Merry Christmas

For a few days, we had been telling the kids Santa was going to bring their gifts from Grandma Dorine,who lives way up in Idaho, for them to open on Christmas Eve. They were really excited about this, but started to get worried when it was almost their bedtime and still no Santa. He did show up just in time to give them their gifts. Santa was actually Isaiah's brother Gideon, who did an awesome job.Their presents were a pair of pajamas and a fishing game.

Amita loved the fishing game, but figured out using her finger to catch the fish was easy then the fishing poles.

Here are the boys in their p.j.s.

Once the older kids were in bed, we got the stockings filled with Melody's help.

On Christmas morning, the kids got up and opened their stocking presents. Then, we made breakfast and waited for Jeannie's family to come over and open presents with us. It always makes Christmas so much fun to have them over.

Here is James and Jeannie waiting for presents.

Melody loved playing with all the wrapping paper and packaging.

Carter with is star wars lightsaber.

Benjamin with star wars legos. Both boys totally into star wars.

Michael opening his presents.

Isaiah opening his present with Amita's help. She was the official present opening helper. She would go around to each person when it was their turn to open and help rip paper. Sometimes it was hard to get her to slow down and let us enjoy the last present before she starting opening the next.

Me helping Melody open on of her presents.

My mom got the girls matching dressing. They looked so cute in them. That is one fun thing about having kids so close together is getting to dress them up a like.

Rachael coloring a bag she opened earlier in the morning.

And me wearing a beautiful shirt Isaiah got me.

We had a wonderful Christmas and got way to much stuff.

Melody @ 11 Months

My little baby has only one more month before she is a year old. I can't believe how fast time flies and how much she has change in this first year.

Melody has defiantly started to change from a baby into a toddler. She is starting to figure out that her legs are for walking. She will walk a little bit while holding onto my hands. She isn't very good at it and likes to walk tippy-toed.

She has two games that she likes to play. One is "pick the hand." It is where I hide something in one hand and then she has to guess which hand it is in. The other is where, I will hold her, and let her throw a bouncy ball, and I run and catch it.

Just in the last week, she has noticed all the little things I have around the house. She loves to have you hold her and show them to her. Her favorite is a little Korean doll. When you get it down to show her, she just laughs and giggles.

Amita and her play a lot together. Amita loves to have her follow her around the house. They also like to play on my bed together. When ever Melody wakes up from her naps, Amita is the first one to go to her.

Melody still doesn't like riding in the car. She likes to be doing and seeing new things all the time, so after being in her car seat for just a few minutes she is ready to being doing something else. I am hoping once we put her in a forward facing seat she might be happier.

Family Photo Shoot

We finally got around to getting a family picture done. It's always interesting to see how each kid reacts on picture day. I was actually very pleased with how well the kids behaved while getting their picture taken and in between shots. Benjamin even tried really hard to help get the younger kids to smile. Below are some of the funny pictures that we ended up with. I wanted to post the not so perfect ones, so our kids personalities would show through.It was really hard to get all the kids to look and smile at the same time. Benjamin pulled about every funny face he could. Amita was in the most serious mood and didn't want to smile. Carter kept wanting to see what everyone was doing, and Melody wanted to attack all the cords and lights.

Isaiah worked hard to finally get a smile out of Amita.

We had to give Melody something to keep her attention off the cords and light stands.

My two handsome boys, who are the best of friends.

Carter was also very serious that day and didn't want to smile. Isaiah finally got him to give us a few smiles after promising he could some funny pictures with these crazy glasses.

And here is Benjamin. He is always so full of laughs and craziness it is hard to get him to just give a normal smile.

Thanksgiving

This year for Thanksgiving my brother, Monte, came for a visit. He drove from Ft. Campbell, Kentucky for the weekend. We had lots of fun with him. For Thanksgiving, we were going to eat dinner at my sister Diane's house. There ended up being about thirty people there plus a whole bunch of kids. Diane always does an excellent job of hosting. Below are some pictures of are crazy fun Thanksgiving.

This picture is out of order and I don't know how to get it to the right spot, so just bare with me. It is at Diane's house with everyone dishing up their plates.

Here is Monte trying to get ready for dinner with three kids watching him. Benjamin had fun trying on his hat.

We got to Diane's at two. The house was very busy with everyone getting last minute things done. Here is Diane finishing the potatoes with Marcy and Courtney standing behind her.

In order to fit everyone for dinner, there were tables set up from the front door all the way to the other end of the house. Here is a picture of the kids little table. On the the other side of the table is Carter and Matthew. Then Brooke. Elisa and Aaron have their backs to us. And last is Benjamin.

This is the teenager table. From the left there is Carson, Monte, Travis, Dustin, and Courtney.

Even the younger kids had their own table. Here is Lily and Alaina eating their dinner.

