Tylers 4th Birthday

January 27, 2010

I can't believe that Tyler is finally 4! He has seemed like he was older then 3 for along time. for Tylers birthday we went to the pet store and he bought some froggies to put in the fish tank. The fish tank is now in Tyler and Zachs room. We also ran to Toys R Us to let him use his $3 coupon they sent him for his birthday. Before we went to those places though, we went and picked up his best friend, Christopher. We also picked up his mom and little brother. They are actually our cousins and best friends also. We both have four kids the same ages so it is so fun. Anyway, after we got them we went to Chuck E. Cheese. The kids had a blast! When we walked in the door Christopher said, "This is amazing!" It was so funny. Then the kids played and played and had a blast.

After the fun day, Daddy got home from work and we had dinner and opened presents. For Tylers birthday cake he loves strawberries so I made him a strawberries and cream cake. Of course he picked the strawberry stuff off. That kid is so funny. I think next year to make it easier on me I will just give him a big bowl of strawberries instead of a cake.

Yes Tyler is a hand full, but I am so glad that he is part of our family. He can be so funny and sweet. His little brain never ever stops going. He is constantly on the move. It actually seems like just yesterday that I was in Virginia having him. Time sure does fly. I am sure I will blink and he will be getting baptized, going on a mission, etc. I sure do love you Tyler. Happy Birthday bud!

Moving day....for the parents

My parents finally sold their house in West Bountiful and found a new one that they love in Centerville. So that is what I have been doing for the past month, helping them move. We never realized how much stuff they have! If they ever want to move again, I am going out of town for a long vacation. : ) Seriously, they have two big garages in the back that have tons of stuff. It is making me want to go through all my stuff and throw out half of it. I have seriously been either moving stuff or helping at the new house everyday. So that is why there are no new post. We did have Tylers birthday that I will blog about soon. Just wanted to let you know why I haven't updated. :) Fun stuff! Hopefully this will be the last week, then we will be done. I sure will miss the old house though. That is where my kitty is buried (in the backyard), where Mike proposed, where we had our wedding reception, and lots of memories. But I know this new house wll be better for my parents. It has been fun seeing family so much though, with all the helping.

Christmas 2009

Merry Christmas everyone! We had a great Christmas this year. No one was sick, and we were in our own house. It was great. We took the day easy and had a great day. Even after being up until almost 3:00 setting stuff up. Alyssa got a new bed, so now she is finally in a twin bed and out of her toddler bed. Just because she was 5 years old and sleeping in a toddler bed, does that make me a terrible mom?

Our stockings were hung by the chimney with care. And we even got the fireplace to work for Christmas Eve. We had tried earlier and found out, when the house filled with smoke, that the previous owners had tiled over the top of the chimney. It was a lot of fun having a fire on Christmas Eve though.

We even decided to have a nice dinner for ourselves on Christmas Eve. So I made some ham, cheesy potatoes, rolls and a salad. I brought out the nice dishes and everything! (Too bad the table clothe was so dang bright) Then we let the kids open their one Christmas Eve present. They were p.j.'s. That is a tradition my family has done ever since I can remember and we passed it onto our family.

Christmas morning was torture for Zachary because he woke-up first and we wouldn't let him go in until the rest of the kids were awake. Luckily for him, they woke up soon after he did. And luckily for us they slept in until almost 8:30! Half way through the presents we took a break and had breakfast. Then finished opening presents.

Do you think Zach likes his new light saber?

Alyssa with her new bed, she even got a new bed for her doll from her brothers.

Can you tell I could hardly get to him to stay still long enough to snap a picture. His stuff is just kind of thrown there. That's my Tyler!

And last, my cutie pie Henry. I would brag about how little I actually spent on his Christmas presents (thanks to some un-named, two letter store :) ), but Mike would probably smack me.

And of course Mike and I got a house for Christmas! I truly am so grateful for the Christmas season. I just love it so much! The lights, the decorations, the music, the feelings. I am so thankful for my Savior and that we have a whole season focused on his birth. That is truly the greatest Christmas gift of all.

Zachary and karate

This fall we decided to put Zach into karate. His cousin was taking it too, but he was already a yellow belt. Zach started out as a white belt and would go every Friday evening. Not my favorite day of the week to have to take him, but oh well. He had fun. Although, honestly I wasn't too sure how good he was doing at it. So when the time came for them to have their testing to advance to the next belt I was so worried for him. But then luckily my cousin told me that they automatically advance the first belt. That made me feel better. Yes, I am a great mom with such confidence in my son, sorry Zach. Anyway, so the time came for the testing and it seemed like he actually did ok. The next week they had the awards ceremony. The advancement goes from white belt to first degree yellow belt then next year to second degree yellow belt. All belts have two degrees. Come to find out Zachary got all 5 out of 5 on his test and advanced to 2nd degree yellow belt. He actually skipped a degree! I was so proud of him, and more over, he was so proud of himself. I was thinking that we wouldn't have to keep doing karate after that term, but after seeing how good he did and the confidence it gave him, of course he is doing it again this term.

Also, after the award ceremony they had a little party thing. During the party they had the kids doing little competitions. First it was the jumping frog. They saw how many times they could do the frog jump. Zachary's cousin (well, my cousins boy, so whatever that is to Zach) won first place on that one. Way to go Johnny! Then they had them hold, dang it I can't remember the name, some pose. They stood with their arms out and their pointer finger up, and their legs out bent at the knee. Anyway, they saw who could hold that the longest. Zachary won! The other kids that he was up against kept kind of slacking and not holding the pose so good. Zach held it the whole time, all the while having to go to the bathroom. And if any of you know Zach, when he has to go, that second, he has to go. But he held it and held the pose for 14 minutes! His teachers were quite impressed. They said that was better then a lot of adults. One of his teachers said that his best time is 15 minutes. So Zachary won a little fortune frog figure thing and was so proud of himself. Way to go Zach!

The infamous pose!

Henry thinks he's so big!

I caught Henry drinking out of this two liter bottle the other day. I have no idea how he got it opened, I think he did it himself. He kept drinking that thing until there was not one single drop left. Luckily there wasn't too much in there in the first place. It was nice though because it gave me a laugh, and if you notice the fridge pulled out and the towels on the floor, I needed a laugh. Mike had just flooded the kitchen while trying to fix the ice maker on the fridge. But hey, he got it figured out and now we have an ice maker!

Our trip to the Columbus Zoo

We had a season pass to the Columbus Zoo. It was a great zoo, we loved going there. One day last summer we went there with our GLAD school group. Here are some pictures from that day.

Alyssa with her best friend Aneisha

Petting and brushing the animals in the petting zoo part

Seeing the rhino and the momma and new baby elephant

This flamingo was just walking around. Look how close the tiger is!

This was actually from another field trip. We went to the whistle factory where they make all the metal whistles. Even the ones they use in the Superbowl and everything!

A few random pictures

I am going to be using my blog kind of as a journal, so I decided to just add some random pictures that we had that I never blogged about.

In April we went out to visit my dad after his stroke. Here is the family with my dad a few months after he had his stroke. This was April 6, 2009

On our trip out to Utah we went up to Zarahemla (some stake cabins) and had an Easter egg hunt and stuff with the Eggett family. Since we were all together, we tried to get a picture of all the grandkids. As you can see, it didn't work too great. But it was pretty funny.

After we got home (back to Ohio), we had a nice Easter dinner, the day after Zachary's birthday.

Zachary's 7th birthday

Here are some pictures from Zachary's 7th birthday back in April. I know, a little late, but oh well. He got The Dangerous Book for Boys and loved it! That is what he is reading. We had just gotten back from Utah right before his birthday, so his cake wasn't too thrilling. But that is the kind of cake he said he wanted.

Zach and his cake

Opening and enjoying his presents. My little boy is growing up so fast!

That's my sneaky Tyler!

Tyler is such a sneak! As I was sitting here updating the blog, Tyler came down telling on Henry, that he had just eaten the rest of the Reeses pieces that they got for Christmas. Of course, not thinking that he could eat them all by himself, I asked him how many he had. He said "I only had one and two." Then under his breathe he says "and three and four." What a character! It's a good thing I love that kid so much. Today was also his first day in Primary. Finally! His birthday is January 27th so he was in nursery forever. At first he didn't want to go and wouldn't sit down, but a few minutes after I left (as I was peaking in) he finally did. And it seems like he did pretty good, from the ten times that I peaked in on him. :) Then when we got home I asked him how primary was. He said it was good. Then I asked him what he did, he said that he colored a crown and sang some song. "But I didn't get to play mom." He said, so sadly. I told him, "Yep Tyler, the older you get the less you get to play." He was so cute.

An update...finally!

