I was tagged...

Ok, so apparently Sarah tagged me a while ago but I just saw it, so.... here it is. The 6th picture in my 6th folder... Lexi had just turned 3 and Tyler 1. Cutie-patooties, right?! I love Lexi's crazy hair, it used to be sooo unruly (wait it still is)! Do you love the red-eye? OK, so now I tag 6 more people and you're supposed to do the same thing (6th picture in your 6th folder), and the lucky people are.... Callie, Rochelle, Heidi, Trish, Shannon & Kristen..and GO!!!

Lexi turned 6 and Nate turned ??

February has been a slew of birthdays and random illnesses for our family. So on the 16th, Lexi turned 6! Her birthday fell exactly on Presidents' Day so she got school off, convenient I must say. Instead of a "party" this year, we said we could go somewhere fun and she could invite a couple friends. So after the longest time of trying to convince her to go somewhere BESIDES Chuck E. Cheese, she finally decided on "PUMP IT UP". This is a play place filled with giant, bouncy....things! You'll see in some of the pictures what I mean. They also had this huge obstacle course and and big ring with giant boxing gloves (like 3 times the size of a kid) where you could duke it out. The coolest part was that adults could play too (for free), so play we did!

Here are Lexi and her friends Sierra, Lance and Bethany at Pump it up.

The infamous Barbie cake that many of you have heard about already. It might appear to be simple to make, but you'd be mistaken... (at least if you don't have a great history with cakes, like me)

Tyler, Chandler and Collin (the lucky younger siblings that got to tag along to this event).

Lexi, Sierra and Lance on the giant inflatable slide, which soon became the favorite. They all loved going down at the same time. Later Nate showed them more "inventive" ways of going down.

Tyler and Chandler getting in on the action.

Here's Colton and his girlyfriend Laraleigh having some of their own fun.


Later that evening we had dinner, presents and cake as a family. Lexi wanted pancakes for dinner (can't complain about that) and a Barbie cake (as a I mentioned above) - a Sleeping Beauty Barbie no less (which is of course like the only princess we didn't already have). So anyway I finally found an oven-proof bowl I thought might work (I wish someone would have told me about this "pampered chef batter bowl" sooner, which apparently works perfectly for this sort of thing). Well after layering that on top of a round layer of cake it was no where near tall enough (those dang Barbie's have some long legs!). So I just kept making more and more round cake layers until I thought it might be tall enough. I frosted most of it, then tried inserting the barbie. Well it created an earth quake of sorts, as it went CRACK, CRACK, CRACK and started falling apart. Thank goodness for decorative spray frosting as it helped cover up the deep chasms. So after much effort, a few toothpicks and even more frosting we took a decent picture (notice you don't see the back by the way). Probably minutes later it all came crashing down. But Lexi still loved it, sweet girl. The moral of this story is that if you find yourself in a position where you need to make a barbie cake and you don't really have the right equipment, just sacrifice the dumb barbie and rip it's legs off!
Anyway... she received some nice presents (including from grandparents, thank you), she seemed pleased with. One of which was this Alexis sign with hooks.

I saw this in TJ Maxx and it was the only name, so of course it was destined to be ours.

Lexi finally lost those 2 wiggly teeth (making the grand total 6). So now this is her adorably funny looking smile. Needless to say she's having some issues with eating and drinking.


OK, so for Nate's birthday on the 22nd, most of us were sick and I know we were all tired. So unfortunately his birthday wasn't grandly celebrated, but Nate's always a good sport about that. He did request a turkey dinner, though, for his birthday - which is still something I'm not totally comfortable making. I do have to say though it turned out pretty great, at least Nate really thinks so. Here's a picture of our very golden "pretty bird".

This sucker was gi-normous weighing in over 20 lbs. and almost all breast, so needless to say we had some left over. Being the great guy Nate is, he wanted to make up and deliver some trays of turkey and mashed potatoes (which he made - delicious!) to a few families that are going through a rough time. So that's what he did on his birthday. He also got to open a few presents too.

By the time Nate's birthday rolls around, I'm caked-out, so I made up this chocolate snickers trifle instead. The candles are in the shape of the number of years he turned...can you make it out?

Here's Nate with some tired and sick kiddos and a few presents. Have you noticed how the gift bags just keep getting re-used through out all these birthday photos? Overall, though, February has been a pretty great month (despite all the sickness).

Tyler's 4th birthday

Lexi and Tyler showing us how old he is now (with a really cool Lincoln log fort in the background)

There's our handsome fella on his birthday

Colton showing off his "proper" crawling now

Our attempt at a firetruck cake

One of Tyler's favorite gifts this year, he's excited to start soccer next month

Another favorite of Tyler's, more Thomas (thanks Grandma Sherry)

Colton looking ferocious with his teeth (although you can't really see them)!

