Where's the Toothfairy!

The day has finally arrived! Shaye has been hoping to lose a tooth since kindergarten, so she was thrilled when she finally had one come loose a few months ago. Every day she was ready to pull it, and I had to tell her it wasn't loose enough yet! Well, I was gone on Tuesday evening and Sam tied floss around it and gave it a pull. I know... ouch! But Shaye was okay with it. It was almost out, so Sam grabbed his pliers and finished the job! Shaye slept with her tooth under her pillow, and awoke to a dollar bill.

Spring Break

We spent Spring Break this year with Sam's family. His dad and some other family members came up from Texas. He rented an RV and we spent the week at Osage Hills Campground. Its only about 20 miles from our house, but we had not been out there much until now. It was great! There was hiking, cliffs, caves, and playgrounds the kids enjoyed. Sam's dad cooked wonderful barbque, and as always, we ate too much! The weather was perfect and we had a great time!!

These are all the cousins' kids, (the second cousins) they are all of Pappy's great grandkids. They haven't all been together in a long time, and there have been new additions since then.

This is Sam and most of his first cousins. Steven, Jessica, Jason, Jennifer, and Sam

The kids had a great time playing and hiking. I was so glad they didn't spend Spring Break watching TV!

Sydnee enjoying the great outdoors!

Funny Face

We call this Sydnee's funny face! She rolls her lips out and breathes hard through her nose to make a little nose. Its so cute, we ask her to do it all the time! "Show us your funny face!" The times we can actually get her to do it, we all laugh and do it along with her! I can't believe we actually caught it on camera! She is so full of personality!!

9 months

Sydnee was nine months on February 22nd. She is 20 pounds and 28 1/2 inches long. She laughs whenever you laugh, she waves hi and bye, and she is even starting to use some of her sign language signs. She healthy and strong, fun, happy, and a little bit lazy! :-) She scoots around with her arms, but she's not sure she wants to crawl yet. But she has plenty of helpers to meet her every need. Shaye wants to be with her, hold her, and help her whenever she can, and Jaxson loves to hug and love on her! She has all of us wrapped around her finger. We love this little girl!




I love this little pouty face. You can almost always get her to do it just by pretending to cry yourself.

Wii Fun

The kids got a Wii for Christmas from Santa, but we haven't played it too often. It is fun to do together with the kids, or when friends come over. On Saturday our friends, Chad and Nikki, came over and brought their World Tour game. We all had a blast taking turns on the drums and guitar. The kids especially liked to hit the drums, and after a little practice Jaxson even crossed his arms over and put on a little show! This might be a game we have to get!

OKC

This last weekend we went down to Oklahoma City for an overnight trip. We went with friends and stayed in a hotel so we could each take turns going to the Temple and switched off babysitting kids. It was a short trip, but fun and well worth it! Of course the kids had a blast at the hotel playing and swimming!

Jaxson's Birthday

Jaxson has been asking for doughnuts for weeks... so we decided to start his morning off with a few!

With Jaxson's birthday being on Tuesday, we celebrated on Saturday by taking a few friends to Tulsa to eat and play at Incredible Pizza.

Shaye and Elizabeth rode the go-carts and played games trying to collect as many tickets as possible!

Sam took Jaxson and his friend Tanner to do the miniature golf, and then they were through the arcade playing games.


Of course Sydnee was there... gnawing on pizza crust. :)


Jaxson chose a Wall-E cake this year, Spiderman plates, and a Transformer table cloth. We had a little bit of everything!



On Tuesday, his actual birthday, he got to open his gifts from famiy members. I think he was a little confused though because he kept referring to Saturday as his "celebration party" and wondering why he wasn't having a "birthday party."

Training Begins

So before Christmas my sister called and had a fun vacation in mind... going to California in May, renting a beach house on Huntington Beach, going to Disneyland, surf lessons, oh.... and running the LA Marathon! I wish I was tough enough to do that, but running for over 4 hours doesn't appeal to me yet. But Sam was ready to give it a shot.
He is using the Hal Higdon training method, and started Monday. This week he ran 3 miles three days, and 6 miles today, Saturday. This picture is after his six mile run. He said he hit a wall at 3.5 miles, but once he pushed through it he felt fine the rest of the way. I bought him a Garmin 305 for Christmas which does all sorts of cool stuff. It is a GPS, counts distance, calories, and heart rate, keeps your pace, and more. We both got fitted for running shoes. Sam is a huge over-pronator so the specialty running shoes we bought for him have really made a difference.
Unfortunately it is really cold here right now. The three mile runs he did on the treadmill in the mornings. The temperature today was 57 degrees, finally nice enough to run outside! I'm sure Sam will do great! He has really amazed me with how quickly he has been able to build endurance and become " a runner." The marathon is in May. I will keep you posted on how his training is going. And yes, though I don't want to run 26 miles, I am a little jealous that he will be doing it without me!

Sweet Shaye-Shaye

The more time I have with the kids, the more I come to understand the meaning of the counsel to "become like a little child." Every morning I walk Shaye down to the bus stop, which is just around the corner at a friend's house. And no matter what kind of morning it has been she always says the same thing as she walks away. I stop across the road, and she goes across and into the house on her own. In the short distance she goes on without me, she calls back to me while I watch "bye momma, I love you" over and over! She probably says she loves me 3 times, yelling across the road as she goes. This always gets the morning on the right path, even if we started frantically trying to get homework done, hair fixed, and teeth brushed in time! She is such a blessing to all of us, and truly loves her family!

Christmas Eve

Each Christmas Eve is devoted to Sam's family. This year we started the day with a great breakfast at his mom's house. After we ate, we exchanged too many gifts and the kids got spoiled, as usual. Poor Jaxson woke up sick that morning. You can tell in the last picture how bad he was feeling. I felt so bad for him... and he tried his best to have some fun!
In the afternoon, we all went to Sam's dad's house for a steak dinner and more gifts! Several cousins, and Sam's grandpa were all there. It was nice to visit with everyone. Shaye had a great time playing outside in the warm Texas weather with her second cousins, and poor Jaxson took a nap.