When Opposites Attract

My sister visited in May

2010-09-08T09:50:00.003-06:00

Here are a couple of pictures from May when my sister visited us.

In a fort.

She was shocked and appalled that Sean's education had been sorely lacking. She set out to amend the situation, and by the time she left he finally had learned some animal sounds. I don't know how I could have overlooked such an essential aspect of a child's life. Thank goodness for sisters.

Sean's 2nd Birthday

2010-08-31T20:00:00.003-06:00

Sean was so excited to have a birthday after all the fun that he had with Abby's birthday.

"Cheese" face.

Looking at a new book from grandma.

So cute. He was thrilled.

Abby's 5th Birthday

2010-08-30T22:04:00.003-06:00

Better late than never, right?

Abby and Sean enjoying presents from Grandma.

Playing pin the tail on Eeyore. Now a birthday classic.

Decorating cupcakes.

Lot's of fire for a five year old.

I had to post this. Darrin was leading a party game, and all of a sudden he's giving all the girls a sobriety test. I made the cupcakes, but maybe he slipped something in there I didn't know about. I believe they all passed. (Sean didn't though.)

A trip all by myself

2010-03-22T20:28:00.004-06:00

I was able to go, all by myself, to visit my sister and her husband for five days. Darrin was awesome with the kids, and the trip was wonderful for me. Almost my whole family, minus one on a mission and two in-laws and all the grandkids, were able to go to be at my brother-in-law's baptism. It was really amazing.

Here is the family plus his parents.

Brother-in-law and my Dad, who baptized him.

And then my they treated us to a fun day at the Science museum. I never have pictures of me, so I figured I would post them this once since I had them.

Christmas Trip to California

2010-03-11T22:55:00.005-07:00

So I'm a little late, but here are some pictures from our trip to California in December. I've resolved to be better about blogging this year. I'm not starting out well, but I know I can do better. I love to read everybody else's blogs, and I love to share our pictures. So here's a start.

We had a wonderful time in California. We were able to see my brother on his mission. We took him to lunch and took some pictures.

We also were able to visit my cousin and her adorable kids (and husband too, of course!)

Sean's not happy about this, but he stayed long enough for a picture.

Preparing for Christmas dinner. Those are my kids looking for handouts.

Christmas morning and Christmas oranges.

Knott's Berry farm with the fam.

Not quite warm enough for the beach, but it was fun anyway.

We went to the Aquarium with Grandma. Dad of course has to explain about the fish. The kids loved it. I think Grandma had a good time too.

Happy New Year!

Visit from Asher in June

2009-12-13T20:50:00.004-07:00

While I'm at it (blogging I mean), I'm just going to throw a random blog in here. These are some pictures from Asher's visit last summer.

Here we all are close to Asheville with beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains behind us.

We hiked up to a water fall that was very neat.

Here we are at a nature center. Of course, Darrin had to take the slide too.

Looking at butterflies.

And our trip to the beach.

Worn out after the beach.

Christmas Nativity Pictures

2009-12-13T19:42:00.005-07:00

I offer a sheepish and apologetic hello as I try to enter the blogging world again. I think I will try to post a kind of catch up blog, but if not, I will at least do better in the future. I'm sure of it.

Here are some early Christmas pictures. We are enjoying Christmas here for a little while, and we are so excited to go and enjoy more Christmas in California visiting family.

Decorating the tree.

Decorating each other.

This is at our stake Nativity Celebration. Sean is pointing and saying Jesus.

The flowers are also nice.

Here's Darrin as a shepherd in the live nativity. If you look closely you can see the attempt at facial hair. It really added a realistic touch. (He shaved about 5 minutes after getting home.)

Our little Mary and Joseph in the Children's Room still at the Nativity Celebration.

Abby taking care of Baby Jesus.

Sean wouldn't put on a robe, or unfortunately a sheep costume, but he was very happy about the little bit of material around his neck. He kept pulling it tight and acting official.

I love this picture.

Summer in April

2009-04-26T18:44:00.002-06:00

Here are some fun pictures of the kids enjoying the 90 degree weather yesterday. People say that it isn't normal for the the weather here to get that hot for another month, but it seems to me that the weather here is anything but normal. Last month it went from 40 to 80 within a week, and this month it went from 60 to 90 within a week. I kind of like it. It keeps you guessing, you never know what to expect, and you don't have time to get sick of anything. I'm sure the real summer won't be this way, so we're just enjoying this beautiful spring while we have it.

Happy Birthday Sean!

