I remember coming to visit your family on our move up to New York. You were probably about Sawyer's age and you were the funniest kid. We all sat and laughed as we watched your crazy antics. We decided there was no need for t.v. or games, just watch Parker for a good time. You have grown up into such a great kid. I am so happy that we got to live in Washington for a year and get to know our cute cousins so well. We love you so much. Hope you have a great birthday!
love, Aunt Brooke, Uncle Mike, and all the crazy kids at our house

Well, I can say that Beck is walking now. I am catching him more and more really walking on his own. He has just been stubborn about it and he is finally catching on to it.

Andrew has begun potty training but I think it is going to be more of a gradual process. When I tried to push the no diaper, all big boy underwear, he really got stubborn and wouldn't even go near the bathroom. But so far he has been going every 1/2 hour on the toilet, so that is exciting for us. Also good news is that we have our old Andrew back sleep wise. He is finally going to sleep himself with out the objections of wanting us to stay in with him. It helps that we got a light switch lock so now he can't play with the light switch. It is awesome.

Beck is not sleeping so well, so I think I am going to have to minimize the sleeping during the day. He is just waking up too much during the night thinking it is time to play. He has started shake his head no all the time and thinks it is the most hilarious thing.

Some funnies that have happened recently:

With Beck screaming, I have tried to control it by flicking his forehead to get the idea that it is not a thing he wants to do. So Andrew caught on and one day I caught him punch Beck in the head and say "NO SCREAM BECK!" Needless to say, I have stopped the flicking and funny enough the screaming is getting to be less and less.

Beck likes to play with open doors and he likes to shut them. Andrew was on a timeout and Itold him to come to me when he was done. Beck and I were back in my bedroom and Beck was playing with the door. I have told Andrew time and time again to not shut the door while I am in the room because I want Beck to have the ability to come in. Well Andrew walked into the room and saw that Beck was trying to shut the door and said " No shut the door Beck. No No"

Beck has begun to pick up on many different things but mainly the Wii. He knows that you have to turn the wheel to play as he watches Andrew play MarioKart all the time. So when he gets ahold of the remote he starts turning it like a wheel. It is pretty cute.

As for volleyball, the first tournament that I ran this last weekend was a success and we had a lot of compliments about how it was run very well. It really made me feel good to know that we are doing this for the kids and it is going well. The next tournament will be on the 31st and my team will be playing then and I will also be running it. We just may have a shortage of courts so we are in the midst of finding more courts.

Peter's studying is going well and he continues to study daily to be able to get it all in. We are definitely excited to see what the future holds for us.

We have begun painting the inside of our house and we want to have the living area all finished by the end of the month. We are doing it pretty much all white/grey with 2 accent walls of blue and green. While Mom and Dad were here, we went and got some curtains to put on the back sliding door instead of the crappy vertical blinds we had there before. They go up tonight as well as beginning to tape up all the cabinets so I can paint the kitchen. We figure that we are probably going to own the house for a while so we might as well start getting the things done that we want.

Anyways, Beck needs attention and I need to get things done around the house. We love you all and miss you tons!

-Anne

Just wanted to update you all on the movies I've seen since my last post since I do have a recommendation as I thought I would...

Frost/Nixon - Great movie. Although I cannot believe it is rated R. I double-checked Mom and it is. Just silly. There is nothing objectionable in the movie in my opinion. Probably just one too many F-words. But it really was good. As Ron Howard (the director) said himself, it really makes you feel empathy for Nixon - not sympathy, empathy. It helps you see what was going on with him. I now want to see the real interviews!

Slumdog Millionaire - Also rated R, which I don't really understand. It was, however, much more serious than I expected it to be. I would definitely recommend it. It is very well made and the way they tell the story is very compelling.

The Reader - Definitely rated R. Not for the faint-hearted, for sure. But excellent performance by Kate Winslet and the German boy whose name I don't know. She will likely get an Oscar nomination for this role.

Also, the chicken & broccoli turned out really well. I actually just had some leftovers for lunch! Thanks again for the recipe.

