Christmas Break

Now for the Christmas season, all combined into one post!  It was a great one with a lot of fun times.

We...

...went to the annual Nativity display in Palo Alto.

They had a fun kids room with dress ups and a cute puppet show of the Nativity story.

...made gingerbread houses!

(thankfully that picture was taken just before it fell on the ground and broke)

...went to the Nutcracker! 

(just us girls with Grandma)

I was debating about trying to attempt the SF show but I'm so glad I didn't.  The San Jose production was great and close and cheap.

...sat on Santa's lap!

Those pictures are all thanks to my dad.  I love how Elijah's shirt is completely soaked. I can't remember how that happened.  The older three asked Santa for a pogo stick, a "remote control wand", and Harry Potter legos (in age-order).  Elijah just wanted to get off! :)

Grandma Lorna and Grandpa Tom came along for the fun:

Grandpa spent much of the their visit trying to convince the kids that he is Santa.  There's definitely a resemblance.

Christmas Day finally came.  We were lucky enough to have family come to us this year when Grandpa Tom and Grandma Lorna came into town.  It was so nice getting to spend Christmas with them.

The obligatory Christmas jammies shot before we head down to open presents: 

Nate refused to smile.

Only a few minutes later he was all smiles with his new "Star Wars guy."

We had a great day--relaxing, playing with toys, watching Christmas movies, eating a yummy turkey dinner, and having our own little polar plunge.  Tom, Joe and I jumped in our pool and it was SO much colder than we were anticipating.  We got out immediately.  We later bought a thermometer and found out it was 42 degrees!

The day after Christmas we took advantage of the beautiful 75 degree weather and hit the beach.  It was a great day.  The guys had fun swimming in the ocean.  

Like father, like son:

Grandma and Eli:

The day after that, we had more adventures when we headed into the city to go watch BYU play Washington in the Fight Hunger Bowl.  It was our first time taking the train in.

Passing the time with a HP book--what else?

The game was a disappointment, but at least the kids had fun and did pretty well, despite it being way past their bedtime.

I was too lazy to get out of my seat so this is the best picture I got of Natalie with Cosmo:

We said goodbye to Tom and Lorna on Monday but Joe still had the day off.  So, we decided to finally get over to the Tech museum to see the Star Wars exhibit that Nate had been begging to go to.  It was a lot of fun.  We could have spent hours longer there.

It was fun watching Nate's face light up when he saw different things.

They had this fun area where you could build a little lego hovercar that moved with magnets.

This was Elijah's favorite part:

Joe and the girls did this astronaut simulation game where you tried to maneuver around to get different targets.  Joe got the high score of the day!  One guy asked him if he was a pilot.  The lady running the game knew better--she said that he must have played a lot of video games as a kid. :)

On New Year's Eve, we let the kids try to stay up.  Elizabeth and Natalie made it for the first time ever.  Of course that threw off their sleeping schedule for a few days.  On New Year's Day we went up to a fun park here and played.  We finally got out the mitts and tried to teach our kids how to throw and catch.  We should do that more; it was a lot of fun.  It hasn't felt much like winter with how warm it has been here but it has sure been nice!

My Baby is 1!

Somehow, a year has passed and my baby is a full-fledged toddler now.  We went from this:

to this:

...in the blink of an eye.

Don't get me wrong, this four kids thing has been a kick in the pants.  It hasn't been an easy year.  I still don't really feel like I have my act together.  I feel disorganized and like I'm holding on by my fingertips a lot of the time.  For some reason, some things I have always been able to manage in the past have slipped this past year.  If I told you how much money I've had to pay in library fees during the past year, it would shock you!  Things are looking up, though.  It's amazing how that happens after about a year.

Amidst all the craziness of life right now, I have my little Elijah.  He brings so much happiness into all of our lives and we feel so incredibly blessed to have him.

We love his big bright smiles:

This is his signature look while he says "ooo":

He frequently makes strangers smile or laugh while at the store.  

This time he just sat with his mouth on the tray and I didn't even notice until someone pointed it out to me:

For awhile there, he was kind of afraid of me when I'd have a towel on my head.  He wouldn't look at me and would instead just lay on my shoulder:

I didn't mind. :)

More snuggles:

He's pretty cute in the bath:

I often try to jog to take Nate to preschool and Elijah falls asleep almost every time:

Again with the smiles and "ooo"s while playing the piano:

He LOVES when his siblings push him in the swing:

I was able to catch his first tantrum on camera!

That's a nice shot of my foot, too. :)

Happy again:

Elijah's little toes are all crowded together like this:

We think it's cute.

Another moment I had to capture of how nicely he fits under my chin when he snuggles into me:

 The big birthday finally came.  It was simple of course, as he had no idea it was his birthday anyway!  He did enjoy opening his presents.  Elizabeth helped him out:

He loved this giraffe from Grandma Marsha:

"Uhh!  What's in here?"

 So excited that he fell right over:

 

 Then it was time for his birthday cupcake.  He wasn't really a fan.  He ended up dropping a lot of it on the ground.  He did eat some later when I fed it to him, though.  (No still pictures sadly)

Elijah is growing fast.  For one thing,  he is definitely our fastest walker.  He's the first one of our children to walk before he was 1.  He took his first official steps on Natalie's birthday.  He is walking everywhere now and I love watching him toddle around with his arms up high for balance.

He's not much of a talker yet but he does sign "all done" and "more" (with some confusion).  He just started folding his arms before prayers while saying "Uh" and it never fails to crack us all up.  He gives wonderfully wet kisses while saying "ahh".  He loves to wave goodbye and will happily do so before going off to bed at night.

He can be pretty stubborn.  He doesn't much like getting his diaper changed and is constantly trying to roll over while I change him.  One time he had a bad blowout so I couldn't do the leg-over-his-body trick and I just could not get him to stay down.  The girls finally had to come help me hold him down.  There would have been poop everywhere if not for them!

He loves to be tickled and will tickle himself on the tummy when he wants you to do it.  He loves being thrown up high.  He loves going outside and being on the trampoline with the big kids.  He loves anything with the big kids, really.  He adores them and loves to play with them.  Sometimes he desperately wants to be big like them.

He's kind of a picky eater.  I don't remember my other babies being this picky.  He does love oatmeal, bananas, cooked carrots, and crackers.  He especially loves yogurt and could eat it all day long.

Watch out world--"Eli's comin'!" 

(his theme song :)