Merry Christmas to all

Family pics were taken yesterday. WE had a couple precious moments of happiness before Colton decided that he had enough of sitting still in my lap and being happy. Overall, we had a couple pics that turned out really nice.

As far as recent news in concerned, after the last several months of doing everything in our power to sell our houses and move, we decided to just take our time and stick in our house for awhile. We are planning on staying put for at least the next year and a half and are feeling very good about sticking around. We love our house, we love our neighbors and ward family. It feels like home so we may as well make it home.

Kari is going to be staying home with the kids in the very near future. Her schedule has been too demanding on her her and has not allowed the kids an opportunity to make and play with friends in the neighborhood. By moving them to the school closest to our house, they will have an opportunity to make new friends in their classes that they can also play with after school in the neighborhood. WE are very excited to have some additional family time every night and we feel that this will only help strengthen our new family.

Cam has been very excited and we are happy to say that his new bedroom was just finished. He has the cooelst room with the exception of his and Kari's choice in decor, BYU theme...I'm getting over it and will try to spend as little time in his room as possible. I actually threw up in my mouth a little when I bought him a mini BYU helmet and pennant at Fanzz. I have never felt more filthy than I did at that time. He moved into his room on Saturday and is very happy not to be sleeping on the couch anymore!

As a closing note, Santa made a surprise appearance to our house on Saturday and brought each kid a board game to play before Christmas. It was a nice treat for the kids and each of them were preemptively awarded for their "good behavior" (debateable) this past year. In all seriousness, we are so blessed to have 6 beautiful, caring and loveable kids. They get along so well all the time and really add so much joy to our household. WE are done with Christmas shopping and are looking forward to bright smiling faces on Christmas morning! Happy Holidays to all our friends and family, and may the Lord bless you this coming year!

Please visit www.bancroftfund.blogspot.com

This blog address is dedicated to the memory of Justin's first wife and Brooklyn's, Wyatt's and Colton's mom. The fund established in her name will be used to assist a young family each year in meeting their monetary needs, or to help make a family dream come true.

The Kids..

By popular demand, or at least by request of some friends of ours in Wisconsin, we would like to introduce each of the kids and tell a little about each.

Cam, 9, (right) is our oldest and is a tremendous kid. He's in fourth grade, loves transformers, legos, and anything military. He likes to bust Justin's chops about BYU.

Wyatt, 5, (left) is a clone of his old man. He is Cameron's shadow and loves to roughhouse and terrorize his sisters. Although wearing a Utah shirt in this picture, he claims to be a BYU fan. I'm pretty sure Cam had something to do with it!!

Brooklyn and Brittney:

Brooklyn, 8, (piggy back-er) and Brittney, 7 (piggy back-ee) are peas in a pod. Although not biologically related, they may as well be. They are in the same class at school and church and are pretty much inseperable. They both love littleist petshop toys, iCarly and anything girly. They are both very competitive. They share a room right now and both seem to really enjoy being together. Brooklyn is getting baptized this weekend!

Matti, 4, is a full blown four year old little girl. She is obsesses with everything mermaids and recently had her fourth birthday. The trend in presents? All little mermaid stuff. We are finishing up the 5th bedroom downstairs to move Cam down and move Matti up. She has a way of finding "creative ways to express herself" when unsupervised downstairs!! :) A day never goes by where she doesn't say something to crack us up. Yesterday she was really excited to tell us about the "little man" she saw at Costco.

Colton, 2. Seen here with his birthday cake is the family's little mascot. He is carried around, wrestled with and played with constantly by his older brothers and sisters. He is constant joy but a constant handful. Colton loves playing with his toys and mimicking sounds. his favorite trick is to show all the kids how to signal TOUCHDOWN.

Allow ourselves to introduce ourselves

Here it goes! This is the first blog that either of us have ever had so this may be ugly for awhile. Justin was running his family's blog shortly before Michelle passed away until just a few months ago but thought it appropriate to go ahead and start a new one focusing on he and Kari. Why am I talking in third person?? Anyway, not saying there is anything wrong with facebook but we thought this would be a more precise and accurate way to give updates on our family.

Lots has happened since we got married in August. We have had several family activities, a couple weekend getaways, and a few sales on both of our houses fall through! Recently Kari and I travelled to Las Vegas and Dallas, TX to follow the University of Utah football team. Both trips were a blast with the exception of the whole reason for the trip to Dallas. TCU pounded the crap out of us and as soon as we were getting over the shock of that game, we had to go to the foresaken town of Provo to witness the "classy" Cougars beat us "classless" Utes in overtime this past Saturday. I am still livid over the outcome but fortunately we made it out of the stadium without anyone (else) getting hurt.

Our family is learning to adapt to each other still. Overall we are all doing fantastic and although the transition hasnt been seamless, it has been much easier than anticipated. All 6 kids get along incredibly well top to bottom, and Kari and I are learning to take on the role of parents to each others kids. We are loving our new family arrangement and look forward to whatever the future holds for all of us.