Some Cute Pics!

We got our pictures back from the photographer last weekend.  I didn't care for the one of my whole family, but I thought that a lot of the other ones were really cute.  However, I think next time we will not try to do my whole family at the same time as we do our individual family since it is a little hard to get the kids to smile and stay focused that long.  However, we did get some cute pics.  Here they are:

For some reason the pictures all look really washed out when I upload them onto the blog.  They are much brighter on my computer, but at least you can see them.

Here is my whole family, 37 people!

Here are Jan and Jenn with all the kids.  This one was funny!  Imagine 16 adults standing behind the photographer being silly and trying to get their children to look at the photographer and smile.  It's a wonder that they didn't all start crying with all the confusion.

Here's a couple of our family shots.  I wish the kids had been smiling, but we had been there for about 1 1/2 hours by then and they had pretty much had it.

I like this one where we are looking into the water.

This is unusual.  Emma never smiles for the photographer.  We got lucky here!

Matthew really did not want to smile at all that day, but I still thought he was cute!

I love this one of Matthew and Daniel.  They look so handsome!

This one is my favorite picture, I LOVE IT!

"There's lot's of prophets around here!"

Jan, mom the kids and I went up to the Church Office Building on Wednesday to visit Jenn at work.  We had a nice time.  We met some of the people Jenn works with and they were really nice.  There were a lot of pictures of prophets on the walls and lots of men wearing suits and Emma said, "There's a lot of prophets around here!"  It was really cute!  Here are some pics:

right outside the cafeteria where we had lunch, it was huge and had tons of different tasty food choices.  Matthew is holding Jenn's name badge.  He loved to play with it.

After lunch we went outside for a bit to have a look around.

Here is one of Emma looking at the statue of Emma and Joseph.  She loves Emma (obviously) and every time we see the billboard for the Emma Smith movie she gets excited, so she was really excited to see this statue!

It was windy and cold!

Matthew is holding Jenn's badge again!

What I'm meant to do...

It had been "one of those days."  A day where you wonder why am I doing it?  Is it really worth it?  Am I really making a difference?  Am I doing what I really want to do, or am I being left behind?  Is being a mother really what I personally was meant to do?  

Of course I knew the answer to ever one of those questions was a resounding "YES!"  However, it had been a whining day all day for Emma.  To top it off, Matthew had been fussy for much of the day.  Needless to say, I was getting quite frazzled.  I was falling into one of my "I don't really care" modes.  You know, one of those times when your child whines that they want to do it and you finally throw your hands up in frustration and say, "I don't care" and let them try something you know they can't do.  Then of course you feel guilty because you know that you really do care about them and now it's going to take you saying 9 positive things to make up for you're making them feel like you don't care about them.  Then to make matters worse, you know that you are being ridiculous by having all of the aforementioned thoughts, because you are so blessed that you cannot even count all of your blessings, and you get even more bugged at yourself because of your ungratefulness.  

Okay, maybe nobody else has that same train of thought, but unfortunately that is something that happens to me.  At any rate, I was feeling rather irked at myself last night and wondering why I could not just be happy dangit!  Daniel came home and I began making dinner while he began playing with the kids.  I looked at my sweet husband holding our baby boy and playing "chase" (Emma's favorite game.) with our little girl.  I suddenly stopped and realized it was like "a picture print by Currier and Ives."  It was the perfect moment.  You know, one of those moments when you realize that "YES, it is all worth it!  This is exactly what I want!"  I felt humbled and so grateful for the opportunity that I have to be raising wonderful children with my sweet husband.  My whole attitude changed, and finally I was acting grateful for the blessings.  I don't know why it took me all day to get there, but I did finally make it, and it was wonderful to realize that Heavenly Father does care about me and what I am doing.  Hopefully in the future I can bypass the irked feelings and be grateful right at first.

Emma's school pictures came as well.  Here they are:

The theme was "When I grow up."  Emma wanted to dress as a mother, so that is what we did.  At least she is almost smiling!

Matthew is "cheesing" it!  He was smiling in most of the shots she took so it wasn't to hard to find  a good one. 

Well, almost...

Well, the snow day was almost perfect.  The snowman "died" an hour or two after we finished building him.  Emma was pretty sad about that.  Oh well, the fun was in building him anyway and at least we got the chance to build a snowman before it got too warm!!

"In the sun he melted...small, small, small!!"

The perfect snow day!

Emma ran in my room this morning and very excitedly said, "Guess what!?!  There's snow outside!!!"  We went and looked out the back door and sure enough there was at least 3 inches and it was still snowing!  I told Emma that after we put Bubbers down for a nap we could go out and make a snowman.

Emma was very patient all morning while waiting to make the snowman.  She kept herself occupied very well while I put Matthew down for a nap by making a "house."  Her house consisted of opening all of the drawers in the kitchen and lining up all of the chairs to enclose herself right next to the stove.  It was darling and kept her very quiet the whole time I was putting Matthew down.

One view of Emma's "house."

The second view of Emma's "house."

