Happy Birthday Mr. Max

My little Maxer Moo is now SIX! He is such a joy to have in our family. He sure does give us a run for our money. Since we've been here he has lost 4 teeth (we tease that he looks like the homeless guys we see on the street). He has been working for over a year to be able to do the armpit fart and boy has he mastered that one. It is all I can do to keep him from doing it in sacrament meeting. Max's favorite things to say right now are "I'm so popular!" (in the most perfect valley girl voice), "You the man", and "can I watch a movie". He loves wearing hats, jumping waves in the ocean, playing in the dirt, playing with his bakugans, watching tv, PBSkids.org, and picking avocados from the avocado tree. He's having so much fun here in Hawaii with the big boys; especially his cousin Tyler. He says he's "the man". He is all boy and we love him SO MUCH. For his birthday, he chose to go to the zoo. We had a great time. Reed loved seeing all the animals (especially the birds). After dad was done with work, we had cake and ice cream with some of his friends and the boys. He had to have strawberry cake and we decorated it to look like the beach with fish in the ocean and umbrellas on the beach. It sure is hard to see him getting so big, but it's fun to see him learn and grow. Have a great year Max....WE LOVE YOU!!

Catching up

Is it seriously July? CRAZY. I just wanted to catch up with a few fun things we've done this year.

JANUARY

We went to visit Uncle Erin's family. It was more fun than we could have imagined. The kids had a great time. In fact, the other day (before we found out about the twins) I was telling the kids to think about a fun place they wanted to visit in the fall. (I was thinking Disneyland, New York, etc... ) Max immediately said he wanted to go see uncle Erin again, and Emma quickly agreed.

Uncle Erin took great care of Emma and filled a couple teeth. Definatly the BEST dental experience she has had! Thanks Uncle Erin!

Leann brought her cotton candy maker over and the kids had a blast!



Emily, Leann, and Ashley let Emma do their makeup and hair
(Emma was in heaven)


We watched Jacob wrestle, and when he came home he showed Max a few moves.

FEBRUARY

Since we are always gone in the summer for Emma's birthday, and she hasn't had a party with her friends for years, told her we could have a Valentines tea party for her friends. She had lots of fun planning the menu, games and decorations. Max dressed up and was the butler and greeted everyone at the door. We served heart-shaped grilled cheese sandwiches, fruit snacks, baby carrots with ranch, grapes, and, of course, pink punch. We served everything on crystal. After tea, we played games. Emma had a good time hosting.


MARCH

For Spring Break, we went to Salt Lake City with Dan, Johanna and family. We went to the children's museum and temple square. We also had a cousin camp and had Grant and Isabelle spend the night. While they were there, Emma decided she wanted her ears pierced and Isabelle, Koy, and Cameron came to support her. Emma also decided she wanted a hair cut. She had 7 inches cut! She is such a big girl now.

APRIL

Baby Reed turned ONE. I can't believe how time flies. Reed has been such a blessing to us. I love to watch him sleep and kiss his sweet cheeks. He loves to follow the cat around, say "mow", and try to lay on her (his way of showing her he loves her). He learned how to say stop "dop", don't, and no. Isn't it lovely to have older siblings? He loves his big brother and sister. He cant wait for them to come home from school. For his birthday we had a few family and friends over for cake and ice cream. He loves the Baby Einstein DVD Aunt Kris and Grandma Elouise gave him when he was born so we made a caterpillar cake for him. It was super cute. I used suckers for the lets and antennas. We gave him the head. He grabbed a sucker for each hand and didn't even care to try the cake. ISN'T HE CUTE!!!!

Brent left to work in Hawaii on his birthday, April 14th. We all missed him very much. A couple weeks after he left we found out about the babies. We couldn't stop grinning. I was pretty sick and it wasn't easy to be on my own for 2 months, but it was so amazing how many people were there to help us. We didn't tell people about the babies until right before we left for Hawaii (mid June), but we had SO many blessings. I have a true testimony that God watches over us and takes care of us through the hands of others.

MAY

(yes we took turns pushing the babies in the stroller)

We were busy with end of the year EVERYTHING. I also did a 5k with Johanna. My knee gave me problems so I probably skipped more than I ran. It was fun to do, but the pain in my knee afterward was horrible. I went to the ortho surgeon who did surgery on my knee after my accident and he gave me some exercises to do in hopes that it will improve. Funny that my knee rarely hurts when I run on a treadmill, do spinning classes, or aerobics. It is just when I run outside that it gets me. The kids also ran in a small race. It was really hard for both of them, but they both say they want to do it again.