Okay, I know, it has been way way too long. But now, like I promised, I am finally updating this blog. Wow, were to even start! Let's see, like I said before, in July we moved to Utah. We lived with my parents in West Bountiful until the weekend after Thanksgiving. I am very grateful for my parents letting us stay there with them, but man, it was a little hard at times. They were trying to sale their house, so we were always busy with that, and taking care of my dad. Then you throw taking care of my own family in there, and I really didn't have much time to do anything (i.e. update my blog :) ) Anyway, I decided that I would just go through my pictures and post some and catch up a little on what we have been doing for the past 7 months....

This was our last fishing adventure in our backyard in Ohio. Man I miss that house! Look how big Mike's fish is, of course, kind of an extra kick in the pants for leaving. That was the biggest fish we ever caught there. I think he is a little proud. :)

In June, we sold our house in Ohio. It actually sold a lot faster then we thought that it would, that was nice. During all the packing and everything, Alyssa graduated from her GLAD school. The great ladies that we did that with helped so much with everything. They had a cute little graduation for all the kids. Here are some pictures of that...

These are the great ladies that we did GLAD school with.

Ben, Alyssa, Carter, and Aneisha

We headed to Utah in June. That was a long sad drive. But we were excited to see family and Mike was thrilled to start his own practice in Sugarhouse. In July Zachary and Mike ran a short marathon in Bountiful. I was very proud of them both.

This is after the race. My studs!

On the fourth of July we went to Sugarhouse park with my sister Sarah and her family. There were a ton of people there. Henry loved the firework while eating red vines. Like father like son!

Here is Henry watching the fireworks and his face covered in Red Vines.

August Zachary started second grade. It was hard to decide where to put him for school because my parents were trying to find a new house and we didn't know where we were going to be living. So my parents thought that they had found a house to buy and we were going to live in the huge basement. So I decided to put Zach in the elementary school there, Holbrook Elementary. It was a really nice school and the teachers were good. So everyday I had to take him to and from school about 10 minutes away. Then my parents buying that house fell through, so we started our search for a house in that school district. We found one we really liked, but after a while we found more and more stuff wrong with that house and didn't really feel too great about it. So we decided against that.

Here is Zach on his first day of 2nd grade. Can you see him waving from the front door? He had to make sure that I waved to him every morning from the front doors after I dropped him off. (Now he walks to school, so much easier)

In September, Alyssa turned 5 years old. She missed the deadline for Kindergarten by two weeks. She was very sad about that, not to mention, so was I. :) She has been so ready to start school. And she is so tall that she already seems older then most Kindergartners this year. Oh well. For her birthday she had a prince and princess party, she loved it. It was fun to have some of her cousins come. Everyone dressed up as either a princess, prince, or dragon.

Here Alyssa is all dressed up with her castle cake I made.

Halloween was fun, but for some reason I could only find a picture of  Alyssa.  What a cutie!

During October we were trying to buy a house in Riverton. It was a new house that was being built and was big and nice. Although it had a tiny little yard and would have totally stretched us, money wise. But of course, that didn't work out (I know Heavenly Father knows what is best for us and lets that happen or not). Then we found a little house in Bountiful that we liked. It has a nice yard for the kids to play in, with a little hill at the back for them to sled or roll down. It also came with a fun swing set. It is an older house, but way good taken care of and all updated. So right after Thanksgiving we moved in. Come to find out, the people that we bought the house from are also dentists. They went to VCU and lived in Meadowbrook apartments and graduated the year before we got there. Small world!

This is a picture of our house, but there is so much snow you can hardly see it. And yes, as soon as it is warm enough we are taking that lovely awning down. I will post more pictures and better ones of our house when the weather is a little nicer.

So now we have just been unpacking and getting settled. Zachary started school at his new school, Muir Elementary, and he loves it! He has made friends a lot faster at this school and I can tell that he is happier here. Our new ward is great, we had a lot of help moving in. And there are kids all over the neighborhood for our kids to play with. They love it. And I have a nice big window in the kitchen to the backyard, so I can watch the kids playing. That is one of my favorite things about this house. It was fun having Christmas in our own place again. We had a great Christmas and it was fun to be with family. Of course we miss all out Virginia and Ohio friends. And the warmer winters of Virginia. But we did get to get together with a few of our friends from Virginia the other day for dinner. It was so nice seeing them and catching up. With more of you could have been there! Sorry we didn't get Christmas cards out this year. I blinked and Christmas was over. But next year, I will start early!

Well, now that I have made you read a novel, I will finally stop. Hope that catches everyone up a little.