Country Music Capital of the World

The first week of December I drove the kids 11 hours to Nashville, TN to visit my sister and see this beautiful city. We had a great time. My camera rarely cooperated so we got few clear pictures. The highlights were seeing downtown, seeing ICE!, touring Gaylord Opryland Hotel, and seeing where all the famous people live. (My sister knows each of their houses and occasionally stalks them.) One of the big reasons we came was to see her perform in a Messiah concert and a Christmas concert which were both amazing. It was a wonderful trip.

Since my sister is single living in an apartment with a friend, beds were tight but she generously let us take over her bedroom. Here three kids share a bed.

Two more kids in a bed. (Later I move them to the floor so that I can have their bed.)

Kaitlyn in her pack 'n play wearing a dress over a shirt that she put on herself and wouldn't let us switch for a jammie shirt.

Trying to take a cute picture of the kids at the Messiah performance. A lady watching nearby said I wasn't holding the camera still (after I complained that it was blurry.)

She told me to hand over the camera and she would take a good one of all of us. Ha!

I don't think it's the steadiness of the camera holder. It's the cheap camera. I was about to throw it away that night, I was so frustrated that every picture was awful.

My girls and I at the Christmas concert the next night.

On the way home through the mountains we stopped to cut a Christmas tree down and surprise Nathan with it when we got home. It was hard to find a place that was open on a Monday and when we finally did we had to hike aways to find a decent tree. All of this made our trip turn into 13 hours. But it was a lot of fun.

Spencer cutting off the lowest branches

Decorating the tree.

November Happenins

Kaitlyn wearing Daddy's socks
Trying to put on one of her dresses and some jewelry. She always says, "Pretty" after she gets herself ready.

Wearing Kylie's shirt.
Whenever she sees this shirt in the clean clothes on the couch she has to put it on.

It's really a 3/4 sleeve shirt, but it looks like a dress on Kaitlyn.

Spencer finally pulled one of his top teeth out right before heading to scouts.

Thanksgiving with Nathan's parents and little brother who came. Kaitlyn was napping and Thomas hid under the table when Nathan took the picture. I couldn't believe we all fit around this 4 person table.

Nathan got cheap tickets, but had to work, so I took the kids to our first football game.
It was really fun even though we lost.

Thomas is on the far right and Spencer took the picture.

All About Spencer

Spencer got a splinter under his toe nail that would not come out for 2 days. Finally I took him to the doctor, who numbed his toe and ripped off part of his toe nail to remove the sliver. It looked awful when it happened; so much blood, but when we took the bandage off a few days it only looked like a hangnail was removed. You could hardly tell there was some nail missing. Kids heal fast and it only took a day before Spencer was running around again.

Spencer turned 8 on October 7. I took the kids to the science and nature museum during the day and we had homemade pizza for dinner: two chicken alfredo deep dish and one half & half pepperoni and Hawaiian. Nathan had been sleeping all day from working the night before so we woke him up and had a nice early dinner and family party for Spencer. It was a great day.

Spencer got scriptures, a journal, a cub scout shirt and book, and one toy: a sling shot.

None of my children have ever been into dinosaurs before so I was surprised when Spencer wanted to draw dinos on his cake.

On October 20 Nathan baptized Spencer. He was so excited for this day and his only regret was that he still hadn't lost his two front teeth. Although Madalyn had lost hers when she was 6, Kylie had lost hers just before her baptism so Spencer was hoping for the same. He's the only 8 year old we know who hasn't lost his front teeth yet. Maybe for Christmas.

My parents flew in from California and we had a great week with them.

Some October Happenins

The girls last Sunday after the primary presentation

All of the kids did great on their parts and I was glad my parents were there to hear them.

The girls after a fall shopping trip to Once Upon A Child. Yeah for new clothes!

Kaitlyn on her first day of nursery.

(She's signing candy--the only way we could get her to hold still and look at us.)

I came home from taking the boys on an erran to find Kylie and Madalyn dressed up. Kylie is wearing the table cloth we throw on the table when we have a house showing.

Looking at the animals at the nature center.

A picture by the fountain like we took 2 years ago.

(Except this camera doesn't take good pictures.)

Riding the train at the science center.

Dressing up as fire fighters.

Playing with the floating ball.

