The Rest of February

February was a fun month!  Here's a little glimpse of what we did:

Tory got a new calling at church as Cubmaster!  He got to dive right in and do the Blue & Gold banquet first thing.  He was a bit nervous because he didn't know how a normal meeting ran let alone the big banquet with a dinner for over 50 people.  But he did great.  The room was all decked out in blue and gold and he planned a yummy dinner of taco salad with all the fixin's.  It was a little crazy for me watching the kids, helping them get food and eat, and stay in their chairs so this is the only picture I got of it.  You can see him in the very back of the picture.

 He made these cute dynamite gifts for the den leaders.  I found the idea on Pinterest but he totally made them even more awesome with black electric tape on the ends, pipe cleaner fuses, and tags.  The ones on Pinterst used rolls of Rolos but those were hard to find...not to mention expensive! So we used Mentos candy rolls.  I thought they turned out fun.

 Claire and Beckham having a little popcorn snack surrounded by dolls.  See?  Little brothers can be lots of fun!  Half of those dolls used to be mine when I was a little girl!  Vintage I tell ya!

 Coen had a "Baby Beluga" concert this month.  All of the 1st graders performed.  They had to wear their PJs.  It was a cute concert.  Unfortunately, I ran out of space on my camera half way through the first song!  Bummer!  He's on the 3rd row over on the left side.  (Behind the girl with pink PJs.)

Austin made a cool planet project.  His planet was Mercury.  He had a yellow sun and then the planet Mercury rotated all the way around the sun with a flip of a switch.  It was really cool!

 Tory's brother Jason drew our family's name for Christmas.  They live in Germany.  We got their package this month.  It was totally worth the wait.  A huge tin filled with all kinds of German cookies and treats.  We had fun trying everything and decided that Germans must really like gingerbread.

 Austin getting a new rank and some badges at his court of honor.

 Claire and Beckham played with blocks while I went through all of those totes in the background.  What are they filled with?  Baby clothes and little boy clothes that I've had for 12 years.  There were several totes full that I had to get rid of because of stains, shot elastic, etc.  Also several totes of girl stuff that I condensed down to just one.  That was a lot of work!  But now I have a better idea of what I need to get for the new little boy.  Luckily a lot of Beckham's things will work.  They're only 4 years old.

Coen got to go on a class field trip to the Fort Worth Science Museum.  He had lots of fun and got to be in the same group with his best friend, Austin.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!

 Dallin wanted to go all out for his last Valentine box ever!  His class didn't make them last year.  Seems to be a hit or miss on again off again thing at their school.  Sometimes they go all out and sometimes they don't.  Luckily for Dallin they wanted to go all out this year.  He decided to do a vending machine.  He won the "Most Creative" award.

 Coen decided to do a pirate ship.  He won "Best Box" in his class.

 For their valentines I just printed off some Minecraft cards I found on Pinterest.  I bought Valentine pencils last year after the holiday on clearance so we just taped one on each card.

 While Tory was at work, Claire and Beckham helped me make some Valentine treat boxes for him.  The one on the left had pistachios and the one on the right had different chewy cinnamon candies and red hots.  Then we also made him a batch of poppy seed mini-muffins to share with his office staff.  I told the kids they could be the special delivery people.  Claire took her responsibility very seriously.  She dressed up in her pinkest, sparkliest dress and added a pink sweater on top.  Of course she had to wear her sparkly silver shoes as well.  She found Beckham a red button up shirt to wear.  They were so cute!  I can't believe I didn't take a picture of them!  We drove to his office and they got out and carried the surprises in.  Claire said, "Special delivery for Dr. Schoonmaker!" and of course everyone thought she was super cute...because she is.  It was a fun surprise.  Then we went home and while they were napping I got started on our family dinner.

I always like to make a fancy dinner for the family on Valentine's Day.  We had lasagna, salad, french bread, and cherry vanilla floats.  Of course for dessert we had 1-2-3 Jello.  It was a fun day!

The Biggest News of the Year...

