A New Job, New State, and New Adventure

 There was a time that I was pretty good about keeping this thing up-to-date, but that time has come and gone.  This post is just to let you all know that we are still alive and well, while giving you a very brief update on what has happened with us since the last post.

Alyssa and Ambrey got their ears pierced.  I don't have a picture of Ambrey because she was with Janna when she had it done.  From what I heard she did great with it.  For Alyssa this was the second time that we've had her ears pierced, and just like last time she dealt with some swelling afterwards that prompted us to take the earrings out and let the ears heal.

Summer was horribly hot again, which was really no surprise.  The biggest shock was when we got in the pool near the end of June and found that the water 95 degrees!  That would be awesome during the wintertime, but when it's 115 degrees outside a 95 degree pool doesn't do a whole lot of good.

In part because of the heat, as well as some changes with my schedule at work we decided that it was again time to move our family elsewhere.

 But since the move wasn't until December 14th, some within our family insisted that we had to have a Christmas tree up before the move.  So we got a small one.  But that's not even the most troubling part.  Before we got this tree we had already put up two other Christmas trees.  Yes, there may be some insanity within our family.

 While dealing with about two weeks worth of delays on the close of our home in Arizona, Janna and the kids moved to our new place in New Mexico.  Moving sucks.

 This is a picture of my trip from Arizona on the 21st of December.  Janna didn't take any pictures of her trip.  When I asked her why she didn't take any pictures she said something about screaming kids, icy roads, a blizzard, and stress.  I don't know what that has to do with a camera, but whatever.

 We were supposed to leave for Utah the day after I arrived in New Mexico, but when I arrived I found a house full of sick invalids.  After considering cancelling our trip to Utah for Christmas, which was to be our first Christmas there in about five years, we spontaneously decided to leave on the afternoon of the 23rd, equipped with trash cans to catch any overflowing sickness that might appear.  We stopped in Moab after about six hours of continual screaming from Westley.  In the morning we traveled the remaining three and a half hours with a little less screaming, but this time in dense snow that at times provided as little as 75 feet of visibility.

Though the trip was difficult, it was well worth it.  The kids got to spend time with their cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents, and we got to see what Christmas would be like if we had never left.  The picture shown above is of the girls receiving gifts that my mother asked my grandma to make.  The girls were very excited to receive the handmade dolls.

 Since returning we have settled in nicely here.  The picture above is from something that came out of the bathroom sink in the master bath.  We're not sure what it was, but I'm not ruling out the possibility that the Loch Ness Monster may have tried to escape down the drain.

 The Two oldest have settled in with school.  Alyssa is in Junior High, and Ambrey will soon be finishing third grade.  Anna is excited about starting school after the summer.

 This is my birthday gift from Janna.  I confess it's pretty awesome.  I'm spoiled.

And this is a picture of Westley eating second breakfast this morning.  I think we may have a rather large hobbit on our hands.



Christmas and Easter

I'm at work so my supply of pictures is limited.  This first picture is of the girls wearing jogging suits that they received for Christmas.

This picture was taken at our family Christmas dinner.  It was a good day.

 No we didn't color eggs for Christmas.  Skipping forward a few months, this picture was taken the evening before Easter.

 And this was the end result.

 Easter egg hunt before church

 Can you see the egg?

Anna waiting patiently for dinner.

Halloween 2011

This is just a compilation of pictures from Halloween time this year.  The first two are from our ward's Trunk or Treat.  The picture above is of Ambrey, Alyssa, and two of Alyssa's friends.

This picture is of Anna, the nice kitty.

Obviously Ambrey was pretty stoked about cleaning out her pumpkin.

However, Anna and Alyssa seemed to enjoy it.

This is Ambrey, the dead ballerina.

And this is Anna, the dead panther.  She found out that Ambrey was going to be dead, so she wanted to kill her character too.

Alyssa chose not to follow the trend by going as a live witch.

Time for some tricks and treats!

School Programs, Mother's Day, and The Princess Bride

At the end of the school year Alyssa participated in her fourth grade program.  I don't know that she was too happy that we brought the camera.  This was the only picture that we could get with her looking in our direction.  Every time that she looked over and saw the camera pointed at her she hurried and turned away.

This is Ambrey at her first grade program.  She had a great time and was happy with her performance.

And this is what Anna thought of it all.  Apparently she wasn't as fond of the music as the other girls were.

For Mother's day I made dinner.  That's right, I cooked.  And it actually tasted pretty darn good if I say so myself.  I made BBQ steak, loaded baked potatoes, and roasted asparagus.

There was so much good food that it wore Anna out.

After watching The Princess Bride for about the millionth time, we came to the conclusion that we had found the name of our fourth child.  Janna found wooden letters at a craft store, which we have since painted, and she gave them to the girls to try to unscramble his name.  This is what they came up with.  For awhile I thought we were going to be stuck with the name Mestley.

Westley.

Ambrey's face on the big screen.  It's difficult to see, but she's definitely there.

Easter 2011

As I mentioned before, we are trying to catch up on some of the things that we weren't able to post that has happened since we moved from Buffalo.  This post has everything to do with our Easter celebration.

Anna cautiously climbing out onto the diving board to get one of her eggs.

The girls showing off their haul of candy.

Anna trying out one of her peeps.

Ambrey trying to chew after shoving half of her chocolate rabits ear in her mouth.

We lined up all of the girls in their Easter dresses for photos.

Anna smiling?  Or something.  I'm not quite sure what this face is all about.

Ambrey looking so sweet and innocent.  If only... (j/k).

Alyssa without her glasses on. 

Lemon meringue pie.  Mmm.  Ya, you could say I'm spoiled.

July 4th, 2011

 So a few months ago Janna asked me to make her mint flavored brownies.  I don't know why she asked me to do it, I'm no chef by any means.  I mean I can boil water without burning it, and I've been known to be able to make hard boiled eggs too, but that's not saying much.  Being the spectacular husband I am, I jumped right on her request.  Okay, so she had to wait a few months, at least I remembered.  Right?  Oh well.  In case you're wondering, they actually turned out really well, AND I made them from scratch.  So take that all of you doubters out there!

We spent the day swimming, and then had a delicious dinner consisting of BBQ pork ribs, hot doges, corn on the cob, jello, green salad, pasta salad, totally awesome brownies, and apple pie with ice cream.  After all of that it was out to the front yard to light our fireworks.

 Anna's first flower.  A classic firework.  So simple, so cool.

This was probably the first Fourth of July fireworks display that Anna has actually enjoyed.  She was never able to get comfortable with the bigger displays that we used to watch when we lived in New York.

The Holiday Season

For Halloween Anna went as Abby Cadabby from Sesame Street, Alyssa went as a dead bride, Ambrey went as a witch, and Jayda went as Batman. Our neighborhood was great. The streets were running with kids, people were outside greeting the children that were coming to their doors, and a bunch of houses were decorated. It was the best Halloween environment that I can remember seeing.

This is just a recent picture of our family when the kids decided to come wake us up.
November 13th marked the ground breaking ceremony for the new Gilbert, Arizona temple that is being built. We are excited to have a temple so close!
This last week Ambrey got sick, so we thought we would be good parents and take pictures of her in all of her glory. It was a long night. She ended up spending the night in our closet, which is not as horrible as it sounds. We brought her bed in, which put her right next to our bathroom so we could hear her when she got up.

On Saturday, we put up our outside Christmas lights and sprayed the windows with white snow spray.

On Sunday we put up our tree, and last night for family night we put all of the ornaments on. As usual the girls had a ton of fun hanging the ornaments and dancing to Christmas music. I love the holiday season.