Audrey

Here are a few recent photos of Audrey.

Audrey's "Daily Dump." Everyday she manages to get her hands on something and dump it out. Usually cereal, crackers, water, or whatever she can find. She also loves to eat anything inedible. She is a major scavenger! Yes, I do feed her, she just prefers to eat food the has extra flavoring via other peoples plates, garbage cans, or the floor. I am constantly trying to get her out of the trash can. She'll go in the backyard and eat chunks of dirt, and rocks. I caught her fleeing the scene of the crime this time. It was about 20 minutes after I finished vacuuming and moments before my sister and her family were due to arrive. I had to take a picture and laugh about it just to keep from getting frustrated. I wonder how much longer this stage will last?

 

She also has an affinity for markers. Good thing they were washable! The tears in her eyes say it all.

 

I know just about every baby has a natural desire to start dancing when they hear music, and Audrey is no exception. Our neighbor brought over "Alvin and the Chipmunks" and she was rockin' out! By the time I managed to get the camera out she had tamed it down quite a bit. She was catching some major air (for her at least)!

Jewel

I'm sure everyone else who went will be blogging on this too, but last night we went back to San Jose (Saratoga) to go see Jewel in concert. All the sisters and sister-in-laws on Dave's side went. There were 7 of us. It was a quick little trip. We managed to have just enough time to eat dinner before the concert and headed back to Sacramento first thing the next morning to relieve our babysitters. The concert was really good (I'm being totally honest when I say that, Lisa)! It was at an outdoor amphitheater on a hillside at the base of the Santa Cruz mountains. The scenery was beautiful.The amphitheater was much smaller than I imagined. It almost felt like we were just at some little no name performance because the place was so small that almost anywhere you sat you had great seats. We were only 8 rows back, so our seats were really good. I guess she prefers to do shows at smaller places. She did an amazing job singing, of course, (that girl can hold a note for longer than anyone I've ever seen!)  but I think my favorite part was her humor. She is hysterical! It was very entertaining. The dress in this picture reminded me of what she was wearing last night (she totally copied my idea of big gold earings and a flowy summer dress; I'm sure I put mine on before she did that day). 
As we were getting ready to leave they started playing "Can't Touch This" which I found a little odd considering Jewel sings folk/country type music. Then Lisa pointed out that MC Hammer was sitting in the row right in front of us. We managed to get him to take a picture with all the girls before he ran off to meet Jewel. I didn't bring my camera though, so I'll have to post that picture after someone gets me a copy.
On our way back we drove right past the townhouse in Campbell that Dave's parents lived in while we were living there. It brings back fond memories of going to Dave's parents house every Friday and Sunday evening. I miss being close enough to drive over and visit whenever we wanted. It was fun to drive past all the places we used to see everyday. It was a great trip. When do we get to do it again???

Utah 2009!

Does anyone know how I can move my pictures around? All I see when I download to work on my posts now is "computer jargon." I would love suggestions from you blogging pros.















We finally made it out to visit everyone in Utah. With most of my family in Oregon, our vacations usually take us there, but it had been 3 years since we went back to the "Motherland" and home of where Dave and I met. We had a great time visiting everyone. The kids did pretty well on the trip. I guess a few episodes of Spongebob on the Ipod can really make a difference.

While we didn't make it to Provo (I wanted to get some photos of our first apartment for the scrapbook-my computerized version of one at least) we did get to do quite a few things. We had a nice family dinner at Grandma and Grandpa Porters. We visited Temple Square (where the highlight for the boys was playing with a rolly-polly bug in one of the flowerbeds).

We also went to "This is the Place" state park. I remember going as a child, so it was fun to go back. The kids all got to ride on a pony (it was included in the admission price!). Sherri came with us and got an old fashioned shave at the barbers!

The boys went to see "UP" in 3-D. Dave's cousin Ben works for Pixar and helped work on this movie, which made it extra exciting. Audrey and I sat it out after realizing they would charge us full price ($7.50) for a 1 year old who can't manage to stare at a screen for more than 15 seconds.

We went with Grandma and Grandpa Parker to the duck ponds. Grandpa has a goose he regularly feeds that only seems to be friendly to him. He'll bite anyone else who gets too close. It was pretty funny.

We went to the Hill Air Force Base Museum. That place has tons of planes! There was a full version of the C130 (Hercules), which Logan has a model of at home. There was also a plane named Audrey! The boys had a great time seeing everything. They even got to dress up like "Army guys" and astronauts.

We got to go see the Oquirrh (O-ker) Mountain Temple Open House. It was amazing! It's fun to be able to see the different temple interiors and how unique they all are. Afterwards we enjoyed eating at "Five Guys" burgers. I've been hearing about them like crazy lately so I was excited to try it out. I thought the food was pretty good. The best part was the bags of fresh potatoes that they use as a line divider when you order. They had a sign on the wall that said "Today's potatoes are from Driggs, Idaho." No wonder they were so good! My dad grew up in that area, so potatoes from there are automatically better! His cousin, Paris, has a huge potato farm out there. I wonder if we were eating Paris' potatoes?

