Saturday, April 11, 2009

Catching up a little

We'll start with this picture because it just doesn't get any better than this!

It's been a while... Well, I don't know how long it's actually been, but there are a lot of things I haven't posted about.

To start, my sister stayed with us for a little while before she went up to Canada to join her hubby for his summer job. We had a great time with her and the kids were really sad to say goodbye.

Then my brother Jesse came through on his way to Canada for work as well. I was so glad he came; I was worried that he wouldn't and then he wouldn't get to meet Alaina until at least the end of summer. He and Gina and Toby moved to California for work two or three days before Alaina was born. So it was lots of fun to see him play with the kids and meet Alaina.


Then my cousin Asher came through with his band (Our Satori--they're great!!!) on tour and stayed at my parent's house for a few days. He was so cute with Alaina! It was so funny to see all these big, tall guys loving this baby!



Right about the time Jesse and Gina left for Canada, my most fabulous friend Kari came to town! It was great to see her and her family. We just love them! We got together for lunch before Jesse and Gina left and then we surprised my dad for his birthday by inviting Kari and Glen and their kids as well as Kollin and BreAn and their kids over for dinner and cake. Kari and Kollin are part of the "gang" from when we lived in California. Now they're both married and have kids! It was fun to get all of us together and catch up.




Last Friday Brice's brother came through town on his way home from a business trip to borrow a Tahoe and trailer from his sister-in-law. He was going to drive the Tahoe down to California to help move his father-in-law up to their Deweyville house next month, but true to form, he broke down. He called us from Cedar City on Friday night and we arranged to come down for the weekend while Angel (his wife) came up for the weekend. We all stayed in a hotel, swam in the pool, watched General Conference, and celebrated my birthday. Then Angel took William home and we towed the trailer back up here. The Tahoe will stay in Ceday City until it's fixed. It was a fun surprize weekend trip and a great way to watch Conference. Conference was wonderful and uplifting and it was great to get to see William, Angel, and Liam. We also got to visit David and Konni. David and Brice were good buddies in high school.
Angel and I found this awesome park while the boys were at the Priesthood session of Conference. It was cold, but so fun!
Apparently this is Ryker's new way to figure out what things are. Right before he licked it he said, "What's this?"




On Monday I found a dog on KSL that I really liked, so we went to see if he would be a good fit for our family and decided he was! It's been almost a week and he's still nameless (Brice is in charge of naming him and he hasn't picked one yet--any ideas?), but he is definitely the right dog for us. He's so sweet and cuddly, but still playful. He'd been a purely outdoor dog before so it never seems to cross his mind to pee in the house (Halleluiah!). He's training really fast and he's so mellow in the house. He still doesn't have very good house manners, but he's learning. So watch your food if you come for dinner. And don't leave your shoes out when he's around either. He mostly likes to just carry things around in his mouth, but there have been one or two toy casualties so far. Also, he FETCHES! That is a great quality in a dog to me becuase it makes exercising him really easy without making me exercise much at all. On second thought, maybe this is a bad thing... Anyway, it's been so nice to have a dog around again and he is just the sweetest thing. For those of you that are interested, he's an English Pointer, the same kind of dog that we fostered for a few weeks last summer if you remember that cute little puppy (if not, you can be reminded if you go to the June post from 2008), and he's 8 months old. And papered and not fixed! And FREE! You all know how much I love a bargain.


And here are a bunch more pictures from the past few weeks:
Haha! I startled her with the red-eye flash! She'd been sleeping, but then the camera flashed and this is what I got.



She LOVES to stand up


Isn't that the cutest little face?!


Ryker is my big helper with Alaina. He loves to help change her diaper and this time he did it all by himself!

Raelin loves to carry her around, but it makes me really nervous, so we tried this!

This is a little dress Brice's mom got for her. Isn't it cute! Thanks, Mom!


Another cute smiley face (with some drool!)

Kari got this dress for her. She sent it along with some other things a while back. She magically knew that I didn't have many dresses and sent two!

We've finally been getting some nice weather and tried to get outside to play as much as possible. We go to the park a lot with some friends from church. Below is Chloe and above are Raelin, Ryker, and Enzo building a fire. Not a real one; they were playing camping.
One day last week when we were at the park, Ryker fell and whacked his face on a bar. He got a lump on the bridge of his nose and his cheekbone. He got hit right across the eye! Now I know why God gave us eye sockets! They're good protection. His eye didn't get hurt; just the bones protecting it. So here's the progression of his black eye (the first of many, I'm sure) this week, though they don't do it justice--it looked worse in person.
These three pictures:


were my attempt at capturing a second generation of this:

4 comments:

C Tam said...

Congrats on finding the dog! Sounds like a gem. Also, Ryker completely looks like you. I know little boys don't like to be told they look like their moms, but it cannot be denied. Cute pics overall! Thanks for sharing!

Unknown said...

Oh so cute. Alaina is getting so big! The drooling smiling face is my favorite. What a doll. Love the dog! I'm so glad you got to see your family before they head up to Canada.

Cummins Family said...

Wow! I Love all the pictures! Alaina is SWIMMING in that dress I sent, which is hilarious because I think Maddie grew out of that like a week after I got it! She is even more alert and vibrant than when I saw her! I miss you guys too much!!

melissa said...

Here are dog name ideas generated by my kids: Spot, Choco, Chewey, Chopper, Barker, Chalks, Spotted- marshmellow.
Okay, hope that's a laugh!
The pictures are cute. Love those kids!