Disneyland '08

We went on our annual February trip to Disneyland again this year. Right after we got back from the retreat we packed up again and headed to sunny California. This year my little sister Ashley and her family came and we even convinced my dad to come along. It was so much fun!! I think I am officially obsessed with it-luckily I have a "conservative" husband who puts the limit on only going once a year-otherwise I think we'd all have season passes!! There are way too many highlights, but here is a list of the favorites: Jonathan: Indiana Jones; Rachel: Pirates of the Carribean; Ally: Soaring Over California; Isaac: Buzz Ride; Austin: Tiki Room. It was all so much fun! We even were able to talk Ally and Isaac in to going on the Matterhorn after months of them protesting to it-they even liked it (a little). We went for 3 days, which was perfect-we couldn't have asked for anything more!!

Resident Retreat

On the first of February we went up to Prescott, AZ. for the resident retreat with Phoenix Baptist Hospital. It was so much fun to be in the snow!!! We all stayed in cabins with bunkbeds-it reminded us of the old movie "Parent Trap". We loved it. There was tons of activities for everyone and we all had such a good time together. It just once again confirmed to us the fact that Jonathan is in the right program-the people are so amazing and so much fun!!

Our Beloved Prophet

President Gordon B. Hinckley passed away last night. He will surely be missed!

Addicted to Infomercials!

No, not me.....Ally!! She is hilarious and completely thinks we should buy everything on every infomercial that she sees. The other day she came in to me and said, "Mom, do you ever have to dig and dump?". I could not figure out what she was talking about and she kept asking me. I then thought she was talking about people who look in dumpsters for things or something, so I started going into a big explanation about how some people look in the dump to reuse things. "No!", she said, "Do you ever have to dig and dump in your purse, like when you can't find your phone or something?". I then started to laugh at my total misconstruing the conversation, "Yes, I guess sometimes I do." She then pulled out a phone number from behind her back that she had written down and told me that there was a very cool purse that had lots of pockets so I could be more organized. I thought I would die laughing-but of course I didn't want her to feel silly because I thought it was so cute...she should be on the commercial. Now, this is not the first time I've gotten numbers from Ally from infomercials, in fact I've gotten numbers about a number of things-cake decorating kits, moonsand, a little voice recorder...on and on. This girl is a salesman's dream. Maybe that is why she is such an easy child...she really never questions anything I say and does whatever I ask because she just thinks that if I tell her to do something-it must be right. I'm hoping she won't always believe everything just anybody tells her-but for right now-I'll take it! She is so funny and sweet!

I can speak "grown-up"!

Today Ally said the funniest thing. On our way home from picking her up at school she said, "Mom, I'm starting to speak a little bit of grown-up!". I asked her what she meant and she said, "Well, like I know how to say-Can I have something to E-T?". I figured out that she was thinking she was spelling EAT. It was very sweet. I don't know what I am going to do when she really does know how to spell-I guess I'll have to learn another language...besides "grown-up"! This is a cute pictures of her doing her homework-one of her very favorite things to do. She is growing up way too fast!!!

Underwear Wars!

I had taken Austin's clothes off to get him ready for a bath. When I went to go and get the bath ready I heard uncontrollable laughing coming from our bedroom. This is what I found when I went to see what was going on. Apparently the other 2 thought it looked like fun to strip down and all 3 decided to wrestle and mess up our bed!-I love it when they all play together, but as you can see in the video someone usually gets hurt and the fun quickly ends. I hope they always love each other as much as they do now!

Isaac is in LOVE...

with his mother that is! I've always heard of little boys wanting to marry their moms, well Isaac does and of course I love it! Last night the conversation with his dad went like this:

Isaac: I'm going to marry mom.
Jonathan: Well, I'm married to her.
Isaac: Well, I want to marry her too.
Jonathan: But you can't, she is mine.
Isaac: Well I want to!
Jonathan: Well, she is mine.
Isaac: Well, where did you find her?

