Sunday, December 12, 2010

Happy Thanksgiving!!

For thanksgiving this year we were able to go home back to Utah. It was really fun and so good to see everyone. I didn't get many pictures which I'm regretting because we did some really fun things. Oh well. This is a picture of my family although 3/4's are missing. I have a big family and it is the greatest! You always have someone to talk too. I love you all!


This picture is Daves family although (haha) atleast 3/4's are missing.. we always have to make a Brick Oven trip while we're there. It was fun to be with them and play games, talk, and eat. Good memories!


While we were there Dave got to sit 2nd row at a jazz game and was able to sneak back into the family room after the game to meet some of the players, which he LOVED! Too bad his phone was dead :( We meet with many friends and were able to visit our old stompin' grounds. The kids loved playing with the cousins and it was fun to just relax and not have any rushed plans. We're so blessed and so thankful for our families and friends. We love you all!! Happy Thanksgiving!

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Happy Halloween 2010!

This year Lucy really wanted to be a skeleton and so when we found a sweet costume I knew it was meant to be. I chose for Norah to be a devil and that is self explanatory. I love this picture! It's the only one I got of both of them looking and smiling.


There are a couple of families from the ward that live in the neighborhood so before trick-or-treating we ordered pizza and then let the kids all run together. There is a street a couple blocks from us that is blocked off specifically for trick-or-treaters. It's nice because the houses are all really close together and since they have so many kids people just camp out on their porches and hand out candy. It's the best because it takes an hour-ish to get to all of the houses and that is about all our kids could take. I love that there are so many little kids around the same age.


Dad and Norah

Norah caught eating my mints


Boo at the zoo, which is always so fun!


Ward party, I bet you can't guess who Shrek is. Lucy picked this our for Dave. I love Norah's face, she is not sure if she is happy or sad.


Waiting so patiently in line for donut eating contest.


They thought that lighting the pumpkins up were so cool. It was really fun!


This is the first pumpkin Lucy has ever helped gut, she didn't like it very much.


Oh, another picture of leaf piles.

We love Halloween!

Fall 2010

We've stayed busy this fall... I can't believe it is just about over.
Here are some pics from the last couple of months..

Some of us girls ran the Prairie Oaks 10 K last Saturday and as I turned the corner for the finish line I saw Dave and the girls waving at me.. Lucy had a big smile on her face and so did Norah.. until I ran past them.. Dave then took this picture of her running after me crying. I wish she didn't like me so much!
I have to say that I have a very dedicated and supportive husband.. even though this 10K was a little rinky dink race he still came after getting the girls all ready (it was 30 degrees outside, freezing!) he ran outside that morning and turned the car on so it would be warm when they got in and when he came back out minutes later figured out that the keys were locked inside of the running car, oops! He was going to see if our neighbor would let him borrow his car but then remembered my sister had her car there so he threw the kids in her car and came down to the race. All of us went to breakfast after and when we got home hours later, the car was still running. It meant a lot to me that he still came and brought the girls. I love you!


My good friends, Rachel and Debbie are pros now, it was their first big race.. they did awesome!!


Me and my sweet little sis, I'm going to miss her so much when she goes home.



One of Dave's co-workers gave us this huge soccer goal.. I think he felt bad saying no so now we have this massive soccer goal in the back yard but the kids love it! Norah is already learning some sick tricks.


Luly has moved on from soccer until the spring and is going to keep busy with ballet and gymnastics at Carriage Place. So talented standing on one foot :)


My 2 little munchkins!


This past week the weather has been beautiful so we took advantage and went to the zoo, Lucy took this picture.. I thought it was cute.


Lucy "helping" me with dinner although now she is just playing in the flour. They have a flour/rice/sand box type thing at preschool so she was excited when I pulled out the flour.


I love the fall weather here, and I especially love all of the colors. I don't ever remember the trees being so bright out in Utah but I'm obsessed with them out here. Come the 2nd week in October if you want to see some really pretty country. It is so pretty!


Dave and Norah, Dave and his cougar hat.


Norah is being so helpful!


This is what you will see when you walk outside and look down our street.. I love it!


The kids have been so cute this fall. They love to play in the leaves. I thought this was so cool when we first moved here but you rake all of the leaves to the street and then a big truck with a vacuum comes by and sucks them all up. I'm used to stuffing them all in a bag etc. The kids were instantly entertained by piles and piles of leaves.


I'm not sure who was in charge but Norah had already been bathed and dressed in her pajamas when we heard Lucy laughing hysterically. We went in to see what was up and Norah had made her way back into the bathtub with her clothes on. Little pill.


We love it here in Columbus and are excited for winter.. alright I lied. I'm not excited for the winter. Cold, gray weather for 4 months really isn't that exciting. I have a list of things to do when it's cold out, it's a good list so i'm going to be using it lots!

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Norah!

Norah aka Little pill..

