Blog happy

So this morning I was doing crafts with the kids and got up to go downstairs. Jacqueline said "are you going to get your camera?" No why? She then says "so you can blog about us doing crafts."

Isn't that funny. I think that she thinks I only take pictures to put on my blog. Or she thinks that anytime we do something fun I have to blog about it.

This conversation never would have happened when I was a kid. We live in a much different world now don't we.

Santa Came!!!

We had a wonderful Christmas although I am super sick with a chest cold.
No fun.
Anyways we had a great Christmas with the kids so cute and happy. Santa came to visit us on Christmas Eve and told us a lovely story about how Santa knows what Christmas is all about....Jesus Christ. Can you believe it, he came to our house? It was very special that he would come to our house when he had so much to do on Christmas Eve. Wow oh wow!!!We feel very lucky and of course blessed. Thank you Santa!!!

We can't wait, and dont want to!!!!

I have a secret to tell you....
We open presents before Christmas. No, not just the one Christmas eve with Pajamas in them. Many and in fact most of our presents are opened before Christmas.
It all started A couple of years ago when Joe had work off for two weeks for the holidays because he worked for the school district.

Well one day, 3 days before the big day, we were hanging out and Joe said, out of the blue that we should open a present. He had one that he wanted me to open before Christmas. I wasn't gonna say no. Ive never been allowed to open presents before the big day so I agreed, aka jumped for joy and kissed my man. So I opened up the gift, it was a cool light decoration thing for our house. It was fun, we went out and put it up and had so much fun.

Then Joe said that since I opened one he should get one too. So he opened another one and then we played with that for hours until we were bored. Then we, of course, had to let our two kids in on the fun and they opened one too. We put together and played with those toys too. By then it was way past bed time and we were hooked.

So the next day we started again, opening presents before Christmas. It was so cool. Instead of the whole thing where you open one gift after another without any play, we did just the opposite and used or played with what ever we just opened. Then after some time one more gift was opened. It was the best, we actually enjoyed each and every gift together as a family. By the time Christmas Eve arrived, there was not one single present under the tree.

Now don't you go worrying, see you forgot about Santa, he of course came in the night and the next day there were more gifts. It was super cool for the kids to see our tree go from nothing, when they went to bed, to more that Santa brought.

So that is how it all started and we are still doing it to this day. This year we started seven days before Christmas and are opening between 1-3 presents a day. It is a smaller Christmas this year due to the economy so we have to make it last. Still, it is so so much fun. The kids are really enjoying fully the gifts they are getting and we all are having such a great time. Plus we are snowed in and we need to do something besides cook and eat.

We had some friends come by to sled two days ago and my kids told him how they get to open presents before Christmas. He came up to me very concerned and asked me why we do that. I told him "because we are Awesome parents." I mean seriously what kid (or in my husbands case grown up) does not really want to open his presents early. So that makes us pretty dang AWESOME!!! Also Joe just gets so excited to give me his presents that he really can not wait, I think it is a sickness of his. But I of course understand his need to shower his lovely wife with gifts and will continue to let him do it as he sees fit.

So there you have it. Our Little secret. It is out and It is really super cool. Try it, You'll see.

You know what else is cool about doing it our way. Our kids look so great in the Christmas pictures, and are dressed in many different outfits because we open for days on end. It is not just the regular old pajamas and messy hair pictures of Christmases gone by.

Potty Training

I am dying, seriously dying to get out of the diaper stage. I know that babies are so cute and you never want them to get any bigger Yada yada.....but I have been changing 3 of them. Not diapers, babies. For 7 months now I have had three in diapers, and frankly I am sick and tired of changing diapers seven million times a day.

Jennedy is 2 now and I really want her to get on with the training portion of her toilet adventures. But she refuses. I have had her sit and try and she is fine with that, but the moment she is off, no matter how long she sat she will go and do her business on the floor. What is up with that.