2009-04-24T08:16:00.006-06:00

Sean is 1! Somehow he knew when his birthday was, because right around his birthday he sure changed a lot. He isn't walking yet, but I can tell that he will in the near future. A couple of weeks ago I thought it would still take months. He is suddenly standing and pulling himself up like a pro. He is just able to move himself around so much more adeptly. He found the stairs this week and went right up. And it seems that his eyes became more intelligent almost overnight. We just had a wonderful visit from Grandma Helen, Auntie Laura and Ashton, and Uncle Keith and Jason. They came at just the right time to see him all grown up. Here are some pictures of his birthday and a couple others I've taken recently.

Here is Abby singing happy birthday to him.

He did very well opening a few presents.

Even though he is growing up and doing so much better than he was, we are still have digestion (and sleep) issues. So here he is with some avocado while Abby enjoys his birthday cake. (I mostly made the cake for me. :)

He is getting better at standing up and getting back down, but right on his birthday he would still get stuck and call for help to get back down. He's still got a great smile.

He's definitely figured out how to make a mess.

He just started to look at books instead of gnaw on them. But you shouldn't be fooled by his studious look here. He is actually pulling the fuzz out of this touch and feel book so that he can eat it. Any kind of hair seems to be his favorite right now. He's not picky about it, he'll take anything with little fibers: carpet, string, blankets, clothes, pet hair, people hair (from the floor or from the head), tissue (not really hairy, but probably his favorite thing to put in his mouth, see previous picture), and now hairy books. He picks stuff up plenty, but the funny thing is when he finds something he wants a bite of, like a blanket, and he'll put it in him mouth and then pull it out as hard as he can through his clenched teeth. I think he's going to pull a tooth out.

Here's a silly one with Daddy. Oh! Fooled you. This is Abby right around her first birthday. I always get a kick out of looking through her pictures and comparing them, so you get to see it too.

And now for the favorite trick. This isn't a great video of it, but you get the idea. It's been "uh-oh" all day long for about three weeks. And it's still cute.

Trip with Elijah and Rachael

2009-03-30T15:01:00.007-06:00

We had a wonderful trip with my brother Elijah and his fiance, Rachael, who were visiting us for their Spring Break. They were so fun to be with; I am so glad they decided to visit us. Abby loves them both because Rachael would read her stories and Eli would let her climb on him. And Sean (bless him!) was actually very happy the whole week, which was amazing. We're so excited to have Rachael join the family!

We went to Colonial Williamsburg while Darrin had a food show in Virginia Beach.

I'm sorry guys, I couldn't resist this picture. Also, it was the only close up I managed to take.

Rachael got to see the ocean for the first time in her life. Here we are on the eastern shore of Virginia as we drove up to Annapolis.

Darrin, of course, had to dig for crabs.

Abby was quite attached to the engaged couple, and wouldn't let them out of her sight.

We visited the Naval Academy, but were very disappointed that the Midshipmen were also on Spring Break.

Again, I couldn't resist. This is still at the Naval Academy.

And then we went across the street and visited my school, St. John's. Which was also on Spring Break.

The next day we went to D.C., the first time for either of them.

We saw a ton and walked even more. The kids were real troopers.

A Carousel ride in the middle always helps.

We walked over the bridge to get to the Arlington Metro stop. It was the end of the day and Sean still had a smile.

That night we went to see the temple. It was even more beautiful than I remember.

And the next day we went with Darrin's uncle and family to a Maple Festival and had a pancake breakfast. That was great, but we didn't get to stay very long because we had to drive all the way home that day.

Darrin and Abby played with the band.

It was a great trip. Thanks Eli and Rachael!

Abby's Birthday

2009-03-17T09:58:00.006-06:00

Abby had a great birthday. Thank you everybody for the cards, calls, and presents.

Here she is opening presents at her birthday party on Saturday with her friends.

Decorating cupcakes

Once again I made 'healthy' cupcakes that passed the Darrin stamp of approval. Yeah!

My brother Elijah and his fiance, Rachael, are visiting us this week. We gathered on Monday, her actual birthday, to open family presents.

She is very excited about being a ballerina right now.

I found this dollhouse on Craig's List. I think it's so neat.

I know you can't tell, but she is helping a little dog use the toilet. It looks like the bathroom is her favorite room.

I know this picture is hard to see, but I think this bathroom is so funny! It's my favorite room too.

Birthday cake Monday night. She's getting old. She couldn't get all the candles in one try.

And here she is talking to Aunty Laura on Dad's bluetooth. She loved talking to everybody. Thank you!

Sean is Crawling!!

