Christmas

                                            Joseph and Austin in their new  church clothes

                                                Betsy and Austin's new church dresses

                                             Betsy loves her new doll

                                            Joseph is ready to rock-n-roll with his new guitar

                                               The snow fort!!!

                                           Samuel and the Snowman, and playing in the snow

The Tuesday before Christmas we got almost a foot of snow over 2 days of constant snowing.  So Travis decided we needed a snow fort.  He spent hours making this big snow fort in the front yard, with occasional help from various family members.  I don't have a picture of the finished product, but it was really tall.  The snow was perfect for packing and building, and we all had a blast playing outside and building a snowman and a fort.  It was a wonderful snow day, full of hot chocolate and going in and out of the house playing in the snow.  Since Travis has been out of school, we've been working on lots of projects getting ready for the baby, and we're almost there.  Christmas Eve we went to Travis' Uncle Nick and Aunt Nora's house in Salt Lake City, with his sister Maia's family and had a nice early dinner, and then went to see the nativity at Temple Square in Salt Lake City, the lights were amazing, and the nativity was really neat.  It was cold, and crowded and we we're having a hard time getting the kids to behave appropriately so we didn't stay too long.  We decided to cross the street to see if we could use the bathrooms in the conference center (we couldn't find anything open on temple square) and then head to the car where we parked to go home.  Travis stopped to give a homeless man some Christmas cookies, and didn't see us cross the street, and we didn't realize he wasn't with us until after we had crossed the street.  So the kids and I waited at the water fountain by the conference center for Travis to come across, but he never did.  His sister made it over, and told us Travis was looking for us on the other side of the street, so we went and crossed the street again.  After looking for a moment, I realized it was silly of me to try to walk around and find him with four kids, when he knew we were going to the car, so we turned around, and crossed the street again, and went to go look for a bathroom in the conference center.  We finally found a door to go in, as someone came out, and then went through another set of doors, that we hoped would lead to a bathroom, unfortunately it lead to a stairwell, with only roof access, and the doors locked behind us so we couldn't go back the way we came.  After climbing around for 15-20 minutes we finally found an exit door, and made it out.  We still hadn't found a bathroom, but decided to go to the car first, to see if Daddy was still there.  Thankfully he was, and we drove to a McDonalds, and took all the kids to the bathroom.  After coming home and putting kids to bed, Travis and I stayed up until almost midnight, putting together a 3-in-1 game table that he got a really good deal on.  Then at 4am the kids were up and ready to open presents, I quickly sent them back to bed, and then a little after 6am, we allowed them to come into our room, and we had scripture study, and then went downstairs to open presents.  The kids were so happy and excited to open their presents, they loved them all.  We spent the rest of the morning putting together the girl's new barbie mansion, the boys train table/Lego table, and opening up and figuring out new toys.  I made cinnamon roll Christmas tree, bacon, and scrambled eggs for breakfast, which we're very yummy.  A little after 2pm, Travis and I finally went upstairs to shower and dress for the day, and just as I finished my shower, Austin came pounding on the door, saying that her cousins we're here.  Sure enough after dressing quickly and coming downstairs, our house was full of Travis' Sister and her family of 6 kids.  It was a fun surprise, as the kids got to play with their cousins, and show off their new toys.  They had tried calling us, but had the wrong phone number.  Anyway, they stayed for a few hours, and then left to go to their in-laws for dinner.  We had a nice ham for dinner, and had a wonderful Christmas day. 

Christmas Caroling

Last night we did our Christmas Caroling.  The kids and I have spent the last two weeks baking cookies and Christmas treats, to put on our plates.  We had homemade Oreo cookies, peppermint patties, carmels, chocolate dipped carmels,  peanut butter balls dipped in chocolate, sugar cookies, peanut butter blossoms, monster cookies, peanut butter fudgy buttons, chocolate scotcharoos, raspberry brownies, and mint brownies.  We made up 20 plates.  I should have taken a picture of us in the kitchen with all the cookies and plates, and us and the kitchen covered in flour, sugar, frosting, and sprinkles, it was quite the mess.  It still is actually, I have to finish cleaning up this morning, and I'm not looking forward to it.  Anyway we got ready to go, and managed to get all the plates out to the car, with the kids only dropping two (it's a good thing I made extras).  We brought our bells, Santa hats, and Christmas music for the three songs we've been practicing with the bells (away in a manger, jingle bells, and Christmas bells)  It was snowing outside, and had been all day long, so everything was a bit slippery, but we managed to have a good time, with only a few children getting in trouble here and there.  The kids loved playing the bells, and giving away our goodies, and we're always very disappointed when someone wasn't home.  We finally finished about 8:30pm, and since we hadn't had dinner yet, and with a messy kitchen and an exhausted Mommy, we went to the olive garden for dinner.  It was delicious and the kids had fun playing and coloring in the kids menus, and we had a good dinner.  We didn't get home until 10pm, everyone was so tired we practically fell into bed.  Which is why I still have a messy kitchen to clean up this morning, and I'm stalling by writing this blog.  : )  The kids have a half day at school today, and then they're out for Christmas, everyone is excited for Christmas to come.  We love having Travis getting a break from school, he is busy moving things around, and helping us get the house ready for the baby coming in 2 months. 