September Happenins

Kylie has been after me to put more pictures on my blog. The truth is, we don't have very many good ones. I'm not very pleased with our camera. But to appease her (I think she looks at it like a scrapbook more than anyone I intended it for), here are some pictures of what the kids have been up to.

Five kids squishing on a bench at the table I meant to throw out 4 years ago. Occasionally we look at dining room tables but never find one we like or feel the time is right. Meanwhile, it serves its pupose. If I remember right, the kids were having fun and asked me to take a picture of them, although Alexis looks like she is not having fun.

Eating ice cream cones after Kylie and Madalyn leave for activity days.

Four girls playing in the rain. After Irene it seemed like it would never stop raining.

Kylie turning 11. She put peanut butter cups all around her cake and Reeses on the top. She sure knows how to make a tasty cake.

The kids catching and playing with tiny frogs. They were all the rage for a week or two. Whenever a child could, he would escape outside to look for frogs.

The four girls wore all white one Sunday. I'm not sure why they didn't think to have Kaitlyn in the picture; maybe she was napping. They had fun trying different poses with their parasols and feeling pretty.

Making donuts for General Conference.

(Oops. This is an October happening. Oh well.)

Kaitlyn taking notes during the session.

Kylie with her pack of dogs. When we went outside to say good bye to Nathan who had to go to work after the last session on Sunday, they spied jumpropes and somehow thought of being dogs. We've never been fond of dogs, but this quickly became a favorite game of the week. Even Kaitlyn begs to wear a leash and play and bark alongside them.

News Update

Quick news update for those who have been waiting patiently: Just heard today that the sellers FINALLY accepted our offer and closing costs! Yeah! We now have to get it appraised because if it doesn't it may take awhile to get them to come down anymore. We also have to get our house ready to sell again and put it on the market. All things in the Lord's time. We're excited though!

The second news is that the baby is a girl!! She looks great and we're thrilled. Counting Julianne, that is 6 girls for us!! We're planning on an 'M' name to be Madalyn's buddy. Suggestions are welcome.

News, News, News!

This is long time in coming, but I've had some news I've wanted to post for awhile. Then I thought news should come in sets of three and we were so close to getting that third piece of news. Well, months later and we're still close to getting that third piece of news! Right now as I write I'm waiting for a phone call from the realtor telling me the sellers accepted our offer on the country house with 21 acres we've been trying to buy for 7 months. All summer I've waited for them to come down on their price so I could post our news and finally 3 weeks ago our realtor said they're ready. So we offered, waited 2 weeks for a response. They countered. We accepted their counter plus them paying closing costs, and here I sit waiting to see if they're accepting it or not. I have been told nearly every day since last Thursday that today they're going to have an answer. This morning I was told that positively today they would have an answer. Because I can't wait any longer to post my other news, I'm posting that is our third piece of news although it's not official yet. I'll just have to erase this if they say no. If they agree we still have to sell our house, so I'm not expecting anything to happen anytime soon.

Our second piece of news is that Nathan was called as second counselor in the bishopric on July 10 and ordained a high priest. We were only asked right before church and were very surprised but feel great about his calling. He loves the men he's serving with and I know they'll do a great job--they already are.

Family council the day Nathan got called.

Our first piece of news is that we found out at the beginning of June that we're going to have another cutesy-wootsey member of our family join us around the middle of February 2012. I am due February 10 and was sick all summer but am finally feeling much better. I should have done this a long time ago, but Monday night Thomas was treats and I had the idea to do the baby gender cake test. I don't think he understood, but he was more than happy to make cupcakes and wanted to make what was on the side of the white cake mix box which looked something like this:

The cake is half pink and half blue and the theory is that whatever the pregnant lady cuts into is what sex the baby will be. We're having the ultrasound on Thursday, so we would be finding out soon enough anyway, but the kids were still thrilled to do it.

Thomas with the cake mix box to compare if they came out looking similar. He is so fun to bake with.

Kylie serving everyone after I cut into it. (I tried posting the video first, but it wanted to be last.)

Video of me cutting into the cake with my eyes closed to "predict" if our baby is a girl or a boy. If you'd like to make your guess, feel free to post. So far from family members (not us) I have collected 9 votes for a girl and 12 votes for a boy. Hopefully we find out tomorrow!!