Happy Birthday Lucas...

The big 5!  Where has the time gone.  It seems like yesterday you suprised us when you decided to come 4 1/2 weeks early and you have continued to suprise us every day since.

You are so full of happiness.  You love to make people smile and laugh.  You're quite the comedian (you get that from your mom!) and love to tell jokes.  You love being a big brother and your little brothers look up to you a lot.  Kody loves to do exactly what you are doing and be right by your side.  He loves you so much.  You adore Ryker and he adores you.  I love when I hear you say "it's okay, big brother's here" or when I hear you sing to him.  It makes me so happy.

You love learn at preschool and church.  You have made some great friends (and girlfriends).  You are learning how to spell new words all the time.  You get so excited when you figure out what a word says and I can't help but smile at your excitement.  I'm sure I mention this often, but you seriously have one of the best memories... EVER!  It doesn't take long before you can recite back a book, movie, song, joke, etc.  This is not always good for mom and dad since you remember things that we promised 2 years ago! 

You love to have fun.  You want to make everything into a game.  Especially when we are cleaning!!  I don't blame you... it's a lot funner when we play a game.  You're addicted to the wii and could play it all day long if your mom and dad would let you.  Puzzles are one of your favorite things and you're really good at them.  You love, Love, LOVE, movies!  I'm not sure that you have a favorite because you'll watch just about anything you can.

You can eat pretty much all day long.  You do love treats, but most of the time you want apples, celery, cheese, bananas or pickles to snack on.  It's a good thing you like the healthy things to snack on cause your downfall is rootbeer, but you don't get it nearly as often as you'd like!  You request, pizza, enchiladas and pasta quite a bit for dinner.  You are an awesome eater and I'm so thankful for that!!

I'm so glad you chose to be in our family for forever.  You are my favorite Lucas and I love so much.

Happy Birthday buddy!

(pictures to come later... when we're home from disneyland!)

6 months... Really?!

Today our baby turns 6 months old.  It just goes so darn fast!  I just can't tell you how much I love this boy.  He gives the best smiles.  He's rolling around and we often find him in a different location then were we left him.  He loves his bottle which means I'm nearly through with nursing... yeah!  He loves his baby food... peas and green beans.  He's getting much better about sleeping through the night.  He still loves to be wrapped which is hard considering he can weasely his way out of it.  He rolls on to his tummy a lot while he's trying to go to sleep and this makes him extremely mad!  He still loves the binky and I'm not sure it'll be going anywhere any time soon.  He has a hysterical laugh and if I could figure out how to upload video on this thing again, I'd let you all experience it.  He spits up... a lot.  He can blow bubbles.  He isn't quite sitting up yet, but getting closer everyday.  He likes to reach for toys and put anything into his mouth that's with in arms length.  He puts up with a lot, but in the end... his brothers are his best friends!

Ryker... we love you!

Thanksgiving Pictures

We had a great Thanksgiving.  The food was yummy and the company was great.  I was horrible at taking pictures, so this is the few that I did take.  In honor of Thanksgiving, we let Ryker have his first baby food.  Aunt Talease had the honors of feeding the peas.  And he loved them... very very much!

Happy Turkey Day

The turkey's in the oven and in a few short hours will sit down to eat the biggest lunch consumed all year.  Delicious!  We're celebrating this year with Jed's family here at our house.  It's fun to all be together and celebrate.  We have lots to be thankful for this year.

We hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving... Gobble, Gobble!

New Moon

Saw 'New Moon' last night with Tawnya & Jessica.  I liked it about 150 percent better than the first.  My only problem is Edward... not so attractive (in my humble, yet honest opinion).  And he wears a lot of (red) lipstick.  I'm sure it's there to make him seem whiter, but a little less may have been more.

Jacob on the other hand was much prettier on the eyes!

So I've decided I'm team Edward in the book and team Jacob in the movie.

And how exciting is it that 'Eclipse' is coming out in June 2010!  Only a 7 month wait...  please please please don't rate it "R"!

Thanks Tawn & Nappy for a fun sisters night!  We missed you Shara (and mom) but look at the bright side.... you wouldn't have won an awesome "New Moon" boardgame if you had been with us!

Lightning Speed

This is what happens when the 2 year old sneaks into the baby's room!

29 Forever

I use to think 29 sounded so old... and it still does!  I can hardly believe I'm there... the year people claim to be, even when they are not.  So what have I learned in the past 29 years...

I married my best friend who's known me for all 29 years
I don't have to dislike every thing that my mom didn't like
I do like mustard on sandwiches
I don't like Miracle Whip
I am a homebody
I am cabable of caring for 3 very handsome little boys
I usually have a pile of clutter somewhere that needs going through... (and I don't want to).
I use to be a very good speller... (thank you spell check).
My kids can bring out the best and (unfortunately) the worst in me.
I would rather do anything else than clean (but I do do it once in awhile)
I am a spring/fall girl...  not to hot and not to cold
I have no vertical jump what so ever... I'm lucky if my feet leave the ground
I have a high tolerance for pain
I like a cold Ruby Red Squirt or Barq's Rootbeer
I would choose 7-UP over Sprite any day of the week
I talk to my sisters and mom a lot (sometimes multiple times a day)
I don't enjoy cleaning up poop or throw up
My life wouldn't be the same with out the Gospel
I don't like driving in the dark, rain or snow
I love designing and photography
I am not fond of sleeping on little pull out chair beds in hospital rooms for mulitple days
I am not fond of sleeping in actual hospital beds either
I am grateful for modern medicine
I don't like to exercise... especially run
I like being a Visiting Teacher
I have the best job in the world, besides being a mom
I hope one day to not have to work
I love my family
I have the best life... ups and downs included.

