When Lullaby gets her hands on either my phone, or Paul's, we can be sure to get lots of selfies...
Her new thing though, is to sneak pictures of other people. Sometimes, we know they are coming, because she gets very giggly while trying to sneak a picture of you...
But other times, she is very stealthy, and you have no idea until you download the pictures later on… Caught sleeping on the job!
Our sweet Hawky is our ONLY December baby, and has to wait the LONGEST for his birthday. It is SO hard, every year. Poor thing. Paul is working nights this month, so he only gets to see the kids for about 30 minutes each day, depending on how much sleep he gets each night. So in that way, Hawken lucked out. He got to open his family gifts on the 2nd, instead of the waiting until his birthday morning because Paul wanted to be there for it. Woohoo!
This is Hawken and Matix's new pose. Neither boy knows where it originated, but they both think it's really cool to do this for pictures…?
My dad always decorates the kids' birthday cards so beautifully. I love them!
It was a group effort getting all the presents open. Even Sakina tried to help.
Hawken was very spoiled by his family. We love him so much. Thanks to the Grandmas and Grandpas too! :) His birthday party was a few days later. Pics to come...
More and more and more painting! Up until the time of these pictures, we painted the kitchen, and main part of the house (up and down) gray. We also painted our room, the reading room, and the playroom, a very light green. Then we started on the boys' room. They were excited to get new paint, but sad to see the tiny robots go.
Lullaby wanted her picture taken too. :) Like her outfit? Underpants, lip stain, and Mommy's high heels… What a stunner!
Lullaby snapped a few pics later on and you can see the color pretty well. I really like it! The color of paint in the boys' room was slightly lighter than the rest of the house, and less offensive, but they beat it up pretty good, and it needed touch ups here and there, and we didn't have that color. So green it is!
I got to see Jill and Izzy for another hour or so before they left, but it just so happened to be on a Saturday in the afternoon. So Paul took a nap with the kiddies and I met up with them and some of Jill's sisters-in-law. They were super nice, and it was fun to meet them, but mostly we just hung out the three of us. After getting some hot chocolate from Starbucks, we walked to the shopping center near there to the Target to sit down. It was an unusually cold day, and we didn't want to sit outside. Jill realized that it was Ashley's birthday in New Zealand right at that moment, so we FaceTimed her. It was SO much fun. Ashley was really confused to see us all together, but so happy that we caught her on the right day! She's 19 hours ahead of us, to it's tricky to time everything just right! Happy birthday pretty Ashley! We love you!
Sweet Izzy. I love you so much! I'm always sad when we can visit because that means at some point we have to leave each other again… :( Izzy lets me braid her awesome hair though, so that's good.
These are two of the BEST people you could ever meet. I love them, and I'm happy they let me pretend to be a part of their awesome family. :)
The morning after Thanksgiving, we took turns with Dale and Vanessa going to the temple. I may have been the first orange-haired person to go in there, but no one seemed to mind. :)
When Dale and Vanessa went, we got to feed baby Kjerstin. Sully was super interested in watching.
Later on, we all went to see The Good Dinosaur, and as is to be expected from Pixar, it was really good. Yet another movie on our want list. The kids all had fun, and between Dale's kids and ours, I only had to take the kids out to the bathroom 6 times… Not bad, considering that 5 of them are potty trained, but pretty bad when you know that I took a minimum of 3 kids each time… That's what I get for sitting on the end. This is one of the theaters that has made the transition to the nice recliner seats. I think most theaters are doing that now, but not all.
After getting rained out of Dale's original plan of camping for Thanksgiving, we had it at his house instead. The kids were happy to play with their cousins and run around all afternoon while the adults all cooked.
Dinner was delicious, and dessert was too. Dale and Vanessa had invited another family over as well. They have 5 kids, so all together there were 13 kids total and 6 adults. It was a FULL house.
After dinner, we went over to the Patterson's house for some swimming and more dessert! The kids always have a blast with Caleb and Joshua.
We hung out over there longer than we had planned, but that gave Dale and Vanessa some time to hang out with their friends alone. It's always nice to see Laurel and her family. After we left their house, we went back to Dale and Vanessa's house for a family sleepover. We were all pretty tired, so we didn't stay up playing games or chatting like I thought we might. Oh well. Such a nice and very FILLING Thanksgiving.
At the last minute, we took the kids to the skate park. This wasn't a very well planned out trip, and the kids got pretty cranky, pretty fast. But everyone had fun up until we jumped right over that too tired line that turns our kids into monsters.
Hawken worked on balance and turning, he's getting really good!
Paul rode the kids in the bowls, which they LOVE, all of them, but especially Solace.
Matix tried and tried (and failed lots of times) until he could ride UP the other side of the ramp. It's tricky to do. I am so excited that he's figured it out!
I had the snacks, which means, I had Lullaby with me lots of the night.
Sully boy LOVES to skate, and absolutely HATES when Paul is helping or riding with another kid. It's just not fair. Poor thing. He cried 90% of the time there.
