Quiet Christmas morning

There will be more pictures to follow, but this is the first Christmas morning picture.  Calm, clean, quiet.  I love how pretty Christmas is at our house with decorations on the mantle, stockings hanging by the fireplace, and our tree in the window!

Temple Square Family Night

We went to Temple Square to see the lights for family night.  Despite some whining from Nicholas, it turned out to be a really fun night!

Madelynn, Daniel, Alex, and Nicholas at the fountain in front of the Conference Center.  This was before Nicholas got ornery and would not only be in a picture, but would smile in a picture.

Madelynn and Ben watching the Nativity

Alex and Nicholas in the visitor's center

Nicholas, Alex, and Daniel

Daniel, me, and Alex, the only kids who were happy at this point, in front of one of the trees made of lights.

Ben and me.  We're in love.

Beautiful!!

We went to Grandma Larsen's house to see her for her birthday.  Stupid that I am, I didn't get any pictures of my grandma, but I did snap this one picture of Madelynn looking at her Christmas tree.  I thought it turned out so pretty!

Office

At Ben's work they switched the office all around, including Ben's whole department.  He had to go in on a Saturday and get everything set up for Monday.  Not wanting to give up our daddy on a Saturday, we went in with him to "help".  While there the kids each sat at a cubicle and played office to keep them busy while Ben did the real work. 

Alex in the big boss' desk

Daniel taking calls

Nicholas hard at work

Better Madelynn play on this computer than mine!

Gammon Christmas Party

Today was the Gammon family Christmas party.  Madelynn hasn't been feeling that well, but we decided she was doing better and went anyway.  We had a lunch of assorted soups with corn dogs for the kids and then the kids got to be in the Christmas program where they acted out the Nativity.  Ales and Daniel were in it, but Nicholas decided he didn't want to this year so he just watched.

Daniel being a star in the Nativity

Alex was also a star

Kira, Ben, Madelynn, and Nicholas watch the Nativity

Then, as always, Santa comes so the kids can tell him what they want for Christmas.

Alex

Daniel

Nicholas

Teah and Madelynn hate Santa.  This was the best picture we could get until it all fell apart.

 Then they bring in the Pinatas and the kids get lots of candy!

Nicholas about to hit the pinata

The rest of us are good to just watch the kids hit the pinata and then go through their candy later to get what we want.

Gingerbread Train

Every year the kids want to make something out of gingerbread for Christmas.  This year I found a train for them to make and decorate but made the error of buying it before Thanksgiving.  I told them they couldn't make it until after Thanksgiving was over so here we are, not even December yet, but making our gingerbread train for Family Night right after Thanksgiving.

Everyone liked helping to put candy on the train, Madelynn was just helping to sneak candy.

Madelynn, Daniel, Alex, and Nicholas

I caught Nicholas stealing candy

Just a few more finishing touches, while Madelynn eats more candy

"All finished, now let's eat it!"

Stitches!!

In the spirit of not wanting to be outdone by Nicholas, although he has a long way to go, this Thanksgiving, we got to spend the evening at the ER with Daniel getting stitches.  After spending Thanksgiving at Sandy's house with Ben's family, some of us headed out to Ben's Uncle Wes and Aunt Jeannie's house to visit.  While there, Daniel hit his head on the edge of a coffee table and split open his head just over his left eye.  We decided  his injury wasn't so severe that we couldn't go home first, so we drove the nearly an hour home to drop Ben and the other kids off home (it was getting late) and then Grandma Carbine came with me and Daniel (to keep me company) to the American Fork hospital to get stitched up.

Obviously this was a little painful and he wasn't loving his decision to try stitches out.

The hospital was so nice and gave Daniel a packet with coloring pages, and crayons and toys and things in it to try to take his mind off his cut and give him something to do.  He wasn't incredibly interested except in having Grandma color the pictures for him and choosing the colors she should use.

 Daniel was pretty nervous about the whole thing, so they had to give him some medicine to make him loopy so he didn't know what was going on while they put the stitches in.  It worked great, he didn't even know what was going on, except it made him throw up once.

The medicine didn't make him fall asleep, it just made him very unaware of what was going on.  Here he is getting the last of his stitches.

The finished product

They made Daniel sit up in a chair and stay awake for a while after the medicine wore off to make sure he was okay, they also monitored his vital signs.  He didn't really like this part.

After they monitored him for a little bit, they let him sleep off the medicine a little bit before we took him home.  He liked this part. 

After a while, the medicine was out of his system enough and his vital signs looked good so they let us take him home.  What a long night!!

Dirty Party

Today Nicholas and Daniel came in the house totally covered from head to toe in dirt asking me if I wanted to go to their "dirty party".  Needless to say, I passed on that one.

They posed like this.  See?  They really do love each other!

The bath water after this incident was dark brown and murky.  Pretty gross but they had a lot of fun!

Happy Birthday Nicholas!!

Nicholas turned five today!  It's really overwhelming to me how fast my kids lives are speeding along.  I honestly never thought I would ever have kids this old.  I got him registered for kindergarten a few weeks ago and he is so excited!  For Nicholas' birthday, I went out and got decorations and decorated the living room very fancily, I also bought him some balloons and a Batman pinata. 

 He got a pink cake because he wanted strawberry which I let him decorate himself.  Daniel watched but was not allowed to help.

 Next he went out with his brothers and some of our neighbors to break open the pinata.  Poor Batman lost the loop you use to hang it up from so Ben tied the rope around the neck and we lynched Batman.

 Then we did presents and cake and ice cream.  He got things like scrapbook supplies, play kitchen stuff, and sidewalk chalk.  He really loves drawing and making cards so it was a really good birthday for him!

Snowman!!

Recently we had a snow storm.  It didn't last very long, but it dumped a bunch of snow on us and then it warmed up and it all melted away.  Before it was all gone, Nicholas and Daniel were able to get in a quick snowman with their Daddy.  They had been waiting all winter to build one.

He helped them hoist the snowballs on top of each other and then we found an old scarf and some baby carrots and rocks so we could make it look all snowman-y.

Nicholas was the most excited and most proud of their creation.

Aloha!!

We recently went to Kauai Hawaii for a family trip. It was a lot of fun! We were only there for a day and got to see some jungle and the lighthouse before we spent the rest of our time at the beach. It was so nice to be somewhere warm and sunny for a change! While driving around the island, the kids got restless so Ben and I tried to think of things they could do to pass the time so it would be quieter like having them count palm trees and sing songs. Daniel then came up with a new song to the tune of "Jesus wants me for a sunbeam". It went, "Hawaiian, Hawaiian, Jesus wants to be a Hawaiian...". It was hilarious! I almost died laughing! Little kids are so funny!

Maddie Pie's Half-a-birthday!!

According to tradition, we had a party for Madelynn's half-a-birthday.  I know a lot of people think it's silly but it's an important mile stone to me and I think it ought to be celebrated.  I make half a cake (piled on the other half so there is enough cake for everyone who comes), light half a candle, we sing half the birthday song, and then eat the cake with half a gallon of ice cream.

It's also the first time the baby gets to try rice cereal and it's fun for everyone to watch the first bites.  None of my kids ever really liked it and Madelynn was no exception.  She hated it!!