A new member of our family...Austin Glenn Egbert

Congratulations to Anna and Curt! They just had a way cute little boy, Austin Glenn Egbert. I held him a few times just to make sure I wasn't baby crazy yet and, Yay for me!, I'm not.

Madelyn can't get enough of holding the babies. She loves to get her hands on any baby she can and she loves Austin. She thinks we need another one because, "Jack's getting to heavy, Mom. He's not a baby anymore."

Jack knows how to say baby and he repeats himself over and over again when he sees one. So what if baby sounds like all his other words: ba-ba (bottle), by-by (bye bye), ba-ba (baby), ba (Binky)...it's all in his tone. I know exactly what he's saying. He only gets a little curious when I'm holding a baby. He gets a little jealous if I hold them too long.

Feb. 19, 2009

An Idaho vacation...a trip to a nearby hotel

The girls had a five day weekend, so we really wanted to do something, but Cody had a lot of work to do. He and I worked it out so that he could go to Idaho Falls and meet with some of his groups while the kids and I played at the hotel swimming pool. My girls get soooo excited to stay in a hotel. They love the elevators, swimming and sleeping in a strange room with huge beds.

This might be why they say to always take the comforter off the bed. I was trying to get Jack's swimming suit on, but the bed was really poofy and fun and he just couldn't help but roll around in it. Look at that grin!

Madelyn went straight to the desk and pulled out the paper and pens and pretended to have her own little office.

We are so excited for Swimming!

The front desk had warm cookies for everyone which was a huge hit. We would swim, steal a cookie, and then swim some more. Perfect!

At ten o'clock at night, Cody and I had a babysitter come to the hotel room. We popped a ton of popcorn and left some treats for the kids to stay up late and watch a movie while he and I went across the street and watched Avatar 3-D. It was incredible! When we got back to the hotel at about 1am, we discovered the babysitter had dead bolted the door and had fallen asleep. We couldn't get in. So we knocked and knocked and then banged thinking we'd wake at least a kid up, but nothing. So we called the babysitters cell phone...nothing. Cody went down to the front desk to have them call the room while I was still banging on the door. They called over and over again...still nothing. Literally after about 30 min., she woke up and groggily opened the door. Can you say deep sleeper?

Jack kept walking around the pool and climbing in the chairs. He thought he was so big sitting in them. Poor Cody had to follow him around. We ended the trip with a delicious lunch at Texas Roadhouse that we all thoroughly enjoyed. Trips don't have to be big and extravagant in order to have a good time; sometimes it's the little ones that are the most relaxing and enjoyable.
Feb. 12, 2010

Spring is here! (almost)

Yay!!! We finally had a nice enough day to take the kids to the park. Jack has discovered the outside and that's all he wants. He cries and begs at the back door whether it's warm or cold. The kids just ran and played and were so excited to be at a park.

They left the toys and went for a little stroll around the park. Jack was running so funny, swinging his right arm with his left arm staying straight back. His little run cracks me up.

Jack had to stop and pick up everything. He would feel the tree trunks and say a little "huh" and run to the next thing to touch..."huh". I promise I don't keep my kids locked up all winter, but sometimes it feels like that. I'm most excited for summer this year because Jack has been so funny about being outside and both Hannah and Madelyn can ride their own bikes and we love to go on bike rides.

I love the wonder that kids have. I so wish I could be so easily amused.

Back to the toys to exhaust myself so I can take a long nap for my mom. Feb. 11, 2010

Puerto Vallarta

In Puerto Vallarta, we decided to join Mike and Lindsey on a zip line excursion. We've done this once in Cabo, but this one was completely different. We zipped through the jungle instead of the desert and it was breathtaking.
Mike recommended not wearing our normal clothes because of oil that would drip off the zip line, so we threw on these great Bingo shirts we won. We got called Bingo all day.




This was so fun and exhilarating. They spun us upside down and sent us across the canyon. We were only a few hundred feet in the air. Ahhhh!
One of my favorite activities from our entire cruise was the monkey cages at the zip line. They filled our hands with crushed up cookies and placed us in the monkey cage. They climbed and jumped all over us. They licked every crumb out of our hands. They even spread our fingers apart and licked in between for the last crumbs. They were so cute! The one thing the keeper warned us about was to not scream or they monkeys would get angry and might bite. I am a slight screamer, but I controlled myself very well until a monkey caught me off guard and jumped on me. I let out a scream and the monkey went crazy!!! He ran around on me chattering like crazy like he was chewing me out. The keeper told me to stand very still and quiet, which believe me I did...with my eyes closed until the monkey quieted down. I felt bad, but it was okay.



We then went into a smaller breed of monkey's cage. They were cute, but not as cute as the bigger monkeys. They really liked Cody.

This little guy stayed in this spot, half on the cage and half on my hand, the entire time I was in there. He was determined to get every crumb.

This little monkey surprised me. He was finding food of his own...in my hair! He was picking out something, I don't want to know what, but he was very interested in it.

It's quite a sensation having a monkey grooming my head. That's quite the look on my face and I felt that way.


Next to the monkeys was a huge, huge snake and for some reason I let them put it on me. When they stuck it on my head, I couldn't believe how heavy it was. The keeper walked away and the snake was sliding off the top of my head and it made me really nervous.



They then thought it was a good idea to slap a tarantula in my hand...don't snakes eat spiders?! I couldn't even look at the spider. Just take the picture and get this off of me!!! Oh the snake brushing across my face about put me over the top.

The zip line had a great area at the bottom to relax and site see.

Here's a view of the city from across the bay. What a pretty place to live. We headed back into to town. We were on a mission to find great Mexican vanilla!


So, we hit the streets looking for a grocery store and found none. In desperation, we flagged down a taxi when we only had one hour before the ship would leave us and asked him to take us to a grocery store. He found one, walked us to the vanilla isle and all they had was pretty expensive. We bought it anyway. Later we found out we bought one of the best but more expensive brand. We ran back to the dock. We still didn't have gifts for anyone and we wanted more vanilla. They had the perfect little shopping area right on the dock that we (picture us in a complete panic) purchased dresses for the girls, maracas for Jack, Green Bay Packers stuff for my brother-in-law and we found a great deal on the yummiest vanilla. The store even packaged it up for us so it wouldn't spill in our luggage. Few! Last port, we fit everything in and hurried back to the ship with five minutes to spare. What an amazing vacation!

Oops! More cruise photos...

We had some great entertainment. These tango dancers were absolutely stunning. Cody even was blown away and not because of the outfits and the moves she did in them. Okay it was because of the outfits. Wow! She was incredible!

This guy was rough and bluesy...definitely Cody's style. He was really fun to watch.

We spent some amazing nights on deck looking at the most incredible moons. The pictures we tried to take did not do the image justice, but what a beautiful sky.

We had some fun dinners full of gorging, spoon balancing and eating caviar...YUK! That was the most disgusting thing I've ever eaten; really it was. Nasty!

Patricia and Miguel were one couple at our dinner table. They were really cute newly weds from California. We had an older couple from Canada which the guy was a bank delivery truck driver and the girlfriend was a receptionist that he delivered to. She was Chinese...odd couple, but fun dinner company. Then we had a really weird couple who we swore the husband was a pedophile. He probably really wasn't, but he fit the mold perfectly, mannerisms and all. Once they found out we were Mormon they didn't make it to dinner anymore. We had a great waiter that was also the captains waiter, so he was really good and hilarious. He told us about a gay cruise he had to work on...great stories. He just had a really funny sense of humor and we really enjoyed our dinners with him.