I feel like the last few posts have been mainly of Charlotte. And it's not like I favor one baby or the other, I just have to write about Jack! I love them both dearly. That sounds so old fashioned, doesn't it?!

Jack just melts my heart. This kid just smiles and makes you smile so big. He just turned 18 months on Saturday. YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS. This means he's going to Nursery at church. Oh heavens. It was beautiful. I could attend my meetings and go to YWs the whole way through. And he did fantastic! Some of the older kids were screaming their heads off and scared a few of the little nursery kids but he did great overall. He even helped clean up and throw things in the trash. He's really good at doing that at home too. Because big sister does it and he does everything she does. He also has been amazing during Sacrament mtg now that we've switched to 1pm church. I also sit in the middle pews and have the help from Lisa and her family but still! It's wonderful!!! I love it! I don't have to look up at Wade with a stern look on my face of annoyance dealing with kids by myself (I know selfish especially since it's just one hour...) and feel like I'm going to have a mental breakdown.

Last night, I made the nastiest lemon meringue pie. The meringue was awesome but we decided to try pudding in a box. um, no. Don't try it. SERIOUSLY. It looked so good and we sat down at took a bite and I was like, this is sick. And Wade took a bite and his face was HILARIOUS. He's like, it's rubber. Seriously. It WAS. The flavor was really good but the texture was sick and rubbery. ha ha ha. The funny part was we finally got Jack to take a bite just to see if he'd eat it and he put it in his mouth and immediately spat it out. You had to be there but we laughed so hard cause we knew it was rubbery and it was awesome to see Jack discovering the same horrid texture. Seriously funny.

Jack loves to tell you no, especially if he has to go to bed. No no no no and shake his head. He doesn't scream, he just tells you. And he LOVES to sing Popcorn popping on the Apricot tree and loves the actions. He tries them and it's so cute.

He loves people! He will say hi and wave to almost everyone. He loves my friends especially Nicki and Jen and will just go and sit on their laps and love to be held by them.

He still says "heppee" for Help me. Which probably sounds exactly like happy to everyone else. He says apple for the words apple and temple. Loves to say down when he means up.

He loves to drag the vacuum pipe around. It's his favorite thing. Crazy kid. Loves to make a mess. Seriously. I don't know a kid can be so messy. He makes messes every time he turns around and the kid is so messy eating but he's so picky at the same time! I don't get it!! But I love it.

He's still a Daddy's boy but he's starting to like me just a little more : ) I'm so proud of this kid. I can tell him to do something and generally he understands and does it. Quite a contrast compared to Charlotte (But she's doing phenomenal!!!).

There's so much more Jack can do and say but this is just a little taste of him. He's getting quite the personality and I love him so much! I'm so excited to have another girl in the family but I'm really happy that I still get to call Jack my baby boy. He's going to be spoiled by me and his sisters!!!

One year ago...

Well, it's been one year ago yesterday that I posted about Charlotte walking from the living room to her bedroom (that was upstairs at the time.) Take a look at this old post HERE. It's incredible to think of where we were and where we are now. I've been thinking of Charlotte these last few days and am so grateful she's in our family and no one else's. She's my baby and I love her. I love Jack. He makes me smile all day. I am truly blessed to have two wonderful children that make my life better. I wish I could be the best mom I can be but I fall short of it everyday. I REALLY do but then again, I reflect on my choices I made during the day just before I fall asleep and think how I can be better and really try harder the next day. Sometimes my brain is gone and I forget that I am trying to be a better person but I guess the thing to remember is I'm trying. I love my children and Wade so much. I hope they know that.

Christmas Day FEAST

Here it is. The Feast. We were full for days--well, seemed that way. We always made room that night for it!! We had ham, chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, roast potatoes, stuffing, carrots, broccoli and cheesesauce, olives, corn, garlic bread, jello pretzel salad, green bean casserole, cherries, shrimp, brie and crackers and cheeseball and crackers and bubbly. For dessert we had mini cheesecakes, Ambrosia and pecan pie! YUM.

Just another delicious view of the food.

Whatcha lookin' at? he he

This is what our day consisted of, opening presents, eating breakfast (ham and cheese croissants and OJ), relaxing for 1 minute and then off cooking the Christmas Dinner while the kids played with their new things. It was a great day and it was great we could celebrate it with Lian, Joff and then kids.

