Do we love babies?

Well, what do you think? Are we excited for our baby to come? All I know is I have faded to the background and have become no more than the carrier of the baby. Nicole feeds "the baby" by spooning things into my mouth. She invites "the baby" to go places instead of me. We all look at "our baby" online each week to see how she is progressing (alright, that one has help from me).

But nonetheless, I am grateful to all our friends and relatives who allow my children to fawn all over their babies. Thank you. Thank you. Hopefully the practice will allow our baby to survive infancy.

Hidden Talents

Recently we went rock climbing with our friends, Addy and Cameron. It was tons of fun and I discovered ANOTHER talent of Woodson's! Not surprisingly, he was quite good - like a little monkey - at barreling up the walls. I don't know how this is possible as I was out of breath and sweating profusely within a few "rocks." I used to get slightly annoyed at his ability to do things like this with little or no practice but I have decided to just be glad that my children share in the benefits of his gene pool. I am hoping his genes will offset what I brought to the equation. Here he is way up at the top of a wall with Cameron belaying (sp?). Here I am, coming down. Yes, I did the blue colored rocks that pretty much look like a ladder but at least I made it to the top (on THAT one!)

Ha ha ha! Looking like we do this ALL the time!

Woodson "bouldering," or in other words, climbing up a rock wall without any ropes or anything.

A beautiful shot of me on my first attempt. I didn't actually get any higher than this and technically the ground is right below where the picture cuts off but I did manage to hold on there long enough for the photo op. Go me!

We're going on a bear hunt. . .

Ever since Christmas, when Matthew received a bow and arrow from Santa, he has been DYING to go hunting. At first the requests were manageable. "Ya, one day, Matthew." But then the $5 Walmart, er, I mean hand crafted by elves bow and arrow broke almost in half during normal use! (dirty elves!) So mom and dad gamely sprang for a new one (yes, this one was higher quality. . . $7) which happened to have a picture of the "big game" you'd most definitely bag with this particular bow and arrow right on the front of the package! There they were: pictures of a deer, moose, and, of course, a grizzly bear! (cause, what else do you bring down with a bow and arrow?) I can just see the visions going through Matthew's head when he looked at those. It was right there on the package so he MUST be able to kill those things (dirty Walmart and their toy packagers!) So ever since then I've been fielding the question: "Mom, can we go hunting?" "Mom, when can we go hunting?" "Mom, I'm ready, are we going hunting yet????" I think my response of "one day" got old real quick - especially when he heard it at least 4 times a day! So finally I told him he had to practice first - why I even perpetuated this idea, I will never know! Here he is, full of excitement, sidekick in tow, ready to go "practice" in the back yard. A few days later, there was no getting around it. We had to take him "hunting." I had put him off long enough with stories of how animals hid from people so there'd likely not be any right by out house but only farther away in MUCH more secluded areas like, oh, say. . .by the duck pond! Again, what was I thinking? So I did the only thing I could do. . . I made Woodson take him! We drove over to the duck pond and I waited in the car while Woodson and the kids went out to hunt. This next picture shows the happy hunter on his way to kill some wild animals.

The next 3 pictures pretty much tell the rest of the story. I'll wrap up after you've viewed them.

Dejected. There was no other word for it. Needless to say, he did not catch anything that day. This in no way dampened his enthusiasm for hunting, however. As bad as I felt, I had hoped it would but I guess I told too many stories to make him feel better about how you have to be REAL sneaky and quiet or the animals will run away and it may take a long time of just sitting around! I thought this would make him less likely to want to go again but let me just say we have been several more times since then (different locations, of course), all with similar results. The only difference now is that he PRAYS that Heavenly Father will help him kill some animals. Naughty ones, naturally. Not nice ones. He specifies this in his prayers. After all, he's not a brute or anything! And he always plans on killing them to feed, as he tells me, "his starving family." Hmmmm. . . maybe one too many dramatic stories on my part. Anyway, I've begun using the excuse now that the animals are all hibernating and that his arrows aren't sharp enough anyway to kill them. Somehow this is not getting through. I'm now trying to find some hunter in the ward to take Matthew under his wing! Help! If you know of any likely prospects, please comment. Otherwise, you will probably see us skulking through your yard with a bow and arrow sometime soon!

Ultrasound!

Well, we found out yesterday what kind of a baby we are having - no, I do not mean the fat and sassy kind - we already knew we were having that! The results were a little surprising. We completely expected it to be a boy - I think because I had somehow convinced myself that it would be! But . . . it's a GIRL! And even though I had to quickly redo my image of how our family would look, we (with the exception of Matthew) are totally excited! Matthew was a little, how should I say it. . . devastated. I wish I could have filmed it when we told him! He really had his heart set on a boy. He was angry at me for a while because, as he said, "I told you I wanted a boy!" He doesn't understand that I couldn't help it! I think we might have him convinced to be happy about it now as we have talked a lot about how it will just be him and dad as the men of the house and they will need to protect us weak and helpless women. Nothing like a little ego stroke to get you to accept something you don't want to!

