The past few months

I'm going to do a quick overview of what's been going on with us lately. 

In February 2^nd, Erin turned 10!!!! I can’t believe it’s been that long since she was born! We had a quiet family party at home with a wolf cake, and a new bike.  She was so excited! 

Also in February, John and I went on a cruise.  We went with some co-workers from Con-way in California, and we had a blast. 

The best part for me was getting away from my duties at home.  A great big thanks to Mom and Dad for watching the kids for us.  The best part for John was going in to Ensenada for some really good really real Mexican fish tacos and carnisadas! 

We also went on a tour of the wine country (without sampling), did karaoke, played bingo, watched shows, and enjoyed some good food. 

I’m hoping this won’t be our last cruise! 

March was a big month!  John turned 40!!!!  We surprised him the Saturday before his birthday with a party.  My Mom and Dad were in town, so Dad helped keep John and the boys away from the house while Erin and I snuck back to the house to decorate and prepare.  John didn’t suspect a thing and at first he was just wondering why all these people were in his house yelling “Surprise” at him.  It was only when I added “Happy Birthday”, that he realized that it was for his birthday! 

He had a great 40^th.  On the day of his Birthday I baked him a gluten-free cake, so he could have his cake and eat it too!  He’s still going strong even at 40! 

 A couple of weeks after his birthday he ran the Riverton ½ Marathon doing it in 1 hour 51 minutes!   He also ran the Salt Lake ½ Marathon 3 weeks later (in April).  He was injured, but still ran it in about 1 hour 50 minutes!  Now he’s taking a short time off, so that he can heal from his torn calf muscle, and run in a Ragnar come June. 

We drove down to Delta the weekend before easter to see my family and join in on Mom & Dad’s Easter egg hunt.  What a nice weekend it was, (not including the weather because we had to have our hunt inside)!  The kids all had a great time, and the best part was seeing Grandma and Grandpa and some of their cousins!  Thanks for a great weekend Mom and Dad!

Sean loves candy!!!!

The next weekend we went to my sister-in-law, Callie’s Grandpa’s cute, picturesque farm for another Easter egg hunt.  They had a hotdog roast, horse riding, egg dieing, an Easter egg hunt, and a piñata. Thanks for the invite Callie and Richard, we had a great time! 

Easter at our house was quiet, but nice. 

We died easter eggs, and we all got Easter baskets from the Easter bunny.  Sean was really cute because he went around grabbing candy out of everyone’s baskets and then he held on to a few big candy eggs for quiet a while just walking around with them.  He was overwhelmed and loving it all!

Sean has been cute, as usual.  His favorite thing to do lately is jabber on at you like he’s having a conversation with you.  He doesn’t say very many real words in conversation, but he tries really hard to repeat things you say back to you when he can.  It’s cute too when he answers a question by nodding his head yes or no.  He also loves to be outside, all the time!  I think he would be outside all day if he could.

Colin is having a great time in preschool and in his play dates with friends. The latest thing with Colin is that he has 5ths disease.  It’s just a virus that acts like a cold during the contagious part, and then turns into a rash on the legs and arms with bright red cheeks that look like they’ve been slapped.  (also called slapcheek disease). Once he gets to the rash stage, he’s no longer contagious, so there’s no way to know that you have it before then. Sean got it the next day too.  Colin's a fun boy that likes to play with friends, jump on the trampoline, and play with daddy.

Devin’s been having fun playing soccer with John as his coach!  We went to 2 soccer games each week for 4 weeks in April and May! At his last game they all got trophies for good sportsmanship.  Devin and John have both loved sharing the team together.  John’s a great coach for the team! Besides Soccer, Devin’s favorite things to do are playing Super Mario Galaxy on the Wii, Playing outside on the trampoline, and playing with Daddy.

In April, Erin was in her school musical called “Dig It”.  It was all about ancient history (Greece, Mesopotamia, and Egypt) and she was a Grecian chorister.  She and a group of other choristers repeated lines together.  She loved the musical, and did such a great job!  I don’t know where she gets it! 

Erin also had her adenoids removed and tubes put in her ears this past week.  It’s never fun to have surgery, but she’s been a great sport.  She had tubes when she was little because she was having fluid build up in her ears enough that she couldn’t hear.  It’s been happening again off and on for the past few years during cold season. And when she spent a month with hearing loss in February, and March, a decided it was time to get her seen.  It turns out that because of her enlarged adenoids (kind of like tonsils except in the back of the nasal cavity) her sinuses were staying filled up causing sinus infections and making it so that her ears couldn’t drain properly. Hopefully now she won’t have that problem, as soon as she gets healed from the surgery itself.

