update!

I lost our camera and haven't been able to find it for the last two weeks so no pictures of Christmas unfortunately. We did take some video but don't have the right cord to connect our camera to the computer. Luckily we spent Christmas eve and most of Christmas day with my in-laws and my sister-in-law took pictures for us but she's now out of town and hasn't sent me any. I guess I'll have to post Christmas pics a little later!


I have an exciting announcement.... Jonah and Ryker are going to be big brothers! I'm so excited to have baby 3! I'm due June 11th and can't wait. I'm hoping it is a girl but another boy would be fun for the rest of the family. Michael has Jonah rooting for a boy luckily Ryker's too little to understand or he'd probably be turned to the "boy" side too! Whatever it is I'm just excited to add to our family Children are such blessings and they're just so darn cute!

I hope you all have had a great Christmas and have a Happy New Year!

SNOW!!!!!!!

It's snowing today! I'm so excited I've never seen snow fall before I've only seen it already on the ground so I'm having lots of fun just watching it fall! It's not sticking to the ground but it's blowing through the air and looks so pretty! I hope it snows enough for us to actually play in it and I hope it snows for Christmas too! yay for snow---and heaters it's cold outside!

Jonah has discovered that he loves playing in the snow!

Ryker enjoyed from inside with me and got to sample a some snow. He liked to eat it even though his fingers were freezing!

These are pictures looking out from our front door the first was yesterday evening and the last is from this morning I was surprised that the snow was still here everyone thought it would have melted. The schools even got delayed 2 hours which was great so we could sleep in a little!

Thanksgiving

my family enjoying a bon fire

For Thanksgiving my Mom, Dad, Brother- Jason, and my Nana- mom's mom- came to visit us. It was so much fun to see them and Ryker absolutely loved all the attention! Jonah did too but Ryker was so happy all the time it was so cute!! we were so busy going and doing everything and anything! We went to Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico and that was a lot of fun. Then we did pretty much all you can do in Alpine and a nearby city Fort Davis and we even went across the border to Ojinaga Mexico I was kind of nervous with the kids but it was a lot of fun and almost everything was so cheap! we bought Ryker a pair of cowboy boots for only $14 they probably would have been about $50 or more here! My brother brought his Nintendo Wii and Jonah got hooked on it, he was so good at bowling and baseball it was amazing! We might have to splurge and buy one someday soon I really like it too!! it was so hard to have my family here and then when they had to go they just aren't here anymore but we sure had fun with them!

Here Jonah and Ryker are playing in the leaves at Kokernot Park in Alpine on Thanksgiving Day
Me with my two boys in Mexico

On the morning my family left me, Nana, and my mom

Happy Birthday Ryker!

( I know Jonah's eyes are closed in this picture but the only other one we got of our family that day had Ryker's eyes closed and it was kind of far away so I figured this was was better even though it's not the best we could have done)


Ryker, on your first birthday I want to celebrate the great blessing you have been to our family. You have brought a tremendous amount of happiness into each of our lives because of how sweet and fun loving you are. You help us realize the unparalleled love of our Heavenly Father and remind us to be loving and trusting as a little child. Already you are learning so much and I hope for you to seek after anything virtuous, lovely, of good report, or praiseworthy. You are a true delight and can always make those around you smile I hope you will grow into a smart and talented young man who will be an example of righteousness to all you meet, I hope you and your brother will enjoy one another and become friends as you grow up together. I always want you to know that I love you and I know that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ know you and love you too. Happy Happy Birthday!!



Ryker's Birthday was on Saturday November 15th, we went to the local park (yes there's only one park in our small town) and had Uncle Clay, Aunt Amy, and their kids Devaney, Logan, Hyrum, Hannah, Isaac, and Roe come for cupcakes and to play with us. It was a pretty nice day but VERY cold the high was only 50. but we all had fun anyway. Unfortunately after we were done partying Ryker was acting a little grumpy and when I picked him up he was burning up with a fever he's had it for the past 3 days. Last night his temp was 102.3 but today he hasn't felt very hot so I think he's finally getting over it, poor baby! Since his birthday he has suddenly started doing new things like clapping, I've been trying to get him to clap his hands since he was like 8 months old and finally on his birthday as I was getting breakfast ready he was sitting in his highchair and just started clapping without any prompt! He's also finally trying to say words he's so cute he'll point at something or hold something up and look at me like "what is this" and when I say whatever it is he babbles trying to make the correct sounds, its about time!! He even tried saying "my birthday" and when I figure out how to upload videos I'll post the video of him saying it. All in all we had a fun First Birthday for Ryker!

