New Years Eve in a minute

This New Years Eve we had a "minute to win it" game at my moms house. The Claytons came back a little earlier than planned so they got to come with us. It was A LOT of fun. We divided up into four teams and battled out each round. 2 teams would play each other and then the winners of each round would play each other to determine the final champion. We kept track of points on a board and when all the games were over the team with the most wins got prizes.

I tried to get pictures of all the games but failed. I did get pictures of most of them though. They are all pretty blurry because we were in a room with terrible lighting and people were moving pretty fast.

Fishing game:

The player had to try and hook all of their candy canes onto their "hook" they were holding in their mouth. No hands could be used.

Marble Tennis Racket Game: Holding a tennis racket in between the knees the player must roll a marble around til it lands in the center square marked in blue. (no hands)

Straw Feather Game: The first player to blow the feather off the opponents side of the table wins.

Dice Stack Game: The first player to dice stack all 5 dice (and keep them there for 3 seconds) on the end of a popsicle stick held between their teeth wins.

Cliffhanger: The first person to blow a card to the edge of the table and have it hang without falling off wins.

Marshmallow Toss: First player to catch 5 marshmallows in a container on their head wins. Or the most marshmallows in a minute.

Feather Blow: The team to keep their feather in the air the longest (by blowing it) wins.

Marshmallow Jump: The first player to empty the bucket of marshmallows strapped onto his/her back my jumping up and down wins.

hahah. Does anyone else have a grandpa cool enough that he would do this??? AND WIN??? It was awesome, and a tad bit frightening.

Hanger Hang: The first player to hang all five hangers on each other without them tipping wins.

Sticky Nose: The first player to transfer all their cotton balls from one plate to the other by dipping their nose in Vaseline and then sticking the cotton balls to them wins.

Other games we did that I didn't get pictured.

Noodle Carry: The first player to transfer 6 penne noodles onto a plate on the opposite end of the room wins. No hands can be used and the noodles must be transferred by a spaghetti stick held in the mouth.

Marble Roll: The first player to knock down a pencil at the end of the hall by rolling a marble into it wins.

Peanut Butter Ping Pong:Two pieces of bread covered in peanut butter are laid at the end of long table. The first player to bounce a ping pong ball and get it to stick on their bread wins.

Hex Nut Stack: 6 hex nuts are put on a pencil. The first player to stack all the hex nuts using the pencil wins.

We ended the night by making home made ice-cream using liquid nitrogen. We made 2 different flavors. Oreo and Banana Caramel. They were both delicious. Jenny was super excited about the whole thing.

The quote of the night went to Kelsey who saw the can of cashews getting hit by the liquid nitrogen fog and handed them to Ben saying "Careful, this is going to freeze your nuts!"

It was a super fun night, and a great way to welcome in 2012!!

6 month stats

Our little miss is 6 months old. I hate saying that. When people see her they always say, oh you have a little new one there and I just smile and pretend like they are right and that she is still my tiny little newborn. However she seems to be trying extra hard lately to remind me that she is getting bigger and older and is not a tiny newborn.

She is now rolling both ways.

She reaches for and grabs toys now.

She eats quite well off of a spoon.

She is a drooling queen, I think she must be cutting her first tooth.

She has great leg muscles and loves to stand.

She loves baby Eisenstein.

She still isn't sitting at all. She has very little muscle in her core area. The Davis Learning Center came and did an evaluation on her and she is testing at about a 3 month old level for most of her skills. They said that is not too bad considering the early and rough start that she had. We are going to start having someone come to our house and work with her to see if we can't develop some more muscle tone and motor skills.

We went to the doctor last week and she weighed in at a WHOPPING...

11 lbs. ha. She is still below the 5th percentile. The doctor said he was hoping she would start to catch up a little but she seems to just be following her own curve. A lot of that is due to the fact that she doesn't eat much. She averages about 24 ounces in a day. ( 4 ounces every 4 hours) Dr. Silas said that is what a lot of newborns are eating. He would really like us to feed her more but with her acid reflux if we feed her more than that she spits most of what she eats back out. So we stay at the 4 ounces and she stays content and doesn't spit.

She is 21.5 inches long. Which is actually tall for her weight. She is in the 10th percentile for height. Head Circumference was 16 in. 5th percentile

All in all she is a little tiny thing, but she sure takes up a BIG place in our hearts!

Taycee 6 months old

Weight: 16 lbs

Height: 26 inches

Kaden 6 months old

Weight 20 lbs 14 oz

Height 30 inches

haha every time I look back and see how huge Kaden was I think, "HOW in the world did I carry him around everywhere for 18 months?" He was such a HUGE baby. Fat and Happy.

Little Miss is 6 months old

It's true... she is 6 months old. (A moment of silence please) Will someone please tell me how to keep her this little forever???? Or at least til I can have another little one.