As for me. . . life is a lot busier with my new calling in Relief Society.   I also find time to attend book group (whether I read the book or not), and I have finally been able to get a little scrapbooking in as well. 

Last of all, this last weekend we've had a new addition to our household.  This is Lilly! 

We are fostering her for 2 weeks to see how she fits in with our family.  Lilly used to be a test dog at the U of U, where the doctors learned how to do scopes on her and explore the lungs.  She's 4 years old now, and still a little like a puppy.  However, she is house trained, and very mild tempered.  She's taken really well to most of us, and we like her alot! We'll let you know what happens.

January

Sean started walking at the very beginning of the year.  Here he is, after only one week of walking.  He was really wobbly for the whole first month or so, but now he's a pro!  I can't get a video to upload, so I'll try again later.

For the last 9 months or so, we've been involved in a babysitting co-op.  It is the best thing ever!!!!  Every Friday we take our kids to one of 5 family's houses.  They spend the evening there playing, having snacks, and watching movies while John and I get to go on a date.  Then every 5 weeks it's our turn to babysit.  There can be up to 18 kids including our own, but it is so worth it every other Friday when we can go out and spend quality time together! 

This is John and some of the kids on our babysitting night.

Erin loves to take pictures, especially of Sean!  They had a great time taking these ones together. 

Also in January, Devin's Chinese class put on a program for the Chinese New Year.  It was really fun to see the kids sing and recite in Chinese! 

They made these Dragons for the occasion.

December '11

December brought Christmas programs, parties, and preparations.  Erin was in 2 programs at the school.  She was part of the Christmas choir, and she learned to play the recorder with the rest of the 4th grade. It's great to see kids involved!

John's work had a Christmas party at a fun bowling center this year!  They rented the whole place out for the evening and had bowling, unlimited laser tag and plenty of video arcading included!

The kids loved the bowling, but their favorite was the laser tag! (No pictures of that.)

There was also a very nice Christmas Dinner and lots of cash prizes!!!  John got to give out cash for a while too since he was on the party planning committee.

Christmas was very nice this year!  We had a quite Christmas eve at home with a turkey dinner. 

Then in the morning we opened part of our presents, went to church and then came back again for more presents! 

My favorite part of Christmas this year was the kids' gifts for each other.  I took them shopping at the dollar store and they bought presents for everyone with their own money.  They were more excited about those presents than they were for the ones from Santa!

Christmas afternoon we drove down to Mom and Dad's house. We saw all 3 of my brothers and their families.  And we found out that my youngest brother Richard and his wife Callie are expecting a baby!!! How exciting!!!  Congratulations guys!  We stayed the whole week there at Grandma and grandpa's house and had a great time. 

We spent New Years eve there too.  We celebrated New York style! We let the boys stay up until 10:00 when the ball dropped in NY, and the they went to bed.  Erin got to stay up later with the adults.  We played games, ate great food and had a great celebration!!! 

November '11

November brought tons of snow!  (we haven't had much since).  We got two major snow storms and the kids loved playing in it. 

 They got really creative!

We had Thanksgiving at my Mom and Dad's house again this year.  It was a quiet weekend, cause we were the only ones there!

While we were there, we went to see Santa. 

Erin and Devin had very specific things they were asking for.

Sean wanted nothing to do with Santa.

Colin wanted to ask Santa for things, but would not sit on his lap.  John happened to be sick the day we went to see Santa, so I had to hold Sean while helping Colin stand next to Santa and tell him what he wanted. It was comedy!  Sean was screaming, because he didn't like Santa, and Colin was whispering his requests.  This was a very good Santa!  He didn't seem to mind at all. 

  Grandma helped the big kids decorate a Gingerbread house too!  We had a great time there at Thanksgiving.

November 29th was Sean's 1st Birthday! 

 I can't believe my baby's 1!  He had a great day and was very pleased with his presents.

He grabbed the dinosaurs off his cake right away, and wondered why we were all singing.

At first, he didn't know what to do with this colorful thing in front of him.  When he touched it it made his hands sticky and he didn't like it. 

But when I gave him a taste of the frosting, he dug in!!!  He has a major sweet tooth now!