So, if I had been blogging more regularly instead of trying to catch up months and months worth of posts you probably would have noticed a lack of posts and pictures.  I haven't been feeling very well for quite a few months.  About a week after we got home from our little trip to the beach I noticed I was really tired all of the time and had to go to the bathroom like I was drinking gallons of water!  There was nothing unusual about the timing of anything and I had no reason to even suspect anything but when a certain date rolled by I got suspicious and took a test.  I was actually quite nervous this time and shaking when I went to look at the stick.  Deep down inside I knew what it would be but it was a surprise, too!  I never get those symptoms BEFORE I know.  And the results were...POSITIVE!  Wow!  I knew Tory would be surprised as much as if not more than me so I had to think of a good way to tell him.

He happened to be working on a new Family Home Evening chart for our family.  We've never really had one and I knew what I wanted.  He was sitting at the computer typing it up and here's how the conversation went:
Me: We should add another job to the chart.
Tory:  OK, I guess we could add another one.
Me:  No, we really need to.  We need to have 8 jobs.
Tory: Uh...OK.  Well, you think of one and tell me what you want.
Me:  Tory, look at me. (He looks.)  We HAVE to have 8 jobs.
Tory:  (Gets a "smile" on his face that is very forced and more of a combo of a smile and a confused/worried look.  Then he adds a gulp to it.)  Really?  No...really?  Really?  Are you serious?  (All the while this "fake" smile is on his face.  So funny!)
Me:  Yes!
Tory:  Wow!  This is great!

And so it went.  We have always known we weren't finished and that our family wasn't complete so we were both totally fine with having another baby.  We just were both TOTALLY surprised for the first time EVER!

And then began the sickness.  It was pretty bad.  Second only to Claire I'd say.  I finally threw up for the last time on Christmas Eve.  I never got that sick with the boys.  I felt pretty confident that it was a girl because of that and also because of a personal experience I had in the hospital when I was trying to figure out what name to put on the birth certificate papers for Claire.  (Tory let me have the ultimate decision in the end but we had talked about it a lot.)  I really wanted to use the name Brooke for a middle name but Claire Brooke just didn't sound right.  So I was debating whether or not to name her Claire Elise Brooke with two middle names or just Claire Elise.  I had a distinct impression and feeling and words in my mind that told me I would get to use the name Brooke later.  So Claire Elise was named.  I was pretty surprised when Beckham's ultrasound came around saying he was a boy...because the thought was so strong.  But we knew we weren't complete then so I just thought, "Maybe if Beckham would have been a girl we would have stopped there and never had Beckham."  So here we are with baby number 6 and I'm thinking this has got to be the girl we've thought was coming!  We had a girl name picked out and I had even picked up a few bows.  That's how confident we were.

And then we went in on February 7 to have our first ultrasound!  We brought Claire with us because she was sooo excited to find out if it was going to be a sister for her.  She had told me that she would cry if she found out it was a boy.  She also said she would cry if it was a girl but it would be happy tears.  She had been hoping and hoping and only referred to the baby as a girl.  I would always say, "Well, it could be a boy, too!"  And she'd say, "But it could be a girl!"  Even her prayers included praying for a sister.  One that I wrote down said, "Heavenly Father, please send us a girl baby......because I'm the only one...."  Every girl should have a sister!

So the first thing the ultrasound tech said was, "I'm sure you recognize this!"  I was shocked!  The baby had BOY parts?!  Yes, indeed.  Another boy for our family!  And it wasn't Claire that we needed to worry about crying.  It was me.  I don't know why.  I wasn't sad that it WAS a boy.  I was sad that it WASN'T a girl. Does that make sense?  It's a bit confusing.  It almost felt like a loss to me.  It's hard to describe.  I would never trade a baby boy, I just thought for SURE it was a girl.  It was the strangest emotion like I had lost a child that I thought was coming to me.  I felt like I needed to mourn a loss.  I am getting older and I don't know if we will have any more children at this point.  This is the first time I have felt THAT emotion as well.  Before I could always think, "Maybe next time."  It took me awhile to wrap my brain around it.  But never did I wish I wasn't having a baby because he was a boy.  I have to admit...I really do love boys!  :)  I felt sad for Claire.  But at the same time I was so thankful for Claire and for who she is.  And I'm so thankful I took every advantage of having a girl when I did.  From dressing her in homemade hair bows and headbands and bracelets every day of her life to painting her room pink to making her Easter dresses and painting her nails.  I feel like I couldn't have experienced having a "girl" more than I did.

