Thanksgiving 2012

This is the last Thanksgiving we will ever spend at the Springville house with Mom and Dad.  :(  They have purchased a house in Nampa, ID and will be moving as soon as they sell their house in OR.  It was so nice to spend the holiday with most of our family - we really missed Lisa and Jason and their kids!  

Well, the food was great - as always... but this year mom had prepared a night of Minute-to-Win-It games!  It was a blast!  The adults and the kids were all in on it, and some did better than others.  Congratulations goes to Jett for the BEST win ever!

This Thanksgiving week was full of fun and food and family - always the best combination!

Sweet Charlotte!  She is such a good baby - and SO cute!

 This was a very familiar scene at Nana/Papa's house during the week.  Everyone gathers in the family room for games, movies, football and fun!  What a blast to have most of the cousins together!

 This was another Minute-to-Win-It game that Mom introduced.  You had to blow the entire stack of cards off the bottle EXCEPT for the joker which was the last card!  Tricky-Tricky!

 Brycen and Dallas received Star Wars light sabers and blasters for Christmas.  This is Brycen running through the house with his best warrior face, blasting away the bad guys!

 Matt received a cool hiking bag from REI - which Riley wore all evening as the rest of us opened presents.  She is so adorable!  I love the big cheeks.  Riley was so good all week - but very slow to trust anyone but Mom and Dad.  By the last day - she finally sat with me on the couch for a few minutes - but that was all.

 On Friday night - we took the kids to Out of This World Pizza.  It has a huge indoor playground and we just let the kids run wild.  I think it did them some good to get out and run - since the rain has kept us inside all week!

Dallas and Brycen played together all week!  They were practically joined at the hip and had so much fun.  Brycen is still asking to go back to Portland to play with Dallas!

I was especially grateful to meet Charlotte Afton Rowley.  All 9 lbs, 12 oz of her.  She is gorgeous and so good.  Ashley looks great and I was really glad she was able to get out a few times with me and Mom.  Thanks to our guys for watching the little ones so we could escape to sushi and Charming Charlies.  These two hot spots have become a tradition anytime we visit Portland.  What a wonderful week together!

Brycen Learns to Ride his Bike!

October 9th, 2012

Brycen has been working really hard with Drew to learn to ride his bike without training wheels.  All he really wants is to be able to keep up with Ava.  :)  Well he finally did it - and it really didn't take too long.  It just took a little extra convincing that he could be faster with pedals, rather than pushing along with no pedals.  (He's actually pretty fast that way!)  Once Brycen learned to ride on Ava's old pink bike, it was off to the store with Daddy to buy his very own bike!  And he chose... SPIDERMAN!  We are so proud of him!

Thanksgiving

Jake's preschool class did a little presentation and potluck for the parents for Thanksgiving.  It was pretty cute.  As you can see, Jake was an Indian and he was also the only one who knew all of the words! :)
p.s. The program was also a potluck, and all the Hispanic ladies were so impressed when they found out I made the yummy salsa. The only white family there brought a Mexican food, and they all approved!  Haha! Props to me!

We LOVED having the Baker's stay at our house for the week.  After Shauna's wedding they stayed for Thanksgiving and it was happy times every day with Mylie and Brynlee!  We went to the museum, played outside in the beautiful fall weather, and of course played at Grandma's house.  Sharie did Brooklynn's hair in her first little ponytail--so cute!!  It makes her look so much older--baby-hood is passing too fast!!

For Thanksgiving we also made pies from scratch, and the kids loved helping peel the apples with my cool apple-peeler-corer-slicer thing.  So cute!

We are so very grateful to our Father in Heaven for our family and friends who love, support, and look out for us.  An especial thanks and shout-out to the Grange family this year.  On Thanksgiving Day, Ethan was feeling sick, so I went to dinner with the kids alone while Jason stayed home with him.  Just as we were going to start dessert, Jason called and said that Ethan was wheezing really badly and wanted to take him to the ER.  So we called our sweet neighbors, the Grange family, to take him to the hospital while I rushed home with the kids.  Brother Grange took care of transportation and their daughter Kristin babysat the boys so that I could go the hospital (turns out he had a bad bout of croup--the doctors gave him some steriods and monitored his oxygen and heartbeat for a few hours.) What a blessing it is to have good people in our lives!

Twin Mischief

'Nuf said. :)

Can you guess how tall Braden is?

