Last night was the Blue and Gold Banquet and Dylan and Joel were supposed to decorate a cake for a contest. Dylan decided he wanted to make an eyeball cake so I baked the cake and left it to Dylan and Joel to decorate... I think it turned out alright. :) They didn't win the grand prize but he did win the "biggest eye opener" award. He was happy with that.
Christian is in to EVERYTHING these days... if I can't hear him for a while and he's being too quiet I know I better go find him because it cannot be good. Today he was playing with a marker (luckily it was a washable one) and decided to try and eat it. He also got it all over his hands. Ever since he turned one and started walking (the day after his birthday) he has turned into a menace! He is a crazy baby and loves to squeal, scream, and babble just for fun. What a sweetheart though... we are lucky to have him! He is a lot of fun. :)
My friend Skye is a photographer and is doing this thing called "Project 52" where each week during a year's time you take a photo of yourself with one of your kids. This is because she said she is behind the camera 99% of the time and hardly has any pictures of her and her kids together. She challenged others to do it as well, and I think it is a great idea. I went through my kids' photo albums the other day and I am hardly in any of their pictures because I am usually the one taking them. Also, I really hate pictures of myself. The photo below was my attempt at holding the camera and taking the picture at the same time... Kait looks like she has a lamp on her head, but that's okay. Next time I will try to have somebody else the picture. Anyway, I think it's a fun idea so we'll see what kind of shots we can get. :) I probably won't be posting all of them, just a few here and there... we don't need to see THAT many pics of me. 
The kids and I went down to St. George for the weekend to visit Grandpa and Grandma Anderson since they are staying down there during the cold winter months. They had a great time swimming, watching movies, playing games, and more swimming. Grandma had all their favorite foods and treats too... Thanks for having us down! I'm sure grandma and grandpa are all tuckered out after spending 48 hours with these 4 wild kids. :)
So yesterday we were invited by Joel's bro Chris and wife Melissa to go to the open house of the Draper temple. It was kind of a last minute thing because she had tickets for a certain time and had forgotten about them until the day before so she asked us if we wanted to go. Of course I told her yes and then I remembered that Kinlee had a birthday party she had been looking forward to going to at the same time. She really wanted to go to the birthday party especially because they were going to "Jump On It"... a cool place with all kinds of trampolines and slides etc. that kids love. Anyway, I decided I would give her the option of choosing between the birthday party and going to the new temple because I didn't want to MAKE her go with us to the temple... I wanted her to think about the choice and be able to choose which one she really wanted to go to. Of course I wanted her to go with us to the temple and see the inside which she probably won't have another chance to do any time soon, but I told her it was okay if she decided to choose the birthday party. HOLY COW. She had a meltdown. She started sobbing uncontrollably because she wanted to go to both and really didn't know how to make such a difficult decision. I almost wish I had just made the decision for her at that point, but I still was going to give her the chance because honestly I didn't mind if she chose one or the other. Dylan wasn't helping either because he kept telling her that she might never get to see the inside of a temple until she is old and that her favorite cousin Karlie was going to be there too. (I think he was secretly jealous that she was going to "Jump On It" and he wasn't). Anyway, she told me she would make the decision by the next morning and she wanted to think about it some more. Every time I would bring it up or say anything about it, she would start crying again... she would say "But I'll be sad if I miss the temple, and I'll be sad if I miss the birthday party!" so I decided to wait till morning to say anything about it. Ultimately, she chose to go to the birthday party (which was fine, because I think I will take her to the Oquirrh Mountain temple when it opens), but I could tell she felt really guilty about her decision and when we got home from the temple, she was already home from her party and didn't want to talk about the party or the temple. I told her it really was okay that she wanted to go to the party and I wasn't sad or mad at her. I had no idea it was going to effect her this way though! If this is any indication of what it's going to be like in the teenage years, I'm scared! She is such a sweet girl, but has such a tender heart and gets her feelings hurt so easily. It's usually a daily occurrence that she gets upset about something and runs to her room crying. I'm sure I NEVER did anything like that when I was little. :) yeah right.
Well, I found a picture of Christian on my cell phone when he was just a couple weeks old so I thought I would post it since all my other early pictures of him are on the dead computer... he and Dylan look quite a bit alike don't they? :)
I can't believe my baby turns 1 today! He is such a sweet little baby, he is loved by so many. I don't remember any of my other kids being as pleasant and happy as he is. He just seems to give love by smiling and being his sweet self. Here are some pictures of this past year...
I ran across this thought while I was "blogstalking" today and I liked it so much I decided to share it on my blog. Here it is...
I love when the kids lose one or both of their two front teeth, it just makes them look so cute or like a hillbilly or something. Kinlee's other front tooth is loose now so watch for another photo with both teeth gone hopefully! And the tooth fairy keeps forgetting to come and bring her a dollar under her pillow! I know, bad tooth fairy.
A few days before Christmas we were able to go with Joel's side of the family up to an awesome cabin above Kamas that belongs to my sister-in-law Melissa's family. They were nice enough to let the whole Pilling clan come and stay overnight and have some fun. It is huge and has several bedrooms, bathrooms, living rooms, etc. and a fireplace in almost every room. There were 29 of us there and there was room for all of us to sleep and enjoy being all together. Joel's parents were with us too, so that made it even better especially for the kids. We spent the time eating, playing games, relaxing and the kids got to ride their sleds down a big hill to the bottom where uncle Chris or Grandpa would pick them up on the snowmobile and take them back up to the top. Too spoiled! When I was little, we had to walk back up to the top! Anyway, it was a lot of fun and a great time was had by everyone. Here are some of the pictures...
You can see Grandpa Pilling was kicking the butts of the boys at a game of pool.
Kaitlyn wouldn't get on any sleds, but at least she went outside for a little while!
Christian didn't really sled down the hill... this was just for picture posing :)
Here are Kaitlyn, Dylan Madilyn, Morgan and Hunter hanging out watching movies in the cabin.
Kinlee and Daniel (our cousin from Canada).
Kinlee and Karlie had a good time playing together at the cabin.
Kaitlyn and her favorite cousin (and pretty much only friend) Madilyn.
Here's Dylan getting ready to go down the hill
Grandma Sandy cleaning up in the kitchen
Ashley and Kaitlyn getting ready for bed
Kinlee and Bailey at bedtime
Kaitlyn peeking out the bathroom door (at least she used the potty!)
Anyway, I really think we should make this a family tradition each year (hint, hint Melissa) because everyone loved it and it's nice to get out of Provo once in a while. :) When we did get back to Provo there was about a foot or more of snow that had fallen just that day! It was perfect and just in time for Christmas. I'm ready for it to melt now. :)
