CHRISTMAS!!!

I love Christmas morning it's so magical! (gotta love morning hair)

After opening presents we are so lucky to be able to have everyone over for Christmas Breakfast!

Checkout Craig's apron. 

   

It's Christmas Eve!!

Christmas time is full of fun traditions.  These are some of ours on Christmas Eve.

Frosting Cookies for Santa

We love having a fantastic Christmas Eve feast @ Grandma & Grandpa's:

Back home to act out the Nativity Scene & open a present each ... shh, new jammies ;0)

Another Great FHE

McKay & Abby worked an entire week on this fantastic lesson & activity.  It was based on missionary work.  McKay had cut a ton of houses out of yellow construction paper.  Then he cut a drew and cut a person for each one of us, including our name tag.  We then got our mission call and he flew us to our continent.  (Josie was my companion we served in Australia :0).)  We then had to knock on the doors and hope they would let us in.  We then would tell them what we believed in by reciting the Articles of Faith.

    

I am constantly amazed at my fantastic kids.

So Thankful!!

We recently had a friend in from Russia.  She was asking the update on Kimball's foot.  For a min. I wasn't sure what she was talking about.  Her daughter was trying to go into more detail about what it was.  Then it hit me.  How could something that was such a worry and blessing for me be almost forgotten.  

Kimball was born with a port wine stain on his foot.  This is not like a normal birthmark.  I hope I explain this right.  It is actually clusters of blood vessels close to the skin.  As the child matures the skin become darker, bumpy and ruff.  This part was not my concern.  With it being on his foot I figured it was just fine.  But... they can bleed easily if they get scratched or rubbed etc.  With it being on his foot of course it will get scratched and rubbed.  I'm a total research dork, so I hit the internet, books, people, our doctor.  What I found was there was a treatment that was done by lazier.  When it is fired (which feels like a rubber band snapping on you) it destroys the blood vessels.  It then turns to a bruise and heels and the younger the better.  It was hard for me to decide to get treatments at all.  "Will he think I didn't approve of him, will it hurt, then there was the whole thing about sedation.  There's only a couple in Utah who treat Port Wine Stains and they require sedation.  McKay has been under anesthesia a couple of time and neither time came out of it well."  Our pediatrician told us about the "Port Wine Doctor" in Colorado.  Of course I went home and researched him.  He had great reports, I called his office and got a really good feeling.  The more Craig and I talked about it the more we new medically he needed to have this done.  So we took the plunge.  His first appointment started in Feb. following his birth. Kimball & I flew back to CO every 6 week for treatment.  His Dr. was amazing.  I loved him.  He was kind, nice, fun, fast & always wore Converses.  That following Oct. he thought we should take a break.  Let it completely heal and start back up the in a year.  

As this October approached I knew it was time to schedule our appointment again.  I was hesitant.  He was older, would treatments be as effective, would he remember the pain more.  So I examined his foot to guess what the next little while would bring.  It looks like a dirty foot.  There are some small clusters in between his toes that when he was tiny they couldn't get the lazier in.  I couldn't believe it.  I don't know how I didn't pay more attention to it.  It looked great.  At his well child check our pediatrician looked at it and was astonished that it looked so well.  So we never made another appointment.

After our dear friends concern, it has been on my mind.  A few days later I was working on yet another project and was scrolling through older photos.  

I was scrolling quite fast, but these caught my eye: 

Oh how I'd forgotten.  To see these picture again brings tears to my eyes.  Not tears of sadness but tears of relief, gratefulness, thankfulness.  Knowing that the Lord has taken care of us.

I pulled out the camera to remember how good it looks now!

Isn't it amazing?  And truly a blessing from the Lord.  This was suppose to take three years at the min.  to treat.  I know the Lord guided us and directed us through this process.  I am so so grateful and I hope I won't forget this wonderful blessing again.  I know He loves us.

SANTA AT THE MALL

We were at the mall.  Kimball ran out of the line .  And when ever he did I went to get him.  He screamed.  But he like it till got on Santa's lap.  And the people who worked there got him to smile.