Here's to the last year as a 20-something... and may the next 29 be as good as the last!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

(Thanks Tawnya for the yummy birthday dinner tonight!)

Firm Foundation

I love primary program Sunday. Lucas has been practicing his part for a little while and he had it down perfect for today. "When we pray, we tell Heavenly Father we are grateful for all the blessings his has given our family." He's also been working hard on his songs. He sings "How Firm a Foundation" a lot when we are cleaning.

Lucas was quite the entertainer during the program. He had some serious dance moves to go along with each song and liked to wave and wink, very dramatically, at his biggest fans. It was hard not to smile most of the time. Like my mom said... "every primary has one!" But, he did awesome and I'm so proud of him. He really is such a good kid and we love him lots! We'll just be working a little more on reverence for next years program!!!

Grama Carole, Papa (*without the "hee hee's") and Nappy came down for the big event! We had a fun weekend spending time together... as always.

*Kody was extremely disappointed that my dad didn't bring the baby horses with him. He asked for the hee hee's about every 5 minutes, all weekend long!

Thanks mom for letting me steal the pictures from you!!

Happy Halloween

Isn't this the cutest pirate, giraffe & caterpillar you've ever seen!?

And I may have said that about my last years pirate... or the year before when Lucas was the giraffe & Kody was the caterpillar.

Yes... they have a boring mom who recycles costumes (and I'm sure it won't be the last time).

But... they had fun and that's all that matters.

We actually went trick or treating this year. A first at our house. I took them out while Jed stayed home to pass out candy. They had a blast going door to door. I had to stop Kody a couple times from opening the doors and just walking in, but all in all it was a success and they scored lots of candy.

Afterwards we had pizza at our house with the Kesler's. Lucas loved answering the door and handing out the candy to the rest of the trick-or-treaters.

One Happy 5 Month Old

who really loves his bath!

These last 5 months have been a joy!

Just Like Papa

Spent the past weekend at my parents house.  The boys and I rode up with Tawnya Thursday afternoon for some fun time with grams and gramps.  My boys love their grandpa Mark and like to spend as much time was possible with him.  Kody is pratically his shadow and has to wear his hat at all times.  My dad has a couple baby horses that the kids love.  Kody would have slept with them if we'd let him.  One afternoon when my dad was headed to do chores Kody wanted to go with.  He got already to go and then made a bee line around by where the washer sits.  He came with a set of latex gloves.  Apparently he had noticed that papa (as he refers to him) had put on some gloves and he needed some too.  I thought it was funny that he knew exactly where to find the latex gloves!

Thursday night Lucas woke up in the middle of the night saying he had a headache and his legs hurt.  The next day he was feeling so good and by that evening he started fevering pretty bad with a bad cough and runny nose.  Saturday morning I took him to the pediatrician and diagnosed him with the H1N1 flu.  Lovely!  He started on Tamiflu (expensive stuff) that morning.  By Sunday he seemed to be doing much better.  I'm glad his case was pretty mild.

Unfortunately he had to miss the Nicholas Halloween party Saturday evening.  He had been looking forward to it and I felt bad he had to stay home.  Jed stayed home with him and I went for just a little while.  Every one seemed to be having lots of fun.  I'm pretty sure Kody and Reese were full of candy.  Kody even won of the drawing and was proud as punch when he got to walk up and get his basket.

We had a great weekend and I so far I really glad that Kody and Ryker didn't get the flu.  Although poor little Reese did, but hers has lasted about the same as Lucas'.

Picnic

We enjoyed having Jess come spend the weekend with us. Since Saturday was such a nice day, we decided to head up the canyon for a picnic. Nappy claims it was her first picnic and I hoped it lived up to all her expectations! We stopped at park so the kids to play and throw rocks in the river.

We love having her come and can't wait until she moves back down to Utah Valley next summer.

he's just so darn cute... even with a (clean) diaper on his head!

So Handsome...

I did individual/class pictures for the preschool that Lucas attends. I wanted to post Lucas' on here since he looks so cute. I actually wasn't to worried about getting any of him since I can do it any time, but suprisingly I really liked them. And he has his natural smile... love it!

Second Mother

Let me introduce you to my kids other mother...


aka... Aunt Tawnya.

They love her! They go crazy when they know we are going to her house or she's coming to ours. She claims that she gets Ryker laughing so hard (but unfortunately I haven't been present to verify). Kody usually wakes up from his nap asking for "Nawna"! I'm not sure what we're going to do when she moves an 1 1/2 away.

I can hardly wait the 6 months for her new one to arrive! I love being an aunt!