We couldn't get the candle to light we tried for about 10 minutes but to no avail so we skipped it and just started singing anyway, so we could eat the yummy cupcakes!



I know I'm making a weird face but Ryker was so cute trying to eat his candle instead of the cupcake!


I don't think Ryker liked the cupcakes he only ate one or two bites of it. He was more interested in getting down and wandering around the park.

Be Grateful

I have just been thinking about how much I have to be grateful for. I have been working on a lesson about gratitude I am giving for enrichment and through all my research I feel extremely thankful and indebted to my Heavenly Father for my richness of blessings. I wish I could better express myself but I don't seem to always have the words I want. I am truly grateful for Jesus Christ his atonement, giving his life for our eternal lives is the greatest gift someone can give for another. Heavenly Father has given me all that I have and I cannot begin to repay Him. All I can do is offer up my thanks and obedience to Him. As Thanksgiving and Christmas come closer I hope all of us can remember what Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have given and done for us and that we can resolve to focus on the things that really matter in this life that we may help and serve one another and give our thanks to God and praise Him. I was reading in the Book of Mormon 3 Nephi 17 where Christ gathers the little children and blesses them and prays for all the people gathered together and how great his prayer to the Father was on their behalf, it made me feel His love for me I know that He is praying of each of us to come unto Him, He is there all we need to do is let him in. I am thankful for my family, for loving parents who taught me the gospel while I was youngn for a loving wonderful husband for my beautiful boys who share their love with me each day I am grateful for the fulness of the gospel and for the blessings I can recieve from it. I pray that we can remember to follow President Hinckley's counsel to be grateful this holiday season and through out the year.

Things you may not know about Ryker

Now that Ryker is approaching his 1st birthday I thought it would be a good time to let everyone know what he's been up to.

Ryker is definitely our little cuddle bug! He would love to be held most of the day and he sleeps a lot better when we let him sleep with us, which doesn't happen too often, sorry Ryker! The first time he slept through the night was when he was about ten months old and we let him sleep with us. he still wakes up about once a night to eat. He started walking a few weeks ago at about 11 months old. Ryker loves dogs he gets so excited when we see a dog or if he hears a dog barking, he also likes our cat Leo but can't always catch him to give a hug but he tries! He doesn't say very much, the only thing he does say is "dadadada" I'm trying to get him to say other things like "Mama", "Jonah", "more", "milk", and "eat" very useful words to know! Unfortunately he refuses to even try to mimic us and he won't even attempt to sign anything! I think he doesn't because he has found his very own very effective way to communicate: screaming. This can drive me and Michael crazy and after a few of his shrill screams we're ready to give him anything to make him stop! This is how he has earned the nickname of Screech. He is very funny though and he likes to be around other people and smiles at everyone. he loves to eat and laugh and is almost always laughing while eating. He is a huge mooch and will harass anyone with food! He loves to feed himself and has barely tolerated being fed babyfood even now he grabs at the food we try to feed him or if we do manage to actually give him a bite he'll take it out of his mouth and put it back in himself. Ryker loves his big brother and likes to play chase, swords, and cars with him. Right now his favorite toy to play with is any ball. He is very sweet and always gives hugs, sometimes nice baby open-mouth kisses too if we say "give kisses"! I love Ryker so much and love seeing his personality come out. He is so different from Jonah although they do look alike, except Ryker has hair and Jonah didn't until after age 1! Ryker is my very sweet cuddle bug!

Happy Halloween 2008!

For Halloween this year we went to our branch party and trunk or treat on Wednesday. Then to a little parade that was on Saturday, I found out on Sunday that the Mayor officially moved Halloween from Friday to Saturday because the middle school and high school had away football games and would be gone on Friday. We didn't go trick or treating because we were out of town of Friday and I didn't know they were doing trick or treating on Saturday but Jonah got plenty of candy from the branch party and the parade! The boys' costumes were a big hit! Jonah especially likes his he has worn everyday since it arrived last monday! Ryker's costume turned out really cute! Thank you Kelsey for sending me the iron on stuff it worked great!

