Such a slacker

Well, Christmas has come and gone and I am such a slacker that I completely forgot to take pictures. We've had a fun year and did a lot of activities, so here is the basic rundown:

• Temple lights, trains, visiting Grandma and Aunt Carol, and dinner with the Seavey family. Lot of fun, but Tyson wanted to go home to play with his train, so we ended doing the mad rush through everything else. Still fun though. :)
• Looking at the lights of the neighborhood. Probably our last year of this activity since none of the kids showed any interest and were most definitely not impressed...the bums.
• Loop of Lights (ok, the kids WERE impressed with this house).
• Christmas Eve dinner with the missionaries and our friends, the Colemans. Super good Mexican food with homemade Pico and salsa...mild for the wimps (like me and the missionary from Michigan) and hot for those with a death wish (like Kevin and Troy).
• Christmas morning mayhem...the kids woke Tyson up at 7 and he most definitely did not want to wake up. We finally got him up, opened presents, endured his crankiness for about 2 minutes and then took him back upstairs at 8 for a lovely 3 1/2 hour nap. After that, he was ready to play and we had a lot of fun.

That's about it for us. We are still recovering from a long day with unlimited soda for the kids (yikes!) along with Christmas candy...when they come back down from their sugar high, it's going to be interesting. :)

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas too!

Whew!

Finally....I blogged, I added pictures, I am caught up. Let's just hope I can keep it up. Enjoy!

A little bit of this, a little bit of that...

Annie had to do a 3-D project and report on the Milky Way galaxy. It turned out really cute and she got an "A". (yay!)
The boys chillin' at Annie's Christmas concert...I don't know which is funnier, Troy and Taylor's faces, or Tyson mugging for the camera. :)

Too much time on our hands??? Oh the fun of winter break. :)

Sittin' with Santa. Annie and Taylor got to see Santa this year, but Tyson slept through the whole thing. It worked out though...he doesn't really like Santa up close and personal yet.

Taylor didn't want to see Santa this year, but we talked him into it...he looks thrilled doesn't he?

One more post and I am caught up! Whew!

Baptism Day

What a special day. Taylor was baptized by Troy and confirmed a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints by his daddy.

I love this picture...which is a good thing, because I totally spaced pictures that day and this is the only one I got. :)
Congrats Taylor...we love you! :)

Happy Birthday Taylor!

I can't believe Taylor turned 8 this year. It seems as though I just had him. :)

Per tradition, we let him have a friend party and his baptism party. Of course, a Star Wars party was the request for his friends, so we googled to our heart's content and came up with a cake idea, a pinata idea, and some fun jedi games.

Here is Taylor with his R2-D2 cake. It wasn't as hard as it looks to make...just took some time and a lot of frosting. Since we were hosting 2 parties, I made one body and 2 identical heads. The friends ate one head, then R2 went into the freezer to wait for the next party. I must say, it's one of the best ideas I've ever had. :)
R2 in all of his glory:

We made Death Star pinatas (one for each party) and boy were they heavy. Thank goodness for day after halloween candy sales. :)

Captain Rex (J.T.), Darth Maul (Taylor), and Darth Vader (Annie), all dressed up and ready for the party.

Blowing out the candles on the cake. These kids had a lot of fun (and boy can they eat a lot of pizza!)

Happy Birthday Taylor...you are a very special boy and we love you!

Halloween 2010

So, I totally forgot to take pictures of Halloween and stuff. Luckily, we had a piano recital the next day that was a dress up, so while we didn't get a picture of Troy, here are the other kids.

Army man Taylor:
Blue Bee Annie:

Buzz Lightyear Tyson:

As always, they got tons of candy and had a lot of fun. :)

The adventures of Tyson and the Gubs

Tyson was outside playing one day when he suddenly started crying and telling Kevin that the gubs (bugs) were getting him. Kevin brought him in and we noticed several welts, so we put some cortizone cream on them and had Tyson stay inside.

The next morning, Tyson came downstairs and started to play. As he was running around, I noticed that his foot had quickly swelled up and was turning a red/purple color. We felt it and it was very hot to the touch, so Kevin called in to take the day off and took Tyson to urgent care. Diagnosis: Cellulitis of the foot. Strong anti-biotics and several days of rest were prescribed.

Here is a picture of his foot after 24 hour of antibiotics...it was twice this size before.
And comparing with the other leg..you can really see the difference.

Since Tyson was supposed to rest and keep his leg elevated, Kevin was given a note to stay home from work and this is how he spent his week:

Jealous? Me too. They watched movies, they played video games and they napped. But, it worked and the swelling got less and less each day.

There were times when Tyson just didn't want to sit. What 3 year old does? In fact, when the doctor gave us the instructions, I was a little put out that he didn't give us some sort of meds to help...but what do you do?

This is Tyson finally bored. He decided to bury daddy in blankets and pillows, which was funny for us to watch and very hot for daddy. :)

It took about 2 weeks for Tyson's foot to return to normal. He got some cool Buzz Lightyear slippers to wear since we couldn't get his shoes on and he got to play with daddy for a week. For us, this was pretty scary...for him, the experience of a lifetime. :)

Visiting

Conference weekend we decided to get out of the heat, away from the stress, and get the heck out of town. The place of choice? My grandmother's home in Show Low. The kids were so excited for a road trip and it was a lot of fun.

Our first stop was in Pinedale to pay our respects for Kevin's folks. His dad has been gone for 13 years now, and his mom for 5. The cemetary is small, but beautiful and rustic, and so completely peaceful.
The kids putting flowers on the graves. They don't remember Grandpa (Troy was only 3 when he died), but Mema was a special woman in their lives.

Eatin' with Grandma-Great. My grandmother, bless her heart, is old school. She believes in 3 hot meals a day and does her best to keep us entertained, fed, and happy. We really enjoyed our time with her, though it was too short. Tyson loved it there so much that he actually let her hug him and told her goodbye, calling her gwandmum. So cute. :)

Of course, when it comes to our family, no roadtrip is complete without several stops for puking, or "cukin" as Tyson refers to it. Here is our stop in the canyon, and yes, Tyson is in his undies...we got tired of changing his clothes and decided to let him go like this. Saved us some laundry.

And, no roadtrip through Globe is complete without a stop at our favorite restaurant...La Casita Downtown. The #5 was calling my name all day and to finally get a taste...heaven!

It was fun to get away, but it's more fun to come home. One of these days though, we are going to do it right and actually get out of town for more than 22 hours. :)