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.

Chocolates!

My mom has been making chocolates for over 20 years. The last few years she let Tami and I join her in making and giving chocolates as gifts. This year Shelly decided to join us as well. Together we made over 100 pounds of chocolate. For those of you that don't know how much that is, all I can say is it is a lot. So, if you haven't gotten any chocolates from us yet you better make it a point to see us soon so you can get a box of your own.

Caught sneaking some chocolate.

This is how we keep the babies happy while we work.

I am so glad to be done and have our house slightly back to normal. Hopefully I will forget how hard this all is by next year. Sitting here eating them I am already starting to forget.

Christmas Day!

We Had a Great Christmas. We headed down to my parents at about seven in the morning, since that is where Santa left all our presents. We had a great time opening gifts with my family, there is never a dull moment. Our family has the tradition of making our gifts for each other. As with most years there were some unfinished gifts. I made a Kidd Family cookbook for everyone. Hopefully everyone liked them. Jared loves his "board of education" from the Kamerath's. Our kids loved opening presents and seamed to like their new costumes best, what a surprise.

After Opening all our presents we ran up to Jared's mom's for round two. She made our traditional breakfast casserole and pull aparts, they turned out perfect this year. Later that night we returned to my parents house for dinner. This is one of my favorite parts of Christmas. My dad always makes us a feast including, prime rib, salmon, halibut, sauteed mushrooms and shrimp, and of course king crab legs. For dessert he made creme brulee. It was all so good. Much, much later that night after Jared discovered his new game was a Spanish edition, we started watching music videos on You Tube. We were so inspired we decided to make our own. We started out with big hopes and ideas, but eventually got tired. We got Jared to record what we had right before going home. We weren't doing so hot by this point in the night but were still having fun. Feel free to watch, but don't judge my bad dancing, I'm just a lame mom.

Brunch with Santa

We had our annual brunch with Santa this last weekend. First of all I have to vent. Things didn't go quit as well as I was hoping, I wasn't as organized as I was wanted, my house wasn't as clean as I wanted, some of my food didn't work out, but I'm trying not to focus on it any more since I have plenty of other things to worry about. Things are just to crazy for me this year. I guess having another kid, a new puppy, a busy husband, and a full holiday schedule is a little more than I can handle this year. I did try to simplify a little this year. I didn't invite any of our ward friends to the party (I'm hoping I didn't offend anyone). It was nice to have less kids, but I didn't get to spend much time visiting with friends. We'll be making some more changes next year. There I am done. thanks.
So now to the good part, my kids had a blast, and that is why we throw the party anyways. We usually have my brother play Santa, but my kids just laugh and ask him why he is dressed like Santa. So, this year we hired Mr. and Mrs. Clause to come to our party and they were great. The kids really enjoyed singing songs with him.

Grayson told Santa he wanted a small superman, too bad he wasn't telling Santa this last month when Santa got all his presents. Hopefully he'll change his mind back when he sees his transformer.
Lydia ask for Red licorice. I wonder were she got that from, not her mom. I'm sure Santa will have no problem with that last minute change.

All my kids have cried with Santa. I thought Kate would be different because she is so easy going and loves to meet new people, but apparently not Santa.

Christmas Performers

Grayson and Lydia both had a big performance this week. Lydia performed with her dance class on Friday night and today Grayson had his preschool program. We are very proud of both of them.

Lydia was so excited to dance for everyone. When we got to the rec. center where she dances she said, "Oh, mom all these people came here to see me dance." She did a great job, much better than last time. We forgot the camcorder, so all we have are these pictures. She did the splits a few times during her routine, I was sad we didn't get a good picture of it.

Grayson on the other hand kept saying he was tired of singing at school. I was impressed at how quickly he learned all his songs. I've loved listening to him sing while playing, when he doesn't know any one is listening. We do have a little video of some of his program. I know this is something only us and grandparents would probably want to watch, but I put it on anyways.

P.S. If you did want to watch you need to pause our music at the bottom of the page. Also, this is a really bad recording I was trying to take care of other kids at the same time.

Oh Christmas Tree

With the weather being so great and no snow, we decided to get our Christmas tree up at Schuster Creek this year. It was so fun and so beautiful I wish we hadn't been in such a hurry to get back for the big game. We were excited to go with the Perry's but ended up going with some of my family when they couldn't make it. All the tree's were really tall so we basically had to cut down a big one and chop off the bottom.

It took awhile to find a good shape in all the wild trees, but we eventually found this one. I liked these picture of Jared sawing the tree, he makes it look so hard. The guys had alot of fun being Lumber Jacks until the chain saw ran out of oil and they had to do the rest by hand.

It was a big tree, I'm glad Jared and I weren't alone with all our kids. Lydia sang Oh Christmas Tree over and over again at the top of her lungs, it was cute the first couple of times.

The kids love to decorate the tree. It was killing them to wait till the end of the game for Jared to cut it down and bring it inside. It ended up being alot skinnier than I thought it would be, but we love it. Grayson keeps saying that Santa is going to come and steal all the decorations. I think he is confusing The Grinch will the real Santa.

Welcome to the family Max!

I am so not a pet person, I swore I would never own a cat or a dog. Every time Jared and Grayson would bring up getting a dog, I would just tell them they get a baby instead. This has only worked because I seam to always have a baby or be pregnant. I didn't think I would seriously have to deal with the dog issue for years, as there are more babies to come, hopefully.

But, weather I wanted pets or not, I got some, MICE. We have mice everywhere, and they have been driving me crazy for years. They poop everywhere, they eat our clothes, and love to run across the room when we have people over. It is so embarrassing. We've tried traps- there are to many to make a difference and I have trapped myself a couple of times.

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So it came down to this, I was going to have to have a pet no matter what these were my options. Mice, a cat, or a Boston (they were bred to catch mice). Luckily Shelly and Chad have a Boston, Spike, and we love him. He is such a good dog. I don't think I could have gotten to this point if I hadn't known Spike.

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Of course we all fell in Love once we saw the puppies. We looked at two litters and chose Max. Jared liked the paint brush because it reminded him of his horse. Jared also chose the name Max, I guess he's always wanted to name a dog Max. I'm so glad he can finally live this childhood dream.

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Chad came with us to help us make our decision and ended up falling in love with Max's brother. They went and got him today. They were so excited to see each other again.

I'm scared to death of training Max, I don't want to do it. I'm scared I won't do it right. I'm scared it will be too hard with all that I'm already doing. But, I hate having mice enough to face it, and having such a cute puppy helps too.

Pay it Forward...

A friend of mine is doing this and I thought that it sounded like fun.

I will send a handmade gift to the first three (3) people who leave a comment on my blog requesting to join this PIF exchange. You may not receive it tomorrow or next week, but you will receive it within 365 days! The only thing you have to do in return is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog. (or just promise to do it somehow). I can't wait to see who I will be giving to.

To join, just cut and paste this on your blog and comment away. So get posting!!