This is gonna be a great week for me - tomorrow is the inauguration and Adam will be on American Idol, Wednesday is the LOST season premiere, Thursday I start school and see all my friends again and the Oscar nominations come out and Friday I have off - no work or school! Here's hoping your weeks are all as good! :)

Well the new year is here, it will be our first full year in Japan and it’s started off well. The Japanese here celebrate the New Year throughout festivals from Jan. 1-3. We saw several of these but didn’t attend any since we’ve had our fill of carnival games and food that we aren’t quite adventurous enough to try. We enjoyed New Year’s eve at home with some friends and I think I’ve missed my calling in life. I should have been a drummer. I bought Rock Band for Tom for Christmas, with the assumption that we would never actually play it unless we had groups over. Well, turns out I am a little obsessed with playing the drums, and we have spent plenty of time “rocking out” together once the kids are in bed. It’s awesome and keeps me from feeling old and boring!!

Like Tom mentioned in his entry, we went our on anniversary trip to a place called the Forest Adventure Park. It was awesome! They fit you with a harness and two ropes, one with a clip and one with a zip line and after a short safety briefing and test they set you loose to do the course alone. The staff didn’t speak much english but it was enough that we felt confident and set off on our own. There were seven towers crossing back and forth across a deep canyon. So you would hook on your safety line and your zip line and just fly across the canyon filled with lush green trees and plants while watching the view of the ocean. It was awesome. After that you go through the challenge course, with a free fall jump and all sorts of high wires, bridges and obstacles suspended in air. Did I mention it was awesome? Hopefully some of you will come visit and we can take you there!

Random observation: The garbage trucks out in town play music, like the ice cream trucks in the states. This is to alert people that they coming so they can hurry and run their trash out to the curb. I really thought it was an ice cream truck the first time I heard it, imagine my shock when the truck turned the corner and I saw what it was!

So I want to sit down and write a little thing about each of the kids to help remember the things they have been doing this past year. I’m sure I’ll get to it eventually, hopefully before next year! But in the meantime, here are some funny Danica quotes (that’s right, she’s finally making the quote board!!!)

She’s very loving and affectionate, for example she frequently says “I love it when daddy is home!” “I love you so much mommy!” and when I say I love her so much she responds with “No, I love YOU so much!”

She isn’t nearly as shy has she was in the past. I started to tell her that she isn’t shy any more and making sure she heard me telling people that she isn’t shy anymore and it’s actually working! She has been talking to people, laughing and being silly with others. It’s so much fun to watch!

She has started to bite her fingernails, a vise that both Tom and I dealt with. She has tried to bite MY fingernails several times and constantly asks me if she can!

Today she was climbing onto the trampoline and it was really windy outside so she turned to me and said “Mommy, don’t let me blow away so you never find me!” Tonight I was trying to help her get into bed and accidentally bumped her head against the headboard. It didn’t hurt but she said “Don’t break my head mom, then I would have to get a new one!”

Okay, a few last notes:

Alyssa is really picking up with her walking. We took her to the early intervention specialists and they said she’s fine cognitively but that obviously has some physical delays. They made some inserts for her shoes to help her walk better and they are really helping. They are going to come out to the house help her be more physical. The physical therapist said that she doesn’t rotate her body and move the the upper and lower halves in coordination. She is unwilling to try new movements or positions so they will show me some things I can do to encourage her. It’s so fun to see her walking around the house finally!

Danica started gymnastics last week. She was really nervous at first and I was packing up to walk out with her glued to my leg when Alyssa finally settled down enough that I could go out to the class with Danica and after a few minutes she felt comfortable and was having a blast doing the obstacle courses and getting involved. She’s a natural gymnast so this will be fun to watch!

Hayden started karate. He takes it here on base but has a Japanese instructor. Hopefully he’ll like it and can take advantage of the chance to take it here. It’s three times a week for 90 minutes so we’ll have to see how long he can handle it!

Okay, that’s all for now!

