Family Photo Shoot March 2011

Mike's brother Jon came to town back in March and very graciously did a photo shoot for us. As you look at them you have to keep in mind that I was getting very pregnant, Sidney was more than ready for a nap, and Jon has his two sons with him who were also ready for a nap. It was a very entertaining photo shoot and the pictures turned out fabulously considering all that we were dealing with at the time!

My 2 yr old going on way more than 2

Mike took the two older kids to church and left Sidney in bed and me with Mary Jane.

Sidney of course woke up.

I went in to get her and I asked her if she needed a new diaper. She said yes, and she needed to go potty. So I grabbed a diaper and the wipes and headed for the bathroom. She grabbed a shirt and pants. Guess she wanted to get dressed.

We get in the bathroom and she sits on the potty, still nothing. But then she insists on taking a bath. We have done this a bazillion times.

This time I got her all wet, she doesn't much like the water on her head anymore. I put some shampoo on her head and before I can get there to wash her hair she starts doing it. And she did a good job of it. When did she start doing this herself?

I get her loofah all ready and she just takes it and does an awesome job of washing her body. Did I miss something? Did someone teach her to do this or did she figure this out on her own?

They grow up too quickly.

AWWWWwwww moment

On Henry's Birthday:

M=mom H=Henry

M: So, Henry. You have lived for six years now. What has been the best part so far?

H: Nothing yet! I haven't played Wii with dad! (Imagine him saying that in his mom-you know-nothing voice.)

M: Not today, in the last six years. We have gone on some trips, Disneyland, San Francisco . . .

H: What was the other trip? The long one!

M: The one where we went to see your out of state cousins?

H: YES!! That was the best! (Awwwww)

San Francisco '11 Part II, the actual trip

We left Wednesday and just drove to Reno. We had to stop every two hours for bathroom and food breaks. Rather uneventful though the kids were excited to be on the trip.

Thursday we got up and after breakfast started the last 4 hours to San Francisco!!! We did stop for lunch in Sacramento. It was fun driving over bridges and seeing the Golden Gate Bridge. The kids didn't quite get what was going on yet. We just headed for the hotel, got there right at check in time. Our timing was good because Henry was complaining about his ear again. We gave him some numbing drops and dimetap and he was ok. I think it was more the drastic altitude change that day than anything else. It was fun driving over Donner's Summit. There is still a lot of snow up there. We just had dinner and crashed that night.

Friday we all took medicine and piled in the car. (At this time everyone was some sort of sick but Mike. I had a bad cold, Henry his ear infection, and Libby and Sidney with really runny noses. :D ) We decided to drive around and find things and see what we wanted to do. We found China Town first and just pointed it out to the kids. The steep roads and all the walking weren't sounding good to me, that and I think the kids will enjoy that when they are older. We drove past Pier 39 and Fisherman's Warf. Again, not really wanting to walk too much we headed down to Ghirardelli Square. We decided to park there and see what we could find. We went in and got our free sample then headed down to the bay. We started walking and noticed that there was a section that went way out and you could see the Bridge and Alcatraz from there. With how slow I was walking and the limited time on the meter I stayed put and Mike booked it out for the sight seeing with the kids. Good thing I wear a bright yellow jacket, they all waved to me and then we all headed back to the car. I only beat them by about 5 minutes.


The dead crab they found
Can we touch it without getting wet?
Drawing in the sand


After that we decided to go drive across the Golden Gate Bridge. Of course the kids had to complain that it wasn't Gold so we looked up info and explained where the name came from. By the time we got across Sidney was asleep, the kids weren't interested in walking on the bridge so we just kept driving. Sidney finally woke up and we found a mall to have lunch at then headed back. The highlight of the trip was that evening when Mike took the kids down to the hotel pool.

Saturday morning we headed down to Scotts Valley to see my Aunt Mardi and Uncle Jim!!!! I was so glad we were able to make that happen. I love visiting with them. The kids had a blast too. We had lunch then headed down to the Henry Cowell Redwood Forest. We told them ahead of time that we were going to see some big trees. So they kept pointing out the big trees that they could see. They were amazed when they actually saw some big trees. For some reason they were a little scared of them at first but in the end went INSIDE of a tree.

The tree Sidney is standing in it took a lot of coaxing to get everyone in there! I finally went in, had to bend a lot, so the others went in. Sidney was freaking out in the stroller so I let her out and she just went running in! "What is your problem guys? It's just a tree!" And if you go over to YouTube there is a video of that tree with 74 people in it. They must have started climbing up inside of it to fit them all in.



You have to have a picture of Henry with the Henry sign!

After that we headed down to the beach. We went down to Natural Bridges State Beach. We were hoping that Syd would take a nap in the stroller so I hung back and Mike and Uncle Jim took the kids to see the tide pools. No Banana Slugs were found :( They ended up just playing on the beach for a while. Mike was taking the kids into the freezing water one more time to start cleaning up when they got hit with a MAJOR rogue wave. Libby and Henry got a little wetter than they were, Mike got wet from about his knees down with socks and shoes on! It went so for that Uncle Jim and I had to grab the shoes and socks before they got hit too. It was a mess! Thankfully Jim and Mardi live close and we were able to go grab dinner and clean up a bit before heading back to the hotel.

