Sunday, February 27, 2011

Quarterly Report

I should be taking a much deserved Sunday afternoon nap right now. (My headache tells me so anyway) But it's a little hard to sleep when a certain 3 year old little boy is in his room humming the theme song to Hook VERY loudly. So, instead of napping, I'll do something productive and make my mom happy by updating the blog.
For this update, I'll be heading all the way back to Christmas. We spent Christmas in California this year with the Lowe's and we had an amazing time. I always come home feeling spoiled rotten. Jonah woke up everyday asking where his cousins were and wanting to know when he would get to play with them. Some of our exploits included:


Christmas in the Park downtown San Jose


A fun family outing to the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park and then down to Pier 39 for clam chowder and some sightseeing.

Of course, Christmas day. Jonah asked Santa for Slinky Dog and a Lightning McQueen watch this year. Santa delivered, barely.


Carrie was just happy to be there.
Mike and I also celebrated our five year anniversary by going out to Thai food and a fun old movie at the Stanford theatre with the best free babysitting around--Grandma and Grandpa.
We went to Utah on the 29th of December to spend time with the Black side of the family. We were so excited to meet Dirk's new baby, Caleb, and were able to be there for his baby blessing. What a sweetie pie.
We played in the snow a lot. Let me rephrase that: JONAH AND MIKE played in the snow a lot.



Here's Jonah riding in style. After a morning full of playing in the snow and Mike pulling Jonah around, Jonah said, "Daddy, thanks for doing all of that." Those two have a lot of fun together.

We played with cousin Jane


and Jonah went rock climbing at the Quarry. He climbed all the way to the top TWICE.


Again, Carrie hung out with Grandma and mommy.
Christmas was AWESOME. It is always so wonderful to be with our families.

When we came home, Carrie had her six month appointment. She weighed in at 18 pounds 11 ounces (90th percentile) and 26 1/2 inches long (75th percentile). We like 'em chubby. She babbles and is getting so close to crawling.

Jonah went rock climbing again at the Texas A&M student rec center with one of his little buddies. Jonah had a little crowd of people watching him.

He went pretty high.

Just watching Jonah climb that high made Carrie pretty tired.


In other Texas happenings, it snowed!!

Carrie is quite the little narcissist. She loves talking to herself and kissing the baby in the mirror.

I love my two cute kids, and they (I think) genuinely like each other.
Carrie had a photo shoot with my friend Meli. Here are some of the pictures:



Monday, November 1, 2010

Our Happy Halloween


Although I have really been missing the beautiful crisp Fall weather I'm accustomed to, we've had a wonderful fall here in Texas.
We've enjoyed some BYU football...maybe "enjoyed" is too strong a word here for what a crummy season they've had.

Carrie is already a Cougar fan, watching a football game with Dad.
Mike competed in a local kolache eating contest in Caldwell. (For those of you who don't know what a kolache is, don't feel bad. It is a Czechoslovakian food. It can be sweet with fruit filling or savory with a sausage filling) Just before the competition started we ran into some friends of mine, Monica and Jason. Mike invited Jason to join him in the competition. The winner of the Kolache competition would be the contestant who ate all 8 of their Kolaches in the shortest amount of time.

Mike getting ready.

Mike shoving Kolaches down his throat as fast as he possibly could.
Sadly, this tale does not have a happy ending for dear Michael. He ended up just barely losing to Jason. Jason won $50, a baseball hat enscribed with "Kolache Eating Champion 2010" and a picture with the Kolache Queen. Needless to say, Mike was a little upset he lost. They both ended up making it onto the front page of the local newspaper.
Jonah has been playing soccer one evening a week for the past 6 weeks. For the three year old age group, they had the parents very involved in the weekly practices. So, I essentially also went to soccer practice. I thought Jonah would enjoy it more than he did, but I think it was a good experience for him, and Mike and me.

For the last two weeks of soccer, they had the kids play in a game-like setting (emphasis on like). We've all seen the kid who does cartwheels in the outfield right? I know this is soccer, not baseball, but Jonah was totally that kid. Instead of cartwheels, Jonah did a few somersaults for us in the middle of the field, in the middle of the game. He cried several times and played in the net after every goal his team scored. Maybe we should have waited a year...
Jonah has preschool once a week with some kids (all girls) his age from church. The moms take turns teaching and it has really been a lot of fun for him. In early October we went on a fieldtrip to Dewberry Farm down near Houston.


