Kids will be kids

Before I get to the excitement that was our weekend I wanted to share something that makes me love having kids. Jocelyn had Thursday and Friday off of school which means I got to sleep in! The kids would snack on something and play while I slept in and it was splendid. I just imported my camera and what did I find? Little videos of my kiddos thinking they were taking a picture but it was on video. At first I thought Chris took these videos and then I heard Jocelyn's little voice. I love incriminating evidence.

Our weekend was a little off. Chris's office is wanting to stay open longer on Saturday's so they want someone to take one of the regular work days off and then work 8 hours on Saturday. We thought we'd give it a try. So Chris went in Friday and worked a few hours to get some overtime and then worked 8 - 4pm on Saturday. It felt weird and I couldn't figure out what day it really was. While Chris was at work we got the call that our taxes are done and the amount. Let's just say it was such good news we went out to dinner at... gulp... Hometown Country Buffet. (We really wanted Golden Coral but it went out of business and the nearest one was 30 minutes away.) It turned out to be one of the funnest places to eat with kids cause they can have a choice of whatever they want!

Jocelyn ate potato wedges
Cecily ate Jello
Asher ate Jello
Dessert = ice cream, and A LOT of it!

Food for adults? Not so great but it's affordable and I'll get my sushi soon enough. Going to this place on a Saturday evening is not so much fun either but the balloon guy was there and that was so worth it! Ash got a giant balloon sword but I didn't get a picture of him with it cause he kept hitting me with it and then it popped. And Cecily told me not to take a picture.

We then went to a thrift store looking for a dresser and Asher fell in love with a little convertible. He loves it so much he slept with it all nite.

Back to Friday Chris took the kids for a photo shoot to the park so I could take a nap. (I KNOW!) I'm a little biased but I think my kids are pretty much awesome at posing for pictures.

 

 

ps: Here is my new desktop calendar. I love it. Asher's birthday is in two weeks. You can get yours HERE.

A big boy

Even though I'm pregnant and I'm about to get a new baby to take care of my baby hunger it is still really hard for me to see Asher grow up. Maybe it's because I know he's my only boy but I don't want this kid to grow up! Everyday he causes me so much stress getting into things and beating up Cecily but when he gives me his little hugs and kisses I melt. With the baby coming soon and Asher days away from turning two Chris told me it was time to get rid of the bottles and I fought it until Chris just did it himself. And Ash did surprisingly well! He goes right to sleep now, and cuddles in his blankets a bit more.

{Here he is throwing out his bottles.}

I can't help but thinking because Chris took charge of getting rid of the bottles he did so well. He LOVES Chris. He mimics every move he makes and always wants to be with him when he's home. I don't blame the kid, I want to be just like Chris too. What makes this so much cuter is that Asher is a little mini-me of Chris. Every once in awhile I'll see Rogers in him but he's all Chris. And here's my proof.

Wild, huh?!

Another example of how much Asher wants to be like his cool dad is that he is always stealing Chris's hair-stuff. The other morning he got it and it was all goopey in his hair. I was fixing the girls hair when I noticed it and I did my best to clean it up but without throwing him in a bath it wasn't coming out. I put him in my favorite little khakis and blue polo (he looks like a Heritage Academy boy!) and he looked like a freakin' stud. (for some reason I can't get this picture to save rotated no matter how many times I do it!)

Awww... little boys.

Let it snow!

It snowed all weekend and it was beautiful fun! From Thursday evening to late Sunday night there was a constant flow of little flakes. We have windows everywhere and I could just stare forever at the snow as it comes down. It's my new favorite thing. Jocelyn loves it as much as I do and she's really the only one who likes to get on all her snow clothes and go out and play in it.
This is what it looked like Saturday afternoon. After Jocelyn played outside for awhile she brought in some snow to put in her hot coco.

It's supposed to snow again tomorrow and Sunday (it always snows on Sunday!) Chris is almost done with winter but I say BRING IT ON! The cold works so well with my temperament. It would be nice to see the world green again like how it was when we first moved here.

Sunday after church we're trying to get out the doors to go to the car. Asher sneaks out and starts running down the sidewalk. Chris was holding Cecily and waiting for Jocelyn so I had to go after him. I'm in heels, it's snowing, the sidewalks are icy and Asher is a fast runner. I was always 2 feet behind him because I'm doing my waddle run cause it feels like the baby is going to fall out (Ladies, I know you know what I'm talking about). So with the combo of heels and baby pressure I could not catch the kid! I told Chris that next time I'm just going to let him run into the street... not really... I'll make Chris jog after him.

