Baby Stockton is finally walking!

It's somewhat of an Esplin family tradition to take your sweet time to start walking. Stockton really took this to heart, and I think it's partially because his Momma is so happy to hold him all the time, that who needs to walk!?!  But after enough time and prompting from his sisters (Kaya loves to grab his arms and walk him around the house), he finally decided to try out life as a biped.

Happy Easter 2013!

Happy Easter!  For those of you that are used to seeing us make posts once every quarter... and usually of pictures that are 6 months old... you'll be quite amazed and impressed to see Easter pictures up before  9:30 am on Easter Sunday morning!

This is primarily due to the fact that Angela's parents are on a mission in Guyana, and we want them to be able to keep up to date with all the grandkids.  Rest assured, this is not due to the fact that we've suddenly become really organized and on top of things.  Quite the contrary.

Easter Dresses for Sunday 

Easter Egg Hunt on Saturday
My favorite part of the Easter egg hunt was when Alivia would only gather eggs that were colored yellow.
She would just march right by any egg of any other color.  She definitely knows what she wants!

What makes you think it was me???

Du Du Du Du du... afro circus polk-a-dot jungle

Dad, Kaya, Analise at the Circus

The circus came to town this month, and Luke got to take the girls with the rest of their girl scout troop.  They had a great time.  Kaya's favorite part was the girl that shot out of a cannon.  Analise enjoyed the elephants and tigers and dog tricks.

Central Park

After nearly 10 months of hiatus, we decided to add a few blog posts here and there.  

We'll start with a few pix from our July 2012 trip to Central Park.  (We go whenever we have guests, and this time we were enjoying having Angela's little sister Erica in town.)

Bow Bridge

Analise above Bethesda Fountains

Stockton & Dad

The girls by Bethesda Fountain

new Family Pix

While we were on vacation in Utah, we had some new family pix taken by Tracy Anderson (Mark Cherrington's older sister).  http://www.tracyandersonphoto.com/  She did a fantastic job as usual and we're very pleased to have some great new pix of our girls and baby boy.

Analise (age 7)

Alivia (age 2)

Kaya (age 5)

Stockton & Dad

Almost married for 10 years now!

It's a boy!!!

Born:  October 27th @ 11:31 am
20.75 inches.  8 lbs 2 oz.

We are thrilled to welcome a new addition to the Dean family.  He has been so much fun to have and to hold already.  We're still working on a name.  His little sisters were so excited!  Kaya said she would have been even happier if it was a sister, and Analise was so excited to tell her whole 2nd grade class that she now has a brother.  Many thanks to Cindy Manchester for staying over at our house and taking care of the 3 girls while we were at the hospital.

P.S.  Angela is much more tactful than I am, so she helped me remove this bottom part!  Main gyst of it is that we've never tried for either gender.  We are grateful for each child that has come into our family.

I finally got mentioned in the Wall Street Journal... sort of

A research paper I wrote with some professors at BYU got published this month, and apparently we struck a nerve!  The research was picked up by several media outlets:  Time, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, ABC news, CBS news, FOX news, Los Angeles Times, Men's Health, etc.

The only 2 that mentioned my name were the Deseret News and Men's Health.  The rest of them mention William Paterson University (my employer).

To see the stories, BYU has a nice link on their homepage:
BYU homepage cover story 

WPU also has a link on their homepage, but you can see the difference in resources between the 2 schools:
www.wpunj.edu

The research shows that when a married couple is materialistic that they have lower relationship satisfaction, poorer communication, more negative conflict, and lower relationship stability.  So while money is necessary and fun, if you focus on it too much it can be a detriment to things that matter the most in life.

Hurricane Irene vs North Jersey

We decided to hang out in Pennsylvania during the hurricane because there are several large old trees around our house and we didn't want to sit in the house for 12 hours worrying about if one of them would fall on us!  So instead, we spent Saturday touring the Hershey's Chocolate Factory and we spent Sunday driving the battlefields of Gettysburg since church was cancelled.

We were happy to make it back home the next day and find our house in one piece.  We can't say the same for our grocery store:

 Or the local KFC and hotel.  It looks like you definitely wanted to be on the 2nd floor of this hotel.

 And you definitely don't want to be the 1st to to see how far you can drive down the street before turning your new car into a lawn ornament.

This is the home of a member in our ward.  This is the exact reason we didn't want to sit through the storm.  Luckily no one was hurt.

A lot of the flooding has started to die down now, and most of the roads are opening up again.  Our school has delayed opening for another week, so we're happy and thankful to report that we survived Hurricane Irene.  And the girls thought the Hershey's Factory tour and the hotel pool were awesome.  So it turned out to be a nice excuse to see a few places we had been wanting to see since we moved out here 3 years ago.

Washington's Crossing and Philadelphia

While we had Brent & Julie visiting, we drove down to Philadelphia for a day trip and got to see where Washington crossed the Delaware River.  Followed by the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, The Philly Art Museum, Rocky Statue, and we made sure to eat cheesesteaks at Pat's (where they were invented) and ice cream at Bassett's (1st ice cream place in America).  It was a great trip and we had fun hanging out with family and seeing the sights.

Kaya & her cousin Elsa standing where Washington's troops landed

Elsa & Kaya standing in front of a flatboat they used to cross the Delaware River

Elsa & Kaya playing in the fountain at "Rocky" Art Museum in Philly

Kaya hasn't seen Rocky yet, but she knows the pose.

Lady Liberty

We finally made our 1st trip to the Statue of Liberty.  It was awesome.  Did you know that Mr. Eiffel built a mini-Eiffel Tower inside of her to help her stand up?