She is 18 months and so stinkin' cute! She kisses and hugs me all day and is such a happy, content little girl. She is tough and doesn't let Lucy mess with her. She loves other kids and just wants to be a part of the action. My favorite thing lately is that she knows when to say please and thank you, it's not really clear but you know that is what she is saying. She and Lucy are so cute together and they laugh and play and it's so darn cute. Here are some quick pics of Norah, you will soon see why her nickname is little pill..



She borrowed Lucy's stool to reach the bread.



We went to the pet store one rainy day after the movie just for the heck of it and we found this little dog that looks like "Taco" our stuffed family dog. She LOVED it, she freaked out when we took it away.. the poor thing was squealing because she was holding it by the neck.



Can't go to Tuttle mall without riding this rinky dink merry-go-round.



I was unloading the groceries from the car and she sneaked into the drivers seat, it's funny how they see you drive and copy what you do.



All ready for bed watching baby einsteins, I love her cute little body.



Yep, one unsupervised moment and this is what i find.



I took the girls to feed the ducks one day and it had been raining. I was helping Lucy and within 1 minute, I'm not kidding, she was crawling through the puddles. She was having so much fun and since she was soaked I let her play a while.



Already polished off her food and thought she would help Lucy with hers. Dave calls her McNorah because she eats all of the time.



I had this room spotless and was doing other things around the house and within 10 minutes she had literally destroyed my clean room. Sometime I wonder why I try cleaning.. ugh!



Can't tell you how many time I have picked up those dang movies. I ended up taking them all to the dungeon to save my self some frustration :)



She wants to ride this bike more than Lucy. She also loves to swing in the front yard.



Happy birthday to my sweet Norah. We celebrated at Chuck E Cheese in Arizona, since we were there visiting. I love having her sweet little spirit in my life, she makes me laugh everyday and eventhough she is a "pill" and constantly into everything, I can never seem to be mad at her for more than 5 minutes. Her little smile melts my heart and I love her so much.

Lucy!

Some quick pics of my sweet little Luce.

A couple of her friends signed up for soccer and since she has more energy than any little girl I know we decided to sign her up as well. Hailey and Eliza are friends from the neighborhood and church. It's fun because us moms sit and chat about who knows what while the guys cheer the girls on. Lucy without fail has to go potty during the practices and games. Her favorite part is the capri sun and snack after the game, she's no dummy. Go united!!



Lucy is still going to Covenant preschool (same place she went the year before just another year older). She absolutely loves it. She has the cutest little friends and the teachers are the best. Anyway, they had a little back to school night and this is what was on display. It's so funny to hear what she thinks goes on at home.


Taco the family dog... and the only dog we will ever own. Dave gave this talking Taco Bell dog to me for my 22nd birthday, it doesn't talk anymore and I have tried throwing it away many times but it still somehow ends up back in the toy room. Lucy loves it and looks for him everyday. Pretty cute!


Lucy doesn't eat anything all day, but as soon at 9pm rolls around she is starving, hmmm good way to stall going to bed. I hate for her to go hungry and her fav is chicken nuggets and corn, gross, but she downs every single bite, then she goes to bed and I know she has a full tummy.



She LOVES to paint! Preschool is where it's at, she has learned so much!


I sort of knew she was doing this but didn't really pay too much attention until I noticed she had painted her entire body! Great supervision on my part. Good thing it's water proof!


Her cute little Nike outfit that her daddy picked out for her, just chillin' on the front porch.


She took gymnastics (banastics) this summer at Wendy's. She loves it and is quite the little gymnast. She was the most coordinated in the whole group and was one of the youngest. Could not get her to smile for the life of me.


Happy 4th birthday to Lucy! We had a little swimming party at the local pool with friends that had passes and then took some other friends to Chuck E Cheese, that is really what she wanted to do. It was really fun and she got some really fun things. I can't believe how old she is!


I love my little Lucy! What would I do without her sweet but sassy personality, her cute little smile with those big dimples, and her hugs and kisses everyday. She's my baby and I'm so thankful to have her in my life.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Akron, Ohio Marathon 9/25/10

Dave started this... but I'm so glad that he did. For my 31st birthday he gave me this cool running watch that is run by local satellites. It tells you your pace, time, distance, and a whole bunch of other stuff. He then gave me a box with the confirmation info about this "marathon" he had signed me up for. I wasn't sure how I felt about it at first but once I got home and started training I was actually kind of excited about it. I only had 12 weeks to train so I had to get going (Dave and I ran a half marathon in May, so I was already half trained and not too far behind). He said that he knew I wanted to run one but knew that I would never get the guts to sign up myself so he did it for me. My sister decided to run it too since she was moving out so that was that was nice to have her support when I wanted to quit. We pumped each other up so we would be ready for the big day.


We survived! I'm not going to lie, it was hard but I gave it my all. Our goal was to run 26.2 miles in 4:30 and we both beat it. I finished in 4:12 and Jen in 4:06. Not Boston marathon time but pretty dang good for our first marathon.

