Still winter up here

When we drive down to Salt Lake to visit family, Tucker asks me if he can wear his snowboots. Nope buddy - you won't need them down in the valley. As you can see, we clearly still have snow. Check out Tucker's little snowman - complete with carrots for a face and marshmellow eyes. All his idea!

We built a tiny igloo. Tucker was able to go and see the Klondike campout igloos with his little friend and wanted to build one as well. Mommy just isn't as good as the scouts!

I'm more than half way done with this pregnancy (20 weeks) and to celebrate - I headed to the salon and had more than 10 inches cut off my hair. I chopped my hair a few months after we were married, after I had Tucker and Aubrey and decided that I wasn't waiting for a baby to be born to cut it again. I love it and am learning how to do "short" hair. Flat irons are a lot harder to use than my trusty curling iron. BTW - 3 days 'til Mexico! Bring on the sun!

It's a...

BOY!!!

and the cool thing is, my sister is having a boy as well!

I must have motivated myself!

After I did my last post, I whipped my camera out the next day and caught Cole walking on video. He's gotten really good fast! He can even get up and start walking without holding on to anything. Big accomplishments for a little guy!

Because it's been awhile

I've turned into a bad picture taker. I've been making shutterfly books to document our years in Maryland and once we bought our SLR - wow the # of pictures jumped up dramatically. I feel like we took a decent amount of pictures in Colorado and now that we're back in Utah, the number keeps dropping.


We bought ourselves a small digital camera for Christmas for me to take around in the diaper bag. The intent was that I'd take more pictures, but that still doesn't happen very often. Poor Cole, there isn't nearly as much documentation of his life as Tucker and Aubrey. I'll find myself thinking, "I should grab the camera and take a picture" but do I, nope. This 4th child will probably have less too. Cole started walking the day after his 1st birthday, and I should get it on video, but that has yet to happen as well. By the time I do get around to it I'm sure he'll be cruising and won't have the cute toddle he's got now.

3 naked babies in a tub. They love the water. Cole needs to learn to sit down. He thinks it's funny to stand up. His baths don't last nearly as long as the other two because he's a wanderer. : )

One of the few times I've actually used my small digital camera on the kids. We drove down to Provo to run errands and Cole pulled off his sock and shoe and was sucking on his toes. Gross, and of course he stopped once I pulled the camera out. He has 4 cute teeth. Two on top and two on the bottom. He was definitely a late bloomer in the mouth department - didn't get his first until he was 11 months old. Oh and have you noticed his red hair? It's definitely my color.

Tucker will be banished to the back of the car when this baby comes. Speaking of baby, we go in Monday afternoon for our ultrasound. We're excited to find out the gender (hopefully). My sister finds out next Thursday what she's having - we're debating on when we'll tell our news. We might wait to publicly announce until she knows. She should have found out a couple weeks ago, but her husband won a trip to the Superbowl and Hollywood through his work, so they've been postponing it.
One of my friends is a nurse and has had to go to training meetings and work some day shifts recently. She has 3 kids and I've been watching them for her. I was in charge of a Valentine's Day party at our church one morning and hauled all 6 of them over in my pathfinder. Crazy times. I may have my kids close together, but I don't have 6 ages 5 and under! Going out and about is just not really an option when you have that many!

Things in general are going well for us. Cody's practice is slowly growing and we've been able to maintain and increase our production numbers. I pay all the bills for the practice and we recently purchased Quickbooks 2010 for home so that I don't have to drag the kids with me when I "go to work". I'm going to takeover payroll soon too. I actually really like doing this stuff and am glad I have a part in the practice. Cody was just called to be the Scoutmaster for our ward and keeps busy with that. They have their first campout tonight (Klondike - where you sleep in igloos), but the Utah Dental Convention has been going on yesterday and today, so he'll head up to the camp early tomorrow morning.

I've been feeling great with this baby. It's been my easiest pregnancy so far. I actually went to the gym 5 times this week and if it weren't for all the crap I'm eating I'm sure I'd feel great! I tried a boxing class last night that has made my arms soooo sore! It was fun to do something different though. Hopefully I can keep the exercising up through the end of the pregnancy. I know I don't necessarily get "fat," but I do gain weight in unwanted places and anything to help is good in my book.

Tucker and Aubrey are signed up for preschool this fall. Aubrey is so excited to go with Tucker (they won't really be in the same class). Life will definitely be hectic but I found classes that overlap each other. I won't have to do preschool 5 days a week, only 3.

We'll be in Mexico in 2 weeks and can't wait! It will be so nice to get away without kids and have fun in the sun. We've been planning our other vacations for the first half of the year and we're in for some good times. Vegas and Oregon are in our futures.

Well, I'm definitely blabbing on now, so have a great weekend!

Ice Skating

Cody had the day off today, so we decided to take the kids ice skating at the Midway Ice Rink. It's famous because it's the biggest outdoor rink in Utah. I know, pretty impressive huh?! We were a little worried our first few minutes on the ice because of how Tucker was acting. Check out the second video. After a few times back and forth on the rink, the kids sort of got the hang of it and had fun!


Cole had a great time in the Bjorn. He loved it when Cody went fast and would laugh and smile.

The smallest skates they had were kids size 9, just a couple sizes too big for Aubrey, but she managed to learn to walk and not fall down all the time. : )

Now they are all ready to watch the Olympics!

I love a good deal!

Today was a great shopping day. I made my lists before heading out, gathered my coupons and scored big (at least for me)! First I went to Walgreen's purchased some needed items and not needed items (like my 2 bags of M&M's I got for $3)!
Then, this afternoon I headed to Smiths and bought $121 worth of groceries for $54! That's 67% savings. All of my coupons actually worked (sometimes they won't scan properly or I buy the wrong number of items. I was feeling pretty good about myself so I thought I'd share. I check out http://www.savvyshopperdeals.com/ for tips on what coupons to use and for what's on sale. Another website I like is http://www.freebies4mom.com/. I get all sorts of freebies and coupons and tips from there as well. If any of you have great shopping tips, let me know!

Cabin Fun

We spent the weekend up at my Grandparents cabin above Oakley. Every winter my Mom's side of the family has a snowmobiling party. I couldn't believe it when I counted and we had 47 people there! If you've ever been to the cabin you know that's a lot of people in a space that size. We had fun sledding, snowmobiling and visiting.
Cole was pretty much expressionless with all outside activities. Oh well, at least no crying was involved.

Cody hitched a ride on the back of my dad's snowmobile.

Grandpa with Aubrey, Tucker and Mckenna. Aubrey was really good at hitting the kill button everytime they drove by the barn.

My brother and Cody found this dead owl nearby. They think it had died the night before. It was pretty cool to see it up close. It had huge talons!

Cody was whipped around on the tube and had a great crash landing involving a few sideways cartwheels and goggles flying!

Cole must have been nice and snug because he fell asleep in my mom's arms.

We also celebrated Cole's birthday with my family. I made this cute snowman cake. The bottom cake turned out better than the top - taste wise - but this melting snowman is one of my favorites I've made.

Cole was born on the same day as my cousin, Jared, so we sang Happy Birthday to both of them together. After the candle was blown out, Cole took the carrot and jammed it all over the snowman's head. Tucker immediately ate the fruit-by-the-foot scarf and the cake was divided amongst us all.

It was fun to see so many family members and enjoy a beautiful winter day together.

Oh and for those of you that like stats, Cole was 21lbs. 7 oz. at his 1 year checkup. That's the 40th percentile. He's also in the 40th percentile for height and supposedly 90th for his head.