Christmas Bells Are Ringing

I know what you're thinking, isn't it time for your favorite things blog?  Yes, it probably is.  But I decided I wanted to finish 2016 first.  So, instead of dragging it out into a bunch of posts that I never have time to finish.  Here are a BUNCH of photos in little collages to give you an overview of our crazy month...

The Sawayas invited us to their neighborhood Christmas party.  We got to ride a train, see a real reindeer, eat snacks, the girls rode in a little Ferris wheel, and we even got to see Santa!  The twirls were super nervous (as you can see by their faces) but Scarlett was super excited!  Jaide wanted me to tell Santa that she wanted a "green toothbrush that is green with no blue on it."

We made lots of treats during December and sang lots of carols.  I heard Jaide singing "Merry Christmas had a little lamb..."  haha!  Scarlett had a pajama day at school, and I made her hair into a Christmas tree (using a broken necklace I had).  The girls wore their Santa hats at the Ward Christmas party (luckily I didn't have to play the trombone this time!)  There were candy canes for sale at Scarlett's school for kids to buy for each other.  Jake went inside at drop off one morning and bought her one from Siena and Jaide.  She just couldn't figure out how her sisters got inside the school.  She kept asking them questions about it but they had no idea!  haha!  Finally we told her - but it was so funny!  And if you see all those gingerbread men... On the way home from school one day Scarlett told me "Mrs. Henry asked if you like making cookies, I told her that you like buying Oreos."  hahahahahaha!!!!!  Mrs. Henry and I both got a good laugh out of that.  I made the gingerbread men for her class - mostly to show Scarlett that I can do more than just buy Oreos!

The last day at word before the Christmas shutdown at Ford, the bag piper comes around.  When he comes that is the signal that you can go home early.  What a fun tradition!

On Christmas Eve we had the Furness family over to celebrate.  We all had so much fun!!!  Ashley and I were making food and we looked over and Jake and Jordan were rocking out to Just Dance on the PS3!  It was a wonderful day!  I'm so glad we have "framily" to celebrate with out here.  Then we did our Christmas Eve nativity story and jammies.  The girls were sooooo excited for Santa to come, I was afraid they would stay awake, but they went right to sleep!

Scarlett gave a talk in primary about the nativity.  I was so proud of her for practicing before so she didn't need my help with the words.  I just stood next to her to help her hold up all the little people while she told the story and read the scripture all on her own.

Christmas morning!  Since it was the sabbath, we let them open their stocking and gift from Santa before church.  After church we dug into the rest of the gifts.  There were lots of hugs after every present they opened.  haha!  Jake got me earrings that are the molecule of dopamine - they make me so happy!  haha!  He also got me a double helix necklace, I think I will wear it with a good pair of jeans (badumcha!)  We let the girls take their ice breaker mints to church (that they love) and they ate almost all of them.  About 3 hours later we had several incidents of explosive diarrhea - Merry Christmas!

Exclusive footage of the Glauser Girl Band (first practice ever caught on tape!)  Missing from the video is the tambourinist Skye, who slept through all this noise.  

I love these little ladies!

These photos are: Siena showing me her water bottle gives her a mustache, the twirls pretending to nap, Scarlett reading to her sisters, the girls in their new snow coats and boots, Scarlett made signs using bubble letters (I didn't know she could do that!), Scarlett typing on Jake's laptop and wrote this out, Siena rocking her yellow hat, Jaide trying to carry everything at once and scooting on her bum, and Jaide put her jammies on upside-down to be funny.

Some quotes:

• Siena: "I can count to ten in zero minutes splat."
• Scarlett: "Bananas are crazy - they have THREE A's!"
• Scarlett: "I like Rapunzel. But I want to be RaScarlett."
• Scarlett: "I know how to spell knee: N-E-E". Me: "It actually starts with a silent K." Scarlett: "What?! Seriously?!?!?!" *Mind blown*
• Jaide: "I want to watch a show where the mom says shhh and the little kids have a red hat." haha (I have no idea what she was talking about!).
• Scarlett: "I hope my after school snack is big so I can eat for a long time."
• Scarlett: "We have bean bag frogs that come to life and have no noggin."

Jake shaved off his beard one night. He came downstairs with this creepy face! haha! Then after church one day I found him asleep in the middle of the room... They came. They played. They conquered. The bottom left photo is Jake holding up his lock pick set. He bought it cause we locked all our winter gear in a closet and couldn't find the key, so he learned to pick locks and liberated our snow coats!

Jake texted me one day and said "guess what celebrity is at Ford right now." I picked the first name that popped in my head and texted back "Dwayne, the Rock, Johnson." I was right!!!!!!!!!! hahahaha!!!! How crazy is that!

We were talking about Ford and Scarlett asked us, "is their a car called 'Fived'?" Four-d, Five-d! haha!

While watching Jake through the window as he used the snow blower to clear the driveway, Scarlett said "Dad is a very good boy." *sweet*

Jake came home and found all the girls on devices. And the other picture is my normal - people climbing on me always. Also, I was driving one day and a big spider crawled out of the air vent! GROSS!!! I didn't want it to climb around my car but I couldn't stop to find a tissue... so I just smacked it with my bare hand. YUCK. When I was able to stop I used a bunch of diaper wipes and hand sanitizer, but I swear I can still feel it crawling on my palm!

