Happy Birthday Ben

Yeah!!! Benjamin is now one year old. He is walking in spurts, but still prefers to crawl. He is saying hi, eh (like Stitches yes), mama, dada, and a few other things that I can't think of right now. He loves to take baths and be held by us. He loves playing with balls and wrestling with his brother and sisters. He is such a wonderful addition to our family. He really enjoyed his birthday cake. He loved the frosting, but didn't each much of the cake.

Merry Christmas

On Christmas morning we all sing "We Wish You A Merry Christmas" to wake mom and dad up. Jared and I stayed at my sister Jenny's house. She has five kids and we have four so it was a very full house, but tons of fun. At 7am the kids came and sang to us to wake us up and we got ready to go over to my parents house to see if Santa had come. When we got there the kids sang to wake up Grandma and Grandpa. We have a tradition that we don't get to see the tree until Grandpa has looked to see if Santa has come. There was a mad dash when they finally got to go into the room.

There were my family with the four kids, my sister Jenny's family with her five kids, and my sister Liz with her three kids. We were only missing my sister Kathy and her two kids. We were really sad that she couldn't make it. The weather was just too bad. The kids had a blast and it was a free for all on presents.
The night before Christmas the kids got to open one present. My mom had made pillowcases for all of the kids. They were so excited and got to sleep on them that night.

Here are all the kids opening their pillow cases (the babies got blankets)

Another fun tradition that we have is doing the nativity while the oldest male father reads the story from the scriptures. We had all of my mom's family over for this. This year was Emily's year to be Mary and then this is my cousin's son who got to be Joseph.

This was before the nativity. We do a program and everybody has to perform. While this was going on both Benjamin and Faith (Liz's little girl) wanted to sit on my lap. My sister, Jenny, is holding her new baby Jace who is only a month old. Ben and Faith are two weeks apart. Faith was already one and Ben was almost one. We made all the kids sit on the floor because there were not enough seats. :)

Timothy got a Lightening McQueen race track. It is super cool and the cars go by themselves. He loves it.

We had a wonderful Christmas full of love and giving. I hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas too.

Ben's First Steps

Last night, we were having Ben practicing walking. And he did it. We were so happy. Ben was walking by himself!!!!!!

Molly's Christmas Concert

Molly's Christmas Concert, she had a solo. She was soooo good and loved to do it.

Emily's Christmas Program

Here is Emily's part in her Christmas program.

Tim's Christmas Party

Tim's preschool had a Christmas Part. Tim was decorating a tree orniment, and started to sing.

Emily's Violin Concert

We finally can post Emily's Concert.

This is the pictures from our Ward Christmas party. Timothy was really excited.

I think Molly is starting to feel a little too old to sit on Santa's lap.

Emily had a lot of fun too.

Benjamin didn't want anything to do with Santa. There are several pictures of him crying and trying to get away. This is the only one where he is somewhat smiling.

November

Things have slowed down a bit since soccer. However, we are still up at the crack of dawn every day. Emily has early morning violin. There are three elementary schools here in Ellensburg. The girls go to Valley View. The early morning violin is at Mt. Stewart which is clear across town. She has to be there at 7:30 am and then she takes a special bus just for this group back to Valley View before school starts at 8:40 am. That is Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. Then Molly has choir at 8:00am at Valley View on Monday and Thursday. We are reaping some of the benefits of all these early mornings.

Molly got to conduct one song at the Veteran's Day program at school. I didn't get to go because I had class, but Grandma and Granddad Carter and Grandpa Glen came to watch. I guess there were a couple other kids who conducted, but Molly was the only one that was announced. They even record the performance and show it on tv, but I haven't seen it yet. Grandma said she had recorded some of it. I will have to see if I can get it.

Emily had her first violin concert on the 18th. It was all the strings from Elementary, Middle, and High School. It was a very nice program and it was all less than an hour. We went to the Morgan Middle school where they have a stage and theater seats. It was very nice except for a little boy that kept walking through our row. His mom was five rows in front of us and he was just wondering back and forth.

