Smiles

Thanks for all the congrats, we are starting to feel more excited now that those we love know about the baby. I'm excited to have another girl, but every time I look at this kid, I feel sad that there may not be anymore of these kinds of moments around our house.

This kid has seriously been the biggest crack up. We can't get enough of him. He is always happy and is the coolest kid ever. (Don't get me wrong, I love the girls, but these little boy moments are nothing like I ever imagined.)

The girls dressed up Spencer in some of their favorite things, the more they laughed, the more he entertained us. (This isn't a great picture, sorry!)



This is Spence teaching his little girlfriend Daisy how it's so easy just to pull out the drawers then climb up on them.



He came running into our room with this awesome pink helmet, then kept throwing himself on the treadmill. We were dying laughing.



Spence is, of course, the smartest little boy ever, and after watching a few kids, he figured out how to use the pencil sharpener in my classroom, and spent an hour sharpening pencils for me.

SURPRISE!!!

Today is our little Kate's 5th birthday. She has been such a vibrant part of our lives for these past 5 years. She got sick over the weekend, and we ended up having to postpone her first friend birthday party until next weekend. We still had a few surprises for her though.

Katelyn couldn't wait to share her birthday surprise with everyone!!!




We brought the kids to a family birthday lunch for Katelyn and brought them to the hospital afterwards for the surprise. They had no idea until today. They are excited!

So, I know there has been some speculation, but with this being the fourth, we needed to somehow make it memorable. Yes! We are having a girl, I am almost 20 weeks, so we're looking at this baby to make an appearance right around Aunt Angela's birthday (First part of June). So for all of you who think we can't keep a secret... HA! And for those of you who have thought I've been slacking at the gym... I kind of have, but have actually lost weight while managing to having a bigger belly. To make this fun for us, please tell others they have to look at our blog to learn the news.

Plum Tuckered Out!

My boy is so funny! Since he got his "big boy" bed it is harder to keep him in his bed for a nap when he is not so tired. I sent him to bed Friday afternoon for a nap. I told him to stay in his bed and take a nap. He laid down for a while, then we heard knocking on the door. Camille let him out. I had to take him back to his room and put him back to bed. He was making some noises and then it was quiet. I asked Camille to go check on him to make sure he was asleep. She came down and asked us to move him into his bed because he fell asleep in a weird place. These are the pictures of what Cameron found...

As you can see, he trashed his room, pulling off all his toys off the shelf and all the trains out of the drawer. He fell asleep in his train table drawer which was (yes!) suspended off the ground. I can't believe his drawer didn't break with all the weight. This is one of those priceless moments that we are grateful we caught on camera. You gotta love this kiddo!

Cousins Ski Trip

The weekend after Christmas, the kids enjoyed some time on the slopes with cousins. The girls all did ski school on Thursday, while the little boys chilled at home with me. On Friday, the older girls enjoyed some free time skiing and having a great time.

Katie at Ski School (so cute!)

Katie and Morgan with their Ski instructor.

John with Kennan and Morgan, they were pros after just one lesson!

Camille-- this kid is an awesome skiier. She is better than me!

The boys were content to stay home and play... well, almost, Brig would have preferred his mom or dad, but he had to do with hanging out with Spence and me. (This picture is from a few days before the ski trip, but I loved it, so enjoy!)

Christmas

We are happy to report that our Christmas was a great success! We are so grateful to have the Christmas Season to remind us of what is important in life. We are thankful for the birth of the Savior, and feel so truly blessed to have such wonderful family members who are involved in our lives. The kids were so thrilled to have their cousins stay with us for a week, and enjoyed MANY fun cousin and family activities. We started our vacation in true Whatcott family form... BUSY! We dropped the kids off at the Whatcott grandparents on the 21st, so Cameron and I could celebrate our 10th anniversary without the kids. We went to Mesquite for the night and had fun at the buffet and did a lot of Christmas shopping in St. George. We returned Saturday night to a Whatcott family Christmas dinner and opening of presents. The kids were so excited to get to open some presents early thanks to early Christmas celebrations in Kanosh. We headed home Sunday, just in time for a LeBras combined birthday party for Luke, John, Nathalie, Spencer, and Grandma. It was fun to have all the LeBras clan together for just a few hours before we were all off again to our next activities. The Richards cousins came late on Christmas Eve just in time for notes to Santa and the Nativity story. The kids were off to bed, and Santa came to do his magic. There was quite a hustle and bustle on Christmas morning with 7 kids opening presents all at the same time. Then we were off to the LeBras for Christmas lunch and the chaos of opening presents for everyone at the same time (we were trying to double time it, because Mike and Romina had to leave by noon). All in all, it was a great holiday. We were sure glad everyone made it back to Utah to spent just a little time with everyone before parting ways again for who know how long.

The kids in the traditional Christmas Eve jammies

All the girl cousins

All the LeBras grandkids

Katelyn's First Trip Skiing

Katie went skiing for the first time on the 19th of December when I took my fourth graders up to Sundance. Until this year, whenever we mentioned skiing to her, she insisted that she did not want to go. When she said she wanted to go this year, Cameron was excited because he is one step closer to having skiing be our family winter activity. She did great for her first time, and kept wanting us to let go of her and just let her ski. Cameron was nice and sweaty after holding her the whole way down, but she was a trooper, and wanted to go back for more when cousins came.

Riding the lift was a highlight

Camille supervised to show Katelyn how it was done!