Technology, friend or foe?

so I haven't scrapbooked for about a year and after unpacking our desk top with all of our pictures on it I decided to organize a file of the ones I wanted to print off to scrapbook. I was almost done and our computer completely stopped working it just wouldn't turn on! we have since bought a new desk top but all of our pictures and files and everything are still on our broken computer so it looks like it will still be a while until I can scrapbook I'm so frustrated!

Time, Time, Who has the Time?

I know everyone feels like they have so much to do and not enough time to do it but I really don't think I have time to do what I want to do or maybe I don't manage my time very wisely? it seems like my house always needs to be cleaned and I always have papers to file and put away, not to mention the 2 months worth of things I need to file that are in a huge manila envelope from when we lived with my brother-in-law, and taking care of someone who is always hungry, tired, poopy or just bored and needs to be entertained. Halloween is coming up and I need to make Ryker's costume, still! I've been dying to try to make some bread but I just haven't found the time maybe soon I hope! I don't mean to complain so much but I have just been feeling a little overwhelmed and need to vent so don't read too much into it, you don't really need to read it if you don't want to, I'm just getting everything out! I think I might be just a little sleep deprived, Michael's schedule is very long, he goes to school most morning's and then works late in the day on into the night and doesn't get home most nights until 10:30 or 11 pm and usually I stay awake so I can see him but then I get up with Jonah at 6:30 and get him off to school. So I don't start my days very refreshed and I haven't been sleeping very well anyway I just can't get comfortable! but I'm so excited for Halloween Jonah's costume just arrived today! and then in a few more weeks Ryker will be turning one! I can't believe it! I'm so happy to be a mommy! That's the one thing that I would describe myself as I can't wait to have more but I need to work on managing my time and being organized so I can do more fun mommy things like go to the park! But I'm glad that I can make our home nice and make yummy home cooked meals everyday for my family that always make me feel like I accomplished something, even if all you can see from it is dirty dishes to clean up and toys scattered through the house to put away, I'm very grateful for my family and for the blessings my Heavenly Father has given us. I'm also grateful for our trials (like learning to manage time) and the opportunity to grow from them!

Moved In

Hooray! we have finally moved in to our own place! It feels so nice to have my own things out and the kids absolutely love having their toys! well we were going to buy a house but that didn't happen and I think it was actually a good thing since we are planning on moving next summer anyway. so we're living in a trailer now and it's not bad. It smelled a little funky at first but we shampooed the carpets and I cleaned EVERYTHING! It took a few days to get the place clean enough to start moving our things in from the storage unit but we finally did and now we only have a handful of things left to unpack! Ryker loves being able to crawl and explore the whole house and Jonah likes having his stuff out, like his costumes and pirate treasure, and swords all he ever wants to do is play, he always asks me "what can we do?" which really means what can we play. Luckily with all his toys I can just say go look in your room for something to do and he's busy for a long time! Moving is so much work! after living in a real house in San Antonio for a year I didn't realize how much stuff we had until we were unpacking and trying to figure out where to put everything in the trailer, but we got most of it put away some things are crowded in but it will do until we move again! It just feels so nice to have a place to call "home".

Big Bend Balloon Bash

The One thing I wanted to do here in Alpine was see the Big Bend Balloon Bash it's once a year and has a bunch of hot-air balloons that come from all over. They even give rides! Well since there's not a lot of activities to do here we went, on the day it was canceled because of bad weather. But lucky for us it was going on all weekend. Unfortunately it rained the next day and the balloons didn't take off. That night at the middle school football field they had a fun little ground show that we only caught the finale of but it was still fun to see all the balloons! The following day it was finally nice and sunny out so I took the kids to see the balloons flying but I was late again and missed it :( A clown was still there doing balloon animals and stuff so at least Jonah and Ryker got a fun balloon toy out of it! If we're still here next Labor Day I'll definitely try to see them again and maybe I can get a ride!!

