Fun in February

First off I want to let you all know I'm finally past the sick part of the pregnancy. HOORAY! It was a wicked four months and I don't know how I can forget something as traumatic as that enough to have four kids but thank heavens we are past the worse part. Now I'm getting a belly and we have the ultra sound on the 28th which we are looking forward to.

The weather here in unbelieveable. Today it got up to 67 so to celebrate we decided to go hiking to Whiskeytown Lake. It's only about 20 minutes away so we were surprised to find the waterfall trail closed because of snow. We went a little further down hill and found an easy 1 1/2 mile hike that wound around the river. The kids did great. No complaining, except from Ellie who has legs shorter than your average sheep, and she made it most of the way back to the car before a piggyback. We traipsed through mud and snow and it was beautiful. I'm hoping to get out as much as possible before the heat and the belly put a stop to that. Even then I plan on doing a lot of floating around pools and the lake. Watch for the floating hippopotomous!

Three of the pictures are from our hike today, and the other is Ellie on her noble steed (did I mention how patient and wonderful that dog is?!) The one with McKenna and Dee is our surprise at seeing snow. Who knew?! So, for all those of you who are tired of snow an looking for a place to visit come on over!

Tooth fairy?

I just have a small post, Tyler lost his first tooth! It fell out and he was so excited. The next morning I woke up to him tearing his bed apart looking for that precious lost tooth dollar. Did the tooth fairy forget? (YIPE!) I told him let's eat breakfast then look together, ran back into Dee and explained what lousy parents we can be (who knew so much guilt could be associated with a friggin tooth?) and made breakfast. When we went back to look, lo and behold there were four shiny quarters under his stuffed tiger. Phew. We make a good team. Sometimes slow, but we can pull it off. The point of the story is Tyler is SOOOO excited about his first lost tooth and we love to see him happy.

Husband Tag...

Amber tagged me a while ago, I'm just getting caught up. I'm also trying to scan the picture of Dee and I but it'll have to be in the future post... blankety blankety scanner...

What's his name? Dee

How long have you been married? 11 wonderful years

How long did you date? About a year

How old is he? 36

Who eats more? Currently him. Give me three more weeks and I'll be making up for lost time. As Amber said, I can really pack it away!

Who said "I love you" first? Me, on accident. I had fallen asleep during a movie - I talk in my sleep, he woke me up and said I had told him I loved him. After denying it, then putting some thought into it, I realized I did and dumped the other guy.s.

Who is taller? Dee

Who sings better? Probably Dee although the acoustics in the shower might argue. I can really belt it out in there.

Who is smarter? Tough one. We both have our strong points - Dee is well rounded on a variety of subjects (some random some applicable) but I'm a pretty good debater and can make my point seem valid even if it is made up.

Whose temper is worse? Dee's. Mine. We both kick the dog.

Who does the laundry? Mostly me. Usually I wash and dry and we both end up folding. I don't iron, however.

Who does the dishes? Mostly me.

Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? Dee

Who pays the bills? I do.

Who mows the lawn? We both do. Year round I might add...

Who cooks dinner? Until I was pregnant mostly me. Dee has been master chef since nights are pukey.

Who drives when you are together? Dee

Who is more stubborn? Me, no question.

Who is the first to admit when they are wrong? Again, wonderful Dee. I think it's that stubborn thing, I come around it just takes a while.

Who proposed? I did. I got tired of waiting.

Who has more friends? About equal, we do a lot of couple things.

Who has more siblings? We're tied, I have two sisters and one brother, he has one sister and two brothers.

Who wears the pants in the family? That is a tough one again. He is the spontaneous decision maker and I am the the "what if" lots of thought decision maker. We meet some where in the middle.

Snow and Christmas!

Well, Christmas came and went with an awesome trip home to see family. The kids and Dee had an awesome time in the snow. Being California kids it was a huge treat for them. Dad was suckered into pulling them around in the sled and he even made a ramp off the back patio which they played on until they couldn't feel their toes and had to come in for hot chocolate and cinnamon bread.

We didn't do our usual running around to see everybody because I felt pretty awful most of the time but was blessed enough with a reprive over Christmas Eve and day that I got to celebrate and eat. What a treat that was! Most of the time I just laid around and was boring, though. It was fun to be with family, play with our nephews (and Tressie!) and take it easy and Christmas was fantastic. The kids are at the age where it is all so magical - I hope they never grow out of it!

Thanksgiving Vacation

Well, good news. I'm feeling MUCH better this week - functioning and everything. Now on to the diabetes aspect of the pregnancy. Don't stop praying!

I thought I'd share our Thanksgiving photos. We went to Monterey the week of Thanksgiving. The kids had the time off school, Dee had the extra vacation and our friends offered a place to stay. We couldn't pass it up! None of us had been there before but we absolutely fell in love with the beaches. We did the aquarium (expensive, but worth seeing once in a lifetime) and Suzanne and the boys met us for the afternoon at an awesome park. The next day we did the 17 mile drive (Dee drooled at all the golf courses) but the best time we had was at the beach. The weather was incredible and the sand was so white and warm. We played all day at the beach although the water was too cold to swim. I put a clip on here for mom she wanted me to make sure the "ocean was still going in and out even if she wasn't here."

After our fun in Monterey we moseyed (traffic was horrendous) to Sacramento to visit Gordon, Kristi and the boys and spent actual Thanksgiving there. It was wonderful with lots of food and laughing. I love the holidays!

Exciting news!

It is official. We are expecting our fourth baby around July 14th. As excited as we are, I am also SICK SICK SICK, so I haven't up dated our blog for a while. Mostly being "up" at all has been hard. I've lost 10 pounds in a week and although so far this week is much better I'm still taking it very slow. I'm trying not to complain since this baby is such a blessing and we've been hoping for it for a while. Dee, McKenna and Tyler are as excited as can be, but when I asked Ellie if she wanted a baby she said, "No thank you. I don't really like babies." Boy is she in for a surprise! I'll post more about our holiday travels with pictures later this week. Stay tuned!

Halloween and more

We've had some busy weekends the last little bit. First we went to Sacramento one weekend, then Salt Lake last weekend. It was my nephew Greg's farewell (see handsome picture...and he's going to Mesa Arizona by the way). It was the quickest trip we've ever been, 24 hours on the road and about 24 hours there. It was awesome to see the family, however brief, and we wouldn't have missed being there for Greg.

Since yesterday was Halloween, I thought I'd also post cute pictures of the kids. McKenna was Hermoine from Harry Potter, Tyler was some sort of karate/Jedi/ninja and Ellie was a princess which is a far cry from the Spiderman she started out wanting to be. You can't see it in the pictures, but she is still wearing the red cowgirl boots. Classic. Pete (our dog) was a football player - not as excited as the kids! We had a great holiday and the kids got a load of candy.

I'm having a hard time internalizing the fact that it is now November. It seems I missed a few months somewhere. It probably doesn't help that the weather is 83 degrees (no, I'm not complaining) it just feels different this year. Doesn't stop the Christmas music though! This is a picture of the one of the few trees in our yard that changes it's leaves. Beautiful- I love fall!