This year for Christmas I decided to do homemade presents.  Here are some of the presents I made.  I  forgot to take pictures of all the presents I made. 

Stick horse

JJ on the horse

 I made this coloring set for Emily, Maddie, and JJ.

Coloring pad and colored pencil roll

 This is only a few of the pictures in the homemade memory game.  The kids love playing it and it helps them remember those family members we don't get to see.

Homemade memory game

Back of the homemade memory game

Christmas Stuff

 

 

Emily decorating the tree

All decorated for Christmas

With the lights on

 We got together with Ben and Sara and decorated gingerbread houses again.  This year we decided to just decorate graham crackers so I didn't have to spend all day making gingerbread.  I loved that it was so simple.

Decorating Gingerbread houses

Sara's Mcdonald's house

Benny "eating" his house

Emily's house

Maddie's house

JJ's house

Joe's house

My house

 On Christmas we went to church and then came home to open presents.  The kids loved everything they received.

Asher looking at his Santa presents

JJ with his Santa present

Maddie and her Santa presents

Emily and her Santa presents

During the month of December we enjoyed spending time as a family doing activities from an advent calendar I had made.  One of the activities was to go see the lights at Temple Square. We had a great time and really enjoyed seeing all the beautiful lights surrounding the temple.

All of us at Temple Square

The Temple

Lights near the Assembly Hall

Crafts

Here are a couple of fun crafts that I made at our ward Relief Society activities.  I had a lot of fun decorating them.  The first is just a decorative sign that says Peace.  The second is an advent calendar made out of a muffin tin.  Every day we will open it during the month of September and there is an activity, scripture, song, and chocolate inside.  

Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving. Ben and Sara came over and we enjoyed a yummy turkey dinner, watched a movie (while the kids napped), and had some yummy pie.
I am so thankful for all that I have been blessed with. I am thankful for my family and friends and I am thankful for my Savior. I love this Holiday season.

Oreo turkeys

A couple of days before thanksgiving we made our Thanksgiving turkeys using oreos, candy corn, whoppers, nerds, and chocolate chips. We love doing this and the kids have so much fun. JJ I think loved it the most this year. We decided to let them do it all on their own after watching me make one. His didn't look like a turkey at all and was just a blob of cookie and candy corn, but he loved that blob and would get the biggest grin on his face whenever he saw it.

Joe's Turkey

My Turkey

Emily's Turkey

Maddie's Turkey

JJ's Turkey

JJ and Asher

JJ loves Asher so much. Lately whenever he gets up from his nap I will come into the front room (where Asher is napping) to find this:


JJ thinks that he needs to climb right in with Asher in his pack and play.

Halloween

This year for Halloween our day was pretty full. We went to Gardner Village in the morning with Sara. After Gardner Village we went to Joe and Benny's work to do trick or treating there. The kids were spoiled so much with the candy there. Everyone was giving out fun size candy bars, it was good stuff. Then we went home and took naps, and that evening we went to our wards trunk or treat. After trunk or treating we went to Ben and Sara's house and the kids watched a movie while the adults talked. We even got to see my cousin Kari and her husband Ryan and Daughter Abbey when they stopped by to say hi.

Here we all are at Joe and Benny's work

Here are our kids and Kaidyn at Ben and Sara's house. Emily is a tiger, Maddie is a chick hatching out of it's egg, JJ is a pirate, and Asher is a pea in a pod. Kaidyn was Elmo, but he had taken off his costume by this time.

I have to add too that sometime during the trunk or treat, Maddie heard someone telling someone else that there was a cute little chick bum. She knew they were talking about her and was extremely offended. I didn't stop hearing about it for weeks. I tried to explain that they thought she was cute, but it didn't work.

Asher 7 months

Asher is 7 months now. He is still growing so much and is such a joy to have in our family. He is finally sitting up on his own, but he still won't roll over at all. It scares him to much. Anytime we roll him over to his side to help him practice he gets really upset as soon as he finishes rolling over. It doesn't matter if it is to his tummy or his back he just wants to stay in whichever position he was in to begin with.
He is eating quite a few solid foods now and loves it! We thought he didn't care what the food was as long as something was going in his mouth because he wouldn't react for any foods other than asking for more. We couldn't ever tell if he really liked what he was eating-until we gave him green beans. He takes after his older sister Emily and hates green beans. He cries when we feed them to him. Anything else he just gobbles up, but green beans he refuses to eat.

Monster Bash

The weekend before Halloween we went to the Monster Bash in SLC with Ben, Sara, Kaidyn, Kylie, Rachel, and Tim. It was a free event that included making halloween bags, a petting zoo, riding ponies, making cookies, trick or treating, and music. The kids really enjoyed themselves. I think their favorite part was riding the ponies. Here are some pictures:

Food!

