The Walkers

Visitors and a Renovation

2012-01-18T20:04:00.000-08:00

This last week my parents came out to visit. So of course I had to come up with a project for them to help me with - the fireplace. But to really appreciate the results, you have to see what we were working with. I never took a picture but when we moved in the house the family room walls were wood paneling. Taking it down required ripping the walls down all the way to the studs. Here's Robby and his brother Jake (yup, that's him with the curly red afro and Mom Squad t-shirt) tearing out the walls.

So we put up new walls and refinished the hardwood floors and had this:

Still not pretty by any means but at the time it was a huge improvement. Isn't the blue gas insert lovely? When my parents came to visit a couple of years ago, we decided we could at least fix up the insert with a little black heatproof paint. Here's the improvement:

Better, but still pretty ugly. (I couldn't find another picture and realized I needed to take one right when I started tearing out the hearth last week.) I got the idea to totally renovate the whole fireplace off of Pinterest, of course. It seemed easy enough (haha...right) but I wanted to add some extras so the week before my parents came I tore out the hearth and had a guy come and put some slate in. I considered doing it myself but chickened out after realizing that in our 50-year old house nothing is level or square.

Then my parents came and we really got to work. Luckily, I got a compound miter saw and belt sander for Christmas last year so all we needed to buy as far as tools was a jigsaw (which is awesome). My dad did an awesome job drawing out and planning the whole project. Robby, my mom and I took turns helping him and watching kids. It took pretty much a whole week to complete and was a lot of work. Here's the final result.

It looks SO good. After making the fireplace looks so nice we decided we should finally mount the TV on the wall to make it all look nice. All I have left to do is cover up the cords coming down from the TV. My dad and brother were geniuses and made it so the mantel has channels in it to hide the rest of the cords. You can still see them right now because I have to get some longer cords but we're almost there.

In all, it was tons of work and would have been a fair amount of money, but I was able to sell our gas insert on Craiglist and come close to breaking even. Thanks Mom and Dad for coming out and letting us put you to work! We promise next time you come we'll let you relax a little bit...probably.

Now all I have to do is somehow convince my husband to get rid of the awful teal couch. I think the only way that's going to happen is if I destroy it. I'm getting desperate. It think I might start leaving scissors lying around in hopes that someone will cut up the leather.

Other Stuff

2011-12-16T09:02:00.000-08:00

Here's some other pictures that we've taken over the last couple of months.

Emmett showing off his new shoes.

The boys taking a skip on the Scuttle Bug.

Owen and Jack and their Trio tower.

The boys and our neighbor Margaret.

Jack's Christmas Program

2011-12-16T09:01:00.000-08:00

The preschool that Jack and Owen have both gone to does a really cute Christmas program. However, I've never had a kid that would participate! My kids are not fans of performing. Luckily, I was able to bribe Jack this year (with our go-to bribe, a Hot Wheel) and he actually dressed up and sang with the other kids! I was most surprised that he put on the shepherd costume, most of it anyway (not the head covering).

Here's the video of him singing: http://youtu.be/HRcR1MrRgmk

Decorating the Christmas Tree

2011-12-16T08:27:00.000-08:00

After a lot of begging, we finally took the boys to get a Christmas tree. We were putting it off this year since last year our tree was so brown by Christmas that we had to get another one. So we stalled as long as we could. Luckily, we have a store nearby that sells Christmas trees for $9.98. What a deal, right? Of course, they're not the prettiest trees. I'm pretty sure they're the leftover trees that the others sellers didn't take. But you can't beat the price, so it works for us.

Even Emmett got in on the decorating. He would proudly put an ornament on the tree and then promptly take it off. Needless to say, our tree is now only decorated on the top half and the presents won't be put under it until Christmas Eve.

Soccer and School Pictures

2011-12-16T08:22:00.000-08:00

Owen got to play soccer again this year on team Daredevil with Robby as his coach. The first half of the season started out a little rough but the team ended up doing awesome. Owen scored lots of goals and is already counting down until next season. Jack is also counting down until next season when he'll finally get to play!

Here's Owen's first grade school picture:

Halloween

2011-12-16T08:16:00.001-08:00

The kids decided they wanted to be Phineas, Ferb, and Perry the Platypus this year. It took me a while to figure out how I was going to do it but their costumes turned out awesome. Unfortunately, I never got a really good picture. The day we took their picture, Jack had been wearing his costume all day and his red hair dye was all over his shirt. And Emmett wouldn't hold still for a picture (shocking!). So this is the best we got:

Happy Birthday Emmett!

2011-12-16T08:05:00.001-08:00

We celebrated Emmett's birthday with his cousin Isaac. Their birthdays are just a couple of weeks apart so we decided to have one big party for the both of them. I've learned my lesson though and won't do a kid's birthday at the same time as a BYU football game though. It ended up being the kids and moms celebrating while all the dads watched the game.

Tri for Fun

2011-09-13T21:16:00.000-07:00

At the beginning of August, Robby and his brother, Sawyer, did a triathlon called the Tri for Fun. It was a 1/2 mile swim, 16 mile bike, and a 3 mile run.

Robby finishing up the bike.

Robby starting the run.

Robby at the finish line.

Sawyer finishing the bike. Love the no shirt look.

Sawyer starting the run.

Issac and Emmett watching the race. Isaac is two weeks older than Emmett but twice the size!

Jack watching the race.

Owen and Grandpa watching.

Isaac taking a break with Grandpa.

Emmett and I at the finish line.

Happy 4th Birthday Jack!

2011-09-13T21:00:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it but Jack is 4! We celebrated on Labor Day (a day early) since everyone was already at Grandma and Grandpa's. Here some pictures from the day.

Jack insisted on having a pinata for some reason. Here he is taking a swing with a bat.

After several rounds with the plastic bat Robby and Dave decided a golf club would be more effective.

Breaking it open!

The kids (and Jake) grabbing the candy.

Emmett wasn't quite old enough to participate in the pinata this year so he had to watch with Grandpa.

Everyone hanging out at the party.

Jack opening presents. He's holding his Monkey Webkinz Jr., which he named George. Although poor George seems to have different name on a daily basis. Jack also got a scooter, some Trios, an airplane, a recorder (yup, the instrument, he's been wanting one forever for some reason) and a shirt.

Jack and Owen being silly with Grandma.

Blowing out the candles on the race cars.

This is Meeshka. Jake and Shelby added her to their family the weekend of Jack's birthday. Needless to say the kids LOVE her, sometime a little too much.

Messy Emmett

2011-09-13T20:57:00.000-07:00

Emmett is a messy baby! He needs a bath and new clothes almost every time he eats. His favorite food lately is peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and he makes a mess.

He gets extra messy because between bites he sucks on his left thumb and twirls his hair with his right hand.

First Day of School 2011

2011-09-13T20:32:00.000-07:00

This year Jack is going to preschool 3 days a week and Owen started 1st grade. It's crazy! I can't believe I have a kid that goes to school all day. (And three mornings a week it is just Emmett and I. Awesome!) They both love going to school. Although Owen comes home exhausted every day. And when I ask him what he did at school all I get is a report of what he did at recess. Jack at least tells me what letter he learned about.

Owen's first day of 1st grade.

Jack's first day of 4-year old preschool.

Owen's first day, Jack's second day.

Sprint Triathlon

2011-09-13T20:08:00.000-07:00

After Robby and his brother did a triathlon a couple of months ago, my sister-in-law Maddie decided we needed to do one too. Since we weren't ready to commit to anything serious, we decided to do a sprint triathlon. Our other sister-in-law Shelby got on board too. (We are married to the 3 Walker brothers.) It was 400 yard swim (about 1/4 mile), 8 mile bike, and 2 mile run. I trained for all of 2 weeks!

I didn't do in any sort of record time but I did finish in 1 hour, 3 minutes. (Maddie beat me by about 2 minutes and I beat Shelby by about 2 minutes.) It was one of those things where I asked myself the whole run, "Why the heck did I do this?!" But after it was over it was awesome and I'd love to keep training and maybe try something a little bigger.

Of course, the husbands raced as well just to show us they could kick our butts. Big surprise! Once again, Robby beat Sawyer. Don't worry Sawyer, Robby is starting get old, you'll beat him soon.

Here are some lovely pictures from the event.

Maddie, Shelby and I getting ready to start. Maddie and Shelby are in the black tops. I'm next to them but you can't really see me.

Maddie coming out of the water.

Maddie starting her run.

Sawyer coming out of the water.

Me starting the run.

Robby finishing up the run with the boys encouragement.

Haha! Shelby's arm. For some reason she missed being photographed. But I'm pretty sure Robby's mom has more picture so I'll have to add some.

Ocean Isle Beack 2011

2011-07-08T22:11:00.000-07:00

We recently got back from our annual trip to my parent's beach house on Ocean Isle Beach, NC and as usual it was amazing. This year it was just our family and my parents so it was unusually quiet and relaxing. Not complaining, just saying. We stayed for two weeks and had so much fun enjoying the beach and having nothing to worry about.

Here some pictures from the trip. Seriously, there are tons, but I tried to just pick my favorites.

Owen, 6 years old

Jack, 3 years old (almost 4)

Emmet, 8 months old

Cute boys

The whole family on the deck.

Owen really started swimming this trip. By the end of the trip, he was swimming underwater, diving, jumping and flipping in to the water.

Jack LOVED swimming in the pool.

The closest your getting to a picture of me in my suit at the beach!

Emmett's "scrunchy face"

Swimming in the pool. Emmett loved the water as well.

Owen catching waves in the ocean.

Last year Jack was a little unsure of the ocean, but this year he loved it and we really had to keep an eye on him or he would just keep going further and further out.

Emmett looks pretty clean here. He actually spent most of the time eating handfuls of sand and had to be hosed off repeatedly.

Thanks Mom and Dad for another great year at the beach. And next year we are going to make sure you guys get in some of the pictures!

Circus

2011-06-01T22:09:00.000-07:00

Last night we took the boys to the circus! It was a fun, small circus that set up a tent on the local fairgrounds. It was a lot of fun since we sat really close - on the front row that was maybe 20 feet from the center of the ring. The boys loved the entire thing. They even got us to let them ride an elephant. Jack screamed when Robby put him on the elephant but was fine once it got going. Six bucks a kid was probably a little pricey but hey, when are you ever gonna get to ride an elephant again?! (Plus we had some coupons that came in our ticket package.) They could've chosen to ride on a camel too but we decided one large animal ride was probably enough for the night.

Mayce, Payton and Fallyn (and two other kids) on the elephant.

Owen and Jack (and some girl) on the elephant.

Fallyn, Payton, Dave, Erin and Mayce (They left Drake at home with a sitter.)

Robby was of course taking the picture, but I swear he went with us.

The kids (minus Payton) watching the circus. (Emmett slept through about half of it.)

This was the expression Jack had on his face the entire time.

Here's what Owen looked like the entire time.

This was Owen's favorite part - when the contortionist folded himself in a box.

Jack liked watching the elephants. Although his favorite part was when the clown's pants fell down. Unfortunately (or fortunately?), we didn't get a picture of that.

The jugglers using glow-in-the dark rings and pins.

We're so glad we went. It was one of those last minute things that we just happened to see an ad for. The kids had a blast and it was a relatively inexpensive outing compared to taking them to the Barnum and Bailey Circus. And I think we enjoyed it more since we got to sit so close. (Much better than paying $35/ticket to sit in the nosebleeds of the arena and not be able to see anything.)

No Training Wheels!

2011-06-01T21:53:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday, I had Robby take one of Jack's training wheels off since it wasn't staying on very well. He started to fix it then decided to just see if Jack could ride without the training wheels. After a little convincing, Jack hopped on and without any help just started riding. By that afternoon, he rode all the way to the park. His Skuut definitely helped since he already had the balance part down.

Way to go Jack! He's so excited to go on bike rides and feel like a big kid.

April Fool's Doughnuts

2011-04-06T22:55:00.000-07:00

My mom sent the boys "doughnut seeds" for April Fool's Day. It was actually a packet of cheerios. My boys totally believed it though. We planted them in a bowl of water and when they woke up the next morning the bowl was filled with powdered doughnuts. They were amazed. Owen eventually caught on that it was a joke but I have a feeling Jack still thinks doughnuts come from seeds.

Seriously, I'm starting to realize I have no pictures of Jack these days. I swear I love him just as much as my other children. He just doesn't seem to stick around long enough for me to get pictures. (I know, I'm gearing up for all the "middle child" complaints.)

Baby Food!

2011-04-06T22:37:00.000-07:00

I've been avoiding it but finally decided it's time to start baby food. Here's some funny pics from Emmett's first try. He actually loved it. I gave him sweet potatoes and I couldn't feed it to him fast enough.

I have no idea why he has on a Kings headband. This is what happens when you have two older brothers.

So when Owen was a baby I left Robby and his dad to babysit and I came home to this:

Yup, that's a T-bone.

Apparently, my children are born loving red meat because this was Emmett on Sunday:

That's a hunk of tri-tip. He loved it. When Robby finally took it away, Emmett had a fit. And I mean crying and screaming. He was ticked!

Cousin Pictures

2011-03-20T11:26:00.000-07:00

Robby's brother, Jake, got married a couple of weeks ago so we had the whole family together for the first time in a couple of years. So we decided to get pictures taken of all nine Walker cousins. It was a little tricky with an 18 month old, a six month old and two 4 month olds. Here's the best shots from the photo shoot.

The whole gang.

Boy cousins

The babies. Drake (6 months), Emmett (4 months) and Isaac (4 months). Yup, Emmett is the runt of the bunch.

My boys

Handsome boys again. Owen is at the stage where he can't quite figure out how to smile naturally!

More Owen Bragging

2011-03-20T10:58:00.000-07:00

Sorry, one more post of bragging about Owen. That's what blogs are for though, right? I love the papers he brings home from school lately. I love seeing how much he is learning and how creative he is. We also just got his second trimester report card and once again he had perfect scores on everything. We are so proud of him!

Here's some more of his school papers.

I love how he misspelled his last name in this one!

This was his 100th Day of School project. We cut out 100 pictures of him from birth to now.

This is a bad picture but is shows his incredible handwriting. His teacher told us it is almost unheard of for a boy to have such good handwriting.

Jack and Emmett too!

2011-03-20T10:37:00.000-07:00

I really do love all my kids the same. It seems like lately I post all about Owen. He's just got lots of fun things going on right now.

Right now Jack is loving preschool and starting to really catch on to his letters and their sounds. Last week his class went on a field trip to Carl's Jr. They each got to make their own t-shirt to wear to the field trip.

Jack is also starting to try new foods. This is huge for him. Since the day he was born this kid has been extremely picky. We learned the hard way that we can't force him to try things either. He just gags and throws up. Eww! So recently he has added apples and raisins to his diet! It doesn't sound like much but it is a big step.

Emmett is seriously the best baby ever! It's not unusual for him to sleep 10-12 hours at night without waking up. I think we have the thumb-sucking to thank for this. And he is a great sport getting dragged all over town while I take Owen and Jack to all their various stuff. He is also starting to get mobile. He rolls all over the place. I'm constantly finding him stuck in a corner somewhere. Here's a video. (Sorry it is so shaky, I kept moving to get out of his way.)

Baseball

2011-03-20T10:25:00.000-07:00

This year Owen started baseball. He had no interest in T-ball so we skipped it and went straight to baseball. He is #28 on the A's. The league he is in does machine-pitch. It's a pretty fast pitch and he is working hard to get the hang of it! It's a lot harder than when Dad pitched to him.

A few months ago when it was time for baseball registration I asked Owen if he wanted to play and he said no. I kept asking him throughout the week and no matter what, he said no. I couldn't believe it. This kid likes to play any sport and we play baseball at Robby's parents' house all the time. So finally I asked him why he didn't want to play and he admitted he wasn't sure he knew how to run all the bases! Robby then did a quick lesson on baseball (diagrams and all) and Owen decided that he definitely wanted to play baseball. I don't think he realized his team would have lots of practices before an actual game.

Owen in on the bottom, second from the left. His buddy Ethan is to the left of him.

So far he loves practice and can't wait for a game. Unfortunately, it keeps raining so no games yet!

Owen's 6th Birthday

2011-03-20T09:55:00.000-07:00

Owen is 6 years old! Crazy! Since we did a friend party last year, we decided just to do a party with family this year. (Although, we realized his cousins are who he would invite to his party anyway!) We had it all planned out to just celebrate his birthday at Grandma and Grandpa's house on Sunday when we were already there. But on his actual birthday he asked if we could go bowling. Last minute, I texted Robby's siblings (this is how the Walkers communicate) and asked if anyway wanted to join us. Much to my surprise, everyone said the were coming. So I quickly whipped up a batch of cupcakes and we celebrated his birthday at the bowling alley. He told us it was the best birthday ever!

For his birthday, Owen got all his baseball gear (us, Grandma and Grandpa Walker, Maddy and Sawyer), a crayon maker (Corbridges), Lego motorcycles and a remote control Hexabug (Grandma Jane and Grandpa Jim). Needless to say, he was very spoiled!

Baseball and glove from Mom, Dad, Jack and Emmett

Baseball bat from Maddie, Sawyer and Isaac

Cupcakes and presents

Jack, Mayce, Payton, Owen and Fallyn

These guys are all really best friends. They see each other at least twice a week and every time they get so excited you'd think they hadn't seen each other in months. We are so grateful to be so close to family.

All the cool shoes! Jack told me he wanted to buy some to keep.

Happy Birthday Owen!

Just for fun

2011-02-03T21:49:00.000-08:00

Here's some pictures just for fun.

Here's a couple of papers Owen brought home from school lately. So cute! He loves to write and is really starting to read! Lately, I've been finding him reading books to Jack and Emmett. I love it!

Here's a link to a funny video the boys made with the kids. They thought they were so cool.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2PYiDkLRIs

All of sudden Emmett starting sucking his thumb. What the heck?! Unfortunately, I think it might be hereditary. Robby sucked his thumb until he was five!

All of my handsome boys!

Playing in the Snow

2011-02-03T21:34:00.000-08:00

The kids have been begging to go play in the snow. So we drove about an hour away to do some sledding. Robby's sister and her family joined us as well as his brother and his family. It was a pretty cold day but I think the kids enjoyed it. Jack especially enjoyed the snow and the cold didn't seem to faze him at all. He keeps asking when we're going to go back.

Here's the link to a video Robby made of the kids sledding.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzCERvdsrdw

This trip also gave us a chance to try out our new camera. I realized my cell phone took better pictures than our digital camera so I decided to get a "real" camera for Robby for Christmas. It's so nice to finally have pictures that aren't so dark and grainy!