Here's Michael and Jonah in front of one of the Balloons illuminated by the fire inside it.

Ryker loved his balloon! Jonah had a samurai sword but it popped before I got a picture of him with it, that was just our luck this wekend!

I need some creative Genius!

Ever since last Halloween when Jonah was Spiderman he said that this year he wanted to be Batman and since I was pregnant at the time he wanted the baby to be a superhero too so I thought it would be fun for Ryker to be Robin but I was looking at costumes on line and the cheapest infant Robin costume was $20 which isn't so bad but if I got that and Jonah's which I'm sure will be at least $20 too that's already $40 and I'm not too crazy about spending that for one night of use, although I'm sure Jonah will dress like Batman everyday for about 3 weeks, so that's why I feel a little better about spending money on his costume but for Ryker I was thinking about making it but I'm not sure how to do it so people know that he's supposed to be Robin and not just a baby wearing green and red. So does anyone who's creative have some good suggestions?

RUDE!

okay so Michael and I were talking about getting a dog and we've been looking at craigslist (for a free one of course!) so we saw an ad for wolfhound puppies and googled the breed: they are huge but cool looking so Michael wanted one and after reading that they are gentle and good with kids I thought it would be fun to have such a big dog. Michael and I both respond to the ad but only I get a response with two phone numbers so I call and the lady agrees to meet me the next day but will call "first thing in the morning" to set a concrete time. That night Michael bought a collar and leash and the next morning I waited for the phone call, but she never called! so I called her, but of course she didn't answer either of the numbers she gave me so I left a message. after a few hours I tried calling again but this time the phone rang and rang but instead of going to to voicemail it just hung up so I think she must of been avoiding my call. What's the deal? Why not just let me know if she doesn't want to give me her dog. AAGGHH!! I know it's not really a big deal but it just really ticks me off that she wouldn't just tell me. Why did she have to be so rude about it all??? anyway I just needed to get out my frustration! if you have time you should google 'Irish wolfhound' they are, maybe a bit ugly, but so huge it's cool!

SCHOOL, SCHMOOL

So Jonah's 1st day of school was pretty exciting for all of us. He wasn't nervous until we were walking to the school entrance and he asked me if I could stay just for that day until he got "used to it" I only stayed a few minutes but all day I was anxious to talk to him about how his first day was. but when I picked him up all he told me was that it was "bad". "Uh-oh" I thought, "he's never going to want to go to school again!" but it was only bad because he could only play on one playground during recess b/c the other playground was for older kids. So if that's the only "bad" thing about school I think it will be okay! Jonah's still excited about school and even said he's making new friends, Yay! oh Ryker was excited for Jonah too (look at his excitement in the photo!)

Pre-school jitters!

Wow, I can't believe that Jonah is going to start pre-K!! so Jonah has been wanting to go to school for like 2 years so when we moved here to Alpine I started looking into preschools since he's finally old enough to go and the pre-k class the public school offers was so full that I had to put him on the wait list and I really didn't think he would get in this year but as luck would have it the school called today and asked if Jonah was still interested and if he could start tomorrow! so tonight I had to run around to three different stores trying to find all the school supplies he would need and of course the first two stores I went to were way understocked and didn't have much of what I needed so I had to go to a third store, but I finally got everything and Jonah is so excited!! I think I'm more nervous than he is! He already wants to ride the bus and when I told him I wanted to take him for his first day he almost cried. I hope he likes it and doesn't get burnt out and most of all I hope I've been a good enough mom to have taught him the basic social skills he'll need to interact with the teacher and other students. It is so exciting to have a son starting school It will be so different not having him home all day with me, I don't know what I'll do with just Ryker hopefully I'll be able to get more "me" stuff done!! Good Luck at School Jonah! I'm so proud of you!

Why Blog??

Okay so I've had many friends and a sister ask me why don't I have a blog. I really was just being lazy but now that Michael's always at school or work and I have nothing to do becasue I don't have my own house yet I figured that blogging would be a good way to keep me busy doing something... and it seems kinda fun, but we'll see how well I keep up with it:) I guess there's alot to learn about having a blog and I'll figure it out as I go!! So this is for everyone who has ever asked "do you have a blog?" I can finally say "YES"