Festival of Trees

Every year @ Christmas time the Baird extended family puts together a service project.  It rotates through the 8 siblings.  This year my Uncle Dennis & Aunt Christine were in charge.  They chose to decorate and donate a tree to the Festival of Trees.  It then is sold at a silent auction.  All proceeds go to Primary Childrens Medical Center.  Each family had an assignment.  All of the married grandchildren (17 of us) donated a birdhouse for it.  When I heard this was what we were doing this year McKay was so excited.  He had just helped me collect Pennies By the Inch for Primary Childrens the week before.  He had been very interested in what else we could do to help these kids.  So instead of us going out to buy a bird house he decided to make one.  

It turned out pretty good.  He painted it red because he thought that with the festival in Salt Lake they would like it to be University of UTAH colors.  Once it was all said and done we went up to look at it to see the finished product.  Everyone was excited to go to the festival of trees prior to arriving.  As we walked around I  put Kimball onto my shoulders so he wouldn't keep trying to get into the trees.  Kimball has gotten into cars, trucks, trains etc.  Every time he sees one of them he screams out.  This normally wouldn't be a problem, but he can't say his tr's instead he replaces it with the f sound.  So as we were walking Josie of course holding onto my leg wanting me to carry her & crying, Kimball sees a fire truck and starts to scream it at the top of his lungs.  Keep in mind he's on my shoulder so the word carries to all round.  You might be wandering why doesn't she have them in a stroller.  I forgot it.  We had cleaned out the car & forgot to put it back in.  BAD MISTAKE!! After an hour and a half we found the tree.  By that time the kids had had it.  We finished with some yummy scones & cinnamon rolls they were selling.  They were great!  As we left Abby asked if we can go again next year.  I had told her that we'd talk about it in a few days.  After a few days, ya I'd take her again.  But I'll bring the stroller, DS and IPod as well.  Really, we will go again, just a little 

more prepared.  Craig's favorite tree was a Game tree which had a bunch of games as presents, McKay favorite was decorated with sports cards, Abby, who was asked last, said her favorite was "McKays Tree".  It became nicknamed that at our house because he had made the birdhouse.  Josies was the DIVA tree, covered in pink pink pink.  Kimballs loved the Fire Truck tree, & I loved the tree blown from glass.  It was cool.  

The bird house finished hanging on the tree.   Doesn't it look good!!

I couldn't get Josie to get into the picture.  She was tired & crying.  Do you love Kimballs scowl. 

"We are a happy family"

As you can imagine everyone around found humor in our family photo.

I grabbed these last two from my cousin Ashley.  Thanks!

P.S.  I found out that everyone else knew it was located on isle O tree 18.  It was for Vickie's Birthday.  (my aunt that past away at the age of 15)

Thanksgiving

The kids could hardly wait for Thanksgiving.  Abby had a little count down going on.  That morning she couldn't stop talking about it.  Josie joined her after a little while to eat breakfast.  She asked Abby if it was Thanksgiving today when she told her it was she throw her fists straight up and screamed "BINGO!".  For those who don't know my mom is over our extended family Thanksgiving & our traditional Bingo game.  There is so many of us that we have to rent the church.   We always have such a good time.  McKay was so excited about the bingo game he started to clean up peoples plates even though they were still eating.  He tried to be patient but it was so hard for him.  Craig had the job of carving the turkey this year.  He found the wish bone and pulled it with McKay.  McKay won but wouldn't share his wish with us.  Abby followed the younger kids around to make sure they were okay.  She took good care of them all.  Kimball loved the traditional slush drink.  It was such a fabulous day!  

Leaves Everywhere!

With all our trees it takes us quite a while to rake & bag all our leaves.  We enlisted the kids for help.?.  They always make it fun & a little crazy.  It took us 3 full days.  The older two helped/played, Josie had imagination time & played with Luna, Kimball pulled bag after bag to the side walk.  When the kids laid in the leaves you couldn't even find them they were so deep.  

