December Events

December was a holiday fun-filled month!  I just love the spirit of Christmas with little kids.  Makes me remember how fun Christmas time was when I was a kid.

One of Jessica's friends made Dylan a football hat with Judson's football number on it.  I instantly fell in love with it and she willingly made one for Rex.  He just loves his "Judson hat" and so do I!

I was fishing around trying to find some clothes for Rex in his 3T box of clothes and came across some PJ's that are definitely 2T size for him anyway.  He was just so excited to wear them and the girls wanted to take pictures with him.  The cutest part is I usually have him wear a white t-shirt under the shirt and when we take the PJ shirt off he says he's just like Daddy with a white t-shirt on!

And another thing I love about my kids is still being able to match the girls and try and coordinate with Rex.  They got to match their outfits quite a bit as we traveled for church a few Sundays in a row with family.  I snapped some pictures of them before church.

I try to meet Kayley once a week or so for lunch at school.  If it were up to her I'd eat lunch with her everyday.  Here's a pic of her at lunch one day this month.

Rex is getting so grown up.  He absolutely loves his nursery class!  I would love to be a fly on the wall in the class.  This is a picture one of the nursery leaders sent to me of him during snack time.  Every Sunday he just can't wait until Sacrament meeting is over so he can go to nursery.

This has started to become a tradition in our house of making gingerbread houses as a family.  I never did this growing up but my kids just love it!  This year we decided to do a homemade one and see how creative we are.  It didn't stay together as well as a gingerbread house kit, but the kids still loved putting it together.  Rex just loved eating the candy!!

We also had our first snow day of the season this month.  The kids were SO excited to see the snow and get to play in it.  Rex actually stayed in the snow for a long time this year.  He wanted to take his cars out in the snow and he just drove them around the snow..they must have had 4 wheel drive! 

Kayley and Cora still love the snow and would stay out forever if I'd let them!  Snow angels, snow ball fights, and attempts at building a snow man!  They had a blast!

Then we all came inside, drank hot chocolate to warm up and then baked some cookies.  Later in the evening the kids iced them and had a blast.  I caught Rex eating all the icing of course!  He's our candy boy for sure!

Then the weekend right before Christmas we went to Willard with all of Nick's family.  It seems to get crazier and crazier the more kids everyone has but we all have fun spending time together and the kids have a blast playing with each other!  Typically we all go out to eat for breakfast and Mooma treats for everyone's birthdays for the year.  This year we did it a little bit different and met at Incredible Pizza for lunch.  I have to admit, I was really sad we weren't doing breakfast because I LOVE breakfast food, especially buffet style!  But the kids had a lot of fun playing at Incredible pizza's play/game area. 

The gift tradition is for the cousins to swap names and then we do an adult gift swap and Grandma usually gets all the kids a present.  Here we are trying to get all the kids to sit quietly while they wait to open up their presents. 

Simon says seemed to do the trick...Shannon got put in the bunch and she obviously wasn't participating in the simon says!

Then our first Christmas in our new house.  I have to admit I was so excited to have Christmas in our new house and get it all decorated...so much so that I had the house decorated for Christmas before Thanksgiving...except for the tree of course.  For some reason we must have forgotten to do pictures of hanging stockings the night before Christmas.  We got video of them though.  Christmas morning is always so fun for me to see the looks on their faces.  

Got some good shots of Cora and Kayley's faces from presents they were excited about on the bottom here.  Kayley really wanted a Caroline American Girl book set and Cora really wanted the cooker set.  Rex of course wanted more Choo-Choos and they were all very pleased with what Santa brought for them.  Grandpa Bell joined us for Christmas Eve and Christmas morning and the kids had a blast with him there.  It was a great Christmas in our new house.

Then after Christmas we went to Mom and Otto's house to play with cousins.  Nick wasn't able to get off work so the kids and I just went and stayed one night.  My kids had a blast playing with their cousins nonstop though.  The Realls, us, the Farmington Felkers, and the other Felkers were all there.  It was lots of fun!  It would have only been more fun if the Sanders, Carles, and Andersons could have joined us!  Maybe in a perfect world!

Then at the end of December I finally hit 35 weeks with this pregnancy.  Time is ticking and before we know it, this baby will be joining our family!

