Merry Christmas

Our Christmas was very fun. The kids really got into this year and we left out cookies and milk as well as some food for the reindeer that Christopher got in his kindergarten class. Here's a funny and sad story. After we put out the cookies and milk I heard Annie crying in the dining room. I went in there and she had one of the cookies in her hand and she had taken a bite of it. She was so upset she actually kind of choked on it and spit it out. I just thought she was choking on it, but soon realized that she was upset that she had eaten Santa's cookie. I think she wanted the cookie, but had second thoughts after she took the bite and was really upset that Santa would be upset with her. She said, "I ate Santa's cookie, he'll be sad." I assured her that he was nice and wouldn't care at all. But she wanted to put a new cookie on the plate. It was so cute.

On Christmas morning when they went downstairs and found their stockings on the stairs Christopher was so excited and said, "He is real!!! He did come!!!" It was so cute. I'm so glad I caught it on tape. We read Luke 2 and opened presents and just had a day full of fun and eating way too much candy, which we are still recovering from. :)

We were up till 2am finishing up the last wrapping. Jeff got quite creative when we were running out of paper. He had to use a bunch of small pieces.Annie and I beading her new necklaces.

The boys love their new basketball stand that Aunt Tatia gave them.

Our cute little Christmas baby.

First trip to the ER

I guess I was about due for a trip to the ER, but I always thought it would be one of the boys. But no, it was Annie. Long story short, her finger got shut in a door by a brother, who didn't do it on purpose, but felt bad about it. :) It bled really bad and I thought the nail was ripped off and might be broken. But turns out it wasn't broken and it wasn't the nail, just all the skin. It was pretty swollen and still looks kind of bad, but she'll be okay. This is my bandage job because the one they put on didn't even last a whole day with Active Annie. But she got a ton a gifts at the hospital...get well bags and then Santa showed up with his friends (Winnie the Pooh, Elmo, Big Bird and Rudolph) to hand out gifts. I tried to only take one but she ended up with a huge My Little Pony stuffed animal, a doll and coloring stuff. It was kind of crazy. But I guess at least she had a good time. She also enjoyed the blood pressure cuff. :)

Do not open until Christmas...

First snow of the year was a big hit!!! My mom is visitng and enjoying lots of kids time.

It's hard to wait for cookies to finish baking.

It's also hard to wait till Christmas to open presents. So far, nothing has been opened though. :)

Jeff, the photographer

I usually take most of the pictures, but sometimes I turn on the camera and find pictures I don't know about that Jeff has taken. These are the ones I found most recently. It looks like we were mostly asleep during this photo session.

Annie is going through a typical band-aid phase. She likes to put them on her face though. Note to anyone who's child has not done this yet. Don't let them stay on overnight...or it might leave two nice little red marks where the sticky stuff is. :) Or maybe that just happens on really fair skin like Annie's.

I guess Michael must have been really tired, or figured out the perfect way to get out of eating his dinner.

Lunch with Christopher

On Friday they had a Holiday Bazaar at Christopher's school so I got to go have lunch with him. I think it's so silly how everything is called "holiday" now. It's like you can't even say the word Christmas without offending someone. The boys started saying, "Happy Holidays" to people and I told them that we should say "Merry Christmas"....okay, I'll quickly get off my soap box and get on with the story. It was really fun to spend some one on one time with Christopher (plus Jacob cause he goes everywhere I go). We ate pizza and ice cream and he got to buy a few little toys from all the stuff they were selling. He is always so nice and wants to get something for Michael and Annie also. He was so excited to show me more of his friends and the library and his class. This first picture is him sitting at his table. He is such a cute kid and I'm glad he enjoys school so much. They got to see Santa and give him the Christmas letter they had written. I was bummed I wasn't there for that to take a picture, but oh well.

Here is his first letter to Santa. It's hard to read in this picture. It says; Dear Santa, How are you? I like you and your elves. I was good. I will be nice to my family. Please can I have a Mack truck. Love, Christopher

He had to take it to school but I wish I could have kept it. But it's in good hands now....Santa's hands. :)

Joy....

