Happy Birthday Emberlyn!

New Barbies! Yipee!!




















I LOVE Tiffanys face in background! She cracks me up!!















Liberty always has to be front and center for the opening of presents!

It's a purse in case you can't tell













Emmy counted down the days until her 5th Birthday, she was so excited! On December
31st she finally turned 5. We always have a New Years Eve party here so we can celebrate Emmys Birthday at the same time. I can hardly believe that my baby girl is
5!! I waited for what seemed like forever to have a girl and she has been so much fun; it was definitely worth the wait. Here are some things I love about my 5 year old Emmy.
* she LOVES to be the Mom! Sometimes it can be a bit much, but she really is a wonderful help to me
* she really enjoys coloring and drawing
* she has been writing her name for probably 9 months or more, which may not seem like a big deal, but it really is because I don't even know where she learned it!! She isn't in preschool and I think maybe once she asked me how to spell her name and I showed her. Ever since then she has been writing her name! Genius girl!!!
* she is really great at cleaning her room and doing her chores, she never fights me on it, she just gets it done and does a great job too!
* now her new count down is school; she CAN NOT wait!
* she has started doing her own hair, which she also does a pretty great job at.
I love my little Emmy, as much as she has drivin' me crazy getting me used to girls, she is such a joy and I love spending time with her. I don't know what I am going to do next year when she starts school! Happy Birthday Sis!!

Christmas continued

Make a scrapbook - it's easy!

Christmas morning

Make a scrapbook - it's easy!

Christmas Eve

Make a scrapbook - it's easy!

Finally the rest of December! These are from Christmas Eve. We have a few fun traditions in the Tietjen house on Christmas Eve. For the kids, they always draw a name of a brother or sister and get a gift for them and that is the present they get to open on Christmas Eve. It is not always the funnest experience for Mom & Dad taking 7 kids to the store to buy toys, BUT, it is the best ever to see their gratitude towards each other for getting them something. I think it is my favorite part of Christmas for them. For Devin & I; Devin & his brother Dale put an underground pit in our back yard several years ago, so every year for Thanksgiving & Christmas they get all the meat ready and put it in the pit. This was the best year ever, b/c they actually started early and were done by 10:00pm which NEVER happens! Usually it is after midnight. So for me if was a huge bonus because instead of being up all by myself till 4 am, Devin was up helping me wrap presents. I'm sure he was sooooooo thrilled! Why we always wait till Christmas Eve I'm not sure; it seems like there is always a lot of other things going on I guess. :) Thank goodness he was willing to help; I actually enjoy it, especially when he gets to be in the house with me.

Crippled Brinley

Meet Brinley, my crippled daughter! :) 3 days ago Brinley fell off a dining room chair and took the chair with her; well actually the chair landed right on her ankle. We are sure it's not broken, but she refuses to walk on it which has actually been pretty funny. She crawls all over the house or hobbles around on her knees. It's weird to only have one baby chasing me around on foot. :) She started walking on it last night, but only on her tip toe, she still won't put her foot flat on the floor. She cracks me up!

Sad day for the kids

So yesterday Devin came home from work and found one of our dogs, Dexter, dead. The kids took it really hard. They made a little "tombstone" and helped Devin bury him. It was really sad. We have NO idea what happened to him either; he was on our neighbors property with no wounds or anything. He was only about 7-9 years old; we got him about 5 years ago. These are pictures of him (the B&W dog) with Mason, Emberlyn and our other dog Buddy. Dexters foot got hurt one day and Mason took it upon himself to bandage it up! cute kid!

It made me think about our other deceased pets and thought I would jot this down for my kids sake. Bruce was our 1st dog, a rottie. We got him when we were building the house so he would protect our property and that he did. He died several years ago; pretty much cuz he was dumb. (it's actually kind of funny now) He had some stupid obsession with porcupines. Now; you would think that after being smacked in the face several times by one and having to be drugged and have them pulled out one by one would be enough to want to leave them alone. Not Bruce. The dumb dog did it 3 more times!!!! Every time Devin & our neighbors, would tie him to a board, drug him (I don't even remember w/what) and sit with tweezers and pulled every single one out, which took hours cuz there were a TON! The last time he did it we couldn't save him so he had to be put down. Poor Bruce!

Then 2 years ago our cat Dash (you can tell when we got the animals--Dexter was named b/c of my boys obsession w/Dexters Laboratory & Dash was named from their love of "The Incredibles") got really sick out of no where and died. He put up a good fight for about a week and we did everything we could to help him, but he didn't pull through. I think that one was actually the hardest cuz we only had him for about a year and he was the first cat we ever had, and the kids just LOVED him!! So there is our pet stories. Now we have to find a new dog before our golden retriever Buddy dies so he can show him how things go around here. We have been lucky to have really great dogs that make us feel very safe and protected. We'll miss you Dexter!!

