Lincolns: Live, Laugh, Love

Home improvements over last few months

2011-11-10T15:27:00.001-08:00

Here are some pictures of some home improvement projects that have been going on in the Lincoln house the last few months.

The first is the green house that Nate & his dad built. I wasn't fully on board when Nate first told me the idea of using our old sliding glass doors and creating a green house. But as always, it turned out great! We still have some tweaking to do with temperature, but we hope next summer it will flourish. The raised beds and automatic watering system are especially nice.

Another big project was tearing out the old nasty shower in our master bath and rebuilding it. This has definitely been something I've wanted to do since we moved in, so we're super excited it's almost finished. So here is the before picture. Pretty, huh? ;)

Here's its bare bones

Progress.....

And here's the almost finished product. Nate worked his usual magic!! There was a lot for Nate to learn as he worked on this one. It was especialy hard to get the right slope in building the floor. Also notice the new vanity counter and sink. Woo hoo!

I'm sure the kids are excited to have their bathroom back to themselves :)

Now for the biggest undertaking this fall..... Goodbye carpet! When we went to AZ, Nate flew home for 3 days and worked his lil' booty off to tear up the flooring and start laying down as much of the new hard wood as he could. All this while working full-time. He stayed up until about 3am each night and lived on Little Ceasars I think.

There was a lot of moving furniture and appliances back and forth.

After a week or two, he had finished the family room and most of the dining room. Go Nate!!

We had the MDF as a kitchen floor for the last 3 months and we got pretty used to it. But I have to say now that the wood is laid in there, it's way nicer to look at easier to clean :)

Hallway too.

After about 2 months we finally found a rug. It was hard to find one that was super plush and looked decent. Alas, Home Depot came through again... We very much enjoy having somewhere soft to lay down and wrestle on once again. The kids have fun each picking a flower to kneel on when we have our family prayers.

I'm so thankful for and amazed at my husband's ability to do all these things to improve our home. He's saved us sooo much! I'm looking forward to hopefully being done though so that we can play more on the weekends :)

Halloween 2011

2011-11-08T19:16:00.000-08:00

Sibling bonding while carving pumpkins. This year we actually tried baking the pumpkin seeds. The kids seemed to love them, at least at first. I guess we might make that a new tradition.

"Arrrg!"

Lexi- a vampire queen?? Her invention. She looks pretty cool though, I think.

McKinley as pretty princess (of course). I couldn't decide which picture was cuter, so I posted them both :)

Our dressed- up crew

Pirate pals ( at out church's Halloween party)

Hands down....best costume EVER!!! This is my friend's little girl & she made this costume. Isn't it amazing?! Ooompa- doompa- doompa-dee-doo

I kinda copped-out this Halloween & dressed as a mechanic. I wiped some dirt from the tire rim on my face to complete the "costume". I know, pretty lame.

The kiddos were happy to pass out some candy at our trunk-or-treat after their buckets were full.

Tyler's the cutest toothless Harry Potter I've ever seen :)

We went trick-or-treating with a few friends in this awesome neighborhood downtown. All the houses in that area get sooo into it (as you can see).

It was so much fun! And maybe a little freaky at times.

Quick trip to Utah

2011-11-08T17:41:00.000-08:00

Labor day weekend, we were able to drive to Utah to be present for our newest niece's blessing. Her name is AnnaLynn and she's such a little angel. Here's her cute family. She'll be well-protected with her 3 big brothers.

Having fun with cousins

We had a lovely family picnic at a nearby park. It was a gorgeous day and everyone had a grand time, especially when all the water guns, water bazookas & other water weapons were brought out.

Lovin' grandma & auntie Karen

Watch out, McKinley means business!!

Relaxin' with daddy :)

McKinley & Disney holding hands.

Every time I looked, our Tyler was up in a tree

Notice McKinley is dressed in a little less in this picture. This is post- blowout :)

The mommas went shopping and look what we found... cute lil' matching dresses on clearance (in all the right sizes). We had fun playing dress up!

That's Disney (11 mos.)- daughter of Nate's brother, then Anna Lynn (2 mos.- daughter of Nate's sister & of course our lil' Kinners (17 mos.)

Love it!!

Sep/ Oct 2011

2011-11-08T15:33:00.000-08:00

This is a continuation of the Aug./ Sep. post. Here's Ty on field day. I think this was a skipping race.

Here's Ty's cute lil' 1st grade class, all painted up like warriors.

More soccer. It really was so gorgeous most of the days during soccer and very enjoyable to be outside.

Except maybe this day... It was FREEZING! Tyler, Lexi & Colton all snuggled together to keep warm :)

One Saturday while I was gone, Nate took the kids on a beautiful hike at Red Rock.

From these pictures, you might think our kids actually like each other ;)

Lexi started participating in the basketball sports challenge after school. We really haven't worked much on basketball yet, but Nate & I both have hopes our kids will learn to love it :) That's Lexi dribbling.

Matching up opponents...

Boogie Baby

2011-11-07T15:56:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite things is our frequent family spontaneous dance parties. This time McKinley was showing off her moves....

Aug/ Sept. 2011

2011-11-07T15:51:00.000-08:00

This video is a little out of order, it was part of Lexi's field day at school. The challenge was that all their 3rd grade class had to get over the bar without touching it. They were supposed to be creative and use teamwork, but their class had an advantage. Their adult helper happened to be this burly man who was able to just toss them all over without breaking a sweat. It didn't exactly go as intended, but it worked and it was really fun to watch.

Here's the first day of school for Lexi in 3rd grade and Tyler in 1st grade.

Walking across the school field as they do evey morning to get to class. Check out their new fancy playground that was installed this summer. Their school has been raising money for this for years.

Lexi at field day (yes those are whiskers on her face).

McKinley with her cute bouffant. She's showing of the MDF floors we had in the kitchen for a couple months.

Pretty princess

A highlight of August was our excursion to see Les Miserables in Denver. I got the tickets for Nate for Christmas, so we had anxiously been awaiting this show for many months! It's Nate's all-time favorite show and is at the top of my list too. It was AAAA-MAZING!!!!

We were both so giddy!!!! :)

More cutie pics of our baby girl :)

Alfalfa...

These are the faces I saw as I walked back into the room after a few minutes away. This is the "Yeah, -we- ate- over -half -the -box -of- cheesy -crackers- and -made -a -mess- all- over -the- floor- and -our -clothes -while -you- weren't- looking, -but -we -sure- are -cute" -expression. :)

Fun in the tub! Look how long her hair is.

In August Lexi & Tyler also started soccer. They both improved soooo much over the course of the season.

Tyler's team name was "Cottonwood Fire" & coincidentally Lexi's team was "Cottonwood Heat"

Here's the camp we set up 5 days a week. McKinley and Colton were both pretty good sports about it all. That's Colton hiding in the stroller :)

Our summer trip to AZ

2011-10-28T09:45:00.000-07:00

At the end of July we drove to AZ (I know probably the worst time of year to go), but it was worth it to spend time with family and friends. When we first got there, all my family met at the temple to try to take a few family pictures. You know this crazy crew above, but this much better behaved good looking family below is my brother Aaron's family.

Man I love these kiddos!!!

The ladies. I swear my mom almost looks younger than I do.

Sneaking a kiss in front of the place where it all began - the Mesa temple.

We also got to go up and spend a few days in my parent's Prescott house (where it's much cooler). Here's the kids and some of their Butler cousins.

They all painted a rock to dress up the drive way.

McKinley decided to paint Gramma Suzie instead :)

Silly time with Grandad (which happens a lot!!)

This house is also dubbed "The Tree House" - can you see why?

Don't mess with this crew....they're dangerous with their cute hats & straw "guns" ;)!!

Can't pass up an opportunity to snuggle with Gramma & a book.

My littles & my friend's Kristen girls, all close in age. Admiring the pool on a hot, hot day.

There is this great little dinner theater just down the street from my parent's house. Cinderella was showing, so I went on a date with Lexi & Tyler and my friend Kristen & her daughter Maddy.

TJ with some of the courtsmen

Having a grand ol' time.

Such a pretty mother/ daughter pair!!

Waiting for the show to start.

While in AZ, we had a lot of opportunity to play in the water. One day, Kristen & I took the kids to this great spray park. There were these water guns that Tyler had a blast with for sure!

This picture turned out pretty cool with Colton's blue eyes.

Lexi was really great about taking care of McKinley while we were there.

My little beauties. I LOVE McKinley's bumble bee suit.

We also spent a lot of hours in my parent's pool. But one of the neatest things we did was take Lexi, Tyler & Colton along with my brothers family & my dad to Sunsplash (a huge water park in Mesa). Nate & I had both been to this waterpark countless times as youth, but it's changed so much since we've last been there. They had some crazy scary things now & the best part - Lexi & Tyler did ALL of them, even the one I was too chicken to go on. They had like a toilet bowl slide we all went on individually without a raft, where after a long steep slide down you go around & around like being flushed. Then eventually drop through the hole in the middle into a deep pool (usually VERY disoriented). There was also a raft slide that looked like a huge taco shell, where you basically drop straight down, then with the momentum go up the other side. I was so proud of my kids. Even Colton went on a few scary slides with Nate. I wish I was able to get pictures, but it's not very smart to tote around a camera on water slides :)

July 2011

2011-10-27T14:46:00.000-07:00

This year we celebrated 4th of July with some friends at a nice backyard BBQ.

What's July 4th without juicy watermelon?

And a big messy cookie? Live it up, Kinners!!

Summer swimming lessons. What a look, Tyler!

This year was Colton's first to take swimming lessons. I love to see all his little classmates in a row.

Those monkeys had so much fun!

I was never able to get a great shot of Lexi, but she improved a lot this go around!

Here's my little buddy just kickin' back watching big sister & brothers having fun in the water. As long as she had a continuous supply of snacks, she was good :)

Wrestling = brotherly love!

Getting our feet wet at the fountain at America the Beautiful park.

So McKinley had several "boo-boo" moments and they all happened to be within a few days. I caught her with some of the funniest expressions while showing off her war wounds.

OK, this next one makes me laugh so hard, because she looks so pitiful & disheveled, complete with crazy hair & food on her face. Yet she's still so stinkin' cute ( I think)!

Hahahahaha - love the drool, but not the black eye. Poor thing!

We also had my cousin's family come for a quick visit on July. It was so crazy to see how BIG all her kids are now. We took a tour of Cave of the Winds in Manitou Springs together & had a ball. Here's the view from the top. Our three year olds gaging the distance to the ground - yikes!

Love our city!!

Watch your head! One of my cousin's sons who is very tall had to do a whole lotta ducking.

Tyler & David became good buddies real fast. So cute!

Some of the really cool stalagmites & stalactites underground!

No, you don't have double vision - they're twins and I think they might be the most polite 16 yr. old boys I've ever met!! McKinley had them wrapped around her little fingers :)

It was so great spend time with them! It'd had been a long time since we were able to catch up.

June 2011

2011-10-27T13:31:00.000-07:00

June was a great month full of family and friends!! At the beginning we took a trip to Utah to see the Lincoln side of the family. Above our kids are having a grand time playing with cousins as they're setting off rockets in the field.

We celebrated Nate's dad & niece Ryan's birthday with a little cookout in the backyard. What says happy birthday better than s'mores?

While we were there, Nate & I got to escape for an overnight getaway. We went to the Anniversary Inn in Salt Lake and it was so much fun! They have all different themed rooms from Egypt to Swiss Family Robinson complete with a bed in a tree etc. We ended up in the Cape Cod lighthouse room, but we were able to tour almost all the other ones. We definitely want to go again.

Here was a our yummy breakfast!

The fun light house (w/ circular bed inside) in our room.

We spent a little time exploring downtown SLC and came upon some STRANGE things...

We also got to take a carriage ride around temple square. The whole 24 hours were so relaxing, thanks to Mom & Dad Lincoln who babysat for us :)

Then the whole Lincoln crew went bowling together.

The kiddos give it a go...

McKinley & her cousin Disney were content watching with the mommas.

I love this picture! Disney's so excited and McKinley almost looks like she's rolling her eyes. We soon found out she was running a fever that day & totally not herself.

Tyler & Ella - so cute you know they're up to something ;)

Lexi & Ryan posing after they had put on a play for us.

Fun in the sprinklers.... so fun! Atleast for the moment....

Seconds later these two collided & it ended with a couple fat bloody lips :(

Saratoga Springs and surrounding communities have this nice parade every year. Here are Lexi & Tyler waving to Smoky the Bear. I love the mountains in the distance.

Colton enjoying the parade, with our niece Kylie in the background leading her band as drum major.

The older kids even got to take a spin on Grandpa's sail boat.

With daddy too. (Love the lake with the snow-capped mountains)

We also took Lexi & Tyler to a Mormon Taberncale Choir Rehearsal at the conference center. Looooved it! I was able to visit with a friend in the choir afterwards (despite all the crazy security).

Beautiful SLC temple lit up at night.

Overall it was a wonderful trip to Utah, full of lots of great times & memories with family.