....Is laying on the floor staring at the Christmas lights. Jacob has already discovered this joy.

Family Visit

Some of our family came to visit the week after Thanksgiving. Jeff's sister Karen and her husband and kids, Rhett, Sage, Henry and Wilford got in to town first. It is so nice to see family since we don't get to very often and the kids really had a blast playing with their cousins. They keep asking if we can go to their house. Jeff's mom and dad came into town a few days later to see us all and meet baby Jacob before they leave on a mission to Arizona where they will be working on the Navajo Indian reservation. We are so excited for them.

We went to the Natural History Museum and the kids really loved it, especially Michael. There is so much to see there that it is impossible to see it all in one day...or even a week. But we hit the highlights. I need to take Michael back by himself some time because he was the most fascinated by everything. He loved all the animals and for some reason he kept calling all the animals that looked like a deer or gazelle a "snow harnbark". I have no idea where he got that, but I must have told him the name of some animal and that's what he thought I said. It was so cute and funny.

The kids had to see Gum Gum (if you've seen Night at the Museum you'll get that).

The dinosaur in the entrance was a big hit as well.

Here are the cousins. Karen and Rhett's kids are so cute and I missed them all when they left.

Crazy kids!!!

Aunt Karen was a big hit with Annie. She gave her a candy princess wand and then Annie was her best friend. :)

Don't ever....

...try to catch a curling iron if you drop it. Just let it drop!!

Jacob's Blessing

We blessed Jacob on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. It was a nice day and we were even surprised and had my Aunt Allyson and Uncle Tom there at church. Jacob is such a good baby and I am really enjoying his "babyhood", even though he is getting to be quite the big boy and doesn't feel like an infant anymore.
Our friends the Christensen's blessed their baby Leila on the same day. This is Maile and me with the future sweethearts. :)

The handsome boy. He's a Sutherland isn't he. If I didn't have dates on my pictures I think I might even confuse baby pictures of my boys. I love Jacob so much!!!!

He enjoyed his blessing day too!!

Thanksgiving recap

We had a fun Thanksgiving with our friends the Reeds (Sean, Shannon and Ashlynn). We did dinner at their house and cooked together which is much more relaxing than doing it all yourself. Unfortunately, Jeff had to study for the last CPA exam most of the day and only joined us for dinner for a few hours. But our Thanksgiving blessing is that he is now done with the tests and is home with the family more. We all missed him during the 4 months he studied for and took the tests.

Annie and Ashlynn are good little buddies

You always have to watch a good movie after dinner.

The crew getting ready to watch 3-D Polar Express.

And what would Thanksgiving weekend be without going and buying the Christmas tree. We found a real winner this year and this is Jeff and the kids getting it put up in the stand. I love real Christmas trees...the look,the smell, everything about them.

The kids helped decorate the tree a few days later because we got the tree so late at night. They enjoy deciding where to put the ornaments. I'm a mean mom and go back later and move them around a little so they aren't all in the same spot. ;)

Each child...

Each child has their own personality. I'll post a few pictures and comments on each. I know most people are probably tired of all my posts being about my kids...but when something else besides taking care of kids happens in my life...I'll let you know. ;)

Each week in school they study a different letter. Last week was Pp week and so on Friday they got to wear their pajamas and they made pancakes in class. I really like Christopher's teacher...she does so many cute things with them. This is Christopher before school in his baseball pajamas and giving us a superhero stance. For some reason Christopher was really worried about eating pancakes at school. He said he would just rather have me make pancakes and put them in his lunch box. But we talked about it and I told him that he should at least try them. He did and ended up liking them and having a fun time. Our little apprehensive Christopher. He is getting braver though.

