Hello, 2010!

Happy New Year, everyone! I know I'm a few days late, but better late than never.

We headed up to Lovell a few days after Christmas so we could spend time with family, and get out of town for a few days. We really didn't do anything too exciting in Lovell. However, Joel's Mom got a Wii for Christmas, as well as Wii Fit Plus. Needless to say, we spent a lot of time enjoying the games! Here are all of the grandkids on that side (yes, my children make up three of the four, but another will be added soon! Congrats, Devin and Kynstyl!)...
Devin was busy, he couldn't pose all pretty like his brothers. :)

Bowling...

Dane had a trick he liked to do every time...

It didn't always work out for him. :)

Brenda had great form!

Joel wasn't able to say in Lovell for very long because he had to work. He went home on New Years Eve day, so I had no one to kiss at midnight. :( I did go to Joel's Aunt Marianne's house for a Robertson New Years Eve. We played games and ate yummy food. It was a good night, and I actually went to bed earlier that night than I had the previous two nights!

We are back home now; kids are in school and life it back on schedule. I have to take Jenna to Cheyenne today to get a cavity filled, but luckily Joel didn't have to work last night so he gets to stay home with the boys. That definitely makes things easier!

We are looking forward to a great 2010!

p.s. I must have forgotten to mention this in previous posts, but Joel and I have decided to move to AZ. Joel will start grad school at A.T. Still University in June!

Merry Christmas!

Happy Holidays to everyone! We've had a great could of days; a great week, in fact. The kids have been out of school and Joel hasn't had to work, so we've done a whole lot of nothing! Isn't that great! Actually, we've had to be productive here and there, but we've had our fair share of just hanging around and enjoying each other's company. It's been absolutely great.

A few weeks ago Jenna asked me if we could make a sponge cake (where that came from, I have no idea), so I told her we would make one for Christmas. She and Will were great helpers. They both read the recipe for me and helped me dump in ingredients. I realized that this was the first time I've ever made a sponge cake from scratch (I've done angel food, but not sponge), so I was pleased that everything turned out just fine.
Here we are with the before, and if I'd been thinking we would have done an after shot, as well. Oh well!

For Christmas Eve we drove around to look at Christmas lights. After we got home we read from Luke 2, then had root beer floats while watching Joy to the World. Here are the kids after getting home from looking at lights...

Jenna woke us up around 6:15 this morning. She very obviously couldn't wait to open presents, so we sent her upstairs to get the boys up! Boy was she excited! Her enthusiasm for any and all holidays always amazes me, and Christmas surpasses them all, by far!

We all had a great time going through our stockings and opening presents. The kids got a lot of books this year, which we think is great! Here they are with the books from Aunt Adrienne... (Jenna is wearing her hat that she got in her stocking, she wore it the entire time we opened presents :)

Will and Adam got matching "Cars" blankets from Grandma R. for their beds. They even have their names stitched on them! Could there be a better blanket for a little boy's bed? I think not.

And here are Adam and Will, eating some popcorn that Santa brought and watching Monsters vs. Aliens.

After we opened presents I was doing a puzzle that I got as a gift. (in fact I basically begged for a puzzle. I really enjoy doing them, but Joel doesn't. This year I made it very clear that I wanted a puzzle!) Anyway, Joel also got me a mat to do the puzzle on. You know, the kind you can roll up so you can put the puzzle away, then get it back out later. Well, the mat was a little bumpy from being folded up in a box. Joel suggested I iron it, which I did. The felt did flatten out a bit, which was nice. I then turned the iron off and went about other activities.

A bit later Joel noticed that the iron was still plugged in, so he wisely unplugged it, thinking it could be dangerous to leave it plugged in. As it turns out, it was dangerous to have it out at all. While Joel was in the shower, and I was upstairs with Jenna, Adam plugged the iron back in, pushed the button to turn it on, and apparently proceeded to iron the kitchen table.

I was very dismayed to find my table looking like this...

However, after further inspection Joel figured out there was about 4-5 spots on the table that had had some serious iron time. Meaning Adam didn't just turn it on and walk away, he was playing with the hot iron. I cared a little less about my melted table top then, and was just extremely grateful that Adam hadn't burned himself at all! (I'm still a little bugged about my table though. What was I thinking, not putting the iron away? Lesson learned.)

We had a great Christmas today, truly. We all got things we wanted/needed, and the best part of all was being together with a spirit of giving. I know that we all think about how blessed we are at this time of year, and I just want to add my little bit to the pot. I am so thankful for my family. I am grateful to know that I can be with my family forever; there isn't one single thing more comforting than that in the world. And that is truly the greatest gift we've ever been given.

