Quick post

Sorry I know I have been a complete slacker at updating this blog lately.. I will try very hard to update on everyone soon.

For now our latest news is I hit 35 weeks on Saturday and so far I am still pregnant.... YAY!! Here is the most recent picture taken last Saturday at 34 weeks.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

So glad to be welcoming in another year... We can hardly wait to see what fun, exciting changes are in store for our family. A few of our new year goals are:

*Become more self reliant

*Pay off a car if we can

*Dave: beat last years sales

*Amber: no baby until at least February ;)

*Kids: better at listening the first time

*Caitlyn: become potty trained

I think we can do it!

Third Trimester..

More Baby Update.... So not only was it Christmas eve but it also marked the start of the THIRD Trimester for me... WAHOO!!! 28 weeks is a big milestone, baby weighs about 2.5 lbs (1.1kg) and is about 10 inches (25cm) from crown to rump and 15.75 inches (35 cm) long from head to toe. Baby's survival rate outside the womb has jumped up to 85-90% which is a lot better but still way to early. Here is my latest belly pic.. she is definitely growing in there.

Since my last appointment at 26 weeks wasn't super fabulous due to the fact that I am already starting to efface although she is still high and I am not dilating , I spent as much time as possible laying low. I had another appointment just this last week but my OB was out of town so we have no new information on how things are holding up down there. I did however receive my first set of steroid shots for lung development on Thursday and Friday. These triggered some really unnerving contractions that have since diminished some but with Dave out of town I am not taking any chances and have put myself on some modified bed rest so I can keep this little girl cooking. My next doctors appointment is the 12th of January and I am very anxious to see what is going on and if this little girl has moved from breech position as I am fairly sure she has, so I will keep you updated.

On a fun note besides my normal cravings for meat, potatoes, and churros... I had a new one this week that I have had before I think with Caitlyn.... Maraschino Cherries... yum!

Christmas 2011

We started our Christmas Weekend off with tons of yummy treats. For FHE the kiddos and I made graham cracker gingerbread houses. It took a bit of planning on my part to have them pre-assembled so I wouldn't have kids waiting to decorate but they loved it! From Left to Right is Preston (with Mommy's help), Caitlyn, Ethan and Jocelyn. Lets just say they were pretty wired for an hour or two after.

I decided this year since we do breakfast casserole for Christmas morning breakfast, to do red and green cinnamon rolls for Christmas Eve breakfast. I think the kids enjoyed it even though daddy had bought some sprinkled doughnuts the day before. The rest of the day we spent making spritz cookies and sugar cookies so we could decorate them that night for Santa.

After dinner we cleaned up and colored the frosting and let the bigger kids go to town with decorating the sugar cookies. They did a great job and surprisingly made very minimal mess. Even Preston wanted to decorate a cookie with help from Daddy.

And of course we had to taste them before setting them out for Santa....
After that was all cleaned up and done we did our traditional one gift opening on Christmas Eve... its always a new set of Christmas jammies... got to love some comfy jammies to sleep in Christmas Eve. We also gave the kids a new book which we read before getting them settled down with a movie. Once the children were all snug in their beds with visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads... Santa Arrived.....

Now with a 7 year old in the house who knows all about Christmas and was anxious for Santa to come we really didn't get much sleep. She was up various hours during the night to check out what was under the tree. At about 8:30am we finally caved and allowed her to get everyone up so we could make breakfast and open presents. Our family tradition has always been youngest to oldest so it was great that Santa left a few gifts open to occupy those who had to wait their turn. here are a few pics of the present unwrapping fun...

Once we cleaned up all the present carnage and breakfast mess we got our cute little selves already for Christmas Day Church. We had great talks on the true gift of Christmas, the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ. It was a wonderful way to end a fabulous morning. Here are some pictures of our family in their Christmas Best :)

Two very happy Grandparents surrounded by their crazy grand kids.

We hope your Christmas was just as wonderful and meaningful as ours.

Christmas Dance Review

So Miss Jocelyn has been taking dance lessons since about September and for the most part she has been to all the classes minus a few days here and there when she had dental work and was out of commission for the day. The dance school does a huge performance at he end of the year but at Christmas time they do what they call a dance review. Jocelyn was very excited to get all dressed up and show me all her new dances. Thanks to my wonderful friend Brandy, I was able to drop off the babies and take Ethan with me to her performance since Dave was out of town. Ethan was a great date and loved taking pictures with my camera. Here are a few still shots and then videos of her dances. Enjoy!

Here is Jo's class... She is the youngest of the bunch but not the shortest out of this group.

