Utah: Part 1

January 2013

Our first stop was to my parents home.  My dad had a nasty cough and eventually it spread through our family, Caroline never got it.  It was nice to relax and not have much planned.  Poor little Cooper had RSV and we didn't get to see him much.  I would have liked to have held him a little more too.  We had our family Christmas party where all the kids opened their presents.  Lincoln received a new Angry Bird shirt from his cousins; he walks around saying 'I got this shirt from my cousins.'  

 A lot of our time was consumed by the Wii, specifically Mario kart.  I'm not sure how to regulate the time my kids want to play on the Wii or some hand held device to play Angry Birds.  We don't have those things and I kind of hope we never do.  But my kids are always over someones shoulder watching them play a game.  You can see that they REALLY want to play.

 We did take half an hour to go out into the cold to do some sledding.  Henry didn't want to be there from the moment we put him in his snowsuit.  Linc. was scared of the dogs running around.  Parker enjoyed the sledding.  Caroline had a nap.

 The big thing in front of Willie had a fire going.  A great way to stay warm when doing something fun.

 Brady had a crazy idea to take the two sleeping babies down the hill for a run.  Okay, sure.  They were doing well until the bottom.  On video was have captured Willie crashing with Caroline in his arms, rolling over her and landing.  Amazingly she stayed asleep the whole time.  I could not believe it!  Copper woke up at the end of his ride.

 Love Uncle Brady.

 Caroline and I didn't make it to church on Christmas Sunday so we got her in her Christmas dress the next Sunday.  She slept the whole time in her car seat, covered up.

 I love this one of my dad and Caroline.

 Cooper.

 Bowling with Brady, Erika, Cooper, Terrah, and Anna.

 We had some time with Grandpa Kim and Nana.

 London.

Christmas!!

December 25, 2012

Christmas was fabulous and sad at the same time.  All the kids were excited to get new jammies from Grandpa David and Grandma Nanette and new slippers from us.  They all love Cars 2.  The unfortunate thing about Christmas is that Parker caught the horrible sickness that Henry and I had already.  He had the stomach bug and hardly had energy.  Christmas morning Parker was excited enough to find that Santa left him his Chutes and Ladders game he asked for.  Then he went to the couch to lay down until we brought him more presents.  He could barely open them.  It was hard to tell if Parker liked half of his presents because he would barely smile at any of them.  Grandma Joan gave him a scooter and he finally responded to us with a 'I like it' and a smile.  

On the other hand we had three kids that really expressed their enthusiasm for Christmas.  Henry loved the new cars he asked Santa for and Lincoln was excited to get Mater Hawk and Lightning McQueen Hawk; the third hawk he was willing to give to one of his brothers.  Caroline received some fun girl things, like bracelets to play with. 

 This year I made the three boys a book with pictures from their first year of life.  In time they may enjoy the books a little more.  I had fun looking through them.

 Now what do you suppose I would get for Willie?  He loves golf.  I wanted to get him practical things but this year I went with the 'I never get myself this kind of stuff.'

 The first one I pulled off was all thanks to my wonderful dad.  I asked him back in September if golf courses ever sold their old practice mats.  He said 'do you want one, I've got one in my shed?'  Yes of course I wanted one.  So I had him help me load it in our car in September, with a black garbage sack around it.  It sat in our garage in the sack until Christmas.  Willie figured he knew what it was but he thought it was just some old carpet.  His excitement for this gift was incredibly worth the wait.  By the way this thing is heavy!  After showing it off the family he took the mat downstairs to test it out.  The kids gave Willie his new shirt; Dad: The Pancake Maker.

 

A wonderful blessing for Christmas was the white snow.  It wasn't much but we loved it.  Willie gave me a jewelry box, it's very beautiful.

 Caroline in her new tutu!

 The boys went right to work playing with their cars.

It was nice to be home for Christmas.  We delayed our trip to Utah because of Parker being sick, we had planned to go the day after Christmas but waited another day.  Our trip to Utah was nice but we all got sick on that trip too.

A Visit to the North Pole.

December 21, 2012

Alamosa, CO.  Groupon had a deal at the end of November for a train ride to see Santa Claus.  I just couldn't pass it up.  We took a three hour journey down to Alamosa.  The weather was chilly but blue sky's. We kept this a surprise for the kids.  We broke the surprise into three groups; swimming, staying at a hotel, and the train ride.

 I promise Willie did have his eyes open, I just caught him during a blink.  I was going for the beautiful drive we had, see the mountain out his window?  I love mountains.

 We haven't been swimming since we were in our first week in Colorado.  The boys went at the hotel my family was staying at.  I hadn't been since before Caroline was born.  I couldn't believe how much I missed swimming.

Caroline did well for her first time.  She didn't get too sad, she was comfortable being pretty close to mom.

After a quick pizza dinner we got in our pj's for our North Pole trip.

Here we are with our tickets, waiting for the train.  We were happy when the whistle sounded and we had the 'all aboard' call.

Henry looks a little sleepy in this picture I will explain that later.

The train ride was awesome.  The boys had a lot of fun.  We were given hot chocolate with whipped cream and sprinkles.  The elf helpers were fun too; their names were snowflake, candy cane, etc.  We also were given a cookie.  The kids all stood up and sang Christmas songs, our kids watched the other kids mostly.

Henry snuggled up to me for most of the ride.  We thought he was super tired.

We picked up Santa Claus when we arrived to the North Pole.  On the way back to the train station we got to meet Santa!  He gave each of us a tiny bell and asked what we wanted for Christmas.  Henry finally perked up for the visit by Santa and told him he wanted to have cars.

Our family photo.  Caroline IS in her carseat.

Once we got back to the hotel everyone snuggled in to watch some videos of Goofy and Donald and Mickey.  They love some of the old time cartoons.  I love how comfy they all were in this picture.

Here is the story of Henry being 'tired.'  Turns out that in the middle of the night Henry woke up crying.  I got up with him and put him in our bed because I was tired.  He just wouldn't go to sleep though.  I had him in the middle of me and Willie because I was going to have to take care of Caroline in the night as well.  Turns out that Henry was sick and he soiled the whole middle of the bed.  We tried to clean up as best we could.  I slept on the floor with Henry and Willie slept at the foot of the bed.  Henry felt much better and was happy to go swimming the next morning!
Sad thing though was that this little sickness was the beginning of horrible sickness for our family for the next month.  I was sick the next day as we traveled home and I was sick for two days.  Then Parker got it during Christmas and then Lincoln got it for a day.  Anyway, it was a bunch of sickness.
Here are a few pictures of what the train station looked like during the day on our way out.  The temps outside were about 13 and then as we got closer to home the temps went up to about 22.  It's cold in Alamosa!

As soon as we got home our first activity was to build our first snowman!  Good job Parker.

I'm glad we could take a fun little trip with the kids.  They love trains and I hope we can always re-enforce their love for trains.  I'm glad that we were all safe in the travels and that we didn't have to visit the ER.