Pregnancy update

Ok, so for this whole pregnancy I keep saying "this week I am going to blog about the pregnancy so I have something written down about it" But then I would think, not until I have Devin take a picture of me to I can post it. Well, that has yet to happen, so here I am posting this WAY long overdue post with no picture. Oh well, everyone has seen a prego belly before; and if your one of the lucky ones, you have seen mine about a hundred times!! :)
So I have 8 1/2 weeks left.......and counting! Technically I have 10 1/2 weeks left, but my Doctors have always educed me 2 weeks early cuz I have such big babies. Austin was 9lbs. 5 oz, right on time. Emberlyn would have been my biggest had I gone on time. I had her 3 weeks early and she was 8lbs. 2oz. At my last appointment my Dr. laid me back on the table and said, "um, are we having a big baby??" I just laughed (I am with a new Dr. this time who hasn't had the experience of meeting my jumbo sized babies) I am measuring 4 weeks bigger than I should be, which outside of the twins, I NEVER do. He said, "at our next visit we will for sure be doing an ultrasound to make sure your not having a giant!" LOL So anywhoo, I am definitely feeling old with this pregnancy. That or maybe its more the fact that I have been pregnant 10 times in the past 11 years??? My body just ain't what it used to be. I get frustrated towards the end at how slow I am. It takes me all day just to get afew things done! I'm used to accomplishing like a million things BEFORE lunch! (maybe not really a million, but ALOT) I'm slow, fat, tired and I waddle like no other!!! BUT, every time I have the baby, I very quickly forget all of that and miss laying in bed at night with Devin, enjoying feeling our baby doing gymnastics and Devin laughing at the craziness going on inside my tummy. I do love that!!! And I get plenty of opportunity for that cuz this is seriously THE MOST active baby of all times! I think he/she moves more than my twins did. My theory is that the twins stretched me out so much that this baby has TONS of room to enjoy. I bet he/she (sorry, can't say "It", sounds so impersonal) is thinking, "man, what the heck was everyone talking about? Cramped for space? HAHA this place is awesome!!" After the first 3 or 4 kids, pregnancy does get really hard and I find myself thinking, "holy crap I don't want to do this again!" But then those dang perfect newborns, in all their cuteness! How I love having a new little baby in our home! So, for now, I just try not to complain, and try to think, "if something happened and this were to be my last baby, I would want to soak up every min. of this pregnancy." So I try to forget the aches and pains and enjoy my time with my big belly and my baby tucked safely away until he/she has to come to this crazy messed up world. "Life" is a miracle and I am so grateful that I get to experience it once again.

Happy Birthday Mike!

So, I'm just weird like that! I can't post our Christmas pictures till I get all caught up with the posts I didn't do during December. :)

December 11th was my brother in law Mikes birthday (lovely husband to my lovely sister Tiffany) We just had a nice dinner at my house for him and we had a good time; as we always do. Emmy was busy taking pictures, Jacob was playing with the babies, and Brigham was enjoying licking ice cream out of Jacobs bowl--don't ask me why!! The kid is just weird sometimes! Mike is such the perfect companion for my sister. They are such a great couple and complement each other so well. He is a rock star hard worker and a super great Dad! He & Tiff been together since Austin was little, so I can't remember life with out him! We love you Mike!!

Ward Christmas Party

December 8th was our ward Christmas party which was a lot of fun! There was plenty of yummy food, a cute program (which Austin & Emmy were involved in) and my favorite was this slide show they did of all the ward activities that we have had over the past year. I thought that was great and made me not want to miss another one! The kids got to meet Santa and we got our picture taken with him. I told Santa that from now on he had to be in all of our family pictures; who knew all I needed was Santa with us to get everyone to be looking at the camera at the same time!!!

Meet Domino!

I know I am jumping ahead a little bit, but I wanted to introduce the newest member of our family! Domino is 13 weeks old and was a Christmas gift for our kids. He is so sweet and patient with the kids. We haven't had a cat for over 2 years. Our last cat, Dash, got really sick suddenly and died. It was really sad because he was the 1st cat we had ever had and we really miss him. So Devin decided that it was time for a new one. Bless the sweet cat, cuz I don't know how he tolerates all the love! He barely gets put down and yesterday when Liberty was handing him to Emmy b/c it was her turn, she told her, "ok, but hold him like this so you can burp him so he doesn't get sad." Maybe I should have waited till March so they would have had a new "baby" to play with and would leave mine alone! :) HAHA, that is just wishful thinking! But anyways, we are having a blast with our new kitty!