Well I just wanted to say thank you to Tracey for giving me the advice on potty training because it has worked wonderfully! She has gone 3 days with no accident and we even went to Idaho Falls for a few hours and she went twice there in the bathroom. I told Treven that she was so easy so I think "McKenzie will be harder to potty train. She goes to nap in her big girl underwear and at night she wears pull ups but still hasn't had an accident. So thank you Tracey! It worked!

Kim

So Tracey and I found out about this 10 K last night so we decided to run it this morning. So Tracey ended up being the first woman to finish overall. It actually ended up being about 6.55 miles rather than an actual 10K  but we finish in just over 49 minutes for the 6.55 miles which averages out to around a 7:34 mile. Tracey was only about 30 seconds behind me and that was just the sprint at the end. So, big props to her. Now we have to keep up this training. She was obviously joking with the #1 thing, but it is still nice to do it.

Cook 1-2 Cups of rice

I need the recipe for Chicken & Broccoli so whoever has it - can you post it as a new post? Thanks! (and I need it for tomorrow night so ASAP, please!)

I've been meaning to blog all day but have just never gotten around to actually writing it out so here goes...

It's been on of those weeks. The kind where you finally sit down at 9:00 at night and realize that is the first time you've sat all day. Except for in the car of course, somehow that doesn't count. So this morning I am just taking few minutes to chill. Actually, I don't know how long that will last because I just glanced over at the pile of magazines Sawyer pulled to the floor right before I laid him down for his nap (I wrote put him down, but after describing the magazine pile it sounded too morbid, like I had "done him in." Not my cute Sawyer, possibly the two furry beasts that share my dwelling) and I am already feeling the cleaning itch. The itch that never goes away because these days my house goes from clean to chaos in less than 10 seconds. This is only a slight exaggeration.

It has been lovely here, mid 70s all week and again today. I do not want the cold weather to return, I want it this way for a REALLY LONG time. It has made me very happy, which is good. I've had a few frustrations as of late, just dying trying to get stuff done and dealing with the two @#$*#$ dogs that are on probation right now. Ellyn has had her moments as well but she is doing fabulously lately. We've started "brushing" and joint compressions on a regular basis, they are supposed to help regulate the body, and it seems to be working. Temper tantrums are definitely down. We finally have a girl (okay, she's almost my age but single and looks very young) doing Respite and that is very exciting. Ellyn needs a day full of purposeful activity and Rebecca will come over and help with that a few times a week. Also, she will babysit for some date nights. Once I have a date. I'm excited.

Meanwhile, Mike sits in a lovely suite in D.C. with time weighing heavily on his hands, wishing he was home. I'm not going to lie, there are times I am a little bit jealous. A run around the mall, a day at the Smithsonian, out to eat for every meal, reading, movies, alone, all by yourself. I would take it in a heartbeat. But not for 6 weeks, maybe a few days though. But that would be all I could take before I would miss these little munchkins horribly. They keep me so very, very happy.

Well, if I don't get going I will be miserably behind. News- Jane had an appointment with the Orthodontist yesterday, braces are in the very near future. We have Young Women in Excellence tonight and she is very excited. Sawyer- says "mom" like the Seagulls in "Finding Nemo" say "mine" and it is adorable. The kid imitates his big sisters on everything, he always has a smile and he constantly sends the entire family into fits of giggles with his crazy antics. He is so dang cute. Sadie is quite the reader now and seems to be growing up in sooo many ways. She just isn't so much of a little kid anymore. She's a big girl and is acting that way. It's kind of fun. Ellyn has been covered, she is such a sweetheart, 90% of the time, it makes the other 10% all worth it. I can only imagine her frustration level as she tries to communicate her wants to us. I am confident that we are working in the right direction, which is a great feeling after so, so long.

That's the short of it. Hopefully time for more- later!

Life is good, and exceptionally busy. Quick update on the offspring:

• Isaac is a teenager. It has happened. The other day, I went in to tidy his room and found myself moving his sheet music, putting away his amp, hanging up his tie, and wondering what ever happened to my little Isaac. I blinked. It goes way too fast. And he LOVES his cousins - simply loves them.
• Taylor continues with violin. Does great in school. Has great friends. Still speaks in an incoherent whisper. Loves music and texting.
• Parker doesn't hear a word I say. Ever. He is completely oblivious to his surroundings most of the time. But he is full of life, never stops moving, and is always smiling.
• Morgan wants a BIG sister. Good luck with that one. And whenever we spend any length of time with Buffy & Noah, she comes home, wraps up her baby, and walks around and shushes her and feeds her. And leaves her in my care if she has to 'run an errand'. All girl.