The two youngest there were Melody and Alyssa. They are six weeks apart.

Here is Monte with Melody. She likes to play with his ribbons on his uniform.

And last is a picture of Diane, Monte and me.

Trimming the Tree

The kids have been begging for weeks to put up the Christmas tree. They each get to buy a new ornament for the tree every year. We had bought the new ornaments a few weeks ago and the kids wanted so bad to put them up. Every evening when Isaiah gets done with work they ask about it. So, Saturday we decided to put it up.

Here is Isaiah and the kids figuring out what pieces go where.

Isaiah and Benjamin getting the star on top. Carter calls it the Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

The whole family in front of the tree before we put ornaments on. We took this with the timer on the camera, and I can hardly believe we got everyone (except Melody) to be looking and smiling.

Amita helping hang ornaments.

Isaiah bought a Santa suit a few years ago to surprise the kids. Well, they always knew it was him. Here is him and Melody having fun with it.

Here is my little village going up. I use to trying and get everything arranged just right, but now Benjamin has so much fun placing everything, that I just let him do it.

It was a really fun evening. The kids had a blast. Melody loved trying to get all the new "toys." The bottom two feet of the tree is bare just to keep her family eating any of the decorations.

Melody @ 10 Months

You know those cute little babies that just sit so nice and play. They love to go for rides in their car seat and are happy and content. Sleep all night in their crib Well, that is NOT Melody. She is a spicy know what she wants girl.

She loves to be held all the time, but will decided she sees something on the ground that looks fun. I put her down and then with in seconds she realizes it is boring down there and lets me know she wants back up.

She also hates to ride in her car seat or the car for that matter. As soon as I strap her in she starts screaming. Let me just say even a short trip to town can be torture at times. Her older brother Benjamin was exactly the same way.

Melody use to sleep in her crib, but once she become mobile that went out the window. Now she sleeps in my bed and even then she is very restless during the night.

Melody has learned to crawl and that has really helped her become happier. She loves to make a mess of what ever the older kids are doing. She can also pull herself up to a standing position while holding on to something. Just recently, she has started to walk a few steps along the couch.

She has gotten her top two teeth in, but two more are trying to come in.

Melody is my only baby that didn't lose all their baby hair and go through a bold stage. Her hair is getting long enough for me to put into one little ponytail. The picture below is of her and her hair all done up.

Corn Mazes & Pumpkins

Every fall we try to go to a corn maze. This year we found one way out in the country. It took us about two hours to find because I forgot to bring the directions with me, but once we got there we had a lot of fun.Here is Benjamin being his crazy goofy self.

Here is all of us still lost in the maze.

Amita and Carter thought it was fun to leave trails of corn, so we could see where we had been.

After the maze, we went on a hay ride to the pumpkin patch and let the kids each pick a pumpkin.

A few days later, I let the kids paint their pumpkins.

Carter took great care in covering his pumpkin in different colors.

Amita mixed all her paint together and then put it on her pumpkin.

Here is little Melody with her pumpkin. I had painted a cutie face on it, but then Amita thought she should paint on it too.

Isaiah's Trip to Utah

Last weekend, Isaiah went on a trip to Utah to go to his sister wedding. His sister, Angela was getting married in the Salt Lake Temple. Most of his family was able to go out for it, and it sounds like they had lots of fun. I thought I would share just a few pictures from the journey.

They went on a few hikes up in the mountains while out there. Here is a picture of the boys on one of them. There is Helaman, Gideon, Samuel, Isaiah, Joe (the groom) and Timothy sitting down.

Here is a picture of Angela and Joe.

And last a picture of Angela and 7 of her sisters.

Michelle, Rosa, Evelyn, Ruthann in the back row. Martha, Angela, and Theresa in middle. Elaine in the front.

Melody @ 9 Months

Little Miss Melody is nine months already. It is so crazy to think in just three short months she will be a year old. She still isn't crawling yet, but is every so close. She will get on her hands and knees from a sitting position and can scoot backwards a little before her little legs give out and she plobs onto her belly. She so wants to be able to move and try to keep up with her brothers and sister.

She has learned to wave hi and bye. I have been telling her bye every morning when Isaiah takes her outside to let the chickens out, and she has started to wave back at me. It was so cute at breakfast the other morning, Carter was waving at her and she was waving right back at him.

Melody has been very fussy this last month. I finally took her to the chiropracter to make sure her back wasn't out. He said it was a little bit, but about a week after that I figured out the problem. She is getting her two top teeth. They still aren't all the way in, but you can see them starting to show. Hopefully once they are in she will start sleeping better.

Her Uncle Gideon has nicknamed her "Shredder" because she will be nicely patting her face or arm and then all of a sudden she will dig in and try to rip your skin off.