A fun start to December

December has been a super crazy busy month for us so I will make a huge attempt at consolidating it so you don't have to read a novel.

Ethan was picked as the start student of the week in his Kindergarten class the first week in December. This meant he was the teachers special helper during the day at school and on Friday of that week he was able to bring a few items from home and have his parents share things about him. It was really fun to go and see my shy little guy shine. He told all the kids about his favorite toys and books and about his family. I am constantly amazed by how much he has truly come out of his shell.

Later that same week I had to take my sweet Jo in for more dental work. This poor mouth has had so many teeth pulled because its so tiny. Besides the top two that were pulled earlier this year she had a molar pulled due to a cracked filling and had a spacer placed. Then she had an additional two teeth pulled on the bottom and a spacer placed so that her four permanent front bottom teeth can come in straight. She has really been such a trooper and has been so brave getting all this done. Unfortunately I see braces coming in the future for this one.
Just a cute moment of some down time with Daddy I captured. Caitlyn has really developed her imagination play and it is so fun to watch. She was doing daddy's hair this day. Daddy is such a good sport.

Pregnancy update: Here is a picture from right after Thanksgiving, I have officially hit the point of viability ~ 24weeks. I don't really like that term but this is the point at which if baby were born she would have a chance at surviving and the hospital would make attempts to help baby survive. I don't usually feel that excited about hitting this point as the chance for survival is only ~60% compared to 28 weeks when it jumps to ~80%, but you celebrate each milestone when you have rough pregnancies. Anyways, here is my 24 week belly pic....

I was also lucky enough to get another ultrasound done at my doctors office that week to check my cervical, which was good at 3cm and to see if the choroid plexus cyst was resolved or not, which it is completely gone. We were able to watch baby girl in 3D and definitely confirm she is in fact a SHE. She was measuring perfect at about a pound and everything was working as it should. Here is the best picture we snapped of her as she is just like her brother Preston and had her hands curled up in front of her face and she was snuggled into the placenta.

Thanksgiving 2011

Usually we travel for the Thanksgiving Holiday but now that we have have four kiddos and number five on the way it has become a huge undertaking for just a few days of vacation, so we have decided to spend holidays at home this year. Since no one had made plans I decided to host Thanksgiving dinner. We had Mom & Dad Yates and T & Mom over for some seriously yummy food if I do say so myself. It was so fun to just relax and visit with everyone and stuff our faces.

Preston has been mastering his spoon to mouth technique and the chocolate pudding pie was a complete success :)

Each Thanksgiving we have some much to be thankful for because I lives are truly so blessed, but I think the thing that stands out the most each year is how immensely grateful I am for a wonderful FAMILY.

Pinnacle Awards....

Each year Pinnacle goes all out to highlight the achievements of it's top sales reps and technicians. In the past years Dave has been recognized for his hard work and this year was no different. We took the opportunity to do a date night this year since we get all dressed up. We started the night off at Benihanas and then walked over to the Capital Theater in Salt Lake for the awards show.

Other than less than stellar lighting I think we make a pretty cute couple...

The comedian Pinnacle hired to host the show was pretty funny but the best part was watching my handsome hubby be rewarded for how hard he works. He was the #8 top Veteran Sales Rep out of the entire company. He was also a co-manager of the Top Summer Office in the Company. He came away with an awesome new storm tech jacket, two new watches and a cool award. For all that Dave sacrifices when he goes out to sell it is so awesome to know that the company he works for truly appreciates all he does.

updates to come soon...

I know I have been totally neglecting the blog... the holidays and being pregnant have just seriously kicked my behind. My goal is to get caught up this next week.

3 days for 32 meals to Freeze

So after being hopelessly addicted to Pinterest for recipe ideas I was inspired to bite the bullet and do some freezer meals. I have always wanted to do a months worth of cooking in one day, so on those days that I really don't feel like cooking I could just grab something yummy and homemade out of my freezer. I gathered as many family favorite recipes that I thought would be good to freeze and made a huge grocery list. Initially I sort of had a heart attack about the mass amounts of food I was needing to buy, but honestly its a months worth so it should be a lot for a family of 6. The day before shopping I checked out the store adds to make sure I was getting the most for my money and the few weeks before Thanksgiving is a great time to do this. I ended up buying the majority of my produce and meat at Sam's Club because their prices were as good if not better than the stores sale prices. All in all the groceries ran about $400-$450 which includes all the items needed to complete the meals (i.e. hamburger buns, sour cream, cheese, etc...).The second day was prep day. I cooked all 7lbs of hamburger and placed each pound into a freezer gallon bag. Then I cooked the 6lbs of chicken in my crockpot then shredded and divided into bags. I had planned to get the pancakes and muffins baked this day also but it was just to crazy so I actually did it another day.

