Happy Birthday Kevin!

Yesterday was Kevin's 30th birthday.  It was such a fun day and we loved celebrating with the man we love most in our lives.  Kevin is such a wonderful husband and I've loved spending the past almost 7 years with him.  He is always so selfless and thoughtful to others, so he really deserved a very special day all for him :)

Kevin's kind preceptor at his school rotation let him have half a day off for his birthday (yay!), so we took Kevin out to lunch.  As an example of his selflessness, he let the kids pick where we ate: hence, Chick-fil-A! Lol! We came home for presents and a little down time before our night excursions.  We got Kevin an Ipad for his present and he loved it! Finally, I picked out a good gift. I'm notorious for giving things that don't get used.  Oh well...I'm learning.  Korbin kept sneaking some of Kevin's treats when he wasn't looking.  I don't think he ate any real food all day, just junk and peanut shells! 

We ate dinner at Texas Roadhouse with my sweet aunt and uncle who have been so good to us since moving here.  The kids got to ride the birthday saddle with Kevin and they loved it.  

 More treats please?

 Never mind, I'll help myself.

Happy birthday Kevin! We hope your next 30 years are just as great :)

Family visit

We were very happy this last week to have some family come out and visit. My dad, step-mom, and two little brothers braved the dull 12 hour drive to spend 4 days with us. Boy were we excited! The days were spent with sightseeing, swimming, eating, picture taking, and more swimming. My kids were pretty sad to have their grandparents and uncles leave on Easter. We had a great time and I'm sad I didn't take more pictures. Here are a few of what we did:

Swimming, lots of it! One of the perks to living in an apartment is the pool and hot tub at 9 in the morning if you want. Here's grandma Cathy and Korbin.

Grandpa Russon and Kassidy. I'm not sure why my kids choose to call my step-mom "grandma Cathy" instead of Grandma Russon, but she likes it, so it works.

Little brothers and Kassidy with a bomb on Mare Island.

Hiking around the Marin Headlands overlook.

Went to Muir beach. A boy's gotta have his gun to shoot birds and whatnot :)

Chilly as always, but very fun and sandy!

The San Francisco Marina. There were tons of sailboats out that Saturday.

Kassidy feeding the pigeons.

Waiting in the eternal line for the trolley ride. The kids were so good....I on the other hand was less patient.

On our trolley ride, and the only photo I got with myself in it all weekend. Oh well...

Thanks Dad for a fun week!

Broken boy

I've been the WORST blogger lately! Attribute it to our lack of exciting events and my lack of pictures taken over the last 2 months. But now I have something to blog about, although I wish I didn't. Poor baby boy broke his little arm last Friday. We were playing at the park and he fell of a 2 ft. step. Seriously? Only two feet? He's jumped off of higher heights than that. He got nervous when a dog came up behind him and tried to get down quickly and stepped off the step prematurely and fell directly on his left arm.

I could tell something was wrong right away be because he was holding his left arm tenderly and cried for a long time. He's usually such a tough little guy so it was a signal to me we needed to go. Of course I walked to the park so I was frantically trying to get a hold of Kevin who was still at the pharmacy and calling the doctor's office to see if I should go to the ER or urgent care. My nerves got the best of me and I decided to just take him to the ER and have Kevin meet us there.

After 3 very, very long hours in the ER hallway, the doctor said there was a tiny crack running the length of his forearm bone. They splinted Korbin's arm and wrapped it in ace bandage and sent us home with instructions to make an appointment with the orthopedic surgeon monday.

Korbin was a champ and so well behave during a very difficult situation. We all came home exhausted and our friday night was pretty much ruined. Oh well, that's life. Korbin's doing fine. The break hasn't slowed him down at all! He's still making me nervous trying to climb on everything with his little wound :)

Rocking the high heels :)

His awesome plastic bag wrap prior to bath time.

We love you Korbin! I'm so glad you're okay and I'm sure this is just the first of many ER visits in your youth :)

Good examples

We've made a resolution to read the Book of Mormon together as a family this year. It's the first time we've really attempted it with our kids. I expected it to be a fight every night with only a few verses read while tantrums are thrown and minimal understanding on the kids part. I have been very pleasantly surprised by the example my kids set for me and Kevin. Kassidy has been really good at reminding me every night that we need to read before bed.

After tucking the kids in at night Kassidy likes to read by flashlight for a few minutes in bed. And of course, Korbin has to copy everything his sister does. I come in after about 10 minutes and turn off their lights so they can sleep. I came in to do that one night and found this (I promise this wasn't staged)...

Kassidy had picked out the Book of Mormon to look at for her story and grabbed Korbin one too. These too melt my heart and are such good examples of what is important, even if they can't really read the book yet :)

Playing catch up

I have fallen drastically behind on my blogging and have just decided to forget Christmas. It was great, but I don't really want to go back and uploads all the pictures and posts. So moving on, here's what we've been up to last month....

The weather has been beautiful, so we spent a Saturday afternoon on a hike up the Mare Island Shoreline Preserve with some friends. It's a beautiful view of the San Francisco Bay area, and we made it up right around sundown.

Kevin got his braces off after a mere 9 months (lucky duck). This picture shows how handsome he looks with his new shiny smile!

We've been relishing the temperate winter weather and spending many a day at the park with friends.

I celebrate my 26th birthday and was spoiled by my sweet visiting teachers and Kevin spoiled me with a Kindle cover and protective cover.

Next, to catch up what we've been doing in February.

Sweet Grandma Wright

This morning we received the news that Kevin's last remaining grandparent had passed away. Jean Wright, Kevin's mom's mother, was the sweetest lady and will be greatly missed by all her posterity and friends. We went to visit Grandma Wright while we were home for Christmas, which ended up being the last time we saw her. We're sure glad we stopped for a visit, even if she didn't fully recognize us or remember our visit.

Grandma has been without her sweet spouse for 10 years so she was more than ready to go home to heaven to be reunited with him again. We are sure she's happilyy with Grandpa Wright right now.

Where did December go?

Is 2011 really gone already? And I didn't even do a single blog post in December. Hmmmph. Well, it was a pretty crazy month. We had Kevin's last semester of class work, finals, a ward Christmas party to be in charge of, California Christmas, followed by 3 wonderful Utah Christmases. I think I'll still go back and update the photos and stories soon, since this is my personal journal and I'll want to be able and look back some day and remember.

Until then, here's a sneak peek for anyone who still reads. We did a family photo shoot with my dad's side of the family on Christmas eve. My step-mom is a huge Ute fan, so naturally we did Utes vs. BYU themed pictures. It was fun and funny and the photos turned out great thanks to my aunt Cecily at mychaosmybliss who takes fabulous photos! Although I'm still convinced one day these will end up in one of those Awkward Family Photos calenders :) More to come soon!

The hair Kevin secretly longs for!

Yeah, we're not normal... funny thing is that none of actually attended BYU or the U. Go figure?