Did I mention the hotel yet? Here is a picture:


It was very nice! The kids even had such great timing one day they got to help feed the fish:




On Sunday, Easter of all days, we went to Alcatraz. I really wanted to go since I went on a High School Band Trip and loved it. The kids were interested as was Mike. I think they all left loving it as much as I did. Though the kids might have just loved the boat ride more than anything. That was their first real boat ride.
Henry took the picture for us!
Trying to get Sidney to stop freaking out
This is the BEST mom!
The City from Alcatraz
And Libby in Jail! :D

We had a lot of fun and I sure came home rejuvenated. I had been wondering how I was going to make it through another month of school and two more months of pregnancy. I now feel that I can make it, even though my house is currently a disaster! Thankfully I have the best husband in the world and he takes such good care of all of us!

One of the funny things that happened on the trip is Sidney went from calling Henry "Bibby" or the same thing she calls Libby to calling him "Ditty." Doesn't sound like Henry but it is better than being called by your sisters name!

San Francisco '11 Part I, getting ready to go

In March I had to ask my sisters-in-law to help out with Sidney since my babysitter was going to Disneyland. I sent out the email and got responses very quickly! They are so great! One of them said that she would call me in a couple days to figure out the details as they were headed out of town. It seems like everyone is always going out of town and we never go anywhere. So I started scheming. We tried to figure out where to go that would be fun but not too hard with a 2 year old and me being about 7 months pregnant. Mike tried talking me into just staying here and doing fun things around Bountiful. In hindsight I am really glad I didn't go with that plan. We decided to go to San Francisco over my spring break so that we could do a quick visit to my Aunt and Uncle right before they moved! Bad timing but it sure was great to see them.

It turned out to be a much bigger ordeal than we could have imagined but it was very well worth it.

Our plan was to head out of town Wednesday after I got home from work. Rewind to Monday night. We were out running errands to get ready to move Mike's parents on Tuesday. We rarely keep the kids up past their bedtime. We were out really late and as we are putting Henry to bed he starts freaking out! Finally he told us that his ear hurt. He had stayed home from school that day as he just wasn't feeling well. We thought it was just a tummy thing and it seemed to have passed. Turns out it was an ear infection. If he had only told us an hour earlier . . . . by that time insta-care and kids-care were both closed so Mike ended up taking him to PCMC ER. :( So Henry had to stay home Tuesday and ended up staying home Wednesday as well. So he missed more than a week of school after not missing a day before that.

On Tuesday I stayed home from school as well as Henry so that Mike could help move his parents and I had started to come down with a horrible cold Monday night as well. I just slept all morning. It was nice. Tuesday afternoon Mike and I had an appointment downtown to sign mortgage papers as we were refinancing our house. Not good timing at all. :( oh well, its done!!! The timing was so bad that MIke had picked his parents up from the old place and they had to come with him to the signing before going to the new place. Nothing was going our way.

Wednesday I went to work and hurried home so that we could finish packing and get on our way. Since I had been so sick Mike did most of the packing the night before but it wasn't everything. I worked on finishing that up while Mike had to run down and help his parents out with some things before we left. We ended up leaving about an hour and a half later than the latest time I figured we would be out of here! But, we were on our way!

Henry Turns 6!

Henry turned six this last week. He was about ready to explode from excitement! He just couldn't wait for his birthday to come. We had some family over for cake and ice cream on Thursday and Friday and then he had a friend "party" on Saturday. After we finally got him to tell us ideas for what he wanted for his birthday I think he ended up getting about 5 new Nerf guns! Enough that we can all play with him. Needless to say there are nerf darts ALL OVER THE HOUSE now. oh well.

I had the pleasure of being able to go in to Henry's class to show off his poster and hand out treats. Again, so excited! He hadn't seen his poster yet as Mike and I put it together after he was in bed and I took it to work with me. He came in from recess and stood in front of the class by me and he just looked ready to burst! He had a sub that day and she told me that Henry just kept talking about his treat and my mom is coming to my class. I was able to get another teacher to cover one of my classes so I could go, Thanks again Lisa! It was fun seeing Henry enjoy being the center of attention and everyone loving the treat that he had picked out. He is such a fun kid!

Henry has really matured this last year. He is now a green belt in Karate. He is improving quickly with his reading and picking up addition and subtraction skills quickly. He loves playing with his sisters and playing any lego game on the Wii. He is still quick to share a hug with anyone who needs one. He is excited to have a new baby sister and is always praying that she will come soon. His favorite color is still green and his favorite food is cheese pizza. He is loving having both of his grandparents close now and going to see them lots.

Here are some pictures of Henry opening presents. He has such great cousins and Aunts and Uncles!

Do you ever have one of those days?

About two weeks ago I got to work and went to get my school keys out of my purse. I thought it was odd that my car key was on the left side of my purse when I clearly remembered putting them on the right side. (Something I don't normally notice) I pulled them out and they were Mike's keys!!!!! I pulled out my phone immediately and called him. With no extra key to his car he was STUCK! So he got to walk the kids to school and found what a big hill there is there at the end on the way back. He had to work from home in the morning. but as a bonus we had lunch together before he went to work.

Now why would his car keys be in MY purse? The night before Mike sent Henry out to the car to get something. Gave him his keys to unlock the door. For some reason when Henry got back inside he put the keys in my purse instead of giving them back to Mike. :D Mike told me that if he ever has a hard time finding his keys he is always scared that I have them at work and he is stuck. I felt bad even though it wasn't my fault.