Number 5 is on the way!

Yes, Kid #5. We are due at the very end of June 2012. We plan to be surprised at what we get this time. Expect some exciting news in about 6 months.
Merry Christmas everyone!

Fun at home.

Tonight the kids wanted to go outside to play. It was VERY cold out. They had fun finding the winter hats, gloves, scarves, etc.
Emmalynn dressed Andrew up to go outside.
She found him a cute little hat and scarf, then put on one of Cassidee's sweaters.

Also, notice that she put NOTHING on his frozen little feet!!
Thanks for helping Emmalynn.

We also decided that it was time Andrew had his first haircut.
Andrew was getting quite the little mullet.
He did NOT appreciate Daddy doing the honors.
We got the first haircut out of the way regardless of the tears. Poor little boy.

This was a shot of the kids right before they went Trick-or-Treating in the neighborhood.
We had a witch with her little cat, and two spidermen (with big muscles!!)

We have a really great neighborhood for trick or treating. Way more kids than just the few ones that live here end up asking for candy. This year we counted, kind of.
I started the night with 230 pieces of candy. We ran out by 8 o'clock! I guess the early bird gets the candy around here.

Family Pictures 2011

We took some family pictures recently. Here are a few of them.
Individual ones are posted on the kids' blogs.
Adam and Andrew.


Emmalynn and Cassidee


All the kids.

Dan and Leesa (married 8 years in June)


The whole Jones Family.
Ahhh.

2 Years as New Mexicans!

In August we hit our two years in New Mexico mark. We are a couple weeks late getting our yearly by-the-Bloomfield-sign picture.
Our regular sign we've gone to before has road construction next to it so we had to go to one on one of the other roads coming into Bloomfield. This one is a bit bigger!
We really love living here and having the friends that we do.

The Start of a New School Year

It's always exciting to come to a new school year. I think the teacher in me is excited for school to start. It's a mid year point of reestablishing routines. Goals can be set and new friends made. I love the excitement of the beginning of school.
Here's an updated picture of each of the kids.

Emmalynn is in 2nd grade now and is 7 years old.
She will be taking piano lesson, soccer and 2 different dance classes, ballet/tap and clogging. She will be a busy girl!
And yes, she still has glasses, even though they are not on this picture. Out of her three pairs thus far we are down to one pair left.

Cassidee is in Kindergarten this year. She is having lots of fun with new friends.
She is also taking piano lessons, soccer and one dance class. She will also be busy!


Mr. Adam is in preschool at Ms. Sue's. He totally loves her and preschool.
He wishes he could be doing soccer and dance, but isn't old enough yet. (Thank goodness.)


And last of all, Little Andrew. He has started walking. He loves to bite anything around him...and I mean anything. He's lots of fun to have around, we just need to make sure the bathroom doors are ALWAYS shut!

The Summer Trip - Part 2

We made it home at last. Six weeks was a long time for the kids and I to be gone. We had lots of fun everywhere we went.
After our awesome week and a half at Jill's house in Nebraska we headed to Utah.
We saw my sister Ronda and her family. My kids had a lot of fun playing with their cousins.
We had a whole week of Jones Family fun.
For Dan's family reunion we...
... did a service project by picking up trash along a walking trail in American Fork, UT.
...had a fabulous BBQ at Dan's brother's house complete with two waterslide-bouncehouses!
...had a mile long hike to a duck pond.
...had a picnic at a splash park.
...had the July birthday celebration at a park followed by a family baseball game.
...went to a play, Cinderella, in which our niece, Brynley, was a mouse. The girls and I also had a "princess tea party" before the play. Thank you Grandmama!
Then we headed to my sister Sally's house for her baby Annalee's baby blessing.
We got to see lots of other friends too.
We are glad to be home and the kids are looking forward to school starting. Adam especially! He gets to go to Miss Sue's preschool this year. He asks me every day when he gets to go.
The one bad part is that we forgot our camera at Sally's house!!! Grrrr. I was so good to not forget it the whole trip, and then I forget it the very last morning! Someday you might get to see some of the pictures!

The summer trip - Part 1

This summer is flying by. We've not been home for most of it.
I decided to take the kids all over the country this year.
First we headed to ND to see my parents. The little town of Tuttle where I grew up had it's 100th centennial celebration. Good times and great memories of me as a kid there. The kids hung out with cousins Sam, Livia, and Annalee Cook. They got lots of "scooter" rides from Uncle Duane and watched him feed his little calves twice a day. Only sad thing was that it rained a lot of the days we were there. Andrew had his 1st birthday party and we got to see a lot of our extended relatives. We hung out at the farm with Nana and Papa for over two weeks.
Then we came to Nebraska where we are now. All week long the kids have had fun at this day camp they've attended.
Cassee managed to break her arm on our anniversary and Emmee came home with a sunburn today. We'll stay through the 4th of July before we head to Utah to see the Christensons and all the Jones Family.
More later will come on that leg of the trip!

