Our Day to Day Life, and Not Much Else

Eating

2012-01-25T14:05:00.000-08:00

http://youtu.be/pzTLIHvDjRA

Israel Part II

2012-01-17T21:17:00.000-08:00

Continuing from before. These are the graves from some of the Israel/Palestine conflict. Don't know much about them.

Russian Orthodox Cathedral
View from the graves looking back to the old city and the city wall.
Interesting to see the "decay" to this sign. Different than the sort of weathering we are used to.
View across the way. Pretty interesting to see they use the hill side for refuse.
When I go shopping on a Friday night, I usually bring an M16 too. This was in an American style outdoor mall. You had Nike, Gap, Columbia Sportswear, etc.
Nativities from Jerusalem often have a palm tree in them which was fairly weird to me. But seeing that there are palms growing around the city wall (I guess or hope it is native), maybe that is what they think of as normal for them.
Herod's gate on Friday after call to prayer. So the Muslims are leaving the mosque and this impromptu market set up outside the old city.
Not only this sign, but a lot of signs were trilingual. Getting around wasn't too bad since English was everywhere (as well as Hebrew and Arabic). Also interesting was that there were very few people here since Christianity is a distant third to Jews and Muslims in the area.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_Tomb

This wikipedia entry is quite interesting about the Garden Tomb. So it is possibly the actual tomb, but it appears to be more recent and some other details you can read about at the wiki. This is the face of the skull. You can read about why it matters in the wiki too.

Not sure if this was up to code

Israel Visit

2012-01-10T22:02:00.000-08:00

First week of December, I had a work trip to Israel. There is quite a bit of high tech over there surprisingly. I worked up north in Haifa for the week. Intel campus is on the beach. Google and Microsoft are also near by.

View from my hotel room
View of Jerusalem

Hillside of Jeruslaem
This is pretty interesting. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is where the "Catholic" religions believe the cross and the tomb was located. (Read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Sepulchre). Most protestants think it was the Garden Tomb. But below the women kiss the stone that they believe was where Joseph of Arimathea prepared Christ's body for burial.

Inside the old city almost getting run over by a tractor. Funny being in such an ancient city and then having a tractor drive past you.
Inside the Old City as shops started to open.
Read more about this here, but on their forehead are phylacteries or tefillin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tefillin). Based on scriptures like this, Jews wear these on their forehead and arm (next picture) during prayer:

And it shall be for a sign for you upon your hand, and for a memorial between your eyes, that the law of the Lord may be in your mouth; for with a strong hand did the Lord bring you out of Egypt.

—Exodus 13:9

Which also gives meaning to the scriptures which talk about making them large to be seen of men:

But all their works they do for to be seen of men: they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments, (Matt 23:5)

This is the room of the last supper. Quite the buzz of people coming and going all the time. Whereas the site of the tomb is somewhat up in the air, this site is a lot more definite.

You can see the Wailing Wall below. We weren't allowed to go to the Dome of the Rock because it was the Muslim's Holy Day and only Muslims are allowed in.
More to come soon...

Latest Happenings

2012-01-04T00:29:00.000-08:00

There are a lot of great things in this post. If you find a lot of the pictures in the blog fairly mundane and sort of feel "thanks for wasting my time," well I hope this one makes up for it.

Pais wanted me to draw some hearts and circles around her eyes. Then she said she would do the same for Spence.
Meet the artist.
I have no idea where she gets this from. Is she going to turn out like the weird kid or will she be a comedian? I have no idea. But Ash and her workout and she runs in the back and puts on this outfit. She had on a leotard to workout, then added a tie, hat, socks on her hands, underwear over her leotard, and bloomers on her head. 100% on her own (we were both in the living room the whole time). Let me know at which age, I need to worry.
Close up.
Watching a video on the ipod. Works great when the kids get up early and you don't want to get up. :)
One night we told her to put on pajamas. She ran to her room and put this on. We told her it was immodest.
So to make it modest, she hiked her pants up a bit.
Great Saturday and we're teaching them young. They know when it is time to watch college football.

Final Random

2012-01-01T23:46:00.000-08:00

Watching a movie. I like how the laptop is so big on her.
Early climbing days.
One Saturday, Pais got ready and told me time to go to work and that she was going with me. She put on my backpack and we walked 100 yards down the road. She really was intent on walking with me to work.
You might need to open the full resolution version of this photo to appreciate this.
She is very popular.
They did this on their own on one of our roadtrips.

She really wanted to ride her bike which consisted of me pushing her and her not even moving the pedals.

Another Round of Random

2011-12-28T23:19:00.000-08:00

Eating his Valentine cookie.
We had Thanksgiving in the spring at some random time because Ash wanted some Thanksgiving leftovers. Pais mandhandled the turkey leg.
We were playing games late one night with Casey and Jenna. And we heard this noise coming from the back. But it was pretty quiet. Ash went back to investigate and came across Paisley playing make up in our bathroom. She was crying because she thought she was busted.
She definitely knows how to put on lipstick and eye liner.
Enjoying her valentine cookie she made for me.
Putting the sister away for safe keeping.
I had a day off work and we didn't have any real plans so we thought taking the kids to a new park would be fun for them.

Spencer learned to eat with a fork.
Seems weird, but we don't get very much weather here. But one day it hailed out of the blue and it was pretty good size. You might remember about three years ago, we had a picture of snow on the ground. This was the only extreme weather we have seen other than that.

Random Take Two

2011-12-26T21:59:00.000-08:00

I'm always impressed when she sleeps on this little chair.
This are the best and if you haven't tried them you should. They are the double chocolate Magnum bars. Casey let Weston have a bite of his and couldn't pry it away after.
My trip to the hospital with pneumonia.
Ready for a run.
St Patricks Day is a fine holiday and all, but I don't think Spencer cared for this green oatmeal mix...

Maister's good friend Kushboo who was next door before she went to college. This was right before Kushboo went to Algeria (I might need to double check if that is the right country. It was Africa, but I confuse the country sometimes) for a month.

Spence getting a ride.
Tahoe camping trip.

Last day with Malcolm. It was a sad time after Malcolm left. Gator would go to his room and ask where Malcolm was for several weeks.

Some Random Shots

2011-12-20T21:44:00.000-08:00

Not a lot of theme, but some good memories here.

This first little sequence was with my Mom at the park. Pais would go to the top and tell Weston to start coming up the slide.
She would meet him at top speed half way up.
Then they would laugh and repeat the same sequence.
Great action shot.
Watching a movie.

Feeling sickly.
Showing off his muscles.

I don't know which makeup set this was, but Maister is really good about doing her own make up as you can see below.

My Birthday

2011-12-18T21:38:00.000-08:00

I had a great birthday. Ashley did her best ever on the cake and we had a pretty low key party I enjoyed and my actual birthday was also low key (again my preferred type of birthday).

I did get some help blowing out the candles, so I'm not sure if my wish is still valid or not...

Turning Two (The Day)

2011-12-16T21:18:00.000-08:00

This was the actual day of the birthday. Traditional lunch with Dad and he doesn't look very excited about it. But he got his cookie so it started out good.
Varga joined us and played zooms. They had great fun together.
The cake Ash and grandma made.
Eating cereal the morning of the birthday. Yep a pretty unremarkable picture.
Cake and ice cream that night. He did good work.
Cleaning up his plate.
Relaxing after a big meal.
Riding his new rocking horse (donated by the Rodgers).
Blogger having ordering issues.

Turning Two Party

2011-12-14T21:04:00.000-08:00

Be warned there are a lot of pictures of Spencer coming. It was his birthday after all.

Car cupcakes Ashley made for the party.

Look a Like?

2011-12-12T20:57:00.000-08:00

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say Spence and I are about the same age in these photos. What do you think, did we look very similar at that age?

Beach Trip

2011-12-08T17:55:00.000-08:00

We had some friends in town on vacation so we headed to the coast. One weekend it was cousins Ben and Monica. Ben and I worked during the day, but we took one Saturday to go to Muir Woods and Stinson beach (luckily no sharks ate Jake; he was no interested in going after we told him they have shark attackes there).

The inevitable when you have kids playing in the water. We really planned ahead on the swimsuit front.

We also had Tim and Carrilyn visit from Minnesota. Their kids are used to the snow, so Paisley showed them how she makes snow angels in CA.
Chloe was a natural.
Great thing about sand is when they get it in their eyes, then use their sandy hands to get the sand out of their eyes.

This couple was following us around so we took a picture of them.

I liked this shot of Muir Woods. Took it with the S90. You can get pretty good results with advanced compact cameras (took some Photoshop work of course).

Yosemite

2011-12-06T15:47:00.000-08:00

We go to Yosemite a fair amount and really enjoy going. So if anyone wants to visit and see Yosemite, we would happy to be a resting point and to show you around.

Uhm, not sure if you are allowed to feed the animals, but the kids obliged all the same.
Locking himself in the bear locker.
Taking a rest with his good bud Malcolm

Folsom Rodeo

2011-12-02T15:43:00.000-08:00

Folsom has a pro Rodeo that is here every year for the fourth of July. I get cheap tickets through work and the family had a lot of fun. Maister dropped a $6 funnel cake so that was pretty traumatic. It was right after we purchased it and no one had a bite and it fell under the bleachers.

I think this was Malcolm's first rodeo. He even bought the hat just to get Charity a cheap ticket which was really nice of him.

Operation Skinny

2011-11-30T15:39:00.000-08:00

Just some shots when Spence had the one thing done. I can't remember the name of it anymore... Here he is hanging out in his crib not sure what to do.

Sucking on toes seemed like fun.
This was after. When he came to, he was not happy and I held him. But then Ashley held him and he calmed down.

