Alex's first steps!

Alex took what I'd call his official first steps about 2 weeks ago but he was still pretty unsteady and would always fall after just 1 or 2 steps. It's been one of his favorite things to do since then so he's getting a lot better at it. Look at this little video Savannah took of him tonight! It's so fun watching them get bigger! Most people think I'm crazy but I LOVE it when my kids start walking!

Future commercial star?

I took these little videos of Katie back in August and I thought they were SOOO funny! I've wanted to post them on here and I kept thinking it was probably really difficult so I never did it. I can't believe I never realized it's just as easy as inserting a photo! I'm horrible at this stuff sometimes. Anyway, at the time Savannah was going through a big Push Pop phase and of course Katie wants to be just like her big sister so she was copying Savannah and trying to convince me how much she likes push pops by telling me emphatically they're "DELICIOUS!" I think she's so funny. By the way, you'll notice she's also copying her big sister's bad habit of stripping down to her underwear as soon as we walk in the door and whenever we're inside the house.

Happy Halloween

What a fun Halloween! There really wasn't anything that extraordinary about it but I think what made it so much fun is that Joe had the whole day off to be home with us! I really think this might be the first time that's happened since we had kids! Very early in the year he started thinking about how he always has to work on holidays and fun days throughout the year so he sat down with the time off request book for his work and requested to be off for the 4th of July and Halloween, both of our birthdays and our anniversary, plus Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve and anything else he could think of when he wouldn't want to work. Actually, for Halloween he requested off not only today but tomorrow, too, so he can stay up late tonight without having to worry about getting up early to be at work at 6am on Saturday. Yipee!!!

We just hung out during the first part of the day and in the afternoon we took the kids to Carl's Jr to eat lunch and play on the playground. That's one of their favorite places to go but Joe and I don't especially love it so we went to Blimpie first and got sandwiches to go so it all worked out well. We met Aunt Savanah and Grandma Cindy at Valley Fair Mall for trick-or-treating with their cousins at 5 and that was awesome because they got a ton of candy in just under an hour! Then you can come home and it doesn't matter if you only go to 10 houses in your neighborhood because they've already got a bunch of candy. Actually, the weather was unusually warm this year so the kids spent quite a bit of time going around with Joe to a bunch of houses. We have so much candy! I stood outside in a t-shirt and bare feet (that's how warm it was!) passing out candy on the sidewalk to save the kids some time walking up to the door. It was like a California Halloween! I loved it!

Savannah decided months ago she wanted to be a cheerleader so I found her a costume on eBay back in August and tried my best to keep her from completely wearing it out before Halloween. If you don't know, Katie is constantly doing the best monster voice so I thought a monster costume would be perfect. She loved Monsters, Inc. so she got to be Sully and she was really excited about that. I also got hers almost 2 months ago so she's had fun wearing it from time to time and she would make me laugh because she'd find it and put it on herself, then come up to me with the hood on holding up claw hands and saying, in her best monster voice, "I'm a mean, scary monster". When I'd pretent to be scared she'd quickly pull off the hood and say with her cute smile, "me just Katie." This would then repeat over and over again for 5 or 10 minutes until I managed to distract her or get the costume off. Alex got to be the pumpkin, which became a tradition out of laziness when I didn't want to find a costume for Katie's 1st Halloween and decided to recycle Savannah's. At least a pumpkin is gender-neutral and I think it's a really cute pumpkin costume so I'm all about the recycling/tradition idea. Just for fun, I'll put a picture of all the kids wearing it. Savannah and Alex are 8 1/2 months in their pictures and Katie was 7 months when she wore it. Happy Halloween!

This is a fun picture of Alex and Katie laughing and playing at our ward Halloween Party.


This year I wasn't motivated enough to come up with costumes for Joe and myself so we're just boring old parents for Halloween.




Our Three Little Pumpkins

Good Morning!

Hello! It's very rare that I would ever be able to post something in the morning. For one, I usually sleep in later than this. But also, it's just kinda busy with getting breakfast, diapers changed, getting and everyone dressed, hair brushed, etc. This morning I woke up with Joe when he got up for work and usually as soon as I get out of bed, whether the kids hear me up or it's just some kind of ESP, they all wake up--no matter how early it is. So where are they and what are they doing right now you ask? Let me show you...



How precious is that! The girls have gotten really bad lately about coming and getting into bed with us in the middle of the night and usually they try to hog the bed but look how cute they are all three huddled together so close. I can't believe they're sleeping like that. While I was taking pictures Alex started to stir a little so look how cute this one is where he's stretching and kind of punching Katie in the face but she's doesn't seem to mind at all.
Luckily he just stretched a little but never opened his eyes or woke up. They're so precious when they're sleeping. What a great way to start the day!

My sweet little boy

A few of you might know that I'm completely addicted to digital scrapbooking. Actually, it's pretty pathetic because I'm more addicted to surfing dozens of different websites looking for and downloading all the free supplies than I am actually scrapbooking anything. Now I'm filling up my hard drive with a whole bunch of super cute kits and things but no actual scrapbook pages! The good thing is every once in a while as I'm visiting sites I'll see a really cute kit that they're giving away as a posting bonus if you participate in a challenge, which always involves actually making something. That may be the only times I've ever made pages up to this point with the exception of the kids' photo books I've made for them. The latest one was a template challenge which was fun because I've downloaded dozens of templates but I'd never actually used one, so today I did it and it was so much fun! I'll definitely be using more of them. I made a page with some pictures I took of Alex yesterday. I love dressing him in something cute and doing a little photo shoot. He's so smiley and fun to take pictures of! I just thought I'd show off my cute little page. P.S. This is one time it's definitely worth clicking on the picture to view it at full size. You can't see his little dimples unless it's bigger!

Lagoon Continued...

First of all, I just wanted to write today because it's 8-8-08 and it's such a fun date! The Olympics starts today in Bejing so that's exciting, and I also remembered one more thing about Lagoon that I completely forgot to mention. We spent a few hours there in the afternoon while it was hot before dinner and I was really excited because it was my first time trying out my new waterproof camera! I got it as an anniversary gift from Joe (actually, though, I just wanted to buy one really bad so when our anniversary was coming up I asked him if I could buy it as an anniversary present and he said yes, so I'm the one who researched everything and made the actual purchase). Hey, any excuse that works is fine with me. =) It's so nice having a camera you can take near water or sand and not worry about dropping it and ruining it. The pictures aren't as good as normal camera, but they're good enough for me. It definitely does better in outdoor sunlight than indoors with the flash. Here are a few pics with it:





I kept trying to get Savannah to go under the water so I could take a picture of her, but the water was really cold and she wouldn't stay under long enough. The best I got was her body.


Here's one I got of Joe, though!


Lots of fun. I'm excited to use it more when we go to Las Vegas next month.

Lagoon

Gosh, I guess it's been a busy summer because I'm totally slacking on my blog! So much has gone on and I'm sure I have lots of fun pictures and stories to share but for right now it's too overwhelming to try to remember so I'll start with the present. Yesterday we went to Lagoon because Ryan got us a bunch of discount tickets through his work at Larry H Miller. I was excited about going now that Savannah was another year older and at least a few inches taller. She was even tall enough to ride on "The Bat" this year so we went together and it was the first time for both of us, which was fun. It was cool going on more of an adult ride with my little girl. Kind of weird, but fun. I was really excited because this was the first time in while that I haven't been pregnant at an amusement park so I could actually ride the fun rides! I missed last year at Lagoon, plus Knott's Berry Farm in August of last year and it seems like one other one while I was pregnant with Alex so it seemed like forever for me since I'd been on a fun ride. The kids had a lot of fun going on all the little kiddie rides and I was surprised how fun it was for me to just walk around with them and watch them go on their rides. I guess because they get so excited and are having so much fun that even though I'm not really doing anything I can experience it through them and I just love it. I tried spending more time enjoying watching the kids rather than worrying about pictures all day like I usually do, so most of the shots were taken on their first ride, the OdySea, which is like a big octopus that shoots water. Here are some cute pictures of the kids.

Savannah and Kammi

Dylan and Dax

Katie and Joe

Savannah and Katie in line for a ride.

Although I loved walking around with the kids, I was incredibly grateful when Ryan, Dad, and Cindy volunteered to watch our kids for a few hours after dinner while the rest of us adults went on big rides! Ryan took his three kids plus Savannah on some kid rides while Dad and Cindy stayed back on the grass where we were "camped" with Katie, Alex, Bailey (Chris and Jenny's daughter-16 months), and Brooklyn (Tracy's daughter-19 months). That's 4 pretty little kids to for just two people to watch. They're amazing. When we got back Alex and my dad were asleep on the blankets. How cute is that?

We adults were only able to go on 2 rides since the lines were so long but it was SO much fun. We went on Wicked first and it was probably the best ride I've ever been on. I loved it! I couldn't believe how scary it was but it was really awesome. We also went on Spider after that and it was a lot of fun, too. Most of the time was spent waiting in lines but we had a lot of fun just talking. It was Joe & me, Matthew & Amanda, Chris & Jenny, Savanah (alone because Ryan was with the kids), and Tracy (her husband Nick is working out of town). We had a great time together. Matthew took a picture of us all so I'll have to get it from him and post it here soon. *Update* Here it is finally!

We stayed until closing as usual (only 10pm since it was a weekday). We always seem to be in the last group that they're kicking out the doors. I think it's become our tradition that we always end the night getting in as many Tidal Wave rides as we can squeeze in since that seems to be the last ride to close and that usually ends up being our final meeting place at the end of the night. Of course the kids were asleep before we even got out of the parking lot so you know it was a good day. We had a ton of fun. Thanks for inviting us, Ryan!

Lake Havasu, Arizona

Hey! We just got back from a 10 day vacation in Lake Havasu and it was SO much fun! Joe has been working like crazy lately so it was so nice to have him all to ourselves for so much time. We had a week at a timeshare in Lake Havasu called the London Bridge Resort so it was right by the bridge and it was beautiful. We also spent a little time before and after at Joe's dad's house in Las Vegas to break up the drive. Our kids are so good at road trips, though, from all of the practice we give them. =) I'm really grateful for that because the cost of airfare would be ridiculous.

We had a two bedroom timeshare so Joe's brother Nick came out for most of the time and then his dad was there from Vegas for the first half and his mom came from California for the last 4 days and it was so great to spend so much time with the family. The kids were especially excited to see their Grandma PJ because with her living in California we're usually lucky to see her 3 or 4 times a year. We rented a boat for 2 of the days and went for rides on the tube and swam and we had such a great time. The 2nd day we had the boat it was pretty windy so in the middle of the lake it was so choppy it felt like the ocean and we were rocking all over the place and getting sprayed with tons of water. There was a deck on top with a slide so it made us really top heavy and there were a few times that I thought our whole pontoon boat was going to tip over! It was a blast, though. The tube we had that day was the kind with the hole in the middle and it was like the perfect size for my butt to get lodged in there so when I was going for rides every bump I went over just seemed to get me stuck in it deeper and deeper and they couldn't get me off! I was SO scared and hanging on for dear life as they whipped me around at top speed over huge wakes and I'd fly up in the air but I never came out of the tube. By the end I was getting so scared that I had to really work to dislodge myself and just jump out before I had some kind of spinal injury. =) Unfortunatly we didn't get any pictures or movies during the wildest parts but I was able to pull this picture from a movie so it's not great quality but it'll give you an idea. It was scary but also a lot of fun and it felt so great everytime I'd go over a huge wake and fly up in the air and then land and still be hanging on.



Here are a few more fun pictures of everyone. This is one of Nick and Big Joe (Joe's Dad). They look like twins!
I thought this one of Joe with Savannah driving the boat was cute. I think the only resemblance he has with his dad and brother is the hairline. =)
Then there's Savannah and me going under the London Bridge, Katie and Alex chillin' on the lounge chair at the pool, Alex with Grandma PJ,
and one more of Katie playing hide-and-seek behind the couch.
We had a really great trip and can't wait to get away again sometime soon!

Showing off Baby Alex

Baby Alex is what the girls always call him, especially Katie. They sure do love their baby brother! Katie gets so possessive sometimes, especially if someone other than our immediate family tries to talk to him or play with him or hold him or pretty much anything. She starts pulling on his leg and saying that's HER baby Alex and she'll cry and get herself worked up into quite a fit at times. She's funny.

I took Alex to Kiddie Kandids a total of 3 times trying to get him to smile cute for birth announcements but this was the best we were ever able to get out of him. I think he was still just a little too young and he wasn't very good at smiling on cue yet. He was about 9 weeks old when we did this. Then a few weeks later when he was exactly 3 months old I took him to Olan Mills for a free little package I had a coupon for and he never stopped smiling the whole time! It was SO frustrating! I did actually get some birth announcements in that package, too, but their styles are pretty plain and boring. I probably just need to stop being so picky with it all. =) Here are the results from that time. (Remember, you can click on pictures to view them at full size if you want) I just think he's such a cutie!

Oh, in case you're wondering, the Maximus contribution was all Joe. He's had a big Roman obsession for the past year or two so Alexander comes from Alexander the Great and the name Maximus actually means greatest in Latin so he thought it was perfect. Joe absolutely loved the names Alexander and Maximus together and he thinks it's just about the coolest, toughest name he could've possibly thought of (and he spent a LOT of time thinking about names for this kid!). I sure hope Alex shares that opinion when he grows up. =)

Happy Mother's Day!

Okay, I know I'm late, but I was thinking on Sunday I'd find a moment to post and it keeps getting pushed off. I had a really great day. Savannah finally got to give me a little present she'd made for me in preschool and she was SO excited about that. She brought it home with her on Thursday all wrapped up pretty and it was killing her to wait until Sunday to give it to me. Here's a picture of what she made and also the cute little poem on the back.

Joe gave me a certificate to go the next day for a 2 hour massage at a school in Salt Lake and it was SO awesome! He's been working a ton lately so it's just been me and the kids 24/7 plus I can never get away from Alex so going to that was the longest I've ever been away from him and the break was so nice. Joe told me to go shopping or go to dinner or whatever I wanted afterward and just relax so I was gone about 4 hours. Joe fed Alex a bottle of some milk I'd pumped and handled everything fine so that was a great present. After church I told Joe that the one request I had for the day was to take a picture of all of us together, something we almost never do. I think this is only the 3rd time since Alex was born that we've taken any sort of picture of all 5 of us (the first was the obligatory hospital shot and then one afternoon they were all on the couch playing so I quickly seized the opportunity and set up the camera on top of the TV with the self timer and jumped in with them but it didn't turn out well at all). I think it's due to my picture obsession (and Joe's persuasive example) that they all seem to hate pictures so much and just when everyone else cooperates it's usually Savannah sticking out her tongue or doing some silly, obnoxious thing to ruin it. I get so frustrated trying to take pictures of us all! We only got 3 shots but here's the best one.

All in all it was a really nice, relaxing Mother's Day, and it was gorgeous weather, too, so that always makes a day better.

Recap of our Philadelphia/DC trip

Hey, before too much time passes, I wanted to write quickly about our great little trip to Philadelphia and Washington DC from a couple of weeks ago. Joe had a nursing conference in Philadelphia so since his work was already paying to fly him there we arranged for his flight to leave 3 days early and bought a ticket for me to go with him. We had to take Alex since he's still so young and nursing but the girls stayed half of the time with my brother, Ryan, and half with my mom so any vacation without kids is a great one! I mean, having Alex still made it harder, but it's much better than all three! We left really early on a Thursday morning and our scheduled 2 hour layover in Denver turned into 13! Instead of leaving for Philly at 11am we had to take a red eye that left at midnight! I know, I was so frustrated I was actually in tears, but we tried everything we could think of and there was no other way. So our first day was spent in the Denver airport, but luckily a nice Frontier worker let us hang out in the unaccompanied minors lounge so it was much more comfortable and there were couches for me to feed Alex and even try to take a nap when I could. I've included a picture since that it basically represents our whole day. We got to Philadelphia at 5:15am the next morning but our flight was actually only 3 hours long (there's a 2 hour time difference) so we barely got any sleep on the plane and we were so tired. On the flight I requested that they at least give us an extra seat for Alex to stay in his carseat sleeping but it was completely full so Joe and I broke FAA policy and smuggled him on in his seat because he sleeps SO much better in his seat than in my arms but that meant I was stuck holding the big carseat on my lap the whole flight (good thing I didn't have to go to the bathroom because there was no way I could've gotten out) and then I had a blanket on top of it and Joe and I had to do our best to cover it up and look like I just had my nursing baby under the blanket. It was pretty funny.

Despite our sleepiness, we only had that one day to see Philadelphia so we got some breakfast and Mountain Dew and went on our way. We did the hop on hop off bus tour for a quick way to see all the sights and it was so much fun! What a beautiful city! I really just loved it. We walked around a lot, too, and I felt really impressed with everything we were able to see in just one day. A few of my favorite things were Independence Hall, the Rocky statue at the Museum of Art (where we couldn't resist posing Alex for a few cheesy photos on the steps and imitating Rocky's pose with Dad), the Thinker at the Rodin museum, seeing the basketball court where they shot the opening credits of "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air", the beautiful park where they have the LOVE statue, and of course the Philly cheese steak sandwiches. They have SO much outdoor artwork (more than any other city in the US, actually) so it makes it such a fun city to visit and just walk around in and admire. I thought it was beautiful.

That night we drove to Washington DC and stayed with my good friend, Ken, his wife Brooke, and their family. Ken is a traveling buddy from BYU that another friend, Aaron, and I went to Europe with when I was 20 so it was nice of him to accomodate us in our subsequent travels. We stayed with them for two nights to save money on the crazy DC hotel costs. Needless to say we slept GREAT that night and then woke up refreshed to see the city the next day. Ken gave us good advice on taking the metro rather than our rental car which I'm really glad we did but that meant lots of walking because the touristy areas around "The Mall" don't really have close metro stops. It was great exercise. We got off and walked to the Lincoln Memorial (probably the highlight of the day for me--I LOVED that!) and then walked on to the Washington Memorial, the Smithsonian and all of the other cool places along the way to the Capitol. We didn't see as much there as we did in Philadelphia because we spent the first half of the day visiting with Ken and his family and a lot of places closed at 5 so we couldn't go in but I still really had a great time just seeing everything and being there in front of all of those historic sights and builidings. It's really surreal being in places like that that you've seen on TV and in movies all your life and then you're standing in front of it seeing it with your own eyes. I really loved it.

Luckily we had a 2nd day in DC, which was Sunday. We went to sacrament meeting with Ken and Brooke and then said our goodbyes from there and rushed back into the city because we didn't have time on Saturday to go into any of the Smithsonian museums or go over to the White House. There are so many cool museums there that you could spend days just looking through all of them and unfortunatly we didn't have the time so we did very abbreviated visits. We saw all the really famous stuff like the Hope Diamond and everything was really impressive. It would be nice to go back with more time and without a crying baby. The White House was my favorite on Sunday. It's a beautiful area all around there and I enjoyed the walk to get there from the Smithsonian. Right in front of the White House there's a big park where we sat and watched the squirrels climb in the trees and I fed Alex and it was just a beautiful, quiet Sunday afternoon. I loved it.

My flight left from DC a few hours later and it was really sad to say goodbye to Joe at the airport. I was glad I had Alex so I didn't feel so alone. He had to drive back to Philadelphia all by himself and then his conference started the next day and lasted until Wednesday. Gosh, I had no intention of writing this much! Sorry about that. I think I just start typing and I type really fast so it's like I'm talking and I get really long winded and carried away so easily to the point that it's ridiculously long and detailed and boring. You can imagine what my journals get like! That's probably why I'm so bad about writing in them, half of it is this feeling of guilt like by writing it all I'm going to make someone feel compelled to read it and I feel bad for them because it seems like a cruel form of torture. ={ Alright, that's enough for today! Here's one more piture of my happy reunion with my daughters. They were so cute that night.

Savannah is playing soccer

Wow, Joe and I took a short little vacation to Philadelphia and DC right after my first post and that was all it took to throw me completely off of writing. Now 2 1/2 weeks later I'm back on track. =) My goal is to post 2 or 3 times per week.

Savannah started playing soccer through Salt Lake County Parks and Rec a few weeks ago and it started off really rocky but it's gotten better and she really likes it now. My mom had to take her to her first game because we were in DC and when she wasn't picked to be the goalie she was devastated. Always the drama queen, she ended up squatting down in the middle of the field with her face in her hands pouting while the rest of the kids tried to play around her. Here are a few photos from that first game.





Luckily, by her second game I was back home so I was able to prepare her that she probably wasn't going to be the goalie, but that I was SO excited about seeing her kick the ball. We had multiple conversations about it in the days before her next game and on the way to the park. I've had four years to learn how to manipulate her by playing her dramatic side to my benefit. At her next game she was like a completely different person. She kicked the ball like crazy and was one of the most involved kids on her team. The only "problem" she had was that she was so excited to be on the field and showing off for me that she kept jumping up and down waving at me every 10 seconds and a lot of times the ball would be right in front of her but she was too busy looking at me to realize it and kick it. Here are a few photos from her 2nd game.














Dealing with that girl can be a bit of an art form at times and my mom (like most people) doesn't have much patience to humor her like I do. Boy would she be hatin' life if anything ever happened to me! =)

My First Blog!

Hey everyone,

Now that just about everyone I know has a blog, I've finally succumbed to the pressure and here I am! (Thanks, Maria, for giving me the final push that I needed) I'm actually excited to post since I'm so bad about writing in my journal lately, this will be good for me to post short little things and get back in the habit of writing stuff down. Plus in a blog you can include photos and I'm crazy about taking pictures so that's a good incentive for me. Stay posted and I'll try to write often!