Every time I change her I give her the talk that goes something like this

So where do big girls go poo poo, or pee pee?
In the potty
And where you should you go potty
She points to her diaper
Nooooooo sweetie
She laughs
When are you going to potty train
Potty train, muvers day
What?!?! Mothers day
Ess
Noooooo
Essssssss


And There you have it
She has decided that the day she will be ready to be potty trained is not until mothers day. (It would be one heck of a mothers day gift is she really just potty trained herself that day with no help from me.)
I don't know if I can wait but she seems pretty determined and not even chocolate will sway her so far. Any ideas? She is one determined little munchkin.

Shoe tying Genius

Jerika that is who. She told me that she needed to show me something and boom she tied a bow. Pretty impressive as I did not teach her and she sought out someone to teach her. She asked me for tying shoes for Christmas as she does not have any. We will see what Santa brings.


Here is one that you can see when
Trenton is not trying to steal the show.

Christmas Cheer going out to you.

By far my favorite Christmas song is this one.
It is so happy and so much fun and makes me feel all chirstmassy(not a word, I know.)
I love it and want to share it with you to give you all some of my Christmas cheer.
Merry Christmas all my peeps.

Let it snow

Another snow day!!!

Joe did not have to work, and all the kids had no school.
So we went out and built a snowman. I took pictures and did little to help with construction but boy was it fun. Here is a pic of the final product.

Gingerbread House

We just finished decorating our family ginger bread house and boy was it fun. We did have to tell Joe several times that even if it was messy he could still have fun. So he did and got really into it after being told that I would clean up the mess we were making. We had a lot of laughs and so much fun together.
Here is the finished product. Notice how I put our name on the roof, just so we know it belongs to us.
Everyone ate lots of frosting, licking it off fingers, the house, and even the tables.
Trenton was removed many times from the top of the table when he was attacking the house. We did let all our kids eat lots of candy because we are awesome parents like that.

Raddio Daddio

My father is the best and it is his birthday so this post is going out to the man who helped momma give me life.

My dad is cooler than your dad, no seriously. Most Saturdays and anytime we come home for vacations, He makes crepes for breakfast, no not just ordinary crepes, huge megga crepes. He actually makes them on a large griddle, the kind you plug in and makes one that is as big as the entire griddle. Then we put lots of yummy stuff on it and roll them up and eat these huge gargantuan crepes. I don't know anyone but my dad who does this. Now all his kids make crepes that way and will pass it on to our kids. So cool.

My whole life my father did all the laundry. Yep for a family of 10. He did it all. He had a small room where he had shelves for each kid. Then he would wash, dry and fold our laundry and put it on our shelves to be taken by us into our rooms. Mostly we just grabbed the clothes off the shelf when we wanted to weat them,using them as our our drawer and closet. He also had a bar in the laundry room where he would hang up the thing that needed to be hung up. How many dads do you knwo that do all the Laundry for a family of 10? None? I thought so, see he is the best dad ever.

My dad is a hard worker, he loves to work hard. He gave that gift to his kids too. My husband is amazed at how much I enjoy hard work and really completing things that are hard work. My dad taught us the value of hard work. Isn't that so Awesome.

Also my dad thinks of his kids (wife too) as his best freinds. He never really had buddies that he hung out with or when hunting or camping with. We were his buddies. If he wanted to do something he did it with one or several of us kids. We always knew that our dad was crazy about us and wanted us around, to spend time with us. He made me always feel important to him. He is so great, are you getting that. He is just so kind and good and funny and I always know that he is proud of me.

Thanks Raddio Daddio. You are the best Daddy in the whole wide world.

I have another new blog

I decided to start a new blog because I really wanted to have a page to go to where I could store links that update of my favorite places to get digital scraping things and see layouts. So I started a new blog. I will also be able to upload all my scrapbook pages there and not on this blog. So if you are interested in visiting or seeing the sites I use head on over there. The link is on my family/friends blog list. Or click here tiffsdigiscraping.blogspot.com. Head over and check out my newest layouts.

Ahh Kids!!

When I am on the computer, I usually have a kid on my lap, sometimes two, and yes occasionally Three, Usually I am just catching up on blogs, and my kids love me to read blogs to them, its like story time I guess.

