Dancing Queen

Jenna had her dance recital tonight. She did a wonderful job and we loved watching her. She had a wonderful smile plastered on her face the whole time and looked like she was really enjoying herself. They danced to a song from the Nutcracker and though I can't remember the name of the song, I know that it was something about snowflakes because that is what all of the little girls are supposed to be-Snowflakes. For weeks Jenna has been coming home from class telling me that whe was going to be a snowflake for her recital. I must admit that she is the cutest snowflake that I have ever seen!

The best part for her though really was the costume. She brought it home last night and was literally itching all day long to wear it...and who could blame her? It is any little princesses dream to wear a sparkly tutu like this one! She looked beautiful in it...like a little ballerina should and I'm sure that I will have a hard time keeping her in regular clothes for the next few days!

It's beginning to look alot like Christmas!

It's beginning to feel like it too! I LOVE this weather. It's COLD! It's cloudy! It's the kind of weather that makes you want to sip hot cocoa and eat homemade chicken noodle soup for dinner. It FINALLY feels like Christmas! For the record, this is also the kind of weather that makes me feel a little lazy. I would happily curl up with a good book and comfy blanket and read on the couch all day.

But congratulate me...I didn't do that today no matter how much I wanted to. Today I worked on digging my way through the pile of various things piled on the kitchen counter (sounds like fun, huh?) Then I had fun wrapping some presents (I love to wrap presents).

For Family home evening we braved the cold and possibility of rain and went to see the temple lights. I hereby declare rainy days the best days for going to look at temple lights. It wasn't crowded AT ALL! There should be at least one rainy day every December-do you think there is a way I could request that??? All joking aside, it really was nice to not be bumping into people all night. The kids had a great time and didn't mind the cold at all!

Dang Technology!!!!!

Why did all of my electronic gadgets decide to break on the same day??? Hello-don't they know how much I rely on them? Don't think they care that they are causing some difficulties in my life right now.

Friday morning I woke up to find that our decoder box to our satellite would not turn on. Disappointing...Loren is out of town for the next two days...how will I entertain myself in the evenings? Not to mention the kids! Oh well, I decide, we'll just listen to lots and lots of Christmas music...LOTS of it! Not so. My CD player broke less that 2 hours into our music marathon. What to do??? Find a replacement of course!

So instead of my wonderful 5 disc CD changer with great speakers...

I have been forced to listen to this lovely piece of...junk, really.

Loren brought this home from work. He found it. Someone else had decided that it was worthless...It's all warped and cracked, and your wouldn't believe how hard you have to slam the CD lid down in order to close it... but it works in a pinch and I have actually been grateful for it the past few days :)!

As for the TV...well we watched a few movies and discovered that we actually can get a few channels...the picture is horrible, but we can at least catch the news. The best part was realizing that the kids can entertain themselves without it and that is a very good thing to know! Loren on the other hand has decided that he would rather starve than go permanently without a TV (he wants his ESPN!)

Oh yeah...I forgot to mention that Jenna also dunked one of our phones in a sink full of water and it could not be saved. At least we have two others strung through out the house to use!

What will break next? Please don't let it be any of my major appliances...I don't want to pay to replace them right now!

11 months old!

Oh my gosh- I can't believe my baby boy is 11 months old. Where did the time go? And what can I do to turn back the clock and have a couple of the past months back again? Or can I possibly just freeze time right now and keep him a sweet, cuddly baby forever? I don't want him to grow up. He is quite possibly the sweetest thing ever -of course I said that about all of the kids at some time or another, but he is the sweetest thing in my life right now and I am not ready to let that go.

Any how- Devin has been a busy boy this month and is doing lots of fun new stuff. He is getting good at standing on his own-I even got a picture...

He got tooth #2. Still no picture of them. I am wondering exactly how long it is going to take him to get all of his teeth...all of his sisters had more than 2 teeth as they neared the one year mark.

He is liking to try new foods and his newest faves are pizza, instant oatmeal (cinnamon roll flavor or maple and brown sugar) and toast. He likes chocolate chip cookies too! (this is his cookie face)

He hasn't been at all interested in the Christmas tree, which makes me very happy. It's like he doesn't know that it even exists, so I don't have to drag him away from it a thousand times a day! When I took him in to see it after we had decorated it he reached out to touch it and decided he liked it about as much as he likes grass! Much to prickly!

He of course celebrated his first Thanksgiving a few weeks ago. At Thanksgiving he discovered pumpkin pie which he LOVED and devoured and then begged for more.

He LOVES to play with his sisters, loves to laugh, loves to splash like crazy in the tub, and loves it when Loren comes home from wherever he has been...he crawls towards him and begs to be picked up. He continues to have the most kissable cheeks I have ever encountered, and I recently discovered that he loves it when I whisper in his ear.