Shauna's Wedding

Our dear Auntie Shauna got married on Nov. 17 in the Las Vegas Temple.  It was an absolutely beautiful fall day with blue skies and temperatures in the 70s.  Ever since they were born, Shauna has been a very special part of our kids' lives.  We love our new Uncle Colby and are so excited for this new step in Shauna's life.  As you can see, the kids were extra cute and had lots of fun.

After the temple and luncheon, Colby and Shauna did a ring ceremony.  Jakey escorted his cousins Mylie and Brynlee down the aisle, Braden was the ring bearer, and Colby (and Jesse's) old mission president said a few words about rings, quoted scripture, and explained how Colby and Shauna were married in the temple that morning.  Immediately afterwards the reception began--party on!  Shauna had rented a photo booth and the kids were lovin it!  Here are a few of their best shots!

Our Last Thanksgiving in Portland

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with all but the MacKay family here in Portland.  We even added a bit of Christmas cheer by opening a few gifts after dinner!  Thanks to all for spending precious time together.  We love our family!

Baby Charlotte was the star of the holiday!

Wecome Charlotte Afton Rowley

Three big brothers are pretty excited about their Thanksgiving gift.  Charlotte arrived at 7:11PM Friday after a totally natural birth from Ashley.  What a trooper!  She is 9lb 12oz and healthy in every way.  We are so glad to have Charlotte join our family.  She's really going to shake things up at the Rowley family.  There are already signs of "PINK"  last night when she came home dressed in a beautiful pink onesy with a very soft pink blanket.  We love you Ashley and Jayson!  You have an awesome family!!

Ethan loves his sissy.

So we've been noticing lately, that whenever Brooklynn gets put into the crib for being naughty or sleeps later than Ethan for nap, she almost always has a little visitor to cheer her up (or wake her up as the case may be).  Ethan is very attached to his twin sister and always wants to be around her and play with her.  The other day, I was trying to fix dinner and Brookie was being extra whiney, so I finally put her in her crib-- hoping she would either take a catnap for the one she'd missed earlier, or at least settle down and realize that whining at mom is not the answer.  Anyhow, she cried for a minute, and then everything went quiet.  I thought, "Yay, she's finally napping, little stinker!"  However, a few minutes later I went back to check on her and there was Ethan!  He was playing peek-a-boo with her.  They were laughing! They jumped and peeked out at eachother between the crib slats with sparkly little eyes-- needing no one but eachother to have the best of times!

E Speaks and Babbling Brooke-- First Words!

I love those first baby words.  They are so sweet.  Brooklynn does most of the talking, but when asked, Ethan can usually say the same words.  So here's the latest:

Mama = mama, when Brookie's sad or wants me to pick her up
Dada = mom and/or dad when they're in a good mood
Up = up -- very clear from Ethan
Ah dahhh =  all done!  Complete with flapping hands, or in Brooklynn's it's a grin with what looks more like gang signs instead of baby sign. (hmmmm... has Uncle Davis been teaching her something?)
Hi! = hi
Baaa = ball
Buba = bye-bye-- Ethan waves pretty good, Brooklynn looks at her hand, cocks it, and has to warm it up there for a minute before anything happens!
uh UH = NO
Teeezzz! = cheese!  Brooklynn wrinkles up her nose for the camera!
Dis? = Can I have this?
Ha! or Hee! = I got what I wanted!
Uh Ohhh... = I dropped it.
Gamaa = Grandma-- or so I've been told!  Apparently they were saying it last night!

Happy Halloween!

We have had a busy week!  Monday, Jacob had preschool and I made cookies for his Wednesday class.  Tuesday, we attended the library Halloween puppet show and we FINALLY carved our pumpkins.  The boys scooped seeds and drew faces, I did the actual carving.  As you can see, my favorite part is the squishy pumpkin guts-- the boys still don't want to touch them. 

Then Wednesday was the marathon-- Jacob's preschool class in costumes, little presentation and potluck--one of the moms brought a huge pot of homemade tamales--Delish!  Jake sang loud and although he was a little apprehensive at first, gave me big grins and did great.  His teachers always have sweet things to say about him (I suppose being a little older, smart, cute as a button, and probably the only native English speaker doesn't hurt either-- I hope he picks up more espanol!) Then, that evening was chili cook-off and trunk-r-treat.  I made spicy chicken tortilla soup, packed all the costumes, candy, decorations, and buckets and we headed off for 90 minutes of mayhem! It was a rushed but fun time. The kids loved it and were still back home and in bed on time. Whew!