Sawyer turns 4!!

Sawyer turned 4 on November 17th. We had a family only party on Wednesday. When I took Sawyer to his school he couldn't wait to tell everyone that he was 4 "so now I get to eat food in bed!" We gave him breakfast in bed and apparently he thought this was a rite of passage and now he no longer needed to come down for breakfast. On Friday we had a Scooby-Doo themed party, it was so much fun. Lots of little boys running around. When it was time for cake, I brought out a box and opened it up and there was NO CAKE! The boys had to solve the mystery of the missing cake. It ended when they found Derek hiding in our entertainment center in a costume. They had to unmask the swamp thing and reveal the cake thief. Afterwards we hit the heck out of a Scooby-Doo Pinata. It was so much fun and Sawyer was so happy to have his friends over.
Sawyer is our youngest and has the soul of a comedian, he keeps us laughing and you cannot believe the thing he says. He is so loving and always wants to snuggle with me and his buddy (blanket). We love him so much and are so happy that he is growing up to e such a wonderful boy.
WE LOVE YOU SAWYER!!

HaPPy HalLowEen!!!

Soren was a bloody Dr. The backstory was he was operating on someone that had a grenade in them and the grenade blew up.

Riding on the back of the golf cart

Every witch needs a cat.

This was the only picture I could take of these 2 because they took off to get as much candy as fast as possible.

Friend from trunk or treat

Cute Kids!

We had a fun Halloween with the trunk or treat and trick or treating with cousins.

Family time

My kids have been having so much fun with their cousins. Having family around makes a huge difference. I love the fact that all my kids are matched up with 1 or more cousin that is near in age to them. I did not grow up with cousins around and did not know what I was missing. These are relationships that will last their whole life. It is also fun to travel and see other cousins. Sawyer is super excited to see "his Jack" this October. See you soon Utah cousins!

Funny blog

Check this out. I grabbed this from another friends blog...pretty funny

http://catalogliving.net/

Swimmers take your mark......

Soren had his first swim meet. He swam in 2 races and got 2nd and 1st place respectively. I had so much fun watching him.
Way to go Soren!!

Cali is 6!

Six years ago and 5 weeks early I had an emergency c-section because Cali was too impatient and wanted to GET OUT NOW! My Dr. was great and told us what to expect... that she would probably be in NICU for awhile and that we were hoping that she would be home in a week or 2. They did the c-section and out comes this tiny little baby and then she let out this really big cry and the NICU were sent on their way as my Dr. exclaimed hmmm nothing wrong with her lungs after all. I was then told that since she was so tiny 4.09 that she would not have the strength or maturity to know how to nurse. About 3 minutes after that she was nursing like a champ. A day and a half after I had her we left the hospital (I HATE hospitals).
Cali has been true to her birth day she is loud and has a lot of energy and does not like to wait for anything. She has a very single minded determination and will decide that she wants to do something (jump roping, handstands, walking on her hands) and she will practice 24/7 until she has figured it out.
She is a great helper and loves to surprise me by cleaning up a room out of the blue. Somehow my uncreative, uncrafty self gave birth to a very girly girl who loves art and crafts (and is good at it too).
She has her Dad wrapped around her finger. Her and I have already had a number of arguments about hair and clothes...at 5!!
She keeps us entertained and we love her so much she is so full of life and our family would be so empty without her.
WE LOVE YOU CALI HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!

Happy 8th Birthday Soren!!!!!

I don't know how this happened, but somehow I went from being a new mom to a mom of an 8 year old boy. Derek always says that the only reason we had more kids is because Soren was such a good baby and we were fooled into thinking all babies were that easy. He slept for 5 hours at a stretch and was hardly ever fussy.
He has grown into such an amazing boy, he is so loving to all of us. He still gives me kisses and hugs in public, every morning he takes his sister's hand and walks her to her class. The principal saw me and said that he was so impressed by what a good big brother he was. Soren said the principal yells out almost everyday for everyone to see what a good big brother he is. It completely embarrasses him but he still holds her hand and walks with her. He is so excited to get Baptized and I am so proud of how he says his prayers every night by himself without reminders (I still need reminders)
Soren loves to race remote control cars with his dad and play video and computer games. He loves to ski and he just gets up and goes down the mountain and we are lucky if we see him for the rest of the day. He also loves roller coasters. For his birthday, all he wanted for his party was to take a friend and go to Knott's Berry Farm. Luckily we found another boy who also likes upside down and crazy roller coasters, so I took them out of school early and off we went. On Friday we took another friend and the whole family went to see How to Train Your Dragon.

