.:Remi - Ten Months:.

Double digits? Seriously?

Remi celebrated turning 10 months by getting the sickest she's ever been in her 10 quick months on this earth. Reece was sick over the weekend, and Remi got slammed with it this week. Poor girl had a fever of 103, and was just shaking from her fever. She's been way congested and coughing like crazy. Yesterday, she took two naps that totaled over six hours! Luckily, she seems to be on her way up. I'm hoping it lasts. I'm done with winter and the sickness! I don't feel like we usually get this sick in the winter, but it's been bad lately.

Other than being sick, I think we can say now that Remi is a crawler! She's been so close for so long, but just in the last week or so has figured out how to move her arms. She's definitely not fast yet, and doesn't really do it a ton unless she really wants something or someone - in that case, she just goes without even thinking about it! I have to admit, it's been kind of nice not having her mobile quite yet. It's funny how your perspective changes a bit with the second one! :)

I think we've got Remi's sleeping back to normal. She lasts until 7:00-7:30 every morning, and that time is just perfect with me! I'm so glad we've ditched the 6:00 a.m. wake up time! I guess maybe she's gotten used to my milk supply being a bit lower. She's also been eating more regular food, so maybe that has helped as well.

Speaking of food, we've pretty much switched Remi to all table food! I'll occasionally give her some baby food, but she is not such a fan of being fed; she likes to do it herself! She LOVES mandarin oranges, and will shovel those in like they are going to disappear. She's good with most veggies and fruits, and she loves crackers, bread, and noodles. It's nice being able to just feed her pretty much what we're eating, or some version of it! I'm hoping it will help her put on some weight for her one year checkup. (How can that be in two months?!?!)

The little Rem has seven teeth now! There were about five weeks where they just kept coming in, one after the other! There are two more that could possibly come in soon, but they don't look super close. I love her little toothy smile!

Reece and Remi get along really well! I love listening to them in the car, because one of them will get the other laughing, and they just giggle and giggle and giggle all the way home. I don't think I will ever get tired of hearing it! Reece often gets Remi toys (and often takes them back!) but she is still really sweet with her.

I just can't believe that she is going to be one soon. I definitely like I've babied her a lot more than I did with Reece because I know how quickly they change. I'm in no rush for her to grow up, so she can stay my snuggly little baby awhile longer!

At ten months, Remi likes:

- laughing

- smiling

- grinding her teeth (sick!)

- mandarin oranges

- peek-a-boo

- having her back/neck tickled

- snuggling

- Reece

- crawling (when she actually does it!)

- squealing

- feeding herself

- baths

- 'real' food: noodles, green beans, bread

- having tummy kissed

- being sung to

- attention

- nursing

- playing with paper and plastic bags

- toys: tambourine, balls, laptop, puzzle

At ten months, Remi does not like:

- diaper rash (neither do we, she's had it TONS lately!)

- teething

- being left alone

- bottles

We just love this little lady! Seriously, how could you not?

.:New Years:.

We got to spend the week after Christmas in Oregon as well! It was SO NICE to have two weeks off to just relax and spend time with family.

We just hung out at my parent's, went to the store, went out to eat, played Five Crowns; just the usual! It was nice to kind of wind down after the craziness of Christmas. We also don't make it back to Oregon as often as we'd like, so it was great to be able to make the most of it! Gotta take advantage of Josh being on a school schedule while it lasts!

Remi, playing with some of her new toys. (Don't you love how her feet are up on the vacuum?)

Reece showing off her pretty new pettiskirt!

Reece wearing Daddy's socks over her jammies. (Have you ever seen Mulan? It reminds me of the shoes they wear in the soldier outfits?)

We went out for lunch on New Year's Eve Day. Remi was being a total cheese the whole time we were there. I was trying to snap some pictures of her doing it, but didn't have tons of luck.

Reece wanted to do something silly, too.

For New Year's Eve, we went to Bullmania. It was Josh and I'd first experience with Bullmania. Pretty much, I loved it! And I wouldn't mind if Josh decided he wanted to be a cowboy. It was a lot of fun to watch! Why people decide to do things like get on wild horses and bulls is beyond me, but I'm glad that they do so that I can watch! I hope we get to go again sometime!

Our last evening there, we decided to take Reece out sledding. And by sledding, I mean tie up a sled to the back of my parents' four wheeler. Josh rode with her, and she couldn't get enough! She wasn't happy about coming in.

Isn't she so cute?

Reece and Mommy

Getting ready to ride!

We wrapped up our time there with a lovely New Year's Day dinner. It was quite the feast! We all ate lots, and enjoyed being together for one more nite.

Here's our pretty table.

It was just a wonderful two weeks, and we were so spoiled by my parents and really appreciate them letting us invade their house and lives for so long!

.:Christmas - Part Two:.

We were able to take a nice, long Christmas vacation this year thanks to Josh's school schedule. We are trying to take advantage of these school breaks while he is still in school, because once he's working in the real world, we won't have quite as much freedom!

We headed up to Boise first to spend a day at my sister's and break up the trip. Reece had a great time playing dress up with Carter and Andi.

