I love when my kids get their 6 month pictures. They're old enough that they can smile really big and are just so happy. We got Austin's 6 month pictures the same day Spencer got his 5 year old pictures. Spencer is all about having his picture taken with his brother so of course we had to do that too. My boys are so handsome :)
I can't believe it's been 5 years since my little man Spencer joined our family. Life sure hasn't been dull since then but I wouldn't have it any other way. Even though this little man is a total nutter and can be a monkey at times he really has me wrapped around his finger. Ever since I knew I was having a boy I just couldn't wait to meet him and snuggle him up. I think an extra soft spot was formed while looking at him one day and I could see my brother Peter, that was so lovely. Spencer really is a special boy, he has a huge smile like his sister Sydney and even though he can be a cheeky little monkey I'm so thankful he joined our family.
He will be starting kindergarten this fall and he really can't wait. He's a lot like Maddie when it comes to learning things. He loves to learn and he taught himself all the sounds and even how to read. He's not shy AT ALL and will try anything. He just wants to be as big as everyone else which is sometimes scary when he's trying to do things he really shouldn't. I'm truly surprised he hasn't broken anything yet with all the things he tries to do. He certainly is ALL boy and I'm glad he's my little boy because I love my Spence-dog SOOO much :)
Here are a couple of pictures from Spencer's 5 year old photo shoot, what a handsome boy if I do say so myself :)
I had to add these pictures because Austin just looked so cute. I especially love the cow pictures. We found this cow hat when the girls were babies and our friend got these cow onesies for Austin. This little man is just too cute :)
This is a picture off Maddie's camera from when we went to the dollar store on day. What a little poser :)
Here's Hadley and her cousin Kue or "Kue Baller" as Hadley calls him. They're so cute!
Another picture from Maddie's camera. We were on the way to Steve's parents house, what nutters :)It's been a LONG time since we've taken family pictures so I thought it would be fun to try when we went to take Maddie to get her 9 year old pictures. I didn't have very high expectations because I know how it is when I take the 5 kids and try and get their pictures taken. Anyway I was so happy when there ended up being some pretty good pictures of all of us. It's crazy to actually look at these pictures and see how big our little family really is. I love my family so much and am so grateful to have been blessed with such crazy but GREAT kids :)
I had to add this picture. It was the last one and all the kids were ready to be done. Hadley was "trying" to help Austin be happy, it wasn't working too well as you can tell.
Here's some of Maddie's 9 year old pictures. She always takes great photo's which is nice.
We spent New Years Eve with our GREAT friends the Staker's and the Layton's. We always so much fun with them so it was a fun night to just get together, catch up and eat LOTS of yummy food. All of us apart from Steve were starting another biggest loser competition the next day so we chowed down on the all the yummy goodness. I stole these pictures from Kristy's blog. I liked the one of the boys playing Wii, Allan was really getting in to it, it was pretty funny.
Every year the Johnson family gets together on Christmas Eve. Grandpa Johnson reads the nativity story out of the Bible while the kids and whoever else wants to act it out. The kids always wear old robes and old dance costumes that belonged to all Grandma's kids. The kids LOVE it and we all love watching them.
This year we had LOTS of beautiful angles, one shepherd, baby Maylee was our "elf" baby Jesus and Rod was the donkey.
Bryce was the lone king and even came with real gifts. Tre and Maddie had to check those out :)
Hadley wasn't too interested in taking part. She was too busy crawling all over the floor being goofy.
After we were done at Grandma and Grandpa Johnson's house we went over to Steve's parents house to open our Christmas Eve presents. This year Sherisse had made all the kids pj bottoms, they were SOOO cute, even the babies got some.
Austin looked SUPER cute with his BIG smiles. This was the best smile I could get from Hadley, she's sooo funny.
Here are the kids on Christmas morning. They had just read their letter from Santa and were waiting to find all their presents downstairs. Austin was still asleep at this point. We normally video the kids opening their presents every year but this year I didn't press record after getting it all set up, whoops! I realised half way through so at least we got some of it. We didn't get any pictures either, whoops again :( The kids had a FANTASTIC Christmas and once again got WAY too many presents. One thing we did this year though was go through all the kids toys and had them take out a bunch of them to give away. We wanted to give them away before Christmas but we never got round to it. I think this will become a tradition now because our kids have SOOO much and I think knowing their toys were going to go to someone who didn't have any made them happy and more willing to give them away. We really tried to remind our kids this year why we have Christmas and kept trying to remind them throughout the whole day. We spent the whole day with Steve's family and had a WONDERFUL time. I do miss my Mom's Christmas dinner but spending the day with Steve's family is great and we always try and add some of my families traditions like prawn cocktail and crackers.
Christmas is such an AMAZING time of the year. I'm so thankful we get to celebrate our Saviour's birth and remember how LUCKY we are to have the gospel in our lives.
Each one of my kids have used this SUPER COOL jumper (I think that's what you call it). Grandma Johnson used this with her kids and now we all use it whenever we go to Steve's Mom's house. This was Austin's first time using it, he didn't really jump around too much but he did love just hanging there. We'll have to try it out again soon :)
Maddie turned 9 in December. It's crazy to think it's actually been that long since we had her. Maddie is a great daughter and helps me out a lot with all the other kids. She's also a little monkey as well but all those things make her who she is. Here's a little of what she's like and the things she likes these days.....
She freaks out A LOT when Steve or I leave.
She HATES sleeping downstairs on her own but won't trade rooms because she loves having her own room.
She wears lots of silly bands and other bracelets.
She loves ear rings and ALWAYS wants me to buy her new ones.
She loves funny books like Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Captain Underpants.
She likes to think she's one of the grown ups and always tries to be part of everything we're doing.
She loves to hold Austin and help out with him.
She has some great friends which I'm VERY thankful for.
She likes to collect all the princess barbies even though she doesn't really play with them.
She plays the piano and seems to be a natural.
She bares her testimony EVERY month at church.
All in all she's a great girl who is just a normal 9 year old. I'm grateful that she's part of our family. The only thing that worried me about Maddie is that she's getting too big. It makes me scared to think of her being a teenager. I just hope she keeps the same great friends and the same testimony that she has now and I won't be too worried. WE LOVE YOU MADDIE!
She got a BYU sweatshirt, ear rings and camera for her birthday, she was sooo happy. We went out to eat at Chuckarama's for her birthday dinner with Steve's parents.
Here she is getting her birthday spankings from Steve's Dad :)
I don't know if I'll ever not be catching up but here we go again :) First of all here's a few cute pictures of the kids.