(I am having problems uploading the video of Emily's concert. I will try later.)

I only have about two weeks of classes left. Things are finally letting up. I am not as stressed as I was. Timothy is doing great. He is improving so fast in his speech therapy that they say he won't need it for much longer. We are so excited. Benjamin is 11 months old now. He is getting so big. He is cruising along furniture and is very close to walking. It is amazing to watch how fast he is growing.

Jared is so great. He has helped me a lot this quarter. I have the best husband in the world. He has been busy at work. He is thinking of trying to do Driver's Ed again. We will see if that happens. I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving.

Soccer

YAY!!! Soccer is over. Molly and Emily have been doing soccer this fall. Molly was put with the U11 girls since not enough girls signed up for the 10 year old age group. So she was playing with 10 and 11 year old girls. She is only 9, but she held her own and got right in there to kick the ball. Jared coached Emily's team. No one volunteered to coach so Jared did it. It was a lot of work getting our schedules together. I am glad that it is over. They had a lot of fun.

Both Molly and Emily's teams had Orange uniforms. Since Jared was a coach he got a free picture. Usually it is only with the one daughter, but we were able to get both girls in. It was really cute. Jared didn't have his coaches sweater yet. The sweaters were gray so that they would be neutral, but I liked that all of them were in orange for this picture. Isn't it great!

Halloween

Halloween was fun. Molly was a vampire, Emily was a witch, Timothy was Buzz Lightyear, and Benjamin was a frog prince. School got out at 1:10. We got ready to go Trick or Treating. We went downtown to do our trick or treating. It was a lot of fun. We even brought one of Molly's friends with us. Our favorite place to trick or treat downtown was Papa Murphy's. They give the kids a free personal pizza or cookie dough. It is great. Then we went to a party that Molly's friend was having. We had chili and pizza and then we went trick or treating around where they live. It is on top of the hill so it is the nicer part of town. Lots of good stuff. Then we went over to another party that Jared and I were invited to. They had a bonfire outside and lots of good stuff to eat. The kids had a lot of fun and ate way too much candy.

We carved pumpkins the night before Halloween. The kids loved it.

Molly carved BEWARE in her pumpkin. It was a printed copy and had fingers clawing over the top. You can't see it very well. It was very difficult and Jared and I had to help her.

Emily did this all by herself. She had a lot of fun.

Timothy picked out the picture of what he wanted carved and then helped a little bit with taking the seeds out. Then I carved the pumpkin for him. What great fun.

Disneyland

We were at Disney land from October 23 through October 25. We flew from Seattle after classes on the 22nd and got to California around 1:00am. We didn't get to our hotel until 2:00am. Then we went to the park when it opened at 10:00am. It was 90 degrees the whole time we were there. We went on all the rides and had fun. The 24th was Jared's parent's anniversary. We went over to California adventures and spent a lot of time riding the new Toy Story Ride. It is a ride and a game. You have a gun to shoot and there are carnival games that you play. It was fun. We went on it 5 or 6 times. Molly wanted to go on the big rides. Jared took her on the California Screaming roller coaster a couple of times and I took her on the Malliboomer which was soooo much fun. It was also terrifying. It is like the game where you hit the bottom and try to ring the bell at the top. Anyway, you are strapped in and hanging. They have a plastic cover over your face and they shoot you into the air about ten stories up. Then you bounce down. Molly loved it. On the 25th we were planning on going to Ariel's grotto. However, about an hour before we went, Emily started throwing up. It was the heat. So we went to the nurse and let her lay down for a while. Then we decided to go on Toy Story yet again. While we were in line, we noticed that Timothy wasn't with us. I went back out the line and didn't find him. There were two ways I could have gone and I happened to go the right way. He was down just a little bit and a park employee was talking with him. He must have gotten seperated from us in the line and decided to try and find us. We need to get him to understand that if he is lost he needs to stay where he is and not go wondering. We then flew home on my birthday. We didn't get home until 9pm. We had lots of fun.

