crazy family time

the day after christmas, we were expecting all of nathan's family to come and stay at our house. one brother, aaron, called christmas morning, and told us he was 30 min from the house, a day early!! so we finished up at my parents house, where we were for the morning, and came home to see them. we were not expecting anyone to come, so we had not cleaned up the presents, and there was a dirty nasty house waiting for us upon arrival! thankfully, they did not mind the chaos, and even helped me clean up before the rest of the clan showed up. it was very fun to play with the one family for a day before the rest of the craziness began! don't get me wrong, we love having the whole family together, it's just a lot of people in a small space!! there were minimal problems, and we thoroughly enjoyed the family together for the first time in over 2 years. it was very laid back, not a lot of rushing around to get to planned activities. when you hae 20 kids, that is the best way to do it!! the cousins had so much fun together, and just ran around like little hoodlums for the weekend. it was very fun for them to see each other again.
some people might think it would be too crazy to cram 32 people into one place, but it actually worked out very well. we had the kids in the 2 back living rooms, one couple in the front room, one in the boys room, and then the rest at the back house. they had a room for each of the other couples, so it worked. we all actually slept, most nights. there were only babies crying and kids coughing for some of the nights. :) i enjoyed my nights in my own bed!! we had family pictures taken, and it was the best experience we have had yet. i think it's because most of the kids are getting a little older. it was only my kids that didn't want to sit still and look cute. 2 families left after lunch on monday, and another yesterday afternoon. the last is here for one more day, and leaves in the morning. we are sad the have the festivities end. we love all the fun and chaos of the big family together!!

kids are nutty

ok, there are a lot of things i need to post about. first, i had my visiting teachers over, but caleb wouldn't come say hi. after they left, this is what i found. no wonder he was so quiet!!

colby's christmas concert for school was the first of many i'm sure. he was singing with the whole school for the first time. i am now one of those parents, with multiple children's performances to attend. yahoo. he looked pretty snazzy though. and silly.
and caleb fell asleep on the way to pick up grandma mcnelly, and never really woke up. this is what he thought of the whole thing.

we babysat cousin andrew for a couple hours, and here he is with caleb being so cute watching a movie. don't you love giant bean bags??
this is our view of the neighbor's house across the street. isn't the sunset awesome?
rachel thought putting her breadstick on the floor and attacking it was a good way to eat it. it was hilarious!!!
she screams when we put her in the car, so at 6 months, we switched her to this carseat. isn't she cute? she is a much happier girl now, which makes for a much happier mom!!
as always, she loves her jumper!!
and just as a side note, i can't figure out how to write under each picture, sorry!!

pics for the wall

we had some pics done yesterday of the kids by my friend chalice. she charges a flat rate to do the session, then you have the cd to do what you want with. she did a great job! here is the link to check out the first pics. i thought they were great, way better than the awful school pics, even with retakes!

http://chaliceleamanphotography.blogspot
.com/2008/12/g-kids.html

twerpy boy

ok, so my sister tat was over yesterday, and we couldn't find caleb for a few minutes. we were in the kitchen making dinner, and every now and then we would hear his little voice. well, tat went into the living room to check on the babies, and this is what she found. she just came and shook her head at me, and nathan handed me the camera as i walked by. we knew it would be entertaining! caleb had climbed into rachel's jumperoo, and couldn't get out!! as you can see, he was not as amused as we were by the whole thing!! :) why do all the kids think baby toys are so fun? without fail, the older child has gotten into the baby's swing, walker, carseat, or whatever they can squeeze their little bodies into! silly kids.
and this was the other morning, the girls were taking a bath together. this is the first time i have let rebekah be in the tub with rachel, and she loved every minute of it. rachel now rolls from her back to sitting up immediately if you lay her down, even in the water. she is just going to sit up from now on, and there is nothing i can do about it!! good thing she's so cute!!

holidays

so thanksgiving was at our house this year. 2 of my sisters, and my parents came over. with nathan's parents too, that made for a full house! 3 babies under 1, 2 3 year olds, and all of us. yahoo. it went smoothly though, nathan is an amazing cook, so between him, and his parents, i didn't really do anything! my kind of deal. i did have to clean up the house, and put the extra leaves in the table though. that is hard work! it was delicious, and everything was perfect.

then, black friday just happened to be nathan's birthday. so after getting up at a horrid 3:45 to feed rachel, i decided to get shopping with my family. sandy came too, and we were at kohl's around 5. yes, we are one of the crazy families! the silly is that i didn't really have anything i needed to get, and only got little things that looked fun. so after going to a late breakfast, we came home, and poor nathan, who was suffering from playing in a turkey bowl, finally got to open his birthday presents. doesn't he look enthused? i can't keep secrets from him very well, so he actually got a lot before this. he had a few surprises though. happy bday!

rachel discovered the joys of finding a half eaten breakfast bar on the floor, and chomping it! she had a death grip on that thing, and wouldn't drop it for anything. until....nathan came home with a hot fudge chocolate ice cream (my favorite) sundae. then she was all for bites of that instead. a girl after my own heart!! :) and on a side note, we live just around the corner from the temple, so if anyone is coming down to see the lights, they could stop in and see us!!

