Romantic

I am a cuddler, and while Seth and I were cuddling this morning, the girls were climbing all over us, covering us in blankets, and using us as a trampoline.

While we were playing Sadie asked us "why do you have a candle?" I told her so we can be romantic.

Charity asks "what is mantic?"

I say "what is romantic daddy?'

He says "ugh, I don't know what it is either."

Merry Christmas

Before we took our beautiful children to church, we took some pictures of them all dressed up for Christmas.

Levi did not want to get his picture taken.

Sweet sisters


Levi was much happier after church.


The boys


The girls

10 years together....

We were lucky to be able to spend a whole 24 hours alone for our anniversary.
After over an hour of dangerous driving in the snow, (it should have taken 25 minutes) I made it downtown to be with Seth. I picked him up at our hotel and we went to the Joseph Smith Memorial building to have dinner at the Roof restaurant. Seth surprised me with 10 beautiful roses, and we enjoyed a wonderful dinner. The dessert is especially delicious.

The real reason for eating at The Roof, is the amazing view. We had a great table and had a wonderful time enjoying our time together.





We spent the night at Little America and had a delicious breakfast there. It was a nice quiet morning there. Then we spent the afternoon at the temple doing sealings.

Thanks to Aunt Lorisa (and Uncle Jason) for taking care of our crazy kids.

To my love

Today is our 10th anniversary, and I would like to tell my sweetheart how much I love him. Thank you Seth for all that you do for me and for our family. Thank you for our four beautiful children. Thank you for working so hard and providing for us so that I can stay home and be a mother. Thank you for being worthy of the priesthood and being a leader in our home. Thank you for putting up with all the crazy and silly things about me. Thank you for the way that you look at me, and for always wanting to be close to me. Thank you for loving me. I can't imagine how wonderful forever will be with you.

All my love,
Amy

Charity

It is time I posted about Charity. She is such a wonderful little girl. She is always helping me take care of Levi. Levi likes to crawl over to the stairs all the time. I can not even count the number of times that Charity has saved him from tumbling down those stairs.



Charity just turned 4 in October and she is our resident horse lover.



Charity is also always saying the funniest things. A couple of weeks ago she was copying Ammon. Ammon really doesn't like it when she does this, so he complained. I asked him if he knew why she copied. He said "because she loves me," like it wasn't a good thing. Charity chirps in "no, because he's so cute!" What a laugh.

On they way home from our visit with Santa at the mall Charity asked, "where does Santa live?"
"At the North Pole," I say.
"How did he get here, did he walk or drive?" she asks.
"His reindeer pulled the sleigh here," I answer.
Then she asks, "where are they?"
"They're on the roof," I say. "That's where they park."
"oh."

We have the funnest conversations with Charity.

Ho Ho Ho!

Tonight we took the kids to visit Santa Claus. Charity wasn't too worried about it because she had actually mailed a letter to Santa. Sadie had a print out ready to show Santa what she wanted, and Ammon wanted to just tell him what he wanted.

Levi was the first to sit on Santa's lap. He just kept staring at Santa. We wanted to get a picture of him looking at Santa, but Seth just kept missing it. Levi didn't mind sitting in Santa's lap at all.




Sadie's turn was next, but she did NOT want to get near him. It was all we could do to get her to show him the picture she brought. Needless to say there is no picture with her in Santa's lap.

Before going to the mall Charity told me that she was not going to be shy. After last years tears, Charity was ready to be brave. She walked up there, told him what she wanted, and sat in his lap. I was so proud of her.



Ammon was last up. He has been pretty sick, and has lost his voice. He wanted Seth to tell Santa what he wanted, but we convinced him that Santa was magic enough to hear him whisper.



After they all had their turn we gathered them up for one more picture with Santa. (Sadie thinks she is smiling. We have a lot of pictures just like this.)




Thanks to the Fashion Place mall for allowing us to take our pictures ourselves every year.

The stockings are hung.....

We received Levi's stocking in the mail yesterday. Now we are ready for Santa's visit. Thanks to Ann for making these wonderful stockings for all of us. We love them so much.

The lights are brightly shining....

We finally have a house, so to make it complete, we had to put up Christmas lights. After 7 trips to the store and hours outside, our house looks very festive. Seth did a great job. He was even pickier than I was about how they looked.

Our Little Devil

Levi has really completed our family. We have had so much fun with him. He just got his fourth tooth, he crawls around everywhere, and the kids just love him. He can pull himself up on things, and that is his new favorite thing. He is not always very smooth when he gets down.

For Halloween he dressed up as a clown (for our church party), and then as a little devil on the day of. He was our "little turkey" for Thanksgiving.

Silly Sadie

We are always laughing at Sadie. She says and does some of the funniest things. Most of them are forgotten (because they weren't written down), but this one I found in a notebook we keep in the car.

One day after lunch, I was getting them all in the car. Sadie had something white hanging out of her nose, and I tried to just wipe it out. It didn't come, so I tried a little harder. I got some, but there seemed to be a lot more. Then I realized what it was - tortilla. I got a tissue, and made her blow. Out came a huge ball of tortilla. I guess she missed her mouth!

What did he say?

Today I am going to write a few posts - to give you all something to look at - if you're looking.

One reason I really wanted to start a blog was because I need to start writing down the funny things the kids say and do.

Here are a few things Ammon has said..............

Several months ago I was trying to explain to Ammon what a cattle-guard was. I told him it was slits in the road, or just paint, that it made it hard for the cows to walk on. He didn't quite understand, so I kept trying. Ammon thought about my explanation for a few minutes and then said "ohhhh, like a force feild!" I was laughing so hard and ended up calling my dad - I knew he would get a kick out of that.

This came from a little notebook that we had written a couple funny things in. We were in the car and Ammon randomly says "mom; you're going to be in the world for 100 weeks."
I say "What? What does that mean?"
Then he says "I asked the black ball and it said yes." He was referring to Seth's toy Magic 8 ball.

When we were kids my dad would always tease us that the boys were going to kiss us. When Ammon started school, I was teasing him that he was so cute that all the girls were going to kiss him. After a few days I asked him if all the girls had kissed him, and he said no. I asked what he needed to do, and he said that he needed to wear long sleeves. I had just bought him a couple of long sleeve shirts because it is getting colder. He was thinking if he wore his new clothes, then they would kiss him. Funny kid. They never did kiss him though.

Our House!

Today we tried to get a picture outside of our house for our Christmas letter. Ammon was sick today, so he didn't want to, and all the kids wanted to be held. In the end I am just glad we got one. We have been trying to get one for a couple weeks now, but Seth always gets home just before, or after it's dark. Is there such thing as a perfect picture with little kids?

Keeping memories

This is one of the most wonderful times in our lives, and in an effort to make a record of it, I am finally starting a blog. This is more for our children than anything else. Every year I wish that I had kept a better record, written down the cute things that they say and do, and then I forget those things. Hopefully we will make many postings, and keep our memories here to look back on.