Polar Bear Club Jovi Style

Not only did Jovi run outside in freezing temperatures wearing nothing but panties and snow boots to play by choice...

...she's happy about it!

I feel so cold just looking at these pictures!

Oh, Baby!!

 Number FIVE, that is!

A couple of days after Christmas 2013, we found out we are expecting our fifth baby!

We are so thrilled and excited to become parents again, and to be welcoming yet another wonderful spirit into our family.

 I couldn't believe just how early I started showing this time around. there was no keeping this pregnancy a secret for long! We started sharing our news around 5 or 6 weeks.

You can see what I mean... this picture was taken at 7 weeks:

Another belly shot at (can you believe it?!) only eight weeks!

I went in for my first ultrasound on my birthday (!!!), thinking I was 11 weeks along, and instead, had my due date moved back by two whole weeks (a bit of a bummer considering I was in full-blown ick stage {and the ickiest I have felt with any of my pregnancies so far] of pregnancy, now with not one, but at least three more weeks left until I started feeling better). And my Official due date is now September 1st.

Six years ago exactly I was at the exact same stage of pregnancy with Minnette. She was due September 1st, as well! All of the girls are so excited to have a new baby (though Waits is completely clueless!), and Minnette is especially excited that she and the new baby will have birthdays close together. She was born on August 16th, about 17 days early. I wonder just how close their birthdays will be? All I know is that I can't wait for this little one to join our family!

Here is our little gummy bear baby at 9 weeks:

We are so grateful for this next stage of our growing family!

New Year's Eve 2013

New Year's Eve is a family affair at the Willman household, which means that our celebrations get an early start somewhere around 3 or 4 in the afternoon- a necessity when "midnight" actually happens around 8 pm for us! 

Each hour counting down to midnight (or 8 pm) we had a bag for each of the girls to open that contained a treat, a small gift and an activity (or the supplies for an activity) for our family to do during that hour.

First up, we got our afternoon started with a glow stick dance party. Tiaras and new year's necklaces were included and we played our best dance music. 

Minnette played photographer and helped document the first of our New Year's Eve festivities on the last day of 2013.

Everyone was obviously super into it. (haha)

They were most definitely more interested in the glowing wands and bracelets they each got in their bag than they were in dancing. It was still fun.

Christmas tree turned "New Year's Tree"... just add streamers!

A NEW New Year's tradition... crab legs for our eve feast!

One of the hours all that the girls got in each of their bags was a roll of streamers, which can only mean one thing:

Wrap daddy up in streamers, watch him try to break free of them (which is way harder than you'd think), and play in the leftover mayhem (which lasts much, much longer than you'd think): 

Another hour's activities included New Year's coloring pages and our annual New Year's interview which includes their favorites from the last year and what they are looking forward to for the new year. Eventually, as they get older, this will include more goal making, but for now it is just cute to look back on their answers and remember so many small and funny things about them at this age:

If you click on each image, you should be able to see their answers. These were their actual responses, word for word! I was merely a scribe:

Minnette:

Aurelle:

Jovi:

Waits:

Then, to finish it all off, we had our "midnight countdown" where we watched a video of the Time Square ball drop from last year, counted down and screamed Happy New Year with lots of noise makers, and continued the celebration outside with a silly string fight. 

It is so much fun to be able to include our entire family in our New Year's festivities. And maybe someday they might actually make it to the real midnight!

Cowboy (ahem... GIRL) Boots

A matching Christmas gift for each of the girls from grandparents:

You better believe these were worn practically daily this winter.

Christmas Festivities 2013

This was our very first Christmas with just our family. We decided not to make the trip down to Phoenix for Christmas this year, and though we missed our families, I wouldn't trade the amazing and magical Christmas-season we had together (without a road trip) for anything! I don't think we will ever travel for Christmas again.

This was my second year planning a handmade advent calendar for our family, and after a few tweaks from the method I attempted last year, it was huge success! I don't have a single picture of the manila envelope system I used, but you can see part of it pretty well in our nativity video further down. I created an envelope for each day of the month of December leading up to Christmas day.

Essentially, I created a "Christmas bucket list" for our family and broke it up into several categories, which included: Scriptures about the life of Christ (with a picture, for our family scripture study each night), service activities, Christmas symbols (the basis of our December school- all symbols of Christ- used to help enforce the true meaning of Christmas with our children with LOTS of fun activities and crafts to go with each!), special Christmas treats and also family activities (ward Christmas party, Christmas Express, temple lights, etc.). I usually try to plan most of our month ahead of time and print each category on a specific color of paper (family activities: yellow, service: red, and so on), cut them into strips and place the strips into the envelopes for the day that we will do that activity.

Each morning after breakfast and getting ready, the girls and I would gather in the living room and open the envelope for that day and see what activities we had in store. This has to be, by far, the best way there is to celebrate the Christmas season together as a family. It makes it so special, magical and spiritual. We always had something fun (usually several things!) to do every single day, and it was almost always centered around our Savior, Jesus Christ, which is just the way I like it!

I, by no means, captured even a tenth of what we did together in pictures, but to save time (and some blogging catch-up sanity!), I uploaded all of them into one post. A Willman Family Christmas dump! First up:

Salt Lake Temple Lights:

One of my all-time favorite Christmas time traditions (though much, much more pleasant in Phoenix!) is going to see the temple lights. It is such a perfect teaching opportunity for our family. We celebrate both the birth and life of Christ at Christmas time- the pinnacle of His earthly experience being the atonement. Our ultimate goal in life is to make it to the temple- where eternal family units are established- which is only possible through the atonement of Christ. Making a special trip to see the temple at Christmas time is such a neat opportunity for us to teach our children about the importance of the temple and relying on Christ's atonement.

