Christmas 2010

Christmas was wonderful! Our greatest blessing is that we have two HEALTHY, HAPPY children. We are so grateful that everything went well with Joshua's second surgery, it was very minor but it is a relief to have it over with. What a miracle modern medicine is! Here's a few snap shots of us this Christmas season:

after church at Grandma and Grandpa C's.

Jacob sleeping with his new Buzz and Woody (he loves these guys!)

Joshua - having fun opening anything wrapped in paper

Jacob with his Mr. Potatoe Head from grandma C

Two cute boys in their Christmas snowman jammies on Christmas Eve (Aunt Cami is in the background she is due in less that two months yeah!)

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and were able to spend time with those you love!

grateful

I was reading a friend's blog today who lost her baby just a few months before our baby Joshua was born. She has been through a lot, and she is an amazingly strong person. It made me realize how very grateful I am for our little family. They each bring me so much joy. Yes, life has it's difficult moments and sometimes things are hard. But, there are so many more good times than hard times. There is so much to be grateful for. I love my children and I am SO grateful that they are healthy, and happy and so much fun to be with. I love it when Joshua opens his mouth really wide and gives me a big open mouth kiss on my cheek. I love it when out of the blue Jacob comes and gives me big bear hugs for no reason in particular and says "I love you mommy!" Then I say I love you too! and he always responds with I love you too! LIFE IS WONDERFUL!

November

Here are some fun pictures from the month of November:
First one that I don't have a picture of was celebrating our 4 year anniversary at the Roof restaurant. - Thanks mom for the gift certificate and thanks to mom and dad for babysitting : )

Jacob and Joshua playing a "duet"

taught Jacob how to make Snow angels


We got a new kitchen table for our anniversary (yeah for having a husband who works for Deseret Manufacturing - the Church's furniture making department)

spent many fun hours playing with Jacob and Joshua I love my boys!

made a girafe with Jacob and Joshua out of blocks. We made lots of other animals too but this was Jacob's favorite

Went to Ivan's citizenship ceremony. If any of you think you know a lot about American history, I can almost assure you that Ivan knows more than most Americans after studying for the citizenship test. It is really difficult. I only know about 1/2 the answers on the study guide.

new family pictures

I found a new photographer on KSL classifieds who was offering to do family pictures for free. We needed a new family picture so I e-mailed her we got together at Wheeler Farm, and a week later we had a CD with over a 150 pictures of our family. We were amazed by how fast she got the pictures back to us, and we were grateful for the free pictures since we will be having some big medical bills arriving in our mailbox shortly. Here are some of the pictures she took. If your interested in her doing pictures for your family she is currently doing them for just $20! You can see her blog at http://www.jbphotography09.blogspot.com/

hospital stay

Before surgery

the day after surgery, and still smiling

Things went much better than expected at the hosptial. First of all we had been today that Joshua would have a tube coming out his back to drain his kidneys and the tube would remain in place for about 4-5 weeks. Well the pediatric urologist came to see us after the surgery was over and told us that they had put in an internal cathader instead and that he didn't have a tube in his back. The tubes will have to be removed in 4-6 weeks, but it will be a quick procedure. That was a huge relief. They had previously told us that Joshua would be here for 3-5 days. Then last night one of the doctors who works with the pediatric urologist said that if things go well he can go home tomorrow (which would be today). Joshua is doing really well. They have removed all of the tubes and machines that he was hooked up to. Joshua has also done very well with managing his pain. He was been nursing more frequently, but that has helped to lessen the pain he was feeling. Several of the pain medications that had been ordered for him they decided not to give to him because he was doing so well. He's mostly just been on Motrin, or Tylenol. We are so grateful to the medical staff for there expertise, to our friends and family who fasted and prayed for our little boy, and most of all we are grateful to our Heavenly Father for his watchful care.