Now the only problem is we have absolutely no names up our sleeves! So if anyone has any ideas out there, PLEASE respond! For some reason we seem unable to think of hardly any!

Fun in the Sun

Ok for those of you not ready for a looooooong string of pictures, close this window now. Last week we took a quick jaunt to Hawaii with our friends Ben and Alyson. Since I am far too lazy to type out detailed descriptions of what we did, I am simply going to post a whole bunch of pictures and put small captions beneath them. Pictures say a thousand words, right? You'll get the idea. Us at the 7 Sacred Pools. Nice action shot. Thanks Ben! It's not that big of a jump but for some reason I was terrified! Good thing I've got that hand just about to my nose already. Heaven forbid I enter the water without my nose plugged!

Woodson found this cool "water slide" at the pools. Notice you can see the top AND the bottom of the "slide" in this picture. He is having a LOT of fun!

Our favorite place to eat on Maui: Brudda Hutt's. That really is its name. It is at this guy's house at the end of the road to Hana where he barbeques in his front yard. It takes a couple hours to get there but if you're driving it anyway, the chicken is EXCELLENT. Plus, he's the bishop of the Hana ward. Cool, huh?

Woodson and Ben heading out for a snorkel.

Alyson and Jenny pretending to build sand castles. . . at sunset. . .in our regular clothes. We found this green rake and it looked good in a quickly pushed together mound of sand for the photo op.

Us on the beach at sunset. I think I must have been a little surprised. I would have liked to close my mouth.

Totally posed but I still like our walking on the at beach sunset" picture.

One of my favorite pictures: Ben and Alison "frolicking" on the beach.

I always wanted to be buried in sand. Looks good on me, I think.

Us at the blowhole. We barely made it there before it got dark. Hence, the reason the picture is so dark. We had to run down this hill to get our photo op. It was actually pretty cool. This picture doesn't show how big it sometimes spewed out but we figured we'd better take it rather than chance it getting dark before another big one came. Only casualty: Ben's clothes. He went to take a "closer look."

Woodson boogie boarding. He really does have a swimsuit on. I promise.

Look at this crab. That's all I have to say about this one.

A stroll on the beach.

Us at the Banyan tree in Lahaina. This was the coolest tree ever. I wanted to pose like the roots were like a jail cell - hence the pretend scream - but then Woodson kissed me right at the last minute. So now I pretend it is a "scream of delight" and I totally meant to look like that.

I really didn't mean to have this one on right here but somehow it is so. . . here we are in the Costco parking lot right after we landed. At least I am wearing a lei so you know I'm not at the Lehi Costco! I think we kept Costco meat department in business while we were there!

Baby Time!

Ok, so as most of you have probably noticed from the baby counter on our blog (if not, scan to the right) we are pregnant! Sorry, I have no pictures to post with this, at least none I would willingly put on here. We are currently 18 weeks and will find out what the baby is on Feb. 2nd. Matthew wants a boy and said a prayer today asking Heavenly Father to "make the baby come out a boy." He also wants to name it "Zacky" after one of the dragons on Dragon Tales. Tempting. Nicole wants a girl. Matthew says girl babies aren't as cute as boy babies but we'll still love it. . . just not as much. We'll just have to wait and see!

Matthew's Birthday!!!!

Ok, so it's time for some major catch-up! But of all the things I could post, I am totally going to toot my own horn and document forever what I stayed up till midnight the night before Matthew's birthday doing, namely, making Matthew's alligator birthday cake! Matthew turned 4 on December 7th. Last year we had a friend party and I decided I didn't want to do that again so instead I would make him a SUPER cool cake. I let him choose what he wanted the cake to be - no surprises there. I was totally excited to make it for him and as much as I messed up I am actually pretty proud of how it turned out. However, I think I might go back to the friend party next year. . . Needless to say, Matthew LOVED LOVED LOVED his cake! Too bad he was pretty much the only one to eat it and I had to foist it off on single siblings who I convinced could get their roommates to eat it! (It didn't taste bad, just not as good as the other options that were available for adults at the time thanks to the fact that it was a joint birthday party with Grandma Dean!) Here's Matthew with Grandma Dean at the party. Grandma Dean wouldn't let us put candles in for her. Hmmmm.

As tradition dictates on birthdays (translation: as I force everyone to do), here is Matthew's breakfast in bed. Ya, I went all out as you can see. Notice the tootsie roll in between the spoon and the bowl. . . I'm an AWESOME mom!

Matthew woke up sooooooooo happy that day and we had such a great day! He is definitely turning into a big boy. He is such a big helper with Nicole and loves to help me clean the bathrooms and sweep the floor! He especially enjoys cleaning the toilet! I love it! His smile just makes me happy. He asked me the other day how he is going to know what to do when he grows up. He was really worried about this too and just wanted to express his worry that he wouldn't know what to do when he is a dad! It was so cute! Especially his relief when I told him he could always look in the scriptures and pray - it was like I just solved his life's problems! That's so typical of Matthew - always thinking of things I would never expect and making connections I always hoped he wouldn't! We sure love our big boy! Happy Birthday Matthew!