Sunday, December 19, 2010

Moved and on vacation

We are officially out of our house in Aurora. We are very sad to go. We had an awesome ward and wonderful friends. The boys loved their school. We will miss everyone a lot. Thanks to all that helped with the packing and cleaning and just were great friends for us.
We are excited about the move to Arizona. Derrick is enjoying his training so far but is excited to get into the real work. We are very proud of him. He is doing awesome. He found us a wonderful house to rent while we are there in a great community with an awesome school. The boys are excited to be able to walk to school and I am excited to do a lot less driving! We will post pictures when we get them and we get settled.
A big thanks to Deb (Derrick's sister) who came and spent a week with us to help us get all packed and moved. I would have been totally sunk without her help. This pregnancy has made me super tired and I am not supposed to do much lifting (that is pretty hard when you are moving and your husband is in another state!).
We had a stopover in Fort Collins to stay with my mom overnight. It was great to have her help and her boxes to help us move. Saturday we braved the trek to Utah and made it. Hopefully we will be able to relax and actually enjoy the Christmas season. Derrick will be flying here on Wednesday to spend Christmas and then we will be driving down to AZ on the 26th to get life going again. It has been a great adventure so far and I hope the rest will be just as fun :)

Girls or Boys or One of Each??

We just got our ultrasound done earlier this week. Derrick was in Phoenix so my mom was there with me. She had not seen an ultrasound for about 30 years so this was pretty cool for her to be able to do.
Turner and Tony both wanted a girl and a boy. They thought that 2 girls would just be too much girl in our house. Derrick and I just wanted healthy children.
So we found out that we are having...2 boys!! We are super excited. That will make 5 boys in all. I am excited because we already know boys and it will be really fun to have all of them the same sex. We will definitely have to be investing in another fridge in another couple of years :P Boys eat a lot.

Friday, November 12, 2010

Cha-cha-cha-changes!

The past couple of months we have had a lot of changes! Derrick got a job in Phoenix (good job babe!). So that means we are moving. Derrick starts training right after Thanksgiving in Phoenix. He trains for 4 weeks then we are going to spend Christmas together in UT and then the whole family is going to drive down to Phoenix and (hopefully) have found a place to live and move into! We love Colorado and are going to miss all the wonderful friends that we have made over the years but I really think this will be a good move for our family. Tony and Turner think that they will miss snow a lot but personally I kinda like the warmth :)

So we found out all this exciting news just shortly after we had found out that we are pregnant! Total suprise! We had previously been following the 3 1/2 to 4 years between kids plan that I kinda liked. Levi is going to be just 2 and a couple months old when we add to our family...and now the real kicker is that just a couple weeks ago we found out it was TWINS. Yes. Twins. I think I may have wrapped my mind around it at this point but am trying to block out all the crazy thoughts like..."how do I take 2 infants to the doctor with a 2 year old? I only have 2 arms...or how can I feed both at the same time?!? Instead I am just trying to concentrate on getting packed and moving.

Another huge blessing coming our way from all of this is that Derrick's little sister didn't have any where to live during most of December because her lease is running out. So she is going to come help us pack while Derrick is in Phoenix!! Thanks Deb! Anyways, I am sure I will be really busy from now till then but I will try to keep more current on the postings :)

Fun at Papa and Grandma's house


We were able to spend some time up in Utah this past summer. Levi was having fun taking a bath with his cousin Reagan. Down below Levi is "walking in Papa's shoes."

Morgan reunion

This past summer we got to go to a Morgan reunion. It was really nice for the kids to see their great-grandpa Morgan. It was awesome to see some family that I haven't seen for awhile.

Great-grandpa with Tony, Turner, and Levi
Tony's first experience on a horse.

Turner and his cousin Kyra riding a horse.



Birthdays

Turner turned 5 in July. He wanted an anthill cake made so I did my best. Tony turned 9 and unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of his party (sorry Tony) but we started a new tradition where we spent a day together as a family doing something the birthday person wanted to do. Both boys wanted to go miniature golfing and we had fun doing that.
Turner's anthill cake
Cheese!


