Life in the AK

We haven't got out much the last week or two because we've had a couple sickies in the house. Just the usual cold and flu stuff, nothing too bad, but not fun either. Last week we did have the chance to meet Prince. He's a sweet little guy and the boys had a fun time playing with him. Other than the colds, Toby and Xavier are doing well. Toby is growing and starting to eat a little bit of cereal. He's also rolling around and doing a lot of grabbing at Xavier. He's fascinated by his big brother. Xavier is starting to play with Toby a bit more, but can't wait until he's big enough to really play with. Scott has been staying busy at work. His boss is retiring in March, so a new manager will be coming in, which will make for an interesting workplace in the months to come. As for me, I've been trying to get back in shape. I started something called the 30 day shred, which really works for me because it's only 20 minutes long and most days, that's all I can manage to get in. I finished the program on Friday, but since I wasn't sure what to do next, I just started it over again. Maybe by next month I will find something new. We hope you all are doing well! We love you!

Hi Again- I really have no new news but since I am the worst journal keeper on the face of te earth I am at least trying to keep up with this on a regular basis. Maybe I can count this as a journal of sorts. Things here have been pretty calm, weather wise and in general. Prince hasn't completely driven us crazy yet, although he has come close a few times. He is a sweet little pu and not doing too badly about going outside when he needs to. Only a few accidents so far. He really just has us trained to watch him closely and get him out quickly. He likes to go stand by the back door but I think that is because his little doggy treats are out there and he gets one if he goes outside. Dad is gone to a Priesthood meeting tonight so it is really quiet here. I have been trying to work more on Family History and have actually accomplished quite a bit lately. A couple different people that I got in touch with through new family search have had quite a bit of information to share. I talked to Grandma today and she seems to be doing well. She said Uncle Chickie is doing well and is now able to be out and doing things. They told him to stay at home, except for his Dialysis and stuff so he hadn't gone anywhere for quite some time.
I hope you are all doing well. We Love You.
Mom

The weather fore casted rain the whole weekend, the kids all had coughs, and Katelyn was on antibiotics for an ear infection. Yet, we decided to go on a quick trip to Monterrey for the weekend. We spent a couple days playing on the rocks(the boys did not want to stop), in the sand(Katelyn never wanted to stop --- hello tantrum), walking along the coast(something I could enjoy doing all the time) and a whole day in the Aquarium there. The kids had a fabulous time. They did not care if they had coughs and played like crazy. Amazingly, the weather turned out to be rather nice and we were outside a lot. We were able to spot different birds, otters, seals and tons of starfish and anemones in tide pools as we climbed around on our adventures. I am amazed I did not lose one of my kids in the ocean the way they tried to climb around. They loved going to the aquarium and seeing all the different things there. They enjoyed the touch pool, but Katelyn got mad when I would not let her climb right in with things. All in all, we had a fabulous time.
Ryan starts school today and Jonathan starts soccer in a few weeks. I have doctor visits and meetings and such so life is getting back in the swing of things quickly now. Love you all.

Our winter week

This is Courtney in the play last week. She hated her costume, I told her the shorts reminded me of the ones Scott, Nathan and I used to wear and that we love them back then!

Well, we experienced about all the winter we will get here this week. It was rainy and windy all week, which meant a lot of snow in the mountains. The boys and I went ice skating with a play group on friday. Then we found out that the ski resort a couple hours from us got 24 inches, so we couldn't resist going. A very good friend of mine offered to watch the two youngest, and we took Elijah as a celebration of his birthday tomorrow and the girls for their perfect report cards. The roads were a little crazy...luckily we had borrow chains from some friends because that is the only way we made it up there. We had a fun day, although I think Elijah and Aubrey enjoyed just playing in the snow the most. Courtney every went up the higher lift this time and did a great job. We definitely miss the snow, but I am not so sure I miss driving in it!

If you are reading this I am sure you have already seen the pictures Dad posted. Yes we have lost our minds - we missed having a dog and I kept hoping the perfect already trained dog was going to come along but that didn't happen. Prince( his mother is Princess Susitna - he's Prince of Alaska) arrived yesterday and has been a real sweetheart so far. We are definitely training him to be in a kennel when we aren't home so that will take some time. He is doing pretty good with going out when he needs to but I think he is training us - not the other way around.
Other than the puppy things are pretty normal here. It hasn't been too cold or windy and we haven't had any new snow. Dad had several people here friday to plan his fishing trip to Dillingham. They are definitely excited about it. I hope it proves to be half as good as they are expecting.
As always I am thrilled to see your posts. They can never be tooo long. I really enjoy hearing about each of your families.
I Love You All.
Mom

Just thought you would like to see the newest member of our household.