Love you all -
Adina

Well,one of my New Year's resolutions is to write approximately once a week on the blog. I am a little over that this time but better than I have been. Dad and I are getting back into the running and really enjoying our Garmin. We discovered today that going down to 134th first and then around the hospital block is longer than going the other way...a surprise to me, at least. It is also safer since we don't have to go up that section without a sidewalk. Today, we both ran most of the way. I even was able to run up the hill from 134th to our street but was definitely winded. The layoff due to weather and Christmas activities has really put us behind.

I also try to go to Curves and then do the elliptical at LA Fitness. It adds up to about 2 hours of exercise. If I can just modestly restrain my eating, I should be able to lose weight. I think this week we will finally finish off with the whole contractor business from the leak. Yesterday, the alarm person came and found a cut wire in the crawl space and restored the alarm on the back door. The contractor is coming to get their check on Wednesday...ouch!...for the work that they did that was not covered by insurance. We still need a bit of touch up paint for what their painter didn't do very well...but that was on our nickel and I think I foolishly "saved" money only to end up spending more in the end. I'm going to have our original painter come and redo the picture wall and fix some other color problems. The family room and hallway are slightly different colors and he got them a little mixed up.

Today, I'm going out to lunch with one of my visiting teaching sisters. Her birthday is on Christmas Day so we always go out in January to celebrate. On Thursday, Dad needs to go over to Boise for work so I'm joining him to spend the day and night with Anne and Peter. Then we go down to Salem for his bi-annual ACLS course and certification. He has been studying every night...although I didn't let him take the books to Mt Hood.

By the way, it was a great weekend up there. It would have been even better to have Dave and Adina for more than one day...but we'll take what we can get. I've definitely gotten hooked on Dominion. I just would like to figure out my strategy so that I could win once of these times!! Actually in the last game, I did come in second!

I'm thinking of getting my hair cut in a different style so I'm surveying pictures on the internet. I'm open to any suggestions...remember my hair is stick straight!!!

Well, I'd better get in the shower and get going on my day. Tom, it was great hearing from you...I love Tracey's postings but it's nice to hear from you also. I challenge all of you to also write once a week...even if it is short!!!

Love,

Mom

So, the weather has been pretty nasty here over the last week. Nothing but dark clouds, although they are white right now, and rain and wind. It is not however raining right now, or windy, or dark, but it is like 50 degreees! So, needless to say we have been spending some additional time in the house. This works out alright because we like our house. We had some friends come over for new years eve and they called it the fun house. Somehow it came up that we were going to be spending the day inside and he made the comment that it should matter to us because we have everything. I highly doubt that I have "everything". In fact, if you want a list of all the things I do not have I would gladly give it. Tracey and I finally were able to go out for our anniversary. Our previous attempt had been foiled by a stomach flu that made it all the way through the family over a month. Everytime it seemed to be at inopportune times. First Hayden on Thanksgiving, then Danica, well that one was fine. But Alyssa started throwing up at the Cabin we went to for Danicas birthday. Tracey on our anniversary and I started it on Haydens birthday. So the point is, we finally went out for our anniversary and it was really fun. We went to a place called the forrest adventure park. It is set up in a forest just off the coast a little ways up the island. It is just a bunch of zip lines that go all around this forrest. The landscape is perfect for it and you can go around as many times as you want. We made it 2 times before they were going to be closing. It takes just over an hour. Really fun though. We have no pictures because we forgot our camera and it is pretty hard to bring anyway because you have no place to put it.
We have been just rocking out on Rock Band on the weekends. Luckily we have some friends that are as crazy about it as we are so we formed a band. The Orange Tomatoes. We are pretty awesome. Tracey has not changed her outfit on the game but she still looks good. We always joke that it is our chance to be hip. I am still hairless on the game. Well, really I have a buzz on the game but that never seems to translate to the game because it always ends up making me look bald, which I am coming to grips with. It will happen, or has happened, depending on who you talk to. I never thought I would be that guy that was balding in my 20's. So at least I have made it to my 30's with hair, sparse as it may be. What can a guy do? Anyway, I better get back to doing whatever it is I should be doing. My patient failed so I had a few minutes.
Alright, I have a few more minutes. Tracey and I have been trying to run more consistently recently. Tracey really suprises me because she has gotten really good and shows no signs of stopping. She is consistently right around 8 minutes a mile no matter the distance (up to about 8 miles is what she has done). I have to stay ahead of her for my pride, I have been around 7:30-7:45 a mile up to about 7 miles. I usually start to get more towards eight as I go longer so I need to build up my endurance. We both love it though but we are both now doing a little bit of wieghts to strengthen ourselves and tone. Oh, and our kids, are not tanks. I keep hearing about everybodys kids being so big. Our kids are just small, all 3 of them. We thought that Alyssa would be different but it is much of the same. Danica is getting taller now but they are all still skinny. Oh well. That is all I have.

