Last, but not least...well for now anyway

Hallie, still the baby, she loves to cuddle only of course if she has her blankie and can suck her thumb. She is really picking up on her vocabulary though. She is talking sooner than any of her siblings I think. She definitely is a mommas girl. Pictures of her this past year I'm afraid boil down to 4Th child syndrome. There aren't a ton of them and she starts to walk towards you when you are taking her picture or she stops doing the cute thing that you were going to take the picture of in the first place. She can be a stinker, but I love her all the more :)

Karlee's year in review

Karlee is sure a character. She is probably my funniest child. She says things everyday that crack me up. She has grown a lot this year and her hair has finally filled in. She is sure a sweet girl and loves to be held. She struggles sometimes to fit in with the big kids, but holds her own most the time. She loves to play house with Lexi and Hunter. When she was a baby Lexi and Hunter nicknamed her Sofa, while playing house I thought it was kind of a different name, but you never know with kids. That is what they call her still today. A few months ago, I realized that they thought they were calling her Sophia after a girl in Lexi's preschool. Lexi was just pronouncing it wrong all this time. So after figuring that out Karlee is still Sofa.

A year full of Hunter

So after doing an entry just for Lexi I thought it would be fun to look back at pictures of the kids and post some favorites. Hunter poor guy, is the only boy. He does quite well with the girls. Hallie wrestles everyone because of his great example :) He says the funniest things sometimes. My favorite this last year was once when ARC came to pick up some used household goods (they come all the time I like to clean things out once a month for them so I never tell them no) Hunter asked if ARC's first name is Noah. I guess he thought the guy driving the truck was Arc because I would always say "oh Arc's here" Such a cute kid!

My ode to Alexis Jo

So Lexi turns seven on Friday. It is hard to believe how fast the years fly by. She is such a great helper to me. She is my best cleaner, which means a lot to me :) Here is a picture from her birthday party two years ago (that is when I got a digital camera), she has grown so much. She is still pretty shy, but has come out of her shell a lot this year. The monkey bar picture is my favorite one that shows her best quality from this year because it reminds me of how much perseverance she has. She learned this last year how to do the monkey bars, I know that she could have done it a long time ago, but she doubts herself quite a bit, but when she really puts her mind to something she can do whatever she wants. The police officer picture is probably my favorite one of her from this past year. She is such a poser and loves to have her picture taken. Happy 7th Birthday Lexi!!

Ultrasound: half way done

had my ultrasound on Tuesday. Everything went well and the baby looked healthy. We like to keep the sex of the baby a surprise so that is still a mystery. They got a new ultrasound machine and the tech asked me if I wanted to see the baby in 3-D, of course I did. It was pretty cool we keep telling Hunter the baby looks like him :)

Karlee wanted to know why I had to go to the doctor and I told her for the baby in mommy's tummy. I think she is still a little young to fully understand this. She said there is no baby and I said yes there is you just can't see the baby yet. I told her it would be just a little while and then she would have a new brother or sister. She then asked "then we won't have Hallie?" I think she thought we were going to trade Hallie in. No I told her everyone stays put we just add one more person to our family. I thought that was pretty funny. I guess she thinks like the rest of the world when they find out I am having another baby That's a lot of kids!!

What could we say about daddy?

The other night at dinner Lexi was telling us what she is writing about in her journal at school this week. She is writing about her family. Each page is a different person in our family. At her parent teacher conference last week her teacher told me she was trying to encourage Lexi to be more descriptive when she writes (that is the next step in her learning progression). So I told Lexi that on every page she should write something about each of us like Karlee likes to do beading or daddy has brown hair. Then everyone started saying what she could say about each person. Lexi asked "so what could I say about daddy?" And Hunter quickly replied "you could say that my daddy is fat" I about fell off my chair. I made sure to let Hunter know that that was not nice and we don't say that about people, but it still makes me chuckle just thinking about it!

California Part Two

The second week of our vacation to California we went to Palm Desserts for a week. We stayed at a really nice condo. Wynden went to a Windermere Manager training thing for three days while the kids and I played in the pool and enjoyed the 90 degree weather. We had a lot of fun. The restaurant selection was fabulous. We met up with a friend of Wynden's from his mission here too. Overall it was a great vacation even though our flight was delayed due to mechanical problems on the way back and we didn't get home until almost 3:00.

California

So we went to California the last two weeks of October. I left on Sunday with the four kids by myself. I was really nervous being without Wynden on the plane, but it could not have gone better. Wynden later joined us on Thursday. The first week we stayed at my sister's house in Santa Anna. We went to Disneyland 4 times and met up with a good friend of mine from elementary school.

book nerd

ok so I finally gave in to my 10 year rebellion of not reading any books and started the Twilight series two weeks ago in preparation of going to see the movie with my sister in laws and friends. I loved this series!!! I read all four books within a two week period (that's not bad for taking care of four kids when I am not reading). I will admit I have a crush on Edward. My favorite of course was the first book with the fourth book being my second favorite. My least favorite was the second book (not enough Edward in it). It was nice having the next book readily available to me when I finished each book, so I feel sort of an empty feeling now that I've finished the fourth and there are no others waiting for me to read them. I guess I will have to move onto another series...ps. Wynden is celebrating now that I have finished I sensed a lot of jealousy from him regarding my time with those books.

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree...

On Friday the day after Thanksgiving, the kids were anxious about setting up for Christmas. Wynden had brought home what he thought was an extra Christmas tree from the office. We decorated the 9 ft. tree and it looked amazing in our front room. You could see it through the window from the road and it looked marvelous if I do say so myself. On Sunday, I awoke from a nap and Lexi rushed to me as I wondered out from my bedroom to inform me that daddy had taken our tree down and delivered it to it's rightful owner. I was like "what" still half asleep. Apparently what Wynden thought was an extra tree actually belonged to a coworker of his, which he found out when they called to get the storage keys from him so they could go get their Christmas tree out. In its place is a mere 7 ft tree cheap looking as I'll get out, but it will have to do this year.