Christmas Eve 2012

I actually love Christmas eve more then Christmas- I love the anticipation leading up to Christmas morning! We met my in laws at village inn for breakfast.  It was a really fun way to start the day.  It was a VERY snowy day!  We got about 5-6 inches down.  Bryan was snow blowing our drive way every couple of hours.  (more because he loves to do it)..

 Stockton loved being out with the boys in the snow.  It's too bad it was too cold for it to be good packing snow.

 Ready for Christmas eve at Grandma Palmers!

 We do a nativity every year.  Brett was the "saddest baby Jesus I've ever seen" according to Tyson.

 We did our tradition of reading a book they would read to Bryan and his bothers and sisters when they were kids "I wonder when he comes again". I was surprised how well the kids sat.  It's kind of a long book!

 We sang christmas songs

 ate some yummy cookies

Getting santa's cookies ready.  I asked the boys if they wanted to make the cookies or buy them and they said buy.  I was like right on. One less thing to do! They got their PJ's that I always get them.  Brett has some just like Stockton.  Blake did his annual throwing a fit over getting PJ's instead of a toy bit.  I hope he catches on that I do this every year by next year.  Stockton of course had to taste test santa's cookie.

Then went home and got ready for bed!  I promised the boys they could have a sleep over in Stockton's room which they were excited about.  (I honestly wanted to be able to hear them open the door and sneak out if they tried.) It bothered Stockton to have them in there and he cried about it a little bit. It was like 10:30 though so I think he was just way tired.

I just love Christmas eve.

My Piano guy

Stockton is ALWAYS keeping me on my toes! I went into his room one morning and found him like this:

 He was very proud of himself that he had undressed himself.  Lucky for me THIS TIME he didn't pee but don't worry, he has done it before.  Then he points to where he went and says "I pee Mommy".  If only he cared to go in the toilet...

 Every time Tyson does good on one of his spelling tests Bryan goes and gets the boys jr. Frosty's .  We are a frosty family for sure!

 I had on the Grinch that stole Christmas and I noticed Stockton's face looked like this.  It's so cute and so hard to watch him grow up.  I feel like I have forced him to grow up too fast when I had Brett.

Blake is in what I call the "piano guys faze" .  They are a group of guys that video a pianist and a cellist all over playing cool songs and Blake LOVES them!  He carries a violin I have all around the house with him and "plays" it.  He won't let me actually teach him (I teach violin lessons) so he just plays the open strings.  We were watching them on TV when he made his own cello light saber.  I caught him out in the snow playing the violin just like Steve from the piano guys who plays his cello in the snow in one of the videos.  When I say he likes them it's a understatement.  He is close to obsessed. At least it's somewhat classical stuff and I like it too.  I hope he will let me teach him the violin now! 

 Brett is loving our tree.  We just went to a tree lot and picked one out.  We didn't get to go up in the mountains and get one this year.

 We are so excited for Christmas around here!

And last but not least Bryan pretending to play Blake's violin.

Bretty Boo at 7 months

My little Brett is growing up so fast!  He is at my FAVORITE BABY AGE! Over Thanksgiving he learned to sit up alone and he loves it. In fact he is getting to where he gets mad with me holding him when I'm not playing with him and wants to be somewhere doing his own thing.  He loves to have a few toys around him to play with.  He still rolls over all of the time but then can't get from his belly back to his back.

Brett is turning into a daddy's boy! He gets all excited when he sees Bryan come in the room.  Bryan of course loves it and will pick him up to play with him.  He still doesn't sleep very good.  He will go from waking up once one night to 5 times the next.  He is all over the place!  But he is finally napping for me which is a life saver.  He hates being in his car seat still and if you see me at the store chances are I'll be holding him while I push the cart.  He did reach the milestone of being put in the front of the cart in the seatbelt.  The problem is I need that spot for Stockton most of the time.

 This was taken on the day he turned 7 months old.  He is finally getting some hair!  Funny thing is he was born with more hair then any of my other kids but after it feel out it just doesn't want to grow back! And it's kind of dark that did grow back unlike my other boys.

 My dang hair ruined this picture but his face is still cute.

 Poor Bretty still wakes up with his eye stuck shut a lot.  We have been putting his drops in his eyes more to see if that helps.  I hope it gets better soon!  I swear I've had everyone and their dog tell me to just rub his eye but the problem isn't just one thing clogging that tear duct.  It's pretty bad poor little guy.

Brett really likes my tree.  At least the lights.  If I put him too close to it he tries to eat it.  Pine needles don't digest- this I learned from when Blake was little. =) 

 Big boy in the cart!

 I love fat babies in their square looking face!  

 Stockton was showing Brett the pictures in the book.  Stock loves to talk to Brett.

 He is my 4th child to wear this coat.  My hat goes off to Columbia Sportswear for making a kick butt coat!  It's still in awesome shape too!