Christmas and New Year's

2011-02-03T21:15:00.001-08:00

We spent Christmas here in town with Robby's family. The boys had a blast and got everything they wanted and more. (Except those skateboard ramps Owen wanted. I don't think they would fit on Santa's sleigh.) Robby swore he would not get the boys Pillow Pets but caved at the last minute. Thank goodness, because they both say it was their favorite present.

We had our annual New Year's Eve party with Robby's friends from growing up and most of his family. It was tons fun but I think we are outgrowing our house. There were 15 kids here! We continued our tradition of Chick-Fil-A nuggets and scones with honey butter. Fortunately, we had the bright idea of setting up the TV and DVD player in the boys room and the kids stayed back there most of the time. The kids definitely tested out the weight limit of the new bunk beds.

(And yes, that teal leather couch will die soon. Even if it requires me taking scissors to it!)

We had a great Christmas break but it was nice once it was all over to get back to our normal routine.

Who's Who?

2011-02-03T21:09:00.001-08:00

Just for fun. Here's all three boys coming home from the hospital in the same outfit and same car seat. Bonus points if you know who is who. But don't feel bad if you don't. Robby got them confused!

From top to bottom: Emmett, Owen and Jack

Pictures

2010-12-06T23:38:00.000-08:00

I'm just putting up so pictures to prove we're still alive. Everyone told me baby #3 is the hardest so I braced myself for it. Luckily, it hasn't been nearly as bad as I thought it would be. It's just different then when I had Owen and Jack. When they were babies I could usually find time to take a nap most days and still have a little down time. Not so with this one! I'm lucky to sit down at all during the day except to feed Emmett. I'm tired but don't have time to register that I'm exhausted! Thankfully, Emmett is a very good baby and we're are loving having him around! I'm so grateful that he finally decided to join our family this year. This same time last year I had just had a 3rd miscarriage and was starting to feel like we'd always be a family of four. What a difference a year makes!

Anyway, here's some random pictures.

Soccer star Owen

Owen scoring a goal

All 3 handsome boys. Thanks Grandma Walker for the cute church clothes!

Although Owen kicked and screamed while getting dressed he asked to wear them again after so many people at church told him he looked handsome. On the way home from church he informed me that the people who didn't tell him he looked handsome probably just didn't recognize him because he looked so good. Oh the Walker Boy ego! Its a strong gene.

Yup, baby #3 means time for minivan. I swore I'd never do it and I hate to admit it but I love it!

Another brother also means bunk beds! We're putting all three boys in one room so Owen and Jack got bunk beds. They love them!

Halloween!

Baby Emmett is here!

2010-10-06T11:57:00.000-07:00

Emmett Robert Walker

7 lbs.
19 1/4 inches long

October 3, 2010
8:28 PM

We are thrilled that Emmett is here. On Sunday morning I woke up and thought maybe I was in labor. It was three weeks before my due date though so I wasn't totally sure. With Owen and Jack I was in labor for 16-18 hours so I figured even if I was I had plenty of time.

Luckily, it was General Conference Sunday so at least we were home and no one had any meetings to go to. (Normally, Robby would have been in meetings most of the day.) We hung out all morning and I even made a batch of cupcakes to take to Robby's parents' house for dinner. Around 1:00 PM we decided to go ahead and go over to his parents' house. Just in case, we packed a hospital bag and stuff for the boys. Around 4 PM, my contractions were about 3 minutes apart and we decided we better head to the hospital.

When we got to the hospital I was already dilated to 5 cm (I had already been 3 cm the week before at my doctor appt.). Within an hour I had my epidural. (Can I just say epidurals are AMAZING!) Robby and I assumed it would be the middle of the night before I had the baby. But by 8:00 PM the doctor came in, broke my water, said I was 10 cm and told me to start pushing. I literally only pushed maybe 4 times and he was here. It was crazy. Nothing like having my other kids.

Since Emmett was three weeks early we had to stay a full 48 hours at the hospital. He wasn't considered a preemie but also not considered full term. I guess they called him "near term" or an "early bird." He had a little trouble getting his temperature to even out but once he got that figured out we were ready to go home. So far he's been a great baby and pretty much just sleeps.

Here's some pictures of the little guy.

Soccer!

2010-10-06T11:34:00.001-07:00

For years Owen has been talking about playing soccer. So this year he finally gets the chance now that he is old enough. Robby is his team's coach and their team is the Daredevils. Owen is loving it! So far his team is undefeated and Owen has already scored 7 goals this season. He's hilarious to watch though because even after he scores a goal he has no expression. He doesn't celebrate or anything. He just keeps playing. We keep telling him he can clap or cheer or something but I just don't think that is his style.

Owen by his team banner.

Getting ready to start the game.

Here's one of Owen's goals from last week. I know I didn't get the best shot of it, but it was my first time recording. See how he acts like nothing happened!

Another one of his goals.

Jack's 3rd Birthday

2010-10-06T11:21:00.000-07:00

On September 6, we celebrated Jack's 3rd birthday. His birthday happened to fall on Labor Day this year so he thought the whole day was his party since Robby was home from work and we had a big barbeque with family and friends. As far as he was concerned, it was all for him. When we asked him what he wanted for his birthday all he would tell us was a boat that floats in the water. Luckily, Grandma Jane and Grandpa Jim were on top of it and got him several bath toys that all float in the water. He also got a Webkinz Jr. puppy (which he named Alvin), some books and a new bike. (For some reason I can't find the pictures of him on his new bike!)

Jack and his shark cake.

Owen and Jack and the birthday treats.

Blowing out the candles.

Jack opening some of his presents, with his puppy Alvin.

First Day of School

2010-10-06T11:16:00.000-07:00

This year Owen and Jack both started school on August 24th. Owen started Kindergarten and Jack had his first day of preschool. They were both extremely excited. Unfortunately, it was 107° that day and it made for a hot day of driving around in the car all day. Jack has morning preschool and Owen has afternoon kindergarten so that means on Tuesdays and Thursday I practically live in my car. (And not just any car. That's right I'm now officially a minivan driving soccer mom!) It was a pain at first but now that I'm getting used to it, it's not so bad. I get a lot of reading done!

Random Baby Stuff

2010-07-14T21:36:00.000-07:00

Since I don't feel like I have much to do in order to prepare for another boy, I've been having fun spending more time making things.

I made these blankets for my sister's baby and mine. (The blue one is for our baby.)

I knitted this sweater while at the beach.

Just for fun, Robby's mom found the cross stitch she made him when he was a baby. And no, that is not a typo, he really was 11 lbs. 3 oz. when he was born.

Placer County Fair

2010-07-14T21:27:00.000-07:00

This year we decided to head to the county fair since admission was free. Of course, we then spent the money we saved and let the kids do all the rides they wanted. They had a blast and I think from now on we may skip the state fair and head to the county fair since it's much smaller.

Here's some pictures of the boys enjoying the rides.

Ocean Isle Beach 2010

2010-07-14T20:26:00.000-07:00

This year we were lucky enough to go and spend three weeks at my parent's beach house in Ocean Isle Beach, NC. Robby couldn't miss quite that much work so the boys and I headed out a few days ahead of him. I was a little worried about flying across the country by myself with the boys but they did amazing and it ended up not being a big deal after all.

There's not much exciting to say that we did at the beach. It was just us, my parents, and my brother Jeff and his family. We pretty much relaxed for 3 straight weeks. It was amazing. We did venture out one day and took a ride on the ferry but other than that we went to the beach, went to the pool, read, slept, and ate...a lot.

So here's a ton of pictures from the trip. Thanks to my dad for being the designated photographer. (Sorry if you notice a lack of pictures of me, but I don't do pictures when I'm pregnant.)

Harrison, James, Jack and Owen checking out the sand castle.

James and Jack playing under the house.

Jack digging, one of his favorite things to do at the beach.

Jack playing in a bucket, his other favorite thing to do.

Jack sitting in a bucket. This was his favorite this to do last year and he was little upset that he no longer fit all the way in the bucket.

Jack splashing in the water.

Jack buried in the sand. We couldn't get Owen to join him regardless of the bribes.

Jack and Owen playing on the deck with glow sticks.

Jack and Owen posing for pictures.

Harrison, James and Jack hanging out in a tide pool.

Family picture! (Soon to be outdated.)

Jeff and Augusta's sand castle.

Owen and James digging in the sand.

Owen and James on the deck.

Owen playing soccer in honor of the World Cup.

Owen catching waves in a tube.

Owen riding on the ferry.

Owen catching more waves.

View from the deck.

Robby and the boys catching fish.

Monterey and San Francisco

2010-07-14T20:01:00.000-07:00

Right after Owen's preschool graduation we jumped in the car and headed to Monterey for the weekend. Robby had a work conference to go to so the boys and I went along for the ride. The hotel had a pool and we were close to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. So as far as the boys were concerned it was a vacation!

Robby had meetings during the day so we went and hung out at the aquarium. It was packed as usual but we got there early enough to avoid most of the crowds. Owen and Jack loved the otters, sharks and penguins. After we left the aquarium, Jack kept asking why we didn't see the sea horses. After a while, I finally realized he expected to see actual horses in the water, not small funny looking fish.

While we were in Monterey, the boys kept begging to play in the sand and ocean. They are used to the beach on the east coast and didn't believe me that it would be too cold. So we ventured out so I could prove to them that they would not want to play in the cold water. They finally believed me after checking it out for themselves.

After Robby's meetings were over we spent some time checking out Monterey. The boys loved all the big boats and of course Ghirardelli Square.