Levi dual-weilding golf clubs

Derrick helping Turner

New Kitty


Well even though my husband is not a pet person we got a kitty in August. The boys names her Fizzler. She is a nice kitty that everyone seems to enjoy (mostly everyone :) ) Tony and I even made her a scratching post. It passes off something for his scouts and we had fun doing it.

First day of school


Turner starts Kindergarten this year!!! Tony is in 4th grade. They look so nice in their uniforms.

Sunday morning entertainment

Who needs to pay for entertainment when you have a few boys running around turning on the keyboard and doing interpretive dancing?? Well I caught mine on camera doing a little dance for everyone. I think Turner is practicing to be a river dancer. :)

Half-Marathon

Derrick invited me WAY back in January to run a half marathon for our anniversary in September. I thought it was a great idea so we both started training. I found out that running isn't my favorite thing to do but wasn't too bad. Derrick fell in love with running and wants to run all the time.

We ran our half down in Colorado Springs. My brother and his wife helped us out with the kids so we could do it. We woke early in the morning and ate some breakfast and got ready to go.

We did really well. Derrick ran with me the whole time...he could have finished much faster but thought that since we were doing this for our anniversary then he would help me get across the finish. I thought I was pretty prepared but the run was painful. We never walked and kept going the whole time! It was pretty awesome. One of my favorite parts was on the last quarter of a mile our son Tony ran with us for a little bit. He was so cute saying "you can do it". For the last couple of miles it felt like I was running in place. I commented to Derrick during the race about it and he said "yeah we aren't moving very fast". But we kept moving :) It took me a while to recover while Derrick was just fine. Good thing he was with me so that he could drive back and stuff. I was so out of it it was kinda crazy.

Derrick is planning on doing a marathon next year. Hopefully it will all go well for him. I am perfectly content to sit on the sidelines and cheer! I wouldn't mind running another half just to show myself that I can recover better then I did on this last one.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Spring Snowstorm

We had a pretty fun spring snowstorm! We went sledding with the Lydens (Amy and Colby behind Tony) and Nolan (Tony' s friend) came also. This is my favorite time to sled...warm enough not to freeze...and snowy enough to have a lot of fun!

We found the sled at the Thrift Store!
Levi had a little sled that you can pull. He went down the hill with me pulling...wasn't TOO into that but loved hanging out.
Ready...set...GO!
You can see the snowfort behind Nolan and Tony. They had a massive snowball fight to go with the fort...it was awesome! Tony had a snow day at school. It was a great day.

Turner and I made a snowman. The snow was a little wet and the buttons/eyes/and mouth kept falling out. We had a lot of fun though.





Spring Break in AZ

We had so much fun going to Snowflake, AZ to visit the Johnson's (they moved back there about 6 months ago). The kids really missed their friends and I was intrigued to see this "Zion" or "Utopia" that I had heard so much about.

We pulled up after a 12 hour drive (the kids did great) to a beautiful house with a white picket fence. The city...err town...or even village has only about 5000 people. As I was trying to find the house in the dark the WIDE streets didn't help much. I couldn't see across to the other side to see what the street names were because of how wide the streets are! I guess they were big planners when they layed out the city :)

The little town was great. The best part about it was seeing our friends again. Below are some of the pictures we got along the way. Unfortunately I didn't get everything in the pictures but I am sure we will never forget our trip.

Levi and Ezra taking a bath. (This happened a lot because we had so much fun playing)
Cameo and I took all the kids on a hike that was a lot of fun. You wouldn't think about snow so much in AZ but in a couple of places we saw some of the white stuff. The ground was still a little muddy from all the snow melting and these are Jonah's and Turner's feet after sloshing around in the mud.

MUD MONSTERS! Tony and Granger.


Tony playing in the mud.

Cora is going for a new look.

Jonah and Turner being mud monsters too!