So, I finally have some time at the same time as the computer is available to get a post on here. Life here is going great. Since my last post we had a wonderful Thanksgiving (If you ever want a really good turkey recipe try Emeril's Funky Bird, delicious). The weekend after Thanksgiving we went to Salt Lake to have a mini vacation and to do some Christmas shopping. We got a lot done and had fun as well, Ayana loved staying in the hotel and the pool was as warm as a bath tub, it was great. We also stopped by Temple Square and enjoyed a few hours there. Christmas was great as well. Our tree and all the presents pretty much took up our whole tiny living room, but that's okay. We missed all of you on Christmas especially, but we had a nice quiet family Christmas just the same. Since then Trever is back in school and I am back to the regular schedule, but that's okay, only 2 years to go!

Ayana seems to be learning more everyday. She talks a lot, and though we still can't understand a lot of it there is at least one or two new words every day. Some of the words seem to be her own made up words, but we at least know what they mean now. She still adores her brother, and always wants to give him hugs and kisses and get him toys, though she gets mad at him if he takes a toy she was playing with (even if she hasn't played with it for the last 10 minutes). She is just about the silliest girl in the world and now refers to herself as "the me" As in "the me's toys, the me's juice, the me's beep beep (nose). She loves cheese, so anything that she eats that she likes automatically gets called cheese. She definitely has a two year old mind of her own, but is still a great kid, who listens very well to the things we ask her to do.

The Asher man is growing like crazy, he is still tiny for his age, under the 5th percentile on the growth charts, but he's getting there. He's got one tooth with a second just starting to break through and can now sit up by himself. He hasn't really showed any interest in crawling yet, but can get just about anywhere he wants by rolling there. He loves his food and when you are feeding him if you take too long between bites he wrinkles up his nose and pokes out his lips and huffs and puffs at you through his nose, it cracks us up every time. He still gets mad if he is not being held or played with every waking moment, but that's okay. He is much more active and curious than Ayana was at this age. His nickname is Asher the snatcher, because anything with in his reach he snatches. For example when we go to the store I have to be careful not to get him too close to the shelves or he knocks everything off them trying to get ahold of it. He babbles quite a bit and I think that he will probably be an earlier talker than his sister has been, but we'll see. They are a lot a like, but so different at the same time. I think he is going to give us a run for our money once he starts walking.

Trever got straight A's again in his classes and is generally enjoying what he is learning. This semester should be nice because his schedule is less spread out than it was last semester so he is able to be home more which means more family time and more sleep time for me. Trever got some new parts for his monster truck (remote control) for Christmas so he is super excited for it to warm up enough that he can get out an drive it again. I got a couple new games that I am excited to play too, though they are all more than 2 player so we need to get some friends over so we can play them. Anyway, sorry about such a long post, but I guess that's what happens when there is so long in between. Here's some pictures for you to enjoy. We love you! Amber

This was one of Ayana's favorite Christmas presents this year, we found it for a great price at Ikea, and she loves it, this was her attempt to copy what I drew on the board for her.
Here's Asher the reindeer on Christmas Eve, I think these pajamas are just adorable, Ayana didn't want to cooperate to get her picture taken in her Christmas PJs
Ayana loves to wear her Daddy's headphones, but this time she insisted that Asher get a turn too.
Grinning away in his sister's chair
Look at me, I can sit up all by myself!
Ayana loves to eat sour cream, just hand her the spoon to lick after you are done with it and you have made her the happiest girl in the world
We stopped at Temple Square on our trip to Salt Lake, Ayana was very cute here, she was full of energy and very noisy the rest of the time, but when we got here she got quiet and just kept whispering "Jesus" over and over again.
Ayana loves her bubble baths, though she still hates to get her hair washed

Thanks

Thanks to whoever updated the birthday list for me, I haven't had much chance to get on here lately, as you can see. I should finally be able to get a post up this weekend, and finally get rid of the Christmas background! Love you all! Amber

Back to normal

We are slowly getting back to normal after Christmas break. We had a great two weeks just relaxing and playing. Megan and her kids came down to make Christmas cookies one day and we had lots of fun together. I don't think I took any pictures, but Meg did so she will have to post some. Then, we went up to Fresno and Megan and Ryan watched the kids so Mark and I could go out to lunch and to the temple for our 10th anniversary. The cousins all had fun together!