We then decided to head to San Francisco for a Giants game. Of course it was freezing at the game but luckily we had planned ahead and brought tons of blankets, coats, hats, gloves, etc. The boys enjoyed the game, but especially enjoyed the food (hot dogs & popcorn) and all the fun stuff there was to do at the stadium. They went down the big slides and Owen even got to play a little baseball.

After a fun weekend it was time to head home so we could get ready to go to Ocean Isle Beach, NC.

Owen's Preschool Graduation

2010-07-14T19:51:00.000-07:00

At the end of May, Owen graduated from preschool! That's right, I'll have a kid in Kindergarten next year. Crazy! We absolutely love his preschool teachers, Miss Judy and Miss Shannon, and can't wait for Jack to start preschool there next year. (Yup, I'll have two days a week with both my kids in school!)

Here's some pictures from the momentous occasion.

Much to our surprise, Owen even sang and participated through the whole graduation. He usually hates people watching him, especially people he doesn't know, so this was a great surprise. Preschool was a success!

Also note the button-up shirt. Like his father, he is a jeans and t-shirt guy, but he felt this was a special enough occasion to whip out a button-up shirt!

Baby #3 is a ...

2010-05-24T20:57:00.000-07:00

BOY!

We hadn't told very many people until recently but we are having baby #3. I had several miscarriages last year and we are so happy to finally have baby #3 on it's way. Up until now it's been a pretty long and stressful pregnancy, but I'm finally starting to get excited. Since I had so many miscarriages I was treated as a "high-risk pregnancy" and have already been to several doctors many times and have already had 4 ultrasounds. So basically, we already have a photo album for this kid. Now that I am almost 20 weeks and things seem to be going smoothly I will just have my regular doctor appointments from now on. Yeah!

Before we even had kids, I told Robby that for some reason I thought we'd have a houseful of boys. Sure enough my predictions seem to be right. Both Owen and Jack were pulling for a boy so they are very excited. I guess I should say Owen is very excited. Jack is pretty clueless about the whole thing.

Here's the most recent picture of the little guy.

So as you can probably guess this (and tax season) were why I've been missing from the blog world for awhile. For the last 12 weeks I have been strictly in "survival mode." My only goal was to make the sure the kids were fed each day. It doesn't sound like much but some days it was stretch. Thankfully, Robby works close now so he was able to come home a lot and help. His family was also a big help by taking the kids off my hands and even cleaning my house!

Here's some pictures from the last couple of weeks.

This is the boys on the Father and Sons Campout. (Yup, I was home all alone for almost 24 hours!)

Here are the boys playing in some fountains at a nearby shopping center. Owen loved it and jumped right in. Jack was not so sure and only got in for a second or two.

Hopefully, I'll have lots of picture coming soon. We're going to Monterey, San Francisco and my parents' beach house in the next little while so I'll actually take some pictures (if I remember).

Birthday, Easter and Everything Else

2010-04-07T19:39:00.000-07:00

I swear I have several good excuses for not blogging lately. But rather than get into all that now, here's what we've been up to.

In February, we celebrated Owen's 5th birthday. It's crazy to me that I have a 5 year old! He is getting to be so big and grown up and he can't wait to start kindergarten next year. And honestly, I'm very excited too. Jack will start preschool in the fall as well and I'll have two mornings a week to myself! Woohoo!

For Owen's birthday, I finally let him have a birthday party with friends. I told him he could invite 5 friends since he was turning 5. The funny thing was that most of the people he wanted to invite were his cousins. So really it was his cousins and a couple of friends. We did a Superhero party and invited the kids to come to "Superhero Training." We had three "classes": agility (obstacle course), marksmenship (balloon darts), and villain capture (pinata). The kids had fun and when they finished they each got a personalized cape and certificate. Here's some pictures of all the fun.

Ethan, Talae, Scotty, Owen, Payton, and Fallyn

Owen "capturing" the villain.

Owen's and his cupcakes.

Owen trying out his new cape on his new bike.

All the superhero capes.

Owen had a blast at his party and has already started planning for his next birthday. I think we have some time to work on it though!

From us and all of his grandparents, Owen got a new 16" bike and helmet. He was so excited. It's amazing how much faster he can ride on his bigger bike. He can now keep up if we all go on a ride.

Owen and his new bike and matching helmet.

Looking good!

I wish I could say we have been so busy, you know since I have blogged in so long, but the last few months have just been a blur for some reason. Most of it is probably due to tax season! In February, Robby decided to leave his job at KPMG and start working for a regional firm. It has turned out to be one of the best decisions we've made. It was nerve-wracking to change jobs right before tax season but we've been so much happier with him at his new job. He no longer has to drive 45 min. downtown (and expensive parking) but now works just a few minutes away (free parking!). It's nice that we get to see him more since he is so close. He often comes home for lunch or to help put kids to bed at night. It's been amazing. Don't get me wrong though, we're still counting down the days until April 15th (8 days, by the way).

This last weekend we had a pretty quiet Easter. Most of Robby's family was out of town so we skipped a lot of the usual traditions. On Saturday, we went to an Easter egg hunt at my friend Melanie's mom's house. (She had about 150 dozen eggs hidden!) It was tons of fun and my kids came home with lots of candy and toys.

On Sunday, we hung around the house and watched conference then went and had dinner with Robby's dad, since he was the only one left in town. It was actually nice to have a quiet Easter Sunday. The boys insisted on having another Easter egg hunt, so we did one, but it was pouring rain and really windy. Let's just say it was a very quick egg hunt.

Here's the boys checking out their Easter baskets from the Easter bunny. And yes, I know they look like they're dressed for Halloween.

That's it for now, but hopefully I will add more posts soon. I finally have a new computer so it doesn't take me hours to upload my pictures anymore. It makes blogging a whole lot less frustrating and time consuming!

I'm back...

2010-02-02T14:13:00.000-08:00

I know, it has been forever. So here's what we've been up to.

I got released as Primary President. (Woohoo!) Don't get me wrong, I absolutely loved this calling but it was a lot of work and after 3 years, I was starting to feel pretty burnt out. After some friendly suggestions to the Bishop, I got my wish to be the Primary Chorister. I love it! I still get to be in Primary but when I go home on Sunday, I'm done until the next Sunday.

We had our annual New Year's Eve party. This time we made it to the New Year without stitches or a trip to the ER. So our year started out better right away.

We had a fun and busy Christmas. Most of Robby's family was in town so it made for a crazy and fun Christmas. The boys were thrilled to have Kelsey, Tommy and Maya stay with us. As usual the boys got nearly everything they could possibly want for Christmas. We spent a whole evening the next week cleaning out their room to make room for the new ones. We nearly filled out entire trash can but at least now they can find their toys.

Even our neighbor Margaret got them a present. Margaret, who is 83, came over on Christmas Eve and asked Robby if he would come and help her bring the boys' present over. This is what he brought back:

Yup, that's right, the present was bigger than them both put together. Here's what was inside:

They LOVE it. The only problem is where to put it in the house until it's warm enough outside to put on the patio.

Sadly, Jack did not get the real puppy he asked for. Instead he got a toy puppy that does all the stuff a real puppy does, just minus the poop. He seems to be satisfied with it for the most part. But if he ever finds money lying around he tells us he's going to use it to buy a puppy. This phase will end soon, right? Because seriously, it's not going to happen.

A couple days before Christmas the boys got together with their cousins and made Gingerbread (graham cracker) Houses. If you know my boys their houses say everything about them. Owen's is nice and neat, the sides match, etc. Jack's is crazy! My favorite part is the huge cookie he slapped on the roof.

Last week my parents came to visit. They came this same time last year and the weather was sunny and beautiful. This year they came and it was like a hurricane! It rained every single day and the wind blew like crazy. The boys still had a blast with Grandma and Grandpa and as usual my parents help us fix things around the house. My dad fixed our doorknobs, installed a new doorbell, helped Robby fix the bathroom faucets and hung a new towel bar. Here's Jack "helping" my dad.

My mom and I spent most of our time making Valentine decorations and sewing. Owen was thrilled to have her sew his Webkin some clothes. Here's Shaggy in his latest getup.

Owen's requests while my parents were here were to 1) go to McDonald's for breakfast, and 2) go to the train museum. Luckily, we were able to do both. The boys had a lot of fun at the train museum. We had never been before and the boys loved getting on all the old trains and then playing with all the toy trains. I'll add pictures when I get them from my dad.

December Craziness

2009-12-14T20:45:00.000-08:00

Yup, it's that time of year again. No, not Christmas. Primary everything! It was nice to get the Primary program over, but then comes all of the end of year stuff that has to get done. Parent folders (not done), teacher binders (not even started), birthday gifts for next year (barely started), Santa's Breakfast (done!), Teacher Board Meeting (almost done), etc. I'm very much looking forward to a December when I will no longer be Primary president. It will be nice to enjoy the holidays without all the Primary stuff. Don't get me wrong, I love being in Primary. I just don't like everything that has to be done at the end of the year.

Needless to say, I haven't had much time to blog or even take pictures. We did get a chance to put up Christmas lights and even got a tree - from WiseBuys, $9.98! The boys have had so much fun helping decorate. Jack likes to continually remove the Christmas tree ornaments and rearrange them. Thankfully, I put all the breakable ones out of his reach.