Sometimes I will be typing away and suddenly I feel Jennedy's head slipping under my arm and she climbs right up on me. She pulls my face to look at hers and we kiss.
Right now she is on my lap and poking my eye. She thinks it is hilarious. I kissed her all over her face and said, I love you. Then she grabbed my head and turned it and proceeded to whisper in my ear. She loves to do this as it is very very ticklish to me and I giggle like crazy and pull away. She laughs her head off and does it again and again, until I can't take the tickle anymore and say stop, while pushing her off me and laughing the whole time.

I love my kids!!

My five year old's are at grandmas for the weekend. It is NUTCRACKER weekend. They wait all year for it. She does it every year and takes them to the nutcracker and pictures with Santa. They have a whole themed party for 3 days. I miss them. I was grabbing them and hugging their guts out when they were leaving. Fake crying and moaning that I would miss them too much and they just had to stay with me. They thought It was so funny that mom was so distraught that her big girls were leaving. I finally said that I would let them go with grandma but only if they hugged me as tight as they could and gave me the biggest kiss ever. They obliged me and off they went.

I miss them!!
There is nothing like the love you feel for them and the love and adoration they give to you. I dont think I have ever been so happy. Life is wonderful.

Jerika Serenades you

Jerika wants to be a singer when she grows day. She often sings to me. She is way off tune normally, I hope she learns to sing well, if she keeps working on it than she can accomplish anything. I love when she sings for me. She bellows it out as I used to do as a kid. So here she is with Rudolf.... Notice Jennedy getting in on the act in the background and Trenton on drums/he is using the laptop as a drum.

Chrismas Cheer

I love this video clip, just a little bit of chirstmas cheer for you as we prepare for the holiday.

Maybe a wrestler

So Tyler does this interesting trick where he does a full back bend while balancing on his head and feet. It is strange but maybe someday he will be a wrestler. At least that is what people say when they see him do it. Here is a picture of the amazing kid.

He balances like that forever, it is funny a bit strange. He also gets around in this manner. Pushing himself forward on his head. He is really a mover these days and can cross a room pretty fast. He looks like he may crawl soon. He is just trying to figure out how. And the upside down, on the head approach gets him places. Still ends up and one time fell asleep in strange places.
Here is a picture of him falling asleep under the table. Boy was he tired, after all the head walking.

Relax and Scrapbook.

I did a ton of scrapbook pages today. It is so much fun. I will not put all of them up because I have already posted many of the pictures on here, I will put up only the pages where the pics are not online. I think there are 3.
Once again Credit to Vicki, and Sara for the awesome kits they provided to fuel my creativity.

Check out their blogs by clicking on the names above, for those of you who are asking about scrap booking. That is where you go.

Digi scraping- I love it

So I have been doing some scrapbook pages and since I do them all digitally now I thought, hey I can also put them on my blog. Go ahead and click on them to enlarge and see the detail. I love to scrapbook and my kids books are so cute.






I have found tons of free elements on the web to use to design and it has been so much fun. People are so talented. One lady, Barbara designs kits to use that are all free and so fun. They look so great, that is where I got all the elements for the one of Trenton and Tyler's when they were little.











I scrap booked Jacqueline's birthday just now. I found the elements from her page from Vicki. She is so talented, she actually makes all this stuff on her computer then I get to jump in and use the lovely elements in my own unique way. So much fun to do and the kids look at their books almost daily.

Shabby Princess is where I got some other cute ones including the one I used for Tammy's Page.
I have never been able to put them on my blog before as I did them in the Hallmark Scrap booking program, but now I do them all in photo shop and I can put some on my blog. Hooray for me.

One year old Injuries

I take pictures when my kids get hurt, just to remind them of it when they are older. Since Trenton bit through his lip. Ouch, I decided to put his picture up for all to see.It is crazy how this age is so prone to injury.
I remember when Jennedy was little this was the age that she was always getting hurt. Once she bit through her tongue. She still has a scar.
Also, she fell out of her high chair when she was being babysat and smashed her lip, got a bloody nose and bloody lip. The baby sitter called me at the adoption meeting I was at and I cruised home. After a pop sickle she felt better.