yay for mobility!!

ok for some reason these pics loaded in a backwards order, but here it is. rachel sitting up!! she rolls all over now, and squiggles and squirms until she can get anything she wants. she gets up on all fours, and rocks back and forth. and just today she started getting up on her feet, with her butt in the air. that's how colby used to crawl! it was hilarious when he did it. i don't know if she will actually move like that or not, but she is sure happier now that she can get around a little bit! yay for mobility!! it makes mom's life that much easier.....
and on a side not, i registered colby, caleb and rebekah for soccer this season. caleb wears his shirt at some point everyday. he is very excited to be a big enough boy this year to play! it will be fun to watch them all in action!

kids say the darndest things

ok, so the kids and i were driving around saturday, and i remembered that we have this meeting sunday to talk about what to expect the next year to prepare for colby's baptism. we are talking about different things, and i said that in a few years, he would be going on a mission. i told him that daddy, and his 2 aunts, tattie and monica, both served missions. he sat there contemplating for a while, then he goes, how come they're not still missionaries? did they get FIRED? from the tone of his voice, you could just tell he was asking, what bad thing did they do that they're not on missions anymore? it was so funny!! i explained that they were not fired, and that you only serve a mission for 2 years, and only 18 months for girls. and what age you go, and all the details. it was quite the conversation!!
and tonight, we were sitting at the meeting, and colby leans over to whisper in my ear, i can't wait until i'm old enough to be a dad. then i can BOSS MY KIDS AROUND!! i laughed, but i don't think nathan appreciated how funny that was! :)
aren't kids the best? kids truly do say the darndest things!!

poor sick kids

we got rachel a jumperoo from my friend, allison. she loves hopping in it, every day she gets a little better at it. it's hilarious to watch her giggling as she bounces. but the past few weeks, the poor girl has had a nasty cough and runny nose. i finally called the doc, cuz it's been 2 months for caleb and rebekah. after talking to him, he said they most likely need the breathing machine. i felt rather dumb for not thinking of that, since we do this every year. so i made an appt for later in the day. (they had dentist appts in the morning already). we all go down there, and after waiting for over an hour(a kid had a piece of GLASS in his ear, at 6 months!!), we finally got to see the doc. everyone has bronchitis and all the fun that goes along with it. so 10 perscriptions later, we are home, trying to deal with all the meds that caleb just LOVES to take. at the moment, i am sitting here with red medicine staining all over my pajamas! the breathing machine is fun too, 10 minutes for each kid. the medicine routine is something like an hour to get everything down all the kids!! don't we just love the sick kids??

crazy dressed up kids

ok, sorry i have a lot of pics on 1 post, but i couldn't help it. there is a lot of cool stuff this time!! the pics are backwards from how i downloaded them, so bear with me. first, is caleb, and cousin andrew. they are best buds, and have so much fun together. andrew barely stopped hopping long enough to get this pic! and here's rebekah with his sister, abigail. they were both angels, so we thought it was fitting to take a pic together. then the kids are sitting by some crazy lady. oh wait, that's my DAD!!!! yes folks, my father has dressed as a woman for halloween as long as i can remember. he secretly enjoys wearing my mom's hats and clothes. it's great, with the high pitched voice and everything. this year he wore pants under the dress, so you couldn't see his hairy legs. that is the best part, but alas, this year it was missing.

all the kids together, aren't they adorable!!??
rebekah loves holding her sister, and here she is in the ladybug costume rebekah wore when she was just a few weeks old. time flies!!!












and here is the best pictures..... my friend allison brought her twin girls over, katelyn and danielle, and tat brought her twins and andrew over, sam and abby, we thought it would be great to get pics of the 5 babies altogether. i thought it was awesome, and mighty scary to think of someone having all these babies at once!! rachel smooching danielle, and the girls together. i couldn't tell them apart, can you?

rachel and pumpkins

well, we have been busy the last few days. we decided not to wait until halloween night to do our pumpkin carving, so here it is. i was feeding and caring for rachel, so dad got the job of carving and degooing the pumpkin with the older kids. i wasn't jealous, believe me. i think cleaning out the goo is yuck. i'm happy to have a loving husband that will do it for me!! caleb went ballistic for some reason saying how afraid he was, and screaming his head off when we told him we were carving the pumpkin. not sure what the deal was, but he got over it when i got out the blinking light to put in the jack o lantern. silly boy!!
rachel is starting to grab the spoon when i try to feed her in such a way that it gets everywhere. so i started giving her another one, that way when i put a bite in, she can hold onto that spoon, finish the bite, and i'm ready with another one to swap her with. it's great. and the kids can't get enough of rachel. she is such a sweet baby, and laughs and smiles so much. she is also rolling over from her back every time i lay her down. it's nuts! i try to change her diaper, and she's flipped. she is fast too! i tried twice to video it, but only go the tail end. sorry i sound so retarded!! enjoy!