Today

John flew out to CA at 6 AM. Carter woke up crying that he was sick at 7 AM. I took the girls to school and taught preschool. By this time it was 11:30 and Carter had a temperature of 102 degrees. Matson came home from the babysitter and I noticed white spots in his mouth. By 2:30 we were at the doctor. We spent $70 at the doctor's office and the pharmacy and brought home 1 little boy with an ear infection and a baby with thrush and RSV. I'm ready for Spring.

Christmas

Santa brought: A gymnastics Barbie for Emily

An Easy Bake Oven for Kelsie

A roaring, walking T-Rex dinosaur for Carter that he was competely terrified of! He spent the first half of the morning on my lap, trying to stay away from that scary dinosaur. :)

And then here are the girls with their big surprise from mom and dad....American Girls dolls. They were SO surprised! But I think I enjoyed it even more than them. It was so fun to surprise them!

Emily with her Kirsten American Girl doll
Kelsie with her look alike doll--she named Kelsie

John is doing a good job taking care of the newest members of the family. We spend a lot of time babysitting dolls these days.

Carter's favorite gift was this fire truck from his Aunt.

Matson with his Christmas loot. His favorite was a little doggy the kids picked out for him. He can't get enough of it!

Matson with his Christmas puppy.

Baby's 1st Christmas

Christmas Eve

Our Family Christmas Eve 2010

The girls decorating cookies

The Nativity with Emily as Mary and Ethan as Joseph

Carter insisted on being "Joseph the Shepard" for the nativity. Yes. He is extremely opinionated for a 2 year old. He was a shephard gone mad with a gun. He spent most of his time as "Joseph the Shepard" trying to shoot other members of nativity cast and yelling "your died" at them. It was really special.

Cute Mary

The Nativity Crew with Kelsie as the angel

December

December in a nutshell: fun and busy. We had most of our shopping done really early this year and we wanted to spend the month doing fun, memorable things as a family. We took the kids to the Festival of Trees (which they loved), went to the lights at Thanksgiving Point and fed the reindeer, and did lots of Christmas crafts at home. I got to help at Emily's Polar Express Day in kindergarten, which was so cute! Here she is with our next door neighbor Reese. They are in the same class at school (that may have something to do with me crying in the principals office when I was 9 months pregnant about how Emily needed a really sweet teacher and a friend she knew in the class). But it worked out wonderfully because they are inseparable at school and have both helped each other to come out of their shells and it has been so fun to see. John got to watch the girls Christmas singing program at school (I watched via video camera after preschool) and it was adorable. I was sad to miss it.

We did our traditional Gingerbread houses at Grandma's houses which the kids LOVE. It wasn't quite the same without Uncle Brenton and his crazy Gingerbread designs though--we sure miss him. The girls also went to a cousins sleepover at Grandma's house and had a blast. It was super for us parents too cause we got most of Christmas wrapped and organized while the little peekers were gone for the night. We love that tradition!

John took several days off this year and it was so nice to have him home and have a break from the regular schedule and stress. The kids loved going sledding and playing outside with dad. It was especially nice because I haven't felt like the funnest mom lately. It's really hard to take the kids to do much outside with a 4 month in tow so we were very behind on our sledding and snow man building this year.

John got to go to the Jazz game with his friend Dane. They were in a box suite and enjoyed their up close view of the game, tickets courtesy of a guy who was trying to sell them something. :) They looked over and could see President Monson sitting two boxes over. Pretty cool. John's got all sorts of claims to fame now.

The Bond

Emily has this special little bond with Matson that's so special. She is happiest when she's cuddling this little guy. The first thing she does when she gets up is to come in and hold Matson and get him smiling at her. They are so content together. She is always telling him "you are the cutest baby their ever was". It always makes me smile because I tell her that it's like she's looking in the mirror. Their baby pictures look so much alike and he totally reminds of Emily as a baby..... the same bald little head, same rashy skin and head, same mannerisms, same super happy baby that's always grinning at everyone. Guess that's why they adore each other so much and it sure is sweet.

10 Years

John and I also celebrated our 10 year anniversary in December. I really can't believe we've been married for a DECADE. Sometimes it feels like we've only been married a few years and other times it feels like forever. It's weird. All I know is that time is flying by way too fast and every year passes faster.

I was a little sad that we weren't able to go away or do something fun for this big anniversary. But we weren't in a position to do that right now and that was okay (after I came to terms with it). We feel grateful for all that we have done and experienced in these 10 years together. I mean 4 kids, 2 jobs, 3 moves, and 2 houses isn't bad for a ten year stretch!

I can honestly say that on our wedding day I never imagined this is where we'd be 10 years later. I guess I just couldn't see that far at that point. I wanted a big family but I certainly couldn't imagine 4 little people that we'd be responsible for. As we look back I'm grateful for the happy, sad, good, and bad times we've been through and where we are today.