Month: November 2011

    Turkey Day 2011

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    We call it Turkey Day – it is just easier for the kids – Thanksgiving is a mouthful if you really think about it BUT we do try and make it a day of Thanksgiving and not just a turkey day πŸ™‚

    Packer Turkey - his thankful feathers said: Family, Brewer, House and Cali

    This Thanksgiving was different than what we have traditionally done in the past. We are Usually on the go travelling to CA or WI (2003 Hollister CA, 2004 Hollister CA, 2005 Wisconsin Country Club, 2006  South Bend IN, 2007 Hollister CA, 2008 We Hosted at Our House, 2009 Wisconsin , 2010 Lathrop CA.) This year Ben’s parents moved to Alpine (a 10 minute drive) so we enjoyed a relaxing vacation at home and were still able to spend time with extended family. It was wonderful to get a good nights sleep in my own bed and then play hard the next day. I’m not saying that I would/will choose this option every year but it was a nice change for this year. Ben had Tuesday through Friday off of work so we had 6 full days of family time ( two of the days were NOT spent in the car as in years past).

    Ben the Pie Maker - 2 pumpkin, 2 chocolate, Lemon, and Cherry!

    I loved having Ben home. Everything is more fun when Dad is home and EVERYONE is better behaved πŸ™‚ Some highlights of our week were finally watching Spy Kids 4, Thanksgiving Point Deli and Ice Cream, Trafalga, Pie Making, Thanksgiving at Ben’s Parents with Most of his siblings families, Football, Christmas Shopping, Milk Shakes with Uncle Joel, Many games of Uno, BYU Basketball, Getting our Christmas Tree and ended it all with our weekly Sunday Dinner with the Robertson crew. The week just seemed to last forever – in a good way.

    UNO with Aunt Michelle

    We took lots of pictures of our Nettesheim Football Game on Thanksgiving Day and lots of pictures of Eating πŸ™‚ Our kids are still clueless when it comes to sports. Packer lasted less than one play on the football field and Benji made a valiant effort but was pretty clueless. I tried to just turn it into a game of tag because he seems to get that so we had him chase the quarterback and he kind of got good at that. Cali, (unfortunately) found her way over to the cheer leading section and did really good at hip shaking and and yelling… I am a little disturbed… so I will tell you what I told my sister the other day. “I do not plan to force my kids to do sports but I will full heartedly persuade them not to be cheerleaders.”

    NETTY TURKEY BOWL

    QB Ben

    Benji on the kickoff!

    Cheer Leaders Rock! If you haven't heard Cali do a cheer you should - it's pretty cute for a 2 year old.

    I like how the blog is looking with writing dispersed between the pictures so maybe I’ll just keep on documenting. I am probably due for a new blog look so if I ever find the time I will do that as well.

    The cousins are just getting old enough to really play sports. They wanted to challenge the adults this year in the football game. We didn’t let it happen this time but maybe in the near future.

    I did sit this one out since the belly is way to big – for still having 2 and a half months to go this is not looking good :(. And the holiday season as my 3rd trimester is NOT going to be a good thing. Sorry to My Body, I will try and take better care of you.

    We also watched the Green Bay Packer Game on Thanksgiving morning – I’m sure you all could have guessed that πŸ™‚ but our family went over early to see the game and chill. Ben did all of the cooking for our part of the meal so I just got to relax all day and do the very minimal. LOVED IT.

    The top of my Thankful list this year is …. FAMILY. I’m thankful to be a mother, a wife, a daughter, a sister, a sister-in-law, and daughter-in-law. I find joy in each of these roles and am grateful for the fulfillment that each one brings to my life. “I Know God Lives, I know He loves me. I know he hears me and he answers when I pray. I know His Son is my Redeemer and that He died for me that I might live eternally one day.” Those are lyrics from a Janice Kapp Perry song that I learned a long time ago but they are more true for me now than ever before.

    Rose loves to eat!

    My mother in law made a turkey and a ham for the Thanksgiving Feast! I ate tons of potatoes and gravy and stuffing like I always do but this year I really loved the sides. There was so much flavor and yummyness in the squash and jello and sweet potatoes, the roles and even in the green bean casserole!

    The adult table!

    We thought Grandma and Grandpa Becker would be here for Thanksgiving but they haven’t come down from Idaho yet. We also thought that Uncle Bill was going to make it but he ended up making a trip to the hospital instead. Rick and Pete were able to go and help him. We missed all of them for dinner but were grateful that things turned out the way they did.

