Tag

This is for Charity although I am not tagging anybody else. Sorry! This picture is of Mom and Charity at Yellowstone in September of 2006. We took a family vacation there and it was a lot of fun except for the fact that Alex didn't get to go with us.

Our New Arrival

Two weeks ago, on October 23, we welcomed Sophie Coleen into our family. I arrived at the hospital at about 1:15 pm and she was born at exactly 4:00 pm. She made quite the entry into the world, much like Ava did. I had stood up to see if I could get through the contractions easier and in a matter of less than five minutes my water broke and Sophie plopped out. There was no doctor there, just Alex and one of the nurses. The nurse had some mad skills too. i was using her as leverage to make it through the last couple of contractions and she was still able to catch Sophie so that she didn't hit hit the floor :) She has been a nurse for a number of years and has never experienced a birth like that. Any ways, it was fast and yes, it was hard but it was worth it and she is absolutely beautiful. Paxton and Ava love her so much. They are the best big brother and sister!
What a blessing Sophie has been. She is the most wonderful, easy baby and she usually only wakes up twice a night. She is a much easier baby than my other two were. It definitely makes things easier on Mommy. I'll post some pictures later.

Kodiak Bears

Last week we went out in search of bears sincethis is the best tie of year to see one. It was definitely worth it because we saw about ten of them. Ava even got to see one of them though I'm sure she just thought it was an extra large puppy. We got pictures but have decided that we need to invest in a better camera so that we can totally zoom in on them. The one we saw right off of the side of the road (couldn't get a good picture because he blended into the trees and brush) and he was about ten yards from my window. It was awesome. We could see every facial feature and I even made eye contact with it. They are truly amazing creatures to see and I have grown to appreciate all of Heavely Father's creations that much more.

Pics

A week ago, Paxton had school pictures so we decided that we would try to get pictures of him and Ava together after school. We wanted to take them outside, which didn't end up working very well because Ava was to distracted by the water, rocks and wind. We were able to at least one that we liked and a couple that we thought were kind of funny! The pics are at the very bottom of the page. Not quite sure how it happened but I don'y reallyknow what Iam doing anyway. Sorry!

Baby name

We have finally found a name for the our soon to be baby girl. We are going to name her Sophie Coleen. We both like the name Sophie and Coleen is after my Mother-in-law. At least we won't have a nameless baby. We weren't sure that we were ever going to find a name for her so we are excited that we found one that we both liked :)

Ava is walking

Ava is finally walking! HOORAY! It has taken her a while and she still doesn't do it all of the time but this means that she should be walking pretty good by the time that the baby comes. It will definitely be easier only having to carry one baby.

WE MADE IT!

Paxton had his first week of kindergarten and we all survived. The first couple of days were a little rough for Me and Ava but that's just because it was so quiet without Pax home. The early mornings are a little rough too but most days Ava lets me go back to sleep for a little while. Kindergarten goes all day here in Kodiak so our day begins around 6:30 in the morning because Paxton has to catch the bus around 7:30. He doesn't get home until around 2:15 PM. I think that he likes having something to do during the day and he really likes his teacher. It's just me and Ava who have had to try and adjust to this kindergarten thing. I would have posted pictures but our digital camera is broken so we had to use our film camera. All in all it was a good but tiring week and we all survived!

Paxton's blog

Paxton wanted to write something but since he doesn't know how to spell a lot of words (he can spell about ten) I decided that he could type his ABC's for you. 

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

1 2 3 4 5  6 7  8 9 10 11 12 13 

Daddy is coming home!

Paxton wanted to let everybody know that his Daddy is coming home in the morning.  He is so excited that Daddy will finally be home.  I think that he has had enough of Mommy.  Today, he went a few houses down to our friends house to see if they wanted to go on a walk with us.  Crystal (the mom) was gone so he stayed there with Mike and the boys until she came home.  It ended up being about 45 minutes.  I think that he just needed some guy time :)  We are all very happy that Alex only had to be gone for 3 weeks because for a few days we thought that he was going to have to stay in Cordova even longer.  We all love Daddy and can hardly wait one more day to see him!

Milestones for Ava

Ava has reached a few milestones the past two days that have made my life a little more exciting.  Tuesday, she finally learned how to crawl up the stairs.  This is a good thing and a bad thing. She is able to get upstairs to go play in Paxton's room and her room but she doesn't know how to get back down the stairs yet.  It has definitely made going to the park more fun because she can get up to the slides by herself.  

Yesterday, I left Ava with the neighbor girl and she walked about six feet; from the xouch to the computer chair.  What a little stinker!  She won't walk for Mommy but she will for Gabby.   I did get her to walk like two steps today so I am hoping she will be walking in the next week  or two.   Everybody tells me I shouldn't wish it but I am determined not to have to carry two babies! It is so much fun to watch your kids grow and learn.  I love how excited they get when they realize that they can do something!

 

This will be my first time using my blog to vent. On Monday, my husband had to make a surprise deployment to Cordova which was only supposed to last a couple of days. The deployment will now last for three weeks. Any way, about 8 hours after he left, my fuel pump on my jeep went out. For those of you who don't know, my husband can fix any mechanical problem; so the fact that these things always happen when he is gone can be really frustrating. Luckily, there are some very wonderful people who are letting me borrow their extra car until mine can get fixed. I've decided that the lord really wants me to learn how to become less dependent on my husband. So needless to say, the past few days have been a little LONG! Now for the good news! The Coast Guard is allowing my husband to come home on Thursday so that he can fix my car for me and then he will have to go back to Cordova on Friday and stay until August 29th. This is a very nice blessing since the Coast Guard doesn't usually do things like this. I am still a little frustrated that he has to be gone for another 2 weeks but I can't really complain about the Coast Guard because they are really trying to help with the car situation. Hopefully the being home for a day and then gone again won't be too hard for the kids.

Ava's 1st birthday!

On July 3rd, Ava turned one. I can't believe time has flown by so fast. We didn't do much for her birthday besides pizza (one of her favorites) and cake and ice cream. We did have the missionaries over for cake. The best part of the day was Paxton's unexpected gift to Ava. I have been so excited that Ava actually has a little bit of hair because I didn't really have any hair when I was one (granted it is not nearly as much as Ivy or Cayden have). So I would put her hair in a ponytail and once, got it into pigtails. It looked so cute and I absolutely loved it. Well, Paxton decided that it didn't look pretty and cut the pigtail off. I was soooo Mad! I have decided that he is lucky to have such a nice mom :) Now I cannot put her hair in a ponytail or pigtails. She also got her first doll and she really likes it (not as much as Wally bear though). I am so excited that we made it to one safely. Ava is quite the princess and we all love her very much!

Our baby

So, for those of you who don't know, I am almost six months pregnant with number three. We found out at the beginning of June that we are having another girl. We are excited even though I think we were all secretly hoping for a boy. Paxton is convinced that I need to have another one after this baby so that he can have a brother. We will wait and see about that one. Any way, we are having a hard time coming up with a name so any ideas or suggestions would be very helpful. The middle name will be Coleen so the names have to sound good together. We will be welcoming our new little one sometime in the last two weeks of October and we are all very excited!

Bears, Bears Bears

So here goes my first blog. As you know, there are often bears that abide close to our home so all of our garbage has to be taken to bear proof dumpsters. Well, we have a garbage can we keep outside for random garbage that excludes anything to do with food. About a week ago, Alex went outside to go to work and found the garbage can wedged under the jeep. He came inside and asked me if I had put pop cans in the garbage can but it was not me! It was Paxton. That night a bear had come and tried to get in the garbage. We were so mad that we didn't actually get to see the bear because we would love to have a picture of a bear from our front door. That same week, there was a bear on the front porch of a house on the other end of the neighborhood and they actually got pictures. There are not a lot of fish in the river by our house so the bears are coming into the neighborhood more than usual. I'm not really scared of the bears but hungry bears tend to lead to angry bears. Anyway, I hope that I get a picture of a bear in front of my house just because I think that would be so COOL! Just a little piece of trivia about Kodiak. There is one place on the island, Lake Karluk, where the grizzly population is about 200 bears per square mile. That is a heck of a lot of bears!