We thought it was so funny. I'm sure it all stemmed from us just celebrating our anniversary and watching our wedding video. Even though he won't want to marry me forever-whoever he one day does want to marry is going to be one lucky girl!! What a sweet boy he is!

7 Years and still in LOVE!!

Sometimes there are times when words just aren't enough to describe how you feel. Today is Jonathan and I's 7 year anniversary-and when I think about him and our life together the past 7 years-words just aren't sufficient. I know that those of you reading this and who know him already know how incredibly LUCKY I am to be married to such an amazing person-and believe me I truly feel this every day! Sometimes I am brought to tears when I think that he is the one I get to be with FOREVER! We have the best time when we are together and I never once have ever felt like I need a break from his presence-in fact I always feel just the opposite and wish there were more hours in the day to spend together. I knew when I married him 7 years ago that our life together would be good-I had NO idea that it was going to be this good! I love you honey-Happy Anniversary!

7 Years ago


Current

The Nutcracker

The day after Christmas we went the the ballet The Nutcracker. It was SO much fun. All of the kids loved it-we couldn't believe how still even Austin sat through the whole performance. When I was younger we would go every year-so I have been wanting to take our kids for a long time. It was just as magical as I remember.

Ally even got her picture taken by a real life Sugar Plum Fairy-she was in heaven. At one point she leaned over to me and whispered, "Mom, I can't believe I am here!"-it was so sweet.

We lost Isaac with about 10 minutes to go and right beofore he fell asleep he said, "Mom, I'm ready to be done with this!"-he did so great through the whole thing until he crashed!

Santa found us in Arizona!

Yep, he came-it was such a great day!! We all loved every second!

More Christmas Eve Events

After a yummy dinner and the nativity performance we all donned our matching pj's for the 2nd year in a row, sang some Christmas songs, read a story and each opened 1 present. Jonathan and I opened ours together which was a darling calendar that Ally had made in school for us. She was SO excited for us to open it-she could hardly stand it. She had told everyone else what it was but kept it such a good secret from us-it was so cute and we loved it. The kids each opened a present that one of their cousins got for them-another tradition we missed not being in Idaho! A big, pink princess chair for Ally, a Dino-sketcher for Isaac and a baseball mitt and glove for Austin-they all loved what they got! Thanks Logan, Macee and Colby!! We then set out cookies and milk for Santa and carrots for the reindeer and tucked them all snug in their beds. It was a perfect day and night.

Again-sorry this is so dark-we were kind of doing everything by the light of the Christmas tree.

Nativity

This year we weren't able to be with all of Jonathan's family for the annual "cousin" nativity-so we decided to do our own little family one! We had a lot of fun doing it together on Christmas Eve! Cast: Mary-Ally; Joeseph-Isaac; Baby Jesus-doll; Shephard-Austin; Wiseman-Uncle Jamison; Angel-Rachel (a very pregnant angel we might add!); Narrator/Piano Player-Jonathan. Sorry that the video is a little dark. And for the record I am NOT the opera singer you hear in the background-it is one of Jamison's friends who took the video for us-not that there would be any confusion-but just in case!!

Sunday Best

We couldn't get a picture of all of the kids looking or with their eyes open-but they still look cute!

A New Tradition!

Every year we make gingerbread houses. While I am neither patient or talented enough to make them cute enough to want to display them for a long time, we started a new tradition with them this year. Since I knew that I didn't want them around the house for a long time, we decided to do them late in the season. We had such a fun time making them-with a lot of snacking of course! After we were done and I was trying to think of some place they could sit for the next few days, one of the kids came up with the brilliant idea of eating them right away. Jonathan and I both looked at each other with the exact same thought in mind when they asked if they could-GREAT IDEA!! So about 1 minute after they were complete, they were being destroyed-happily. We definitely will continue this tradition in the years to come!!

A fun day at home!