Ok, so it is official... Noah is a big baby. Today we took him for his 4 month Dr appt and he weighted 17lbs, 10oz (94%), measured 26 inches long (88%), and head measured in the 90%. Plus he got another 2 shots in the leg which topped it all off. He cried shortly and then fell asleep in the car on the way home and I took him up to his crib where he is still sleeping now. Poor kid. The bummer about him being such a big boy is that carrying him around in the car seat when I run errands is almost not an option anymore. But if I need to put him down, he is not old enough to sit up yet so I need ome kind of tranport. My killer 3 wheeled stroller just seems overkill for the Doctors office though. I can't wait till he is old enough for his umbrella stroller! Also I am having to start putting him into 9 month clothes as he is perfectly filling out 6 month ones... crazy!
As for the past weekend, we really enjoyed the time up at the Lake Collins condo by Mt Hood. Brent is very sore from snowboarding and again noted that maybe I am right about cross training to improve his skills on the slopes. We'll try to get back to some type of normal exercise routine for both of our sakes. When Noah is 6 months, we can use the 24hour fitness daycare which will help me be able to go.
Thanks to Marnie, I am now addicted to checking facebook daily but am glad I did join.
Well, that is it for now. I need to read my users manual for my new sewing machine courtesy of Tim (my dad) for Chritmas. I can't wait to make something. :)
Also... if you see words missing an "s" it's because our keyboard is sticking. Sorry.

Well Treven usually has the laptop all day at school so I don't have anything during the day, but now it is the weekend so I do not have an excuse not to contribute to the blog. We are absolutely loving our new apartment. Mom asked if it was enough for us to stay here and I said, "Almost... but then I look outside at the weather". Speaking of which, Treven did get accepted to WSU but when we looked at the acceptance letter, it said he was accepted for Spring of 2009 which starts on January 12th. We called and explained that we wanted to apply for the summer, but when we applied the only options they had were Spring and Fall so we picked Spring. Well long story short, they can't switch which semester we applied to. We had to fill out a whole new application and pay 50 dollars AGAIN to have him be accepted for Summer. She said he is automatically accepted but it still has to go through the process. We are done here in Rexburg on April 10th so we may take a few days after to pack everything and then head out to Washington. I am so excited!
It is really weird not to be going to school at the same time as Treven. I am trying to adjust to not having any school work or something to do other than taking care of my girls. But I am loving being home and spending time with them. Treven thinks that this semester will be great. He has gone to three of his four classes and loves all the teachers so far. The fourth class is a religion class and I know he will love this teacher. I have had this teacher for the same class before and he was great!
We started potty training Melia on Thursday of this last week. She loves the pull ups which she calls Dora Diapers and she loves the big girl underwear that have princesses and Dora all over them. But I need some advice.... she does GREAT in the morning with it and has only had one accident in the morning, then she takes her nap and after her nap... well she does great but has more accidents. Potty training is the one thing that I am scared of with raising a child, but Melia is definitely ready. She loves going on the toilet and being a big girl. I just need advice on what to do!
McKenzie is rolling all over the place and grabbing anything I have in my hands. The girls had to go to the doctor on Friday because they both have some nasty coughs. McKenzie was 20 1/2 lbs! I knew she had passed the 20 lb mark! She is huge! I have her wearing some 9-12 month stuff already!
Well we are missing everybody! Melia runs around the house asking for Grammy and Pop pop. She threw a fit the other day because she thought we were going to see Andrew when we were going to Wal mart! She looks at everybody's pictures on the laptop and gets so excited when she sees pictures of everybody from Christmas.
Well 3 more months and we will be there! Love you all! Can't think of anything else to put on here... still have not received my Praxis results from November. I think it is the holidays, but I will be calling about it on Tuesday if I do not get it on Monday.