Later in the month we got a turn with some of the Butler side of the family. My parents & best friend both visited, coincidentally arriving on the same day. Here the kids are having some much needed Gramma & Grandad time!

Here's McKinley with my best friend's daughter Ally, 6 months apart in age.

Cuddle time with Auntie Kristen! She & her daughter were only able to stay for part of a day, but we'll take it!

We had a few days with my parents and filled it up with lots of fun stuff like swimming and local festivals etc. Always love to have family come to our neck of the woods :)

Yay for Gramma!

McKinley's classic cheeseball grin. Can't get enough.....!!!

Lexi's dancin' & playin'

2011-05-18T11:03:00.000-07:00

It's May & that means it's time for Lexi's spring dance recital again. This year it was a "Wizard of Oz" theme. All the classes costumes & dances were sooooo cute!! Here's Lexi with one of her best friends, Sierra (who has been dancing with her almost every recital).

They all looked so beautiful on stage, dancing to Izzy's version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow". I think they were supposed to be the clouds & sky. (Lexi's the 2nd one back).

Getting ready for her tap number to "The Wiz"

Lexi with her twin friends who also go to school with her.

I loved how they had the hats, canes & fringe. Too cute! (She's all the way in the back)

Colton watching Lexi dance (of course he needed his hat & shades because of all the sun in auditorium- haha!)

McKinley wanted to be a part of the dancing action too - sporting her tutu :)

Lexi has also been working hard in her piano lessons & just had a little piano recital. We actually only got about two days notice, but she was ready and played a lovely duet & a solo. Here she is waiting for her turn.

Running, Kicking, Singing

2011-05-18T10:08:00.000-07:00

In April I ran my second official 5K which I know is next to nothing for so many, but again for me it's quite a challenge. Anyway I ran it with a few friends this time (actually we all started at different times because it was called the tortoise and the hare race). About 2/3 into it, I was struggling and really slowing down even more (if that's possible) and then I looked off to the side of the course and saw kids that looked like mine. I got a little closer and discovered they were mine! Nate had brought all the kids as a surprise to me to cheer me on. It was SUCH a great surprise and totally when I needed it the most. I ended up picking up the pace & finishing at a better time than I had before, so I was pleased. I have such a sweet family!!

Tyler started soccer back at the end of March. This year he had a coach that was a little more serious about it & really worked them hard and had a lot of practices. I think overall it was good for them though. Tyler really improved over those several weeks. The stinky thing about the season was that during pretty much every practice & game - the weather was stinky! VERY WINDY or rainy or sleeting, sometimes even snowing. CRAZY! But the kids were all troopers & seemed to still have fun.

If you look closely in this shot, it's snowing!! In MAY!! See the one lonely girl on the team, she was so cute :)

Go Galaxy!! (Tyler's team)

Still snowing!

Tyler had a pretty good arm, so he usually threw the ball in

All bundled (in May) up to watch big brother Tyler

The whole kindergarten class put on a little concert at school. The theme was (can you guess? ) "It's a Jungle Out There". Most kids wore costumes. Good thing gramma & grandad had sent some cute masks & tails recently, otherwise I would have had to be sew something (which I try desperately to avoid).

The girl in the leppard costume is Tyler's "special friend who's a girl" :)

Some of the not so lazy moms put together some really awesome homemade costumes. There's a yak in the background (above). And check out this toucan, totally hand-done with felt...

Tyler's seriously into his music :)

They all did a great job & memorized A LOT of songs. It made me kinda miss my teaching days.

Easter 2011

2011-05-15T21:38:00.000-07:00

Some of our Easter activities this year, like dying eggs. Not sure why the boys are raising their hands...maybe just airing out their armpits :)

Easter egg hunt with some friends in our backyard. Grandma Lincoln sent us some eggs filled with confetti this year & we all had fun with them, as you will see...

The loot from the first easter egg hunt

Nate had me come out to take a picture of Lexi attacking him with a confetti egg, then a second later...

he turned around and attacked me!

The second egg hunt

The annual easter gathering of our kiddos & our friends the Bass family

On actual Easter I totally spaced taking a picture of the kids in their Easter outfits, so I tried to recreate it quickly today...you'd never know.

Our M&M's 1st birthday

2011-05-14T15:00:00.000-07:00

Our little Wonder Woman turned 1!! (These pj's were actually mine as a baby)

I thought I'd just post a bunch of pictures of her on her speical day because she's just so darn cute!!

I haven't been able to catch it on camera, but McKinley stands on her own & has begun to walk by herself some since this picture.

It's my party & I can cry if I want to!!

All this partyin' has tuckered me out!!

Since McKinley Madison is our lil' m&m, I tried to make her cake look like one (if there were pink m&m's)

She's obviously in amazement of her beautiful cake ;) haha!

It's a tradition in our family that I make the birthday kid a little personal- sized heart cake when they turn 1.

McKinley was pretty dainty at first with hers. I'm sure it was all such a shock for her, because we're kinda prudes when it comes to what our babies eat. She had next to no sugar at all her whole first year, now a whole new wonderful world has opened up to her! :

Her cheesy grin :)

Love those eyes!!

Posin' with her presents

Colton is always more than willing to open anyone's presents.

Modeling her new tutu & her wee li'l boots!

We love you so much, Kinners! You've been such a joy & a blessing to all of our lives. You can touch anyone's heart with your beautiful smile!

Colton turns 3 !!!

2011-05-11T18:57:00.000-07:00

Three years ago our little (BIG) boy Colton entered the world in a very dramatic fashion! Since then he has kept our lives exciting, yet some of our most tender moments have been with him as well.

For his birthday, I was able to take all the kids (because they had no school) to a little farm that was set up temporarily that day. It was set up behind this gorgeous building.

We met up with our friends the Fletchers and they were all able to pet lots of different animals, from llamas....

to donkeys..

to goats...

Here Colton got right up close to see how a goat is milked & how a baby goat nurses from its mama. He wasn't shy at all.

What's a trip to a "farm" without a ride on a tractor?

I'd never seen anything like this next animal. It looks like a cross between a rooster & a turkey.

Colton wanted to get right in there with the pigs :)

Later, he got to dig in to his presents...

He can never have to much Buzz stuff (apparently)

Super stoked about his new Buzz Blaster (which might get the award for the noisiest toy EVER)

Colton with all his new loot, and Tyler protecting him from the rain?)

The night before his birthday we had a few friends over to celebrate Colton's & (a late) McKinley's birthdays.

As most of you know. we found out Colton has celiac disease in the last couple months. He has been a little trooper with this big lifestyle change, but I was still a little concerned about making a gluten-free cake. Of course I have troubles with any cake, really! So I tried to keep it simple, telling Colton his cake would be round, so maybe it could be a ball cake. He chose a soccer ball, so that was my attempt. I also made regular cupcakes that looked like m&m's in honor of McKinley for those not brave enough to try the gluten-free cake, but actually his cake tasted pretty good :)
See, can't you tell by Colton's reaction? ha!

Colton always keeps us laughing with his great sense of humor. He can be wild and crazy, but he's a smart, caring boy & my biggest cuddle bug!

We love you buddy!

With her second attempt at eating birthday cake, McKinley wasn't quite as demure :)

Mmmm Mmmm Good!!

Baby Catching - Reader's Beware!

2011-04-16T10:24:00.000-07:00

I got to hold sweet Skyler at two days old (under more calm circumstances). I will have a forever bond with this little infant and her family.

Here's her champion of a mom, Renae.

