Happy "Birth" day Max!

My sister Mary had little Max at 12:03 this morning. He is 6 lbs 7 oz, 18.5 inches long and a miracle! When Mary and Spencer when in for the ultrasound at 20 weeks they were very excited to find out the gender of baby #2. Not long into the ultra sound the tech discovered an abnormality. Max has multiple problems with his little heart. Mary set up a blog to help explain and follow Max's progress. There have been multiple doctor appointments, ultra sounds, tests and a lot of tears and worries. There will still be multiple doctor appointments and tests, but many of the tears and worries have been calmed with how wonderful Max has been doing since he was born.

Spencer and Mary with little Max. What proud parents.

Max's initial check up right after birth~ what a beautiful baby.

I love my sister so much and I am so happy for the new addition to her family. I wish we lived closer so I could be around to help out with Morgen and to give this little angel extra hugs and kisses.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

On Christmas we had a lot of rain, mixed with a little bit of snow. But today we have already gotten 6 inches of snow and it is still coming down. Christmas was great, busy, fun, crazy and wonderful! I hope everyone had a great holiday!

PS On the news tonight they did a calculation~ shoveling a normal driveway with 6 inches of snow equals shoveling 2,000 pounds of snow! We are also on a long corner lot, so I also shovel a lot of sidewalk and to top it off I sweep/shovel all the snow off of our trampoline as well! Thanks for the work out Mother Nature!

A picture's worth a thousand words

Okay~ I am feeling way too lazy and busy to spend a lot of time blogging about the rest of our trip to California. So, instead I am just going to post a bunch of pictures that will show our adventures. And just so you don't think I am biased towards my boys~ there will be a lot more pictures of them since the 3 of us stayed in California an extra week. Shayden and Korby had to get back to school and work. Enjoy!

One morning I got up early with my dad and went hiking. It was beautiful watching the sun rise over the mountains. It looks like we are hiking by a lake, but that is actually the cloud cover that hadn't burned off yet.

One day we walked out on the Oceanside pier. There were two pelicans there that were fighting each other. The kids thought it was awesome!

We went down to Balboa Park one day. The science center was free so we got to go in and play/discover. They have a great kids area where Tanner wrote his name all by him self. He was so excited!

Here is my dad and Tanner at Balboa Park looking in the fish pond.

We spent one morning at a cell phone store. There were 8 adults and 3 kids in one small store for 2 hours! At least they had display phones that kept the kids pretty entertained!

At Balboa Park they have a free trolley that drives you all around. The driver was really sweet~ she gave my boys each a hat and let them blow the whistle!

We spent an afternoon at La Jolla Cove. They boys had so much fun playing with their cousin Morgen. The three of them played peek-a-boo for about 10 minutes straight at one point!

Do you think Jackson is trying to tell me something~ stop taking my picture mom!

If you enlarge this picture you will be able to see that all those dark rocks are actually sea lions. It is always so fun to get to see these amazing animals and to watch how completely awkward they are on land!

One of the highlights of the trip was going to the San Diego Temple to be with my sister and her husband as they were sealed. Here is Jackson waiting outside for everyone.

Tanner is a pretty particular eater (and that's an understatement). Here is his Thanksgiving dinner~ green jello with marshmallows! Oh yea, he also ate a roll!

We went on a family hike. The kids were real troopers. It ended up being about 4 miles. I think Jackson walked about 30 steps of the entire thing!

Here is a sweet picture of Jackson from our Pilgrim and Indian photo shoot.

Right off the freeway in Temecula there is a big duck pond. The kids had a great time feeding all the ducks and taking a walk with grandpa.

It is pretty unusual to get a good smiling picture of Tanner. He usually has a much more serious smile. I love this little guy!

My sister Holly loves jewelry and has more than anyone I know. She was getting rid of some of her necklaces that she doesn't wear anymore, so she brought them over to my parents house and we played "Jewelry Store." All the items were spread out on a king size bed (and they covered the entire bed!), my sisters and I got to go through and pick out anything we wanted! It was so much fun and I came home with more jewelry then I owned before I came down to CA! Shayden was in heaven!!!!

Here's a shot from the loft in my parents house. We love their house!!!

Well, that about sums up our trip to CA. Now I can start posting Christmas pictures!!!

Happy Late Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving with my family in sunny California. It was wonderful and I have some fun pictures to share. First I will show pictures of my family from Thanksgiving Day. We made Indian and Pilgrim hats and took a picture of each family. It was pretty silly and fun. Enjoy!

My dad and mom

The Lee's

Holly and Fer


Mary, Morgen and Spencer

Katie

Megan and John

I hope everyone else had as much fun with their friends and family over the holidays! How truly blessed we are to have each other!

California Dreamin'

We are leaving tomorrow for sunny California to celebrate Thanksgiving with my family. Right now I am stressing out (like I always do before we leave on a trip) and feel like I have a million things to do in the next 19 hours~ yes I am counting the hours. I hope that anyone reading this blog has a great Thanksgiving!!!

This is a picture of the Oceanside beach taken off of the pier. Although my parents don't live here anymore, this is still my beach.

Regular Stuff

Nothing super exciting has been happening the last week or so, just a lot of regular stuff. Busy, but regular. Here we are at a UVU pre-season basketball game with Korby's dad. It was very empty which made it perfect for my boys to run around like crazy and not bug anyone.

We went up to Grandma Lee's house to help clean up all of her leaves. Shayden was a great helper~ the boys undid just about everything we tried to do. They ended up playing with grandpa instead.

Here is Tanner playing with his best friend Tanner O. The two of them together will sit and play trains for hours on end.

We are leaving for California next week, so I am sure we will have some much more exciting stories and pictures to post when we get back.

Autumn

We have had one of the most mild and beautiful fall's that I can remember! The kids had so much fun playing outside, watching all the leaves change color and enjoying the wonderful weather while it lasted.

We have a small park at the end of our circle~ it is the perfect way to spend a nice afternoon with the boys while waiting for Shayden to get home from school.

We went to Gardner Village with some friends for the Witch Festival.

My dad came up to visit and we took the kids to the zoo. I love this picture because without knowing it, Jackson is making the same face as the eagle he is riding!

I am going to miss seeing this once it starts snowing! The past few months have been so wonderful~ Jackson is finally old enough to play outside with the "big kids" and they play so nicely together (for the most part)!

I am not quite ready for winter to be here~ but then again, if it was up to me winter would never get here and we would just go right into spring! A girl can wish....