We started feeding Asher real food this week. We started with some oatmeal baby cereal and formula mixed together. He hated it. At first he was so excited. Then he figured out how nasty it tasted, and he just cried with every bite. We thought it might just be a first time thing so we fed him the same thing the next day. He still hated it and refused to eat it. The next day I decided to try sweetening it up for him by making it with pureed pears instead. He absolutely loved it! He has been eating it for breakfast and lunch every day since. He gets really mad now when it is all gone. I wanted to take pictures of his first time eating food, but our camera is packed away somewhere and we haven't found it yet. As soon as we do I am going to be taking his six month pictures too.

Asher 6 months

Asher is 6 months. At his six month checkup he was 15 lb 5 oz and 26 3/4 in long. He hasn't grown much since his 4 month appointment. Before he was in the 28th percentile for weight and 98th percentile for height and now he is in the 10th percentile for weight and 50 percentile for height. I guess he is just following after his siblings. We thought he might be our really tall one compared to the others.
He is still so good and loves to play with his siblings. At his doctor appointment we found out that he is allergic to soy in addition to the milk. We switched to Nutramigin for the few bottles that he has and he is doing much better. The doctor said he should be fine with milk and soy after he is 1 because he probably just doesn't have the ability to break up the milk and soy proteins right now.
I couldn't post just one picture. Both of these kind of show his personality. There were several more that I wanted to post to because he was being such a ham when I was taking his pictures.

We Moved

Joe started a new job on Sep 21st with NAI West in Utah.  We had a hard time finding a house but finally found one in Murray, UT.  I think it is a cute little house.  It is small, especially after living in the house in Meridian, but we really like it.  The landlord is selling it in six months so we won't be here to long.  

Asher 5 Months

This is Asher at 5 months. He is still such a good baby and we are so happy to have him in our family.

JJ's Tonsils

JJ had his tonsils out on Monday. It was the day after his birthday. He woke up that morning throwing up and having diarrhea so I thought they would send us home and say to wait for another day. They said that he wasn't acting sick though so they decided to go ahead with it. He did really well during surgery and they said it was a good thing he had them out too because there was a lot of infection in them. This week he has had a tough time with recovery. He doesn't want to eat or drink much and is just drinking enough to keep hydrated. We are hoping that next week will be better and that he will be back to his normal self soon. They also did an endoscopy and said that he doesn't have EE which we are very grateful for. He does have some inflammation in his esophagus so he is going to take some acid blocking medicine for 3 months. They think it was caused by his tonsils though so we are hopeful he will be done with the medicine after 3 months.

JJ's 3rd Birthday

JJ's birthday was last Sunday. We celebrated on Saturday by going to Settler's park to play in the splash pad. On Sunday we had great-grandpa and Aunt Debi over for cake and games. JJ wanted a Cars cake for his birthday. After cake we played Duck, Duck, Goose and opened presents. We love JJ so much and are grateful for his fun personality. He loves to joke around and tease. He is such a good boy and has grown so much in the last year.

Here is his Lightning McQueen cake.

Here he is laying down with his Clifford the Big Red Dog he got from Great Grandma and Grandpa.

Asher 4 months

Asher is 4 months now. His 4 month stats are Length- 26 1/2" Weight- 14.75 lbs. He is getting so big. He is in the 98th percentile for his height and head and 25th percentile for his weight. Again when I was trying to take his pictures he kept putting his hands in his mouth and making silly faces. He loves to play with his toys now. He isn't rolling over yet, but doesn't really want to. He scares easily when it comes to human noises. He could care less if the vacuum or blender is on, but if you talk loudly or startle him he will burst into tears. He loves to talk also. He tries to say hi to us all the time. I don't think he knows what it means, but he knows when he says it he gets a big reaction.

Tumble Time

The past year JJ has been doing tumble time every Wednesday to work on his gross motor skills. It is what they had him doing for his Occupational Therapy. Well when he turned 3 these services ended. August 3rd was his last day at Tumble Time. He really enjoyed Tumble Time and we are sad it is over. He is also done with Speech Therapy until September when he will start again through the school. He is just working on his annunciation.

Emily's Birthday

Emily celebrated her 6th birthday. On her birthday she went to the dentist for the first time. She was so excited to go. Afterward though she said she didn't think it was a very fun thing to do on your birthday. That afternoon we told her she could invite one friend over to do all her fun birthday stuff. She decided to invite her friend Lydia Plummer from our ward. We went to Settler's park to enjoy the splash pad. After the splash pad we went home and I finished the cake while the kids watched a movie and then we had dinner. My grandpa and our friends Paul and Lacey joined us for dinner and games. We had Chicken nuggets, tater tots, and Macaroni and cheese. (all Emily's favorites) Then we did cake and presents. After presents we played Hello Kitty says (simon says), Hello Kitty hot potato, and pin the bow on Hello Kitty. It was so much fun. We are so thankful for Emily and the great daughter that she is. She is really helpful and loves to help me with Asher. What a joy she is to have in our family.Here is Emily's cake. We did a Hello Kitty cake because she loves Hello Kitty.

Here is a side view to see the stripes and flower at the bottom of the cake.