The third day was the longest day by far but has been so worth it thus far. I tried to organize my groceries as to make the process smoother (i.e. canned beans, other canned items, seasonings, veggies, etc...). When all the other girls arrived to my house we got started. We started off with the ground meat recipes and moved through the lists. One by one bag were filled with yummy food and my counter was filling up with finished meals. The whole process seemed to take forever but we were stopping to pick up kids from school and eat lunch. I think minus those activities it would have taken 4-4.5 hours straight to finish.

So now for anyone who wants to try out my recipes (some are family recipes and others are from various websites via Pinterest) here they are along with the grocery list above. The highlighted ingredients are not to be put in the freezer bag but are to be added when you are preparing the meal to eat. So far I have used a handful of meals and they've turned out great. Feel free to modify the recipes such as used minced dried onion instead of real chopped onion or pre-minced garlic instead of hand mincing garlic. Let me tell you my house smelled of onions and garlic for a few days :)

Ground Hamburger Recipes

Shredded Chicken Recipes

Boneless/Skinless Chicken Breast Recipes

Flank Steak/Stew Meat Recipes

Chuck Roast Recipes

Other Meat Recipes

I will include a list of the websites so I can give credit where it's due asap.

Washington Trip with my JoJo

On the semi spur of the moment I decided that I wanted to fly out to Washington to see my dad and be there for his birthday on the 7th of November. When I researched the prices on tickets they were very cheap so I thought that taking Jocelyn with me would be a fun experience for her and I. It was a sort of mommy- daughter weekend for us. I orcastrated all this with Miriam so that it would be a huge surprise for my dad. It worked out great.

We flew in on Friday the 4th, Jocelyn loved flying in the plane but was a little nervous about flying over the water after reading the safety pamphlet in the seat pocket. Her favorite part was the take off and landing because the plane went fast. Miriam picked us up at the airport and we drove to my dad's work. Miriam had arranged for Dad's boss to call him in his office so that he would be there and distracted while we walked in. We sent Jocelyn in first and then I followed... the reaction was priceless and Miriam caught it on video!! Not only were we the surprise but Miriam had also arranged for my dad to have that day off as well as the following Monday and Tuesday. We left my dad's work and went to visit my grandma and surprise her too, so fun! We took Grandma Battson out to lunch at the Ram (my favorite place to get French Dips) and then decided it was time to head to my dad's house and take a nap.

Saturday we woke up fairly early thanks to the time change and early bedtime the night before to go shopping. I needed to find a fairly nice dress for Dave's Award Show the coming weekend since none of the dresses I have would fit my little growing belly. We found some awesome deals and had a yummy lunch at Red Robin with just us girls. Jocelyn was pretty ready to go home by the time we made our last stop at Costco. She spent that evening planning all the activities we would be doing the next day.

Sunday morning we woke up bright and early to a wonderful tea party, consisting of Chocolate Cake, Pumpkin pie and hot apple cider. Jocelyn had everything all set up on the kitchen table. She even insisted upon us pointing our pinkies as we sipped our "tea". After all that fun we hopped into the car and headed to the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium. Although it was a bit cold it was fun seeing all the animals out and about. We were fortunate to go during the feeding time for most of the animals. After the zoo we headed to lunch at the Ram again... because it really is that yummy. Then it was time to head to the Glass Museum. The Gallery of glass work was pretty fascinating but the best part was the Hot Shop. In the Hot Shop they actually make pieces of glass for local artists... It was really cool to watch but Jocelyn was pretty bored after the first hour. We finally headed home around 6 for dinner and to relax after a long fun day.

Monday was our last full day in Washington so we wanted to head down to Seattle as something fun to do for my Dad's official birthday. Unfortunately it was the only day it decided to rain :( We went to the Seattle Aquarium, which was the Aquarium that my dad used volunteer scuba dive. They have done quite a few updated to the building so it was pretty cool to see. The fish were amazing but the neatest part was watching them train and feed the fur seals. Jocelyn would have watched for hours but it was getting cold and we were all starving. We decided that Mexican sounded great so we went to the Aztec and had a fun birthday lunch, including the sombrero and Mexican singing :) My dad loved it! Finally we stopped back by my Grandma's to visit and say goodbye.

Tuesday morning we woke up at the crack of dawn to catch our plane home. We had a blast visiting and I wish we could have done it as a whole family. Dave did amazing while Jo and I were gone, he is a pretty incredible dad.