Fhew... thanks for bearing with me through that.

As Brent explains it, I went to the Dr (Uncle Glenn) and he found two growths in my abdomen. Only thing is we aren't sure if they are boys or girls! We are super excited (and a bit nervous) to be expecting number 4 and 5 in December. How's that for crazy? 4 years of trying for sweet baby Reed and then, BOOM...were having twins, and Reed will only be 19 mos old! Just goes to show that we aren't the ones in charge, and everything happens when it is supposed to. We told the kids last week, and they are ecstatic. They have all sorts of names picked out...Maya and Miguel, Luke and Leia, and many more. I have much more to post about our recent events, but I think we'll just let everyone chew on that one for a while.

St. Patrick's Day

(our green eggs, pancakes, and milk. The kids were a bit leary...)

(Emma and Max led the Pledge of Allegiance for Dad's last SB meeting)

So I figured it is probably time to update the ol' blog. We have been busy doing lots of great things. Brent and I are officially quitters. He resigned from the School Board (on St Patty's) and I will be done working as of May 1st (YEAH!!!). Having said that, I am super busy trying to get things in order to transfer my clients. I promise to post more later, but just wanted to get something new up for now!!

What a man; what a man; what a man; what a mighty mighty good man!

Now you tell me who wouldn't want to be married to this guy for the past nine years!?! Happy Anniversary Roge!

Nutcracker

I stumbled across a few pics on my card when I went to get the Nutcracker pics so I thought I would go ahead and post them.

The kids and I made Pilgrim hats for Thanksgiving...very yummy and cute.

Papa Cal rented the Blackfoot Pool for swimming after Thanksgiving dinner.


Emma's First Thanksgiving dinner at school.


Crazy hair day




Nutcracker



My little Cherub




We have had a busy, but fun couple of weeks. We went to SLC last week to film Brent's sister's family for a Christmas family video. The camera loved them so it made my job easy. It was lots of fun to have them to ourselves. They are such a great family. My sister-in-law took me to Orson Gygis. That and a visit to the demo kitchen with our ward convinced me to make chocolates again this year. I wasn't going to do it this year, but I decided it would be fun to do them as a family (we'll see how that goes). Then, Brent went to Hawaii this whole week. It wasn't the best of timing, but I really enjoyed spending 24/7 with my kids. It was nice not to have to worry about work and just be a mom. Of course, it would have been nice to have Brent around Tuesday morning at 7:15am when the van wouldn't start and the doors on the other car were frozen shut! All the while he was enjoying the 80 degree weather in good ol Hawaii. He even got to spend some time with our favorite Hawaii friends, the Lawerence family. We all missed him and are glad he is home. Today was the Nutcracker, and Emma did a great job! She loves being on stage and it shows. The whole ballet was fabulous! We are very lucky to have such amazing talent in our community. I am going to take Emma to the Blackfoot performance next week so she can see it too. Max has been pretending to be the nutcracker all week. He told me he wants to be in the ballet next year because he will be old enough. Brent was a little leary, but at least he isn't asking to be in Swan Lake. He doesn't want to be a Cherub...he wants to be the Nutcracker or Fritz. I'm all for it! Hope everyone is having a great Holiday Season!!!

Our new tradition

We are pretty busy around here trying to get all of our HAVE TOs out of the way so we can enjoy the Christmas season. We are having lots of fun already. Emma will be in performing in the Nutcracker again this year and she is pretty excited. When she was younger, I would take her every year and last year she was able to perform (which she thoroughly enjoys). This year she will be a cherub. Max also likes to go to the ballet. He knows the whole story line almost better than I do. This year, thanks to an invitation from our friends, we decided to do things the old fashioned way...we bundled up, and set out to chop down our very own hand picked Christmas tree. We had no idea how long it would take...let's just say the pickin's were pretty slim. WE HAD SO MUCH FUN!!! Max loved helping dad cut the tree to size! Even Reed did well (until dad decided he might like to try some Tai food...but that's another story). So it's not the best looking of trees, but the kids think it is the best tree ever! I think we have started ourselves a new tradition. Thanks to the Crapos for the invite!!