Christmas Performances

The kids all had performances at school for Christmas, and all did a wonderful job.  Here is a picture of Austin and Betsy all dressed and ready to go.  I took my camera, but we were sitting so far away,  I couldn't get any good quality pictures or videos.  Travis has finished all his finals, and we are so happy to have time with him, where he doesn't have to study all the time.  I have a whole list of projects of things we need to get done to get ready for the baby, and other things that have fallen behind.  So hopefully with Travis around during the next two weeks we can get it all done. 

Peppermint Patties and Samuel

 Samuel is very happy licking the bowl of peppermint pattie dough

York Peppermint Patties, are my favorite candy, so this year I decided to find a recipe and make them as part of my Christmas baking.  Oh my, they are delicious, I think I like them even better than the store bought ones.  Samuel and I had a lot of fun making them, and I keep snacking on them, if I can't control myself I'm not going to have enough to give away on Christmas plates.
I realized that I didn't write much about Samuel around his birthday, so I'll tell a little about him now.  One thing he does extremely well is clean his room, and put away his laundry.  He is better about it, than any of the other kids.  When his laundry cart has any clean laundry in it from downstairs, he will drag it up the stairs, and put everything in their proper drawers (now it isn't always folded very nice, but it's where it's supposed to go), he will have me help him hang up his church clothes, but the rest he prefers to do by himself.  Then he will throw the empty laundry cart back downstairs for when the next load is clean.  When he cleans his room, he puts all his toys where they go, and makes his bed, and will ask me to bring him the vacuum upstairs, so he can vacuum it before he is done.  I love this about Samuel, his room is cleaned almost every day, sometimes he is a little OCD about it, and the way things are done.  Like for instance he has a cubby for his cars, but he insists on putting them all in his backpack, so he is ready to go to Grandma's house, he also keeps play money and some finger puppets in it.  I try to tell him we're not going to Grandma's house any time soon, and he can keep his toys out in their cubbies, but he insists that he needs to be ready.  He won't sleep with a blanket anymore, he has to have a sleeping bag.  He also has to keep his Lightning McQueen water bottle on his dresser, so he can get a drink at night.  He is my sweet little boy, who loves to read books with me, watch movies, play games (his favorite right now is called "zingo" he got it from his Grandma for his birthday), and help me bake and clean, and go through my daily routine.  He is very interested in learning his letters right now, and finally knows his colors, and can count to 20 (he still skips 16).  Samuel is very good at giving hugs and kisses, and needs lots of cuddles when he is upset (or I'm upset with him).  He is also very stubborn, and I usually need to pick my battles with him, because he can be most unreasonable if something is important to him, and I don't give in.  I love my Samuel, and I can't wait to see how he continues to grow up.

Some updates

 We went to a BYU graduate Christmas Party, and they were taking pictures and giving out suckers, and Samuel wanted a sucker, so I took and picture with him, and I'm sure Joseph got his picture for the same reason.  They had a good dinner, and an awesome ice cream bar full of tons of different kinds of candy all laid out in glass jars, the kids were in heaven, I think most of them had more candy than ice cream in their bowls.  They had fun craft activities for the kids too, Samuel loves his countdown rings that he made and is counting the days down until Christmas.

 I thought for Thanksgiving it would be fun to make some chocolate bowls, and put chocolate pudding and fresh berries and whip cream on the top, so the kids and I blew up some water balloons and melted some chocolate.  After letting the chocolate cool off a little we tried dipping the balloons into the chocolate to form the bowls. The balloons kept popping, so we'd wait a while and try again, until we had popped 4 balloons, and chocolate splattering us and the kitchen all over.  We kept laughing every time the chocolate flew all over, cuz we looked pretty silly.  I finally determined that we needed thicker balloons, and not having any gave up on the idea, and just poured the chocolate into some heart molds I have.  It was quite the messy clean-up job, but the kids and I had fun, and we had baths to get chocolate out of hair etc..  So anyway the kids were happy to play with all the balloons we had blown up and had fun with the static they create when rubbing them on your head, and played for a long time with them.  We ended up having a wonderful Thanksgiving with Travis' sister Maia and her family and his uncle Nick and Aunt Nora. 