Although many of you have heard most of the story already, I felt it was important to tell the whole story before I forgot details. I must warn you though, this is mostly for me and my personal journaling so there is much more detail than most of you want. It's very long, so feel free to skim! It's an experience to remember (even if it's just for me) as it was most definitely a life-changing moment.   I know it's a bit hard to follow and I'll try not to be very graphic.
Anyway, I want to start out by saying just how humbled I am by the whole thing. I KNOW that we were all watched over and blessed that night. I feel like angels were around us and protecting us all. This experience was faith building to me. I still don't think the full magnitude of it all has totally hit me, but I do feel it's amazing to have been a part of the miraculous event of child birth in that capacity.  I also feel honored that I got to be the first one who touched that little human being. I've also discovered that anybody, ANYBODY, anybody can deliver a baby (as long as there are no complications). Seriously!
OK, so first a little background...
At church on Sunday (4/10/11), Nate chats with Renae as she tells him they're really hoping to have the baby in the next few days so she doesn't have to be induced. He tells her that I swear by castor oil because it was VERY effective when I had McKinley. I guess that plants a seed in her head, because after church she decided to drink some without knowing about the chance of the baby coming quite quickly.
She and I went visiting teaching (visiting with other women from our church in their home and sharing a message) that afternoon and evening. During our time together, I did pass on the warning to her that she needed to take the contractions seriously if she starts getting them, even if they're not very painful. I told her I barely made it to the hospital and that there was certainly not time to get an epidural. She wasn't too pleased with that information but didn't seem very concerned. All of our conversations that day seem way too ironic now. Especially when I joked with one of the ladies we visited that Renae might have the baby in her living room since she had taken some castor oil. Haha!
Later that evening Nate went back to church to attend to some of his leadership responsibilities. Around 8:30pm, Al (the baby's dad) calls to ask if they can drop off their 2 yr. old son at our house because he thinks he should take Renae to the hospital. Soon after they drop him off with the plan that he'd spend the night. He was dropped off in a bit of a hurry because it seemed things were getting pretty serious. The kids and I then tried to make their son feel comfortable as he wasn't very used to us. Not even ten minutes later, I get another call from Al saying we're pulling back into your driveway, call 911, she's having the baby NOW!!!
What followed was utter chaos and it all happened in the span of just a few minutes. I immediately ditched the kids, ran to the front door while calling 911. With super-human ability, Renae got out of her car, up my driveway, up the stairs to the door, then back down the stairs to my basement all within seconds. The whole time saying "there's a head!" I grab a blanket and a couple pillows from our guest room and throw them on the floor (it was a down comforter because I thought there might be at least some cushion). Renae says she can't lay down, so I go to recline our couch, thinking that might be more comfortable. All the while the operator is asking countless questions that I'm having a hard time answering, because, well I had a few more pressing matters on my mind :) I just keep saying (or maybe yelling) "she's having the baby NOW!!,   NOW!!" I ran to throw a couple kids back upstairs that had made their way down & to grab about half our linen closet's worth of towels etc. Now the operator is trying to give me "instruction" as I'm running around like a chicken with it's head cut-off. He then says "Ma'am, do you understand?" And I quickly say "No, I didn't hear anything you just said!"
Al and I managed to get her pants down and to lay her on the floor and sure enough the head was right there! I'm thinking repeatedly in my mind "Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? This is NOT happening" I ask the operator, "Do we need water & sheets? What do we need?" Because I'm thinking about some 80's movie I saw as a kid where Kirk Cameron had to deliver a baby on a bus or something. I remember him yelling "I need water and newspaper" I also remember thinking as I saw that movie how incredibly frightening that would be....now I was experiencing it! The operator was continuing to try to give me instructions that I still don't completely understand. He was just reading off a card I guess. But mostly all I got was "The baby is coming! Support its head and neck, be careful- it's slippery. DON'T drop it!!" I'm still praying the paramedics will get here, so I don't have to do it.....
Then Renae pushes and the head comes out! I hold the head as it makes a little cry. Then it quickly starts gagging on all the fluid. Without knowing what else to do (and not having the bulb syringe normally used), I use my finger to try to clear her airways a little and tip her head down so maybe some of the fluids would run out. Then her shoulders came out and the rest of her body soon followed. The operator asked if the cord was wrapped around her neck, but I didn't answer...again. He asks more urgently and I snap back "Yes, I'm sure!" (I can at least tell that much. I was totally annoyed with the operator. Poor guy- it wasn't his fault).
I quickly tried to wrap a towel around her and clean off her face a bit (all the while holding the phone against my ear) - I think I must have grown a third hand or something :) I heard the operator say it's important to keep the baby and mom warm and not stretch the cord to tight. He suggested to lay the baby on her mom's tummy. But at this point I realize Skyler's eyes and mouth are closed and she's completely still and silent. My heart totally dropped and I immediately started thinking of all the horrific things that could happen (I really haven't been able to stop thinking of that since). I will never ever forget that snapshot in my mind and how it might have been the most frightening moment of my life :( The operator asks if she's breathing, repeatedly. I don't answer because I couldn't tell and I didn't want the parents to scare the parents. I start patting her on the back , gently rocking her and blowing in her face, trying anything to get her to start making noise. I have no CLUE what I'm doing. Where's my instruction for the whole breathing thing, huh??!! I still shiver when I think of how I was the one totally responsible for that human being in those moments.
Al is freaking out at this point, shouting "she's not breathing!" I try to look quickly and make sure the cord wasn't pinched or stretched too tightly. I finally said " I don't know if she breathing!" I try to put my face near hers to see if I can feel her breath by chance and I try to find a little pulse on her body. All of this is happening SOOO quickly! It wasn't nearly as calm as it sounds when I'm writing it. Thankfully, just moments after that, I hear the fire fighter's voice. They come downstairs, taking their sweet time. I know their job is to be calm, but a little more urgency would have been nice! They start looking at her color which was slightly blueish, but overall mostly pink. They began giving her an apgar score, as I'm still holding her. I kept saying (trying to stay calm) "I can't tell if she's breathing!" Finally they take her from me and begin to use their little bulb syringe. She's breathing, but still makes no sound (and didn't the whole time while in my house).
At this point, I hang up and I finally think of poor Renae who has been totally forgotten about (at least by me). It did seem Al was pretty attentive to her, though, during the actual process. I remember him hugging her & rejoicing with her quickly when she first came out. I unfortunately was too frightened to celebrate at the time. Anyway, I go over to hold Renae's hand and the first thing she says to me is " I can't believe what I just did to you!" . Then I say "No, I'm so sorry it all happened like this" I ask if she wants water or something because I know she's been neglected a bit. She says she's fine. The whole time she was absolutely AMAZING!! So calm and under control. She maybe yelled twice as she was pushing and the rest of time, totally cool and collected (at least on the outside). She told the paramedic who came shortly after the fire department that she was having some pain down there, but they said she'd have to wait until they got to the hospital before they took care of anything in "that department".
When it seemed things were mostly under control, I then go upstairs because I remember I have kids. They were audience to the whole thing with quite the view, lined up on the stairs with eyes and mouths opened wide. I grab McKinley and gather them on the couch and say...." and that's how babies are born" :) Lexi and Tyler asked a couple questions, including "What's that on your hands, mom?" (oh yeah, I forgot to wash my hands). Anyway, they really were pretty calm and mostly just excited about all the commotion. I think my neighbor walked in then, asking if everything was OK and if I needed anything. I pointed downstairs to what was going on and said, trembling, "she just had a baby...I just delivered a baby." It's also then that I started to loose it a bit and cried. Just for a moment so I didn't scare the kids. She gave me a big hug and offered to help stay with the kids upstairs. We put a movie on for them and she was just wonderful.
I went back downstairs to see what else I could do. I offered to turn up the heat because it was pretty chilly, it being in the basement and the door was open and all. They had put a solar blanket on the baby and on Renae I think. They must have already cut the cord by that point. I remember offering water to people, probably an insane amount of times because I didn't know what the heck else to do. I remember rubbing Al's shoulders a bit and congratulating him as he was obviously a bit emotional. I asked if he wanted me to turn his car off since it had been running the whole time.
The fire fighters had rolled Renae onto a sling thing and started carrying her upstairs, then back down again and onto a gurney. She was just wrapped in a blanket in the fetal position, trying to breathe calmly. I told her she was amazing, to keep breathing and that the hard part was over. One of the paramedics said something like " we like ones like this, nice and easy". Then they got her into the ambulance. At that point their little boy was getting pretty concerned. I can't even imagine what was going on in his little head, but obviously it was all pretty scary. My Colton was just excited there were fire trucks at our house! :) I remember my neighbor trying to comfort McKinley because she was crying pretty hard and she also kept looking at me and saying "You're OK! You're OK!" like she was trying to calm me. I thought I was pretty in control at that point, but apparently I was pretty pale. I guess I might have been a little bit in shock.
A few paramedics stayed behind to clean up their stuff and to try to fix Al's car because it wouldn't start (obviously). They asked me if I could use our car to give it a jump. I couldn't find our jumper cables b/c they were in Nate's car. So I asked my neighbor to give them a jump. He ran excitedly in his jammies to help. One of them drove Al's car to the hospital later. I began to try to clean up a bit, but was very surprised at just how little mess there was, considering everything. Like I said before it was the tidiest delivery I'd ever been a part of :) It was mostly just a couple towels that took the brunt of it and the down comforter. Unluckily, it was a white towel that had Nathan's name embroidered on it that we got from our wedding :) Besides that there were only a few little spots on the carpet an I was able to clean those up immediately. Granted she didn't deliver the placenta until she got to the hospital.
One of the paramedics asked if there was anything else we needed before they left. Then they were gone. Ironically, Nate pulled up just as the fire truck was leaving our street. I had already cleaned everything up and it looked like nothing out of the ordinary had ever happened, except our neighbors were here in there PJs.
I guess minutes before, on his way home, Nate called Al because he saw Al had called him earlier in the day. Al asked him if he knew what happened and Nate of course didn't. He told Nate they had just had the baby, so Nate begins to congratulate him. Al tells him "We had the baby at your house". Nate said, "Oh, you mean Gavin (their little boy) is at our house?" Then Al says "No, we just had our baby, at your house, and Alyssa delivered it!" I wish I could have heard that conversation, but I guess there was some confusion to say the least. I guess I called him while he was on with Al. So Nate said hello and I began to lose it again and said/cried "Where ARE you?" He asked "Did something amazing just happen?" It was shortly after that that Nate arrived home. He walks in with a big grin and asks the kids "What just happened?" He said something like he was so proud of me and that he was so jealous :) After we made sure the kids were doing OK and not too traumatized, we got them to bed, even though they were jumping up and down basically. I finally tried to tell Nate the whole story much later. He then told me, regardless of the time, I had to call my mom. Since then I've gotten to re-tell the story many times, but still have never fully comprehended it all.
Skyler & Renae are totally healthy and happy. In fact, by some miracle Skyler got an apgar score of 10 (the highest a baby can score). They did want to keep her just a little longer at the hospital since she was born in an un-sterile environment to make sure no infection developed. Interestingly, one of the paramedics told Renae that this was his 3rd unexpected delivery this year, but it was the first one where he didn't have to do anything :)
Since the whole fiasco, I'm thinking of all the things I could have done better or differently (like put the phone on speaker etc.), and all the things that could have gone wrong, but I have to keep reminding myself that, with the Lord's help, everything worked out just fine and Skyler is doing great. I also think of how the experience must have been for my kids. Lexi and Tyler said they saw everything, but Tyler said he was still confused how the baby actually came out. So I must have blocked his view a little which is probably a good thing. The kids have continued to relate the story to anyone that will stop long enough to listen. Apparently, Lexi's teacher had her share it with the whole class the next day. It's funny, considering most labor and deliveries, this one went to quickly and smoothly. Renae did such a great job of making it seem almost effortless, Lexi must think child birth isn't that big of a deal. You just lay on the floor anywhere, push a couple times and out pops the baby. What's all the fuss about? :)
Now life just continues on as normal....let's hope!

Lexi's Baptism

2011-03-20T20:53:00.000-07:00

In our church, if you choose to, you can get baptized once you've turned eight. Alexis decided she wanted to get baptized long ago, so this birthday was VERY exciting for her. We are so proud of her and the important choice she made.

All dressed in white, ready to get baptized by her daddy.

Sisters in white. Lexi picked out this beautiful dress for her big day (although you can't see most if it). McKinley is actually wearing a dress Lexi wore to her cousin's baptism when she was a baby. Guess it's come full-circle.

Here's all the family that traveled to be here for Lexi's baptism. My parents and Nate's parents and some of Nate's brothers' family came. Unfortunately, this was the best shot we could get of all of us as we kind of rigged a little tripod and set the timer in a rush. Thanks everyone for coming to support us and Alexis. It meant so much!

Here's Lexi's birthday/ baptism cake. She wanted a beachy cake, so I tried to get a little creative by having teddy grahams sunbathing on rafts and playing in the water. I even tried to make a little palm tree out of a pretzel rod and a gum drop (it was a little sad looking, but good enough). Most of you know my history with cakes, but I actually had a lot of fun with this one, probably because it didn't involve any cutting or sculpting!

While family was visiting we took them to the Focus on the Family playland. The adults seemed to have more fun than the kids, but it was still a good time. I tried to catch all these cute faces in a picture, but the best I could get, too bad it's so dark.

The day everyone arrived happened to be the same day as the art show at the school. This is like the biggest event at Martinez Elementary each year. The art teacher does an INCREDIBLE job!! So the kids felt pretty special that they had soooo many family members they got to show off their art work to :) It did get a little tricky trying to keep like 16 people together in such a crowded place though.

Grandad Butler keeping track of Colton during the art show (no easy task). I just loved the height difference here :)

Colton having some cuddle time with his other grandpa, Grandpa Lincoln. He was so comfortable he fell asleep within a few minutes. So sweet!

We loved having so many loved ones come and spend time with us. It was especially great that we were able to fit everybody in one house, so no one had to get a hotel. It makes it so much more fun that way!

Birthdays & 100's Day

2011-03-20T20:14:00.000-07:00

The kindergarten classes at the kids' school had a big celebration on their 100th day of school. They have all sorts of games and crafts and then the kids perform a bunch of dances they've learned. So cute!

Here's Ty sporting his nifty "100" glasses :)

Ty & I doing the chicken dance.

Ty showing off all his new movies (& partners)

His dalmation he named "Elijah" after his good buddy that moved away.

Here's Lexi enjoying some presents on her big day. Turning 8, woo hoo! We had a little bit of a smaller celebration this year because a few days after her actual birthday most of our extended family came to celebrate with her for her baptism.

And we finish out the February birthdays with Nate as he turns.... thirty-something :)

Here's Nate's annual birthday trifle! He's so laid back about his birthday, he dosen't mind if we make a trifle from the "leftover" portions of the kids' birthday cakes for his celebration. By the end of this particular February, I was very grateful for whatever short-cuts I could take. It was a doozy of a month, but a great one too!

And here's miss cutie- petutie, gettin' so big!

I need help fixing my blog

2011-02-05T11:37:00.000-08:00

Thought I'd just ask for advice from my blog expert friends. I can't get a background design anymore. I've tried countless times from "cutest blog on the block" to download the background after following the instructions, but it just doesn't seem to work. Any ideas?? Thanks :)

Tyler's 6th Birthday!!

2011-02-05T11:33:00.000-08:00

Wow! Can't believe my sweet Tyler is 6 already! He's such a genuine, compassionate, loving kid. We're so blessed to have him in our family.

Here he is anxiously awaiting the present opening...

This year he got to have an official birthday party. Can you guess where he wanted to go???

Surprise!! Never saw that one coming, huh? We only go to Chuck E. Cheese EVERY year for a birthday, but we've never had an official party there. It actually worked out great. He only had a few friends come, but they all had a blast.

This was my translation of a transformer cake. That's what Tyler really wanted & all the ideas I saw on-line intimidated me too much, atleast right now. So Nate just suggested I printout an image and take it to the bakery & have them print it on rice paper. So that's what we did. Even though this seemed like it would be the easiest cake I've ever made, sadly, it still proved to be a challenge for me. I'm not sure I've mentioned before how much cake & I aren't friends. Atleast the making of cakes....eating them is a different story. Anyway, here's the result (after a couple attempts).

I swear the boys had more fun than it looks:)

The hit of the night...the Ticket Blaster! This was so much fun, It's like in a game show where you're in a booth & money flies all around & you have to grab as much as you can. This time it was tickets instead of money, but they had some bigger coupons in there that were worth 50 or 100 tickets. Tyler was smart & stepped on all the big ones right before the fans turned on, so he ended up with around 500 tickets- 'atta' boy!

Relaxing in January

2011-02-04T15:46:00.000-08:00

I've finally caught up to 2011. Here are just a few fun pictures from January.

See I'm putting McKinley to work already, good thing she loves the vacuum.

Hello, Blue eyes!!!

Wrestle time with daddy. McKinley didn't want to be left out.

Colton with his lil' playgroup buddies Hyrum and Max. These guys are so cute!

I mentioned in my previous post how hard it was for me to find matching or even coordinating Sunday outfits for Christmas. It was near impossible for me. Then we got to Arizona and lookie what Grandad picked out himself for the girls.... GREAT taste, Grandad!!

These were the outfits I was finally able to put together- from 3 different stores. I love this picture- it'd be a lot sweeter though if I could get rid of the red-eye. All our photo editing software is not working right now, so... imagine this without the demon eyes :)

December 2010 review

2011-02-04T15:29:00.000-08:00

December was ,ofcourse, insanely busy like everyone else's. Here was McKinley at 8 months beginning to stand while holding on to things.

Lexi was in a dance recital during December. It's so fun because a few of her friends do it with her, especially her good friend Sierra. They've been friends since they were toddlers.

Here they are in their tap/ Asain outfit. This was taken during the dress rehearsal. During the actual performance Lexi discovered, after we arrived, that she forgot her pants. It was quite the adventure to say the least (I may have broken a few speed limits as I rushed back home with a couple minutes to spare).

Their cute little ballet outfits.

Nate and I went to a fun Christmas/ birthday party...

Can you tell it was an ugly sweater party??

(I swear Nate's sweater seemed a lot uglier when I first bought it)

Before we left for Arizona we had a little Christmas of our own at home a couple days early. This was Tyler's creative idea for a make-shift Santa costume.

Rudolph??

McKinley sporting her new gift from Grandma Lincoln- so stinkin' cute!

Here's Colton in what we thought would be one of his favorite presents, a Buzz costume. You can see he lacked a bit of enthusiasm.

Can you believe all these kids come from just two familes?