Michael got this puzzle ball from my mom for his birthday. It came a few weeks late so we just did it a few days ago. It actually was for much older children so it was one of those things that mom ended up doing and the kids helped. The pieces were all numbered so they did help me find the numbers. It's actually pretty cool and really sturdy since all the pieces are a heavy plastic. Michael has been carrying it everywhere (with a few drops and repairs). He calls it his "trophy" that he got for doing something nice. As you can see, the superhero costumes are getting some use...Michael wears his at least twice a week..whenever it is clean. Michael is very careful with the things he plays with or when he is drawing. He focuses on one toy for weeks before he forgets about it and moves on to something else. (He has a toy fox in his right hand that never leaves his side).

Annie is quite the little jabberbox. We are discovering that we really should have gotten a 3 bedroom apartment because she kind of needs her own space. At night if I try to put them all to bed in the same room, it just doesn't happen. Annie gets the boys all riled up and talks for so long they can't go to sleep. So I've started putting her to bed in our room and then I move her later after everyone is asleep. This means I have to do 2 bedtimes, but it's okay. I read stories to the boys first (we are reading chapter books with very little pictures and they do pretty good to just sit and listen and imagine what is happening). Then they go to sleep pretty easily and I go in and read to Annie. Reading to Annie involves a lot more conversation but it is so funny to hear what she has to say. Then I lay down with her for a few minutes while she talks and talks and then I go out. Sometimes I will come back and find her asleep in the rocking chair like this.

Jacob is a funny little guy. I like this picture of him cause it's cute and kind of quirky. Jacob is pretty content during the day. But in the evening time ( of course right when I need to fix dinner) he gets really fussy. All of my babies have had their fussy time....from gas or whatever I don't know. But I just have to hold him the whole time and he does better. After I get the kids in bed is our time to hang out. We come downstairs and read or watch a movie. It's fun to just hold him (even if he's crying). He's starting to get his little personality which is fun to watch.

The Evolution of Sleep and the Smile

How to fall asleep: Drink lots of warm milk and have mommy burp you and then prop you up comfortably on a pillow next to her. Start to close your eyes. Close them a little more. Close left eye more than right eye.
Finally drift off into sleep.
I love to watch babies fall asleep. Especially when I know they other kids are asleep and I can finally sleep as well. :)


And here is the first decent picture of a smile. It's so hard to catch a picture of Jacob smiling, but this one is pretty cute.

Jacob had his 1 month visit last Friday and he weighs 10 pounds 3 ounces which is 60%....so it's obvious he's a good eater. :)

Hard Lessons

So, with Christopher in kindergarten he has the joy of getting invited to all his friends birthday parties. I remember being excited when I got invited to birthday parties when I was little. But it hadn't dawned on me until he got his first invite that people would have these parties on Sunday. Of course, I know Sunday is just a part of the weekend to lots of people, but that didn't really effect Christopher until now. Today he got his second invitation to a party on a Sunday. The first one I didn't really tell him about because I didn't want him to be too dissappointed, but I showed him this second one and he was so excited. So I told him it was on a Sunday and asked him if he thought it was better to go to a party on Sunday or go to church. He's such a good kid he said we should go to church.....but he said it through tears. He really wants to go to the party, but knows that he should go to church. We talked about how there are lots of kids in his class and someone is bound to have a party on a Saturday (I hope) and he can go to one of those parties. I felt so bad because he was so sad about it. I'm not sure what I would have done if he chose the party when I gave him the choice. :) Plus, both parties so far have been at the martial arts center...don't ask me why...maybe all these kids are in karate together??? Any advice on how to handle these types of parenting situations....I hope I didn't guilt him into choosing church.

Trying to get a good picture

I needed to get a picture of ALL my kids together at once so we took a few quick ones Sunday morning. I know they aren't great but at least they are all together. Annie is so funny and cheeses it for almost every picture. I took her out to the woods one day to try and get some real pictures of just her. Unlike my boys (who know exactly what to do when the camera comes out), Annnie will usually refuse to look at the camera for more than a split second and she usually just gives me her cheesy grin. Cute as that is, I wanted some pictures where I could really see her face. She wasn't that cooperative this time either so most of the pictures she isn't even looking at me, but she's super cute just the same. :)

This was her funny response to, "Give me a sweet smile Annie"

Such a funny girl