December Goodness

These children grow like weeds! Since I'm certain I have little time to stay at the computer before my children need me again - Here's some highlights of our awesome month so far!

These little windows around our front door are the perfect peep holes for Kalani to watch the chickens outside

Aurora is looking so old these days. Coming into her own and learning to stand up for herself!

Our big kid lost her 3rd tooth 

Well, this is Declans "grumpy face". (and clearly he needs to wash his face!) He is in a very intense phase of being grumpy and learning limits. We'll chug through it... 

I was feeling down a few days before Christmas  My husband and oldest child were sick, my home was mostly clean but not perfect. My attitude needed adjusting. I added this sign to remind me of really how fantastic my life is :) 

Kalani enjoyed pulling presents out from under the tree, luckily none were opened prematurely. 

We hosted Christmas Dinner on Sunday Dec 23rd instead of our usual Christmas Eve and it was fantastic. Afterwards we sat around and played games together: What iff, Skip bo, Uno and Clue! Oh so much FUN!!

My brother got MARRIED! We were so honored to be able to witness this awesome event!

And we changed our lives in a major way :) 

December ROCKED. Carry on Warriors. 

A Meal Together.

I sincerely believe that a family meal together is a necessity to living a close and connected life. It's also something that I feel strongly about - no matter the time of day. Notice, I didn't say DINNER together. I hate that lumping of traditional go to work, come home at a set time. I think if it's 4 am and everyone wakes up to eat biscuits and tea before all falling back into bed, so be it! We've totally gotten strange with family meal timings as Damon worked long intense hours over the last 2 years.

But nowadays - we're consistent. It's breakfast. We START the day together. Now, this will get earlier as the new year falls upon us. We're changing our schedule and committing to Damon out the door by 9 am. That means my darling ass needs out of the warm comfy sheets by 6? Oh boy.

But looking at our joyous morning meals... It's totally worth it to keep the commitment to start the day together!

Awesome morning hair...

Just how big of a bite does Moose need?

Like I said, awesome morning hair..... 

Good times indeed. I can see this lasting forever in our home. We might not end it all together as work, play, and life gets in the way, but I love to start our day together!

Baptism

Yep, a dunk in the tank. A public statement of choosing Jesus as our example. A beginning point to a life long commitment for us to learn His gospel and do His works. 

Oh what could I write? How do you some up something so personal, so deep, so intense? 

We opened our hearts to be supported on this journey and were supported by our friends and ward family. It was amazing, life changing and yet we are STILL us. This is just a beginning point, not that somehow we are suddenly perfect people (er, read: we can't get there, we'll just keep trying to do better!). 

Our conversion was a choice to move from ordinary to excellence. To not sit on the sidelines and commit on our terms but to give it our all and do this shit! 

Thank you for celebrating with us!

One.

I cannot believe our youngest child has surpassed the infancy stage and is roaring her way into toddlerhood. Kalani Ember has been such an amazing soul. She's managed to compact her huge soul into a teeny tiny little body but her presence is immeasurable. These days she is into standing freely in the middle of the room and watching the world around her. She is an intense little one that is loud and silly. She loves blocks and cannot currently be bothered to sit down with the rest of us to read books.

We continued the Huberty Family tradition of making her a cake of her very own for her birthday and she thought it was fantastic!  Lani and Lani-loo are her nicknames and she is just a great addition to our home. I am so blessed to be a mother of four fantastic children, each one of them so different and truly special!

Here's a look into Kalani's first year of life <3

From the beginning she was a tiny peanut with long fingers and a snuggly personality.

At a month old here, this was her common perch. She would happily sleep for hours tight in a wrap (not unlike today!)

At two months old she began sucking her thumb.

At 3 months, she was full of life and smiles!

By 4 months she was a joyous little soul who began to sit supported constantly. She loved being able to watch her siblings play in front of her and would often lean forward and crash face first to try and join them!

5 months of happiness :)

6 months and so happy to be a part of a family. She adored crawling after her sisters and brother. And they enjoyed her new fun stages too!

7 months and you can see the beginnings of her first two tiny teeth here.

8 months and such a Daddys girl. This is about the time she stopped sucking her thumb and decided eating things like avacados and eggs were alright!

9 months and standing while holding onto things! Tiny amount of hair growing in finally too! Still just 2 teeth

10 months and 4 teeth.. Mastered standing like a champ and loves to pull all the books off the shelves

11 months, still bald mostly and 5 teeth. Loves cream of wheat, oatmeal and cottage cheese.