Girls Night Out

Because we don't do "sleepovers"  we have "late nights" instead.  This is a night that they can invite a friend over till 9:00.  This is huge when you consider that their bedtime is 7:30.  It was Abbys turn for a late night.  She had cute Amanda come over.  They played for a little bit & ate pizza.  We then went to the play Aladdin.  Alyson & Cosi were in it.  The girls loved it.  After we found the them & they gave them flowers, we got pictures with them.  They are such good girls & incredible examples to my girls.  

We had enough time to run over to Article Circle to get ice cream.  We had a fun time.

He Makes Our Day

Craig is such a fun person.  He always is goofing off, teasing & playing with everyone.  The other morning before school he stuck McKays arrows on his head.  We had to take a picture.  

I love you!  Thanks for making our home so much fun!

Cali

I know my sweet husband has journaled about our trip to California, but I have some memories I don't want to forget.

McKay became quite the the photographer on our trip.  Every time I turned around he had the camera taking pictures of everyone and anything.  At times I would pick up the camera to scroll through them and there would be 5 new self portraits of McKay.  I kept thinking he was quite good, so on the after the day @ Disneyland I had him take pictures of us coming back on the shuttle on the way to the car.  Both had my head cut off, other then that they were quite good.  :0)

Here's some of his pics during Cali

Abby loves Disneyland, she always has.  She's my little dare devil, which you would never know by her sweet disposition.  Craig had taken the older two on some rides while I took (fought) with Josie & took she & Kimball to see the princesses.  When we had finished I called Craig to see where they were so we could meet up.  They were @ the next train stop riding the cars.  We got there @ the perfect time.  We looked over the railing and Abby was just starting to take off with Craig in the passenger seat.  I could hear his scared laugh.  After the ride they get their "Drivers License".  She was so proud & felt like she was a fantastic drive.  I can definitely wait till she's really sixteen.

Josie always amazes me with what she says.  We were in Balboa for Laurens reception.  Most of you probably know about Balboa, we didn't, we had no clue.  So to set the stage, because I'm sure I'll forget by next week, Balboa is a part of Newport.  It's a very upper class area.  The homes are nice, double story, set close together, very well kept and quite expensive.  Part of Balboa is an island, in order to get there you have to take the ferry.  Stage is now set.

As we were walking to the ferry, the older two had skipped off in front of us, Craig & Kimball were trying to keep up with them, Josie & I were enjoying the homes along the way.  While we were walking we crossed a lady who was walking with her cute little dog in hand.  The dog & the lady were dressed casual & yet decked to the hilt at the same time.  Josie walked right up to the lady stopped right in front of her and said "Love that. It's so pretty" as she touched her @ least 4ct. diamond ring.  The lady was super nice and kind of chuckled and said thanks.  Josie told her she was welcome and was on her way.  

Kimball was so funny trick-or-treating.  I think he thought it was like the game when you go to peoples homes and ask for something "bigger or better".  He would hold on to the piece of candy he had just received walked to the next house and try to trade it for one they had.  Craig would take the candy from him and put it in his bag.  About 3/4 of the way through he finally understood that the entire bag of candy was his.  All at once it just clicked.  He grabbed the bag away from Craig drag it for a few doors then handed it to me.  He wouldn't let Craig come close to the bag.  Which totally made me laugh for several reasons, 1) he has a little love hate relationship going with me  2) I'm the least trustworthy with candy.  I guess he'll learn that by next year.  

When we're in Cali we love to stop by the Spectrum Center to grab something to eat & walk around.  The kids love to play in the fountains.

Isn't my husband cute.  I volunteered him to put his tennis stringing skills to work by tying crystals from the chandelier at the reception.  When we got there I recognized the Waldrons from the PV 6th Ward.  I was shocked to see them in California.  Of course we were all curious as to who knew who.  They're Kirks grandparents.  They are neatest people ever.  It was such a fun surprise!

Cali was a fun quick trip.  We were so happy to see Lauren happy, with such a great guy.  They are adorable.  The kids love him as much as they love, her which is huge, because they think she's the bomb!