Rubberbands vs. hot dogs

When I was pregnant with Asher I LOVED going to walmart or tire stores, shoe stores or office stores so I could smell the new rubber. Actually, I'll admit I always like the smell but when I was pregnant I noticed I REALLY liked the smell of new rubber. Well, with this pregnancy it's gotten a little more intense. I think about it more, I go out of my way so I can smell the tire section. The other night I was doing my homework and found myself thinking about sucking on a rubberband (it's actually tempting me right now) Chris was upstairs working on his homework so I instant messaged him letting him know about my craving. I didn't mention to him that I actually did it for like 30 minutes. I felt so embarrassed about it that as soon as I heard him coming downstairs I quickly spit the rubberband in the trash. I then confessed it on Facebook the next day when I decided it was actually pretty funny that I did it.

Alright, the reason I disclose this story is because Saturday night Chris and I went out on a mini-date. It was going to be awesome going to get salads at Jason's Deli and then off to see Shutter Island. Since we have to pay for a babysitter we decided to try cutting dinner and the movie really close so we bought the tickets for the 7pm showing but then when we got there at 6:50pm it was jam packed. Like I don't even think there were two seats together in the very front row and Chris and I have standards about where we will sit. So we spend time wandering around Target (making sure to stop by the bike tire section). After being gone two hours we take the sitter home and make a late night snack (cause we had salads for dinner). I don't even remember what I ate but Chris made nachos with hot dogs. I thought it was wacko but he claims it's less wacky than some of the stuff I have craved in the past. (Even though I'm pregnant and honestly can't control what this demon-baby wants).

So what do you think is weirder. Pregnant lady who really likes rubber or normal man who decides to put hot dogs on his nachos?

a hobby

I mentioned that I've got addicted to digital scrapbooking. It's become more than a hobby and I think it's taking the edge off being homesick. There's a lot of scrapbooking sites out there and designers and my goal is to become a designers decorator. This is where the designer designs up a kit and then I make sample pages for them to show all the cute things that can be done with a kit. Then I get a ton of free stuff and get my work shown off. While I wait for my dream to come true I am building up my credibility by posting my pages all over the scrapbooking community. For fun I entered 5 pages to a scrapbooking magazine with low hopes of getting published. On Tuesday I got an email saying they are publishing 3 of them! I was totally stoked. For my contract I have to take them off the internet for 30 days so I can't show you which ones they are but I will as soon as I can!

I finally got my scrapbooking site up and going. KATIE DID. I'll be tweaking it here and there but I'll just be uploading my pages for when the time comes and I can apply to be a designers decorator.

A sweet holiday

Last week we had a little set back which is never fun before a favorite holiday but thank goodness for an awesome Nana, we got a package that the kids are still talking about and trumped our little valentines to them. The tradition here is that Nana would drop the valentines on the doorstep for the kids. This year she mailed a package and Chris put the gifts on the doorstep and rang and ran.

When Jocelyn opened the door Chris yelled "who brought these?!" and Jocelyn said, "Nana did" and Chris said "she drove all the way to Colorado?!" and Jocelyn said "No, they came in that package today." Oh! Way to ruin some adult fun Joc!

Growing up for Valentine's day my parents would make a super fancy, romantic dinner for the whole family. My dad would get me and my sister a valentine and my mom would get my brothers something. I've always loved Valentines day, and have tried to continue with the tradition. For our romantic dinner we had the yummy brown sugar/dill weed salmon (thanks Darcy for bringing this recipe into our lives) and coconut fried shrimp. The kids were less than fans so... I don't even know what they ate actually...oh well!

{He didn't get as messy as last year which was a little disappointing.}

I'm trying to be careful about what I eat because I'm ballooning with this kiddo so I kept my cool with all the Valentine's candy and treats we got and made. Yesterday I got the call that my girl scout cookies are in so my pregnancy diet went on hold till these cookies are all gone.

Why do the evil girl scouts make such awesome cookies?!

Hiatus is complete.

I've been feeling the itch that I should update the blog for almost 2 months now. Has it been itching you too? Well, let me scratch that itch.

Nothing too interesting has been going on since my last post but a whole lot of fun has been.

{here we are for our traditional Christmas picture. This was Christmas #8!}

Chris's parents and younger siblings visited from the Sunday after Christmas and left new years eve at 7am. It was such a blast having them here and the house felt very empty after they left. Chris spent that whole night puking his brains out. It was a bummer because we were invited to a party and I was going to bring my yummy won tons. We spent the evening watching movies and I'm pretty sure I fell asleep at 11:50pm. I just could not last any longer.