Temple Picture

I forgot to add in the temple picture. We had such a hard time choosing which temple to purchase. The NZ one is dear to us, especially Wade since that's the one he's grown up with and he received his endowments there. The Portland temple is dear to us but especially to me because I grew up with it plus I received my endowments there and we were married in the Portland temple. But we decided on the Logan temple because this is the temple we are living next to and this will be the temple our children will grow up with. Don't worry, we'll get the NZ and Portland temple. Probably not so big but we'll get them. It's always hard to choose!

Christmas Day

Look! Santa came!!!! I think we need a bigger living room. Tight squeeze with two families!!

All the goods from Santa. I bet Mrs. Claus did all the wrapping. She did a REALLY good job, especially with all that pretty ribbon....; )

Charlotte had SO much fun putting out cookies and milk and a carrot for Rudolph the night before. She's sporting her new pjs she opened the night before. But I love how she's interested that the cookies are gone. It was so fun to see her so excited about Santa. She's really understanding so much and I'm just so happy. Jack really didn't care, that's why he's not in the pictures...

Charlotte loved investigating what was in this box. But it was to mom from dad. Sorry girl, that one is MINE. ha ha. Wade bought me a beautiful ROOM IN A BAG BEDDING SET! Seriously 24 pieces. I love it and think it looks beautiful! I just need to add in a beautiful headboard to match it...hint hint. Well, I can hint all I want. That room is tiny and there's no room for anything else. It's okay, I'm VERY patient. : D

Checking out Jack's stocking! I'm sure Santa would have put more presents with the stockings but it would have been just one giant present mess. He's a smart Santa.

Look at that face! So excited!!

Checking out one of her gifts. She loves that little "movie" thing. Just is pictures and push a button to get to the next one.

Charlotte kept asking everyday until Christmas about opening the presents but I think the advent calendars really helped her understand that she had to wait until a certain day to open them. She loved talking about reindeer and santa and snow and presents and candy canes and a lot of things she learned in school. It was SO much fun to see the excitement in her face. Really made Christmas that much more special. I think Jack enjoyed it too but don't know since he wasn't too interested with the presents after awhile. I'm sure he'll catch on real fast next year. It was a wonderful day to see their faces light up. Oh, I got from Wade an awesome makeup kit, room in a bag bedding set, and lots of needed kitchen utensils. I got Wade some shirts, tie rack, 2 DVDs and a few other things that I can't think of right now. It was fun! We got some beautiful things from Wade's sisters--New Zealand dipping bowls (shaped as the country of New Zealand) and cookie cutters that are of New Zealand and the Kiwi Bird. And we especially love the beautiful NZ books that Crystal gave the kids. They are really special so they are out of reach and only read with mom and dad. I don't want them ruined. Thank you! And of course, Ma and Grandpa Ardern gave them lots of clothes, a toy each and new church shoes. And we received money that we put towards a temple picture from them. THANK YOU. My parents gave the kids their special ornaments. I think they're beautiful. And of course, thank you mom and dad for your gifts. We love them!!!

Christmas Eve Party

The Ardern side of the family has this tradition of having a Christmas Eve party. All yummy finger foods and bubbly! We had to have it a bit earlier because Jack NEEDED to go to bed. He was being a stinker. ha ha. That's okay. We stuffed ourselves silly and it was absolutely DELICIOUS!!! Or as Rachael Ray would say, "delish". Hate that woman.

We ate Croissants stuffed with Chicken Salad, mozzarella sticks, veggies and dip, truffles, brie and crackers, cheeseball and crackers, cherries, pretzels with hershey kisses, M&Ms, shrimp, chips and dip and bubbly. Am I missing anything else?? Can't remember. All I know is I gained 10 pounds that night. Awwwww.

Truffles

Truffles are an art with Lian. Seriously. She is an amazing cook and knows thousands of recipes by memory and they always turn out perfectly. I'm not exaggerating. Maybe the thousand number is a bit much--ha ha. But yeah. I'm not kidding. But her Mum and her sister, Crystal, are incredible cooks too. It runs in the genes. So I know Ryan and Elle are on their way. Wade is a great cook and I've learned a LOT from him and his sisters/mum since we've been married. (Mom, I learned a lot from you but didn't care to cook when I was younger. ha ha). Lian always makes Truffles at Christmas (am I getting that right??) and so for our Christmas Eve party Wade had to have them. I made them the year before but they were okay nothing special. So everyone got involved with the truffles and they turned out awesome! Thanks Lian, Ryan and Elle!! Oh and of course Charlotte too : D

Charlotte made one for herself and for Jack. It's pretty special.

