Christmas

I've decided that working part-time, going to school full-time, and being a mommy to four kids makes me just slightly busy!!  I don't get to update or read blogs as much as I would like!  So, again, I find myself catching up!  Christmas was nice this year and simple.  We enjoyed getting together with family, and the kids had fun and enjoyed their presents. 

 This is Christmas Morning.  If you look close, you can see Ammon's hand print on his cheek!  We had to wake him up that morning, and he had been sleeping on his hand, and it left a pretty good mark!

 Another view of the hand print.

This is our Christmas Eve party with Rob's family.  Lex is Rob's sister's boy, who was only born about 3 weeks after Ammon, so they are best friends!

 Eden and Ammon Christmas Eve.

 I think Eden liked this Bella Sara Horse Game she got Christmas Morning!

 Eden and Isaac Christmas morning with their stockings.

 EmmaLee was excited to start opening presents Christmas morning!

I thought this was a cute picture of EmmaLee in front of our Christmas tree.  

 Christmas Eve night with new PJ's on!

At the end of December, we got to get together with my mom's side of the family, and this is a picture of most of the great-grandkids of my grandma's.  We finally moved our party to a church instead of at someone's house because we are getting pretty big!  Overall, it was a great Christmas season this year!

Hello Ryder!

So, we got a new puppy, Ryder!  He is a Cocker Spaniel, and we picked him up from a farm in Preston, Idaho!  He has been super fun, and it is obvious that he is a much healthier puppy as he is very playful!  He has been learning things well, and has really done good with potty training, which I was worried about because he had been raised outside.  I think he is starting to get used to being an indoor dog, though, and is enjoying it!

As you can see from the pictures, Ammon is in heaven with his new little dog, and the other kids are liking him just a bit too!  So, crazy or not, here we go again!!!

Good-bye Flyn

Dear Flyn,
You were a good puppy that we enjoyed having.  You were very cute and fun to have around (Eden).  I loved to pet you (Emma).  I liked it when you chased the ball (Isaac).  Gog (Ammon).  While your time with us was cut short, we're glad we got to know you for a while! 
Love,
Eden, Isaac, Emma, Ammon
PS-For those who don't know, Flyn passed away in the middle of November.  It turns out that he had an enlarged heart and a strangulated testicle.  The vet wasn't sure which of the two did it, but one of them did, and possibly a combo of both!

Halloween

We got to dress up a lot this year for Halloween.  We went to a trunk-or-treat at my parent's ward in Sandy with my side of the family.  We also went to Rob's sister's church for another trunk-or-treat, and we also dressed up the whole family on Halloween itself to go trick-or-treating!  The kids had fun dressing up so much, and it was fun spending time with family!

Random Catchup

I guess one good thing about getting the flu is I have a lot of down time to catch up on things!!  I wanted to post some random pictures from the last couple of months that I just haven't had time to do lately!

We went to Swiss Days in September, and the girls both got these cute tiara's.  They wanted to put their hair in curlers, so the next day, which was Sunday, they got all cute for church!  I love the picture with all the kids so happy except Isaac!  I can't remember why he was upset, but he was!

When we were at Bear Lake with Rob's sister, the condos we stayed at had a swimming pool that the kids had tons of fun playing at!  They loved the slide, and going off the diving board.  I wish I had taken better pictures, but at least there are a couple!

We have also enjoyed going to the zoo a few times this last year.  The kids have fun, and loved riding these wooden horses!

Finally, Ammon has really been growing these last few months!  He is turning from a baby to a little boy and thinks he is one of the big kids!  One of my favorite new things he says is when you do something he doesn't like, such as change the TV channel, or something like that, he says "Hey", but more in a "Heeeyyyyy" type of way!  It's so funny and cute!  He will also wave bye to me now when he is leaving to go upstairs!  He also likes to follow me around when I have to clean up after the puppy and say "Ka-ka" while I'm doing it!  He is so funny, and it has been so fun to see his little personality really showing itself these last couple of months!  This is a picture of him eating his very first ice-cream cone!

It's been a fun, busy last few months!

Birthday Catchup

I have been so far behind on posting lately!  I never finished posting about Eden and Emma's birthdays, and then there have been a few others since then, so this is one big birthday post to cover all of those!

These first ones are of the girls up at Bear Lake with Rob's sister and her family.

We also had a part for both of the girls and my mom at our house in August.

We enjoyed spending time out back for the party, and also had a big water slide and a few kiddie pools for the kids to play in!

We also had a pinata that was fun for the kids to do.

Overall, the girls had good birthdays and a lot of fun celebrating with everyone!

Also in August and the beginning of September were my brother's birthday, and my nephew's birthdays.  We went to my brother's house to celebrate each of those!

My youngest brother and sister also celebrated their birthdays in October, but I had lost my camera charger until just recently, and so I did not get any pictures from their parties since my camera was dead!:(  It was fun celebrating with them, though, and I hope they had good birthdays this year!

Flyn

Meet Flyn, the newest addition to our family!  He was born July 20, 2011 and is half King Charles Cavalier and half Shih-Tzu.  He has been a ton of fun to have, and we are happy to have him!

In other news, my part time job has become a little bigger because the lady I was splitting with got a new job and quit, so I now teach Monday thru Thursday!  Eden also has gone to school by herself!  The timing worked out great.  We decided we needed to try something new because we had gotten as far as my being able to leave, but that thought made Eden nervous again and we started going backwards.  So, Rob started taking her to school instead of me.  The first few times she only stayed half days, and the first day she spent the whole time in the Principle's office (who has been absolutely fabulous in helping us).  The second day she went to her own class.  Then, she was able to stay a whole day!  The first few times she did cry a little, especially at the first, but then she did pretty good.  It was a long week (even though it was over UEA, so it was only 3 days!), but by the next week, she was doing great!  I found out I would be working more the week after UEA, but she had that whole week to keep getting used to going before I was going to be there.  So, now Eden is going on her own just in time for me to start working there 4 days a week till noon!  As I mentioned before, it has been a long road, but I'm so grateful everything is finally working out!  I really feel like everything happened the way it did for a reason, and I'm grateful we have been able to work through this issue!  Eden is having a back-to-school party this Saturday with some of her new school friends now that she has been able to go on her own!