Christmas

We've been having a fun Christmas break so far, kicked off one day early with school being canceled because of snow! We hope everyone had a great Christmas!

Christmas Eve and the kids got new pj's from mom and dad...



Lizzie was really fun on Christmas; she did actually play with her toys and not just the paper! I can't believe she is almost 10 months old!


Cody, being the great dad he is, took the kids out during the first snow storm and made a snowman. Then it rained and melted "Frosty", which the kids so originally named him, so then they all made a second trip out after that huge snowstorm we got and rebuilt him.

Kiddies

Here are some current photos of the kids: nothing specific, just so I have somewhat of an update on my blog.

Halloween this year:


Our little munchkins; I can't believe how long it takes to get them to all look AND smile at the camera at the same time. This one turned out but even J.C. really isn't smiling that much.

The sweet, blue-eyed girls we have; Anna loves her little sister and Lizzie gets so excited when Anna comes home from school.

Jake, Jake, Jake...what more can I say about this kid? He makes us laugh every day and most of the time he isn't even trying too. Everywhere we go he is told how cute he is and I have to agree!

Little Lizzie is starting to crawl now; she is into everything and she is such a good little girl. Her sweet little spirit brings our home so much happiness.


Why do kids have to grow up so fast?

Randomness

Okay, since I haven't even been on my blog in a couple of months I thought I'd better put some updated pictures on it. They aren't in any specific order or anything, just random ones I picked during the last couple of months. We've been pretty busy since Cody graduated and came home from the Academy. Annalyn loves first grade and is absolutely thriving in her class. Jacob is a three year old boy, need I say more? But he is a great helper and he makes us laugh. Lizzie is growing so fast and eating solids now; she is at such a fun stage where she is smiling at everything. She is a very quite baby; it takes a lot for her to laugh, but she is happy.

We went fishing over Labor Day, which means Cody spent most of the time getting the kids' poles ready instead of his own.






Anna played soccer this fall and what a good little player she was. She really liked it once she learned the game and a lot of her teammates are also in her school class.


Cody is selling firewood again this fall, so him and Jake have been busy chopping and splitting wood. Jake has his own wood pieces and "chopper" and he works just as hard as Cody does to "split" them. It's really cute to watch him work alongside his dad.


Lizzie is such a sweetie. Her little face just melts my heart everytime I look at her.

Jake is such a cute boy; his favorite thing to say is "I love you Lizzie; you're so pretty!"


Cody celebrated his 30th birthday on Oct. 1st!!! I swear we were just in high school and only 18. Where do the years go? And, really, is it any surprise that he put his sunglasses on right when I took the picture?

Graduation and First Day of School

Cody graduated from the National Park Service Law Enforcement Academy on July 23 and he also received one of the top awards, the Chief Ranger Award. We are so proud of how hard he worked and what a great job he did at school!





Annalyn started first grade this year. I can't believe she is growing up so fast! She did great her first week of school and we're excited to see how she does in first grade.

Lizzie is now 4 months, well almost 5, but she was 4 months when I took these pictures. I can't believe how fast she is growing up. She is such a sweetheart!


Her big brother and sister love her so much. They are constantly asking to hold her and play with her. I am so lucky to have such wonderful kids!


Well, we made it...Cody is home this Friday from school! We are so excited to have our Daddy back! We missed him, but he did a great job at school and we are so proud of him! (pictures will be posted soon)

Starting Summer

The summer started off a little hard with Cody leaving, but we are keeping busy!

Annalyn had her kindergarten graduation last week and she did such a good job! I can't believe my baby girl is done with kindergarten and off to 1st grade!


She is also playing t-ball this year which will help to keep us busy with games and practices. She is learning how to play and having fun, which is the whole point so I'm glad she likes it.


We also live right next to a park which is VERY helpful since we don't have our big beautiful backyard with the playset anymore. I think Jake would go nuts if he couldn't climb something everyday so we walk over to park almost every afternoon to help him get his boy energy out.



Lizzie tags along with us wherever we go and is happy doing it. She is such a good happy sweet baby and her big brother and sister love her so much.


Happy summer everyone!

Our New Adventure

There are a few really big reasons why I have not posted anything on our blog or commented on any of yours during the last month or two. Where do I begin...first of all, in January Cody got accepted into the National Park Service Law Enforcement program in Rangely, Colorado. He will train to be a law enforcement ranger in the National Park system and can work anywhere in the country. He actually left just this morning to start his training for 10 weeks in Rangely at Colorado Northwestern Community College. He has wanted to do this for a long time and the timing was finally right. We are so excited that he will finally be able to do what he has wanted for such a long time.

