Wednesday, January 28, 2015

It's my party!!!

Earlier this month I had a birthday.  I was showered with sweet birthday gifts, wishes and cards and phone calls from people I love.  It was probably one of my best birthdays!  Tracen had gone with Luke into Wal-mart one night to get my birthday gift a few days before my birthday and asked everyday if it was my birthday yet.  He really wanted to give me my  present.  On my birthday he couldn't wait for me to open it.  I could tell he picked it out himself:


A new Lego City set.  I have been sharing it with him ever since!  It actually is a good gift to me, as he loves to sit and play with his Lego. 
I also had to post these pictures of my little cat-boy.  I don't know why he loves that bottom step, but he really loves to just lay there.
Luke worked late the night before so that he could take off from work early and surprised me with some money for new clothes (and arranged for me to go shopping with Jamie the next morning), Jazz tickets, and a letter. 
We headed into the "city" and had a great dinner with Jamie and Chet (and it was even better because they didn't tell the server it was my birthday, and I didn't have to do anything embarrassing).

Then Jamie and Chet babysat our boys (and actually took them swimming... better than what we do) and Luke and I got to go on an actual date like Will Smith's song, Just the Two of Us. 
We went to the Laker/Jazz game. Luke is a big Lakers fan (too bad Kobe wasn't playing... but does he ever play anymore, I think retirement is calling his name) and it was sad to see them lose (for him, I could care less) but fun to be there and have great seats.
Jamie was the best host, and made me my favorite cake (that I can eat without dairy or chocolate) and I had some more for breakfast the next morning.

We went shopping for a few hours, then went for some lunch and hit the road back to Vernal.  I am not even going to talk about getting older - because that has been making me feel emotional, but I am excited for this next year.  I just love (and hate, because i get really sentimental) looking back on the past year and seeing all that has happened, how I've grown, or this past year, our family literally did grow.  But a special thanks to Luke and to Jamie for all the hard work they did to make my day so special!






Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Rai 9 months and Tracen 3 and half

Rai is 9 months now (weighing in at about 18.4 lbs)
He is army crawling everywhere and pulling himself up onto the couch and climbing the bottom 2 stairs - it will only be a matter of days before he gets further up. He still doesn't sleep that great and will not take a bottle of any kind.  When you say "how big is rai?" he puts his arms in the air, he also has started to wave.  This boy loves music and often hums along to any music he hears, and moves to the beat.  He thinks Tracen is just about the funniest human to have ever lived, and if, by chance, Tracen pays any attention to him he laughs and laughs.  He is better at feeding himself than Tracen (I am a huge fan of the baby led weaning) and loves banana's, raspberries, strawberries, peas, pineapple, olives, sweet potato, chicken --- basically anything he can get his hands on.  Tracen and Rai both love it when Daddy gets home from work and he will whine until Luke picks him up.  He doesn't like to be left out of boy time (like when Tracen helps Luke clean the garage or car) and he will go and cry by the garage door.  He loves to try to say "Boo" and doesn't laugh as much as he gives the biggest smiles.

Tracen is just about 3 and half now (weighing in at about 34 lbs)
I can't believe how grown up he is these days.  He is very in love with all the Lego he got for Christmas and could sit and build for hours, for anyone that knows him, it is amazing that he will sit and do anything for that long.  He loves to help me in the kitchen, especially when it involves cracking eggs.  He recently became a sunbeam in Primary and gave his first scripture this past Sunday - he did great (Matthew 14:33). He loves to sing songs LOUD, and is never that concerned about what the real words are.  He loves to run, and all his shoes are good for going fast.  He cracks me up with things he says, like when he burped and told me that he had a hiccup fart. Our days go a lot smoother if he knows what the plans are ahead of time, and if things don't go according to plan, it can make for a rough time.  He is very much Luke's son and is like a mini-me of him, not to mention how much he just wants to be exactly like him.  He loved all the snow in Canada and going sledding, and still asks if he can go "super skeeting (skating)".   He is very watchful of Rai and lets me know whenever he is doing something that he doesn't approve of, and often takes away ALL his toys.


