Choo Choo

Cael is, and has been for years (it's crazy that I can say years when I talk about him) fascinated with trains, or as he still calls them "Choo Choos". These are the magnetics that the Southards got Cael for his birthday. He loves them and can spend hours playing with them. Last night Steve made Cael the engine for this train, today Cael did all the cars behind the engine and the smoke stack by himself while I was working on camp stuff. He was very proud of himself!

Time For a Change

I use to have two blogs. One where I posted more pictures and wrote more about what was happening, and then the year in picture blog. We all know that I have never made it an entire year posting pictures, I was hit and miss. I am more dedicated now than ever to continuing documenting what goes on with our family, hopefully on an almost daily basis.

One of the reason I stopped blogging last year was because it became a source of contention in my marriage. I would find my self right at bed time running around trying to find something to take a picture of and blogging about it when I should have been going to bed with my husband. I have done really well lately at blogging earlier in the evening and not waiting until the last minute. And there are really some days when I have nothing to take a picture of, so I just come up with something that is very random and has no meaning to anything that is really going on in our life.

Lately I have been posting more than one picture and writing more than just a sentence or two, so it seems natural to go away from a picture a day blog back to just a regular blog. But I am saying put, I have changed blogs to many times. And I really do like the picture a day idea. I am just going to make a few small changes. When we printed out my blog from the past year it made me realize I would like something else as the titles for each post besides the date. I am not going to be as strict about having to post pictures the same day. Again, it is my goal to post daily, but if we get home at midnight from our friends house (like we did Friday night) the blog can wait until Saturday (or in this case Sunday). And that is okay! And more times than not there will probably be more than one picture and more writing, which almost means more grammatical and spelling mistakes :). But again that is nothing new, I've been doing that already. I want to change the name from A Year In Pictures 2011, but I have to run that one by my banner maker. Cause it's too darn cute and I am not about to give it up, hopefully that's an easy fix.

Whew..lots of reading, sorry. Now onto the pictures from our weekend.

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We, along with the Noggles, went to the Southards for a night of fun! The kids had a blast...they always do. Not one game of Catan or Ticket To Ride was played, very strange for us! Instead we played Tetris, watched numerous (yawn) youtube videos and just sat around and talked. It was a great night!

This picture is SO Evan. Who knows what he was doing, that kids cracks me up. And he knows it, so he goes out of his way to try and make us laugh...which he does very well.

All the kids

Always a funny face picture with these kiddos.

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Saturday night we had Justin and Amy over for dinner. We had such a good time visiting with them. I made a mean pot roast if I do say so myself, it was only my second one ever! We were getting ready to play cards when Steve suggested Coldstone, can you guess which one we did?

Justin is absolutely one of our favorite people and Amy is falling right into place! :) We love their relationship and are excited to see how God continues to blesses it!

One of the best parts of the nights...Cael now has two Mamies!! :)

Thanks for making time for us guys, lets do it again soon!

February 26th

Stay tuned for a little change tomorrow here in blog land. See you then!

February 25th

It's snowing, and someone couldn't be happier!!! All day Cael has been telling me that tonight his snow is coming back, and guess what? It did! Here he is showing you his two thumbs up for the snow! (and I did let him go play in it for a few minutes)

February 23rd

I am glad today is over, I am emotionally spent. The day started off really bad, but ended up really good. I'll tell you one thing. I am so thankful for life, family and friends who I can call on in an instant to pray. (okay, so I guess that was three things) Today was a reminder not to take any of those things for granted.

I'll see you tomorrow with a picture!

February 22nd

Did you vote today?

Lisa and I worked the election polls for the primary election for our mayor. There was ONE question on the ballet, it was kind of silly. We had to get up at 4am and be at the polls by 5am. I made him home by 8:15...it was a long day, but I am $160 richer now so it was worth it. Working the election is always is more fun when you have a friend with you, and those of you who know Lisa can assume that we had a great time together! Lots of laughs!