In Tune

It is amazing how in tune to the Spirit little children can be. With recently watching conference, Jaocb has been talking more about President Monson. It The Friend this month Jacob saw a picture of the inside of the conference center with the podium and organ pipes and proudly exclaimed "President Monson" pointing at the picture. So today in the afternoon I asked Jacob if he wanted to go see where President Monson talks and of course he did. So we took the kids down to temple square (one of the reasons I enjoy living in Salt Lake is being so close to temple square that it's easy to drive down there for a Sunday afternoon walk). We took a tour of the tabernacle and the nice elderly missionary that was giving us the tour just couldn't get enough of how enthusiatic Jacob was about President Monson. I think Jacob believed he was really going to meet President Monson. We came around a corner on one of the upper floors and Jacob saw a picture of the prophet and exclaimed "President Monson!" So the elderly missionary said "Let me get a picture of your family by that picture." We went out of the roof and the senior missionary told Jacob he could put his hands in the fountain water and Jacob couldn't have been happier. Later after our tour we went over to temple square and Jacob saw the statue of Christ. We have been talking recently one a two year old level about how Jesus had "owies" in his hands and feet, and how much Jesus loves us and wants us to be nice. Jacob saw the nail marks in his hands and feet and he reverently pointed it out to us. I had also recently showed Jacob some pictures of temples and told his that it was "Jesus' house" As we walked by the temple tonight before we said anything about the temple Jacob exclaimed "Jesus house!" We had a great time being together as a family!

6 months

Joshua and Jacob are as cute as can be. We can't believe Joshua is 6 months old already. He had two teeth when he turned 6 months old and in the last week or so he started breaking 6 teeth at the same time! Despite this he is doing very well. He is 16 lbs (30%), and 29 inches long (95%). His favorite new food is cheerios. I think he likes them because they give him something to crunch inbetween those teeth. The sad news is that he had a renal scan on his kidney in September and now they are doth draining about 40-50% slower than they should. So now he has to have surgery. It is a 6 hour surgery and he is be in Primary Children's hospital for 3-5 days. Then he will have a drainage tube coming out his back for about 4-5 weeks. Even though it will be very hard to see our little boy go through such a difficult surgery we are grateful that we live so close to such great Medical care considering that we are just a few miles away from the hospital and some children drive for many hours to come and recieve care here.

Yeah!!

Jabob is potty trained! He couldn't be prouder of himself and we couldn't be happier to only have one in diapers. He turned 2 1/2 last week. He got a scooter as his prize for getting potty trained and he loves to ride it everywhere.

Just for fun here is a cute picture of the two of them before church today.

Cute kids

Here are some cute pics of the kids

This one is about 2 months old but I just love Joshua's smile in this picture

Here's Jacob in his cowboys "outfit" He has had these boots for about 8 months and hasn't worn them much, but recently he went to see Toy Story 3 with grandma and the boots have Woody on them so he has been more interested in wearing them lately : )

Joshua - he's almost constantly smiling, but I didn't get him at the right instant or maybe he was just blinded by the flash : )

Here are the 5 grandkids. Jacob and Joshua are in the front, my brothers twins Jackson and Daxton (born Dec 2009) in the back, and Cami is holding the newest grandbaby (and only girl of the grandkids) Rebekah (Heather's baby)

Joshua is 4 months! our trip to Steamboat Springs, Colorado

Joshua is 4 months old now and already had 2 teeth that have broken through. He is a very happy baby. I was trying to get a picture of both Jacob and Joshua smiling, but Jacob was more interested in entertaining Joshua : ) We are so happy to have these two fun boys in our family!

We had a great time at our family reunion last week. We went to Steamboat Spring, Colorado. Jacob and Joshua had a great time playing with their cousins. Every other summer my moms family gets together and we go some place different each time. There are 8 kids in my moms family, and each of them have children, and now we are going on the third generation with my kids and my cousins/ siblings children. Our favorite activities were tubing down the river (Jacob loved it, and grandpa babysat Joshua), and going down the Alpine slide which Jacob also loved. After a 5 1/2 hour car ride home the first thing that Jacob said when we pulled in was "Cousins...cousins.." He was sad they all had to go to their own homes : (.

We had a huge extended family picture, and then we just took a couple snapshots on our own - thanks Ben

Jacob and I floating down the river

Ivan floating down the river

3 months old

Our cute little Joshua is three months old. He was blessed over Memorial Day weekend. Thanks for all those that came. Jacob couldn't be prouder of his little brother. Everywhere we go whenever people starting cooing about Joshua Jacob proudly tells them Joshua's name pronounced "Jofua" according to Jacob. He loves to hold Joshua, and share toys with him. He'd rather play with Joshua than his toys. Here are some pics:

our two fun little boys

even Joshua is enjoying the pool this summer : )

Jacob and Madison (Cami's niece) looking at a Leopard at Hogle Zoo. Cami and I ventured out with the three kids to Hogle Zoo one day and had a great time.

