11 months!

Nay-Nay is 11 months old!!  

It is so hard to believe in just a few weeks he will be a year old. He is such a fun little boy and we are so happy to have him in our family. 

 He loves to steal Tommy's cup and drink it... chocolate milk is one of his favorites too!

 He has recently discovered that he LOVES oreos, especially the chocolate cookie part which works out good, cause Tommy eats the cream and gives Nathan the cookie :) 

He loves to follow David around the house and just sit by him.  He is into everything, but we are loving it!  Nathan now has 6 teeth, 4 on the bottom and 2 on top.  He is regularly drinking from sippy cups, just getting a bottle at bedtime (most days).  He will walk holding hands, or with a walker but prefers to crawl...he is so much faster to chase his brothers that way!! He is getting really good at words too, saying da-da, mom, do-do , uh-oh, no, ba-ba, and David's favorite that he has worked long and hard with Nathan to say... d.  

Sealed

 Saturday 11/13 we were sealed as a family in the Las Vegas Temple.  It was such a spiritual and special day for our family.  I took the boys to my mom's house about lunchtime, with their backpacks and suit bags so they could spend the afternoon with her (she volunteered to watch them while Keith went through so they wouldn't have to stay in the nursery at the temple for so long).  Then came home to wake up Keith and  to get ready to go to the temple (after a quick stop at Target for waterproof mascara).  Keith worked graveyard the night before and got home about 9:30am.  We left our house at 2pm so we could have enough time to check out the youth center at the temple before Keith needed start his stuff.  When we got to the temple, we walked in and Bishop Leavitt was there and greeted us with hugs and congratulations and then took us downstairs to they nursery.  After checking out the nursery and meeting with the recorder, we went our separate ways.  I was sitting in a room off the chapel that the temple workers use as a break room while waiting for the session to start and was talking to one of the workers about the boys and expressing my concerns to her about Tommy and how he would do.  She assured me that he would do great and that she would check on him once the kids arrived and were downstairs.   Finally it was time to go into the chapel to wait for the session to start.  We were sitting in the front with Bishop Rickey.  It was so nice to see so many family and friends, including our Stake President and his wife there to support and love us.  In the Celestial Room, the worker that before the session told me she would check on Tommy, came up to me and told me that he was doing great and was playing and happy, and gave me a hug.  And started my crying!  After the session, we went upstairs to the sealing room and met with President Twitchell, who was our sealer.  As we walked into the sealing room, you could feel the Spirit and the love, and I started crying almost immediately.  After Keith and I were sealed they brought the boys in so we could be sealed as a family.  Tommy in his mad, bossy Tommy face with his finger pointed at us said "take those off".  He came over to me and let me put my arm around him, still with his mad/bossy face on.  David took his place, as did Tommy and then they set Nathan up so we could all hold hands.  Tommy and Nathan did not like being forced to hold hands and both were crying, to me quite loudly.  But, we made it through and everything was great!   Afterwards we took some pictures in the atrium and in front of the temple.  These are the only pictures that I have seen so far, even now just looking at the one with us in white I start to cry,  we meet with the photographer next week to see all of them, he said they look great so we are really excited for them!  We did family, Keith & I and then some of just the boys.   After we finished with pictures the kids got in their pjs and we went to IHOP for some pancakes and hot chocolate.  It was really a perfect day.    The next day at church our Relief Society President came up to me after church and told me that she needed to tell me the funniest thing that happened at the temple yesterday.  She then told me that as we were kneeling and the Sealer was speaking, Tommy was picking his nose, not just picking but digging good, and got a nice big one!  Now, usually when Tommy picks his nose and gets a buger he will hold his finger out and yell for me until I come and wipe it off his finger.  Well apparently he gets this big honker of a buger and she said he looked at it for a minute and then wiped it on the alter!!!!  I was and still am so embarrassed that he did that.  I asked her if anyone else saw it, and she said she thought so cause as she and her husband were reverently laughing as hard as they could the stake president and his wife were too.  As I was telling someone about it, I realized that where they were sitting, Tommy had his back turned to them, so if they saw it, surely everyone did!!  Oh well, that is my Tommy.   My mom also afterwards told me that as they pulled up to the temple that Tommy started screaming and didn't want to be there and wouldn't get out of the car.  She had to pull him out the back window of her SUV to get him into the temple and had to carry him inside while he was clinging to her.    I am so glad that I learned of all the bad things later!!  It was really a perfect day though.  We are so thankful to our friends and family for coming and supporting us.  Especially those that are far away! We love you all!!

as a little side note.... go to Nate's (photographer) blog at http://tngblog.com/2010/11/15/quite-the-challenge/  and comment on our picture.  If we get enough comments we get free pictures!  Thanks!!   