He got to go on a hayride to a pumpkin patch and pick out a pumpkin, ride on big wheelers around a race track, jump on giant pillow bouncers, and more. It was a fun day and an eye opener for me on how much work an outing with two kids can be without dad around. Thank goodness for friends who helped me out.

We celebrated Mike's 30th birthday with cake and presents. At random, Mike decided to go on a 10 mile run the night of his birthday. He hasn't been running longer than 3 mile distances, and these runs only happen twice a week. Mike set out to prove that at 30 years, he's still got it. At 11:30 p.m. he arrived back home having run the entire 10 miles and feeling pretty good almost the whole way. He said it was a great chance for him to think about the thirty years he's lived and the thirty years to come. (Does anybody else hear Tim McGraw singing "My Next Thirty Years" in their heads at this point?)
We went to a local open air grocery mart called the Farm Patch to pick out our pumpkins this year. They had a pumpkin patch set up where Jonah enjoyed tripping over the pumpkins and scoping out which ones we would be taking home with us to paint and carve.


Carrie snuggling me while we search for the perfect pumpkin.


Mike tried to hide Carrie amidst all the pumpkins.
We had a whole week of Halloween Fun:


Jonah was Peter Pan this year, and Carrie was...

...a monkey. It was hard to get a good picture of her in her costume. It's so hot here that the monkey costume only stayed on her little body a total of 5 minutes.


But she's a cute monkey, right?

Here are some random pictures of my kids for the grandparents, aunties, and unclies.

Carrie with her game face on. She gets so serious trying to pull those toys off her little baby gym. Her arms are moving so fast, they're a blur!

Jonah next to some of his chalk drawings. When I took him to his 3 year old check-up the doctor asked me if he was drawing primitive people. "Well, no," I replied. Without prompting, Jonah has been drawing these "primitive people" all over our driveway, setting my mind at ease that my child is on track developmentally :) My favorite primitive being is the donut man right next to Jonah's right elbow in this picture. That is hardly primitive in my opinion.

Carrie's sweet smiles.


Jonah checking himself out in our bathroom mirror on his first-ever-tie-wearing Sunday. Is this a bad thing that he's three and has never worn a tie to church until now? I think that's the first and last time he's worn that tie. I don't blame him; from what I hear, they're not as cool as they look.
In summary, we are happy and busy.
Well, this post oughta hold down my metaphorical blogging fort 'til Spring :) Until next time!

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Our Summer Vacation...Finally

We flew to Utah for a long awaited and much needed summer vacation. Mike finished up a very busy summer semester, which included a tough class, a first year paper, and a new baby. We decided to bless Carrie in Utah so we could have our family and friends be there. It was wonderful! Thank you to everyone who came. Here's a little run-down of our vacation:

Jonah and Carrie getting summer vacation ready

Mike and Jonah standing in line for a ride at Lagoon

Jonah loving Lagoon

Jonah at Heritage Park in Salt Lake City

Riding a train around Heritage Park. Jonah apparently thought the tour guide was speaking too loudly over the microphone, because he covered his ears the entire time.

Jonah enjoying the school house at Heritage Park



Mining for gold at Heritage Park

Carrie slept, and slept some more during most of our outings.


Mike thought it would be lots of fun to submerge his entire body in the ice cold snow run-off at the base of Bridal Veil Falls. Jonah was all too ready to join in the fun, especially if it included running around in his underoos.

Fishing with Grandpa is always fun even if the only thing you catch is...

...green muck from the river.

We blessed Carrie and over 50 of our family and friends came to support us. What an incredible thing that this little baby already has so many people who love and care about her.

My mom (aka "Grandma Jo") is starting a tradition where she takes each of the grandkids to Build a Bear when they are three. Jonah came back from his special outing with Grandma with FRANKIE the FIREMAN. He thought of the name and everything.

We went up to BYU to stock up on some BYU gear for the upcoming Football season. Jonah had talked about wanting to feed some ducks, so we brought along some old hot dog buns and Jonah went to town throwing bread to (or was it really "at") the ducks.
We're home now and adjusted back to real life. Here are some recent pictures of my cute kids: