Family Pictures

My sister Melissa is the most amazing photograher. She takes our family pictures every year, and I am yet to be disappointed. My favorites are the close ups that she gets and the little moments that are never planned.

Check out her Photography Blog http://www.melissastevensphotography.blogspot.com/

Thanks Melissa.

Here Comes Santa Clause...

Sunday night we were invited over to my brother-in-laws parents house for dinner and... drum roll please.... Santa Clause! Every year they surprise all the kids with Santa and each of them get to sit on his lap and tell him what they want for Christmas. Of course, this year was a ton better for Jack. He even gave dear old Santa a hug. Clara was just happy to be held. And actually, I think she liked looking at her shoes more than Santa. AJ on the other hand... all he wanted was Santa's beard. I think he was trying to tell all the other little kids a little secret... uh-oh.Just as Santa was getting ready to leave, Jack remembered one very important item on his list that he had forgotten to tell Santa about... Spider Man slippers. He was so worried about it, he had to go back and tell him. *We don't want to forget to tell Santa!

Life with Jack and Clara

You know you have a toddler boy when:
1. You find cars in your bathtub because it makes a good race track.
2. Your yard is covered in footballs, soccerballs, army men, and muddy shoes.
3. He pretends to be Spider Man ALL day long, and insists that you call him Spider Man rather than his given name.
4. He makes you watch everything he does. "Watch this", "Turn around", "Did you see me"... and will not stop until he has your full attention!
5. He takes 1 hour long baths and by then end you are worried that your base boards are going to rot because of all the splashing that was done.
6. Everything in your house is made for jumping off of....
7. He knows the names of all the Football teams because that is how he spends his bonding time with daddy.
8. Your pantry is filled with endless amounts of treats to bribe him with so that you can get him to do what you want through out the day.
9. He knows all too well where "time-out" is and pretends to send his toys there when they are being nauty.
10. He is the last thing that you see when you close your eyes and the first thing that you see when you open them (literally).

You know you have a baby girl when:
1. You get to wake up to sweet smiles every morning.
2. She loves getting dressed!
3. You see alot of this.... through out the day:
4. You smell like baby spit-up at the end of the day even though you have changed your clothes 2 times already.
5. You find yourself burning candles 24-7 just to ensure that your house doesn't smell like diapers and spit-up. And of course you can hardly smell it, it's what you are used to, but you worry about visitors acutally wanting to come back to your house.
6. All she needs is a glance her way and she is filled with giggles and smiles!
7. She has endless amounts of hair flowers to match her wardrobe, which by the way is also over flowing - just because little girl things are completely irresistable!
8. Almost every room in your house is stashed with diapers and wipes.
9. You keep a carpet cleaner on hand for the endless amounts of spit-up, drool, and "oopsie" diapers.
10. They are the last thing that you see when you close your eyes and the first thing that you see when you open them (and occasionally through out the night).

I love my two little rascals.

Ups & Downs...

We all have our days, weeks, and months. Those times that we are feeling down and depressed, hurt and offended, sad and alone. Well - mine was last week. It was a hard week, a really hard weekend, and a terrible Sunday morning. I can't quite put my finger on what was bringing me down... really it was a combination of a lot of things... things that I don't feel like going into. But I woke up Sunday morning feeling quite sluggish and very negative. I tried playing the Lillies of the Field from the Tab Choir... sadly it got me nowhere. Usually this CD always works - I keep it in my car and play it for the little moments or days that I might have and it instantly cheers me up - but this time - it failed. I slowly got ready for church, I think I thought if I took too much time, Scott might let us stay home... it didn't work. Clara even tried spitting up all over me as we were walking out the door - but I was lovingly forced to quickly change into something clean so that we could get to Fast and Testimony Meeting.

As we walked into the Chapel, I was instantly filled with the Spirit. It was incredible. All of the down, hurt, and sad feelings were gone. I felt inspired to bear my testimony... I did. Joy continued to fill my heart and those negative feelings were pushed out as the rest of the day progressed.

This past week I have been overwhelmed with happiness and joy. I have had a fantastic week. Each day has been filled with something exciting. I am blessed with so many wonderful friends that care about me, an amazing family that supports me, adorable kids that fill my day with smiles and laughter, and the most incredible husband that carries me through my toughest times. I LOVE the ward that we have moved into. Everyone is so inspiring to me in different ways.

Thank you to all of you that made this week as good as it was. Alicia and Amanda I have had so much fun hanging out with you and letting our kids play together. Steph Jones you are so fun to have as a neighbor and I think our projects turned out adorable!!! Everybody that came to my house and did Micro's it was so fun seeing all of you - I hope your skin feels lovely! Candice you are such a great sister, and thank you for all the Christmas music - my house is always blasting the carols! HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!! I had so much fun spending the day with you. You are the best and I am so grateful for all your advice. Scott you are not home much, but thank you for all your hard work to support our family, thank you for the weekends that you let me sleep in, thank you for not caring about the lack of dinners that have been prepared, and thank you for you.

I love you all.

Hello Toilet!

I think it's safe to say that Jack is officially potty trained!
He caught on to the whole pee thing really quick - in less than a day he was telling me that he had to go pee. It was pretty exciting. But the whole "log" thing - was a little tricky. It had been about 2 weeks, and I could not get him to go on the toilet... only in his pants, yuck! I knew he wasn't scared of it coming out of him, I knew he wasn't scared of the toilet, and I knew that once I could get him to do it just a few times he would catch on... but I could not figure out what was going to get him there for the first gew times.