Happy baby Skye.  When she gets hungry she makes a sound like "mom mom mom"  It's like she's telling me "hey woman, get over here and feed me!"  Love that Elvis popped collar.  And Jake put her in the bouncer in the corner.  Nobody puts baby in the corner.  Well, except Jake.

I think Jake has such a talent for teaching our kids games at young ages.  Scarlett was just a few weeks old and he could get her to stick her tongue out on command.  It really is a gift he has.  I was making dinner while he taught our barley 7 month old to play ball:

The girls all needed their hair trimmed.  It was in their bum cracks in the shower.  It took a few days of prepping them, by getting them used to the idea so they would be excited.  They did great!  I have given lots of hair cuts for different people, but this was the first time I've cut my own girls' hair.  Kandy has given them their cuts before this (and if she was closer I would have had her do their cuts again).  Skye slept through the whole process.

I heard Scarlett getting out of bed to open/close the door multiple times.  I went in and asked her "What are you doing????"  She replied "I want it to click 6 times cause there are 6 people in our family."  Oh man. OCD!!  She has several ticks, like needing all the light switches to be the same direction, etc.  Having struggled with that myself, we are keeping an eye on her.  I spoke with her about the door clicking and we decided together that 1 time would be ok cause we're one big happy family.  So far none of the ticks prevent her from living her life.  She's able to skip them or ignore them.  Still, something to be looking out for.

Also, if you spoke with Scarlett in the month of December, you probably heard about her "wiggly tooth".  It's pretty big news.  She tells everyone.  Like everyone.  We got to facetime both of our families on Christmas.  Scarlett was asleep when we chatted with the Glausers, but she asked me to tell Megan about her tooth.  Megan's response was pure excitement "oh wow!" what sweet girls they are!

This was a fun preschool game.  Dry erase markers, put letters on the glass, tell them a letter and they erase it.  They thought it was a ton of fun.  Jaide told me "I want to use red and blue to make biolet [violet]."  These girls are so smart!  Another time Jaide saw her sisters crawling on the floor, she exclaimed "Look, humans!" hahaha!

New Year's Eve at the Sawayas (with some of the best smoked meat and baked beans ever, Jake still talks about it).

The twirls like to wait for the credits to scroll at the end of a movie: "I like the elevator!" Since we've been back from Utah the twirls have been wearing panties 24/7. I realize that the pull ups were there mostly for me, but I just needed that extra security while I was dealing with a newborn. But they do great! We rarely have potty accidents and they don't complain about their "itchy bums."

Playing with friends. McKayla comes over on Wednesdays to do math. She's homeschooled so I help her through her Algebra 2 textbook. Then she stays and watches the girls while I get some stuff done. It's a wonderful, symbiotic relationship. One day she was wearing red lipstick and Jaide came over to me, pointed to McKayla and said: "There's something red over there. On those lips." haha!

We got to eat out with Sis Jones one more time before she finished her mission. I'll miss my little "sister"!

One day for an after school snack we ate popcorn.  Jaide came up to me and said "I have popcorn in my ear" I laid her on her side and used a flashlight to look in.  I could see something in there, so I called the Dr office and they had us come right in.  The clump looks ear wax or could be popcorn, so we weren't sure.  So they flushed out her ear several times to clean out the gunk.  We're pretty sure it was just ear wax, but after they got it all cleaned out they were able to see an ear infection.  Poor girl!  Her ear was hurting and maybe was crackling, so she probably just thought there was popcorn in there.  Glad it wasn't really a big corn kernel stuck in there.

Randomly Siena's eye was swollen one day...

One day we were at ballet.  The twirls were running around and pretending to be puppies and kitties with Amber while I was chatting with my friends.  Jaide came over to me and started coughing a ton.  All that coughing made her start to vomit.  I was breastfeeding Skye but Laura and I started catching the vomit while Christine grabbed Skye.  I kept my cupped hands under Jaide's mouth while I ran her to the bathroom (thank goodness my exposed boob was under a nursing cover!)  We got her and everything else cleaned up.  While I was finishing, one of the managers at the Summit came over and asked "who is the parent for the twins in the butterfly shirts."  He wanted to let me know that my girls were licking the glass wall and they could see from below.  He wasn't upset, just wanted me to be aware cause he doesn't want them to get sick from all the germs on the glass.  Seriously, how ironic that he would come say that like 2 minutes after Jaide just threw up all over everywhere.  I felt like the best mom that night!  We are such a hot mess!!!!

While I'm on the subject of vomit... after Jake got LASIK he threw up on our drive home.  He had me pull over and he threw up out the window (his eyes were covered so he got car sick, plus the pain meds).  Anyways, I just realized the other day that the place we pulled over is Scarlett's school!!!  haha!  He threw up in their parking lot 3 years ago!  Hopefully the rain washed it away and the school isn't still looking for the culprit!  haha!