Tad's Birthday With Thompsons

While we already had everyone together at the cabin we decided to do Tad's birthday.  He was excited to be able to have it be more of a party. We did presents and then I had brought a brownie mix to make for that night.

He is at the perfect birthday age. He is excited about everything.  He was really excited to get ninja turtles. He asked me for those the day after I had already bought him a present. The hardest part about having his birthday at the cabin was not letting him play with all of his toys right away. I was worried about losing all the pieces so he had to wait a couple days until we were home.After the presents and brownies he was super excited to be able to swim though so it all worked out.

Thanksgiving Break At the Cabin

For Thanksgiving my mom and dad rented a cabin for all of us.  This place was amazing.  It was so huge, there were enough beds to sleep everyone and it even had it's own swimming pool and racquetball court.  

The kids got in a routine of getting up each morning and swimming for a couple of hours after breakfast.  The water was super warm we were usually fighting the kids to get out of there.  After swimming we would do lunch and let the little ones nap.  Then everyone seemed to end up back in the pool in the later afternoon and evening again. For three days my kids did almost nothing but swim, play racquetball, watch movies and play with cousins.

They all had so much fun.  We brought life jackets and pool noodles for our kids since Addie is really the only one who is a good swimmer.  They loved being able to move around without Kris or I being right by them.

Wednesday while we were there, there was a winter storm warning that it was supposed to dump twelve inches of snow.  All we ended up getting was a skiff.  Just enough that the kids decided to try running outside in their swimsuits and then dunking back in the hot tub.

Thanksgiving day we invited it my grandparents to come up for Thanksgiving dinner. I love being able to go visit my grandparents so I was excited when they all agree to come to us. My dad went and picked up his mom and the Gowans were able to drive up. 

As a bonus my uncle Mark and cousin Nathan were also in town and they were able to come up too. 

My mom cooked an amazing dinner. She packed up all the food and roasters with her. It was so good.  Then we just sat around and relaxed and visited. Harvey was so relaxed he finally fell asleep in my arms. It is rare that he will fall asleep while being held but since he had refused a second nap he was pretty tired

It was such a fun break. We loved being able to spend time together as a family

Happy Birthday Tad!

Tad turned four on November 24th. He wasn't sure what he wanted for his birthday and every time I asked him he would tell me that I needed to guess (I think he was just looking for ideas). So he was fun to surprise.  He started out the morning with monkey bread for breakfast and then I took him to McDonald's for lunch.

After Kris got home from work we did presents and then we skipped singing to him or anything because we were headed to a cabin that night we did brownies the next day.

 I can't believe Tad is four. He is getting super smart.  He is also just as big a firecracker as ever. I'm still really hoping he outgrows that one but boy he can get riled up.  He is still OCD about being wet or dirty and goes through spurts of wearing the same clothes for days but he has improved he at least has shirts that he rotates through now.  There are certain foods that I know I will have to help him with dinner (potatoes) because he hates his face and clothes being messy.

He is also my most affectionate child. He will lay on me and hug me. He told me the other day, "mom I lay on your arm just because I love you." Happy birthday Tad, we love you!

BYU Game

 Kris's parents got some BYU football tickets from their ward auction and were nice enough to give them to me and Kris. We were super excited. It has been a few years since we were able to go to a game.  The tickets were amazing too.  We were on the third row chair seats on the 20 yard line.

We were initially worried because the game was end of November, we were sure we were going to freeze.  The weather turned out perfect though.  Chili, but not windy, and the sun was on us most of the game so really it wasn't bad.  When the sun went behind the stadium it got a little colder but we stuck it out to the end to see BYU win it 52-10.

Addie's First Choir Concert

The elementary school  is doing a little after school choir this year for kids 4th-6th grade. Addie wasn't sure if she would like it at first but she has loved it.  They did their first "concert" in November. They performed "America the Beautiful" for the school Veteran's Day assembly. 

Kris was able to take the day off so he could come too. When I signed up Addie it asked if any parents were willing to play piano for the concerts. I volunteered so Kris sat back with all the kids while I played the piano. 

 The assembly was really good, they had a few slideshows about what veteran's day is and some of the artwork the kids had done for it. The choir was second to last on the program.  After that they had one last slideshow and then it was back to class for the kids.

Playing in the Snow

Tad has been desperate for some snow. When it started to get cold we made sure that we had snow gear that fit for everyone so he started wearing snow boots around in case it snowed. He kept telling me that when it snowed he was going to make a snowman and a snow angel.

Then one morning he woke up and saw the tiniest bit of snow and was beyond excited. He was done with breakfast first and dressed and in snow stuff before my girls were even out the door for school.  

