Clark

Clark started crawling just before he turned 9 months. Just after he learned how to crawl he decided that climbing up the stairs is a lot of fun. He enjoys standing with help from the table, chairs, couches and whatever else that works. He is just learning to wave bye-bye and he claps when you say "patty-cake, patty-cake..." Clark is eating more solids in the day now, but still nurses most of the night. When I try and give him his pacifier in the middle of the night he just opens his mouth and screams; the little stinker! Clark is a good happy baby boy who likes his brothers and sisters, playing, climbing, music, mom and loves to nurse!

Counting My Blessings

When Danny isn't home by dinner time it gets way hectic around here. Tuesday night I knew he wouldn't be home until 7:30 so I was better prepared, but it still is crazy at dinner time. I asked my kids for help and all 5 of them wanted to help. I had Max cut tomatoes, Hanna stirring the meet and Van, Daisy and Walt taking turns grading the cheese. Then Max and Hanna helped put tacos together for Daisy and Walt. And Max, Hanna and Van made their own tacos. They were all so kind and helpful I was so proud of them and felt so proud to be their mother. I am truly grateful for each of them. I just feel so blessed to have these wonderful spirits apart of my life!

Temple Trip

 Danny's brother Jeff did a lot of prep work so that we could go to the temple as a family and do the temple work for Dee's family for her birthday. I stayed outside with the 9 younger children and the rest of the family 12 and up went inside and started the work for our ancestors.

The kids actually did great! It ended up being longer than we planned, 

but they enjoyed being with their cousins Zachary and Ruby.

Thanksgiving 2012

We had a Happy Thanksgiving at Jeff and Cindy's. We ate lots of yummy food, enjoyed spending time with the family and had a lot of fun! I didn't get too many photos because I was quite busy, but the kids participated in a talent show and I will post those videos soon.

Ruby and Clark.

Cindy had a few friends there as well. Thank goodness we were blessed with nice weather and were able to eat outside. I'm bummed I didn't get a good picture of the dinner table, but you can kind of see it in the background of both of these photos.

I am so thankful for my family and the many blessings I've been blessed with.

Daisy

Daisy doing a couple of silly cheers and Clark eating some peas.

Clark's Army Crawl

Learnig to Crochet

My first crochet project. It was going to be a scarf, but became a bracelet instead :)

Van Turns 6

Van's birthday was Saturday, November 10th and he turned SIX years old! For his official birthday we just had breakfast pancakes. When he woke up that morning and I said "Happy Birthday Van!" And I think I even sang to him, he said "That's all. I don't get any presents? Then I want to go to my friends house." (In a grumpy Van voice). I did feel kind of bad, we haven't really done a "real" birthday party for him yet and we were so busy on his birthday with cleaning the house, family pictures and a ward dinner that I really didn't make time for anything special that day. But he did get out of doing chores and still got the treat.

Cookies on a stick for Van and his class.

On Sunday we went to Uncle Jeff's to celebrate both Van and Aunt Cindy's birthdays and he did get two presents there. Then on Monday he got to pick out two Wii games and we went to Chuck E Cheese's as a family and with Zachary and Ruby, (I sadly have no pictures of that) but all the kids had a great time; even you Van!

Happy Sixth Birthday Van, we love you!

Dance

Now that soccer season is over we are starting something new this year...DANCE! Hanna is in Jazz and Daisy is in ballet. Daisy has been begging me since summer to be in dance, but I had to wait until soccer season was over.

Daisy ready for ballet.

Hanna ready for Jazz.

Presidential Elections 2012

I write this for my children... Last night President Obama was re-elected President of our country. Even though I voted for Governor Mitt Romney I will respect and support my President. I am a republican and I am proud to live in America were I can freely vote. I am thankful to live in this country and grateful to be a member of  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
I am thankful for this message that was posted by true examples of our church...

The First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints issued the following statement Tuesday:

"We congratulate President Obama on winning a second term as President of the United States.
After a long campaign, this is now a time for Americans to come together. It is a long tradition among Latter-day Saints to pray for our national leaders in our personal prayers and in our congregations. We invite Americans everywhere, whatever their political persuasion, to pray for the President, for his administration and the new Congress as they lead us through difficult and turbulent times. May our national leaders reflect the best in wisdom and judgment as they fulfill the great trust afforded to them by the American people.
We also commend Governor Romney for engaging at the highest level of our democratic process, which, by its nature, demands so much of those who offer themselves for public service. We wish him and his family every success in their future endeavors."