Now, we are back to homework, tests, science fair projects and the like! Courtney is in a play this week. She and Aubrey both did it last year. The directors come for one week from Montana and bring all the sets and costumes. They have tryouts on Monday and then practice for four hours every day until Saturday when they put on two shows. Aubrey chose not to try out this year, but Courtney made it as a member of the frowny face tribe. We'll post pictures next week.

The boys and I have been having lots of fun with our homeschool preschool. This week was letter L, so we took a field trip to Insect lore to learn about lady bugs. They also had butterflies, ants, frogs and various other bugs, so the boys loved it. We had ordered caterpillars from them a couple of years ago that we watched change into butterflies, but did not realize that their company was based in Shafter, about 30 minutes from us,

so it was

fun to go visit and see how it all works.

Caleb is up to 12lbs 5 oz as of Monday and we couldn't be happier with him. He is sleeping through the night most of the time, rolls from front to back, smiles, laughs, and charms everyone he meets. His brothers and sisters can hardly keep their hands off him, but we can't really lame them because neither can we!

We found tickets to Alaska this week for 25k miles, which seem few and far between lately, so we went ahead and go them to go up from June 28- July 13. We are very excited!

Camp Out

Hello all! Hope 2010 is going well for everyone! We are staying busy and tonight, camping out in our livingroom. The adventure began this morning when we went downstairs for playtime. It was drastically cooler, so I checked the thermostat and the heaters and they were not working. Scott came home to check things out and talked to Dad, but in the end, we had to call in the professionals. It's a good thing we did because we found out our furnace wasn't working properly and it was emitting too much carbon monoxide so they had to turn it off. It's currently in the process of being replaced, but in the meantime, we are without heat. Fortunately, we have a fireplace and an excuse to cuddle in the tent in the livingroom. We took a couple pictures we wanted to share! We love you all!

Love,

Scott, Yvonne, Xavier, Toby and Atillah too!

I can't believe it is Sunday Evening already. The weekend definitely flew by since I spent most of the day yesterday in a CPR/FA class. The good thing is I am done with that for 2 more years.
The wind is really howling here - 25 to 50 MPH with gusts up to 75 MPH. Definitely not the kind of weather that encourages you to be outside. You can imagine what it was like over at the church.
Dad has had a really bad cold this week, he even came home from church early today. Since he hardly slept at all last night it was definitely a good thing. I think he is sound asleep on the couch now.
As always, I am looking forward to hearing from what is going on with each of you.
Love You All!
Mom

I guess the holidays are officially over. We took down all the Christmas stuff over the last couple days and I will have to go back to working 5 days a week. I sure could get used to the 4 day work weeks. Things here are pretty quiet. We changed to going to church at 11 now which seems to pretty much take up the day. The good thing is that the singles always stay at 1 so we don't have to do that.
We have pretty well got things lined up for our trip to Hawaii in February. We are going to spend a couple days on Kauai and about 5 days on the Big Island. It took awhile to find where to stay as we kept looking at the Vacation By Owner Rentals and each time we would find something that sounded a little better. We finally decided to stay in a hotel on Kauai and we found a rental that sounds good not far from Hilo so we put down a deposit before we changed our mind again.
We are hoping that many of you will be heading our way over the summer. If you are making plans let us know so we can look at some time off, etc.
It was fantastic to talk to all of you over Christmas and thank you again for EVERYTHING.
I am so thankful for each of you and Love you all.
Mom

Happy New Year!

Looks like I will be the first one writing for the new year. I hope and pray that you are all well and doing great. Nate, is that the new outfit for work? If so, I am getting worried.

I went out and fed the fish this morning. It was 14 above when we left home and when we got to the lake it was 8 below. Catching was slow, but the biting was great, as was drilling holes in the ice. I have to go out next Saturday morning with the scouts to help them finish their fishing merit badge. They are going camping on Friday night and then I will go out with them Saturday morning. I am playing around with the idea of going out on Friday night, but it does not seem like a good idea right now. I'll see what happens.

Love you all
dad