TA DA! Here it is!! :)

Look how happy she is!!!! I love that smile.

Gingerbread house!

This Gingerbread house was fun to make although frustrating. The icing did NOT set very fast so we ended up with a melting house. ha ha. It was fun and all the kids had a great time making it. : D

Sledding

We had a big snowstorm before the Warwicks arrived for Christmas! So all this snow is from that snowstorm. We went sledding up on one of the benches that has a really cool sledding bowl park a few days after the Warwicks arrived. It was snowing that day too!!! (although we have not had very good snow storms lately. BOO). Charlotte LOVED sledding until she realized that you get snow in your face which she then figured out to cover her face. ha ha. But Jack went twice and HATED it. Poor guy. But we think the Warwicks had a good time sledding! (Lian is Wade's sister and she is married to Jonathan and their kids are Elle and Ryan). Lots of fun times with them!

Charlotte's Christmas Program

December 18th, Charlotte had a Christmas program at her school. All the kids dressed up in their Christmas best and showed off their songs they learned and of course had story time and sat on Santa's lap! They even got a book from him. How nice! It was a fun little day with crafts and treats at the end. They had a few gifts for the parents (ornaments they each made) along with stockings for each child. Charlotte had a wonderful time and just watching her was the best part of all. She really got to understand what Christmas was this year (especially thanks to the school) and I look forward to her getting more and more excited each year for Christmas.

Don't let this look fool you...she really had a great time with Santa. Especially getting her present.

Jack was the only kid who cried! And there were lots of them....poor guy.

Charlotte's class sang Christmas Bells, Jingle Bells and Must Be Santa. They even learned to play bells!! My heart melt the first song the class did (The above video--Christmas Bells). Charlotte was singing along so loud and proud. I balled my eyes out. You can hear her really loud in the 2nd verse. In fact, I was about to burst into tears again watching this video. I'm so proud of her. She's doing so well. She loooooves to sing too. She sings Jingle Bells all the time and really fast! You should hear her in church too. I need to video the Jingle Bells. One day before Christmas, the doorbell rang and Charlotte went up with Wade to answer the door thinking it was Christmas goodies and she sang "Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell, Jingle all the way, HEY!" really really fast and over and over and over til they got to the door. But it wasn't someone dropping by goodies. Lame. ha ha.

She was SO cute ringing her own little bell. Properly waiting for her turn and then know how to stop the bell from ringing. They told us they had originally given her two bells but she rang them so hard she would fall over.

Charlotte singing Jingle Bells!

Wedding cake

I made another wedding cake again. For Dec. 18th. My mind was so consumed about this that we didn't get Christmas cards out til the 21st. I've decided to take a break from making them. A break of like 15 years. ha ha. It's so time consuming and frustrating and add that to watching your children and taking care of a house it's too much and not worth the money right now. I don't have a bakery so it's not like I can get away and make a mess somewhere else. But the bride wanted a german chocolate cake with the german filling showing on top. Her sister (who's in the ward) took the cake up to Preston where they added flowers. I heard they were pleased with it which makes me SO happy. I'm waiting for their pictures to come to add to my picture collection.

Found some foam curlers to curl Charlotte's hair. I love it! And it's easier to get dressed in the morning and having perfect curly hair for school and church. They are SO curly when you put them in wet hair and let it dry during the night. I'm tempted to try it with me and then I'm like, no I don't want to look like a 4 year old.

Letter to Santa

On December the 14th, the kids in Charlotte's class went to see Santa at the mall to deliver a letter they had written. I have no idea what she wrote on that letter but it was so fun to see her excited for everyone to give their letters. I thought she was going to be upset at first because she was nervous to get closer to him standing in line but once all the other kids did it she wanted to. And she didn't cry! She smiled!!! We put Jack on Santa's lap too but he just was freaked out.

Charlotte is just smiling and Jack is wailing. Classic.