Merry Christmas

We hope that this Christmas finds everyone happy and healthy. Have a very Merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

Happy Birthday Kevin and David

Okay, I know it has been a really long time. No, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. Yes, I have been busy. But mostly I have been lazy about updating. Sorry.

We had a wonderful day on Kevin and David's birthday. Kevin is just old. David turned 6. I can't believe he is 6 years old. We had our usual big party for them. Thanks to everyone who braved the weather and came to support and celebrate with us. And those who couldn't make it we missed you but completely understand.

Kevin is a wonderful husband who loves to spoil me and takes really good care of me. I love you so much and I'm lucky to have you in my life.

David is such a joy to have around. He is learning to read in kindergarten and he loves it. He is so smart and loves to make people laugh. I love you buddy!

Tyler's 1st Birthday

Can you believe he is 1! I waited to blog about his birthday until after his appointment so that I could tell you that he is 21 pounds (34%), 29 inches (25%).

We had a big party for him Saturday night. All of our family came and we had a lot of fun.
The toys in his hands are just 2 of the fun presents he got.


And he really enjoyed his cake.

We love having Tyler in our family. He is such a happy and good baby. The last year has been wonderful. He has brought such joy to our family. And we look forward to the future.

We love you Tyler

Halloween

We had a great Halloween. The kids all enjoyed wearing their costumes all day. David and Ashlie had lots of fun going Trick-or-Treating with their cousins. All in all it was a great day!

Tyler's Walking

Tonight we went to my families ward Halloween party. David and Ashlie ran around everywhere having fun. Tyler enjoyed being passed between Grandpa, Grammy, Aunt Jessica and Aunt Anganel. All of the sudden I looked down at him and he started to walk! We were all VERY excited and enjoyed cheering him on.

It was a good ending to a not so good day.

David Lost His First Tooth!!

Actually he lost it about 2 weeks ago, I just haven't gotten around to blogging it 'till now. I did manage to take pictures though.

We were at Grammy's house and he was eating a caramel cookie when it fell out! I think that it was really ironic that this is the way that it fell out because the Sunday before Grandpa Roger had told me to give him caramel to make the tooth come out.

David was really excited to put his tooth under his pillow that night. And even more excited that the tooth fairy brought him a dollar.



I put his tooth in a plastic bag so I didn't loose it between Grammy's house and home. Dad suggested that we leave the tooth in the bag. David made us leave a message for the tooth fairy to leave the bag, because he wanted the bag!

When I asked him what he was going to do with his dollar, I suggested he put it in his bank and he did.

His tooth came out the day before they did school pictures. We should get those back soon and I will post those pictures.

Oh Roger!!

He is so many wonderful things - husband, dad, stepdad, friend, but most of all for my family he is a wonderful grandpa. He will be missed for so many reasons.

Here are a few memories that I have started recording so that my children can now ( and hopefully remember some) of what thier grandpa love to do with them.

How he loved his grandkids and kids! He never said so, but mom knew that he would never grow up. He always wanted to be a kid and his grandkids help with that.

He loved to take David back into Deena's room and mess it up. They would hide her chapstick or lipgloss in the foot of her bed and things like that. She would find little suprises all over her room for days!

He loved to get out the water hose and let the kids get wet, no matter what they were wearing. And he said it was always more fun when Mom didn't come prepaired with a clean change of clothes.

We all went sledding down the driveway of the house across the street (there was nobody living in the house at the time). David got completely soaked. Grandpa threw his clothes in the dryer and gave him one of his old shirts to wear in the meantime. Grandpa gave us the shirt and it turned into Davids favorite pair of pajamas.

One of the many times that we went to visit, Mom and Grandpa were sitting in the front yard visiting and Grandpa decided to turn on the water faucet in the front and let the water run down the driveway. David and Ashlie loved it. He then found a bucket to put the water in and then dumped it over. Ashlie decided it was a bath and would climb in the bucket. She ended up pretty wet that day.

No matter what Grandpa was doing he would find someway to let David and Ashlie try to help.

Grandpa had a raspberry bush in the back yard. He really enjoyed taking David and Ashlie out to pick rasberries. They would each come in the house with a bag full of raspberries and usually have them eaten before we left.

