Old News

A few weeks ago we were lucky to have Uncle Devin and Aunt Ana stay with us for a week on their way back to Utah from Mexico.

We made a trip to the beach where true brothers joined in love of the sea and killing things.

Aunt Ana and Mommy got to play on the boogie board while the menfolk warmed up after fishing.

It was Katie's first trip to the beach and she loved playing in the sand with her brother.

We also made it to the Griffeth Observatory and the Huntington Library and Gardens.

The Aloe plants were in bloom w Orange blossoms.

Katie tried to eat my lunch. She tries to eat everything. She LOVES food. (One of her favorites is vegetable soup. Maybe there is hope that we will have a kid who will eat her veggies!)

While Devin and Ana visited some of the art galleries at the Huntington, we took a stroll next to some statues. Jackson of course asked why this guy is missing an arm.

I can't mention Devin and Ana visiting without including the fact that Ana got me addicted to this show:

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Katie started crawling JAN 21st and she is all over the place now!It's so sweet, when we leave the room she will crawl around to find us.

OTHER FAMILY FUN- On Jan 22 we drove to Malibu and watched BYU basketball play against the Pepperdine Waves. We won, of course. We had a great time cheering on the cougars and walking around Pepperdine's beautiful costal campus.

Of note- Steven started his Externship in Merced this week- other than that it's business as usual. :0)

Happy Holidays and a New Year

Thanks to Steven's hard work in getting ahead in dental school, and thanks to Allegiant Air, handy-dandy flying into Idaho Falls-we were lucky enough to get to spend six weeks in Idaho with family for the holidays. We all had a great time doing things we love and being with people we love!

Thanksgiving

This year the folks hosted the entire Shively Clan at their home. It was great to get so many cousins under one roof! Here is Jackson wielding the guns that Gpa Egbert got for us all last year. They are a main attraction (for young and old) when we are at Nana and Papa's house!J

Here is Katie with her second cousin Treysen.

Jackson with his Shively cousins- how I remember doing these same things with my cousins! And now all of our "mini-me"s are running around together!

Freaky Friday Gma and Gpa Boyle had all the kids over for a sleepover Thanksgiving night so all of the parents could go "Black Friday" shopping.

FOOD FIGHT! No trip to Gma and Gpa Boyle's would be complete without a daily reading (or two or three) of the Food Fight book!

Happy 50th Wedding Anniversary!!

Steven definitely had HUNTING FEVER! He was able to go duck hunting three or four times/week.  Lets just say we had a LOT of duck jerky!

COUSIN LOVE Nothing more entertaining than these little rascals playing together and chatting their grown up little three-year-old talk!

Katie giving grandpa some happy smiles while he puts up the Christmas tree. Katie is a Happy Little Bug. She is always so patient and smiley.

Jackson played hard everyday and more than once fell asleep at the table. 

Gma Boyle got the Hobby Horse out for the kids to play with. The kids put in a lot of time on this guy!

Steve got his first PINTAIL!

If I wanted to spend any time with Steve, I had to help him breast out ducks. He spent most of his free time doing this and running out to the smoker to check his jerky!

I had to fly back to CA a few times during our stay to work for the weekend.  The day after my second trip, there was a huge wind storm in Pasadena and South Pasadena. A state of emergency was declared and the power was out for over a week for many. There were giant trees fallen everywhere! 

Somebody loves her big brother. Jackson is really sweet to Katie.

Preschool. Since Jackson was missing a couple of weeks of preschool, we invited his cousins over for "preschool" and Gma's house. We made Igloos out of marshmellows and frosting for the letter "I". 

Katie spent a lot of time cruising around in this thing:

JD & LIZ came into town! It was great to see them since they moved to Texas in August. How I didn't get any pictures of Cami, I'm not sure. 


One day we tried our hand at decorating cakes with Fondant. Here is Liz beginning her wonderful cake- our theme was Christmas Cakes. They all ended up looking great... and tasting great!

Merry Christmas!

We actually opened presents on Christmas Eve. Katie was pretty excited!  Katie is hiding another surprise- her first tooth! Aunt Liz found Katie's first tooth on Christmas Eve!


My favorite gift was these awesome Chocolate Dipped Peanut Butter Oreos. Sound like heaven?! Yes, they were!

We met with the Shively's at the church to play volleyball and have treats on Christmas Eve. Here is Katie playing cards w Gpa!

After partying w the Shively's we went Christmas caroling with the Boyle's. 


Here we are CHRISTMAS MORNING:

We attended sacrament meeting at the Iona Ward and then we were able to have dinner with the Egbert Family and then make it to the Boyle family get-together. 


The Boyle kids acted out the nativity. Jackson was an Angel- he looks like he has some GREAT tidings!

