The First Snow!

Well, we made it to Colorado!  And the computer is unpacked.  

We had our first snow this morning.  I would post some pictures, but I was not able to locate the camera for the 3 sec Claire would stay outside. (she was the only one to venture outside)

Just now Benjamin came and asked me where the snow went!  I told him that the sun melted it.  Then he proceeded to cry for about 5 min.  I am sure by the end of the winter he will be crying that the snow will not go away!  

P.S. I loved all the comments on the last post!

What a great fortune!

I just wanted to share a cute thing Benjamin did yesterday.  We went out for Chinese last night for dinner.  In the car on the way home I gave the kids their fortune cookies.  When Benjamin opened his he read the fortune and said "It says I am a child of God".  I thought that was too cute to not to share.  

I hope everyone is having a great day.  The kids and I are on our way to Denver this Saturday. It should be interesting 2 adults and 5 children on 1 airplane.  I think that security scares me more than the flight.  Wish us luck.  We are going to LOVE being together as a family again.  amie

New Photos!

On the top right side of the blog is a mac link to our photo page.   Amie has put some of the kiddos on there yesterday!

Remember Us?

ZACHARY IS HERE! 

 He was born last Friday, September 5th.  Eight pounds and eight ounces at 20.5 inches long.  Happy healthy chunky monkey!  So it is official, we now have our coed basketball team in the making.  

Amie and the kids are all staying with Amie's mother so our home would be easier to show (hopefully sell)  and for the support she needs.  (since her dead beat husband is across the country) 

I flew in on Thursday night and stayed until Wednesday.  Amie's sister Tammy is flying in to stay a week to help as well.  (Thank you Tammy!)  Then some of Amie's great friends are helping out as well until Amie recovers.  

Our home in Houston has still not sold,  which is the only real hick-up in our grand plan.  But it is a big hick-up that has caused some rough times.   Mainly, Amie and the kids staying in Houston longer than we wanted while I start work in Denver.  

 

Benjamin rides the bus to preschool each morning and really enjoys it.  He showed everyone including the bus driver his new baby brother "Wackery"  aka  Zachary.   The girls are definatly growing up to their own individualls.  And Julia has supprised me the most.   When I came up to Colorado she had taken only one step.  Now she is walking all over the house, throwing dipers away for Amie, throwing clothes and shoes in the trash for Amie... well she is trying to help.   

 

Thank you all for your prayers and help.  We are blessed to have such great family and friends!


Follow our new link on the top right side of the blog page to see more new pics. 

Mac Photo Gallery

Happy Belated Birthday America!

We joined the masses to check out the fireworks in Tomball TX.  After getting Chick-fil-a shakes and checking out the live bands we settled down for some red, white and boom!  The kids loved it, as they kept yelling out the colors of the fireworks.  Benjamin loved them too and was spell bound with the size of the fireworks, that is until he became spell bound by the size of some great looking Texas bugs.  

Our little innocent girl...or not so innocent.

Our friends were over today and Aubrey was very happy because she and their son have a little crush on each other. This time it looks like they got out of hand.

National Children Museum Tour

Amie has visited 6 cities and 6 museums.   When we kick the kids out we will check out all of the Hard Rock Cafes so something, but until then we are in the kid business and we love it!

Swim Time!

I'm sure everyone has enjoyed swimming several times this year already.  Our community just opened our new pool and we have been taking full advantage of it.  The kids have just really started this year to be independent and they are taking off! 

This video is of some extended family too.   We loved having them.  It made this swimming stuff even more fun!

Birthday time...Julia's First!

While Amie's family was in town, Julia had her first birthday party!

Trip to KY

The Blue Grass state is where my parents live.  We drove up there to be apart of my sister and brother-in-law's sealing of their new adopted son, and my new nephew, Asher.   Once there Amie and the kids stayed an extra two weeks and I flew home.  Then flew back to drive them home.  We might have started a new annual tradition of the week long visit to the grandparents, that is if they will still take us!  This video is just some of the stuff we go into.  

Julia's Birthday Time!

Cousin Max and Julia are PARTY ANIMALS !!

Aunt Lindy and the girls "helping" Julia with her presents.

With all the family in, we had a lot of good times!

This is a movie of cute baby Max and very cute baby Brad at dinner time.

Road Warriors

There has been so much that has gone on in the past month.  

--We drove to KY for the sealing of our nephew to my sister Misty and brother-in-law Jordan. 

--Amie and the kids stayed at the grandparents for two weeks, then I flew back up to drive them home.  

--Then whole family jumped back in the car to drive to TN for a wedding.  

--Some people like to see Hard Rock Cafe across the nation, but we are in the children business so we have been stopping by each of the Children's Museums in each of the cities and have hit five cities so far.    

--Julia had  a one year birthday party!

--Now this weekend all of Amie's five brothers and sisters are in town for her youngest sisters graduation. 

We will share with you some of the highlights of our adventures.  

This is in our back yard.  The kids love to spin crazy fast.

The good thing is they have all lived to tell about it.  

The Joys of Toilet Paper!

"Hey! check out what i found!"


"You just pull a little here and look what happens!"


Doing some exploring under the table.

Hey I even found some colored cheerios! Jack pot!


Julia was having such a good time, Claire thought she would join in.

I scream U scream for "pie ice-cream"

It's "Pie Ice-cream" time! How can you not smile after seeing how much Claire loves her ice cream?





A few months back, but cute non the less. Aubrey doesn't even mind that her sucker still has the rapper on it! It is more fun making sounds with Claire than actually having a sucker.