{The kids new years eve dinner. They couldn't have been happier, well except they got Avatar toys and weren't too thrilled. I got Smashburger; there is one in AZ and you need to go there. It will rock your world. Chris got Chipotle. Just in case you were wondering what we ate.}

January 12, we found out we are having another little girl. It really wasn't that big of a surprise because our BFF's the Lovells, who we do everything they do, have two girls, a boy and then a girl. We're super excited. Plus I don't think I could handle another boy if he's anything like Asher.

For MLK day we drove down to Denver (an hour south) they were having a free day at the zoo and we thought that would be fun and a visit to the temple which we hadn't seen yet. Parking was a total nightmare but we we got lucky and found a spot after looking for nearly an hour and had a sweet time.

Man vs. Food filmed in Denver at some point so I thought it would be fun to check out one of the places. It's called Jack and Grill and really wasn't that awesome. They are famous for their 7 pound breakfast burrito. We played at a very ghetto park and then headed to the temple. After growing up in AZ where there's a visitors center and beautiful temple gounds to walk around this temple is TINY! It's in a really nice neighborhood though, and has an exit for just the bride and groom! (small rant. The AZ temple totally needs this. As a video/photo person fighting the people coming in and out of the temple plus all the people waiting for couples to come out it's a nightmare!) But it's a pretty temple, and the kids like the fountain.

 

 

{Jocelyn made this snowman for a class project, we love her school and Jocelyn is enjoying it too}

January 30, we took a drive to a ski-town called Breckenridge. Every year they hold an international ice sculpting contest and we thought it would be really fun to go to. It was a Saturday and traffic was a butt it took us 4 hours to get there and nearly an hour to find a parking spot. It was a sweet town. Originally founded in gold rush times it's now a ritzy ski-town with super cute shops We walked around. Took some pictures. And then Asher fell out of the wagon into the gutter getting all wet and cut the back of his head on a rock. It wasn't that bad but we decided we better take off just in case. We were there for probably an hour total.

I got a couple more posts to get us up to Feb 15, but here's a little summary for you.

Jocelyn is becoming a fabulous reader. She's just really matured all of a sudden where it seems there isn't all the drama all the time and it's wonderful. She's responsible and fun at the same time. She really enjoys playing on the computer and just started watching Wizards of Waverly Place. We've also noticed that she has the Richards' talent of pointing out actors that are also in other movies so we can already start some movie trivia connection games with her.

Cecily is growing up WAY too fast. She is doing so well in preschool I have no doubts she'll do great in kindergarten. (she won't talk about that right now) She can spell her name all by herself and type it on the computer. She loves playing on the computer too! She's my super helper with Asher during the day and she LOVES playing with the "ypod".

Holy smokes! This little guy is so busy I'm mentally and physically exhausted by the end of the day. He gives the BEST hugs and kisses though! He also knows all the tricks now to get around the kitchen and find snacks. Right now he is in love with Blues Clues and asks to watch it everyday. He sings along with it and it's just the cutest thing in the world. If I can get it on film I'll post it. He'll be two in a month and I don't know where time is going.

Me and number four (aka peaches, named by Cecily) are doing well. I just had an appointment on Friday and failed my glucose so I have to take the 3 hour test. I'm measuring 28/29 weeks when I'm only barely 26 which was actually nice to hear because I wasn't poking out this much at this time with any of my others. I'm low on iron but I think it's cause I puke everytime I take my prenatal pill so I'm not very consistent taking it. I'm currently in my last week of a statistics class and then I'll be in part 2. Ick! Slowly but surely I will get my freakin' degree and then I'm going to Italy! I've also been spending my time scrapbooking again. I'll have a newer blog up and going with my stuff soon. I'm addicted to audio books and I'm currently listening to Little Women. It's been such a huge treat because I love the narrator and the book is a million times better than the movie (and that says a lot because I LOVE Little Women the movie).

Chris has been working some killer overtime at work and is doing really well up here. He's also spending time designing T-Shirts and a new business venture. He's working hard towards his degree daily too. He decided to get involved in LOST again (I gave up in season 3) and has been watching 2 - 5 episodes a day to get caught up, staying up till at least 1 am every night (he's asleep on the couch right now and will wake up refreshed to stay up all night again).

Well, that about sums it all up. But I just wanted to mention one more thing. We're almost all done selling our Miller house. Things are moving along right now and I'm so grateful for an awesome Realtor! Thanks Molly! Our AJ house is listed for $70k which is a huge kick in the crotch. Please if you know ANYONE looking to buy a nice house for a killer price and is willing to wait the 1 -3 months for this short sale process PLEASE send them our way.

We hope everyone is having a wonderful February, I know ours has been VERY exciting so far.