November Events

November was probably my favorite month out of all the last couple of 9 months (it was 9 months ago we started the whole sell our home/buy a new home process).  We have never felt so blessed, well with the exceptions of when each of our children were born.  But seriously this whole process was definitely led by Heavenly Father and it has been neat to look back and see all the tender mercies.  I always had an internal goal when we listed our house for sale to have the house sold and be moved into a new house by the time our baby was to be born February 1st.  I also thought how nice it would be to have everything finished by the holidays.  One huge tender mercy or maybe miracle that did occur was just that, we were able to move in November 7th!  Plenty of time to get unpacked before Thanksgiving even...I was just thinking Christmas would be nice!

And of course we had lots of help once again from our great family that lives nearby!  And this time around we had people from our ward come and help unload as we unloaded all our stuff from our storage pod.  Here's a collection of pictures from around the moving day.  Kayley actually had her music program at school that day so timing of everything was a bit crazy, but we were able to figure it all out!

Here's a cute picture of a book Kayley made in her class.  I thought it was cute what she said was the definition of being grounded.  I'm sure she won't think the definition is the same when she's older and actually has to be grounded...but let's hope that doesn't have to happen!

Then Shannon and John were our first guests in our new home as John had some work to do up here about a week after we had moved in.  It gave me the incentive to unpack quicker (hard to get incentive sometimes when you are 7 months pregnant at this point.)  But we all met up with Michelle and Kendall and Randy at Bass Pro for a visit with Santa and dinner.  The kids had a blast and we loved that it wasn't busy at all.  They got right up to see Santa and Santa got to spend some quality time listening to each kid on what they wanted for Christmas.  It was fun!

Here are my kids seeing Santa Claus...again he was great to fully listen to what they wanted.  Rex wasn't scared a bit with Santa surprisingly!

The Walkers and the Huffords visiting with Santa.  No one cried for Santa here either, a rarity! 

 And the workers and Santa were really nice to let us bring all the kids in and get pictures of them altogether!  I actually got one of them all pretty much looking and smiling!

Another perk of us going in November, the wonderland toys all still worked!  Rex adored the Choo-Choo table and it was very difficult to get him to leave it!  It's so cute to see how much he loves them!

One of our friends from church had a baby in November and they came over to welcome us to the neighborhood as our neighborhoods connect to one another.  Cora got to get her baby fix in with Baby Kona.  She is so ready for a new baby in the house!

The Bradfields are a family that lived across the street from Jan and John back when we all lived in Columbia.  Brett became a convert and then they moved and within a few years, his wife Cristy also became a member.  The third weekend in November Nick and I were able to attend their family's sealing in the Kansas City Temple.  What a wonderful experience this was to be able to see the joy the sealing brought to this sweet family.  It is always a reminder of how blessed I am to be married in the temple to Nick and to know that our family is an eternal family.

The first grade at Kayley's school did a Thanksgiving feast this year.  Sarah was kind enough to just hang out at our house for the day as Cora's school also did a Thanksgiving feast.  So I pretty muched hopped from school to school.  I cooked stuffing for Cora's school and had to have that dropped off at a certain time.  I made one of the turkeys for Kayley's school and had to have that dropped off at a certain time.  Then I volunteered at both schools to serve the feast.  It went very smoothly and I loved being able to spend time with both of them at their feasts.  I only got pictures of Kayley's feast though and forgot to snap a pic at Cora's feast.  They both had a lot of fun though!

Also this month I hit 30 weeks.  I have felt very blessed throughout this pregnancy.  Considering all we have been through with moving out of the new house, moving into the apartment, and then moving into the new house, I haven't had as many aches and pains as I thought I would have physically.  Or the pains I have had, I've been able to manage.  We had many ups and downs with Rex having high amounts of fluids, but this baby has been perfect.  I hope the baby continues to be perfect when he/she arrives!

And this is just a cute shot of Rex after he had some Nutella.  I never had Nutella growing up and honestly I'm not a die hard fan.  But Cora and Rex like it with teddy grahams.  I just always have to prep myself for a mess such as this!

October Events

October was another crazy month for us, but with us moving, what month hasn't been crazy?!  Here is what we did:

The girls had their well checks.  They were all where they needed to be.  Rex's well check was back in July, but I forgot to put his stats up so they got put up here with the girls.

