Valentine's Day!!

I know that Valentine's Day isn't necessarily the most exciting holiday, but I actually really love it! Some of my favorite family traditions are on Valentine's Day. It was also so nice this year that it was on a Saturday so we could spread the two traditions out over two days. It made it much less stressful on me! On Friday night I made my annual Valentine's dinner for all my loves! I always make the same thing, homemade pizza and our special Valentine's jello but it was really fun again as usual. I even got out the goblets for the sparkling cider and the kids thought that was really neat!

Our other tradition of making and decorating cookies for our friends was a success again. The kids just love to make theirs so special for their friends

 

We let monkey girl decorate one as well, but with all the licking etc. we thought it might be better if she just ate it herself.

Lizzy took hers to her two church friends. I am really grateful that she has some really good church friends.

Russy took his to ColeMason, our neighbors that are so nice to us and give Russ so many cool clothes and toys.

Jane took hers to her little boyfriend Maxim and to some other girls from the ward. It is a little hard that she doesn't have any girls her age at church but there are some older and younger.

Nellie made hers for her church friends as well. It is so nice to have such a good community of people at church! We love our valentines traditions and can't wait to do it again next year!

 

The Police Station

It sure is fun that daddy works at the Police Station. The kids, especially Russy think it is pretty cool. We were able to go one day to a barbequethey were having for police and their families. They had out some of the "vehicles" as Russ calls them. Kevin taught him one day to call them that and he has been doing it ever since, it is too funny. Here the kids got to sit in the hummer that is used for SWAT.

The kids all had fun sitting on the police motorcycle.

 

 

Russy was a chicken and wouldn't do it at first until he saw his sisters do it and then he was all over it.

I think he liked sitting in the "police truck" as he calls it the best. Annie decided she needed to join him in it as well.

 

Janie's Stuffed Animal Party

it was a year for Jane to get a friend party and she was really excited about it. She first wanted to do a frozen party but since she was inviting some boys and since she did a frozen cake last year I steered her in a different direction. She loves stuffed animals and since most kids, boys and girls do too, we decided to do a stuffed animal party where they could bring their favorite one.

I also learned my lesson from doing Lizzy's party that we wanted to keep it short. So we made it an hour and a half, and it ended up being the perfect amount of time. In fact this party went so smoothly it made me hate birthday parties a little bit less!!

The one thing that was a little bit difficult was that Jane saw these penguin cupcakes that she really wanted me to make for her party, but they ended up being really time consuming to make. I first had to dip marshmallows in chocolate for the bodies and try and stick on the tummies while they were drying and I kept accidentally making them touch so chocolate got everywhere and and then I couldn't find candy corn for the feet so I had to try and form feet out of starbursts which was ridiculous. Anyway Jane thought they were cute so it made it worth it.

We had a really cute owl piñata for the party, which Janie just loved because she is in the owl class at school and has just fallen in love with owls.

It was super exciting for Jane to open all her presents and get so many new toys and things.

 

 

Father Daughter Dance

 

It was that time of year again! Time for the Father Daughter dance. The girls look forward to this every year and it is so fun to see them get so excited about it! This year was really special because all three of the big girls got to go with their daddy. I even joked with them about how jealous I was that they got to go with him and I didn't. Janie was so excited that it was finally her year to get to go too!

They love to dress up fancy and have me do their hair a special way. I even let them wear a little makeup since it was such a special occasion and they thought that was pretty awesome! We even found some special jewelry for them to wear as well. They had such a fun night taking turns dancing with their dad. I feel so grateful that I have such a great husband who loves his daughters so much! It takes a special guy to have five daughters and I know Heavenly Father knew Kevin was that guy that would cherish all these little girls!

 

Russy Gets Potty Trained!!

I'm not going to lie, potty training may be my least favorite things about being a parent. I dread it with a dread that can't be described! I know that may sound dramatic, but I just really hate it. Because of this I just kept delaying doing it with Russy. I knew he wasn't ready for a while but then after that I just kept coming up with excuses why it wasn't the right time.

But after the holidays I knew that I couldn't delay it any longer. I really didn't want three in diapers at the same time, so we decided to wait and do it a day when Kevin would be home becuase I knew it might be better to have kevin help since Russy is the first boy I have potty trained.

