Christmas

This Christmas was fabulous!! Madison was so excited!! She ran out looked around and decided she didn't' get her Santa present she wanted, before even opening it!! That is how excited she was!Emma's present was a huge success!!
And Madison did get her Pop n' style cabbage patch!! She loved it!! She's only been asking for it since before her birthday in September!!

True to form Emma had just as much fun with the boxes as she did with her presents.

My favorite was between a video camera and my cricut!! Brad did REALLY good this year!!

(Ignore the picture!! I had to document Brad's great year! He is SO proud of himself!!!)

Even Aunt Heather and Aunt Jess had fun with the toys!!

We had a great Christmas spending time with family!! I'd say it was our best yet!! Kids just make Christmas so much more!!

Christmas Eve

Today was a pretty busy day! We had to get the house cleaned, finish up shopping, family over the morning and then again in the evening!!

But we did find time to dance to the Christmas music and the girls had a blast!!

It was hilarious, one of the songs we had on was Elvis' "Santa bring my baby back to me." Madison was singing with it and in the beginning it says " I don't need a lot of presents," right after she said that she said "oh, no we do need a lot of presents!!" It was the funniest thing!! I swear we really do talk about the true meaning of Christmas!!

Brad's family came over and we watched a movie about Christ's birth and then played our New FaVOrIte game "Things"!!

The night ended with the girls opening their Christmas P.J.'s which they loved, a little more then I expected!!

Which is always nice when it works out that way!!

When Madison got in her bed she actually pulled back the curtain to find a star to make a wish for Santa to come. I don't know if that means she's done something bad I don't know about, so Santa wouldn't come OR she's just really excited!!

Hopefully it's just the REALLY excited!

Christmas Carolers

For our project this week we made carolers.  I thought they turned out pretty cute!! The hats look cuter if they are the same color as the people but I am a boring sock person!! White is pretty much all we have!!

Kids, Kids, and more Kids

I started watching two little boys when school started and just started watching two more little girls!! Kind of crazy yes but its only twice a week, so not to bad!! After watching 6 kids (including mine) for a day I decided I needed to have a project a day to brake up the monotony for the kids and me!!So we made Kool-Aid play dough!!
It was REALLY easy, smelt GREAT (we used Cherry) and was a hit!!
And we always have time for dress up, apparently EVERYONE enjoys it!! Today we added another little girl and boy so we had LOTS of little princesses!!

Snowman E.T.

Brad and Madison finally got around to making a snowman out of all our snow!! Some how it ended up looking like E.T.

Now we have a Darthvader snowman two houses down. My friends husband couldn't be beat by E.T. but technically he cheated, he actually used the helmet and cape!!

So we win!!

Christmas Dresses

This year I didn't want to do my usual dress!! Well the color! I always do the typical reds in varying shade. I decided to do blue!! My favorite color! Now looking at the pictures I should have taken them with the cardigans off, the top is simple but very cute!!
Speaking of cardigans, it took me two months to find ones that were the same in the sizes I needed. I would always find them in 4T but never in 12 months!! It was a pain!! My suggestion, buy black cardigans right when they come out in the fall of you will never find them again!!

For those who wonder why you don't see Emma as much, this is why!! She is always on the move and will not sit still for anything...she's definitely not the poser her sister is!!

Our attempt of pictures infront of our Christmas tree

My mom sent these cute antlers for the girls so I thought lets take pictures in front of the Christmas Tree since we have the camera back!

Madison did pretty good!! We had to have the balloon's in all the pictures because I didn't want a fight and they were tied on pretty tight!! SO that's the ribbon in the picture.

The ones where there was no screaming the balloons took over!
Then there was the screaming

Decent one with no covering or screaming Then Madison took the camera
And we got some FABULOUS ones!!
Emma was not happy(apparently neither was Brad)

Then it ended with us laughing and Emma screaming!!

The joy of family pictures!!

"I don't hear any stomping"

Madison and I have our morning ritual of getting up and doing an exercise video!! Yes, Madison works out with me, she even gets the biggest spoons we have and uses them as her weights! Its really cute! Well this morning right before we worked out I made muffins, I put them in the oven and left the bowl on the floor in the kitchen so Madison could eat the leftover batter. I was doing jumping jacks and then push ups, and I heard "Mom I don't hear any stomping!" Confused as to what she was talking about I asked her what she meant, and her response was " I don't hear you stomping!" with this little, I've caught you trying to skip out on exercising while I wasn't watching, tone to her voice!! Like she was my trainer and I she caught me cheating while she left the room! So I explained to her that the I just switched to the next exercise, apparently that was enough of an explanation for her, she finished her batter, and came to exercise with me.

Probably to make sure I wasn't slacking off!!!

