so near to us is wonderful.  It allows us to have fun in the winter weather and then go back to our "cold" weather in the high 40s and 50s.  It's also great having friends who invite you to their cabin!  We loved going up to spend time with the Worthen's while it was snowy up the mountains.  The kids had a great time sledding near the cabin.  The boys even had Lydia sled with them a few times.

William went with some of the older boys to sled down the big hill.  He had a blast!  

Lydia couldn't get enough of eating the ice and snow.

Henry loved it too!

Since it was a birthday party the kids got to hit the pinata too.  

We are so grateful to have fun friends that create opportunities for lasting memories!

Yearly Photos

During our Christmas break I took the opportunity to have our yearly photo shoot.  We had a lot of squinty eyes this year.

I love Henry coaching Lydia in this picture.

They were really struggling!

Here are some of my favorites...

William:

James:

Alexander:

Henry:

(and this classic Henry face)

Lydia:

(someone was behind me trying to get Lydia to smile... so she decided to imitate them.  Not exactly the look I was going for)

It's hard to get a good group shot with 5 kids but Rich got them to smile!  He did something really funny...

And then we got the shot!

Afterwards we played a little football at the park...

New Year's Eve

We resurrected our New Year's Eve fondue tradition.  For dinner we had pizza fondue and chocolate fondue for dessert.  It was delicious!

The boys were adventurous in their eating too...

We played games throughout the night.

We did some fireworks before we sent the younger three to bed.

William and James stayed up til midnight playing Dominion and watching Napoleon Dynamite.

Christmas Break Fun

Christmas break is one of my favorite times of year.  I love all the extra time I get to spend with my kids. We had a great time playing with new games.

We used some Christmas money to take the family to Gravady one morning.  We had a blast!

James is always fearless and loves to do awesome flips.

All the boys loved the obstacle courses.

Even Lydia had a great time!  I wish we could have a room like this at home!

We used some other Christmas money toward a pass to the new aquarium.  So we spent another day checking it out.  There were so many cool animals to see and it was very hands-on.

Our favorite part was the birds!  It was so much fun for them to land all over us.