 Samuel turned 4 on November 17th, he is turning into such a big boy.  He wanted a car cake, with marshmallows, so I just baked a cake mix, and frosted it with the pre-made stuff, and used M & Ms to make the road, and used marshmallows for the snow on the side of the road, and stuck a car on the road. It was the easiest cake I've made yet, and Samuel loved it, although he was a bit worried about his car being "dirty". 

 For Samuel's birthday we went to Chuck-e-Cheese to play, the kids had a blast as usual, and loved every minute of it. 

 For Halloween the kids and Travis and I all went out around the neighborhood Saturday night.  It was cold and pretty rainy at first, and we ended up just going around the cul-de-sac and coming home, then Travis took Joseph to do more, since he didn't care about the rain and cold.  Then when the rain cleared up, I took the other three kids out to Trick-or-Treat some more.  This is really a great neighborhood for Trick-or-Treating.  Betsy was always polite and asked how many pieces of candy she could have and Samuel had fun with his costume.  As a soccer ball he has lots of padding, and some of the house, were up a hill, and was quite a hike to climb up there driveway and then up stairs to their door, Samuel would always need my help to get all the way up there, then would flop down on the door step, until the door was answered and then pop up and say "trick-or-treat" then I would help him back down the stairs, but when we would get to the driveway, he would let go of my hand and start running, then rolling down the driveway.  When he would get to the bottom he would laugh and giggle and say how much fun that was, while I was trying to catch my breath, and keep him from rolling into the street.  It must have been quite a sight to see this little boy rolling down the driveway in a soccer ball costume.  Anyway it was exhausting for the both of us, and we soon headed home.  Samuel was so tired that when we got home, I gave him his one chocolate bar, and took him out of his costume, and helped the others kids get their piece of candy and put the rest away.  I realized I couldn't see Samuel, so I looked around and finally found him asleep in bed, still gripping his candy bar I had given him.  The poor boy was so exhausted he didn't even have the energy to eat any of his candy before falling asleep. 

 Joseph went as a solider, Austin as Snow White, Betsy as a Princess, Samuel as a soccer ball, and Travis wore his high school Letterman's jacket.  It was a good Halloween.

Now that I've explained the pictures, I'll give a few more updates.  I had my ultrasound at 24 weeks, and we're going to be having a boy.  I was shocked at first, I was so sure we were going to be having a girl, but I've adjusted and I'm happy to have another boy.  Austin was devastated as well, especially since that means the boys will out number the girls, but we had a talk and we're both happy about it now.  I'm now 30 weeks pregnant, and still not in perfect health, but much better then I was before.  I'm currently having trouble with itchy rashes on my hands, restless leg syndrome, and insomnia, which may just be something I need to deal with until after the baby is born.  Travis has been extremely busy with school work, but just has one last week for finals, and he'll get a nice two week Christmas break, which we are all looking forward too.  The kids and I love the Christmas season, and having been baking our Christmas cookies in preparation for Christmas Caroling in about a week. 

