Happenings

As usual, there is much happening at our house.
I'm sure there will be a time that I look back at all this craziness and want it back,
but for now, it's just survival mode.
Some of our latest...

These girls have been obsessed with the Hunger Games series.
This is really the first series Camille has been obsessed with, so I was pretty excited.
We read the book, and then went to the movie.
Fun!

Ski Season this year for us was sparse.
The older girls got to go every other Friday with the school ski club,
and they are getting to be REALLY good.
Black diamonds is now part of their ski vocabulary.
Scary.

The rest of the family (minus the two littles)
got to go twice this year.
This is from our last excursion.
It was super hot, but the snow was ok, and we had fun.
Spence and Brigham are going to be SOOOO awesome when they get older.
They are only in Kindergarten, but can rip it up on the slopes.
They don't even start lessons for a few more years.
They are pretty much self-taught.

This girl is growing up.
She has her moments when she wants to be independent.
This was one of those moments.
She got herself dressed,
did her hair,
and came in to tell me to come take a picture.
She didn't want the picture taken in the boys blue room, so we had to go to
the pink room for this shot.

Katelyn was thrilled to be the Scientist of the Week at school this week.
She decided to do the messiest project she could think of.
We made this slime stuff with her class of 33 kids.
It was fun but definitely messy.

The Kindergarten program is kind of a big thing at my school.
The kindergarteners are SO cute.
This is Spence with his teacher after the show.

This is right as the show was starting.
Can you spot Spence?
He's kind of a Ham on stage.
Other parents were commenting to me that his facial expressions during the songs
kept them entertained. Funny boy!
He got to do a Funny Feet dance with his cousin Brig.

This is Spence teaching all the other kids at home the Funny Feet dance a few days before the show. It was so cute. Emmy is taking pictures while the other kids are learning the dance from Spence. He took this very seriously.

These cute girls performed in the Talent Show at school.
I received MANY compliments about their talents.
Camille did a ballet dance on pointe.
Kate did a fun tap dance with her cousin Kennan.
Morgan sang a solo.
So fun to watch these girls.

Emmy was invited to a princess birthday party for her best friend.
She asked everyday for the week before when the party was.
The morning of the party, she was dressed and ready to go by 7 am.
Too bad the party was at 2.
It was a long wait for this princess.
She asked me to take a picture of her ready to go.

The Latest

As usual, we are busy, busy, busy.

Camille had her class play last month.

She did great.
It was a play about WWII.
She was a Gumm Sister (I'm not really sure what that means)
All I know is she got to sing and dance.
She's the one in the middle.

Emmy came to me in the middle of winter to tell me that this is what she was going to wear to school. I told her that it was too cold. She told me her teacher would love her goggles. She also added some knee high pick socks to the outfit. I finally took her to the babysitter's with this on and told her she could wear it until it was time to go to school.


Spencer loves his cousin Brig.
They are lucky. They are in the same class.
My sister Ang is super nice and lets Spence come play on T/TH before school each week.
They have so much fun together.
It's so much fun that they have each other.


















The annual Talent Show at school brought some fun dances from my girls. Camille did a part of the Nutcracker. She was excited to perform on pointe this year. She did a fantastic job. Kate and Kennan did a fun tap dance to a song called "Basketball." They really had the crowd going. It was really fun!


















My Auntie Hoa visited from San Diego. It was fun to get together with her and the rest of the family.



Camille and Kennan had their school Medieval Feast. They looked great and had fun being royalty. It has been so fun for these two to be in the same class. They are best friends, and I have been so grateful for that friendship.




And O, this kid is a crack up. He makes me crazy, but I can't get enough of him. This is him "helping" me make dinner. Who needs toys when you can just stack cans? :)

Our comings and goings...

I recently found out that at least one person reads our blog...
So this is for you Grandpa.



I love that Spencer has a brother.
I love that these boys love to play together.
I love that they adore their dad and playing with him.

Money is tight this year, so not too much skiing for us.
This is my 4th grade ski day.
Cameron came up to help "chaperone" and ski with us.
Camille, Katelyn, and Spence (I don't know why he is not pictured)
skipped school to come too.
Fun Day.
Next year is Emmy's turn.

The Holidays are birthday time around our house.
This is Spence's family dinner birthday party.
We had a few extra kids with us.
It's a good thing he's still ok with McDonalds for his birthday dinner.

My parents celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary this past December.
All the kids got together for a fancy dinner (sans little ones).
It was awesome.
My parents were very happy, and it was great spending a night with my siblings and their spouses hanging out and celebrating with my parents.
They really did an amazing job with all of us.
I hope I do ok with my own kids.

This is Cameron and I at the Roof Restaurant in SLC.



Just a few weeks after Spence's birthday, my baby officially became a toddler.
Owen turned 2, and has definitely hit the terrible two's. I can't believe we're moving out of the baby phase at our house. I will definitely miss some things about that, but I am also excited to move on and watch my children as they go on to the next phase.
The other kids convinced us that Owen wanted to go to Chuck E Cheese for his family birthday dinner, so off we went.

