A New Year

I can't believe I'm all caught up!! I skimmed over everything, but those are the highlights of the past two months. Now our blog is updated, and I'm ready to begin a New Year and a new semester at Tech. I have 5 classes to finish by April 30th (when this baby is due) so wish me luck! Two of them are online, so I hope life will be manageable as I get big and fat. Here are some hopes I have for the upcoming months:

1. I hope Drew will learn to walk soon :) The kid weighs 30 pounds and my aching pregnant belly is tired to lifting him. But he is so cute and so fun!
2. I want a rocker recliner!! I hope by tomorrow I can say that we found one and Pace bought it for me :( I'm such a brat, the dude has been wanting a flat screen for months... But the chair outweighs the TV literally, ha. One day you'll get your TV babe! For now, enjoy the 3 we have that work just fine :)
3. That's it really - I just hope life is manageable, like I said, over the next several months! Cause we have a lot going on! Oh! And..
4. I hope you all take time to skim through my posts - I spent HOURS on here getting this stupid thing up to speed :) It's all for the posterity huh? See you on the blog again soon!

Crazy, but two true stories...

I locked Drew in the car with my keys last week! I was parked outside Pace's parents' house, ready to leave - I never do that! Luckily it wasn't too warm out (could you imagine if it were summer in AZ?)! Pace's dad called the Captain in the Fire Department (a friend of his) and a truck with 4 firemen came and jimmied Drew out. Sad, crazy huh? Here are some pictures, Pace had me take them, thought Drew would enjoy the story later in life

THE NEXT DAY, I was showering and had Drew playing in the bathroom with me. Some guy insulating my in-laws' attic fell through the ceiling right by Drew! I was out drying off and saw first his foot, then his leg come down, so I (naked) shriek, "Wait! Let me get my baby!" I jerked Drew out of the way but he still was covered in insulation. Anyway, no one was hurt, thank heavens and I was laughing within minutes - crazy! No pictures of that incident :) Sorry!!

Christmas: Arizona

We had FIVE Christmases total. No complaints from our children of course :) My Mom was thrilled to see us, surprised her for sure. That made my day - after the long, hard trek her joy made it more worth while!

Surprise Mom!

Sydney had a blast seeing her cousins again

My sister-in-law's camera took a much better photo, but here's what I captured. All the Rawlins grand-kids :)

Christmas Eve party with Rawlins and Kalafs:





The kids sang a couple songs for Great Gma & Gpa Kalaf :)

What a memorable night! Everyone was there!

I've decided I really didn't take enough pictures. I have a lot of videos but they take so long to upload! Christmas morning we slept in at my mom's, opened gifts with her and Peter, then headed to the Rawlins' for more gift giving and breakfast

Rawlins grand kids had on matching pajamas Christmas morning :)

Drew's signature pucker :) This baby loves his eggs!

Once Ashleigh & Anthon's came home from Show Low (where they spent Christmas with Anthon's family) we met at their place to exchange more gifts

Drew and Roman played and wrestled together :)

Ash made Syd a dress up chest filled with various character dresses - her favorite of course was the Cinderella look-alike dress

She kept changing dresses every 5 minutes - her Aunt taught her that, ha thanks again for that Nash!

Another lamentation - we shared Christmas dinner with my cousins the Sorensons - delicious, and FUN time, love those guys!! But no pictures! At least we could hang out a lot while we were in Arizona. Feels like I'm on vacation when I travel back home now, I love it! But it has been great to get back home, especially after the 12 hour drive back. Luckily there were no delays this time, stopped only twice for potty/gas/food breaks. Kids did great!
See you all next summer!

Christmas: Lubbock

Originally Pace and I wanted to stay in Lubbock for Christmas, then head to Arizona the day after to visit family for a couple weeks. Once we realized that we'd be silly to not go spend it with them while we could (who knows what next year will be like), we determined to head over the 23rd, surprise my Mom, and spend Christmas Eve at her house.

First, our card:

My friend Natalie Mitchell took our pictures - she does great work!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

We opened our gifts here early :)

Sydney helped Drew open his, they were excited with new toys! Then we packed and prepared for our journey to Arizona.

On the way to Arizona....

We left early (5 AM Arizona time), and it was smooth sailing the first 9-10 hours of the trip. We stopped only twice for potty/gas breaks - amazing when you have a potty trained three year old and a one year old stuck in a car seat for that long! The kids were happy, we were happy...

Then we got into Overguard and the snow storm hit. People at the gas station warned us, "Fill your tank, bring water, cause it's a mess down there. Cars off the road everywhere, some upside down; rigs jack-knifed..." We thought,"Oh, we'll be careful, no big deal, we're almost home!" SEVEN HOURS we sat in our car outside Forest Lakes. Should've been down off the mountain and at my sister's by 5PM, nope, we rolled in at 2AM! I have never been so nauseous in my life as I was driving down that icy mountain! My stomach was in KNOTS, and I seriously thought I'd throw up behind the wheel there a time or two. It was CRAZY (this was 10:30 at night when we finally were able to follow the snow plow and begin our decent). The kids were amazingly fine for the first 5 hours or so of sitting there. We had no DVD player, no IPOD, NOTHING to entertain the poor things, and it was freezing outside so we all just sat in our seats. Here are some pictures we took while we still had the energy to make it fun. :)

Lots of cars in front of us

Lots more behind us

Pace jumped out to see what the deal was... We were stuck behind a jack knifed rig, and between road closures - not good.

The kids were excited to see all the snow at first

We invited a freezing FedEx driver to sit with us (bummer, no pic). He was nearly out of gas and couldn't leave the truck and heat running. We had a full tank so were nice and toasty. At 7:30 we had to bring the kids up front and rock them to sleep, both were crying hard. We all fell asleep around 9:00, woke once we could follow the plow down the mountain. Holy cow what a night! So glad we made it, but pray we never have too do that again!

Baby #3 - It's a boy!

The Wednesday before Christmas Pace & I found out our third baby is growing fine, everything looks good, and yes, we have another boy joining the ranks! Hooray!!