Merry Christmas Everyone!

Oh, I love this time of year!!  This season has been particularly great because our family has been studying Jesus The Christ in addition to our morning scripture study.  The Bishopric challenged every person in our ward this year to memorize the Living Christ document.  It's been challenging but well worth the effort and as a result this Christmas season has been more meaningful than ever before.  I feel like I know my Savior Jesus Christ a little bit better now and my appreciation for his birth, life, death, and resurrection has grown immensly.  One of my favorite parts of the Living Christ states:  He gave his life to atone for the sins of all mankind.  His was a great vicarious gift in behalf of all who would ever live upon the earth.  I know this is true and I want our focus to be on him this Christmas season.  I'm looking forward to a nice evening with our little family and grateful that we get to have my Grandma Johnson and our dear friend, Susan with us.  Some of our Christmas Eve traditions include:  a fancy dinner, acting out the nativity scene, a little talent show, a short movie, "magic sleeping potion" (hot chocolate), a quick reading of "Twas the Night Before Christmas," and then a quick scattering of Reindeer food on the snow covered lawn before we hop in bed.  Merry Christmas to everyone!   

Before and After!

Morgan has worn braces and an expander for 11 months now and just got them taken off yesterday!  She'll have to have a second set of braces at around 11 years old but until then, she'll have a beautiful confident smile!   Here is the before and after:

                                                                             BEFORE

                                     The day she got them on, (not as fun as she thought it would be) 

AFTER

I love this picture!!  She just looks so happy and confident!

Checking out her new smile!  A big thanks to Dr. Elison of Elison Orthodontics for the great work!  

Birthday Boy!

We celebrated Kaleb's 5th B-Day on Saturday!  He was soooo excited about turning "5" just so he could be the same age as all of his buddies in the ward, so it was a great day!  G&G Rose and Grandma Johnson came to celebrate with us which made it all the better.  I'm not sure if Kaleb was overwhelmed or what but he was a man of few words the entire day, in fact, G&G Teichert called that morning and he barely said 2 words to them. Anyway, he was so pleased with his gifts but was not overly excited until everyone left and then the fun began.  He was so excited to try out his new remote control helicopter from Grandma and Grandpa Rose and gave it a really good crash landing (just to break it in) you know how that goes??  We thought he'd broken it but I was able to fix it and off it went again.  Anyway, he is all about remote control anything these days so he was in heaven with his new gifts.  He and Morgan went and played out in the snow in his nice new snow gear from G&G Teichert and his new sled from Morgan & Regan!  He was being such a poser in his new stuff and just cracking me up!  Thanks to everyone for making it such a special day for Kaleb.  As far as the cake went, he wanted to pretty much do it himself (as you can tell)!  He piled as many of his cars (previously washed) on top of the race track cake and was pleased as he could be.  I despise B-Day cake so I didn't really care.  Anway, he is such a delightful kid (most of the time)!  Some of my favorite things about him are his even temper, his cute smile, his desire to be a "good boy," his patience with the Kam and Porter, his excitement for preschool and all the new things he's learning, his honesty, just a quick example of just how honest he tries to be, we celebrated Thanksgiving in Blackfoot at my parents house.  Mom needed more room for food on the kitchen counters so she decided to move all of the pies in one of the bedrooms on the floor.  Kaleb went in to check all the yumminess out and while drooling over the huge selection, accidentally fell in to one of the pies.  He came in to me quietly and  led me in to the room to show me the damage, which really wasn't much.  I could tell he felt much better after confessing his sins:)  (hahaha)  He tries really hard to keep his room clean and takes really good care of his stuff, and he has a smile that just melts your heart.  I love him so much and we are so glad he's a part of our family!  Happy Birthday Buddy!

life lately...

*  Porter's acting like a typical "2" year old.  Giant tantrums, screaming in my face, etc.  It's not cute, but, I'm keeping my cool and we're working through it. 
* Jordyn's stomach problems continue but seem to be worse than ever right now.  As a result we spent 3 hours in and out of the Dr's office yesterday, took a trip to the hospital for an x-ray of her stomach, a visit to Walmart to spend another chunk of money on another medicine that probably won't help.  Thankfully, I have a little 4 year old that is as good as gold.  Really, he's such a good kid and patiently waited, hungry belly and all while his sister got checked out.  The babies held up pretty well until an hour past lunch, then it got a little ugly.  Oh well, we made it through. 
* not sure whether sending Jordyn to school while all this is going on is a good idea.  She's obviously not contagious but she doesn't feel good but if I let her stay home, she'd miss the whole year.  What to do?
*  after cutting wheat out of her diet for 2 weeks and seeing no improvement, we're on to cutting out all dairy for the next  two weeks.  I think we might be on to something, the cheesecake we had for FHE didn't sit well with her at all. 
*  I wish I had all the answers. 
*  I feel bad that she hurts so much, I just want her to enjoy life as a 7 year old
*  It could be worse, much, much, worse and I do recognize that.  I'm grateful that it's not.
*  The holiday season is upon us.  Our house is decorated and the Christmas music is playing around the clock. I really love this time of year, and believe it or not, I'm enjoying all the wintry weather we're experiencing.  It just adds to the mood of the season!
*  We have one excited boy that is having a B-day this weekend.  He is SOOOO excited he can barely stand it.  All he wants is a remote control helicopter.  So much that he tried to make his own:  2 pencils, one taped across the other, one for the body,one for the wings, and tons of tape to hold it together, then he attached a long piece of yarn to it and has been "flying" it off the banister and he's thrilled with it. 
*  I've been missing my brother and his family a lot this week.  They live in Florida and we rarely see them.  I always miss them but for some reason it's been a tough week.
* We had an awesome ward party last night.  We went caroling in small groups to many of our ward members and delivered goodies to them.  The snow was lightly falling, not a ounce of wind, and the temperature was great. The kids were so excited and sang their hearts out.  I love our ward and I loved seeing the reaction of the people as they opened their doors.
*  Regan has a choir concert tomorrow night.  I get to make goodies for the bake sale and I also get to work there.  I think I'm excited:)!
* I'm missing DJ's work party tonight that I look forward to every year due to this crazy time of life we are currently in.  I'm glad he still gets to go.
*  Thanksgiving was great even though we had to change our plans due to icy roads.  My kids had a great time at Grandma and Grandpa Rose's house.  The food was amazing!!!  We got to spend time with Grandma Johnson, we worked on a cute quilt to donate to a shelter, (Morgan particularly loved this project), we relaxed and just had a great time.  I was so disappointed that we couldn't make it to Promentory with the rest of our family but I'm glad that we didn't try to go because just driving home from Blackfoot was treacherous that night.
*  I'm glad I live in the same town as my Grandma J.  She's an amazing person.  I picked her up from the bus stop yesterday after a 5 day trip to Utah.  The people coming off the bus before her commented on what a neat person she is.  I'm proud to be her granddaughter.
*  I love to cook and try new recipes and consider myself pretty brave in this area.  As far as crafting goes, I totally don't trust myself and my brain gets frazzled even thinking about a project.  Once again, I find myself wondering how my sisters are so dang crafty and I don't have even an ounce of it in me.
*  I find pictures like this around the house all of the time.  Jordyn LOVES to draw, this is one of her latest creations:

I love the little captions:  "Don't I look pretty,"  Don't I look fabulous" Illustrated by Jordyn Teichert 

The spelling of the words makes me laugh.  It's really amazing that she is such a great reader because the spelling is not quite there:)