Sarah put together a bunch of fun play dates with the warm weather.  The month of October we went to the Lee's Summit Fire Department and did a tour.  Rex loved it as he loves cars and trucks!  Cora had pajama day that day at school, so she looked like she just rolled out of bed.

Kayley's teacher is always so great at sending me pics.  Here are some of spirit week, which I could not get Kayley to participate in at all!  Top left are the nerds and top right are the non-nerds that dressed up for Nerd Day.  Bottom left is of Kayley doing a project at school.  I ate lunch with her this day and she was so excited to tell me she was the captain of the girls team!

Also in the month of October we have the semi-annual General Conference.  It's so nice to get to watch it in the luxury of our own home. Here is Rex and Cora working on their conference packets and lounging in their PJ's.

I very rarely go to Hobby Lobby, but Rex was so cute one day and wanted to hold the shopping basket.

I've tried to learn little by little how to use my new camera.  I still don't know all it's capabilities.  However the kids and I had fun doing a little photo shoot. Here are Kayley's pictures.  

 Cora's pictures...it was very windy that day and her hair seemed to be flying in her face the most!

 Rex's pictures.  It was hard to get him to 1) look at the camera and 2) to smile...very difficult to do those two things at once!  Either way, he's cute!

 Pictures of them together!  I just love my kids!  They really did have fun doing these.  The girls were great helpers with Rex.  He got distracted very easily!

 And of course their favorite pictures were the silly faced pictures!  And only got a few of Kayley and Cora...but I just love that they are such great buddies!

We attended Audrey and Lauren's soccer games.  They really enjoy the sport.  Cora is very excited to start soccer this next fall when she starts kindergarten. 

 I hit 25 weeks.  At this point in my pregnancy my headaches are pretty much happening everyday.  Thank goodness for Excedrin Tension Headache and Sudafed.  Pretty much have to take these everyday.  Other than that, I feel pretty good!

Audrey turned 7 years old.  The kids had a blast celebrating together!

One thing I was shocked about was amidst all the chaos we have been through in the last couple of months with moving, we actually carved pumpkins before Halloween this year!  Usually on a normal year we end up carving them afterwards for various reasons.  And on top of it all Kayley actually got her hands dirty this year and helped get the pumpkin guts out.  Grandpa came and joined us, which the kids loved.  We love having him so close where he can come over and participate in many activities with us.  Kayley and Cora did a regular jack o lantern pumpkin and since Rex loves Choo-Choos so much Daddy carved one out for him in the other pumpkin.  He loved it!

Our ward had their Halloween party, which is always fun.  Randy also joined us for part of that.  Nick however missed it all because he was on call.  But the kids still had fun.  Kayley was Pocahontas, Cora was Dorothy, and Rex was supposed to be Mater from Cars, but anytime anyone asked him what he was going to be for Halloween he would say a Choo-Choo.  So I remembered we had some blue overalls and found a hat at a thrift store that would look like a train conductor's hat and he went as a Train Conductor (or a Choo-Choo according to him).

Then over a long weekend of Parent Teacher Conferences we got together with the Walkers to go to the zoo.  It was actually a very cold day (far and few between this fall/early winter).  The kids had a blast.  We ventured to the Africa side, which Michelle and I actually made it through the whole thing! :)  After that we went to the Bird room/Discovery Barn for the kids to play on the indoor slide.  Rex did not like the Parakeets, who were ridiculously loud (demonstrated by the upper right picture). 

Then here are a collection of pictures from the end of October.  Our Stake Conference was this month and the kids wanted to go to the Visitor's Center.  It had been a while since we had been and they got to go with Daddy this time and loved it.  Then just a couple other cute pictures of Rex enjoying an apple and wearing Gator gear.

Kayley's school Halloween party was lots of fun.  Nick was able to attend Cora's party and Rex and I went to Kayley's party.  Rex loved being able to be involved with Kayley and her party.  Her friends love to see Rex and have him come.

Then finally we ended the month with trick or treating for Halloween.  The Felkers joined us and we went to our old neighborhood since we were currently living in our apartment.  Sadly enough Cora came home from school the day before throwing up.  All day on Halloween she acted fine and didn't throw up anymore so we thought we were in the clear.  However, a couple days later, Lauren sadly got it.