She rolled over and burned her hand on a heater. She just got hurt a lot. Here is a picture of her hand burned. She did have to go the hospital for this one and had to have burn cream put on and her dressing changed daily. She was a trooper and charmed all of the emergency room, she did not cry at all after the initial burn.

Jerika at this age dove off the bed and Smashed her head. She got a huge goose egg. I was a new parent so was at the hospital immediately with Joe. They took a cat scan and all was fine but Joe and I sat outside the room and cried for our little injured daughter. Boy things have changed. We no longer run to the hospital anytime there is an injury, we know what needs medical care and what does not. We have certainly grown as parents. Here is the picture of Jerika's bump.

We are a Noble Crew

So we got our tree. My husband and I get a real tree, someday maybe we will go fake, as we are pretty frugal. But for now we get a real tree. It is always a noble. I know they tend to cost more than other types of Christmas trees, but we only like NOBLES.
Decorating the past couple of years has been a bit of a chore. We, Joe and I, had to do most everything while managing the kids. This year was so sweetly different. Since our two oldest are five now they actually help, and really want to help, and are careful enough to help. So it was so much more fun.

They kept asking

Is this breakable?
Yes
OK I will put it up top so the babies don't get it
Is this breakable
NO
Is this breakable
NO
Is this breakable
Yes
Did you make this one?
Yes
At reunion
Yes
Is this breakable
NO
When did we get this one
last year you made it
I knew that, I did a great job
Yes it is nice

The whole time we were decorating Christmas music was blaring we were happy and dancing and it was just so cosy. We also went out and put up the decorations and lights outside so we are officially ready for the holiday season.

Even though we have a 2 yr old and a 1 yr old we still put ornaments on the bottom of our tree. But we put the ones that can be played with. The kids love it, hey toys on a tree, that mom lets you play with, what could be cooler. Trenton woke up from his nap just after the tree was decorated and was so giddy. You could tell he wanted to touch it but was wary that he might get into trouble.


He finally approached and pulled off an ornament, a cute little wooden candy cane. He loved it. He has torn almost all the ornaments off what ever section he is working on. Do I care, no way, because I have five year old girls, who are so happy that I gave them the job of putting all the ornaments back on that the kids pull off. They love that Job, even fighting over who gets to put them back up.

It has gotten better each year the kids get older, I don't want the magic to ever end.

Black Friday

So my husband loves Black Friday, he reads the paper, figures out where the best sales are and what he wants to get then out he goes as early in the morning as he can. This year he decided to go with his new BFF, Micheal. So he headed out later, as I guess Micheal is a late riser.

So, as my husband does not work today, I was so happy to get a tree and get started on the Christmas Decorating. He is usually home by 10 on black Friday so I have him the whole day. But not this year. He said he would be back by noon, so the kids and I played Christmas music really loud danced around, got decorations out, Can you say lots of boxes of stuff. And waited. And Waited. He was a no show.

So we began the calling. Each kid would call and ask when he was coming home. We would hang up after he said he was hurrying but did not know when he would be home. Then the next kid would call. At 2:00 I had to put the babies down for a nap. He got home at 2:30. So then we had to wait until they woke up to get our tree. So we waited. I got sick of waiting and went down to the tree lot by myself to pick out a tree. I came back and told Hubby which one to buy. He could not trust himself to go alone, we still had sleeping kids.

Finally we got to go and when we got there.... they were closed. At five thirty on black Friday. Seriously. We were bumbed out. The kids are mad at dad for shopping all day and ruining our plans. Dad reminds them we have all day tomorrow to decorate. I mean who closes their tree lot at five? Crazy. Anyways still no tree, and all the decorations are out in the living room and all over the kitchen table. It is a mess that I will have to endure until tomorrow when we will put it all up. Till then ta ta.

Thanksgiving Post 2008

So we had the most fun on Thanks giving. We ate so much food and were with wonderful friends. The kids made Christmas ornaments, and we played pin the hat on the turkey. I was a a super fun day.

Thanks giving We had Costco pumpkin pies... Yummy, better than homemade.

Taking a Poll, Cut or NO?

So I have been thinking about getting my hair cut. I am not sure and pretty ambivalent about it so I thought I would leave it up to my blogging friends and family and take a poll. Please let me know your opinion.



