Everest the squirmy baby has earned himself a free pack of diapers!

This post is from my Deals blog, but I thought you all might want to see this CUTE video of  Everest that we submitted to Huggies...

Did you all see the post yesterday about how you can get a FREE package of Huggies Slip On diapers? Well, I just wanted to let you all know it worked!! I just submitted this video:

They said my diapers should be here in 4-6 weeks. THis literally took me like 5 minutes to do. I used my phones camcorder and uploaded it. Pretty easy and quick for a free package of diapers!! So, moms of diaper age babies, if you haven't done it yet, go do it now! (See info on how to do so here.

Happy birthday mom!

Today is my moms birthday! For those of you avid readers of my blog you probably know it is a kinda big birthday. I hope you are having a fun day and are able to celebrate.

Thanks for being a great mom and raising 4 awesome kids (well partly raising one...he's not done yet...) We all love and appreciate all the things you do for us. Just like your dad, you too have taught us to love reading, learning and to always develop and share our talents. You have gone out of your way to help each of us find what we love doing and always encourage us to do those things.

Thanks for being the best mom ever!

Happy 90th Birthday Papou!

Dear Papou,

Happy 90th Birthday today! I know you did not make it to this milestone birthday here on this earth, but it is still worth it to me to honor this day! Ninety years ago today you were born in this world, 35 years (and 1 day) later, you welcomed your first child into this world, my mom. Just a day shy of 24 years after that, we welcomed my mom's second child, my little sister Andrea. The triumvirate of birthdays January 8, 9, and 10th had always been a fun family celebration. Three generations celebrated in one week!

So today I say happy birthday and I remember that 90 years ago you were both. Today I thank you for influencing my life for the good. Thanks for taking me grocery shopping and to the library every Saturday morning. It taught me to value books and to spend wisely. (It also taught me that the best grocery samples are at Dans on Saturdays, and that everyone in SLC that is about my mom's age knows and thanks you for teaching them French in elementary school on TV.)

Thanks for picking me up from school when my parents couldn't. Thanks for letting my family live with you so my siblings and I got the benefit of getting to know you and Xia Xia well!

And thanks for your fun personality! I will never forget you dressing up as woman for Halloween! Your funny antics taught me that I can goofy and have fun.

Thanks also for sharing your talents always. For playing at the Red Flame, singing in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and for always playing the piano at home. I learned to develop and share my talents.

We love and miss you Papou, but we know we will see you again after this life. And today we celebrate the life you began on this earth 90 years ago today!

Happy 90th birthday!

Something I adore (picture of the day)

Today I am supposed to take a picture of something I adore. I have at least 6 things I wanted to catch for this picture today (Wes, Solace, Ender, Armour, Kindle, Everest). But today was pretty crazy and they are all sleeping except this one cute little Everest that I adore:

Christmas lights

A few nights before Christmas, we took the kids all over Omaha to see some of the houses with awesome lights. One of the houses is near our old apartment (from med school..where Jessica and Bret live now). We haber fine to that house every year since it started during med school. I guess it is our only real Omaha Christmas tradition...

We also went and saw the downtown lights for the first time ever...very disappointing having grown up with the Temple Square lights...even the kids noticed and mentioned how crappy the lights were in comparison. We had to promise to take them to Temple Square again sometime in the next few years...

The crazy thing is that we thought three kids would liver the lights and really they just wanted to get past the lights so we could move on to getting hit chocolate and donuts at Krispy Kreme.

Below are some pictures of or night out as a family.

Photo a day...2012

I have a lot to catch up on still and my goal is to keep up this blog better through the year. But I am starting slow (and most blogging will be from my phone since Wes is deep in study mode for his LAST boards of residency!! That's means he had the laptop and I have my phone...thank goodness for my smart phone).
Anyway. I saw this photo a day challenge on facebook yesterday and thought it would be fun. Here is the challenge:

So yesterday I was supposed to take a picture of me... I will do that now.

I am adorable obviously...Todays challenge is breakfast...oh my...

What can I say, I am not a breakfast eater.

Happy Holidays 2011

It is that time of year where I get behind and don't send out my Christmas Cards once again...fear not! The power of the Internet and the magic of email are here to save me! So, grab a cup of Cocoa, sit back and relax while you read all about the Johnson family happenings of 2011 (well, and late 2010). I just looked as as it turns out the last time I sent Christmas cards was in 2009 and last year I did not even send an email...so we've got some catching up to do!

Are you back with your cocoa yet? I hope so because here we go!

We had a BIG year at the Johnson house. We added a fantastic member to our little (can I call it little still with 5 kids?) clan, baptized our oldest child, took the kids to Disney World, and figured out what in the world we will be doing once Wes finishes residency in June 2012. Read on to find out more!

As mentioned above, Wes will be finishing up his Radiology Residency in June of 2012. Yeah! An end is in sight...BUT because we are gluttons for punishment, we decided to go ahead and tack another year on to the end of this already long road. So, Wes will be doing a fellowship at the Mayo Clinic in Arizona beginning June 30, 2012 and ending in June 2013. It is a double fellowship in Mammography and MRI. Over the past year Wes also became eligible to moonlight (IE work a second job) and so he has been super busy providing for this family!

Of course he has also stayed busy at home as a WONDERFUL dad and husband. Our kids all adore him and wait excitedly for his to get home each day. He takes the kids for bike rides around the Lake near our house and makes time to take them on individual Daddy Dates as much as possible! He was also (still) the Elder's Quorum President in our Ward throughout the year until last month when he was released. He is currently calling-free at Church, but the bishopric keeps telling me they need to meet with him...