Joshua with his twin cousins Jackson and Daxton. Jacob is about two and a half months younger than them.

San Diego

We had an awesome trip to San Diego. We drove, which was a big undertaking for us with a 2 year old and a 2 month old. I know...I know ...others have gone longer with younger children in car seats but for us with very active 2 year old it was an accomplishment. We rented a mini van to have more space to fit our double jogging stroller, and a little more room to stretch. We had a great time. Here's the run down of the trip with pictures below. We left Tuesday around 4pm and drove to Las Vegas. We stayed at the Stratosphere, we got lucky since we stayed during the week the room was only $30. We walked along a little bit of the strip that night, and we watched the water show at the Billagio, we actually watched it several times because Jacob liked it so much. The next morning we went swimming in the awesome pool at the stratophere. Then we headed off to San Diego. We got there in the afternoon and after checking into our hotel we went right to the beach. Later we went to Old Town San Diego for dinner. We ate in the same Mexican restaurant that I ate in when I was on a band trip in high school. There was a mariachi (sp?) Spanish band serenading to different tables and Ivan had them sing a love song for me it was really sweet. The next day we went to San Diego Zoo from 9am to 6pm. Then we went to Mission Beach. Ivan went running on the beach, which he had really been looking forward to, and I played with the kiddos. The next day we went to Sea World from about 10:30 am to 6pm. We loved both the zoo and Sea World. Jacob kept saying "more animals!" He couldn't see enough animals, he is facinated with any time of animal. After Sea World we drove by the temple which is under some major renovations (pics below) and then headed up to Anaheim. We stayed with friends that night and the next day we went to New Port Beach, which was actually in one of my areas on the mission. Jacob loved playing in the "big water" (ocean). We had a great time. We were able to eat at one of our favorite Peruivan restaurants that day too. (We have only found one Peruvian restaurant in Utah that we like.) That evening we stayed in Hurricane and the next day we went to Zion's National Park. We went hiking. We didn't bring our hiking backpack this time for Jacob, because he would rather hike himself than be carried. We did the hike to the three emerald pools (about 2.25 miles round trip) and Jacob did the whole thing on his own. Ivan only carried him for about 100 yards. We had a great trip, but the best part was just being together.

Jacob loved the water show at the Billagio. We watched it several times.

Our first night in San Diego we went to the beach and Jacob played soccer. We just couldn't get enough of the beach while we were there.

We loved San Diego Zoo. We decided to go to the Zoo and Sea World while we were down there because Jacob is facinated with animals. The zoo was a lot cheaper and there is a lot more to see. But we definitely enjoyed both places. One of the few times Jacob rode in the stroller. Joshua was a very happy and complacent baby the whole trip (not out of the usual).

Jacob really enjoyed the zoo and all the animals, but I think the elephants, lions, and monkeys were his favorites. He even has a special elephant walk now that he likes to perform.

The pandas were so cute.

Jacob loves monkeys. I can't even remeber how many times of monkeys we saw at the zoo.

Anyone who knows Jacob knows he loves lions so here he is with the lion.

tired boys

We went to a couple of beaches in San Diego. This is Ivan and Jacob playing at Mission Beach.

Touching a star fish.

Here are the penguins. One of the only pictures from San Diego zoo or Sea World with Jacob looking at the camera. He was more interested in looking at the animals (with good reason :))

This is Jacob up close and personal with Korky the killer whale. For some reason Korky kept coming right up face to face with Jacob and we were able to get some pretty cool pictures.
We also saw a shark exhibit, sea turtles, sea lions, and seals. We went to several shows and had a great time at Sea World.

This is what the San Diego temple looked like. I don't know what type of renovation they were doing.

Jacob drying out in his bee hooded towel

Jacob and Ivan playing in the ocean. Jacob loved the ocean!

Going swimming at New Port Beach

Here we are at the court of the Patriarchs

I just love this picture it was also on the way to the three emerald pools.

This picture doesn't do justice to this beautiful upper emerald pool. Jacob hiked the whole thing except for about 100 yards that Ivan carried him. It was about 2.5 miles round trip and parts of it were pretty steep (especially for a 2 year old).