Finally it was time to make a snowman.  We got all bundled up, grabbed the baby monitor and the camera and headed out the door.   The day was perfect.  It had stopped snowing and the sun was shining for part of the time.  The snow was wet and packed wonderfully.

We started out by making a very large ball for the base.  Emma helped push it to make it bigger and bigger.

Then we made the ball for the middle.  It kept getting bigger and bigger too, almost too big.  I couldn't lift it up on top of the base.  I had to roll it up the side and onto the top of the base.  I almost didn't make it.   I persevered however, and was able to get it up there.

We finished by making a smaller ball for the head.  Fortunately this one wasn't quite as heavy and I was able to lift it on.  The whole time Emma was packing snow on the bottom piece and talking about how snowmen like to eat carrots.  It was darling.

After we got the snowman all built, we added the face, buttons and scarf.  Emma wanted to put the nose on, so I lifted her up and let her do that.  (Thanks to Melis for giving us a snowman kit.)  However, we didn't have any arms so I had to cut some limbs off of a nearby bush.  Finally he was finished, our fabulous snowman!

 Emma wanted to hold the snowman's "hand."

We didn't have anyone to take a picture of all of us, so we all crowded together while I held the camera out and took the picture.  :)

It was so FUN!!!

Cute little babies!

We went over to Dave and Melissa's house last night.  Matthew and Mieka have started playing together a little bit lately and last night they did the cutest thing.  Matthew sat on Mieka's train push toy.  Then Mieka pushed him on it all the way across the room.  It was so cute and they were both having such a good time.  Here are some pics, thanks to Melis for sending them to me!

Here's Mieka pushing him.  He was a little tired, but he really did like it.

Okay, they both have funny little looks on their faces, but they really did have fun.

Mieka looks at Matthew, "Did you have fun?"

This was on Sunday, but they were so cute playing then as well.  They both sat in the hall and played with some baby bottles.  It was so cute to hear them laughing.

Matthew liked their kitchen.  Maybe he will be a chef when he grows up.  We better get our little kitchen out.

A happy, scary Halloween!

We had a great Halloween!  I let Emma choose her own costume this year and she chose a lady bug costume.  I decided to get a bumble bee costume for Matthew so they could both be bugs.  I didn't have any costumes for Daniel or I, but while I was at the rental center that morning, I was talking to Ryan (our cousin-in-law who works with us) and he suggested that I be a bug catcher.  I thought that sounded cute, so I threw together a "bug catcher" costume for me.

Emma dressed up in her lady bug costume.

We usually visit my grandmother who lives in a care center on Fridays.  Since Halloween fell on a Friday this year, we decided to take the kids in their costumes and let them trick-or-treat there.  Stace and her kids also came, as well as Jan and Jenn.  The residents seemed to really enjoy seeing the children.

The bumble bee, lady bug and bug catcher with Grandma Spendlove!

There was this cute little girl who came walking by and saw all of the kids and decided to sit down and play.  She and Matthew were both dressed like bumble bees, so we got a picture of them next to each other.

Emma giving grandma a hug just before we left.

We went trick-or-treating later that night with Dave and Melis and their kids.  Annika and Emma had a fun time together and were so cute!

Our little family all ready to go trick-or-treating!

Mieka is a monkey with Dave and Melis as bananas.  Annika is a fairy.

Emma and Annika trick-or-treating together.  They were having so much fun!

This house had a little "spook alley" type of tunnel with smoke and "scary" things leading up to the door.  Emma wasn't scared at all.  I guess she was to excited about getting candy to be scared.

Here's one of them up at one of the houses.  They had put a bunch of those "snaps" fireworks on the sidewalk leading to the door so there were a bunch of popping sounds when the girls were walking up.  I thought that was a cute idea.

That was all of the happy part of Halloween.  The scary part came after we were done trick-or-treating.  We were on our way home and Janice was holding Emma.  They were a ways behind Daniel and I, so they decided to run to catch up with us.  They were about 15 ft. away from us when I heard a thud and then Emma crying.  I ran back and discovered that Jan had tripped and fell with Emma whose head hit the pavement.  I was rather worried.  I picked up Emma and quickly walked the rest of the way home.

When we got home Emma didn't look too good.  She was sluggish and tired.  We couldn't tell if it was from hitting her head or because she had a long day.  Jan was worried of course because she is a nurse and knows how bad a head injury can be.  We decided to give her a blessing and then make the decision whether or not to take her in to be checked.  Dave came over and helped Daniel give the blessing.  She was blessed that she would be okay.  It was a wonderful blessing, and Emma perked up shortly afterward.  

Needless to say, we did not go over to my parents house that night as we had planned.  Instead we kept an eye on Emma for a while and then put her to bed.  We are so glad she was okay.

I am so grateful for the power of the priesthood in my home.  I am also grateful that Daniel honors his priesthood and is able to give blessings to our children.  Emma has been fine ever since the blessing and I am so grateful for that as well.   And Jan, I hope you're no longer feeling bad about it, especially since she is just fine!