Soren you are so special and dear to all of us. Thank you for being a beyond wonderful son we love you so much!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!

Under who? Under What? Underwear!

(Imagine the Hallelujah Choir singing)
After almost 8 years and countless diapers, wipes, Balmex and swim diapers (is there anything more disgusting? The smell...oh the horror!) We are a DIAPER FREE house!!!! Well mostly, I am still put Sawyer in diapers at night just to be on the safe side. He has woken up the last 2 mornings with a dry diaper so I am pretty sure we are DONE! Yipeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

More Vacation Pictures

Snowmobiling Boys Christmas Eve

Piggy back sledding

Sawyer going down Homerun at Park city Soren going off a jump on "Fire Rock" hill at the Chalet
Taking a break from snowmobiling to eat snow

Derek helping Sawyer down the hill on his first run.

Riding the rope pull to go tubing

Winter Wonderland

Every year after Christmas we go up to Derek's parents house in Midway, UT. We lovingly call it the "Chalet". This year since we moved to California, we did not have the family parties that we usually have in Arizona. Derek and I decided to head up to Utah for the whole break and have a white Christmas. I thought that it would be nice to have a relaxing week before the cousins and in-laws came....I don't know what I was thinking. we had a TON of fun we went skiing, snowmobiling and tubing. We were exhausted every night but the next morning we were off on some other adventure.

We put Cali in a ski class one day and Derek decided he wanted to teach Sawyer himself. Sawyer was a natural. He was skiing down a green run (not the bunny hill) by the end of the day. Cali was great after her lesson. She was a little hesitant on some spots of the mountain but we made it down. Soren goes down the double blue runs and just looks for jumps.

On our way back to California we heard that it was a loooong trip with lots of traffic. So we stopped in Vegas. Derek signed me up for a massage and he took the kids to Circus Circus. We saw the white tigers and the sharks. We then headed home and luckily just missed the traffic. We had a great time but now i am so T

I

R

E.....

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I love Christmas time

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving up in Arizona. It is so much fun for me to see my kids playing with their cousins. I love that they will have that bond their whole life.

I wimped out of black Friday and ate waayyyy too much food. We just had a great time. Thanks Paula and Steve for letting all of us converge on your house for the week!

Now the Christmas season can officially start.

Kabob-a-dog

The other day Cali took out 2 wooden kabob sticks from our pantry to play the "drums". Being the great mom that I am, I was just ignoring it. Derek came in and said 'that is a bad idea, those are used to stab through meat," so I cut of the tip and said have at it(wonderful parenting). After she was done I told her to throw them away and not use them again. Since she is five, she waited a day and then took a new pair out when I was doing the laundry. She got bored and dropped it on the ground, and wandered off.
I was in the middle of folding a shirt when I heard this horrific howling. I looked in the hallway and somehow our 4 lb. Papillon had managed to stab this stick through his body. I ran and grabbed him and tried to figure out how in the world this happened. Cali and Sawyer were upstairs and I could not fathom how Wiley had managed to stick a 12 in stick through his 6 inch tall body. Derek walked in about 30 seconds later with Soren and looked at what was going on and took Wiley to the vet. They were pretty amazed at what had happened and that he had miraculously had missed all his organs. So he his home, the kabob sticks have been thrown away and we have all learned our lesson about kids, dogs and sharp sticks.

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NOT A GOOD COMBINATION

Lazy Blogger...Busy Life

I am feeling a little guilty because I have not updated my blog and I have come to the realization that I am just a lazy blogger. Things actually have been really busy. Lets see, where did I leave off, oh yes, after Soren's birthday we had Derek's birthday and then we went to Hawaii with all of Derek's Family (12 adults and 16 gran kids 8 and under. fun plane ride) My parents also met us over there and we had just so much fun! When we came back we had Cali's 5th(!!) birthday party she wanted a Hawaiian puppy party so that made for an interesting cake. Lots of fun. Cali is one feisty 5 year old and we love her so much for keeping our lives interesting. She loves to dance and sing and at least 5 times a day we are privileged to watch a performance.School got out in May and we loaded up the kids and headed up to Park city. We had rented a condo up there so that we could get out of the heat. We had a ton of fun up there and got to visit with my brother josh and Lisa and my cute nephew Jack. July 4th was tons of fun as some families came up to the "Chalet". We had food, air soft rifle wars, food, fun games, food and fireworks. I LOVE the 4th up in Midway. At the end of July we went for our annual beach week in Newport, sun and cousins and California. We loved it so much that we decide to move here!!! So now we are unpacking and having fun in a new town. I will try to be a better blogger, and keep you updated about our new life in CA!!

Lucky # 7

It's party time !!!

Soren had his 7th birthday!! I cannot believe how fast those years went by. He has been such a blessing for us. Here are 7 things I love about him;

1. So loving towards his family

2. He is a great playmate for Derek!

3. He is very adventursome

4. He gets me my cereal in the morning (this one is from Cali)

5. He says the most wonderful prayers and his sweet spirit shines through

6. Very good at math (he did not get that from me)

7. He acts so grown up, I love when I still get those glimpses of my little baby

For his birthday he wanted an Army theme party. so we set up an obstacle course at our park and I was the Drill seargant. I had 16 boys running as fast as they could through the course. After they finished they were given a personalised dog tag stating that they graduated in defensive manuevers and covert ops. We then had cake and presents, as the sun began to set , I split them into 2 teams and gave one team orange glow bracelets and the other side greeen. we then had them play capture the flag. The boys had the best time with this. practically every kid cried when their parents came to get them. I was completely hoarse by the end of the night. Soren has told me that his friends from school all where the "Army" shirt I made for them. It was a very fun day.

New Addition

Our persistent Cali wore us down and in a moment of insanity, Derek and I agreed to get her a "small" dog. I drove an hour each way to a breeder and picked out her little papillon puppy.

We surprised her on Valentines day. She was so excited. We named him Wiley, and he is a cutie. He is 2 lbs and my great dane does not know what to make of this tiny thing running in between his huge paws. Cali has kept up her end of the bargain and has been taking excellent care of him. Sawyer just wants to drag him everywhere and so we have to remind him to be soft. I have never had a tiny dog before and it is a whole different experience. He is so tiny that you feel like you have to carry him everywhere. i have had to be pretty firm about him having to walk a lot of places. If Cali had her way his feet would never touch the ground. About a week after we gave him to her, Cali and I were in the car and she said "When I was in Heaven, I asked Jesus to give me the funnest dad, the best mom, the nicest older brother, a fun baby brother and a the smallest dog ever. Now I don't need anything else!............I mean, I still want presents for my birthday and Christmas." She keeps us entertained that is for sure!

Christmas 2008

Christmas craziness

Lately I have been going with the saying "A picture is worth a thousand words" I have been lazily just posting pictures without any narrative. Partly it has been because i have been really busy and also, I feel like sometimes my writing does not do our activities or my emotions justice. Anyway, here goes the rundown for our holiday month. It has been a whirlwind of parties, crafts, candy and family.


The kids had such a fun time circling EVERY toy in every catalog, and calling me in for every commercial and telling me to put that "on their list."


Christmas day was everything it should have been. The kids woke us up around 7:30 (we were very firm about them not opening anything) we learned last year that sometimes kids like to open presents without their parents around.


We went in and read the note Santa left and then we opened the presents. The kids got way to many toys and Derek gave me more than I needed. We spent the rest of the day in a blur of playing and putting things together.


On the 27th we headed out to Utah. We had so much fun in the snow. We went skiing and made snow tunnels and forts. Soren and his cousin made machine guns out of icicles. Cali learned how to ski and Sawyer just wanted to be outside in the snow. I brought up a puzzle and stayed up way to late. Luckily Derek and my Sister in law took pity on me and helped. We finished the night before we left around 11:00. The kids all got sick and that was kind of chaotic, but otherwise it was so much fun. I do have to admit that I was pretty worn out. For about 2 days after the kids started school I was pretty comatose. I guess that is what the holidays are all about.

Sawyer's 2nd Birthday!