Christmas 2014

Christmas Eve started off with Jason's first day skiing! He was a really good sport. I took him to the free Alta tow ropes while Kyle stayed home with Noah. As a novice teacher, I had no idea how much strength was required to help a child learn how to ski, nor how much more strength was required to hold onto the tow rope and a child at the same time. I was four months pregnant and exhausted after just two runs. Jason suggested that next time we try the chair lifts instead, and I agreed. I told Kyle from now on he can teach the kids how to ski.

That afternoon and evening we spent with the Hunsakers. We started off visiting Anne's grave. 

Back at the house we had a wonderful dinner, followed by lots of fun activities. Grandma Diane gave all the grandkids these fun, flashing Christmas necklaces to wear for the evening.

Each family provided some live Christmas music. The kids had a great time dancing up the songs. And of course, Christmas Bingo is always a favorite tradition.

For the past few years, instead of giving sibling gifts and parent gifts, we (the Hunsaker family) have chosen to give the money that would have been spent to a family in need. Christmas Eve we all shared what we did. My mom also had the great idea for the whole family to write letters to our cousin, Guy, who is in prison. I know these activities will help the children understand the true meaning of Christmas.

Christmas morning we woke up to a very white Christmas. Jason woke up earlier than usual (6:40) to open presents, but we only let him open his cereal and made him wait until 8:00 when we woke up Noah before opening presents. We learned the hard way that we should have bought two of everything we got for Jason. Noah just wanted whatever Jason got. Jason got more Angry Birds toys, a new race track, and art supplies. Noah got a pretend cell phone, a dragon, and art supplies. 

I was excited to use our first ever stockings this year. I started making them two weeks before Christmas, but having a firm deadline kept the project rolling along with help from Jason, Kyle, and my mom.

 Around lunch time we made our way to Grandma Linda's house. The boys enjoyed opening more gifts there. We ate a nice lunch, and then waited for the main event-- a call from Blair (in Bolivia on a mission). When the kids got restless, Kyle busted out his own Christmas gift (a balloon pump) and made balloon swords for all the kids. Kyle is going to become very handy at birthday parties and various gatherings.

 We are grateful for families, and all our many blessings!

A Jolly Christmas Prayer

For the majority of December, Noah has pretended to be Santa, complete with the hat and a deep voice. When he sees a picture of Santa, he points to it and says, "Look. That's me." Noah also calls me "Mommy Elf" and Kyle "Rudolph." We too are expected to play along with Santa on a daily basis. Jason is not always part of the game because he refuses to be told by anyone (Noah) who he should be. One night as we gathered for family prayer, I asked Noah if he would like to say it. Noah said, "Yes. I am Santa." The prayer went like this:

Kate: Dear Heavenly Father.

Noah: silence

Kate: Thank you for this day.

Noah: (In a deep Santa voice) Thank you for this day. HO, HO, HO.

Stifled laughter

Kate: We are grateful daddy got home safely.

Noah: (Deep voice) Yes.

Uncontrollable laughter. End of the prayer.

Although I'm sure it's not nearly as funny through this retelling, Kyle and I still laugh when we think back to this prayer.

In other news relating to this cute Santa, he has officially given up naps as of this month. He is following in Jason's footsteps, giving up naps before age three. Although I still miss my alone time to clean up the house, I have enjoyed going to Christmas parties without the worry of naps.

Christmas Card 2014

Designed by Kyle, and I think he did an awesome job!

Boy #3

We are having another boy! No big surprise there. After having two boys, I really figured our chances were high of having all boys, so I just told myself it was a boy. I actually even had a dream about it being a boy, and then I told Kyle the dream, and then he had a dream that the baby was a boy, but I don't rely on our dreams to tell me my future. Still, it is funny to relate. 

Jason, Noah, and my mom (who was baby-sitting) were the first to know after Kyle and I got back from the appointment. My doctor's office has dum-dums for the taking, so I picked out two blue dum-dums. When I got home, I told Jason and Noah to close their eyes, and then open them to guess if the baby would be a boy or girl. Jason opened the sucker that I placed in his hand and guessed right. Noah did a full-on dance, but I am sure it was just for the sucker. He still seems pretty clueless about the whole baby thing, but he has started noticing my belly sticking out. Jason was hoping for a girl, but he accepted the news gladly.

Noah had already consumed his sucker by the time I got the camera out.

