SOOOO BIG

My kids always think it's so funny when I tell them to quit growing up. "We can't!" they tell me.  And apparently, they're right. There is no stopping it.  Here's some proof with my little chubbers:

Five months already!

He's even starting to grow a little hair.  All his bald spots are filling in nicely, finally.  Here he is showing just how big he is! (With a little help from Mylie.)

The eyes say it all.  He is just absorbing everything around him. I love watching him learn!

I absolutely LOVE that he can sit up now! My favorite baby stage, I think.  This Discovery Toys octopus has been around for all four of my kids and is currently Brady's favorite.

And why?  Well, he likes the coiling legs, the little seahorse and turtle friends attached to a couple of the legs, but the best part of all?  Look! There's a kid in there!

A rare occurance--a picture of me holding Brady. 

This actually might be the only one aside from the hospital ones. Sad! 

 And, as if they weren't already growing up much too fast, yesterday Mariah asked if she could wear some makeup.  Since we weren't going anywhere, I put some on her.  Wow! What a heart breaker this girl is going to be. (I'm trying not to covet the eyelashes.)

The New Nursery

While I was pregnant with Brady, I decided that the nursery needed a make-over.  Since I'm not sure how many babies will still use it, I wanted to go with a more neutral wall-color that could work for an office or guest bedroom or whatever that room may become once it's not a nursery anymore.  I also didn't want to ever decorate it again, so I tried to choose a gender-neutral theme.  I painted the room in May, and in December, I finally got everything finished! (The life of a mother of four . . . )

Here is the result:

View of the crib.  I already had this crib for all my other babies. It was a hand-me-down from my aunt, and it was starting to look beat up, so last summer I sanded it down and repainted it.  Honestly, it was a pain, especially sanding down the spindles, but it turned out looking just like new!  I love the bright white.

 A close-up view of the canvas I made using newborn pics of Brady, taken by my sister-in-law, Michelle.  I love, love, love these precious pictures and really like how nice the canvas turned out.

 This shelf came together nicely combining an "I am a Child of God" cross-stitch made by my aunt that was given to me as a baby gift when I was born and an "I am a Child of God" framed print made for Brady by a friend of mine.  Add the cute little pig, which matches the farm quilt in the room, and I really like this.

Here is a close-up of the strip-quilt hanging over the edge of the crib.  It was my first ever strip quilt, and I really had no instructions at all.  It was fun to make, and I might make another one, but better next time since I learned a few things doing this one.

The changing table came with the crib and I also refinished it this summer.  The wall-hanging was just a simple fabric panel I thought was cute.  I just put some batting and a back on and machine stitched around some of the circles and the edging to give it a quilted look.  Very simple.

I found this cute little rocker last spring.  It was old and a little beat up.  I just sanded it a bit and gave it some fresh, white paint.  I also sewed the window valance.

My rocking chair and cross-stitch, both given to me by my mom.  The cross-stitch says, 

"Cleaning and scrubbing can wait till tomorrow

for babies grow up we've learned to our sorrow,

so calm down cobwebs, dust go to sleep,

I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep!"

I love this poem, and although the rocker is getting a little old and worn, it is so comfortable for rocking and feeding babies!

Mariah was very excited to help me decorate the room and so she added this beautiful drawing to one of the walls.  It's Brady crying, she says.  I think I have a budding artist on my hands. :)

And the best part of the nursery: this adorable cherub.  

I have fallen in love with this little guy.  Can't get enough of him.

SLEDDING!

While in Cokeville over Christmas break, we went sledding at Test Hill not just once, but twice!  It was so much fun!

The most fearless sledder of all was Connor, or Connor-kazi, as we call him on the sled hill.  He would start all the way at the top, and if you've been to Test Hill, you know that starting at the top of the hill is only for the craziest of sledders. (I prefer to start about halfway down.)  After doing that a few times, he decided that it wasn't quite fast enough, so he took a running start and went face first!  I was just praying we didn't end up in the emergency room. He was totally oblivious to my concern and was having the time of his life!

Connor-kazi after hitting a big bump.  Looks like he's about to wreck here.  It happened almost every time he went down the hill, so chances are pretty good that's how this particular ride ended.

Mariah preferred to start less than halfway up the hill and ride with an adult at all times.  

Here she is with her dad.  She sure loves him.

Mylie was a little braver, thanks to her trick of pulling her hat down over her head.  