Speaking of no more babies...
Owen, who was one of my best sleepers, figured out how to escape the confines of his crib (much to my dismay). It became so much of a struggle to keep him in there, and I was worried that he would hurt himself jumping and climbing in and out of his crib, that we moved him into the toddler bed, and are (for the first time in about 12 years) crib-free at our house. This was one of the last days in his crib. I just got too tired of fighting him, but his sibling were feeling bad for him, so they just joined him in his crib one day. I found them like this in the morning.

Right after the break was my girls big dance recital. I didn't get any pictures of Kate for some reason (on my phone at least). Cameron did on his, so maybe I'll put some up later of her.
This is Camille right before going on for her first pointe dance. She is giving Emmy some encouragement backstage before Em's first dance.

Emmy's cute dance buddies.
Best Friend Kenzie
and
Cousin Gabby.

Spence has had an ear that has given his trouble since birth.
After many doctor's visits and even 1 surgery, we finally discovered last year that Spencer would have a surgery done around the age 5-6 to see what could be done. We suspected that he was missing a bone (like his dad) that was limiting his ability to hear well. After confirming through tests that his hearing was for sure lacking (and for an unknown reason) we decided to go ahead with the exploratory surgery. This is Spence just after checking in showing off our matching bracelets. He did great during the surgery (he made me promise not to post the post-op pictures). We were so proud of him. The dr. did make an amazing discovering. Rather than missing a bone, he actually had an extra bone that was causing his other 3 to not be able to vibrate. He carefully removed the bone (avoiding some very important nerves) and he suspects Spence will be hearing just fine soon. We have the hearing test in just a few weeks to find out. I'm so grateful for a careful dr. and modern medicine.

This kid just cracks me up.
Ang's family gave him this for his birthday, and he adores it.
He carried his cars all over the place and always has one or two in bed with him.
The gift was such a blessing to me (seeing as he only sits still for a few minutes at a time and is known to trash everything and anything in his path. He will sit for hours and play with this thing).

We went on a road trip last weekend to do some research for Kate's school report. The kids had fun and it was a bonus to hang out with Grandma and Grandpa for the day.
My kids love seeing them, and they are so good to my kids.

This kid is so smart, and loves to learn. He earned this cookie for joining the Cookie Club. In order to get in, he had to pass off his letters (upper and lower) and sounds, sight words, and decoding words. He kept telling me the cookie was bigger than his face. He even held it up to me to measure with my face. Too funny.

And, to wrap up our winter birthday season.
Kate turned 9.
She is such a fun girl.
She loves to be involved in anything, and is quite the athlete.
This is Kate's favorite dessert.

Oh, I love this boy, and he loves cupcakes.
This is O enjoying a cupcake and pizza at Kate's birthday party.

We've been trying to figure out why Kate is so small for a few years now.
She's been to Primary Children's Hospital a few times,
and so far, no answers.
The doctors decided that they wanted to do some genetic testing to rule some things out before deciding what to do. This is Kate post-blood draw. She is great. She did not cry at all.

We are alive and well!

We are alive!
Life seems to get crazier and crazier.

We have been having lots of fun with all our activities, but I am definitely exhausted most days. My kids keep me so busy with all the things they are involved in. My kids are soooo looking forward to Christmas this year which is fun to watch. We also have a few birthdays coming up at our house that have kept kids excited. We celebrated Spencer and Owen's birthdays with the families yesterday. Our "little" family get-togethers are quite the ordeals these days with around 42 people. I love that all my siblings live close by, and that I have a personal relationship with all of them. My kids LOVE cousin time, and we are so grateful for families.

I can't believe Owen is turning 2.
We are officially moving into a new phase of our life.
It's so crazy to think that there will not be any more babies, and that our oldest will be in Jr. High next year.
So crazy!
We are definitely feeling old these days.

Back Tracking-- Alaska

For the first time in 10 years, Cameron and I went on a big trip without ANY kids.
Man, was that strange?
I slept for like the first 2 days because I didn't know what to do with myself.

We flew to Seattle first, where we spent a day.
It was pretty neat. We'd never been there before.
We went to Pike's Fish Market where they throw fish around.

I loved seeing all the fresh flowers and fruit.

And of course, I'm a sea food nut, and had to get some good crab while we were there.
Cameron hates fish, but loves crab legs (weirdo), but hey he shared a bucket of seafood with me, and I got to eat all the shrimp. Yum!

Boarding the boat. It was so BIG.

Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau

Ziplining through the trees in Skagway.

We had such a great time, and are so grateful to Cameron's parents for helping make this happen for us. We definitely want to go on a cruise again, hopefully with the kids next time. It was a great refresher before going back to school.

We are also so grateful to our friends and family who helped with the kids at home. There were so many who helped (Grandma, Nathalie, Anne, Brandon, Angela, John, Amy, Jared, Adeline, Rebecca, Meghan, Kristi, so many more). We are humbled by how many people love our kids.
We came home to the cutest welcome home mom and dad sign. It went up the stairs and around the corner. Each kid had decorated part of it.

Disappointing loss by the Cougars, but my Cougars are pretty cute!

Man, that was a sad game on Saturday night.
I was especially sad, because this was the first game that our kids really got into.
They loved all the hype and the flags lining University Ave and Parkway.
They decided to get all dressed up in their BYU gear.
They even had their faces painted.
This is them just before the game started.
They were so cute

Owen actually grew out of his BYU t-shirt, and I need to get him a new one.
This is his blue/white attire.