yogurt, sickness, and blessings

A few noteworthy things have happen in our household in the last week.  First of all, Travis, Austin and Joseph camped out in the parking lot of the Earthfruits Yogurt restaurant last Friday night, to earn free yogurt for a year.  They were having a grand opening and offering  free yogurt to the first 100 customers.  They had a great time camping out, and ended up earning 2 free yogurts for a year (52 coupons for free yogurt) and Austin got a $20 gift certificate.  My wonderful husband did it for me, since he knows how much I love yogurt, and since we can't really afford it, he camped out and got it for me for free.  Unfortunately, the timing wasn't so great, since Friday I got really sick, really fast.  I couldn't sit up or stand up without intense pressure and pain in my head, neck, and upper back, and I couldn't keep any food down.  By Saturday morning, after talking with my OBGYN and another nurse, they determined I needed to get to the ER.  Travis and the older kids were still camping, and I couldn't get a hold of him because his battery on his cell phone always dies.  I finally got my Visiting Teaching companion to watch my two youngest children, and take me to get Travis and to the ER.  After running some tests, the Dr. ruled out Meningitis and a few other things, and told me I probably just hurt my neck, and sent me home with a muscle relaxant prescription.  I got a hold of my cousin Eric who is a wonderful chiropractor and he came over Saturday night and adjusted my neck.  The next day some of the pain in my neck and back subsided but the rest was still overwhelming.  My cousin told me, it was probably nutrition related, and so I got an appointment for Tuesday morning with a naturopath/nutritionist  that has been recommend to me by my aunt, who has had lots of success with her.  Travis drove me to the appointment, and the Dr. was able to perform all her tests while I laid on he floor.  Her and another Dr. were able to determine that I have parasites, and I'm allergic to soy, the wireless signals cell phones and wireless Internet sends out, vitamin B6, and the growth hormone my body is producing to help the baby grow.  Anyway she was able to give me some drops under my tongue to ease some of the pain, and by the end of the appointment I was able to sit up for a short amount of time.  After paying the bill, which was over $400 we came home.  I was worried about the money because we're living off our savings, and have everything budgeted out for the next two years.  But when we got home their was a check from the GI bill for $500 that I wasn't expecting, so we are blessed.  The Lord works in mysterious ways, sometimes even through a government check.  Anyway, I've gradually gotten better, and I'm at the point where I can sit or stand for 5-10 minutes until I have to lay down again.  Travis has been wonderful taking care of a lot of my household duties, and getting the kids to and from school.  Although Travis has been getting a bit behind in his school wok, so I'm hoping to get back to healthy status very soon.  But I know the Lord is watching out for us and blessing us.

singing videos of kids

There is a website scriptures4kids.org where the kids can upload videos of themselves singing about Jesus, and Austin had done it awhile ago, and her video is on the website, and the other kids wanted to make videos too, so here they are.  I'm having trouble sending their videos to the website, so I decided to put them on the blog instead. 

Samuel's Scooter Accident

Samuel and his "owwies"

Austin comforting Samuel after his scooter accident

Travis  was picking the kids up from school on Friday, because I wasn't feeling very  well, and he and Samuel rode a scooter to get them.  Well just as they were getting to the school, the scooter hit a large crack in the sidewalk and Samuel face-planted onto the sidewalk.  Travis scooped him up, and saw his scraped up face and took him into the nurses office in the school, got him some  Tylenol and ice and picked up the kids, and ran Samuel home to me, while the kids kept up with Travis as best they could.  I was in my bed upstairs and heard Samuel's crying before they even got to the house.  I took Samuel in my arms, while Travis explained what happened, after about 10 more minutes Samuel finally calmed down and fell asleep.  We kept ice on his lip, it was quite swollen, and put antibiotic ointment on his scrapes.  He slept in my arms for 1-2 hours and then started waking up, crying about his face hurting.  But thankfully a package had just arrived from Grandma Kirkman for Betsy's birthday and she always puts things in it for all the kids.  Samuel was so excited about the package that he forgot about his face hurting for a little while.  For the rest of the day he was pretty sad, and trouble eating because his lip hurt, but with another dose of Tylenol and cartoons he made it through.  Saturday morning we had a list of chores for all the kids to do, and Samuel worked really hard and got all of his chores done so we took everyone to the farmer's market.  Samuel really wanted some of the produce at the farmer's market, and after looking at his face I couldn't turn him down, so he got most of the stuff he wanted.  He picked out a cantaloupe, and carried it the whole time, he didn't want anyone else touching his cantaloupe.  He ended up eating the whole thing, he loves cantaloupe.  He picked out corn too, but he ended up not being able to eat any until Sunday, because it hurt his lip too much.  Samuel has healed pretty quickly and his owwies are mostly gone now.  Last night Samuel was a little sneak.  In the middle of the night he snuck into my room and took my water that I keep by my night stand, and took it back into his room.  When I woke up at about 4 in the morning and went to grab my water, and was surprised to discover it wasn't there.  I knew I had put my water right there, and looked around to see if it fallen, but I couldn't find it, I woke up Travis and asked him if he knew where it was, and he didn't.  I got up and got another drink from the kitchen, and tried to go back to sleep.  But, of course I couldn't go back to sleep, I couldn't figure out where my water had disappeared too, so I finally got up again to check on the kids and make sure they were okay, and discovered my water cup on the dresser next to Samuel's bed.  I couldn't believe he had snuck into my room and taken my water cup, but I should have known, he is always taking my water cup during the day.  So anyway, I was finally able to go back to sleep.  When Samuel woke up I asked him why he took my water, and he said "cuz, I wanted to" silly boy, oh well, at least I know some physco didn't break into my house just to steal my water cup and make me think I'm losing my mind. 

