Here We Come A Caroling!

For family home evening on Monday night we got all bundled up in our winter clothes, put Emmy holding Lilly in a sled and walked through our neighborhood and sang Christmas Carols to some of our neighbors. Despite how cold it was, we all stayed pretty warm and afterwards we went to some friends' house to have hot cocoa. While we were there the kids got to act out the Nativity. Emmy played an angel and Carter was a wiseman/shepard. We all had a good time and then the rest of this week happened.

So far Ashton, Lilly, Jaron and Emmy have been sick with a variety of things from high fevers with headache (Emmy), to a sore throat (Jaron), to high fevers with vomiting (Lilly and Ashton). Carter and I are the only holdouts up till now, but that could easily change before tommorow. Anyway, we are all going to bed early tonight (at about 7). Hopefully we can all get healthy again before family arrives for Christmas.

One more video. . .

Warning: This one really skips around!

We've had a busy week and I have been taking lots of pictures and videos to document it, so here it goes.

Ashton and Carter had to go into the dentist to get some dental work done. Ashton, of course, was not planning on cooperating, so the dentist gave me a prescription that I would give to him at the dentist office just before his treatment that would put him into a light sleep and help him relax and not fight. In the morning I told him not to eat or drink anything and when he asked why Jaron explained him to that he had to go to the dentist and that they were going to put him to sleep so he wouldn't see anything, but that he couldn't eat before he went to sleep. Ashton quickly replied, "I don't want them to put me to sleep! I know how to go to sleep by myself! See!" and he proceeded to "sleep" while he stood there, complete with snoring. When we got to the dentist, I gave him his medicine and he spit it all out. Needless to say he ended up getting a shot instead, and he wished very much that he would have just swallowed the yucky medicine.

I babysat for my friend this week and our children made up a crazy little dance, so I put the video of it at the end of this blog. We also made some Christmas cookies tonight. I had to get the kids out of my hair, so I made a double batch of dough and gave each of them a small ball to roll out and cut. Then they decorated their own cookies. I still haven't made the rest of the dough, I will probably do that when I don't have quite so much "help".

We got a ton of snow today. It started at about 4 o'clock in the morning, just as I was beginning to deliver my paper route. It really dumped in a short amount of time and my route has a ton of hills in it, some of which took me several tries to make it up. I picked up Carter half-way through so he could help me get papers from the back of the car so I wouldn't waste so much time getting in and out. He was a great helper and he is always fun to have along. I didn't get done until 9 so I was late for church and I was supposed to give the opening prayer in sacrament. Luckily Jaron wasn't working this morning, so he took the other kids and said the prayer for me.

Lilly discovered how to go down the steps tonight, so I also put a video of that on. I would like to say more and take more time to elaborate on the hilarious things that Ashton did this week, but I always find that when I sit down to blog about it, I just want to get it done quickly so I can get on to other stuff I have to do.

Barbie Nativity. . . by Emmy

Emmy wanted to decorate her room for Christmas and she chose to make a Barbie Nativity scene. It was pretty cute.

Piles of Leaves!

So I finally got around to raking up all of the leaves in the backyard today. (I know, it's December and I am just raking the leaves. . .) When I was a kid and I was forced to do yard work, I remember fantasizing that the only reason my parents ever had children was so that they wouldn't have to do any work around the house, they pretty much just wanted free labor. I am finally realizing just how off the mark I really was with that idea. I made my kids come out and help me today, and by the look and sound of things out there you would think that I had specifically designed a torture session for them. I included all of the very worst things imaginable to my children like boredom, manual labor, crisp (not cold!) weather, (they would have complained if it was hot too, cleaning (putting all the backyard toys up for the winter), getting dirty. . . (heaven forbid you ever have to touch a wet, dirty leaf that has been on the ground! -- this would have been good if it had involved playing)and the worst of all is that I didn't let them take any breaks at all!!! (you actually have to start working in the first place so that you CAN take a break!)

At any rate, 4 hours, 3 tantrums, 2 garbage cans full and 1 grounding later. . . we are done with the backyard. I did have to ground Emmy from the computer to put a stop to her whining, but I also allowed the kids to jump in a pile of leaves for a little while and I got some fun pictures of them. ENJOY!