And......... THE CAKE experience!

Oh so fun :) Happy (late post!) birthday little loo. You are so special, I can't wait to see what the next year brings us with you!!

Christmas Tree Hunting 2012

Holy Heck. Hold the phone - because this post cannot possibly explain how much FUN this experience was!! First off, I'd like to point out that we love our suburban Betty and her 4-wheel drive abilities and her ground clearance. Secondly, whoever mentioned cutting down your own tree whenever to me (and I have no idea who or when this was), thank you!

What an AMAZING TIME WE HAD!!!!!!!!! Monday December 3rd we trekked up beyond Idaho City to go hunting for our very own Christmas Tree. Sadly, there was no snow to be found but we did hike, climb a mountain in Betty (small, but fun!) and just all around have a damn good family adventure. This absolutely will be repeated annually.

Here's our passing through Idaho City on Hwy 21.

Betty, you rock. Thank you for allowing us to scrap your bottom end while we climbed to your resting place!

So we hiked... up... with our small children....

The kids were so adventurous! It was really awesome to see their determination and effort to climb the hill side. Lots of falling over!

Man power cutting down our tree <3

Declan held my hand the entire climb up but made it! What a brave little guy. He is still talking about it daily. He was very scared of the mountain but since he was able to climb it is so proud of himself! It's really adorable and character building to see him overcome his fear and feel brave and accomplished.

What climbs up MUST slide down getting as dirty as possible on the way right?!

we really were nestled in our own private area! No one around for miles, and it was beautiful (but cold!)

There was hot cocoa to be had of course! But, it comes with a great lesson - We bought this nice new stanley thermos at Costco knowing that our family enjoyed hot drinks and we explore the out doors enough to need a thermos right? Well, 3 hours before we decide to want our hot cocoa, we boiled water, added it to the thermos and then mixed the milk and hot cocoa powder in it............ 3 hours later, it cooked the milk. WHOOPS! Not badly but definitely cooked it!

And our amazing accomplishment was this photo - taken with a simple point and shoot camera, set on a bumper of Betty, with a 10 second timer. Wooo hoo!!! Even the dog is looking!

Festival of Trees 2012

Annual Huberty Family fun! Indeed, this is a favorite in our home. I think this is our 8th year attending the Festival of Trees and it never ceases to amaze me how much "in the Spirit" it makes me after seeing the whole venue so beautifully decorated.

These lit bulbs on this tree were cool!

Our kids had a great time doing the scavenger hunt. It was tricky at times but they were diligent and the girls completed them to earn prizes!

Fun & Beautiful trees that inspire me every year!

This year the kids were especially drawn to the nativity scene with baby Jesus. Since our conversion, bringing Jesus into our Christmas celebrations are new to ALL of us!

Seeing the many different whimsical and fun decorations were fun - like the reindeer in knit sweaters <3

Damon helped the girls understand the scavenger hunt

And Kalani was along for the ride happily. She loved seeing everything lit up and was more than a bit miffed to not be able to crawl around and grab it all.

Until next year :) 

Family in Town! Blogging Catch Up

Our kids and us were so blessed to have my mother in law fly in for a few days. It was a really great visit, we all really loved having her and hope that this will become a regular thing (though eventually I think we'll start commuting there again simply to give our kids the experience of Seattle too!)

One day we had a stunning time at the zoo...

Kalani enjoyed snuggling Grandma!

Great time in deed. The Boise Zoo was a great venue for us all to run around have enjoy the sunshine while she was here. It was perfectly relaxed and the kids really enjoyed Grandmas visit. I'm so glad, I struggle with how to keep them connected to distant family while young. As the get older, they will find a way I'm sure.

What a great way to start our November :)

Halloween - blogging catch up

Halloween this year was fun. Halloween party with fellow homeschoolers, dinner with friends and trick or treating in the evening. Here's some pictures of our afternoon home school party :)

Here's our Cow enjoying a lot of frosting meant for a cookie but hey, anything goes on halloween!

To further our theme this year - here is our Rodeo Queen and our lovely Pony decorating cookies 

Aurora spent the whole party with her good friend Natalie - 

And Daunika had fun with her co-op friend Ella-

Rounding off our theme, I had a baby chick on my back and was in flannel, plaid, and a hat :)

I wish I had thought to take a family photo (though that's so not getting any easier since theres a lot of us! Damon also was in our lovely theme adorned in carharts and a huge straw hat <3)

I know it's almost Christmas, I'm catching up!