Betsy's birthday and the 1st day of school

The boys Wrestling

Betsy wearing the dress her Grandma Hardy made for her (it also has a matching purse) 

Betsy's birthday cake that her Uncle Josh and his girlfriend Megan made for her

Samuel wishing he were going to school too

Joseph on the 1st day of School (he is growing up so fast)

Austin and Betsy wearing their capes, and loving Samuel

Betsy and Austin in new school clothes, Betsy wearing her oriental dress we brought her from Florida.

My sweet little Betsy Anne Kirkman turned 6 years old on Monday, and Travis and I had just flown back to Oregon from our 10-year anniversary vacation to Florida and the Bahamas.  We were flying back to Salt Lake City that afternoon, so we had Betsy's party at Grandma and Grandpa Hardy's house.  Betsy wanted to pick Blueberries for her birthday, sWo we went to a Blueberry farm and picked enough blueberries that we brought home a suitcase full of them.  When we got back from picking Blueberries, Betsy opened her presents, and we had cake and ice cream, with her cousins, and they played until it was time to fly home.  I think Betsy enjoyed her family party, and was very happy.  The next morning was the kids first day of school.  The kids were a little grumpy to wake up, because they got to sleep late the night before, but were fine by the time we walked them to school.  They all had a great first day at school, and seem pretty happy with school this whole week. 

Changes in the Kirkman household

Joseph climbing at Hueco Tanks, in El Paso, before we moved

Austin in the beautiful dress her Grandma Hardy made for her

Samuel and the bowl of strawberries we picked from our garden (in texas..I miss our garden)

Austin, Betsy, and I going to the Mother/Daughter dance, at the school before we moved

We didn't have a pool, so Samuel figured out his own way to beat the heat!

Travis and his welcome home cake I made for him

Joseph, Austin, and Sam posing at Heuco Tanks on our outing before we moved

All the kids at Hueco Tanks, they loved climbing..

Just before we moved we took all the beds out to the moving truck, and Samuel decided instead of sleeping on a mattress, that he wanted to sleep on the shelf, he was such a silly boy, but he pulled it off.

Joseph's 9th birthday just before we moved!

Austin building a fort at the children's museum in Albuquerque, on our trip to utah

Betsy making some shade to rest in, while Austin builds her fort

Daddy and Austin having fun, building with blocks and marbles, they made a neat contraption

Samuel doing a sommersault in our new house!

Austin lost one of her front teeth! Isn't she cute!

Well, a lot has happened since I last posted, the most important things, are that we worked like crazy ever since Travis got home, and got ready to move. We finally got everything done, and moved June 11th, we drove to Albuquerque, NM and stayed the night there. The next day was my birthday, so we stayed in Albuquerque, and played with the kids, we went to a fun children's museum called Explora, and after lunch, Travis took the kids back there, and let me go to a spa to get a body wrap, it was a very relaxing experience. After that we drove to Cortez, CO and had fun at a water park/recreation center, then we drove the rest of the way to Provo, UT. We stayed in a hotel that night, and the next day we moved into our new house that we're renting for the 2 years we will be here for. That weekend my parents were in town, so we did lots of fun things with them, and had a wonderful time except for the fact that when we went to a trampoline place Travis Sprained his ankle pretty bad. The poor guy was in a lot of pain for a long time, but finally now 6 weeks later it is close to normal again. Travis started the summer term at BYU in the chaplain program on June 21st and has been insanly busy with homework ever since, he only has time to eat, sleep, and shower. Travis is just finishing up the summer term, and we are both very excited for the break in homework. We found out shortly after arriving in Provo that I'm pregnant again. We we're not trying to get pregnant, in fact just before we moved we gave away all of our baby things, including maternity stuff. Despite all that, we are happy to be adding another life to our family. I had my first ulstrasound today since they thought my due date was off, they determined I'm due Febuary 19th. I would like to have a girl this time, but of course the boys want another boy. We've been working on settling into our new area, and getting to know people. It's been difficult since I'm exhausted and don't feel good a lot of the time, but now that I'm entering the 2nd trimester I'm feeling a little bit better, except for some digestion issues. The kids have loved playing in our backyard, full of soft green grass, a playhouse, trees, and several different swings. Last month we went to an outdoor movie at BYU, it was "planet 51" we walked since it's not to far from our house, and brought our blow up queen mattress. About 30 minutes before the movie ended it started pouring down rain, by the time we got home, we were drenched, it was quite the adventure. The thing I'm most excited about, is that my mother-in-law bought Travis and a cruise to the Bahamas, and for our 10 year anniversary we're flying to Portland, dropping off the kids at my parents house, and taking a 10-day trip to florida and the Bahamas, I can't wait!!!