We bought LOTS of treats and toys, I even started taking his favorite toys away from him. I tried spider-man underwear and told him that Spider Man would be sad if he pooped on him... nothing worked. I was quickly loosing control with him.

One morning, he went first thing in his pants... I was frusterated. I told him I was not going to change him and he had to sit in his poop. (Not literally sit, but just hang out in his yucky pants for a while). He freaked! He has always hated having to hang around in dirty pants... so HELLO... why did I not think of this before??? The rest of the day and the next I told him if he went in his pants he would have to sit in it. It worked like a charm... by the end of the nex day he was going in the toilet, and the next day in the toilet, and the next day and the next.

Halelujlah! He is trained... poop, pee, and even stays dry through out the night!

1 kid down... 1 more to go... but not for a while longer.

The week of Thanksgiving

It started off the best possible way! A girls night out to an amazing showing of .... TWILIGHT! Our loving husbands stayed home with all the little ones, while us girls loaded into my moms car and headed out for the best love story of all time.

Was in love... still in love.

Wenesday my mom suprised the older grandkids with an early Christmas present.... Cowboy Clothes! Shirts, belts complete with belt buckles, and boots! Jetta in the middle, her stuff is all pink... the shirt, the belt and the boots! I love it!

Thanksgiving day was filled with lots of food, fun and laughter. It started out with a Turkey bowl in the back yard. Yes, the back yard. My parents live on 5 acres. So there was pleny of room to get a good game of football on. Later that morning we went out with my sista Melissa, she took our family pictures - as always -they turned out fantastic. Those pictures are soon to come. We started dinner off with a weigh-in. I gained 2 lbs... ugh. But well worth it - the food was delish!

Later that night we started with our traditional Gingerbread House making. We set up tables in the garage and everyone brings LOADS of candy, we break out the Christmas tunes and get our creativity on! We have been doing this for so long you'd think we would be pro's by now - and I guess some are - but really we all just like to load the sugar on so that we can eat it later.

Uncles Miles is the best. The kids love him, especially Jetta. She has a crush. We had the harest time keeping the kids from literally inhaling the candy! Henry was pretty sneaky about it, every time his parents weren't looking he would shove handfuls into his mouth. It was hilarious. Here Jackson is showing me his soon to be rotted teeth. Lovely. Jetta being the sassy little thing that she is. Took the frosting and started to squeeze it into her nose. Even after her mom told her not to.Once we are all done. All the "kids" (that would be us) have to leave while the adults (that would be the grandma's) give each gingerbread house an award. Things like... "Best Martha House", "Most Colorful", "Best Use of Candy", "Best Dr. Seuss House"... stuff like that.

Clara was quite worn out at the end of the day. Here she is relaxing with Scott... or maybe posing for the camera?The next morning us ladies got up at the crack of dawn... literally... about 4:30 AM... to hit the Black Friday Sales. We went to Babies R Us (for Clara), Target (a must!), Joannes (better than you would think), Costco, and a couple others. It was insane, but well worth it! I saved over $200, at Joannes, my sister Melissa spent $50 and saved $150 ... so yeah - I think we did well. At target we were stopped by the channel 2 news - they made us do a "I got a good deal dance"... I am sure we all looked like the biggest fools. But we laughed it off.

It was a great Thanksgiving. I hope you all enjoyed yours. Happy Holidays! Oh - and it's time for Christmas Cards. I would love to send them out to whoever would like. Please e-mail me your address so that I make sure I send them to the right home. mccallrandall@gmail.com

Joy School

I have Jack in a Co-Op Joy School Group. Basically there are 6 kids and each week we rotate dropping the kids off at each house. When the kids are at your house you are in charge of planning the day out. I had the kids at my house Thanksgiving week. We had a lot of fun talking about what they were thankful for, what Thanksgiving is all about, the pilgrims and the indians, and what kinds of food you have at a feast. Reminder: these kids are all in the 2 1/2 - 3 1/2 range - you have to keep things simple, and short!

We made indian hats that said, "I am Thankful for..." and then each feather said something that they each had mentioned. Some of the things were... spiderman, the color pink, carrots, grapes, toys, trucks, mommy's and daddy's.... it was really funny watching them try to come up with what they were thankful for.

We also made Turkey's with their hands. They loved having the paint on their hands and then seeing it transfer onto paper.

I know I am about a week late on this - but Happy Thanksgiving!

My Sisters got TALENT!!!!

I am sorry Melissa, but I just have to show people how talented you are!

My sister Melissa is an artist - an unbelieveable artist! My little sister, Cami, asked Melissa to draw a picture of her boyfriend next to his horse. Cami wanted to give it to him for Christmas. So Melissa worked and worked on the picture. She was trying to get it done in time to give it to Cami while she was in town for Thanksgiving. She did not want to have to mail it and worry about it bending. Well, one afternoon she walked in the door and found THIS.......He little boy Henry wanted to add to her beautiful horse picture. I am sure he was just trying to be like his mommy. So sad. There was nothing she could do to fix it, she tried everything she could think of... but it was ruined.

So what did she do? She did it all over again.... IN LESS THAN 24 HOURS!!!!

Here is the final product....
Can you believe it? She has got amazing talent! Way to go Melissa, you are incredible!