Eighth Anniversary=Hawaii

Kyle and I celebrated our 8th anniversary this October. It was Kyle's year to plan the celebration, and he went all out this year. He planned a trip to Maui, which we were able to take a month late in November. It's a good thing we had that trip to look forward to, because our October anniversary date this year had some dead ends (gift cards not working, dance sold out), but at least we can still have fun just hanging out!

In Maui we stayed at the Wailea Marriott Resort. We enjoyed amazing snorkeling right from our resort. We were both a little nervous doing it at first, but then we settled in and became amazing beginners.

Enjoying our outdoor Luau:

I found this little guy in the hotel room and released him back into the wild:

Whoops! I meant this little guy:

We enjoyed the views and hikes around Haleakala National Park:

We also survived the Road to Hana! Actually, we survived beyond the road to Hana. We drove right on through Hana to the tropical side of Haleakala National Park where we enjoyed hiking the Pipiwai Trail to see this beautiful waterfall and the Pools of Oheo. The bamboo forest that we hiked through was pretty amazing too.

Mostly we just enjoyed being together in a such a warm, relaxing, romantic, and beautiful place. We are so grateful to the grandmas and aunts and cousins who looked after our kids so we could enjoy this trip. The boys thought they were the ones on vacation because they had so much fun. Noah was asking to go back to Grandma Diane's house the day after we got home. And if you missed our subtle announcement with the Halloween pictures, I am expecting baby #3. In these pictures I am 16 weeks along.

Thanks for a great celebration, Kyle. I love you!

Miscellaneous Fall Pictures

Jason running in his school's jog-a-thon. Noah and his friend, Chloe, were great supporters:

Jason learned how to ride a bike with two wheels! He still needs to gain more confidence in his ability. He learned to ride it on Alta High School's track, because it is nice and wide and you don't have to worry about cars or bushes.

We took advantage of a free tram ride at Snowbird:

Kyle turned 30! We carved pumpkins as a part of the birthday celebration:

Jason received the "Steer Toward Success" Award at his elementary. His teacher nominated him because "Jason does such a great job with the rules in our class. He is a great example." Way to go, Jason!

These boys are playing really well together. Jason is a great leader and Noah enjoys being told what to do--most of the time. They like to pretend they are different types of animals. Noah will often walk around holding his blanket to his bum pretending it is a tail. He also makes a lot of noise with his roaring like a dinosaur. My job is to be the doting mother who finds these homeless animals, or to be scared, or to occasionally get eaten. Almost all of these "animals" start off as an "egg" hidden under a blanket that I get to watch hatch, whether or not they are mammals or reptiles.

Jason has become very crafty. Recently, he plastered our windows with snowflakes, then turkeys, and now with Christmas decorations. It keeps him busy, and the creativity is fun to see.

Halloween

The boys got excited for Halloween very early this year. In June, they started requesting that we check out "spooky" stories from the library. By the time October rolled around we had checked out nearly every Halloween story from the library. It has been fun watching and listening to them play Halloween together in the basement. I have had my turn being a vampire, werewolf, mummy, monster, skeleton, and various other scary creatures while playing with them. They also loved driving through the neighborhood looking for spooky decorations. Noah loved looking for the "getgins"(skeletons).

Jason & Noah at Ward Party

This year Jason was set on being an Angry Bird for Halloween, no shocker there. We were actually surprised how long it lasted. Last year his costume wish changed at least weekly. This year, it lasted all the way up to Halloween day. On Halloween he decided he wanted to be the Hulk (he had already dressed up as an Angry Bird for three different parties). I think he chose the Hulk because we already had the costume from the previous year. Noah didn't really express a strong desire to be anything, so we were planning on dressing him up as Batman. He was Batman at two Halloween parties this year. Then on Halloween day, he saw the tiger costume that he wore the year before and was adamant that he would be a tiger again this year (even though the costume is a 12 month size). Fortunately, he was able to fit in the costume.

Jason has also had a lot of fun this year making spook alleys with his cousins Liam and Sadie. Sadie, Liam, and Jason made a bunch of spooky decorations for a spook alley at the Hunsaker Halloween party and again when Kate and I were in Hawaii. Jason also made some decorations for a spook alley at our house. The decorations included monsters, ghosts, and spiderwebs.

Halloween was a lot of fun this year!