We did the same program that we did with all the girls where we do the intense training all day and don't let them wear pull-ups anymore, but this time I knew we were going to have to go somewhere that night and I wasn't going to torture myself like that so we put a pull-up on him for that.

Russy picked up the peeing pretty quickly and it was funny because he had to go to standing up to pee like his dad pretty much from the beginning. He started not having accidents from a few days in, but the pooping was another story. He just would not poop on the potty and would only do it in his pants for about the first week. and the after that he wouldn't poop at all and was just holding it in. He didn't poop for 6 straight days even though we gave him a ton of laxatives. I was starting to freak out a bit because he wasn't acting like he even needed to poop at all. So eventually we had to give him an enema to get him going. It was such a relief when he finally went. after that he had a couple really nasty pooping his pants days becuase of all of the laxatives we had to give him. But after that things got better and he actually started going poop on the toilet.

It was such a relief when he started going on his own without me having to remind him. Now he is going all the time on his own! It is such a great day when that happens. It is such a huge relief that we have another one done. Just two more to go!

A couple of funny things about his training. He still thinks he should get treats when he goes pee on the potty, and since it was such a big deal for him to go poop we got him a special toy ( a big bazooka gun) for when he finally did go, he started to think that he should get a new toy everytime he goes poop. He is so silly. He also wouldn't let me take a picture of him in his underwear so this picture on the toilet was the best I could get.

 

All About Jane- 6 years

My sweet little Janie is sure growing up! She is 6 now! It's crazy to think that when we moved here to California she was 18 months old! That seems like just yesterday to me and now here she is in Kindergarten and six!!

She has done really well in Kindergarten and has picked up reading and math and everything else really easily. I am really proud or how well she has done going for so long too, she goes from 10 am until three pm, when she rides her bike home with her sisters. She has made friends really well and even has a cute little boy named Maxim that just loves her so much! Jane is really different than my other two, in that she is who she is for everybody. There is no show for her teacher and then she is different at home. I went to Parent teacher conference and I was expecting no problems because that is how the other two girls are at school. But the teacher said she was having some problems with Jane just shutting down if she had to talk to her about anything. She also would just ignore another student if they were assigned to work together and Jane didn't feel like she wanted to work with them. We had to have a little talk about treating others the way we want to be treated. I sure hope that helped. I would be so sad if it was my child that was making other kids feel sad.

Jane is also going through a bit of a lazy phase right now. Suffice it to say it is a darn good thing that she goes to the later kindergarten rather than the early one. It is still hard to get her motivated and ready to go by 10 am. She doesn't like to do things like clean up after herself or make her bed. It is seriously pulling teeth!!

There are such great things about our Janie girl though, she is so sweet and loving to her siblings. Especially Russy, he just loves her so much and she is so sweet to play his boy games with him. Annie loves her too, and Janie is so nice to share her stuffed animals with Anne, because they mean a lot to Jane. For her birthday she went to build-a-bear and made herself a pretty white bear that she named Sugar. She always has to have an animal to sleep with.

A funny thing about Jane that she has been since she was little is so very stubborn about the clothes that she wears and the way I do her hair. She has a ton of really cute clothes that have been handed down to her and yet she will only wear a few things, most in my opinion are not very cute either!! It drives me a little crazy! She also is very particular about how she wants her hair done and I can never convince her otherwise!! Oh well!

One funny story about Jane that just kind of sums her up: Every night after family prayer we take turns saying something nice about the person who said the prayer. Well one night I had said the prayer and when it was Jane's turn she said "I got nothing!" It was too funny for me to really feel bad about it. She does usually say the same thing which is " I like how mom makes us really good meals. " that makes me feel good becuase I do try to make them good meals to eat. We just love our silly Janie goose and we are so glad that she is in our family!!

 

Christmas

It was fun and weird to be on our own again this year. We had a really low key Christmas Eve. We went out to lunch becuase we discovered a couple years ago it is a great day to go out to nice restaurant becuase they are empty! We took the kids to,Red Robin because it is always a good place to take the kids. That night we had our traditional shepherds dinner. We didn't do the sandwiches but I made a yummy soup. Then we did our usual puppet show of the nativity. I love that we spend a lot of time focusing on the true meaning of Christmas on Christmas Eve, because the next day always seems to get so crazy wth all the presents.