On Saturday, we had our ward Santa's Breakfast. It was a lot of work but a huge success. I miraculously guessed right and bought the right amount of food and we had well over 100 people show up. Santa came, and the boys got to tell him what they want for Christmas. Owen asked for a scooter and skateboard, and at the last minute a red dinosaur! Great, that was not on his list a week ago. He is constantly adding to his Christmas list, so I hope he is not disappointed when he doesn't get everything he asked for.

Jack told us he wanted to ask Santa for a puppy. That's right, a real puppy. Thanks to the Walmart ad that showed kids opening a box with a real puppy. Unfortunately, Santa is not bringing a puppy this year, or any year for that matter. Jack says it so cute though I seriously thought Robby was going to run out and buy a puppy. (Sorry, but I no longer have any kids in diapers and I'm not going to clean up after a dog!) Jack screamed as soon as we sat him on Santa's lap so he never got to tell him what he wanted. I'll add the picture on the blog as soon as I get it. It's pretty funny.

Catching Up

2009-10-30T22:00:00.000-07:00

Seriously, I don't know how you guys keep your blogs up! It's 10 o'clock on Friday night and I finally have a few minutes to put up a few pictures. Can we just say Primary Program?! And yes, this is my THIRD primary program as primary president.

Anyway, here's a few pics of what we've been up to lately. Halloween costumes took up a big chunk of my time this month. The boys decided (with persuasion) that they wanted to be bicyclists. Here are their very authentic-looking Tour de France jerseys . Owen's is the green one and Jack's is yellow.

All ready to race!

We've been so busy this month that I finally got the Halloween decorations out on the 29th. When I got them out I found a couple of kits that I had bought on clearance last year to make spiders and a pirate ship. So we had a Family Craft Night to make our Halloween decorations. Even Robby got in on glue gun fun.

Here are some of the finished products.

On a rainy day this month I made play dough and let the boys go at it. They had a blast and probably played for a couple of hours. Jack especially loved it since play dough is something we usually do while he is napping. Surprisingly, the mess wasn't too bad. Homemade play dough is way easier to clean up than the store bought stuff.

Finally, Owen started a soccer class this month. Several of his friends are in the class and so far he loves it.

Hopefully, things will slow down soon and I can do a better job of posting. But I'm not getting my hopes up.

Good kisser

2009-09-23T21:44:00.000-07:00

Beware those with young daughters! Jack is quite the kisser these days.

Ocean Isle Beach

2009-09-15T14:54:00.001-07:00

We spent the last two weeks of August at Ocean Isle Beach, NC. It was amazing. My parent's have an awesome beach house and we had so much fun with them and my oldest brother and his family. We had two whole weeks with nothing to worry about except putting on enough sunscreen. I even learned to knit (so fun!) while I was there.

Here some of the pictures from the trip.

Can you see a theme to what Jack's favorite thing to do was?

Owen discovered the boogie boards. We were surprised at how brave he was.

This is Owen making sand angels. And yes, this is the same kid that doesn't like to be dirty and won't even finger paint. Go figure.

The whole family in the water. Even Jack loved the ocean this year so it was fun for all of us to get in.

Family picture. My hair is crazy because it was so windy that day!

All the kids hanging out on the deck, eating Otter Pops.

My dad took tons more pictures but I haven't had a chance to go through them all yet.

Big News

2009-09-15T14:41:00.000-07:00

Woohoo! Jack is potty trained. We were mean and started potty training him the day before his 2nd birthday. I wasn't planning on it so early, but he started telling me he needed to poop and would lead me to the bathroom. Needless to say, I wasn't going to miss this window of opportunity. I had an awesome picture of him on the potty wearing all his bike gear but I can't find it anywhere. When I find it, I will add it to the post. Something to embarrass him with later.

Happy Birthday Jack!

2009-09-15T14:17:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday we celebrated Jack's 2nd birthday. He was clueless about the whole thing. It didn't start out well when he was terrified of his cake and then he got a toy that he was scared of. Poor kid. Eventually he got into everything once all the cousins got there.

Here's Jack and the "terrifying" cake. He kept crying and saying, "Away, away!"

Grandma and Grandpa got a pinata for Jack's party. As you can see Jack wasn't thrilled about it.

Owen and the other kids loved it!

Jack opening his presents.

One of Jack's favorite presents was Mr. Potato Heads that have animal faces. Once he opened this Owen tried to take over opening the other presents.

Here he is with his Mr. Potato Head.

Jack's big present from both sets of grandparents was a Skuut bike. It's a pedal-less bike. It is supposed to teach kids how to balance on a bike so they never have to use training wheels. We'll let you know how it works.

Of course, you need safety gear to ride a bike. Thanks Tommy and Kelsey!

Here's Jack blowing (spitting) out the candles. Happy Birthday Jack!

Just for fun, here's a couple pictures from Jack's past birthdays.

Ocean Isle or Bust!

2009-08-14T22:44:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow we leave for Ocean Isle for two weeks for a much needed vacation. It's been a rough year and we definitely need a break. Please no hurricanes! I swear I will post lots of updates when we return.

Here's a couple of pictures just for fun though. This is what the boys do whenever Robby washes the car. They never help. They just get in the buckets. Robby has finally learned to give them each their own bucket so they don't fight. Then he uses a different one to wash the car so the kids don't get in the dirty, greasy water. Robby is even nice and fills the buckets with warm water. Although they would get in them even if the water was ice cold.

By the way, they do have swimsuits on. I promise they were not running around in the driveway naked.

I am not sure why, but the other night this is how we found Owen when we went to bed. The next morning he had no recollection of falling asleep on the floor outside his door.

4th of July

2009-07-18T22:41:00.000-07:00

For the 3rd year in a row we headed up to Portland for 4th of July weekend. We got smart this year and flew to avoid the long drive and got to stay for a long weekend. My whole family was able to come for the weekend. So of course that means family picture time!

Here's the whole gang. Maddy broke her arm the week before on her razor scooter. Fortunately for the family picture, she didn't get her purple cast until the next week.

Just our little family.

Here is a rare picture of Owen actually posing for the camera. He usually refuses to join in any serious pictures.

Jack, on the other hand, has no problems with the camera. He loves to ham it up and yell, "cheese!"

The whole weekend was crazy! With 11 adults and 10 kids it was nuts. Luckily, my parents live down the street from my brother Jeff and my other brother Scott lives about a mile away so at least everyone didn't have to sleep in the same house. We stayed at Jeff's house, so every night and morning we would walk back and forth to my parents house.

Owen discovered he could pull Jack on the back of the tricycle and couldn't wait to do it every night and morning.

And of course it wouldn't be 4th of July without a parade. We went the afternoon before and staked out a great spot to watch the Hillsboro parade. We were lucky enough to have a nice shady spot. The kids had a blast filling their bags with all of the candy that the people threw from the floats. I think they enjoyed collecting all the candy more than actually eating it.

Here's everyone watching the parade from our awesome spot.

I made all of the grandkids matching shirts to wear to the parade. We numbered them from oldest to youngest. It made it easy to figure out who was missing at times.

Front view of the kids in their matching shirts.

The kids spent most of their time playing in my parents backyard with water balloons, water guns, buckets and hoses.

My nephew Zack told my sister he couldn't wait to get to my parents' house so he could feed the ducks with them. We have no idea where he got this idea but of course we had to go feed the ducks as a result.

Okay, so we actually fed geese not ducks but I don't think the kids realized. And no one fell in so it was a good day.

Here is Jack saying "two." This is his word that means whatever he wants it to. Either he wants to do something too or he wants more of something.

My dad had a fabulous idea to take a picture of the kids on this bridge. It looks pleasant enough but I think it took 30 minutes and 100 pictures before we actually got all the kids to stay still and face the camera. (This is the kids minus 1. Poor Harrison missed the photo shoot.)

All in all it was a fun, but crazy weekend. We had fun and it was great to see everyone but is nice to be back home in our relatively quiet house.

Eppies Great Race

2009-07-18T22:18:00.000-07:00

Robby competed in the Eppies for the third year today. Two years ago he participated with a team and just did the bike part. Last year and this year he did the whole race by himself. Eppies consists of a 6-mile run, a 13-mile bike, and 6-mile kayak. Last year he finished in 2 hours and 16 minutes and his unofficial time for this year is 2 hours 8 minutes. Robby's parents took me and the boys to go watch him finish. We didn't get to see him run or bike but we got to see him finish up in the kayak.

Robby coming into the finish. Owen and Robby's parents found a great spot on the bank of the river and watched all the kayakers as they came in (and played in the water).

Robby right after he finished.

Owen and Grandpa watching the kayakers as they came into the finish.

The whole family after the race. The boys had a lot of fun after the race because there was a bounce house, cotton candy, hot dogs and popcorn. Luckily, there was a lot of shade since it was almost 100° by the time we left.

We are so proud of Robby. He worked really hard for this race and did really well. I am so grateful for a husband that likes to be active and that keeps me active as well.

That's one way to do it

2009-06-28T21:57:00.000-07:00

Whenever we go to the park I feel like I spend most of my time lifting my kids up to get a drink of water out of the drinking fountain. I finally got sick of it one day and this is how Owen figured out to do it himself. Pretty creative I think. (Sorry for the weird crooked photo, I took it on my phone.)