Tyler and one of his best buds Elijah playing a game at Tyler's party. They were trying to put out the fire by smothering the flames (aka - trying to pop balloons with blankets over them)

Ty with his friends Chandler and Elijah

Here's Joshua playing the firehat stepping stone game. It took a little while for the boys to get the hang of it, but eventually Elijah and Josh thought outside of the box and figured out how to get the job done quicker and with less effort (it was hilarious).

Here's the hot potato (or hot firehat) game with Ty, Elijah, Chandler and Isaiah

Well Ty-Ty's 4 now (he'll probably not let me call him that much longer...) and seemed to have a great birthday. His actual birthday was super bowl Sunday, so...there was a little competition for attention, but he did open some great presents and have his choice of dinner (pizza of course) and I made him a couple giant chocolate chip cookie cake things. We had some friends over to celebrate Tyler's big day (and maybe watch a little of the game while they were here, right?). He really got to celebrate the following Friday though at his long-awaited Firefighter Birthday Party. We had it in the Firetruck room at Focus on the Family (which was free, nice!) and he had just a few good friends come and they played a few games and partook of the firetruck cake, which was a little sad looking, but fun just the same. The next day we had set up a little tour of our local fire station for Tyler and his friends with hopes of sitting on a real firetruck etc., but it didn't quite work out as we hoped b/c the firefighters were out on a call (doing their job....I guess we can't be too upset). Now Lexi and Nate's b-days are right around the corner.

As for Colton, he's 9 months old now. He started getting into the sitting position by himself a few weeks ago, which he is soooo proud of! He also likes to say "mama" a lot, which is fun b/c Tyler and Lexi both said "dada" first (I'm sure he doesn't really grasp the meaning yet, but I'll take it!)He also started crawling on all fours about a week ago. He still seems to prefer the army crawling as he knows he can get places a lot faster that way. He's pulled himself to standing a few times and is even starting to try to get into the fireplace and can open the doors, yikes...some of you know how that turned out for Tyler. Needless to say we definitely need to get back into the mode of baby-proofing everything again. He almost has 6 chompers now and I'm feelin' it (whereas Lexi is about to lose her 6th tooth - so I guess they're balancing each other out nicely).

Our little girl is growin' up

Here's Lexi with less hair and less teeth! It's ironic that just as she's losing her front teeth, Colton is getting his. He's a lot less happy about the situation than Lexi is though.
I have to brag for a minute about Lexi and how brave she is. She's always been willing to try something new and pretty independent and confident (with a lot of things anyway). She's pretty good at "picking herself up and dusting herself off" after she falls (as they say). Well, when it comes time to pull a tooth out she's EXCITED for me to do it (can't say the same for her daddy). Anyway, this last one was really loose I thought, but ended up being quite stubborn and not coming out. After trying a lot of techniques (all of which I know were very uncomfortable for Lexi) I said maybe let's wait another day and try again. But no, Lexi said "No mom, please just do it now, you can do it!" So I ( and she) persevered and .... success. She whimpered a bit during this whole process, but no crying or screaming or flailing etc. (at least not from her). I really appreciate her attitude about those things.
During these last few days she's also developed a suspicious rash (you might be able to tell a little on her face in the picture) that we just found out today is fifth's disease. Luckily it seems to be a mild case in the fact that it's not itching her too bad. The Dr. gave her the OK to go back to school and the second we left the doctor's office Lexi was begging to go back. I know a lot of kids have been giving her a hard time about the way she her face looks lately and making fun of her, but she's just brushing it off. I can't say I'd have handled all of this that well at her age (I'm sure my parents can attest to that).
Anyway just felt like expressing my gratitude for my little girl - who's not so little anymore. She's a pretty cool chick!

All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth...

SANTA BABY!!

Tyler and Lexi anxiously await digging into the presents on Christmas morningI had a really hard time getting a picture of his new teeth, but if you look closely you can see one on the bottom

Colton enjoying some Grandpa Lincoln time

Tyler and his cousins Jonah and Simon in thier new Batman jammies

Lots of the little cousins relaxing and enjoying a movie

In Utah this year it was definitely a white Christmas, you could often find Nate and bro out shoveling

This might appear like sibling love, but really this was a precursor to a wrestling match. Also notice Lexi fashioning all the hairbows I made for her for Christmas at once.

"while visions of sugar plums danced in their wee little heads..." (all the younger cousins snuggled together after a long day of playing)

This was our "attempt" at a live nativity. Lexi is Mary onth couch and we actually had a real newborn baby (our nephew Colin) this year playing baby Jesus. Tyler was a shepherd I think and Colton there on the floor is a wiseman. Instead of gold, frankincense and myrh (sp?) there were gifts given such as Buzz lightyear and basketballs etc.

Colton with Grandma Sherry

Ok so this post has been a long time coming, sorry. Here is a little more about our Christmas this year - you already got an idea with the pictures (I was trying to put this text before the pictures, but I still haven't figured out how all this works apparently). As you could guess with the title, Colton finally (although I was in no hurry) got his front 2 teeth - now 4 - just in time for Christmas. No biting yet, knock on wood... He also started crawling (well army crawling) on Christmas day and is also standing for long periods of time as long as he's holding onto something. He is actually 8 months old TODAY- yikes!

We went to Utah (Saratoga Springs) to spend Christmas with Nate's family. Both of Nate's siblings and their families were able to stay there as well. It was slightly chaotic with 11 kids (8 under the age of 5) and 8 adults, but lots of fun. Right after we arrived, Nate took off to Vegas to go to a bowl game with his brother and our brother-in-law. It was U of A playing BYU (Nate's alma mater vs. his brother's alma mater). They enjoyed a huge buffet before hand and apparently had a great time (Nate had a little better time than his brother with Uof A's victory). Go Wildcats!!

We had a ton of snow so we didn't venture out of the house a lot, but the kids didn't seem to mind. As we were there Tyler proved to be quite the accident prone kid, bleeding and bruising every few minutes it seemed. The worst of the accidents were Ty slicing his thumb with a knife, and gashing his chin, not once but twice. Fortunatly he was able to avoid stitches thanks to the miracles of super glue (and a lot of it) :).

The kids seemed very pleased with their presents. Tyler was most excited with his set of two light sabors, which he promptly lost the next day. We searched every inch of that house and we still couldn't find them so we promised a reward to anyone who finds them. Still no luck!

We were also able to get family pictures taken while we were there since there has been 3 additions to the family since the last picture was taken. They turned out pretty good, although we felt bad for the poor photographer trying to wrangle in 19 people and pose them (most of them having a bad case of ants in their pants- me included). Nate and I also celebrated our 9th anniversary while we were there. We can't believe it's already been that long. It's sure been a blessed 9 years and we can only look forward to the next 9 and next 9 etc...... Overall it was a great end of 2008. We're excited for what 2009 brings!

Here comes Santa Claus...

We just had our church Christmas brunch and there was a special visitor... When he made his surprise entrance into the room right by where Lexi was sitting, she about flew out her seat she was so surprised. She quickly ran away trying to play it cool! Overall they really had fun and gorged themselves on like 4 large cinnamon rolls each. Later Lexi told me "That wasn't the REAL santa!" I asked why she thought that and she continued to give me a list of minute details she observed that led to her reasoning. The most obvious being that there was velcro on the back of his suit and the real Santa would have a nicer suit than that, duh! I guess we might have to be a little more careful around her now that she is older and more observant than I thought.

Colton just lit up when he got to sit on Santa's lap mostly because he thought his beard looked tasty!

Here's Ty posing with his "ladies" on each arm, Robyn and Taylor

Thanksgiving

Well we just got back from our T-giving trip to Arizona to see my side of the family. It was a great trip. We actually broke it up for the first time and stayed in Albuquerque on the way down. This made the trip MUCH more manageable I think. It was hard to fit everything in while we were there. So many people to see, so many things to do...so little time. We were able to get some really nice quality time with a few people we haven't been able to see in a LONG time, and of course Colton was a big hit. We also had our own little Christmas celebration while we were there since we won't be back for actual Christmas. Everyone was very generous to us! The adults got act like kids as we "tried out" some of the kids new toys. We also had some fierce competitions on Nintendo Wii. Our young nieces would whip our tails (all the while texting in between turns). On the way back home the kids did great for the most part in the car, but I didn't. I was so antsy and impatient....I was the one saying "are we there yet?!" Oh well we're back now and trying to get back in the swing of things just as we're getting ready to take our Utah trip in a couple weeks.

....So I'm trying to put captions under the pictures, but I haven't figured it out yet. Anyway, from top down there's my kiddos with my parents relaxing before our big trip home. Then there's Colton enjoying his first "Christmas" present from our early exchange (or maybe he's the present). Next is Colton with his "betrothed", Maddy (my best friend's daughter - less than a month's difference in age). Then there's Colton with his great grand-daddy Le. Finally there's a picture of my kids with their cousins Daryn, Alyxe and Kymble and my parents.....