Beautiful Snow

We've received a few requests for pictures of our house. So after our first snowstorm Wayne headed out to get some winter shots. We had two big wind storms that made the lights hit the house so hard they broke, so we have some empty spots.But it still looks nice.

Almost Made It

The whole Christmas season I have been on alert. I have tried to be extra diligent with watching Brenner, knowing that all our great decorations would be very tempting for him. We have had to glue back together a couple ornaments and a village skier multiple times, however, I have been quite pleased with the minimal issues.

The plan was to start taking everything down on New Year's Eve--this year I knew I needed to get things put back together before school was back in or I would be in trouble. We were just two days away from the finish line...just two!

We had all just finished playing a board game and I was sitting down to check email when I heard a HUGE crash right behind me. This is what I foundHe did it by taking the extension cord that EVERYTHING was plugged intoand headed down the hall with it. When I took these pictures I had already set things straight again. Thankfully nothing shattered, but everything was at least chipped. Some had chunks missing like this

And this used to be a whole familynotice the feet. Then once the dust cleared and things were either put away or thrown away, this is what was leftBIG gouges in the hardwood!! There are about 4 big ones and a lot of little scratches and dings. This one still has "snow" stuck in it.

Oh, Brenner.

The Year Mark

I have sometimes refered to Wayne's year mark with his jobs as "the cursed" or "the dreaded year mark". For the past few years (since 2005), around Wayne's year mark a job change seemed to be right around the corner. You'd think I would expect it by now, but almost every year I'm not ready. January 15th is Wayne's year mark in this position and though I thought, "No way, not this time. We just moved into a house," change is again upon us.

This time, however, it was not by Wayne's doing. There have been a lot of changes going on in the corporate platform that Wayne is currently under and while at a conference a couple weeks ago, Wayne was approached by a senior Vice President. He was told there was a position that was opened with all the changes and he would like to see Wayne in it. Obviously Wayne did not consider it wise to turn down, but still took a couple days to consider, pray, and talk with me. We both felt this would be good for him and something we could adjust to.

So starting the end of January Wayne will be back in the corporate arena. He will be traveling again, but hopefully not as extensively as he was in Omaha. It's very similar to the position he had in Omaha, but it's more concentrated to just the plants in his platform (about 10). When he is not traveling he will work out of home. The great news is we don't have to move!! Wahoo!!

Change is not always easy and 6 moves in the past 8 years has been challenging, but these changes have always brought a lot of positive blessings and experiences for us all. I may say dreaded or cursed, but I say it with a smile because I am truly grateful that Wayne is being blessed in his career. He works very hard and deserves every recognition and praise he gets, and we're very proud of him.

Some Clarification

I forgot to put some things in the posts I just did, so here's some extra news for those who aren't up to date with it:

-We are no longer in our apartment. When we moved to Illinois, we were in a 2bd, 2ba.,1100 sq.foot apartment while we looked for a place to live. We thought we'd be there 6 weeks, and after 6 months! we found a great house in a town about 20 miles down the road. I don't have pictures of our new house yet, but I will post some soon.

-We are in a different town now and a different ward, actually it's a branch. Our town is about 4,000 people. But we're only 6 miles down the road from a big town (over 100,000). Moving towns relocated us into a small branch, which is very different for me, but takes Wayne back to his roots.

-When we were looking at this house, the boys saw the school (which is right down the street) and they asked if they could go back. I hesitated because I had felt strongly about homeschooling. Parker explained that homeschooling was boring and I wasn't as fun as school. So we began to pray about putting them back in and in reverse fashion, instead of a million reasons coming to my mind of why I should keep them out, a million came of why they should go back. So the boys are back in school. I'm sad in many ways and my pride is pricked--feeling like I failed, but the boys are very happy in school and I've been very impressed with this school as well. We feel good about it, but I'm not giving up with the option of homeschooling in the future.

I hope I didn't miss anything this time.

Growing Hyrum

Since you all missed some of the fun moments of Hyrum growing up here are some highlights.

He started out mostly doing this Now he sits up very independently.

When learning to roll over he one time took his blanket with him and found himself a little stuck

Here is when he was just starting to get on his hands and knees. Now he crawls all over the place--very quickly--and is even pulling up and standing next to things. Our other boys didn't start doing that until closer to 11 mos.
His first time with baby food He seems to be enjoying it, huh? This was our first attempt at 5 mos., but he flat out refused to eat it until just before he was 8 mos old. Now he eats cheerios and baby food like crazy.

