Merry Christmas

A little while ago (around halloween??) our talented friend Sherry took our family picture.  I love them so much and had a heck of a time narrowing them down to 15 for this blog post.  

Theo had his head shaved this day for a doctors appointment.  I couldn't believe the pictures and head shave landed on the same day. 

 My boys.  I am so blessed. 

Theo is the light of our lives.  We love him so much. 

Sherry had shown me some beautiful engagement pictures...and wanted us to recreate them.  Cortney and I couldn't stop laughing because it was so awkward.   We love each other so much but it has been a while since we gazed into each other's eyes...the way you need to for engagement pictures.  I love them though...and i know someday when my kids are old they will be amazed by how young we were.  

 haha.

I remind myself of my mom in this picture...I don't look very relaxed. 

By this point the boys were DONE. 

Love him. 

This year has been a hard one, but full of blessings along the way.  

Cortney continues to work on his two companies, Caddis Worldwide (a merchant services company...he pairs international high risk credit card companies with banks for credit card processing) and Blue Halo a fly fishing gear company he's started with a couple of friends.  He rents an office space from a friend, so he stopped working from home this year.  It has been a huge blessing to have him working in an office because it is really hard to concentrate with me and the 4 boys around. I miss him though!...that and running out to the store while the babies napped. Cortney works non stop, and usually until past 1 in the morning.  He is such a hard worker and we are starting to see some progress with both companies.  Working for yourself is not easy...(especially starting both from nothing), but we hope that someday all the hard work will pay off.  Cortney tries to get out fishing and hunting whenever he can and occasionally plays some racquetball. He is the secretary in the Elders Quorum.   He still loves taking pictures and this year upgraded his camera and also got a GoPro...he dreams of making movies someday. 

Each year seems the same for me and I never know what to write on our yearly summary. I love the holiday season and have been trying to milk it for all it is worth (picture lots of Christmas foods, music, scents, movies...everything) . Cali and I unfortunately and fortunately have 10 kids together so our days of spending all our time together is over.  It is just too wild and too loud.  We try to still do stuff as much as possible but even during school we have 5 kiddos.  I have loved living over here by Cali and our kids are walking between houses almost daily.  I am loving being a stay at home mom and am savoring every moment of having little babies at my feet.  I got called again to Young Women's and am the beehive advisor.  I love working with the youth and I am inspired every week.  I am the room mom for Robbie's class and I also do a reading group for his class on Thursdays.  On Friday's I help in both kids classes (doing folders and misc.).  It has been so great seeing my kids so much at school, Cali and Cort both help me so I can volunteer.  My health has been really pretty great and I am so grateful for my doctor and treatments.  Hmmmm what else???  That is about it, I am so blessed and happy but not much is going on. 

Oliver 9,  (3rd grade) is almost done with his bear in scouts.  He has been making a lot of friends at school and always has a backpack full of notes from other kids.  He is starting to really read and can now read real books.  He is very kind and tries to be friendly to everyone.  He loves playing minecraft and playing on the ipad.  He loves playing with his cousins and neighbors.  He just started playing basketball for the first time (on the team with Jack) and is going to be pretty good. 

Rob (7 1st grade)  Wow....Rob has grown up so much this year.  He is doing awesome in school and works really hard to have good behavior.  He loves reading and math but hates when he doesn't know the answer.  I am amazed at how much better he is getting at controlling his temper.  He too has tons of notes coming home from kids at school.   He is playing soccer and runs like crazy and tries so hard.  He volunteer's every time to kick the ball in and has a ton of confidence.  He loves playing minecraft as well.  He loves crafts and science.  His best friends are Carolina and Grace. 

Henry is my sidekick.  He hates when I leave and tells whoever is watching him that he needs to tell me something.  He tries to call me and Cortney whenever we are gone and Cortney tells me that Henry will call multiple times during the day.  He is finally potty trained (even at night!!!). He still doesn't eat, but hopefully with age he will try more foods.  He loves to sing.  He loves Toy Story.  He is a happy boy and we all love him. 

Theo is amazing as usual.  He started just this week being interested in cars and pushing them along the floor. He has also just figured out how to push buttons on toys.  He sleeps like crazy and is so pleasant when he isn't sleeping.  We are so grateful for his miracle in our lives.  

We are so grateful to be a family and love doing anything we can together.  We are more than blessed.  

Merry Merry Christmas.  We love you all.  

polar Express

A house here in lindon (string town) does a mini version of the polar express.  We took the kids on Saturday. It is just a family (a big one) that runs it and it is all volunteer/donation based.  You get on a list online and they let you know when you can come.  They called on Saturday and said they had space at 8:51 pm.  Pheeww that was super late for our family but we wanted to go so bad we made it work.  Because we went so late we were the only people in our group (which isn't usually the case, they told us that we were their smallest group ever.)  It was fun to have the whole place to ourselves.  We waited for our train while watching the polar express.  

Cute little dude giving us the rules.  (that is the train behind him)

I was smiling the whole time.  I loved it. 

We rode a train around a bunch of lights with music and ended up at the north pole, they even had a ton of little elves (played by the grandchildren). 

We went in and sat on Santa's lap. 

Oliver asked Santa for a Nerf gun. 

Henry asked Santa for a Woody Buitar.  My mom gave Henry a Woody (from toy story) Guitar ornament.  He can't think about anything else. 

 here he is with the woody buitar. 

