Our Happy Holidays

We had a wonderful holiday week this year. We were lucky enough to have my parents and my youngest brother come and spend a week with us. They got here the Wednesday before Christmas and went home the next Thursday. While they were here we got to do some of our favorite Christmas traditions. On Christmas Eve the boys made Gingerbread boys with Grandma Gina. They turned out so cute this year. Jacob was particularly pleased with this boy in a Santa suit.

Some of out finished products, which ones should we leave out for Santa?

When we put the kids to bed on Christmas Eve we told them that they couldn't wake up until 7. But at 6 on Christmas morning Adam woke up to go potty and Jacob got up with him. I sent them both back to bed, but after hearing my mom and my brother get up to use the bathroom Randy and I decided that since everyone was awake we should just get up. So at 6:15 I went down stairs to get Jacob. When I opened the door he was in bed under the covers, but when he sat up I saw that he was fully dressed. I guess he was too excited to just go back to bed.

We had a fun time opening presents. The kids got some fun games and toys. Randy and I didn't get much for each other because we just bought a membership to the Rec Center that will be opening up behind our house. It was kind of expensive and so we decided that should be our Christmas to each other. He did surprise me with a wad of cash in my stocking for me to buy clothes. Santa also brought our family a big gift, a red Wii with several games. After opening presents we had a yummy Christmas morning breakfast. We had a Sausage and Egg Strata and a Blueberry French Toast Casserole with blueberry syrup. Natalie loved it!

Later in the day we met most of Randy's family at his brothers church building for a family dinner. We decided to do it at a church because there are just so many of us Wardles. Randy is one of six and between them we have 20 children. We were afraid that with all of those excited children Grandma's house would seem to small, and the church was a great place for them to run around.

Can you tell this is a girl with brothers? She goes for the monster truck instead of the doll.

Jacob, of course, had the week off of school, and Randy took the week off of work. We had some fun days with Grandma Gina and Grandpa Sam going shopping, playing games, and playing with new toys. Grandma gave the boys these fun blocks. They built a tower almost to the ceiling.

While my parents were here we also did one of our other favorite holiday traditions, make tamales. I didn't take any pictures, but they turned out so good this year. Between the tamales and all the holiday treats I think I gained about 5 pounds. I guess my New Years Resolution will be to loose that.

The best thing about getting a Wii for Christmas is that it is a great bargaining tool for Jacob. He will do just about anything if he can play the Wii after. Jacob has a little problem with shoes. He slips his feet in and out of them without undoing them and smashes the backs. And, he won't leave his shoes on, even at school. His kindergarten teacher was okay with it, but it is not so good in 1st grade. He also wears his shoes out really fast, probably because he smashes the backs. I decided to buy him some nice shoes for Christmas, no more Payless special. I also decided to go with tie laces instead of velcro in the hopes that he will leave them on if they are tied tightly to his feet. But, I told him that the condition for getting these nice new shoes is that he had to learn to tie them before he goes back to school. To motivate him to learn we told him he couldn't play the wii until he could do it. After a morning of learning how Randy let him play Super Mario Bros. but every time he died he had to tie his shoes again. It turned into great practice. He still needs some practice, but he is getting it.
We have had such a fun time together as a family. I am kind of sad that tomorrow Jacob and Nathan go back to school and Randy has to go back to work. I love my family and I love spending all my time with them. It will be nice to get back into a routine thought and maybe tackle some News Years Resolutions.

Natalie's Birthday

My sweet baby girl turned one on December 10th. I can't believe it has already been a year. Time flies when you are taking care of four little ones. She has been such a good baby and has brought so much joy to our family. Her brothers adore her. It has been fun to watch her grow this year from a tiny baby into a walking, not quite talking, little girl. I love her cute, four toothed, smile, and way she say "Mom", she sounds just like a lamb.

The Birthday Girl

We had a very low key birthday party for her. I made mint chocolate chip cupcakes with candy cane white chocolate frosting. They turned out really good.

This was her first time having sugar, at least that I gave her, I can't say the same for her dad. I thought that she would dig in the way her brothers did. But, being the sweet girl that she is, she daintily took little pinches of frosting off the top and then licked her fingers. It didn't make for a very interesting video.
When the frosting was mostly gone she finally picked up the cupcake.
She ate about half of it and then handed it to me, she was done.

Natalie got three dolls for her birthday. One for us, one from Grandma, and one from our neighbors. She likes them, but doesn't quite know what to do with them. After all the kids went to bed that night the dolls were laying on the floor, it was so weird for Randy and I to see actual girl toys in our house. So far she has not been much different from her brothers, I guess she is going to start to seem more like a girl now. I can't wait to see what her next year will bring.

A long awaited update, at least by my mom

This post is dedicated to my awesome mom, who lives so far away from us she misses my cute little ones desperately. These four little ones just keep me so busy. Even now, while Natalie and Adam are sleeping and I want to sit and write, Jacob and Nathan are begging me to look at toy magazines from the newspaper with them. What is a mom to do? Here are some highlights from our last few months.

BYU Football Game
Our awesome neighbor, Brian, gave us some free tickets to yesterday's BYU game. Usually football games in November are to be avoided, but with this freakish weather, it was a beautiful day, sunny and 70 degrees. We had enough tickets to take the whole family. Adam and Natalie slept in the car on the way down and they did surprisingly well at the game. We had a great time, and the Cougars even pulled out a huge victory!

We had a picnic lunch outside of the stadium.