Tonight my house looks like this...

This is not something I would normally do (because I like to pretend my house is always clean!)...but here goes!

Tonight my house looks like this.....

Because I spent the morning at the park with Jenna and Devin. The afternoon at the doctor with Taylor. And after school I took the kids to see Santa at Fry's. Then we came home and had Little Ceasar's pizza for dinner (so healthy) and helped Loren get ready for a trip to the sand dunes with his brothers.

So while my house it a total wreck tonight, I don't feel a bit guilty. I spent my day doing something much more worthwhile than cleaning!

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

I love Christmas. I always have. And while I miss feeling the magic of it all that I felt as a child, I enjoy making the magic for my kids. So here are a few pictures of some of my favorite Christmas decorations...(they help make the magic)

I love the tree. I love to sit in the room where the tree is and read a book, or wander around on the computer, or just stare at the lights. I love to watch my kids as they wander around the tree and look at all of the ornaments. I remember that I never posted the pics of the girls decorating the tree, so here are a few. And just in case you're wondering, YES, we added a string of lights to the top of the tree. It looked funny up there with no lights.

I love this Santa. I just do.

This is one of my favorite things. Sparkley red christmas trees...What's not to like? Also love the Santa and Snowman music boxes next to the trees. My kids love to listen to them...they are from my mom.

And of course, What's Christmas without a nativity scene? I love Nativity Scenes. If I had a huge house with tons of space I would collect them.

Some of my other favorites didn't make it out of the boxes this year as I felt the need to protect them from the little crawler in our house who loves to pull glass things off of shelves, tables, etc.

Merry Christmas, from our house to yours!

The curse of the prelit christmas tree...

Who thought up the idea of prelit Christmas trees anyway? Oh sure, you think it is a GREAT idea...you never have to string lights on a tree again! Hoorray...I hate that part! It will be oh so easy from now on. And it is...for the first couple of years anyway. We have had our wonderful prelit tree for 4 Christmases. Last year when we set it up, there were a couple of branches that wouldn't light. We tested every light and could find no reason why they were inexplicably not lit. Oh well, we turned them to the wall and no one was the wiser! No such luck this year...

Last night we pulled out our not so trusty prelit tree and found that an entire section in the middle was not working and a little section at the tippy top... now we have a striped tree. Not about to test every light again, we drug out our last remaining sting of white lights and added it to the middle section. The tippy top is still not lit...we don't have a string of lights to use there. It may stay dark up there this year...Hopefully it won't look so bad once we decorate it tonight!

Here is a pic of the tree before we deocorate it...notice the non lit top. I didn't get one taken before we added lights to the middle...I should've...It looked oh so cool when it was striped.

Thanksgiving 2008

Thanksgiving this year was spent with Loren's family. We stayed with his parents in Duncan and the Thanksgiving plan was to have lunch at his Grandma Weddle's house in Ft. Thomas. The rain changed those plans and so we joined Grandma Weddle's extended family at the church for lunch instead. There were a lot of people that I didn't know, but the food was delicious, and there was plenty of pie :)! We enjoyed all of the wonderful food,and good company. The girls ran around with their cousins that were there (Cami and Clinton's 3 girls) and had a wonderful time. Devin spent alot of time crawling around and even found a whole brownie on the floor under the dessert table...JACKPOT!!! After lunch we spent the rest of the afternoon at Cami's house letting the cousins play while Devin napped. It was a nice and relaxing day. The only thing missing was the chance to spend some time with my own family (I missed you guys so much!) and a piece of my Grandma's chocolate pie (I hope I get a piece at Christmas-hint,hint!)

This year I am especially thankful for:

1. my wonderful husband

2. my 4 children

3. our very supportive families

4. the gospel

5. prayer

6. the greatest friends

7. my home

8. the knowledge that we are prepared

9. the comfort that knowledge brings

10. the fact that my Christmas shopping is done :)!

OK so the last one is a joke, but it is mostly done. I detest shopping in December!

So, onto the Thanksgiving weekend project...

It seems we can't go to Duncan without a project that needs to be done. This time it was the new playhouse for the Grandkids.

Grandma Lunt aquired this playhouse from her brother...

The goal is to put the playhouse under this tree so that it will be in the shade, and be sort of like a tree house, just not IN the tree.

Sounds easy, right? Not so. Moving the playhouse required this very large piece of machinery and a lot of skill to squeeze between the house and detached garage. Grandpa Lunt was the driver...and not happy about his assigned chore!

The project was successful! The playhouse is in it's new home and awaiting the Christmas project which is adding a deck around it to give the grandkids more room to hang out! Well worth the effort Grandma...the kids will love it!