Rob didn't ask Santa for anything because he wouldn't go near him.  

That boy. 

Afterwards Santa told us about the true meaning of Christmas....then he had us sing silent night. 

Our family. 

We then got back on the train and they had Hymns playing and we say the a nativity and then there were tons of pictures of Jesus and his life on earth.  It was awesome.  The kids were silent.  I loved it and so did our kids. 

On our way back to the car.  Oh...we also got bells. 

We stopped at Kneaders for a little treat on the way home. 

We are trying really hard to make Christmas more about the season than just Christmas morning.  It was so much fun to do something together.  

Theo turned 1

So Theo turned 1 on Thanksgiving.  I didn't do anything for his birthday.  No party, no cake.  Boohoo.  

I did however love him, and snuggle him, and think about the day/month of his birth.  I squeezed him when ever he came near and was truly grateful for him.  We are all grateful for him.  He has changed our lives forever.  He is our little miracle.  You can't look at him without remembering that.  Really I think his birthday was perfect.  He spent the day eating pumpkin pie of anyones plate that would give him a bite.  He crawled around surrounded by all of his Earl family.  He loved all of the Thanksgiving food.  

The next morning we sat as a family in my bed and he opened up a package from his Grandma Berta and Grandpa Bob, a ball toy and a fake cell phone...perfect.  My parents gave me cash and I bought him some much needed winter clothes.  (all of my other babies were wearing 24 month clothes by now...theo is barely in 12 month)

The next day we went swimming with all the cousins.  What more can a 1 year old ask for. He was in HOG heaven.  Cortney took his gopro and we got some cuuute shots of this little guy. 

This is taken from under water.  I love his teeth.  I love how happy he looks.  This is how he looked the entire time we were there.

On the 26th I took him to his 1 year appointment. 

His stats. (my favorite part)

Length 29.25 inches 25.28% (he is a shortie...what?)

weight 20.44 lbs  34.82 %

head 18.3 inches 62% 

He is growing up.  My baby (most likely my last) is 20 pounds.  BOOOHOOO.  

 Shots.

 I love henry's photography.  (he took all of these doctor appointment ones except the one where I am holding the phone.)

I spend a lot of time with these two dudes.  They are getting to be great friends and play way more than Oli and Rob did.  

I have said on here that Theo flicks things.  I need to post a video but he used to flick everything.  The wall, his bottle, your shoe, your phone.  Everything.  He doesn't anymore and it kind of makes me sad. At first it made me worried because it was so strange, now it is gone.   For the first time ever I am not ready for this guy to grow up. 

He is so good.  He sleeps all night, takes good long naps (he is still taking 2 but is close to just going down for 1).  He is my best kid at the store. My best baby.  He just sits there quiet as can be.  He just started clapping. 

Cell phone picture catch up

I have been so annoyed.  Annoyed with myself for not journaling.  Annoyed at how much easier it is to just instagram.  Annoyed at how I haven't written about anything that has happened in a long while.  Annoyed. 

I guess I just have to pick up and blog.  The main problem for me stems from the fact that we don't really have a home computer anymore.  Cortney took our main computer to work and the kids have one that won't even let me load pictures on it or even run itunes. I do almost all of my computer stuff on my phone....and so it is just not convenient to post.  (I swear this is how every single post of mine has started out lately.)

Anyways. Here are some random cell phone pictures.  Cortney does take good pictures but they are always loaded on his work computer.  Boo. 

At thanksgiving time I made cranberry sauce and henry was eating it by the bowlful.  Plain cranberry sauce.  Crazy kid.  I can't believe he won't eat normal food but he will eat that. 

This is cali and I at black friday shopping.  It was nuts. 

Our family at the BYU game over thanksgiving break. 

This year An Elf named Chocolate Chip (Just Chip for short) came to stay at our house.  He has been really fun to have around.  He watches to see if the kids are being good or not.  Unfortunately the kids have been waking up so early to see him they have had horrible behavior.  

Our cute elf. 

Theo wants to be climbing up the stairs at all times...he doesn't know how to go down them so that is stressful.  He sure can get up fast though. 

Jory brought us home an real Christmas tree.  I think it is so beautiful and love it so much.  It is so nice of Jory to bring us one.  We really REALLy love it. 

I stopped by my friend Sarah's house the other day and while I was getting Theo out of the car Henry let all of her chicken's out and was holding this one.  Ugghhh.  I felt so bad (because sarah would have to put them back later) I tried to put the chickens back in myself but they were flapping like crazy.  I don't know how Henry does it but he has no fear.  

 Rob has been playing indoor soccer with Grace and Carolina.  It has been so fun to watch and he is having a blast.  

The first game he scored a goal for the other team. Yikes.  Carolina scored the only goal for our team.  Then in the last two games Rob has scored 2 goals each game.  He is doing awesome.  He is a giant out there and is a foot taller than most kids.  Carolina and Grace are so good too.  They are all totally into the game.  I am so glad we signed them up.  They practice for 30 minutes and then immediately have a 30 minute game. 

Cali and I have been working on felt nativity advent calendars.  They turned out awesome. 

 So cute. 

( I saw this on barefootinthekitchen.blogspot.com she made it I just drew a pattern from hers...so awesome)

 Theo has Bronchiolitis poor baby.  He doesn't feel good and can't breathe. Scary.  Last night he wouldn't go to sleep until almost midnight. 

He also is loving getting into the toilet.