Here are some of her 6 month pictures.

Doctors Stats will be posted soon.

We struggle daily to keep her safe from all the love her sister gives. I have a new understanding of "kill them with kindness"

She is tiny. She is precious. She is LOVED.

Christmas Part 2

Christmas is always a day full of fun and surprises and this year was no different. The kids actually let us sleep til about 6 before they woke us up bursting at the seems with excitement. When they saw what was in their stocking they both squealed with delight... the best part is that Santa stuffed their stocking full of fruit snacks. They are easy to please I guess. Kaden was such a sweetheart and passed out all of his fruit snacks to everyone in the room.

Mom and Dad bought these coaster cars for the family. They were a hit. All the kids big and little spent most of the day racing around the island in the kitchen on them.

Grandma helped Addison open her presents.

This girl has AWESOME bed head

The kids all ready for church. Grandma Clayton bought the girls matching dresses. Too bad Addison was not happy about pictures.

Grandma Sharp won the best present award this year for Taycee with a Rapunzle wig. Taycee had to immediately put it on and go look in the mirror.

Her 2 favorite presents. The kitty and the wig.

Kadens favorite present this year was his laptop. (which was actually Chris's really old crappy laptop that we wiped and but a few games on, it is no I-Pad but the kid was happy)

Santa kind of forgot about Addison this year but promises next year he will have a few things to fill her stocking!

Chris got a hydrolic lift, and some much needed clothing.

I got a sweet coat, a vacuum, and a toaster oven.... but my FAVORITE present by far was Chris taking a few days off of work after Christmas to stay home with our family and play.

It was a great Christmas!

Christmas Part 1

This year we did Christmas a little different than normal. We always switch off years celebrating Christmas with one of our families and then after Christmas we head to the other family for New Years weekend. This year we had Christmas with our family but the Claytons were heading up to Wyoming to spend Christmas with Kilie and Kyle ( Chris's sister) who's baby was due Christmas day. Since we wouldn't be able to go down to St George after Christmas they came up a few days prior to Christmas and spend a few days with us at our house. The day before Christmas we got up and opened up presents from Grandma and Grandpa Clayton.

2 Christmas Days??? The kids were beyond happy about it.

Addison was happy to join in the excitement. She helped open each of her presents and then would stare at each one for a few moments after they were opened.

This girl is OBSESSED with purses. She is her mothers child.

Taycee got a lot of princess dolls. Her princess collection downstairs is ever growing. She is such a girly girl.

Kaden was thrilled with his angry bird blanket.

It was a great pre-Christmas Christmas Day!

Pre-Christmas Fun

We did so much during the month of December and I feel bad cramming it all into one post... but considering I have 300 pictures from Christmas and New Years to sort through... one post it will be.

Our tiniest santa's helper. We tried to find an elf costume to go with her cute little ears... but they don't seem to make those. This dress was actually Taycee's dress. Funny that my November baby and my June baby wore the same dress in the same month. :D

The kids wrote their letters to Santa for FHE one night and we went straight to the post office and mailed them off to Santa... (who is currently living in St George)

Kaden wanted to write his own letter this year. I had to take a picture so he could look back and remember it. So cute.

Translation..

Dear Santa,

I am a good boy. I want a lightening Mcqueen game and book. And a I-Pad with games.

Love,

Kaden

Yes he asked for an I-Pad. In fact any time anyone asked him what he wanted throughout the month he immediately said, and I-Pad with zombies on it. I tried telling him Santa didn't have enough money to get kids I-Pads and he told me "mom... Santa is magic... he can do whatever he wants" Boy oh boy do I wish that were true.

Taycee's requests were just as impossible...

A Kitty? yeah right. Doesn't that child know her mommy is deathly allergic to cats? Santa played dumb and got a fake kitty :D

The kids saw Santa a couple of times. It didn't matter where we were or how hard we tried to talk Taycee into it, there was nothing on this earth that could convince her to get anywhere near that strange man covered in white hair. He called on the phone once and she wouldn't even talk to him. Oh well... maybe next year.

Kaden on the other hand would rush up and give him a huge hug, then commence telling him every thing he could think of asking for.

We made a surprise visit to St George. Addison got some much missed snuggle time with grandpa next to the Christmas Tree.

The kids made a gingerbread train with grandma and grandpa.

We went to Christmas Village in Ogden with Chris and the Young Men in our ward for a youth activity. We bundled everyone as best we could before heading out into the 20 degree night.

Even in all her layers and blankies Addison still had a red little nose.

The kids loved looking into all the houses and seeing the displays.

The kids were hugging to keep warm :)

Poor little red nose.

we lasted approximately 20 minutes before we were all frozen to the bone and rushing back to the car to thaw out. But for that 20 minutes the kids sure did have fun.