Breath of Heaven

One tradition we have on Christmas Eve is to watch the Nativity video. We watch the original version first, and then we always watch it with the "Breath of Heaven" song, so when I saw this video on youtube, I had to share. My kids love it. We usually end up watching it several times because they can't get enough.



On a personal note. All is still well with us. Emma has strep at the moment, but we are hoping to have the house aired out and everyone well before the baby is due to come in 11 DAYS! I am not feeling quite ready yet (although I am feeling plenty huge). My to-do list is a mile long and somedays I am in panic mode wondering how I will possibly accomplish all I want before our new little one arrives.

all I want for Christmas....

is my two front teeth!
Ok so we weren't back from our blogging hiatus for long, but believe me I have really good intentions.....just bear in mind that at the moment we are still running our business, Chris is teaching school and basketball season has officially started which means I see my husband....never. O yeah and did I mention I am nearly 8 months preggo, Christmas is fast approaching and we are making a mad dash to get our basement officially finished before the baby is born...or at least before she turns 2. YES, she is a girl! Owen is destined to be completely outnumbered.

Back from a blogging hiatus...

For everyone who has been wondering and for the numerous people who have asked....we are alive and well. We have just been a little overloaded with responsibilities during the last few months and to be quite honest there have been many times when I have felt overwhelmed and inadequate. Some things had to take the back burner for a while and unfortunately blogging was one of them...although I am sort of regretting it because I am not sure where to begin with the updates. I decided to start with family pictures. We had a friend of ours take some pictures of all of us at the beginning of the summer (before I was looking very pregnant) and I still have not done anything with them. Owen was, of course, less than cooperative and I am finding that as we add more little ones to our family, the odds of getting great group shots drops dramatically.

Here is us....
Owen...


Sweet Lily...

Emma...


Grace...

The Girls...



Our four...


Just the two of us...Our Family...


We are so thankful for these little spirits that have been entrusted to us. They are beautiful inside and out!

Do you ever have days like this?

Do you ever have a day when...
...no one will listen to you?

...you spend nearly every waking moment settling fights?

...everyone complains about what you are making for dinner?

...your kids come across the parade candy they were saving and the baby gets ahold of it and sticks suckers to your furniture and spits tootsie rolls out on the floor?

...your kids say they are going outside to play in the sprinklers, only to come in 30 minutes later covered in mud from the mud fight they decided to have?

...while you are cleaning the above mentioned muddy kids up, they proceed to tell you that the big sister told the little sister to fill up a water bottle with hose water and drink it...and she did...AND YOUR HOSE WATER IS PUMPED FROM AN IRRIGATION DITCH!!!...we are seriously praying that she doesn't catch something totally scary.

...your baby (who is OBSESSED with being nakie and removes his clothes and diapers frequently throughout the day) decides to get nakie when there is poopoo in his diaper? AND he leaves it in the middle of the living room floor? AND his unassuming sister comes through doing cartwheels...and you guessed it...smears poopoo across the carpet?

AHHHH!!! What a day! Everyone is sleeping now and I'm regaining some sanity by sitting in my quiet house and checking my email...and I just learned something I never knew before and can't wait to try, but I'll have to wait, because I don't have any bananas. Seriously...check this out...how do you open your bananas? I always get a knife because, if I don't, by the time I get the top opened, the first 2 inches of banana is mush.

Abre uma banana como um macaco @ Yahoo! Video

Treasures...

We had some exciting news to share with the littles, so rather than just tell them...because that would be boring...we took them on a treasure hunt.
In the treasure box, was this paper detailing our surprise and, of course, a whole lotta loot. (click to enlarge the pic if your having trouble reading it)
"In the eternal perspective, children-not possessions, not position, not prestige- are our greatest jewels." President Ezra Taft Benson
Needless to say...we are all REALLY excited!

Blogging Backlog

I started this catch-up post before the events of the last week interrupted life as we knew it... when our biggest worries were the flu and the aftermath it had left. It's really long and has a lot of pictures.(once again, I wish I were experienced in collages)

We are all finally better at our house. The house has been swept, scrubbed and disinfected and the literally MOUNTAINS of towels, bedding and clothes have been washed(put away is another story).

So, I was in need of some serious catching up in the blogging department before the flu interrupted normalness at our house....and normalness was actually crazy busyness, but we are starting to get used to it.

As I mentioned before, we started off the first two weeks of summer with 2 extras tagging along with our brood. So, in an effort to maintain sanity, we frequented the park and pool to give my house a break from the 6 sometimes wild kids running through it.

Tavaci...
The girls had their Tavaci concert the evening of the last day of school. They absolutely LOVE Tavaci and we were all sad when Kelli decided to call it quits for the sake of spending more time with her family (so sad for the rest of us, but totally understandable).
Here are the pics of them decked out in their super-fancy-show-duds. Naturally, they were less than cooperative when posing, but I've come to expect it.
South Dakota...

After the Tavaci concert, we went home and slept for a few hours and then got on the road for South Dakota to attend Chris's grandparents 60th wedding anniversary. The celebration was held at a park in Sturgis that was super fun. The kids had a blast on all of the equipment that included slides made just for climbing, lots of climbing walls and this little teeter-totter something that Chris and Mikala are shown demonstrating.

As long as we were in the area, we had to do the tourist thing and check out Mount Rushmore, Storybook Island and Old MacDonald's Farm(a crowd favorite).
Mount Rushmore
Unfortunately, it was freezing cold and raining and when we went to Mount Rushmore, this was all we could see...fog. Grace is showing her sisters where the faces are supposed to be.
It was really ok though, because we had just been there last fall.
The littles enjoyed the visitors center...
especially this little attraction where you choose a piece of the mountain and pump(not sure if that's the correct term) the dynamite and blow part of the mountain away on the screen.
Old Mac's Farm
My kids absolutely LOVE Old Mac Donald's farm. When you buy your admission there, it is good for 3 days, so we went back a few times since they were having so much fun. The kids loved feeding the animals and riding the ponies. There were lots of little baby animals that were so sweet. This sheep stood by the machine and helped himself when you tried to buy food.


Pig races...
We rode little horses...and pet BIG ones. This one actually bit Emma's shoulder. I think he was trying to taste her hair.

Bottle-feeding the babies...

The girls were amazed that this bunny was hanging with the chicks.Owen loved chasing the chickens and turkeys.



Storybook Island
Storybook Island is another one of our favorites and the best part is that admission is free.