    The Packer Age Table

    Benji loved the chocolate pie

    Jana loved ALL the pie!

     

    The Tree!! already!

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    We went and picked out our Christmas Tree at Home Depot on Saturday. The kids were so excited that we just decided to go for it even though it is still November. I am needing to go make dinner now so I better save the tree decorating for a Later December post πŸ™‚

    Categories: Nettesheim

    Hair Cuts

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    it was time for some hair cutting around here Tuesday night…

    BEFORE

    BEFORE

     

     

     

    Sporting the mullet like his Uncles

    Packer loves Spikey

    Cali thinks she got a hair cut - we are still waiting for her first Cut

    success!

     

    Categories: Benji, Cali, Packer

    Fun in a Box

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    I love that Packer read a book from the library about a boy that decorated a box and played in it so next time he saw a box he knew exactly what he wanted to do πŸ™‚

    Fun for all ages.

    Categories: Benji, Cali, Packer, Rose

    Benji Notes

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    Benji LOVES writing all of a sudden. He has just taken off with his ability and interest in writing. He wrote a story during church this week and when Ben and I were sick he kept making us get well cards. I am really impressed with how quickly he is learning how to spell and that he’s not afraid to sound things out until he learns the real way. FIRST GRADE IS AWESOME!!

    Front and Back of his story from Sunday

    "a shooting star crashed on my backyard so it made me throw all of my Thors in the air.... then more came."

    Tetris for mom, Uno for himself and Angry Birds for Dad. In the middle are the 'get well' books he made for each of us.

    A note from Truman: "can you play today" So they both got their homework done quick and went to play!

    Categories: Benji

    Holiday Kickoff at the Cabin

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    Bear Trap Lodge with the Nettesheim’s 2011: We spent 24 hours with family. Some of us played hard and some of us relaxed as much as possible. We love spending time with our parents and siblings and the kids all play together REALLY well. We ate, planned the holidays, had a birthday party, played games, handed out the new Christmas Mix, watched the road to the  Super Bowl, and just visited. It snowed all day on Saturday so I made us come home a little early – I am wimpy in my old age.

    Categories: Nettesheim

    The Ultimate Update

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    I haven’t blogged since November 3rd and that happens to be the day that Ryan and Tara found a place to live and started moving to the house in American Fork. They moved most everything on that Wednesday and Thursday. I had sick kids so I stayed home and helped with kids and cleaned what I could here. It was an adventure having another FULL SIZE family living with us πŸ™‚ We have had several live ins and we love it. It is like extended family vacation and that is how I feel now. I feel like I am trying to RECOVER from vacation. Lots of late nights and games and kids running around and non stop playing and toys and traffic and double the cleaning and dishes and mess. It was a Fun but Crazy 4 months. The good news is… we now know that this house can be home to 12 people! If you had asked us 5 months ago we were a little worried about squeezing the 7th member of our family in, but now we have no worries πŸ™‚ I have a bad case of the cleaning nesting organizing bug, wanting to get all of my closets and book shelves de-cluttered and usable, so that’s what I’ll be doing in my FREE time for the rest of the year.

    Now on to the pictures… what we’ve been doing in the last 2 weeks without our live in house mates to entertain us…

    November 3, 2011

    We are still obsessed with Plants Vs Zombies – the kids have spent hours playing with these cones. It’s one of those natural toys that I know I should go hide them back in the garage but they are played with daily by all of the kids so I keep leaving them out.

    November 6, 2011

    This is where I found Cali on a Sunday night after I had sent her up to get her pajamas on. When you zoom out you will see that she took off her church clothes, pulled out her jammies, removed her diaper and then somehow ended up asleep in the nude, in the closet. This is not a normal occurrence – she and Rose both got thrush under their tongues from the amoxicillin so they didn’t eat while we waited for it to go away = hungry, grumpy, tired girls for a few days.

    Zoomed Out

    November 7, 2011

    Rose has found her voice and is constantly yelling and grunting and trying to get us to read her mind and do what SHE WANTS. The girls finally got over their tongue issues and that same night Packer claimed that his tongue was hurting. He had not been on antibiotics so I knew it couldn’t be the same thing that Cali and Rose had but he was worse off than the girls. He stopped Eating and Drinking Completely and then he stopped talking because it hurt to open his mouth. I finally took him to the Dr and he was diagnosed with canker sores – yep, regular old canker sores right on the tip of his tongue so we just had to wait it out again. We forced him to eat and drink enough to keep his energy up but he was out for almost a week.

