Look What We Have Been Up To

Cami is beginning to take her fist steps.  She has gotten up to 10 in a row now.  Josh isn't really close to walking yet, just working on standing, but he can now go down stairs & that is something Cami isn't very good at yet.

Bookworms

When Phoebe was little she had little to no interest in book. The twins however LOVE books, they will sit & sit for long periods of time if you read to them.  Often time they will just go get their own books and sit down to look through them to by their selves.  Josh in fact has his crib near some books and on an almost daily bases he will pull multiples of them in his crib and when you got to get him from naps he will just be sitting in his crib flipping through a book.  The twins are really funny how different they are from Phoebe, but how similar they are to each other.

Christmas Devotional

Earlier in November & December Cory had to spend every Tuesday and Sunday at the church while the Bishop did the years end tithing settlement.  On one of the last Sundays the Church was broadcasting their annual Christmas devotional and since Phoebe has learned to recognize Thomas Monson as the Prophet she was eager to see him speak. To make it more special I made fancy Sundays for us to enjoy while we watched he broadcast.  Phoebe loved her ice cream and I loved mine & so did the twiners who eagerly stood at my feet to get a couple bit of ice cream & chocolate.

About half way through the broadcast Phoebe reached her attention span limit so all of the kids dicided to spread some old blue prints of daddy's  out all over the floor and run/crawl all over it for the fun crinkle noise it made.  It drove me a bit nutty, because it was SOOO loud, but it made the kids happy so I just let them play on.

Date Night December Edition

Date Night in December was suppose to be Pizzeria Night where we make our own pizzas and then eat them, but we were felling lazy so we changed it to be go get pizza from 5 Buck, have root beer and watch Eclipse & afterwards enjoy banana splits.  I really end up enjoying these casual dates so much more that next year I have made my 12 dates of 2011 and most of them are casual fun ones, and not stress out nights of planning and perfection.  Also this coming year Cory agreed to plan 4 of the dates while I plan the other 8 so we drew months our months out of a jar and I got busy planning.  Many of the dates I picked are going to be fun group dates so if you are in the area you may be chosen to accompany us on one of our fantastic 12 dates of 2011.

Temple Square '10

Every year we take our family down to Temple Square to look at all the thousands & thousands of Christmas lights. Luckily this year Grandma Fergy and aunt Megan & uncle Blake were able to join us which helped to make Phoebe happy.  Normally this trip is a very frigid and short lived experience, but this year we managed to pick a "warmer" Utah evening, the high for the day had been about 45degrees. Having the kids not all frozen made this years experience much more pleasant and in fact we were able to linger and look without any crying. Phoebe did get a little cold towards the end so Daddy stuffed her in his jacket to stay warm.

Christmas Pics

I always have this dream in mind that this will be the year we will have the perfect picture of our family on our Christmas cards, we will be a model postcard family.  Plans for this year were once again too lofty.  As time was quickly passing I decided to try to do cute kid pictures by myself at home.  

Here were the results in matching cute clothes. Phoebe cooperated nicely, Cami did okay, but I saw later she had crumb on her cheek and Josh...well I probably have an ulcer after yelling so much to get his attention or to try and have him sit in one place and not to just crawl to me.

  

The group picture in front of the tree was the ONLY one I was able to get, before tears and crying broke out & by the expressions on 2 of the 3 kids it was not exactly the pictures I wanted to send on this year's Christmas cards

 

After a couple days had passed I was feeling brave enough to try the pictures again, but this time in a new venue, our back yard.  Once again I could not get the perfect picture of everyone at the same time & I probably just aggravated the ulcer I gave myself trying to do this the first time, but I do love these pics for all the fun expressions I was able to capture of the kids. 

These were just a couple other pictures I got that day. Cami is always at this gate shaking it with all her might to let you know to come and get her. Also, I blogged a couple weeks ago about Cami & the rocking chair, well now the twins both fight over who gets to be in it & sometimes they are willing to share it while being naughty and standing in it.

 

Phoebe ScissorHands

A couple weeks ago we were dressing Josh in his PJs when we suddenly saw a suspicious rip in the back.   but we let it go without too much more thought. The next day however I noticed Daddy had dressed Josh in this shirt with tons of little uniform "rips" in them. I then realized what was happening to all of Josh's clothing.

Mommy: Phoebe did you cut take scissors and cutup Joshie's clothes?

Phoebe: Ummm yes

Mommy:  When did you do that?

Phoebe:  Thursday...umm no Saturday.