Here's our kids with our dear friends the VanWagoners'. My children have absolutely LOVED their kids. We all spent a lot of time together, so you can imagine our sadness as they had to move away to Las Vegas just before Christmas. We'll miss them so much, but hope they come back sometimes to visit :)

This Buzz was a hit!!

Lovin' Christmas day with my family in Arizona...

Gramma Suzie helping baby go through her stocking

One of the BEST presents Nate recieved; My mom made him a big double fleece UofA blanket. He snuggles up in it every night :)

Looks like McKinley won over Uncle Aaron too!

For Christmas I really wanted to get the kids matching outfits while I still could. I shopped for days at dozens of stores and this was the closest I could get. My little handsome men.

We also got to visit with some great friends Nate & I have had for a LONG time. Nate's been best buds with these guys since childhood. I became friends with them closer to high school, actually before I was friends with Nate. Now they awesome wives who we love too! Anyway here's some of our offspring (there's still a few missing -in bed & in utero :) ). What I love about this group is that no matter how long it's been since we've seen each other, it's like no time has passed (our kids all had a blast together too)!
I can't wait to get together again soon.

Thanksgiving 2010

2011-02-04T11:12:00.000-08:00

One morning as I was taking the trash out, I looked up & saw I was a few feet away from a big buck. I was taken by surprise to say the least. Sometimes when it snows a lot we can see what looks like deer tracks in our yard, but I never understood how they got there and of course have never seen one. Well I have now...

In the fall we decided to try to start going to more "local attractions" in our city that we've never been to. The Western Mining Museum was on of our stops...

For Thanksgiving we went to Utah to stay with Nate's family. We always enjoy our time there. Here's Ty & Kinners having some snuggle time with Grandpa Lincoln

We got quite a bit of snow while we were there. The kids took advantage.

We tried REALLY hard to get some decent pictures of all the Lincoln grandkids, but with this baker's dozen- it was near impossible. They'll be one more joining us in July (from Nate's sister Karen).

We had a blast at a close-by jump place, trying to find a good place for the kids to use some of their pent-up energy.

Grandma and Grandpa Lincoln taking a little break :)

Nate's brother is a volunteer firefighter in Saratoga Springs & he let the kids put on some of his gear. It wasn't exactly a perfect fit, but the kids sure loved it!

We were also entertained as some of the cousins put on a musical review. Complete with costumes &and scene changes :)

While the other kids were doing that....Colton was doing this....!!

He got into some really nice paints of our sister-in-law's mother's. She's an artist, but assured us they wouldn't be too harmful :) I guess you could call Colton an artist too ;) Instead of canvas, he uses his mouth as the medium.

Here's the newest addition to the Lincoln clan, baby Disney (Nate's brother's baby girl #6).

Our busy & fun October

2011-02-03T20:07:00.000-08:00

Looking back, October was pretty crammed with events, but it was a lot of fun with great weather!

One event was something I never thought I'd do- run a 5K. I realize this is not a big deal for most people. But for me who has absolutely loathed running for most of my life, it was a big accomplishment. My friends Mel & Rochelle helped encourage me and even trained with me by running crazy early in the morning. Anyway, it was kind of fun & I plan to do atleast one more in 2011. I didn't have a very fast time, but I never stopped. Rochelle & her awesome daughter Emma Lee had great times though.

We had a fun family night at a local gymnastics gym & Colton had a ball in the foam pit. We could barely get him out.

Our first attempt at feeding McKinley solids. You can see how it went over. We were a little slow getting to it, I guess it was our attempt to keep her a baby forever.

I love how this sweet baby just radiates joy!!

Cute, cute Lexi with her new braces & glasses. Can you believe she's almost 8? She's growing up way too fast.

During October, we went to a great place at the base of Garden of the Gods called Rockledge Ranch. It's an old settlers' village that they have kept in tact, with everyone dressed in period clothes. Here was Buttercup the cow.

Lexi also had field day at school , She's a ferocious tiger (before the braces).

Back to Rock Ledge...

Colton learning how to press apples for cider. It took quite a bit of muscle power

Our family had another outing to a pumpkin patch out in the middle of no where.

Conquering the hay pryramid

Hay ride (it was quite windy that day)

Awesome hay slides

There was also a little hay maze. In summary....there was a lot of hay :)

Selecting the perfect pumpkin

To celebrate Halloween we went to an event at Garden of the Gods where they had a costume contest. To our surprise, McKinley won for the babies to 3 yr. old group. Her costume wasn't all that impressive, but I think it was the enormous smile she gave the judges as we passed them that won them over. Still we were proud of our lil' monkey!

The next day at our church's Trunk-or-Treat... Here's Lexi & her friend Avery.
Apparently Cleopatra was a popular costume choice this year.

Our friend Josey (an former co-worker of Nate's) & her family came with us this year. McKinley & her little boy Connor were born just a couple weeks a part.

The rest of the fam. Nate wore his fake tattoos & basketball duds, spiked his hair & went as an NBA player. His little ensemble actually caused a bit of a stir.

Ending the month with one of my favorite pictures...just horsin' around with daddy :)

September review (just a few months behind)

2011-02-03T17:06:00.000-08:00

So one of my goals for the year was to try to keep up with my blog a little better, even if it's just for myself :) I know most of this might not be very interesting for most of you, but it's my form of a family journal right now, so bare with me. I realized I hadn't written in here since early Sept. - so here's some highlights from the rest of the month...

My good friend Rochelle has a baby girl named Elizabeth that was born about 3 weeks after McKinley. We discovered by accident they had the same outfit, so we obviously had to get a picture of them in it. It took a while, but we finally made it happen.

Here's McKinley trying to beat Elizabeth up :)

McKinley at 5 months:

Lovin' her new exersaucer

If any of you know Nate, you know he's just a little bit of a fan of U of A (major understatement!!!). When I found out I was having a girl when I was pregnant with Lexi- I bought this little dress when we were visiting Tucson. It was Nate's favorite, he even wanted to get professional pictures of Lexi in it. This time around with McKinley (out "Little Wildcat Princess" II) , we had to settle for pictures taken by mommy.

After taking the suggestion from our incredibly fit friend Mel, my friend Rochelle and I braved it up the incline (the old Cog Railway) in Manitou Springs. After realizing we had hiked the wrong trail for a REALLY long time, we finally made it to the crazy steep part. Great views, but we quickly agreed the climb... kinda sucked. I felt like I might plummet to my death at any moment. I'm also a klutz so I don't trust myself. Hey, but other than that- I highly recommend it to anyone else :)

We tried really hard to put on a happy face while we took pictures, to trick everyone.

We made it. I know many people who hike this often, some every week, but I can't say I'll be one of those people.

First day of school

2010-09-23T13:37:00.000-07:00

First day of school this year at Martinez Elementary....Lexi's now a second grader & Tyler's a big Kindergartner. I'm so glad Lexi has a sibling at school now. Tyler really likes being able to see her in the halls too.

They were excited because Daddy walked them to school that day (not boring ol' mommy).

Here's Lexi wasting no time chatting away with some old & new friends. Apparently Nate tried really hard to embarass her infront of all her friends, but it didn't seem to phase her too much. We'll see in a couple years :)

" Oh yeah...I've now arrived!!"

Tyler on the rug with all his new excited and timid classmates. (That's him with the super cool spiderman backpack)

Puttin' then right to work :) Tyler actually has the same teacher Lexi had in Kindergarten, so they're excited to share that. He really loves school and so far is turning out to be an excellent student, but apparently he's even more social than our resident social butterfly - Lexi. This might get interesting :)

A whole lotta camping!

2010-09-14T12:50:00.000-07:00

As I said from the previous post, our first camping trip with McKinley & the camper was a success, so we thought we'd quite possibly press our luck and go camping twice more (2 weekends in a row). The first was a ward campout. We met at the site of our stake's girls' camp - Camp Joseph in Rye , CO. In the morning we all participated in a big service project to help improve the camp. For some reason (we still don't know why) Nate was unofficially put in charge of arranging most of this ward camp out, so he was a little relieved when it was over. It was a fun time as well though. Unfortunately this was the only picture we got of that campout b/c our camera battery died right after...oops :)

Our next adventure was at Jellystone Park in Estes Park on Labor day weekend. This was actually where we were trying to go on our first camping trip, but it was totally booked. So we reserved a spot weeks in advance this time. We were told to watch out for bears....well we sure found them and discovered they were quite cute and photogenic :)

Our kids didn't know who Yogi bear was (guess he was of generations past) before this trip. Now, Yogi, Cindy and Boo Boo bear are their best pals. They even have tatoos of them on their arms (which they apparently wore proudly on picture day at school -nice!)

This camp ground was really fun in the fact that they had activites going on almost all the time. Things like candy bar bingo, karaoke night, big dance (all of which we participated in), crafts and horseshoe & mini-golf tournaments. They had a mini-golf course, arcade, 2 playgrounds and a pool as well. The down-side is that the lay-out of the camp ground was disappointing. There was very little shade/ trees and the sites were all really clsoe together. There was also only one bathroom for the whole camp ground (2 stalls) and it was a MAJOR hike down and uphill to get to it. We might normally get more "creative" in finding places to go to the bathroom, but being so close to our neighbors with hardly any trees made that plan impossible. The only place you could get water was also at the bathroom, there were no other water spickets any where. These things were a bit frustrating, but overall we had a good time!

Jellystone is just a couple minutes outside of Estes Park, so we went into town a few times and had a lot of fun. We went out to eat a couple times, walked around the arts & crafts festival, and drove around the Stanley Hotel (famous from "The Shining"). While we were doing that we ran into quite the gang....

This fella had no problem strolling in front of our car and others. Guess he knows who's boss :) It was pretty neat b/c we got within a foot of him. There were atleast 10 or more females with him. It was funny b/c the home owners were just doing their gardening or whatever, not really paying any attnetion to the "visitors", obviously very used to it.

Anyway, the kids were lovin' it and we're tight now!

Estes has such a lovely riverwalk through the downtown with litte waterfalls everywhere.

In one of the shop windows we encountered this triceratops fossil that was supposedly discovered in Colorado. It was blowing Colton & Tyler's minds!

Later we stopped and had a little picnic on the river's edge - so lovely.

Kinners enjoying herself - like usual :)

Taking another little break by the river and playground the kids all enjoyed...

...even McKinley

We found some great climbing trees (and yummy sticks, I guess)

"What? I'm not posing!"

McKinley taking a little rest on her napping daddy

Tyler got pretty high shimmying his way up

We also came across a unique little group of shops in the shape of an ark.

Now whenver we were actually at our camp site, Colton's favorite (and maybe ONLY) passtime was quite literally showering himself with fistfuls of dirt. He'd lay down and make dirt angels, even cake his face with as much dirt as possible to make some pretty neat masks. At one point he thought it'd be fun to have a big dirt fight ...... not so fun for anyone else!!

Luckily, we were able to rinse offin the pool a couple times. It was McKinley's first time in the pool and she was loving it. We also bought this float suit for Colton so that he wouldn't totally drown if we couldn't have our hands on him the whole time. He was NOT liking the idea at first and had a little stand-off, but then a few minutes later, he was like a little water baby having a ball. He loved jumping in over and over and having daddy propel him far in the air. It worked out just great!

It was nice the pool was heated.

We took a nice hike on the mountain

We also made time to take a ride on the giant wavy slide in town. Nate and I found this a few years ago with my parents, when Lexi was just a little toddler and thought it was quite fun for $1. This time Tyler, Lexi and I raced.... you can see Tyler won that heat.

Then Nate took Colton

On our trip home, we stopped at Palmer Lake to have another picnic and the kids played on yet another playground. We've never actually spent anytime here before and we've lived so close.

Overall, there was a lot of adventure, dirt, work, tiredness and fun! We decided 3 nights camping is plenty long enough (especially if some of those nights are frigid). Also we learned that an infant isn't the hard one when you're camping.....it's definitely the Colton-ator!! We had a good time, but we might just take a break from camping for while. Us old people need to rest :)

Our camper's maiden voyage

2010-08-24T14:51:00.000-07:00

We found a weekend in July and decided to take our trailer out for a spin. We wanted to go camping for two nights (for the first time). We hoped to go to somewhere like Estes Park or Breckenridge, but were naive and thought we could just find a camp site in one of those places without making a reservation. Luckily, we decided to just check right as we were about to walk out the door and came to find out that almost EVERY camp site in the whole state was full. I don't exactly understand why, it wasn't a holiday weekend or anything. Regardless, I'm glad we checked before we drove 2+ hours just to find out later . We figured we'd go to Woodland Park (just 1/2 hr. away) instead and drive around and hope we could eventually find one spot. We did and it ended up being quite nice, right next to a little lake we didn't know existed. Here was our little set up.

Nate got the kids each a headlight (flashlight you wear on your head) and they were thrilled!

Our camper sleeps 6 snuggly, but we weren't sure where we'd put the baby since I was nervous sleeping with her with all the sleeping bags etc. So Nate with all his ingenuity whipped up a little cradle that could be attached to the little counter (as you see above). Despite it looking precariously perched there, it is actually quite stable because it's bolted with big brackets to the side and back. Nate also made it collapsable with hinges so we could lay it flat when the camper is collapsed. I was really quite impressed, then he painted it white no less so it would be prettier. We just put the mattress from her cradle in it and it worked lovely.