Ally is now out of school for Christmas break and it seems like all the Christmas hustle and bustle is slowing down. We had such a fun day at home-I love those days! Jonathan was even able to be home for some of it until he had to go in to work the night shift. The kids had so much fun just playing together. This is a picture of them playing house. Ally is the mom and Isaac likes to be the dad but it bothers Ally that he's not as tall as she is-we always have to have a talk about how that doesn't matter and he ends up being the dad despite her unliking- she is so funny about stuff like that. Austin is of course the baby and always ends up in Ally's doll stroller-he loves it as much as they do. I'm not sure where the Santa hats came into the picture-but I thought it was cute anyway! We are loving just being at home!

Our "not-so living" Christmas Tree

Since this is our 5th December living in Arizona, but only the 1st Christmas we will spend here, we thought it would be so much fun to get a real Christmas tree instead of using our usual fake one. So the Monday after Thanksgiving we went and picked out our beautiful, real tree. It was so much fun to set up and we loved the way it looked and smelled. About 2 1/2 weeks after we got it, it just started to loose is freshness and we noticed that in fact it was almost completely dead. We made sure it had water every day-but it still died. Seriously-how terrible! So on Saturday we took all the decorations off and Jonathan took it back to where we got it. He picked out another tree and brought it home. I watched him take it out of the truck and stand it up and just as he did, about every needle on the tree fell onto the sidewalk. I thought I would die laughing-there was seriously only sticks on the whole top 1/4 of the tree. So off he went again to return the second tree. They gave us our money back since every tree on the lot was just as dead as the two we brought home. By this time it was getting late on Saturday and we had a TON to do, so we just figured that instead of going tree hunting we'd just set up our old, trusty, fake tree and save the money. So we set it up and put up all the decorations for a 2nd time this year. Buying Christmas trees in Arizona must just not be quite the same! We're just glad to have a place for Santa to put all of the presents when he comes!

Now about our Christmas tree. Since Ally was born we decided to start the tradition of letting each of our kids pick out an ornament every year to hang on the tree. So we have everything from pink and blue baby shoes, baseballs, dinosaurs, Barbies, Buzz Lightyear, Ariel-on and on, on our tree. We write their names and the year somewhere on them and hope to one day pack up all of them and send them on with each kid as they have their own trees. As much as I would love to have a beautiful "themed" tree, I love the memory of when I was little and getting out each of the ornaments and the special meanings that were tied to each of them. We decided that one day when we have a little bigger house we will have 2 trees-one for show and the other for memories and fun. We love our tree and the kids love to look at all the ornaments over and over-real or fake-it makes no difference to them!!

Congratulations!

Congratulations to our brother-in-law/cousin Nicholas who just found out he got in to medical school!!! Their little family will be packing up and moving to Yakima, Washington this summer to get ready to start in the Fall. We are so excited for them-he'll be an awesome doctor!

FYI: For those who don't know, my littlest sister married Jonathan's cousin-yes, we set them up!

We're seeing PINK!!

We just went to the doctor today and found out that we will be having another little GIRL. We are all thrilled-especially Ally, she can't wait to have a sister. It's always so much fun to add a new baby to the family and we are very excited (even though May still seems SO far away!).

The nude chef strikes again!

Well this time he actually did have clothes on, but Isaac thought he would expand his culinary skills into using real food. The other day my friend and her little girl were over. She and I were sitting in the living room just talking away while the kids were playing in the other room. All the sudden we noticed that things had been very quiet. Just then, Austin came around the corner holding a half gone yogurt and had what looked like an egg shell stuck to his foot. I ran in the kitchen to find Isaac standing over the biggest mess I think I've ever seen. He had taken all of the remaining eggs that were in the carton (probably at least 1/2 dozen or so) and cracked them(or crapped as he calls it) all over the huge griddle that he managed to get out and onto the floor. He must have put them in the pitcher first and mixed in milk, raisins and yogurt before dumping it on the griddle. I wished that I would have taken a picture of the disaster-it was everywhere-and for the record, eggs are VERY hard to clean up! Needless to say, he spent sometime in his room-mainly for punishment but also so he wouldn't see me laughing at his little mind. He said, "I was just making some eggs". Oh boy, you never know what he is going to come up with!!