So Much!

I feel like there is so much to cover, and I can't decide how much detail to go into.

Joel and I were lucky enough to go to Mesa, AZ this weekend so Joel could interview at A.T. Still University. Our friends watched our kids for us here in Laramie, and we pretty much owe them our souls for it! We couldn't have done it without you, Bades! Thank you so much! My kids were so excited to go have a sleep-over at their house, they weren't even sad to see us go.

We were lucky to go at all, because all of the roads out of Laramie were closed on Wednesday! We were supposed to fly out of Denver Thursday morning, but we were wondering if we were going to get there. Thankfully the roads opened up at just the right time, and Joel and I made a break for it!

We were able to get to Denver safely and stay the night at a hotel that night. We made it to Phoenix with no problems, except for Joel losing his drivers licence in Denver after we went through security. That was no good!

We had a great time in Mesa! We went to a Madrigal Feast that my niece was in on Thursday night. While Joel interviewed Friday I did some shopping and hung out with my sisters. Friday night Joel and I went to a movie together, maximizing our childlessness.

On Saturday my sisters and I did a cinnamon roll bake-off. We wanted to figure out which great cinnamon roll recipe/frosting recipe was the best. It was extremely scientific and delicious! You would think I'd be sick of cinnamon rolls after eating so many yesterday, but I could honestly go for a few more!

I had grand plans to take a lot of pictures while I was there, but I was lame and only got one picture, and it wasn't even in Mesa! This is Joel and I in the airport in Denver, waiting for our flight...
Joel felt like the interview went really well. They said they would let us know in four to six weeks. That's a long time! Well, it turns out that we didn't have to wait that long because they called Joel tonight and offered him a spot in the PA program! Yay! We couldn't believe they called so soon. The guy said they were very impressed with his application and interview. We are so happy and relieved to hear that confirmation. Because Utah turned Joel down, we will be deciding between Billings and Mesa. There is a lot to consider!

We were really happy to pick up our kids today, but they were definitely not eager to come home. The boys were the happiest to see us, but Jenna wanted to stay and play. I was happy that they had a fun time. She cheered up a bit after we got home, I'm happy to say. Now it's back to reality, school, work, etc.

Another Birthday! and Thanksgiving

Alright, going back nearly a week... We went sledding with the Bades last Wednesday. It was great to have a day that no kids had school and no husbands had work. We bundled everyone up and went up to Happy Jack for some cold fun.

Adam wasn't too in love with the whole thing. At the beginning Joel tried to let him go down the hill on a sled, just at the very bottom, but Adam really wasn't excited about that. He mostly just stood at the bottom after that.
I was brave and went down on a little saucer. It was scary when it would turn around and you'd be going down backwards. But Jenna inspired me with her braveness, I didn't want her to think that her mom is too big of a sissy.

Jenna and Maggie on the tube...

Like I said, Adam wasn't very excited.

After we got done sledding we left to go back home, but at the top of the snow-covered road we waited to make sure the Bade's got up the hill okay in their van. Well, after a minute or two we didn't see them so we turned around to see if they needed help. They weren't at the bottom of the hill, so we assumed they went the other way down the road to check out some smoke we'd seen. We almost turned around once on the road because we didn't want to get stuck, but there wasn't a good place to turn around. We kept going, and guess who we ran into? The Bades of course, stuck in the snow! We are so glad we decided to go find them! Joel and Chad were able to push their van out, after much work and some sticks piled in front of tires. The unfortunate part was that then we had to turn around, so of course we got stuck as well. It's a good thing that Joel and Chad are strong, because we could have been there for awhile! But in the end we all made it out alright and we had some fun memories! For the other Sarah's version, head over to her blog to read about it. :)

On Thursday we were lucky enough to be able to go to Joel's Aunt Gwen's house and spend Thanksgiving with her family. My kids always love going to Gwen's, as do Joel and I. Dinner was great, and we got to play some fun games. We really love hanging out with family. We are blessed to have such great family around!

Then yesterday we had another birthday to celebrate! Our little Adam turned TWO years old! Oh how time flies. He really wasn't too interested in all the birthday hoopla. When asked about his birthday his usual response was, "No." But after church we had dinner, opened presents, and had cake. Adam did a good job of opening his presents, even with all of the "help" his siblings gave him.

