He's figured it out!

Well, my little newborn isn't a newborn any more... He's figured out the crawl. On the plus side, once I've babyproofed a room, scanned for any chokables, moved the marbles out of the way, blocked access to any stairs, and placed favorite (chewable) toys in a circle around him, I can put him down and he can entertain himself for a few minutes by crawling/scooting/rolling to where ever he wants to go.

Ho, Ho, Ho!

Jordan decided to see if he could copy the Santa physique! I live with such silly men!

Wow - what a week!

I can't believe it's been over a week since I last posted! The boys are off track and so I signed them up for swimming lessons. Then we have started basketball season and of course it is Christmas time! In November we applied to the United Way to sponsor a family for Christmas. We offered to sponsor a family with up to 6 kids, (when I say "we", I mean Aaron and myself and our boys, plus Aaron's 4 brothers and 4 sisters and their families - we're doing this instead of a gift exchange). After turning in the application last month, we waited and waited and didn't hear anything. We finally called last week and we were told that our application had been lost. Aaron told the United Way to just let it go and we would go through a social worker in another agency to find a family to help. So, we are helping this family that the social worker has assigned us, plus another single mom with 2 teenage children. On Wednesday I got an email from the United Way with information for a family that we've been assigned to sponsor. (Looks like they didn't lose our application after all!) We are now totally overbooked and can't do this by ourselves. But we hate to turn down this other family. We are looking for about 8 families to help supply Christmas for them. So I've been spending my time emailing everyone in the area trying to find enough people to supply Christmas for this single mom and her 6 kids. So far, we've found 5 people willing to sponsor the 6 children, one woman willing to make a gift basket for the mom, and 3 people willing to donate smaller amounts for gift certificates, wrapping paper, groceries, etc. We are trying to get this all done by next Wednesday. So if you don't hear anything from me, I am trying to do Christmas for my family, plus the family the social worker gave us, plus a single mom and her 2 teenage kids, plus the United Way family, plus nurse a baby, save a preschooler from himself, keep the school-age kids busy, swimming lessons 3 times a week, basketball practices and games, scouts for 2 boys, make sure the 10 year old is prepared for his piano recital next Friday, keep them reading (they all have reading logs that they have to fill out for school while they're off track), clean the house (although that's going by the wayside... way by the wayside...), try to fulfill my responsibilities in the Relief Society... and feed the partridge in a pear tree...
Happy Holidays!

We've been elfed...

We found another stupid website, but it still makes me smile every time I watch it!

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=9612440215

Can you see the teeth?

I've been trying to get a picture of Levi's two bottom teeth. I don't know if you can see them in this shot or not, but I thought it was cute anyway.

Go Jordan!

Jordan won a blue ribbon in a PTA contest last week! The contest was called Reflections, and the theme was "I Can Make A Difference By..." We took pictures of Jordan doing things like picking up trash, walking, riding his bike, using the recycle container, and turning off the lights. We made a photo collage and entered it into the photography division, and he won! His project goes on to the district level. We'll let you know how it goes!

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow...

Saturday morning we woke up to lots of white stuff all over the ground, and by the time it stopped snowing, we had about 7 inches of the stuff. Needless to say, the boys donned their winter gear and had a blast (including Aaron!)

Where did this last week go?

Wow, we have had a busy week. Nothing too exciting. We hosted Thanksgiving for 25 people, cleaned house (daily), and the boys spent way too much time playing a new playstation game that they bought. I am just busy being mom. Thanksgiving went alright, I just felt a little bad that I got up at 5 am to start dinner, then ended up missing it because Levi decided that he wanted to eat right as we were serving it up! In all fairness, I can't blame the kid. After all, he was kind enough to sleep while we finished preparing the food :-).

Today has been one of those days: You know the ones - I've only got 5 boys, yet I've filled the tub 6 times today... Jacob has accounted for 3 of those times (we're trying to potty train) and Levi for 2 - sometimes when the diaper blows, it is easier to bathe the baby than go through 26 diaper wipes hoping we get it all. The highlight of the day came when I scratched my ear, only to find something wet on it - and it wasn't snow... It's bad enough when baby poop gets all over the baby - worse when it gets all over the mommy!

Campout!

Since Aaron is away with the scouts this weekend, the boys decided to campout, too. Of course, Their campout, however, consists of blowing up the air mattress, staying up late to watch a movie (Evan Almighty) and getting up early to watch cartoons. I'm sure they were much more comfortable than Aaron.

Caeden's Dental Appointment

Poor Caeden. He had some dental work done on Thursday, and since the cavities were between his back teeth, he was partially sedated so that he wouldn't freak out or move around while they worked on him. He was pretty drugged out, and after his appointment, he slept for 4 hours. The dentist called in the evening to check on him (nice dentist) and said it was pretty normal, but it was a little nerve-wracking to just watch the little man sleep. That being said, the house was significantly quieter that day...