Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve Traditional dinner with Falers and Nativity reenactment. Callie thought that the Angel needed a baby angel to accompany her. We had a small group this year because Corinne's family went to Idaho for the holidays. 

We crashed the Huber's Christmas Eve too! And miraculously got a family picture with EVERYONE! I think the last time they had one of these was when Mike got home from his mission?!?! I love this crazy family but they have got to work on their phobia of the camera! lol Seriously, they never take pictures! I think this one turned out great!

Santa came! (I never did finish decorating my poor tree! Oh well)

The new Family pet:

After much deliberation we decided to purchase a Bearded Dragon. I'm a little nervous that we might have bit off a little more than we can chew. This little guy as adorable as he is, can be a little high maintenance. He needs to live in a hot temp environment (which means he requires expensive equipment), has a high protein diet including live crickets, and he will grow as big as 2 feet long. Mason named him within minutes! 

Rocky

  He is very "tame" let's you hold him like this for long periods of time. The perfect reptile for little kids.

After a little research I learned you need to have a separate home for the crickets. You also need to buy cricket food and water (not just water it's called "cricket quencher" a gel you feed to them to prevent cricket drownings. If you give them just water they are so dumb they will crawl in the water and drown).

I've even learned to "dust" the crickets with vitamins and calcium that Rocky needs.

I still can't believe that we own a pet DRAGON!  

Mason, Mason, Mason

Mason came home from school with this card. I was shocked and sad to admit he never said anything to me about this Jimmy kid. I didn't want to make a big of a deal of the situation, but curiosity got to me. When I asked Mason he just shrugged his shoulders and not give me any concrete answers. So I turned to Mason's cousins (he rides the bus with my sister Maddy's kids). I love this because I feel like they have his back and he's not alone on the bus. Corbin was so fun to discuss this matter with, he read the card and agreed that Jimmy is a punk and wasn't very nice to Mason. He went on to explain that Jimmy is mean to other kids too and even made another kid cry on the bus. To quote Corbin "But Mason is really tough and never cried." (The look on Masons face was priceless as Corbin is relaying these events! His proud smile was so adorable.) I'm still not really sure the events that led up to this apology note but I've accepted the fact that I can't micromanage everything in Mason's life.

Mason's personality is very fun, I love how "tough" he is emotionally. Things just roll right off of him, he shrugs and keeps going. I admire this a lot about him. He is like this when he gets sick as well. In fact Ron and I were just discussing how Mason never gets sick and when he does you rarely know it, he handles it like a champ. I get to help in Mason's class 2 times a month. He really likes his teacher Ms. Rother, for the most part I think Mason is a good student. He makes friends very easily and is very social. In fact being social is what gets him in trouble. His weekly progress reports state his only issue is his socializing during class. Oops. He MAY have gotten that from me.

This progress report made me laugh out loud! This kid cracks me up!

Family pictures!

We had our family pictures taken a month ago. But I havn't posted about it because to be honest that day was just not a good one. Picture day is always stressful as it is but this year was particularly bad. We just had some wardrobe malfunctions and differences of opinions. I'm leaving it at that! Despite our last minute changes and being late to our own photo shoot, I think we got some decent pictures. I love the pictures with just the kids in them. Our photographer Mele is amazing!

  

"Bee-punzel"

"Look mom! Bee-punzel has one of these!"
Callie is obsessed with Rapunzel lately, the movie Tangled is her favorite movie at the moment.

This little girl cracks me up. I'm amazed at the girly side of her in spite of her 2 big brothers always pushing ideas and things her way. It really does prove that they all come "pre-programmed" with personalities and unique attributes. I thought it would be fun to journal about just Callie.
SIZE- She is still itty bitty (finally growing but still petite in every sense.) Her size may be small but her attitude and personality is HUGE!
Her PERSONALITY is very independent and stubborn. If something is not her idea it's NOT a good idea. There are definite pro's and cons to being like this. It's convenient when I don't have extra hands to help her with something that moment, but not so tolerable when I'm in a hurry. Her favorite phrase right now "I can do it myself" ie loading up in the car, buckling the car seat, getting dressed, etc. Like I said I don't mind it sometimes just only when my patience is a little thin.
She is surprisingly very "mothering" to younger children and to her dolls. She loves to play house with her dollies puts them to bed, changes their diapers and gives them loves. The dolls even get their own car seat and go grocery shopping with us! I thoroughly enjoy this, she comes up with this stuff all on her own. She is also very sweet with her brothers and comforts them when they are upset. I think her little spirit is VERY sensitive to the moods of those around her. She can sense very easily when I'm upset (even when I try to hide it and am not blatantly loosing it) she will ask me "You happy mom?" Which always brings a smile to my face and reminds me to take teaching moments like that and show my daughter how to handle stress or disappointment. Callie is very good at labeling emotions for her young age because we are able to discuss and talk about feelings so much.

She has her own sense of style and loves to dress up. Sometimes she looks good and other times she looks... interesting. My friend Teri made this adorable pencil skirt for her. LOVE it!

Potty training this little girl has been harder than I thought it would be. While I love her independence I also get into power struggles with her. lol It's nice that she can communicate well and dress her self completely. But it's really hard to get her to continuously believe that staying dry is the way to go! She does pretty well now and is in underwear 24/7. It's taken a little longer than I anticipated but we are in a good place now.

I love this little girl more than words can express. I thank Heavenly Father for such a beautiful fiery daughter of God.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween was a blast this year! We started it off at our wards trunk or treat. We decided to be pirates this year. Noah however never jumped on the pirate theme bandwagon. He wanted to be a ninja, ... sigh... oh well, sadly I caved and let him choose his costume. I am truly grateful for this ward and have made many good friends.

Callie and Lacey

 Amazing women in the ward!

The 1st and 2nd counselors in the bishopric. Such a great team!

Teri and me! I love this girl!

  Callie was very wary of the "yoda" costume. haha

Mom's annual Halloween party!

This may very well be my favorite Faler Family tradition. Taco's, costumes, treats, and family! What's not to love.

 Maddy's and Me! Goof balls! I sure do have fun with this girl!

Terrible picture but the only one of have of my mom. This picture depicts the evenings events. Fun and happy but a little CRAZY!!! YUMMY!

Afterwards we went trick or treating with some neighborhood friends. Callie didn't enjoy it so much.  Haha She didn't want to go up to any house with out me holding her, and if it looked at all sketchy or scary she wasn't having it. She didn't like masks or scary lights, she kept saying "I don't want to go to the bad guys house! That's scary, I don't want the bad guys candy" So of course being the mean mom that I am I captured her fear on camera!

 poor Callie