From about age 6 months to 11 months Tyler was very leary of strangers. We would walk into Grandma and Grandpa Rogers house and he would take one look at Grandpa (and Grandma) and cry-trying his hardest to get back to mom or dad. But once he got used to everyone he would sit with Grandpa and loved him just as much as anyone else.

Grandpa loved to make popcorn. David loved to watch grandpa's popcorn popper. He would sit and stare at it until all the popcorn was popped. Then he would share the popcorn with everyone. Ashlie was alway happy to eat it.

Grandpa loved to give us ice cream, especially the drumsticks by Nestle.

And olives. Grandpa loved olives but nobody in the house would eat them, so every time we would go to his house for dinner he would open some olives and make us help him eat it. There were times that mom ended up eating half the can.

We left Ashlie's flip flops at Grandpa and Grandma's house for about 3 weeks. One day, on a Thursday, Grandpa showed up at our house just to bring Ashlie her flip flops. Ashlie was so excited to see him. He had a hard time getting away because she wanted him to stay play.

The day before he passed away, Mom had been so sick and didn't even go to church. We decided that we really need to go. As soon as we walked in he started chasing David and Ashlie around teasing them. And trying to hold Tyler (with out much success-at least at first anyway). Mom and Dad sat and visited with Grandma and Grandpa, and even worked on a crossword puzzle a little bit. Mom is so grateful that she went, even though she didn't feel good.

He is a wonderful Grandpa who loved to spoil his grandkids - in every sense of the word. He has lots of friend and people who love him. We are very lucky to have had him in our lives

I know that the picture really isn't the best picture, but I love that picture. He truly would try and include my kids in everything he was doing.

We love you Grandpa Roger and will miss you!

Random things

Since school has started, I have tried to walk David to and from school. I love it. And when I actually do it, I walk about 4 miles a day! I feel great and totally exhausted. I have enjoyed it, until yesterday when I was quickly walking down the stairs, not paying attention to where I was going, and stepped on a toy that was at the bottom of the steps! I twisted my ankle and it still hurts. I don't think I broke anything but I defiantly bruised it. The main reason I am blogging right now is that I am trying to not clean my house so that I stay off my ankle so it can get better. I am horrible at this!

An update on Tyler- he is on a bottle full time. I just had to wait for him to get hungry enough to take a bottle. I felt guilty doing that, but it worked. It has been a rather easy transition. Tyler seems to enjoy the freedom of a bottle.

Help!

I finally got Tyler to take a bottle!! We started out with 1 particular bottle, which I only have 1 of, but today I tried a different bottle and he liked it!! I am very excited about this because up until just recently he wouldn't take a bottle at all. My next dilemma is he will only take the bottle if it has apple juice or water in it. I can't get him to drink formula or milk. Does anyone have any good suggestions that might help?

First Day Of School

David started kindergarten on Tuesday! So far he loves it. I have been crazy running him back and forth everyday. I am not used to everyday. When he went to preschool the last 2 years it was only 2 days a week. This was only made harder because our van broke down on Monday and I have been squeezing 3 car seats in the back of a 4 door car!
After getting home on the first day I asked him what he did and the first thing he said was "I didn't learn to read yet"! He is so excited to read. Go figure, his Dad loves to read, and I do too-when I have time. Ha ha!






Ashlie got to start preschool on Wednesday. When we first got there all she wanted to do was play. I had to walk her over to where she was supposed to be and tell her to grab a book to look at. "But mom, I want to play", was the answer I kept getting. Finally I got her to sit and I was able to leave.
When I picked her up she got really mad at me because she wanted to ride the bus and I wouldn't let her. When she calmed down I was able to get her to talk about what she did in preschool and she had lots of fun. This is her trying to say cheese and "smile" at the same time.

Happiness for Today

Why is it that sometimes the silliest things make us happy. Well I had one of those today. Brace yourself, this is really exciting.



We got the garage door fixed!!!



Silly, isn't it? I know! But I can't help the feelings of excitment. Our garage door broke 3 weeks ago and we have been parking in the driveway. We couldn't have picked a better time for it to brake. The weather has been hot but it's so nice not to have to drag kids through the rain or worse snow. I didn't think I minded parking in the driveway, until we got it fixed today and started with the happy dance around the house, singing to my kids "it's fixed, I'm so happy"!