2009-03-17T09:04:00.006-06:00

Finally. Ten and a half months and the boy is finally moving. He has been kind of moving for a while; he learned how to sit up by himself about a month ago, he would scoot forward about a millimeter at a time, he would roll, he would twist around. He hardly ever got onto his knees or rocked on his knees or showed any sign that he was ever going to crawl. Then last Thursday he was sitting, he saw Dad's phone (always the best incentive), he got onto his knees and went. I even captured the moment. It's so funny to see him crawl after watching him flail around on the floor for so long. So there are two videos of crawling, and one more of Abby making him laugh, which is still very cute to me even though I have posted videos of him laughing that are pretty much exactly like this one. I can't resist. And I decided to throw in a couple of pictures of the kids helping me set up a new cabinet.

Sean Throwing a Ball

2009-01-21T13:58:00.005-07:00

I still can't post the video's of Sean laughing, but I figured out how to do this one and how to do them from now on. I'll try to get another good one of him laughing because it's really cute. This one is cute too. It's so funny to see him doing boy things, or rather, things that Abby didn't do, which I guess aren't necessarily boy things. Abby was never interested in rattles, but Sean loves them, plus anything else that makes noise. I don't remember Abby experimenting with noise, but Sean tests everything. He shakes and bangs everything he holds, and then he'll put it in his mouth. He is also throwing balls, which I think is so funny, and I don't remember Abby doing until she was much older. It kind of looks like he's doing it on accident, but then he does it over and over. I think it's so cute.

I'm also putting a picture of Abby and Sean. Even though she can't read the words yet, she'll go through a whole book and tell either the story in the book or some other random thing. They are so great together. It helps that Sean still won't crawl, so Abby still doesn't have to deal with him getting in her way, too much. He's getting around better and better by rolling and turning in circles. Even though I'm ready for him to crawl, we are enjoying peace as far as sibling rivalry is concerned.

And just for the heck of it, here's a picture playing with a Christmas toy. Abby matched the animals on the baby pop-up animal toy, and then flipped them off. Darrin got such a kick out of it. (Come one Sean, get over there and play with your own toy!) (I know it will be hard when he finally gets it, but it's so frustrating to watch him act helpless when I know that he could do it if he could just figure it out!!)

Bread

2009-01-21T13:36:00.004-07:00

I know this is silly, but oh well. I've talked to quite a few people about making bread, so I thought I would share my progress. I have finally made a decent loaf of Sprouted Whole Wheat Bread. Woohoo! It's not perfect and definitely not as good as my Mom's, but it's not flat and it the pieces actually hold together, they don't just fall apart into a pile of crumbs. Just sharing one of life's small victories.

Snow Day!

2009-01-20T19:40:00.005-07:00

I guess we brought the Wyoming winter home with us. First, last Saturday it was so cold that some fuse blew and we and four of our neighbors were without power all day, from 8 a.m. until almost 8 p.m. I guess there were pockets of other houses around that it happened to also, we weren't the only lucky ones. When we turned on the heat the thermostat read 46 degrees. Brrrr! It was a cold day (it was much colder than that outside). I know that's nothing for Wyoming, but it sure feels cold when the Inside is that cold. Then, we woke up this morning, opened the blinds, and I thought I was back in Wyoming. I took these pictures in the morning, and it snowed all day long! I think we got at least 6 inches. The neighbors were so excited they were out playing in it by 7:30 in the morning. Thankfully Abby had already had plenty of snow recently and she was able to wait until 10:30. Also thankfully, Darrin took her out. And the neighbors were back out by then too.

Jimmy still loves the snow. He didn't get to go to Wyoming this year, so I'm glad he had a chance to play in the snow anyway. AND!!! See our new fence! Yeah!! Jimmy loves it.

Here are the neighbor kids sledding. Darrin is the one in the back with the cardboard. The cardboard actually worked really well, better than the other kids' boogie boards.

Abby and Darrin

We left Abby's boots in Wyoming (where the snow is), so plastic bags had to suffice.

Christmas Pictures

2009-01-14T19:09:00.004-07:00

Here are some random Christmas pictures.

Darrin decided to get helium balloons for Christmas morning. The kids loved them.

Sean's favorite Christmas present was the dog's ball (it was new -- pre-chewed).

Darrin and the Bull

2009-01-12T20:27:00.004-07:00

So. . . I was trying to upload videos of Sean and Abby, but they wouldn't work, so I thought I would try a different video to see if it would work and I picked this one. Well, it worked and so now I figure I might as well just go ahead and post it. This is Darrin in the fall of 2007 playing Bull Poker. He's the one on the right.

I still haven't figured out why I can't post the other videos, they're from the same camera. Any suggestions?

Go Navy

2009-01-11T20:44:00.005-07:00

I know this is random, but I've been meaning to post these pictures for a while. I just saw them again so I thought I'd throw them in, even though they're a month old.

We went to watch the Army-Navy game with the Alumni Association, so we got the kids all dressed up for it. That's all. Cute pictures.