P.S. If you didn't vote today you don't get to complain about what is going on with our city!!

February 18th

Sorry for the bad picture, I took it with Steve's phone and my camera is charging. It's still a cute one! We went to dinner and then for ice cream with the Sheraden's tonight. I love that our boys are getting to grow up together. It's only fitting that dads who grew up as best friends have boys that grow up as best friends. But they are only going to remain friends as long as Cael is willing to shares his airplane with Wesley and Wesley is willing to share his "Big Woody" (yes, you are allowed to laugh...we all do) with Cael.

February 17th

***Edited*** Steve is requesting that I put this on here. He was flipping through our recorded shows on Uverse and came across a show that I taped. I am never going to live this down. Hey, it's nice to have some things for a rainy day.

Now back to my original post for the day.....

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Poor Gertie. Cael is absolutely obsessed with her teeth, he is constantly pulling up her lips and inspecting them. Not sure Gertie thinks this is very fun.

February 16th

Snug as a bug in rug....watching Diego.

February 14th

Happy Valentines Day!!

We had a full day! Cael and I went to Pawnee and took Steve lunch. Here Cael is with Steve's Calculus class. The kids all love Cael so much and before long all the attention he gets when we visit is going to start going to his head.

Every year I make a cake from my heart shape pan...it's a nice tradition and one that Cael loves to take part in. Too bad I forgot to add the water. Needless to say this cake is just for looks this year. AND I went the extra mile because our oven is broke. I snuck over to my in-laws house to make it , we had a really good visit so it was worth it in the end.

Heart shape french toast for dinner. Yummy....if you like french toast, I had something else for dinner.

And finally...my little Valentine!! This is one of the pictures he wanted me to "put on the computer"

This is the other one...

Personally, I would have chosen this one. Three things to take notice of. #1 - Cael's hand. He has been getting up at night and playing in his room. He had his way with a marker and was pretty proud of this. #2- Yes, if you saw us yesterday Cael has on the exact same clothes. He did take them off to sleep, but this shirt is just to darn cute! #3- Cleaning the fax fire place is now officially on my to do list...check out all those tiny hand prints. Who knew they where there?

Tomorrow I will tell you all about my Valentine's Day present!! It's was good one!

p.s. HI MIKE!!

Friday Night Fun

Here are some more pictures from our evening Friday night!

Cael and Dad playing some video game.

Alyssa playing some skee ball. It cracks me up how Tara is in the back ground and then Steve is in the back, back ground.

YAY for skeet ball, one of my favorites!

Cael was hooked, he would have played the video games all night had we allowed him.

John and his girls

Cael went on the Merry Go Round with Audrey but was not that impressed. He was ready to move on to more exciting things.

This picture is just for Steve. He LOVES Audrey's hair in a ponytail.

Cael got to try his hand at bowling, he is a violent bowler!

One of the best moments of the nights. I told the girls to smile and took a picture. I asked if I could take another one and asked Abby to smile just a little more.

Wrong thing to do!! But it was oh so funny. Check it out! Abby is saying she doesn't need to smile better, Tara is telling her she had better smile and Alyssa...well not sure what Alyssa is doing. After looking at the first picture Abby's smile is perfectly fine! Thanks Abby for giving me permission to post this picture.

February 12th

I love it when I go to get my grocery list and this is what I find. I wish I had a better picture of it, but the object below the e is an airplane according to Cael. You can see a body and two wings...love it!

February 11th

I have so many pictures to show you from tonight but it is Steve's turn for the computer so I will do another post tomorrow. We went to America's Incredible Pizza Company tonight with the Southard's and the Shelton's. We had such a good time and best of all..it was ALL free. The buffet, drinks, games, lazer tag and go carts. Free!