Kim

Slowly Catching Up

On the 18th of December Mike and I celebrated our 15th Wedding Anniversary. In some ways it feels like yesterday. There are some things I remember so vividly (and some I can't remember to save my life) about that day. I remember making my mom cry the night before because I wanted her to add one more pleat to the shawl collar on my dress (thanks mom). I remember actually being on time (for once) to the temple but they had told us the wrong time and I only had 10 minutes to get dressed. I remember seeing Mike and how absolutely gorgeous he looked. He had just gotten his hair cut and I think to this day it is still the best haircut he's had in his entire life (not to say you don't get great hair cuts now babe- that one was incredibly hot). I remember someone making fun of me for the grandma kiss I gave Mike over the alter. How was I supposed to know? I hadn't ever been to a temple wedding and we were in the temple- really? I should have laid one on him? Had I only known. I have loads of memories from that day, most however, are not blog appropriate.

Okay, that is as far as I got this morning. Then I had to make some phone calls, check for a number in my email... a notice that my cousin Lowell had posted a picture of me on Facebook. I clicked on it and there it was, a picture of my beautiful sisters and me and my cousin and Jason's sisters at Ellynn's wedding. This made me get all teary and once again I was thinking of my husband.

You see I wasn't supposed to be at that wedding. We had just moved to Germany less than two months before. Travel was too expensive, Mike couldn't take time off from a brand new job, there was just no way. I hadn't even asked. Ellynn understood, my family understood. I was very sad but "them's the breaks." Then one day shortly before the wedding Mike called me from work. He said to me "Sisters aren't supposed to miss sister's weddings. You're going." He had arranged everything. He bought my ticket, arranged for babysitting, took work off, and sent me on my way. It was a wonderful weekend, every minute of it. My brothers picked me up and took me to my aunt's house for the bridal shower. From there it was nonstop activity. I was kidless and that meant I could be the spoiling auntie, it also meant that I could take care of the bride, running errands, helping with make up... and for the reception, when Meagan was trying to get the kids ready and running late, I even got to do the hair. It turned out quite nicely I must say. It is a memory that I will always cherish and it was all possible because of the thoughtfulness and selflessness of my wonderful husband. I love him to death, actually, for eternity. So I will post two pictures today. One is at my sister's wedding (or reception, I haven't picked one yet) and the other is of my anniversary present.


You see back in 1993 I was a birkenstocks and flannels type of girl and I wouldn't let Mike get me anything more than a gold band with a white gold swirl and a couple of diamond chips for our engagement ring (surrounded by two white gold bands for our wedding bands). For about 12 years now I have secretly wished that I hadn't been so stubborn and maybe I wasn't so secret because Mike surprised me with a ring this year. He bought a solitaire that could be taken back so I knew what I was getting and then he let me pick out my own ring. How awesome is that?

It is amazing to me that the Lord would see fit to put this man in my life, that he gave him to me, and gave us the beautiful children we have to raise together. I am eternally grateful. I love him with all my heart and not just because he gave me my ring (it helps though). I love you Mike and I can't wait for you to get home AND I would love if you posted the post you put on Beech Tree and Sundry Seven on Breezy for our posterity. Thanks in advance Baby.