We headed up to my K-Town on Saturday, and it was a looooooong day. Yucky roads and flat tires on two of the three cars in our caravan (seriously?!?!) and we finally made it in just under 11 hours. It should have taken 7! But the kids all survived, and we were happy to have made it there safely.

We headed to my parent's ward the next day in our Christmas duds.

Reece, Remi, Taytum, and Andi in their Christmas dresses.

The rest of the week leading up to Christmas was spent bustling around, and enjoying the chaos of all the kiddos under the same roof!

Every nite, my parents would take all of the kids (that's 9 kids, ages 4 and under!) up into the bonus room to read a story to them and give them a little gift. It was a fun and exciting thing for the kids to look forward to every nite, and they loved getting all of their little gifts! I'm pretty sure that Reece has slept with her giant Smurf stuffed animal every nite since, and her princess 'lips' are always close by during the day. It was also quite nice for the adults to have 5 minutes, kid free, every evening! And I have to say my parents are troopers for taking the Remster every nite; poor girl was working on her two front teeth all week long and didn't really care to be detached from me!

My mom did her third Sounds of the Seasons concert at the local theater. She is truly an amazingly talented lady, and I was so proud to be there that nite. She had over 500 people there for her free holiday concert. On top of playing the piano and singing, she also baked cookies and made wassail for all of those people! I love that she does this, and love that my dad is so supportive of her sharing her talents with the community. My parents are pretty much awesome.

It was Nic's birthday while we were there, so my parents offered to hold the fort down so that all of the sibs and spouses could go bowling to celebrate. I started out doing great, but slowly went downhill as the evening wore on! It was fun to watch some of the crazy things the boys were doing. It was a lot of fun!

Friday was finally Christmas Eve! The kids' excitement was palpable! We started off the day with popcorn and soda. What? That's normal for our family! My parents rented the movie theater for us, as well as some of their friends, for a private viewing of Tangled. Everyone also got their own soda and little cup of popcorn. The kids were in heaven, and we all thought it was one of the cutest movies we've ever seen. It's a new favorite in our house!

When we got home from the movie, we had a special visitor: SANTA! He knew a little something about each of the kids. Reece still wouldn't sit on his lap, but she at least stood by him. I think you can tell how Remi felt from the picture.

We managed to get a picture of almost all the kids with Santa at the end. The kids (well, most of them) felt so special!

Once Santa had left, it was time to get going on the presents. The kids had been so patient all day long! We let them open up their gifts from the cousin exchange. We had the kiddos sit on the rug whenever we needed to contain them, and it was a great way to get them settled when it was time to do something. The girls made out with some great gifts!

We set the table and the counter for our traditional Christmas Eve dinner. Us girls enjoyed getting crafty and creative to make the table look so pretty. The kids even got some special treatment for their meal. We were never able to get a good picture of everyone at the table due to some things that came up during dinner (like Reece throwing up - awesome) but we all were able to enjoy some good food!

After dinner, the kids all opened up a book and their Christmas jammies from my parents. I absolutely love the ruffles on the pink jammies that Reece, Andi (and Taytum) got.

Here are the three babies in their jammies....

and their naughty little bums! Too cute!

We opted for a bit more innocent and sweet nativity this year. My dad read the story while my mom helped the kids do a flannel board story. Each kid got to put up a few pieces throughout the story. It was a great way to get them involved, and it was the quietest they were all day!

After we got the kids down, the grown ups were able to open presents from our gift exchange, as well as our Christmas jammies. My mom MADE all of us pajama pants! (Remember how she did that concert and made all those cookies? Yeah, she made 12 pairs of pajama pants on top of all that!) For some reason, we didn't get a picture of all of us in them, but they are great! We also had matching Christmas shirts, too. I love this tradition!

Then it was time for all of us to play Santa for our kiddos. We stuffed stockings - I'm pretty sure my parents got a kick out of watching us put stuff in, take it out, and try again to get it all to fit! Eventually we'll get it down to an art like they do!

Christmas morning was a blast! The kids had so much fun going through their stockings, and opening up gifts from Santa. They, along with us, were all completely spoiled by my parents! We also enjoyed our traditional breakfast of bran muffins, orange slices, and bacon. Yum! Another great tradition!

What a fabulous Christmas!

.:Christmas - Part One:.

We started off our Christmas festivities by going to our ward Christmas party. It was a breakfast with Santa. The girls wore their Christmas shirts and headbands.

Reece puckering up.

Sweet Rem.

Little photo shoot before we headed out the door. I was attempting to get a good picture of them together, but inevitably, at least one of them was always doing something different. It's called candid, right?

Reece was so excited to meet Santa. Until he actually walked in the room. The second he came in, she got quiet and didn't want anything to do with him. The picture says it all really.

Before we headed up to Oregon to spend Christmas at my parent's, we had a little Christmas here with the girls and their Grandma and Grandpa Beckloff.

We all went to our sacrament meeting together, with the girls in their Christmas dresses. Don't they look cute? (I made their dresses and love how they turned out!)

Then we came home to open presents, have dinner, and spend the rest of the day together.

Reece was loving getting to open presents. This really set things off for her!

Here are the girls with their grandparents.

Hanging out with Grandpa Ken.

They definitely spoiled us, and it was nice to be able to have a little celebration together before we left.