Ordained

Yesterday was Steve's official ordination at our church.  It was so fun having most of his family in for the special day.  Looks like our time together is going to be a little longer, everyone's flights are cancelled b/c of the storm.  Who knows when they'll all get home!!

Sweet Boy

Boys

Out of the Mouths...

Aaron has a way with the babies around here.  Josiah loves him and always giggles in his presence.  Today, Aaron was working his magic with his cousin Aiden.  Aiden was laughing so loud at Aaron.  Ashley and I were talking about how good Aaron was the babies.

Aaron comes over and whispers in my ear:

"Mom, I am a baby's dream come true."

He's Back!!

This weekend Steve is getting officially ordained at church.  We are so happy that some of his family is coming in for the event.  Ashley was so sweet and wanted to make the trip again even though she was just here.  Nobody knew she was coming except for Jeremy and I.  It was so fun to see the look of surprise on everyone's face when she showed up at church yesterday.
The kids are so happy to have Aunt Ashley and Aiden back.  Such a doll baby he is!!

11 Months

Not a great expression but the great lighting makes up for it, right??

A little dirt never hurt anyone, right?

Baby boy finally learned how to do "So Big!!".  You can see the look of accomplishment on his face.  Love it.

A few more

This would be my perfect shot if I could just move Aaron's head over about 3 inches!!  Grr...

All Five

For awhile now I've been wanting to capture a good shot of all my kids.  Life is so full I just wasn't taking the time to make it happen.  I finally decided that I needed to just get out there or else it would soon get too cold.

We had a beautiful evening tonight.  Though as I'm looking at my images I'm struggling...I did not get the perfect shot that I wanted.  It seems that photographing ones own 5 children has now become its own Olympic sport...and there is no medal ceremony at the end.  Holy cow, it is hard work.  All the poses that I had in my head were just not working out.

I know that even in just a few months I am going to look back and think that these pictures are sweet in spite of all their imperfections.  Life is never perfect so why should I expect my photo to be???

Here are just a few.  I'll post a more when I have a chance to do some more editing.

This is my favorite shot of the night.  

Let's go fly a kite

This week has been perfect weather to fly a kite.  Of all my years as a mother, I don't think I have even seen them fly as successfully as they have this week.  Aaron got this kite as a prize at a birthday party this summer and he waited to pull it out until now.  Great timing, bud.

Morgan's  homemade kite.  It was a success as well.

Applesauce

This last week mom and I have made a bunch of applesauce.  It's one of my favorite things to can/freeze because it is so easy and everyone loves it.

Morgan turned the sink into apple bobbing.

Love the hat

Morgan "smashed" the sauce for hours

And mom peeled for hours!

Starting to freeze.  I froze more than normal this year b/c I prefer it that way, I love the texture when it's almost thawed.  We'll see if I regret using my freezer space for that!!

That's a lot of taters

The other night I had Claudia scrub potatoes for supper, her instructions were to scrub one for each person.  When I came back into the kitchen and saw the potatoes I was convinced that she had scrubbed too many.  I counted...and she was right.  That's a lot of taters.

Tea Party

Claudia had a great time creating another tea party for Greta and Lexie last weekend.  Lexie is only 2 and Shannon wasn't sure how she would do at the party.  But she did great and seemed to love it!!

Claudia has such a passion about doing things like this.  She thanks me for letting her do it.  She was excited and working all week to make things perfect.  Maybe I see a future career here??  The menu this time: ham and cheese pretzel bites, fruit kabobs, peanut butter cookies (in the shape of buttons), and chocolate cupcakes with vanilla icing.

Lexie's face was hilarious, she was watching everything Claudia did was proceeded with much caution.

Funny, this was just last weekend and the girls are in short sleeves.  This Sat. morning we are sitting here all bundled up and there is frost on the ground!!