Sno Cones

2009-06-28T21:47:00.000-07:00

On Friday I had a Primary activity. We had a water day at the park and we rented a sno cone machine. The kids all had lots of fun and even Jack got in on the action. About 15 minutes after getting to the park to set up for the activity Jack had already climbed into a bucket of water. I hadn't planned on him getting wet since he wasn't staying for the actual activity. So he ended up in just his diaper. Long story short, Jack ended up staying for most of the activity and got to have sno cones with the rest of the Primary kids. I am pretty sure he ate at least three. And lets just say sno cone favoring stains, even skin. He was red for the rest of the day. (I was too though after making about 100 sno cones.)

Pictures

2009-05-13T11:10:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures I finally uploaded off my camera. Just stuff the boys have been doing lately.

We were slackers and didn't get a card in the mail on time for Mother's Day. So the boys made Grandma Jane an e-card that we emailed to her. Luckily, Grandma Walker lives here so we got her a real card on time for Mother's Day.

Jack loves to try on shoes. He doesn't discriminate. Men's or women's, doesn't matter to him. Here he is my church black church shoes. I sometimes have a hard time choosing between the two as well.

I'm surprised Jack could even stand up wearing Robby's backpack. He wore it around until Robby had to go to Scouts and wasn't happy when it got taken away.

My kids love watering the flowers. Fortunately, they can't turn on the water themselves or my flowers would be drowning. I'm not good at remembering to water the flowers though, so it is nice that the boys remind me.

I made this apron for Owen since he loves to cook so much (mostly cookies). But when Jack gets a chance he likes to wear it too.

Owen's cousins got him this awesome sucker at Disneyland. Unfortunately, it kept getting dropped and broken. Eventually, the sucker that was left mysteriously "disappeared" into the garbage. Thanks Payton, Fallyn and Mayce!

Owen got soccer goals for his birthday. Now that the weather is nice he is outside playing whenever he can find an opponent. You probably can't see but he is also wearing his shin guards. The shin guards are used for everything these days: soccer, running, bike riding, etc.

Easter, Finally

2009-05-13T10:59:00.000-07:00

I know Easter was over a month ago, but here are some pictures. We hadn't a pretty low key Easter weekend. Robby was lucky enough to be able to take Saturday off so we went to my friend Melanie's parent's house for an awesome Easter egg hunt. Later that day we dyed eggs with Robby's sister's family. On Sunday we had dinner with Robby's parents and the kids did another small Easter egg hunt with their cousins. It was nice to have a weekend with Robby for the first time since tax season began.

Here are the kids after the Easter Egg hunt. Owen wouldn't look at the camera because the sun was too bright and Jack was too busy transferring eggs from his basket to Owen's for some reason. So this is the best picture we got.

The boys with their baskets before getting everything out.

The boys after they emptied their baskets. Since we have early church they didn't get much time to look at them. Last year Robby got up with the boys on Easter and they ate their chocolate bunnies before I even woke up.

Changing Up the Blog

2009-04-30T22:41:00.001-07:00

So I have been resisting changing my blog. Then tonight (since Robby is working at home and I'm bored) I decided it was time to make it look a little cuter than the basic layout I got when I first started this thing. After way too much time (I won't admit how much time) I finally picked a layout and at the same time realized why I don't usually do this kind of stuff. I have issues. I can't for the life of me just pick something and be happy with it. I have to make sure I have seen everything and then I have to try most of them. It's exhausting. Robby makes fun of me because I do the same thing even when I am making a Primary handout or something. I have to download a new font and that in itself takes way too long to pick out. In the end I know all the kids probably don't even make it home with the handout I have spent hours on, but for some reason I can't help myself. I blame it on my mother. I got all my OCD-ness from her and my son is now inheriting the OCD gene. For example, he won't touch finger paint (too messy), his blankets have to be perfectly tucked in at night and for awhile his blankie even had to be folded in a square, until I stopped this because I got sick of waking up in the middle of the night to refold the blankie in a square. This is only the start of it. His preschool teacher even told me Owen is one of her most 'meticulous" students. I guess this is a nice way of saying obsessive-compulsive. Poor Owen, it's not his fault. It's just in his genes.

By the way, the "cub scout badge" blog layout was a close second to the one I finally chose. Maybe next time.

St. Patrick's Day

2009-04-15T08:25:00.000-07:00

I know this post is really late but I finally uploaded all of my pictures onto my computer from my camera.

On St. Patrick's Day we really didn't do anything exciting. But Robby came home at a decent time (8 PM) so we decided to have dinner with him. Actually, we had green breakfast for dinner. We had green waffles, green eggs, green Orange Julius, and bacon. I thought it would bother Owen that everything was green but he thought it was really funny. He kept saying, "This isn't Orange Julius, this is Green Julius!" The eggs were VERY green because Robby had a little mishap with the food coloring. They looked disgusting.

VIP

2009-04-15T07:59:00.000-07:00

This week at school Owen is the VIP. So last week Owen's teacher sent us home with a cardboard cutout of a person to decorate that will be on display during Owen's VIP week. Owen decided he wanted the cutout to wear the same clothes as he wanted to wear to school. So we took pictures of his clothes, stretched and pulled them to fit in Adobe, then printed and cut them out. We also took a picture of of Owen's head and did the same thing. We then printed out graphics of some of his favorite things: soccer, the book "Russell the Sheep" and a hammer because he wants to be a builder when he grows up. We put everything on the cutout and this is what we got. Robby said it was really cool but kind of "eerie" how much the cutout looked like Owen.

I'm not sure what else being the VIP entails. I think Owen gets to be the special helper and he gets to bring show and tell this week. By the way, he was the VIP this week because it was his turn alphabetically.

Still Here

2009-04-02T11:26:00.001-07:00

I swear we are still alive. It has been especially weird and crazy tax season this year. We are so excited that there are only two weeks left! Hopefully, life will return to normal again.

Last week the boys and I decided we had had enough of tax season so we took off to Portland to visit my parents. The boys had a blast and we were sad when we had to leave (although glad to see Robby). It was a nice break from the tax season routine. As soon as my dad sends me the pictures I will post them.

Other than that we haven't done much of anything the last few weeks. We are just anxiously awaiting April 15th!

Crazy Jack

2009-02-18T21:58:00.001-08:00

Jack is nothing like Owen was as a baby. If you told Owen not to do something, he didn't do it. Of course, with Owen I figured this was due to my excellent parenting skills! However, Jack was sent to humble me. He does not listen and gets into everything. I now realize how good Owen was to me, despite being a bad sleeper.

A few weeks ago, my friends Meredith informed me that her son Ryan, who is four days older than Jack, started climbing out of his crib. Initially, I though poor Meredith, that sucks! Much to my dismay, Jack started getting out of his crib not even a week later. I was sitting in the family room with my parents and Robby after putting the kids to bed. Not long after I heard footsteps. Jack walked right out, sat on the couch and cuddled up to Robby. I immediately accused Owen of helping him get out. But Owen insisted Jack got out himself. Hoping it was just a fluke, I put Jack back in his crib. He then repeated to get out 8 times in about 10 minutes.

When Owen started getting out of his crib I just told him not to and he didn't do it. Not so with Jack! We finally had to go in his room and turn his crib around backwards. Poor Jack is now in a cage because the bars are higher than his head. It makes it hard to get him in and out, but worth it because he is trapped!

Here is the crib now that it is backwards!

Owen's Fourth Birthday

2009-02-18T21:25:00.000-08:00

On February 11th Owen turned 4! He had been counting down the days and was so excited when it was finally his birthday. We decorated the house after he went to bed the night before so he woke up to balloons, signs and even writing on the mirror in the bathroom. Unfortunately, his actual birthday was not very exciting. I am mean and took him to the doctor to have the scar on his forehead check out. Ever since it started healing it had a little white thing hanging out of it. We waited several weeks thinking it would go away on it's own. When it didn't disappear I decided to have the doctor check it out. It turns out that the white thing hanging out is one of the stitches they put in under his skin that was supposed to have dissolved. The doctor was little baffled as to why it hadn't dissolved. So she clipped it close to the skin and we are going to watch it and hope it either comes out on it's own or the scar will heal over it.

Anyway, after going to the doctor we pretty much just hung around the house all day. Since it is tax season Robby didn't get home until almost 8. But we figured we should probably do something so we took him to his all-time favorite restaurant, The Spaghetti Factory. We pretty much closed the place up and our poor waiter and to find the few remaining waiters to come and sing "Happy Birthday" to Owen. When we got home Owen opened a couple of presents: a Chick Hicks hauler, new Lightning McQueen slippers, and a BYU basketball jersey and shorts.

To make up for the not so great birthday, I made his favorite dinner of chicken pillows, mashed potatoes, and asparagus, the next night. And yes he really does love asparagus, as well as broccoli, green beans, corn and artichokes.

On Friday night we had all of Robby's family over for a birthday party. I spent all day working on his Pirate Ship birthday cake. But if I do say so myself, it turned out pretty awesome! And yes, the pirate ship and island are both made (almost) entirely of cake.

Here is Owen blowing out his candles with Payton, Mayce, Fallyn, and Scotty.

Just for fun, here are some pictures of Owen's past birthdays.

I keep telling myself I need to stop making the crazy cakes because its going to come back and bite me when I don't do it for all of my kids birthdays. You know, "Owen is the oldest. You love him more than me! You never made me a special birthday cake!" But deep down inside I really enjoy making the cakes. I just wish we didn't have to cut them up and destroy them so quickly!

Visit from Grandma Jane and Grandpa Jim

2009-02-18T20:50:00.000-08:00

I am finally back - to the blog world that is. I could list all sorts of excuses why I haven't added a post in a while but it all amounts to the fact that I rarely have the patience to sit down and do it.