Here's Nate and Kinners enjoying the tin foil dinners we made on the first night. We had a few more "hiccups" the first night as we discovered that the battery in the trailer was dead and that our lantern batteries were dead as well, but with a couple trips back and forth into town, things worked out.

Tyler and (a tired) Colton hanging out by the fire waiting for daddy to come back.

The next day we took a little hike to the nearby lake. This is Colton towards the end of the hike, pouting and "putting his foot down" that he was DONE!

We also drove to the Rampart Resevoir and while the kids and Nate played a bit in the water, McKinley had other plans.......

The resevoir isn't really for swimming, but there were a lot of other people playing in the water so the older kids were anxious to join the fun as well.

Tyler with the lake we discovered in the background

I love Colorado, always such lovely scenery every where you look, like this beautiful meadow...and a cute girl :)

There was this little hut type thing with fire places in it by the lake

McKinley's face summarizes how the whole trip went overall. Everyone had fun and she was an angel! We're crossing our fingers that our next two camping trips go as well. I'll let you know....

Random July pics

2010-08-16T14:56:00.000-07:00

Here's just a little of our July.... starting with McKinley's first 4th of July (hence the shirt - that her brothers have worn in the past).

We celebrated starting with our annual 4th of July breakfast at our church. Later in the afternoon we went to our friends the VanWagoners' home and cooked some foil dinners and had s'mores and had our own little version of a fireworks show. Here's Colton enjoying his first s'mores, I believe. This was before the mess! He enjoyed a few more after this:)

Tyler and his buddies Isaiah and Elijah also enjoying the gooey goodness.

Lex and Ty had their faces painted at the breakfast. Ferocious tigers aren't they?

OK, so one of Nate's new hobbies is to see just how "creative" he can make Tyler's hair as he cuts it. I told him he needs to find another outlet for this "creativity" - like play-doh or something and not our child's head! Anyway, his latest creation: devil horns, nice! This lasted an hour or so, then I could stand it no longer. Nate settled for making"sports stripes" on one side of Ty's hair instead (yeah, you know from the late 80's). Luckily, they just grew out right before he started kindergarten.

Here are some photos of Kinners as she turned 3 months...Colton was happy tp help with the celebration.

Isn't this the best expression?! Love it~

These were before her hair turned crazy wavy!

Like her hair here after a bath. Don't let the pictures fool you...she loved it!

Pretty baby, T-ball Tyler & Fun with Family

2010-08-15T17:10:00.000-07:00

After we had McKinley's blessing in June, my parents and my niece statyed with us a little longer, like I mentioned earlier. It was so nice to spend time with them and for them to have some extra time with McKinley.

My dad spent a little time coaching Tyler a bit on his T-ball game.

We all attended two of Tyler's T-ball games that week. I think Ty really loved his big cheering section. Here's his St. Louis Cardinals team. They were all so cute to watch. As you can see Tyler was much taller than most of the kids.

Tyler really made a lot of improvement over the season. He ended up getting a REAL bat and baseball and glove and a sweet cardinals hat. He had a blast.

Ty at bat

Don't know if you can see his face in this above picture, but he's being goofy, which we could often find him being in the outfield. There were often times we'd have to yell "Tyler- RUN!" or "Stop lifting your shirt up" or "Stop filling your hat with dirt!" etc. He had a hard time focusing, but he did get better and had a lot of fun:)

Love this action shot (and the dimple)

While my family was here we also spent a lot of time taking countless pictures of the baby.

Kinners is OUT as my dad holds her. I love it when her mouth hangs open when she's sleeping. You can't tell here, but she was totally sleeping with one eye open too - so funnny.

McKinley loved when Alyxe held her too. My niece is really good with babies, it was so nice to have her here.

Having some daily chat time with my favorite baby girl as she tells me all her stories.

Colton is subtly telling us the baby is stinky in this picture. He holds his nose and yells with much enthusiasm..."YUCK!!! GROSS!!!"

Alyssa's B-day celebration

2010-07-28T15:23:00.001-07:00

Right after McKinley's blessing, we celebrated my birthday with my parents and my niece who stayed with us for a few days after the blessing. It was such a nice day! It actually makes 2 year in a row that we were able to celebrate Father's Day and my birthday together with my parents.

I woke up to streamers and balloons around the house thanks to my wonderful kiddos. My parents got me this beautiful painting that was quite fitting to represent me, Lexi and McKinley in our three white dresses (Lexi will be getting baptized in February).

One of the best parts of the day was when we went to White Fence Farms in Denver. We'd heard it was a neat place so went to check it out. There were lots of fun things to see and do there. In the barn/ store there was this display of the constitution and the patriotic family that we are had to get the photo opp :)

Tyler lovin' the tire swing

Those are the cutest farm animals I've ever seen...my kids and my niece Alyxe and my dad.

Pretty little water garden

This one cracks me up... mis padres.

It also had a petting zoo, complete with stinky pigs and all

Maybe my family was meant for farm life after all.............maybe not!

Anyway if you're in Colorado and you haven't been to White Fence Farms, you might want to give it a try. They have family style dining with good ol' home cookin' and they also have a 2- story slide in the silo and a great playground and lots of other stuff.

It was such a nice day - thanks everyone!

(Sorry I posted this picture again by mistake and can't delete it)

McKinley's Blessing

2010-07-26T13:31:00.000-07:00

On Father's Day we had McKinley Madison blessed at church and we were lucky to have almost all of our family there. McKinley had on a gorgeous dress my mother got her, almost as gorgeous as McKinley herself...but not quite :)!

Getting a picture of our little family (although not as little anymore) proved pretty tricky, but we ateast have something for posterity.

Here are a few pics of the little lady on her big day with some family...

with Gramma Suzie

with Grandma Lincoln (after Kinners got changed)

with almost all of the Lincoln side of the fam from Utah and Oregon

with some of the Butler side of the family from Arizona

with handsome big brother Tyler

with adoring sister Lexi

with Colton who can't help but steal kisses constantly

We had a lot of fun with everyone here. Although it was near impossible to go and do a lot with so many people, we enjoyed our time just hanging out.

You could find Jedi s fighting (Tyler and his Cuz Jonah, with matching jammies - by coincidence)

You could always find all the little kids climbing all over my dad - he was like the pied piper with kids! They barely ever let him sit down, they'd always come within a couple minutes and start pulling him outside again, saying "C'mon, you're our playground!"

Unfortunately I don't have a lot of great pictures of our "idle time", but there was a lot of eating, lounging and playing outside or downstairs where it was cooler, playing Wii or other games on iPads (new toys a couple people had), watching movies, playing dress-up and other games etc.

It has kind of become a tradition when our family gathers for one of children's blessings, that we have a big picnic at the park the day before and order a 6 ft. sub (man, those things can go a long way) and the kids all play etc. We've played disc-golf or flown kites and this time Nate launched some rockets. Luckily, the weather has cooperated everytime (but I can't say as much for the day of the blessing - hence the crazy blizzard in April for Tyler's blessing when church was actually cancelled!)

A few days before the blessing, my brother Aaron's family came and we were able to do a few fun things before everyone showed up. We went to the zoo with them and had a great time. Again, we weren't able to get very good pictures our our lil' trip, but here's a few...

The kids got to go on the sky ride for the first time.

Colton saw a gorilla for the first time. There was a big silverback sitting, crammed in a corner with a fierce look on his face, and Tyler said "That gorilla's giving himself a timeout!"

These alligators seem to have a smile that says "You look like a tasty treat!"

Lovin' the giraffes.

The whole week was wonderful! We sure love when family comes to visit! (hint, hint)

Other April / May Happenings

2010-06-07T15:02:00.000-07:00

My friend Sarah took some pictures of McKinley when she was about 3 weeks old. Although McKinley didn't cooperate very much, Sarah was able to get some really cute ones. Thanks Sarah!

We love this one of Kinners (the most recent nickname we're trying out) because it seems like you can just stare forever into her eyes and never really grasp what she's thinking.

For Easter we got together with some good friends and had a little egg hunt. We thought we'd give the youngest two a head start before the bigger kids, but there was no need. Colton and their little girl ended up finding way more than their share (including the hardest ones).

We took this exact same picture of Lexi in this lil' ladybug outfit and I gotta say it's almost impossible to tell the difference between the two.

Utter relaxation!

One tired momma cuddling her sweetie girl.

The whole fam sure loves to get a turn snuggling with McKinley

I discovered I don't have any matching clothes for the boys and I made it my quest to begin to solve that problem at the clearance rack at Target

One of the many sweet moments we wish we could bottle up

Turning one month old and happy about it :)

Tyler's preschool class put on a little production for Mother's Day and I thought these face cutout were HILARIOUS!

Lexi had a dance recital in May. Here she is with one of her best friends. It's so fun they've been able to dance and take swim lessons together over the years.

They performed a ballet number
and

a hip-hop tap number.....so cute!

Here's McKinley in one of my favorite dresses before her first time to church

As always, there are many more photos of April and May, if you're interested, on our picasaweb link (upper right of page)

Colton turns 2

2010-05-26T14:19:00.000-07:00

Let me just talk for a minute about our cute lil' (well, not so little- he's a bit of a beast) Colton. He's now a big brother and LOVING it! I was a little worried how he'd do with the baby, but he literally squeals and giggles in glee whenver he sees her and yells "BWEEE" (his word for baby/McKinley I guess). He is constantly trying to cover her all over with kisses. When he doesn't see her he's asking where she is. It really is so sweet! I think he's going to do well at protecting her, but for now we kinda have to protect her FROM him and all his "enthusiastic" adoration.

Colton would try to jump in the swing with baby if he could.

The sweetest big brothers lovin' on their baby sister

So now Colton is offically a big two-year old. For his actual birthday we were prety low key. He got his favorite spaghetti dinner and wore his favorite hat of the day (he's really into hats lately).

Patiently awaiting to open all his loot.

I guess you could probably call this birthday the Buzz and Woody birthday - his current obsession! It helps that there's Toy Story stuff everywhere you look in the stores now.

Some of his most favorite presents

He got a sad little pan of brownies for his real birthday, but I tried to make up for it later....

We threw him a little party at the park with some friends and I attempted to make my first fondant cake. Cakes and I have a rocky relationship, but I gave it a go and made this rocket ship with some advice from my friend Callie the cake master. Buzz seemed too daunting, so I thought maybe a rocket ship would be the easy way out. Easy isn't exactly what I'd call it (for me anyway), but it was a good learning experience. I also tried to make the cupcakes look like the little green men from Toy Story. It was fun and Colton seemed to like it all.

He especially enjoyed being sung to by so many people :)

That's McKinley's sweet little head sticking out on my chest, if you couldn't figure it out

Diggin in' and makin' a mess with his friend Laraleigh

Colton loving all the great gifts he recieved (completely unnecessarily) from our generous friends. Thanks everyone!

McKinley Madison arrives

2010-05-25T10:26:00.001-07:00

I know it's not exactly breaking news for most of you, considering she was born six weeks ago....but better late than never.

This picture is while McKinley was still snug in my tummy. I definitely got the most comments from people, friends and strangers alike, on the size of my belly this pregnancy. Most people seemed to be convinced that she'd come out over 10 pounds and playing football as one said.

Well....she came out a dainty 8 pounds 12 ounces, surprising everyone (including me & the doctor). Here's McKinley's first picture.

As most of you know, Nate and I didn't know what we were having before hand (although Nate made it known to almost everyone he was POSITIVE it was a girl). It's a good thing he was right or he would have never ever been able to live that down. People were anxious to rub it in his face, but obviously they didn't get the chance.

Here are some happy and very tired parents.

For those of you interested in some of the details of the delivery, read on. For those who'd rather not be bored, feel free to skip ahead :)
Backing up a bit... Nate's parents came out to stay for a week to help with the kids. They got here a couple days before I was due. So when my due date, April 12th, arrived you can imagine I was getting a bit antsy. For the last few weeks before my due date, I was doing just about everything I could think of to "encourage" the baby to come out (including most wives' tales). Because of my previous C-section, the doctor didn't want to induce me, so I was trying to be safely creative. Well, in the wee hours of the morning the day after my due date, McKinley decided to make her debut thanks to some regular contractions the night before and a little help from some castor oil (YUCK!).

It only took less than 2 hours after drinking the nasty mix that I started feeling crazy intense contractions that there was never any break from. I was still hesitant for some reason to go to the hospital even though I could barely talk or move (I'm a little stubborn I guess). Then Nate, being wise, said "Whatever, we're going". Good thing he said that because we literally barely made it to the hospital before it was time to push. It was very similar to my deliver with Alexis.

When we got there, all the nurses rushed to hook me up to an IV because I was supposed to get like 4 rounds of antibiotics because of my group B strep. That obviously wasn't going to happen, but they hoped maybe I could get in one round. Well, because of all the pressure going on in my body, I kept "blowing" wherever they poked me. They ended up having to poke me almost ten times to get "a good one" and they totally gave up on numbing me first. It was kind of humorous (I can say that now). Unfortunately my doctor wasn't able to deliver her, but there was a great in-house OBGYN that did. In fact he's all my friends' doctor.

