Happy Birthday Brynn!

Brynn is 7 today!  Happy Birthday! 

Brynn brought home a paper this week that I thought embodied one of the greatest characteristics of our cute girl.  I will type it for you the way she wrote it.

Question:  What is the hardest thing you have ever learned to do?

Brynn's Response:  I theink swiming is hard.  I only can do back strock good.  The reasen it is hard is that I have to put my face in.  I am yooshly last to the side of the pool in swim team.  Did I menchen that I do swmin team?  Well I do.  I like it.  I want Jared to do swim team this year so I won't be hanging arawnd by my self.  It is still hard for me to swim.

Brynn has such an amazing attitude about something that is hard for her.  Keep in mind that last summer when she did swim team she was one of the youngest kids.  She was never dettered about being the last, and she gloried in every ribbon she won whether it was for first or last place.  Brynn also swam every event--not just the one's that were easy for her.  I am proud of her for trying her hardest and not giving up when something got hard.  She did not let fear of failure inhibit her fun.  She will have a lot of success in life with such a great attitude.

Brynn is such a smart, sweet girl.  She is also very good with toddlers.  She always looks out for them wherever we are and they love her.  She has a strong desire to do what is right.  She loves to read and is a teacher's dream student.  We're grateful for her cute smile and fun personality.

Five

Five:  The number of days old Nathan was before Ellie picked him up out of his car seat and walked to the other side of the room.

Do you blame Nate for his look of concern?

Ellie loves everything about Nathan, even the spit up and poopy diapers.  While the other kids are grossed out, Ellie revels in wiping up spit up and changing a yucky diaper.  Her eyes light up when I tell her Nathan needs a diaper change.  "Oh, Nathan so poopy Mom!" she exclaims as she runs around locating the nearest diaper and wipes.  I usually wipe Nathan mostly clean and then Ellie takes her turn and finally finishes the diaper change by fastening the velcro tabs.  If only she were ten years older!

The cutest thing?  Her babies are all named Nathan.  She likes the green boy one the best.  She uses Nathan's diapers and wipes and changes her babies multiple times a day.  She had a garbage bag full of "dirty diapers."  They were really all clean, but she had used them for her babies and then taken them off of them and rolled them up like she's seen me roll up Nathan's dirty diapers.  I snuck them away so we could "re-use" them for Nathan.  Later I discovered inside every one of them was a wipe!  That girl is so cute!  If only I could convince her to stop trying to pick him up!

Nathan's Blessing

Nathan was blessed on January 3rd.  He wore the same blessing outfit that Jared did.  I would have loved to share this day with family, but I am so grateful for our good friends here that could be a part of the blessing. It was fun to show off our little guy to our ward family.

Scott has meetings both before and after church so he wasn't home either time to take a family picture.  I brought our camera to church to take pictures in the foyer so Scott could be in some.  Unfortunately I don't like any of the pictures so I'm just posting our silly faced one we took at home.

Little Fish

Whenever there is free time Scott tries to take the kids swimming at his work. I am a fair-weather fan and only like to go if the water is really warm. I missed a great chance over Christmas break when the water was around 93 degrees. Everyone came home telling me it was like "bathwater." Ellie, not wanting to be left out but being a bit confused told me the pool was like "sinkwater."

Someone at church calls my kids the "stair-stepped" kids. You can really see it here!

Jared was very proud that he swam the whole length of the pool without his floatie. Being only four he's a little short on technique, but his giant effort keeps him afloat (sometimes just barely)!

Ellie is becoming more brave and now delights in jumping off the side by herself without Scott catching her.

Scott is such a great dad! He is so fun with the kids.

Hard to Resist

Last night Ellie started screaming while I was helping Kaitlyn practice the piano. I heard Jared saying "Sorry Ellie! Sorry!" Apparently Ellie was destroying his Lego creations as fast as he could build them. Jared came running to me saying, "Mom, it was an accident. I accidentally pulled Ellie's little pig tails. Mom, you should take those out of her hair, they're too easy to pull!"

I guess those cute pig tails are hard to resist!

Smile!

Nathan has been smiling for the last couple of weeks. Doesn't it just melt your heart? He is such a sweet little boy!

Brynn was actually the first one to capture Nate's smiles in these pictures.

I just wanted to add these pictures to show how chubby his little cheeks are getting! He has also lost most of the hair on the top of his head. I loved his brown fuzz, but I see little blonde hairs coming in just like his sisters and brother!

Brothers

Look at two of the cutest boys ever!

Jared loves Nathan, and he especially likes to rub Nate's soft head. Jared is always close by when it's Nate's feeding time and ends up sitting right next to me to rub little Nathan's head the whole time.

Jared wanted to kiss Nathan today while he was sleeping. I told him to just give Nate one kiss so he wouldn't wake up. Jared came up to me a minute later and said, "Mom, I had to give Nate two kisses. He is just too cute to kiss one time!"

Jared claims Nate has "healing powers." Whenever Jared gets hurt he runs to Nathan and touches him so Nate can heal him.

We all seem to use the names Nathan and Nate interchangeably, but I've noticed that Jared almost always calls our little guy Nate. He is such a good big brother!

Little Nathan

Nathan is growing so fast. I wanted to post some of the sweet pictures when he was still so tiny. These two were when he was two weeks old. He still fit into a little newborn size sleeper.

Here's Nathan at 2 1/2 weeks.

Nate at 3 weeks. Notice he's already losing some of his cute dark hair at the top.

Christmas

We celebrated Christmas Eve with our traditional Shepherds Dinner with both the Hales and Staten family. As you can see, some "shepherds" don their garb for longer than others. It is always so fun to get together with other families. We did not eat anything very authentic this year, but it was fun to eat out of pie tins. Every year I remind the kids that I doubt the shepherds ever ate as fine a meal as we had.

Here are the kids on Christmas morning waiting to come down the stairs to open presents. The night before Brynn exclaimed that she didn't want Scott to take any video footage this year. When I asked her why she explained that it took way to long for him to get all set up and she didn't like waiting at the top of the stairs.

Christmas Friend

A couple of days after Nate was born Scott spent a couple of hours helping the older couple he home teaches put up their Christmas lights. He took the rest of the kids with him, and they came home with this little gnomish Santa friend. He was quite the addition to our home throughout the holidays. You can't help but want to grab his nose and cheeks...Ellie even tried to take a bite out of them. The kids wrestled Santa and used him as a punching bag. After we put up our Christmas tree they placed him on a stool next to it. This funny little Santa made me smile every time I saw him.

Alas, Santa has been given to charity. I told the kids we could take a picture to remember him by, but he was much to big to store. Thanks Santa for the fun times!

All I Want(ed) For Christmas

Is my two front teeth!

I meant to post this before Christmas. Cute Brynn with her two front teeth missing. She wanted to pull her tooth out at school (she's waited to pull two others until she was at school) but she was wiggling it at night in bed and she accidentally pulled it right out.