With the sitting up comes baths in the bathtub with Brenner and water dumped over the face It may look bad here, but he loves it and smiles everytime.

Here are a few of his scrunched-up smile that we find irresistable. See the teeth? His fourth tooth just broke through a couple days ago. Two on top, two on bottom.

Our couch seems to have a knock-out affect on Hyrum the funny little boy

He must have learned from his brother

Except for having to feed baby food, this is my favorite stage for babies. My kids have all been very happy, cheerful 9-18 month kids. Hyrum's been happy from day one. We are so glad he is part of our family.

Family Trips-Indianapolis Zoo

One of the first things we do when we move is find a nearby zoo. Here it happens to be Indianapolis. It's just over an hour away, so we won't frequent it quite as often as we did Omaha, but it was still worth it to buy the season pass. They have a great little childrens area, where they always have something out to touch. The boys touched a cockroach the last time we were there.
We really like their walrus exhibit. They have two walruses that are usually moving all over, but this day we caught them sleeping. It's kind of hard to see, but the walrus's feet are on the bottom of the tank, while his head is out of the water. They are huge!
I found these cute little monkeys on a rock.

Their polar bear always seems to be swimming around as well. No lazy sleeping bear.

And one of the coolest parts of this zoo is the shark touch tank! Yep, you get to touch little Dog sharks. Their not really big, but the boys think they're really big stuff to touch sharks.

I think we'll really enjoy our time at this zoo.

Family Trips-Sea World

I went out to California by myself with the four boys to spend some time at my parents, but Wayne and I decided it was about time we did something fun for just our little family. So he flew out to CA for a few days so we could go to Sea World. It was a lot of fun, but I have decided that Sea World is really only for the shows and Shamu. All the other exhibits you can find just as good, or better at other zoos and places.

The Sea Lion show was one of our favorites Parker and Aiden were right on the front row. There's a guy at the beginning of the show who is HILARIOUS. Here he is dancing to the theme song for Batman. We went twice to that show because we enjoyed it so much.

We also went to see a 4D movie. For those of you who may not know what that is, it's a 3D movie with real live effects as well. For example, if in the movie it starts to rain, you will have water fall on your head as well. If someone crashes in a car, your seat starts to shake. Stuff like that. The boys thought it was wonderful, except Brenner. He started screaming when some water, meant to hit your chest, hit him square in the face. Thankfully it was at the end of the movie.

We let the boys feed the sea lions Can you see Wayne and the boys?

The dolphin show was great Brenner and I went to the show a second time while Wayne took the boys on a ride

The second day we were at Sea World, Wayne decided to head up to Corona to check on our house, so I took the boys around to more low key things, without lines. Here's a polar bear cave.

This is the tide pool areaWe missed the sign that said don't remove from the water, until after we took this picture.It seemed to be unharmed.

We also touched the bat rays and were disgusted to find out that the silky feeling all over them is actually their mucus! Gross!!

Then, of course, we saw Shamu! (Brenner affectionately calls him Willy--from Free Willy) We went to both the day and night show, but we have no pictures from the day because Wayne took the two big boys down to the splash area to get soaked. And I had my hands full with the two little ones. Both shows were wonderful!

We really enjoyed our little family vacation time.

Family Trips-Pacific Beach

Orginally I was just heading out to CA to spend time at my parent's house. Then at the last minute I was convinced to stay and go to the beach. While there, Parker lost his first tooth Here he's calling Wayne to tell him the news.

Everyday we headed out to the beach. My mom bought some small boogie boards and the boys loved to ride the waves. Aiden was out there all the time!

Parker really loves to build castlesHis dribble castle. His seaweed castle. (No he didn't build that)

While Brenner crashed in the tent, it wasn't uncommon to find Aiden and Cameron have the most unusual conversations together. They were so cute

Hyrum loved being on the beach

Brenner loved the food that came with being on the beach

And as is tradition, we always have one night when all the little cousins wear matching shirts. Aren't they cute monkeys? Brenner w/ Graham
and Hyrum. We love having boys on both sides to play with. I'm glad we stayed