Family fun in Estes Park (Christmas)

My entire family met up in Estes Park, CO a couple of days before Christmas and a great time. We stayed in a few condos and got to hang out and enjoy the snow and each others company. Here is my cute niece, Cody and my cute sister, Lissa.

My baby seems to always be asleep and not as happy with people other than me so we have lots of cute pictures of Cody with aunts and uncles. Uncle Brett with baby Cody Uncle Eric(Lissa's husband) with baby Cody We went up to Rocky Mountain National Park and went sledding, it was a blast, the kids had a lot of fun, so did the adults:) This is me going down, this is pretty good for me, I hate to be cold, so I don't do this very often.

My cute mom and aunt Karen

Me and James, yippee!!

I had to drag my foot so that we didn't go too fast and run into people.

James and Evelyn building something in the snow

My Brother Jared and his cute family -- all girls

Aunt Lissa and James

Uncle Jared with Evelyn and Ruby and Uncle Blake(Ches's husband) with Cody

Mikey is flying down the hill

Here comes Shawn

This was too much fun, too bad we are missing Jake in this pile up.

Me and my husband--12 years and counting!

My whole family, it is so much fun to be older and have such great relationships with all my siblings and parents, what a blessing:)

Our beautiful family

Me and my crazy siblings, I love them all so much!!

My kids are getting older

Well little Lucas is 8 months old and so darn adorable. (I will have pictures up next week when we have our new computer) He is growing developmentally so well, but he is still such a little guy. I had him weighed a couple weeks ago and he is only 15 lbs, he is only in the 3rd percentile for weight. I guess it is nice to still have him so tiny though, it is fun to hold him and snuggle with him everyday. When they get big they don't want to do that anymore and I hate that. He is crawling everywhere, up the stairs and all over the house. His favorite thing is to go up the stairs, but I have been blocking it off and he hates it, he just trys and trys to go up and starts whining when he can't figure it out. He pulls up on everything, he hasn't been taking steps yet, so I don't see walking in the near future, but that is just fine by me, it will come soon enough.

James is growing up so fast, he is in a pre-preschool right now for an hour 3 days a week. I think he likes it. He has some days where he reluctant to go and last week he tried to escape, but the teachers are great and he has started talking about his friends more, which is great because he has a hard time making friends that are his own age, he would much rather play with adults. He is constantly asking me or whomever is near him if they will play with him. He says " Just for a minute" which is kind of sad, because that is what I say all the time when he asks because I have a million things to do or Lucas needs to eat or whatever. So I have been trying to make time just for him when Lucas goes down for his nap that we play something, and for longer that a minute:)

Michael is getting older and doing well in school. He got a guitar for Christmas, and he started guitar lessons this week. He said he liked his teacher and is excited to practice. I hope it lasts, he will be great if he sticks to it. He is also a big help with the younger two, he plays with James and and hold Lucas when I need to work on dinner or get something done. It doesn't always last that long, but at least he is usually willing to help, and I really appreciate that.

Shawn is almost 12 and that blows my mind. I guess not almost- not til October, but still it is this year and I can't believe it. He is doing great in school and of course is very into soccer. We have been doing indoor soccer and soccer training and now he is starting Futsal (another indoor soccer thing), and he starts his outdoor soccer practice for Arsenal today. I can't believe how much soccer is in my life. He is also a good helper when it comes to helping with the younger 2 boys. Him and Michael aren't too keen on helping me with chores a lot of the time, but hopefully we can work on that this year.

Well I guess that is the happenings right now for our family. I guess I can mention that Chris is playing the guitar all the time and loves it and continues to buy new guitars. He is getting pretty good for self teaching, he uses his phone to help him learn and it works pretty well. I am not doing a whole lot beside trying to keep up with 4 kids-boys! It is a lot of work and I am having a hard time adjusting to it, I always feel like I am behind and doing something wrong. I hope that I can figure it out and try to get some sort of balance soon. I love my family very much and an so blessed to have such wonderful, healthy boys.

Can't wait to get to put pictures up when we have a new computer next week.

12 years and counting!

Well today was our 12 year anniversary. It wasn't what we had initially planned, but it was nice. It turned out to be a family day. Mike got strep so we couldn't have a babysitter. So we went to the doctor this morning for him. And he started his medicine, he started feeling a bit better so Chris and the older three boys went to cut down our Christmas Tree up in the mountains. They had a good time while I got a bit of shopping done. Then Chris got some amazing steaks for dinner and cooked those with baked potato and salad and I was in heaven, who needs a restaurant when you have Chris around, he is such an amazing cook, I love to eat whatever he makes, but these steaks melted in your mouth. Yummy!! It was nice to have the whole family around and do the things hat needed to get done and enjoy a great dinner together, it turned out great and I am so happy to have been with Chris for all these years and am looking forward to eternity more. I love you honey!!

Lucas is almost 7 months old

I can not believe where the time goes, here it is and he is more than half a year old and that makes me sad. He is growing so fast. And not growing, I think he knows that he is my last because he is so tiny and I love that he is staying tiny for me. His 6 month visit he was in the 13th% in weight for his age, he is pretty long though, he is in 49th% in height. I started him on cereal after his 6 month visit and I hope that will fatten him up a bit.

He is such a cling on, I love him to death, but I can never put him down, he loves to be held and he loves to be held by me. It can get pretty frustrating, but I guess again he knows he is my last and he is making me get every little drop I can of having a baby.

He is moving everywhere now. He can't crawl yet but he can scoot and turn and push himself backwards very well. He gets all around a room if he will let me put him down for a few minutes, but usually that doesn't last long and he starts whining for me to grab him, that is usually when he gets around the most because he is looking for me, or trying to get to me. Oh how I feel the love:)

He is adorable and I love him so much, what a blessing to have him in our lives. I love his super cute dimples, and his smile makes me melt every time.

James and his "L"'s

I just have to write about it because it is so darn cute and I don't want to forget about it. James is talking really well and he has been for quite sometime but there is just the cutest thing that he does with his "L"'s when he talks, he pronounces them with a "W".

So Lucas is 'Wucas', and Little is 'Wittle'. I am sure that there are more and if I think of them I will add them, but I think those two words are so precious when he says them. Eventually I will have to correct him, but not right now. He says those all day long so I hear them a lot and I love it. I need to record him talking. He is a great little talker and so bright, and is getting to be polite again. He used to be so polite and then he listened to his brothers all Summer and got off of that, but I am trying to work with him again and he is getting it. Like my mom taught him to say 'excuse me' when he needs to interrupt people talking, so now he says it all the time and it is pretty cute even though he says it over and over. It will get better if I keep at it. I need to write more things like this so I don't forget things that are so cute as they grow up.

Halloween a litte late.

Happy Halloween, OK I know it is December, but I did finally get this done. I am so sick of my computer it takes 15 minutes just to get 4 pictures put on here so I just don't have the patience to sit down and do this very often, but I will try to put less pictures and more updates. Thanks for checking us out:) Lucas' first Halloween, we went downtown for the Tot parade. James was a very cute green frog and Lucas is a cute yellow duck. Here we are at Chris' work, he works in Downtown Fort Collins, had to show them off to daddy's friends/co-workers.
Here James is with a couple of his friends, Brinley and Noah. They walked around downtown gettin' some candy. And now they are eating it.

Cute Lucas in the stroller, he did so good all day at all the different events that we had to go to.

They are such adorable boys, even though I don't think that Mike would appreciate being called adorable but they are. Here we are at the school at their little parade through the school and then they have their class parties.

Then we went to Grandma Jo's and Grandpa Alan's ward party at church, and this is what my boys woke up to. They took it pretty well. Do you think Lucas looks a little frightened?

Cutest frog I have ever seen. They were up on the stage dancing and he jumped for us as well.

The boys that would dress up, Shawn is a bit too cool for dressing up these days, he doesn't even care about the candy, isn't that sad, he is getting to grown up for me.

He is a pretty handsome devil though:)

Passing out candy at the Trunk-or-Treat

Saturday we finally got around to carving the pumpkins and that was fun, I think the kids are growing out of that one as well, they just don't like holidays unless they are getting sweets or presents, what are we to do?

James was doing a little bit, he really loves knives so he is cutting off the gunky stuff ( with his very plastic knife)

Grandma Becky grew these pumpkins in her backyard, and this one was huge and had a ton of gunk inside, but we got it all out (very reluctantly I might add, but we finally got them to stick their hands in it and and just scoop it out with their fingers)

Scooping it all out.

Shawn won't dress up, but he had a presentation at school where he had to dress up as Huck Finn, and this is the costume that my mom and I came up with, I had him put it on for a picture, but it came off very quickly, he hates pictures too.

Ready to get a little bit more candy around the neighborhood.

Michael- the Ring Wraith (from Lord of the Rings)

I am not sure what this is but it was a very cute picture. He had on the witches hat and the Ring Wraith gloves, this kid cracks me up!

Lucas and daddy

Lucas and I in our Halloween attire.

After a long day, the little duckling went to sleep with Grandma Becky.

My oldest is 11?!

Shawn is Eleven!! October 23.Early morning on Shawn's birthday, the boys were watching TV on the couch and they all had orange shirts on (and not on purpose). I thought that was a good picture moment.
We gave Shawn his gifts that morning,while he got all the other gifts that night at his party. I gave him a book, because he loves to read and he is such a great reader- I guess he takes after me in that way.

Chris got him a Barcelona soccer jersey, since he loves them so much, I guess he takes after his dad in that way.

Shawn had a soccer game on his birthday, so of course we all had to go to that. It was a bit windy and cold, but we all got through it. Grandma Becky was there, and Grandma Jo and Grandpa Alan came at half time. It is nice that we live close so they are able to support the boys in their activities.

Grandma Jo made his cake, she used fondant this time. He wanted the Barcelona sign, and she did a great job, Shawn really liked it.

Here his brothers are helping him with the candles.

Cheesy grin, he doesn't like pictures so much.

This is what he likes to do in pictures, so I thought I would join him.

But then he did a smiley one too- thanks Shawn.

He got some Under Armor shirts from G Alan and G Jo, and they got him a cool Bronco sled for when it snows around here.

G Becky got him some really nice hair care products- he is growing up:( And an itunes card. I think it was a pretty nice birthday.

We also got him tickets to a Colorado Rapids game, he went Chris- dad, Uncle Nick and his friend Chandler and his dad, Derek.