After recovering from Christmas and the whole New Year's Eve debacle we enjoyed a little bit a down time. I had no Primary stuff going on and the boys and I were able to take a break from all the craziness. I will admit we had several days where we just vegged around the house and did pretty much nothing at all.

At the end of January my parents came to visit us. Since they had been in South Africa since I had Owen, it was the first time I had ever had my parents come and stay at my house. We were excited to have them and were lucky to have great weather while they were here. They came on a Wednesday and as I had expected my mom had me cleaning my windows, painting a kitchen cabinet and fixing our fireplace within a couple of days. It's not that my mom made me do any of this, it is just that she helped me get the motivation to do things I had been meaning to do for a long time. Meanwhile, my dad fixed little things around my house, including my recently crashed computer that he was able to bring back from the dead. He was even nice enough to back up my computer after he fixed it, so if it crashes again at least I won't lose everything.

The boys had lots of fun with Grandma and Grandpa around. They enjoy it when they aren't stuck at home with just me all day. We spent most of the days playing outside. Here are some pictures of the boys playing in our driveway. Our driveway slopes towards the house so the boys like to push their bikes and cars up to the top and ride all the way down. Jack is just getting the hang of it but Owen is an old pro.

Jack is fearless. So when you put the skates on him, watch out! He won't let you help him at all and it is a miracle he hasn't had to get stitches yet as a result.

Since the weather was so nice we also went to the park several times. Owen is even starting to get a little braver on his bike. He no longer has to get off the bike to go up and down the curbs on the way to the park. Owen is great big brother and always helps Jack down the big slide.

While my parents were visiting Owen discovered his love for "video games." He soon found that Grandpa's iPhone had tons of games on it. All day long he would ask to play on Grandpa's iPhone. Grandpa was even a good sport and played LOTS of Tic-Tac-Toe with Owen, who had no concept of how to play it. Unfortunately, Owen now wants to play on my iPhone all the time. I finally let him until he locked me out of my phone. Somehow, he put a password on my phone so that I couldn't even use it. I cannot figure out how he did this since he would have had to enter the same four digits two times in row. Not to mention he can't read so he wouldn't have had any idea this is what he was supposed to do. Anyway, after living without my phone for two days, I finally got it fixed. No more iPhone for Owen! Here he is playing on my Dad's iPhone.

The highlight of my parents' visit was going to "Wicked" in San Francisco. We went with Robby's parents and his sister and her husband as well. I had heard it was good but had no idea how much I would love it! I am already trying to convince Robby we need to go again as soon as tax season is over. The soundtrack is also in my CD player constantly. We listen to it so much that Owen has even started singing along.

We were sad to see my parents go but we knew they were excited to get home and finish getting settled in their new house. We can't wait to see them again at the beach in June!

New Year's Eve

2009-01-05T15:45:00.001-08:00

The last few years we have started having some friends over for a New Year's Eve party. So this year we decided to do the same and invited several of Robby's friends from growing up and their families over. We had lots of food and planned to make scones, which is what my family always did on New Year's Eve.

We were having a good time and there were 8 kids running around all over the place. At about 8:15, Owen came flying into the room on his Scuttlebug (a little 3-wheeled pedal-less bike thing), rounded a corner and fell off right into a kitchen chair. His hand went immediately to his head and by the time I got there his head was gushing blood! Ahh! Everyone immediately started cleaning up and packing up to go since they knew we needed to take him to the emergency room. Luckily, Maddy and Sawyer were there to take Jack, and Robby and I left to take Owen to the ER.

After three hours in the ER and 11 stitches we made it home right before midnight. Owen was a good sport and did really well at the ER. He cracked his head open all the way to the skull and needed three stitches under the skin and eight on top. We then had to wake him up every 2 hours all night to make sure he didn't have a concussion. Owen definitely made our New Year's Eve much more exciting than we had planned!

Christmas

2009-01-05T15:19:00.000-08:00

Before we knew it this year it was already Christmas! We knew Christmas was going to be busy because Robby's brother Sawyer was getting married on the 19th, we just didn't know how crazy it would get!

On December 16th we flew to Portland to drop the boys off at my parent's new house. (They had just moved in a few days before.) It was freezing when we got there and they had already had record amounts of snow. It took my parents almost two hours to get to the airport to pick us up. We spent the next day getting the boys settled then Robby and I left for Salt Lake City. The roads were so bad in Portland that we had to take the train to the airport. Little did we know this was only the start!

We got to Salt Lake and spent the 18th just hanging out with family. My sister was moving that weekend so I helped her pack up her kitchen and get things ready for the moving truck. On the 19th we went to Sawyer's wedding at the Bountiful temple. When we came out of the temple it was like a blizzard! Poor Maddie was freezing in her dress and we didn't get many pictures outside. We then went to a luncheon at Rodizio's, where it snowed the entire time we were there. After a scary drive back to Kelsey's house thanks to Dave, we went to Sawyer and Maddie's reception. In all it was a fun day and we were glad we were able to be there to see Sawyer and Maddy get sealed.

The next morning, the 20th, we woke up to catch our flight back to Portland. We got to the airport, returned our rental car and boarded our flight. After sitting on the plane for awhile they told us the Portland airport was backed up due to snow and that our flight would be delayed. We sat in the airport for several hours before they finally canceled our flight. Thankfully, Kelsey and Tommy live near the airport so they came and picked us up since our new flight was not until the next day.

The next day we got all packed to go only to find out our flight had again been canceled. We called Southwest and they didn't think any flights would be getting into Portland for awhile. So we changed our flight to go to Seattle instead and got a rental car to drive to Portland. When we got to Seattle we waited for our luggage for two hours before they finally realized all the luggage had been accidentally taken off our plane before we even left Salt Lake! So we told them our address in Portland and got on the road. We stopped at Walmart to pick up tire chains and supplies only to find they had no chains and that the roads were to bad to drive anyway. So we found a place to stay (Robby's cousin's husband's parents' house) and hoped to get out the next morning. Luckily, we woke up early the next morning, found tire chains and finally got on the road to Portland. The roads were pretty bad but we were able to drive about 40 mph most of the way. We finally got to Portland, dropped off the rental car and hopped on a train to my parents' house. After $300 (for a rental car and tire chains) and 3 days we finally made it to Portland!

We were glad to make it to Portland for Christmas and to finally see Owen and Jack. It was the first time I had ever left them and I had not prepared myself for how hard it would to get back to them! Once we got to my parents' we had fun playing in all the snow and spending time with almost all of my family. Owen was very excited for Christmas and really got into it this year. It was fun to watch him be so excited for Christmas.

Luckily, we had no problems getting back to Sacramento. It was fun going to Portland and Salt Lake but it was definitely nice to be home again! Oh and we just finally got our luggage back a couple of days ago from Seattle!

Once my dad sends me the pictures from Christmas, I will add them to this post!

Thanksgiving

2009-01-05T14:34:00.000-08:00

I know it is way past Thanksgiving but since my last real post was Halloween I have some catching up to do.

We had a fun Thanksgiving with lots of Robby's family visiting. All of his siblings were in town and we even got to meet his brother Sawyer's fiance, Maddie. Because there were so many people in town Kelsey and Tommy stayed with us at our house. Owen was very excited to have someone staying with us.

On Thanksgiving day, Robby and all of his brothers woke up early to go to a ward tackle football game at the nearby park. They had a lot of fun but were all very sore afterward. I think they forget they are no longer 17!

Robby came home with a totally ripped shirt and sweatshirt and a sore right arm. I kept ignoring him until I saw what his arm started to look like. This picture was actually taken when it looked pretty good. At one point his arm was black and purple from his wrist to his armpit.

If it hadn't been so cold that morning we might have gone over to watch the game but instead the boys and Kelsey and I stayed home to watch the parade and make rolls for dinner. While we were home we even had wild turkeys walk right across our front yard! I didn't get the best picture but there were about 9-10 turkeys just walking down the street. We have seen them on our street before but what are the chances they walked by on Thanksgiving?

That afternoon we had a wonderful dinner with the whole family. We are so lucky to have so much family nearby to celebrate holidays with.

The next morning Kelsey and I got up at 3:45 so make it to the sales. We hit up Kohl's at 4:00 (to get Owen some awesome Tonka trucks for Christmas that he loved), then went to Old Navy at 5:00, then on to the mall! We were very tired but it was fun to go out Christmas shopping. I don't think I will make this a tradition though!

That afternoon the boys all went out for a bike ride while the girls threw a bridal shower for Maddie. We were surprised the boys were up for the bike ride after the football game. Owen was sad he couldn't go on the bike ride so Robby and Tommy took him for a shorter ride after they got home.

The next week, after everyone left we got out the Christmas decorations. While I decorated the inside of the house the boys went out and put lights on the house. It was pretty cold but the boys still wanted to help Robby. Jack only caused a couple of lights to break so I guess it turned out okay.

Crazy Busy

2008-12-05T11:15:00.000-08:00

Okay, okay, I know I haven't posted in over a month now, but Primary is filling up all of my time. We had the Primary Program at the end of November, then there was Thanksgiving of course and ALL of Robby's family was in town. Last night I had my Primary Board Meeting/Christmas Party. I have to do Priesthood Preview on Sunday, then the Santa's breakfast on the 13th of December! Ahhh!! And then we leave on the 16th to go to Portland where we will drop off the kids with my parents so Robby and I can fly to Utah for his brother's wedding. Then we will fly back to Portland for Christmas and then fly back the day after Christmas for Robby's brother's reception. Whew! It's nuts around here.

