Family Christmas Eve Breakfast Party

That's what we do. Family Christmas Eve Breakfast and it's awesome. So here are the highlights.

Luke and Anna. Best friends and best trouble makers. Can't you just see the mischief in those angelic faces? Trouble I tell ya. Trouble. But man are they cute!

The newest member of the family, Eliza Heather. Oh so cute! I love babies. So much! :)

Speaking of babies, I have a pretty darn cute one.

Luke kept switching up Joey's hat. He was very particular at any given moment.

Okay, can someone tell me when Luke got so grown up?! He looks so old in these pictures! What the heck? (That's what he always says, by the way. "What the heck?" So funny.)

So old.

And so cute!

The Nativity Scene:

Beautiful Kate made a wonderful Mary while Joey was quite content as the baby Jesus for like a half an hour!

Mikey, a King

Olivia, Ben and Luke as various animals

Abigail, Caroline and Amanda as some beautiful angels

And this was why the kids all cooperated in the nativity--to get to this :)

Joe at 6 months and 7 months

First I need to catch up on Joey. On December 3rd, Joey was 6 months. On his 6 month mark he started sitting up all by himself. He still tipped over lots, but he could actually stay upright for a bit. He went to the doctor that day and was healthy as a horse weighing in at 19.36 lbs and 28.5 inches long--82nd and 97th percentiles, respectively.

He continues to be the center of the household (okay, along with Mikey and Luke. It's a three-way tie.) Mikey and Luke never stop trying to make Joe laugh. And Joe DOES laugh. It's so darn cute.

Joey started in on solids this month. He was always anxious to get the food in his mouth, but of course immediately spit it out and all over everything the second it hit his lips.

Joey, at this age, is by far my best sleeper! And I've never really done any training with him. He just sleeps. He goes down awake and will often just talk himself to sleep. He particularly loves the heater. After getting out of the bath, he was crying and cold. I laid him down in front the heater and he immediately stopped crying. Then fell sleep. He stayed like this for at least an hour and had quite an awesome carpet imprint on his face.

Is there anything cuter than a sleeping baby? So cute.

Now after a few weeks of eating, he seems to be getting a bit more of the food actually down his throat. Of course, the mess is still just as bad.

Oh yeah. And he's just so cute!!!! Look at that face!

I can't get enough of it.

Now Joe will be 7 months tomorrow. He sits up like a champ and rarely tips over. If he does tip over, he just flips over onto his tummy and doesn't miss a beat. He has started to try to push up on his knees and between rolling and pushing, he sure can travel in a room. And everything, everything, EVERYthing goes straight to his mouth. Oh we love that kid.

Occupations according to Luke

Two stories.

First, a few days ago, Lance was joining me on a trip to the gym with all the kids during his break from school. He was getting all his running garb on which includes a bandanna tied over his head. Just as he finished tying it on, Luke walked by. He immediately stopped and yelled, "Hey, daddy! You're not a pirate!" So true, Luke, so true.

Then the next day it was just me and the kids at the gym. We were on our way home and it was quite the blizzard-y day. We all bundled up and with heads down started to run to the car. Half way there, we passed a group of some older grown-ups. One had a cowboy-ish hat on. I hardly noticed them, but Luke stopped in his tracks as they approached and yelled at the hat-wearing gentleman, "Hey, are you a cowboy?!" I don't know if the gentleman thought it was all that funny, but his friends sure did.

Red Ranch?

That's right folks. In our house, we have red ranch. We also have white ranch. Oh, and some of you might possibly call red ranch ketchup. (And according to Luke, you'd be wrong. It's red ranch.)

Mikey's New Spelling Skills

I have to take a quick break from studying for finals to throw this on here. Mikey has been very interested in spelling lately. He's starting to figure out his letters, and almost every time he says a word, he likes to tell us what letter it starts with. He's getting pretty good at it, so I was surprised the other day when he asked if I knew what letter "tree" starts with. I said, "yes, do you?" He said, "Yes. It starts with "J."" That threw me, so I proceeded to dig a little deeper. "What sound does tree start with?" I asked. He then enunciated, very clearly, the sound he thought was at the beginning of tree. When he says the word quickly and in a sentence, you don't really notice. In this little exercise, though, what I was hearing was a very clear "ch ... ch ... chree." We haven't gotten to putting two letters together to make a single sound, and "j" was the closest he could come to matching the sound to a letter he knew. Mikey's a "chreat" to have around.

Smile!

Joey is a super happy baby and a great smiler...when the camera's not there. As soon as we pull out the camera it completely distracts him and he gets all serious! So I was super excited to capture his cute little smile. I can't even choose which one is best. So you get them all even in their nearly identical-ness.

Happy Halloween!

And here we are. Finally our Halloween post. Like I said before, this is the year of the Superhero...you shall see that I was not lying. Of course, between family parties, school parties, church parties...and so on and so forth, the Halloween costumes get to be worn over and over. This helped Mikey make it all the way until Halloween for the trick or treating.

First up was the Halloween party at Mimi and Bampa's. As you can see, Spider-Man and Superman are ready to go. My favorite was asking them to pose each time. They didn't really have much variety in what they could think of for superhero poses, but they tried, plus the look on their faces was priceless.

And another pose.

I couldn't get enough of Luke's little face in his mask. To grandmother's house we go!

Hey. Even Spider-Man gets tired.

The excitement of Halloween was just too much to make it through the long car ride. (And if you know Luke, you know how amazing this is--he NEVER falls asleep in the car.)

Okay, not so uncommon for Mikey to fall asleep, but this was pretty deep. I thought he was going to fall out of his seat belt!

And the party begins!

And there you have it. Spider-Man, Batman, and Superman all in the same room. You can probably imagine the excitement.

So Mimi asked all the kids to do a trick and then they could get a treat. She warned us moms before hand and wanted to make sure the kids would be willing...silly Mimi. We couldn't get the kids to STOP doing tricks! Jumping, cart wheels, spinning, running fast....

Did I mention I couldn't get enough of Luke in that costume? I couldn't. He was the cutest.

And let's not forget Joey. I know, you're thinking, "that kind of looks familiar." Let me show you. Remember this? And how about this?

Actually, I was kind of disappointed because Joey wasn't in the greatest mood so we didn't get any super smiley ones. I just might dress him back up on a day he's in the mood just to get more pictures. But he's still my cute tiger.

And I made a cake. This didn't photograph all that well, but I thought it was actually one of the cutest things I've ever made! I loved it.

Okay, so these are more of the same, but this was the ward party. Still cute.

And finally time for trick or treating. They actually had a bit more bulk this night as it was raining on and off all day and it was COLD! So they had PJs on underneath.

And me and skeleton Joe stayed in by the fire answering the door.

Happy Halloween!!!

Luke

Yesterday I was trying to get Luke to lay down for his nap. I asked him to go get in bed and I'd bring him his bottle. Instead he stood and waited for his bottle, but once it was in hand he piled his bear and blanket up in his arms and started down the long hall to his room.

I was following him so that I could tuck him in and get him all settled. As he walked he kept slowing for a second and glancing over his shoulder at me. After doing that a few times he looked back one more time and exasperated said, "Stop following me!"