Father Son Camping

2011-11-28T01:19:00.000-08:00

I thought I had already blogged this but I couldn't find it. I'm probably thinking that Jenna did. But I'm reposting anyways, just because. Casey and I double upped on Father and Sons camping trips. We went to his first and ours the next week. The first went great, the second not so much. At least not for me. Spencer was sick and neither of us slept. Both of us ended up with pneumonia after.

Weston + fire = stick
Spencer throwing rocks in the fire
He doesn't have to wear pants if he doesn't want to. Dad's in charge.
Our sleeping arrangement with the port a cribs.

I have no idea.

Yep playing cars on the asphalt. He was a happy camper.
Weston can throw bigger rocks than the other boys.

Good ole Benson drinking the water. At least the water looks ... clean?

If you are going to throw rocks, you need to stand on the very edge of a very steep dam.
Five minutes after we left on our way home and these guys were done.
Gator and his not so manly sized rock throwing.

Vegas

2011-11-25T01:06:00.000-08:00

I couldn't find anyone to go to Vegas with me to watch the Jimmer in the MWC tournament. And Ashley had been looking for a half marathon to run. So there was a pretty cool one over Hoover Dam the same weekend as the MWC tournament. Little did I know I was creating drama since I later found out my good cousin Ben was going and crashing at our Uncle Mont's place (next time you are in Vegas, I highly recommend crashing with Mont). The part about Ben I later learned was he had planned a guys only trip and refused even to allow his sister in law to come or any other wives. But he didn't tell me that detail until we were there. He and his friends were very accommodating with the kids and having a female there. The kids loved the dog and especially Sophie. She still refers to her as her friend Sophie in Las Vegas.

We pushed the kids down the strip and stopped at Serendipity for a $9 frozen hot chocolate. It was very good and we debated getting another before we returned although definitely the type of thing you only buy on vacation. We wanted to try other kinds but at $9 a pop, we decided to share one. And here is a rare picture of myself. Since Ash doesn't post much, it is easy to self-edit myself out of the posts :)
Gator on his first horseback ride. He seemed to like it. Maister was being a bit delicate about getting on a horse and will have to wait for another chance.
I can't remember if this was the first time Ashley rode or not. There you can see Mont. This is his horse that Sophie rides. I'll say the horse was pretty intelligent. So much so, that it didn't bother listening to any of my instructions.

Here you can see Michelle. Her and Pais were best of friends while we were there. Mont and Michelle are incredible hosts and have an excellent house. It was a downgrade coming back to our Master from staying in their guest room.

Turning Three

2011-11-22T00:44:00.000-08:00

We did something a little different this year for Maister's party. Instead of having a huge get together with adults, we let her pick a couple friends and made it her party. So we apologize if you didn't get the invite. She bribes easily with candy so start now and you might make the list next year.

Getting her makeup on to get ready for the party. I don't recall if she put the lip gloss to good use or not.
Birthday tradition is coming to have lunch with me at work. That will only last another year or two for her unless Ash pulls her out of class.
The craft part of the party. I think they decorated purses or something.

Spence while he still liked balloons. More on that later.

After he no longer liked balloons. I won't name names, but someone might have popped a couple near him or while Gator was holding them. Then he would run away from balloons. I believe the phobia has ended, but we'll have to test that out next party.
Didn't Ashley make a killer cake? Pais of course picked the theme.
If you look close, she wasn't even getting the candles to flicker. She was blowing straight up and didn't understand why when she blew harder they still weren't going out.
Doing a good job with his cake.
It's my party and I will cry if I want to.

Someone knows how to use a camera already.
The person who might have blown out the candles...

Someone doesn't....
I think she enjoyed her gifts more than she appeared to in this picture.
Ok so she can use a camera, but gets a little confused with sunglasses.

Christmas and Anniversary

2011-11-18T00:29:00.000-08:00

Now we can remember Christmas memories of last year too :)

Our little Hindu boy at the ward Christmas party.
He only cared about his cars last Christmas. I think he will understand it a bit better this year.
She definitely already has the hang of it.
We were in Boise last Christmas and Ashley had never been skiing. We were really glad Rob and Tiff were interested in going and helped round up gear for us. We ended up not having a ton of time to ski (there is always so much preparation and ski resorts aren't as close as say the local bowling alley so you are driving up single lane mountain roads in the snow and then you need to rent gear and get a lift pass etc etc etc). But we were really glad Rob and Tiff helped us out and Ashley got to go skiing. I think she had a fun time. We stayed the whole time on the bunny slope and I thought Ashley progressed really well. And for me it had been over ten years since I had been and you could go off the slide of the bunny hill on a short normal run so I did that a couple of times (I imagine Ash was done receiving my help after not too long anyway). It made for a memorable anniversary instead of just going out to dinner and watching a bowl game or two. Thanks again Rob and Tiff.

I don't know why blogger never gets picture order right. I even enter them in reverse order since I know the reverse order trick. But one just appears randomly in the wrong spot and I don't want to deal with it. Anyways, I love that the kids are terrified of Santa Claus. You can count on this every year for our kids.

Thanksgiving .... Last Year

2011-11-18T00:05:00.000-08:00

So I'm not quite a year behind and I'm going to catch up. No better place to start than last Thanksgiving to help get ready for this Thanksgiving. Ashley, Jenna and Charity ran a Turkey Trot last year. They all ran really hard. I feel a little bad I didn't get any shots of Jenna running, but Casey and I had to divide our time between the three runners.

This is the pre-race family shot.

This was Casey and I watching the kids before the race started. Of course Weston resting his foot caused a bit of a fuss for our delicate little princess.

Folsom Telegraph

2011-11-02T13:03:00.000-07:00

If you live in Folsom, check the front page of your paper today. If you miss it, see the fourth picture in this thread:

http://folsomtelegraph.com/detail/191880.html?content_source=&category_id=&search_filter=&user_id=&event_mode=&event_ts_from=&event_ts_to=&list_type=&order_by=&order_sort=&content_class=1&sub_type=photos&town_id=

Tahoe Camping

2011-10-14T09:15:00.001-07:00

I believe this was the first camping trip for the kids. They did pretty good. We didn't sleep great and usually ended up with the four of us all squished together, but it was a good first trip. We really need to get out more next year.

A rare event that she lets me throw her up in the air (don't show Nanny).

A quick family portrait thanks to the Boyces.

This was the funniest part of the trip. You'll see why in the next picture.
So Paisley was sitting on that little log for quite a bit. And then all of a sudden she fell over into the position you see her in there. It was like she had fallen asleep sitting up and then fell over and just kept on sleeping. Like when kids fall out of a bunk bed and sleep through it (although this wasn't quite as far). She stayed there for quite a while until we woke her up.
Hanging out with the boys. Maister was the only girl, but got plenty of attention with her singing and other typical antics.

Random Utah Trip

2011-09-25T22:22:00.000-07:00

Some random photos from our travels from way back when. But this was breakfast at Morris' house. In case you can't tell, those are M&Ms.

Spencer's other namesake. The most obvious one most are aware of, but this was the first time he met the other. Kellis was my companion in the MTC and we've always been good friends. Kellis avoided meeting Spencer and really having anything to do with him, but we tracked him down and forced them to become friends.
We also met up with my favorite non-companion mission companion. Semrow and I lived in the same apartment for eight months of the mission or something, but never served together. We had great times then and had a really fun visit when we were passing through.

Missing Hawaii Files Part II

2011-09-05T02:12:00.001-07:00

On Kauai we stayed near Kapaa since that way we could get to the north and the south without much difficulty. We thought the south would be the cooler part since the more famous beaches are down there are most tourists stay in Poipu. Also Waimea Canyon is down there (Grand Canyon of the Pacific) as well as Spouting Horn. But we felt the exact opposite. You can do most everything in the south in one day. The Waimea Canyon was pretty but a little disappointing to compare it to the Grand Canyon (which I haven't been to, but it is much bigger for sure).

In the previous post, I mentioned the 8 mile hike. This hike was shorter, but a bit crazier. You'll see in the pictures. But we had very little time before night fall.
This was the kind of steep, muddy hike that it was. It started off easy and the gradually switched into this. We were determined to make our destination, which ended up being more disappointing than earlier views. The view above was the view along the way of the hike. You just see more angles of that same view. It was definitely beautiful and you can't quite see it in pictures.
Another mud filled area we had to cross.
See how steep that is.
This is how easy the hike starts.
More mud
Ash contemplating the meaning of life as she overlooks Waimea Canyon
View from Diamond Head. The rainbow got more intense later.
I liked the beach bum.
Uhm, again not in Hawaii, but look at those eyes. She is begging to be included.

Missing Hawaii Files Part I

2011-09-05T01:58:00.000-07:00

I reviewed what Ashley posted a long time ago and I finally got around to reviewing the leftovers that were sitting on a camera for a long time. There will only be two parts to this series that tell the rest of the story of our Hawaii trip last year.

View from the hotel room
This was the 8 mile hike we did to the base of the waterfall. As you can see you need to watch your step so it takes a lot longer than we anticipated.
These bamboo were really neat. The wind was blowing through them making this really creepy noise.
Ash looking cute on the bridge as we made our way to the zipline
Ash on the start of our 8 mile hike before we realized we should have conserved our energy.
I got some good photos of this turtle I'll be posting on my site. Here he is telling me to leave him alone and never come back.
The view from our seats for the show at the Polynesian Cultural Center (camera is zoomed out as far as possible so we were quite close).
View of us from our front row seats.
I like that the beach keeps track of the people it has killed. Did that stop people from getting in the water? Nope.
Front of BYU Hawaii. Definitely a different feel from the real BYU.
View from the lookout at Diamond Head where they would have been watching for prior to Pearl Harbor.
If you look close you can see the turtle swimming in the wave. This shot took a good bit of timing.
This has nothing to do with Hawaii, but she looks like a ninja.
This guy is hilarious. He does Somoa at the Polynesian Cultural Center.

