Christmas 2011

Christmas was wonderful, full of warmth, family, friends and food. All of my favorite things. I love nothing more than to see the excitement of my kids around the holidays and to see our families coming together and the house full of laughter. I love every minute of it! And this year was extra special, my little Rori has had a tough year. She has been having a real hard time finding her place in this crazy family and she makes sure that she does not go unseen. How does she do this? Well, chances are you have seen most of my blog posts. The one thing that makes her behave a little more and really gets her attention is every year when Santa comes to town and brings fun little gifts! So why not reward all the naught behavior she has had all year with a special visitor?! Yes, that is right. Santa came all the way from the freaking NORTH POLE to personally deliver my Rori a message in PERSON!!! And of course to say hello to all the other kids. It is something that I'm sure my kids and everyone else will always remember, a memory for the books for sure. It all started here, at our home. There was a loud knock at the door and I told Jameson to go get the door. I watched him as he started walking towards the door and came to a dead stop, took 2 steps back and said in a very serious voice "Mom... It's Santa".

Sure enough it was the jolly old man himself! All of the kids got so excited and so quiet real fast but Rori knew exactly why he was there. All of the other kids ran up to him just staring, happy and full of joy that he was there. Not Rori, she took off running the opposite direction into our bathroom behind the kitchen where she was HIDING!! It took some coaxing, no more like we physically picked her up for her to come out of her hiding spot. Then Santa sat her on his lap and told her she needed to try extra hard and be extra nice from then on. No more stealing, lying... the list goes on. And she agreed. Then Santa talked to all the other kids and everyone got a chance to sit on his lap and he gave little gifts and was on his way. No more than 2 minutes after Santa left did Rori Ana say, in a very snotty way "I aint dowing to be nice no mo! I'm not! I'm donna be naughty! Not a dood dirl!" So much for that whole thing. Oh well, the other kids enjoyed it.

Then it was Christmas morning! The kids were up bright and early, as usual. The whole house always has such a special feeling in it on Christmas morning, everyone is so excited and all the hard work finally pays off when they run downstairs and see that the cookies and milk are gone, there are wrapped presents under the tree, the reindeer food has been eaten and the whole family is together around the tree.

This is my favorite gift of all. This was Rory's scooter when he was a young boy and he has since passed it on to Jameson. James has easily 4 other scooters (I know, what does he need them all for I'm not sure) and this one has always been his very favorite one. He says it jumps higher and goes faster and does way better tricks than any other scooter in the whole world! Well after years of abuse from Rory and now from Jameson it was not scootin' so well anymore. So, Rory took it to his shop and it got a total makeover. New wheels, bolts replaced and tightened and a new paint job! It is still the same old scooter but now it jumps even HIGHER!!

Yes, I got the babies leashes. Go ahead! Make fun of me, I know I did when I saw other parents holding their children on leashes! But, I'm one of them now. I have total control! When the girls dart off in different directions I give a quick snap on that leash and BAM!!! There they are at my side! Plus... we were going to Disneyland. Give me a break.

All year Chanel was asking for an Easy Bake Oven. She told Santa and she wrote it down on every one of her lists. She begged and pleaded and guess what was waiting under that tree. She was such a good girl this year, how could she not get that Easy Bake Oven?! Here she is waiting for her first batch of cookies. She takes after the Royce side of the family, always baking, cooking, sewing, crafting etc. I just love her!

This is what it looks like AFTER all the warmth leaves the house and the fuzzies inside kind of start to go away when I see this....

Christmas day is always so crazy for us. First we do our Christmas, then we are off to Grandma and Grandpa Royce's where we eat lots of good food, open more gifts and play out the night baby Jesus was born.

Here are some of the wise men...

Grandma makes the best Christmas gifts ever! Here are all the grand kids in their cool robes!

Then we go to Nana's (my mom) and we eat MORE yummy food and open more gifts and eat our homemade tamale's and spend the time with more family.

Then we go see Grandma and Grandpa Earle! Eat more yummy treats, open more amazing gifts and usually by that time we are about wiped out, as you can see in the picture.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Waaaayyyy Behind...

Boy, I am really far behind on my blog and I really wish I had a good reason for it... but I don't. I am pretty far behind on almost everything! I will keep procrastination in mind this year when I make my New Year's resolution!
Okay, I am going to run through the last few months as fast as I can. A lot more happened than what your going to see here but I have also been slacking on taking pictures lately too (something else to remember)....

I'm going to go cleeeeaaarrrr back to Aug 1st because I forgot to write about this:
On the morning of Aug 1st my little Rori Ana came into our room around 7:30 and said she wanted a bike with pedals (she has been riding a push bike) and she DID NOT want training wheels. So, we got her a bike with pedals that day, the next morning she came in and said "I towd you I didn't want twaining wheews!" I didn't think she was ready, she had just learned how to pedal but her daddy had all the confidence in the world so off came the training wheels....

