Cute Baby Girl, Again

I always get a kick out of some of the pictures the kids take. I found this one of A when I downloaded the latest group of pictures.

Christmas Dinner!

Every year throughout the Christmas season, we will have fun special Christmas dinners. I pull out the special Christmas china, table clothes, goblets, and yes, even the Martinelli's. We use candles and Christmas lights and the kids and I love it. Here we are enjoying our first special dinner of the season!

Thanksgiving 2010

Thanksgiving was great too! It was obviously A's first thanksgiving. She was quite content through it all, but seeing as how her main course was rice cereal, she didn't really get the draw. She will in time. :)



I didn't end up pulling out the camera as much as I should have, but here are still some of our group during pie.

Funny Hair

A few days ago, I took CK's hair out so she could get in the tub. We all had a good laugh. :)

New School

When CK first started school, it had been my intention to have her do kindergarten 2ce. She has a late summer birthday and so she falls in that time where you wonder when is the best time for her to go. Anyway, she did start school this year in kindergarten. As time went on, I really started to second guess that decision and wondered if I should have moved her on to first grade. She has done really well and never struggled with anything. Then, I realized that all the girls in her primary class here, and all the girls her age in the ward we are moving into are all in 1st grade. So, after much deliberating and discussing, I decided she should be in first grade. Since I was putting her in 1st, there was no reason for me to keep her in a different school anymore. She was really excited to move over to the same school as her brothers and sister. I feel really fortunate that she got to have the same teacher that the twins had. She is wonderful. In fact, she was just selected as our districts Teacher of the Year.

Here is CK just as her 1st day was starting (note the kids lining up to come).
She looks a little apprehensive, but I promise, she was excited and has really loved it!

Halloween 2010

A little late, but still... Halloween!!! We had a fun few days with the kids for Halloween.

CK was the only one of the kids who as able to dress up at school since she was going to a different school at the time. Actually, this was her last day here. She is now going to the same school as the rest of the kids, but more on that later. Here she is outside her class in her kitty cat costume.

KL just had to have her costume on too since CK had hers on. She had actually planned to be a flower the entire time leading up to Halloween, but after spilling a little bit of water on herself that morning, the flower costume was out and she became a little witch.

For whatever reason, I only managed to take out the camera before we left for the Trunk or Treat.
This was the biggest night for our kids.

L was a punk bride. This is actually a costume that my mom made me when I was about this age. I had lots of fun wearing it when I was younger. Last year, my mom divided up all the costumes she had made us as kids and gave them to us. L has had her eye on this one all year long. Of course, since she is L, she couldn't go as a simple demure bride. We had to liven her up a bit!

I think we captured her personality pretty well.

Our cute little witch.

B sporting his standard costume. I didn't get a picture of D, but he was a football player too. He branched out a little this year and wasn't a Bronco player. He wore his football uniform. (They are Vikings)

KL, L, Anna (wearing Jill's Strawberry Shortcake costume), CK

Fashion Show

For L's birthday, she got LOTS of new clothes--her favorite thing! Dave suggested that she do a modest fashion show for us for Family Night. She was quite into this idea and so she gathered up her 2 little sisters and spent all afternoon setting up outfits in my bedroom. When the time came, we cranked up the tunes, and turned down the lights and let them strut their stuff!! (this was obviously after bath time so that is why none of them have their hair done.)

L

CK

KL

CK

L

KL


CK


All the fashionista's together.

Pack Meeting

B got to receive his Wolf badge recently at pack meeting. It was a fun night for him, as these things always are. I still remember the first pack meeting he ever went to of D's. He was so mesmorized by it all. He just loved it and laughed and laughed so hard at all the dumb corny jokes. The scout leaders were quite entertained by him. He really does love that he is a part of it all now. .

He got drawn for an "on time" prize. Unfortunately, that prize was a Hershey's bar. As many of you, he claims he doesn't like chocolate. I know. Sometimes I would wonder where he came from if I hadn't pushed him out of me. :) Here he is trying weasel some sort of treat, other than something with chocolate.

When any of the boys get an advancement, the parents get to come and draw on their face.
I had fun doing this.

My masterpiece. The drawing's not bad either. :)

The "I Love Mom" was a little much for him. Here is how he compensated.

Me and my cutie

After they each get an award, they get to pick out a cheer to do. Here is B's favorite. I had a hard time getting the camera set up in time. Still... I hope you can get the idea!

Birthdays!!!

