Saturday, February 24, 2007

Woo-hoo

We pick up the pictures from Costco on Monday!

Yay!

So we'll be mailing them out to y'all soon!

Thursday, February 22, 2007

Time to pick your pics!


So let me know which one you'd like and I'll get them ordered! These are cropped to an 8x10 size so the cropping may be different depending on what size you'd like.

These are Ashlyn's 4 y.o. pictures - sorry they are so late! I just Photoshopped them a bit so I could have them stored digitally and fixed up. I'm just printing them at Target so don't feel like you can't be greedy and get a few pictures - they're nice and cheap!

Saturday, February 17, 2007

Nathan is a cutie!

Here's some of his latest cutie patootie antics...

Whenever you tell him that he is such a (insert anything here - like big boy, cutie, monster...)
He says "No, me not (whatever you said), me just a little cowboy".
He has been so into the cowboy thing! He and Ashlyn both have straw cowboy hats and stickhorses that they ride around most of the day.

I have contemplating starting potty training with him - totally going back and forth. We were at Target in the baby section getting him some white T-shirts to wear under his shirts. (BTW - I had no idea how essential these are! There has just seemed to be something missing in his wardrobe and I have discovered that basic white Ts are it! There is just something about that little triangle of white in a button-down shirt!) Right next to the Ts were little boys' briefs (and boxers, curiously). They had lots of characters, including his two absolute favorites - Thomas the Tank Engine and Spiderman. I asked him, "Nathan would you like to wear big boy pants and start going potty on the toilet?"
He replied, "No."
I said, "You don't want to wear Thomas underwear like the big kids do?"
"No."
"What about Spiderman? You love Spidey! Do you want to wear those?"
"No."
"They have Elmo from Sesame Street. Don't you want to have cool underwear and be my big boy?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"Me no want Thomas. We want Sleeping Beauty."

Oh my!

I hadn't noticed that right next to the boy pants were the girl panties. They had a package of Disney Princess panties with Ariel, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, etc. Since he has a sister he knows all about princesses and we have recently borrowed Sleeping Beauty from some friends. Hmmm. Well, I didn't get him the panties and Rick has now vowed to keep a scrict eye on what movies his son watches. :)

Welcome to the world!

Denise and Josh just welcomed their newest little one, Kelton Bair Stephens, yesterday! We are thrilled for them! I know he's just the cutest thing - even though we haven't seen him yet! He was 6 lb. 11 oz. and 19.5" long. Nice job Denise!

He arrived via C-section (Denise said she was able to see him come out!) at 38.5 weeks to ensure that Denise didn't go into labor and end up with a ruptured uterus. Their fears turned out to be warranted as they discovered that her uterus wasn't in great shape when they got in there. They needed to tie her tubes so as not to risk another pregnancy.

When I listened to the message from Denise on our answering machine I was so excited to hear that Kelton had been born and everyone was fine. I have to admit though, that I was so sad to hear about her additional surgery. It's one thing to decide that you are done having kids but another thing entirely to have someone else decide for you. There isn't that closure that comes from prayer and a long and personal decision-making process. This must be a bittersweet time for them and our prayers and well wishes are with them.

We love their family so much and are very excited to have a new nephew/cousin! Denise is a terriffic mommy and these three are blessed to have her! I hope she has a speedy recovery and lots of sleep!


(P.S. - whoever gets the first pic please forward it on over!)

Friday, February 16, 2007

Guess what this is?





If you guessed that it's our Valentine's day surprise for Rick then you are correct!

What you see before you is the humble beginning to a lovely fruit pizza.....

gone terribly wrong!!!!!!

I made the dough for an activity with the Laurels (the 16-18 year-old girls that I work with at church) in which we made dinner for the missionaries in our combined wards - 6 missionaries in all! I thought that I would try a new recipe (why do I always do that instead of going with one I KNOW will work!??!!) that I found on a fun blog I read. The recipe is from the Lion House cookbook and the cookies that turned out were great - one out of the three batches burnt. I took the leftover dough and tried again at home and the results were not good! Man, that dough is touchy! There is a fine line between done and burnt to a crisp! My whole kitchen smelled nasty!

So we are trying again with one of my free Sugar Cookie pouch mixes from the last Albertson's sale tomorrow. We'll be having our Valentine's dinner this Saturday as we've been busy and apart all week. Hope your treats turned out better than mine!

HAPPY VALENTINE'S!!!!!

The finger



So you have all most likely heard about "the finger". Nathan's that is. So here is a picture of the injury - thanks for all your concern!