    November 7, 2011

    Sicky Boy Packer

    November 8, 2011Hide and Go Seek Time

    When the cousins moved out I had to give Benji a big lecture about not getting to play with a cousin EVERY day and that he would need to play with his brother and sister and have more family time. He didn’t love that news BUT he had a good attitude about it and we have had some fun family time and I have enjoyed watching them have brother and sister time again.

    Brother Time

    Sister Time

    Daddy Time

    I Found Him

    November 9, 2011

    Still Recovering from the Sore Tongue

    Every November we get to clean up the leaves from our massive tree. We usually pick a night and invite some cousins over and have a big leaf jumping party BUT this year we were heading out of town on Friday and our ward was doing a pickup that Saturday morning so we had to do a quick Friday afternoon clean up. Packer and Cali still got to enjoy the leaves but Benji actually cried when he realized that he would not be leaf jumping this year.

    November 11, 2011

    Packer Flying into the LEAVES

    Cali getting some Air

    Ben's turn!

    Jana's turn!

    I did not do any leaf jumping this year. I was exhausted after doing my part of the raking. Baby number 5, or Clyde as we have been calling him, is due to be born in 3 months from this day. I feel like that is still far away but it is also coming fast. After Benji got home from school on Friday we loaded up the Dodge Grand Caravan and headed up Big Cottonwood Canyon to spend the night at a cabin with the Nettesheim Cousins!! It has become tradition to kick off the holiday season with family and plan our Christmas Traditions and just enjoy each others company. This year we stayed at Bear Trap and it was AWESOME! I have a few pictures from that so I think I’ll post those separately.

    November 13, 2011

    Marlee and Rose!

    We had our weekly Robertson Family Sunday Dinner… Marlee was excited to play with Rosie, she carries her around and takes her wherever she goes. She and Rose are buddies. We ate Pizza and actually got a few games in after the 49er game (can’t believe they are having a killer season). Than and Sam Hancock stopped by so that was fun and My siblings were being crazy and wouldn’t go home until after midnight – I kept telling then that this pregnant sister can’t stay up all night but they didn’t care πŸ™‚  and… Benji was up all night throwing up. The first one was bad and it was dark so he missed the toilet but after that he was a perfect sick guy. He counted 6 times that he threw up, a few of those he handled completely on his own. We kept him home from school on Monday but he felt fine all day and just played with his siblings. In fact everyone was full of energy so we headed to the park for the afternoon.

    November 14, 2011

    perfect park day

    Monday night we invited Ben’s parents over to watch the Green Bay Packers beat up the Vikings. The Packers are amazing this year and it was fun to watch with Grandma and Grandpa and eat some Pumpkin Pie at halftime. I love November just for the pumpkin Pie! Today is a good, normal Tuesday. We are healthy. I went on my morning walk. Ben is working. The boys had school. The Girls had cousins over to play and I am finally blogging πŸ™‚ “Vacation” is over and now I think the hangover from the 4 month “vacation” is also over πŸ™‚

    November 15, 2011

    She Can Stand Up Now - only about 20 seconds on her own but she is definitely in stand up mode.

    Cali wanted to invite Anna and Mia over to play. When I signed Packer up for afternoon preschool I was thinking that would be the perfect nap time for the girls BUT Rose takes 2 naps still and is never napping when Packer has school. So it has turned in to Cali’s play time. She often gets to play with her cousins for those hours during the week and they seem to love it.

    Anna, Cali and Mia

    Christian came to play today also and he and Rose followed the big girls all over the house.

    Categories: General, Nettesheim, Robertson

    October is Over

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    Another month has flown by… Here is the last of our Halloween and October happenings…

    Spider Packer! he loves school on days they do projects

    Pumpkin CARVING!! We did all 8 pumpkins. Tara helped her girls and Ben and I 'helped' our kids.

    Posing with their pumpkins!! Brinlee and Rose did get pumpkins but they weren't quite finished at picture/bedtime

    Packer, Luca and Sam at the end of their preschool party

    Ready for School! Mar, Ky, Tay and Benji on their way out the door

    We made it over to the school costume parade! It was fun to see Benji, and lots of cousins and get ideas for future costumes

    Categories: Nettesheim, Robertson

    One more park Day

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    Guess who is sick – again?? Yep, Rose has another ear infection. She is super grump when she isn’t feeling well. We went to the park on Saturday. The weather has been amazing. We had PERFECT weather for trick or treating as well. I keep thinking that we’ve had our last park day cause the cold is coming but we will see…

    Categories: General