Levi and Ezra got along pretty well. They definitely had a lot of fun.

The kids found a "slide" and had to try it out.

Weee!

Nothing like roasting marshmellow's at the end of a long day hiking.


We went to the Petrified National Forest. This was a really cool place. I had never really seen any petrified wood. The kids had fun and learned a lot.

It was super windy at the National Forest.

Tony, Turner, and Jonah are taking the pledge to be Junior Rangers. They got a cool badge and pin.

On the last day we just had some fun at the park. Levi loves slides.

Cheese!
Thanks for having us Johnson Fam! It was an awesome trip and can't wait until we get to hang out with you again. And yes...Snowflake is a little utopia. I think it is more the company than the actual town :) We had a blast!















5K Family Run

I am SOOOOO proud of my family for running a 5K together. It was Aurora Academy's (Tony's School) 1st annual 5k fun run. We got up early and headed down.

Levi getting ready in his stroller. (He slept most of the time.)
All the boys getting their game faces on! RAWR!

Tony looking quite determined.


After we got going and Tony, Turner, Derrick, and I running, we had a little mishap. Turner fell and scraped his knee about 1 block in. Good thing I decided to bring the double stroller! Turner jumped in with Levi and we were off. Derrick was in a little bit of a time crunch because he had to get to work so he and Tony took off while I pushed the stroller along. About 1 mile in, I realized that it is much more work pushing about 55lbs. in a stroller than running a 5k on a treadmill ;) Tony ended up running 2 miles without stopping! I was so impressed with his determination. He stopped then to get a drink at the water station and then kept on going. I was trying to catch up to them but both Derrick and Tony crossed the line before me. Turner ended up running the last 1/4 or 1/3 of a mile. I was very happy with his effort. This is definitely something we are going to do again.




Sunday, March 7, 2010

Recorders

My mom got Turner a recorder for Christmas and Levi got into it the other day. And to my suprise...he is an amazing musician! Enjoy!

Pinewood Derby

The Snowspeeder #715

We did this thing for scouts called a pinewood derby. The kids make cars (with some help) and race them at a den meeting. We ended up with 2nd place in our den! Go Tony! It was really exciting. One of his friends, Nolan, and Tony were tied for 2nd place and they had to race 4 times to see who really did get the 2nd place. Not bad for our first attempt at a pinewood derby!

Monday, February 8, 2010

Levi's Birthday Party

We went up to my mom's house for Levi's birthday party. It was an awesome time and great to bake and decorate a cake with my mom. We made Levi a racetrack because he loves cars so much!


Mom and Levi.

Levi driving his car across the highchair.


Yummy!

Levi thought at first he was supposed to climb his presents instead of open them.


There he goes.

Levi loved the books, clothes, cars, and babyproofing stuff(thanks a ton MOM!) that he got for his birthday.

Turner the cuddlebug with his Dad after the party. Tony took the picture! Nice job Tony!








Levi Longboarding

Levi wanted to try out his Uncle Zac's longboard.

Happy birthday Levi

Levi eating his cake

Yummy!

Levi loves his new toy he got for his birthday from Papa and Grandma

Skateboarding...I mean Longboarding

Zac, my brother, is into Longboarding(don't even think of calling it a skateboard) and Levi loves EVERYTHING with wheels so he wanted to try out the longboard! Gooooo Levi!



Blue and Gold Banquet

Tony earned his wolf at his Blue and Gold Banquest this past Saturday and he wanted me to make a wolf cake for the cake contest. He helped make the cake and spread the white frosting one and did the blue sprinkles...Congratulations Tony on an awesome job! He has worked so hard on his scouts.


Derrick's Birthday

We went bowling on Derrick's birthday. We all had fun. And even though Derrick bowled probably the worst game of his life it was sure an awesome day! (I'm sure the 2 massages he had earlier in the day didn't help his bowling effort!)


Tony is an awesome bowler!

Turner loved the green ball like Tony.