A friend of mine did a great job taking pictures of our family for our Christmas card this year, but our kids would hardly look at the camera, let alone smile! I said, "I just want one good picture with everyone smiling at the camera." John replies, "that's pretty much impossible with our kids." I disagree, but next year maybe I'll have to have someone doing a little song and a dance behind the photographer.
Here's the results of me later trying to get a picture of just the kids before the ward Halloween party. I mean, that would be Christmas party. We have one child who likes to pose for the camera, one who smiles easily but not necessarily when being held by a sibling, and one child who has looked toward a camera about twice in his little lifetime. Still, not impossible, I say.
(Cracker - bad idea, but at least it got him to sit).

No, look at me when you say cheese.

Katelyn wants what he has.

Making progress - maybe I can edit out the cracker?

And we're done with picture time for today.

Baby's First Christmas

For Katelyn's first Christmas, she got bronchiolitis, roseola (high fever, rash), and two new teeth breaking through.

Oh yeah, and Santa brought her a bath toy set, and a couple other things. Poor girl! It was a rough week for her.

Oh, Come Let Us Adore Him

A few years ago, my brother gave each of us (my 4 sisters and I) a little nativity (the wooden one below), and said he wanted to start a tradition where each year we get a new nativity set. We take turns, so when it is our year to buy, we find a nativity to buy for each of our siblings as part of the giving for that year. I now have 8 from this tradition, so it's turned into a little collection.

Here are 6 of them:

And 2 more - a cookie cutter set, and one with pieces the kids can take off and put back on.

And I have a few other nativities, too, though I don't know where I would put them all without our big mantel. Here's our living room, with some of my small nativities, and my Willow Tree set that I love.

(No nativies, but here's our living room before I rearranged the whole room to make a less-direct-crawling-path-to-the-tree).*

Some of my small one's on the mantel (and just out of my boy's reach).

This one is from my Nana. I love it because it reminds me of her house at Christmas time. So fun to see her decorations and one of my favorite places to be at Christmas (or anytime)!

I also really like this one Great-Grandma Wilson sent me last year.

And below, one Grandma Knippers got for the kids to play with. It has been well played with, and only a few wiseman hands and a donkey ear couldn't take the roughness.

Last but not least, a moose nativity ornament John got me one year.

This is not all - Olivia has one on her dresser that I was going to give to Goodwill before she found it, and a few other small ones not pictured. And I haven't even bought any, besides the one I got for everyone on my turn.

*I took some pictures of our house a while ago (October, as you can see) that I was going to post for some of you far away (like my sisters who claim they'll make it up here sometime) so you can see all the grandeur of our little rental (including the ugliest kitchen in America). So maybe I'll still get around to that sometime.

But for now, Merry Christmas!

We're pretty much snowed-in here (about 8 inches on our lawn, and in Seattle, "what's a snowplow?"), so maybe I'll post more soon. Or maybe I'll wrap presents, watch the snow fall, and make more cookies instead!

Sisters

Just because I love this picture.

I probably wouldn't have allowed my first baby to be carried like this (first babies are usually a little over-protected), but its fun having siblings! Way more entertainment than Mom and Dad can bring.

Braving Santa's lap

Santa came to the ward party

Santa has something in his teeth.

Beat up by the concrete.

She got a huge blood blister under her lip, and I think it made her whole face look different. But it healed quickly. While watching John put up Christmas lights, she tripped over a tree branch and hit the edge of the sidewalk - hard enough that I heard her hit from inside my living room. A big "smack" followed by screaming/crying. Not a fun sound to hear. She gets scared at the sight of blood, and can be very dramatic even for small injuries, so she was pretty upset with this one.

Drooling on Dad's head

Let it Snow

Who needs a hill?

Just before Jackson burst into tears because he was frozen.

Eating snow mixed with pieces of tree.

Sunday was a snowy day, and today school started 2 hours later due to snowy roads. (Seattle usually doesn't get much snow, so they're not really equipped for plowing all the roads, or at least not all the side roads).

My Thanksgiving "Moment"

Turkey project by me and Olivia. (She said she wanted me to make a turkey with her, but I couldn't help her, I had to make my own. Mine's just the same ol', same ol'. She had something different in mind).

We drove down to Portland to have Thanksgiving with John's family. In our van, it's much easier to travel with kids because I can go back and try to keep them entertained on a long ride. During the drive, I went back to sit by Katelyn and give her Cheerios. Olivia was singing Primary songs and Jackson was sleeping.
These are some of the words to the song she was singing:
"He is always near me, though I cannot see him there.
And because He loves me dearly, I am in His watchful care."

There's so much about those words and that song to be thankful for. Knowing He does love her dearly, and me dearly also. I'm so thankful that my kids can know that He loves and watches over them, that we have the knowledge of the gospel, that we can teach these things to our children, and for Primary and Primary songs that help them to learn of Him and feel Him near as they sing.
I also thought of how thankful I am for all those people surrounding me in the car.
I could here Jackson's soft snoring behind me, Olivia singing in her best 5-yr-old voice next to him, Katelyn next to me trying to eat her toes and babbling "ma-ma-ma-ma," and my best friend, best husband, and partner-through-it-all up in the driver's seat.
So much to be thankful for.
(That same attitude of gratitute wasn't as present late that night trying to get 3 kids to sleep away from their own beds, but that's another story . . . )