That simply was her confession with zero regret in it. She then continued to tell everyone that she cutup Joshie's clothes on Saturday, like she has any concept of what days of the week are. I had to laugh even though it was naughty  and we had to have a talk about NEVER playing with scissors.

It's a...

 I was right...it's a GIRL.  Welcome Sophie Marie (5.5.11)!

"Christmas Shoes" (Not the song, but the kind hung by the chimney with care)

Last December Cory was asked to be a guest judge for a Christmas Stocking Charity event or as Phoebe calls them "Christmas Shoes".  When Cory came home he told me all about this neat charity event that raises money every year to benefit families of children with cancer by buying them gas cards or grocery cards.  Many families spend so much on their children's treatment they cannot afford to buy food for their themselves or they travel so far or often they spend all their money on getting to the hospital with no way of necessarily getting back home, so they created this benefit to raise money by auctioning of Christmas Stockings. We had been looking for something extra we could do at Christmas time so we participated.

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Cory had told me that the cutest stocking and the blue ribbon winners were stockings that had themes to them so knowing nothing else, except make a theme, I went to work. I found the most darling stocking pattern online and decided to make the theme Babie's First Christmas. I had one minor problem however. I got tons of cute items including a blanket, teething toy, baby keys, book of colors, links, & adorable stuffed frog, but only two items actually fit in the stocking. Cory helped come-up with an alternative of just tying the rest around the stocking and making a cute ribbon bow. It didn't turn out as I originally planned it to, but still pretty cute & I knew I got the right stuff when Phoebe cried and cried when she saw we were taking her froggy prince away.

When we arrived at the auction it quickly became apparent that we were out of our league and next year & maybe I better step up my game and get more creative. There were 100's of stockings, most of went directly to kids with cancer, but about 40 or so were up for auction including this Harry Potter themed "stocking"  which was actually a rubber galosh with one cut in half to resemble Hogwarts and the other boot full Harry Potter toys and topped off with a real talking sorting hat and sitting right behind it a Harry Potter Lego Land.  

In the end, 4 people ended up biding on our stocking and it sold for $40 so I was thrilled; there were some stockings that got 1 or fewer bids on them. We even ended up buying a "stocking."  It was not as cute as one we really wanted, but most of them were quickly bid out of our price range. The stocking we came home with was a green & reindeer themed "stocking" which really was a stuffed reindeer sitting in what was described to be a blanket, but when we arrived home we discovered was actually a dog bed (too perfect for Phoebe, she really wants a dog and play make believe that we have a dog & carries it all around or even lays in it herself). The bed also had a couple of kids reindeer books, a Shrek memory game & lots of candy.  

This was pretty fun evening and Cory and I plan on participating in it again next year and are even brain storming themes now; if you have any good ideas let us know!

Black Friday Fergy Style

Thanksgiving this year brought a lot of snow, how much you may ask...13 inches worth.  Our backyard was buried in the white stuff and the roofs had several feet worth of pretty ice crystals hanging from them.

With the day off and lots of snow Cory took the opportunity to take Phoebe out and build her very first snowmen.  Since we are lazy and don't love reveling in frostbite we took the easy way our and made snow men out of the snow in our backyard lounge chairs, which in my opinion with snow covering them always look like people are sitting in them anyways, so why now snow people.  Phoebe loved doing this and since we got her a monkey hat and gloves and grandma Potts got her a warm coat she loved playing in the snow and had be begging to make snowmen outside for days, she even got desperate to pray about it one night in her prayers.  The end result was so adorable I am sad that they ever melted away.

 

While daddy and Phoebe were shopping and playing in the snow I was cooking our own families Thanksgiving dinner, a tradition we started a couple years ago because we missed having a weeks worth of leftovers for ourselves.  The twins where happier this time for food and even enjoyed eating a bit & the Dr would be proud that Phoebe finally took part in the part of her new diet that required gravy to be poured over all her meat.

This meal wasn't as bountiful as was the day before, but it still lasted up for 4 full solid days of nothing but left overs.  The only change I would make for next year is a larger turkey.  I thought 9.5 lbs would be huge for us, but sadly I underestimate the amount of bones and water that factor into that weight.  Next Year nothing short of 12-15lbs with grace our families table.

This year in the Thankful Turkey we were thankful for:

Phoebe- Santa Clause, Mickey Mouse, Trains, Doggies, Princess', Mermaids, Cookies, Dress-ups, Cami & Josh, Mommy & Daddy, Turkey, & House ( I'm in my house)

Mommy- Daddy, Be a SAHM, Babies that Eat

Daddy- 3 & Soon to Be 4 Babies, Beautiful Music (little babies singing), Space Heaters