So here we go!  Another boy!  Now it was time to tell the boys.  We wanted to do something fun and creative.  Tory decided to do a pizza and have them make it with the gender spelled out.  We brought it home, cooked it up and then it was time!  Tory's friend, James, was staying with us that night for a business trip so he was able to catch it on video for us.

 Can you tell what it spells?

Everyone was happy and Claire never did cry.  Maybe she just doesn't believe us until she sees him...I don't know.  Maybe it's just because all she knows is boys and brothers.  And she really does like all of them.  They're not so bad.

It's a boy!

Video Clip:

January Randomness

Here's a quick trip through January:

 Beckham playing with his trains.  He hooked up his new set he got for Christmas and now it's REALLY big!  I love how he has to get down low to watch the train go down the hills and along the tracks.

(Pay no attention to my "donation" pile by the door.)

 No school, warm day, perfect night for roasting hot dogs!

 ...because we need something big like a ping-pong table to take up the very last spot of free space in our entire home.  It would be such a wasted to have a bare spot of carpet to, I don't know, walk on.  

A friend of ours gave us a ping-pong table.  Tory happily accepted since he LOVES ping-pong.  That was his big stress reliever and tension tamer during chiropractic school.  He's happy to teach the boys now.  And really, it's been nice to have something active for the boys to do while it's cold outside.

Coen FINALLY lost another tooth.  This one was holding on for dear life!  I'm pretty sure his baby teeth were cemented in.  Every single one has been soooo hard to pull out.  Even with the next tooth pushing its way in!  Crazy teeth!  Completely opposite of Dallin who sits in class and has a tooth just randomly drop out of his mouth into his lap.  What?!

 Beckham loves bugs.  Especially rolly-pollies and worms.

 It sure is nice to have a little brother at home who is willing to play dolls with you!

Dallin finally mastered his rip-stick that he got for Christmas.  It was pretty tricky for him but once he found the trick it's a piece of cake.

Video clip of the kids having fun outside:

Austin is 12!

Happy 12th birthday to Austin!

I can't believe my little boy is 12!  It was just a couple years ago when he was a little mischievous boy who loved "eck-ee-wize-ing" with me.  Now he's a big, helpful boy who still loves exercising but could pass me up any day!  In fact, speaking of passing me up, he goes up to my eyes now!  He has grown several inches this year.  He's never completely outgrown his jeans in a school year but this year he's done it twice!  AND his shoes!  He had a Merit Badge College for scouts going on on his actual birthday, January 11th, and then Sunday was crazy so we ended up celebrating on Monday the 13th.

 Austin picked a nice simple cake.  I told him he could pick a design, like normal, or pick a fancy or favorite dessert instead (now that he can appreciate the good stuff.)  He chose Dr. Frederick's Carrot Cake.

Good choice!

He sure is a good big brother to all of his brothers and sister.

Dallin made him a Minecraft "Steve" guy with movable arms and legs.  Pretty cool!

 He got a hockey stick, ball and puck, and a new helmet.  You HAVE to watch the video clip below of him opening his present.  Best reaction EVER!

He also got new church pants since the boy likes to keep growing.  Twelve is an important age in our church.  He received the priesthood and gets to pass the sacrament now.  He also moved out of Primary and is in Young Mens now.  Exciting times!

Here's the video clip.  If you don't want to watch the whole thing, at least watch from 0:10-0:20.  That's where he gives his great reaction.

Happy 12th Birthday, Austin Gavin!