FYI

2011-08-01T00:05:00.001-07:00

This is a very late, and much needed update.

Spencer had his endoscopy done at the end of June. Fortunately, nothing was found. They even said there was no evidence of acid reflux. We were happy with this new, but frustrated to still have no answer. We were told "you just may hav ea very strong willed little boy." Personally, I don't think that is the root of the problem - thought he is very strong willed and stubborn!

I have done 3 trials of taking Gator off of his acid reflux meds, only to have him stop eating again. And every time I put him back on he begins to eat. So we are all very convinced that even with no "evidence" of reflux, he definitely has some issues there.

Overall, he is gaining weight. Even if it is very slowly we will take what we can get. The doc says we don't need to bring him back in for a weight check until October. We are just hoping he is over 20 lbs by then! Really we are hoping for much more than that, but are also trying to keep our expectations lower :)

Thank you very much to all of you who have contacted us with concerns for our little boy. We appreciate those who have prayed and fasted for our Spence. He is doing much better, and we only hope to see progress from here on out!

Beauty Queen and New Skills

2011-06-28T18:19:00.000-07:00

Paisley got a new vanity from a good friend of ours and she has been completely obsessed with it. She kept getting into my make-up and taking it into her room to primp. She now usually remembers that she has to ask to borrow my make-up, but she just gets so excited to be all grown up that it is hard to say no. She likes it when I bring my make-up into her room in the morning and we get ready together. These are definitely the mild pictures. Jason took some of her another day that he said he wanted to post... They are completely worthy of their own post.

Paisley and Spencer both love to help, especially when it come to vacuuming. Paisley actually does a pretty good job. She kind of looks like she is doing a little dance when she is driving it around. She has great foot work!

April

2011-06-27T20:53:00.000-07:00

Blogger just deleted all of my text, so I apologize, but this is all that was left after the deleting was done!

Here is a quick recap of our April happenings:

QUARANTINED...until the 29th

2011-06-21T22:33:00.000-07:00

We took our little Gator to his new specialist today. Fortunately, we have good news! He gained weight and is at his all time high.... 18 lbs 12 oz! When he wiggled on the scale I saw it sway into the 19lb range, but then it came back down to settle in the 18's. But we will take it!

His endoscopy (2nd attempt) is now scheduled for June 29th. I say he is quarantined until then, as he can't be sick at all inorder for them to perform this procedure. If we can make it to next Wednesday without a runny nose or cough it will be evidence of a miracle. :)

The most notable recent quote about the little guy:

"I would say he eats like a bird, but he doesn't even do that. He just doesn't eat!"

-- Grandpa Chandler (my Dad)

Yes Dad, that pretty much sums it up.

Thanks to everyone for all of the love and support we have felt for our Spencer. We are hopeful that the doctors will be able to help him make some big progress in the near future.

18 Again

2011-06-04T21:57:00.000-07:00

Spencer is back to 18 pounds. He gained ten ounces in a week. Hopefully some of his recent weight loss was because of the pneumonia. He still isn't much above what he weighed in November though. But he does seem to be eating pretty good. But we are poor judges because we've gone into many weigh-ins thinking he has improved just to see no change or a loss. I guess it is the same feeling those Biggest Loser contestants feel when they don't see the weight drop as expected (although we hope for the opposite of course).

Because of the pneumonia, his endoscopy has been rescheduled for the end of June. Hopefully he gains weight and we can cancel. He is still taking his meds for acid reflux and just finished his antibiotics for pneumonia.

More Skinny

2011-05-25T21:57:00.000-07:00

So not much came of the Tuesday appointment. We're going to talk to our doctor about exactly what was said in our file. If we don't get it from her, we'll just request our record. Maybe what she meant and how it came across to us are entirely different. Let's hope so.

On the Spencer front, he has continued to lose weight. He is below what he weighed back in November. So while that is not good, we did find out he has pneumonia so he is getting treated for that. Hopefully that has been the cause for his recent weight loss.

We have scheduled for him to get a biopsy and endoscopy of his guts. So if there is a problem there, we will soon find out.

One Doctor, Two Doctor, Three Doctor, Four...

2011-05-23T21:35:00.000-07:00

Just to continue the discussion of Spencer's weight which we brought up a bit ago... And one point of clarification, Spencer is a very happy, active kid. He is definitely skinny, but he isn't laying around sickly all the time. So he is healthy and we just want to make sure his lack of weight isn't another problem in hiding. So we aren't calling out for sympathy and are well aware of more significant issues that others deal with. So Spencer really is doing great with the exception of not liking to eat. Hopefully in the long run, this will just have been an interesting period and he transitions into eating and this will just be a distant memory.

We have an excellent pediatrician (I don't want to say her name because of something I'll bring up in a little bit). She even follows up in the evening on days when she hasn't been working. Like last week, she was off Wednesday to Friday and we had called Wednesday night. The receptionist said we'll hear from her on Monday. Well she called us back within an hour. I don't know how she checks up on her stuff, but she definitely knows our kids and wants to keep them healthy.

Given Spencer's weight that we have mentioned on here before, she has referred us to a nutritional specialist and a gastrointestinal (GI) specialist. Tomorrow we meet with the nutritional specialist and the GI. Sort of weird for the GI, they had a requirement that we take Spencer to a psychologist before they would meet with us. Ashley went to the psychologist today just to have the psychologist say she isn't really sure what she is supposed to do with a one year old and didn't know why we were referred.

One last thing I wanted to mention is something our doctor told Ashley last conversation. She prefaced it saying she knew we take good care of Spencer and are doing all we can. Apparently the GI specialist has already added a note in our profile after only having talked to Ashley and I once on the phone along the lines of possible neglect on our part. Our Dr mentioned that we might be pulled aside by someone and asked some interesting questions. We don't know for sure (and will find out tomorrow possibly), but it sounds like we've been referred to CPS (child protective services). Hopefully it amounts to nothing or we're overreacting, but I'm already on edge someone who hasn't even met us would write something like that in our chart. If I call you needing a ride because I'm hiding somewhere with Spencer, come quickly. :)

April: Photo Op

2011-05-22T15:06:00.000-07:00

In April I took the kids to a nearby park and we took a few pics. I wasn't able to get hardly any pics of the kids together, as they were both on the go, but there were some fun pics of them individually. Just wanted to share a few of my favorites.

This one makes me laugh

Our little girl is growing up!

Checking something out

Spencer playing with his ball, and saying "ball"

Hanging out in the bubble

Handsome dude

smooshy face

Talking or showing off muscles...

Just playing

Dancing

Running after the playground

Probably the best photo of them both

My Big Month

2011-05-15T23:12:00.000-07:00

In March, we all said goodbye to brace-face, metal-mouth, and train tracks.

One last awkward photo to try and show off ALL of the braces, hence the weird smile.

a half hour later and I felt like a whole new person!

Next...
When Jason decided he wanted to go to the MWC championship, we began looking for a race for me to run that weekend. I have had a goal to run a half marathon for a while, and I was really excited when we found the Half Marathon to Hoover Dam race.

The first couple miles were a little surreal as I realized I was getting ready to achieve my long awaited goal. I was loving it. We also loved all the BYU/Jimmer fans that were there too. I wore my BYU Blue top to support the team :)

This is at the half way point. Still feeling good. It was right after this that we hit the hard packed trail for the second half. I loved having Jason and Spence there to cheer for me at this half way point. It put a smile on my face and gave be something to look for and distract me.

The halfway point was the pretty much the only spot spectators could sit and watch. So the only other pic (besides the race sponsered ones) is me running it in to the finish line. I was tired, but really kicking it at this point cause I was SO excited to finish.

Standing in front of Lake Mead. There was beautiful view of this for almost the entire run.

Holding my Gator.

I really enjoyed this experience and definitely hope I can do this again. I don't think I will ever do a marathon (there is only one I am interested in), but I enjoyed the the whole experience and plan on repeating it again.

I started my whole training as a non-runner. I didn't enjoy it at all. But after a few weeks of running, and learning what I do and don't like in my runs I learned to LOVE it.

One more thing to check off of my bucket list :)

March Madness

2011-05-13T23:08:00.000-07:00

March turned out to be a busy month for us, and it wasn't only because of all the basketball watching. Here is a quick recap...mostly in order, but not completely.
Paisley was proud of the St. Patrick's Day cupcakes she helped to make...if you look closely you will see she has an extra airhead rainbow on hers. :)

Paisley's fashion statement. We think she is a youngfashion prodigy.

We also went to Fairytale Town with friends this month. We really love it there. The kids always have a great time, and I loved watching them get excited about the different park areas.

Gator posingin the Robin Hood section., as soon as he saw the camera he was hamming it up. Then he ditched me to run around. I just love this kid.

Pais just playing

Landon, Spencer, and Paisley

Landon, Boston, Paisley, and Spencer

The kids got to make a little craft for "free", and go to a little dancing show. Paisley really wanted to be apart of the show, and even joined other kids on stage all on her own. I was proud of her courage. She was very sad when the bigger kids didn't let her in the circle. Poor girl, I felt sad right along with her.

Lunch time

VEGAS

Jason and I packed up the kids and headed to Las Vegas. We had two missions: Jason was to attend the MWC Championship so he could watch Jimmer, and I was going to run my first half marathon. Jason didnt' take any pics at the game, and I will cover the latter in another post.

While Jason was at the games, the kids and I had a lot of free time on our hands. So one day we headed to the Shark Reef at Mandalay Bay. It took me forever to figure out where to park for the exhitibt, but once that was done we had a great time!

Here is what happens when someone offers to take a picture for you, and the camera is not on auto...

Playing around

We were looking forward to taking the kids down to the strip, just because we thought they would think all the lights were pretty. Unfortunately, they were not impressed. They were much more impressed by the Frozen Hot Chocolate at Serendipity, as was I. We have been making this at home way too much. We have several own versions now. Let me know if you need a yummy new dessert recipe, and I would be happy to share :)

Bellagio Fountains. The kids still, were not impressed. They just liked running around aimlessly on the sidewalk more.

We went to only one buffet while we were in Las Vegas (or Lost Wages, as my Dad calls it)

We went to Wicked Spoon, which is known for their wide variety of desserts, which is my kind of restaurant. Generally speaking, I would much rather have dessert, than dinner. Lucky for me, the desserts did not dissapoint.

One of my favorite things was all of the unlimited berries. I could have filled a whole plate of blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries, and been perfectly happy.

Pais and I in front of the big sign at the front.

Right after dinner, Paisley thought Spencer needed a ride

We stayed with Jason's uncle and family, and they were the best hosts. We felt completely welcome, and our kids had a blast playing in their toy closet. Paisley made a new "best friend" in Sophie. Paisley still talks about Sophie, Michelle, and Burner. Even tonight she was telling me how Burner (the dog) bites bones sometimes. Their family made a real lasting impression on our little Maister. THANK YOU!

******

When we got back home, Spencer decided he wanted to learn how to cook. He may not want to eat it, but he likes to prepare it for the rest of us.

Update on the Skinny

2011-05-11T11:09:00.000-07:00

Spencer gained half a pound the first ten days and then lost three ounces the next ten days... I guess we celebrated a little prematurely...

February...almost caught up

2011-05-06T19:45:00.000-07:00

February was a busy month for us. With celebrating Paisley's bday (twice!), Vday, Grandma Chandler visiting, and just our usual business. But here a quick recap. Spence climbing on anything higher than the ground.

Pais making Vday cookies. I love that she is now old enough to really help! I have always looked forward to baking with her :)

Don't be fooled, he hardly ate any of the cookie. But he sure did make a good mess!

This was the cookie Pais decorated for Family Home Evening. Do you see how many cinnamon hearts are covering her cookie? She said she made it for Daddy.

One of my favorite pics of Spence and Jason

Spence enjoying the markers from the art kit he gave P for her birthday

Pais enjoying the digital camera she got from Gma Gpa Chandler. You can tell by her expression whether or not she was having fun with it. This is another one of my fav pics from them month. Pure joy on that face.

Paisley all dressed up and ready for her first "friends" bday party. It was a Tinkerbell party - at her request. I wish I had those pics, but Jason will have to post them later.

Pais playing with her new doll house from Dad and Mom. She was thrilled. She still plays with it a ton, which makes us extra happy!

Here is Paisley and her good friend Dianna - and baby Noah under the blanket. Pais and Dianna share a bday, and we always celebrate together in one way or another. Last year it was breakfast, this year dinner and cake.

Jason had a day off work so we went to a fun local park and had a picnic. The play area is a big wooden castle. The kids had a great time, and we had fun watching them play.

Hanging out at the top of the slide.

The Skinny on Spencer

2011-05-02T00:11:00.000-07:00

So our little Spencer is not exactly the biggest kid you've ever seen. :) We've had trouble getting to eat for the last year and a half roughly. I thought this would be useful for anyone that might have gone through something similar.

This isn't about being below the charts (instead of 1 percentile, they say he isn't on the chart since he is less than the 1 percentile). In Spencer's days of charts he hit the chart one time for weight (at 3%) just to fall off the next week. But that in and of itself really isn't a problem. It is that their weight tracks normally along the same trajectory. There was a three month period and I can't remember when but it was less than six months where Spencer lost weight. So being in the non-existent percentile, not an issue. Losing weight from three to six months, that isn't good.

Similarly we went through another period from November to mid April and Spencer gained one ounce. We have had him on protein drinks most of that time. Part way through that we saw a nutritional specialist who was a waste of time. And our doctor had us keep bringing him in for weekly weight checks. I guess you can call it a hunch but based on how he was falling off the curve for normal weight, she suggested we tried some medicine for acid reflux. Theory being that he didn't eat because it was painful to eat. And that has really been the issue. We would feed the kid ANYTHING if he would eat it. But he would push anything away, even candy, ice cream, etc. Well after about a week and a half on the medicine he gained half a pound. So one ounce before medicine over five months to half a pound in one seventh the time. He even crawls up and takes candy off the countertop now. Over Easter he chewed through tin foil to get to the chocolate inside (pictures later).

Anyways, hopefully that is helpful to someone and we're glad Spencer is eating now. He doesn't like the medicine but luckily he only has to take it once in the morning. And not that it means anything, but although he weighs nothing he is still in the 40th percentile for height. But I have started befriending another kid in nursery whose dad played tight end at UCLA so he can protect Spencer when he is older. That is the back up plan for now...

January

2011-04-21T17:37:00.000-07:00

At the beginning of January our heater broke. I was nervous as I was afraid it was foreshadowing of our year to come. Luckily some friends let us borrow their space heater for the 4 or so days it was out.
Can you tell where we hung out most of the time? Notice the pillow and blankets.

We also used out fireplace for the first time. Fun stuff. The kids loved it!

We celebrated an early bday for Paisley since Jason's Mom was in town. Paisley was of course more than happy to eat more cake and open more presents :)

January randomness:

Ready for church

Waiting for the last person to get ready: Mom

December stuff

2011-04-20T17:00:00.000-07:00

Let's pretend I am not posting about December in the month of April...

We went to Boise for the holidays and had a fun time with the Chandler Fam.

Ever since Paisley read the book about Caillou building a snowman she has wanted to do build one too! So we were just crossing our fingers for some snow. It finally snowed LATE one night and Jason was afraid it would melt off by morning, so we woke Paisley up to build her first snowman. She was thrilled! And as usual, Jason was right. Most of the snow was melt by noon the next day.

Jason's project was to make my bro's car undriveable. Mission accomplished.

On to Christmas:

Paisley's First Haircut

2011-04-19T21:52:00.000-07:00

When we were in Boise in December we decided it was time for a haircut for Pais. My Mom and I took her to our hairdresser Lisa. It was fun to take Paisley to her because my Mom and I have been going to her for over 12 years. I have only had my hair cut by 2 other people in the last 12 years...
Paisley enjoyed the whole experience. No surprise as we all know the girl loves to be pampered :)

Turning One

2011-03-23T00:15:00.000-07:00

We had a little family only party on his actual birthday with a Coldstone Cupcake.

Everything still good...wait for the transition...
He touches the hot wax on the candle after it is blown out (playing in the background, "It's my party and I'll cry if I want to")
He had no interest in touching or tasting this cupcake.
Someone else had no qualms scarfing it down.
We tried to think of something really fun to take him to do on his birthday. I think we were thinking about big exciting things from an adult perspective. But looking at it from Gator's perspective, he loved baths. Driving to a zoo or something wouldn't have been nearly as fun for him at one.

We don't know why he likes to drink the water. But it is his birthday so he calls the shots.

Soccer

2011-03-23T00:14:00.000-07:00

I know I posted other pictures, but these are from later in the season.

Rob and Tiff Visit Part II

2011-03-22T23:57:00.001-07:00

Rob and Tiff wanted to take the kids to the beach. We really like this beach at Half Moon Bay because it is close and never crowded. You don't swim there either, but it is fun for kids to play on the beach.

We like to play the game of chicken with the waves. Maister was pretty brave waiting for the waves to come in.
I would let her run until she was about to get drenched.
Kimball, Kiley and Kooper played a good bit.
Kimball lost this battle
Cooper walking with dad as he contemplated the cosmos.
Kiley lost her feet.

Rob and Tiff Visit Part I

2011-03-22T23:46:00.001-07:00

Me enjoying someone else being swarmed by the kids :)

The kids chased around the seagulls. Maister was always in her defensive posture like this.
Close call.
The whole crew. We were really glad Rob and Tiff came to visit with all the kids too.
Her second home, if she could...

Maister is unique in how she drinks from a bottle. I wish I could get a picture, but she puts her tongue into the bottle, much like a dog or cat drinking from a puddle.
Lots of walking in SF leads to the kids passing out along the way.

This is why a hotel and kids aren't a great combo. You put them in a port-a-crib but the instant they wake up, you are awake. They know you are right there so it is tough to get them to stop. You are tired so you just let them climb in bed so you can at least get some sleep. I was the first up probably because I had the least amount of room on the bed. This picture was a minute after I woke up. Where was I? Oh I was sleeping under Gator's legs, so the six inch edge of the bed.
Our future photographer reviewing some of her work.

Random

2011-03-22T23:36:00.000-07:00

We don't know how he got up there.

This sort of thing never happens. In fact, I think this picture is Photoshopped.
Tough guy stare down.
Gator over the summer with longer hair. He looks so different than now. I don't know if he will look like this again over the summer or even if we grew his hair out he will look like this. It is interesting looking at pictures like this and thinking this is him.

He always starts doing something new like standing on this chair and looks at us with a lot of pride because he knows he accomplished something. Just warms your heart.

When Grandma was here, Maister woke up and was sad Grandma wasn't in her room. She hunted her down and then went immediately back to bed.
This was the night of Halloween and boy can this girl party. This is the aftermath. She just lay there and nothing could move her. When it comes to her and candy, nothing will stop her and she obviously performed beyond her physical abilities this night.
Occasionally he will eat. Love the hair.

Pumpkin Patch

2011-03-22T23:17:00.000-07:00

Charity got us and Casey/Jenna to go to a pumpkin patch somewhere in the middle of no where. This was use on the hay ride.

Casey had this good idea. It was so funny while he was putting Gator on the goat, Maister just popped up out of nowhere through this window.
Always wants to try things after Gator does it first :)

These two always find the best seat for the show together.

Oakland Visit

2011-03-22T23:06:00.000-07:00

My mission president (Shallenberger) was in Oakland to give a fireside and he hadn't met the kids yet so we took a drive down to the Oakland temple to see him. It has been about five years since I've seen him. We got to visit for two hours and there were only a five or six former missionaries (two of them I knew). The other surprise is both of my mission presidents were there. Ashley hadn't met President Clark yet. We took a group picture and I don't know who was going to send it out, but I don't have it. But we took some pictures at the temple while we were there.

It was a tough to get the kids to hold still. I was trying to get one of Paisley in front of the temple by this fountain. My first attempt I said, let's take a picture of you in front of the temple hoping she would look at me (she had been playing with the water). She all of a sudden jumps down and goes running to the temple. You can't really see but she ran up to the gates so she was literally in front of the temple. I brought her back and this was the best we got of the two of them.
From the Visit Center. Paisley let everyone within earshot know that was Jesus.

Turning Two

2011-02-21T12:20:00.000-08:00

So maybe she is already three, but you'll have to wait a year to see those photos :) Here are some from when she turned two.

The famous purse cakes.

Eating her personal purse cake.

Gator wanted to see what she got.
Great deal at $15 from Ikea.

Birth Part II

2011-02-21T12:06:00.000-08:00

This is really part one, but whatever. I think I was hometeaching and Ash was calling me every two seconds. Sure enough we had the "Hollywood" moment of the water breaking and rushing to the hospital. It really wasn't a big rush though since Ashley wasn't even having contractions. While we were waiting for Casey and Jenna to grab Maister, we took a picture of Ashley out front of where Gator would be born. You can't tell, but I'll just remind you her water broke...

Ash's blood pressure measured high and they were worried about the baby so they put her on oxygen. It was something like that.

The room where he was born.
A contraction, Ash borrowed a squeeze toy from Maister.
Gator was born around 2 am and this was Maister's visit the night before. We arrived at the hospital at probably around three or four.
The early purple moment.

It's my birthday and I'll pout if I want to.

Ready to ride a horse.

Birth

2011-02-21T11:51:00.000-08:00

So I haven't won father of the year in either of the last two years. I guess if you take over a year to post all the pictures of your son being born, it will take you down a couple of notches in the polls. I did post some right after (and repost them here), but one thing lead to another and I kept never getting around to it. Part of the reason I've retired from portraits.

This was the first time Maister met Gator.

This one is my favorite.

The bag of flour is a thought from a nurse. He weighed 6lbs 2oz at birth, but dropped into the fives since babies lose weight right after birth. So he weighed about the same as a bag of flour.

Crescent City Vacation

2011-02-21T11:31:00.000-08:00

Shots from our Crescent City vacation.

On our way to the tide pools.

Paisley saying hi to Spencer.

This Paul Bunyan actually talks to you. A guy is looking at you from a video camera and talks to you with the audio coming from Paul Bunyan. It is pretty funny and perplexing for the kids.
Maister talking back to Paul Bunyan.

The girl cousins being girly.
A sea anemone eating a star fish. I thought that was pretty cool.
Is a six legged star fish good luck? I guess they are more common than a four leaf clover.

These three are withing about four months of each other. I don't know why Brielle is calling time out.

Man Hike

2011-02-21T10:53:00.000-08:00

We had a family vacation in Crescent City California (near the Oregon border). Nate, Casey and I went on an over night backpacking trip. I thought it was rather fun. And while we are all Eagle scouts, without further adult supervision we were still rather novice in some regards. For starters we weren't sure how much water we needed. We brought way too much and it was really heavy. Casey took the bulk of the load hiking it in with a child carrier.

Weston here drinking my water before we depart.
A shot of the trail. I'll have a couple more shots of the trail. It was a beautiful hike being in the redwoods the whole time. And yes Casey loves having his picture taken if you couldn't tell. I think we stopped here because something fell off one of the packs. I can't even remember what it was anymore. Another interesting thing is there is a really, really old highway that the trail goes over. You see it in parts and is for the most part completely buried. Victory for the trees.

You can see the trail we came from.

So we did get lost at one point, but I don't think it was our fault. The trail dead ended to a highway but we knew we needed to cross. But we couldn't find where the trail connected on the other side. The part we were looking at was pretty much a cliff on the other side and we couldn't scale up it. So we back pedaled and I can't remember which one of us saw a tiny trail that hadn't been cleared in a while (things grow fast in the redwood forest so it may have been cleared last season). You pass perpendicular to this, but this is the straight on view. Easy to see how we missed it. We removed the over growth to spare the next people coming through.
Our campsite. We were the only ones here and given that it was bear country we wouldn't have minded a neighbor or two. Here Nate is preparing food and Casey is starting the fire.
So Casey leaned a big stick against the table and jumped on it to break it in half. But our food was cooking on the table and spilled. Given that it was the only food we had, we stuffed as much of it in our faces as we could eating off the not exactly clean table. Not ideal, but it made for a good memory. Nate was willing to take a couple pictures as our food supply vanished before his eyes.

It was so wet and all the branches we found took a good bit of heating before they would burn. So while there is a lot of wood, the fire was never that big.
This guy greeted us in the morning on the tent.

Old Family Photos

2011-02-21T10:45:00.000-08:00

We took family pictures last year and weren't very happy with them. But we live with them until Ashley gets her braces off.

It isn't always a lovey dovey atmosphere taking pictures as a family. I'm sure I'll get in trouble for this one later...

Last Random Post

2011-02-21T10:27:00.000-08:00

So this is the last post of just random photos taken from time to time. Not that the catch up is done, just the random part of it.

Maister got a hold of some highlighters and I think she used them as make up. If you look close she was even trying to jab her own eyes, just like Mommy does when she puts on makeup.

Obviously devastated about something here. Or maybe she is embarrassed about her parents.

The two finger suck was really popular with Gator back in the day. We've broken him of this habit fortunately. Maybe this is why he has such a huge gap in his teeth :)

We went to a farm with Carlos and Sarah way back in they day. We didn't brink the veggies, but people were kind enough to share. Obviously Maister wasn't too afraid given that she about offered up her whole hand to the cow.

Cleopatra

More Catch Up

2011-02-21T10:19:00.001-08:00

Some more random photos. We actually printed some of these a while back. But I don't know if we ever posted them.

Proof for my dentist that I floss. How else did she learn how? :)

While normally very sweet, Maister looks like she is scheming some sort of diabolical plan. Most likely in an attempt to get cookies or something. I took this picture shooting at her by shooting through the mirror.

One of their earliest pictures together.

Catching Up

2011-02-21T09:12:00.000-08:00

So I'm quite a bit behind on some old photos. And like I said previously this is more journaling for the kids than anything. So yes I'm going to be making a bunch of old posts that are really REALLY out of date. And blogger likes to put the photos on here in the opposite order that you upload them (feature anyone?). And I don't want to bother resorting them. Just for a feel of age, the photo that is the newest is this top one when we lived in the apartment :)

Paisley reading at an early age. Spencer now uses this seat. Oh yeah all these pictures are before Spencer.

Paisley loves to go to work, use my work laptop, walk to work. Anything related to work. She loved using my laptop here.
You can call this abstract art. We gave Paisley and Weston glow sticks and had them go crazy in the apartment. And someone checked their phone during the picture. I don't know who it is, any guesses?
When Casey and Jenna went to HI, they video chatted with Weston and we hooked it up to the TV. It works pretty good. We just used google video.
Paisley and I in Minnesota kayaking. Paisley had a ton of fun. She clapped the whole time and was excited. She even liked to touch the water as we went, but I didn't allow that too much.
Back when Casey and Jenna were staying in the coolest apartment ever. This was the view of the studio apartment.

I don't think Paisley could even walk here. But she knows how to rock a pair of jeans.

Kids Update

2011-02-06T22:49:00.000-08:00

I imagine most people blog about their kids partially to keep family and friends up to date. And part is probably for a sort of public journal that your children will look back on. I guess you can view this post as more of the second than the first. As this post will bore most non-relatives feel free to stop reading. I'm really writing this for the kids and not for everyone else.

Gator - This kid is smarter than we realize. He knows how to say shoes. It isn't a clear pronunciation, but he brought them to Ash and was giving shhh and adds a little ooh at the end. It is clear what he is trying to say. This doesn't make him the next Einstein, but we're very proud of his ability. In a way we realize we haven't challenged him enough in this regard and now that we ask him to say more things he is progressing even more. We sure love this guy and having his smiles around. He is the most cuddly lovable kid.

Maister - In many ways, I'm a subpar parent and I've been more busy than in touch with things of a more spiritual nature. Lately Maister has been getting scared at night. She'll wake up crying at midnight, two, four in the morning. She is also afraid sometimes to be alone. Even to go grab a shirt or something and then come back to me in the room over. So something we need to work on (if anyone is still reading, thoughts here are appreciated, especially the day time attachment). But the other day she got up around midnight and was crying. She insisted on sleeping on our floor, but we really want her to get used to staying in her room. Trying to calm her wasn't very effective. I asked her if we could pray for her to be brave like she was when she got her shot (and she didn't cry). I said the prayer and was so impressed by her faith and her bravery. She said she would be brave and went to bed. She stayed in her room all night and ever since has been sleeping better in her room. She'll even tell you she has been brave. She does still come to our rooms sometimes, but it was a very touching moment for me.

Turkey Trot

2011-02-01T22:36:00.000-08:00

I shared at the beginning of last year that I had a desire to start running. I will not lie to you and tell you that it was easy at first. But in the end, I have learned to LOVE running! Who would have thought? Definitely not me. So in November I ran a race with Charity and Jenna. We ran in the Roseville Turkey Trot and it was a lot of fun! I ran the 10k, which was just the same loop 2 times in a row. I just cruised along as I listened to my ipod, and the time flew by. I ran my race in 51:xx. Not amazing, but I was happy with it. I was very happy with my first racing experience. I walked (or did I run) away having learned several things, and that is always a plus.
I have a new addiction to running and I have a couple other races on my radar, but I don't know for sure yet.

The three racers

With the fam

Running along!

November

2010-12-16T02:51:00.000-08:00

Here is a quick update from November. And be warned, these are not in order, nor were they edited! I was in a hurry when I uploaded them last month before our trip.

Here is Gator enjoying some chocolate cake at Grandma and Grandpa Chandler's house. Can you see that smile through the frosting?

We traveled to Logan, Utah to see my brother Jordan marry Addy. She is perfect for him, and is a great addition to our family! Paisley loves to talk about her.

Jordan being Jordan.

I was able to spend a morning with my childhood BFF Chelsea. Our kids were finally able to meet and play. Benson (her oldest) and Paisley are only 4 months apart. It was great to catch up, although it was a little difficult at a noisy restaurant with 4 kids 2 and under.

Paisley and Benson goofing around

After driving to UT we drove up to ID to celebrate an early Thanksgiving with my family. It was a lot of fun, but we put a lot of miles on our car! Here is a cute pic of Spence enjoying his road food.

Before we left for the wedding, and the day after Jason got home from his friend Josh's wedding, we celebrated Jason's birthday! Here he is with his Boston Cream Pie. We took the leftovers on the drive with us so we could enjoy the post-birtday cake. We couldn't let it go to waste :)

Here are some random pics from the month:

Paisley and Spence like to look in the washer and dryer. They are so funny.

Nate, Misty and fam came for a short visit.

Brielle was such a cutie

And this was my favorite pic of Spencer playing with Elijah. Look at that face. Handsome boy!

October

2010-12-16T02:25:00.000-08:00

In an effort to finish posting the last of the pictures from 2010, here is a peek at the month of October.

We went to Chuck E. Cheese with Jason's Mom, and we learned Spencer is deathly afraid of the plastic mouse.

I took the kids to Fairy Tale Town with my friend Andrea and her two kids. It was a LOT of fun. Both kids really enjoyed it. Spencer especially loved the swiss cheese :)

Paisley and her little friend Kaydence

Spencer was a Dragon for Halloween. Surprisingly he didn't mind the hat at all.

Paisley was Tinkerbell (or just a fairy) for Halloween. She LOVED her costume, and still likes to play dress up in it. She looked so adorable.

She loved having her face painted at the ward party!

Casey and Jenna got us tickets for Disney on Ice through Casey's work. So Jenna, Jenna's friend, and I all took the kids. It was great! Paisley was mesmerized and Spencer watched most of it too. I thought this was one of the most impressive parts. Ursula was HUGE.

Us in front of the rink.

Loving it.

We went to a huge pumpkin patch with Charity, Casey, and Jenna. Paisley loved this slide. She went on it over and over again. Look at that smile! Pure joy.

Spencer just hanging out in the petting zoo area. This was the most comfortable seat in the house.

Apparently hay in your pants makes your buns itchy... :)

One afternoon the kids and I carved our pumpkins. While I was carving, I let Paisley draw on the little one. I was so impressed when I saw she had drawn a face! This was the first time she had drawn a whole face on her own, so I had to take a picture to document...It would have been to smelly to save the pumpkin in her memory box.

Paisley all ready to help carve!

Spencer was ready too!

Of course the little guys first birthday was celebrated.

September

2010-12-16T02:14:00.000-08:00

September brought us a pretty mellow month (besides our trip!). We went to the ward campout.
Paisley wanted to take pictures of me before the ward campout, and then we took this pic together. I thought most would rather see a picture that included her than just me :)

Here she is just reading her ABC's book

Spencer enjoying a graham cracker at Apple Hill. He was on a graham cracker kick for awhile. He isn't too fond of them anymore. I guess he had one too many.

I went up to Apple Hill with some friends. It was a beautiful day and we all enjoyed some apple doughnuts. The kids LOVED them. Here is Pais with Landon, Zach, Addy, and Ethan. Amber was there too but she isn't pictured.

Trying to get a picture of all the kids at the pumpkin patch was impossible! This was the best of the bunch! Ha! Spencer loved playing with the bigger kids.

We love Apple Hill, and we were able to get up there 2 times this year. They have the most delicious apple treats up there. YUM!

Finshing it up

2010-12-16T02:05:00.000-08:00

Ok, so it is about time I finish up the posts from the year. First let me finish up Hawaii.

A couple days before we left we finally found a fantastic place to eat. I can't remember the name, but it is a BBQ place in the coconut marketplace if you are ever on Kauai. YUM! We went there a few times and never had anything we didn't like.

We took a morning to go on a zipline tour. We wished they were a little faster, but overall they were a lot of fun! We have a video, but that takes forever to load. Maybe Jason can load it to YouTube or something. Although my Mom my freak out since that particular zipline was over a river. It was my favorite :)
Jason

There I go!

Getting ready to go!

After the ziplines, we went to Spouting Horn and ate lunch. The chickens would not leave us alone. They were driving me crazy. And honestly, they were making me nervous...

Denmark and the Snow

2010-12-14T22:35:00.000-08:00

We've told a number of our friends about this so I asked for a picture. Our good friends, Carlos and Sarah, live in Denmark while Carlos finishes his PhD. They came to visit us back in January when their little Ana wasn't even one yet. Their first night they thought it was too hot for Ana to sleep inside (remember I said January, this is CA, but still January) so they opened the sliding door and left her outside. They then proceeded to tell us in Denmark all babies, even from birth sleep outside on the patio. And Denmark is the land of snow much like Alaska (they have days where you only have daylight for a couple hours it is so far north).

On top of that, they are very trusting and enjoy having their chapel quiet for Church. So babies sleep outside during the three hour block in their strollers even in the snow. I asked for a picture just to see what it is like and you can see that below. There are two strollers outside (one is around the side) and there are babies inside. I'm pretty sure Carlos and Sarah did the same thing when Ana was little. Hopefully I have this right and I'm sure Carlos and Sarah will correct me if I got a detail wrong, but I thought it was interesting...

Kauai - My favorite day

2010-11-07T22:15:00.001-08:00

Sorry for the delay in vacation posts. We went on another vacation :) Except this time it was to freezing cold Utah and Idaho for a wedding.

Now back to Kauai.

This was my favorite day in Kauai (our second day on Kauai). Perhaps it is my favorite because it is the most memorable. By this point, Jason and I were both in pure relaxation mode. It took a couple days for us both to get there, but it was so nice to feel a little carefree.

This morning we set out to hike to a private beach, and waterfall. It was 8 miles roundtrip, and we thought it would be a pretty easy hike, we could be back in time for a late lunch. It was not at all what we imagined. Before I get into details, let me just say we "prepared" for this hike by eating fermented pineapple that morning, granola bar, we each brought a protein bar, and 1 liter of water to share. Smart...not so much
We started our hike a little before 10am...

The first 2 miles of the hike are all along the Napali coast. It was gorgeous. But the trail was right along a cliff so you couldn't stare too long :)

The first two miles also has very sharp inclines and declines, and MUD. Lots of MUD. They say not to go on this hike if there has been a rain storm in the last 24 (or was it 48?) hours.

The beach we were hiking to. We did eventually make it, but we quickly headed on to the waterfall.

We hiked through several bamboo groves which was fun. But they kind of creeped me out. They kept creaking and it sounded like they were going to fall on you any second.

To get to this waterfall we had to hike over and through rivers, crossing several times, jump on rocks, guess on the pathways, through mud, and around these nasty squishy fruits. They smelled good at first, but eventually made you sick. At one point we got to a place where we needed to cross the river again. There was a large group of people there and they were kind enough to show us the best way. Jason was able to jump, but for me they handed me a long stick and Jason held the other end. When they counted to three I jumped and Jason pulled the stick to pull me across. I made it and we were all happy. It kind of felt like a movie with everyone watching and seeming so pleased when we successfully crossed.
The hike continued, and we began asking people that were hiking out how much further it was.
We kept thinking, it has to be around the corner....it has to be close...but it never was.
Until...

VOILA!

We sat down to enjoy our Tigers Milk Protein bar while we watched all the other hikers pull out their lunches. I'll just say that a protein bar had never tasted so good. Props to tigers milk in that I didn't want to spit it out after the first bite like many protein bars.

Many people were swimming under the waterfall, but the water was icey. Jason wanted to be able to say he did it, so he got in. Here he is on his way back from the falls.

Can you tell how cold he is?

Isn't he handsome?

On the way back I slipped and fell into the river. Sliding on my buns the whole way down (ok, about 4 feet).

When we finally got back from the hike to Ke'e beach it was just before 4pm. We bought a fresh coconut and ate it up. Jason was a bit disappointed that it didn't taste at all like the coconut we get back home. But I actually thought it was pretty good. Very "nutty"

Once we left we were HUNGRY. We stopped at this little side of the road dive. Jason had been eying it since we landed on the island. So, Huli Huli chicken it was. We thought we would be able to sit at the little picnic tables they had set up, but apparently those are only for the family and friends of those that are cooking the chicken. They put our 1/2 chickens in ziploc bags and sent us on our way.

We ate our chicken with our bare hands, yes we were savages. But it was so good, and we were starving. Manners did not matter at this point. I would have taken pictures of this, but my hands were disgusting, and quite frankly, I was feeling a little tired and didn't want to fish it out of my bag. Now I wish I would have.Finally we headed off to find two more waterfalls. Got a quick snapshot, and headed back to the hotel to cleanup.

This day was pretty tiring, we went to bed early that night, but it was so much fun. I was reminded how much I enjoy hiking. We had a great time talking and making jokes all along the way. We definitely made some good memories.

Kauai

2010-11-07T21:37:00.000-08:00

On Saturday we flew to Kauai first thing in the morning. This place was gorgeous. First, we went to go get our rental car. Jason got frustrated when the sales lady made a big deal about us not upgrading cars. It became a joke for the rest of the trip. "so you want the smallest car then?"
Then we headed to check in at our hotel. We stayed in Kapa'a which is over on the east side. When we got to the front desk, they told us that there was maintenance being done on our room so they upgraded us to their sister hotel, a resort, down the road. Jason tried joking with the front desk by saying "there aren't bed bugs are there?" and we both laughed. But the girl just kept a straight face and said "...they are doing maintenance on your room." We rushed out of that hotel and didn't touch a thing for fear we would take some of the little critters with us. EEK! We got to the new hotel and it was much nicer than the one we had originally booked, plus they gave us a complimentary box of chocolate covered macadamia nuts and the hotel had a delicious restaurant on site. :)

After checking in, we headed to the beach.

Seriously beautiful. I have never seen water like that in my life.

We went and got a snow cone (duh!), then headed to snorkel at Tunnels Beach. This was one of my favorite beaches. It was really long and didn't feel too crowded.

for some reason I kept giving thumbs up when Jason wanted to take my picture...it only seemed right. I don't know.

Us at Tunnels Beach. We took at little jog, probably bout a 1/2 mile down the beach to a secluded area where only a couple fisherman and a camper were. We love watching the waves.
( For those that can't believe I can ever get a tan, please see the line on my shoulders as proof :) )

That night we headed to the grocery store to pick up a couple things for snacks and for our breakfasts in the morning. While we were there I saw some awesome stuff such as:

Dragon FruitAnd HUGE avocados. I wanted to buy one, but didn't think it would be good souvenir to bring back.

Go Mufi.

Oahu

2010-11-06T21:53:00.000-07:00

Here is Jason jumping off a cliff at Waimea Bay. He did this the first day we got there. I was impressed. He was hoping he could get me to jump, but no such luck.

We started off our only full day on Oahu bright and early with a quick hike up Diamond Head. We were trying to catch the sunrise and got up to the top just a few minutes too late. We were surprised at how many people there were at 6:30am. Impressive.

Neither of us really like the pics that people took for us at the top, but at least you can see what we saw when we got up there. It was beautiful.

Then we started driving around the island. This was set to be our day to spend at the Polynesian Cultural Center. It didn't open until 12pm, and seeing as how we started off our day at 6am, we had some time to burn. We checked out BYU-Hawaii and the Temple. The campus was much smaller than I anticipated.

Here is the Laie Hawaii Temple. Isn't it beautiful. I couldn't get over how gorgeous it is. And set up against the lush greenery of the island...WOW. I can honestly say it was one of the most beautiful things I saw our entire vacation.

J said I should take a turn driving the stang, and I didn't want to disappoint. It was hard to not speed too bad when driving this beauty. It has way more pick-up than the civic. Too bad there isn't some kind of a mustang-mini van hybrid :)

We picked up some spicey garlic shrimp at a side of the road shrimp truck. It was messy but delicious. I wasn't too hungry, so I told J I would only have a little bit of his. He was more than kind enough to share his plate as it was hard to just stop at one...

Remember how I said we made some good memories with our car? Well this was definitely one. We got caught in more than one rain storm with the roof up (or it is down? the point is the roof was not over the top of us). Usually the rain would only last a couple of minutes and then would quickly turn back to the sun shining. But the time pictured above, the rain started, then got strong, and we thought it would just stop anytime but it was not letting up. We finally pulled over to put the roof on and within 3 minutes the rain stopped. Go figure. If you look close you can see a small puddle of water in the backseat. Good times.

We enjoyed most of the shows at the PCC. I was impressed by the coconut tree climber. But my FAVORITE was Tonga. They pulled people up from the audience and asked them to help out. All three guys they invited up were funny but this one Japanese man was HILARIOUS. I was laughing so hard I was crying. I mean tears streaming down my cheeks. I love the feeling of laughing that hard. Anyways, he was just so lost about what he was supposed to do. I wish I could describe it all better, but just imagine a middle-aged Japanese man lifting up his shirt and trying to make his pecks dance. Need I say more?

Jason enjoying the food from our Luau. It was pretty good, but nothing amazing.
While it was fun to go to a luau, I am not sure I was impressed with it as much as everyone else. Everyone said it was a must to go to while in Hawaii, and I thought it was a bit overpriced and we didn't even watch the dancing during the meal. We just talked with our newly made friends, and focused on eating our moneys worth.

These are our friends from the Luau. They were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. We really enjoyed talking to them. They were from New Jersey and couldn't understand why they couldn't order alcohol at the luau! haha. They told us all about their world travels, and they had quite the catalog of travels. Every sentence was a new country. It was impressive.
We went to the Ha! Breath of Life show that night and really enjoyed it.
We were quite exhausted by the end of the night. We cranked up the tunes and made the quick drive back to our hotel near Waikiki Beach. Which in my opinion is way overrated. We like the more secluded beaches.

The PCC was awesome. This is a MUST if you ever go to Oahu. Jason and I both had a really good time. The performers did a really good job, and seemed to have fun on stage. Go here if you ever visit Oahu!!

Hawaii

2010-11-05T23:08:00.001-07:00

I have been wanting to post this for a long time, but I wanted to get us all caught up first!

Jason and I decided it was time we have a getaway. We have never left our kids (even when we only had one) overnight, except for Paisley when Spencer was born. Jenna and Casey were kind enough to take our kids for a week! That is right, a full week! I was quite nervous to leave the kids, especially when I had to leave Paisley sobbing, but I knew they would have fun. Jenna has to be given a huge shout out, as Casey was working long hours and she was taking care of 4 kids 2 1/2 and under, three of them in diapers, and two that could not self feed. We can't thank her enough!
Even though it was hard being without the kids, it was really good for us and I would recommend it. It just felt like we were newlyweds, or even dating again!

The other reason for this vacation was to celebrate our 5 year anniversary coming up in December. It is hard to do much other than a nice dinner for our anniversary as it is surrounded by holidays, so this was our celebration! We spent 1 1/2 days on Oahu and 4 days on the island of Kauai.
Here is the first set of pics, this was all on the first [half] day:

Pearl Harbor

Matsumotos Shaved Ice. We got shaved ice at least once a day. I know these are full of sugar, but we through caution to the wind and ate anything and everything we wanted to on this trip :)

Visiting the Dole plantation

Pineapple is my favorite fruit, so I was excited to visit here

We made a last minute change and got a convertible for our short time on Oahu. It was definitely worth the extra money. We made some good memories with this car. Fun.

Seeing our first sea turtle up on the north shore. We were excited. It was hard to think I was home just earlier that morning, and then I was up close with a sea turtle only hours later.

Stay tuned for more....there is much, much more... :)

August

2010-11-05T22:41:00.000-07:00

August has come and gone, and here is what we were up to.

There were a few free days at the zoo, so we took advantage one day and went with my friend Andrea and her two kids. She has a girl (8 months older than Paisley) and a little boy (6 months younger than Spencer) as well. We always have a good time when we get together.

Making friends with the monkey

Playing in the spider web

Jason's sister Charity recently moved to a new place that has private lake access. She has a beautiful view from her bedroom, and we have been able to enjoy her beach a few times. August was the first time we visited.

I love this photo

Charity and Spence

My brother Rob, his wife Tiffany, and their four kids came for a visit. We had a great time introducing them to Mikuni's, Chantara, and Tex Wasabi. Obviously, we enjoy good food :)
We went to Lake Natoma and rented kayaks and a hydrobike. It was pretty cheap, and was a whole lot of fun!
Rob was a good sport to take the kids out on the kayak time and time again.

Tiffany and Spence hanging out on the shore while the rest of us were out on the lake. I thought she looked so cute here!

While they were here we went to San Francisco and Half Moon Bay. Half Moon Bay is mine and Jason's favorite nearby getaway. We had quite a time trying to find a hotel at the last minute, but it all worked out. We took them to our favorite beach hangout there. We recently found out it does in fact have a name, but I have already forgotten it. We always thought it was just our private little area...apparently others like it too!
We played our favorite game of chicken with the waves and the kids got soaking wet which was fun. If I can get some of the pics from J or Tiff I will have to post a few. We really had a great time.

After we picked up clam chowder on the warf, we went to the arcade on the warf. It was fun wasting some quarters, and it was fun to see all the old games from when we were kids.

I had never seen this game, and I was the only one willing to try it. It is one that "electrocutes" you. I only played on medium because the people before me (two guys that seemed pretty tough) got me nervous. It was actually pretty fun. I would do it again :)

Nanny

2010-11-05T22:26:00.000-07:00

When we were visiting Boise this Summer, we were able to spend time with my Nanny. I love this picture of Nanny and my kids.

July

2010-10-31T23:02:00.000-07:00

Prepare yourself for mega picture overload.

I took the kids to their first movie at the theater in July. Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs was playing for the free family day and they lasted until about the last 15 minutes and then they were both done. Spencer would have been happy to leave much earlier, but was a good sport to sit longer. We didn't see Despicable Me, but I thought it looked funny. Plus I liked the poster, so they played while I snapped a few shots.

I took the kids to spend two weeks with my family in Boise. We missed Jason, but still manged to have a good time :) I did some much needed shopping with Cam, fell in love with Hobby Lobby, and enjoyed the extra help with the kids.

We took the kids to Krispy Kreme one day. It was a bummer that they weren't making donuts, but that didn't stop us from having a good time. My Mom is hiding in the pic, but you can see my Dad cracking up at Paisley. He was laughing pretty much the whole time we were eating our doughnuts. They thought it was so funny how much Paisley loved her doughnut; it was her first one.

She of course chose sprinkles. I of course chose Glazed Sour Cream. Jason and I usually stop here on our way out of town and each pick up our favorites. This is my pick every time.

This is what Spencer did while we chowed down.

We took the kids to Camels Back Park one night, then followed it up with some ice cream from Goodies! YUM! Jason and I went here when we first started dating, and this was my first time back since then so that was one. It hasn't changed at all.
Spencer loved it when Grandpa helped him on the horse, and going down the slide.

My Mom and I took the kids to the zoo one day and we all had a good time. Not the best pic as it was so bright outside but they were in a little hut. Spencer wouldn't look at me. He was just too excited to be out of the stroller!

Playing in the safari jeep

On the carousel. She isn't smiling here, but she really did enjoy it. I think my Mom had a good time too :)

I think they were checking out the giraffes here

I already posted one pic of Paisley's ballet camp, but here are a few more. I am not sure how much she liked it overall. Though she still sang her "mr. alligator" song for a few weeks after wards. But I do think it helped with her listening skills, and following directions from other adults.
The teacher said that ballerinas don't hang on the bars, monkeys hang on the bars. Luckily, this pic was taken before class started. Paisley wasn't the only "monkey" in the class.

Silly

Spencer was a good sport to hangout with us while Paisley was in class. There were a few other siblings his age that he played with too, so that worked out nicely.

June...In a nutshell

2010-10-31T21:46:00.000-07:00

June was quite a busy month for us. Here it is in pictures:

This one was actually taken on May 31s, but it got put in the "June 2010" pictures folder. Paisley got to make her first build-a-bear. My Mom and Dad like to take all the grandkids at some point to make their own. She had a lot of fun picking out her animal, clothes, and accessories. I think she was a little overwhelmed with all the choices though. She ended up picking a pink bear with a tinkerbell costume. She is affectionately known as "TinkerBear" at our house.

After spending time in Boise we headed over to the Oregon Coast for Jason's family reunion. We spent the week in Newport, OR and though it was pretty cold, it was beautiful. We went here so we could all cheer Nate on as he ran his marathon. Here he is running to the finish line.

Family pic on the beach. Will we ever get Spencer to look in a family picture?!

As we drove home from Oregon, we crossed into the 100K+ club. Yes our civic now has many more miles than this. It may not be luxury, but we do love our civic :) We took this picture when we were only about 10 mins from home.

Right after the mileage picture, we arrived home to our flooded house. We spent a couple days at the sweet Fellows home, and then settled into our home away from home. aka The Residence Inn. Every night we had a dance party/wrestle mania on our bed before bedtime. We definitely made some good memories.

It was hard to be in such a small area with hardly any toys and two kids all day, so we left in the morning, came back for nap, left in the afternoon, picked up Jason, went out for dinner, and came home for bathes and bedtime. We went to the park pretty close to everyday, and frequented Target too many times. Here is Paisley at the park.
One day we went Blueberry and Cherry picking about 30 mins away. It was fun to be out with friends, but it was kind of annoying that I couldn't reach all the really good looking cherries. Plus, the prices weren't that great. But it was a fun day! Paisley found the fish food station quite interesting. And Spencer just rode in the front pack, hence no pictures of him. I tried, but they all turned out funny.

May

2010-10-31T21:15:00.000-07:00

I know May seems like forever ago, but that is how far behind I am on blogging. I'll be honest, there have been times when I have considered bagging the whole "blog world" all together. But it is a good way to keep in touch with friends. Plus I like seeing my friends blogs, so it can't just be one sided :)
So here is an attempt to catch up. Month by month...

Had a ward service project creating bark paths, and cleaning up trash. Paisley didn't do a lot of the labor, but she sure looked cute.

In May we traveled to Boise for a Memorial Day weekend surprise. It was definitely fun! Both Grandma and Grandpa were quite surprised. We got videos of both of their responses, but I am not sure where those are. Here is Paisley reading in the car. She kept herself quite entertained with this.

We stopped in Winnemucca for dinner with our friend Tim's brother Andrew and his family and their friends. Here is Spence with Andrew's daughter. Keep in mind she is 4 months (I think) younger than Spencer She is a cutie.
We also had a baby shower for a friend where we served some of these delectable cupcakes! (I think I have been reading too much Fancy Nancy)

Garden

2010-10-30T22:47:00.000-07:00

We have enjoyed having a garden this year, and we have learned a lot. It has been fun having meals where all of the vegetables have come from our garden. This year we grew rome, cherry, and hothouse (I think they were) tomatoes, zucchini squash, and some other mystery kind with a tough outside (anyone know what I am talking about?), strawberries, bell pepper (only got one orange), jalepenos, basil, cilantro, and we attempted watermelon but that was a miss. Delicious! Just wanted to share a picture of one of our biggest squash. The top pic is to show it in comparison to the peeler and the dishwasher.

Spencer is ONE!

2010-10-30T22:17:00.000-07:00

Thought I would FINALLY get around to posting about the little guys birthday, and give his monthly update. Let's start with the monthly update:

*Can take 3 steps
*"talking" a lot more, though not saying any words. He may have said "duh" for duck the other day though...I think it is wishful thinking
*Smiling even more, if that is even possible
*Rubs his hands in the washing motion when he see the hand sanitizer... haha
*We think he knows the difference between Mama and Dada now.
*STILL prefers Jason. Jason loves to rub this in :)
*Brushes his hair
*Get's really excited in the bath
*Went back down to the 0 percentile (yes, there is such a thing). The Doc said to give him anything he will eat.
*He loves pancakes, gerber puffs, and yogurt
*Likes to play copycat

Unfortunately, the day before Spencer's party he got pretty sick. He was running a fever, and vomited. By the morning, he was doing a lot better, so we assumed it was just a 24 hour bug and we had the party anyways. While he was doing better than the night before, Spence was still not himself. He did not want to have anything to do with his cake. Even if we tried to entice him with the sweet frosting...nothing.

If you look close you can see a tear on his cheek. So sad!

I put him down for a nap after the cake drama, and he woke up a bit happier to open some presents. Such a cute guy!

Soccer and Sleeping

2010-09-27T20:37:00.000-07:00

First a token picture of Spencer ripping out all the wet wipes from the case.

We enrolled Paisley in a four week soccer course. She has progressed pretty good in terms of following instructions. Here is a good shot of her looking soccerly, although if you look at Coach Joe, she isn't quite lifting the ball above her head like he is instructing.
Spencer really enjoys soccer and stuffing his face with rubber pellets from the turf.
Behind Paisley is her whole class, while she rolls on the ball with her stomach (a move she taught herself, they don't cover that in class).
Spencer has learned from the Maister (look in the back and you can see Ash helping out)
Maister has been having sleeping issues. She wants to keep the door open when she goes to bed. So we tell her if she leaves her room that we'll put her back and we will close the door. So she pushes it as close to the line as she can get and often falls asleep there. Here she even managed to fall asleep with her feet up in the air against the door while writing her memoir.

And she wakes up in the middle of the night and found a way spot to sleep where we put those useless ten pillows that are on your bed for decoration, but you don't actually sleep with. She found this spot one time while we were discussing in the middle of the night who had to go put Paisley in bed. Ash said I brought her in and I was for sure it was the other way around (We think she must have snuck in since neither of us could recall). And while we were discussing, she climbed down from our bed and curled up on the pillow and was asleep before Ash and I figured it out.
Here is where she slept last night (BTW, these are some tough shots. You can't turn on the lights much and you can't make noise or she will wake. So you get nearby light. This was the laundry room light. Her room or the hallway would be too bright and she might wake. But the laundry is just enough and this is a five second exposure on a mini tripod).And tonight she has crossed the line a little bit, but I don't think we'll punish her. Oh and all those toys started inside her room, but came out as part of the falling asleep procedure.
Lastly, the king of the outdoors. The only time this guy cries is if someone goes outside and he can't go out.

Spencer is 11 Months!

2010-09-22T22:55:00.000-07:00

Another month has gone by. I can hardly believe that our little guy will be one next month. I think time just flies by faster and faster with every year that goes by. Here is what Spence is up to:

Claps (actually started this at 9 months old by forgot to add it back then :) )
Waves (same as above)
Decided he does, in fact, like to eat!
Will eat pretty much anything
Loves to play outside
Said "Hi" for the first (and only) time
Can drink out of a "big boy" sippy cup, but it still gets a little heavy for him when it is full
Still likes to wake up early (7:45am)
Is getting into absolutely everything
can climb up on our glider ottoman
Can climb off of the couch
Loves to play in the shower
Likes to lick everything...kind of freaks me out
Got his first car and loves it
He will play with any toys around, but his favorites are eating crayons, balls, and trucks...boys will be boys
Is still obsessed with the ceiling fan
Hasn't taken a first step, but I think he is just so fast crawling he doesn't really care about it yet
He can stand for a long time, and never (usually) falls. he squats down and begins to crawl
Loves to pull Paisley's hair
He loves Paisley, and gets really excited when he gets to crawl into her room to get her from nap or in the morning

Little Ballerina

2010-09-10T22:58:00.000-07:00

Does it get any cuter than this?