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!!! 

September '11

I can't believe that I still have Summer stuff on my blog, and it's the dead of Winter.  Time to catch up!  September means School, and I have 3 in school this year!  They all started on the same day:  the day after Labor day.  Everyone was excited.  Erin is in 4th grade this year.

Devin (going into 1st grade) bumped his head right before this picture!  Then we rushed him right out the door to school!  Oops!

Colin was excited, but nervous to start preschool.  When I left him he cried.  But once he discovered how fun it was, he never cried again.

We also went to the Utah State Fair.  After doing several things as a family, we let the kids each choose 1 ride to go on. 

Erin chose this bungee bouncer.  She loved it! 

They all loved the animals!

Also in September, Erin got her Brown Belt!  Only one more belt left!

September 15th was Colin's 4th Birthday!  He's getting so big!  I decided that this year it would be fun for him to have his first friend party!  He invited 4 friends, and they had a great time!

Then later on when John got home, we celebrated again with more cake and ice cream!

On September 17th, John ran the marathon that he had been training for all summer!  His goal was to do it in 4 hours.  He did pretty well!  He did it in 4 hours 15 minutes!  An excellent time for his very first marathon ever!

Devin has started losing his baby teeth!  He lost the first one in August and the second one in September.

And what did the tooth fairy do with his 2 teeth?  She passed them on to Sean!  (Sean really got his first 2 teeth in July, but it was kind of cute that he had the 2 teeth that Devin was missing)  :-)

Here's my cut Sean at 10 months old!  At this point he was doing an army crawl, pulling to stand, clapping, mimicking everything, and just being a cutie (when he wasn't teething).

April/May

Well, There's more for April. Erin entered a couple of art pieces in a contest (like reflections) at school. She won an Honorable mention on her tiger picture!

Erin and John had a Daddy Daughter date in April too. They dressed up fun and had a great time playing games and dancing.

In early May, I took the two little boys and went on Devin's field trip to the Hogle Zoo. There were so many parents there, that we got Devin to ourselves! It was a lot of fun. I just wished Erin and John could be there. Maybe another time.

Sean touching his toes! (May, 5 Months old)

Also in May, John took a weekend trip down to Bryce Canyon and Cedar City with a couple of his Mission Companions and College friends, Duane and Chad. They had a great trip reminiscing and visiting with friends.

May was the ending of the school year too, so Erin and Devin both had school programs. Erin's was all about patriotism.

Devin's was all about animals. I made his costume out of a black sweater and sweats he had, and some scrap materials. He did a great job learning about his animal and singing the songs with the group.

For Memorial weekend, we went up to Park City with Mom and Dad. We stayed at their condo and even though it was cool, they all went swimming. We also went to the Olympic park. Mom and I went on a tour while John, Dad and the kids went on the alpine slide and zip lines. It was an adventurous day!

And, Yes it snowed while we were there!

I'm Back!

I think it's about time I posted. It's been a while, so I'm going to do a quick overview of what we've been up to. So much has happened that I think I'll split it up over a few different blogs, so it doesn't seem so daunting.

My Brother Richard took his sweetheart, Callie to the temple on April 6th. It was a great day! My brother Ryan and sister Monica were both able to fly in to Salt Lake for it! I'm so happy they chose to go through the temple! In the picture L-R: Monica, My Dad, Tasha and Roger (behind), Callie and Richard (front), Ryan, Mom, Mindy, and Me and John.

Also in April, Erin did a science project at her school. We started working on it in February. She observed our chickens, and the change in weather to see if the warming weather had a affect on the number of eggs our chickens produced. Turns out it does, but that's not the best part. She won a first place ribbon at her school, and was told she should submit it for the School District as well. It turns out that she got a first place ribbon there as well! We are so proud of her! It was a lot of work, and frustration, but she hung in there! Great job Erin!

For Easter this year, we went to Delta to stay with Mom and Dad. We had a great Easter with Four-wheeling, hunting for eggs, coloring eggs, eating good food, and playing games. Thanks Mom and Dad for a great time.

February

February has been busy. I had these cute pictures of Sean taken at about 6 weeks old
Erin turned 9 on February 7th, so on the Friday before, she had her birthday party. It was a late night party where they watched The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. We provided snacks and treats, started the movie, braked for cake and presents, and then sent the girls home. It was fun, (It was easy!) and the girls loved it. I made this really cute birthday cake. On Sunday the 6th, (My sister's birthday), We had Sean's baby blessing. We had a lot of friends and family come. Thanks to all who could. My mom made his cute outfit. He also had the sweater and blanket that John was Christened in 37 years ago. His Grandma made them. That was really special to us.

Sean is such a sweet little baby and we love him a ton, but he has been very difficult. He had a hard time gaining weight! It took him 2 months to be back to his birth weight of 9lbs, 15oz. He went as low as 8 lbs 9oz at one point. It's not because we haven't tried either. I nursed him faithfully with very little supplementing at first. Then as he kept losing, and/or not gaining quickly enough, I supplemented more. The more I supplemented, the fussier he got. I tried everything I could to continue nursing him: Waking him continually, Pumping after, Pumping during, compressions to keep him sucking. Nothing worked. I didn't produce very filling milk in the first place, and on top of that, he was a lazy little nurser. We just got to a point where nursing was just more frustrating than rewarding, and then we called it quits. Now Sean has 8, 6oz bottles each day and has chunked up big time. He's now about 11 1/2 lbs. (according to my not very accurate scale). The biggest thing we've noticed about him though is that he's happy, and that makes us all very happy. After nursing 3 kids very successfully for until they were each 1 year old, I now have a formula fed baby. It's completely new territory for me, but in a way it's a little liberating. Thank heaven for formula.

I just had his 3 month old picture taken today. When I get them, I'll post them asap.