September Events

As mentioned for the month of August, the month of September was another crazy month as we sold our home and moved into a temporary apartment.  However we were still able to have fun and document some things we did. 

Kayley's teacher is great about sending me pics of her throughout the day from school.  Here she is playing with one of her friends Ryleigh.  Ryleigh was in Kayley's kindergarten class last year and she was excited Ryleigh was in her 1st grade class again. 

 Cora's school had their first field trip to the zoo this year.  Usually they go to a pumpkin patch but I think everyone was more excited to get to go to the zoo this year.  I got to chaperone the field trip and Cora was so excited!

 Each class kind of went their own route throughout the zoo so I got to see names with faces on who Cora plays with during the day.  She has some great friends in her class and she is a great friend to all of them.  This top left picture is of a kangaroo at the zoo.  The kangaroos literally run throughout the park, it's crazy.  This particular one was a Momma and was carrying it's Joey kangaroo in it's pouch.  She decided to park right on the pathway we were supposed to walk on.  We had to wait until the Momma left because we knew we weren't going to disturb a Momma and her baby!

 At the end, everyone ended up meeting at the Polar Bear Exhibit, probably because it was cooler in there...it was a hot day!  The kids loved taking turns sitting right in front of Nakita and her "show."  She runs the same course in the water and puts her huge paws on the glass.  It was a great field trip and Cora had a blast being able to ride the bus and having Mommy come with her.

 I also hit the halfway mark in my pregnancy and made it to 20 weeks.  At this point I was feeling pretty good.  I still get my daily headaches but thank goodness for Excedrin Tension Headache.  Without that medicine, I would be in intense pain all the time with headaches.

We had our ultrasound and made it through it without finding out the gender of the baby.  I think if we weren't in the middle of a move, I would be dying to find out, but since we are a little bit occupied, keeping this baby a surprise is a piece of cake!

 Here's my cute Rex just being cute.  I think this day we were cleaning out the garage and he just stopped and posed for the camera.  The kids have been great troopers through the whole move.  We have been thinning out a lot of items and getting rid of a lot of toys and other items.  We put about 75% of our stuff into a storage pod and left the rest out to go to our apartment.

The big day finally came September 20th.  We closed and the buyers closed on our house.  We moved into our apartment that night with the help of family.  It was rather bittersweet leaving our home of 5 years now.  However, we knew we were eventually going to be moving into a larger home so it was also exciting.  The girls walked around the whole house taking pictures of it so they could remember the house.  Everyday after picking them up from school, we drive by it and they kept saying, "There's our old house, I want to shrink it and put it in my pocket!"  Apartment living is interesting, especially with three kids.  Things I took for granted were being able to take groceries in and out of the house easily, having access to things in the garage (stroller, shop-vac, etc), being able to transfer Rex to his bed because he fell asleep on the way home, etc.  All these things made it a little crazy but we are managing!

This was probably the hardest part of our house to leave...the girls room.  When we first moved in, I absolutely fell in love with their room.  I mean look at it, who wouldn't?  Oh that's right, our buyers didn't!  She wanted me to paint over it!  The part that was even worse was the color she picked was the color of masking tape, very dull.  The girls took tons of pictures of their room also because they were sad to paint over it as well.  Needless to say, I don't think I'll ever be able to recreate this! 

 While I was unpacking the apartment I came across this box that Kayley had marked on.  It says, "Super Mom"...made my day as I've felt very guilty being so occupied with the move and painting and packing that I've felt like I've neglected my kids for the past 2 months.  I just love her!

Later in the month we said goodbye to the Sanders family.  They moved from Sikeston to Utah and came through and stayed with family along their trek out west.  My girls love the Sanders, especially Caroline and Julia!  They look up to them like crazy and love to play with them.  It was bittersweet for all of us as we knew the move would be good for them, but of course hate they will be so far away now!

More posing with cousins.  Always have to have a silly faced picture! (bottom left)

Nick was on call that day so he had a crazy call day and missed seeing them off, but we were able to visit with them the night before and Nick said his goodbyes then.  

 Other pictures from this month:

 Then the next to last day of the month, Nick needed to go to the Apple store for something at the Plaza.  Afterwards we went to the fountains, which they had just dyed all the water pink in preparation for October being Breast Cancer awareness month.  The kids loved seeing the pink water.  They also played on the exercise equipment that was along the trail.