Welcome to my newest Nephew!

Welcome Baby Liam

9lbs 15oz

20 1/2 in

Strawberry Blonde hair!

My brother's wife Shanda had this little chunk today (Feb 3rd) and I get to meet

him this weekend when we go up to WA to drop Ava off at my Mom's for a couple nights. Friday is our 10 YEAR Anniversary!!!!!

We are going to this little Bavarian town in WA for the weekend & I'm super excited.

Except for a stupid thing called a COLD!! Man, I need to get better so I can

give lots of hugs and kisses to Baby Liam....PRAY for me! :)

Congrats to Brian & Shanda, they are now a family of FIVE!

Lots of Swimming!!!

Can you see the excitement????

Ava is a little fish, loves the bath and swimming

in the Hot Tub.

Super Cheesy!

That's not Jer behind her, some of our friends

had come over to take advantage of our hot tub,

since we don't get in there much anymore.

But since they came over, Ava has wanted to go in there

all the time, so I let Jer take her.

This past Saturday we went to a community center in Portland that

has a big indoor pool with a big twisty slide, a little lazy river, and

a shallow end w/ lots of squirting toys. Ava could not stay out

of the lazy river and went on the slide w/ Jer (me once) about 7 or 8

times. I like to go down the slide by myself so I can go super fast!

We'll have to go back soon, we went a year ago, but only once.

We are just trying to figure out what to do on Saturdays, still not used to having

Jeremy around to play with!

Snow Play!

No, Portland didn't get any snow, but we have Mt Hood less than an hour away.

So with Jeremy's sister Terry here, we headed up to play.

Sadly though, the snow levels have been really low up there, even though they started out really strong. Oh well, we found a Sno-Park area and did some sledding.

Did I mention Ava is a thrill-seeker??? Well, naturally she loved going down the hill w/ Daddy.

But I don't think she liked being bundled like an Eskimo, found it hard to maneuver around.

She's a great trooper though and we had fun.


Here is a view of part of Mt Hood, so beautiful.
I always love when we have clear days in the winter and we
can see Mt Hood from our house, it's amazing.



Terry, we miss you and had a great visit.
Ava still asks about you, like the other night we went shopping in Jer's car
and she kept pointing to where you had sat and asked "Where' Terry go?"

MY LITTLE DAREDEVIL!!

Jeremy's sister Terry arrived in Portland this morning, she's hanging out with us till Tuesday! After chillin' and watching some football today, we headed to the mall to do some ice skating. Now Ava has done this once before, about a month ago w/ the teens from church, when Jeremy took them there for their weekly activity. But she LOVES it! I think she's into to thrills. Just like she loves big waterslides, she could do it over and over again.

This is Terry & Ava~ taking a break, though Ava didn't want one!

I am by no means good at skating, so we had to take it slow anyway. Ava moved her feet a bit, but mainly got pulled around by us. Jeremy is really good and would take off all fast with her in front of him.

That is NOT a scared face, she was loving it the whole time. Jeremy let her fall a little and when she discovered she was on ice, she wanted to just sit and rub her hands on it. When we got kicked off so the Zamboni could polish it over, is when we decided to sneak away, but Ava was not happy about it. Unfortunatly, we bribed her with going to see the puppies at the Pet Store, except it was no longer there!!!! Ooops!!!

This is Ava & Jer at dinner before skating, too cute, very 1950's! I think all she had to eat was most of that shake, an onion ring, and maybe some pieces of ham. Way too much sugar today! Below pic is how Ava forgot we were supposed to go see puppies. We went to Sears to find some snow pants and she found some babies. If you know Ava, you know she's LOVES, LOVES, LOVES Babies! Mom is no sucker though, not when she already has 6 at home! This is her holding it tight trying to sneak onto the escalater with it. I was checking out when Jeremy and Terry had to get the baby from Ava and Ava out of the store, but don't think it went TOO bad.

It was a GREAT day for us, looking forward to relaxing tomorrow (unfortunatly more Football) and going to play in the snow at Mt Hood on Monday. I just know Ava is going to LOVE sledding, such a thrill seeker!!!

A new year, a new decade...

Oh wow, it's 2010!

My marriage makes it to 10 years next month.....

I turn 30 in November, ahhhhhh......

5 year anniversary in our house in February.....

Hmmm, what else???

I'm not a great keeper of resolutions, so I typically don't make any official ones.

But this year, my only goal is .......

To get approved to ADOPT a child!!!!

That's all I want to accomplish this year for sure, of course I'd like to get healthier. But that is kind of my turning 30 goal; to loose most the weight I gained in my 20's (thank you infertility) and be able to more fully enjoy my 30's fit & healthy!!!

My poor heart keeps wavering between trying to adopt an infant through LDS Family Services or Foster-to-Adopt through the State. Many pros and cons to each way, I need to do a lot more praying for direction I think.

Good luck to all of you on your New Year Resolutions (if you are brave enough to make them w/out fear of failure like me)!!!!

Family pics

We took some pics in November, they turned out pretty cute. Though we caught Ava's smile only 3 times, she was not interested in the crazy lady trying to get her to smile. So being the lazy person I am, I took pics of the pics, instead of scanning them. Sorry, crappy qualitly.

Ava shows off for ONE pic, turned out cute!

I didn't take a pic of one pic, some of you were lucky to get that for a Christmas card. Sorry to the ones that didn't!

Forcast was WRONG for last tuesday....

So the intelligent forecasters said it Tuesday would have a high of 40-44 with rain showers, hmmm..... this is what we got!

Ava was in heaven though, guess she went out to play in it at daycare and we ventured out again when we arrived home. The above picture is of Ava wanting to go for a walk up the street in the fun white stuff. She just took off and kept marching up the hill.

But before she took off, she did a few circles in the driveway to test it out. She kept running to the street to play w/ some teen girls, but mean Mommy wouldn't let her. :(

Look at this!

We enjoyed our inch or two of white stuff, that is except for Jeremy. While it took me an hour to get home (normally a 30min drive), it took Jeremy about 3 hours (a 35-40 min drive). So Ava and I enjoyed dinner by ourselves and played until Daddy got home. So far, no more snow in our forecast, but not like it MATTERS!!!!