Busy, Busy, Busy

We've been busy this last month.
Emmee turned 7 years old!

Cassidee turned 5 years old!

Cassee graduated from preschool.

Dan's parents came to visit for 4 days.
We went to some Ancient Indian ruins near our house.

Leesa had her first piano recital with her 13 students. Emmee played in it as well.

Andrew discovered suckers! Yum Yum.

This is just a cute picture of Andrew falling asleep on the floor one day. Poor tired little button.
Notice the blanket in his mouth! I guess it's a substitute pacifier for him. All my kids have been blanket babies!
School is finally out for the summer. (Except for Dan. He's in the middle of his first semester for his master's program.)
We had to ND, NE and UT in one week and we will be gone for 6 weeks! Fun stuff ahead!

Passing the Blame

The other day there was a book on the floor in the family room. It was a chapter book from a higher shelf the kids really don't mess with. I said to the kids "who took this book off the shelf?"
Emmalynn said, "I didn't, it was probably Cassee."
Cassee said, "No I didn't, it was Adam!"
Adam said, "I didn't, Andrew did."
(Andrew is 10 months old and doesn't walk or stand by himself yet.)
Who do you think is obviously telling the lie? I had a feeling Adam took out the book.
If you're going to pass the blame, you'd better at least pick someone who can actually commit the crime!

Spring Break in Arizona

This year for Spring Break we went to....
well...actually we were in Chandler most of the time. But yes, we were in Arizona with our friends the Johnstons.
We started off the vacation with a trip to the Mesa Temple.
It was a busy day there. Thanks Russ and Stacey for watching our kids too.

Then we headed off to the Saguaro Lake for a picnic and boat rides.
Waiting at the dock. It took two trips to get us all there.

Picnic time on a little beach.

Emmee and Paige playing in the cold water.

Adam having some fun. (He had previously fallen in the cold water and his shirt was drying on a tree limb.

Andrew and Brandon chillin' on the blanket.

Having fun on the boat.
Russ driving the boat.

The next day we headed to a park for another picnic and a trip to South Mt. (a look out point)

Here's the lookout point over Phoenix.
Paige, Cassidee, Emmalynn, Adam and Kallie.


We had lots of fun. We also had a BBQ at Stacey's parents' house that night.
On the last day we went to the Reniassance Festival. It was super fun. Those pictures will need their own blog.
Thanks for the fun weekend, Johnston Family. (We missed hanging out with Will and Kyle too.)

Dan the College Man

I know what you're thinking. What? Dan is going back to college?
He is... in a way.
Dan has been wanting to get a Master's degree for about as long as he's finished his bachelor's. Both of his brothers have a masters now and Dan didn't want to be left out. Somehow we've never gotten around to starting.
Dan's company will pay for a master's degree and we thought now would be a perfect time for him to do that. Hooray for Raytheon.
Dan got his application for reimbursement to Raytheon accepted and now he just found out he was accepted into his master's program with Kettering University. Where you say? Yeah, I don't know either. But he can do all of it online so who cares!
The next couple of years are going to be pretty tight on time for Dan! We will be going on family vacations without him I think.
Three cheers for Dan.

Time Flies!

Wow, the last 3 months just flew by. I tried posting a few times with adding pictures from our new camera, but the pictures were too big and they would never load. I was getting pretty irritated. I finally figured out how to adjust the camera, so hopefully they will work from now on. (I am pretty media retarded!) Posts are just not near as fun unless they have pictures!
We had lots of fun over the holidays. We had a fun week in Utah for Thanksgiving. We stayed home in New Mexico for Christmas and had my parents here for a few weeks.
Our New Years' plans were changed when a snow storm through Arizona prevented us from getting to our friends' house in Gilbert, AZ. We were very disappointed to miss seeing them then. We spent New Years' quietly at home watching movies and playing games. None of the kids actually made it to midnight though.
The kids are growing like weeds and I've been hopping busy with Boy scouts, piano lessons and PTA activities. I'm looking forward to the summer time more now than any year previously!
Soon I hope to get some more pictures and videos of the kids on the blog.