Catch up in pics

In random order:
Can't find many pictures of me and Tabitha. Have to remedy that.

Anna and Natalie are playing well together. Blissful, while it lasts. Luckily, next year when Anna goes to school all day Tabitha will be old enough to play with. Otherwise I think Natalie would just cry.

A big project I did this week. Jeff put these shelves in and they quickly became disorganized. It finally reached the point where things were falling onto the floor, you couldn't step in to retrieve anything and finding what you wanted was impossible. So Friday night I rolled up my sleeves, the kids played nicely and Tabitha slept the whole time. Poor thing. She was sick. Still is.

I love seeing my older children playing nicely together. Here in our house we've been hearing a lot of yelling and crying lately when they all get together. We've addressed this issue many times this year in FHE already. We even have a family theme this year: making good choices.

This year Jeremy is forced (by his teacher, not me) to do a science fair project. I am way more excited about the whole thing than he is. I love science fair projects. He finished the research (gripping and more gripping) Saturday afternoon (he was supposed to be done with it Friday) and started the actual project. Can you guess what his project is all about? After coming in from doing this part he said, and I quote "This is finally fun!" Yes, those are gloveless hands in twenty degree weather. He couldn't do it with gloves on.

Brenden is becoming a bigger help with Tabitha. She is such a sweet baby, but if she cries and he's home he picks her up. He's very sweet with her, though he's done holding her in about thirty seconds. He stayed up late the other night to complete step 8 of his Bobcat. I had him help me with the dishes, what I usually do right after I put all the kids to bed. The boy talks!!! Non stop!!! I usually have to pull conversation from him. Two nights in a row he stayed up past nine. We've discovered something. When Brenden is still awake after nine (and not in bed) he is a talker!

I have one picture like this for every child. Isn't she an angel?

She can sit up stright in the Bumbo. Just not when she has a toy she's trying to get in her mouth. This is where she sits while we eat. This or the bouncer, but in the Bumbo she can see everyone.

Look what I can do! On Friday we had her checkup. The doctor asked me if she pushes onto her elbows when on her tummy. When he turned her onto her tummy she immediately pushed up with her arms and then dug in with her toes, got her knees up in the air and tried to pull them forward. First time I've seen her do that when flat. She also can roll from front to side and back to side, though she has yet to complete the roll either way. I caught this picture when I was actually trying to get a picture of her on her side. By the time I had the camera on she was back to her tummy. Oh well.

Tabitha's Four Month Checkup Stats

* 12 lbs

*25 inches

*ear infection in the right ear

Grandpa Jim Came

Back in the beginning of January my dad came for a visit and to see Brenden get baptised. We had a good time while he was here.
Not his first time seeing Tabitha, but babies change fast.

Getting the group picture is always a challenge with any child. Add five together and you take the best one. This was it. Jeremy and Brenden were deliberately trying not to smile.

While my dad was here he did a few projects around the house. Typically we have a large one, but last time we did that with a baptism it wasn't our smartest move. Thanks dad for crossing things off my to-do list. It was fun visiting with you.

Brenden's Baptism

Brenden was baptized on January 9, 2010 at 11am. It was a good day. Cold, but not much snow. Getting pictures wasa trial, but I prevailed. Brenden was so excited to be baptized that when the Bishop said there would be a talk on baptism and then we'd move to the font Brenden jumped right up to go to the font.

Snow Fun

With the recent winter storm we decided to take our friend up on her offer to sled in her backyard anytime. She lives in the neighborhood so it's perfect. Turns out another friend had the same idea.

Jeremy

Natalie

Brenden

Kristiana

The Crag

Brenden wanted to go climbing for his birthday. We allowed him to invite three friends. Kuckily, two of their dad's were able to come help belay, as well as Jeff's dad. We went to The Crag. And I forgot my camera so all these pictures are courtesy of Jeff's mom. Thanks Sheri.

TL: Brenden, Jeremy, Anna; TR: Brenden; BL: Reid, Connor, Brenden, Jeremy, Anna; BR: Connor, Joey, Jeremy, Anna

TL: Brenden; TR: Natalie; BL: Natalie; BR: Jeremy

TL: Reid; TR: Jeremy; BL: Jeff, Brenden; BR: Brenden

TL: Jeff; TR: Traci; BL: Joey; BR: the cake

All the kids had fun. It was a fun, stress free party. And we all want to go back.

Happy 8th Birthday Brenden

December 31, 2009 Brenden turned the big EIGHT! We started out the day letting him open his presents because Jeff had the day off. No waiting for dad to get home from work. He was happy.
He's been wanting these for awhile. Thanks to Grandma Mary and his siblings he has them.

The big gift from mom and dad. Little did we realize when we bought it that the Bionicle movie that is out has that vehicle in it and we had just watched it. Jeremy was just as excited as Brenden about the whole thing.


And since he wasn't being baptised right away we gave him his scriptures so that he could start our New Year's Goal with his own set. He was just as excited about his own scriptures as the rest of the presents.

Later we went to Mark and Tina's for homemade pizza and New Year's Fun. We stayed up later than they ever have and it's been YEARS since I stayed up (voluntarily) that late. But it was fun and we enjoyed our day. We served an angle food cake (that fell!) for his birthday since he was having his party on the second. (It's hard because not many places are open on his birthday.)

Catch up - Christmas

What the tree looked like after Santa visited. The big one is from Santa. This year he delivered a family gift and inside the big box (addressed to Natalie) was another wrapped box (adressed to Anna) and inside that box was another wrapped box (addressed to Brenden) and inside that box was another wrapped box (addressed to Jeremy) and inside that box was....

not their Christmas pajamas that they opened on Christmas Eve. THis picture was taken Christmas morning, because Tabitha was asleep on C.E. and I wasn't waking her for a picture. They are all holding their Webkinz Grandpa Jim gave them. They were thrilled.

Yes, inside that last box was a Nintendo Wii. This is how our house looked for about two weeks. THe kids had given up on ever getting a gaming system. I am not a big fan of them. However, I have to admit that it has been fun, and Jeff gave me the Wii Fit Plus for Christmas. We have all had a lot of fun with that.

Christmas was a lot of fun. I'm glad it's over, but already looking forward to next year.

Finally - the Family Picture

Which a lot of you have seen on your xmas cards, but I still wanted to post it. Life with five kids has been so busy - and I'm way more tired than I was before. Blogging is suffering.

I had this great idea for this pose. Kind of the four older kids presenting their baby sister. Never in my wildest thought of what could go wrong with this picture did I envision what really happened. It was a cold day the day we took these pics. But it was October and we thought (wrongly) that all the warmer weather was gone. The sun was out and it wasn't raining. We were good. The kids wore jackets right up until I was ready to snap the shot - so for the most part we were all warm.

So jackets off, ready to go and I place Tabitha in the basket - and Natalie flips out. Completely! She thought Tabitha was going to fall out of the basket. Keep in mind Tabitha was only two weeks old. She was fine. Natalie did not believe us. So the older kids start shivering. Natalie's about to cry. Tabitha is unwrapped and it's cold outside.

So I simply took the picture. Natalie is trying to pulling the basket backward (which would have resulted in it falling off the bench), and the boys are holding it in place. What a wonderful picture! It was the best though because when they held her we could never really see her face.

3 months

Hard to believe that she's already three months old. Her two months stats are 11 lbs 1 oz, 23 inches long. We'll find out how much she weighs at the end of January, though according to the wii fit plus she is a little over 12 lbs.

She is a sweet baby who smiles at everyone and anything. Though she has decided she doesn't like her 10pm bedtime anymore and is trying to become a night owl.

p.s. I will do Brenden's birthday/party/baptism after his baptism on Saturday.

Isn't Photoshop Wonderful?

When I originally planned my trip to California we (as in most of my extended family) thought that Tami would have Ethan before I arrived. When we found out Ethan's lungs weren't ready it was either come before he arrived or don't come at all. I chose to come out (pretty easy).

One thing that made us sad was that we planned on getting a picture of the three babies (cousins) that were all born in 2009. So while I was there we had Tami take a picture with her camera of Jason and Tabitha in Ethan's crib. Then she took a picture of Ethan with the same camera, same background, same time of day and emailed it to me. A little photoshop magic and we had what we were hoping for.

So here I am proud to introduce the three Tekulve cousins born in 2009.

Left to right: Jason; August 11 , Tabitha; September 21, Ethan; November 21