Crazy Quotes of Metaling Monkeys

Benjamin – “May I have some pie ice cream please?” he would ask for his “pie ice cream” for several days, but we could not figure out what he was talking about when he declined each kind we offered.  Finally about a week later Amie bought some vanilla ice cream and elated Benjamin yelled out “PIE ICE CREAM!”  The ice cream you eat with pie...of course!

Aubrey - When I was fixing breakfast this morning I commented that we are having eggs for breakfast,  then Aubrey looked very discussed and exclaimed  "Those are baby bird eggs!  That is mean."  But in the end she did eat them with the rest of us,  which may be even more mean!

Claire -  Dan picked her up from nursery at church and she had a picture of a lot of different animals that she had colored.  Dan asked her if she made it.  She looked up at him and stated, "No Jesus made them, I just colored them." I am sure she was thinking, "I thought you were smart, Dad?" 

Julia - Mama! Dada!  And of course her growl... check out the movie. 

The Great Sock Puppets!

Cousin Asher and Julia are getting to know each other.  

Showing off their sock puppets

Asher and Julia also had some quality bonding time.  Julia is much more mobile now but in a couple of months she doesn't stand a chance. 

Misty and Jordan came with a great idea to  make sock puppets with the kids.  Needless to say, it was a hit.   The kids picked out all the accessories and even named their puppets.  Benjamin had to take his to pre-school and then to bed with him!  "Cha-Che" is his puppets name, yea we didn't get it either but he has stuck with it.  Aubrey's name is simply puppy, and then we have the Aunt Misty puppet... with changing voices. 

  

if one birthday is good... three is GREAT!

It's Birthday time here with Amie's birthday on the 5th as well as Aubrey's and Claire's on the 11th.  The Twins turn three and Amie turns... sorry that part got edited out.   We like to get a jump start on things so the festivities all started last Friday when my sister Misty, brother in law Jordan and new nephew Asher came to visit from Ohio.  

We packed the weekend with a BBQ and church auction, (where a wall mounted singing bass went for $400... only in Texas! ) general conference, making sock puppets ( another entry all together ) and of course the Birthday Party!  The girls got princess outfits, swim suits, clothes and sleeping bags for as cold as 20 degrees!  Colorado camping here we come!   

Nana from KY sent personalized  children books with pictures of all the family throughout the pages.  I thought that was an ingenious idea.  The Kids were at first excited for the books then ECSTATIC  and went crazy when they saw their own pictures on the pages.  There were even pics of there "new friend Asher"  

When cake time came, for good times we had to through in some trick candles that just wouldn't blow out.  

Rodeo Time!

View Album

Get your own

Down here in Texas, it is a prerequisite to go the the Rodeo at least once every couple of years or they will kick you out!  This year we     went  early and spent a day with grandma!                                               

All nighter!

My friend Lisa Hyde and I had an all nighter last night and these are some of the things we made! The girls woke up to a photo shoot.

Check out our viedos!

Claire is definatly our speed racer! More like this one are on the left side with the youtube attachment.

Movies only a parent could love...and hopefully you too.

Maybe at your lunch at the office or when you're trying to dodge a meeting and have some time to kill, you can check out some movies.  I have edited some photos and movie clips with music (sometime that is the best part so make sure you can hear it)  

I know that some are the type as they say only a parent can love, but we sure do love them so just humor us.  They shouldn't be too bad.  

Say hello to our 5 little monkeys!

For some of our friends, and even more unfortunately,  for some of our family it has been too long since we have been in touch.  That said, I'm sure we have a lot of catching up to do including the introduction or the re-introduction of our short stuffs. 

Benjamin as the oldest is now four years old and reserves the right and sole responsibility of picking on his sisters, and will ward off anyone else who tries.  He sure takes good care of them.  

Then the twins, Aubrey and Claire are going to be three in April.  As two, they hold their own together and yet have very separate attitudes, likes and dislikes.  

Almost a year ago Julia joined forces with the girls and left Benjamin and I to stick together as the only manly men in the house.  

We are now expecting one more.  Yes we checked twice to make sure it was only one more.  This time the nurse thinks it is a boy...preliminary ultra sounds only, but I could sure use another vote around here.  

So do the math real quick... in September we will have five children four and under for a couple of months at least.  We are very blessed and grateful.  Amie is an unbelievable women with patience, love and happiness abounding.   We have been married almost nine years and just like most of you have stories that will make your sides hurt from laughing.  And I can say most of those have happened in the past four years.  We look forward to sharing with you some of the ones that are to come.  

Please leave comments, we would love to hear from you.  

Happy Easter!

Last night the Easter Bunny came and left baskets of goodies including little bunnies for each of the kids.  Then early this morning Benjamin woke us up and said, "look what Santa brought!"  So cute right? Only that today is Easter! He is a little behind with the holidays.

Yesterday we colored Easter Eggs.  That was a great hit.  The kids loved the "magic".

This afternoon we had three families over this afternoon and had the best time. All together there were 8 adults and 8 kids (and three babies in the oven).  We ate our weight in ham, sweet potatoes, rolls, and salad, not to mention all the desert!  Then we shared a lesson of Easter while the eggs were hidden and then we let the crazies out to find the eggs and more importantly the candy.  We had a great Easter, hope yours was great too.  

Here we go

So much to share...so little time. That and we have just started this blog stuff for our selves at least. We love visiting our friends and families, but haven't jumped on the bandwagon until now. This year is going to be amazing we already know, so it's a good time to start keeping a record if for no other reason than to keep us grounded.