Ruth and Shoelaces

Ruthie has discovered shoelaces.  Actually, we've discovered our shoes are missing their shoelaces.  It's super cute until 4 kids need to walk out the door to school in the morning and we can't find any laces, ha! ha!  I love my baby Ruth.

Warm Days

What would be better on a warm day than going to the park to play?! As a 2 year old. There is nothing better :) Ruthie had a lot of fun playing with her cousins at the park and Abby, who is off-track loved playing with her little cousins too. I don't think you are ever too old to enjoy the park! I just love all the smiles. Izzy and Ruthie loved going down the slide, and for Ruth, it was her first time! Hooray!

Once we started taking pictures, they didn't want us to stop! So cute!

Happy Easter!

Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday!

What does that say about me that it's nearly February and I'm just now blogging about Christmas! Ugh. My life...I have been battling a serious case of anxiety these last few months. I hate admitting that. I've really only dealt with it during my pregnancy with a few of my kids, but it just onslaughted me around Thanksgiving and never left. Some days are pretty bad and I feel like I'm a crazy person and other days I feel totally normal. Everyone worries and stresses and that can cause anxiety, but this is different. It's not your average worry or stress. Usually it goes away after awhile and that's what I'm hoping but if it doesn't it's off to the doc. Anyway, for anyone close to me who wonders why I'm so weird, this is why. Hows that for super duper personal?! Lol.

Christmas was a blast, all things considered! I was called to be on Jury duty one week before
Christmas, can you believe it?! I had the hardest time going. I'm not a fan of new and unpredictable things and this was one of those things and by law, I couldn't get out of it :) They do trials in a day, so I only had to go in one day and wasn't chosen. It was an interesting process though. Dan was able to get a few days off before Christmas and it was so nice having him home! We spent some time with his parents who were in town that week. We also had a lot of fun with my brothers Matt and Shawn. We put together puzzles and watched Christmas movies and ate a lot of food! All my efforts in the keep the weight off since my big weight loss last year have decided to fly South for the Winter. O-well. Christmas day was wonderful! I love having Christmas on Sunday. Hailey, Abby and I were part of the Choir for our ward and had to opportunity to sing for the program that day. It was beautifully done! It was hard after being up until 2:00 a.m. to get up early and be ready by 10:00 a.m. was difficult! I was so tired! We had decided to open gifts, which were few that morning. Charly was our Christmas gift and we got him early. Over the last few years we had decided to do a family gift instead of lots of individual gifts. We first read the story of Jesus in the scriptures and then the kids did their usual line up and we headed down to open stockings and a few gifts under the tree. Ruthie was the most fun to watch because this year, she got it. She knows what presents were all about and it was so much fun watching her. We loved having my parents be a part of our Christmas and were grateful to them for sharing it with us.

Dealing with a new dog and all that goes with it was interesting these last couple of months. He sure is cute and it's a good thing because I think he is a serious part of why my anxiety has been triggered. He has discovered how to bark and it isn't cute....at....all! It drives me insane. He also gets really whiny at times as well. He is such a baby, lol! Being a Mother, and a stay at home Mom with 5 kids, and having a whiny, barking dog is enough to put me over the edge. If it were just me, I'd get rid of him, but now there are 6 people in our house that love the dog, so it's not so easy. I do the majority of the bathing, feeding, poop cleaning because I'm home all day. Lucky me. The kids and Dan get to come home to a happy puppy because they don't do much of that stuff, nor do they do the disciplining....so he's great to them and not so happy with me. Poor dog and poor Jen. Ha! Well, after I had a great chat with a very supportive hubby we found a few things this last week that have helped with the whiny, barky-ness. I'm grateful for that. Wow, what a negative paragraph, lol.

We had so much fun celebrating Ruthie's #2 birthday! She is such a fun girl! She got a kitchen for Christmas, so for her birthday she got food to go with it, and a cute little leap from laptop computer from her grandparents Johnson. Grandparents Ballard got her a cute little shopping car and sunglasses. We got her dress-ups and dress-up shoes. She is obsessed with shoes. We sang Happy Birthday to her all day. She didn't quite know what to think of all that, but by the end of the day, she started to sing too. I can't believe my baby is 2!

Joe

Rachel


The stockings. (don't you like how none of them match?)

Charly (Our early Christmas Gift, chewing on his Christmas gift)

Ruthie and her kitchen!

Some of her toys from her birthday...

Tis the Season...

I love the Holiday Season! What a wonderful time of year! I love celebrating our Savior's birth. We took the kids this past week down to temple square. Their favorite thing to do is to see the Christus Statue. It is just beautiful and with all the lights, it makes it even more magical. Silly Dan is behind the camera and I have the hardest time getting him pictures....

My Mother in law ever year goes to great lengths to buy each of the grandchildren a Christmas outfit. Hailey and Abby were able to pick out their own dresses. They all look so nice!

Also...one of these pictures is of the kids being silly in front of the Christmas tree that we set up BEFORE Thanksgiving. Yes, I'm one of those people. I listen to Christmas music in July and mush all my Holidays together. I get it from my Mother. LOL.

Halloween

I thoroughly enjoyed Halloween this year and that's great considering it's my least favorite holiday. It is always a chore trying to figure out how to do all 5 of my kids costumes on a budget. The girls had a fun idea of doing tulle skirts they can use each year. They turned out so cute and they had a lot of fun doing them. Joe wanted to be a zombie so that was an easy costume. Dan did his makeup and hair. Ruthie wanted nothing to do with costumes this year. Every costume I showed to her in the store just scared her. So, I put on the costume she wore last year. It was slightly small but with a big cow bell around her neck, it was the cutest thing ever. You could hear her bell all through the neighborhood. She had a ball trick-or-treating. I had to go to the door with her, of course but he she just couldn't believe people were just dropping candy into her bag! She was so excited to come home and dump her candy out.

My brother and his little family came over to go trick-or-treating with us. We had a great dinner; white bean chili, layered bean dip, and salad. It was delish! After trick-or-treating we went down to Mom and Dad's and watched "Pirates of the Carribean On Stranger Tides". What a fun night!

Just a Few Fun Things...

Charly 3 months.  Getting bigger :)

Ruthie and I trying to make kissy faces.  She's so cute!

Beautiful Hailey

Hailey hair.  We had so much fun doing this!

Waterfall Braid on Hailey.  Gotta love Pinterest.com :)

First attempt at pigtails for Ruthie

My little guy just turned 7.  Happy Birthday, Joe.

Ruthie's pony.  So cute!  I wish she would keep them in for longer than an hour!

Ruth does not want her picture taken of her cute pony tail.

Ruth and Charly.  She has the hardest time being soft with our new dog.  I have to constantly be the mediator, lol.

Ruth's grumpy face, haha!  She loves to play the piano. all. the. time!