Family Pics

I have to take another moment here to brag on my incredibly talented sister-in-law and brother-in-law. As I have mentioned in previous posts most of my mom's side of the family was in town from Canada and Florida this Christmas. And since it doesn't always happen that we are all in the same place at the same time we took advantage of having a professional photographer in the family and had her shoot us. The pictures turned out so well and it is so great to have them to remember the super fun 2009 Christmas Reunion by. Steph is just so good at capturing people's personalities and she did that so well once again. These are only a small sampling of the hundreds of great photos:) Thanks Steph and Stephen!

The Men

The Women

Ugg. So cute. One of my favorite ones of him:)

I LOVE this one of them! So sweet:)

Brotherly Love

Here are just some photos snapped of the two of them in the past few weeks. They are just so darn cute. What can I say?

And I do have to share a quick story. Oliver's vocabulary just seems to expand exponentially each day. It is so fun to see what he comes up with next. The other night Michael and I were asking him if he wanted another brother or sister someday. He said, "No." Us, "You wouldn't? Don't you think it would be fun?" Oliver, "No, I like Wesley, though." Though? Really. Seriously? He said "though." And has continued to say it and use it in different sentences. "No don't want steak. I want a doughnut, though." "No, not watch football. I like basketball, though." Hilarious. What will he come up with next?

Hanging With My Pals

A week or two ago my girlfriend came over with her son Tyler, who is Oliver's age. They had a blast playing and jumping on the trampoline.



And the Doe's came over the other night and Oliver and Sophia had a blast. They basically just chase each other around and laugh the whole time well most of the time. There was an incident involving two light sabers that halted the laughter for a brief moment. Oliver did summersaults in the middle of the living room and Sophia did "her summersaults" (basically a roll). Then Michael lifted up Oliver, like he often does, balancing him on one hand. Then Sophia wanted a turn. And she really liked it but also was slightly horrified as well.

Boys and Puddles

We have had a crazy storm blow in this last week. The same one that left several counties in California flooded. It has rained so much that yesterday on the news they said that we had gotten 50% of yearly rainfall just in this week alone. And we even had some Tornado warnings last night. Our weather anchormen have never been so excited. Finally something to report on in Arizona other than sunny, dry, and hot.

And probably even more excited about the rain, and more specifically, the huge rain puddles/ river running down our street was Oliver. I decided, since I have two boys, and who knows maybe more someday, instead of squelching the desire to jump, run, and throw balls in the puddles I should just embrace it and encourage it. And, let's be honest, at the end of the day I really didn't care how many loads of laundry I had to do because watching the look of sheer joy on Oliver's face made my week!

I am a FINISHER!

Yep, that's right, you heard it. I am a finisher! I can cross if off my bucket list. I ran a half marathon. And I must say I am pretty proud of myself. And well there were a few times I wondered why in the world I had committed to doing this. Like at mile 3 when you think to yourself 3 down 10 to go. 10 to go...ugg. Or at mile 9 and 10 when you are so close buy yet so far and there is a hill to climb. But aside from those few moments of weakness I felt pretty good. And the most important thing. I finished. I ran the WHOLE way only walking through the water stops. Well actually I ran through the first two and quickly realized I was not an experienced enough runner to double fist sports drink and water while running and avoiding colliding with everyone else trying to get a drink at the same time.

And it is pretty inspiring when you look around at everyone else crazy enough to be running the 13.1 miles with you and there are people of every age and every body type with every sort of reason to be running and there we all are with one goal in mind, cross the finish line. And we all need each other in some sort of way to take the next step, get to the next mile, and to finish strong.

So what is next? Well I think I might be hooked. June 6th 1/2 marathon San Diego. Anyone with me?

mile 4

I look like I am walking but I'm running!

Almost to the finish line.

So excited to be done!

My medal

The Suns Game

Michael and I took Oliver to the Suns Game the other night. This was his second game. Michael took him in the summer and all he talked about for days was seeing the Gorilla. So when we asked him if he wanted to go back and see the Gorilla, he was of course, VERY excited. He had a great time playing in the play area.

And watching the first quarter of the game.

Although he did tell us a number of times that the game was, "too loud." And he was dissapointed that he didn't get any face to face time with the gorilla like he did in the summer.

And I had to put this one up. So cute.