Angela's brother Brent and family came to visit and we had a whirlwind tour of NYC, Philadelphia, and north Jersey.  The girls loved having their cousins around, and we enjoyed having family around.  Brent's wife is Mark Cherrington's sister Julie and they are the couple responsible for setting us up on our 1st blind date about a decade ago!  We have tried to pay it forward by setting up other couples on blind dates, but we haven't had anything remotely close to a successful match yet.

Below are my 2 favorite pix of the entire Summer thus far:

This picture above has made me start wanting the new baby (coming in early November) to be another little girl.  I just think it would be so cute to have 4 little girls standing there in a row. 

The screensaver on my laptop is the picture below, which we took in DC a couple years ago.  This new picture of our girls looking out across the Hudson River reminded me of this picture of Analise and Kaya looking across the Potomac River, and it was kind of fun to see how our family has grown over that time. 

Everything REALLY IS Bigger in Texas

I truly believe this is the picture they'll use of me on the news if I ever go to jail for anything.

"The Big Guns"  =  50 caliber sniper rifle

I am (hopefully) less than 1 month away from completing my dissertation @ Texas Tech University.  I have spent the better part of the last 3 weeks in Lubbock, Texas working 6 days a week 10-12 hours per day on the dissertation.  After church last Sunday, my dissertation buddy (Jacob) stopped by to visit some old friends, and one of them brought out the big guns and an assortment of sniper rifles used by the Navy SEAL's, Marines, and even some old vintage WWII rifles like the M-1 Grand and a Carbine.

I generally think that when someone is working on a dissertation, that weapons or sharp items of any kind should be kept at a safe distance until the mental health of the grad student has stabilized.  I also have the impression that you can visit just about any house in Texas and see an impressive gun collection.  Just saying.

While Dad has been working on dissertation and eating BBQ, brisket, burritos, TexMex, and fish tacos -- Angela has lived up to her WonderWoman reputation and kept 3 baby girls happy and healthy at home while I get this done.  Her little sister Erica saved the day by agreeing to come out and provide back-up for almost two weeks before she starts working at her new job.  They have their hands full, but they have managed to work in a trip to the Museum of Natural History, the Manhattan Temple, the Jersey shore (Editors note:  I think you can still go to the LDS temple after visiting the actual Jersey shore, just not after you visit with the actual cast of Jersey Shore).  And they will be hitting a Broadway Show later this week if they can find a babysitter.

DC Marathon: March 26, 2011

In a recent bout with "Mid Life Crisis" my oldest brother J.B. decided that he wanted to run a marathon when he turned 40.  I told him I'd run with him, and we have spent the last 3 months training together via text message.  And to our surprise, our other brother Randy joined us and lost approx 40-50 pounds during his 2 months of training.  We had a ton of fun with our mini-family reunion and we all finished!  Here are some pix and memorable moments from the trip.

We all went out for a pasta dinner the night before.  Angela wrestled 3 kids into compliance.
She tried to enjoy being out with the bro's, but the look on her face says it all, doesn't it?

Back at the hotel, Analise & Kaya ready to hit the pool with Daddy.

Cousin Addison cheering on Analise for her "Monument Mile".  She ran the whole mile race without stopping, or falling (which is good since they ran on an asphalt parking lot!)

Luke & J.B. shortly after the finish.  J.B. looks like he's ready for 10 more miles, doesn't he?

Shortly after Randy finished.  He was the 5th fastest distance runner in the nation in 8th grade. 
Now he's 5th in the family!

The 3 brothers!  Triumphant and tired.

Our group @ the finish line.  It was really fun getting together with the brothers.
We thought it was awfully rude of our oldest brother to beat us so badly, but he didn't seem to have any remorse.

While we were @ the Marathon, some hoodlams busted the windows on our van and J.B.'s car.
A frustrating finish to a very fun and memorable trip.  We had to vacuum all the glass out of the van, tape & cardboard up the window for the ride home.

We are certain that some robber in D.C. is walking around telling other robbers "Don't ever rob a mini-van".  Because this aspiring delinquent discovered that mini-vans aren't full of valuables... they're full of diapers, wipes, Pillow Pets, crumbs, books, blankets, and carseats.  I also need to say that he MISSED with his 1st throw of the rock, and he hit the window frame on the top right side, instead of hitting the window.  Although this cost me extra money to fix, I have to say, it's provided me great utility to picture this guy throwing a rock from 3 feet away and MISSING the whole freaking window on a minivan!  I mean, come on son!  That window is like 3 feet wide and 2 feet high.  If you can't hit that target, you need to find a new profession or hire a designated thrower for your next target.  (Which won't ever be a minivan.)

Happy 2nd Birthday Alivia Roma!!!

For Alivia's 2nd b-day, we drove over to Easton, PA to visit the Crayola Factory.  The girls got to see how a crayon was made, and were given a "newborn" crayon that they watched as it was made.  There were about 10 different coloring, painting, drawing, and molding stations.  It was a huge hit with the girls and it ended up being perfect for Alivia to kickoff what seemed like a week-long birthday celebration.

The World's Largest Crayon!!!

Liv's making a book

Welcome to heaven.  (If it was designed by a 2 year old).

Outside the Crayola Factory in Easton, PA



"I want do'da!  A do'da!  Do'da, please!"



Liv's lovin all the presents.

Are you kidding me?  Mom is encouraging me to draw on the wall?

There was melted wax in the stations, you could paint with & let it dry.  Pretty cool.

Oddly enough... all 3 girls unanimously said the "National Canal Museum" on the 3rd floor of the Crayola factory was the BEST part of the whole day.  I'm not kidding.  They had to float their boats up the canal using locks and spillways.  Just goes to show that playing around in water is #1, 2, and 3 on kids Top 10 list of favorite things to do.