New Years 2011

For New Years we headed down to Spanish Fork. John, Jessica Mills and kids were there too! So, we did a breakfast together and had fun talking. Their little twins are so tiny and cute and I can't imagine having twins, Jessica is amazing!

We also went to John's cousin Elizabeth's wedding. It was fun to see extended family, although I didn't take any pictures, because I'm special like that! I ran into my microbiology lab teacher there and he actually remembered me! I know that adults shouldn't be so excited about their teacher remembering them but I was. He was such a fun teacher and he reminded me of my Grandpa Dan.

We did a breakfast with my dad and Cheryl's family. For some reason they like to take cousin pictures each time we're there, which is great, but I never get my kids ready for a breakfast. You'd think that I'd learn by now, but I clearly haven't.

We celebrated New Years at Mom and Dad Wadley's with Matt and Angie's family. We let the kids bang and make lots of noise early, shhh, don't tell them. They still didn't get into bed until 11:30. John and I were in bed by 11:45 and had the kids outside not yelled and screamed and let off fireworks at midnight, I'm pretty sure John would've been asleep by then. 

To finish off the weekend, we went to Angie's baby James' blessing. Yes, I let my kids go to church during the winter. No, they didn't catch anything. I'm pretty sure it's because right after Sacrament we took them home! We went to a lunch afterwards and Angie had some great soups! I tried her bean soup and potato soup, both of which were fabulous! I don't like bean soups, but I've made this one three times already, and it makes a ton! We got a great family picture with extended family but not on our camera, and I haven't tracked one of the pictures down yet - I'll find it though.

12 Days of Christmas

This Christmas someone did the 12 Days of Christmas to us, kid version. Each day they did something that somewhat correlated to the actual song. Some of the ones we can remember, because we forgot to write them down were:

Day 1: Pear Bread
Day 2: Hershey's Turtle chocolates
Day 3: Three french horn decorations
Day 5: Five gold coins - dollar coins
Day 6: Easter eggs with chocolate inside
Day 8: Caramels

The kids loved waiting for them to knock each night. Unfortunately the kids go to bed at 7:30 and 8:30 and they wouldn't knock until 9:00! The kids stayed awake more nights than not waiting for them to come. Thankfully the last few nights they started knocking at 8:00 which saved John and I some screeching from the kids!

Slides in the house

 The dentist thinks she had a subluxation of her front two teeth. That means that they came out of their sockets and then went back in. He also said that she probably cracked the bone around that area too. Does is sound painful to you too?

 She bit through her lip. You can see the chunk of skin missing and to the left of it, right in the picture, is where it came out. Luckily it didn't come out through her chin area. The dentist said that she didn't need stitches there yet, it should heal itself but we'll have to watch.

Can you see the "road burn" on her chin and under her lip?

How do you get this much damage to your poor mouth you ask? Alexis built a slide out of the cushions on our couch and had them aimed right at John's stereo. No, her mother was not aware of this. What was I doing while my children were creating dangerous creations? I was getting dinner ready for our family and for the neighbor who recently had surgery. Did I get the food done? No, I had to call and ask if I could bring it the next day so that I could run Madison to the dentist and then possibly to get her lip stitched. I had to get a babysitter because I couldn't imagine taking all four kids with me to do this. Alexis and Drew stayed home and when it was time to take the babysitter home Madison started crying because she didn't want her to leave. I guess I should leave my kids with a babysitter more often. (This was the first babysitter since we moved to Logan a year and a half ago.) Madison was so cute while she was screaming that she was in pain, occasionally she would stop and say "I'm all done crying now". It would only last for a minute, but she was trying. 

Christmas

 This is the general reaction we get for EVERYTHING! It doesn't matter if it is really exciting or not, all the kids pretty much keep a straight face, if we're lucky we'll get a little smirk.

 See what I mean? This is Madison walking in to find her Santa stuff.

And this was Alexis' reaction - nothing.

We had a great Christmas and the kids were spoiled rotten again!

Twas the Night Before Christmas

For Christmas Eve this year we went to Aunt Anne and Uncle David's. When they invited us they didn't realize that Uncle David would be down with health problems and unable to come and join the party.

Not only did we get to play with Anne but also Aunt Carma! The kids had so much fun playing and running around with them.

Aunt Anne is not the chef in their house, but you wouldn't have been able to guess that - her meal was great!

After dinner Anne and Carma had a nativity play script typed up for the kids to act out. The girls did not participate like we would have hoped, but they all enjoyed the story. 

Aunt Carma even read them The Night Before Christmas! She's such a great story teller and she kept their attention, which was amazing!

Because we are great at picture taking, there are no pictures of this so just imagine the kids running around and yelling, the adults trying to talk and you should get the idea of what was going on.

Santa and The Grinch

 Alexis asked Santa for some Polly Pockets, Drew asked for some cars or trucks and Madison asked for candy. Yes, she asked Santa for candy. Not only did she want candy, but she wanted LOTS of candy. Each time she would say that she wanted lots of candy she would hold up all ten fingers and spread them as far apart as she could manage, even if it required her to put her toys down. She would not ask for lots of candy without all of her fingers participating too.

They also had The Grinch there. It was Scott Stevens, who John played football with and I was friends with in high school. The kids were so excited to see The Grinch until they saw him. Alexis was hiding behind John and refused to come and get a picture. Madison was too scared to move so she ended up in the picture. Scott did a great job of acting just like The Grinch. John had never seen the movie with Jim Carey, but when he watched it later that week he was impressed with how well Scott nailed the impersonation.

Sickness updated

Lets talk about the croup that we got during Thanksgiving.

I know I did a post about how much fun it was, but it wasn't actually over during that post and it wasn't ending like I thought it was.

In total we were sick for 5 weeks and we spent $500.00 on getting better. Yes, I'm serious. 

I ended up getting an eye infection, which turned out to be part of a sinus infection. Madison also got an eye infection. Drew complained of ear pain and we assumed it was an ear infection but it was only water behind his ear drum. Jocelyn had the runs for four weeks. On week three I took her back and found out that she had reflux - no wonder I was having to sleep holding her while sitting up. I was at the pediatrician two and three times a week for almost an entire month. I requested my own parking spot but have yet to see the sign go up.

One day during the sickness I had to take Jocelyn in to the doctor because of her runs going for so long, take all three kids to the dentist and then take myself to the doctor for my sinus infection. Thank goodness for husbands that can take long lunches and go to two of the appointments with us! And yes, we are all recovered from that sickness. Don't worry we got a new bug that started yesterday!

Going private

This time we're actually doing it and we're serious! Put your email address as a message here or email me at john and tiffani at yahoo dot com. Delete all spaces. Thanks!!