Arizona

While we were in Arizona, Tory and his brother Logan were able to help their dad put in fence posts around the perimeter of their yard.  They just built their house and moved in this May.  Sounds simple enough...but this is Arizona dirt.  Solid rock.  They couldn't just dig the holes so they had to rent a drill.  It took one person to drive the tractor and two to stabilize the drill.  After the hole was drilled then they had to hand dig all of the dirt out, put a bag of cement in, and then the pole.  It was slow going.

Front of house.

Digging some of the last holes.

 This is how far back they went in the back yard.  So there were a lot of poles that went in!

Video Clip of the Drill:

 Beckham loved the chickens at Grandma and Grandpa's.  All the kids did.  They helped gather eggs and Beckham managed to leave the gate open and the dogs got in.  Oops!  There was some damage done but none died...that we know of.  

 Here's the tent the boys slept out in every night.  They loved it!  They pitched the tent way out back past the back posts in the backyard.  You can see the perimeter they built around it with mesquite branches.  If you don't know, mesquite branches have some SERIOUS thorns on them.  Like at least 2" long!  They were in heaven and we hardly saw them the entire trip.  They played outside all day long every single day.  I've got to get me a yard like that!  And quickly...before summer!

 We got to spend the day up in Tucson visiting my sister, Kirsten, and her husband Nick and little Summer.  Why don't I have any other pictures?!  I don't know.  But we had a great time.  She fed us the most delicious lunch of ham chowder with ham and cheese sandwiches on rolls and yummy chocolate cookies.  Kirsten is seriously a gourmet cook.  Anything she makes is delicious and special.  Then we headed to a park where the kids played and Kir and I got to sit and talk.  Isn't she so cute?  She is due with baby girl #2 in just a couple more weeks!  We went back to their home and got to talk a little more and then...it was time to go.  Time always goes by too fast but we're so glad we got to see them and that they survived our invasion of 7 people!

Tory took this picture of all our kids up in a tree at the park.

We left to drive back home on December 28th...our 13th anniversary!  We didn't get to celebrate that day but as we turned around in our seats to see the 5 faces behind us, we were very thankful for that day 13 years ago and for the love and joy that has increased every day since.

I sure am thankful for this wonderful man!  He is the best and I am so lucky and blessed to have him!

Christmas in Arizona

This year we decided to head to Arizona to spend Christmas with Tory's family.  His Grandpa hasn't been feeling very well and Tory wanted to spend some time with him.  Tory's brother, Logan, and his famiy drove down from Colorado Springs, too.  I got sick right before we left and by the time we got there I was really bad.  We drove through the night to get there and when we arrived I went straight to bed, slept all day, all night, and finally woke up the next morning.  It was seriously miserable.  Claire & Beckham got it, too, but somehow the boys and Tory managed to survive.  Poor Uncle Logan came down with it on Christmas Eve.  Families that share together...OK.  Maybe not.  But we all eventually got better and we enjoyed our trip.

 Opening Grandma & Grandpa's Christmas Eve Present

PJs and a box of candy for everyone!

Christmas Eve Video Clip:

The boys slept outside in a tent the entire time we were in Arizona.  It got down in the 30s every night and sometimes they woke up to ice on their tent.  We didn't have to wait too long for them to come knocking on the door Christmas morning though!

 Looks like Santa came!

 Austin loved his telescope.  Arizona was the perfect place to try it out.  Clear skies everywhere!

 Dallin got a bow and arrows...just what he wanted!

 Coen's dream came true when he saw he had a rainbow loom to make rubber band bracelets.

 Claire checking out her stocking.  Santa surprised her with a fun three-wheeler bike.

 Beckham was in car heaven with his Cars racetrack.  It hooks up to the boys' Geotrax collection at home so it will be lots of fun!

Evelyn is showing us her new game.  Looks tricky!

 Checking everything out!

 Great Grandpa Baldwin came over to open his presents.

Tory made his dad a jellybean dispenser.  Of course the kids waited in line "patiently" to get a sample.

While all of this was going on, Tory was busy in the kitchen making several batches of homemade cinnamon rolls for everyone!  They were delicious!

Christmas Morning Video Clip: