Nebraska Trip

I am trying to catch up here a little bit.  At the beginning of May we took a little vacation over to Sidney, Nebraska to visit Mike's brother and sister in-law and be there for the blessing of their new baby boy Spencer.  Nebraska is the farthest east Mike (and actually all of the kids) has ever been.  We drove down to Las Vegas, spent the night with Mike's aunt and uncle, flew to Denver the next day and rented a van with Mike's parents to drive the rest of the way to Sindey.  It was quite the little trip, and amazingly the kids did really well.  I don't know how we managed to make it through the airport with 3 kids and all our carseats and luggage with out loosing something or someone, but we survived! :)

While in Sidney we got to tour the Cabela's corporate offices, and some of their other offices in town.  We got to experience a very short lived hail storm and tornado warning. (Not new for me, but new for Mike and the kids)  We got to take the kids to a big nice park that had a train, (Ammon was so excited, and a little disappointed he didn't get to ride on it!) and we got to take the kids swimming, which was McKenna's first time ever, and she had a blast!

Being able to relax and spend time with family was nice too.  The boys loved being able to play with their cousin Emma, and McKenna enjoyed checking out baby Spencer.

Here are some pictures of our little adventure:

 

 

 

 

Busy Busy....

Life has definitly been a little more than crazy around here lately.  Between 3 kids and keeping up with the normal everyday routine, and court issues (which are now finally resolved!), and cranky teething baby, and being sick with a terrible sinus infection, and going back and forth to Reno all the time, and Mike and I both keeping bust with our callings in Young Men's and Young Women's, I have fallen a bit behind on my blog.  Well, no one should really be surprised because I am not the greatest at keeping up with it in the first place.

With all the crazy things going on, Heavenly Father must have felt like keeping up with that theme, because a few weeks ago we found out that we are expecting another baby WAY sooner than we ever had planned.  I kept telling Mike that I wanted to wait to have another until Ammon was in kindergarten, but apparently the message got a little mixed up....it is Noah who is starting kindergarten this year.  Needless to say we were both a little shocked.  I thought I had been feeling cruddy because of the sinus infection I have been battling, but I was wrong.  Thankfully I never got as sick this time as I did with all the others. (However that would have been a BIG tip off to me that it wasn't just a sinus infection)

We got to see my doctor this past friday, and had an ultrasound to figure out how far along we are.  We had absolutely no idea what we were going to see on the ultrasound....what we did see was a baby, not a little blob with a flickering heartbeat, but a baby with a decernable head, and arms, and legs, and even tiny feet.  We got to see the baby roll around and cross its legs.  I was still trying to wrap my head around the idea, but seeing that little tiny baby moving around brought tears to my eyes...even though this wasn't planned on our time, it is still a blessing from our Heavenly Father.  We are almost 13 weeks along and are due January 3rd.  Although they may have to lock me away in the nut house with 4 kids around the ages of 6 and under, hopefully since Heavenly Father decided to bless us again so early, he will help give me the strength (and sanity) to survive! :)

The Boys New Obsession

This is the boys doing their new favorite thing...working out to my Jillian Michael's DVD...well, Noah is doing the exercises at any rate...Ammon is throwing a fit b/c I wanted a picture, that and he is tired.  I had left my DVD in the player the other day after my work out, and Ammon came a long and turned it on, pretty soon he and Noah both were "working out" and it was pretty funny.  Now Noah brings me the DVD every day and asks if he can exercise...he is going to have ripped abs way before I ever do! :)

McKenna has teeth!

Baby girl now has two tiny teeth poking out on the bottom, its ironic because Noah has lost one of his bottom front teeth (and the other one is loose currently) at the same time McKenna is getting hers in.  It makes me a little nervous as far as nursing goes...she is a biter already and it hurts enough with no teeth... 0-o Hopefully she will be kind and spare mommy those sharp little pearly whites.  Pictures will hopefully be forth-coming soon, but they are difficult to see at the moment, and she isn't very keen on opening her mouth to let mommy look either.

Little Bean is also starting to crawl (mostly army crawl, but she does get up on her knees and her elbows and tries to "launch" herself forward with her legs) and its really fun watching her.  Noah was eating some cheese nips in the living room the other day (which he isn't supposed to be doing by the way...) he dropped a tiny piece of one into our lovely yellow-gold shag carpet...well McKenna was off like a shot and army crawled all the way over to find it and eat it, and find it and eat it she did.  Then she crawled over to Ammon to grab his hand, which scared him, and he yelled.  After that we got her little Gerber Puff snacks and made a game of it, putting one just out of her reach and cheering her on as she worked to get it.  She is growing so fast before our eyes I am almost afraid to blink because I might miss something!!

Noah Looses His First Tooth!

A couple weeks ago, Noah got up on Monday morning to get ready for school and showed me one of his bottom teeth was loose:

We had a talk about how our baby teeth have to fall out so our adult teeth can grow in, and its part of growing up and getting bigger.  Noah seemed a little scared and apprehensive, until I explained that after it fell out, he could put it under his pillow and the Tooth Fairy would take it and leave him money, then he was excited.

Nana (who is also known as the "Tooth Flicker" at school) tried to convince him to let her "help" get it out, but Noah didn't want any one's help.  He kept insisting that it would "fall out by itself."

Last night before we went to bed, I checked on Noah's tooth because he had knocked it a little more loose earlier in the day, and we had eaten corn on the cob for dinner...it was hanging by a thread.  I was a little worried it would fall out in his sleep and he would swallow it.  So with a lot of wiggling from me, and Mike, and a lot of coaching and cheering, Noah pulled his own tooth out!

This morning Noah got up at 6:15 (and mind you, he gets up at 7am for school and I usually have to DRAG him out of bed) to show me the dollar that the Tooth Fairy left under his pillow last night. :)  Guess he was a little excited...he has been carrying that dollar around all day.

Easter

Here are some pictures from our Easter activities this year, we dyed Easter eggs on Friday, and the Easter Bunny visited our house Saturday morning, since Sunday mornings are typically crazy at our house:

What the Easter Bunny left for the kiddos:

Ammon is OBSESSED with the Muppets lately....somehow the Eater Bunny knew :)

 The boys got to do an Easter Egg hunt in the house (it was windy and cold outside)

The kids and their package from Grandma (Ammon was upset because we told him he needed to wait until after breakfast to eat more candy, he had already eaten quite a bit...)

Breakfast idea from Pinterest....didn't turn out as cute as I had hoped...lol.

Eater Sunday:

Mike turns the big 3-0!

Yesterday was Mike's 30th birthday!  We celebrated with a quiet family party at home.  Mike's sister Emily and her two girls came over and had dinner and cake with us, it was laid back, but fun to spend this special time with family.

While Mike was at work yesterday I made this cake for him...he had no idea what my plan was, and was surprised, but this cake was a major pain in the rear (I really need to learn how to "crumb coat" better, or maybe I need to make cake that isn't so moist and holds up better...even frozen this cake was falling apart while I attempted to frost it):

For his presents this year he got a new tie (that the boys picked out), the fourth Harry Potter book on audio CD (we have been slowly building up his Harry Potter Audio CD collection since Christmas), a new movie, an audio book and an oil vial key chain from my mom, and a giant rapid-fire Nerf gun (he may be 30 but he is still a kid at heart!).