Abby Loves Nativities

2009-01-11T20:21:00.002-07:00

Here is Abby setting up her own nativity in her room.

They had nativity dress-ups at church. She wanted to be an angel all month, but they didn't have any wings, so she settled for Mary.

So what if there are two Marys and two baby Jesuses, it's still a beautiful nativity.

I made her an angel costume for Christmas. When I got done with it, I decided it was so cute that the other kids needed costumes too. Thankfully Mom and Stephanie were game. I thought they turned out really well, and the kids seemed to really like them.

I know Abby liked hers. She put it all back on to open presents the next day. (I'm sorry, I can't figure out how to turn this picture, and I'm not going to work at it anymore. You're just going to have to turn your head. --It's still cute.)

Belated Halloween

2008-12-15T19:14:00.005-07:00

I haven't had my computer for a while, so I am going to do a few posts to catch up. We spent Halloween trying to close on our house, which actually did happen that day, but not soon enough for us to really do anything else. Abby stayed with some new friends in our new town of Holly Springs, North Carolina, for most of that day and went Trick-or-Treating with them that night. I don't have any pictures of that, but I do have some pictures of her cutting Jack-o-Lanterns with her Grandpa and Uncle Simeon, which I will post at the end. Yes, she is only in her underpants, in case you were wondering.

I guess this is a good place to tell a little bit about moving in. It was a little hectic, but all in all I think it worked out very well. We were supposed to close on our house on October 30th, but there were some technical difficulties, so we rescheduled for the morning of the 31st. Fortunately, we found some wonderful people in our new ward that helped us out with the pets and with Abby. If you remember, Halloween was on a Friday, so if we didn't close that day we couldn't move in until Monday. Well, the closing did finally happen on Friday, but not until 4:45, the latest it could have possibly been done. So we did in fact get the key that night, but we had to reschedule the delivery of our household goods until Monday because the closing was so late. But it didn't really matter that we didn't have any of our stuff, because, due to my negligence, we didn't have electricity until Monday either. You can tell we were so on top of things. We saw it as an adventure though, and we were prepared to camp out in our house through the weekend. The friends who watched the pets already had company staying at their house, but they let us use their air mattress. Our next door neighbors had been checking up on us when we saw them, and when they found out that we didn't have electricity, they invited us to stay with them that weekend. It was wonderful to get to know them; they are terrific people. We would not have been able to get to know them so well if this wouldn't have happened. And they have continued to help us; always checking on us, feeding us, and watching the kids. Their boys are 7 and 9, but they like to play with Abby anyway, and she is always asking to go over to their house. They have been a great blessing to us and have helped us feel more at home here. We were also able to spend time with the other family who watched the pets, since we didn't have any stuff, we didn't have anything else to do but make friends! So there was a little bit of stress initially, but it turned out to be a very nice, relaxing weekend. So here are Halloween pictures to go along with that Halloween weekend story.

Christmas Babies

2008-12-12T21:42:00.003-07:00

Hello there. I know I haven't posted forever, but we finally got internet this week so I feel like I have a pretty good excuse. I have quite a few pictures that I would like to post, but I'm still going to save that for another day. I just took this picture of Sean today and I got such a kick out of it that I had to share. Now, Sean doesn't have near as cute of a background, and unfortunately we don't have a cute Santa hat for him, but it's fun to see them side by side anyway. They are almost exactly a month apart in these pictures. Cute babies if you ask me!!

New House

2008-09-22T21:04:00.009-06:00

We have finally found a house! A lot of people have been asking to see the pictures, so here they are. It's 4 bedrooms, 2.5 bath, .2 acre, 2 car garage, and most importantly, a very quiet street.

Welcome to the World of Blogs and Goodbye Utah

2008-09-14T17:30:00.010-06:00

I am finally joining the ranks of Bloggers. I am terrible at sharing pictures, so I am hoping this will help. I have beautiful children and I need to share them with all of you! This will also be an easy way to update everybody on our lives. For those of you who don't know, we are moving to North Carolina very soon. I will be living with my parents for the month of October, but then we will be on our way. We are nervous and excited.

Here is our house that we are leaving too soon. This was taken last year right before we moved in.

Here is Abby last year in her cute room that Darrin did for her. I know she doesn't look excited about it in these pictures, but she does love to tell everybody about her green room.

We're sad to leave this house so soon, but we're excited for a new adventure.

And here is one more picture that is pretty funny, besides it being a pretty cute picture of Sean. Darrin's company sent us this shirt as a baby gift (it says 'got cheese', in case you can't read it). So of course we had to take a picture like this. You can tell that's a big chunk of fake cheese, right?