The Weidmans

The days after Christmas most of the cousins left, except the Cragheads who stayed until after the new year. Jarom helped Heidi learn how to use her weaving loom that she got from Brandon.  She loves it!  She did the first ones all by herself, but Jarom helped her weave them under and over. We made it to my parents' house the day after Christmas and found that Todd had left some presents for the kids.  He gave Brynlee a teddy bear, Cougar a flying Mater, and Heidi and Hailey some princess dolls.  Todd has always been so nice to the kids, and so generous.  Dana held Cougar's head in place to make sure he would look for the picture.  She also helped him eat.  She wouldn't let Cougar out of her sight.  She told us straight out that Cougar was her favorite of any of Mindy's nieces and nephews.  Cougar loves his "flying race car". It snowed some more and we went out and played in it.  I put Brynlee in the Snugli under my coat, an...

Christmas morning is so fun with little kids! Hailey asked for this Cinderella desk and was so excited when she found it sitting there with her name on it Christmas morning.  At first she didn't even notice it and was looking through her stocking, but once she did she went right over to play with it.  She was super excited and stood on her tiptoes to take it all in.  She had a blast sitting there and figuring it all out. The other kids also got exactly what they asked for on Christmas.  They must have been really good this year.  Cougar was so excited to push around his garbage truck on his daddy's legs.  Heidi got the Dream Lite she asked for.  She also got a book from her teacher, Miss Johnson.  Brynlee got a little toy piano.  Her pajamas say "baby's first Christmas". Tatum got this Doc McStuffins toy and was nice enough to share with Hailey.  They had a lot of fun playing with it together in the new doll house that Evan ...

Christmas Eve was a lot of fun.  We stuck with tradition and did our usual things. We got dressed up in our Christmas clothes. We ate at Chuck-A-Rama.  Cougar loves macaroni and cheese!  Grandma Vawdrey saw what a mess he was making and offered to help him out.  It was pretty busy there and there are so many of us now that I didn't even attempt to get a picture of us all.  Brynlee sat nicely there for a long time, but didn't want to eat anything. We acted out the Nativity.  We had 2 super cute angels and 2 super cute shepherds.  Baby Jesus made his appearance a little early.  Tyson was also an angel.  Hailey was Mary at Tyson's house for Joy School a couple weeks before so she was happy to be an angel this time. We exchanged gifts since we were all together and probably wouldn't be on Christmas.  Heidi and Brandon gave each other gifts, as well as Cougar and Justin, Hailey and Tyson, and Brynlee and Carter.  Brynlee...

Each year the Vawdrey side of our family likes to do some sort of service project together, and also acknowledge how we do service throughout the month with doing a service auction. We got together on the 22nd and made these cute caterpillars for kids at Primary Children's.  Heather came up with the idea and they turned out super cute!  Heidi doesn't remember her time there, but we sure do and are so grateful for the wonderful facility that it is.  I hope these caterpillars made some kids going through some rough stuff a little happier.  Plus it was a good time spent talking with the family. We did the service auction after.  We came away with some great stuff this year.  I think we all got exactly what we wanted, and we had fun watching other people win the things we brought for the auction, too.  Some of the things include bags of cereal, a $25 Applebee's gift card, little pillow pets that the girls won, and some little cars for Cougar....

We had a very busy last few days of school before Heidi got out for Christmas Break. The Craghead's came in the night of the 19th.  Hailey was so excited for Tatum to get here.  She made a picture for her.  A little bit later she wrote her name and Tatum's name at the top.  She was very particular that there be presents under the tree with bows on top and a line down the middle for the wrapping.  She also wanted a blue heart, since it's her favorite color and she loves her cousin, Tatum. The next day while Heidi was still in school, Hailey played outside in the snow with her cousins.  Maybe if we knew the snow was going to come so often and stay for so long we wouldn't have been in such a hurry to go and play in it. Heidi had Polar Express Day at school on the 20th.  She got to wear her pajamas and go on a little make believe ride.  She even got to make a Polar Express Train out of candy bars and candy.  Also, the snow sculptures...

Life with 4 kids is busy, fun, and a little crazy.  They each have their own fun personalities and add so much to our family.  I took these close-up pictures of them in December hoping to catch up on the blog by then so I could write down all the silly things they have said but that didn't happen, so I will do it now with the pictures I took back in the middle of December.  I don't think I have done this since we moved to Utah so these little things have probably happened all the way since July.  Kids say the funniest things and I can't remember them all for too long so I try to write them down as they happen. Brynlee *Brynlee is now 10 months old and mostly refuses to eat food.  She will eat a few bites of pureed food at night if I force her to.  She will sometimes open her mouth for bananas.  She is happy and looks healthy so I am not overly concerned except for the fact that she needs to eat so I can get away from her for longer periods of ti...