As we made our way onto temple square we heard/saw this man playing Christmas carols, hymns and primary songs by request on the bagpipes, no less! It sure was a fun addition to our evening.

As we perused the grounds and enjoyed the atmosphere, Kyle discovered the panoramic setting on our camera and was able to capture beautiful pictures:

Kyle always loves to get a couple artistic shots of the temple. How can you resist when working with such a beautiful and majestic subject?

Our family in front of the temple (minus a much needed flash):

Next up, was our

Christmas Light Express:

We did bedtime, as usual, and the girls were surprised with their official tickets to our Christmas Express on their pillows. Only way to do it. Best reactions ever. We threw on shoes and jackets and jumped in the van.

We drove around downtown Provo looking at all of the beautiful light displays and talked about why Christmas lights are used to celebrate Christmas (well, at least the original reason for them!). Yes, they are fun and beautiful, but they help us remember our Savior because He was the light of the world, and as we follow Him, we can become lights to others, as well! What a wonderful way to help remember the life of Jesus Christ during Christmas time.

Our Express took a pit stop to refuel with hot cocoa and donuts and warm-up by an outdoor bonfire at a shopping center not too far from our home.

It was so much fun, and Waits quickly figured out how much he loved hot cocoa and wanted lots more. Immediately. And was very vocal about it!

We were completely and so, so, so pleasantly surprised to find out that the shopping center had a free horse-drawn sleigh ride. Umm, did I mention it was FREE?? And we had no idea it was going to be there. It was such a fun bonus to an already magical family night, and was well worth the 15 minute line in the freezing cold that we waited in for our turn. The girls (and Kyle and I) absolutely loved it. This will be on our Christmas Express route next year, for sure!

Christmas Eve:

The Museum of Art on campus at BYU had a special Carl Bloch exhibit, titled Sacred Gifts, which featured original Carl Bloch paintings depicting the life and ministry of Christ. Though the exhibit was running for around 6 months, we thought it would be a special Christmas treat for our family, and I was able to make a reservation to see it on Christmas Eve morning. How perfect was that? We are always looking for ways to make the entire Christmas season, but especially Christmas Eve and Day, spiritual and reverent and focused on the birth and life of Christ. To be honest, it was a pretty short-lived experience for our family. Four children aged 5 and under in an art museum where you need to be quiet, calm, and you are not allowed to touch anything? It lasted about 15 minutes. Though, fifteen  minutes very well spent. We left with our spirits lifted, and our hearts in the right place. Kyle and I especially appreciated it, and hope to head back for a date night before the exhibit is over so we can spend a little more time really appreciating all of the beautiful and amazing art.

That night, we had our very first ever Shepherd's Meal: We ate lamb (among other things that I can't remember) and talked about how the shepherds were out in the fields when the angel came to them to announce the birth of Jesus Christ. This tradition is definitely a keeper. Then, before bedtime, we acted out the nativity together as a family as we listened to Luke 2. Minnette was Mary, Waits was Joseph (the cutest Joseph there ever was!), Kyle was their donkey, a baby doll represented the baby Jesus,  Aurelle was the angel, and Mommy was a shepherd. A perfect Christmas Eve family activity!

Christmas Eve bedtime meant our second to last Christmas scripture while wearing new Christmas PJ's from Grandma and Grandpa Murphy and opening and reading new bed-time stories from the Greene Family.

And this is what you get when you ask grandparents to-please-send-only-one-present-for-each-child:

I think grandparents get pretty excited at Christmas time... Only the stockings are from us!

Kyle really wanted to get the kids each a stocking this year, and that is what they opened first on Christmas morning. Kyle knew how to keep me happy: nothing but healthy treats in these stockings! 

And this picture of Waits on Christmas morning just cracks me up:

Remember that pile of presents around our tree? It took a better part of the day for everyone to open everything. Throughout the morning we were able to do a web call with both sets of grandparents to help share the joy of the day with them.

Christmas is, without a doubt, my all-time favorite time of the year, and this year definitely did not disappoint. In fact, it exceeded all of my expectations and I hope to have a repeat every single year. 

Kyle's 28th Birthday- Dec 2013

Kyle turned the big 2-8 in December and we invited Sam and Raquel over to join us for a family birthday party.

I was dead set on doing a Star Wars birthday party for Kyle all year long, until I was inspired by this party idea on pinterest just a few weeks before, and I decided I just had to do it. Presenting to you...

The GENERIC PARTY:

The cake said... wait for it... "CAKE", and I even made him a card and wall decorations that were equally generic in nature. It was pretty funny.

Happy Birthday, Kyle!

Snow Day- Nov 2013

We saw some some chilly and snowy weather pretty early on this fall/winter, with more snow fall by the beginning of December then there had been by that time of year in over 20 years! Daddy took the girls out one morning for some fun in the snow (Thanksgiving Day, I think? I should probably look it up... but I guess it really doesn't matter). I think it took almost as long to get them all bundled up as the amount of time they actually played outside. 

All bundled up and ready to play:

Playing in the snow (and Jovi's hat braids crack me up!):

So much snow!

Such a funny video of Jovi taking a "shortcut"... through the snow instead of walking on the plowed sidewalk!