Nate was, as always, a champ. I kept him busy this time putting ice chips in my mouth every few seconds. It was all so fast and intense, but it went very well and she came out with just a few pushes and was perfect! It was so fun to see she really was a girl as Nate predicted. I really was hoping for a girl, but trying to stay neutral. Her siblings really couldn't be happier either.

Here's our lil' peanut M&M, all 21 1/2 inches of her :)

You can most definitely tell she's related to her siblings. I think she has petite and feminine features too.

Her siblings were anxious to meet her and give her love (Colton was a little TOO anxious).

Here's Grandma Lincoln taking a turn. I love that it looks like McKinley is smiling here.

Here she's singing to her mommy, I can tell she's got a future there :)

She wasn't too happy to have her first car-seat experience.

A couple weeks later, we tried to take some pictures of all the kids...

We discovered this is a very tricky feat.

Sibling stair-steps

February celebrations!!

2010-03-16T14:06:00.000-07:00

As many of you know in our family we get the privilege of celebrating 3 birthdays in February. This year as I already mentioned, Tyler celebrated his in Disneyland. Here are a couple pictures of the b-day festivities back at the hotel after a VERY long fun-filled day! Nate ran to the grocery store and got this little cake for Tyler and his cousin Danielle who shares his birthday. As you can see all 20 (almost) of us crowded into one room to celebrate.

Here's Tyler opening a few presents with all his cousins admiring. "OOOh, ahhh Spider man backpack!"

A couple weeks later it was Lexi's turn. She asked for a pink butterfly cake. I know it's not much to shout about (especially compared to my amazingly talented friends who get paid for thier cake creations), but Lexi was happy :)

We didn't really do parties this year b/c of the Disneyland trip, but we told Lexi she could go somewhere fun and invite a couple friends. After offering dozens of creative options near and far...wouldn't you know Lexi chose Chuck E. Cheese (what's with that place?!) Anyway, here's Lexi celebrating with a couple school friends at her favorite place.

Tyler and Colton got in on the action too. They always love the BIG TRUCKS (or "ducks" as Colton would say).

Here's Lexi the next day on her actual birthday opening some presents, her favorite of which being a new pet fish (no- it wasn't in one of the bags).

In the midst of the birthday excitement, we had Valentine's Day and Nate got me this ENORMOUS card. He gave it to me when we went out to eat. The other people in the restaurant got a kick out of it I'm sure. Anyway, I thought it was hilarious so I had to take a picture of it.

Then came Nathan's birthday, where he offically got his "Man's TV". Yes, it's very big, but he mounted it on the wall and it's not in the way too much, so I'm getting more used to it.

His special day came complete with a family dance party in the family room and a wrestling match (of which I did not participate in as you can imagine).

His other wish for his b-day was an ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins, so that's what he got. It was kinda nice not making one :) Thanks Nate!

February is the shortest month, but is big in celebrations for our family. I'm so grateful for my precious crew, just hate to see another year pass and them all get older.

DISNEYLAND 2010

2010-02-20T19:30:00.000-08:00

As many of you know , our family recently took a trip to Disneyland with the extended Lincoln clan. Woohoo!! It was quite a trip, 4 long days in the car, 3 VERY full days at the park...but it was a great time for all. Nothing is quite like seeing Disneyland through the eyes of your children. Again, there's too many fun pictures to post in one blog, so you need to click on the link for our picasaweb album towards the top right corner and then click on the Disneyland album. I apologize in advance for my prolific explanation of our adventure. Read on if you dare.... :)

Our trip was extra neat as we got to celebrate some birthdays while we were there. On our first day at the park, Tyler turned 5!! Funny thing is ... 3 years ago exactly we were there on Tyler's 2nd birthday with my family. Pretty lucky kid, ay? Well, it's a great time of year to go. One of our nieces on the trip shares the same birthday with Tyler and turned 12. You get lots of attention and special treatment there when it's you birthday. There are 3 other February birthdays within our big groupas well, so we all celebrated the first night by eating at Goofy's Kitchen where we got to meet and greet many of our favorite characters (as you see above) and get even more special treatment.

On the first day, we were all wearing red matching shirts (thanks to my sister-in-law), so we drew a little attention to ourselves. Half of our group got separated from each other within the masses as were were wating on Main Street for the park to officially open. Some of the park officals that were going to open the park saw half our group waiting in a shop (in an attempt to short-cut and get infront of the crowd) and invited us to step infront of the mass of people waiting and asked if we wanted to "open" the park. Of course we said yes, although we couldn't get the rest our group up with us. It was very awkward as our little group faced the thousands of people with the "how come they get to be up there?" look on their faces and we just stood there with our hands up in a "stop" fashion. We did that for a few minutes, then some of the officals announced our family and where were we from etc. Then they whispered to us to run as fast as we could when they said go, in order to get out of the way and not get trampled by the crowd. It was an exciting way to start our Disney adventure.

Some of the highlights of our time were watching the parade on the first night and Lexi and Tyler getting lots of attention from the characters in the parade (mostly because of their birthday buttons). At some points they got to go out and dance a few times in the parade and be in a conga line etc. Lexi was totally into it and Tyler (well - he reluctantly followed his sister). The kids also loved the big rides they were able to go on (Tyler too, because he's a little tall for his age) like Indiana Jones, Space Mountain and Splash Mountain etc. An even neater thing happened on the second evening...Nate's brother's family was invited to be in the pre-parade and ride on the lead car because they had done some volunteer work, which is the big theme at the park this year. There ended up being a couple more spots on the car partly because Nate's mom sacrificed her spot, so they invited Tyler, Lexi and my other nephew to ride with them. Nate ran along through the crowd trying to get good video of them the whole way, while Colton and I waited at the end. They got to ride in an old fashioned fire-vehicle and Tyler got to ring the bell. They were all having the time of their life waving at the crowds as they rode by. It made a great memory!!! Thanks Dan, Joylin and Grandma :)

Another awesome experience we had was participating in the Jedi Training Program. We observed this the first day and thought some of the kids would absolutely LOVE to be a part of it. So it was our goal to make it happen the second day, knowing only a small group of kids got picked. We arrived very early for the last show, hoping it would increase our chances to get some of our kiddos picked to be participants. We were told it's totally at random, but that it might help to make a lot of noise and jump up and down....so you can probably imagine the spectacle we made of ourselves. Tyler was picked right away (again because of his BIG birthday button), Lexi got confused and thought they pointed to her because she had a button on as well so she began to walk up too and they let her. Then eventually the Jedi masters picked two of my nieces and my nephew as well. We were all totally jazzed. All the kid participants got to wear the Jedi cloaks and use a light saber. The Jedi masters gave a short training session with some key moves for the padawan (spelling???, Jedi's in training) to use. Then Darth Vader and Darth Mal made quite an entrance trying to persuade all the trainees to join the dark side. They of course all refused, so they all geared up for a battle. Each child got a chance to go one-on-one with one of the villains and use their newly learned moves. It was SOOO much FUN!! There's no shortage of footage with that event, believe me.

The third day we spent in California Adventure and made pretty great time. Again the kids loved all the big rides. Lexi's favorites were the Screamers roller coaster and the Tower of Terror. They all got to go on the wild water ride too and get SOAKED!!! We had a grand time.

Before going on this trip I was not looking forward to the many rides I wouldn't be able to go on and also just being on my feet all day lugging around my big 'ol pregnant body. In fact many family members jokingly asked if they should get a wheelchair for me before hand, and of course I laughed and said I'm not decrepid. Really though, by the end of the first day, the wheel chair option was looking mighty nice! Well, I was pleasantly surprised at the many rides or activities I could do. It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought. The whole being on my feet a lot and being very pregnant, that wasn't so much fun, but I lived. It was hard on everyone's body I think.

The crazy thing was, after coming back to the hotel the last night at the park, we were all soooo beat. But Nate got up at the crack of dawn the next day and proceeded to go on a 2-day bike tour with his friend through Joshua Tree National Park. I couldn't even imagine being able to do that. Good thing that boy's in shape! He and his friend seemed to have a successful trip though and went through a lot of miles. I'm proud of them, but did not for a second want to be in their shoes.

Overall, it was a wonderful, yet tiring trip. The kids didn't do too bad in the car, considering. I probably had a rougher time than they did :) I'm so glad we were able to make it work and spend that memorable time with the rest of Nate's family.

Christmas '09 celebration

2010-01-29T09:34:00.000-08:00

Before leaving for AZ, we had our own little Christmas at home opening some gifts from Nate's family. Colton decided he was a better present and promptly tried wrapping himself up in the wrapping paper (he's a wise boy)!

Lexi and Tyler took turns being Santa, so they stuffed thier shirts with a pillow and wore a long red stocking on their head (incase you were thinking they had gained an incredible amount of weight in a short time). Lexi looking over her new book from Grandma Lincoln.

Here's our jolly Tyler tripping over the wrapping paper.

We then made the journey to AZ and made it there just in time for the kids to be tucked in on Christmas Eve. The next morning, they woke up to the wonder and amazement that it is Christmas Morning:)

Stockings first...

I tried to capture the excitement of the kids as they first beheld their eyes on all the goodies left by Santa and other loved ones. Let's just say they were not lacking...

One of Colton's favorite gifts was this little airplane that Grandad Butler got him.

Lexi showing off her new Barbie from Gramma Butler.

Tyler loving this really cool boat/ submarine and all it's accessories. This too was a BIG hit too!

Coltoin with his crazy possessed car (as we like to call it). Don't let his extreme exciement in this picture confuse you :).

Tyler enjoying one of his favorite passtimes with Grandad!

While we were in AZ, Nathan and I celebrated our 10th anniversary (crazy). It was fitting to be there since that's where we got married. The last 10 years have definitely flown by, but a lot has happened. We both feel very blessed in our lives with each other. I know it sounds cliche, but I do love Nathan so much more than even when we got married (although I didn't think it was possible at the time). Here's a picture from our wedding, with my parents next to us. Yes, we look a little different now....

Here we are 10 yrs. and almost 4 kids later (not the greatest picture, as we took it with our phone, and the lighting is misleading, Nate's hair really isn't THAT gray), but atleast it's documented. We were able to go out to dinner and a movie (which doesn't happen often or next to never), so that was fun. We also wrote letters to each other which I'll treasure always. We look forward to our long future together! Love you honey :)

November/ December review

2010-01-28T15:07:00.000-08:00

So, just to wrap things up a bit from last year...here's what went on in November and December.

In early November, I got to go see Wicked with some girlfriends in Denver. It was amazing! The talent was overwhelming and it's a very entertaining show. Besides getting a little lost afterwards...we had great time.
Here are my friends Mel and Rachele as we filled up at the Cheescake Factory beforehand. YUM!!!

For Thanksgiving, we went to Utah to stay with Nate's family. It was a nice time with ALL the family. All the kids always have so much fun when they get together. After discussing what we are grateful for and realizing we are so blessed, we decided to do a family service project on Turkey Day. We came up with raking up the leaves for an older lady who just had surgery. Just about everybody pitched in, even the little ones, and I think we all felt good about it. Afterwards we did a little geo-caching (treasure hunt hike with a GPS) in the neighborhood. It proved to be a little trickier than expected and took a lot of keen eyes to find the "prize", but in the end we all made it and had a grand time. The picture above is some of our gang overlooking Saratoga Springs.

After we got home from Thanksgiving, we started the endeavor of decorating for Christmas. Colton was a big help :)

All bundled up ready to party in the snow.

We went over to our friends house to decorate gingerbread houses. They were actual REAL gingerbread houses, not just the graham cracker excuse for a house. Little did we know our friend used to make, decorate and sell gingerbread houses when he was younger, so he was a bit of a professional. The kids had a lot of fun and we all pigged out in the process.

Colton had lots of fun having his share of the "decorations" (as he continued to do at home when no one was looking- until they were gone).

The finished products...

Tyler just couldn't help himself:)

Here's the little recital/ party for my children's music class. It was just a casual get together to show the parents what the kids had been working on. The whole semester was a big success and we enjoyed teaching it very much. Unfortunately we didn't get quite enough kids to register for the second semester to make it work, but we do plan to do it again in the future.

For our church Christmas party, there was a "Grinch" theme. Everyone was encouraged to come decked out in their best "Who" - apparel and do's. There were a lot of little girls running around with their own interpretations of Cindy Lou-Who hair. It was a lot of fun! Unfortunately, a lot of the smaller kids were absolutely TERRIFIED of this crazy, hairy green man running around (including Colton). It actually was quite entertaining.

Our Lexi Lou-Who with her fun hair (although you can't really see it) and Colton making sure the green monster doesn't come any closer :)

We had some old friends come into town right before Christmas. They were part of our old FHE group (Family Home Evening), consisting of four couples, when we first moved to Colorado Springs. When we started, none of us had kids......now just look! 11 kids later and 2 on the way. It was so fun for all of us to catch up. Tyler and and the girl in pink in front were actually born on the exact same day.