We prayed as a family for our President this morning.

GOD BLESS AMERICA!

Good & Bad News

First the good news... Danny got his contract with the College of Southern Nevada back! It is currently temporary until June, which is when the college has to open it up for bids, but I will be shocked if he doesn't get it permanently at that time. The last company that bid against Danny two years ago was a large company, Sodexo. The college thought they always wanted the bigger guys, but it turns out that their pricing and needs were not what the college was hoping for. Danny found out from some passed employees that things weren't going so well with Sodexo and the college so Danny sent them an email to let them know he still had his Campus Food Service Business and would be able to "help them out" until they could open the bidding up. The college jumped on the offer and Danny opens up tomorrow. He was able to get in Thursday to get his stores ready and has been working hard to do so. He will be over all the food services again for all three college campuses, but this time he will mostly have other vendors providing the food and paying him rent to be there. He will just manage two stores and out source the other six. The crazy thing is that he was out of this contract for about the same time he was serving as Bishop. I guess the Lord needed him to put all his time into his calling during that time. We always felt that everything was going to be alright. We feel so blessed! 

Now for the bad news...Walt started sucking his thumbs again. Yes, thumbs! He keeps changing from right to left thumb, I don't get it.  After he got his game I started catching him sucking his thumb here and there and when I would say something he said, but I got my game. I guess he only planned on it being short term. At first he would only do it every once in a while, but today it was like he never stopped! I even tried to tell him that he can keep his game if he only sucks it at night, but he just says "I don't want my game." Err! So frustrating!

Soccer Season Comes to an End

Hanna played her friend Briley on their very last game. Our team won 10 to 2. Which you never feel good about creaming a team, especially a close friends team. I was just so proud that by the last game my team was doing everything we had been coaching them to do. They were passing to each other and talking to each other saying "I'm open." Hanna scored two goals. They all played so good I had to get them all ice cream cones after that game.

It was fun, but I really plan on taking a break from coaching next year! I'm lucky I got my friend Kathryn to agree to be my assistant coach again (for the third year in a row now). I wouldn't do it without her, she's wonderful!

Van really improved a lot this year. His team also won their last game and he too scored two goals. He is a fast little runner and gets back fast to defend the goal when the opposing team is on their way to score. He gets that ball out of there; usually with a slide kick. There was a couple times this season that he accidentally scored for the opposing team because of his quick moves, but for the most part he's gotten to be a great defender!

And for Max, he did play this year but wasn't in town for Team pictures and his team hasn't had a very successful season. This will be his last year of soccer, it's just not for him.

Proud Mama

Van was student of the month in his class for November. He said that he makes everyone laugh. Since he was in my class last year I know he's just one of those students that's a pleasure to have in class. Max was student of the month in P.E. for October. The P.E. award goes to one student out of the entire school, so that is neat that he got chosen. Max is one of those kids that is friendly to everyone and is a good sport (at least in public) and social like me and his Grandpa Ernie. The best part about getting student of the month is the free Papa John's small pizza they both got!  I am happy they are doing this this year. They didn't do student of the month at their school last year. I guess I could say I am one proud mama!

Hanna got her story chosen out of her whole class to be read to the entire school. I will post it when I get it back from her teacher. Not to mention she has gotten over 100% on all of her spelling test so far (which means she has gotten the challenge words correct as well, without having to practice). I don't think she has brought home even one paper that has more than 2 problems incorrect, that includes reading, math, vocab. tests... That goes to show that some children are just born with it and I wasn't one of them.

Halloween 2012

Hanna the soccer zombie, Max the zombie, Walt the ninja, Van the vampire, Daisy the lady bug and Clark the cute little lion.

Mom and the little lion.

When trick-or-treating we could here Daisy saying, "I can't have wheat." We told her just say trick-or-treat and we will go through your bag at home. Then she came back and said, I said, "Trick-or-Treat, I can't have wheat." Daisy was the last one back every time she must have been picking out her candy.