Katie got to be the baby Jesus!

Gma Boyle made all the kids these amazing aprons for Christmas!

We sure enjoyed our time in Idaho celebrating the holidays with family. Just before New Year's we made the drive back to California. 




2012 promises to be a great year!

Jackson became a Sunbeam!

 Here is Jackson on his first Sunday as a sunbeam. Don't ask me where he got that chocolate...


Steve got off his braces!! This is kind of a goofy picture but he looks so nice!! :)

Steven will be graduating from dental school this year and we will be moving to Merced. We've had a great time living in LA, loved the weather, and made great friends, but we are excited to move on! 


Katie will be turning 1 in the same week Steven graduates. She is such a loving and happy little bug, we are excited to watch her grow. She still hasn't figured out the crawling thing, but she is getting close! 


Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all!

Days Pass

It's now November, and we have been "OH SO BUSY!" For starters, I am FINALLY back to my regularly scheduled ER program. It is a relief to be done "waiting", but I do miss the extra time at home. With Steve busy with scouts and school, it's a rare night home all together!

Jackson   has  been enjoying preschool once a week. He is learning the alphabet like a champ! Now he gets so excited when he identifies a letter he knows.  He's also spending a lot of time with his "kids", diggy and pao pao, since  their mom watches Jackson and Katie when I'm sleeping after work.  Here is a trip to the park:

Don't be fooled. Jackson wanted the BIG CARROT, but he  only took one tiny little bite off the top and decided that carrots are not for him.  I'm kind of getting desperate here- no amount of trickery will get him to eat his veggies!

Katie Bug is 6 months now! Here is  picture of her on November 9th. She was already for bed when I realized, HEY KATIE IS 6 MONTHS TODAY! I MUST TAKE A PICTURE! So I did make the effort to put a bow on her head, but I did not make the effort to put her back in her cute clothes. Oh well, she is cute and happy as ever a  little bug could be.

 What is Katie into at six months of life? Well, she likes paper. LOVES paper to be more specific. And she tries to eat it. Here she is in a rare moment of indulgence. For a photo's sake.

Here she is trying to eat a note for Nana. Jackson, being the awesome big brother that he is, trying to keep her at bay.

Katie is also sitting up for a few minutes at a time and eating baby food like a champ. No teeth yet!

On one rare night that we were actually all together, we indulged daddy in his love for   *cough* disgusting   Chinese food  buffets and went to the SUPER PANDA .  Steve LOVED IT! 

And we loved watching Daddy.  Jackson thought all the seafood was pretty cool. 

Katie sucked on a  cucumber and I  actually tried a little clam. I think I'll stick to things that walk. On land.

OCTOBER FESTIVITIES

What Jackson was NOT for Halloween:

We found this awesome costume during our first trip to the LA DI. Yep, found a lot of things we didn't really need. 

We made a trip to Idaho for the ELK HUNT the last week of October. Here we are with Jackson's pumpkin. I wielded the knife but I drew little shapes for Jackson to choose from. I like his happy choices :).

Here's Katie's awesome Octopus costume. (Thank you Pintrest).

We had a family Halloween Party at Judy's house Sat night before we left town. Here is Jackson after rolling around on the floor trying to pick up Candy with duct tape.

Jackson and Katie in their costumes. Jackson wanted to be Batman, although I don't think he really knows who Batman is. Thanks for the motivation, Liz, to make the holidays more fuN :).

Steve got his elk on Day 1 of ELK CAMP. Good Job Husband! And good photography Jay, what pretty fall colors!

(Vegitarian=code for "lousy hunter".)

While we were in Idaho, we were able to go pick apples with the family, it was a perfect afternoon! The apples were DELICIOUS! (And we had lots of apples for apple sauce, juice, pie filling...etc).

Earlier in the MONTH:

I had the brilliant idea to take not One, not Two, but THREE little kiddos on a 5 mile hike... called Echo Mountain Trail. It ends at an old hotel on the top of a mountain. Really cool, but WAY TOO LONG. We had Brooklyn with us that day since her mom was in the hospital w preterm labor. Everyone we passed said, "Wow, you kids are so inspiring" or "You are the most athletic kids we've ever seen"... NO, we are the most stupid parents you have ever passed...!

But it is beautiful and really cool at the top. And everyone was in good spirits :) Here are the stairs going nowhere.

Here is Jackson riding around on his sweet new bike, and Katie riding around around on her sweet... thing.

Jackson started Preschool :) We do a preschool swap, each week focusing on a letter. Here they are telling you that A says "AH!"

I think I've already mentioned that Jackson is in a very awkward in between phase- he won't take naps (at home at a regular time anyway) so every so often he falls asleep at random times and in random places...

Happy Halloween and bring on the Holidays!