Here's the latest: It is indeed a "spiral" fracture - caused, as the name suggests, but a tortion injury. The surgeon we visited on Wednesday said that had he been the one to see Nathan on Saturday that he would have casted the arm but if Nathan seemed to be doing ok that it was up to us if we wanted a cast or splint. We chose to leave it in a splint so he could play more easily and bathe. :) That was a biggie! It is still swollen, but he plays well with it until it gets bonked. Poor little guy! Today he fell and bent the splint making me have second thoughts about the cast! But Rick's blessings have been so reassuring and I know that we have been guided to make the right choice and that he will heal up perfectly. I'm just excited for this to be a distant memory!

We are going back for an x-ray the day after Mom and Jami's birthday (that's to test all of you - do you remember?) to see how it's healed. It takes about four weeks so we should know how it's all going by then.

We will also follow up in 6 months and then we should be good!

Alas, he is a little young to be a casualty of church ball don't you think? Hopefully it's uphill from here!

Monday, February 12, 2007

Fun times at the museum!

The museum of History and Science had a free day recently and so Shelly and I took the kiddos to have a bit of fun! Here they are playing in the Kid's Discovery Zone. This part of the museum is just for the little ones! They have puzzles, bubbles, an archaeology pit (where they brush off rubber shreds to "discover" dino bones), karaoke stage, puppet theater, and the list goes on! This particular pic is the pit wher the dinosaurs kept their babies for safekeeping. A babysitter would be assigned to tend the eggs.



The kids saw this display on the wall showing African dancers and needed to boogie!


A mummy!


More birthday pics...

From G&G Bair - a real Thomas train!!!

Ironing his new Spiderman pants on his new present (complete cleaning set: ironing board with iron, mop, brush and dustpan, feather duster, broom - on clearance for less than $5 at Costco.) You wouldn't believe how much my kids love to clean! Anything long becomes a vaccuum in Nathan's hands. I did clear this with Rick before giving it to Nathan!


We also bought him a train set. Just a small one - but his other love in life (besides Spiderman) is Thomas the Train. Since we aren't about to spend a few hundred on Thomas sets, this is the substitute. He and Ashlyn both LOVE to play with it!

Happy Birthday!!!

Again, sorry this is so late! Here is our Christmas baby finally getting his birthday party! Since he is in LOVE with Spiderman we went with a Spidey theme for the cake. It's not elaborate, but when you're snow-bound you make do! And I have to say he loved it!
"I'm this many!" Nathan thinks holding up two fingers is awfully tricky!




Here is his Grandpa Craven present. Sam (brother of Ashlyn's buddy Olivia) later showed Nathan that you can put your feet on the seat to stand up and ride!


From Oma

From Aunt Holly

From Ur Oma (Oma Ursula) Lots of Spiderman!


Playing the Nathan instrument


Daddies are fun! Washing Nathan's mouth off in the sink led to the discovery a new instrument... the Nathan!
Just a little twist on the ever popular "bababababa" noise when you put your hand over a kid's mouth while they say "aaaahhhhh". :) All you do is add some rockin' guitar moves (dips, twirls, whatever thrills ya)!

Holiday program

Due to our lovely weather Ashlyn's preschool program was pushed back until after the Christmas break. Here she is posing with our lovely Miss Patti after her show - it was fabulous!

Merry Christmas

Allrighty! So this is the Christmas photo card I made. I kept feeling like it would be pointless to send it, since it was so late, and then thinking that you might want it anyway. So I compromised and didn't shell out for Christmas photos in February, but I didn't banish it in my "trash" folder either. So here you go - Merry Christmas from all of us!

(The thank-yous are still coming though - common courtesy dictates that I at the very least send you those!)

Remodel - sorry it's been so long!

Hey everyone!

I just hooked up the camera and downloaded 131 pics - so if you're ready for another marathon of posts to catch up on our life, I'm ready to deliver!



The first set many of you have heard about - the upstairs bathroom. I was hoping to keep the upstairs "nice" while we tore apart the downstairs, but apparently we have to demolish the upstairs bathroom before we can continue downstairs. :) I think that it's Rick's private little experiment to see how much dirt and drywall dust I can take before I go crazy. Or maybe he's trying something new this time with holes in the floor since I withstood the holes in the ceiling. :)

So here is what you're seeing - this is the upstairs bath (as I'm sure you guessed). Rick moved the toilet over to the left and took out the soffit that used to be to the left of the sink. This used to be the vertical vent for the old furnace. Since Rick and the lovely and talented Mike Diehl installed and vented the new furnace horizontally we can now reclaim this space for our bathroom. Now you'll have to go to Rick for the final plan, but my understanding is that we are replacing the vanity with a smaller one, thereby making room for the toilet which was moved to make room for the jetted Jacuzzi tub.

End result: two holes in my bathroom floor that look down to the basement and lots of sawdust. But most importantly I'm one step closer to being able to have a good long bath! That will be LOVELY!
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