I promise I will post some pictures soon. Although that means I will actually have to take some first...

Halloween

2008-11-03T13:12:00.001-08:00

Two weeks ago Robby had to go to Montreal for work training to the boys and I headed to Portland to visit my parents and brothers' families. It was a crazy week but we enjoyed seeing everyone and it was nice to be home by ourselves while Robby was gone. We got to see my parents' house, although it was pretty much gutted at that point. We are excited to see it finished this Christmas.

The entire week we were in Portland we were preparing for Jeff and Augusta's annual Halloween party. They go all out and I am pretty sure they have more Halloween decorations than all of my holiday decorations combined. While getting ready for the party we were anxiously waiting to see if my sister-in-law was going to have her baby. She was hoping to not have until after the party. She made through the party but unfortunately she is still waiting for that baby to come!

Jeff and Augusta not only go all out on their party but also on their costumes. (The party has a strictly enforced costumes required rule.) Dressing up is not really my thing but they insisted I wore Augusta's strawberry costume from a previous year.

Here is everyone in their costumes for the party. (Augusta, Jeff, Scott, and Tiffany)

Here is Augusta and I in costume at the party. I know. I can't believe I am putting this picture up for everyone to see.

Before Jeff and Augusta's party we took the kids to the neighborhood Halloween party. They had several games for the kids to play.

Here is Owen (Snoopy), Jack (Charlie Brown) and James (astronaut) all ready to go.

The week after we got back from Portland we took the boys to two trunk-or-treats and out to actually trick-or-treat on Halloween of course. For some reason we never got all the cousins together in a picture so here's the best we got of Owen, Mayce and Jack together.

A couple of days before we went to Portland we got together with Erin, her sister-in-law Kerry, and her cousin Britney and had a craft day with the kids. They made tie-dye shirts, pumpkin bats, and decorated cookies. It was crazy but I think we all had fun. Here are all the kids in their tie-dye shirts. Thanks for the picture Erin! (We drew jack-o-lantern faces on the shirts after the party and my kids got tons of comments on them when they wore them on the plane to Portland.)

Jack is Stuck in the Toilet!

2008-10-13T12:11:00.000-07:00

Like always, we went to Robby's parents' house for Sunday dinner yesterday. After we ate dinner the kids were all playing and Robby and I were doing dishes. Suddenly the kids came running out yelling, "Jack is stuck in the toilet!" Jack loves splashing in the toilet whenever a bathroom door gets left open so I assumed that he had gotten his arm caught in the toilet. Much to my surprise, when I got to the bathroom, he was actually sitting IN the toilet. I almost died! Of course I screamed for someone to bring me a camera before I got him out but unfortunately he climbed out himself before a camera got there. Bummer. It would have been a good picture to embarrass him with later. He was pretty upset once he got in the toilet so I am hoping he won't want to do it again, but I'm not going to get my hopes up. Hopefully, everyone will remember to shut the bathroom door from now on.

Planting Flowers

2008-10-08T20:24:00.001-07:00

Now that the weather is finally starting to cool down, we have been spending more time outside. It is nice for us to get out of the house during the day. Today we bought flowers to plant in our planters. We got mostly pansies since they seem to do really well in our yard but we also decided to try some snapdragons. Assuming the neighborhood cats don't use our planters as a litter box, which they usually do, we will have some nice flowers in a few weeks or so.

The boys really liked to help plant the flowers. Owen always had his shovel handy to dig a hole for me. Jack just liked to play in the dirt. He kept climbing into the planter and I kept taking him out. He finally got strapped into his stroller to keep him out of the dirt. If I hadn't just put fertilizer into the dirt, I probably would have just let him play in it.

It may be hard to see Owen's shirt, but it is the shirt he was given at preschool. I don't know what it is but he seems to pick the ugliest shirt he owns and it becomes his favorite shirt. As soon as it is clean, he puts it back on. It used to be a shirt with dogs on it but now it is the preschool shirt. I should stop buying him nice shirts altogether! I guess it is just part of having a 3 year old.

When we planted the flowers in the backyard Owen was finally able to distract Jack by teaching him how to go down the slide. This slide has been in our yard for a few years and is a little worse for the wear. Grandma Corbridge (Robby's sister's husband's mom...phew) brought this to Owen with the intention of us fixing it. It never got fixed, but it still works so oh well. It is small but pretty steep so Jack would go flying off the end every time. Luckily, it kept the boys busy so I could plant the last few flowers.

When we finished planting the flowers, I pushed Jack in the stroller around the block so Owen could ride his bike. Owen is not the bravest on his bike. If there is the slightest hill he rides his brakes all the way down. And if there is a bump, he gets off and walks the bike over the bump. He is starting to get a little better but I don't see the training wheels coming off any time soon.

Jack's First Haircut

2008-09-25T19:50:00.000-07:00

This was actually a couple of months ago but I just ran into the pictures so I thought I should put them up.

Thanks to Grandma Walker, Robby and Owen get great haircuts every couple of weeks. (She has been training me to do it though and I cut both Robby's and Owen's last week.) After they both got their haircut Robby said that Jack needed his haircut too. He was starting to look like he had a pretty good mullet going. So we put him in the highchair with some chocolate chips to keep him still and Grandma cut off his mullet. It was really surprising to see how much older he looked without his long curls in the back.

Catching Up

2008-09-25T19:31:00.001-07:00

Now that everyone is feeling better I am trying to play catch up since it has been so long since I posted anything. So here is a bunch of stuff that has happened in the last few weeks .

This last Sunday we went to Grandma and Grandpa Walkers' and made soft serve ice cream with Dave's new ice cream maker. The kids loved it of course. But we think they actually liked making a big mess more than eating the ice cream. The pictures don't do them justice though. By the time the ice cream was done, or melted, they had ice cream everywhere. Owen decided that it was fun to squish the ice cream all over his face. He had it on his cheeks, chin and forehead. Jack was just his usual messy self. As usual after a day at Grandma and Grandpa's they both ended up in the bathtub.

Several weeks ago the boys and I went to a small water park with our friend Meredith and her baby Ryan. I didn't even bring Jack's swimsuit because I didn't think he would get in. Of course he ended up loving it. By the time we were done he was soaked from head to toe. His pants were so soaked that they kept falling off. Owen loved it too but was much more cautious.

Yesterday we made a trip to the park just a couple streets over from our house. Owen calls this park "my park." We like it because it is usually empty except for us. Jack is starting to actually like playing on the playground and the boys discovered that they liked to go down the slide together. As soon as they got to the bottom Jack tried to crawl back up the slide so he could do it again. I hope the slide will keep him distracted from the sand from now on. He usually goes straight the sand and starts dumping handfuls right on his head. It takes me days to get all the sand off his scalp especially now that he is terrified of taking baths for some reason.

Sick

2008-09-22T17:02:00.000-07:00

I swear I haven't already stopped blogging. Last week we were all sick. So between no one feeling good and doctor appointments we didn't have a whole lot to report on the blog. I did get a chance to take some pictures this weekend so I will put those on in the next couple of days.

Owen's First Day of Preschool

2008-09-10T08:24:00.000-07:00

Owen had his first day of preschool on Tuesday. He was so excited. The first thing he asked me when he woke that morning was, "Do I get to go to school today?" Luckily, his preschool doesn't start until 9 so we had plenty of time to get ready. Unfortunately, we were almost late because there was a mile-long train going super slow that we had to wait for. Now we know we have to plan for the train! Once we got there I wasn't sure how he would do. He is usually pretty nervous when he has to go somewhere by himself. Much to my surprise he walked in the door and didn't look back. I signed him in, asked him if I could leave and left. Wow! Much easier than I had planned.

When I picked him up he said to me, "Mom I didn't cry at all!" His teacher's name is Miss Aline and he seems to really like her. I felt like such a bad mom when I dropped him off because all the other moms where there with their cameras taking pictures. Ahh! I didn't even think of bringing my camera. But I redeemed myself when I picked him and took a picture then.

The best part of preschool was that when I got home from dropping Owen off I put Jack down for him nap and had 2 hours all to myself. I almost didn't know what to do with myself. It is nice to have 2 hours of peace and quiet that I can actually get something done without interruption. I think we are ALL going to enjoy preschool this year.

Jack's 1st Birthday

2008-09-09T13:49:00.000-07:00

This last Saturday we celebrated Jack's first birthday. I can't believe he is already 1! He had no idea what was going but we still had fun celebrating with him anyway. His cousins gladly helped him open presents and he was so excited to get clothes for this winter. Okay so maybe he wasn't that excited but I was. He was more excited about the small soccer ball and basketball he got.

Jack also loved his own cake and ice cream. Unlike good parents that don't let their kids have cake and ice cream and junk food until after they're one our kids have eaten pretty much everything since birth. (Thanks to grandpa!) So Jack had no trouble diving right into his own cupcake and yes, even his own scoop ice cream. The ice cream was Robby's idea. Which is why he got to give Jack a bath after it was all over.

As you can see Jack had to be bathed and the high chair had to be completely taken apart so it could be washed and hosed off in the back yard.

Finally . . .

2008-09-09T13:42:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I am finally going to do this. I keeping looking at everyone else's blogs and I'm a little jealous I haven't started one yet. It's one of those things I want to do but I can't seem to find the time or the motivation to actually sit down and do it. Now that I have started it I just have to keep it going.