Phantom of the Opera

On October 9 we went and saw Phantom of the Opera in Spokane. It was a blast. We went with my sister and her husband, Jenny and Scott. It was the first time that I had seen Phantom live. This was Jared's birthday present. We also got to go and see Liz and her new house and she watched Ben for us. Marianne and Sara wanted pictures taken of them too.

Busy, Busy

It has been a while since I blogged, so I better get something going. The girls are in school. Molly has started Choir. It is Monday and Thursday before school. She is really enjoying it. Emily will be starting Violin lessons on Tuesday. They are also offered by the school. All we have to pay for is the violin rental. She has to use a 1/4 size violin because she is so small. Timothy has started preschool again. He is having fun. He has even already gone to a birthday party. Benjamin is going to daycare while I am in school. He is having a hard time being separated from me for that long. We will see how things go.

Anyway, that is the kids. Jared is still working in Royal City. He is enjoying this year more now that he has got the hang of things. I have one year left of classes. I am taking Finance, Tax Accounting, and Cost Accounting. It should be interesting, but I have soooooo much homework.

Today we walked to church since it was a beautiful day. We walk through a park to get to church. So on the way back from church I took pictures of the kids. We decided that we were not going to buy school pictures this year. It is just too expensive. We can take our own pictures and print as many as we want. So we will print out some wallet size pictures for the kids to take and give to their friends. If I can get the computer to cooperate, I will even post the pictures. We have been having problems with getting the pictures on. That is why there haven't been many.

Yay!! It worked. It only took an hour, but it worked. Here are the pictures of the kids. I thought they were pretty cute.

Sitting Up

Today was a very tiring day. Ben was up before Jared left for work and then he didn't want to go back to sleep. When Timothy got up I cleaned their room and got ready to clean his bed. He has had a few accidents and we needed to clean the mattress. So I spent all morning cleaning his bed. Needless to say it is still wet tonight and he has to sleep in a sleeping bag on the floor. Anyway, after lunch I had everyone have quiet time. Benjamin had fallen asleep before lunch. Timothy fell asleep on the couch and the girls were reading in bed. So I decided that I would lay down too. As soon as I reached my door I heard Ben. So instead of having him wake Timothy up, I took him into my room and put him on the bed. I arranged the pillows on the other side of the bed so that he wouldn't fall off. (he doesn't roll more than once) I then layed down and dozed. Well I must have fallen asleep more than I thought. I could still hear the girls creeping down the hall to check on Ben, but all of a sudden I heard this excited squeal. I woke up and looked at Ben and he was sitting up in the bed. He has never done this before. He saw that I was awake and leaned forward onto his stomach. He then proceeded to get into a sitting position another four or five times. He was soooo excited that he had done that. Now he is mobile. He can get onto his stomach, roll to his back, roll to his stomach again and then sit up. He is still trying to crawl, but this is a big step.

Sports

We signed the girls up for soccer before summer started. The season will be starting on September 6. We are trying to let the kids try things at least once. The girls have done dance, softball/t-ball, swimming, and piano lessons. The piano lessons are NOT optional. Since I can teach that to them, this is a must. Aparently there weren't enough girls in the nine to ten year old group to sign up. So Molly is with the eleven year olds. There are fourteen girls on her team. So she will probably not get much playing time. We got the list of girls for Emily's team. There are only seven on her team. However, there is no coach. Jared is thinking that he could do it if nobody else is willing. We are meeting with all the girls on Tuesday.

The kids just finished swimming. Molly finished level 5. The teacher was really impressed with her swimming skills. She said that not many 10 year olds (Molly is 9) are ready to go into level six, but Molly is. The main reason is that level six is an endurance level. They have to swim 500 yds without stopping to pass. There are also four different level six groups. They have the endurance training, life guard training, diving, and something else. She didn't remember what the other class was. Molly has been really excited about watching Michael Phelps. We told her that if she got on swim team that that would be the starting point to getting to the Olympics. She was really excited about that. We'll see what happens. Emily and Tim did really well in there lessons, but they are just not quite ready to pass their levels. Maybe we will sign them up for Winter. The pool is an indoor, heated pool.

Ben is doing a sport of his own. He is trying soooo hard to crawl. He sits on his bottom and leans all the way forward until he is on his hands and knees. Then he flops on his tummy and pushs backwards. He also loves to dance on our laps and tries to walk when we stand him on the ground. He also loves to try talking. He says, "mamama, babababa, papapapa, and dadadada. It is really cute. He also does a cute fish mouth. Hope you enjoy.

1st Tooth

Benjamin has cut his first tooth. Yeah. It is barely there, but I sure feel it. It is really cute. He can't leave it alone. His tongue is always moving around in his mouth. Also, Emily has finally lost two teeth. We were beginning to think that she was just going to keep her baby teeth for the rest of her life. I think it must be a record or something to keep all your baby teeth until you are going into 2nd grade. She was very excited for the tooth fairy to come.

Our Summer

We have had a very busy summer. Jared started his Math Master's program this summer. It was a six week course and he was taking 17 credits. He is very glad to be done and he passed all his classes (yeah!!!). I have been home with the kids. We have been involved in the library summer reading program. They had a program every Wednesday and then the girls got to go to a Book Group called the Bookworms. They read a book, did a project and had a snack. During this time I would take Tim and Ben into the library. They have a train set in the children's section as well as stuffed animals and puppets. Tim loves playing there. They even had a small tent one day. Ben usually slept during that time. So I could just take a book and sit in one of the big comfy chairs they had in the kids section and read while Tim played. The kids also started swimming lessons. Molly is in level 5, (Level 6 is the last level) Emily is in level 3, and Tim is in level 1. They are all doing great.

Molly is growing up so fast. I can't believe that she will be 10 soon. She is a great helper. However, I keep catching glances of what she will be like as a teenager. Help!!!

I can't believe that Emily will be eight soon. She is so excited to be baptized. She is even starting to think carefully when we ask her questions. Especially our latest fiasco. We have been trying to get the girls in a good habit of cleaning their room. The other day, they were both invited over to a friends house. I told them that they needed to clean their room first. So they started cleaning. Well, around noon, when we were supposed to leave to go, I asked them if their room was done. It wasn't, so they frantically started "cleaning". When I went in to check, I noticed tons of stuff shoved under thier bed. So I asked them if they had just put everything under thier bed. Emily thought about it for a moment and hung her head and said yes. Molly wasn't so honest. Anyway, they had to dig everything out and put it away before we could go. What silly girls. I love them.

Tim has finally decided to be potty trained. He is getting soooooo much better. We are now transitioning from having to remind him, to him just doing it on his own. Of course when he is finished, he has to always have us come and look. He did this once when my visiting teachers were here. He decided he needed to go and did. Then he came out with just a shirt on and wanted everyone to come see. Needless to say I was quite embarrassed. I am proud of him though. His newest phrase right now is, "Mommy, we need to talk." It is quite funny and is usually used to stay up after we put him to bed. Mostly he wants to talk about when we are going to go back to Disneyland. He says he HAS to try the new Buzz Lightyear ride.

Ben is getting so big. He is now 21 pounds and 28 inches long. He is sitting really well and folds over in half before getting on his stomach. He has learned to put his arms out so that he doesn't land on his face. He's not crawling yet, but he will scoot backwards. He is such a happy baby. If only he would realize that during the summer we like to sleep in. He is up at 5:3o every morning with a great big smile on his face. I know that he will be crawling and getting into everything soon. Lots of fun

New Blog

My sisters have been bugging me to get a blog. So I thought that I should go ahead and get one started. I don't know how often, I will update this, but we will see how it goes. Here is a picture of our kids. It takes forever to download pictures.