It has almost been a couple of months, but B and L still turned 9 in October. This was the first year I let them each have their own birthday party so we had quite a bit of celebrating!

B's party was first. We did about a week before his birthday. He got to have some friends come and we roasted hot dogs, then went down to the park for some fun night games like Sardines, and Capture the Flag. After the games, we came back home for s'mores. All in all, I think he had a good time.

Opening presents:




With his Birthday marshmellow


L's party was held just a couple of days before the big official day. Her's was definitely a girl party. She requested to have Nacho's for dinner. After dinner, Mariana came over to help me give the girls pedicures while they watched a girlie movie (The Last Song).




Her cake was actually a bunch of cupcakes (leftover from school :) )


On their actual birthday, we had a big family dinner over here. Of course, it was also Max's birthday so we go to have Andria, Ethan, Lisa and Kelvin over as well and so it really was fun.

Here are the kids opening some presents.




This was the same day as our primary program. It was also the same day as my brother's. In his ward, each of the kids got a bag of M&M's. Kyle decided he wanted to give his precious bag of treats to B&L for their birthday. Here he is pridefully, yet still humbly watching as they opened his special present. He was so excited to give it to them.


Here are the 3 birthday kids blowing out their candles on the cake that Andria made.

Fall Football Season '10

This year's football season has come to an end. The boys had a lot of fun and would have loved for it to continue forever, but as we all know, all good things must come to an end. B played flag football again. His team did really well and were undefeated in the regular season. Unfortunately, they lost in the semifinals in the tournament. It was quite a blow to the boys, but they rebounded and are looking forward to another great season in the future. I'm quite embarassed to say that I somehow never managed to take a picture of him! The picture below is a picture of the ref chasing him down as he scored a touchdown. Sorry, but it isn't much, but it is the best I've got.

Here is the video of him scoring that touchdown.

I finally caved this fall and let D play tackle football. This fall. It has been a dreamed for so long and he just wore me down. It was a huge time committment from all of us, but he loved it so much, it is hard to regret all the work. Still, I told him that he couldn't do it again this next season. A heartbreak to be sure, but still... I just don't have the time for a round 2.

Some of these pictures are pretty blurry, but still, they are of him in action.

Here he is in a huddle with the coach and some of the other players.
There was definitely a size difference. :)

One of their games was played at night and about an hour away. We had a tailgate party before hand which was a lot of fun. Here he is waiting for his food.

We didn't have enough room to bring L or CK because we took some of D's teammates, but those of us who went had a lot of fun that night. It was a chilly night, but still fun! B was excited because he got to be a water boy and run out on field to take in water during the timeouts. However, he realized half way through that that job wasn't as fun as he had anticipated. He quit for the lure of playing ball on the sidelines with the other boys.

Daddy and A

KL had lots of fun pushing A around in the stroller.

Sleeping Beauties

When KL was just 5 months old, we were preparing for Grandma Shirley and Grandpa Allan to come for a visit. Naturally, this preparation consisted of quite a bit of mad cleaning on my part the last day before they arrived. The night before they came had been quite crazy and I hadn't given KL much attention at all. It was dinner time and the kids were eating take out Chinese picnic style on the floor in front of the fridge because the couches were where the table was because we had just had the carpet cleaned. I had put KL in the Bumbo next to the kids while I was running around the kitchen trying to keep some amount of order and keep the dinner mess contained to the 10ft square blanket I had laid down to eat on and no where else in my house I had spent all day cleaning. Eventually, I turned to check on the baby who had been so patient with me, despite my neglect. I found her like this:

I took this picture with my phone and it has always been one of my favorites. She was totally sound asleep and she looked so sweet.

Well, about a month ago, we were having a crazy day again (ok, probably a normal day) and A was set in the bumbo to be ignored while I tried to take care of the rest of the kids. Again, I eventually looked over to her and found her asleep like this:

I just couldn't resist taking the pictures since reminded me so much of KL doing the same thing at the same age. There really is just something so sweet about a sleeping baby! When ever I see one of the kids just fall asleep in the middle of something I always just laugh and have to take a pictures. Here is another set of pictures of these 2 little girls falling asleep in similar ways (can you tell which is which?):

In the high chair

(Baby 1:)

Baby #2):

Just in case you couldn't tell, #1 is KL and #2 is A. I love my babies!!!

Here is just another cute picture of A asleep.
I'm pretty sure this one is from one of the other kids who got a hold of the camera.