Lexi started taking piano lessons from a friend this last fall, so we had a little piano recital for the few students to show off some of the Christmas songs they've been working on. We also celebrated by going out to ice cream afterwards. Every occassion is better with ice cream!

For Christmas, our plan was to travel to AZ....well, then weather happened. We ended up having to postpone the trip a few days. What better way to make the day go quickly then play in the snow? Luckily (or not so luckily) our street is a pretty nice little hill, perfect for sledding. Lexi's above with her sneaky "I'm not trying to make a snowball to throw at you" look.

Tyler, not being as sneaky :)

Our little snow angels.

Colton making a nice snack out of the abundant snow (after Lexi showed him the ways).

As you can tell, Colton was not so excited about this sledding ride, but Daddy sure was!"

The next day (Christmas Eve) we were able to finally make our trip to AZ to see my family. (More pictures of Christmas to follow in the next blog...)

Halloween festivities

2009-12-14T15:16:00.000-08:00

A week before Halloween, we went to Manitou Springs, where our good friend took our family's pictures. Afterward, there was the big annual coffin races on the main street. We've always heard about this event but have never gone. It is HUGE!!! People REALLY get into it. The costumes we saw in just the crowd of people were amazing. We had to wiggle our way through the crowd until we found a tiny space on the curb where all 5 (and 1/2) of us tried to fit. It was long and the kids hadn't eaten , but we made it out alive and we all had a great time. First they have a parade of different groups and hearses (sp?) that are all decked out. Then the actaul races begin...

Who you gonna call?!!

Flame throwers.... Tyler's eyes sure got big with this one.

Group of people doing the "Thriller" dance down the street...definitely a crowd pleaser.

A cannibal tribe...all in good fun!

Grinch and Cindy Lou-Who

Pirates of the Carribean

Cuddled close together...

Nate and Colton enjoying the festivities. At one point a group threw out a bunch of lolli-pops to the crowd, my kids scaveneged many of them and ofcourse Colton wouldn't have any part of being left out and he made the biggest stickiest mess he's ever made (and that is quite a feat). We had no wet wipes or tissue or anything handy, so we used his shirt, luckily it was black.

My 3 lil' munchkins before our church party. Ty as a dashing pilot, Lexi as a sparklified Dorothy and Colton as a gnome (or Mr. Travelocity as some called him).

This costume was definitley a huge hit! Especially while trick-or-treating , people were going nuts. Never thought some felt and hot glue would make such an impression...ofcourse it wouldn't have had the same effect if Colton wasn't so stinkin' cute!! (Biased?...yes!)

The next night we went trick-or-treating and Tyler decided to wear his other costume, Rex from Clone Wars. We went with some friends in this awesome historic neighborhood where everyone gets into the family spirit of Halloween. It was a lot of fun and luckily not very cold.

There's Lexi and Colton with their Rock Star dad. Notice the tatoos on his arms...yeah he's changed a bit since the last time some of you have seen him. Also the crowning glory was the blonde wig that was a little more feminine-looking than Nate realized. Should I have told him it used to belong to my grandmother?........Nah! I'm glad he got into the spirit though. Overall it was a very fun Halloween season.

September/ October review

2009-12-05T21:24:00.000-08:00

The new addition to our home, the infamous tree fort.

This is Tyler on his first day of preschool, he's sooo proud of his Star-Wars backpack that his dad used to use when he was young. And we're proud of him!

This is Tyler's teacher, Ms. Marsha and his classmates. He's having a ball at school.

Tyler showing off his school bucket that he decorated by himself (No need for ribbons, glitter and paint for this manly man).

One of the most exciting things that happened to us in September was that we found out I was expecting...again:) The baby is due on April 12th and this time we're not finding out if it's a boy or girl. Nate wasn't too excited about that idea, but now he feels he's 100% positive what it is, so he's content (and so am I). Things have been going relatively well (except for a small scare) and I'm feeling pretty good. Lexi and Tyler are so excited about the baby and already trying to be better helpers.

This was at Lexi's field day. Nate, Tyler, Colton and I all went to see her and she was overjoyed:)

I guess this was supposed to be like tribal warrior paint or something, to scare their opponents maybe??? Sure scares me!

The highlight of field day is when they had the parents jump in and help the kids out (well I don't know if they ever actually wanted the parents to help, but parents kept taking the initiative anyway). Our team was apparently crazy competetive and didn't take this matter lightly. We had several "rounds" and were never defeated. It was fun to watch some of the men become giddy with the thrill of victory over and over (OK, so the moms and kids were LOVIN' it too)! I'm in the green sweater there, not knowing how sore my arms and shoulders would be the next day - kinda pathetic!

Nate and Tyler were getting in on the action too!

Colton trying to change the obstacle course when he thought no one was looking :)

Here's Lexi with her teacher and class. They were the green tree-frogs that day and had a cheer and everything.

Here's the long-awaited pictures from inside our tree-fort that Nate's dad so lovingly finished while Nate and I were on vacation. He worked so hard to get it done! The kids LOVE it!

(Again I have a double here and I can't seem to delete it, not too savvy)

We ended up taking a trip to Arizona at the beginning of October for my grandad's funeral. It ended up being a lovely service, a great tribute for such a great man. I think many people were able to feel some closure. It was great to see family and friends. It really was a nice time, considering the circumstances.

Whenever we go to AZ, Colton has to see his girlfriend Maddy (my friend Kristen's little girl). She's just a few weeks older than Colton so it's always fun to get them together.

My mom took us to this neat park in Mesa that has a little amusement park and ducks, a few different playgrounds etc. The kids loved running around in shorts and T-shirts (b/c it was already getting cold in Colorado).

Maddy, Lexi and Colton

One of the other pieces of big news for our family in October was that we got a camper. This a fulfillment of a wish of Nate's after many years. After we bought it, Nate was as happy as a school boy (or maybe happier) :) It was fun to see! It's used, but in great condition and the price was right. Unfortunately, we haven't been able to take it for a "spin" yet b/c it's just too cold and we're wimps.
It's a little small, but does sleep six and our van can handle towing it. Hopefully we'll be able to get a lot of good use out of this for some years to come.

While we were in Phoenix, my parents took us to a neat pizza place called the Organ Stop. Apparently it's been there for over 50 years (it's always fun to go to new places in Arizona, after living there most of my life). They have this incredible organ that rises up onto this pedestal from beneath the floor and rotates and has thousands of organ pipes that take up most of the restaurant walls and have many other instruments attached to the walls and ceilings that are all controlled by this organ. The organist was....AMAZING!!!!!! and took requests on the spot. It was quite something to see and hear all the thousands of "moving parts" working in synchronization. The kids really had a ball - dancing all over the place. I highly suggest the trip for anyone in the Mesa area.
Sorry about the poor quality of the video, but it's still pretty fun - I think. You made need to turn the volume down a bit on your speakers.

Alaska trip

2009-12-01T11:48:00.000-08:00

In an attempt to catch up just a bit on our blog, here is some information about the Alaskan cruise Nate and I took in Septemeber with my parents. There are just WAYYY too many pictures to post here, so I encourage you all (no, I ORDER you all) to click on the link to our picasa web albums in the top right hand corner and then click on our Alaska trip album. There you'll see more pictures than you probably want of our time on our cruise. There is some breath-taking scenery.

Overall, like I've told many of you already, it was a cold, wet time, but absolutely WONDERFUL! We all got a little dizzy and sea-sick at times, but not too bad. As an added bonus we were able to see some family in Juneau we haven't seen in years and years and also some good friends from high school in Skagway (of all places). So let me say THANK YOU once again to Nate's parents who came to our house and stayed with our kids all week. That meant sooo much to us and our kiddos had a blast with Grandma and Grandpa. Also, THANK YOU of course to my parents who gave us this opportunity and let us "tag along" with them on this great trip. This would obviously have never happened without either set of parents. We feel very blessed!

July/ August review (fashionably late)

2009-10-10T09:52:00.000-07:00

Here's July 4th, celebrating with a few friends. It was actually raining and COLD this year so fireworks were a little more complicated.

(Out of order) Later in July, Lexi auditioned for a play for the touring Missoula Children's Theater Company, organized through our library department, and got a small part. She was THRILLED!!! They put on a musical production of "Robison Crusoe" in less than a week. Lexi got to be one of the chamelions (funny lizard). It was really a neat process and learning experience for her. She had a ball acting like a lizard and doing the hula (the story line was quite interesting :) ).

She's the one in green on the end standing up, being lizard-like.

(I don't know why there's a duplicate of some of these pictures, but I don't know how to get rid of them...sorry.)

Back to 4th of July...here's some of the kids super excited over our small attempt at a fireworks show. You should have seen the dads - they were even more giddy!

What can I say????.... Colton's hair is the BEST!!!!! (His red eyes set off this picture particularly well)

In case you missed them the first time...... ;)

Here's Lexi after her play, loving her stage makeup and saying she wishes she could "be in the play every day for a hundred years" (I don't know how long I could be supportive of that).

The chamelion crew

So in the summer, we always love to try to discover new parks around town and this time we found these two cute parks that are connected. One had an Alice in Wonderland theme, and the other a Charlotte's Web theme. The kids were jazzed.

Lexi and Colton on a giant Charlotte.

Tyler getting a piggy-back (or piggy-head) ride on Wilbur. In the background is this really cool web thing the kids (and maybe adults) climb on.

Our fam at another free concert at the park (we never get sick of those).

With the lack of pools in Colorado Springs, you have to get creative in finding other ways to cool down. One of our favorite ways to get wet is the "Uncle Wilber" fountain downtown. This was Colton's first time (atleast in a swimming suit), but he was not too thrilled about the idea.

We found these 3 cute wet kids on a bench and took a picture :)

On one of our many walks in the summer we came across this little part of a creek that's right next the freeway and thought it might be fun to have the kids wade and play a little in it sometime. We're not exactly sure if it's legal, in fact it's probably not, but we didn't see any signs, so...... play we did!

Nice and shallow, but the kids didn't mind.

Here is Lexi's first day as a first-grader (which in her mind is like a senior in high school apparently). I'm so glad she loves school- we'll see how long it lasts.

Colton loves to try to wiggle in tight spots and hide, here is just one I found him climbing out of with his little cheesy grin. He's a crack-up!

So there's a small review of how we spent some of our time this summer. I still have a lot of catching up to do, but I appreciate your patience (for those of you who were waiting- OK maybe just my mom).

June in Review (part deux)

2009-07-17T14:27:00.000-07:00

We've really been enjoying our gorgeous city so far this summer. We already knew it was lovely and had lots of great stuff to see, but we've discovered even more the last couple months and LOVE it! We've also been trying to live healthier, by working out more regularly (well Nate always has been, but I've been better). I did a fitness bootcamp that my friend Mel was running (thanks, Mel) and it really helped to get me jumpstarted with my exercising. She also gave us some nutriorional challenges with it and I actually explored the world of sugar-free-ness (not something I ever thought I'd do or wanted to do) and it wasn't so bad. Our family has been eating a lot more fresh fruits and vegetables as well and we've all been benefiting.
As I mentioned before, we've also been discovering many great trails and parks in the city and have been staying quite active in that way. One of our new favorite parks is Monument Valley park. It's very long so we've been trying to explore all of it and found some neat photo opportunities, like you'll see...

In the middle of the park is this historic building with really unique architecture. You really have to see it up close to appreciate it. I guess it was a pottery building and now used as part of Colorado College campus.

We also found this cool pond/ lake there, where the first time we saw a huge beaver! At first the kids thought it was an alligator swimming in the water and it actually did look that way. We finally figured out it was a beaver and it was building a little home. I guess there's a little beaver family of four there. It was pretty neat, because it's not often you see something like that in a park in the middle of downtown.

We took my parents there again, when they came to visit.

There are these great gardens there as well.

Lexi and Tyler were pretending to be statues sitting there on the wall. Tyler is holding his precious stick and rock that he found.

Lexi actually took this picture of Colton, not too bad.

She took this picture as well. My dad, mom, Tyler and I.

This place has some great trees to climb.

So while my parents were here we celebrated Father's Day and my birthday. On Father's Day, we went to church and I surprised my dad as I went up on the stand and gave a talk. I had kept the fact that I had to give a talk a secret from him. The talk wasn't on fathers necessarily , but I talked a lot about him and what a great example he is to me. So it was pretty much an ambush, I embarassed him , but hopefully I honored him as well. I was grateful for the opportunity.

For my birthday, we actually went to our friends the VanWagoners for a joint birthday party as it was my friend Rochelle's birthday a day before mine. We had a few friends over and had a little barbeque and potluck. We had put Nate and her husband Jarrod in charge of the whole thing. We were slightly worried how it would all come together, but they did a fabulous job. The food ended up being excellent and I think everyone had a good time!
Here's my dad and I and a few friends enjoying the tasty food. I was caught with a weird face in this picture (as I am with many pictures :))

So Nate and Jarrod made this big pan of brownies (actually I think Rochelle had to make them), making us think this is what there was instead of a cake- which we were fine with, but then....

they surprised us and said, "Nah, we have something better for you..." and brought out this cake that had a childhood picture of each Rochelle and I. The brownies were fine, but you can tell we enjoy this cake and the thought behind it much more.