Apple Dumplings with Bumpa and Granny

A few weeks ago Jonathan's parents came to visit for one last trip before they head off on their mission to Scotland. They were a ton of help since I've been so sick and the kids had SUCH a fun time. Bumpa Brett made his famous apple dumplings fresh from the apples off of their tree in Idaho-yumm!~ It was so fun to have them and Isaac asks about every day since they left if Granny and Bumpa are coming. Luckily we will be there for Thanksgiving which will be a happy/sad time since they leave the Monday after.

The Incredible Manwarings

This year for Halloween we decided to all dress up like the "Incredibles" since our family had just the perfect "make-up" (Mr. Incredible, Elasti-girl, Violet, Dash and Jack-Jack). We all loved it! We went to our ward's Halloween chili cook-off/carnival/trunk-or-treat. We got way, way too much candy!! I have no idea what we will do with it all! We were so grateful that one of the awesome residents that works with Jonathan offered to cover for him for a few hours so that he could come spend some of Halloween with us-we just wouldn't have been complete with out the most incredible of all!! We were all so glad he was with us!! Hope everyone had a very Happy Halloween!!

A Real Life Kindergartner!

Well, we just got school pictures back and it just made it seem that much more real that we really do have a kindergartner!! We thought she looks so cute and so grown up that we had to share. Sorry about the fuzzy faces on the class picture (it's kind of freaky I know). They really are all such cute kids but I didn't pass out a release to all their parents to make sure I could post their pictures on the internet :). Ally is loving everything about school! It's so fun to see how much she has grown up. And even though we miss her like crazy while she is gone, we are so glad she is also loved at school and learning so much!

Our little basketball star!

Austin LOVES, LOVES balls of any sort. Tonight he's been working on his lay-up. It took him a lot of tries, but he finally was able to make a basket-and now he can't miss! It's so cute to see such determination already. Maybe one day he'll make us a lot of money!!

The Next Iron Chef

And so, this is what goes on at our house. I'm not sure there is any real explanation. He is a crack-up for sure!

Living with Angels

OK, I'm not trying to overly brag about how wonderful my kids are...but they are so, so sweet and I can't help it. Ever since we've told them that we would be having another baby they have been extra helpful and understanding of me being sick. Now that Ally is in school all day, Isaac has really turned into a "big boy". All day he plays with his little brother and is so sweet to him. He finds games that he knows Austin will love and doesn't seem to care as much when Austin ruins his forts or towers. He is so patient with me and always cleans up right when I ask-even if it is not his mess. It just seems like all the sudden one day he woke up and decided that he was going to grow up! He is so very sweet!


We have been known to refer to Ally as our perfect child. It just seems like she has always had a desire to do exactly what is right, and loves doing it. Now, that being said, she does get insanely upset over hair and clothes. But really, truly other than that-I'm not sure she does anything wrong. She is such a natural little mother. The minute she gets home from school she opens her lunchbox and gives her brothers anything leftover from her lunch-they LOVE this! She is also so eager to help me. Honestly ANYTHING I ask her to do, she does. It doesn't matter if she is in the middle of playing barbies or drawing a picture, she always just goes right away. The other day as I was so pitifully laying on the couch being sick, Ally came and said, "Mom, I have a surprise for you that you are really going to love." I didn't want to get up, but I closed my eyes and let her lead me to the "surprise". When we got to the bathroom I opened my eyes and saw that she had cleaned the whole thing for me. She was so proud of herself and of course I broke down crying "happy tears" (as Ally calls them). She so special!

So as you can see I am very fortunate to be living with real life angels. And for this reason, in the mist of being sick-I am so grateful to be having another one!!!

And 1 more makes 4!!!

Yep, it's true! We are having another baby and couldn't be happier about it!! We went to the doctor yesterday and found out that we are a little over 7 weeks along and Due on May 19 (ummm, that seems a long way away). We are all thrilled!! I'm totally sick and miserable at the moment, but supposedly that is a good thing-right?! It's always a long ride, but definately worth it!!! 4 kids! Wow!