four, flirty, and thriving

Carli is absolutely boy crazy. She flirts shamelessly with every male she meets. The boy on her right is Mike (Kristin's fiancee), and the one on her left is Tim (Stacey's boyfriend). Kristin is my sister that was living with us, and Stacey is Spencer's sister that is now living with us. I think we are the love guru's, because everyone that comes to live with us gets married within 6 months. Spencer's brother, Sterling, lived with us in Tucson, and was engaged the next semester.

Anyway, Carli set the table so that her two "boyfriends" could sit right by her. She is loving life, because they come over everyday.

I am very scared of what she will be like as a teenager. We only have 8 more years to prepare. We're thinking about home schooling or catholic school. haha.

Moments in every day life

It's hard to believe these cute, happy faces could ever be grouchy, obstinate, or difficult.

This little girl is my niece, Makayla. Doesn't she have just the most squeezable cheeks? (by the way, Kristin is in no way picking her nose. She just has an "itch") haha
Carli absolutely loves doing puzzles. She'll put together 5 puzzles in 30 minutes.
The best present Santa could have given us: a trampoline. Nothing like jumping off all their energy!

Trying a new sport

Even though Cale is so short for his age, we put him in BB this year.
Because his shot is 5 ft. too short, I'm guessing he probably won't ever be a BB star, but the skills and coordination in any sport are very valuable for a little kid to learn.

Anyway, poor Cale is just not competitive at all. Just like soccer, he is in his own world half the game. He could care less where the ball is or what he's supposed to be doing. But he has such good character-he's always so happy and content out on the court doing everything but paying attention. Take today's game for instance:
It was close to the end of the game, and he hadn't touched the ball yet. The coaches were trying to tell the other players to pass to Cale, so one finally did. Cale caught it in surprise, and started dribbling towards the wrong basket. The whole crowd was yelling at him to go the other way. He looked at me, confused, and accidentally dribbled the ball off his toe. His teammate recovered the ball and started dribbling back the right way. Again, the coaches said,"pass it to Cale!" So, he passed it to Cale, but unfortunately Cale was still thinking about what went wrong in the last play, and the ball banged him right in the forehead! The whole crowd laughed and Cale laughed right along with us, giving his head a good rub. Again, his team recovered the ball, and they tried one more time to pass it to Cale. This time, they succeeded, and he grabbed the ball, turned, dribbled, and shot (of course, his shot was about 5 feet too short). I was so proud of him. He's so cute out there. I sure wish I had gotten that on video!

Bring on the New Year

We don't like to pack up and go somewhere for Christmas-it's just too hard with 3 kids anymore. So we usually spend New Years with family.
(We visited the Pheonix Children's museum on our way out of town, and I thought this was a cute picture)
This year it was with the Jarvis family in Yuma, AZ. All of Spencer's siblings were there, and we had some crazy times. We decided to do a family picture in the desert. We gathered rocks to form our name,
and then we took pictures with our rock name.
I don't have any pictures of the whole Jarvis family, but hopefully I'll get them soon from Spencer's Dad. But we did take some of just our little family.

We also shot guns out in the desert. I haven't shot guns in years, and I'd forgotten how exhilarating and fun it is.
And of course we have throw up stories to add to our Yuma adventures. I was sick Christmas Eve and Christmas, and apparantly the virus stuck around for 4 more days, because Cale puked all over himself in the car on the way to Yuma. I thought by 6 years old, children would be able to communicate when they feel the awful urge to regurgitate, but apparently not. Maybe next year.
Then Carli got sick in Yuma, throwing up all over her bed (unprotected mattress and all). And then Danielle got it as soon as we got home, along with Kristin, Mike, and Spencer following shortly thereafter. It's always so exciting to look forward to every holiday being plagued with sickness.

We survived December!

Poor Danielle is at the age when she has a constant bump on her forehead from falling all the time. This particular bump is from a wall edge.
Every year I want to simplify Christmas so I can REALLY enjoy it without the stress, but I don't know what to cut out! I love all the presents, decorating, food, service, crafts, visiting family, parties, etc. So I have decided to just do it all and spend 10 minutes every night screaming and crying until I feel better. jk. It's not that bad.

It just seemed worse this year because I had to teach joy school and sharing time, along with accompanying Cale's elementary school at their Winter Concert.


Spencer let the kids go onto the roof with him while putting up the lights. aaaahahggh

Cale's elementary school Winter Concert.Cale is of course on the front row with all the short girls. haha


Danielle was a little sheep when we acted out the nativity for the joy school christmas party.

Christmas morning before we went downstairs. My kids are weird. They don't like to hang out in their pajamas. They all want to get dressed right when they wake up, and Carli wanted to wear a beautiful Christmas dress.

opening presents. Santa brought a trampoline this year. We finally have a yard to get one!

Thanks-Aspen-Grove-ing

If you've never been to the mountains in Utah, you need to go! They are absolutely beautiful and amazing. My parents rented a lodge in Aspen Grove, which is up the mountain near Sundance Ski Resort. We had close to 50 people there. I have 7 sisters and one brother, so the crowd is a little too overwhelming to fit in my parent's modest home in Eagle Mountain. We had one lodge where all of us slept. There were 8 rooms and bathrooms. Then another building had a kitchen, living room, and a huge upper floor full of pool tables, ping pong tables, a flatscreen TV, etc. It was the perfect place for all the cousins to hang out. Thanks, Mom and Dad!


This is the ride up to Utah-we drove halfway to Vegas and stayed in the hotel that Spencer stays in while he works. Then we drove the rest of the way to Utah. Spencer's parent's let us use their mini van so we could have a little more room for the long trip.


I'm so glad it snowed a little while we were at my parent's house! Here's Cale and Danielle playing in the snow.
All the cousins playing at Aspen Grove
Turkey Trot runners! It was a 5k up the mountain. I was not ready for that with the higher altitude and cold weather. Plus, there are virtually no hills in Phoenix to run on! I pretty much died. Right after I ran it, I got sick and was down for the rest of the vacation with a cough and fever.
Grammy also had a race-against the grandkids. Who ever could beat her won a prize.
a little snow wrestling was also included in our festivities
As well as puzzle contests.
We also celebrated my parent's 40th anniversary by guessing the year of each of these photographs-one for each year of their marriage. I got the idea from Stacy!




Thanksgiving dinner. Too bad I was too sick to really enjoy it.
Kammi, Julianne, Donna, Brooke, and Kristin
My whole family! If you know everyone than you are truly my friend! haha
Pam also had made REAL gingerbread houses with the cousins.
Don't Kammi and Brooke look alike? Brooke is 15-Donna's oldest child. Kammi is 19, my youngest sister.
From the grouchy faces of our kids, you can tell it is the end of a long and exhausting week.
This is 10 minutes later in the car on the way home.
The vacation ended perfectly with Carli puking all over herself and the car. I'm just glad my nose was stuffed so I couldn't smell a thing.