I (Beckee) was busy as usual! But I got a little break and got to spend my birthday in September at Disney World with the family! I also got to spend a day in Disneyland with my parents and siblings before my sister Melanie left for her mission. And Wes and I went to Chicago for a week (with only the baby) where Wes was attending a conference. Oh vacations are wonderful! What Fun!!

I was the PTO Co-President at the kids' elementary school during the 2010-2011 school year. It was fun and busy and stressful all at once! Made more exciting by the fact we found out shortly before my school year officially started that I was pregnant with our 5th child.  I continue to serve in the presidency of our Resident Family Support group-last year as Membership chair, and this year as the Playgroup co-director (again). I am still a primary teacher at church teaching the 6-7 year olds. Starting in January, I will be teaching Armour's class. They are a fun little crew with LOTS of energy.

I continue working hard on my deals blog which is gaining a nice following! You can check it out at beckeesdeals.blogspot.com. It will be PERFECT for all of you fine family and friends as it is "Ah...Deals...Beckee's Deals. Where the beautiful people come to score a deal!"

Solace was baptized on December 28, 2010. It was very special as we were able to baptize her in Utah with our families! It was so neat to see her choose to do that and to have so much family surrounding us! We rarely get that experience living so far from home which made it all the more special.

Solace is 9-years-old, in 3rd grade, and a super genius (a good friend of mine calls all my kids the "Baby Geniuses"). She is tall and seems all grown up. She and her friends are true "tweens" asking for things like makeup AND Barbies for Christmas. Solace tells me she loves reading, spelling, Volleyball (Which she played this year!), getting good grades, being with friends, snow (which we are lacking), family, swimming, The Nebraska Huskers and the Utah Utes. She says, "Happy Holidays!"

Ender is 7-years-old, in 2nd grade and unbelievably creative! He is recently obsessed with Pokemon and has made his own games and cards called "Endemon." They are pretty amazing! He also does quite well in school. He played football for the second year, and was (to quote his coach) "The emotional leader of the team." He is getting pretty great at football and will, I am sure, continue to improve! Ender tells me he loves Pokemon, football, drawing, reading, writing, homework, arts and crafts, decorating, and picking presents for people. He says he also likes making cupcakes.

My little blondie Armour is 5-years-old, in Kindergarten, and already does "mental math" faster than his mom (he's amazing!). He is reading like a pro these days! He played soccer this year and liked it a lot but really liked going to Ender's football games even more. He is pretty excited to play football next year and throws a mean spiral (for a 5-year-old). He is a funny guy and always keeps me on my toes! Armour tells me he likes Sonic Generation, anything Super Mario Brothers, Pokemon, playing dodge ball, going on bike rides with dad, running around, recess and playing Disc Golf.

Kindle is growing up so fast! She is 3-year-old now and is a peer model in a preschool through the school district here. She goes 4 days a week all morning long and loves it. Kindle says she is nice to her friends at school, loves her mom and dad, is nice to her brothers and sister and LOVES being Everest's big sister. She says she loves her baby dolls, decorating the tree, daddy dates, and even mommy dates, Everest, Caillou and most especially she LOVES the Nutcracker Ballet! She wishes there was snow so she could go out and play in it!

Everest Spencer Johnson is our newest family member! We were so pleased to welcome him to our happy family on March 29, 2011. He is awesome! And Huge! At 8 months old he is already 22 pounds and off the charts tall (cannot remember exactly how tall...). I guess we can only blame ourselves for giving him a name like Everest. He is crawling now and trying to walk. And he got his very first hair cut last week.

I still feel a little traumatized from the haircut. He looks SOOO grown up now!

I am sure your cocoa is cold by now, so I will sign off by saying how very, VERY grateful we are for this time of year when we get to reconnect with family and friends. And where we get to celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ! What a wonderful feeling this time of year brings!

We hope this note finds you and yours well!

Lots of love,
Wes, Beckee, Solace, Ender, Armour, Kindle and Everest Johnson

Day 5 in the Magic Kingdom: Speedway, People Mover, and more

Some more fun from Day 5 at WDW. As mentioned before much if what we did in the last 2 days was slow and flat to make a certain 3YO happy. So we rode some rides I did not even know existed. Like the carousel of Progress. It was a theatre that had different short segments of how life has progressed from the turn of the century (1900s) through modern time. Each time you move to a different time period, the audience moves to a new stage to watch the next animimatronic segment and between scenes is a song that has been stuck in our heads for weeks now "It's a great big beautiful tomorrow!" I thought it was hilarious that we actually "rode" that one...Wes actually liked it and found it really interesting. I thought it was a cool convenient place to nurse my son...I really apologize for no pictures from that, but feel free to check out the you tube video here:
I seriously thought it was hilarious...any way we also went on the People mover a couple more times as a family. Then all the kids but Everest took me (Beckee) on the Speedway (a hot long ride that kids like because they can drive and mom was not a fan of, but they were all happy to get their "drivers licenses" so they thought this was a particularly awesome ride) On that one Ender drove me and Kindle and Solace drove ahead of us with Armour as her passenger:

Note in this picture above how excited Armour is to have a license...this scares me for about 11 years from now when he is holding a drivers license that does not have a big Mouse on it...

And being the big adventurer we were that day we also went on Winnie the Pooh again where SOlace took some pictures for your viewing pleasure:

We did also go on Buzz again and got this one Zurg picture:

And we caught this Show at the Castle where the kids were dancing up a storm! Here are a few pictures followed by a dancing video...

My kids are crazy awesome dancers and they obviously love to let loose!