Thanks and I will let you know how things turn out.

Birth mother

So the birth mother of our girls called us and wanted to a family picture for her Christmas cards. Since she considers us her family she wanted all of us in it so here it is.


We have a great relationship with her and when she calls and asks to see us and the kids we always make plans to meet. I figure that you cant have too much family and people who love you in your life. It may get hard when they are teens but for now they see her as kind of an Aunt type of figure in their lives. They know she is their birth mother but hey call her by her name and don't have a desire to live with her.

We are still waiting to adopt her baby, Tyler, but she is really fighting to keep him so keep us in your prayers.

Doesn't it look like we are polygamists? So funny. I know you were thinking it, it has to be said.
Also the outfit that Birth Mom was wearing was very revealing, showing her bosom and bra so I took a sharpie pen and added a cute little black camisole to all the pictures. It loos great don't you think. I bet you did not even notice.

What really happened....

If you did not read the last post this one wont make sense, so read it first then come back.

Ok, now, for those who know me you know that I did end up cleaning. Hey, I just like things to be clean before relaxing. It really only takes a short while to clean when we all work together. So the play room got clean. It will be messy in a couple of hours I am sure but for now it is clean.

We did stay in our pajamas. I did not last all day and got dressed after my shower when the boys are in bed around 1:00. I did not tell the kids they could stay in their pj's all day but I never told them to go get dressed. So when I mentioned they were still in their night gowns, Jerika said, "that's cus I am sick" Her stomach hurt this morning and she did not want breakfast but she is actually fine now. Then Jacqueline chimed in saying that she was not sick but had been climbing and fell and hurt her stomach so she needed to stay in her night gown too.

We did watch a movie and have hot chocolate, I also made a picnic lunch to eat while we watched Fairytopia. The Barbie movies are so pretty. My girls love them. So Do I.

I also did the girls hair in the 80's style look wit high pony tails. They loved it. See below.

What I want to do...

There is no school today and I want to....
Stay in our pajamas all day. What is the point of getting dressed if you don't go out right. We could stay in the our PJs, watch a movie, and drink hot cocoa.

But my house is a mess, you should see the play room. Hey you can, I will take some pictures.



So I should really clean that up with my kids.
I know what I want to do, and what I should do... but what will I do?

Thankful

It is Thanksgiving and I am thankful, really thankful for so many things...

1. My sweet and loving husband. He is so kind, I knew when I married him that he was the one who would make me happy for the rest of my life, and he does. I am so grateful that he is a worthy priesthood holder and wants to live all the teachings of the gospel. He and I are the perfect match, he compliments me and I him. We belong together.



2. My children. I ended up with five and only had to endure 2 pregnancies. The lord blessed our family. He knew I wanted many children to unite in love and he gave them to me in his own special way. I have truly special wonderfully diverse children. Plus they make me laugh every day. There is nothing like the love I feel from and for these little beings that Heavenly father entrusted me with.

3. My Testimony. I really know. It is not just a belief I know. The Gospel is true, Jesus Christ is my Savior. I know where I came from, why I am here and Where I am going after this life. There is truly no greater gift than this knowledge in my life. Click here to learn more.

4. My family. I think I may have come from the greatest family of all time. I love them all dearly. My parents are so amazing. They have shaped me and made me into the person I am today. My mom is my best friend, I feel so much love from my dad and know how much he cherishes me. My siblings are so neat. Sibling number 1 is an amazing dad. Number 3 is so pretty and funny and nice to everyone. My middle Brothers are rock stars and so talented. 4 is so good to his body, keeping it healthy. 5 is so smart, he has the intelligence of a genius in my estimation. 6 is so funny, he can make anyone laugh. 7, my baby sister who passed away was kind and giving. 8, my baby brother is the epitome of awesomeness, he is so strong and so good to everyone. I miss and love all of my wonderful family.

We're Going Green

Well we put in a solar water heater. It is so cool. I know it rains a lot where I live and there is not much sun but we are part of a pilot program to see if having a solar water heater was cost effective. So we got it for free. So cool. (It normally costs 7500.00) We feel so blessed.