When Cody got accepted to the program back in January, we started to make some big decisions. Should the kids and I go with him? We decided no for a couple of reasons. The training that he will be doing is 24/7 so we wouldn't see much of him anyway; Rangely is not that exciting of a town and there would be nothing for us to do. So the kids and I are still here where we have family to help and where we are going to stay as busy as we can throughout the summer.

The second big decision we had to make was selling our house. Words cannot describe this expericence. Well, two words describe it all - Divine Intervention. Cody put the for sale sign up on a Tuesday and we had an offer by Monday - 6 DAYS. Everything went so fast and without complication through the whole closing process that we knew this was right. There is no other reason I can think of as to why it worked out the way it did. My trust and faith in the Lord as always been there, but when experiences like this happen, it always magnifies my spriritual outlook. So 3 weeks ago we moved into an apartment in our same ward. Cody finishes school the last week of July and then we will hopefully be moving again to wherever he gets job, which could be anywhere in the country.

So to say the least we have been a little busy. The kids have been doing really well through it all. Like I said earlier, Cody just left this morning, so his absence hasn't really hit them yet. But I know we'll be blessed and he'll be blessed as we start this next stage in our lives.

Some other things we've doing...

Cody has served in the Scouting program since we first bought our house in 2003. He has had such an impact on those boys and it shows because they presented him with some awards last Sunday. It was pretty special.


We also blessed Lizzie on May 2nd. She is such sweet baby. We all love her so much. Her older brother and sister are so protective of her. She was sent to us at this time for a special reason I believe.



Last weekend we went up the canyon with the kids to have a fire and cook hot dogs and s'mores; just to spend some family time together. They loved climbing and exploring and it was so fun to be "kind of camping" as Anna said.



So that has been our life the last little while. Lots of big changes and even more big blessings. We are starting a new adventure and we are so excited to see where it takes us!

Happy

Yesterday was Lizzie's first time to church. 3 hours of church seemed a little bit longer this time with 3 kids (especially during Sacrament meeting) but we did pretty good. I don't think she liked wearing her dress because she was mad in all the pictures but as soon as I took it off she was happy as could be. I love having two girls because now I get to match their clothes!!! I'm not sure how long Annalyn will let me do it but I'll take as long as I can get. I couldn't resist these Easter dresses even though we actually didn't go to church on Easter Sunday because of General Conference. But they wore them yesterday and they were beautiful. Jake is my little sunspot and he is a handsome little man too. Oh, they make me happy these kids.

Jacob's 3rd Birthday

Yesterday we celebrated Jacob's 3rd birthday! We can't believe he is 3 already! He wants to do everything like his daddy so means having tools and a "seat belt" (which means tool belt) to carry the tools in. He is such a sweet, good little guy and we love him so much!

Baby Lizzie

My sister-in-law took these adorable pictures of Lizzie today. I think they are so cute! She is so talented at photography and she does such a great job. Her website is www.rayofsunshinephotography.com and there is a link to it under my favorite websites on the side if anyone wants to check out her portfolio.

Elizabeth Harwood

She's finally here!

Elizabeth Harwood
March 2, 2010
6 lbs 11 oz
17 1/2 inches
8:34 p.m.

These are just a few pictures (I will post more later!) but I wanted to get a few up for now. Elizabeth is such a sweet little baby. She hardly ever cries and she is so content all the time. Her big sister and big brother just love her. Jacob is doing a lot better than we expected and Annalyn is just a little mother. Everything went well and we are so glad she's here healthy and happy.

No Guilt Whatsoever

Still pregnant...but while I'm waiting for this little one to get here I am having no problem with comfort food. I haven't gained nearly as much weight with this pregnancy as the others, but I am clueless as to why because of this:

and this:

and this:


Ice cream is dairy right?
It"s healthy right?
Peanut butter has protein in it, right?
I know my due date is just over a week, but still ladies, you get to the point where you are done.
Sleeping isn't an option for me now anyway, so I might as well being feeding her or rocking her while I'm awake.
So still here, still pregnant and still hoping that I will still love ice cream when all is said and done because I've definitely had my fair share of it the last 9 months.