I don't know why I love this picture so much but I do.  I just took it today and his face and his hair sticking up totally cracks me up. 

I realized something a couple of weeks ago that made me sad.  I got some pictures printed of my family and when I was dividing them up for each kids scrapbook I noticed that while I had a lot of Brett it was less of that age then I had of my other boys. I told myself I would NEVER do that!  I always felt bad for the kids that didn't have a lot of pictures of themselves because they were kid 3 or 4.  I've done good up until Brett so I need to do better.
Brett your mom really loves you!  You are the sweetest little guy and I love to hug and kiss you all of the time! I feel so blessed to be your mom!

Annual Palmer Santa Party

Twas the month before Christmas... and the Palmers are having a Christmas party.... 

Yeah it was pretty early and my kids did ask on the way home if the next day was Christmas but on Nov. 24 we had our yearly party with Santa.  My kids were so excited!

 But not as excited as Ava and Sadie- my nieces.  They were dancing around and Ava even ran up and hugged Santa.  It was so cute! My kids were a little more reserved.

 Blake got a star wars set he loved.

 Tyson got a angry birds star wars set.  He was much more excited then this picture gives him credit for.  He only asked for a coloring book from Santa.

 Stockton was doing his tremor shake thing with the idea of going up to see Santa.  I could tell he wanted to because he saw the kids getting presents but he was so scared so Daddy had to help him out.

 He got a puzzle with bugs on it and he loves it.

 Brett didn't really care one way or the other about Santa.  I fell bad this is the best picture I got of him.

Santa left before we could get family pictures with him which I was sad about.

These are my sweet nieces Sannette and Laycee.  I wanted a picture with Brett with them but he wasn't happy poor guy.  Laycee is doing the coyote sign her brothers taught her whatever that means.

We had a fun time eating really yummy food and hanging out together.  Can't wait until Christmas!

Thanksgiving 2012

It was my parents turn for Thanksgiving this year and since they are in their new house we wanted to do it there.  My dad has been working very hard along with Bryan, Nate and my mom to building a covering for his patio and also a shed in his back yard.  They just got their new spa for the patio much to my boys (including Bryans) delight.  My boys treat it like a pool they can use all year. 

 Thanksgiving day we did a lot of hanging out then got ready for the big meal! Ty got into the olives:

 Notices Blake's face in most of my pictures.  What a little fart!  Here is the fam minus Brett who was asleep when we started eating.

 All 5 Pack grandkids:

 I LOVE this picture for a lot of reasons- one I think Blake's face is funny. Two the babies are both really mad and they usually are so happy and three my dad has a real smile on his face.  Classic.

 The boys broke out my brothers legos and had a ball building stuff. They also love to play with all of Nate's old batman stuff.

 Brett learned how to sit up really well while we were there.  He is at my FAVORITE baby stage!

 We drove up by Provo Canyon to see this shopping centers christmas lights.  The paper said there was going to be live music and a merry go round going but there wasn't.  My boys still loved the lights.  It was worth going just to see Stockton go totally crazy about the lights.  He was running everything yelling "christmas lights! Christmas lights! oooooo!  Lights!"

 Yes Bryan, you are outside a Victoria's secret.

 Santa usually sits here but with him being gone we decided to take advantage of the photo opt.

 I braved the cold air and ran out to the hot tub with the boys.

 Stockton trying to play Blake's violin. He loved it! 

 Brett and Makiya are so cute together.  I like to get pictures of them together where they are so close in age (8 days).  I just loved how he put his arm around her.  They smile a lot at each other.

So I got me a new toy.  Nate helped me get a new iphone hooked up over the break and I LOVE it! My brother and sister in law are very tech savvy so they  helped me get my phone going. I told Sierra that I had never sent a text before.  The couple of cell phones I had when I was in college or first married charged to text so I never did it.  She said she has been texting since the 7th grade.  Boy am I behind the curve!

I left the plastic part on the screen to protect it until my case came and didn't realize there was a cover on the back over the camera part.  So that's why these pictures look crapy.

 Blake is really, really into playing the cello lately.  We don't have a cello so he just carries his violin around the house playing the open strings. I've played the violin for 22 years (am I that old?) and teach violin lessons so I tried to show him how to actually play and he gets really mad at me.  He wants to play the cello like the guy on the piano guys so I had my dad play some for him.  He thought it was sweet.

I haven't talked Ty into trying to play yet but I want him to at least try it!

We had a awesome Thanksgiving!  I have a lot of different people I know going through health things with themselves or their kids and it just makes me so thankful we are all healthy and happy.  I'm so lucky to have 4 wonderful boys who really want to be good kids.  I'm lucky to have a good husband that makes me laugh a lot and pushes me to be better.  I have a wonderful extended family, a beautiful home to live in and a husband who supports me staying home with our kids.  Even though having 4 boys under 6 is enough to make me want to pull my hair out somedays I don't know how I could be any more blessed!