We applied for it and out of a thousand applicants they narrowed it down to large families. Then they came and inspected the house and we had to have enough space to add another water heater by our other one. We had to have a new roof that had constant sunshine on big enough spot. We did, in fact our house was perfect and only 2 homes in the whole area were selected and we were one of the two. So cool.

It is fun to hear the pump running(it runs on solar too) when it is sunny out. It will heat the water to 180 degrees, then when our gas water heater drains, instead of it getting water from the city that is under 60 degrees it gets water from the solar heater that is already heated up from 80-180 degrees. This way we use a lot less gas. It has a monitor on it that you can go on the internet and see the data in real time.

So it is Awesome and we are doing are part to decrease our carbon footprint.

Ah kids!

Jennedy is really a true blue two year old. She is defiant, and into everything. She says NO constantly and when ever you ask her something she says WHY. If you answer her you get more WHYS. So she also loves to get into my make up. She sneaks into my room and eats all my chocolate M&M flavored chap stick. It does taste good but she has been told numerous times not to do it. She knows it is wrong.


Today she came up to me with her hand over her mouth. Then after a while took it off her mouth, I could smell the chocolate and asked if she had been into my make-up. She quickly put her hand over her mouth. She then walked to time out as she knows that is what happens next. The pictures above are when she found a different princess chap stick tube, it is the flavored yummy kind so who can blame her really. She was cracking me up posing for these pictures.


On the other hand, Trenton is still a climin' He hears the bathroom door open and comes from anywhere in the house to climb. I catch him in the sink twice a day, even with vigilant door closing. He turns the water on too, thus He is soaking wet and has to be changed a lot.

Today I went in the bathroom to hang up towels and -boom- there he was. So I watched him, wondering how he did it. First, He put a step stool in front of the toilet, the lid was up, but he still climbed up there carefully balancing on the edge, yep he did not even step, or fall in. I could not believe it. Then he climbed up on the tank edged his way over and pulled himself onto the counter then into the sink. So funny.

Twilight - Spoiler alert

Ok, Here is my review of Twilight. For those of you who are not into the hype, just skip this post.
(also if you have not seen it and don't want anything spoiled, do not read this until after.)

First of all, Nothing compares to our own imaginations. That's is why reading is so super great (I love to read!!!!) still.... I liked it, it was good, not great or super awesome, but good. The beginning was funny, cheesy, but funny. People were laughing in our audience so much. Perhaps because we had read the books and knew what Edward was thinking. Hubby Joe wondered why people were laughing so I am sure it had to do with knowing the undercurrent that made it funny. I have to say I liked how cheesy it was. They really had to show quickly the relationships, and the Cheesy way was really the fastest way to do that. Especially with the other high school kid relationships with Bella.

I loved that Stephanie, the Author, was in the film briefly, it was a fun surprise for me. She is so talented and I think she deserves to be in the film. When I saw her, I turned to the stranger next to me and Said "That is Stephanie Meyers." There was a great deal of excitement in the theater.




I thought both the actors that played Edward and Bella did a fine job. (Edward had some crazy expressions. Tee hee hee) Bella's hair was so pretty.
The make up on Carlise was so fake. Loved the bad Vampire Characters, they did so great.

I hated how Edward looked when he was sucking the venom out of Bella, it looked so weird. Bella did awesome acting during that part.
The kissing scene was so much better in my mind than the movie, they should of at least done a shot of her clawing his hair, to see the passion that he evokes in her. I did love how slow that first kiss was. I think all first kisses should be like that.
I wish Alice had been a bigger part of setting up the Prom scene as she was in the book. And a bigger part in the movie if possible. I love Alice.
There was much slowness in the movie, I mean what was up with the scene where they are laying in the field staring at each other for like five min. Ok, we get it, you wont touch, but did we have to watch all that staring. Lets get on to the action.

For example, I loved the Baseball scene and the fight scene. Especially when Alice ripped off the head of the bad vampire guy. So cool. They were the very best parts of the movie. Ok, I gotta include the part where they are up in the tree. It was majestic. So overall a GOOD movie. You will enjoy it if you go in knowing nothing compares with our own imaginations.