We tried to get Cael to go on the go carts and he was not having any of it. After he saw Alyssa and Abby go he decided he wanted to give it a try. He and Steve stood in line for well over 30 minutes right behind a huge group of cheerleaders (have I mentioned before that I do not like cheerleaders? I was reminded tonight why). Steve was a trooper to wait that long for his little buddy, and it was well worth it because Cael LOVED the go carts. He had the cutest grin on his face the entire time and even liked it when they got bumped a few times. I love when he has a "first" and tonight was a really good one!

Can't beat a night out with friends that's free!

February 10th

Maybe I need to change the name of my blog. I am posting more than a picture a day but I think that's okay!

I am finally feeling okay today. Still not 100% but at least I felt like doing more than sitting on the couch. Cael has been all about riding his bike this week. I pushed the dining room table over to the side to make more riding room for Cael. He loves it!!

Cael can play hours and hours of hide n seek, this is one of his favorite hiding spots. Shhhh, don't tell him I told you.

A happy boy.....with a bad hair cut!

February 9th

I'm telling you, all my child wants to do is "pay in snow". Most nights when we come home we stay out and play for 15 minutes or so. Tonight after church we went to Sylvan to be there when Steve got off work. Cael really missed his Dad today! As ususal Cael begged us to let him play, so we let him climb a big snow mountian for a few minutes. And just so you know, all this snow you see on the ground, it's all Cael's. Just ask him, he will tell you!

February 8th

STILL sick. Going on day 6 and really wish it would go away. I thought I was better this morning but around noon it hit full force again. So no new picture for today. I leave you with my happy snow boy!

February 7th

Sorry about no picture yesterday. Steve had the computer and was working on our taxes. I wasn't feeling well so I didn't make it long enough for my turn on the computer. AND these picture aren't even from today, they are from two days ago. I still am not 100%, so I could have taken a picture of what my house looks like after 5 days of feeling sick and not doing anything. OR I could have taken a picture of my raw meat loaf that didn't cook in our stove, because it stopped working. But I decided I needed something happier to share with you. So here are some pictures from our fun day in the snow. Well, it wasn't necessarily a fun day for me because I didn't play, but I sure did enjoy watching!

Cael LOVES the snow..and I love that he loves the snow.

Cael and dad working hard on our very first snow man. Cael took this very serious and helped out a lot.

Do you think he loves his snowman?

Our very first snowman, I have requested an adult size one next time. :)

Cael also insisted on helping shovel, he loved it!

He would ask me to push him down and then laugh so hard, we did over and over. And over and over. And over....

He also rolled around our entire front yard, and our neighbor's yard.

Don't forget the snowballs...or snow chunks.

All the kid does is beg to go outside and play. I sure hope I am feeling better before it all melts so we can play again. YAY for snow, and YAY for a little man who loves it as much as his momma does.

February 5th

Today was Lydia's "Gotcha Day" four year anniversary. Four years! How in the world has she been with us for that long?? She is finally understanding that she is adopted. When you ask her what Gotcha Day means she says "The day you got me". Seriously, melts my heart. Right after they got Lydia in China they went to a hamburger place, so each year we go out for hamburgers. Tonight we went to Long Horn and I explained to the waitress why we were there. She got very emotional and told us that we made her night. After were doing eating we hear a whole bunch of clapping and she our waitress headed to us. They brought Lydia a huge dessert and instead of singing happy birthday they shouted "Happy Gotcha Day". She was SO excited, it was very sweet of them to do!

Gotcha Girl!!

She was so excited about her ice cream!

Aunt Sis trying to control the boys!

Steve is the best wrestler ever!

He's also not a shabby couch.

The boys hanging out

Lydia was very happy buy would not smile at me for anything. As soon as I put the camera down she would start laughing...stinker.

Lydia, I will never forget the second I laid eyes on you. You stole my heart that day and I have loved you ever since. Your world has been turned upside down this year with your new brother, but you have handled it so well. You are such a great big sister! I can't believe it has been FOUR years since you joined our family. I can't wait for all the fun we are going to have the next four yours, and then the next, and then the next...you get the point.

We love you Lydia!!