Foraging for Trees

So I'm blogging my way back a little bit, but I wanted to post our trip to get a Christmas tree. This is the first year since moving out of my parents, that we had a real tree for Christmas. I don't know if I am secretly a tree hugger at heart (those darn Oregonian roots!), but it just seems a little sad to grow this poor little seedling, for how many years, just to chop it down and throw a bunch of decorations on it, so it can sit in your living room for 2 weeks. I have no problem with people doing it, it just doesn't get me all excited (I prefer my $35 Rite Aid plastic special. Years of enjoyment for the price of a real tree!).
So Dave has been begging me for the last several years to finally do it and I stopped fighting it. We went to Davis Ranch, a few miles from our house, and cut our own. We drove in and I was pretty impressed that we could pick any tree they had for $35. Not bad! As we started our search I quickly realized why. Their trees looked like they had been growing in a desert wasteland (hmm, I guess Sacramento does qualify for that one) and had hardly ever seen the shine of pruning shears. Don't get me wrong, there were several really tall, geargeaous trees, but I don't think they were actually Christmas trees. They looked like something you might use to create a hedge in your yard. Oh well.
So, we found a reasonable looking tree and shoved it into our car and took it home. When we pulled it our and started trimming some of the branches off the bottom I noticed this unusually large collection of needles. As I tried to brush it off, I saw the dreaded white!!! It was a spider nest! UGH! I did what any strong woman would do; I screamed my girlish scream as best as I could and ran out of there. ANd we are supposed to keep this in our house? What, till the little hatchlings are making babies of their own all over my living room? I was just waiting for that squirrel from Christmas Vacation to come jumping out at me!
We managed to clean it up and get it in the house, (although neither of us ever remembered to put water in it. Funny, it still looks the same though. I guess coming from around here it is used to never seeing moisture).
It wasn't really that bad and the kids had a great experience, so I'm sure it won't be the last live tree we get, but maybe next year could we do the artificial thing again???

Christmas Day!

Here are some pictures of our Christmas. I can't tell if they look any better on my new camera or not. I took quite a bit more than normal though, since it shoots much faster. It was lots of fun seeing the kids so excited for Santa and watching them open all the presents. I think next year we should scale it down a bit though. It is just toy overload with Logan's Birthday right before (and we even kept his birthday presents minimal), but it was fun. It was much quieter (if you can actually consider 5 kids quiet) than usual at Grandmas this year, since some of Dave's siblings had other plans for Christmas day, but it was fun.

December 24th, 2008. Logan's 5th Birthday!

About a week before Logan's actual Birthday, I took the kids up to Auburn to go see the snow with Grandma and Grandpa Shaw. We drove about 10 minutes East and there was snow everywhere! The boys have not spent much time in it, so I was wondering if they would take much interest in it. Logan absolutely loved it. He loved trying to make snowballs and throwing them at everyone. He didn't mind the cold on his hands, but the weather was pretty nice, considering how much snow there was.

We went back to their house and in the evening we took Logan to John's Incredible Pizza Company. He was dying to go back after seeing it with his friend. I told him it would have to be one of his presents cause it's pretty pricey to go, and he didn't mind at all. He had a blast. It was almost overwhelming for him with all the rides, all you can eat pizza and he got some great birthday presents. I wouldn't go there every birthday just because we are not that high maintenance, and don't want to teach our kids that, but it was fun to try it out.

On the way home I asked him "What was your favorite part of the day?" and he replied "the snow!" I think next year we'll just have a sledding party for his birthday!
We ended up saving the cake for the BIG DAY. He had requested a Bulldozer cake that we had seen in Family Fun Magazine. I decided, if I'm gonna spend 2 hours making a cake, I wanted people to be able to enjoy it with us! It turned out pretty well, and I made Dave break open my new Christmas present to take pictures of it (he did so in stealth mode, so I wouldn't be able to examine it until Christmas morning.

I can't believe he is 5 already! It doesn't seem so long ago that I was spending that Christmas Eve in the hospital. Logan, you have been such a joy in our home. Thanks for coming into our family! We love you!

Thanksgiving

Okay, so it is time to finish the update. Thanksgiving day was great. Grandma and
Grandpa Porter flew in from Utah. Dave's Cousin Ben and his family were visiting from the Bay area too. We had a wonderful meal and I didn't have to work it this year, so I was mostly relaxing. I had a cold Thursday morning though, so on an empty stomach (due to rushing around to get out the door) I took 2 Dayquil. I felt loopy and dizzy the whole day. It has been years since I have taken any of that stuff, but now I remember why I hate it. I felt like I couldn't carry on a conversation the entire time I was there, and every time I picked up Audrey I was afraid my arm would give out and drop her. Note to self-toss the Dayquil!
Thursday night I stayed at Lisa's so we could wake up and go meet Amy and Valerie for some Black Friday shopping at 5 AM. Second note to self- returned almost everything from black friday deals after realizing the presents I had bought were not likely to be what my kids wanted; is it really worth waking up at 4 am for???
After shopping a few hours, we went and picked up Dave's mom to get her out of the house while her Christmas present was being delivered. Her kids/husband got together and bought her a baby grand piano. It was pretty fun to see the shock on her face. Once again, my photos don't do it justice, but it's the best I could get at the time.