This egg will hatch in April 2015

Kyle as Bronco Mendenhall

Big Cottonwood Canyon Marathon

Me and Jason at the finish line

I never thought I would have the desire to run a marathon. I have never been a runner and have recently gotten into running because of Kate. She is more of a runner and gets me to go running with her. I enjoy running with her and so the past two years we have done half marathons together. This year, after completing the Timpanogos half marathon, I had the thought that maybe I should give a marathon a try sometime in the next two or three years. When I told this to Kate, she said that this year would probably be the best time to do it since I was already half-way trained. I still wasn't 100% sure I wanted to do it yet. I brought this up to the Scoutmaster in our ward, who I worked with closely as the assistant scoutmaster and is an avid runner, and he said that he would run it with me. Having someone to run it with made the decision a lot easier and I decided to give it a go.

Me and Steve

I started training with Steve (scoutmaster) shortly after the half marathon in July. It was great to have Steve to train with. He had already run a couple of marathons and had great advice on training programs and how to get ready for running a marathon. Each week I would do the weekly long run with Steve on Saturday or Friday and run on my own for the "shorter" runs.

Things went pretty well throughout the training. I had to get new shoes shortly after the half marathon. I was worried about switching shoes in the middle of training, but I had been using my previous pair for over 7 years and needed a new pair. I was originally very happy with my choice of shoes, but I started having some problems during the longer runs. I'm still not sure if it is because of the shoes or if it is because I had never run such long distances before. None of the problems were serious enough to stop running, so I pressed on.

The Saturday before the marathon I hurt my right calf. I'm not sure how I hurt it, but it felt as though I had pulled a muscle. I was disappointed to get hurt so close to the marathon. To not make anything worse, I stopped training. On Thursday night I taped my leg and did a test run around my neighborhood. It still did not feel 100%, but I ran for about a mile. I decided that I would continue to rest and give it a try on Saturday.

On Saturday morning, I met up with Steve bright and early to drive to the marathon shuttle. I hadn't run yet, but my leg was feeling pretty good. Steve was hoping to improve his qualifying time for the Boston marathon, so he went to the front of the pack at the starting line. I wasn't sure how I would do, so I stayed back a ways to test out my leg. After the race started, my leg felt 100%. I was very excited and was able to get going at a pace I had been training for. My hope was to get a time around 3:30, but I still didn't really know what to expect. I caught up to the 3:15 pacer and was able to keep up with that pace for quite a while. The race started about 15 miles up the Big Cottonwood Canyon and I kept that pace throughout the canyon run (I made it to the half way point in just over an hour and a half)!

I was feeling great! Then I reached mile 17 and I started feeling a strong pain in my left knee. Unfortunately, I had recently passed a medical station so I started walking until I reached the next station at about mile 20 to 22. The station offered ibuprofen and Bengay. I had already taken some ibuprofen just before my knee went out, so I elected for some Bengay. It didn't relieve any of the pain and I ended up walking the rest of the way. Kate was nice enough to walk the last 3 miles with me. She was a great support and when we reached a steep downhill incline I was able to lean on her while I walked backwards.

The boys, Kate's parents, and my mom were waiting at the finish line for me. It was great to have them all there for the support. Jason was even nice enough to jog through the finish line with me! I was able to finish the marathon in about 4:46. Not quite what I was hoping for, but not bad considering the circumstances.

Jason Starts Kindergarten

This is what Jason looked like on his first day of Kindergarten. He was so excited-- not scared at all-- which made it easier for me to send him off. I got a little teary-eyed in the morning, but by lunch time he was driving me so crazy wanting to go to school, that I was glad to see him go. Noah, however, cried hard because he wanted to go to school too. 

Before school started, Kyle took Jason on a date to pick out a backpack and eat snow cones. Jason didn't have to think very hard before he chose this Angry Birds backpack. 

Jason still loves Kindergarten. He thinks it is cool to go five days a week. I volunteer in his class for an hour on Thursdays, which gives me a fun opportunity to see him in school. 

August 2014

Boating at Deer Creek

Celebrating Grandma Diane's, Heather's, and Matt's birthdays

Hill Aerospace Museum

Saying goodbye to Max, Heather, and Mitch. We will miss these guys so much. Wish they didn't have to move so far away.

I took Noah and Jason to the Ogden Temple Open House, but I neglected to take a picture.

We had an awesome summer. Jason, Noah, and I burned through a lot of gas on all of our adventures. I will remember these days fondly.