Manners

Sometimes I feel like I live with a bunch of Neanderthals. Especially in public. You know, I teach the kids the basic manners like please, thank you, asking instead of demanding...but when I take them out into the real world it's like they've lived in a cave their whole lives. It's so embarrassing to go to someones house to play, and come time to go, I tell them to clean up the toys and all I get is blank stares or just a flat out "NO." Or going to Grandma's house and instead of asking for something, it's "give me that!" And my favorite, standing in line at Target behind a...larger woman and Tate says loudly "Mom, her bum is soooo big!!"
People told me being a parent was hard, but I didn't know it would make me want to crawl under a table and die of embarrassment too.

Long Christmas Post

Christmas was really fun, the kids understand it more and more every year. So they really got into Santa, and our elf Buddy that comes to keep an eye on us during December...sometimes I wish Buddy was around all year, he's a great discipline tool:)
Anyway, we spent Christmas Eve with the Wakefields and it was chaos like usual! With 12 grandkids it gets pretty noisy and wild, but the kids love it. Marley just loves her cousin Jake and always wants to sit with him.

Before going home to bed we stopped at the Love's to get our traditional jammies, here's all the guys in theirs pretending to be Utes cheerleaders.
Christmas morning we woke up and did presents with our little family. Santa brought the kids a new kitchen, table and chairs and a bunch of other awesome toys! But don't worry, the favorite toys were the little dinky things Santa put in their stockings, go figure:

Marley playing in the new kitchen
Tate displaying some new airplanes he got
Jord with all his new xbox crap....why I keep getting him that stuff I don't knowAfter lunch we went to the Love's and Wakefield's for more presents!
Grandma Love gave Tate a motor scooter....he was so excited all he would do for a picture was this atrocious face
Marley playing in the scooter box of courseAnd last but not least, Spiderman is in the house! Tate's really into dressing up these days, so he wore this the rest of the day....and the next couple days after:)

We're ready for Christmas!

I think we are officially ready for Santa to come; we've done pretty much every fun holiday activity I can stand! This is the Place Park, The Forgotten Carols, decorated a gingerbread house, did 3 separate Christmas countdown calendars, family parties, saw Santa at the mall twice, school programs, Thanksgiving Point lights, and a partridge in a pear tree!!!

Tate decided to get up and sing a solo of "Up on the Housetop" at the Torg party

I'm pretty sure Santa knows what we want, we've sat on his lap 3 different times:)

Meg and I with the kids eating ice cream and hot chocolate (good combo, I know) at Thanksgiving point. After a whole spilled drink and 3 dropped cones, we were done.

My idea of looking at lights is sitting in the warm car

Hailey, Tate and Alexa

Christmas Program

Tate had his first preschool program yesterday and he was so excited! He couldn't wait to get up and sing....and boy did he sing! He just about shouted every song and did every action, he was so proud. I was proud of him too, going to preschool has been the best thing ever; and it's made him very outgoing and not afraid anymore.

my little elf patiently waiting to start..

You can't see him too well, but he's a little to the right of the teacher in the middle. I couldn't get good pictures, but Jord got some great film! I'm going to try and see if I can figure out how to put some on here, it was hilarious!

This is the Place

For the month of December, the Love's decided to do something "christmas-y" every week. So the first week we went to This is the Place park and it was so much fun! I definitely want to make it a tradition. A lot of the little homes are open and have different activities you can do; like crafts, a puppet show, dancing, etc. And the train takes you around to see the lights too. The kids loved it.

There were a few reindeer when we first got there (even though you can't see them)

Tate, Max, Kaige, and Banks on the train

Putting our names on the nice list...

At the school house they taught us how to do a dance, so we each got a "partner" and the band played a song. This was seriously so fun, it was our favorite part.
I know I say it a lot, but I'm really loving the kids getting older. I feel like there's so much more we can do and places we can go. And they actually enjoy going too, they can stay out later and love to participate in stuff!

Marley

Because two binkies are always better than one:)

Miss Moo is now one and a half and still only 7% for weight, but 75% for height! Tall and skinny! She is a sassy and bossy little thing, she knows that she is the queen of the house. Feeding her is the most un-fun thing in the world, she eats nothing. Well, except oreos, but I don't know if that even counts...
Her favorite person in the whole world is Tate, even though he teases her to death. The second she wakes up she asks "where's Tate?" and will follow him everywhere, and copy everything he does. Marley loves shoes and will put on any pair she can find laying around, even Jordan's. I love that she is really starting to talk, you can actually understand what she says, it's not just all jibberish! Her favorite shows right now are Peppa Pig (weird) and Little Bear. Mar is a good little player, she can entertain herself very well and it's fun to watch her play. But she is very mischievous and likes to get into trouble too. She's very good at making messes and breaking things! She's my sweetie and a good snuggler, I love my little Sis!

Tate

Tate doing his famous Utes sign, he does this in like every picture

I've really slacked lately on blogging, which sucks, because this is my only journal. So I figure I'll do a post about each kid so I know what's going on with them right now!
Tate is getting much better these days about bad behavior. He still definitely has his moments, but overall he's acting a lot better! And it's nice, I can actually enjoy him and have fun with him now instead of just wishing it was bedtime:) He loves preschool, every day he asks if he has school, and how many minutes until we can go. Tate loves to color and draw. I'm obviously biased, but he's really good at it too. I love seeing his drawings because they are so cute and it makes me laugh! He's still a busy body; he would always be on the go if he could. Every day he asks where we're going and if we can play at grandma's, or Meg's or somewhere. But he really loves going to Hailey's (or as Tate says "Heh-wees") to play with her, they are the best of friends. He is a huge tease and just can't leave Marley alone! He loves to bug her and irritate her, just like a big brother I guess. But he can be really sweet and protective of her too. He is funny and silly just like his dad! Every day he cracks me up, it's been a crazy but fun 4 years!