Finishing up school and Christmas PJ's!

I feel as though I finally had a good routine going with school just as we finished up for a nice long winter break.  Hopefully I will be able to jump right back in when the break ends.  We ended up finishing preschool the Monday before Christmas and we don't go back until the 9th so it has been a nice and long break. I've really enjoyed it and feel as though I have been able to finally get the last few things done around the house.

One of the days in the week before Christmas I played in a music night at our Church before we went we let the boys open their pj's from Tara.  They are super cute and we all love them. So fun to have two little Elf's, Santa Claus, and little reindeer!

One of our last days of home school before the break we learned about the Fibonacci Sequence. After we talked a little about it we all made Fibonacci sticks with different fruits and veggies. The boys had fun doing it and made a number of Fibonacci  sticks.

Thanksgiving and temple Christmas lights!

Uncle Austen came for Thanksgiving, which was nice because we ended up having a bunch of little projects to do that he was able to help with. These pictures were just after we got the T.V. Michael has wanted a T.V. for a long time but I have been very reluctant to have one. The deal was that when I got my piano he could get his T.V.  Well a few months ago I found a piano on craigslist and so Michael was able to get his T.V. It has been a fun thing to have and makes for fun movie nights. So far it has been more of a blessing than a curse. ( I kind of thought it would be more of a curse then a blessing but we have all really enjoyed it!)

Thanksgiving Dinner was great full of lot of yummy foods.  This year as we sat down for Thanksgiving dinner we all just thought of how blessed we have been especially this year. We have been greatly blessed and have much to be thankful for.

After dinner and going hot tubing we all sat around to watch a Christmas movie on our new T.V. I can't express how blessed I have felt this year, this Thanksgiving felt surreal with all of the blessing that were all around me.  

Playing football in the yard!

The first Thursday in December we went to the temple a little later than usual so that we were able to see all of the Christmas lights. The temple is a beautiful place during all of it's seasons.

Evan 8-9 months

I had to get a picture of this but didn't get the best shot. Evan was doing a perfect downward facing dog right on the yoga mat!! Evan had just started crawling before the move and at our new home everything is tile. I felt bad for him trying to get around on the cold hard floor but he has done well. I think to give his knees a break he will often go up on his feet...which makes for great yoga moves! :)

Ev

After about a month in our home Evan started pulling up on things which made for a lot of bonking of his head on the hard tile. Gratefully he can now get himself down safely and we don't always have to be right on his tale trying to keep him safe.

Evan is still our sweet little happy boy.  He brings me smiles every day and brings so much joy. Every now and again we get these fun moments to just snuggle him.

Right now he pulls up, crawls really well, makes lots of little sounds but his favorites are baba and mama, he loves applesauce, bananas, and anything that he can feed himself. He loves going outside and upstairs.  He's climbed a couple of stairs all by himself but we usually catch him after that. He also loves playing on the piano especially during piano lessons...granted that is the one time Mommy is usually sitting by the piano so I can hold him up there, but that is when he likes to play! :)  He is super happy and makes us all happy too!

Unpacking continued

Grandma and Grandpa on Michael's side came just a week or two after we moved in. While they were here Michael and I were able to go look at couches and lights to put in the living room. It's been fun to see our home come together piece by piece.

Alden doing one of his restaurant on some of the leftover boxes. They played with the boxes for a little while but this time we got rid of most of them. (In the past we have saved our boxes because we always are planning to move soon, so we've saved them to be ready to move...not this time. :)

New home!! (and Halloween)

In the end of October we found a home and started on the journey to become home owners. Everything happened a lot faster than we had thought and went really smooth.  It was a great first home buying experience. We got the keys on a day that Michael had to work so we went over really quickly during his lunch break. Below is him carrying me over the threshold.

We have grass!! And we love it, the boys play outside daily on it and I love that I can even put Evan down for a minute on the grass!

The pool is cool but we did do one swim before I it got too cold to go swimming. I am sure we will get a lot of use out of it in the summer. We have had a lot to learn so that we are taking good care of it...but I think we finally have at least the basics figured out.

Everything about this home and the buying process has been miracle after miracle.  We have felt very blessed and have seen and felt the Lord's hand helping and blessing us through it all.

We moved in one week after we signed the papers. We got everything out and into our new home by the afternoon and then got the beds up so we could sleep in our home that night.  The boys have been excited and done really well with the move.  The only one who had a little bit of a hard time was Benson.  The first night...and a number of nights after that Benson would ask to go home. We would say, "Benson we are home. This is our new home." Benson would respond, "No this is a house, I want to go home, this is the parrot house not home."  We have a little parrot that hangs from the ceiling that the people before left for us and that we love. The other boys couldn't have been more excited about everything.

Just a few days after moving in was Halloween! We had fun sorting out all of the candy and graphing it on our graphs.

Alden made a house with all of the sticky candy. (I am not a fan of the sticky pure sugar candy so instead of eating it I have them use it for sculptures or building something.) Benson got away with eating a bunch of his this year though, I'll have to toughen up for next year. Since he can't eat most of the candy because of allergies I've let him have the sticky stuff...but I think he probably ended up eating more candy then any of his brothers this year.