He rolled around and threw snowballs and jumped until he was cold enough to come in (it was only 8:00 am). I'm glad he got to play in the snow while there was a chance. Our little skiff barely lasted the day but he loved it!

15 Month Harvey

Harvey gets bigger and learns more constantly it's crazy how fast this time goes.  I love this age.  I love how interactive he is and how easy he is to entertain. This month his stats are:

Weight: 23 lb 12 oz (64%)

Length: 31.4 in (56%)

Also this month Harvey:

• Walks all over and can finally get back to standing from the middle of the floor.

•  Is officially another blanket baby we rarely make it out of the room without him trying to drag his blanket behind him.

•  Is a mama's boy (although that seems to have gotten better recently). I would leave him occupied playing with something and leave the room for two minutes and he'd fall apart.

• Now that he can get himself to standing in his bed he likes to turn on his mobile when he wakes up.

• Still not 100% trustworthy on stairs. He fell down once because he was trying to turn and walk facing forward.
• Says, "mama" "dad" "uh oh" "ow" "peek a boo" and tries to say each of the kids names.

Halloween Wrap Up

The day before Halloween was the school parade.  This year the theme for teachers and administration was Harry Potter. The principal was Dumbledore. Hagrid was one of the second grade teachers.  Another second grade teacher was Dobby (I missed getting the picture), it was also a very impressive costume.

I signed up to help with one party for each kid. This time around it was Addie's turn. I was in charge of a Halloween drawing game that was pretty fun. Then I just got to wander and help where needed. My kids love it when I come help. I wish I was able to do it more.

Liam brought home a picture from his party of what he was for Halloween. I was pretty impressed.  

Then the next day was Halloween. We're at a funny stage with older and younger. Harvey didn't make more then just the little block before being brought home. Then Tad fizzled next. Addie, Demzi and Liam stuck it out a little bit longer after that before calling it a night. It ended up being a perfect night, not too cold, and they had tons of fun!

Pumpkin Carving

The day of Halloween we carved pumpkins with the kids.  They all helped gut them and then got markers to draw their designs before carving.

The older three did the carving themselves too.  Addie carved the extra pumpkin for Harvey but at that point he was in bed and I didn't get a picture with him.

Packing Peanuts

Back when we were getting ready for the Halloween parties we decided that we would do the Halloween pictures as our game.  We had wanted to set it up so the kids could see themselves as we were taking the pictures and be able to see a slideshow of them when we were done.  Kris had a way to hook the camera up to a computer monitor so the kids could each see the pictures after we had taken them.  We were just worried that our battery life wouldn't last. So, we decided to get a charger that plugs directly into the camera and would charge while we used it.

Kris ordered one that said it worked for our camera and had great reviews.  We got it, plugged it in and our camera wouldn't turn on.  It didn't work again after that.  It was very frustrating. Our best guess it that the charger somehow fried it.  After that we had to send it to Nikon to get fixed.  Luckily we had a back up camera we could use in the meantime.  I was a little whiney about how it was not nearly as nice as what we were used to but it served its purpose.

Two and a half weeks later I was excited to finally get our camera back.  I took it out on my bed and ran downstairs to put the battery/memory card in to make sure it was working.  I really was only gone two minutes, tops, but when I came up there were packing peanuts everywhere! Tad was grabbing them by the handful, tearing them up, and then throwing them all over yelling, "diaper cream!"

It was really quite funny until it took hours to clean up.  After a while he got tired of helping and said, "Mom, I think I'm just tired. If I take a nap I could clean up the rest of this mess all by myself. Do you copy?" 

Braces

October 27th Addie got braces.  She was a little nervous. She had some anxiety that it was going to hurt putting them but as they got going she realized it wasn't that bad and was fine. It kind of took a long time, about an hour and forty five minutes. She was excited that you could pick the colors of her bands.  You can't tell from the picture but she picked blue and green.  I think they look so cute on her.  The first day was great, she didn't seem to mind them at all. 

The next few days were rough.  I remember braces hurting because they were tight but she was getting cankers all over from where the brackets would rub.  She had the wax that she carried with her but overall she was pretty miserable.  She hated opening her mouth to eat because then the brackets would rub where it was already sore. On the second night she picked what she wanted for dinner but was frustrated when she still couldn't eat it.  She thought soup was going to be easy.  In the end she had me put it in the blender and then we put it in a giant syringe. She did think it was pretty funny in the end, her feeding herself with the syringe. It was definitely a lot easier than trying to open her mouth wide enough for a spoon though. 

Luckily about three days in she started to feel much better.  I would say she hardly even notices them anymore.