Janis, the one next to me is in my ward and her sister Karyn ran it as well. We trained a lot together because it is absolute torture to train on your own. We spent many hours talking, stealing gatorade and water from the marathoners in training, early mornings at Antrim lake and Olentangy River Trail, which is beautiful by the way, and many other things I will never forget. I love you guys so much and I miss you even though I see you at church every sunday.

I'm so blessed to have a healthy body, it is so important to me more than ever. What a great accomplishment for all of us. I'm proud of you guys.

What's up?

Well... it's pretty sad when you go to post something on your blog and you can't remember your password! Dave told me I was going to lose all of my blogging friends including him because I never update. I'm over it. I haven't done this since February, yep, it's been that long, so I'm a little rusty and all of these pics are out of order, but it's really late and I just want to go to bed :)

Here are some of our summer adventures..

We made our way to Massachusetts in August for a wedding for a good friend from home (Utah) It was so fun and so good to see so many of our friends that came from all over the U.S. ones we haven't seen in years. We made many stops on our "back east" trip and the girls were awesome even though hours in the car were long.

Niagara Falls, probably the coolest place I have ever been too! It's a must see.


We went to Palmyra, NY for a little church history. My sister came out to live with us for a semester so she came with us and sat in the back between the kids to keep the peace. I'll never forget the giggling I heard as I took this picture. Funny kids, yes, Jen is one of my kids for now.



Hiking around Hill Cumorah, next stop, The Sacred Grove, where the kids were super reverent and folded their arms the whole time, psst yeah right. It was a cool experience and I'm so glad we made the stop.



Dave drove all night which means we were up keeping him company so he wouldn't fall asleep, meanwhile the kids we sound asleep. We got to our hotel early that morning so we could hopefully get a little sleep before the wedding at noon and of course the kids we're all smiles.. I LOVE this picture! Lucy was just happy to finally be at the "show and tell" (she means hotel) haha, they are so cute!



We stayed in Boston for 4 nights and just relaxed and explored. Dave was dying to go to see the Red Sox play and since it was a late game I volunteered my sis to stay and watch the game with him and I took the kids back and put them to bed. Secretly I just wanted to go back and watch the Bachelor Pad, such a good show.



This picture was taken in a little town just out of Boston. Dave heard they had really good clam chowder and also that it was really pretty so we thought we would check it out. It was such a cool place so thank you to the random man at the wedding that told us about it.




So, these next pictures weren't "vacation pictures" just 4th of July ones. We love the 4th and it was my first away from Utah, but I survived and it was really fun. We have so many good friends out here and it really is home to us now. I got home from work the morning of the 4th and Dave and Lucy were still asleep and Norah was chirping in her crib so I got her up and we met some friends down at the Upper Arlington parade. It wasn't a freedom festival parade, but it was still fun. That evening we went to a BBQ with our ward friends and then to watch fireworks down at the OSU fields with some of our other friends. We're so popular aren't we haha It was a really fun day and the 4th will always be my favorite holiday.

Lucy and her little friends, if you're wondering about the band aids on her arm, it's a new obsession of hers, she needs a band aid for everything!


Norah eating.. what's new. Dave calls her McNorah (as in McDonalds)!



Norah was taking her first steps, Lucy was walking by her 1st birthday but Norah decided she was going to take her time. As of today, she is running. They learn so fast.


Me and my sweet babe


Okay, so for my 31st birthday Dave decided to take us all on a little weekend getaway. I thought forever we were on our way to Amish country, and I was so confused when I kept seeing signs for "Cedar Point" one of the biggest roller coaster amusement parks. We had sooo much fun! It was so nice that my sister was there because we were able to do a parent swap, for example, Jenny and I would wait in line and go on the ride while Dave would stay with the kids, then we would get a pass and give the pass to Dave and then he could take one of us to ride again while the other stayed with the kids. There were some sick rides, some that I never want to ride again. So scary, I couldn't even scream on some of them I was literally so scared. It was a fun day though and the kids loved Snoopy Land.

We checked out this beach the night before Cedar Point which is on Lake Erie. It was so cool because as you can see in this picture, Dave is clear out there with the kids and Lucy can touch, they have it roped off so you can't get too crazy. The kids were loving it and the water was warm. The weather was so nice, after we went to eat and called it a night.



My sis with the kids. What a trooper! We are so glad she has decided to join our family for a couple of months. The kids love having her around! I love having her around more though, especially on the long weekends and nights Dave is on call, love her company and someone to get cokes with, and someone to tickle my back. I love you Jen!


Lucy LOVED this ride! She went on it over and over again. It's like the blast off ride or whatever the other one next to it is called at Lagoon. It was so cute. Her dimples are so cute and if you look close enough you can see them she was smiling and laughing so hard.



Our family, with the craziest ride in the background. I can't remember what it is called since it has been months but it's scary but one of those I would totally go on again except it had a 3 hour wait by the time we left. Happy 31st to me! Thanks babe! You never disappoint.



Dave had a week off in April and was craving some nice warm golf weather so we made our way to Arizona. It was a lot of fun. Norah also celebrated her 1st birthday there, more pictures to come.

It was a successful summer!