In case you need a laugh...

Just so youknow it IS ok to laugh, I will tell you now, he is fine! Now enjoy!

Happy Birthday Andrea!

I don't want to let the day pass without publicly saying happy birthday to my little sister, Andrea. She, sadly, has spent her 28th birthday in the hospital with a blood clot. I am so sorry about that, but I want to tell you how much my family and I love you and miss you and wish we could live closer so we could spend more time with you. Please take care of yourself, get better, and I hope you got to do something special today from your hospital bed!

Happy Birthday Andrea!

I couldn't help but include a recent picture of Andrea's new baby as well. He's such a cutie!

(I stole the pictures from Andrea's blog-so thanks for the pics, An!)

Christmas Dinner

Wes and I decided that we would like to have a turkey dinner for Christmas dinner. So we went all out, and we basically made the perfect turkey...OK not perfect...but pretty darn good!

Armour and Solace wanted the drumsticks...

Ender

Wes

Armour was serious about his drumstick...

He just kept eating...

Until the bone was dry...

And ever a bit after...

"All done!"

Merry Christmas!

The fun has arrived: Christmas '08

Christmas was a great day for us. Wes was again on call, but luckily no emergent things came up and he was able to deal with all the work situations over the phone from home. However, we did not know he would be home all day, and since I didn't want to have to do Christmas Morning alone with the kids, we did it quick-we had opened all presents and eaten the traditional Johnson family breakfast by like 8 am. The good news is that we got to spend all day playing. The 3 oldest kids got scooters and tried them out indoors as the outdoors is covered in ice. They got many other nice things, and we had a great Christmas! Of course, it was not all about the presents. We learned a lot this year about what it is like to have a dad/spouse that is a doctor. Other people needed him at the hospital, and we were willing to share him, but we sure appreciated the time we did get to spend with him! Here are some Christmas day pictures:

Armour, Solace, and Ender coming out to see if Santa made it (I should mentions something here. Armour is terrified of Santa, and was really concerned with him coming into our home. However, he loves Mrs Claus. He kept saying he hoped Santa would send Mrs Claus to our house instead. When he woke up in the morning, he was looking to see if Mrs C had come, and guess what? She came WITH Santa to our house, and all the gifts came from Santa and Mrs C!!! He was SOOOO happy!)Dad and Kindle
Kindle opening a present. I should have just had a bunch of empty boxes wrapped up for her-she did not care about what was inside, but had a blast with the wrapping paper! She was the perfect age for her first Christmas-it was so fun to watch her and she loved it!

Armour opened his scooter

Solace opened her scooter

Ender thought he didn't get a scooter as the other 2 opened theirs first, and he broke down in tears followed by pure joy when he realized that the gift he was opening was in fact also a scooter. Here is the extreme joy...

Kindle

Look how much he loved his jeans!

More Kindle

Wes reading the We Are Johnson's book from the kids.

Solace with the AMAZING quilt from Great Aunt Kaylene. It was actually a Birthday gift she made for Solace. She asked Solace what colors and things she liked a while back and made this based on Solace's answers. It has pinks, purples and a ballerina in the center and I do not think Solace could love it any more than she does! Thanks you Kaylene!

I am opening the calendar Solace made for me at school.

Kindle with some spoils-a new outfit and a new baby cabbage patch doll.

Cute, huh?!

Sisters

Brother bear...(the other brother was unwilling to participate in this photo shoot)

This is why he was unwilling to be in the shoot-he was "skating" around the house in his new undies and his shoes. Actually, he had been wearing his new Elmo slippers all day, but changed into his shoes right before I got the pictures of him. I wish I had gotten the slippers because that was actually what he wore like 90 percent of the day!

Dr Dad and his caffeine...ready to go in if needed...

Kindle in her new Pooh suit (thanks great aunts Kris and Angel)

Christmas Eve

Wes was at work Christmas Eve, making it home just after I put the kids in bed, but before they fell asleep. So, he did get to give them all some loves before they slept. Before he got home, we did our traditional Christmas Eve story reading, and opened our traditional PJ's. We added a tradition of putting reindeer food out in our yard, and we took some pictures. Here are the children on Christmas Eve...

About to go leave reindeer food Spreading the food.
Trying to get one good picture of four squirmy kids...

Food ready for Santa...Cranberry cookies, homemade caramel, a clementine orange, Hot Chocolate, and Solace left him a book as a gift as well.Pooh, Holly and Hal waiting in the living room f0r the big guy to come.He came...

Christmas FHE

We have some good friends in our ward that have and annual Christmas Family Home Evening the Monday before Christmas. They invite just everyone to come, and on Monday the 22nd, the kids and I attended the party while Wes was at work. For the party, the kids acted out the Christmas story. This time Solace was an angel, Ender was a shepherd, and Armour was also supposed to be a shepherd, but wanted to sit with Solace and the other angels. Actually, right at the beginning of the play, Armour took his rope off his head and put it around his neck. I had to jump up there and take the rope away from him so he wouldn't strangle himself. I think that was when he decided to be an angel...

Ender is the Shepherd in blue. See Armour hiding behind Angel Solace?

The angels
Ender and Elder Border.

Kindle spent a lot of time here...