This was Max's first year in a long time not to be an army guy. 

As you can see Max really got into his character.

 Hanna with her friend Briley the vampire soccer player.

This was at the trunk-or-treat the Sat. before. Daisy and Clark were at home still getting over the flu. This night Van was the ninja and Walt was a pirate. They changed by Halloween.

Sick Kids

Wednesday late in the night Walt woke up complaining of a stomach ache, not long after he started throwing up which went on a few more times that night. The next day he rested all day and was fine. By Friday evening I was starting to think Walt's flu was just a fluke and maybe he ate something wrong, since no one else had gotten anything.
Then around 7:00pm Danny and I went out to dinner with Clark and we had to take our food to go because Clark started throwing-up.Which was so sad, I can't ever remember having a baby with the flu and dry heaving:(
Around 10:00 that evening Hanna came in saying she threw-up. Which happened a couple more times that night.
Around 2:00 Van came in with the same story. Same situation.
Around 4:00 Daisy came in to say she was going to throw-up, luckily hers made it in a bowl each time.
Needless to say I had a lot of laundry to do on Saturday. Thankfully we were all able to get a nap in. I had never had that happen before, usually it is so spread out. Thank goodness it all happened at once and passed quickly (even though that night was exhausting)! Keeping our fingers crossed that it's over with and Max, Danny and I won't get it.

Pumpkins

Carving and painting pumpkins. I decided to pretty much let the kids do their pumpkins by themselves (mostly). Which gave me the idea to let Walt and Daisy just paint theirs if that's what they wanted. They all ended up using some kind of paint on their pumpkin.

Clark enjoyed being outside while the kids worked on their pumpkins.

Max with his pumpkin head.

Van's, Hanna's, Daisy's, Walt's and Max's

Clark

Clark started saying da da on Danny's b-day. He has also been army crawling for a couple of weeks now. He keeps rocking on his hands and knees, but then keeps going to his tummy, we will see. Max didn't crawl until the day he turned 9 months I thought army crawling was going to be his only crawl.

Clark got a hold of a marker.

All ready for church (without the hat).

Play time.

Clark started eating some baby foods. Hanna loves feeding him.

Clark is 8 months old today. He weighs 22lbs. and is 31 in. long.

Have I mentioned how much we love this boy?!

Fish

The kids each won their own fish at my sister-in-laws school fair. They were so excited about having a pet. They each named their own fish, there was Ralph, Nemo, D Dog, Nibbles and Abby.

Sadly to say, they all died within a week. Oops:(

No More ThumbS for Walt

Walt is one determined little boy! I have been bribing the twins to stop sucking their thumbs and if they do they can choose any toy they want even a bike. Well after me saying this for about a week or two Walt comes to me and says, "I'm not sucking my thumb, can I get a game?" And I realized I haven't seen him sucking his thumb much, but I told him he needed to not suck it for 5 days. At night he would cry and say I want to suck my thumb, but I want my game. So I asked him if I could put gloves on his hands and I would talk to him or tell him a story until he would fall asleep the first two nights. He went from sucking it almost all day too, I couldn't even get him to stop during preschool. But he did it! And it was hard! I am so proud of him!

Walt with his reward.

Funny story about Walt and his thumb. About a month ago I noticed Walt sucking his left thumb and I said to Danny I swear Walt and Daisy both suck their right thumbs, am I the worse mom to have not realized for 4 years that Walt sucks his left thumb? And Danny says, well actually he got a sore on his right thumb one day and he was crying that it hurt and wanted to suck his thumb, so I just told him to suck his other thumb. I was like you are kidding me?! We could've weened him then. He said, I know it was just a hard day. Ahh! 

Anyway here are some cute thumb pictures that I will cherish.

 

Danny's Birthday

It was Danny's 34th Birthday last Wednesday, October 17th. It was a busy day, but at least we got some of his favorite foods in...me and the kids made sausage & egg mac-muffins for breakfast, Max, Hanna and I (and Clark too) took him out to his favorite restaurant in town, Ohjah for Beef Udon and then we had hot fudge sundaes later that night for desert. Not much of a birthday, but I guess at this age family and good food is the way to celebrate.

Happy Birthday Danny!

We love you!