He got this big furry ball from his Grandma R. and he's just not sure what to think about it. Joel was trying to get him to touch it but he wasn't too excited about that prospect. He's doing better with it today, and I'm sure before long he'll be throwing it at all of us.

All the kids (minus Gannon) getting ready for cake. I'm not sure why we didn't have Adam in the middle?

The cake says "Happy Birthday Adam" but you can't really tell in the picture. It's probably better that way, it really didn't look very good!

And Adam did enjoy eating his cake. He ate quite a bit, then left to play. But he kept coming back to take a few bites, then run off and play some more. I like his style!

Adam had his two year wellness check at the doctor today, and his weight is back on the charts! After his 12 month appointment his weight dropped off the bottom of the chart, so you could say he was about in the -5%. But he had a little growth spurt and he's now up to the 3% line. Way to go, Adam! (I think it may have something to do with the fact that they don't have to take their clothes off to weigh them at this age) His height is around the 25% line. He's a little guy, but very healthy! Although the doctor noticed that he has an ear infection in his left ear! Weird! He's the first of my kids to even have an ear infection (that we know of). But since he really isn't showing any symptoms and doesn't seem to be in any pain we aren't going to treat it, it will probably just go away on it's own. If not, we can go back in to get it treated. He did have to get one shot today, but he didn't cry at all. I think he was still angry about the fluoride treatment on his teeth so he didn't care about the shot.

Well, that will conclude the birthdays from our family for quite a few months. We have had three in the last 6 weeks! Now it's on to Christmas! I can't wait!

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to Joel! He is 26 today! He is sleeping right now because he worked last night and works tonight. Hopefully we can squeeze some fun in there sometime. The kids enjoyed watching him open his presents this morning, and I'm sure we'll all have fun eating the cherry cheesecake tonight! Joel, I love you! I am so glad that you are my husband!

Happy Birthday!

Whirlwind Week

We've had a bit of a crazy week/weekend. Last Monday we got on e-mail from the University of Utah offering Joel an interview on the 13-14. He said yes, and we quickly planned a trip to Utah! I've got a sister that lives in Orem that we stayed with. We always love visiting Adrienne, and we are only sad that we don't see her more often!

We left Laramie Wednesday after the kids were done with school. On Thursday we went up to Salt Lake to make sure we knew where Joel needed to go the next day. While we were up there we went to Temple Square.

Here's Will, Adrienne, and Jenna in the tabernacle...

(Please don't comment on my lovely hair, it was very windy!)

On Friday Joel headed to Salt Lake and Adrienne had to work. I took the kids to a park nearby so they could run off some energy! They needed it! Adrienne and I were able to head to the mall when she got home from work. I found a store that I need to visit online because they had a lot of cute stuff! On Friday night we tried to go to Texas Roadhouse because Adrienne's never been there, but there was an hour and a half wait! No thank you! Not with three kids! So we ended up going somewhere called Paradise Bakery (I think) and had sandwiches and soup. It was really delicious.

Saturday started out much the same as Friday. Joel went to Salt Lake and Adrienne had to work. Shortly after Joel got home we went to Texas Roadhouse, figuring that if we went around 4 it wouldn't be too busy. Silly us, we should have known better. Luckily we only had about a 15-20 minute wait, but we got there just in the nick of time. I couldn't believe how busy it was! But is was of course wondering food, so it was worth it.

Saturday evening we just hung out. Here are some pics we snapped that night...

Joel was "flying" the kids"

Adam thought it was hilarious to sit on Joel's chest/neck and bounce up and down. Joel had all of the kids bouncing on him at one point, and I don't know how he didn't lose his delicious dinner! We got a good ab workout that night with all the laughing!

You may be wondering how Joel's interview went. Well, we don't know yet. :) He said that he felt like it went well. They interviewed around 100 people (out of about 950 applicants) and they accept 40 people into the program. If he does get accepted it will be a major honor; if he doesn't, it will be disappointing but we know how incredibly qualified all the other applicants were. We will probably have to wait a week or so to find out. They said we should know by Thanksgiving.

We came home Sunday and prayed that the roads wouldn't be too bad. Thankfully they really weren't bad at all so we made it home safely and without incident. It's always good to be home, but we miss Adrienne! We wish we could just pack her up and bring her home with us, but she always claims that she needs to stay there to work and make money and all that crazy stuff. :)

I'll keep you all posted on how things turn out!

School Pictures

William, Preschool, age 4 (in picture) I love that it shows his goofy smile. I promise he doesn't smile like that all the time. ;)

Jenna, 2nd Grade, age 7