Cuteness Overload

I have been slacking and not sharing with the world the absolute cuteness from our little home.  We call the cuteness Elizabeth or Lizzy for short.  Cuteness loves to walk along the couch.

Here our little cuteness is showing off her teeth.  Her 9th tooth broke through recently.

Cuteness loves these cars and bangs them around.

Cuteness also just loves being super cute and not even knowing it.  She also loves to put things in and out of a container or area.  She spent most of church moving things to Annette's hand from the church book.

Here our cuteness is playing with a old spice container by holding the tab in her mouth.  She also has Christian Louboutin shoes on her onesie :)  (In case you don't know anything about Christian Louboutin shoes, all of his shoes have a red sole)

She loves showing off her baby blue eyes in the bath tub.

Here are our other two older cuties who have turned into sillies.

Silly 1 and 2 thoroughly enjoy their role as you can certainly see as they dump water on their chest.

They are even so silly to ask me to take pictures of them being silly so it can be documented forever.  The following photos were all posed at the request of the children.

My sillies with my cutie.

My cutie looking precious!  Like a little Eloise Wilkin's baby from her books.

  

The posing from my sillies still continues.

End of cute and silly children.  Onto more serious things like my genius baby/kid proofing.  I have this lovely cabinet.  But the left door is broken and can only be opened if you push into it while opening to make sure it doesn't fall off.  Elizabeth realized she could open the doors.

After the left door fell on her when she opened it I knew I needed a solution fast.  I used some tape and bam, no child or baby can get in.  After I put on the tape it frustrated Elizabeth for a while but she eventually went on her merry way.

Winter in the Wild Wild West

We took the plunge of flying with all three kids on a 7AM flight to go to UT.  You are probably thinking, "That doesn't sound that early, buck up, get over it."  I will inform you that arrival at the Philly airport two hours early could be considered cutting it close.  And then you have to add the two hour drive to the airport.  Add to that 30 minutes to wake up, dress, load truck with luggage and cranky kids.  We were up at 2:30 in the morning; it surely was a plunge to leave so early in the morning.  We arrived all in one piece in UT and then had the drive to Orem before the festivities could begin.  Whenever we went anywhere during the trip Charlie would ask in a tone of dreading the change of location if we were getting on a plane or if it was far.  He was not ready to repeat our 10 hours of travel that it took us getting to Utah.

We visited Tom & Jan at their home first.  We opened presents all together and the kids loved the toys they got.  

We visited Ashley's family.  Charles and Annette went out with his sisters to Cracker Barrel and surely loved it.  Charles played racquetball.   Annette saw the 3rd Hobbit.  Showed the boys BYU.  It was a dream come true for Charlie.  We bowled there, also.  Annette celebrated the commencement of her life.

http://youtu.be/ahTse-rojm4

http://youtu.be/Kx0gunpZYM4

Elizabeth is in her new Christmas outfit with her new doll.

Everyone came over for Annette's birthday dinner.

Here's Annette's first photo as a 25 year old!  She still forgets how old she is.  She says she doesn't feel a day over 21.

Charlie learned  how to play CandyLand with Grandma.

Here are the kiddos in their new BYU sweatshirts.  They love them to pieces.

We drove to Grantsville to visit Sandra & Larry.  There was a huge accident on I-80.  So it took 45 minutes to go 1 minute's worth of driving.  Charles and Annette went to the Nutcracker.  Charles enjoyed the ballet more than he thought he would, but still not enough to go back to see another ballet.  Annette enjoyed it immensely and would go to another ballet for sure if the opportunity presented itself.  We spent the time in Grantsville with Annette's siblings.  All of the cousins had a blast playing with one another.

Sterling and Elizabeth were highly confused on who their mom was and had no problem going to their aunt.  It was so stinking adorable.

Gideon was so good with Lizzy.  Don't mind that her pants look like shorts :)

We hit Temple Square which was absolutely freezing at 7 degrees after the wind.  Don't we look so good with seven kids?

Lizzy and Sterling had lots of fun together.  Sterling made sure he drooled all over Elizabeth everyday.

Charlie and Henry had lots of fun with Gideon who is right in between their ages.  The three of them will surely be as thick as thieves soon enough.

It was such a great Christmas!  The boys are always talking about their grandmas and grandpas, aunts and uncles, and their cousins.  I am glad that they can have good relationships with their extended family.  It was a blessing that we each were able to grow up with our extended families and hope that our children will continue to have the same opportunities with their extended family.

Our Christmas!

On Christmas Eve we reenacted the Nativity.   Our cast was as follows...

Elizabeth - Mary

Charlie - Joseph

Henry - Sheep, Wiseman

Annette - Angel, Donkey, Wiseman

Charles - Inn Keeper, Shepherd, King Herod

Book - Baby Jesus

Here we are after the Nativity.

http://youtu.be/K-2uF7GuKhE

It was delightful chaos to teach the children.  We had reviewed it plenty during the month so they did pretty well.  Elizabeth was a beautiful Mary and she was surely the star of the show.

It was fun to set out Christmas for the kids.  I felt like this was our first real Christmas by ourselves where the kids kind of knew what was going on.  They didn't get many presents because they have plenty of toys.  We are also basing their allotted cash amount on their age so it will increase as they get older.  To help curb potential sickness through the holidays we gave snack food in their stocking instead of candy.  All of the extra sugar through flu season has got to wreak havoc on any good immune system, so we are trying to avoid it as much as possible.

Christmas morning was lots of fun.  The boys love their tractors and emergency vehicles that they got.  Henry calls them his birthday toys.  Lizzy enjoyed all of the commotion and trying to eat all of the stuff that she shouldn't.

Merry Christmas!!!

A few videos I'm sure grandparents will love.

http://youtu.be/AkmQuV6ZEM0

http://youtu.be/_7AF7axscRA

http://youtu.be/s5UdnHY0lMs

Before Christmas we had Charles' work party out in King of Prussia (KoP) which is outside of Philly.  It was fun.  For the kids there was a Santa passing out presents and a magician.  The kids were a definite favorite among Charles' coworkers.  They were all amazed at how well behaved they were.  Elizabeth was the bell of the ball and had a grand ol' time being passed around among all of them.  We got to stay at the Marriott for the night which was fun.  Elizabeth enjoyed playing peek-a-boo with herself in the mirror while there.  We used their pool in the morning.  Annette was in heaven to be able to do laps.  Charles played with the kids in the jacuzzi which was surprisingly not too hot, just perfect for the kids.  

 

http://youtu.be/lFH8JlG1N3I

Elizabeth loves water more than anyone in our family except perhaps for Annette.

Henry was super cautious, especially after falling into the 3 foot section.

 Charlie still loved it even after falling in over his head in the 3 foot section.