.... and away went Rori Ana, she never even skipped a beat.


Next we started soccer! This was Chanel's first year and let me tell you she is one amazing little kicker! She is a very strong player and she isn't afraid to bully her way through the field. Jameson is on his third year of soccer and he gets better every year, this year he had a few moments where he just got bored of the whole thing but I told he him he wouldn't move onto football until I could see that he tried his best. Now he is one of the best players out there! Luckily we take a break from soccer during the cold winter so we will have more pictures come this spring.

Rori Ana is LOVING school and she got to go to her first field trip!! They went to the grocery store and learned how everything works there. She has this weird thing where she will do just fine and cooperate with her class and teachers perfectly... Unless I am there?! If I am there she will completely shut down and won't budge! So she had to get towed around the whole grocery store by Miss Mindy. Hopefully this is just another phase and she will get better soon.
We have been spending a lot of time with cousins! We went to the zoo and we went to Bear Lake. The kids have so much fun together and it is always nice to be with family.
Sep 12th
Nelly's whole little life she has had a problem with her tonsils. She was always getting sore throats and strep. She snored louder than most full grown men and it would keep her awake at night. I was really hoping she would grow into those nasty tonsils but instead the tonsils just got bigger as she got bigger. We finally decided to go ahead with the surgery. I left it completely up to her, I told her it would hurt and that she really needed to think about whether or not she wanted them out. She opted to have them out! She was so brave through the whole thing, she never got scared, even when I explained how they would be doing the surgery and how it would feel. She did amazing.
This is before:

I was able to stay with her while they put her under then it was time to go out to the waiting room. When I saw them carry her away I immediately started bawling! It's funny, I consider myself to be pretty tough. I don't cry for hardly anything at all, I hate crying! I get so embarrassed and I have always believed crying doesn't fix anything. But when I see something happen to my kids, even something as simple as them taking out their stupid tonsils I LOSE IT!! It was so humiliating to walk out to the waiting room and sit there and cry because chanel was getting her tonsils out! You would have though something horrible just happened. But it was all done and over with pretty quick and she was only down for a couple of weeks! Now she feels better, breaths better and sounds better! It all paid off!
Sept 24th

My baby boy blew out 8 candles this year!!! I can't even believe it. He is so big, so smart and so talented in everything he does. I couldn't be more proud!!



He says he is "too old" for a blow up house in the backyard. This is the first year he didn't want that and to be honest it kind of broke my heart. I don't blame him for wanting something different but I was a little sad that he is getting too old for that kind of stuff. So we talked it over and after going over lots of different ideas he chose rock climbing! It turned out great!

.... and what did the birthday boy get this year?? A baby blue bird we call blueberry. He loves her very much and so do I.

To wrap up our summer we went to Moab. We did lots of bike riding while we were there and little Rori Ana managed to run right into a concrete wall going as fast as her little bike could go. We did some hiking and swimming in the creek and even got in a little rock climbing. It was a perfect way to say goodbye to the warm days.

People stare at us when we drive down the road in Rory's monster truck.

Next was Halloween. This year was just as fun as in the past and this was Ava Lyn's first year going trick or treating all by herself! Rori went on another field trip with her class, this time to the pumpkin patch...

Then the 3 older kids had their Halloween parties...

Then we carved our pumpkins and of course I forgot to take a picture of how they turned out!! Chanel and Rori Ana had Hello Kitty pumpkins, Ava had Mickey Mouse and Jameson had a scary face. All of them turned out awesome, I'm really mad at myself for not taking a picture because I think this years pumpkins turned out better than any of the past years!

Rori Ana was a princess....

Ava was a baby giraffe...

Jameson was a ninja and Chanel was a dead bride! My days of choosing my kids' costumes are over, they each have a mind of their own but I think they did a pretty darn good job at choosing what to be this year.

Ava is all grown up now. We no longer have a baby to put in the crib Rory made for our girls. I was so sad to take it down, it is a beautiful 4 post iron crib, all handmade with love. Rory made it for me when I found out I was having Chanel, little did we know at the time that we would have 2 other baby girls that would sleep in it too.

Now it is officially winter. And I hate every minute of it. But the kids make the best of it...

This year we had 3 Thanksgivings! The first one was at my house, this was the very first year I have ever hosted Thanksgiving dinner at my house! I had a dinner for my dad and all of my brothers and I was so nervous!! I planned and stressed and prepared and planned and stressed all week. I wish I would have gotten a picture (again, slacking on the picture taking) but everything turned out great! I made a gigantic feast and everything was fabulous, I look forward to having a Thanksgiving dinner every year at my house from now on.

Rory did manage to get a picture of the turkey...

So that about sums it up. Our summer was filled with lots of warm, sunny, fun days. We soaked up every minute of it and spent every day outside. That is probably why I neglected the blog so much. But now I should have plenty of time to write since I am stuck in the house for the next 4 or 5 months. And we have lots of things planned, I look forward to writing about them!