Some members of the family didn't want their pictures taken

The boys loved cheering on our Cougars

Halloween
This year for Halloween I had a Jedi Knight, Batman, a Cowboy (Woody), and a little Witch. Lucky for me they all choose easy costumes to make, or costumes that have been worn on Halloween before. I made Jacob's Jedi costume out of two pillow cases I got a Ross for $1.99. And I made Natalie's tutu, too bad you can't see her costume better, she wouldn't leave her hat on. I found a witches hat that fit her little head perfectly at Target for $1.

These are the worms we ate for dinner. Mmm. Okay they are really made of jello that we put in straws to solidify, don't they look real?

We never got around to carving our pumpkins, they just looked to good sitting on the porch uncut, but Jacob did make this pumpkin for his school's pumpkin decorating contest. It is two pumpkins that grew into one that he made into a spider.

Pumpkin Patch
There is fun little pumpkin patch close to our house that we like to go to every year. This year we went as a preschool field trip. My sister-in-law, Erika, me, and some of our neighbors are doing our own preschool. We take turns teaching by the month and October was my month to teach, just one of the many things that keeps me busy.

This is our neighbor Xander, Nathan, and his cousin Alayna

Adam on the search for the perfect pumpkin

First Lost Tooth
Jacob lost his first tooth on September 25, the big tooth was already starting to grown in so we had to get that baby one out. The tooth fairy left $1 under his pillow.

Soccer

Jacob loves to play soccer. He is on a different team this year with some of the kids in our neighborhood, including his best friend Katelynn. They have a really good team. They only lost one game, and they tied once, to Jacob's cousin Isaac's team, which was his old team. It was an awesome game.

Jacob and Isaac both going for the ball

First Grade
Jacob started 1st grade at the very end of August.

Here is Jacob and his friends Katelynn and Lexi in front of their school

The first day of school I got plates down to make lunch, I automatically pulled down three plates, I didn't realize until I was making sandwiches that Jacob was gone and we only needed two plates, it was sad, we missed him.

Jacob had a hard time adjusting to 1st grade. He cried every day that I dropped him off. He would say, "I just miss you, it is just a long day." It was so sad. His teacher told me to give him something to keep with him. So we took this picture of the two of us and I glued it to the back of one of those clear pebbles. That helped, and since then he has not cried, but he still carries it with him every day.

A new job and a new calling
After school started I decided that I needed to go back to work. I quit my old job back in April to stay home with the kids. It was really nice to be off for the summer, but finances wouldn't let me not work for very long. I got a job as a home health nurse. The jury is still out on weather or not I like it. So far they haven't had much for me to, which is frustrating because I clear my schedule to work, and then I don't work, and then I don't get paid. I think that I will stick with it for a little while longer and see if it gets better. I also got a new calling. I am now the Relief Society Secretary. I like it a lot, but it is busy. Maybe not busier than doing four callings at once like I was before, but busy.

And there you have it. Life right now is crazy for me, but good.

Silly Nathan

Nathan has been talking, and making us laugh, since he was 10 months old. He says the funniest things. I just had to write a few of them down so I don't forget them. His favorite pajamas are the footie kind. The other night he was trying to put them on and he came out the the living room and said, "These jammies are stupid! They won't let me get in them!" They were all twisted up and half inside out. Today we discovered that he calls his Sunbeam Teacher Sister Samowitz, Sister Samwich, it's close. This afternoon he was eating a snack and he bit his tongue. He said, "That hurt so bad," he thinks for a second, "it was like hail. It was like 100 hails hitting my tongue." Randy and I laughed so hard, it hurt like hail, ha. Where does he get these things?

Blog Slacker

Okay, so I have been a total blog slacker. I always have the best intentions of writing new posts. I take pictures, I even think of titles and what I want to write. Here is an example I wanted to do a couple of weeks ago:

Out with the Old, In with the new

Good Bye squished cushions,

Frayed edges with the cording coming out,

Gross stains,

torn seem,

old couches, that everyone has, used to have, or knows someone who has had. You have been good to us for 8 and 10 years respectively, but it is time for us to move on.

Hello beautiful, new, "durahide" couches that my kids can wipe their ketchup faces and sticky hands on and it doesn't matter. Welcome to the family.

I was also going to write a post called "Jam Session" about making apricot jam with my neighbor friends, and one called "Scout Widow" about all the things the kids and I did while Randy was away at camp for a week. But I didn't. You have to give me a break, I have had four kids at home all summer. We have been busy:Playing games, this is Nathan's favorite game, Tumbling Tower.

Growing a garden, and making yummy food with our harvest. That zucchini made 4 loves of zucchini bread, 3 dozed double chocolate zucchini muffins, and a pan of zucchini brownies. I have also made lemon poppy seed zucchini bread, lemon zucchini cookies, chocolate zucchini cookies, and zucchini apple crisp. And, of course, we have enjoyed zucchini grilled, baked, and pan fried.

This yummy grilled pizza was made with homemade pesto from basil we grew, tomatoes and zucchini we grew, and onions from our neighbor. Soooo good.

Playing at the park, this was Natalie's first time on a swing, I think she liked it.

Visiting the Gale Center Museum with cousins. The kids had fun playing and I had fun learning about the history of South Jordan.

Visiting the petting zoo at Thanksgiving Point and riding the ponies.

Playing with neighbors.

Playing at the splash park with friends every Wednesday morning.

Hiking, the hardest hike we did this summer was the "Y". It was tough with little kids, but we were rewarded with ice cream from the Creamery after, so it was worth it.

Visiting the airplane museum in Roy, UT.

Eating Aggie Ice Cream in Logan, it is pretty good, but I still prefer the BYU Creamery.

Spending a day at Bear Lake with Randy's family.

And generally having a fun summer.

Now that Jacob is back in school we should settle down into more of a routine. Maybe I will actually have some time to post more often.