FINALLY!

It was a day very impatiently awaited.

It's sometimes hard to be the youngest and have to wait your turn.

But eventually your turn will come...

                                   Just in case you can't tell...                                     

Nick FINALLY lost his first tooth!

 He has watched as everyone else has lost tooth after tooth after tooth, and he's been a little envious.

He did great, he was so brave! He just walked in the bathroom and let me pull it out with some pliers.

Now he is proud to show off the hole in his mouth, and his money from the tooth fairy!

...and he's so happy to not be the only kid in the family who hasn't lost any teeth :)

Winter

January is a good month. It starts with a holiday that comes right after another holiday.

Then we get another day to celebrate. Kevin and I celebrate our anniversary on January 8th.

This year was our 12th anniversary. We went on a movie date, and had a take-out dinner date.

Those have become a tradition :)

Then January got weird. When we moved to Topeka we were told by several people that it doesn't snow much here....Really?!?

The kids went back to school on Jan 4 and 5. They were in school that week.

Then we had snow days. Jan 10th, 11th, and 20th. 

And more on Feb 1st and 2nd.

5 snow days!!!

So, if you look at a calendar, you can see how crazy our weeks have been,

 and why the kiddos think it's odd when they actually have to go to school 5 days in a row! 

Some of our snow fun

 One of the worst parts of the weather was the cold temperatures.

It's so hard to look out at snow that you can't play in because it feels like -15!

But we were able to have some outside fun when it warmed up.

This was after some melting had started to be sure we could make a snowman

 Another bad part of being trapped indoors is that your house gets destroyed!

Kevin had snow days along with the rest of us in Feb. and he made lots of yummy food :)

And you have to entertain four completely bored kiddos.

They spent a lot of time in pjs....why get dressed?

And they spent a lot of time playing every electronic device in our house.

Netflix on the Wii was a favorite.

We are all excited for spring. I am hoping for no more snow. I never thought I would ever say that!

But after 5 snow days, I'm done!

I was in high school before I experienced my first snow day, my kids have now had 8!?

Christmas 2010

The Christmas of 2010 will be one we remember with fond memories.

 I may or may not be speaking in sarcasm!

It started off on Friday Dec. 17th. We were getting the house cleaned, car packed; preparing to get up at 5:00 the next morning and make an 18 hour drive from Topeka to Salt Lake the following day.  All was going according to plan until at 11:30 that night when Kaydie got sick. Then she got sick again at 1:00am. Blah! why does this always happen?!?  We left a little later than we had planned, but by 6:40am (central time) Dec. 18th we were on our way to Utah. Kaydie felt awful, and I knew it was going to be a long day. I wasn't wrong! It took about 18 hours, too many stops, one car sick episode, and a few weather issues, but by 10:30pm (mountain time) we had made it the 1,000 miles!

Everyone was excited to be at Grandma's house for Christmas; and it was a good thing too, because we didn't leave much once we got there! Whatever it was that Kaydie was sick with, it made the rounds through all the kids, with Nick and Preston coming down with it on Christmas eve.

 Nick liked to steal Grandpa's chair and get his germs all over it.

 See how excited for Christmas Preston is :)



Needless to say, we had a very relaxed holiday. We did have our Christmas eve pizzas and we read the Nativity before writing letters to Santa, but the mood was subdued.

Christmas morning

Kaydie was feeling so much better, and she was very excited to get a Littlest Pet Shop.

Love the Christmas morning hair! 

 Palmer got the camera he had been asking for.

Nick got his Lego castle.

Then he watched his mom and dad build it because he wasn't feeling that good.

This is about the extent of the pictures I took during our holidays. I am not good at being the family photographer! But in my defense there wasn't a lot to take pictures of. We spent most of our time indoors because every day of the trip someone was sick. I'm not complaining too much, we did have some fun times.

We got to see all our family, including our new baby cousins (and we all love babies!) it was so fun to visit with everyone that we've missed so much. We had a fun game of Phase 10 on New Years Eve, it was also the first year all of the kids stayed up to watch the ball drop. I have that on video and it was pretty funny. We saw a couple of movies, and the kids all got hair cuts from their favorite stylist!

We did miss being able to see friends at church, visiting Temple Square, and a few holiday parties, but that's life in the winter! It was a Christmas to remember, maybe not the way you hope for before the holidays start, but any Christmas with family is a good Christmas.