A Comfort Candle!

Last night I went to check on Lettie before bed to find this:

She has been having so much fun putting up Christmas lights, I guess she wanted to go to sleep with a little bit of Christmas by her side! Good thing they make LED lights with no heat!

A Baby-Friendly Christmas Tree!

We tried to put the unbreakable ornaments down low, but the babies immediately pulled them off the tree and tried to either tear them apart or eat them... Jovie doing most of the tearing and Callie doing most of the eating! So, this year our tree is baby friendly will all ornaments of the 4th branches up or higher! Last year we had the opposite, too many ornaments on the bottom because that is where Nolan & Lettie could reach to put them on!

Levi and I were laughing about the year we tried to put glass ornaments on the tree when Nolan was small. We thought if we kept them high enough we would not have a problem. He still mananged to find a way to shake the tree and send them down, crashing. There was always the sound of the ornaments sliding down the branches before the inevitable crash! So, now when I hear that sound from one of unbreakable ornaments falling I still cringe and wait for a crash sound. It is still in my system I guess!

I will post pictures of the outside of our house when we get it done! It is a tacky work in progress, it shall be spectacular when we are done!!!

The 7th Circle of Hell Includes an Eternity of Taking Family Pictures With Small Children!

Dante obviously did not have small children or he would have included the equivalent of it somewhere in the Inferno! Of course I am only exagerating... but... A friend of mine with 3 kids says that all mom's should bring a flask to any photosession involving taking pictures of all their children at once! Being Mormon, that was not an option! What is a LDS mom to do but grin and bear it! One goes one way, one goes another! One is crying, one is laughing, one is poking the other, and one is looking into space! Here are a few examples of why I have put taking pictures of us all together off so long (there are plenty more examples where this came from, but the blog only allows 5):

Why, oh why is Lettie crying? And in a lot of pictures I am trying to fix a kid and Levi looks great! The differences between men and women!

Of course Lettie is trying to take the 1 thing that is keep Jovie smiling!

Callie trying to snitch Lettie's hairbow! I think the worse part is that the sun picked up the fact that I have not dyed my roots in a few months now and you can see my grey... yes, grey! I am prematurely grey! Runs in the family! Ugh! I think I will dye my hair today!

Callie Crawling 1 way, Jovie walking the other!

Why, oh why is Lettie crying again!!!

We did get a few pretty good ones! Not all of us look great at the same time, but there are ones where we are all laughing, which is very "us", so those will probably be the ones we use! Maybe we will get the amazing family shot next year!

Stinky Doggies Get Even Stinkier!

You all know Jovie LOVES her Doggies... but maybe you did not know that Jovie also LOVES the toilet! So... what do you get when she decides to give her Doggie a bath?

I suppose she figured she could not reach the bathtub, so this was the next best thing! Unfortunately our washing maching in broke, so I suppose white Doggie is going to have to chill in the sink until it gets fixed and he can get a proper washing! At least she has other Doggies to love in the meantime! At least I caught her before she gave some of her other Doggies a bath!

Sleeping Grandpa's Need Toys Too!

I guess since Lettie does not sleep without Dizzie, then Grandpa shouldn't either! I suppose he looked lonely sleeping all by himself on the couch and who better to fix that than Lettie!

I like the array of toys that ended up on his lap without him even waking up! Notice the pink Barbie Fairytopia leg sticking out of the bottom of the pile! I think he has a horse and a parrot too! I like the look on his face when he woke up to me taking pictures!

Help!!! Something is Eating My Mom's Head!

So, my niece was wearing a little TuTu thing for her birthday! It was laying on the floor so I put it on me head because... why not? Anyway, my mom is holding Callie on the couch and suddenly Callie starts sobbing... not just crying... sobbing! The saddest, most mournful cry! My mom and I were dumbfounded! She does not mind other people holding her, she was well fed, clean diaper, not sleepy... what could be the problem? The is occured to us! It was because I looked like this:

I guess she thought something terrible had happened to her mom! So she looked like this:

After taking a few pictures because it was the cutest sad face in the world, I took off the Tutu and she immediately stopped crying, and gave me a look to say "Oops! There is nothing wrong with you! I feel silly now!" At least she loves me that much that she does not want me being subjected to the toture of the killer Tutu!

Jovie's Birthday Rant!

This is a video from Jovie's birthday! I love it on so many different levels! First, it is so cute to see her interacting with Nolan! It is hilarious! No one can get Jovie & Callie to smile, laugh, and talk quite like Nolan! Then Jovie looks over at the camera multiple times during this video and "strikes a pose"! She gives me a sweet smile, a goofy face, or squeals, just because she thinks I am taking a picture! I love how Callie leans into Jovie and stares strait at her soaking up everything she is doing! I also love how messy Jovie is and at the end of the video she does the classic Jovie thing... she grabs the both sides of her hair with her hands and pulls out leaving her hair sticking strait out both sides... she does this ALL THE TIME! She is also saying all the words we are asking her to say, it is just hard to hear her say Fish & Sleepy! She is getting really good at saying Callie too, but "Doggie" is her all time favorite word! Callie says "dada" all the time (as you will see from the video) and she is getting to be a pretty good hand waver and clapper!!!

Anyway, it is a long video... about 6 min, but if you have time watch it and enjoy Jovie & Callie's cuteness!

And one more quick video! This is Jovie opeing her DOGGIES! I knew she would be excited! She loves her little stuffed doggies! She gives them each a hug as if welcoming them into her little world! Lettie has Dizzie, Jovie has DOGGIES!

Jovie's is the Big #1!

Jovie's Cake! The longest I have ever made! Nolan & Lettie helped me with it!

All the Loves of My Life!

The Birthday Girl! She savored her cupcake! She would take small bites and then just look at her cupcake like it was the most wonderful thing in the world!

Unwrapping Presents! Hooray!

Oh Boy! More "Doggies"! She stole Lettie's set of Doggies and usually always has one she is carrying around! So, now she has even more... yes, it is overkill! But I wanted to see her open her present and say "Doggies"!!! Which she did!

Jovie's birthday is today! We had her little party last night! At this time last year I was in the hospital having nuses poke me about 4 times trying to get an IV in! They busted one vein leaving me with a bruise that coverd my forearm! Ouch! I can still see in my mind when she was born! She looked like the rest of my kids... she just fit! I have a Jovie, and what a good Jovie she is! I love her name! It is a happy name for a happy & wild kid! She cracks me up every day! When I figure out how to convert it, I have a video of her talking and clapping to "If your happy and you know it!" Not every baby could be a big sister at 3 months old, but Jovie has been a great big sister! She is such a special kid!