Getting Ready!

Finally it is almost February. I am so looking forward to February! I love February!
This pregnancy has been pretty rough on me. Maybe it's that I'm 32 and having my fifth child. Maybe it's that the other 4 were all over 9 lbs., and one 10 pounder and my body says enough already. Maybe it's just tough having lots of kids to take care of and be pregnant at the same time. Whatever it is - I am so excited for February!
I know my due date isn't till the 22nd but maybe just once I will have a baby early like 2 weeks or so - that would be really nice! Anyway - we are slowly getting ready here. JD painted the girls room and Tanner's new room a couple weeks ago. These pictures don't really do it justice but I thought I'd try.
Here we have our first pinkish purplish room! I LOVE it. It's funny how different it looks in our hallway when you look down and see this color. It's pretty! Marissa is ready to share her room with the baby. She loves to feel my tummy and say "she kicked me!" I wondering if I will ever get to hold my baby without Marissa wanting her too. This will be exciting!

And here we have Tanner's new room. JD and I really like the dark blue in this room. It is much better than what we chose before and it just fits! Tanner is liking it too, I think! I am so glad JD painted. I was so sick of the colors in these rooms but I didn't want to be a nag! :) He did it and he was happy to do it - I love that guy!

So if you didn't get the point of my post - February is almost here! Yippee for February!

He is 6 going on 12!

My baby boy turned six last week. Isn't he a cutie? (By the way - don't EVER call him cute to his face - he doesn't really like that)!

We had a small, fun little party for him on his special day. It's funny how the birthday kid always is the worst behaved at their own parties. I've seen it happen several times but when it happens - it just makes you a little mad. :) Anyway - things turned out nice and he had a good time.
I love Tanner! He is a good kid. It's hard sometimes because he acts SO much older than he really is. So that's why I say he is 6 going on 12. He really does have a preteen attitude sometimes - scary, I know. But I really love him and he is a great helper to me! I hope he has a great year being 6!

And this is just the weird randomness that happens at my house! This is my crazy husband playing with the balloons from Tanner's party. The boys drew faces on them and then JD had the silly idea of putting it in his hoodie! The boys were rolling on the floor laughing. It was fun! I love my silly hubby!

He's such a kid at heart!

A post a week!

One of my goals for this new year is to post something each week. Preferably on Monday but we'll see.
This is something I just want to remember. A week ago Friday night, I lost my contact. I was taking it out and it fell but I never heard it hit anything. I have hard contacts - so losing them is quite a pain. First of all because they cost $65 to replace and they take like 5 days to make it. And I really don't like wearing glasses all day long. So anyway, I called JD to help me and we searched my clothes, all over the bathroom, everything. But nothing! I was seriously so upset with myself.
I started praying that night. And that prayer continued throughout the next day. I was doing a ton of laundry so every time I walked in the bathroom I kept expecting to see it somewhere. I wanted my prayer answered!
By dinnertime I just assumed it was gone for good. So the boys were wrestling on the floor in the family room and I called them to dinner. We all sat down and Josh looks at Dawson and says "Hold still Dawson you have mom's contact on your face". We all turned and what? My contact was on his cheek. Amazing - truly amazing. So he must have picked it up while wrestling on the floor.

The Lord answers prayers in his own time! But I am so thankful!

More Christmas Fun

Grandma and Grandpa came down early in December and helped the boys make a gingerbread house!

The whole bunch of Hanks' cousins over at my house for music practice. We like to get the kids together and go to a rest home and perform Christmas songs. We didn't get to the rest home this year but we did do it for the Seastrands and Great Grandma Hanks. The kids did great! They are all performers - that's for sure.

Up at the Torres house for Great Grandma's performance. Great Aunt Lori brought chimes and everyone had fun trying to play a few songs on those. Boy was it loud but look at the concentration - I don't think we've ever seen all the kids that still all at the same time before.

And finally at the Carter's house for our Christmas Eve Eve party. Here they are playing a game to see who gets to open the next present.

We are very lucky to have such great families on both sides. We had a wonderful time being together even if being together means total craziness! It's still fun!

And finally this is the only picture I got of New Year's Eve. Bummer. Kristin and David were so nice to have us up to their house for lots of food. We only stayed till 9:30. But came home and let the boys stay up till midnight. Here is Marissa and Brinley in their matching jammies. It was funny because I got them out to put on Marissa and Brin says "those are my jammies". So surprise they had the same ones. Sweet Brinley - just had chemo and her steriods the day before but was so cute. She kept wanting Tanner and Dawson to be her prince and protect her. It was funny. The boys played along though!

Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas! Lots of family to see and lots of food to eat.

Here we are with just our little family for our quiet Christmas Eve dinner. JD and I think this is our favorite night. He makes clam chowder and I make a cheesy corn chowder. We use the nice china and eat by candlelight. It's so nice and the kids love it.

After we open presents at home and play for a couple of hours, we head up to my parents house and spend the rest of the day there. Lots of fun. JD and I got a new grill - yippee! We've already tried it out and it's wonderful. The kids love being with their cousins and having christmas dinner with everyone. MMMM - I love Christmas dinner

Snow and Sledding (a couple different times)!

It's been awhile - so it will take me a couple of days to catch up. But here is the fam sledding. The first time was on Christmas Eve and we had the whole hill to ourselves. We had a great time! The second time was up at my parents house on the golf course on New Years Day. Oh boy was it crowded. I thought someone was gonna die. There were so many people there and everyone going every which way! But it was tons of fun and everyone had a blast. We love snow!