Missing in Action

I feel like I have gone MIA or something...missing in the land of sick kids, house work, more sick kids, car pooling, me getting sick...the WHOLE family getting sick...and then trying to put the house back together again.

So here is a little of what we have been up to lately...

IT FINALLY CAME!

If you have read any of the previous posts you know that Taylor's birthday gift from us didn't make it on time...she was one disappointed kid :( The coveted Barbie Girl mp3 player finally arrived at our door the day after her birthday. This particular MP3 has songs on it of course, but also hooks up to the computer and gives them access to a Barbie Girl web site where they can play games...I must mention that Melia got one of these little treasures last Christmas. The result of having two of them in the house is that my computer is always occupied with Barbie Girl, and Loren's is too when he is home. I feel like my computer has been taken hostage!

WE WENT TO THE FALL FESTIVAL AT VISTA

Sadly, I forgot my camera...but the kid's school put on a fun carnival with games and prizes and COTTON CANDY (we weren't allowed to leave until each of the kids had their own card board cone piled high with the sweet sticky stuff!) Each of the kids won a gold fish at one of the booths. You should have seen how excited they were! (I can't say that I shared in their enthusiasm) We put them in a vase when we got home and then went to buy fish food at Walmart (this was on a Friday night) Sadly, one was dead when we woke up the next morning...and another by lunch. The last one survived until somewhere around 5:00 Sunday evening. I only know the appox. time because it was alive when we got home from church and was dead when we sat down for dinner. Sad, I know. The girls were disappointed that their pets had passed on ...

DEVIN FINALLY GOT HIS 9 MONTH CHECK UP

I am perpetually behind on his checkups...he was past his 10 month birthday before I got him in...but here are his stats..19 pounds 3 ounces. 28 3/4 inches long He is in the 50 percentile for both. He also got 5 shots.

WE ALL GOT THE STOMACH FLU

I won't gross you out with any details, but suffice it to say that we all came down with it in the same 24 hour period. It wasn't fun at the time, but now we are all better, and I am glad that we got it over with all at once! Now no one will be sick at Thanksgiving and I don't have to spend the next week wondering who will be the next one to get it! (I can find the good in any situation!) I do have one little complaint...I missed seeing Twilight this weekend because of it :(

Instead of Twilight with friends, we had a movie party with the girls. We watched Nim's Island (such a cute show), ate pop corn and giant pretzels, and drank soda! (Obviously, we were all feeling better by now so that we could eat all of this wonderful yummyness!

10 months old

It's been a busy month at our house. We've had a lot going on and Mr. Devin has felt the need to keep up with the pack and add to the craziness! So here is a little of what is going on in the life of the Littlest Lunt :) !

*can pull up to the couch and even lets go for a second or two!

*found a new "favorite" toy:

*graduated from army crawling! (thank goodness!! now his shirts won't always be filthy!)

a little blurry--he must have been movin' FAST!

*we decorated his DOC band, so now he looks totally awesome!

*we took a trip to Grandma and Grandpa Lunt's house where Devin discovered grass...and didn't like it!

* He discovered the stairs...and we resurrected the old baby gate to keep him off of said stairs.

* We made the leap from baby food to real food...some day are better that others...I can't count the number of times I have stood in the kitchen and thought "What am I going to feed Devin"

Oh, to be able to simply open a jar again!

He continues to be a happy little guy, and we are so thankful for that! How grateful I am for my little ray of sunshine!

Happy Birthday Taylor!

Today is Taylor's 7th birthday. Since there was no school yesterday, we took the chance to have some birthday fun with some of her friends. We had a great time at a makeover party complete with make up, nail polish and a professional hairdresser (my wonderful sister Mel) who did adorable hairdo's for all the girls. It was totally girly and TOTALLY FUN! Here are some pictures!

Taylor getting her hair done

The VERY long line for getting hair done

Taylor getting her nails done

All of our beautiful ladies after the makeovers

Time for CAKE

I got a few shots of some of the hair do's (because I know there are going to be requests for duplicate hair so's in the future!), but only 2 of them turned out. They are sooo cute though!

This is Jenna's. I loved it, looked so adorable on her!

This is Taylor's. It turned out so cute and most of the girls wanted their hair done like her's (everyone wants to be like the birthday girl!)

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Today for the official birthday, Taylor took cookies for her class (I couldn't bring them in because Melia was home sick -- pnemonia :(

She came home hoping to find her birthday present had arrived, but was disappointed. HOW SAD! I feel like a horrible mom because the FedEx guy didn't show up at my door today!

We had birthday dinner at Applebee's and birthday cookies at home before tucking everyone in for the night.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TAYLOR!!