I sure love these two boys more than anything.  They fill my day with laughter and smiles and are definitely teaching me lots of patience and other important lessons.

Vernal Visitors






Luckily Melanie is on the ball and updated her blog about their trip to visit us, so I just copied and pasted her pictures so that I could finally update the blog. We have the best friends that we met in Rexburg and they all came out and visited us in Vernal.  Who knew that one day we would all end up in Utah (even if it was only for a few months).







I actually got to have a girls night out.  Obviously this was the best idea for a pose.  We went for dinner and did some shopping.  Too bad for everyone else, because we had to go back earlier that we probably normally would have so I could nurse Rai.






After our GNO and the kids were all sleeping, we played Just Dance.  It was a lot of fun, and a good workout.




The kids played really well together, watched movies and preferred to use the bathroom for "great parties". Tracen is always the only boy of the group.
Tracen always asks if we can go to Stori's house, or if she can come back to our house.

I was actually kind of nervous about having food everyone would like (especially because I can't eat dairy and a lot of easy meals include that) but I think we did ok.  Check out our personalized pizzas, mine is the one without the cheese of course.


The men went shooting Saturday morning, so we ventured out into the cold to play at "the fire ant park".   The kids did pretty good, even with the cold temperatures.




After lunch, the men took the older kids to check out Dinosaur National Monument, and then they took a little drive around Vernal and ended with a trip to Petco.
 
 
 











That night the men went to a "game night" and the girls stayed home and struggled to get the children to all sleep at the same time, and dyed Melanie's hair and talked and talked.  Sadly we said good-bye early Sunday morning.  Our house felt empty and seemed too quiet.  Tracen doesn't have many friends here in Vernal, and he keeps talking about when his friends came to his house.  Hopefully when we move to Denver, we can still have crazy fun weekends like this.  






Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Christmas day and the rest (from my camera)

My Christmas posts have mostly pictures and not a lot of words, just because I feel overwhelmed with all there is to write.  We thoroughly enjoyed our Christmas break this year, being with family and having Luke not have work for 2 weeks.  On our drive home we talked about all our favourite parts of the trip and there were many, but topping both Luke and I's list was going to see the live nativity at Heritage Park (as we do every year) and having Tracen kind of understand what was going on.  I sure felt the spirit SO strong as Tracen was so anxious to see Jesus.  What a wonderful time of year.

The boys opened up Christmas Jammies on Christmas Eve (Thanks to Angie for making them for my boys) and a quiet book I have been working on for months.



We woke up early Christmas morning (at my  parents house) and saw that Santa had come, and we all opened our stockings.  Then we bundled up and headed to Luke's parents for breakfast (that turned into brunch) family and to open presents from Grammie and Papa.






Mid-afternoon it was back to my  parents house for the boys to open all their presents from Santa and everyone else. Man - we sure were spoiled!  (And Erika had the camera and took pictures of us opening our presents and I think we need to have her do that every year, I actually made it into some of the pictures)


I found this prank box for a "Super Scope" at Wal-mart and it sure had Luke confused for a few minutes.








Tracen spent an second he could playing with his new lego and other toys.

For New Years, we had a smaller crowd than in previous years, Dad made chinese food New Years Eve, and then Luke and I went out to Seth and Heidi's and ate some delicious taco's.  Rai was under the weather so we headed back to mom and dads and quietly rang in the new year.  New Years day we celebrated Grandpa's birthday with his signature pineapple upside down cake. 

Dad got us all selfie sticks for Christmas, and found one for himself at Auntie Wilma's favorite store... he has put it to good use.

Our trip was packed full with fun and activities.  Tracen got to go on a special date to the zoo with Grandma and Grandpa while Luke went snowboarding with his brothers and I tended to a sick Rai.  We ate all our favorite Canadian food (earls, Cora, Vietnamese, etc) I got to spend time with most of my friends there.  We went tobogganing, shopping, Cardel with the Pratts, and back and forth from my parents to Luke's parents.  We went to a movie and Luke and I even got to go out for dinner without our kids.  It was hard to say good-bye and drive back home, and even more sad that we have to wait another year for Christmas.