First Snow!

The snow came early this year......at least it felt that way! I spent the whole summer whining because I was hot and pregnant, and now I'm whining because I'm cold! However, my kids don't think it's too cold. What is it with kids and not wanting to wear their coats? I wear mine even when I'm in the house!

Hooray for snow! The kids were so excited to make a snowman.

Mason still wanted to jump on the trampoline with the snow.

The ferocious batman! He loves to wear the cape and mask (much better than the princess dress-ups, don't you think?)

Sigh.....he found the scissors and took matters into his own hands.

Poor girl has to put up with her big brother......"Save me, Mom!"

Halloween Haunting

Even Ragen got into the spirit! She was just a Halloween baby.
My fearless Batman! Ok, he was actually crying during the photoshoot.

Tyla was a mummy. We ripped up sheets and tried pinning them on her.

Then we had the bat girls! This is Alayna.

And here's Tiana. They had so much fun!

Halloween is always really fun, but also really tiring! We went to the ward trunk-or-treat the week before Halloween and the kids scored with the treats! Of course, Mason had his all eaten by the end of next week! That kid can sure go through the treats. He just shovels them in! For the regular trick-or-treating we went up to Teryl's house in Perry and went out with the cousins. That was a blast! Then we had dinner-in-a-pumpkin at Teryl's house afterward.

I don't know about you, but Halloween always makes my stomach turn. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy eating a treat here and there, but just seeing the mountain of candy the kids bring home makes me too ill to even taste one. Tyla was so cute with her candy. She decided to chart it. She grabbed a pencil and paper and proceeded to document all of her treats and her total. She is my child that is not into treats as much. She only ate one after the trunk-or-treat and has since only eaten one or two per day. Of course, that poses a problem for Mason who ate all of his and is now sad that he doesn't have any candy and Tyla does! Silly boy! :)

Precious Smiles!

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Oh, I love it when they get big enough to start smiling! And I actually caught it on camera! She's starting to fill out a little and is so cute when she gets quiet, stares at you, then does a half-second grin!


Poor girl hates her carseat! She's getting better - about 50/50 now.

Ooohh, what's that flash, Mom?

I always forget how huge the carseats are until you put a brand-new infant in them! She's being drowned!

This is the laundry basket she slept in for the first month of her life.

Ragen's 2-Week Check-up

Can you say, "Chubby already?!?" Ragen has definitely decided to be her own girl and not follow in her siblings' footsteps. All my kids lost some weight at their two-week check-up, but not Ragen! She has gained weight and is now 8 lbs. 11 oz. That puts her in the 50% for height and weight! The rest of the kids are below the 5% for all of those! Maybe she'll be the tallest one in the family. Ok, it's probably too early to tell and she will most likely be a shrimp like everyone else. But we're excited for now!

A few things about Ragen:
- She hates riding in the car in her carseat! She screamed the whole way to and from the dr. office which was a 30 min. drive both ways. We've gotta get her to snap out of it, though because we're driving the girls to school three times a day.
- She's being a stinker about taking a pacifier.
- She does not like baths and we have to do them double-time.
- She's gotten better about having her diaper changed and doesn't cry the whole time.
- She hates being naked, unless she's snuggled up next to Mom!
- I swear she has smiled at me real smiles a few times. So precious!!
- She's been sleeping in a laundry basket. It's a good thing because the laundry basket is light enough for me to carry to the different rooms I am in.
- She hasn't lost her hair yet and it is so cute!
- Her favorite snuggle position is chest-to-chest with her legs tucked up underneath her. That just happens to be my favorite snuggle position with her, too!
- For the most part, she is a very calm baby who likes to be held and look around at her surroundings.

We definitely love her and feel so blessed to have another family member!

Introducing.....Ragen Bree Jeffs

We are so excited to welcome Ragen Bree Jeffs to our family! She was born at 9:15 am on Sunday, August 29, 2010. She weighed a healthy 8 lbs (tying Tyla for the biggest baby award) and was 19.5 inches long. We love her so much already!

Our beautiful new daughter!

I have to admit that I just love her long, dark hair!

Our not-so-little family!

What a relief to finally have her here!

Ahhh, my beautiful girls. Wasn't it just yesterday I was in the hospital welcoming these two to our family? I keep telling them to stop growing!

It took quite a bit of coaxing to get Mason to come sit by me, let alone hold the baby! I think he was a little freaked out by seeing Mom hooked up to all the cords. Hopefully he will warm up more to Ragen!

There is no shortage of hands to hold her at this house! The girls just adore her!