This accomplished two purposes: she couldn't see the danger so she felt safer, and she didn't get show in her face, which was a regular occurance. 

Tessa and Livi making the same weird face. :)

This pic is my favorite--Tessa after a major biff!

How We Celebrated

December was so much fun this year! We did so many things to celebrate our Savior's birth! It felt like a month-long party, and the kids had a great time.

I decided to get brave and try to start a tradition we had as kids.  Every year, my mom would make a bunch of sugar cookies and colored frosting and each of us kids could invite a couple of friends over for a cookie-decorating party.  So I baked over 100 sugar cookies one day, made frosting in 6 different colors, and after school the fun (or madness) began!  

Connor and Mylie each had their school Christmas programs, which were super cute and they loved doing.  I took video at each of those, but no pictures since there was no way I could get a decent one with my camera from where I was sitting.   But I did get a shot of Mariah's cute little preschool class doing their short little program at our Christmas party.  There are five of us moms that take turns teaching these adorable little girls.  They love preschool!

Tony's mom does a tradition with the kids called "Grandma Bags."  We get a giant bag of gifts at the beginning of December full of 24 gifts--one for each day through Christmas Eve.  There are all kinds of fun, Christmas-themed gifts like decorations, crafts, books, and little toys.  Here are Mylie and Brady modeling the antler headbands they got one day.

 We took our annual day trip to Salt Lake city to have some fun, eat some good food, and see the lights.  This year we did arcade games and other fun stuff at Trafalga and ate at Tucanos.  I wouldn't normally think of Tucanos as a kid restaurant, but since Mariah loves salmon, Mylie loves shrimp, and Connor loves steak, they all love eating there!  It's kind of hard to see, but that stuff covering half of Mylie's plate is the shells from her shrimp. I don't know how many she ate, but it was a lot!

My handsome, blue-eyed boys at Tucanos.

 For Christmas Eve, we had planned to go to Cokeville to my Grandma Teichert's house for her yearly Christmas Eve party.  It had been snowing earlier in the day, but when we left, it was clear.  We weren't even out of the valley and the wind had picked up and it was snowing again.  By Carter, we decided to turn around.  The roads were terrible and we didn't want to risk being stuck in Cokeville for the night (or slid off the road somewhere) with all our gifts still at home.  So we had our own little Christmas Eve party--just us!  It was actually really fun!  We started out by opening our Christmas Eve pj's.  The girls LOVED their beautiful, all-the-way-to-the-floor, silky nightgowns! Then we acted out the nativity (See cute angel below.)  We sang a couple songs and then had a talent show with one talent performed by each person.

And what would a party be without food?  I had bought a few things at the grocery store earlier that day just in case we ended up partying by ourselves, and after combining what I had picked up (crackers, meats, and cheeses) with the goodies we had accumulated over the previous few days, we had quite the spread!  The little chicken bites wrapped in bacon were probably the hit of the night!  We finished the party off by watching "A Christmas Story."  It was a fantastic Christmas Eve!

Christmas morning was exciting as always.  Rather than bore you (and myself) with picture after picture of kids opening presents and then posing with what they opened, I'll just post two and cover each kid.

Every year, Santa puts a special treat in the toe of the kids' stockings--a pomegranate!  The kids love this and look forward to it every year.  Here they are devouring them later that morning.

 Of course, Christmas wouldn't be complete without some good ol' cousin time.  And the kids got plenty of it.  We left Christmas afternoon for Cokeville and spent 3 days there, then came home and spent another 3 days with their Micheli cousins.  We had a gift exchange with both sides of the family.  Cousin gifts are so much fun!  My kids are lucky to have so many cousins.

 The last Christmas-y thing we did was in Cokeville where we made gingerbread houses, a tradition passed down through my mom's family.  The kids really worked hard on them and had fun doing it.  Thanks, Mom, for baking the houses and letting us do this. It was tons of fun!

Last Wednesday, Tony and the kids went back to school and Mariah and I spent the day taking down all the Christmas decorations.  Mariah decided we should take down the tree first.  Before we finished taking down the ornaments, she was in tears.  She didn't want Christmas to be over!  I sang her the chorus of the Forgotten Carol about this very feeling, and told her it was normal to be sad for Christmas to be over.  We would just have to wait until next year and we could do it all again.  She asked if we had to wait until Jesus' birthday to come again, and I said yes.  She then started to smile, and said, "I know! We should celebrate Santa's birthday too!"  Too cute.