Smile!

Last week Tami and I took our kids to get their pictures taken. I thought our biggest problem would be keeping the kids in a good mood. Turns out our biggest problem was just getting the kids to smile, and when I say smile I mean a real smile. Here are some examples of fake smiles. Grayson and Lydia would either freeze and not smile or way over think it. Kate on the other hand wouldn't smile for anything. She spent most of the sitting with her lips pressed together. Good thing she still so cute.

Here are my favorites of each of the kids:

I can't believe how grown up my little boy is getting.

This was the closest thing to a smile we got.

I couldn't pick just one for Kate.

At the end we got the boys in their favorite superhero costumes since this is a better depiction of their every day lives.

p.s. we went to our friend Ryan Thompson (Maggie's brother in law) for the pictures. It was the best experience taking pictures with kids I've ever had. It was the first time I wasn't completely stressed out. He does really great pictures I highly recommend him. Check him out at rltphotography.com

My Sister Tami is staying with me for the rest of January while her husband Joseph is in Texas on a rotation. She has stayed with us for long periods of time lots of times and we even call our guest room Tami's room. Of course I always love to have Tami and her kids stay with us. Porter and Grayson are more like brothers than cousins and never seem to grow tired of each other. Carol and Lydia have been playing better than ever. Usually our divas spend more time fighting than playing.
Having Tami and her kids living with us has given me a small glimpse into what it would be like in a polygamist home. I love having someone help with all the housework. I love having help planning, shopping for and preparing meals. I love having other kids around for my kids to play with. The down side- six kids in one house can definitely be too much at times. Six kids make a lot more messes and laundry than three. And my favorite- the looks people give the two of us while running around alone with all six kids.
When Tami is in town not much gets done except for Shopping. We always manage to find more than enough time to shop. Jared likes to joke that our credit card bills go through the roof when Tami is in town. This trip has been no different. Last Friday Shelly watched our kids for the day and in trying to avoid shopping we thought we would go out to the Mitt Romney Headquarters to make phone calls for his campaign. It was pretty fun, I would recommend it to anyone wanting to help his campaign. Unfortunately his headquarters are right next to South Towne Mall and of course we had to run in a look at a couple of things. And of course we found some bargains we couldn't pass up. We are pathetic.

Last week we went with our mom down to St. George to pretend like we were doing something with our lives. We actually spend most of our time shopping. Porter told Tami "Shopping isn't a fun thing for kids to do," after asking what we were going to do that day. These are some pictures of the kids swimming. Abby and her kids drove down from Cedar for the night. My dad flew down the last day and took the kids hiking. I forgot to send the camera- but they won't stop talking about how fun it was. We were just glad to finish our shopping kid free.

Happy New Year!

So, last night was the first time in like three years that we actually stayed up for the new year. These pictures make the night look better than it was. Having the kids pose for our pictures was probably the most eventful thing that happened. We basically just sat around waiting for it to be midnight. We had planned on spending the night playing games but when it came down to it, I think we were all just too burnt out. Grayson was the only one of our kids that was still awake and loved seeing all the fireworks.