Update. . .

My blog is in desperate need of an update, so here it is. . .
This is the only picture I have of Carter's Birthday, so here he is blowing out his candles when turning the big 6!

This is Ashton when we were packing for what was supposed to be a week long trip where I went to Boise to visit one of my friends who just had her first baby. I ended up having a horrible cold, then Lilly got an ear infection, Carter got pink-eye, then Ashton got an ear infection and Emmy got a sore throat. It was probably a really good decision NOT to go to Boise. We did go to Pocatello for a few days, so here are some pictures of that.

Lilly got really tired waiting for me to finish packing, and when Emmy sat down in the chair with her it didn't take long before she was sound asleep =0)

We had great time. Ashton spent the night at "Grandmas Raes" while Emmy, Lilly, Carter and I stayed at Angie's house. I didn't want to end up in the E.R. and all it takes is one night sleeping in the same house with a dog and Carter's asthma kicks into high gear. I got to visit with Wendi for about an hour Sunday morning before she had to leave to head back to Boise (she was in town for Thanksgiving). I was hoping I would be able to hook up with the other Poky gals, but ended up going home early because everyone was sick (sorry for sharing the joy Grandma Rae).

The kids had a great time playing with Logan and Alyssa, they haven't seen them for awhile and they feel like family to us, so it is always good to see them. Carter told me on the way to their house that "Friends live close and cousins live really far away!" I told him, in his case, that was true. He has one cousin living in Pocatello and the rest are in Northern Idaho and Florida! Emmy told me that lots of her friends at school live really close to their cousins and get to play with them all the time, and she wished we lived closer to Ally. All I could tell her is that you never know, we aren't through moving yet, and maybe we will end up closer to her cousins (probably not, but it never hurts to give them hope =0) She did get excited when I told her that we may try to stay close to Grandma and Grandpa Hamblin when they come home from their mission. She is already making plans to ride her bike to their house and help Grandma make squash pie. I think she thinks that all Grandma lives for is to make squash pies for her!

Anyway, on Monday night Carter finally got to spend some solo time with Gramma Kristi and Grandpa Brent. He had been looking forward to staying there by himself for a few days, but I was to the point where I just wanted to go home. He was really upset, but I bribed the kids to come home early by telling them we would decorate for Christmas if we went home that night. (They were going to go home regardless, but at least this way they did it willingly =0) Carter got to play the fishy game on gramma's computer, and he played a few games of pool with Grandpa Brent. He LOVES playing pool with grandpa. We also got to see Katie and Clinton and Corgin, and man is that kid a mover! He was walking all over the place and he is just adorable. Katie and Clinton's new house is beautiful and I have to admit that I am slightly jealous. I would love to settle down into a new home and know that I was going to live there for more than one year at a time.

On Monday while we were in Pocatello, I took Emmy to my old store, Angie and Marin are still running it, to buy a baptism dress. Angie and Alyssa came along and Emmy and Alyssa must have tried on every single dress in that store together. They had a blast and each of them finally picked out a baptism dress. I know it's a few months away, but our trips to Pocatello are so few and far between, I wanted to make sure that we could pick one up while we were there. The dress is beautiful, but it hangs clear down to the floor (which is why Emmy LOVES it!- - she likes her dresses to go clear to the floor for some reason)

We are gearing up for Christmas. We have our tree up and a few presents under it already that the kids are giving to each other. Surprisingly Lilly hasn't even come close to bothering the tree or the presents. I wonder how long that will last?

On a more somber note, while I was at my mom's house my Uncle Larry called and informed us that one of my cousin-in-laws committed suicide. He was one of the few cousins that I actually knew. He was an ob-gyn in Las Vegas and has a beautiful family. We got to spend some time with them this spring when Casey got married. He was such an incredible guy, so friendly and family oriented. This was a complete shock and for the last several nights I have been having some really strange dreams regarding suicide. I have never had anyone I knew commit suicide and it really makes you think. Why? I know that is the question everyone would like answered, but it seems to have so many facets to it. It makes me a little nervous with my husband. He is doing really well on his medication right now, but I have seen him hit some really low times, and the worry that his medication may quit working or something might go wrong just became a lot more real. I don't know what I would do without him.