It was a nice surprise. Our hubbies did very well!

Another great thing in Colorado Springs in the summer time are all the free concerts in the park. We love them and the variety of music. Here's our kids gettin' their groove on during one of the concerts. This was moments before we got poured on!!! We were all soaking wet, but we still had fun!

June in Review (part one)

2009-07-15T16:30:00.000-07:00

So it's been a little while since our last update, I realize. We've had a great summer so far. No big trips, just enjoying the beauty of Colorado and getting a little wet (you'll see in the pictures). Nate couldn't stand all of Colton's curls anymore so he diceided to give him a haircut (although you wouldn't be able to tell because his hair is as crazy as ever). Here's Nate deep in concentration as he attempts to give Colton his first haircut. The pictures got all out of order again, but here's Colton after discovering what happens when you crawl in the sprinkler...

We went to this great spray park to stay cool. Here's Lexi enjoying it.

Sweet Colton with his feet up by his face, he loves that position. He's very bendy, that kid.

Our precious mess-maker!!! This is a daily scene at our house.

Out of order, of course, but this is Colton quite curious as to what the thing spewing water is.

Who needs a pool ,when you got sprinklers? Colton with his "What you talkin' 'bout Willis?" look on his face.

Tyler with his best-bud Elijah at the spray park.

Colton wanting desperatley to join in on the spray park festivities, but his mom didn't want to get wet :)

Lexi and Tyler took swimming classes everyday for 2 weeks. They loved it and I think they improved greatly. Tyler's teacher kept using him as the example for the rest of the kids, which of course he loved! Grandma and Grandad even got to watch a couple classes. I didn't really get great pictures, unfortunately.

Lexi taking the big leap without any hesitation! (that's her way in the background)

Part two of our June will be soon to follow....

Mr. 'T' is in the house!

2009-05-19T14:10:00.000-07:00

So, the night before Mother's Day I was out at the grocery store and I came back to find this.... Apparently Nate got a little creative with the clippers. I was not so happy at first, especially since we were going to church in the morning.

This picture of Lexi is out of order, but cute just the same.

Anyway, so Nate finally convinced me Tyler can only get away with this for a couple more months, we should let him live it up. But I couldn't stand the mohawk all the way in the back, so I made him even it up so you can't really tell he has a mohawk from the back.

Tyler has such curly hair that it naturally sticks up, so no product needed. Except it's so curly it's really more a "mo-fro" rather than a mohawk. Tyler's still really proud of it though (maybe as much as Nate is)!

Our cuties enjoying some beautiful May weather.

Gotta love the tulips, just wish they'd last longer...

My MEN!!

Here's Colton sporting his "Bozo the clown" hair-do. It's still a mystery where his red hair came from.

This is a picture of Lexi and Tyler's soccer team after their last game.

They had so much fun playing soccer, especially being on the same team (I know I loved that!). They both improved greatly since the start of it. Lexi did especially great! She was one of two scorers on the team. That dog in the middle is Rufus, he sat behind the goal so our team knew where to kick the ball. Let me tell you, it didn't seem to help much, but it was sure cute!

Here we are at our friends' Lance and Chandler's b-day party. I wish I had a bucket for balance! I'll just use Lexi and Tyler as a crutch :)

Colton's ONE!!!

2009-05-12T21:12:00.000-07:00

So our little baby(well not so little, never really was) is now one. How fun! Here's how we celebrated. For starters Nate's parents were in town so we had a little celebration for him a few days early so they could be a part of it. The kids LOVED having grandma and grandpa here and so did we. It was relaxing for the most part (except when Nate put his dad to work for a couple days straight - so if you ask him he'd probably not agree with the "relaxing" comment) and a lot of fun.
The not so fun part of the whole week (right after grandparents left) was that Colton developed this unexplainable high fever that ended up lasting the whole week without breaking. The doctor said he did have a cold, but everything else seemed fine. He was concerned about the height and length of his fever, though. He told me if it hadn't broken by the next day (which was Saturday) to call him and they'd do bloodwork....so long story short Colton's birthday week consisted of going to the hospital, being poked and stabbed multiple times from shots and tests etc., being strapped down to a table for a chest x-ray and having his temperature taken what seemed to be fifty times a day. It all was probably a bit overboard in my opinion, but better safe than sorry I guess. Our heart broke for him though, poor thing. Needless to say he wasn't in the best of spirits throughout the week. He seems much better now, still not sure what all was going on with him, but here's what we do know...
He LOVES food and lets you know it, he enjoys playing hide 'n' seek around the chair, he's got quite a sense of humor (when he's not sick) and totally tries to be a clown b/c he knows it will get a laugh. He says mama and dada quite often and absolutely loves his brother and sister. He can also be a real snuggle bunny still (especially when sporting fevers of 104 degress). He loves to crawl super speed to us and then lay his head in our lap etc. He's really liking spending time outside now and wants desperatley to run around with Lexi and Ty. Colton's standing up longer and longer now on his own, but I think we still got a while on the whole walking thing (I'm not crying).
I love his little "I am one, hear me roar!" pose in this picture, with his lil' claws.
Colton and his friend Laraleigh playing at his birthday celebration, a few days early. I love Colton's crazy red hair (still a mystery where it came from). There's Grandpa in the background, unfortunately I didn't get any good pictures of grandpa or grandma with the kiddos this trip, sorry!

Here's Colton living up to his "quarterback" name (the reason Nate wanted to name him Colton). "Hut, hut, hike!"

Can you tell how old he's turning? :) The kids helped decorate the cupcakes and Nate's mom helped me with the cake. Hey if you look really closely the cupcakes at the top spell out Colton

This is when above cake meets Colton's face.....First taste of cake + chocolate icing = complete and utter GLEE!! Priceless!

He didn't make as much mess as his brother or sister with their first cake, but he made a pretty good attempt.

Laraleigh on the other hand created an awesome chocolate goatee for herself :)

Here's Colton with a present from Grandma Lincoln (that's her in the background - again, sorry I don't have better pictures but atleast there's proof she was there). He's feeling like a big boy with his own special camping chair.

Some more present action

Colton opening a present from Gramma and Grandad Butler a few days later due to him being so sick and grumpy on his actual birthday.

Here's a little "taste" of Colton being introduced to his cake... Happy Birthday big boy!

Happy Easter (ok I'm a month late, sorry)!

2009-05-12T20:56:00.000-07:00

Well I finally got around to posting some of these pictures. Here's my two little bunnies complete with bunny teeeth (crack me up). Notice the abundance of snow in the background...Merry Christmas, wait, er, I mean Happy Easter! Here's our third bunny, he wasn't left out of the fun (although we didn't give him any bunny teeth). Also if you look closely you'll see Lexi's doll has a matching dress on, too cute, thanks Gramma!

Colton's first easter, just wait 'til he realizes how much candy he's missing out on.

Ok, so we ditched the teeth and ears for atleast one picture. Looks like Lexi could use a few extra teeth though :)

Here are our scavengers looking at their loot after an successful easter egg hunt with our friends the Bass family. It ended up being a nice, relaxing easter, where it was easy to focus on the true meaning of the holiday (although you can't tell that from the pictures).

Out trip to AZ (a little late) & RATS!

2009-04-26T19:33:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures from our quick trip to AZ in March. We drove there with our nieces who had stayed with us previous to the trip, so we had a full car, but everyone was a good sport (except maybe Colton - who screamed bloody murder for about an hour and half straight soon after leaving at 4 in the morning! - sorry Daryn & Alyxe). Anyway we drove down so that the boys (Nate, my brothers and my dad) could go on a golf excursion for a few days to Sedona, which had been given as a gift at Christmas. We were able to spend a day or so all together though before they left.
Here is a picture of Lexi & Tyler having gramma & grandad wrapped around their little fingers :) They're both having their arm/ back tickled...a favorite pastime inherited from their mom!

Colton enjoying some time with Gramma Suzie and a whole load of beanie babies. I just love his cheesy grin in this pic!

Colton with his "betrothed", once again, Maddy. I think it's so cute she's so enthusiastic in this picture and Colton's giving her this look as if to say "Take a chill pill, lady!"

This is Colton with his new best friend the Bingo dog (that you saw in the video from a previous post).

Mother and daughter racing around the pool on those super cool "wiggle cars" (I don't really know what they're called, but they're fun!)

On our last night there, my parents took us to Amazing Jakes (which for those of you who are from the Springs is a mix between Mr. Biggs and IT'Z). The kids had a blast - most especially with the bumper cars!! Tyler was like this driving maniac with a wicked laugh, it was so funny to watch.

Gotta love the tea cups!! You won't be finding me on that ride any time soon (I'm feeling woozy just thinking about the flashbacks).

Colton and Grandad having a ball!

OK, so from the title you might have wondered where the RATS fit in....well on our first day there my brother Ben and his family brought over 2 of their pet rats because they were sick (one had heart issues) and didn't want to leave them alone. Well I don't know about most of you, but I get a little squeamish around rats mostly due to their creepy tails. I was sooon educated on them and realized these pet rats weren't anything like the stereotype I had in mind. So here's my brother with their rat Eileen (named after my late grandmother - who is about the sweetest lady you could ever meet, farthest from a "rat" you could get) grooming him.

After seeing this and hearing it was a somewhat typical routine for the rat, I was totally grossed out! But again, I began to understand that this rat is like the "alpha female", very motherly and considers my brother Ben one of her own, I guess, and so out of an act of love she likes to groom the inside of my brother's mouth. I asked how he could stand it, and he said if you try to yank her out her claws will do some major damage as you can imagine. Anyway they are actually very clean animals and very loving. So after "warming up" to the rats a bit, we all took turns petting them (some still rather timidly - like myself) etc.

Here's Aunt Jamie introducing the rat to the kids.

Even Colton got in on the action, although I don't think he was overly excited!

Here's Eileen (atleast I think that's the one) exploring my mom.

And finally, here's me, trying to be a good sport with the rat. It was hilarious because the rat quickly crawled inside my shirt and almost instantly fell asleep! It actually took a nap in my shirt, snoozing away for like 10 minutes. It was quite warm and cuddly, yet still I was a little worried about how well "potty-trained" it was, so-to-speak. If you can look closely at the tag of my shirt, you'll see it says "ANXIETY".... fitting I thought for this particular situation!! Anyway, I now have been enlightened to the sweeter side of rats and no longer find them quite as creepy, although I don't think you'll be finding one in my mouth anytime soon!

Overall, it was short trip, but we had a great time seeing our family and good friends. Hopefully next time Colton will be able to handle the trip a little better.

Soccer mom, sneaky baby & Gleamin' Booty!

2009-04-11T15:02:00.000-07:00

All I heard about for about a week from Lexi was "Gleamin' Booty"! At first, it was rather alarming coming out of her mouth, but then I soon realized her class was studying pirates all week. It made a little more sense then, although I'm still a little confused WHY they were studying pirates to begin with. Anyway here's our little pirate with all the accessories, we're so proud! AARRRGH!!!

Now that Colton is quite mobile he quickly gets himself into all these random lil' cubbies all over the house. Here's a just a couple I found him in.

Here's Colton at his 11-month mark, standing for a few seconds longer now and gradually sitting down by himself.

Colton practicing his stair-climbing skills at 11 months. He's no master yet (as my friend Rochelle found out), but he's getting there.

I caught him in mid-blink and I just thought he looked funny, like he's about to pass out.

OK, so like I mentioned before I've graduated into "Soccer Mom" status now with both Tyler and Lexi playing. It's really fun because they're on the same team which won't happen again I'm sure. This is them warming up before their first game. They missed all 6 practices before this due to weather or us being out of town, so I was quite anxious to see how they'd do being thrown into a game right away and never having played. They had lots of fun!

That's Tyler in front of the coach, you can often find him following her like a lost puppy. It's interesting, we thought Tyler would be rather aggressive with playing and a bit of a natural because he's always been pretty physically coordinated, and we thought Lexi might be a little more hesitant and maybe struggle a bit. We now see it's totally the opposite, Lexi is one of the stars of the team and is quite aggressive, always getting in there with the other team and trying to steal the ball. Tyler tries to listen really well to the coah, but is a little confused and a bit hesitant. They're both having a blast though.
I'll have to get some more video of their games because they are truly out of America's funniest videos. There are a few kids on their team that have a whole LOTTA energy and a have a hard time focusing, let's say..... They'll kick the ball out of bounds and just keep going like Forrest Gump. The coach tries to run them down and the kid is 3 fields over at this point, ziggin' and zaggin' all over the place. The coach is sooo much fun and great with kids, so the kid keeps running, thinking the coah is playing tag with them. Anyway, it's more for the experience obviously and not too high-pressure. Nate used to be a soccer star when he was a kid, so he truly enjoys watching them play and seeing their potential. He does have a hard time keeping silent on the sidelines though, as do I. We'll get used to it!