First Day of School

The girls had their first day of school on August 18. We've been homeschooling our children for three years now and it is with very mixed emotions that we came to the decision to put them in school. Although homeschooling can be tough at times, I look back on it with fond memories. We've done a lot of great things together and it has really brought our kids closer. They are truly each others' best friends and love to play together. What a blessing! We'll see how school goes. I have to admit, I'm not 100% into the school thing. Our lives suddenly seem extremely structured and I miss the flexibility of homeschool. I also feel like the kids are gone so much, they don't have much down time. Therefore, we will not be doing many extracurricular activities. The girls are all involved in soccer right now and that's going to be the extent. Tyla has started to complain that she doesn't have much time to read, and she's right!





Our family is going through a lot of change right now. We always seem to do major changes in a big way, ie move to Indiana and change jobs while seven months pregnant with twins. This time it's change careers (from working in the corporate world to self-employment), have a fifth child, and change schools for the kids. Good thing we're not moving this time! Travis and I are now full-time Realtors and working hard to get our business going. We have a business website: http://www.northernutahhomefinder.com/ that is still a work in progress, but it's getting there. Travis is great with computer things and building systems to make the work easier and more efficient. It's been fun to work together and I look forward to spending more time with him. So if anyone needs help with Real Estate, we'd love to help you!

These two are best friends and I am so grateful! Besides, they have to be the cutest set of twins I've ever seen!

Mason didn't want to be left out of the photo shoot.

Tiana



Alayna

Tyla


Mason

Let's Go Fly a Kite

Have you ever wished you had a kite on a windy day? We've tried purchasing kites for the kids, but they just seem to break so easily. Tyla has solved all of our kite problems, though. We had a super-windy Sunday and my creative girl came up with the idea to fly plastic grocery bags. So we tied string around the handles, tied the ends to some garden tools, and "wah-lah" - a kite! The kids had so much fun running around the yard and up and down the sidewalk with their make-shift kites! Travis and I enjoyed sitting on chairs in the garage watching them.




Alayna and Mason just laughed and laughed as they flew their kites!

Tiana had fun doing twirls on the lawn with hers!

Bear Lake

For our final hurrah, we did a day trip up to Bear Lake with the Jeffs family. They wanted to do a 50-mile bike-ride around the lake and let the kids play. Needless to say, I did not participate in the bike-ride, but we had fun playing on the beach.
Thirty-five weeks! Almost there!

Tyla and her cousin, Brendon, spent hours making a monstrous sand castle.

Alayna and Tiana loved running through the shallow waters. The fantastic thing about Bear Lake is the very gradual slope. The kids could walk out really far without getting too deep.

Tiana loved playing mud monster by covering herself in mud then washing it off and repeating.

Travis and Grandma Jeffs coming back from their bike ride.

River Rafting

Travis and Tyla got to go with Grandma and Grandpa Nielsen for the annual Ricks Family Float Trip on the Snake River up in Wyoming. They had so much fun! It was a 5-hour float trip complete with cliff jumping, rapids and throwing Grandma in the river! Tyla sat up front with Carl and Krista and paddled right along with the rest of them!

Travis and Grandpa Nielsen sat in the back to direct the boat.

Tyla was super brave and jumped off the cliff! The river was running so they had to throw a rope out to drag you back in so you wouldn't float away down the river.

Boating with Grandma and Grandpa

We've loved the boating trips that Grandma and Grandpa Nielsen have taken us on! We've been to Mantua Reservoir and Willard Bay. Alayna and Travis laughing together on the tube. She didn't like the tube very much because it kept splashing her in the face!

Tiana hanging out on the back of the boat.

Even Mason got in on the action with the tube. He wasn't super brave, but at least he did it once!

Then the kids just loved hanging out at the beach, playing on the tube, digging in the sand, collecting seaweed, and throwing rocks. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa!

Summer Fun

We've had so much fun this summer that it has flown by! And thank goodness, too because it's tough to be pregnant during the summer! To start off the summer we took a camping trip up to City of Rocks in Idaho. It's a fantastic place that literally looks like a City of Rocks. Rock climbing die-hards flood the place each summer. The kids found a 'sandbox' just for them! It's actually the spot made for the tent but it had great sand to dig and play with!

Proof that a pregnant lady can still go camping!

Tyla and Travis climbing Bath Rock, the biggest rock there! She was so excited to climb it and scaled right up the hard parts all by herself. There is a huge crater at the top that fills with water and legend has it that cowboys would use it to bathe in.

We even hooked the kids into ropes and let them do a climb and rappell. They all loved it!

The crazy part of the trip was the sudden torrential downpour that left us all soaked, muddy, and broke our canopy. Luckily, our tent held up well and we didn't have to sleep in wet bedding!

First-Timer

Ok, I'm jumping in to the blogging thing! I don't know what I'm doing yet, but I'm sure it won't be too difficult to figure out.