New Year's Eve Eve

A little after Christmas we got a call from one of our most favorite families, the Rocklin Zufelts. They had rented a two-room suite in Tahoe at the Embassy Suites and had to leave a night early. So on Friday we headed up to Lake Tahoe to hang out with them and enjoy the weekend. We all went for a bike ride around the lake and it was FREEZING!!!!  There was no snow anywhere but man was it cold!! We stopped at Camp Richardson beach for a pit stop/snack. 

 Bryson, Stetson and Rachel

 Our special baby who loves his helmet:)

 That's a lot of Zufelt males. Only two girls and two moms in the bunch. 9 boys (including fetus) and two Dads.

Our little (growing) family

On our way back from the beach Stetson fell asleep within a few minutes and I had to prop his head up with one hand while trying to ride a bike up and down hill with the other. Poor Huddy couldn't handle the 3+ miles on his own. Tanner ended up holding him on his lap on his bike while Zach and Carter took turns carrying Hudson's bike, while riding their own. Thank goodness for big boys who can help.  We ended up riding a few blocks past our cars and had to turn around, so by the time we were done everyone was tired and frozen. But it was a good memory:)

 Hotels are a huge hit with my kids as long as there is an indoor pool.

 This was an indoor/outdoor pool and the kids thought it was pretty cool.  Stetson kept a pretty tight grip on Bryson's eyeballs.

 Awww, two little best buddies. This hot tub was too hot for my toesies.

 And you can't go to a pool without having a handstand contest.

 Saturday morning we went to Fallen Leaf lake and checked out the frozen falls.

 "That's FREEZING!!!" Duh...Its ice...

 Oh, hey, that's a great idea....walk on the ice with the baby on your shoulders. You probably won't slip at all.....

 Ice is so fun to break...

 Fallen Leaf Lake

We were headed out to Walker, CA to get some of the best cheeseburgers you've ever tasted at Walker Burger, but sadly they were closed for New Year's Eve. So instead we headed home and did nothing for the rest of New Year's eve. We had plenty of fun for the weekend though.

2 Months behind - Here's Christmas

Christmas Eve - 

I was literally sewing their pajama pants together while they were brushing their teeth and getting ready for bed. Never got around to making baby's pants. 

Christmas Eve Tanner's aunt and uncle from WA flew in and we had dinner with most of that side of the family. Uncle Mike is a fabulous chiropractor and we were all looking forward to getting adjusted. It felt wonderful. Later we went home and opened one gift, then took the usual picture and off to bed. Next year I will need a new set of stockings. These matching ones only came with 6. I will also need some more stocking hooks. I'm keeping a list of all the things I'm realizing I need more of now that we're going to be a family of 7. Most of my "sets" of things are either 4 or 6, not 5 or 7.

 Tanner and I stayed up and wrapped while watching the classic of all classics - Christmas Vacation

Christmas Morning - 

There seems to be a pattern here of Grumpy showing up at our house on Christmas morning:)

 Baby woke up later than normal and most of the excitement was already over. He had fun just crawling over all the mess.

 Tanner thought it would be funny to put on his hunting mask. Sketty didn't think it was so funny.

 The best part of Christmas was all the wrapping paper. Sketty loves his paper.

Hailey got Huddy this bow and arrow and he practiced all morning. He eventually shot the elf.

After presents at our house we went to Zufelts for biscuits and gravy from Grandma Gay(that's her Christmas present to the family every year and the only time any of us get to have b&g for breakfast). Then it was off to get ready for church (just one hour - Yay!) and then we went to my parents for dinner with them and the Webers. A busy day for sure but that's what the holidays are all about.

Wrestle-Mania

Both my boys are wrestling this year and Tanner is helping coach. Oh the joys of boys!

Tanner loves it, Hudson LOVES it, Bryson is okay with it (so far).

Hudson absolutely enjoys every second of practice and meets, he loves hanging out with the older boys and his new GFF is the biggest kid on the team, an 8th grader named Kyle. Kyle calls Huddy his pet monkey because he's always climbing on him. I was watching him at the meet last night and he'll just run up to one of the older boys, jump on their back, and they start wrestling. The older boys are all great with him and its a little boys' dream come true.

 This is the only match Bryson has won this year (out of 5).  Poor Bryson weighs so much that he usually gets stuck wrestling 7th and 8th graders who are much more technical than him. He takes it pretty hard and thinks he "sucks" at wrestling. But he's a trooper to put up with it and one of these years it'll pay off.

This was the last round of Bryson's first match of the year. This is a 7th grader. B is in 3rd.

 Getcha head in the game...

 Hudson is such a little stud. He totally pays attention during practice and he really does use moves during the match. He stays in control enough to pick up his head when his coaches are yelling at him and do what they're telling him to do.

 "Dad I wanna go out there so bad..."

 Because Huddy is not in Kindergarten yet and only weighs 44 lbs. there aren't very many kids his size to wrestle. This other kid is one of the other teams coaches kid. They've wrestled twice.

 His first match of the year. Beat him 13-0 I think. He was sooooo happy.  The first two meets he wrestled this same kid and won both matches, the second meet there wasn't anyone for him to wrestle, and last night he wrestled a 2nd grader who was a head taller and had 20 lbs on him. He lost but Hud just shook it off like it was no big deal.

I think Hudson will stick with it and really excel at wrestling. He's just a scrapper like that and has the confidence. Bryson is built totally different and if he has to keep wrestling kids that are 5 grades ahead of him I think he'll pick a different sport. He told me he wants to try basketball next year.....

(that's a lot of body to get off the ground:)

Baby Benjamin

I took pictures of this darling family last week. They just had their 5th child, little

Benjamin, and he was such a doll. All the kids kept begging to hold him,

like mine did when Sketty was born. I will admit that after spending

3 hours with this family I was more excited about the future with 5 of

my own than I was scared. Some families can do that for you:)

 This little tank weighed 9.1 lbs at birth and he was one week when I took the pictures. Hefty!

 I'm excited to try this shot with my 4!!! boys in June

 Joseph called me that morning and asked if he could come because he'd never had a chance to do any photos with their other kids. What a great dad! He totally entertained his other 4 plus my two for 3 hours.  He had to keep wrangling Sketty out of the room because he gets a little possessive of me. He's a great dad like Tanner.

 I LOVED all the kids' bright blue eyes and blond hair!

 Eden was so excited to finally get to hold baby

 Grace is going to be a beautiful little lady when she grows up. Very sweet girl.

Awww, he's smiling at his dad....how cute!