I couldn't believe it, my four year old was chastising me, later I wanted to comment on how instead of doing abs, which she deemed too hard, she ran in place. Which seemed like a cop out, but I thought that would be a little catty!!

Christmas Tree

The day after Thanksgiving we all had our assigned places to be!! Brya, my Mom, Emma, Austin, Loren, and I went shopping.

Brad and Chuck took Madison, Dayton, Wyatt, and Jenna to get a Christmas tree!!

They started out smiling!
Hiked in a lot of snow!
Got covered in snow
Found the tree

Cut down the tree

(I want you to notice the saw is upside down, I can't figure if Brad thought that was safer or what...you can tell the Mom's weren't there)

And ended crying!!!

We have since decided that next year we will be getting the tree on Saturday so everyone can go and take part in the fun!!

Who would want to miss that?!

Austin Hendrick Steffens

Meet Austin, or Tyrone, as Madison calls him!! He's Brya's fourth and was born November 14th!

He was 8 pounds 4 ounces and 22 inches long!! Brya got her wish, she had her last one the day before her 30th birthday!
The hospital room was REALLY full with all his siblings and cousins!!
He is just adorable!!
We are So happy to have him in our family!!

Halloween

This year we went up to Fernley for Halloween. Chuck was deployed and Brya due in three weeks so we figured we'd go up there!

We had Dorthy (Jenna), two firemen (Dayton and Wyatt), and Pirate Princess (Madison) and a witch (Emma)!!

Because of Brad's new work schedule he was able to be there, we love the new schedule!!

Emma sat in the car dragging her pumpkin and foot while Brad pushed her around! She of coarse loved Trick or Treating!
Madison and the boys had so much fun running to the houses! The only one's Madison wouldn't go to were the "scary ones." On the way to one (I made her go) she was really scared so Brad and I held both of her hands and walked her up. After I was talking her about how it was just pretend and not really scary and that I wouldn't let anything happen to her and she looked up and said " I know, I know....its not scary!" Funny how we both had to hold her hands and then she "really wasn't scared!"

Everyone did so good and we had a lot of fun!!
After all the kids were in bed the adults watched "Tremmers" and I just have to say I remember being so scared of that movie when I was little and it is so not anymore!!

Tunck or Treat

We went to the ward Trunk or Treat this year without Brad! But fortunately my fabulous friend Amberlee went with us and we had a lot of fun!!
Emma walked around the gym carrying her bucket and would not let it go unless she was putting it down to get candy!!

Madison loved all the games but this one was the most fun to watch!

And then their favorite was getting all the candy, I have to say I kind of felt like a dork walking around with Emma getting candy, but I swear she ate just as much candy as the rest of us!!

Bed Head

I just had to document the lovely bed head!! Emma with her fohawk and Madison with her craziness!! I just love it!!

Why can't this last forever?

The other day, all of the sudden, Madison decided she wanted to do the dishes and she did, with my help!! Now after every meal she can be found getting her stool to stand on and standing over the sink washing dishes!! Last night I was sitting on the couch holding a plate and she came over, took it from me and got started washing!! I just want to know why this ends because I'm sure it will. Why can't it go on FOREVER?

She does it with a smile!!And she is even teaching her sister to do it!!

7 years!!

Well its been seven years yesterday and I'm feeling good!!

We haven't gotten a ton of time together lately with Brad working ALL the time, but yesterday we spent the day in Reno and it was SO fun!! I love my girls but sometimes its nice to just have time for the two of us, and it was great!!!

I have such a great husband!! And I love him so much!! I think the thing I love about him the most is he is such a great father, I don't think I could ask for much more, even though I do!!

Madison's Fourth Birthday Party

We decided this year to do a Friend birthday party for Madison!! Coming from a family who only did family parties I wasn't sure exactly what to do. Madison and I decided on Candy land theme and from that I decided to do a Candy walk and bounce house!! I figured I didn't want to plan too much!!I think the Candy walk was pretty successful, it took some directions but it was fun. I just drew the cards form Candy land and whoever was on that color when the music stopped got candy. I figure you can't go wrong with giving Candy!

Here is the cake!! I don't know what I was thinking deciding to make it, but my Mom always did that so I wanted to continue that tradition!!

This year she got LOTS of makeup, which was EXACTLY what she wanted!!

She was so excited for her Makeups, as she calls it!!

The bounce house was a lot of fun but kind of crazy with all the kids, when everyone left Madison and Emma were on and off of it all afternoon!!

By the time 3 came around Madison was so tired!!

But not enough to stop her from planning her party for next year!!

Even though her mother might not EVER plan one again!!

I had to post this, in one of the makeup sets she got had press on nails and she had to put them on with her make up!!