Lukas Elijah

Oh, what would I do without this guy.

Funny things we do

This is called "The Secret Weapon."  To play this game you run around saying in a sinister voice, "release the SECRET WEAPON!" That is all I have managed to learn about it, besides the fact that is was made to be used against Derek. Other than that, your best guess is as good as mine.

This is a toy train we never play with. It sits on the top shelf in the kids' closet. It stays there because whenever it comes down we have major fights in our house. Abigail convinced me, however, to bring it down the other day. This is them playing very nicely with the train...  right before the major fight that sent the train back up to the top of the closet.

Sometimes I like to play tricks on my kids at dinner time.

They usually figure it out real quick.

I told the kids if they played nicely for a while they could watch a movie. After about 5 minutes I heard them yelling from downstairs - "We are playing nicely but all we need is someone who can turn the movie on for us now!!!!" So I went downstairs and found this. :)

Happy and Clean Baby

Here are just a couple of cute photos of Kaleb. He doesn't mind bath time anymore. And one of my new favorite past times is getting him to coo and smile at me. He has a full faced smile that is so cute and it is so fun to hear his tiny little voice.

Snow and Ice

This January was the 5th coldest January in Utah on record since something like 1870 something. There were 20 days or so where the highest temperature was 19 degrees or less. Plus the air quality was terrible. It was yucky. But some mornings it would be really foggy and when the fog moved on it left behind beautiful ice crystals on everything. I tried to get some neat pictures but I'm still figuring out how to do that with this camera.

Also, since we had TONS of snow, we got a little sledding in out in our backyard. A very little sledding.

So we went up to Midway one day when the air quality down in the valley was especially bad and the temperatures were especially cold. Up in Midway on the mountainside it was beautiful and sunny and warm enough to sled without gloves, hat, or even coat. I think Grammy and Joshua were out there for  more than 2 hours!!

And I shoveled A LOT of snow. I wish this was a better picture and gave a better idea of how high it was. I think this was the peak of our snow for this year (I hope at least). The pile by the mailbox is taller than the mailbox.

So far this year...

So far this year we haven't done much... or much more than a lot of doctor appointments. But lets start at the beginning on January 1st.

We wanted to go up to Midway and go sledding on the 1st but Lukas and Abigail were too sick with colds. They had had colds for awhile but after Christmas developed a cough and it was getting worse. Shortly after we found out they had been exposed to strep throat so I took them to the doc and they didn't have that so that was just fine.

Anyway, New Year's Day. We went to IHOP instead to make a fun day of it. Except we showed up at exactly the WRONG time. We had to wait about 15 minutes before being seated, and then after we ordered we had to wait a little over an hour to get our food. The place was packed and the waiter said the kitchen was 2 hours backed up, which doesn't even seem possible. In any case, we did get our food within 2 hours, thankfully. The whole time Abigail and Lukas were coughing and we were trying desperately not to wake up the baby, who eventually did wake up and get hungry - like the rest of us. Looking back the kids were so patient and so well behaved, although it was a very difficult 1 1/2 for all of us, trying to keep 4 little kids quiet in a tiny little restaraunt booth with two of them sick. Ugh. The food was really good, except because we were all so hungry to begin with, we were still hungry after we had finished. So when we were done we went home, took naps, and then ate some more. Happy New Year's.

Like I said, Lukas and Abigail had developed a cough that was worsening and on Thursday Kaleb and Joshua started coughing as well so I took them all in to the doctor on Friday. Like I said, nobody had strep. But Joshua and Lukas both had serious ear infections in both ears, Abigail and Lukas had RSV pretty bad, and Kaleb miraculously, was fine. Just a little cold but nothing serious yet. The kids needing antibiotics got them and we went home.

I tried everything on those two kids to get the RSV out of them. We did vaporub, humidifyers, raw and baked onions on their chests (I really think this helps actually), raw onions around he house, scarfs around their necks during waking hours, lemon essential oil on their throats, x-plague essential oil on their feet (the oils, I know help because I use them too and can feel an almost instant difference), lemon and honey hot drinks for breakfast, only whole foods or homemade food made from whole foods, steam baths, a ginger bath, and garlic oil drops for the ears. I can't remember if we did anything else to them. We also stuck up a barrier between the upstairs bedrooms and the rest of the house and kept Kaleb in the back rooms so the sick kids couldn't get to him. However, as the sick kids got better (they are totally fine now) the one healthy child got sick. So I had to take Kaleb back to the doc. The doc was pretty concerned but "not severely concerned" with Kaleb's RSV and infected ear. We ended up with 3 doc appointments with 2 different doctors, 1 trip to the hospital because he stopped breathing, and one visit from our friendly neighbor who is very experienced with these things. She brought her stethoscope. Long story short - well, shorter. Kaleb is on the mend and although he still is a little sick and has a cough, I'm sure he will be just fine. And all the boys are enjoying their bubble gum flavored amoxocillin. Yuck.  Here is a little RSV sick baby.

We made snowflakes.

The kids made boobie traps for Derek when he comes home from work.

Joshua had his second Parent/Teacher conference. He is doing excellent in Kindergarten. His teacher says that he is very good at following directions, even when she asks him to do something and he looks at her like he thinks she is crazy, he still does what she asked him to do. His teacher is so awesome. She lives just down the street from us and I am so glad we have her. It says on his report card that he hasn't counted to 100 yet (which he has at home in German) and he writes only up to the number 10, and he hasn't done subtraction yet, but those things are all like that because that is how far they have gotten together as a class. He is missing a few sight words, but he read those for me at home just fine, so I think maybe he was just nervous at school. AND... his teacher wants him to teach his class a few words in German so we are going to come up with some pictures for Mutter, Vater, Bruder, Schwester, Baby, Oma, and Opa for Joshua to show the class and teach them those words. Awesome. I hope this will help him get over being so shy. Either that or it will scar him for life.

And then we got pounded with two huge snowstorms.

I'm hoping today we will have time to make a snowman. That is my goal for January (I know, lofty isn't it) and today just seems like a good day to accomplish it. Happy New Year.

Christmas Letter on New Year's Eve

Dear Friends and Family,

Change is a good thing. And sometimes it is a really good thing. This year our little family has experienced a lot of these really good changes for which we are very grateful. 

1.       In July we bought our first house and moved back to Spanish Fork. It was hard to leave the friends we had made in Springville over the last two years, but lots of fun to reunite with our Spanish Fork friends and make new friends as well. Our neighborhood is wonderful and from the moment we moved in we have felt very welcomed and right at home. It is also wonderful to have enough bedrooms for our growing family. We are thoroughly enjoying our new space – inside and out!

2.       Also in July, Derek’s company moved into a new building – just a block north from the previous building – and with the move Derek got to move into a brand new office all his own. With the move came some sadder changes, such as Derek’s boss leaving. But there is also a bright side to this; Derek’s new boss has been fantastic and they’ve been able to accomplish a lot together for the better of the company.

3.       In August Joshua started Kindergarten! I was a little nervous about how he would handle the change, but he has loved every minute of it.  It also helped that his fabulous kindergarten teacher lives 3 houses down the street from us and we attend the same church. Joshua is doing very well in school and enjoys being chased by the girls during recess.

4.       In November we welcomed the 6^th member to our little (well, young) family. Kaleb Robert was born November 19, 2012 weighing in at 8 lbs 4 oz and measuring 19 inches long.  He is a delight to our family and we all love him to pieces. Derek and I were a little overwhelmed with the idea of having 4 children 5 and under, but now that Kaleb is here we can’t imagine life without him.

In other news, Lukas (almost 2) spent the year learning to walk, run, climb, and talk. His most recent skill is opening his bedroom door during nap time. His favorite things to say are “hold me?” and “more.” Abigail (almost 4) is becoming a beautiful and friendly little girl. She is enjoying being the oldest child in nursery (the class for the toddlers at church) but will experience her first big change in January when she moves into the Sunbeam class and starts attending Primary with the bigger kids.

Derek and I are doing well. We recognize our many blessings and the many miracles that have accompanied all of these big changes in our life this year. It really has been a year of miracles.  One thing that never changes is the love that we feel daily from our Heavenly Father, but that is especially evident as we take a minute to look back on all our many, many blessings. The greatest blessing, of course, is the one we are celebrating this Christmas season, and that is the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Take a moment to count your blessings and see the miracles in your life this wonderful time of year, and to give thanks to Him who is ever watchful and ever mindful of our needs.  Have a merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

Love, Derek, Anna, Joshua, Abigail, Lukas, and Kaleb Mock

I forgot... our last Christmas crafts

I kept forgetting to post these pics because technically I took the photos in November so when I look in my December photo file I never see them.  We made santas and Christmas trees and stars with glitter. We also made reindeer (where you use your hands as the antlers and a big triangle as the face and then cut out a red nose to put on the tip of the triangle reindeer head) But I'm sure I have no photo of those. Lately Lukas has shown interest in making the crafts with us, which is really fun I think. He made his own reindeer and ran around and played with it for a long time and then of course cried when the little nose fell off. He also made his own tree and a few stars but lost interest by the time we got to Santa. He's getting to be a really fun kid, although in some ways he is still very much a baby. He is, after all, only 1 year old! He'll be 2 in about 5 weeks or so, but until then, he's my really big one year old baby. And I also forgot to take a picture, but we did the same thing last year so you can just find last year's post if you really want to see, but we made a "kid's tree" out of green paper and taped it to the wall in the play room and then "hung" all the kid ornaments on that tree with more tape. The idea here is that the kids can touch and play with the kid ornaments all they want and then they leave the real tree alone. Of course, the real ornaments are more tempting and the real tree is actually a tree and not paper, but next year Derek wants to actually cut down a little tree for them so that will be a lot of fun. Ok, here are the pics I have of our last crafts of the year.