Catchup Power Blogging

My hiatus is now over & there is so much that I've wanted to journal about.  But of course it's me, & I can't remember from min. to min.  so I'm sure this will be totally random & all over the place but let the catchup begin.  

The reason behind my hiatus is a very fun project that, as always, turned out to be larger then first anticipated, "The Baird Family Favorites, A Collection of Recipes & Such".  

For probably the last six years or so my mom has been wanting to do a family cookbook.  At one point she even started collecting hand written recipes from family members.  She proceeded to try to type each one in.  She very quickly got discouraged and quit.  Over the years she has brought it up several time.  The last time I agreed that it would be really nice not to have loose papers floating around my cupboards.  That's all it took.  Once every ones recipes started coming in on email, it started to become really fun.  I would be places & wonder if by the time I got home I would have fun new recipes in my in box.   

With layout, formatting, editing, etc.  the project took on a life of it's own & hundreds of hours on the computer.  I don't regret any of it.  However every time I saw the computer my head would start to get that buzz you get when you've been looking at the screen to long.  

After everything I think the book turned out great.  I was really excited about it.  Even with all our crazy mess ups (some quite large!) it was a fun project.  It's amazing how with such a simple thing as recipes I felt closer to my extended family.  It was like a little portal into their lives.  I'm very grateful to have had this experience, but I don't think there will be a 2nd edition from this editor.

chargers vs colts

On Sunday night I watched the chargers vs colts.  It was awesome when the colt's got the ball in the beginning.  I also like it when the chargers run the ball. I love the game

Needed the world to know

Last night I was talking to my wife about a girl that had been on the tennis team at BYU.  She is finishing up her degree and has been trying to figure out what she wants to do with her life.  She was thinking about going to grad school.  Well earlier this week she told me she has decided to follow a similar career path as me and go into tennis coaching.  When telling McKenzie this she blurts out "WHAT WOULD YOU WANT TO BE A COACH FOR, what a waste of all that schooling."  Yes Mckenzie is now sleeping on the couch.  

So we went to Cali for Lauren's wedding (Lauren Jones is our assistant coach on the team at BYU) over halloween.  We made the most of the trip by spending a day at disneyland, going swimming and having a blast trick or treating around the Jones's neighborhood.  It is amazing how fun road trips can be these days.  At one point McKay was playing the Nintendo DS, Abby was listening to music on the ipod, Josie and Kimball were watching a movie, and McKenzie and I were listening to an audio book.  Needless to say the trip down and back was very easy and enjoyable.  I sure am grateful for technology.  The first day there we went to Disneyland.  We got there right as they have the music playing to open the park for the day.  Josie is dancing down the main street just being Josie (no inhibitions).  

People are looking over just smiling at her.  We went straight to the young kids area in particular the Dumbo ride.  Well Josie didn't like that to much, the other kids including Kimball loved it.

   

So then we went to the toad ride to get Josie excited about being there.  That went even worse.  So then we tried the peter pan ride, by this point Josie is in hysterics'.  She is screaming refusing to go on any other rides because they are to scary.  The rest of the day was great, the lines were not that bad and we went on whatever we wanted numerous times.  Josie of course didn't.  Kimball loved every minute of the nine hours we spent there, he is just as fearless as McKay and Abby.  After disneyland we went back to the hotel got changed quickly and headed for the Jones for trick or treating.  

Once there we started around the streets.  All our kids enjoyed this, Kimball being 2 now really enjoyed the treating part of trick or treat.  He would not let anyone hold his bag for him.  That was his candy.  The kids had fun and none of them are really shy, but Josie man alive that girl is absolutely fearless when it comes to social settings.  She was walking into peoples houses to check of their dogs, or their pretty decorations.   As it got later in the evening  a couple of families had gathered out the front of one there homes and were a little inebriated.  Well they were alot inebriated.  Josie just goes right up and starts chatting with them.  Making sure they gave her brother (Kimball) his candy.  These people loved Josie, needless to say it took a while to move onto the next house.  The rest of the trip was great a blast all the kids were fun to be with.  The drive down and back were just what I needed, some time to think.  

FHE Jack-o-lanterns

We had such a fun Family Home Evening.  McKay gave the lesson on prayer, Abby had the activity, carving pumpkins & Josie followed it up with yummy Jack-o-lantern sugar cookies.  

Everyone had a fun time carving pumpkins.  Craig & I haven't done it since we had McKay.  I'm not sure why, I guess life just get's crazy.  The kids had a blast!  And so did Craig & I!

Sigh

I bought new sheets.  Every time I get in I think of some old song that says something about a "little bit of heaven".  They're the best.  Not that I'm not grateful for our other sheets quite the contrary.  We were so blessed when we got married to receive several sets of sheets.  In fact enough to last us till now!  The last set of sheets was one we kind of forgot about until we needed new sheets a couple years ago.  They were really pretty, white, with lace trim.  In fact when we first started using them due to the very small thread count and kind of a ruffer fabric, we called them our very expensive spa sheets.  We decided that people pay a lot of money at spas for a body exfoliation.  We on the other hand got the same treatment by just sliding into bed.  They finally gave up the ghost.  No more spa treatments.  I bought for the first time the softest Egyptian cotton sheets.  So now I sing my little song as I slip in to bed, "little bit of heaven". 

Oh, the DRAMA!!

My Josie has quite a active, creative imagination.  

About a month ago I was needing just a few minutes to get some things done without my cute little shadow.  I was quickly going through my little brain trying to think of a movie or show that would keep Josie's attention for even 10 min.  By a tender mercy, Rainbow Brite jumped into my head.  I jumped onto youtube and sure enough Rainbow Brite was there!  She loved it.  Since then she has become slightly obsessed with her.  Well of course who could she possible want to be for Halloween, Rainbow Brite.  Last year I, in a moment of weakness, bought the cutest butterfly costume.  

My thought process was that she would be able to wear it next year too.  Well she would have none of that.  She wanted to be Rainbow Brite.  I got on line and couldn't find a Rainbow Brite costume for kids.  I finally found one someone made and it was totally a hoochie momma outfit.  Some of the girls on the team had caught onto what was happening, and did a fantastic job manipulating her into wanting to be a "beautiful pink butterfly".  I thought we were good.  The next day when I went to pick her up from pre-school, her teacher greeted me with, 

"Whoa, is Josie mad at you!?"  Not surprised, but not understanding what she was mad at me for this time, I responded with 

"Oh great, what did I do now?"  

"I asked her what she wanted to be for Halloween, and she told me Rainbow Brite (my eye's now roll) but that you wouldn't let her.  I told her I hadn't seen a Rainbow Brite costume for a really long time.  I didn't think they made them anymore.  She said that's what you kept telling her and that no one was listening.  She followed with you have to go to the Rainbow Brite store."  I had heard this many times from her.  I asked her teacher

"Did she tell you where the store was?"

"No"

"It's in RAINBOW LAND,  all I have to do is RIDE the RAINBOW!"

It was good to have a laugh with someone who knows my Josie Posie.

I could tell this wasn't going to go away so that night I called Katheryn & she saved me by coming over to babysit while I went to the fabric store, on the hunt.  There was NOTHING on Rainbow Brite, I tried to be creative, thinking I could use a tutu, striped socks, but I knew this wouldn't fly.  I came across the cutest Wizard of Oz costumes.  I remembered I had bought red sparkle shoes from Target for her thinking she would love them. I had hidden them away for one of those crazy days I needed her to run errands with me.  I was so excited.  I went to grab the pattern and they were sold out.  I went to 2 other store before I in all desperation I went to Walmart.  They had it!!  They also had the cape pattern I needed for McKay's costume.  

I enlisted my mom to help me sew the costumes.  She is the master sewers of sewers.  She worked on this so hard, I was glad I asked her to help me.  I never would have figured it out.  

Josie LOVES this costume.  She's so proud of it.  And that we made it for her.