My conversation with the kids about Christ

David decided that he didn't want to go to church today. He argument for staying home was "but I already know everything about Jesus". I was intrigued so I asked, "why do we celebrate Christmas? Why do we celebrate Easter?" He gave me a blank stare and shrugged his sholders. Oh good, I guess that I need to step it up and teach my children the real reason for Christmas and Easter.

Later as we were in the car on our way to Grammy and Grandpa's house, I decided to ask what David talked about in his primary class. Of course he told me he couldn't remember. Ashlie on the other hand starts telling me how Jesus died. I took me several times of asking her to repeat herself but I finally understood that she was telling me that "they put Jesus on a stick and that's how Jesus died"!!! I was amazed that my 3 year old could tell me this but my 5 year old can't even remember if they showed a picture in his class.

New Friends & Date Night

David and Ashlie have discovered what neighbor hood friends are. The cute kids who live across the street have started coming over and asking if they can play. It has been really fun.

On Wednesday nights Kevin and I have our date night. We feed the kids mac and cheese and after they go to bed we do our own dinner and watch a movie. In the past we have gone out to get something to eat. Tonight we decided to try something new. We stayed home and made crepes- thanks Maureen for the yummy recipe. It was really fun. We have decided to try some new recipes. And since our kids don't like to try new things, we will try them without the kids.

Camping

David and Ashlie got to go camping with Grandpa David and Grandma Chris! They had so much fun! They left on Thursday afternoon and came home today. They haven't stopped talking about how much fun they had.

Tyler, Kevin and I had some fun while they were gone. We went out to eat several times, and Kevin and I managed to sneak away to watch "Wall-e". The remainder of the time was spent cleaning. Not very exciting, but can be gratifying. I cleaned the carpet in the family room, go through the toys and give some of them away.

All in all, everyone had a good weekend. I missed them and am very glad to have him them home again.

Thanks again Grandpa and Grandma for taking them camping.

9 Months

Tyler is 9 months old today! He weighs 20 pounds 2 ounces (44 percentile), is 28 inches long (53 percentile). He has 3 teeth, 2 on the bottom, 1 on the top and another one about to cut any day. He crawls and pulls himself up to a standing position. As soon as we put him down he is off to get into something that he shouldn't. He loves to follow David and Ashlie everywhere (that he can anyway) and they love to get him to laugh!

Tyler is such a wonderful blessing to our family. We all love him and are so greatful that he has joined our family.

Happy Pioneers Day

We had lots of fun on the 24th of July. Actually we celebrated on the 23rd. All of my family came to our house for pizza, homemade ice cream, and fireworks. David didn't care much for the sparklers but did enjoy the popits and the rest of the fireworks, especially when he could watching his shadow on the house while he danced.

Ahslie loved the all of it. She really got into the sparklers.

We were very grateful to be able to have everyone over to our house and be able to have so much fun, with out any accidents.

Dinner time........AUGH

Dinner time is a real challenge at our house. Last night we had wagon wheels. I guess most people would call it foil dinners. It's potatoes, carrots, hamburger, you know the kind most people wrap in foil and cook over the fire while camping only we have as more of a casserole that's been baked in the oven. My family grew up calling it wagon wheels because the carrots look like wheels.

Ashlie refused to eat it. She chose to sit in the corner for about 30-45 mins rather than eat. With David it was a little bit of struggle but not to bad. Ashlie did finally eat and was able to enjoy the rest of the evening with the family.

Tonight we had pizza! Granted it was frozen pizza, but it was Frechettia, one of the nicer frozen pizza. And what kid doesn't love pizza of any kind. Well David refused to eat it. He sat in the corner for a while. But still refused to eat. Even with the promise of brownies if he ate-yes, we resort to bribery with our children, but not every night.

This is continually a challenge and we continually endure. And try new things, learn from our errors.

It can't last forever, right???

Time to Get Started

I am blogging for all the same reasons. I want to try and keep family and friends updated on my fun children. I also am not very good about keeping a journal. I have enjoyed reading blogs and hope that others enjoy reading about our family.