 

We got the kids new pajamas for Christmas but I didn't make them open them for their Christmas Eve present becuase they really hated when I did that in the past. I love this picture of them by the tree. I still look at these little faces and can't believe that I am their momma!!

We had to get a picture of Russy with his Spider-Man becuase it may have been his favorite present! Isn't that how it always goes though? It seems that ones that are almost afterthoughts are their favorites.

Miss Anne got this cute Minnie ride on and she didn't have many problemfiguring out how to use it. The funny thing was Russ was all into it too but Anne would freak out anytime he would get near it!

Nellie got an Our Generation doll, which is like an Americal girl doll by about 1/4 the price! Plus they come with lots more stuff! She got the doll from us and Santa brought the bed.

LIzzy got a phone from Santa this year. We made sure that it would be something that we could ave the control over, but it is nice for her to have it now that she is getting old enough to leave here and there.

Janie was super excited to get a doll this year too becuase she has been feeling a little bit left out when the big play dolls since she didn't have one, now she has one and tons of accessories to go with it. Since the girls got their dolls, they have played so much with them, I love when we get the kids something that ends up being so played with! It makes it all worth it. Lizzy got a doll too, she got an extra present from us this year since we were having shush a hard time getting the other kids to be motivated to help and Lizzy is always totally willing to. We felt like we really wanted to reward her for all she does, because I seriously don't know how I function without her!

Russy got a super cool remote control firetruck that even came with a hose to squirt water! I don't know what Santa was thinking! Maybe he didn't realize that it could do that!

 

I love this picture of Kevy with the little ones. We had a great Christmas this year. We decided to really limit the number of presents we got the kids and stay in a budget and it didn't really seem any different! The kids still loved what they got and it seemed like we got just enough without going overboard. It couldn't have been any better!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Christmas Festivites

It was another super christmas season this year. We didn't do as many activites as we sometimes do, but I know my limitations right now and I just couldn't over do it. I still felt like we had a good time and we tried to do Christmassy things every night.I am always itching to get the Christmas decorations up every year and it is so hard to wait until after thanksgiving, but I always do. The funny thing is how excited I am to get them up and then the day after Christmas I am just as excited to get the dang things down. It's one of those funny things in life I guess.

 

Annie was actually really good and hardly touched the ornaments after we put them on the tree, which really surprised me! But she did have fun helping us decorate.

 

We had a great time going to the Roseville Christmas tree lighting this year. Last year we went and it was so darn cold that we didn't really stay. This year was such a perfect night, we stayed for quite a while and had a really good time.

We didn't quite make it in time for the actually tree lighting but that's ok. We still got a picture by the tree, even if it wasn't a great one, we were all in it at least.

There was cookie decorating and Anne really enjoyed the eating part of it.

 

The girls got to write some letters to Santa.

and the girls got to make fun little hats. Russ wasn't interested in the hat making so he and Kevy went over and checked out the SWAT truck that was there.

I actually took about ten pictures of these little rascals thinking that surely one of them would turn out but it was a no-go. This was the best I could find.

One of the families in our ward put together a little family home evening going and seeing some lights together. One great thing about living where it is warmer is that we can do stuff like this without being totally miserable. We walked around this fun decorated neighborhood and then hung out with all the families after and had cookies. It was a lot of fun!

From this picture it doesn't really look like Anne and Jane had much fun, but they actually really did! Annie LOVED the lights this year so much, it was really the cutest thing ever. Every single time she would see lights she would say "woah!!" Over and over. I seriously could not get enough of it.

 

This picture is not that great but it was the cutest thing. One of our favorite things to do during the Christmas season is to do dancing at night. The kids really love it and it is a tradition that I have from my childhood that I love sharing now with my children. They decided to make a train and Annie was the leader. It really was so dang cute. I really love seeing my little kids together.

I had some serious helpers making sugar cookies. We had a lot of fun though. It really makes everything harder and longer but also so much better when I do things with my little kiddos.

The kids had fun with the decorating of the cookies for Santa. It's a fun tradition that we started that we will defintely have to continue.

 

I wish I had a better picture of this little monkey. She is such a dolly, but that's what happens when you take pictures with a crappy phone.

We had such a great time this year celebrating the season together. It really seems to get more and more fun every year. I love being a mom!