Temple

Keith is going through the temple Saturday November 13th, the 4:30pm session.  If you would like to be there we would LOVE to have you there, make sure you are there early or at least on time!

AND

We are going to be sealed after Keith's session.  Our sealing time is 6:30pm, they have asked for everyone to be there at 6pm.  And again, we would LOVE to have you all there!

Halloween AND....

This year we went with Steve, Lidia & Abby to their Trunk or Treat Saturday night and had a blast!

Then we went trick or treating Sunday night.

This year David was a Star Wars guy.  I think the best part of Halloween this year was Nathan is to young to understand or care, Tommy is SO scared of everything he really didn't want to go far, and David went trick or treating with the neighbor kids! 

 Tommy was a robot (really an alien costume, but he didn't like the hat, its to spooky!)

here are our pumpkins this year, Tommy's is on the windowsill, its a happy pumpkin and David's is on the hose box and his is Jason

 Then there's Nathan who was Spiderman

 He HATED his hat and eye-piece on but it was so cute I made him wear it for a picture

we had a blast this Halloween, the kids had fun and got lots of candy and as a bonus, we handed out all the candy we bought for trick or treaters this year!

AND 

Keith got a temple recommend!!  We will keep you all posted on when he is going to go through!

Exciting Changes!!

 Nathan has recently discovered that he LOVES Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.  As soon as he hears the song he stops what he is doing and gets in front of the tv and sits to watch it.  He will stay there for the entire show!!

 As part of school we have a Nevada history class.  One of the lessons in it is to visit a "spotlight" place in Nevada, so we went to see the dam bridge!  It was raining and I didn't bring the stoller so we didn't go on the hike up to the bridge and walk across it reading the historical facts.  But it was really cool and we are planning on going back to walk to bridge when we are a little better prepared in a few weeks.

The house across the street and down from us has been broken into 3 times within the last 2 weeks.  The family that lives there has a couple older kids and the mom stays home.  The house behind them is vacant as well as the home next to them. The burglars have been getting in through the vacant house behind them and going over the wall.  This bothers me bacause I am home all day with the kids alone, and Keith's schedule is crazy that he is not home at night alot, either gone all night or coming home very late.  Yes, I have access to a gun, but its not the same, so we adopted Onyi (on-ee).  She is 2 years old, 100 pounds and has a super mean bark but is SO sweet and super great with the boys.   We weren't looking to get a pet until after we moved and figured out life a little better, but with all thats going on in our neighborhood right now, we feel really good about our decision to get her.

AND......

Nathan is walking!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Just behind his walker right now, or holding your fingers, but still my 9 month old is walking!!!

(two videos of Nathan walking)



update

 We had the boys pictures taken... here are some of our favorites!!

 Nathan turned 9 months!!  He has 4 teeth, 2 on top and 2 on bottom.  He LOVES to eat, play with his brothers and play in the water.  He is a super fast crawler and loves to race in turbo crawling speed down the hall having races with his brothers, he gets going so fast he trips himself and falls on his face!  He is also standing and if you don't watch him, can walk holding onto the water bottles, kitchen bench and the couch!  He is growing up so fast!!

AND we are now homeschooling David!  We officially pulled him out of school 2 weeks ago and enrolled in NVVA K12 program.  He LOVES it!!  It took a little getting used to, especially on Tommy's end that David isn't home to play that he has work to do, but now we got the hang of it and it is great!!  

Coco

 Coco died this morning.

Last week one of her eyes started hemorraging, we took her into the vet, ran tests and waited for results. All her blood work came back fine, but she was not able to see.  She just laid on the floor, wouldn't eat or drink because she couldn't find her food and water. Then we noticed her other eye was hemorraging.  We took her back to the vet and he kept her there for the last week to watch her.  The pressure in her eyes were dangerously high and he was concerned that she would lose her vision for good, her blood pressure was really high too.  We were trying to decide what we should do, if we should bring her home and hope her vision improves or if we should put her down.  This morning the vet called and told me that she had just had a stroke and that he thinks that it is her time to go and recommended we put her down.  We agreed and told him we would be down in a few hours to let David say goodbye to her and then he could put her down.  He asked if it would be ok to give her a sedative to make her more comfortable, I agreed.  The vet called me back within an hour and said he had given her 1/4 of a mild sedative and about half hour after he gave it to her she died.